The Philippine Islands are far away on the other side of the earth, near China. There are a great many of these islands. Most of them are small. But some of them are large islands, and many people live on them. The largest of the islands is called Luzon. The largest town in this island is Manila.

Many tribes of people live in the Philippine Islands. Each tribe has a language of its own.

It is very warm in these islands. So the people need but little clothing. Their houses are not very high. The highest house is only two stories. In some parts they have strange windows in their houses. The panes are not made of glass, as in our houses. They are made of oyster shells. But they are not like our oyster shells. They are very thin so thin that the light can come through them nearly as well as through glass. The shell is made square, and fits in the window like a pane of glass. Sometimes the sides or walls of the upper stories are made of frames, with oyster shells for panes. The people can slide these walls back, so as to let the cool air into the rooms.

There is one tribe in the islands called the Moro tribe. The people of this tribe have very strange houses. They build their houses in the water near the shore. They build them on the top of long poles. The first stories are high above the water. The people use ladders to go up to them. These houses are built of bamboo.

The bamboo is very useful in the country where it grows. It is a kind of reed, and grows very tall. It has joints like the joints of a corn stalk. It is not solid like a corn stalk, but is hollow inside. It is so thick and strong that the people make houses of it and all kinds of furniture.

The Moro men are good sailors and swimmers. They are also good divers. They dive into the water for pearls and coral. They can stay under the water for two or three minutes at a time. The children also are good swimmers. They spend a great deal of time in the water.

There is another tribe called the Man’gy-ans. These people live in the mountains. They have black hair and flat noses. They are very strong, for they spend most of their time out of doors.

Some months of the year they do not live in houses. They sleep under trees. But other months of the year it rains very much. Then they sleep in houses. Their houses are made of poles with roofs of leaves.

The Mangyan women and girls wear a very strange kind of dress. It is made of cords coiled around their waists. The cords are narrow strips of rattan braided together. Rattan is the stem of a plant which grows to a very great height. It sometimes grows a hundred feet high. It is as thick as a man’s wrist, and it is very tough and strong. The people split the rattan into thin strips. With these they make baskets, seats of chairs, walking canes, ropes, and many other things.

The Mangyan men are good hunters. They hunt an animal called the tim’a-rau. It is like a buffalo. They shoot it with bows and arrows.

There are a great many large forests in the Philippines, and there are very fine trees in them. The most useful of the plants or trees is the bamboo. I have already told you about it. The cocoanut palm is also a very useful tree. The nuts give food and drink and oil.

On one of the islands there is a wonderful plant called the pitcher plant. Its leaves are in the shape of pitchers. Some of the pitchers have lids, and are large enough to hold a pint of water.

In the Philippines they raise coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, and cotton. One of their most useful plants is the plant from which they get hemp for making ropes and cords. This plant is called “ab’a-ca” by the people in the Philippines, and its hemp is called Manila hemp.

There is a great deal of rice grown in the Philippines. Rice is the food that most of the people live on.

There are buffaloes in the Philippines. The people use them for riding and for carrying loads. They have also deer, goats, and hogs.

In some parts of the islands they have a strange way of fishing. They fill baskets with a kind of mixture in which they put poison. Then they throw the baskets into the water. The fish become stupid after eating the poison. Very soon they rise to the top of the water, where the people catch them.

Manila is a large town with strong walls and a deep moat, or ditch, around it. There are eight gates in the wall and bridges across the moat.

The men in Manila wear trousers and shirts; but they wear the shirts outside. The women wear skirts with long trains, and waists with very full and flowing sleeves. They wear scarfs or handkerchiefs around their necks, with two of the corners hanging down their backs. They never wear hats.

In a few of the islands there are schools, and the children learn to read and write; but in many other parts there are neither schools nor churches. As the islands now belong to the United States, there will soon be many more schools, and the children will be able to learn everything that is taught in our schools.