The Tagals. 297 



They all wear European clothes more or less, although the 

 fashion in which they wear them is quite peculiar and 

 ludicrously odd. Not merely do the lower orders and 

 servants wear the shirt ironed perfectly smooth and un- 

 wrinkled, instead of a coat, above their continuations, 

 but the Tagal dandy prides himself on his well-lacquered 

 boots, his white stockings, his new Paris silk hat worn 

 with a jaunty cock to one side, and above all his care- 

 fidly plaited resplendent white shirt, as he struts through 

 the streets of Manila, cigaret in his mouth, and swinging an 

 elegant little cane ! The women wear, like the Javanese 

 women, the '■^ Sarong," a parti-coloured striped cotton dress, 

 rolled round the loins, and a close-fitting very short jacket, 

 so short indeed that between it and the gown a space about 

 an inch wide intervenes through which the naked body is 

 visible, while the fine transparent gauze-like stuff of which 

 the jacket is made is much better calculated to show off than 

 to conceal their attractions. This universal fashion of dress 

 is the more surprising, as the various orders of monks exer- 

 cise in all other respects an almost despotic control over the 

 natives, and as it is much more attributable to their influence 

 than to that of the secular authorities that the speech, manners, 

 and customs of old Castile have taken firm and extensive 

 root in the Philippines. It seems, however, unjust to compare 

 this gi'oup of islands, as has been done by medem writers, on 

 account of the all-pervad'ng influence of the Spanish element, 

 with a province of Spain, in contradistinction to the colonics 



