Part II.

Part II.The Visayas and PalawanChapter XXXII.The Visayas Islands.Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.This name is given to the group of six considerable islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao, and also to the race inhabiting them. Beginning at the west, these islands are Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. There are also a number of smaller islands.Many of the larger as well as the smaller islands are thickly populated, and an extensive emigration takes place to the great and fertile island of Mindanao, where any amount of rich land waits the coming of the husbandmen. I can find no later records of population than the census of 1877. This may seem strange to an American, but to those who know the ignorance and ineptitude of the Spanish administration, it will seem a matter of course. Such data of the population as the Government Offices possess, are mostly due to the priests and the archbishop.Since 1877 there has undoubtedly been a great increase of population amongst the Visayas, and in 1887 the population of Panay was considered to be more than a million.The Visayas Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the Philippines. In Panay there are a few Negritos and Mundos; in Negros some Negritos and Carolanos. The illustration opposite p. 207 is a full-length photograph of Tek Taita, a Negrito from this island. InCebú a few Mundos live around the peak of Danao. In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but that they are reinforced continually byremontados, or fugitives from justice, also by people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the humdrum life of their village insupportable to them.The following Table gives the area of each of the six larger islands, and the population in 1877.Area in square miles.Population according to Census of 1877.Capitals.Panay (divided into three provinces—Capiz, Antique, Ilo-ilo)4,898777,7771Capiz.Antique.Ilo-ilo.Negros3,592204,669Bacolod.Cebú2,285403,296Cebú.Bohol1,226226,546Tagbilaran.Leyte3,706220,515Tacloban.Samar5,182178,890Catbalogan.2,011,693Panay.—This island is approximately an equilateral triangle, with the western edge nearly north and south, having one apex pointing south. A chain of mountains extends in a curved line from the northern to the southern point, enclosing an irregular strip of land which forms the province of Antique. The rivers in this part of the island are naturally short and unimportant. The northern part of the island is the province of Capiz, the principal river is the Panay, which, rising in the centre of the island, runs in a northerly direction for over thirty miles, entering the sea at the Bay of Sapian. The eastern and southern part of the island is the province of Ilo-ilo. The principal river is the Talana, which, rising quite near the source of the River Panay, runs in a southerly and south-easterly direction into the channel between Negros and Panay to the north of the island of Guimaras. There are many spurs to the principal range of mountains, but between them is a considerable extent of land under cultivation. The province ofIlo-ilo is one of the richest and most densely-populated in the Philippines. It now contains at least half a million inhabitants.Ilo-ilo is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of many nations reside there. Yet the port has neither wharves, cranes, moorings or lights. The coasting steamers drawing up to 13 feet enter a muddy creek and discharge their cargo on the banks as best they can, whilst the ocean-going ships lie out in the bay and receive their cargoes of sugar and other produce from lighters, upon each of which pilotage used to be charged for the benefit of an unnecessary number of pilots, and of the captain of the port, who received a share of the pilotage and strenuously resisted a reform of this abuse.Under American protection, Ilo-ilo may be expected to become a flourishing port, provided with every convenience for discharging, loading, and repairing ships, as becomes the importance of its trade. The town of Ilo-ilo contained many large buildings, some of them owned by British subjects. During the fighting last year, however, several buildings were burnt.During the Spanish rule the streets were entirely uncared for, being a series of mud-holes in the rainy season, and thick with dust and garbage in the dry season.The town and port together are notorious examples of all the worst characteristics of Spanish rule.The principal towns of this wealthy province are Pototan, Santa Barbara, Janiuay, and Cabatuan, each of which has more than 20,000 inhabitants.The industries and productions of this and the other islands are treated of under Visayas when describing the inhabitants.Negros.—A long island of irregular shape, lying between Panay and Cebú. Its axis is nearly north and south, and a chain of mountains runs up it, but nearer to the east than to the west coast.A little to the north of the centre of this chain, the celebrated volcano Canlaon raises its peak over 8300 feet. It is frequently in active eruption, and can be perceived at an immense distance when the atmosphere is clear. I have seen it and its long plume of vapour from a steamer when passing the north of the island.In the Sierra de Dumaguete, a range occupying the centre of the southern promontory of the island, and aboutthe centre of the range, there is the volcano of Bacon, about which little is known.Cebúis a long and narrow island something in the shape of an alligator, looked at from above, with the snout pointing to the southward and westward. It is opposite to Negros, and separated from that island by the Strait of Tanon. It is, in fact, a range of mountains rising out of the sea, and is very narrow, being nowhere more than 22 miles wide. There being a large population of Visayas, and the mountains not being very high, the wandering heathen have to a great extent been weeded out, and only a remnant of wretched Mundos remain about the crests of the cordillera.The capital city, Cebú, was the first in the Archipelago to possess a municipality, and was, in fact, until 1571, the capital of the Philippines.It possesses some fine buildings; is the seat of a bishop, and formerly of the Governor-General of Visayas. It is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of the principal nations reside there.There can be no rivers in an island of this configuration, for the water runs away as from the roof of a house. The crops and industries have been spoken of under the head ofVisayas.There are considerable beds of lignite near Compostela, and various efforts have been made to work them, so far, I fear, without much success. Remarkable shells, and some pearls are obtained round about Cebú and the adjacent islands.Bohollies off the southern half of the eastern coast of Cebú, and is only half the size of that island, but it has more than half the population. It is hilly, and the towns and villages are situated on the coast. Only the southern and eastern coast is visited by coasting vessels, the navigation to the north and west being impeded by a labyrinth of coral reefs. The soil of this island is not rich, and the more enterprising of the natives emigrate to Mindanao.Leyteis an island of very irregular shape—something like a hide pegged out on the ground—and lies between the northern half of Cebú and the southern part of Samar, from which it is only separated by a very narrow passage called the Janabatas Channel, and the Strait of San Juanico. The southern extremity of Leyte approaches the northern promontory of Mindanao, and forms the Straits of Surigao, thesecond entrance from the Pacific to the seas of the Archipelago. The island is mountainous, and has two lakes, one called Bito is at the narrowest part, and one called Jaro, near the town of that name. There are several good ports. The exports, which go to Manila, are hemp and sulphur of great purity.Samar.—This is the largest of the Visayas, and yet has fewest inhabitants. It lies to the eastward of all the other islands, and consequently its east coast, like that of Luzon and Mindanao, is exposed to the full fury of the north-east monsoon, and to the ravages of the heavy rollers of the Pacific that burst without warning on its rocky coast.Its chief port, Catbalogan, is situated on the western coast, and is well-sheltered. From the coast many lofty peaks are visible, but the interior of this island is little known. The exports are hemp and cocoa-nut oil. The northern point of Samar approaches the southern extremity of Luzon, and forms the historic Strait of San Bernardino, one of the entrances to the Philippine Archipelago from the Pacific. It was by this Strait that the annual galleon from Acapulco entered, and here also the British privateers lay in wait for their silver-laden prey.1The above was the Christian Visyas population, and is exclusive of Negritos, Mundos, and other heathen savages and remontados. The area is taken from a Spanish official report.Chapter XXXIII.The Visayas Race.Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most important race in the Philippines is the Visaya, formerly called Pintados, or painted men, from the blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of the islands called Visayas and of some others.They occupy the south coast of Masbate, the islands of Romblon, Bohol, Sibuyan, Samar, and Leyte, Tablas, Panay, Negros, and Cebú, all the lesser islands of the Visayas group and the greater part of the coast of the great island of Mindanao. In that island the Caragas, a very warlike branch of the Visayas, occupy the coast of the old kingdom of Caraga on the east from Punta Cauit to Punta San Agustin.Another branch of the Visayas distinguished by a darker colour and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito mixture, occupies the Calamiancs and Cuyos Islands, and the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia Honda.In appearance the Visayas differ somewhat from the Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than the Tagals, and the women wear apatadioninstead of a saya and tapis.The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard wide and overtwo yards long, the ends of which are sewn together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it round the figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front into a wide fold, and tucking it in securely at the waist. Thesayais a made skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and thetapisis a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round the waist over the saya.In disposition they are less sociable and hospitable than the Tagals, and less clean in their persons and clothing. They have a language of their own, and there are several dialects of it. The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix maize. They flavour their food with red pepper to a greater extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting. They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig and deer. They cut the flesh of the latter into thin strips and dry it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires good teeth to get through it.The Visayas build a number of canoes, paraos, barotos, and vintas, and are very confident on the water, putting to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be expected. Their houses are similarly constructed to those of the other inhabitants of the littoral.Ancient writers accused the Visaya women of great sensuality and unbounded immorality, and gave details of some very curious customs, which are unsuitable for general publication. However, the customs I refer to have been long obsolete among the Visayas, although still existing amongst some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaya women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children, but infant mortality is high, and they rear but few of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals—they manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink. They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visaya regiment would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When discovered by the Spaniards, they were to a great extent civilised and organised in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn formed a very favourable opinion of them—he writes, both men and women are well-mannered and of agood disposition, of better condition and nobler behaviour than those of the Island of Luzon and others adjacent.They had learnt much from Arab and Bornean adventurers, especially from the former, whose superior physique, learning, and sanctity, as coming from the country of the Prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the daughters of the Rajas or petty kings. They had brought with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old Visaya religion was not unlike that of the Tagals, they called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos—their marriage customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.The ancestors of the Visayas were converted to Christianity at, or soon after, the Spanish conquest. They have thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant war with the Mahometan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu, and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some localities they still show a strong hankering after witchcraft, and practise secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigilance of the parish priests.A friar of the order of Recollets who had held a benefice in Bohol, assured me that they have a secret heathen organisation, although every member is a professing Christian, taking the Sacrament on the great feasts of the Church. They hold a secret triennial meeting of their adherents, who come over from other islands to be present. The meeting is held in some lonely valley, or on some desert island, where their vessels can lie concealed, always far from any church or priest. All the Recollet could tell me about the ceremonies was that the sacrifice of pigs formed an important part of itThe Visayas are no less credulous than the Tagals, for in Samar, during my recollection, there have been several disturbances caused by fanatics who went about in rags, and by prayers, incoherent speeches, and self-mortification acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The poor ignorant people, deluded by these impostors, who gave themselves out to be gods, and as such, impervious to bullets, and immortal, abandoned their homes and followed these false gods wherever they went, listening to their wild promises, and expecting great miracles. They soon came into collision with the Guardia Civil; and on one occasion, armed only with clubs and knives, they made a determined charge on a small party of this corps under the command of anative officer. The Guardia Civil formed across the road and poured several steady volleys into the advancing crowd, breaking them up and dispersing them with heavy loss and killing the false god. The native officer received the laurel-wreathed cross of San Fernando as a reward for his services.The Visayas are taxed with great indolence, yet they are almost the only working people in districts which export a great quantity of produce. Leyte and Samar produce a good many bales of excellent hemp, and it should be remembered that every bale represents at least twelve days’ hard work of one man in cleaning the fibre only, without counting the cultivation, conveyance to the port, pressing, baling, and shipping.In Negros and Panay the sugar estates are much larger than in Luzon, and mostly belong to Spaniards or mestizos. They are not worked byaparceriaas in Luzon, but the labourers are paid by the day. Great troubles often occur as bands of labourers present themselves on the plantations and offer to work, but demand an advance of pay. Sometimes, after receiving it, they work a few days and then depart without notice, leaving the planter in great difficulty and without redress. Strict laws against vagrants are urgently required in Visayas. On the other hand the planter is more free to introduce improvements and alterations than when working by aparceria when he has to consult theinquilinoor cultivator about any change. The cane-mills are much larger than in Luzon, and are mostly worked by steam engines.The sugar is handled differently from the custom of Pampanga. Pilones are not used, and no manipulation infarderiasis required to prepare it for export. The cane-juice is carefully clarified and skimmed, then boiled in open pans to a much higher point than when making pilon-sugar, and to get it to this point without burning or over-heating much care and experience is required.From the teache it is ladled into large wooden trays, always in thin layers, and is there beaten up with heavy spatulas until it becomes, on cooling, a pale yellow amorphous mass. It is packed in mat-bags, and is then ready for shipment. It travels well and loses but little during a Voyage to San Francisco or New York. None of it goes to England, which is now entirely supplied by the vile beet sugar “made in Germany,” except for a few hundredtons of Demerara crystals imported for use by connoisseurs to sweeten their coffee.Ilo-ilo sugar is shipped under three marks, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. An assortment or cargo of this sugar should consist of 1–8th No. 1, 2–8ths No. 2, 5–8ths No. 3.A representative analysis of Ilo-ilo sugar is as follows:No. 1.No. 2.No. 3.Per Cent.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar86.6084.5081.20Glucose5.405.506.56Mineral matter (ash)1.502.563.72Sandtrace.241.28In Cebú the properties are small and are mostly in the hands of Visayas. There are, perhaps, five or six steam-mills, but most of the cane is ground in cattle-mills. They follow the practice of negroes in making sugars direct for export, but the produce is of a lower quality. An analysis of the Cebú sugar is as follows:Cebú Superior.Cebú Current.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar81.1071.00Glucose7.9012.50Mineral matter (ash)2.162.23The sugar produced in the other Visayas islands is quite insignificant.Visayas Women at a Loom.Visayas Women at a Loom.[To face p. 305.Ilo-ilo and Cebú are the principal ports in the Visayas territory. Besides what they shipped to Manila in 1897, they exported directly to the United States, Great Britain, or other countries, the following: Ilo-ilo, 127,744 tons of sugar; 51,300 piculs of Sapan wood; Cebú, 15,444 tons of sugar; 80,271 bales of hemp; 46,414 piculs of Copra. Andit must be remembered that the Visayas cultivate most of the rice, maize, and other food-stuffs which they consume, and also make their own instruments of agriculture. Besides this, Ilo-ilo exported to other parts of the Philippines a million dollars’ worth of textiles of cotton, silk, and other fibres, made by the Visayas women in hand-looms. The women in Antique make the finest piña, a beautiful transparent texture of the utmost delicacy, woven from the fibres of the leaves of a non-fruiting pine (ananas). When doing the finest work they have to keep their doors and windows closed, for the least draught would break or disarrange the delicate filaments. The export from other ports in Visayas of textiles of cotton and silk is considerable, and, in addition to what they sell, the Visayas women weave most of the material for their own clothing and for that of the men.The Visayas also export mat-bags for sugar, which are called bayones; mats for sleeping on, called petates or esteras; pillows stuffed with cotton, hides, mother-of-pearl shell, Balate (Bèche de Mer), edible bird’s-nests, gutta-percha, gum-dammar, wax, rattans, coffee (of indifferent quality), and leaf tobacco. Both the island of Panay and the coasts of Negros are dotted over with cane plantations.The Visayas extract oil from cocoa-nuts and forge excellent weapons from scrap iron. The bands from bales of Manchester goods are much esteemed for this purpose.If we take all these points into consideration, the Visayas may not appear so deplorably indolent as they have been said to be. When writing of the other races, I have pointed out that the indolence imputed to them rather goes beyond what is warranted by the facts.It will be understood that there are degrees in the civilisation of the Visayas, and as amongst the Tagals and other races, considerable differences will be found to exist between the dwellers in the towns and those in the outlying hamlets, whilst the Remontados may be considered to have relapsed into savagery.The Visayas do a certain amount of trade with the heathen hill-men of their islands, and as will be pointed out when describing these tribes, it is hard to say whether the Christian Visayas or the Mahometan Malays rob these poor savages more shamefully.The Visayas are a promising race, and I feel sure that when they have a good government that will not extort tooheavy taxes from them, nor allow the native and half-caste usurers to eat them up, their agriculture and industries will surprisingly increase.It is to the Visayas that the American Government must look to provide a militia that will now hold in check, and ultimately subjugate, the piratical Moros of Mindanao and Paragua. The fighting qualities of this race, developed by centuries of combat with their Mahometan aggressors in defence of hearths and homes, will be found quite sufficient if they are well armed and led to make an end of the Moro power within a very few years.That this aspiration is one well worthy of the countrymen of Decatur, will, I think, be admitted by all who have read my description of the Moros under the heading of Mindanao.Chapter XXXIV.The Island of Palawan, or Paragua.The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.The island of Palawan, or, as it is called by the Spaniards, La Paragua, is situated between the parallels 8° 25′ and 11° 30′ N. lat. The capital, Puerto Princesa, was founded in 1872, and is situated on the east coast in lat. 9° 45′, being 354 miles from Manila, 210 miles from North Borneo, and 510 miles from Singapore. Palawan is about 250 miles long, and from 10 to 25 wide, with an area of about 5833 square miles, the third in size of the Philippine Islands. There are several good ports in the northern part, which is much broken up, and its coasts studded with numerous islets, forming secure anchorages.Off the western coast is a large submarine bank, with many coral reefs and islets. The navigation on this coast is very dangerous, and can only be done in daylight.The harbour of Puerto Princesa is an excellent one, and sufficiently large for all requirements.Limestone and other sedimentary formations predominate. No volcanic rocks are known to exist. It is conjectured that the island has been formed by an upheaval, and it bears little resemblance geologically to any of the other Philippines. Plastic clays suitable for making bricks, tiles, and pottery, abound.Nothing is known about the mineralogy, except that rock-crystal is found, a magnificent specimen of great purity and value was sent from the island to the Madrid Exhibition of 1887.A chain of mountains, with peaks of varying elevation up to 6500 feet, runs lengthways of the island, much nearerto the western coast than to the eastern. The descent from the summits to the eastern coast is, therefore, gradual, and on the western coast it is abrupt. Mount Staveley, Mount Beaufort (3740 feet), Pico Pulgar (4330 feet), and the Peaks of Anepalian, are in the central part of the island.The following record is taken from the observations made by Captain Canga-Arguelles, a former governor, during his residence of three years in Puerto Princesa.Month.Mean Temp.Barometer.Fahrenheit.Inches.Rainy Days.January8530.344February81303March8530.074April8729.925May8429.804June8229.9012July80..17August8229.844September7929.8820October8529.9020November8229.958December82304Mean82.83105It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants numberabout 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—Tagbuanas, estimated to number6,000Tandulanos, estimated to number1,500Negritos, estimated to number500Manguianes, estimated to number4,000——12,000This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.Amongst the timbers mentioned in the Woods and Forests lists are ebony, camagon, teak, cedar, dungon, banaba, guíjo, molave, and many others of value. The forest or jungle-produce will comprise: charcoal, firewood, bamboos, rattans, nipa (attap), orchids, wax, gums, resins, and camphor. Edible birds’-nests are found in various localities. Fish is abundant in the waters, and balate (Bèche de mer) is collected on the shores and reefs.Puerto Princesa is visited by a mail steamer from Manila once in twenty-eight days. A garrison of two companies of infantry was kept there, and several small gun-boats were stationed there, which went periodicallyround the island. Piracy was completely suppressed, and the Mahometan Malays were kept in good order by the Spanish forces.The dense primeval forests which have existed for ages, untouched by the hand of man, undevastated by typhoons, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, must necessarily have produced an enormous quantity of decayed vegetable matter, rich in humus, and such a soil on a limestone subsoil, mixed with the detritus washed down from the mountains, may reasonably be expected to be of the highest fertility, and, perhaps, to be equal to the richest lands of the earth, most specially for the cultivation of tobacco.The varied climates to be found from the sea-level to the tops of the mountains should allow the cultivation of maize, rice, sugar-cane, cotton, cacao, coffee, and hemp, each in the zone most favourable to its growth and fruitfulness. The exemption from typhoons enjoyed by this region is most important as regards the cultivation of the aborescent species, and the cocoa-nut palm would prove highly remunerative on land not suited for other crops.Tagbanúas.The Tagbanúas are said to be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Palawan. I understand that this word comes fromTaga, an inhabitant, andbanua, country, and therefore means an original inhabitant of the country, as opposed to later arrivals.They inhabit the district betweenInagáhuan, on the east coast, and Ulugan and Apurahuan, on the west coast. Their numbers in 1888 were estimated at 6000. In 1890 I spent ten days amongst these people, and employed a number of them as porters to carry my tent, provisions, and equipment, when travelling on foot through the forests to report on the value of a concession in the neighbourhood of Yuahit and Inagáhuan. I therefore describe them from personal knowledge. They are of a yellowish colour, and generally similar to the Mahometan Malays of Mindanao. Those who have settled down and cultivated land have a robust and healthy appearance; but those who are nomadic, mostly suffered from skin diseases, and some were quite emaciated. Their Maestro de Campo, the recognised head of their tribe, lived near Inagáhuan, and I visited him athis house, and found him quite communicative through an interpreter.Maestro de Campo is an obsolete military rank in Spain, and a commission granting this title and an official staff, is sometimes conferred by the Governor-General of the Philippines, or even by the King of Spain, upon the chiefs of heathen tribes, who have supported the Spanish forces against the pirates of Sulú, Mindanao, or Palawan. Sometimes a small pension accompanies the title.I also learnt much about the Tagbanúas from a solitary missionary, a member of the Order of Recollets, Fray Lorenzo Zapater, who had resided more than two years amongst them, and had built a primitive sort of church at Inagáhuan.They are sociable and pacific; their only weapons are thecerbatana, or blow-pipe, with poisoned darts, and bows and arrows, for the knives they carry are tools and not weapons. They do not make war amongst themselves, but formerly fought sometimes to defend their possessions against the piratical Mahometans, who inhabit the southern part of the island. These heartless robbers, for centuries made annual raids upon them, carrying off the paddy they had stored for their subsistence, and everything portable worth taking. They seized the boys for slaves, to cultivate their lands, and the girls for concubines, killing the adults who dared to resist them. However, since the establishment of a naval station and the penal colony at Puerto Princesa in 1872, the coast has been patrolled by the Spanish gun-boats and the piratical incursions have come to an end. The nomadic Tagbanúas, both men and women, were quite naked, except for a cloth (tapa-rabo) which the men wore, whilst the women wore a girdle, from which hung strips of bark or skin reaching nearly to the knees. Round their necks they wore strings of coloured beads, a turquoise blue seemed to be the favourite kind, and on their arms and ankles, bangles made of brass wire. Coming out of the forest into a clearing where there were two small huts built in the usual manner, and another constructed in the fork of a large tree, I found a group of these people threshing paddy. Amongst them were two young women with figures of striking symmetry, who, on being called by the interpreter, approached my party without the slightest timidity or embarrassment, although wearing only the fringed girdle. I learnt that they had both been baptizedbut on asking the taller girl her name, instead of answering me, she turned to her companion and said to her, “What is my name?” to which the other answered, “Ursula.” I then asked the shorter girl her name, and she also, instead of answering me, asked the other girl, “What is my name?” to which the taller one answered, “Margarita.” These names had recently been given them instead of their heathen names, and I could not be sure whether they had forgotten their new names or whether, as is the case in several tribes, they must never pronounce their own names nor the names of their ancestors. They thankfully accepted a cigarette each, which they immediately lighted.On the following Sunday, these girls came to Mass at the Inagáhuan Church, completely dressed like Tagal women, and although they passed in front of me, I did not recognize them until I was told, for they looked much shorter.When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, avisitaof Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regionsbasaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’sparents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars calledbasinganis.I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppressionfrom their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.Instead, therefore, of being allowed to till their land, these people are hurried off to the most distant and least accessible forests to dig for almáciga. This gum is found in crevices in the earth amongst the roots of secular trees. I was assured that deposits had been found of 25 piculs in one place—more than a ton and a half, but such finds are rare, as the gum is now scarce. The savage has to hide or guard his treasure when found, and he or his family must transport it on their backs for twenty, thirty, or forty miles, as the case may be, making repeated journeys to deliver it to their creditor. I think this hard work, and want of good food, explains the emaciation I noticed amongst these people. Some few of them were not in debt. NearInagáhuan, I found a man named Amasa who had a small cane-field, and was at work squeezing the cane with a great lever-press, which reminded me of the wine-presses in Teneriffe. The lever was made of the trunk of a tree; the fulcrum was a growing tree, whilst the pressing block was a tree-stump hollowed at the top. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup, and found a ready sale in the neighbourhood. Amasa was the biggest and strongestman I saw amongst the Tagbanúas, and stood five feet nine inches high. He possessed a comfortable house and clothes, yet he accompanied me on one of my journeys as a porter, but the exposure at night was too much for him, and he had an attack of fever when he returned. Near Amasa lived a Christian woman named Ignacia, a widow. She had lived ten years in one place, and had an abundant supply of paddy stored in huge baskets in her house. She also had a plantation of cacao trees, many of them in full bearing. They were rather neglected, but had grown remarkably. I bought some of her produce for my own use.I was surprised to find that the Tagbanúas could read and write; one day I observed a messenger hand to one of them a strip of bark with some figures scratched on it, which the latter proceeded to read, and on inquiring from the missionary, I learnt that they had an alphabet of sixteen or seventeen letters. I obtained a copy of this from the Padre Zapater, and it will be found on page 319. They do not use a pen, but scratch the letters with the point of a knife, or with a nail, or thorn.The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat’s-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-colouredpatadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they callRima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionarytook a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support.The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.Whilst travelling through the jungle I found some natives cutting canes, and my interpreter pointed out to me an emaciated couple, and assured me that during the famine of the previous season, these poor wretches had killed and eaten their own child to save their lives. What a state of things in a country where maize will grow up and give edible grain in forty-two days from the date of planting it! I trust that the change of government may result in some benefit to these poor people, and that a Governor or Protector of Aborigines may be appointed with absolute power who will check the abuses of the half-caste and Chinese usurers, and give the poor down-trodden Tagbanúas, at one time I firmly believe a comparatively civilised people, a chance to live and thrive.Tandulanos.The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.Tagbanúa Alphabet.Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.Notes by the Padre Zapater.(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

