out straight. A netting-needle, longer than the breadth of the web,
serves instead of the weaver's shuttle, but it can be pushed through
only by considerable friction, and not always without breaking the
chains of threads. A lath of hard wood (caryota), sharpened like a
knife, represents the trestle, and after every stroke it is placed
upon the edge; after which the comb is pushed forward, a thread put
through, and struck fast, and so forth. The web consisted of threads
of the abacá, which were not spun, but tied one to another.

[A giant fern hedge.] The huts I visited deserve no special
description. Composed of bamboos and palm-leaves, they are not
essentially different from the dwellings of poor Filipinos; and in
their neighborhood were small fields planted with batata, maize,
caladium and sugar-cane, and enclosed by magnificent polypody
ferns. One of the highest of these, which I caused to be felled for
the purpose, measured in the stem nine meters, thirty centimeters;
in the crown, two meters, twelve centimeters; and its total length
was eleven meters, forty-two centimeters or over thirty-six feet.

[Simple stringed instruments.] A young lad produced music on a kind of
lute, called baringbau; consisting of the dry shaft of the scitamina
stretched in the form of a bow by means of a thin tendril instead of
gut. Half a coco shell is fixed in the middle of the bow, which, when
playing, is placed against the abdomen, and serves as a sounding board;
and the string when struck with a short wand, gave out a pleasing
humming sound, realizing the idea of the harp and plectrum in their
simplest forms. Others accompanied the musician on Jews' harps of
bamboos, as accurate as those of the Mintras on the Malay Peninsula;
and there was one who played on a guitar, which he had himself made,
but after a European pattern. The hut contained no utensils besides