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.

[Illustration:  A Philippine House.]

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.

[Illustration:  Bamboo.]

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.