DAMPIER’s ACCOUNT OF THE PHILIPPINES.

48

have jackets made of plantain leaves, which were as rough as any bear’s {kin : I neverfaw luch rugged things. The women have a fhort petticoat made of cotton, whichcomes a little below their knees. It is a thick fort of ftubborn cloth, which theymake thetnfelves of their cotton. Both men and women do wear large ear-rings,made of that yellow metal before mentioned. Whether it were gold or no I cannotpofitively fay ; I took it to be fo, it was heavy and of the. colour of our paler gold.I would fain have brought away fome to have fatisfied my curiofity ; but I had nothingwherewith to buy .any. Captain Read bought two of thefe rings with fome iron, ofwhich the people are very greedy ; and he would have bought more, thinking he wascome to a very fair market, but that the palenefs of the metal made him and his crewdiftruft its being right gold. For my part, I fhould have ventured on the purchafe offome, but having no property in the iron, of which we had great {tore on board,fent from England by the merchants along with Captain Swan, I durft not barter itaway.

Thefe rings when firft polifhed look very glorioufly, but time makes them fade,and turn to a pale yellow. Then they make a foft pafte of red earth, and fmearingit over their rings, they caft, them into a quick fire, where they remain till they bered hot; then they take them out and cool them in water, and rub off the pafte ; andthey look again of a glorious colour and luftre.

Thefe people make but fmall low houfes. The fides which are made of fmall polls,wattled with boughs, are not above four feet and a half high : the ridge-pole is aboutfeven or eight feet high. They have a fire place at one end of their houfes, andboards placed on the ground to lie on. They inhabit together in fmall villages builton the fides and tops of rocky hills, three or four rows of houfes one above another,and on fuch fteep precipices, that they go up to the firft row with a wooden ladder,and fo with a ladder ftill from every ftory up to that above it, there being no way toafcend. The plain on the firft precipice may be fo wide, as to have room both for arow of houfes that ftand all along on the edge or brink of it, and a very narrow ftreetrunning along before their doors, between the row of houfes and the foot of the nextprecipice; the plain of which is in a manner level to the tops of the houfes below,and fo for the reft. The common ladder to each row or ftreet comes up at a narrowpaffage left purpofely about the middle of it; and the ftreet being bounded with aprecipice alfo at each end, it is but drawing up the ladder if they be affaulted, andthen there is no coming at them from below, but by climbing up as againft a per-pendicular wall; and that they may not be affaulted from above, they, take care tobuild on the fide of fuch a hill, whofe back-fide hangs over the fea, or is fome high,fteep, perpendicular precipice altogether inacceffible. Thefe precipices are natural;for the rocks feem too hard to work on ; nor is there any fign that art hath been em-ployed about them. On Bafhee illand there is one fuch, and built upon, with its backnext the fea. Grafton and Monmouth ifles are very thick fet with thefe hills andtowns ; and the natives, whether for fear of pirates or foreign enemies, or factionsamong their own clans, care not for building but in thefe faftnefl’es ; which I taketo be^ the reafon that Orange ifle, though the Iargeft, and as fertile as any, yetbeing level and expofed hath no inhabitants. I never faw the like precipicesand towns.

Thefe people are prdtty ingenious alfo in building boats. Their fmall boats aremuch like our deal yalls, but not To big; and they are built with very narrow plank,pinned with wooden pins, and fome nails. They have alfo fome pretty large boats,which will carry forty or fifty men. Thefe they row with twelve or fourteen oars

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