usly worked as any I have seen in China, where those ornaments
are made in more perfection than the European gold or silversmiths
have as yet been able to attain.

But probably the pina cloth manufactured in the Philippines, is the
best known of all the native productions, and it is a very notable
instance of their advance in the manufacturing arts.

There is perhaps no more curious, beautiful, and delicate specimen of
manufactures produced in any country. It varies in price according to
texture and quality, ladies' dresses of it costing as low as twenty
dollars for a bastard sort of cloth, and as high as fifteen hundred
dollars for a finely-worked dress. The common coarse sort used by the
natives for making shirts costs them from four to ten dollars a shirt.

The colour of the coarser sorts is not, however, good; and the high
price of the finer descriptions prevents its becoming generally a
lady's dress; and the inferior sorts are not much prized, chiefly
because of the yellowish tinge of the white cloth. The fabric is
exceedingly strong, and, I have been informed, rather improves in
colour after every successive washing.

Pina handkerchiefs and scarfs are in very general use by the Manilla
ladies, although they are rather expensive; the price of the former,
when of good quality, being from about five to ten pounds sterling
each, while for a scarf of average quality and colour about thirty
pounds is paid. The coarser descriptions can be had for much less
money than the sums mentioned; and the finest qualities would cost
from three to four times more than the amounts I have set down.

Besides the pina there is also a sort of cloth made by the natives
called juse (pronounced huse), or siriamaio, which makes very beautiful
dresses for ladies. It is manufactured from a thread obtained from
the fibres of a particular sort of plantain tree, which is slightly
mixed with pine-apple thread; and the fabric produced from both of
these is very beautiful, being fine and transparent, and looking,
to the unaccustomed eye, finer than the ordinary sort of pina cloth.

It can be made of any pattern, and is generally striped or checked
with coloured threads of silk mingled with the other two descriptions.

The manufacture of both these articles is carried on to a small extent
in the immediate neighbourhood of Manilla; but in the provinces of
Yloylo and Camarines the best juse is produced, the price of which is
very much lower than