through the ring.

The Indian boys sometimes play at fighting battles. They form
themselves into two armies, and one army fights against the other.
They fight with balls of wet clay. Often the battle lasts two or three
hours.

Indian girls have dolls, and they dress them and sing them to sleep.
They play "house," and often have doll-house moving.

[Illustration: Indian Girls.]

Indian men and boys are fond of swimming, and they are very good
swimmers. They are also fond of sailing in their canoes. The canoe
is made of the bark of the birch tree. The Indians paddle their
canoes. They can make them go very fast.

Many of the Indians now live in houses and have farms the same as white
men, and they raise corn and vegetables and fruit. They have horses
and cows and sheep as other farmers have. And we may hope that before
long the Red Men will live in the same way as white men, and be as well
off and as happy.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

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