Part II.The Visayas and PalawanChapter XXXII.The Visayas Islands.Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.This name is given to the group of six considerable islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao, and also to the race inhabiting them. Beginning at the west, these islands are Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. There are also a number of smaller islands.Many of the larger as well as the smaller islands are thickly populated, and an extensive emigration takes place to the great and fertile island of Mindanao, where any amount of rich land waits the coming of the husbandmen. I can find no later records of population than the census of 1877. This may seem strange to an American, but to those who know the ignorance and ineptitude of the Spanish administration, it will seem a matter of course. Such data of the population as the Government Offices possess, are mostly due to the priests and the archbishop.Since 1877 there has undoubtedly been a great increase of population amongst the Visayas, and in 1887 the population of Panay was considered to be more than a million.The Visayas Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the Philippines. In Panay there are a few Negritos and Mundos; in Negros some Negritos and Carolanos. The illustration opposite p. 207 is a full-length photograph of Tek Taita, a Negrito from this island. InCebú a few Mundos live around the peak of Danao. In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but that they are reinforced continually byremontados, or fugitives from justice, also by people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the humdrum life of their village insupportable to them.The following Table gives the area of each of the six larger islands, and the population in 1877.Area in square miles.Population according to Census of 1877.Capitals.Panay (divided into three provinces—Capiz, Antique, Ilo-ilo)4,898777,7771Capiz.Antique.Ilo-ilo.Negros3,592204,669Bacolod.Cebú2,285403,296Cebú.Bohol1,226226,546Tagbilaran.Leyte3,706220,515Tacloban.Samar5,182178,890Catbalogan.2,011,693Panay.—This island is approximately an equilateral triangle, with the western edge nearly north and south, having one apex pointing south. A chain of mountains extends in a curved line from the northern to the southern point, enclosing an irregular strip of land which forms the province of Antique. The rivers in this part of the island are naturally short and unimportant. The northern part of the island is the province of Capiz, the principal river is the Panay, which, rising in the centre of the island, runs in a northerly direction for over thirty miles, entering the sea at the Bay of Sapian. The eastern and southern part of the island is the province of Ilo-ilo. The principal river is the Talana, which, rising quite near the source of the River Panay, runs in a southerly and south-easterly direction into the channel between Negros and Panay to the north of the island of Guimaras. There are many spurs to the principal range of mountains, but between them is a considerable extent of land under cultivation. The province ofIlo-ilo is one of the richest and most densely-populated in the Philippines. It now contains at least half a million inhabitants.Ilo-ilo is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of many nations reside there. Yet the port has neither wharves, cranes, moorings or lights. The coasting steamers drawing up to 13 feet enter a muddy creek and discharge their cargo on the banks as best they can, whilst the ocean-going ships lie out in the bay and receive their cargoes of sugar and other produce from lighters, upon each of which pilotage used to be charged for the benefit of an unnecessary number of pilots, and of the captain of the port, who received a share of the pilotage and strenuously resisted a reform of this abuse.Under American protection, Ilo-ilo may be expected to become a flourishing port, provided with every convenience for discharging, loading, and repairing ships, as becomes the importance of its trade. The town of Ilo-ilo contained many large buildings, some of them owned by British subjects. During the fighting last year, however, several buildings were burnt.During the Spanish rule the streets were entirely uncared for, being a series of mud-holes in the rainy season, and thick with dust and garbage in the dry season.The town and port together are notorious examples of all the worst characteristics of Spanish rule.The principal towns of this wealthy province are Pototan, Santa Barbara, Janiuay, and Cabatuan, each of which has more than 20,000 inhabitants.The industries and productions of this and the other islands are treated of under Visayas when describing the inhabitants.Negros.—A long island of irregular shape, lying between Panay and Cebú. Its axis is nearly north and south, and a chain of mountains runs up it, but nearer to the east than to the west coast.A little to the north of the centre of this chain, the celebrated volcano Canlaon raises its peak over 8300 feet. It is frequently in active eruption, and can be perceived at an immense distance when the atmosphere is clear. I have seen it and its long plume of vapour from a steamer when passing the north of the island.In the Sierra de Dumaguete, a range occupying the centre of the southern promontory of the island, and aboutthe centre of the range, there is the volcano of Bacon, about which little is known.Cebúis a long and narrow island something in the shape of an alligator, looked at from above, with the snout pointing to the southward and westward. It is opposite to Negros, and separated from that island by the Strait of Tanon. It is, in fact, a range of mountains rising out of the sea, and is very narrow, being nowhere more than 22 miles wide. There being a large population of Visayas, and the mountains not being very high, the wandering heathen have to a great extent been weeded out, and only a remnant of wretched Mundos remain about the crests of the cordillera.The capital city, Cebú, was the first in the Archipelago to possess a municipality, and was, in fact, until 1571, the capital of the Philippines.It possesses some fine buildings; is the seat of a bishop, and formerly of the Governor-General of Visayas. It is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of the principal nations reside there.There can be no rivers in an island of this configuration, for the water runs away as from the roof of a house. The crops and industries have been spoken of under the head ofVisayas.There are considerable beds of lignite near Compostela, and various efforts have been made to work them, so far, I fear, without much success. Remarkable shells, and some pearls are obtained round about Cebú and the adjacent islands.Bohollies off the southern half of the eastern coast of Cebú, and is only half the size of that island, but it has more than half the population. It is hilly, and the towns and villages are situated on the coast. Only the southern and eastern coast is visited by coasting vessels, the navigation to the north and west being impeded by a labyrinth of coral reefs. The soil of this island is not rich, and the more enterprising of the natives emigrate to Mindanao.Leyteis an island of very irregular shape—something like a hide pegged out on the ground—and lies between the northern half of Cebú and the southern part of Samar, from which it is only separated by a very narrow passage called the Janabatas Channel, and the Strait of San Juanico. The southern extremity of Leyte approaches the northern promontory of Mindanao, and forms the Straits of Surigao, thesecond entrance from the Pacific to the seas of the Archipelago. The island is mountainous, and has two lakes, one called Bito is at the narrowest part, and one called Jaro, near the town of that name. There are several good ports. The exports, which go to Manila, are hemp and sulphur of great purity.Samar.—This is the largest of the Visayas, and yet has fewest inhabitants. It lies to the eastward of all the other islands, and consequently its east coast, like that of Luzon and Mindanao, is exposed to the full fury of the north-east monsoon, and to the ravages of the heavy rollers of the Pacific that burst without warning on its rocky coast.Its chief port, Catbalogan, is situated on the western coast, and is well-sheltered. From the coast many lofty peaks are visible, but the interior of this island is little known. The exports are hemp and cocoa-nut oil. The northern point of Samar approaches the southern extremity of Luzon, and forms the historic Strait of San Bernardino, one of the entrances to the Philippine Archipelago from the Pacific. It was by this Strait that the annual galleon from Acapulco entered, and here also the British privateers lay in wait for their silver-laden prey.1The above was the Christian Visyas population, and is exclusive of Negritos, Mundos, and other heathen savages and remontados. The area is taken from a Spanish official report.Chapter XXXIII.The Visayas Race.Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most important race in the Philippines is the Visaya, formerly called Pintados, or painted men, from the blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of the islands called Visayas and of some others.They occupy the south coast of Masbate, the islands of Romblon, Bohol, Sibuyan, Samar, and Leyte, Tablas, Panay, Negros, and Cebú, all the lesser islands of the Visayas group and the greater part of the coast of the great island of Mindanao. In that island the Caragas, a very warlike branch of the Visayas, occupy the coast of the old kingdom of Caraga on the east from Punta Cauit to Punta San Agustin.Another branch of the Visayas distinguished by a darker colour and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito mixture, occupies the Calamiancs and Cuyos Islands, and the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia Honda.In appearance the Visayas differ somewhat from the Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than the Tagals, and the women wear apatadioninstead of a saya and tapis.The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard wide and overtwo yards long, the ends of which are sewn together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it round the figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front into a wide fold, and tucking it in securely at the waist. Thesayais a made skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and thetapisis a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round the waist over the saya.In disposition they are less sociable and hospitable than the Tagals, and less clean in their persons and clothing. They have a language of their own, and there are several dialects of it. The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix maize. They flavour their food with red pepper to a greater extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting. They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig and deer. They cut the flesh of the latter into thin strips and dry it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires good teeth to get through it.The Visayas build a number of canoes, paraos, barotos, and vintas, and are very confident on the water, putting to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be expected. Their houses are similarly constructed to those of the other inhabitants of the littoral.Ancient writers accused the Visaya women of great sensuality and unbounded immorality, and gave details of some very curious customs, which are unsuitable for general publication. However, the customs I refer to have been long obsolete among the Visayas, although still existing amongst some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaya women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children, but infant mortality is high, and they rear but few of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals—they manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink. They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visaya regiment would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When discovered by the Spaniards, they were to a great extent civilised and organised in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn formed a very favourable opinion of them—he writes, both men and women are well-mannered and of agood disposition, of better condition and nobler behaviour than those of the Island of Luzon and others adjacent.They had learnt much from Arab and Bornean adventurers, especially from the former, whose superior physique, learning, and sanctity, as coming from the country of the Prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the daughters of the Rajas or petty kings. They had brought with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old Visaya religion was not unlike that of the Tagals, they called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos—their marriage customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.The ancestors of the Visayas were converted to Christianity at, or soon after, the Spanish conquest. They have thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant war with the Mahometan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu, and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some localities they still show a strong hankering after witchcraft, and practise secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigilance of the parish priests.A friar of the order of Recollets who had held a benefice in Bohol, assured me that they have a secret heathen organisation, although every member is a professing Christian, taking the Sacrament on the great feasts of the Church. They hold a secret triennial meeting of their adherents, who come over from other islands to be present. The meeting is held in some lonely valley, or on some desert island, where their vessels can lie concealed, always far from any church or priest. All the Recollet could tell me about the ceremonies was that the sacrifice of pigs formed an important part of itThe Visayas are no less credulous than the Tagals, for in Samar, during my recollection, there have been several disturbances caused by fanatics who went about in rags, and by prayers, incoherent speeches, and self-mortification acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The poor ignorant people, deluded by these impostors, who gave themselves out to be gods, and as such, impervious to bullets, and immortal, abandoned their homes and followed these false gods wherever they went, listening to their wild promises, and expecting great miracles. They soon came into collision with the Guardia Civil; and on one occasion, armed only with clubs and knives, they made a determined charge on a small party of this corps under the command of anative officer. The Guardia Civil formed across the road and poured several steady volleys into the advancing crowd, breaking them up and dispersing them with heavy loss and killing the false god. The native officer received the laurel-wreathed cross of San Fernando as a reward for his services.The Visayas are taxed with great indolence, yet they are almost the only working people in districts which export a great quantity of produce. Leyte and Samar produce a good many bales of excellent hemp, and it should be remembered that every bale represents at least twelve days’ hard work of one man in cleaning the fibre only, without counting the cultivation, conveyance to the port, pressing, baling, and shipping.In Negros and Panay the sugar estates are much larger than in Luzon, and mostly belong to Spaniards or mestizos. They are not worked byaparceriaas in Luzon, but the labourers are paid by the day. Great troubles often occur as bands of labourers present themselves on the plantations and offer to work, but demand an advance of pay. Sometimes, after receiving it, they work a few days and then depart without notice, leaving the planter in great difficulty and without redress. Strict laws against vagrants are urgently required in Visayas. On the other hand the planter is more free to introduce improvements and alterations than when working by aparceria when he has to consult theinquilinoor cultivator about any change. The cane-mills are much larger than in Luzon, and are mostly worked by steam engines.The sugar is handled differently from the custom of Pampanga. Pilones are not used, and no manipulation infarderiasis required to prepare it for export. The cane-juice is carefully clarified and skimmed, then boiled in open pans to a much higher point than when making pilon-sugar, and to get it to this point without burning or over-heating much care and experience is required.From the teache it is ladled into large wooden trays, always in thin layers, and is there beaten up with heavy spatulas until it becomes, on cooling, a pale yellow amorphous mass. It is packed in mat-bags, and is then ready for shipment. It travels well and loses but little during a Voyage to San Francisco or New York. None of it goes to England, which is now entirely supplied by the vile beet sugar “made in Germany,” except for a few hundredtons of Demerara crystals imported for use by connoisseurs to sweeten their coffee.Ilo-ilo sugar is shipped under three marks, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. An assortment or cargo of this sugar should consist of 1–8th No. 1, 2–8ths No. 2, 5–8ths No. 3.A representative analysis of Ilo-ilo sugar is as follows:No. 1.No. 2.No. 3.Per Cent.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar86.6084.5081.20Glucose5.405.506.56Mineral matter (ash)1.502.563.72Sandtrace.241.28In Cebú the properties are small and are mostly in the hands of Visayas. There are, perhaps, five or six steam-mills, but most of the cane is ground in cattle-mills. They follow the practice of negroes in making sugars direct for export, but the produce is of a lower quality. An analysis of the Cebú sugar is as follows:Cebú Superior.Cebú Current.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar81.1071.00Glucose7.9012.50Mineral matter (ash)2.162.23The sugar produced in the other Visayas islands is quite insignificant.Visayas Women at a Loom.Visayas Women at a Loom.[To face p. 305.Ilo-ilo and Cebú are the principal ports in the Visayas territory. Besides what they shipped to Manila in 1897, they exported directly to the United States, Great Britain, or other countries, the following: Ilo-ilo, 127,744 tons of sugar; 51,300 piculs of Sapan wood; Cebú, 15,444 tons of sugar; 80,271 bales of hemp; 46,414 piculs of Copra. Andit must be remembered that the Visayas cultivate most of the rice, maize, and other food-stuffs which they consume, and also make their own instruments of agriculture. Besides this, Ilo-ilo exported to other parts of the Philippines a million dollars’ worth of textiles of cotton, silk, and other fibres, made by the Visayas women in hand-looms. The women in Antique make the finest piña, a beautiful transparent texture of the utmost delicacy, woven from the fibres of the leaves of a non-fruiting pine (ananas). When doing the finest work they have to keep their doors and windows closed, for the least draught would break or disarrange the delicate filaments. The export from other ports in Visayas of textiles of cotton and silk is considerable, and, in addition to what they sell, the Visayas women weave most of the material for their own clothing and for that of the men.The Visayas also export mat-bags for sugar, which are called bayones; mats for sleeping on, called petates or esteras; pillows stuffed with cotton, hides, mother-of-pearl shell, Balate (Bèche de Mer), edible bird’s-nests, gutta-percha, gum-dammar, wax, rattans, coffee (of indifferent quality), and leaf tobacco. Both the island of Panay and the coasts of Negros are dotted over with cane plantations.The Visayas extract oil from cocoa-nuts and forge excellent weapons from scrap iron. The bands from bales of Manchester goods are much esteemed for this purpose.If we take all these points into consideration, the Visayas may not appear so deplorably indolent as they have been said to be. When writing of the other races, I have pointed out that the indolence imputed to them rather goes beyond what is warranted by the facts.It will be understood that there are degrees in the civilisation of the Visayas, and as amongst the Tagals and other races, considerable differences will be found to exist between the dwellers in the towns and those in the outlying hamlets, whilst the Remontados may be considered to have relapsed into savagery.The Visayas do a certain amount of trade with the heathen hill-men of their islands, and as will be pointed out when describing these tribes, it is hard to say whether the Christian Visayas or the Mahometan Malays rob these poor savages more shamefully.The Visayas are a promising race, and I feel sure that when they have a good government that will not extort tooheavy taxes from them, nor allow the native and half-caste usurers to eat them up, their agriculture and industries will surprisingly increase.It is to the Visayas that the American Government must look to provide a militia that will now hold in check, and ultimately subjugate, the piratical Moros of Mindanao and Paragua. The fighting qualities of this race, developed by centuries of combat with their Mahometan aggressors in defence of hearths and homes, will be found quite sufficient if they are well armed and led to make an end of the Moro power within a very few years.That this aspiration is one well worthy of the countrymen of Decatur, will, I think, be admitted by all who have read my description of the Moros under the heading of Mindanao.Chapter XXXIV.The Island of Palawan, or Paragua.The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.The island of Palawan, or, as it is called by the Spaniards, La Paragua, is situated between the parallels 8° 25′ and 11° 30′ N. lat. The capital, Puerto Princesa, was founded in 1872, and is situated on the east coast in lat. 9° 45′, being 354 miles from Manila, 210 miles from North Borneo, and 510 miles from Singapore. Palawan is about 250 miles long, and from 10 to 25 wide, with an area of about 5833 square miles, the third in size of the Philippine Islands. There are several good ports in the northern part, which is much broken up, and its coasts studded with numerous islets, forming secure anchorages.Off the western coast is a large submarine bank, with many coral reefs and islets. The navigation on this coast is very dangerous, and can only be done in daylight.The harbour of Puerto Princesa is an excellent one, and sufficiently large for all requirements.Limestone and other sedimentary formations predominate. No volcanic rocks are known to exist. It is conjectured that the island has been formed by an upheaval, and it bears little resemblance geologically to any of the other Philippines. Plastic clays suitable for making bricks, tiles, and pottery, abound.Nothing is known about the mineralogy, except that rock-crystal is found, a magnificent specimen of great purity and value was sent from the island to the Madrid Exhibition of 1887.A chain of mountains, with peaks of varying elevation up to 6500 feet, runs lengthways of the island, much nearerto the western coast than to the eastern. The descent from the summits to the eastern coast is, therefore, gradual, and on the western coast it is abrupt. Mount Staveley, Mount Beaufort (3740 feet), Pico Pulgar (4330 feet), and the Peaks of Anepalian, are in the central part of the island.The following record is taken from the observations made by Captain Canga-Arguelles, a former governor, during his residence of three years in Puerto Princesa.Month.Mean Temp.Barometer.Fahrenheit.Inches.Rainy Days.January8530.344February81303March8530.074April8729.925May8429.804June8229.9012July80..17August8229.844September7929.8820October8529.9020November8229.958December82304Mean82.83105It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants numberabout 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—Tagbuanas, estimated to number6,000Tandulanos, estimated to number1,500Negritos, estimated to number500Manguianes, estimated to number4,000——12,000This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.Amongst the timbers mentioned in the Woods and Forests lists are ebony, camagon, teak, cedar, dungon, banaba, guíjo, molave, and many others of value. The forest or jungle-produce will comprise: charcoal, firewood, bamboos, rattans, nipa (attap), orchids, wax, gums, resins, and camphor. Edible birds’-nests are found in various localities. Fish is abundant in the waters, and balate (Bèche de mer) is collected on the shores and reefs.Puerto Princesa is visited by a mail steamer from Manila once in twenty-eight days. A garrison of two companies of infantry was kept there, and several small gun-boats were stationed there, which went periodicallyround the island. Piracy was completely suppressed, and the Mahometan Malays were kept in good order by the Spanish forces.The dense primeval forests which have existed for ages, untouched by the hand of man, undevastated by typhoons, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, must necessarily have produced an enormous quantity of decayed vegetable matter, rich in humus, and such a soil on a limestone subsoil, mixed with the detritus washed down from the mountains, may reasonably be expected to be of the highest fertility, and, perhaps, to be equal to the richest lands of the earth, most specially for the cultivation of tobacco.The varied climates to be found from the sea-level to the tops of the mountains should allow the cultivation of maize, rice, sugar-cane, cotton, cacao, coffee, and hemp, each in the zone most favourable to its growth and fruitfulness. The exemption from typhoons enjoyed by this region is most important as regards the cultivation of the aborescent species, and the cocoa-nut palm would prove highly remunerative on land not suited for other crops.Tagbanúas.The Tagbanúas are said to be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Palawan. I understand that this word comes fromTaga, an inhabitant, andbanua, country, and therefore means an original inhabitant of the country, as opposed to later arrivals.They inhabit the district betweenInagáhuan, on the east coast, and Ulugan and Apurahuan, on the west coast. Their numbers in 1888 were estimated at 6000. In 1890 I spent ten days amongst these people, and employed a number of them as porters to carry my tent, provisions, and equipment, when travelling on foot through the forests to report on the value of a concession in the neighbourhood of Yuahit and Inagáhuan. I therefore describe them from personal knowledge. They are of a yellowish colour, and generally similar to the Mahometan Malays of Mindanao. Those who have settled down and cultivated land have a robust and healthy appearance; but those who are nomadic, mostly suffered from skin diseases, and some were quite emaciated. Their Maestro de Campo, the recognised head of their tribe, lived near Inagáhuan, and I visited him athis house, and found him quite communicative through an interpreter.Maestro de Campo is an obsolete military rank in Spain, and a commission granting this title and an official staff, is sometimes conferred by the Governor-General of the Philippines, or even by the King of Spain, upon the chiefs of heathen tribes, who have supported the Spanish forces against the pirates of Sulú, Mindanao, or Palawan. Sometimes a small pension accompanies the title.I also learnt much about the Tagbanúas from a solitary missionary, a member of the Order of Recollets, Fray Lorenzo Zapater, who had resided more than two years amongst them, and had built a primitive sort of church at Inagáhuan.They are sociable and pacific; their only weapons are thecerbatana, or blow-pipe, with poisoned darts, and bows and arrows, for the knives they carry are tools and not weapons. They do not make war amongst themselves, but formerly fought sometimes to defend their possessions against the piratical Mahometans, who inhabit the southern part of the island. These heartless robbers, for centuries made annual raids upon them, carrying off the paddy they had stored for their subsistence, and everything portable worth taking. They seized the boys for slaves, to cultivate their lands, and the girls for concubines, killing the adults who dared to resist them. However, since the establishment of a naval station and the penal colony at Puerto Princesa in 1872, the coast has been patrolled by the Spanish gun-boats and the piratical incursions have come to an end. The nomadic Tagbanúas, both men and women, were quite naked, except for a cloth (tapa-rabo) which the men wore, whilst the women wore a girdle, from which hung strips of bark or skin reaching nearly to the knees. Round their necks they wore strings of coloured beads, a turquoise blue seemed to be the favourite kind, and on their arms and ankles, bangles made of brass wire. Coming out of the forest into a clearing where there were two small huts built in the usual manner, and another constructed in the fork of a large tree, I found a group of these people threshing paddy. Amongst them were two young women with figures of striking symmetry, who, on being called by the interpreter, approached my party without the slightest timidity or embarrassment, although wearing only the fringed girdle. I learnt that they had both been baptizedbut on asking the taller girl her name, instead of answering me, she turned to her companion and said to her, “What is my name?” to which the other answered, “Ursula.” I then asked the shorter girl her name, and she also, instead of answering me, asked the other girl, “What is my name?” to which the taller one answered, “Margarita.” These names had recently been given them instead of their heathen names, and I could not be sure whether they had forgotten their new names or whether, as is the case in several tribes, they must never pronounce their own names nor the names of their ancestors. They thankfully accepted a cigarette each, which they immediately lighted.On the following Sunday, these girls came to Mass at the Inagáhuan Church, completely dressed like Tagal women, and although they passed in front of me, I did not recognize them until I was told, for they looked much shorter.When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, avisitaof Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regionsbasaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’sparents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars calledbasinganis.I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppressionfrom their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.Instead, therefore, of being allowed to till their land, these people are hurried off to the most distant and least accessible forests to dig for almáciga. This gum is found in crevices in the earth amongst the roots of secular trees. I was assured that deposits had been found of 25 piculs in one place—more than a ton and a half, but such finds are rare, as the gum is now scarce. The savage has to hide or guard his treasure when found, and he or his family must transport it on their backs for twenty, thirty, or forty miles, as the case may be, making repeated journeys to deliver it to their creditor. I think this hard work, and want of good food, explains the emaciation I noticed amongst these people. Some few of them were not in debt. NearInagáhuan, I found a man named Amasa who had a small cane-field, and was at work squeezing the cane with a great lever-press, which reminded me of the wine-presses in Teneriffe. The lever was made of the trunk of a tree; the fulcrum was a growing tree, whilst the pressing block was a tree-stump hollowed at the top. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup, and found a ready sale in the neighbourhood. Amasa was the biggest and strongestman I saw amongst the Tagbanúas, and stood five feet nine inches high. He possessed a comfortable house and clothes, yet he accompanied me on one of my journeys as a porter, but the exposure at night was too much for him, and he had an attack of fever when he returned. Near Amasa lived a Christian woman named Ignacia, a widow. She had lived ten years in one place, and had an abundant supply of paddy stored in huge baskets in her house. She also had a plantation of cacao trees, many of them in full bearing. They were rather neglected, but had grown remarkably. I bought some of her produce for my own use.I was surprised to find that the Tagbanúas could read and write; one day I observed a messenger hand to one of them a strip of bark with some figures scratched on it, which the latter proceeded to read, and on inquiring from the missionary, I learnt that they had an alphabet of sixteen or seventeen letters. I obtained a copy of this from the Padre Zapater, and it will be found on page 319. They do not use a pen, but scratch the letters with the point of a knife, or with a nail, or thorn.The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat’s-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-colouredpatadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they callRima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionarytook a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support.The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.Whilst travelling through the jungle I found some natives cutting canes, and my interpreter pointed out to me an emaciated couple, and assured me that during the famine of the previous season, these poor wretches had killed and eaten their own child to save their lives. What a state of things in a country where maize will grow up and give edible grain in forty-two days from the date of planting it! I trust that the change of government may result in some benefit to these poor people, and that a Governor or Protector of Aborigines may be appointed with absolute power who will check the abuses of the half-caste and Chinese usurers, and give the poor down-trodden Tagbanúas, at one time I firmly believe a comparatively civilised people, a chance to live and thrive.Tandulanos.The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.Tagbanúa Alphabet.Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.Notes by the Padre Zapater.(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

Chapter XXXII.The Visayas Islands.Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.This name is given to the group of six considerable islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao, and also to the race inhabiting them. Beginning at the west, these islands are Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. There are also a number of smaller islands.Many of the larger as well as the smaller islands are thickly populated, and an extensive emigration takes place to the great and fertile island of Mindanao, where any amount of rich land waits the coming of the husbandmen. I can find no later records of population than the census of 1877. This may seem strange to an American, but to those who know the ignorance and ineptitude of the Spanish administration, it will seem a matter of course. Such data of the population as the Government Offices possess, are mostly due to the priests and the archbishop.Since 1877 there has undoubtedly been a great increase of population amongst the Visayas, and in 1887 the population of Panay was considered to be more than a million.The Visayas Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the Philippines. In Panay there are a few Negritos and Mundos; in Negros some Negritos and Carolanos. The illustration opposite p. 207 is a full-length photograph of Tek Taita, a Negrito from this island. InCebú a few Mundos live around the peak of Danao. In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but that they are reinforced continually byremontados, or fugitives from justice, also by people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the humdrum life of their village insupportable to them.The following Table gives the area of each of the six larger islands, and the population in 1877.Area in square miles.Population according to Census of 1877.Capitals.Panay (divided into three provinces—Capiz, Antique, Ilo-ilo)4,898777,7771Capiz.Antique.Ilo-ilo.Negros3,592204,669Bacolod.Cebú2,285403,296Cebú.Bohol1,226226,546Tagbilaran.Leyte3,706220,515Tacloban.Samar5,182178,890Catbalogan.2,011,693Panay.—This island is approximately an equilateral triangle, with the western edge nearly north and south, having one apex pointing south. A chain of mountains extends in a curved line from the northern to the southern point, enclosing an irregular strip of land which forms the province of Antique. The rivers in this part of the island are naturally short and unimportant. The northern part of the island is the province of Capiz, the principal river is the Panay, which, rising in the centre of the island, runs in a northerly direction for over thirty miles, entering the sea at the Bay of Sapian. The eastern and southern part of the island is the province of Ilo-ilo. The principal river is the Talana, which, rising quite near the source of the River Panay, runs in a southerly and south-easterly direction into the channel between Negros and Panay to the north of the island of Guimaras. There are many spurs to the principal range of mountains, but between them is a considerable extent of land under cultivation. The province ofIlo-ilo is one of the richest and most densely-populated in the Philippines. It now contains at least half a million inhabitants.Ilo-ilo is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of many nations reside there. Yet the port has neither wharves, cranes, moorings or lights. The coasting steamers drawing up to 13 feet enter a muddy creek and discharge their cargo on the banks as best they can, whilst the ocean-going ships lie out in the bay and receive their cargoes of sugar and other produce from lighters, upon each of which pilotage used to be charged for the benefit of an unnecessary number of pilots, and of the captain of the port, who received a share of the pilotage and strenuously resisted a reform of this abuse.Under American protection, Ilo-ilo may be expected to become a flourishing port, provided with every convenience for discharging, loading, and repairing ships, as becomes the importance of its trade. The town of Ilo-ilo contained many large buildings, some of them owned by British subjects. During the fighting last year, however, several buildings were burnt.During the Spanish rule the streets were entirely uncared for, being a series of mud-holes in the rainy season, and thick with dust and garbage in the dry season.The town and port together are notorious examples of all the worst characteristics of Spanish rule.The principal towns of this wealthy province are Pototan, Santa Barbara, Janiuay, and Cabatuan, each of which has more than 20,000 inhabitants.The industries and productions of this and the other islands are treated of under Visayas when describing the inhabitants.Negros.—A long island of irregular shape, lying between Panay and Cebú. Its axis is nearly north and south, and a chain of mountains runs up it, but nearer to the east than to the west coast.A little to the north of the centre of this chain, the celebrated volcano Canlaon raises its peak over 8300 feet. It is frequently in active eruption, and can be perceived at an immense distance when the atmosphere is clear. I have seen it and its long plume of vapour from a steamer when passing the north of the island.In the Sierra de Dumaguete, a range occupying the centre of the southern promontory of the island, and aboutthe centre of the range, there is the volcano of Bacon, about which little is known.Cebúis a long and narrow island something in the shape of an alligator, looked at from above, with the snout pointing to the southward and westward. It is opposite to Negros, and separated from that island by the Strait of Tanon. It is, in fact, a range of mountains rising out of the sea, and is very narrow, being nowhere more than 22 miles wide. There being a large population of Visayas, and the mountains not being very high, the wandering heathen have to a great extent been weeded out, and only a remnant of wretched Mundos remain about the crests of the cordillera.The capital city, Cebú, was the first in the Archipelago to possess a municipality, and was, in fact, until 1571, the capital of the Philippines.It possesses some fine buildings; is the seat of a bishop, and formerly of the Governor-General of Visayas. It is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of the principal nations reside there.There can be no rivers in an island of this configuration, for the water runs away as from the roof of a house. The crops and industries have been spoken of under the head ofVisayas.There are considerable beds of lignite near Compostela, and various efforts have been made to work them, so far, I fear, without much success. Remarkable shells, and some pearls are obtained round about Cebú and the adjacent islands.Bohollies off the southern half of the eastern coast of Cebú, and is only half the size of that island, but it has more than half the population. It is hilly, and the towns and villages are situated on the coast. Only the southern and eastern coast is visited by coasting vessels, the navigation to the north and west being impeded by a labyrinth of coral reefs. The soil of this island is not rich, and the more enterprising of the natives emigrate to Mindanao.Leyteis an island of very irregular shape—something like a hide pegged out on the ground—and lies between the northern half of Cebú and the southern part of Samar, from which it is only separated by a very narrow passage called the Janabatas Channel, and the Strait of San Juanico. The southern extremity of Leyte approaches the northern promontory of Mindanao, and forms the Straits of Surigao, thesecond entrance from the Pacific to the seas of the Archipelago. The island is mountainous, and has two lakes, one called Bito is at the narrowest part, and one called Jaro, near the town of that name. There are several good ports. The exports, which go to Manila, are hemp and sulphur of great purity.Samar.—This is the largest of the Visayas, and yet has fewest inhabitants. It lies to the eastward of all the other islands, and consequently its east coast, like that of Luzon and Mindanao, is exposed to the full fury of the north-east monsoon, and to the ravages of the heavy rollers of the Pacific that burst without warning on its rocky coast.Its chief port, Catbalogan, is situated on the western coast, and is well-sheltered. From the coast many lofty peaks are visible, but the interior of this island is little known. The exports are hemp and cocoa-nut oil. The northern point of Samar approaches the southern extremity of Luzon, and forms the historic Strait of San Bernardino, one of the entrances to the Philippine Archipelago from the Pacific. It was by this Strait that the annual galleon from Acapulco entered, and here also the British privateers lay in wait for their silver-laden prey.1The above was the Christian Visyas population, and is exclusive of Negritos, Mundos, and other heathen savages and remontados. The area is taken from a Spanish official report.

Chapter XXXII.The Visayas Islands.Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.

Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.

Area and population—Panay—Negros—Cebú—Bohol—Leyte—Samar.

This name is given to the group of six considerable islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao, and also to the race inhabiting them. Beginning at the west, these islands are Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. There are also a number of smaller islands.Many of the larger as well as the smaller islands are thickly populated, and an extensive emigration takes place to the great and fertile island of Mindanao, where any amount of rich land waits the coming of the husbandmen. I can find no later records of population than the census of 1877. This may seem strange to an American, but to those who know the ignorance and ineptitude of the Spanish administration, it will seem a matter of course. Such data of the population as the Government Offices possess, are mostly due to the priests and the archbishop.Since 1877 there has undoubtedly been a great increase of population amongst the Visayas, and in 1887 the population of Panay was considered to be more than a million.The Visayas Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the Philippines. In Panay there are a few Negritos and Mundos; in Negros some Negritos and Carolanos. The illustration opposite p. 207 is a full-length photograph of Tek Taita, a Negrito from this island. InCebú a few Mundos live around the peak of Danao. In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but that they are reinforced continually byremontados, or fugitives from justice, also by people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the humdrum life of their village insupportable to them.The following Table gives the area of each of the six larger islands, and the population in 1877.Area in square miles.Population according to Census of 1877.Capitals.Panay (divided into three provinces—Capiz, Antique, Ilo-ilo)4,898777,7771Capiz.Antique.Ilo-ilo.Negros3,592204,669Bacolod.Cebú2,285403,296Cebú.Bohol1,226226,546Tagbilaran.Leyte3,706220,515Tacloban.Samar5,182178,890Catbalogan.2,011,693Panay.—This island is approximately an equilateral triangle, with the western edge nearly north and south, having one apex pointing south. A chain of mountains extends in a curved line from the northern to the southern point, enclosing an irregular strip of land which forms the province of Antique. The rivers in this part of the island are naturally short and unimportant. The northern part of the island is the province of Capiz, the principal river is the Panay, which, rising in the centre of the island, runs in a northerly direction for over thirty miles, entering the sea at the Bay of Sapian. The eastern and southern part of the island is the province of Ilo-ilo. The principal river is the Talana, which, rising quite near the source of the River Panay, runs in a southerly and south-easterly direction into the channel between Negros and Panay to the north of the island of Guimaras. There are many spurs to the principal range of mountains, but between them is a considerable extent of land under cultivation. The province ofIlo-ilo is one of the richest and most densely-populated in the Philippines. It now contains at least half a million inhabitants.Ilo-ilo is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of many nations reside there. Yet the port has neither wharves, cranes, moorings or lights. The coasting steamers drawing up to 13 feet enter a muddy creek and discharge their cargo on the banks as best they can, whilst the ocean-going ships lie out in the bay and receive their cargoes of sugar and other produce from lighters, upon each of which pilotage used to be charged for the benefit of an unnecessary number of pilots, and of the captain of the port, who received a share of the pilotage and strenuously resisted a reform of this abuse.Under American protection, Ilo-ilo may be expected to become a flourishing port, provided with every convenience for discharging, loading, and repairing ships, as becomes the importance of its trade. The town of Ilo-ilo contained many large buildings, some of them owned by British subjects. During the fighting last year, however, several buildings were burnt.During the Spanish rule the streets were entirely uncared for, being a series of mud-holes in the rainy season, and thick with dust and garbage in the dry season.The town and port together are notorious examples of all the worst characteristics of Spanish rule.The principal towns of this wealthy province are Pototan, Santa Barbara, Janiuay, and Cabatuan, each of which has more than 20,000 inhabitants.The industries and productions of this and the other islands are treated of under Visayas when describing the inhabitants.Negros.—A long island of irregular shape, lying between Panay and Cebú. Its axis is nearly north and south, and a chain of mountains runs up it, but nearer to the east than to the west coast.A little to the north of the centre of this chain, the celebrated volcano Canlaon raises its peak over 8300 feet. It is frequently in active eruption, and can be perceived at an immense distance when the atmosphere is clear. I have seen it and its long plume of vapour from a steamer when passing the north of the island.In the Sierra de Dumaguete, a range occupying the centre of the southern promontory of the island, and aboutthe centre of the range, there is the volcano of Bacon, about which little is known.Cebúis a long and narrow island something in the shape of an alligator, looked at from above, with the snout pointing to the southward and westward. It is opposite to Negros, and separated from that island by the Strait of Tanon. It is, in fact, a range of mountains rising out of the sea, and is very narrow, being nowhere more than 22 miles wide. There being a large population of Visayas, and the mountains not being very high, the wandering heathen have to a great extent been weeded out, and only a remnant of wretched Mundos remain about the crests of the cordillera.The capital city, Cebú, was the first in the Archipelago to possess a municipality, and was, in fact, until 1571, the capital of the Philippines.It possesses some fine buildings; is the seat of a bishop, and formerly of the Governor-General of Visayas. It is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of the principal nations reside there.There can be no rivers in an island of this configuration, for the water runs away as from the roof of a house. The crops and industries have been spoken of under the head ofVisayas.There are considerable beds of lignite near Compostela, and various efforts have been made to work them, so far, I fear, without much success. Remarkable shells, and some pearls are obtained round about Cebú and the adjacent islands.Bohollies off the southern half of the eastern coast of Cebú, and is only half the size of that island, but it has more than half the population. It is hilly, and the towns and villages are situated on the coast. Only the southern and eastern coast is visited by coasting vessels, the navigation to the north and west being impeded by a labyrinth of coral reefs. The soil of this island is not rich, and the more enterprising of the natives emigrate to Mindanao.Leyteis an island of very irregular shape—something like a hide pegged out on the ground—and lies between the northern half of Cebú and the southern part of Samar, from which it is only separated by a very narrow passage called the Janabatas Channel, and the Strait of San Juanico. The southern extremity of Leyte approaches the northern promontory of Mindanao, and forms the Straits of Surigao, thesecond entrance from the Pacific to the seas of the Archipelago. The island is mountainous, and has two lakes, one called Bito is at the narrowest part, and one called Jaro, near the town of that name. There are several good ports. The exports, which go to Manila, are hemp and sulphur of great purity.Samar.—This is the largest of the Visayas, and yet has fewest inhabitants. It lies to the eastward of all the other islands, and consequently its east coast, like that of Luzon and Mindanao, is exposed to the full fury of the north-east monsoon, and to the ravages of the heavy rollers of the Pacific that burst without warning on its rocky coast.Its chief port, Catbalogan, is situated on the western coast, and is well-sheltered. From the coast many lofty peaks are visible, but the interior of this island is little known. The exports are hemp and cocoa-nut oil. The northern point of Samar approaches the southern extremity of Luzon, and forms the historic Strait of San Bernardino, one of the entrances to the Philippine Archipelago from the Pacific. It was by this Strait that the annual galleon from Acapulco entered, and here also the British privateers lay in wait for their silver-laden prey.

This name is given to the group of six considerable islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao, and also to the race inhabiting them. Beginning at the west, these islands are Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. There are also a number of smaller islands.

Many of the larger as well as the smaller islands are thickly populated, and an extensive emigration takes place to the great and fertile island of Mindanao, where any amount of rich land waits the coming of the husbandmen. I can find no later records of population than the census of 1877. This may seem strange to an American, but to those who know the ignorance and ineptitude of the Spanish administration, it will seem a matter of course. Such data of the population as the Government Offices possess, are mostly due to the priests and the archbishop.

Since 1877 there has undoubtedly been a great increase of population amongst the Visayas, and in 1887 the population of Panay was considered to be more than a million.

The Visayas Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the Philippines. In Panay there are a few Negritos and Mundos; in Negros some Negritos and Carolanos. The illustration opposite p. 207 is a full-length photograph of Tek Taita, a Negrito from this island. InCebú a few Mundos live around the peak of Danao. In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.

It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but that they are reinforced continually byremontados, or fugitives from justice, also by people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the humdrum life of their village insupportable to them.

The following Table gives the area of each of the six larger islands, and the population in 1877.

Area in square miles.Population according to Census of 1877.Capitals.Panay (divided into three provinces—Capiz, Antique, Ilo-ilo)4,898777,7771Capiz.Antique.Ilo-ilo.Negros3,592204,669Bacolod.Cebú2,285403,296Cebú.Bohol1,226226,546Tagbilaran.Leyte3,706220,515Tacloban.Samar5,182178,890Catbalogan.2,011,693

Panay.—This island is approximately an equilateral triangle, with the western edge nearly north and south, having one apex pointing south. A chain of mountains extends in a curved line from the northern to the southern point, enclosing an irregular strip of land which forms the province of Antique. The rivers in this part of the island are naturally short and unimportant. The northern part of the island is the province of Capiz, the principal river is the Panay, which, rising in the centre of the island, runs in a northerly direction for over thirty miles, entering the sea at the Bay of Sapian. The eastern and southern part of the island is the province of Ilo-ilo. The principal river is the Talana, which, rising quite near the source of the River Panay, runs in a southerly and south-easterly direction into the channel between Negros and Panay to the north of the island of Guimaras. There are many spurs to the principal range of mountains, but between them is a considerable extent of land under cultivation. The province ofIlo-ilo is one of the richest and most densely-populated in the Philippines. It now contains at least half a million inhabitants.

Ilo-ilo is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of many nations reside there. Yet the port has neither wharves, cranes, moorings or lights. The coasting steamers drawing up to 13 feet enter a muddy creek and discharge their cargo on the banks as best they can, whilst the ocean-going ships lie out in the bay and receive their cargoes of sugar and other produce from lighters, upon each of which pilotage used to be charged for the benefit of an unnecessary number of pilots, and of the captain of the port, who received a share of the pilotage and strenuously resisted a reform of this abuse.

Under American protection, Ilo-ilo may be expected to become a flourishing port, provided with every convenience for discharging, loading, and repairing ships, as becomes the importance of its trade. The town of Ilo-ilo contained many large buildings, some of them owned by British subjects. During the fighting last year, however, several buildings were burnt.

During the Spanish rule the streets were entirely uncared for, being a series of mud-holes in the rainy season, and thick with dust and garbage in the dry season.

The town and port together are notorious examples of all the worst characteristics of Spanish rule.

The principal towns of this wealthy province are Pototan, Santa Barbara, Janiuay, and Cabatuan, each of which has more than 20,000 inhabitants.

The industries and productions of this and the other islands are treated of under Visayas when describing the inhabitants.

Negros.—A long island of irregular shape, lying between Panay and Cebú. Its axis is nearly north and south, and a chain of mountains runs up it, but nearer to the east than to the west coast.

A little to the north of the centre of this chain, the celebrated volcano Canlaon raises its peak over 8300 feet. It is frequently in active eruption, and can be perceived at an immense distance when the atmosphere is clear. I have seen it and its long plume of vapour from a steamer when passing the north of the island.

In the Sierra de Dumaguete, a range occupying the centre of the southern promontory of the island, and aboutthe centre of the range, there is the volcano of Bacon, about which little is known.

Cebúis a long and narrow island something in the shape of an alligator, looked at from above, with the snout pointing to the southward and westward. It is opposite to Negros, and separated from that island by the Strait of Tanon. It is, in fact, a range of mountains rising out of the sea, and is very narrow, being nowhere more than 22 miles wide. There being a large population of Visayas, and the mountains not being very high, the wandering heathen have to a great extent been weeded out, and only a remnant of wretched Mundos remain about the crests of the cordillera.

The capital city, Cebú, was the first in the Archipelago to possess a municipality, and was, in fact, until 1571, the capital of the Philippines.

It possesses some fine buildings; is the seat of a bishop, and formerly of the Governor-General of Visayas. It is open to foreign commerce, and vice-consuls of the principal nations reside there.

There can be no rivers in an island of this configuration, for the water runs away as from the roof of a house. The crops and industries have been spoken of under the head ofVisayas.

There are considerable beds of lignite near Compostela, and various efforts have been made to work them, so far, I fear, without much success. Remarkable shells, and some pearls are obtained round about Cebú and the adjacent islands.

Bohollies off the southern half of the eastern coast of Cebú, and is only half the size of that island, but it has more than half the population. It is hilly, and the towns and villages are situated on the coast. Only the southern and eastern coast is visited by coasting vessels, the navigation to the north and west being impeded by a labyrinth of coral reefs. The soil of this island is not rich, and the more enterprising of the natives emigrate to Mindanao.

Leyteis an island of very irregular shape—something like a hide pegged out on the ground—and lies between the northern half of Cebú and the southern part of Samar, from which it is only separated by a very narrow passage called the Janabatas Channel, and the Strait of San Juanico. The southern extremity of Leyte approaches the northern promontory of Mindanao, and forms the Straits of Surigao, thesecond entrance from the Pacific to the seas of the Archipelago. The island is mountainous, and has two lakes, one called Bito is at the narrowest part, and one called Jaro, near the town of that name. There are several good ports. The exports, which go to Manila, are hemp and sulphur of great purity.

Samar.—This is the largest of the Visayas, and yet has fewest inhabitants. It lies to the eastward of all the other islands, and consequently its east coast, like that of Luzon and Mindanao, is exposed to the full fury of the north-east monsoon, and to the ravages of the heavy rollers of the Pacific that burst without warning on its rocky coast.

Its chief port, Catbalogan, is situated on the western coast, and is well-sheltered. From the coast many lofty peaks are visible, but the interior of this island is little known. The exports are hemp and cocoa-nut oil. The northern point of Samar approaches the southern extremity of Luzon, and forms the historic Strait of San Bernardino, one of the entrances to the Philippine Archipelago from the Pacific. It was by this Strait that the annual galleon from Acapulco entered, and here also the British privateers lay in wait for their silver-laden prey.

1The above was the Christian Visyas population, and is exclusive of Negritos, Mundos, and other heathen savages and remontados. The area is taken from a Spanish official report.

1The above was the Christian Visyas population, and is exclusive of Negritos, Mundos, and other heathen savages and remontados. The area is taken from a Spanish official report.

Chapter XXXIII.The Visayas Race.Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most important race in the Philippines is the Visaya, formerly called Pintados, or painted men, from the blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of the islands called Visayas and of some others.They occupy the south coast of Masbate, the islands of Romblon, Bohol, Sibuyan, Samar, and Leyte, Tablas, Panay, Negros, and Cebú, all the lesser islands of the Visayas group and the greater part of the coast of the great island of Mindanao. In that island the Caragas, a very warlike branch of the Visayas, occupy the coast of the old kingdom of Caraga on the east from Punta Cauit to Punta San Agustin.Another branch of the Visayas distinguished by a darker colour and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito mixture, occupies the Calamiancs and Cuyos Islands, and the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia Honda.In appearance the Visayas differ somewhat from the Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than the Tagals, and the women wear apatadioninstead of a saya and tapis.The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard wide and overtwo yards long, the ends of which are sewn together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it round the figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front into a wide fold, and tucking it in securely at the waist. Thesayais a made skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and thetapisis a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round the waist over the saya.In disposition they are less sociable and hospitable than the Tagals, and less clean in their persons and clothing. They have a language of their own, and there are several dialects of it. The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix maize. They flavour their food with red pepper to a greater extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting. They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig and deer. They cut the flesh of the latter into thin strips and dry it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires good teeth to get through it.The Visayas build a number of canoes, paraos, barotos, and vintas, and are very confident on the water, putting to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be expected. Their houses are similarly constructed to those of the other inhabitants of the littoral.Ancient writers accused the Visaya women of great sensuality and unbounded immorality, and gave details of some very curious customs, which are unsuitable for general publication. However, the customs I refer to have been long obsolete among the Visayas, although still existing amongst some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaya women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children, but infant mortality is high, and they rear but few of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals—they manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink. They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visaya regiment would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When discovered by the Spaniards, they were to a great extent civilised and organised in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn formed a very favourable opinion of them—he writes, both men and women are well-mannered and of agood disposition, of better condition and nobler behaviour than those of the Island of Luzon and others adjacent.They had learnt much from Arab and Bornean adventurers, especially from the former, whose superior physique, learning, and sanctity, as coming from the country of the Prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the daughters of the Rajas or petty kings. They had brought with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old Visaya religion was not unlike that of the Tagals, they called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos—their marriage customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.The ancestors of the Visayas were converted to Christianity at, or soon after, the Spanish conquest. They have thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant war with the Mahometan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu, and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some localities they still show a strong hankering after witchcraft, and practise secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigilance of the parish priests.A friar of the order of Recollets who had held a benefice in Bohol, assured me that they have a secret heathen organisation, although every member is a professing Christian, taking the Sacrament on the great feasts of the Church. They hold a secret triennial meeting of their adherents, who come over from other islands to be present. The meeting is held in some lonely valley, or on some desert island, where their vessels can lie concealed, always far from any church or priest. All the Recollet could tell me about the ceremonies was that the sacrifice of pigs formed an important part of itThe Visayas are no less credulous than the Tagals, for in Samar, during my recollection, there have been several disturbances caused by fanatics who went about in rags, and by prayers, incoherent speeches, and self-mortification acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The poor ignorant people, deluded by these impostors, who gave themselves out to be gods, and as such, impervious to bullets, and immortal, abandoned their homes and followed these false gods wherever they went, listening to their wild promises, and expecting great miracles. They soon came into collision with the Guardia Civil; and on one occasion, armed only with clubs and knives, they made a determined charge on a small party of this corps under the command of anative officer. The Guardia Civil formed across the road and poured several steady volleys into the advancing crowd, breaking them up and dispersing them with heavy loss and killing the false god. The native officer received the laurel-wreathed cross of San Fernando as a reward for his services.The Visayas are taxed with great indolence, yet they are almost the only working people in districts which export a great quantity of produce. Leyte and Samar produce a good many bales of excellent hemp, and it should be remembered that every bale represents at least twelve days’ hard work of one man in cleaning the fibre only, without counting the cultivation, conveyance to the port, pressing, baling, and shipping.In Negros and Panay the sugar estates are much larger than in Luzon, and mostly belong to Spaniards or mestizos. They are not worked byaparceriaas in Luzon, but the labourers are paid by the day. Great troubles often occur as bands of labourers present themselves on the plantations and offer to work, but demand an advance of pay. Sometimes, after receiving it, they work a few days and then depart without notice, leaving the planter in great difficulty and without redress. Strict laws against vagrants are urgently required in Visayas. On the other hand the planter is more free to introduce improvements and alterations than when working by aparceria when he has to consult theinquilinoor cultivator about any change. The cane-mills are much larger than in Luzon, and are mostly worked by steam engines.The sugar is handled differently from the custom of Pampanga. Pilones are not used, and no manipulation infarderiasis required to prepare it for export. The cane-juice is carefully clarified and skimmed, then boiled in open pans to a much higher point than when making pilon-sugar, and to get it to this point without burning or over-heating much care and experience is required.From the teache it is ladled into large wooden trays, always in thin layers, and is there beaten up with heavy spatulas until it becomes, on cooling, a pale yellow amorphous mass. It is packed in mat-bags, and is then ready for shipment. It travels well and loses but little during a Voyage to San Francisco or New York. None of it goes to England, which is now entirely supplied by the vile beet sugar “made in Germany,” except for a few hundredtons of Demerara crystals imported for use by connoisseurs to sweeten their coffee.Ilo-ilo sugar is shipped under three marks, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. An assortment or cargo of this sugar should consist of 1–8th No. 1, 2–8ths No. 2, 5–8ths No. 3.A representative analysis of Ilo-ilo sugar is as follows:No. 1.No. 2.No. 3.Per Cent.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar86.6084.5081.20Glucose5.405.506.56Mineral matter (ash)1.502.563.72Sandtrace.241.28In Cebú the properties are small and are mostly in the hands of Visayas. There are, perhaps, five or six steam-mills, but most of the cane is ground in cattle-mills. They follow the practice of negroes in making sugars direct for export, but the produce is of a lower quality. An analysis of the Cebú sugar is as follows:Cebú Superior.Cebú Current.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar81.1071.00Glucose7.9012.50Mineral matter (ash)2.162.23The sugar produced in the other Visayas islands is quite insignificant.Visayas Women at a Loom.Visayas Women at a Loom.[To face p. 305.Ilo-ilo and Cebú are the principal ports in the Visayas territory. Besides what they shipped to Manila in 1897, they exported directly to the United States, Great Britain, or other countries, the following: Ilo-ilo, 127,744 tons of sugar; 51,300 piculs of Sapan wood; Cebú, 15,444 tons of sugar; 80,271 bales of hemp; 46,414 piculs of Copra. Andit must be remembered that the Visayas cultivate most of the rice, maize, and other food-stuffs which they consume, and also make their own instruments of agriculture. Besides this, Ilo-ilo exported to other parts of the Philippines a million dollars’ worth of textiles of cotton, silk, and other fibres, made by the Visayas women in hand-looms. The women in Antique make the finest piña, a beautiful transparent texture of the utmost delicacy, woven from the fibres of the leaves of a non-fruiting pine (ananas). When doing the finest work they have to keep their doors and windows closed, for the least draught would break or disarrange the delicate filaments. The export from other ports in Visayas of textiles of cotton and silk is considerable, and, in addition to what they sell, the Visayas women weave most of the material for their own clothing and for that of the men.The Visayas also export mat-bags for sugar, which are called bayones; mats for sleeping on, called petates or esteras; pillows stuffed with cotton, hides, mother-of-pearl shell, Balate (Bèche de Mer), edible bird’s-nests, gutta-percha, gum-dammar, wax, rattans, coffee (of indifferent quality), and leaf tobacco. Both the island of Panay and the coasts of Negros are dotted over with cane plantations.The Visayas extract oil from cocoa-nuts and forge excellent weapons from scrap iron. The bands from bales of Manchester goods are much esteemed for this purpose.If we take all these points into consideration, the Visayas may not appear so deplorably indolent as they have been said to be. When writing of the other races, I have pointed out that the indolence imputed to them rather goes beyond what is warranted by the facts.It will be understood that there are degrees in the civilisation of the Visayas, and as amongst the Tagals and other races, considerable differences will be found to exist between the dwellers in the towns and those in the outlying hamlets, whilst the Remontados may be considered to have relapsed into savagery.The Visayas do a certain amount of trade with the heathen hill-men of their islands, and as will be pointed out when describing these tribes, it is hard to say whether the Christian Visayas or the Mahometan Malays rob these poor savages more shamefully.The Visayas are a promising race, and I feel sure that when they have a good government that will not extort tooheavy taxes from them, nor allow the native and half-caste usurers to eat them up, their agriculture and industries will surprisingly increase.It is to the Visayas that the American Government must look to provide a militia that will now hold in check, and ultimately subjugate, the piratical Moros of Mindanao and Paragua. The fighting qualities of this race, developed by centuries of combat with their Mahometan aggressors in defence of hearths and homes, will be found quite sufficient if they are well armed and led to make an end of the Moro power within a very few years.That this aspiration is one well worthy of the countrymen of Decatur, will, I think, be admitted by all who have read my description of the Moros under the heading of Mindanao.

Chapter XXXIII.The Visayas Race.Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.

Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.

Appearance—Dress—Look upon Tagals as foreigners—Favourable opinion of Tomas de Comyn—Old Christians—Constant wars with the Moro pirates and Sea Dayaks—Secret heathen rites—Accusation of indolence unfounded—Exports of hemp and sugar—Ilo-ilo sugar—Cebú sugar—Textiles—A promising race.

