Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/270

Rh Both sexes were expert swimmers, and were as much at ease in the water as on land. As they threw themselves into the sea and came bounding from wave to wave they reminded Pigafetta of dolphins. The men were good divers. Legazpi states that they would catch fish in their hands. The children accom- panied their parents while fishing, and were so expert in the water that Garcia declared that they appeared rather fish than human beings.

According to the testimony of early writers, their houses were high and neatly made and better constructed than those of any aboriginal race hitherto discovered in the Indies. They were rectangular in shape, with walls and roofs of palm leaves curiously woven. They were made of cocoanut wood and palo maria (Calophyllum inophyllum), and were raised from the ground on wooden posts or pillars of stone. In one of the narratives of the Legazpi expedition it is said that some of the houses supported on stone pillars served as sleeping apartments ; others built on the ground were used for cooking and other work. Besides these, there were large buildings that served as storehouses for all in common, wherein the large boats and covered canoes were kept. "These were very spacious, broad, and high, and worth seeing." As described by the missionaries, some of the houses had four rooms or compartments, with doors or curtains of mats, one serving as a sleeping-room, another as a store-room for fruits, a third for cooking, and a fourth as a workshop and boat-house. They were a happy, careless people, fond of festivities, dancing, singing, story telling, and contests of strength and skill, yet sufficiently industrious to cultivate their fields and garden patches, build excellent houses for their families, braid mats of fine texture, and construct canoes which were the admiration of all the early navigators. They were much given to buffoonery, mockery, playing tricks, jesting, mimicry, and ridicule, offering in this respect a striking contrast to the undemonstrative Malayans.

That they were naturally kind and generous is shown by their treatment of shipwrecked sailors cast upon their shores and their reception of the early missionaries who founded the first colony on the island. These missionaries complained that they could not make the natives take life seriously, saying that what they promised one minute they forgot the next. On the other hand, the missionaries spoke of the remarkable intelligence shown by the children in learning the Christian doctrine, the moderation of the natives in eating, and the absence of intoxi- cants. Their sense of hospitality was very marked. Women were treated with consideration, and had greater au- thority than in almost any other land hitherto known.

The natives of Guam are, as a rule, of good physique and pleasing appear- ance. Owing to their mixed blood, their complexion varies from the white of a Caucasian to the brown of a Malay. Most of them have glossy black hair, which is either straight or slightly curly. It is worn short by the men and long by the women, either braided, coiled, or dressed after the styles prevailing in Manila.

Though the natives of Guam are naturally intelligent and quick to learn, little has been done for their education, and many of them are illiterate. The college of San Juan de Letran was founded by Queen Maria Anna of Austria, widow of Philip IV, who settled upon it an annual endowment of 3,000 pesos. Through misappropriation and dishonesty the annual income of the college gradually dwindled to about