gh, and struck fast, and so forth. The web consisted of threads
of the abaca, which were not spun, but tied one to another.

[A giant fern hedge.] The huts I visited deserve no special
description. Composed of bamboos and palm-leaves, they are not
essentially different from the dwellings of poor Filipinos; and in
their neighborhood were small fields planted with batata, maize,
caladium and sugar-cane, and enclosed by magnificent polypody
ferns. One of the highest of these, which I caused to be felled for
the purpose, measured in the stem nine meters, thirty centimeters;
in the crown, two meters, twelve centimeters; and its total length
was eleven meters, forty-two centimeters or over thirty-six feet.

[Simple stringed instruments.] A young lad produced music on a kind of
lute, called baringbau; consisting of the dry shaft of the scitamina
stretched in the form of a bow by means of a thin tendril instead of
gut. Half a coco shell is fixed in the middle of the bow, which, when
playing, is placed against the abdomen, and serves as a sounding board;
and the string when struck with a short wand, gave out a pleasing
humming sound, realizing the idea of the harp and plectrum in their
simplest forms. Others accompanied the musician on Jews' harps of
bamboos, as accurate as those of the Mintras on the Malay Peninsula;
and there was one who played on a guitar, which he had himself made,
but after a European pattern. The hut contained no utensils besides
bows, arrows, and a cooking pot. The possessor of clothes bore them
on his person. I found the women as decently clad as the Filipino
Christian women, and carrying, besides, a forest knife, or bolo. As
a mark of entire confidence, I was taken into the tobacco fields,
which were well concealed and protected by foot-lances; and they
appeared to be carefully looked after.

[The people and their crops.] The result of my familiarity with
this people, both before and after this opportunity, may be briefly
summed up: They live on the higher slopes of the mountain, never,
indeed, below 1,500 feet; each family by itself. It is difficult to
ascertain how many of them there may now be, as but little intercourse
takes place amongst them. In the part of the mountain belonging to
the district of Goa, their number is estimated at about fifty men
and twenty women, including the children: but twenty years before
the population was more numerous. Their food consists principally
of batata, beside