759 
THE ISLAND OP MINDORO. 
or jacket, but much shorter in the skirt. One, and one only of 
the ears is bored, and a strip of rattan, rolled up like a watch spring 
is introduced into the aperture which continues to open and enlarge 
it until it has lost its expansive power, when another, and a larger 
is introduced, and the process is continued until the aperture fre¬ 
quently attains a palm’s-breadth in diameter; which singular 
adornment is the most ugly display of taste that can be conceived. 
Garcilazo de la Vega relates in his “Royal Commentaries’’ that 
Manco Capac conferred on his vassals a particular favour among 
many others with which he honoured them : “and they were com¬ 
manded to bore the ears, but with this limitation that the size of 
the hole should not approach one-half of that of the holes in his 
own ears.” In another part of the same work it is stated that the 
vassals of the Inca were in the habit of piercing the ears and of 
enlarging the aperture by artificial means to an extraordinary size, 
incredible to those who have not personally witnessed it, for it 
seemed impossible that so small a piece of flesh as that which forms 
the lower part of the ear could be so extended as to receive an 
ornament of the shape and size of the lid of a water cooler (rodaja 
de cantaco.) Now considering that the savages of Mindoro have 
no emperor who can fix limits on their taste in boring the ear, 
it may be conceived to what an extent they have carried it. 
On the arms and fore-arms, and also on the ancles they wear 
rolls of gilt copper-wire, and about the neck many strings of 
valuables which are their most highly prized ornaments. 
The aspect which they present is in general filthy and repugnant. 
Almost all are disfigured by the cutaneous disorder from which 
they constantly suffer. Those who are affected in a lesser degree 
are covered with a kind of white scale formed by the constant 
excitation of the skin, and the absence of cleanliness. Many of 
them suffer from chronic ulcers, others from large excrescences, 
some have a foot or a hand enormously swollen, while the leg or 
aim appertaining to it is withered and shrunken. 
They have no fixed domicle. They plant here and there tobacco, 
huyoj sweet potatoes, and several other descriptions of edible roots; 
and pass the night under the trees or in the hollows of rocks. 
For the infirm or sickly they have couches formed of trunks of 
small trees placed parallel to one another, with one laid across to 
serve as a pillow; if they scatter a few dried leaves over the 
trunks, they consider it as constituting a very desirable bed-place. 
They have villages which contain two or three houses ; if a shed 
with one side resting on the ground, or, at least, on a floor of 
bamboo, and the other elevated by means of two stakes or poles, 
deserve such a name. In these hovels which are only 12 or 14 
feet square, fifteen or twenty of these people shelter themselves, 
huddled together without distinction of sex, age, or relationship. 
It is to this custom of sleeping pressed closely together, and to 
squatting all day on their hams, that their peculiar mode of 
