The Open court . gionwould doubtless be frequently visited by tourists, while in their iso-lated location it is possible that they had never before been visitedby white men, unless in the old Spanish days. It is in these and insimilar caves of this region that the natives obtain the edible birdsnests so highly prized by some, especially the Chinese. The nativesare said to have claims on certain caves, and any one found stealingnests from another mans cave is supposedly dealt with as a thief. 676 THE OPEN COURT. These curious nests are built by swifts (swallows) against thewalls of the dark cav
The Open court . gionwould doubtless be frequently visited by tourists, while in their iso-lated location it is possible that they had never before been visitedby white men, unless in the old Spanish days. It is in these and insimilar caves of this region that the natives obtain the edible birdsnests so highly prized by some, especially the Chinese. The nativesare said to have claims on certain caves, and any one found stealingnests from another mans cave is supposedly dealt with as a thief. 676 THE OPEN COURT. These curious nests are built by swifts (swallows) against thewalls of the dark caves much in the some way as is done by ourcommon chimney swifts, except that instead of cementing a numberof small twigs together by a kind of sticky secretion or saliva, theentire nest is made of the sticky substance which dries into a sortof gummy mass. This substance has but little taste, and why thewealthy Chinese should be willing to pay such enormous prices ($12to $15 per pound) for it is hard to CHURCH WITHIN THE FORT It is said that the first nest the bird makes in the season bringsthe highest price because it is of pure material; this nest havingbeen taken the bird builds another, but, having a diminished supplyof the secretion, it introduces some foreign matter to help out, andthis foreign matter, of course, makes the nest less valuable as third nest may succeed the second, but it has still more foreignmatter to still further diminish its value. That the collection of the TAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 677 nests is attended with considerable danger is evident from the vert-ical, jagged walls of rock that must be scaled, either from belowor above, to obtain them. To those of us who lead busy lives in the centers of what wecall twentieth-century civilization, life in a place so isolated fromthe rest of the world as Tay Tay seems impossible. Yet the in-habitants of this barrio are quite contented and fairly live the simple lif
Size: 1372px × 1821px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