The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most important race in the Philippines is the Visaya, formerly called Pintados, or painted men, from the blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of the islands called Visayas and of some others.They occupy the south coast of Masbate, the islands of Romblon, Bohol, Sibuyan, Samar, and Leyte, Tablas, Panay, Negros, and Cebú, all the lesser islands of the Visayas group and the greater part of the coast of the great island of Mindanao. In that island the Caragas, a very warlike branch of the Visayas, occupy the coast of the old kingdom of Caraga on the east from Punta Cauit to Punta San Agustin.Another branch of the Visayas distinguished by a darker colour and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito mixture, occupies the Calamiancs and Cuyos Islands, and the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia Honda.In appearance the Visayas differ somewhat from the Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than the Tagals, and the women wear apatadioninstead of a saya and tapis.The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard wide and overtwo yards long, the ends of which are sewn together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it round the figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front into a wide fold, and tucking it in securely at the waist. Thesayais a made skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and thetapisis a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round the waist over the saya.In disposition they are less sociable and hospitable than the Tagals, and less clean in their persons and clothing. They have a language of their own, and there are several dialects of it. The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix maize. They flavour their food with red pepper to a greater extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting. They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig and deer. They cut the flesh of the latter into thin strips and dry it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires good teeth to get through it.The Visayas build a number of canoes, paraos, barotos, and vintas, and are very confident on the water, putting to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be expected. Their houses are similarly constructed to those of the other inhabitants of the littoral.Ancient writers accused the Visaya women of great sensuality and unbounded immorality, and gave details of some very curious customs, which are unsuitable for general publication. However, the customs I refer to have been long obsolete among the Visayas, although still existing amongst some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaya women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children, but infant mortality is high, and they rear but few of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals—they manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink. They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visaya regiment would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When discovered by the Spaniards, they were to a great extent civilised and organised in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn formed a very favourable opinion of them—he writes, both men and women are well-mannered and of agood disposition, of better condition and nobler behaviour than those of the Island of Luzon and others adjacent.They had learnt much from Arab and Bornean adventurers, especially from the former, whose superior physique, learning, and sanctity, as coming from the country of the Prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the daughters of the Rajas or petty kings. They had brought with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old Visaya religion was not unlike that of the Tagals, they called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos—their marriage customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.The ancestors of the Visayas were converted to Christianity at, or soon after, the Spanish conquest. They have thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant war with the Mahometan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu, and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some localities they still show a strong hankering after witchcraft, and practise secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigilance of the parish priests.A friar of the order of Recollets who had held a benefice in Bohol, assured me that they have a secret heathen organisation, although every member is a professing Christian, taking the Sacrament on the great feasts of the Church. They hold a secret triennial meeting of their adherents, who come over from other islands to be present. The meeting is held in some lonely valley, or on some desert island, where their vessels can lie concealed, always far from any church or priest. All the Recollet could tell me about the ceremonies was that the sacrifice of pigs formed an important part of itThe Visayas are no less credulous than the Tagals, for in Samar, during my recollection, there have been several disturbances caused by fanatics who went about in rags, and by prayers, incoherent speeches, and self-mortification acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The poor ignorant people, deluded by these impostors, who gave themselves out to be gods, and as such, impervious to bullets, and immortal, abandoned their homes and followed these false gods wherever they went, listening to their wild promises, and expecting great miracles. They soon came into collision with the Guardia Civil; and on one occasion, armed only with clubs and knives, they made a determined charge on a small party of this corps under the command of anative officer. The Guardia Civil formed across the road and poured several steady volleys into the advancing crowd, breaking them up and dispersing them with heavy loss and killing the false god. The native officer received the laurel-wreathed cross of San Fernando as a reward for his services.The Visayas are taxed with great indolence, yet they are almost the only working people in districts which export a great quantity of produce. Leyte and Samar produce a good many bales of excellent hemp, and it should be remembered that every bale represents at least twelve days’ hard work of one man in cleaning the fibre only, without counting the cultivation, conveyance to the port, pressing, baling, and shipping.In Negros and Panay the sugar estates are much larger than in Luzon, and mostly belong to Spaniards or mestizos. They are not worked byaparceriaas in Luzon, but the labourers are paid by the day. Great troubles often occur as bands of labourers present themselves on the plantations and offer to work, but demand an advance of pay. Sometimes, after receiving it, they work a few days and then depart without notice, leaving the planter in great difficulty and without redress. Strict laws against vagrants are urgently required in Visayas. On the other hand the planter is more free to introduce improvements and alterations than when working by aparceria when he has to consult theinquilinoor cultivator about any change. The cane-mills are much larger than in Luzon, and are mostly worked by steam engines.The sugar is handled differently from the custom of Pampanga. Pilones are not used, and no manipulation infarderiasis required to prepare it for export. The cane-juice is carefully clarified and skimmed, then boiled in open pans to a much higher point than when making pilon-sugar, and to get it to this point without burning or over-heating much care and experience is required.From the teache it is ladled into large wooden trays, always in thin layers, and is there beaten up with heavy spatulas until it becomes, on cooling, a pale yellow amorphous mass. It is packed in mat-bags, and is then ready for shipment. It travels well and loses but little during a Voyage to San Francisco or New York. None of it goes to England, which is now entirely supplied by the vile beet sugar “made in Germany,” except for a few hundredtons of Demerara crystals imported for use by connoisseurs to sweeten their coffee.Ilo-ilo sugar is shipped under three marks, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. An assortment or cargo of this sugar should consist of 1–8th No. 1, 2–8ths No. 2, 5–8ths No. 3.A representative analysis of Ilo-ilo sugar is as follows:No. 1.No. 2.No. 3.Per Cent.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar86.6084.5081.20Glucose5.405.506.56Mineral matter (ash)1.502.563.72Sandtrace.241.28In Cebú the properties are small and are mostly in the hands of Visayas. There are, perhaps, five or six steam-mills, but most of the cane is ground in cattle-mills. They follow the practice of negroes in making sugars direct for export, but the produce is of a lower quality. An analysis of the Cebú sugar is as follows:Cebú Superior.Cebú Current.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar81.1071.00Glucose7.9012.50Mineral matter (ash)2.162.23The sugar produced in the other Visayas islands is quite insignificant.Visayas Women at a Loom.Visayas Women at a Loom.[To face p. 305.Ilo-ilo and Cebú are the principal ports in the Visayas territory. Besides what they shipped to Manila in 1897, they exported directly to the United States, Great Britain, or other countries, the following: Ilo-ilo, 127,744 tons of sugar; 51,300 piculs of Sapan wood; Cebú, 15,444 tons of sugar; 80,271 bales of hemp; 46,414 piculs of Copra. Andit must be remembered that the Visayas cultivate most of the rice, maize, and other food-stuffs which they consume, and also make their own instruments of agriculture. Besides this, Ilo-ilo exported to other parts of the Philippines a million dollars’ worth of textiles of cotton, silk, and other fibres, made by the Visayas women in hand-looms. The women in Antique make the finest piña, a beautiful transparent texture of the utmost delicacy, woven from the fibres of the leaves of a non-fruiting pine (ananas). When doing the finest work they have to keep their doors and windows closed, for the least draught would break or disarrange the delicate filaments. The export from other ports in Visayas of textiles of cotton and silk is considerable, and, in addition to what they sell, the Visayas women weave most of the material for their own clothing and for that of the men.The Visayas also export mat-bags for sugar, which are called bayones; mats for sleeping on, called petates or esteras; pillows stuffed with cotton, hides, mother-of-pearl shell, Balate (Bèche de Mer), edible bird’s-nests, gutta-percha, gum-dammar, wax, rattans, coffee (of indifferent quality), and leaf tobacco. Both the island of Panay and the coasts of Negros are dotted over with cane plantations.The Visayas extract oil from cocoa-nuts and forge excellent weapons from scrap iron. The bands from bales of Manchester goods are much esteemed for this purpose.If we take all these points into consideration, the Visayas may not appear so deplorably indolent as they have been said to be. When writing of the other races, I have pointed out that the indolence imputed to them rather goes beyond what is warranted by the facts.It will be understood that there are degrees in the civilisation of the Visayas, and as amongst the Tagals and other races, considerable differences will be found to exist between the dwellers in the towns and those in the outlying hamlets, whilst the Remontados may be considered to have relapsed into savagery.The Visayas do a certain amount of trade with the heathen hill-men of their islands, and as will be pointed out when describing these tribes, it is hard to say whether the Christian Visayas or the Mahometan Malays rob these poor savages more shamefully.The Visayas are a promising race, and I feel sure that when they have a good government that will not extort tooheavy taxes from them, nor allow the native and half-caste usurers to eat them up, their agriculture and industries will surprisingly increase.It is to the Visayas that the American Government must look to provide a militia that will now hold in check, and ultimately subjugate, the piratical Moros of Mindanao and Paragua. The fighting qualities of this race, developed by centuries of combat with their Mahometan aggressors in defence of hearths and homes, will be found quite sufficient if they are well armed and led to make an end of the Moro power within a very few years.That this aspiration is one well worthy of the countrymen of Decatur, will, I think, be admitted by all who have read my description of the Moros under the heading of Mindanao.

The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most important race in the Philippines is the Visaya, formerly called Pintados, or painted men, from the blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of the islands called Visayas and of some others.

They occupy the south coast of Masbate, the islands of Romblon, Bohol, Sibuyan, Samar, and Leyte, Tablas, Panay, Negros, and Cebú, all the lesser islands of the Visayas group and the greater part of the coast of the great island of Mindanao. In that island the Caragas, a very warlike branch of the Visayas, occupy the coast of the old kingdom of Caraga on the east from Punta Cauit to Punta San Agustin.

Another branch of the Visayas distinguished by a darker colour and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito mixture, occupies the Calamiancs and Cuyos Islands, and the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia Honda.

In appearance the Visayas differ somewhat from the Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than the Tagals, and the women wear apatadioninstead of a saya and tapis.

The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard wide and overtwo yards long, the ends of which are sewn together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it round the figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front into a wide fold, and tucking it in securely at the waist. Thesayais a made skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and thetapisis a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round the waist over the saya.

In disposition they are less sociable and hospitable than the Tagals, and less clean in their persons and clothing. They have a language of their own, and there are several dialects of it. The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix maize. They flavour their food with red pepper to a greater extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting. They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig and deer. They cut the flesh of the latter into thin strips and dry it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires good teeth to get through it.

The Visayas build a number of canoes, paraos, barotos, and vintas, and are very confident on the water, putting to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be expected. Their houses are similarly constructed to those of the other inhabitants of the littoral.

Ancient writers accused the Visaya women of great sensuality and unbounded immorality, and gave details of some very curious customs, which are unsuitable for general publication. However, the customs I refer to have been long obsolete among the Visayas, although still existing amongst some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaya women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children, but infant mortality is high, and they rear but few of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals—they manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink. They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visaya regiment would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When discovered by the Spaniards, they were to a great extent civilised and organised in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn formed a very favourable opinion of them—he writes, both men and women are well-mannered and of agood disposition, of better condition and nobler behaviour than those of the Island of Luzon and others adjacent.

They had learnt much from Arab and Bornean adventurers, especially from the former, whose superior physique, learning, and sanctity, as coming from the country of the Prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the daughters of the Rajas or petty kings. They had brought with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old Visaya religion was not unlike that of the Tagals, they called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos—their marriage customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.

The ancestors of the Visayas were converted to Christianity at, or soon after, the Spanish conquest. They have thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant war with the Mahometan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu, and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some localities they still show a strong hankering after witchcraft, and practise secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigilance of the parish priests.

A friar of the order of Recollets who had held a benefice in Bohol, assured me that they have a secret heathen organisation, although every member is a professing Christian, taking the Sacrament on the great feasts of the Church. They hold a secret triennial meeting of their adherents, who come over from other islands to be present. The meeting is held in some lonely valley, or on some desert island, where their vessels can lie concealed, always far from any church or priest. All the Recollet could tell me about the ceremonies was that the sacrifice of pigs formed an important part of it

The Visayas are no less credulous than the Tagals, for in Samar, during my recollection, there have been several disturbances caused by fanatics who went about in rags, and by prayers, incoherent speeches, and self-mortification acquired a great reputation for sanctity. The poor ignorant people, deluded by these impostors, who gave themselves out to be gods, and as such, impervious to bullets, and immortal, abandoned their homes and followed these false gods wherever they went, listening to their wild promises, and expecting great miracles. They soon came into collision with the Guardia Civil; and on one occasion, armed only with clubs and knives, they made a determined charge on a small party of this corps under the command of anative officer. The Guardia Civil formed across the road and poured several steady volleys into the advancing crowd, breaking them up and dispersing them with heavy loss and killing the false god. The native officer received the laurel-wreathed cross of San Fernando as a reward for his services.

The Visayas are taxed with great indolence, yet they are almost the only working people in districts which export a great quantity of produce. Leyte and Samar produce a good many bales of excellent hemp, and it should be remembered that every bale represents at least twelve days’ hard work of one man in cleaning the fibre only, without counting the cultivation, conveyance to the port, pressing, baling, and shipping.

In Negros and Panay the sugar estates are much larger than in Luzon, and mostly belong to Spaniards or mestizos. They are not worked byaparceriaas in Luzon, but the labourers are paid by the day. Great troubles often occur as bands of labourers present themselves on the plantations and offer to work, but demand an advance of pay. Sometimes, after receiving it, they work a few days and then depart without notice, leaving the planter in great difficulty and without redress. Strict laws against vagrants are urgently required in Visayas. On the other hand the planter is more free to introduce improvements and alterations than when working by aparceria when he has to consult theinquilinoor cultivator about any change. The cane-mills are much larger than in Luzon, and are mostly worked by steam engines.

The sugar is handled differently from the custom of Pampanga. Pilones are not used, and no manipulation infarderiasis required to prepare it for export. The cane-juice is carefully clarified and skimmed, then boiled in open pans to a much higher point than when making pilon-sugar, and to get it to this point without burning or over-heating much care and experience is required.

From the teache it is ladled into large wooden trays, always in thin layers, and is there beaten up with heavy spatulas until it becomes, on cooling, a pale yellow amorphous mass. It is packed in mat-bags, and is then ready for shipment. It travels well and loses but little during a Voyage to San Francisco or New York. None of it goes to England, which is now entirely supplied by the vile beet sugar “made in Germany,” except for a few hundredtons of Demerara crystals imported for use by connoisseurs to sweeten their coffee.

Ilo-ilo sugar is shipped under three marks, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. An assortment or cargo of this sugar should consist of 1–8th No. 1, 2–8ths No. 2, 5–8ths No. 3.

A representative analysis of Ilo-ilo sugar is as follows:

No. 1.No. 2.No. 3.Per Cent.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar86.6084.5081.20Glucose5.405.506.56Mineral matter (ash)1.502.563.72Sandtrace.241.28

In Cebú the properties are small and are mostly in the hands of Visayas. There are, perhaps, five or six steam-mills, but most of the cane is ground in cattle-mills. They follow the practice of negroes in making sugars direct for export, but the produce is of a lower quality. An analysis of the Cebú sugar is as follows:

Cebú Superior.Cebú Current.Per Cent.Per Cent.Crystallizable sugar81.1071.00Glucose7.9012.50Mineral matter (ash)2.162.23

The sugar produced in the other Visayas islands is quite insignificant.

Visayas Women at a Loom.Visayas Women at a Loom.[To face p. 305.

Visayas Women at a Loom.

[To face p. 305.

Ilo-ilo and Cebú are the principal ports in the Visayas territory. Besides what they shipped to Manila in 1897, they exported directly to the United States, Great Britain, or other countries, the following: Ilo-ilo, 127,744 tons of sugar; 51,300 piculs of Sapan wood; Cebú, 15,444 tons of sugar; 80,271 bales of hemp; 46,414 piculs of Copra. Andit must be remembered that the Visayas cultivate most of the rice, maize, and other food-stuffs which they consume, and also make their own instruments of agriculture. Besides this, Ilo-ilo exported to other parts of the Philippines a million dollars’ worth of textiles of cotton, silk, and other fibres, made by the Visayas women in hand-looms. The women in Antique make the finest piña, a beautiful transparent texture of the utmost delicacy, woven from the fibres of the leaves of a non-fruiting pine (ananas). When doing the finest work they have to keep their doors and windows closed, for the least draught would break or disarrange the delicate filaments. The export from other ports in Visayas of textiles of cotton and silk is considerable, and, in addition to what they sell, the Visayas women weave most of the material for their own clothing and for that of the men.

The Visayas also export mat-bags for sugar, which are called bayones; mats for sleeping on, called petates or esteras; pillows stuffed with cotton, hides, mother-of-pearl shell, Balate (Bèche de Mer), edible bird’s-nests, gutta-percha, gum-dammar, wax, rattans, coffee (of indifferent quality), and leaf tobacco. Both the island of Panay and the coasts of Negros are dotted over with cane plantations.

The Visayas extract oil from cocoa-nuts and forge excellent weapons from scrap iron. The bands from bales of Manchester goods are much esteemed for this purpose.

If we take all these points into consideration, the Visayas may not appear so deplorably indolent as they have been said to be. When writing of the other races, I have pointed out that the indolence imputed to them rather goes beyond what is warranted by the facts.

It will be understood that there are degrees in the civilisation of the Visayas, and as amongst the Tagals and other races, considerable differences will be found to exist between the dwellers in the towns and those in the outlying hamlets, whilst the Remontados may be considered to have relapsed into savagery.

The Visayas do a certain amount of trade with the heathen hill-men of their islands, and as will be pointed out when describing these tribes, it is hard to say whether the Christian Visayas or the Mahometan Malays rob these poor savages more shamefully.

The Visayas are a promising race, and I feel sure that when they have a good government that will not extort tooheavy taxes from them, nor allow the native and half-caste usurers to eat them up, their agriculture and industries will surprisingly increase.

