And I hurried him on to the encampment of the Moros.  Here we see the men and wimmen dressed in silk and satin, but cut after patterns I would never let Josiah wear or wear myself.  Some of these Moro girls are quite handsome in their bright striped mantillys, their long hair hanging down under their gay turbans.  One of these villages is on land and one built on bamboo poles over the water.  Jest open sheds covered with nipa leaves.  Anyone with rumatiz couldn’t stand it in ’em.

But what took Josiah most of all wuz the tree dwellers, their houses are built up in the highest trees they can find, and they git to ’em by ladders they pull up after ’em; as he looked on ’em I see in Josiah’s reminescent eye dreams of summer housen in our ellums and maples, and I hurried him on.  Blandina said she could be perfectly happy up there with a congenial companion, and I knowed she wuz thinkin’ of Aspire Todd; but she never could git him up there, for his tongue is the strongest part on him.

We all admired the Native Scouts; they live in a little village of tents in a beautiful piece of woodland.  There are four companies, Visayan, Tagalog, Maccabebe and Ilicano.  Their band of music, and the band of eighty pieces of the native constabulary are called the finest at the Exposition.  When they march they all seem to be one body; so smooth and even are their movements, they are called the most perfectly drilled soldiers in the country.

Jest think on’t, if they show off so now what will they do at the next Exposition.  There are ten large buildings containing their enormous display of art and science, education, agriculture, horticulture, manufactures, commerce, etc.  Some of the statutes and pictures are beautiful; you couldn’t tell some of ’em from them brought from abroad.  But folks don’t seem to realize that some of the Filippinos are as refined and cultured as if they come from the middle of Boston.

Their forestry exhibit is the finest ever brought to any Exposition and contains everything relating to the fifty million acres of Philippine forests, splendid timber, over fifteen hundred different kinds of wood, rattans, gutta percha, dye stuffs, trees yielding oil, gums, rosin, etc.  The mineral exhibit shows how rich these islands are in gold, copper, coal and other minerals.  In agriculture you see the great display of fibres, Manila hemp which brought ’em over twenty-two millions last year, ropes made from bamboo, cocoa-nut, rattan.  Sugar, tobacco, coffee, hats, baskets and other articles made from palm leaves, bamboo, rattan and nito, colored by their own native dyes.  In the flower display are the most rare and exquisite orchids growing jest as common there as weeds along the Jonesville road.  One interestin’ display wuz a map built out doors showin’ more than 2,000 islands, their shape and comparitive size.