A similar dress, made of coarser and cheaper materials, is the usual costume of all the native women. The men, both native and Mestizo, wear trousers fastened round the waist by a cord or tape, the fabric being sometimes silk of country manufacture, for their gala dresses, or of cotton cloth striped and coloured, for every-day use. The shirt, which is worn outside the trousers, that is to say, the tails hanging loose above the trousers, and reaching to just below the hips, is generally made of pina cloth, or, among the poorest people, of blue or white cotton cloth. When of pina cloth, the pattern is generally of blue or other coloured stripes with flowers, &c. worked on them, and it is a very handsome and gay piece of dress. When worn outside the trousers, it is much cooler than when stuffed into them in the European manner. A hat and slippers, or sandals of native manufacture, complete their dress, and the only difference of costume between the rich and poor consists in the greater or less value of the materials which compose it. No coat or jacket is worn, but many of the men, and nearly all the women, wear a rosary of beads or gold round their necks; and frequently a gold cross, suspended by a chain of the same metal, rests between the bosoms of the fair. Many of them also wear charms, which having been blessed by the priest, are supposed to be faithful guardians, and to preserve the wearer from all evil. CHAPTER VIII. The honours paid to the saints by the celebration of their feast-days are nearly altogether practised by the Mestizo and Indian population, the richer or upper classes of Spaniards being for the most part too careless on such occasions, except when their turn comes to dance at the _fetes_, or to eat the supper set out by their Mestizo neighbours on these anniversaries; and certainly, if their piety be judged by the alacrity usually displayed on such occasions, they will stand very forward in the race out of purgatory. For, strange to say, the modern Spaniards--at least those who come to the Philippines--are as little superstitious or priest-ridden as the people of any nation in Europe. Probably this is a symptom of their return to a more moderate degree of faith than they used to evince prior to the French Revolution, which has altered the tone of opinion and manners throughout the world. And after the severity and rigid observance of all the church high-days and holydays formerly prevalent among them, the tide of opinion appears to have run into the opposite extreme.