native jewelers had made. The women are industrious,
and consequently do most of the work. They are quite skillful with
the loom, and manufacture from the native fabric, _ampic_ (sashes)
which their husbands wear. But for themselves they buy a cheaper
fabric from the _Chinos_, which they dye in brilliant colors and make
into blankets. You would probably mistake the men for women at first
sight because of their peculiar cast of features. They are dressed
much better and more picturesquely than the women, wearing bright
silk turbans, sashes with gay fringe, and blouses often fancifully
colored and secured by brass or mother-of-pearl buttons.

The Moro tribes, because they recognize no ruler but the local datto,
are unable to accomplish anything of national significance. Concerted
action is with them impossible. Thirty or forty villages are built
around the lake. They are so thickly grouped, however, that one
might as well regard them all as one metropolis. The mountains form
a background for the lake, which is located on a high plateau. The
climate here is more suggestive of a temperate zone than of a place
within four hundred miles of the equator, and the nights are often
disagreeably cold. To become a datto it is only necessary to possess
a few slaves, wives, and carabao. A minor datto averages about four
slaves, a dozen head of cattle, and two wives. He wears silk clothes,
and occupies the largest _nipa_ house.

The Moro weapons are of several kinds,--the _punal_ (a wedge-bladed
knife), the _campalon_ (a long broadsword), and the _sundang_ (a Malay
kriss). They also use head-axes, spears, and dirks. Being Mohammedans,
they show a fatalistic bravery in battle. It is a disgrace to lose
the weapon when in action; consequently it is tied to the hand. Many
of their knives were made by splitting up the steel rails laid at
Iligan. The brass work of the Spanish locomotives, also, was a great
convenience in the manufacture of their cutlery.

Although they have schools for the boys, the Moro people do not
make a speciality of education. The young men are taught from the
Koran by priests, who also teach the art of making characters in
Arabic. Their music is for the most part religious, inharmonious,
and unmelodious. The _coluctang_, their most important instrument,
resembles our guitar. They seem to recognize three grades of
priests--the _emam_, the _pandita_, and the _sarip_, named in order
of superiority. Their churches are