It is to the Visayas that the American Government must look to provide a militia that will now hold in check, and ultimately subjugate, the piratical Moros of Mindanao and Paragua. The fighting qualities of this race, developed by centuries of combat with their Mahometan aggressors in defence of hearths and homes, will be found quite sufficient if they are well armed and led to make an end of the Moro power within a very few years.

That this aspiration is one well worthy of the countrymen of Decatur, will, I think, be admitted by all who have read my description of the Moros under the heading of Mindanao.

Chapter XXXIV.The Island of Palawan, or Paragua.The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.The island of Palawan, or, as it is called by the Spaniards, La Paragua, is situated between the parallels 8° 25′ and 11° 30′ N. lat. The capital, Puerto Princesa, was founded in 1872, and is situated on the east coast in lat. 9° 45′, being 354 miles from Manila, 210 miles from North Borneo, and 510 miles from Singapore. Palawan is about 250 miles long, and from 10 to 25 wide, with an area of about 5833 square miles, the third in size of the Philippine Islands. There are several good ports in the northern part, which is much broken up, and its coasts studded with numerous islets, forming secure anchorages.Off the western coast is a large submarine bank, with many coral reefs and islets. The navigation on this coast is very dangerous, and can only be done in daylight.The harbour of Puerto Princesa is an excellent one, and sufficiently large for all requirements.Limestone and other sedimentary formations predominate. No volcanic rocks are known to exist. It is conjectured that the island has been formed by an upheaval, and it bears little resemblance geologically to any of the other Philippines. Plastic clays suitable for making bricks, tiles, and pottery, abound.Nothing is known about the mineralogy, except that rock-crystal is found, a magnificent specimen of great purity and value was sent from the island to the Madrid Exhibition of 1887.A chain of mountains, with peaks of varying elevation up to 6500 feet, runs lengthways of the island, much nearerto the western coast than to the eastern. The descent from the summits to the eastern coast is, therefore, gradual, and on the western coast it is abrupt. Mount Staveley, Mount Beaufort (3740 feet), Pico Pulgar (4330 feet), and the Peaks of Anepalian, are in the central part of the island.The following record is taken from the observations made by Captain Canga-Arguelles, a former governor, during his residence of three years in Puerto Princesa.Month.Mean Temp.Barometer.Fahrenheit.Inches.Rainy Days.January8530.344February81303March8530.074April8729.925May8429.804June8229.9012July80..17August8229.844September7929.8820October8529.9020November8229.958December82304Mean82.83105It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants numberabout 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—Tagbuanas, estimated to number6,000Tandulanos, estimated to number1,500Negritos, estimated to number500Manguianes, estimated to number4,000——12,000This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.Amongst the timbers mentioned in the Woods and Forests lists are ebony, camagon, teak, cedar, dungon, banaba, guíjo, molave, and many others of value. The forest or jungle-produce will comprise: charcoal, firewood, bamboos, rattans, nipa (attap), orchids, wax, gums, resins, and camphor. Edible birds’-nests are found in various localities. Fish is abundant in the waters, and balate (Bèche de mer) is collected on the shores and reefs.Puerto Princesa is visited by a mail steamer from Manila once in twenty-eight days. A garrison of two companies of infantry was kept there, and several small gun-boats were stationed there, which went periodicallyround the island. Piracy was completely suppressed, and the Mahometan Malays were kept in good order by the Spanish forces.The dense primeval forests which have existed for ages, untouched by the hand of man, undevastated by typhoons, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, must necessarily have produced an enormous quantity of decayed vegetable matter, rich in humus, and such a soil on a limestone subsoil, mixed with the detritus washed down from the mountains, may reasonably be expected to be of the highest fertility, and, perhaps, to be equal to the richest lands of the earth, most specially for the cultivation of tobacco.The varied climates to be found from the sea-level to the tops of the mountains should allow the cultivation of maize, rice, sugar-cane, cotton, cacao, coffee, and hemp, each in the zone most favourable to its growth and fruitfulness. The exemption from typhoons enjoyed by this region is most important as regards the cultivation of the aborescent species, and the cocoa-nut palm would prove highly remunerative on land not suited for other crops.Tagbanúas.The Tagbanúas are said to be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Palawan. I understand that this word comes fromTaga, an inhabitant, andbanua, country, and therefore means an original inhabitant of the country, as opposed to later arrivals.They inhabit the district betweenInagáhuan, on the east coast, and Ulugan and Apurahuan, on the west coast. Their numbers in 1888 were estimated at 6000. In 1890 I spent ten days amongst these people, and employed a number of them as porters to carry my tent, provisions, and equipment, when travelling on foot through the forests to report on the value of a concession in the neighbourhood of Yuahit and Inagáhuan. I therefore describe them from personal knowledge. They are of a yellowish colour, and generally similar to the Mahometan Malays of Mindanao. Those who have settled down and cultivated land have a robust and healthy appearance; but those who are nomadic, mostly suffered from skin diseases, and some were quite emaciated. Their Maestro de Campo, the recognised head of their tribe, lived near Inagáhuan, and I visited him athis house, and found him quite communicative through an interpreter.Maestro de Campo is an obsolete military rank in Spain, and a commission granting this title and an official staff, is sometimes conferred by the Governor-General of the Philippines, or even by the King of Spain, upon the chiefs of heathen tribes, who have supported the Spanish forces against the pirates of Sulú, Mindanao, or Palawan. Sometimes a small pension accompanies the title.I also learnt much about the Tagbanúas from a solitary missionary, a member of the Order of Recollets, Fray Lorenzo Zapater, who had resided more than two years amongst them, and had built a primitive sort of church at Inagáhuan.They are sociable and pacific; their only weapons are thecerbatana, or blow-pipe, with poisoned darts, and bows and arrows, for the knives they carry are tools and not weapons. They do not make war amongst themselves, but formerly fought sometimes to defend their possessions against the piratical Mahometans, who inhabit the southern part of the island. These heartless robbers, for centuries made annual raids upon them, carrying off the paddy they had stored for their subsistence, and everything portable worth taking. They seized the boys for slaves, to cultivate their lands, and the girls for concubines, killing the adults who dared to resist them. However, since the establishment of a naval station and the penal colony at Puerto Princesa in 1872, the coast has been patrolled by the Spanish gun-boats and the piratical incursions have come to an end. The nomadic Tagbanúas, both men and women, were quite naked, except for a cloth (tapa-rabo) which the men wore, whilst the women wore a girdle, from which hung strips of bark or skin reaching nearly to the knees. Round their necks they wore strings of coloured beads, a turquoise blue seemed to be the favourite kind, and on their arms and ankles, bangles made of brass wire. Coming out of the forest into a clearing where there were two small huts built in the usual manner, and another constructed in the fork of a large tree, I found a group of these people threshing paddy. Amongst them were two young women with figures of striking symmetry, who, on being called by the interpreter, approached my party without the slightest timidity or embarrassment, although wearing only the fringed girdle. I learnt that they had both been baptizedbut on asking the taller girl her name, instead of answering me, she turned to her companion and said to her, “What is my name?” to which the other answered, “Ursula.” I then asked the shorter girl her name, and she also, instead of answering me, asked the other girl, “What is my name?” to which the taller one answered, “Margarita.” These names had recently been given them instead of their heathen names, and I could not be sure whether they had forgotten their new names or whether, as is the case in several tribes, they must never pronounce their own names nor the names of their ancestors. They thankfully accepted a cigarette each, which they immediately lighted.On the following Sunday, these girls came to Mass at the Inagáhuan Church, completely dressed like Tagal women, and although they passed in front of me, I did not recognize them until I was told, for they looked much shorter.When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, avisitaof Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regionsbasaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’sparents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars calledbasinganis.I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppressionfrom their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.Instead, therefore, of being allowed to till their land, these people are hurried off to the most distant and least accessible forests to dig for almáciga. This gum is found in crevices in the earth amongst the roots of secular trees. I was assured that deposits had been found of 25 piculs in one place—more than a ton and a half, but such finds are rare, as the gum is now scarce. The savage has to hide or guard his treasure when found, and he or his family must transport it on their backs for twenty, thirty, or forty miles, as the case may be, making repeated journeys to deliver it to their creditor. I think this hard work, and want of good food, explains the emaciation I noticed amongst these people. Some few of them were not in debt. NearInagáhuan, I found a man named Amasa who had a small cane-field, and was at work squeezing the cane with a great lever-press, which reminded me of the wine-presses in Teneriffe. The lever was made of the trunk of a tree; the fulcrum was a growing tree, whilst the pressing block was a tree-stump hollowed at the top. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup, and found a ready sale in the neighbourhood. Amasa was the biggest and strongestman I saw amongst the Tagbanúas, and stood five feet nine inches high. He possessed a comfortable house and clothes, yet he accompanied me on one of my journeys as a porter, but the exposure at night was too much for him, and he had an attack of fever when he returned. Near Amasa lived a Christian woman named Ignacia, a widow. She had lived ten years in one place, and had an abundant supply of paddy stored in huge baskets in her house. She also had a plantation of cacao trees, many of them in full bearing. They were rather neglected, but had grown remarkably. I bought some of her produce for my own use.I was surprised to find that the Tagbanúas could read and write; one day I observed a messenger hand to one of them a strip of bark with some figures scratched on it, which the latter proceeded to read, and on inquiring from the missionary, I learnt that they had an alphabet of sixteen or seventeen letters. I obtained a copy of this from the Padre Zapater, and it will be found on page 319. They do not use a pen, but scratch the letters with the point of a knife, or with a nail, or thorn.The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat’s-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-colouredpatadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they callRima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionarytook a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support.The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.Whilst travelling through the jungle I found some natives cutting canes, and my interpreter pointed out to me an emaciated couple, and assured me that during the famine of the previous season, these poor wretches had killed and eaten their own child to save their lives. What a state of things in a country where maize will grow up and give edible grain in forty-two days from the date of planting it! I trust that the change of government may result in some benefit to these poor people, and that a Governor or Protector of Aborigines may be appointed with absolute power who will check the abuses of the half-caste and Chinese usurers, and give the poor down-trodden Tagbanúas, at one time I firmly believe a comparatively civilised people, a chance to live and thrive.Tandulanos.The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.Tagbanúa Alphabet.Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.Notes by the Padre Zapater.(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

Chapter XXXIV.The Island of Palawan, or Paragua.The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.

The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.

The Tagbanúas—Tandulanos—Manguianes—Negritos—Moros of southern Palawan—Tagbanúa alphabet.

The island of Palawan, or, as it is called by the Spaniards, La Paragua, is situated between the parallels 8° 25′ and 11° 30′ N. lat. The capital, Puerto Princesa, was founded in 1872, and is situated on the east coast in lat. 9° 45′, being 354 miles from Manila, 210 miles from North Borneo, and 510 miles from Singapore. Palawan is about 250 miles long, and from 10 to 25 wide, with an area of about 5833 square miles, the third in size of the Philippine Islands. There are several good ports in the northern part, which is much broken up, and its coasts studded with numerous islets, forming secure anchorages.Off the western coast is a large submarine bank, with many coral reefs and islets. The navigation on this coast is very dangerous, and can only be done in daylight.The harbour of Puerto Princesa is an excellent one, and sufficiently large for all requirements.Limestone and other sedimentary formations predominate. No volcanic rocks are known to exist. It is conjectured that the island has been formed by an upheaval, and it bears little resemblance geologically to any of the other Philippines. Plastic clays suitable for making bricks, tiles, and pottery, abound.Nothing is known about the mineralogy, except that rock-crystal is found, a magnificent specimen of great purity and value was sent from the island to the Madrid Exhibition of 1887.A chain of mountains, with peaks of varying elevation up to 6500 feet, runs lengthways of the island, much nearerto the western coast than to the eastern. The descent from the summits to the eastern coast is, therefore, gradual, and on the western coast it is abrupt. Mount Staveley, Mount Beaufort (3740 feet), Pico Pulgar (4330 feet), and the Peaks of Anepalian, are in the central part of the island.The following record is taken from the observations made by Captain Canga-Arguelles, a former governor, during his residence of three years in Puerto Princesa.Month.Mean Temp.Barometer.Fahrenheit.Inches.Rainy Days.January8530.344February81303March8530.074April8729.925May8429.804June8229.9012July80..17August8229.844September7929.8820October8529.9020November8229.958December82304Mean82.83105It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants numberabout 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—Tagbuanas, estimated to number6,000Tandulanos, estimated to number1,500Negritos, estimated to number500Manguianes, estimated to number4,000——12,000This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.Amongst the timbers mentioned in the Woods and Forests lists are ebony, camagon, teak, cedar, dungon, banaba, guíjo, molave, and many others of value. The forest or jungle-produce will comprise: charcoal, firewood, bamboos, rattans, nipa (attap), orchids, wax, gums, resins, and camphor. Edible birds’-nests are found in various localities. Fish is abundant in the waters, and balate (Bèche de mer) is collected on the shores and reefs.Puerto Princesa is visited by a mail steamer from Manila once in twenty-eight days. A garrison of two companies of infantry was kept there, and several small gun-boats were stationed there, which went periodicallyround the island. Piracy was completely suppressed, and the Mahometan Malays were kept in good order by the Spanish forces.The dense primeval forests which have existed for ages, untouched by the hand of man, undevastated by typhoons, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, must necessarily have produced an enormous quantity of decayed vegetable matter, rich in humus, and such a soil on a limestone subsoil, mixed with the detritus washed down from the mountains, may reasonably be expected to be of the highest fertility, and, perhaps, to be equal to the richest lands of the earth, most specially for the cultivation of tobacco.The varied climates to be found from the sea-level to the tops of the mountains should allow the cultivation of maize, rice, sugar-cane, cotton, cacao, coffee, and hemp, each in the zone most favourable to its growth and fruitfulness. The exemption from typhoons enjoyed by this region is most important as regards the cultivation of the aborescent species, and the cocoa-nut palm would prove highly remunerative on land not suited for other crops.Tagbanúas.The Tagbanúas are said to be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Palawan. I understand that this word comes fromTaga, an inhabitant, andbanua, country, and therefore means an original inhabitant of the country, as opposed to later arrivals.They inhabit the district betweenInagáhuan, on the east coast, and Ulugan and Apurahuan, on the west coast. Their numbers in 1888 were estimated at 6000. In 1890 I spent ten days amongst these people, and employed a number of them as porters to carry my tent, provisions, and equipment, when travelling on foot through the forests to report on the value of a concession in the neighbourhood of Yuahit and Inagáhuan. I therefore describe them from personal knowledge. They are of a yellowish colour, and generally similar to the Mahometan Malays of Mindanao. Those who have settled down and cultivated land have a robust and healthy appearance; but those who are nomadic, mostly suffered from skin diseases, and some were quite emaciated. Their Maestro de Campo, the recognised head of their tribe, lived near Inagáhuan, and I visited him athis house, and found him quite communicative through an interpreter.Maestro de Campo is an obsolete military rank in Spain, and a commission granting this title and an official staff, is sometimes conferred by the Governor-General of the Philippines, or even by the King of Spain, upon the chiefs of heathen tribes, who have supported the Spanish forces against the pirates of Sulú, Mindanao, or Palawan. Sometimes a small pension accompanies the title.I also learnt much about the Tagbanúas from a solitary missionary, a member of the Order of Recollets, Fray Lorenzo Zapater, who had resided more than two years amongst them, and had built a primitive sort of church at Inagáhuan.They are sociable and pacific; their only weapons are thecerbatana, or blow-pipe, with poisoned darts, and bows and arrows, for the knives they carry are tools and not weapons. They do not make war amongst themselves, but formerly fought sometimes to defend their possessions against the piratical Mahometans, who inhabit the southern part of the island. These heartless robbers, for centuries made annual raids upon them, carrying off the paddy they had stored for their subsistence, and everything portable worth taking. They seized the boys for slaves, to cultivate their lands, and the girls for concubines, killing the adults who dared to resist them. However, since the establishment of a naval station and the penal colony at Puerto Princesa in 1872, the coast has been patrolled by the Spanish gun-boats and the piratical incursions have come to an end. The nomadic Tagbanúas, both men and women, were quite naked, except for a cloth (tapa-rabo) which the men wore, whilst the women wore a girdle, from which hung strips of bark or skin reaching nearly to the knees. Round their necks they wore strings of coloured beads, a turquoise blue seemed to be the favourite kind, and on their arms and ankles, bangles made of brass wire. Coming out of the forest into a clearing where there were two small huts built in the usual manner, and another constructed in the fork of a large tree, I found a group of these people threshing paddy. Amongst them were two young women with figures of striking symmetry, who, on being called by the interpreter, approached my party without the slightest timidity or embarrassment, although wearing only the fringed girdle. I learnt that they had both been baptizedbut on asking the taller girl her name, instead of answering me, she turned to her companion and said to her, “What is my name?” to which the other answered, “Ursula.” I then asked the shorter girl her name, and she also, instead of answering me, asked the other girl, “What is my name?” to which the taller one answered, “Margarita.” These names had recently been given them instead of their heathen names, and I could not be sure whether they had forgotten their new names or whether, as is the case in several tribes, they must never pronounce their own names nor the names of their ancestors. They thankfully accepted a cigarette each, which they immediately lighted.On the following Sunday, these girls came to Mass at the Inagáhuan Church, completely dressed like Tagal women, and although they passed in front of me, I did not recognize them until I was told, for they looked much shorter.When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, avisitaof Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regionsbasaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’sparents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars calledbasinganis.I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppressionfrom their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.Instead, therefore, of being allowed to till their land, these people are hurried off to the most distant and least accessible forests to dig for almáciga. This gum is found in crevices in the earth amongst the roots of secular trees. I was assured that deposits had been found of 25 piculs in one place—more than a ton and a half, but such finds are rare, as the gum is now scarce. The savage has to hide or guard his treasure when found, and he or his family must transport it on their backs for twenty, thirty, or forty miles, as the case may be, making repeated journeys to deliver it to their creditor. I think this hard work, and want of good food, explains the emaciation I noticed amongst these people. Some few of them were not in debt. NearInagáhuan, I found a man named Amasa who had a small cane-field, and was at work squeezing the cane with a great lever-press, which reminded me of the wine-presses in Teneriffe. The lever was made of the trunk of a tree; the fulcrum was a growing tree, whilst the pressing block was a tree-stump hollowed at the top. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup, and found a ready sale in the neighbourhood. Amasa was the biggest and strongestman I saw amongst the Tagbanúas, and stood five feet nine inches high. He possessed a comfortable house and clothes, yet he accompanied me on one of my journeys as a porter, but the exposure at night was too much for him, and he had an attack of fever when he returned. Near Amasa lived a Christian woman named Ignacia, a widow. She had lived ten years in one place, and had an abundant supply of paddy stored in huge baskets in her house. She also had a plantation of cacao trees, many of them in full bearing. They were rather neglected, but had grown remarkably. I bought some of her produce for my own use.I was surprised to find that the Tagbanúas could read and write; one day I observed a messenger hand to one of them a strip of bark with some figures scratched on it, which the latter proceeded to read, and on inquiring from the missionary, I learnt that they had an alphabet of sixteen or seventeen letters. I obtained a copy of this from the Padre Zapater, and it will be found on page 319. They do not use a pen, but scratch the letters with the point of a knife, or with a nail, or thorn.The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat’s-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-colouredpatadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they callRima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionarytook a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support.The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.Whilst travelling through the jungle I found some natives cutting canes, and my interpreter pointed out to me an emaciated couple, and assured me that during the famine of the previous season, these poor wretches had killed and eaten their own child to save their lives. What a state of things in a country where maize will grow up and give edible grain in forty-two days from the date of planting it! I trust that the change of government may result in some benefit to these poor people, and that a Governor or Protector of Aborigines may be appointed with absolute power who will check the abuses of the half-caste and Chinese usurers, and give the poor down-trodden Tagbanúas, at one time I firmly believe a comparatively civilised people, a chance to live and thrive.Tandulanos.The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.Tagbanúa Alphabet.Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.Notes by the Padre Zapater.(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

