Sometimes a number of Indians gather in the house of one of them and form a concert of amateurs. At that time they sing the Passion to the accompaniment of a full orchestra. At other times five, seven, or nine bagontaos (young bachelors) assemble at night in the beautiful clear moonlight and run about the villages in the vicinity of Manila, where they give serenades to their sweethearts, their dalagas, or donzellias [i.e., doncella (maidens)], whom the Tagálogs who are of more distinguished rank and who speak Spanish call their novias [i.e., sweethearts]. One could imagine nothing more singular and more picturesque than to see during those brilliant nights of the torrid zone, when the moon sheds floods of silver light, and the balmy breeze tempers the burning heat of the atmosphere, to see, we say, the Indians crouched en cuclillas for entire hours without getting tired of that position, which we would find so uncomfortable, singing their love under the windows of their mistresses. Numerous orchestras of musicians are summoned at any hour of the day to the houses of Manila in order to have all sorts of ancient and modern dances there: the old rigodons, [136] quadrilles, the English contradances, waltzes, gallops, and without doubt the polka will not be long in penetrating there also. It is rare among the Indians, and especially among the mestizos, that a baptism, marriage, or any ceremony is celebrated without music and dancing. The burial of children (criaturas) is always accompanied by music. One further word on the extraordinary talent of the Indians for musical execution. One day we accompanied Monsieur Auguste Barrot, our worthy consul, the alcalde of the province of Laguna, on a tour which he was making for the election of gobernadorcillos. We reached Calaüan, where we stopped to sup and sleep at the house of a respectable cura whose house, like that of all ecclesiastics, was open to all travelers without exception. Travelers are there fed and lodged as long as they please to stop and without any cost to them. Now, at the house of this cura we heard an Indian who played with equal perfection on seven different instruments, on which he executed the most difficult pieces. When he had finished, the good cura, in order to amuse us, performed some sleight of hand tricks and juggling, and showed us a theater of marionnettes, which he had himself mounted.