118 
FROM TORRES STRAIT TO HONG-KONG. 
Probably looked upon by orthodox Spaniards as heathens and outcasts, we found them 
living in separate communities at Zamboanga and at Puerto Isabella, on the opposite island 
of Basilan. Their dwellings are usually built on piles a short distance from the shore, and, 
if we were rightly informed, these Moros are the same race as the inhabitants, of piratical 
fame, of the neighbouring island of Sulu. Dressed in many-coloured garments—red is their 
favourite colour, as with our gipsies—in silver-spangled jackets, and with silken scarfs round 
their waists, they danced, one or two at a time, to the monotonous accompaniment of the 
gong, the drum, and some stringed instrument. The dances, chiefly executed by females, 
consist of a series of graceful, serpentine movements, commencing at the shoulder and 
continued through the elbows and wrists. The body sways gently to and fro, but the feet, 
excepting a slight shuffling movement, contribute nothing to the display. The performance 
offered but little variety, and after a while became rather tiresome ; but the room at the 
house of the Comandante showed an array of brilliant colouring and remarkable contrasts 
which would have charmed a painter. On one side of the room, squatting on the floor, were 
the dark-skinned Moros, decked in every colour of the rainbow ; in the centre, the graceful 
figures of the dancers, their dresses and jewels flashing in the lamplight ; and on the 
opposite side the Spanish and English officers in their varied uniforms. The male dancers, 
armed with spear and shield, executed a war-dance. 
Early on the 26th, H.M.S. “Challenger” set out for the capital of the Philippines. 
The west coast of Mindanao, now visible to the eastward, is noted for its gigantic and 
almost impenetrable masses of vegetation— 
“ And e’en to tell, 
It were no easy task, how savage-wild 
That forest, how robust and rough its growth.” 
The falling branches and leaves, failing to reach the ground, are said to form in many 
places a solid roof upon which a new vegetation springs up, so that the explorer has to 
find his way by the light of torches, keeping all the time a sharp look-out for wild boars, 
poisonous serpents, and human foes. Large portions of the island of Mindanao are as yet 
terra incognita , and in possession of savage tribes. Recently, the Spanish authorities have 
begun to colonise the banks of the river which, issuing from a large inland lake in the 
eastern part of Mindanao, falls into the Bay of Illana. 
The seas of Sulu and Celebes, although small in comparison with the Atlantic, are 
not much inferior to the latter in depth, as our soundings indicated depths of from two 
and a-half to three English miles. Together with the Banda Sea, they form so many 
sepaiate hollows, the temperature of the water remaining stationary in the Sulu Sea from 
a depth of 4.00 fathoms, and in the Sea of Celebes from a depth of 800 fathoms, down 
to the bottom. There is an irritating confusion of names respecting these seas, the Sulu 
Sea being also known under the name of the Sea of Mindoro, while the term Sulu is in 
some charts applied to the Sea of Celebes. 
