The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-11


 wildness. The wild hogs on Samar have sometimes killed natives. There are several hundred varieties of birds, and about twenty that are not known elsewhere. Parrots are more common in the backwoods than robins are here. Among the forests close to the coasts are found peculiar birds of the swallow tribe. They make the strange food that Chinese are so fond of--the birds nest. Hundreds of natives earn their sole livelihood by hunting at certain seasons for these birds nests and selling them to the Chinese, Of monkeys there are a dozen varieties. Bats are simply enormous. They are of the vampire variety. No wonder there is vast deal of superstition and dread among people in the tropics concerning vam- pires. They are friEhtfully uncanny have seen vampire bats with bodies as large as common house cats, and with wings that expand five feet from tip to tip. Let any one be seated or strolling along some moonlight night and have one of those black things come sudden ly sweeping past him, and he will have some cause for nervous prostraton. knew one of those bats to go sailing into the big hotel dining room at Manila one evening when dinner was serving It came as horrible apparition. Some women fainted and others shreked as they went under the tables. The men ran out of the room.
 ''The seacoast is rich in many forms of fish The natives, like the Hawaii ans, know how to catch them, too. All the natives in the Philippines that I ever knew about (except the. rich and aristocratic people in Manila) are fish CTS, They catch a species of mullet there that is delicious. When these fish come up the coast from the China Sea in schools the natives will abandon any occupation and even leave a sick hammock to so out and angle eff the coast.
 "A long and interesting chapter might be written about the snakes in the Philippines. I never heard how many varieties there are there hut there must be lots of them. A few are poisonous, but most are water snakes and are harmless. The most dreaded variety is reddish brown, long, slirl fellow, known as the manapo. 1t is as deadly as the moccasin of the southern sWamps, and more venomous than the rattlesnake. Its bitten victims die in fifteen and twenty minutes. Tn the | densest forests of the backwoods of the islands boa constrictors are freouently found. I have heard of some on Min danao that were twenty-five feet long. but their usual length is twelve feet. They have been known to crush people to death
 The natives, who have never beer. away from their respective islands, and have seen less than a dozen white peo- pie in lifetime, know the art of mak- ing an intoxicant as well as the most scientific man. In the backwoods of the smaller and unfrequented Philip pine Islands the natives make brandy | from sugar cane.
 Fortunately for their drinking hab- its the process of making the intoxicant is slow and laborious. The lazy end | slovenly native would never spend so much time and muscle in producing anything but an intoxicant. Local | brandy is made from the juice of the | odSo IelIlC, ICl LlSultu dItu ulSt1lltu. The juice is extracted by pounding the cane over a piece of log and allowing ! the juice to fall into a trough. When l the cane is broken into fine pieces wa 1 ter is poured over it and it is allowed to stand in the sun until it ferments. l Then it is ready for the ingenious na- tive process of distillation. Four-gal i ion water jugs are set on the ground as close as their bulging sides will permit, 1 Earth is covered over the upper part and falls down part way, where it is 1 stopped by the bulging jugs, thus leav- l ing an open space underneath around 1 the bottom of the jugs. The heat from the furnace passes through this open ing and boils the fermented juice with which the jugs are filled. The steam passes out through pieces of hollow | bamboo, and, still in bamboo pipes, it ! is introduced into a hollow log stand ! ing on end. Water from the creek | flows through this log over the cells of 1 bamboo, which contain the steam | which quickly condenses and falls into l a large jug set to catch it, while the thirsty natives wait around and fume at the slow process. Certainly the stuff 1 is pure and the Catholic missionaries 1 say it is healthful, and, queerly enough ! do not object to the natives use of it | They probably consider it wise to con- sent to what they cannot prevent. Or account of its purity the whisky never deranges the stomach, but quart of il 1 intoxicates quickly.
 ''The greater part of the natives 1 probably seventy-five per cent.-or 1 the island of Luzon in and about Ma
 nila are of several race mixtures 1 Their original ancestors were the Tag als and the Spanish. Sometimes there ! is a strain of Malay in these people They are known in Manila society as
 mestizos. A few mestizos are rich
 The mestizo women, from fifteen tc | twenty-five, are positively about the
 most bewitching attractive in the
 world. They age early and are blase al
 thirty. The English call them human | butterflies. l have heard visitors il
 Manila for the first time go wild over
 the striking beauty of the mestizo girl:
 that one sees on the promenade of the
 Luneta. The eyes of the Philippines
 are great, languishing, dreamy, shaded | by long lashes and set off by profu. | sion of the blackest hair that ever l grew Hair is the chief glory of tht
 Philippine beauty. It is long, rich
 thick, made glossy by the care be. l stouod m if Often if ic cleaned , pS