356 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



A savage begins by painting or tattooing himself for orna- 

 ment. Then he adopts a movable appendage, which he 

 hangs on his body, and on which he puts the ornamentation 

 which he formerly marked more or less indelibly on his skin. 

 In this way he is able to gratify his taste for change. No 

 doubt the stripes and patterns on savage dress often represent 

 what were once patterns tattooed on the body. 



It is a curious fact that the transverse breast stripes and 

 lateral longitudinal leg stripes worn in some European dresses 

 of ceremony, though quite different in the history of their 

 origin, being, I believe, hypertrophied button-holes and 

 selvages, are exactly similarly disposed to those which the 

 Australian Black paints on his body when he prepares for a 

 Corroboree. 



I saw many of the native children in the Philippines playing 

 in the streets, wearing gaudy shirts, which did not reach lower 

 down than six inches or so below their armpits, and practically 

 were nothing more than broad red or blue necklaces. 



The Manila natives indulge in a most extraordinary luxury, 

 consisting of ducks' eggs which are brooded until the young 

 are just beginning to be fledged, and are then boiled. It is 

 a sickening sight to see these embryo ducklings swallowed at 

 the roadside stalls, which are common at every street corner, 

 piled high with half-hatched eggs and taking the place of our 

 oyster stalls. 



The great business of life in the Philippines, of the men of 

 all the various tame Malay races, the half-castes, and Chinese, 

 is certainly the sport of cock-fighting. The cock-pits in every 

 town are a source of revenue to the Spanish Government. 

 Every one entering them pays sixpence, and the right of 

 collecting tolls is sub-let by auction, usually to speculative 

 Chinese. Sundays and the numerous Festas and Saints' days 

 are devoted to cock-fighting. 



The galleries are crowded, and the excitement is immense. 

 It would be hard to say whether the Chinese coolies, who 

 may be seen closely packed aloft, with their legs overhanging 

 the arena, are the more eager spectators, or the darker skinned 

 Malays. The money bet is thrown in a heap at the feet of 

 the judge, in the dust of the arena. There is plenty of gold 

 amongst it, and unless a certain amount is staked, the parti- 

 cular fight arranged is not proceeded with. There are loud 

 shouts of offers on one colour or another, the black cock 

 against the red, the brown against the white, and so on. 



The spurs used for fighting are quite different from those 

 formerly used in England, which were conical, and fastened to 

 the natural spurs of the cock, or to the bases of these pared 



