Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/280

 Rice is the principal food of the inhabitants of these islands. There are several different varieties, — the bontot-cabayo, birnambang, dumali, quinanda, bolohan,  and malagequil — the latter is very much prized. All their dainty and fancy dishes were made from it. A brilliant whitewash, very durable, and capable of standing the weather, was also made from it.

All the tropical fruits grow here, — pine-apples, the best I have seen in any part of the world. The Brazilian, Porto Rico, and Bahama pine-apples were not to be  compared to the Philippines. They grow very large, some of them weighing twenty pounds or more. They are the fruit of fruits, and the most delicious in the  world. The meaning of pine-apple is, "You are perfect."

The largest building — that is, the longest — that we saw while there, was the Royal Cigar Manufactory, in  which fifteen thousand persons were employed, eleven  thousand of whom were women. A boat’s crew of us were passing by the factory one noon when the employees were coming out for dinner. We had never seen so many women together at once; many of them  were short and stout. Their average height was about five feet. They were clothed in loose jackets and petticoats made from gaudy colored grass cloth. They wore no stockings, and their feet were covered by slippers  often very pretty in shape and color. Many of them had beautiful large teeth, stained red by chewing the  betel nut. All had glossy black hair. We did not see a red-headed girl among them. Many were extremely pretty, if not handsome. The majority of them, however, were very homely.