every countenance,
and the musicians began playing on the guitar. The bride and
bridegroom, who had been waiting in an adjoining chamber, now made
their appearance. The young man took from off his neck his rosary, or
string of beads, put it round the young girl's neck, and took back hers
in lieu of the one he had given her. The night was spent in dancing
and merriment, and the marriage ceremony--just as Christian-like as
our own--was arranged to take place in a week.

I shall now, just as I heard it myself, give the explanation of the
advocates' speeches, which I did not entirely understand. The bride's
mother had married without a wedding portion on her husband's side,
so she had gone through very adverse and pinching circumstances. The
temple that the angel had told her to demand for her daughter was, a
house; and the ten columns, composed of ten stones each, signified that
with the house a sum of one hundred piasters would be requisite--that
is, twenty pounds sterling.

The speech of the young man's advocate explained that he would give
the house, as he said nothing about it; but, being worth only eighty
piasters, he threw himself at the feet of the parents of his betrothed,
that the twenty piasters which he was minus, might offer no obstacle
to his marriage. The pardon accorded by the queen signified the grace
shown to the young man, who was accepted with his eighty piasters only.

The servitude which precedes matrimony, and of which I have spoken,
was practised long before the conquest of these isles by the
Spaniards. This would seem to prove the origin I attribute to the
Tagalocs, whom I believe to be descended from the Malays, and these
latter, being all Mussulmans, would naturally have preserved some of
the ancient patriarchal customs.

Believing that I have sufficiently described the Indians and their
habits, I will now introduce to my readers two species of monsters
that I have often bad occasion to observe, mid even to combat--the
one a denizen of forests, the boa constrictor; the other of lakes
and rivers, the cayman or alligator. At the period at which I first
occupied my habitation, and began to colonise the village of Jala-Jala,
caymans abounded on that side of the lake. From my windows I daily
saw them sporting in the water, and waylaying and snapping at the
dogs that ventured too near the brink. One day, a female servant of my
wife's, having been so imprudent as to bathe at the edge of the lake,
w