IN THE PHILLIPINES.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3093, 16 January 1879, Page 4

IN THE PHILLIPINES.

Thickly grouped before the church porch and around the building, the menlithe, middle- sized, and ruddy brown of rarious shades—are dressed, if of the better sort, in loose shirts, or blouses, home manufactured from the finest fibre of the " abaca," or Manila hemp, as the plant—really a sterile variety of the ordinary fruit-bearing banana—is called; or, more delicate yet, from " pina," the pineapple leaf texture, airy as the choicest lace, the peculiar workmanship of the Phillipines. White, or light yellow, and interworen sometimes with flower patterns, more generally with brilliant stripes of Chinese silk—red, yellow, green or blue — the "baro," or blouse, is an essentially national dress, though, in the neighbourhood of Manila, modified too often into an uncouth resemblance of a European shirt. Beneath it a pair of white or light-colored trousers are belted round the waist; the feet, usually bare, or protected by sandals at most, are, on occasions like this, not seldom incased in patent-leather boots of Spanish fashion; the head is protected by the "salacot,'' a round mushroom-like hat, of about a foot in diameter, close plaited in grey and black intersecting patterns of tough " nito " or liana fibre; the circumference tastefully ornamented with silver bands and flowerets, an excellent and picturesque sunshade, ill exchanged, though, happily, but seldom, for the European hat of silk or straw. The poorer classes wear a like dress, but of coarser materials, in which red or orange commonly predominate, and on the head a "salacot" devoid of ornament. But while the men's attire, though national in the main, shows occasional tokens of European influence, the women, with wise conservatism, retain their graceful Malay costume unaltered as of old. Wrapped in the manycoloured folds of the silken " saya," or " sarong," and over it a second, but narrower, waistcloth, also of silk, reaching down to the knees, and dark in hue ; her breast and shoulders covered with delicate " pina" texture, while the matchless abundance of her raven hair ripples from under a white snooded kerchief far down her back, not-, seldom to her very heels, a Malay woman could hardly, even did she wish it, improve on the tiolet bequeathed by her ancestors. Silver or gold ornaments are not much in feminine use. It is true that the Malay type of face is generally too flat for regular beauty and the eye, though larger than the Chinese, is seldom full-sized ; but many of the younger women are decidedly pretty, a few lovely, and a habitual look of smiling good-nature goes far to render pleasing the less nature-favoured faces. Their complexion is a clear brown, sometimes hardly darker than that of an ordinary South European brunette. Children, absolutely naked, who with a light and scanty shirt for sole covering, mix fearlessley but quietly in the throng; early trained by precept and example to good manners, they show less disposition to noise and mischief than is ordinary elsewhere at tbeir age. Such are the festivle makers. —The Cornhill Magazine.