the pig-sty which each considerable hut seemed to have.  I wish I could say that the Igorot out of rude materials had built a simple but clean and commodious house!  He has done nothing of the sort:  his materials are rude enough, but his hut is small, low, black, and dirty, so far as one could tell in walking through.  The poorer houses have two rooms, an inner and an outer, both very small (say 6 x 6 feet and 4 x 6 feet respectively, inside measurement), cooking being done in the outer and the inner serving as a sleeping-room.  There is no flooring; although the fire is under the roof (grass thatch), no smoke-hole has been thought of, and as there are no window-openings, and the entrance is shut up tight by night and the fire kept up if the weather be cold, the interior is as black as one would expect from the constant deposit of soot.  The ridge-pole of the poorer houses is so low that a man of even small stature could not stand up under it.  The well-to-do have better houses, not only larger, but having a sort of second story; these are soot-black, too.  We made no examination of these, not even a cursory one.  The pig-sty is usually next to the house, and is nothing but a rock-lined pit, open to the sky, except where the house is built directly over it.

It is astonishing that these people should not have evolved a better house, seeing that the Ifugaos have done it, and the Kalinga houses, which we were to see in a day or two, are really superior affairs.

Passing by a certain house, Father Clapp stopped and said, “Here is where Pitapit was born,” and stood expectant.  Strong and I looked furtively at each other; it was evident that we were supposed to know who Pitapit was.  But as we did not, the question was put:  “Who is Pitapit?” Father Clapp, gazing pityingly upon us, as though we had asked who George Washington was, then enlightened us.  Pitapit is a Bontok boy of great natural qualities, so great, indeed, that he was sent to the States to a church school, where he had recently won a Greek prize in competition!  Father Clapp was naturally very proud of this, as he well might be.  The fact of the matter is that Igorot children are undeniably bright; given the chance, they will accomplish something.  And I repeat what I have said before:  we are trying to give them and their people a chance, the only one they have ever had.

We remarked, as we walked about this morning, that although Father Clapp seemed to know some of the people we met and would speak to them, they never returned his greeting.  None of these highlanders have any words or custom of salutation.  In the Ifugao country, however, they shake hands, and would frequently smile when on meeting them we would say, “Mapud!”—­i.e., “Good!”—­the nearest thing to a greeting that our very scanty stock of Ifugao words afforded.  But the Igorot never shook hands with us nor offered to:  they have no smile for the stranger, though they seem good-humored enough among themselves.