e is
assessed at $40,000.
[People not travellers.] In general it may be said that every pueblo
supplies travellers, its own necessaries, and produces little more. To
the indolent native, especially to him of the eastern provinces,
the village in which he was born is the world; and he leaves it only
under the most pressing circumstances. Were it otherwise even, the
strictness of the poll-tax would place great obstacles in the way of
gratifying the desire for travel, generated by that oppressive impost.
[Meals.] The Filipino eats three times a day--about 7 a.m., 12, and at
7 or 8 in the evening. Those engaged in severe labor consume at each
meal a chupa of rice; the common people, half a chupa at breakfast, one
at mid-day, and half again in the evening, altogether two chupas. Each
family reaps its own supply of rice, and preserves it in barns, or
buys it winnowed at the market; in the latter case purchasing only
the quantity for one day or for the individual meals. The average
retail price is 3 cuartos for 2 chupas (14 chupas for 1 real). To
free it from the husk, the quantity for each single meal is rubbed in
a mortar by the women. This is in accordance with an ancient custom;
but it is also due to the fear lest, otherwise, the store should be
too quickly consumed. The rice, however, is but half cooked; and
it would seem that this occurs in all places where it constitutes
an essential part of the sustenance of the people, as may be seen,
indeed, in Spain and Italy. Salt and much Spanish pepper (capsicum)
are eaten as condiments; the latter, originally imported from America,
growing all round the houses. To the common cooking-salt the natives
prefer a so-called rock-salt, which they obtain by evaporation from
sea-water previously filtered through ashes; and of which one chinanta
(12 lbs. German) costs from one and one-half to two reals. The
consumption of salt is extremely small.
[Buyo and cigars.] The luxuries of the Filipinos are buyo [114] and
cigars--a cigar costing half a centavo, and a buyo much less. Cigars
are rarely smoked, but are cut up into pieces, and chewed with the
buyo. The women also chew buyo and tobacco, but, as a rule, very
moderately; but they do not also stain their teeth black, like the
Malays; and the young and pretty adorn themselves assiduously with
veils made of the areca-nut tree, whose stiff and closely packed
parallel fibers, when cut crosswise, form excellent tooth-brushes. They
bathe
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