The island of Palawan, or, as it is called by the Spaniards, La Paragua, is situated between the parallels 8° 25′ and 11° 30′ N. lat. The capital, Puerto Princesa, was founded in 1872, and is situated on the east coast in lat. 9° 45′, being 354 miles from Manila, 210 miles from North Borneo, and 510 miles from Singapore. Palawan is about 250 miles long, and from 10 to 25 wide, with an area of about 5833 square miles, the third in size of the Philippine Islands. There are several good ports in the northern part, which is much broken up, and its coasts studded with numerous islets, forming secure anchorages.

Off the western coast is a large submarine bank, with many coral reefs and islets. The navigation on this coast is very dangerous, and can only be done in daylight.

The harbour of Puerto Princesa is an excellent one, and sufficiently large for all requirements.

Limestone and other sedimentary formations predominate. No volcanic rocks are known to exist. It is conjectured that the island has been formed by an upheaval, and it bears little resemblance geologically to any of the other Philippines. Plastic clays suitable for making bricks, tiles, and pottery, abound.

Nothing is known about the mineralogy, except that rock-crystal is found, a magnificent specimen of great purity and value was sent from the island to the Madrid Exhibition of 1887.

A chain of mountains, with peaks of varying elevation up to 6500 feet, runs lengthways of the island, much nearerto the western coast than to the eastern. The descent from the summits to the eastern coast is, therefore, gradual, and on the western coast it is abrupt. Mount Staveley, Mount Beaufort (3740 feet), Pico Pulgar (4330 feet), and the Peaks of Anepalian, are in the central part of the island.

The following record is taken from the observations made by Captain Canga-Arguelles, a former governor, during his residence of three years in Puerto Princesa.

Month.Mean Temp.Barometer.Fahrenheit.Inches.Rainy Days.January8530.344February81303March8530.074April8729.925May8429.804June8229.9012July80..17August8229.844September7929.8820October8529.9020November8229.958December82304Mean82.83105

It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.

Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.

From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.

The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.

The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants numberabout 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—

Tagbuanas, estimated to number6,000Tandulanos, estimated to number1,500Negritos, estimated to number500Manguianes, estimated to number4,000——12,000

This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.

The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.

The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.

The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.

Amongst the timbers mentioned in the Woods and Forests lists are ebony, camagon, teak, cedar, dungon, banaba, guíjo, molave, and many others of value. The forest or jungle-produce will comprise: charcoal, firewood, bamboos, rattans, nipa (attap), orchids, wax, gums, resins, and camphor. Edible birds’-nests are found in various localities. Fish is abundant in the waters, and balate (Bèche de mer) is collected on the shores and reefs.

Puerto Princesa is visited by a mail steamer from Manila once in twenty-eight days. A garrison of two companies of infantry was kept there, and several small gun-boats were stationed there, which went periodicallyround the island. Piracy was completely suppressed, and the Mahometan Malays were kept in good order by the Spanish forces.

The dense primeval forests which have existed for ages, untouched by the hand of man, undevastated by typhoons, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, must necessarily have produced an enormous quantity of decayed vegetable matter, rich in humus, and such a soil on a limestone subsoil, mixed with the detritus washed down from the mountains, may reasonably be expected to be of the highest fertility, and, perhaps, to be equal to the richest lands of the earth, most specially for the cultivation of tobacco.

The varied climates to be found from the sea-level to the tops of the mountains should allow the cultivation of maize, rice, sugar-cane, cotton, cacao, coffee, and hemp, each in the zone most favourable to its growth and fruitfulness. The exemption from typhoons enjoyed by this region is most important as regards the cultivation of the aborescent species, and the cocoa-nut palm would prove highly remunerative on land not suited for other crops.Tagbanúas.

The Tagbanúas are said to be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Palawan. I understand that this word comes fromTaga, an inhabitant, andbanua, country, and therefore means an original inhabitant of the country, as opposed to later arrivals.

They inhabit the district betweenInagáhuan, on the east coast, and Ulugan and Apurahuan, on the west coast. Their numbers in 1888 were estimated at 6000. In 1890 I spent ten days amongst these people, and employed a number of them as porters to carry my tent, provisions, and equipment, when travelling on foot through the forests to report on the value of a concession in the neighbourhood of Yuahit and Inagáhuan. I therefore describe them from personal knowledge. They are of a yellowish colour, and generally similar to the Mahometan Malays of Mindanao. Those who have settled down and cultivated land have a robust and healthy appearance; but those who are nomadic, mostly suffered from skin diseases, and some were quite emaciated. Their Maestro de Campo, the recognised head of their tribe, lived near Inagáhuan, and I visited him athis house, and found him quite communicative through an interpreter.

Maestro de Campo is an obsolete military rank in Spain, and a commission granting this title and an official staff, is sometimes conferred by the Governor-General of the Philippines, or even by the King of Spain, upon the chiefs of heathen tribes, who have supported the Spanish forces against the pirates of Sulú, Mindanao, or Palawan. Sometimes a small pension accompanies the title.

I also learnt much about the Tagbanúas from a solitary missionary, a member of the Order of Recollets, Fray Lorenzo Zapater, who had resided more than two years amongst them, and had built a primitive sort of church at Inagáhuan.

They are sociable and pacific; their only weapons are thecerbatana, or blow-pipe, with poisoned darts, and bows and arrows, for the knives they carry are tools and not weapons. They do not make war amongst themselves, but formerly fought sometimes to defend their possessions against the piratical Mahometans, who inhabit the southern part of the island. These heartless robbers, for centuries made annual raids upon them, carrying off the paddy they had stored for their subsistence, and everything portable worth taking. They seized the boys for slaves, to cultivate their lands, and the girls for concubines, killing the adults who dared to resist them. However, since the establishment of a naval station and the penal colony at Puerto Princesa in 1872, the coast has been patrolled by the Spanish gun-boats and the piratical incursions have come to an end. The nomadic Tagbanúas, both men and women, were quite naked, except for a cloth (tapa-rabo) which the men wore, whilst the women wore a girdle, from which hung strips of bark or skin reaching nearly to the knees. Round their necks they wore strings of coloured beads, a turquoise blue seemed to be the favourite kind, and on their arms and ankles, bangles made of brass wire. Coming out of the forest into a clearing where there were two small huts built in the usual manner, and another constructed in the fork of a large tree, I found a group of these people threshing paddy. Amongst them were two young women with figures of striking symmetry, who, on being called by the interpreter, approached my party without the slightest timidity or embarrassment, although wearing only the fringed girdle. I learnt that they had both been baptizedbut on asking the taller girl her name, instead of answering me, she turned to her companion and said to her, “What is my name?” to which the other answered, “Ursula.” I then asked the shorter girl her name, and she also, instead of answering me, asked the other girl, “What is my name?” to which the taller one answered, “Margarita.” These names had recently been given them instead of their heathen names, and I could not be sure whether they had forgotten their new names or whether, as is the case in several tribes, they must never pronounce their own names nor the names of their ancestors. They thankfully accepted a cigarette each, which they immediately lighted.

On the following Sunday, these girls came to Mass at the Inagáhuan Church, completely dressed like Tagal women, and although they passed in front of me, I did not recognize them until I was told, for they looked much shorter.

When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.

The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, avisitaof Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regionsbasaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.

The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’sparents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.

They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.

When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.

If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.

Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.

Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars calledbasinganis.

I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppressionfrom their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.

The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.

Instead, therefore, of being allowed to till their land, these people are hurried off to the most distant and least accessible forests to dig for almáciga. This gum is found in crevices in the earth amongst the roots of secular trees. I was assured that deposits had been found of 25 piculs in one place—more than a ton and a half, but such finds are rare, as the gum is now scarce. The savage has to hide or guard his treasure when found, and he or his family must transport it on their backs for twenty, thirty, or forty miles, as the case may be, making repeated journeys to deliver it to their creditor. I think this hard work, and want of good food, explains the emaciation I noticed amongst these people. Some few of them were not in debt. NearInagáhuan, I found a man named Amasa who had a small cane-field, and was at work squeezing the cane with a great lever-press, which reminded me of the wine-presses in Teneriffe. The lever was made of the trunk of a tree; the fulcrum was a growing tree, whilst the pressing block was a tree-stump hollowed at the top. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup, and found a ready sale in the neighbourhood. Amasa was the biggest and strongestman I saw amongst the Tagbanúas, and stood five feet nine inches high. He possessed a comfortable house and clothes, yet he accompanied me on one of my journeys as a porter, but the exposure at night was too much for him, and he had an attack of fever when he returned. Near Amasa lived a Christian woman named Ignacia, a widow. She had lived ten years in one place, and had an abundant supply of paddy stored in huge baskets in her house. She also had a plantation of cacao trees, many of them in full bearing. They were rather neglected, but had grown remarkably. I bought some of her produce for my own use.

I was surprised to find that the Tagbanúas could read and write; one day I observed a messenger hand to one of them a strip of bark with some figures scratched on it, which the latter proceeded to read, and on inquiring from the missionary, I learnt that they had an alphabet of sixteen or seventeen letters. I obtained a copy of this from the Padre Zapater, and it will be found on page 319. They do not use a pen, but scratch the letters with the point of a knife, or with a nail, or thorn.

The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat’s-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-colouredpatadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they callRima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionarytook a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support.

The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.

Whilst travelling through the jungle I found some natives cutting canes, and my interpreter pointed out to me an emaciated couple, and assured me that during the famine of the previous season, these poor wretches had killed and eaten their own child to save their lives. What a state of things in a country where maize will grow up and give edible grain in forty-two days from the date of planting it! I trust that the change of government may result in some benefit to these poor people, and that a Governor or Protector of Aborigines may be appointed with absolute power who will check the abuses of the half-caste and Chinese usurers, and give the poor down-trodden Tagbanúas, at one time I firmly believe a comparatively civilised people, a chance to live and thrive.

Tandulanos.The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.

Tandulanos.

The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.

The Tandulanos are physically similar to the Negritos, but less robust. They inhabit the shores of Palawan, being scattered along the western coast between the Bay of Malampaya and Caruray. They are more savage than the other races of the island, but they fulfil their engagements with rigorous exactness. They make rough canoes, and subsist principally on fish and shell-fish, and they do no cultivation. They are very skilful in the use of the harpoon which they employ for fishing. If they can obtain iron, they use it for their harpoon-points, otherwise they point them with the spike from the tail of a skate.

They use a most active poison on their harpoons and darts, so much so, that it is said to produce almost instantaneous death.

This poison is unknown to the other tribes. They refuse to sell theircerbatanas, or blow-pipes, from which they shoot their darts.

They are said to intermarry indiscriminately, without regard to kinship. Their number was computed at 1500 in the year 1888, and they are probably not much more numerous now.

These people are, like the Negritos, whom they resemble, a hopeless race, not capable of advancing in civilisation.

Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.

Manguianes and Negritos of Palawan.

These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.

These people have been described under the heading Aetas or Negritos, in Part I. The first-named inhabit the interior of that part of the island occupied by the Moros who jealously prevent them from holding any intercourse with strangers.

Moros of Southern Palawan.—These people do not differ in any essential particular from the Moros of Mindanao. They look back with regret on the good old days before the advent of the steam gun-boats, and the establishment of the fortified posts along their shores when they could make their annual raids and massacre, plunder, and enslave, the wretched Tagbanúas without interference. They will doubtless take full advantage of any negligence of the United States authorities to keep up the gun-boat flotilla, and to maintain the military posts.

They now live by agriculture, all the labour being performed by slaves, and by trading with the savages of the mountains, vying with the Christians in usurious rapacity.

John Chinamanin Palawan is just the same as his brother in Mindanao—a remorseless usurer, and a skilful manipulator of false weights and measures, but no worse in the treatment of the unhappy aboriginal than the Christian native or half-caste.

Puerto Princesa, the capital, had a population at the time of my visit in 1890 of about 1500, of which number 1200 were males and 300 females. About half the males were soldiers and sailors, one-fourth convicts, and the remainder civilians. Most of the women had been deported from Manila as undesirable characters in that decorous city. Notwithstanding their unsavoury antecedents, they found new husbands or protectors in Puerto Princesa the moment they landed. Such was the competition for these very soiled doves, that most of them had made their new arrangements before leaving the jetty alongside which the steamer they arrived in lay.

There was some little cultivation round about the capital, but as usual trading with the aborigines for gum, rattans, balate, green snail-shells, and other jungle produce was the most entrancing pursuit.

At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.

The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.

Tagbanúa Alphabet.Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.

Tagbanúa Alphabet.

Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or rVowels.aiaouae iN.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.

Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.

Q qNg ngP puoO or Uo or uG gE or Ie or iN nD dM mC cT tB bS sA aL or Rl or r

Vowels.

aiaouae i

N.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly,Ah,bay,say,day,ayeoree,ooroo,pay,ku, etc.

Notes by the Padre Zapater.(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

Notes by the Padre Zapater.

(Translation.)1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

(Translation.)

1. The consonants in the Tagbanúa alphabet are eleven and sometimes twelve, but the vowels are three, since theiaand theoawhich are vowels, are compound letters, although strictly they may be considered as vowels, but theiaand theuaare written the same, as has been said.

2. In reading the Tagbanúa alphabet, you begin from the bottom upwards.

3. To write the consonants with their vowels, for example,ba,be,bi,bo,bu, you put a dash at the right or left. If on the right, it meansbe,bi, and if on the left of the consonantbo,bu.

N.B.—Father Zapater’s note 3 is somewhat obscure, or rather badly expressed. It perhaps ought to have been said that a dash right and left meansba.

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