[31] “When they grow delirious in their sickness, they are never frantic, but calm.” (Mas, p. 64.)
[32] M. and D. add here “slow.”
[33] In the Ayer MS. “serithnophagos.” D. makes it “ictiófagos,” which reading we have adopted; and M. omits the phrase.
[34] The abundance of fish is one of the means by which nature aids their necessities. In the rainy season, all the creeks and ravines are full of water and fish. The very rice fields swarm with eels, shrimps, and a species of fish called dalag, which is about two palmos long and more than two inches thick. It is especially interesting for an European to see a crowd of people in the month of October on the high-road, busily fishing in the sowed fields. As the rice is now grown, it is impossible to see the water that bathes and wets its roots, and consequently, when the hooks are drawn out with fish two palmos long on them, it appears to be enchantment, or the inconsequential things of a dream. As the water dries up, the fish, still living, gather down in toward the hollows where there is yet some water; and they are there caught with the hand, or killed with clubs.
“The Indians have three meals [per day]: breakfast, dinner, and supper. These three meals consist of rice boiled in water but dry like the rice cooked in the Valencian style, or like the Turkish pilao. In addition they eat a trifle of fresh or salt fish, some sort of meat stew, camotes, etc.; but rarely do they have more than two different dishes, unless it is the occasion of a banquet. In the dearest provinces, the [expense of] common food cannot be estimated at more than one-half real of silver per day per adult; and since the daily wage that they earn is at least one-half real and their food, it results that this race have great opportunity to save and acquire considerable wealth. But their vices, their few necessities, and their disposition, which is indifferent and lacking in foresight, does not allow them to better the condition of their birth; and they remain in the wake of the mestizos, who are always the wealthy people of the villages.” (Mas, pp. 64, 65.)
[35] Mas says (p. 65): “It is not easy for anyone to explain them, so long as he tries to consider these men equal to the Europeans.”
[36] This sentence is omitted in M. and D.
[37] All the matter above between the word “father” and this point is lacking in M.
[38] The solidus was a coin of the Roman empire, which was at first called “aureus,” and worth about twenty-five denarii, but afterward reduced to about one-half that value. It is used in the same manner as “farthing” or “cent” would be in English.
[39] These passages are translated as follows in the Douay version of the Bible: