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Good mats are very expensive, and difficult to obtain; therefore, it is only the better classes that can use them. Poorer folk are satisfied with very rough mats of rushes.
They made the canoes, in which the men sometimes assisted them, pitched the tents, converted the skins of the animals which the men shot into clothes, cooked the victuals, manufactured baskets of every kind, wove mats, dyed the quills of the porcupine, sewed the mocassins, and in short performed a thousand tasks which it would be difficult to enumerate.
The master of the family, as a general thing, came leisurely bearing his gun and perhaps a lance in his hand; the woman, with the mats and poles of her lodge upon her shoulders, her pappoose, if she had one, her kettles, sacks of corn, and wild rice, and, not unfrequently, the household dog perched on the top of all.
One day every fortnight was allowed the negroes to cultivate their crops, and give them a chance to manufacture mats for beds, bark-ropes, wicker- chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, and that kind of thing.
Native boxes of pandanus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very neatly constructed, mats of the same, jars and cooking pots of native pottery, and a few European plates and basins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the extreme.
I used to wonder, as I wandered through one of these secluded little Malay villages that line the shores of the peninsula and are scattered over its interior, if the little girl mothers who were carrying water and weaving mats did not sometimes long to get down on the warm, white sands and have a regular romp among themselves, playing "Cat-a-corner" or "I spy"; for none of them were over seventeen or eighteen!
A small mat of neat design, if such can be found, will take care of those persons who have the foot-scraping habit, regardless of what they scrape upon, though the mat outside should do the important work. Serviceable mats are seldom things of beauty.
In the ordinary houses mats are laid here and there over the gridiron, besides the sleeping mats; and this plan of an open floor, though trying to unaccustomed Europeans, has various advantages. As, for instance, it insures ventilation, and all debris can be thrown through it, to be consumed by the fire which is lighted every evening beneath the house to smoke away the mosquitoes.
It was arranged that the start should take place early on the following morning, and Chigron then proceeded with Jethro to make the purchases requisite for the voyage mats, cushions, and curtains for furnishing the boat, cooking utensils and provisions for the crew and passengers.
By whom the name of Philippines was given to the archipelago it is impossible to say. In 1567 it appears to have been used for the first time. The manufactures of the islands consist of silk, cotton, and piña fibres cloth, hats, mats, baskets, ropes, coarse pottery, and musical instruments.
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