300 
MANILLA. 
straw hat, and around the head or neck a many-coloured silk hand 
kerchief. They often wear slippers as well as shoes. The Chinese 
dress, as they have done for centuries, in loose white shirts and 
trousers. One peculiarity of the common men is their passion for 
cock-fighting; and they carry these fowls wherever they go, after a 
peculiar fashion under their arm. 
Cock-fighting is licensed by the government, and great care is 
taken in the breeding of game fowls, which are very large and heavy 
birds. They are armed with a curved double-edged gaff The 
exhibitions are usually crowded with half-breeds or mestizoes, who 
are generally more addicted to gambling than either the higher or 
lower classes of Spaniards. It would not be an unapt designation to 
call the middling class cock-fighters, for their whole lives seem to be 
MANILLA COSTUMES. 
taken up with the breeding and fighting of these birds. On the exit 
from a cockpit, I was much amused with the mode of giving the 
return check, which was done by a stamp on the naked arm, and 
precludes the possibility of its transfer to another person. The dress 
of the lower order of females is somewhat civilized, yet it bore so 
strong a resemblance to that, of the Polynesians as to recall the latter 
to our recollection. A long piece of coloured cotton is wound round 
the body, like the pareu, and tucked in at the side: this covers the 
