66 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



t4us article of dress, or any thing of their manu- 

 facture, and must leave it undetermined, whether 

 this bark is worked raw, or after the manner of the 

 southern stuffs. We saw of tliis race only two 

 young girls, who were brought up in Manilla and 

 Cavite, in Spanish families. There were, besides, 

 two men condemned to work at the fortifications 

 in Cavite. 



Of the Malays, the Indios of the Spaniards, there 

 are different tribes, and people speaking different 

 languages, whom history makes to come from 

 Borneo and Magindanao. Many tribes in the in- 

 terior have retained their hberty : the inhabitants of 

 the coasts are Christians, in the hands of the monks, 

 ^nd subject to the Spanish crown. 



The independent tribes deserved our most par- 

 ticular attention, but we were unable to procure 

 any farther information respecting them. They 

 differ from each other in many points, and w4iat is 

 applicable to one is not to be extended to all. It 

 is to be observed that, by some of them, chastity is 

 held in great honour, not only among the women, 

 but also among the young girls, and is protected 

 by very severe law^s. A kind of circumcision is 

 said to be a primitive custom among others, and not 

 to be derived from Mahometanism. 



The Indians of the Philippines are in general a 

 friendly, harmless, cheerful, and cleanly people, 

 whose character reminds us more of the inhabitants 

 of the eastern islands than of the real Malays, or the 



