The Philippine Islands are far away on the other side of the earth,
near China. There are a great many of these islands. Most of them are
small. But some of them are large islands, and many people live on
them. The largest of the islands is called Luzon. The largest town in
this island is Manila.
Many tribes of people live in the Philippine Islands. Each tribe has a
language of its own.
It is very warm in these islands. So the people need but little
clothing. Their houses are not very high. The highest house is only
two stories. In some parts they have strange windows in their houses.
The panes are not made of glass, as in our houses. They are made of
oyster shells. But they are not like our oyster shells. They are very
thin--so thin that the light can come through them nearly as well as
through glass. The shell is made square, and fits in the window like a
pane of glass. Sometimes the sides or walls of the upper stories are
made of frames, with oyster shells for panes. The people can slide
these walls back, so as to let the cool air into the rooms.
[Illustration: A Philippine House.]
There is one tribe in the islands called the Moro tribe. The people of
this tribe have very strange houses. They build their houses in the
water near the shore. They build them on the top of long poles. The
first stories are high above the water. The people use ladders to go
up to them. These houses are built of bamboo.
The bamboo is very useful in the country where it grows. It is a kind
of reed, and grows very tall. It has joints like the joints of a corn
stalk. It is not solid like a corn stalk, but is hollow inside. It is
so thick and strong that the people make houses of it and all kinds of
furniture.
[Illustration: Bamboo.]
The Moro men are good sailors and swimmers. They are also good divers.
They dive into the water for pearls and coral. They can stay under the
water for two or three minutes at a time. The children also are good
swimmers. They spend a great deal of time in the water.
There is another tribe called the Man'gy-ans. These people live in the
mountains. They have black hair and flat noses. They are very strong,
for they spend most of their time out of doors.
Some months of the year they do not live in houses. They sleep under
trees. But other months of the year it rains very much. Then they
sleep in houses. Their houses are made of poles with roofs of leaves.
The Mangyan women and girls wear a very strange kind of dress. It is
made of cords coiled around their waists. The cords are narrow strips
of rattan braided together. Rattan is the stem of a plant which grows
to a very great height. It sometimes grows a hundred feet high. It is
as thick as a man's wrist, and it is very tough and strong. The people
split the rattan into thin strips. With these they make baskets, seats
of chairs, walking canes, ropes, and many other things.
The Mangyan men are good hunters. They hunt an animal called the
tim'a-rau. It is like a buffalo. They shoot it with bows and arrows.
There are a great many large forests in the Philippines, and there are
very fine trees in them. The most useful of the plants or trees is the
bamboo. I have already told you about it. The cocoanut palm is also a
very useful tree. The nuts give food and drink and oil.
[Illustration: A Philippine woman carrying water.]
On one of the islands there is a wonderful plant called the pitcher
plant. Its leaves are in the shape of pitchers. Some of the pitchers
have lids, and are large enough to hold a pint of water.
In the Philippines they raise coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, and
cotton. One of their most useful plants is the plant from which they
get hemp for making ropes and cords. This plant is called "ab'a-ca" by
the people in the Philippines, and its hemp is called Manila hemp.
There is a great deal of rice grown in the Philippines. Rice is the
food that most of the people live on.
There are buffaloes in the Philippines. The people use them for riding
and for carrying loads. They have also deer, goats, and hogs.
[Illustration: A Buffalo at Work.]
In some parts of the islands they have a strange way of fishing. They
fill baskets with a kind of mixture in which they put poison. Then
they throw the baskets into the water. The fish become stupid after
eating the poison. Very soon they rise to the top of the water, where
the people catch them.
Manila is a large town with strong walls and a deep moat, or ditch,
around it. There are eight gates in the wall and bridges across the
moat.
The men in Manila wear trousers and shirts; but they wear the shirts
outside. The women wear skirts with long trains, and waists with very
full and flowing sleeves. They wear scarfs or handkerchiefs around
their necks, with two of the corners hanging down their backs. They
never wear hats.
[Illustration: Women of Luzon.]
In a few of the islands there are schools, and the children learn to
read and write; but in many other parts there are neither schools nor
churches. As the islands now belong to the United States, there will
soon be many more schools, and the children will be able to learn
everything that is taught in our schools.