The inhabitants of the Batan group are like those living on the Japanese island of Botel Tobago, which is only sixty miles north of our most northern possession.[20] No missionaries or other persons had been allowed by the natives to land on their shores until a few Japanese police arrived in 1909. They are mentioned in passing because they are a present-day example of what the people in the northern islands of the Philippine group were before the coming of the white men and the friars. Their dwellings are very peculiar. Each family has a stone-paved court surrounded by a low wall of stone. Within this enclosure they have three houses: one with its sides sunk down into the ground, in order to give protection from high winds; one with ordinary walls for use during normal weather; and a third built on poles about ten feet above the ground for use during the hot season. From these elevated houses a constant watch is maintained for schools of fish. The people are expert fishermen and make excellent nets, and they have beautiful boats with high bows and sterns. In Dampier's day the people were friendly and hospitable, as they are at the present time. They valued iron more than gold, and gladly exchanged it for iron. The ancient diggings are still to be seen, but the "pay dirt" is of such a low grade that it is not worth while to work it. The precious metal is washed out by the natives in cocoanut shells, which take the place of our prospectors' "gold pan." Many gold ornaments of attractive design are still to be found in these islands. Some of those taken from graves remind one strongly of Chaldean work. The graves of the ancient inhabitants were placed high upon the mountains, some near the smoking craters of the volcanoes, others on the crests of the non-volcanic hills. It is supposed that the graves near the smoking craters were those of persons who had a bad reputation in the community, while those on the tops of the ridges contained the bodies of the good, and that by this method of burial the ideas of heaven and hell were carried out in a practical manner. The bodies were placed in _ollas_, or earthenware jars, some of which had a high glaze and were profusely ornamented. The corpse was inserted into the jar in a sitting position, and the orifice was sealed by placing an inverted olla over the mouth of the first. These jars were then placed on end and a small pyramid of stones built around them, on the top of which a little tree was planted. A number of these graves ranged around the edge of a smoking sulphur crater are an uncanny sight, which the natives take good care to avoid. The women of the Batan Islands, when walking or working out of doors, wear a distinctive headdress, consisting of a long grass hood, which stretches from the forehead to below the hips. It protects the head and back from the sun, wind and rain, so that it is worn at all times and in all seasons. It is one of the most original and useful of all primitive garments.