s use throughout
the Indias is general, but among these people inviolable. I do not
know whether it is because even their hearts are tinged with their
cursed worship, or because of hatred to our nation and to our customs,
or because of flattery to their natural arrogance--through which they
will never, of themselves, come to depreciate their own things. Even
yet throughout the islands, those who are esteemed as chiefs are
ashamed of appearing without hats.

The clothing of the women is plainer, and such that it becomes
indecent; for from the small mantas or textiles of these regions,
which are all very thin, they make a sack nine palmos long and open at
both ends. They gird this in at the waist as much as may be necessary,
so that it falls to the feet; what is left they allow to fall over the
legs, and it does not even reach to the knees, or necessarily serve
for the decency which modesty requires. They adjust it by drawing
it close to one side of the body, and by making folds on the other
side of all the extra width in proportion to their body. This sack,
which by day is a garment--so shameful to decency, because it so ill
satisfies it--serves at night for mattress, sheets, and curtain. For
on retiring they ungird the sack, and the part which they doubled
about the knees they put up to the head. That is all the opulence
and comfort that their beds can boast of, which are made of a thin
mat. These are their Holland and Rouen linens, which serve for their
opulence and their fastidious cleanliness. That is their whole wealth
of quilts and covers, which protect them from the cold and from the
mosquitoes. All is so exactly adapted to necessity, that there is
no difference between the chief women and the slaves--as I saw in
Jolo in the queen herself, and in Samboangan in many other women,
not inferior to her in vanity. However, the women of highest rank,
on retiring let fall a curtain without a covering. And that is all
their ostentation and the necessary obligation of modesty for the
protection from sight of those who are careless concerning their
manner of sleeping, in houses where there is no division of apartments,
and where there can be no rooms for the multitude that inhabit them,
and where the others throw themselves down pellmell on the floor. At
most, the master is protected by that little grandeur. This is in
regard to the bed, for in dress no difference is known.

The gala dress of the women of this nation consi