Chap, xvi.] MANILA HEMP PLANTATIONS. 355 



plexity may have commenced life on the earth in its early 

 history, before the water on its surface had anywhere cooled 

 down to a temperature sufficient to be borne by the human 

 hand, and which may have been strongly impregnated with 

 various volcanic gases and salts. 



The upper slopes of the mountains of Camiguin Island were 

 thickly wooded. The lower slopes were cleared and planted 

 with Manila hemp. A Manila hemp plantation is not at all 

 pleasant or easy to traverse. The large trees, a species of 

 Banana {Musa fexfilis), from the stems of which the fibres 

 known as Manila hemp are obtained by maceration, are planted 

 closely together. The plantations are full of fallen stems, 

 which block the way, and are in a half decayed condition, 

 nasty pasty masses which it is very unpleasant to handle and 

 climb over, or crawl beneath. 



The ship stopped three days at the town of Ilo Ilo, the 

 head-quarters of the manufacture of a sort of fine muslin, 

 made out of the fibre of pine-apples, and known as " piiia." 

 This fabric is highly prized by the native Malay and miscella- 

 neous half-caste beauties, but apparently does not find much 

 favour in Europe, because of its always having a dusky tint. 

 A similar fabric is woven in some parts of India. 



Manila, November 5tTi to 12th, 1874, January 11th to 14th, 

 1875. — As we entered the Bay of Manila, there greeted us 

 the cowlike moan of an American-built steamer, so different 

 from the English whistle, and I felt at once that we had, as it 

 were, turned the corner of the world in our long voyage. 



The dress of the Bisayan and Tagalese and half-caste men 

 is very ludicrous. They wear an ordinary shirt without tucking 

 the flaps in. The flaps hang over their trousers, reminding 

 one of the Australian Black's description of a clergymen, as 

 "white fellow belong Sunday, wear shirt over trousers." Men 

 who are well to do wear elaborately embroidered and very 

 transparent shirts of piha.* The shirt is the article of dress 

 on which the wearer prides himself most, and especially is he 

 gratified by the beauty of its front. 



The dress of the children at Ilo Ilo and Zamboanga was 

 interesting. It was evidendy put on them in many cases by 

 the parents as an ornament or exhibition of wealth, not in the 

 least from any sense of decency. All dress has no doubt been 

 primitively ornamental in origin, and has subsequently come 

 to subserve the functions of increase of warmth or gratification 

 of sense of decency. 



* The men similarly in Nicaragua wear their shirts over their 

 trousers. See Thos. Belt, F.L.S., "The Naturalist in Nicaragua," p. 63. 

 London, John Murray, 1S74. 



