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aboriginal inhabitants are called Tagals. They are somewhat idle,
though a good-natured, pleasure-loving race; are nominally Roman
Catholics, but very superstitious and insincere. Their houses are
formed of bamboo raised on piles, the interior covered by mats, on which
the whole family sleep, with a mosquito curtain over them. The
ornaments in their houses are generally a figure of the Virgin Mary, a
crucifix, and their favourite game-cock. The men wear a pair of
trousers of cotton or grass-cloth, with a shirt worn outside them,
generally of striped silk or cotton, embroidered at the bosom.
Cock-fighting is their chief amusement, as it is, indeed, among most of
the people in all parts of the archipelago. It is a brutal sport, if
sport it can be called. These people seem to treat their birds better
than they do their wives; and so great is their passion for this
abominable proceeding, that they will cheat and pilfer and commit all
sorts of crimes in order to indulge it.

We visited a manufactory of cheroots, for which Manilla is celebrated.
We were told that four thousand women, and half that number of men, were
employed in this manufactory alone, while in the neighbourhood as many
as nine thousand women and seven thousand men find employment in
producing cigars. This will give you some idea of the immense amount of
tobacco consumed in various parts of the world, as, of course, only a
comparatively small quantity comes from Manilla. As we entered the
building, our ears were almost deafened by the noise made by some
hundreds of women seated on the floor, and hammering the tobacco leaves
on a block with a mallet, to polish them for the outside leaf of cigars.
In other rooms they were employed in rolling them up into the proper
shape. Tobacco is a strict monopoly, and great care is taken, when the
harvest is being gathered, to prevent any being carried off by the
people. The leaves, when picked, are first placed undercover in heaps
to ferment, then sorted into five classes, according to their size, and
suspended in a current of air to dry. From the plantations it is sent
under an escort to the factories round Manilla. It is there wet with
water, or sometimes rum and vinegar, and made up as we first saw it,
into rough cigars, and afterwards rolled into a more perfect form, and
finished by another set of women. The refuse is made into cigarettes.
Nearly the whole population--men, women, and children--smoke.