[2] Relative to this term bahaque, which I have met only once, in the Historia Franciscana, (parte I, lib. i, cap. 39,) is the following description of the black men, the Aetas, or negroes, of Negros, “andan totalmente desnudos,” (the author says,) “y solo traen cubiertas las partes verendas con unos como Lienzos, tirantes de atrás á adelante, que se llamen Bahaques, los quales hacen de cortesas de Arboles majadas con gran tiento, de modo que ay algunos, que parecen Lienzo fino; y rodeandose por la Cintura un Bejúco, en el amarran el Bahaque por sus dos extremos.” See Zúñiga, i, 423, wherefore, perhaps, the significance of bahaque in the proverb.
[3] Retana’s Appendix G, in Zúñiga’s Estadismo, ii, *492.
[4] This quotation is from page 28 of Apostolado de la Prensa, No. 82 (Madrid, 1898), which locates it in tome xiv, p. 541, of Reclus.
III.
Some Literary Curios among Philippina.
Among the curios of artistic and literary cast, your bright-minded reader, if on the alert to spy anything deserving of notice, will find here and there in Retana’s pages enshrined many a bit of out-of-the-way information. The following half dozen or so of oddities will probably be acknowledged, not unworthy of mention among these Philippina:
They are La Razon: A Plea Against Certain Vexatious Encroachments of the Crown on Mexican and Manila Trade, by José Nuño de Villavicencio (Sampaloc, 1737), which bears on its cover the most tasty design by Philippine burin—a plate illustrative of the contents of the Plea, engraved by Francisco Suárez, a Tagal artist.
El Cosmopolita—The Cosmopolitan—(Manila, 1895–1896), the first periodical (p. 458), with phototypes, published in the islands.
The first Almanac and Guide-Book for strangers and travelers, with a Map of the Archipelago, was issued at Manila for the year 1834.