24 METZGER— THE FILIPINO. [March 17 



laxity they simply shrug their shoulders. The Filipino fights his 

 cocks with monte sandwiched between pittings, until mid-day, 

 when he betakes himself to his house for his siesta, and when the 

 sun begins to dip well into the western heavens, he agains seeks 

 the fl/az a de gallos, where he remains reveling in this brutal sport 

 until the last cock has crowed over its fallen adversary. I am 

 wont to believe that the cock-pit is the native's club, his school 

 and not infrequently his only source of revenue. 



Probably one of the most uninviting sights in the Colony is the 

 market of the so-called domesticated natives. From the amount of 

 filth and the myriads of flies one wonders little at the various 

 epidemics that so frequently scourge this archipelago. The average 

 Filipino market, of this class, is a combination of hasty lunch, 

 general merchandise and reservoir for all the bacteria known to 

 science. Here doubled up like a jack-knife squats the tribesman 

 with his wares spread out before him on the ground. The barter, 

 even in the city of Manila, is more an exchange of one commodity 

 for another than a purchase through the medium of currency. 

 Fabrics are exchanged for cocoa-nuts, fish for buyo, eggs for 

 tobacco and one of those mysterious native dulcies for personal 

 ornaments. The native is a true Shylock, and it is not uncommon 

 to see two of these tribesmen spend an hour chaffering over some 

 article whose value scarcely exceeds five centavos (two and one 

 half cents). 



The buyo and betel-nut are probably the two commodities almost 

 indispensable to the Filipino of the lower class, as well as to many 

 of the elite. He can go a goodly time without food if he but has 

 his buyo. Properly speaking, this is the areca-nut, and which, 

 when cut into small pieces, dusted with the lime produced from the 

 oyster shell, and wrapped in the stripped leaf of the betel tree, is 

 marketed as an individual quid. The buyo is to this Oriental 

 what tobacco is to the European ; however, it is by far the more 

 offensive to the aesthetic, in that it stains the teeth and lips a 

 blood-red, exhibiting a condition most repugnant to the eye. The 

 effect of this, when the habit is once acquired, is most disastrous, 

 and in this respect closely allies itself to the results of the use of 

 opium. 



Even though buyo plays such a prominent part in the life of 

 these people, everyone is a devotee to tobacco, men, women and 



