the birth of a child, and under whose protection they placed it. They made _anitos_ also of their deceased ancestors, and to these were their first invocations in all difficulties and dangers. They reckoned amongst these beings all those who were killed by lightning or alligators, or had any disastrous death, and believed that they were carried up to the happy state, by the rainbow, which they call _balan-gao_. In general, they endeavoured to attribute this kind of divinity to their fathers, when they died in years; and the old men, vain with this barbarous notion, affected in their sickness a gravity and composure of mind, as they conceived, more than human, because they thought themselves commencing _anitos_. They were to be interred at places marked out by themselves, that they might be discovered at a distance and worshipped. The missionaries have had great trouble in demolishing their tombs and idols; but the Indians, inland, still continue the custom of _pasing tubi sa nono_, or asking permission of their dead ancestors, when they enter any wood, mountain, or corn-field, for hunting or sowing; and if they omit this ceremony, imagine their _nonos_ will punish them with bad fortune. "Their notions of the creation of the world, and formation of mankind, had something ridiculously extravagant. They believed that the world at first consisted only of sky and water, and between these two, a glede; which, weary with flying about, and finding no place to rest, set the water at variance with the sky, which, in order to keep it in bounds, and that it should not get uppermost, loaded the water with a number of islands, in which the glede might settle and leave them at peace. Mankind, they said, sprang out of a large cane with two joints, that, floating about in the water, was at length thrown by the waves against the feet of the glede, as it stood on shore, which opened it with its bill, and the man came out of one joint, and the woman out of the other. These were soon after married by consent of their god, _Bathala Meycapal_, which caused the first trembling of the earth; and from thence are descended the different nations of the world." THE BABYANIS. _Locality._--Due north of Luçon. THE BASHIS. _Locality._--Due north of the Babyanis. I have no details respecting the Babyanis and the Bashis. They have been noticed, however, as forming the tract from Luçon to-- FORMOSA. _Name._--Chinese Taï-ouan, originally Toung-fan. _Political Relations._--Western side, subject to China. Eastern side independent. _Languages._--Numerous dialects. The only known vocabulary, Malay. _Authority._--Klaproth. Description de Formose, Melanges Asiatiques, p. 195. The knowledge of the island of Formosa on the part of the Chinese begins no earlier than the year 1430 A.D.; and its oldest name in Chinese, _Toung-fan_, means _barbarians of the East_. The later name means the _Bay of Heights_.