Besides the pina there is also a sort of cloth made by the natives called juse (pronounced huse), or siriamaio, which makes very beautiful dresses for ladies. It is manufactured from a thread obtained from the fibres of a particular sort of plantain tree, which is slightly mixed with pine-apple thread; and the fabric produced from both of these is very beautiful, being fine and transparent, and looking, to the unaccustomed eye, finer than the ordinary sort of pina cloth. It can be made of any pattern, and is generally striped or checked with coloured threads of silk mingled with the other two descriptions. The manufacture of both these articles is carried on to a small extent in the immediate neighbourhood of Manilla; but in the provinces of Yloylo and Camarines the best juse is produced, the price of which is very much lower than pina, as a lady's dress of it may be got at from seven to twenty dollars; and for the latter amount a very handsome one would be obtained. In addition to these manufactures, which the natives have appropriated and made their own, from the greater facilities found in the Philippines than in other places less adapted by nature for their prosecution, the Government has been at some pains to force them to engage in the manufacture of cotton yarn and cloth by imposing high duties on those descriptions of foreign manufactured goods most suitable for the native dress, either from their partiality to particular colours, or from other causes. And for this reason solely a number of kambayas of blue and white checks are made in the country by the native hand-loom, these colours being in general favourite ones of the Indians; the custom-house duty on such goods, and on other favourite colours, being 15 and 25 per cent., according to the flag of the vessel importing them; the Spaniards guarding their own shipping, and securing to it a monopoly of the carrying trade by that difference of the import duty. Should these goods come from Madras, which is their native country, the duty charged on them is 20 and even 30 per cent. Although these rates of duty may be considered high enough, they are in reality very much more than that per-centage, because the duty is charged by the authorities on a very high fixed valuation, or on the _ad valorem_ principle, which actually is equivalent to increasing the rates of duty, were that only charged upon the actual market price. Since the beginning of this year (1851), however, I understand some changes have been made in the tariff by altering the valuations of goods. Kambayas are used as sayas, or outer petticoats, by the native or Mestiza girls, and are generally made of cotton cloth, although, of late, juse and silk sayas appear to be more generally worn than they used to be.