t is the occasion of a feast, they sing, play,
and dance. They spend a day and a night in this, amid great racket
and cries, until they fall with weariness and sleep. But rarely do
they become furious or even foolish; on the contrary, after they have
taken wine they preserve due respect and discreet behavior. They only
wax more cheerful, and converse better and say some witty things;
and it is well known that no one of them when he leaves a banquet,
although it be at any hour of the night, fails to go straight to his
own house. And if he has occasion to buy or sell, and to examine and
weigh gold or silver he does it with so great steadiness that the
hand does not tremble, nor does he make any error in the weight.

102. The wine commonly used among them is either that made from
palms, as it is throughout India, or from sugar-cane, which they call
quilang. The latter is made by extracting the sap from the canes,
and then bringing it to a boil over the fire, so that it becomes like
red wine, although it does not taste so good. The palm wine is made by
extracting the sap or liquor from which the fruit was to be formed. For
as soon as the palm begins to send out the shoot from the end of the
twig, and before the flower is unfolded, that flower-stock is cut,
and a bit of bamboo is fastened to it and is tied to the stalk or
shoot. Since the sap naturally flows to that part, as in the pruned
vine, all the sap that was to be converted into fruit, flows into
that bamboo, and passes through it to vessels, where, somewhat sour
and steeped with the bark of certain trees which give it color, heat,
and bite, they use it as a common drink and call it tuba. But the
real and proper palm-wine is made from the same liquor before it turns
sour, by distilling it in an alembic in ovens that they have prepared
for it. They give it a greater or less strength, as they please;
and they get a brandy as clear as water, although it is not so hot
[as our brandy]. [19] It is of a dry quality, and, when used with
moderation, it is considered even outside Filipinas as healthful and
medicinal for the stomach and a preventive of watery humors and colds.

The Visayans also make a wine, called pangasi, from rice. The method
of making it is to place in the bottom of a jar of ordinary size
(which is generally of two or three arrobas, with them) a quantity
of yeast made from rice flour and a certain plant. Atop of that they
put clean rice until the jar is hal