We now began the long descent to Tinglayan, seven miles, most of us walking and leading our ponies. At Tinglayan, instead of the usual cheerful crowd waiting to welcome us, we found only a few extremely sullen men and women, who held themselves persistently aloof. There were no children, neither were chickens nor eggs offered—a bad sign. This reception was due entirely to the refusal of the authorities to give up the Constabulary private that had but recently shot and killed the head man of the rancheria, as already explained. However, in time, Mr. Worcester prevailed on the few present to accept gifts, and we affected not to notice the character of our reception, not only the best, but indeed the only thing to do. Here we had chow. We were now directly on the left bank of the Chico, and, passing on, found the country more open, and so better cultivated, the paddies being broad, the retaining-walls low, and the countryside generally wearing an air of peace and affluence. This impression deepened as we reached Bangad, extremely well situated on a tongue running out at right angles to the main course of hills. Here was a semblance of a street, following the trail, or, rather, the trail, going through, had followed the street. The houses were larger, cleaner, better built; in short, substantial. One of them, unfinished, gave us some idea of its construction: floor sills on posts to ground; roof frame of planks, 1 x 6 inches, bent over to form the sides of the house when completed, all hard wood, without a single nail, the whole being held together by mortises and tenons and other joints, accurately made and neatly fitted. We remained here an hour or so, while the "Commission" was making gifts to the people. No weapons whatever were visible, and the women and children moved about freely without a trace of shyness or fear. Our way beyond the village now took us by many turns back to the river, the trail finally rising in the side of a vertical cliff, such that by leaning over a little one could look past one's stirrup straight down to the water many hundreds of feet below. At the highest point the trail turned sharp to the left, almost back on itself. I am proud to say that I rode it all, but was thankful when it was behind us. Heiser's horse this day got three of his feet over the edge and rolled down eighty or ninety feet, Heiser having jumped off in time to let his mount go alone. It was fortunate for him that this particular cliff was not the scene of this fall. Some three miles farther, on fording a stream, we passed from Bontok into Kalinga, and were met by Mr. Hale, the Governor, with two warriors, tall and slender, broad of chest and thin of flank, with red and yellow gee-strings, tufts of brilliant feathers in their hair, and highly polished head-axes on their hips. Greetings over, we went on, and soon reached the river again, going down the left bank until we came upon what seemed to me to be a most interesting geological formation. For the bank of the river here rose sharply in a rounded, elongated mass, the end of which toward us was cut off, as it were, just as one cuts off the end of a loaf of bread, and showed alternate thin black and white strata only three or four inches thick tilted at an angle of sixty or seventy degrees and mounting several hundred feet in the air. The trail itself had been cut out in the side of the mass, and was so narrow that not only was everyone ordered to dismount, but the American horses were all unsaddled, the inch or two so gained being important in passing along. The black and white strata showing on the path, there was an opportunity to examine them; the black layers were so soft and friable that they could be gouged out with ease with the hand, and appeared to be vegetable, while the white stripes were most probably limestone. This bit of the trail is regarded as dangerous, because the rock overhead is continually breaking loose and tumbling down; for this reason it was unsafe to try to dislodge pieces for later examination. One of our cargadores, as it was, fell over, his pack getting knocked in, while he himself escaped with a bruise or two. It was a bad place! At the end of it a host of Kalingas acclaimed us, as picturesque as the warriors we had met at the stream, and took over the pack. Leaving the river, we began what appeared to be an interminable climb to Lubuagan. Up ran the trail, disappearing far ahead above us, behind the shoulder of the ridge; and we would all be hoping (those of us to whom the country was new) that Lubuagan would be just around the turn, only to find we had the same sort of climb to another shoulder; the fact being that the ridge here thrust itself out in rising echeloned spurs, each one of which had to be turned, so that we began to doubt if there was such a place as the capital of the Kalinga province. In truth, we had been up since 3:30 and were nearly spent from heat and thirst. But at last we made the final turn, and entered upon a narrow green valley, with a bold, clear stream rushing over and between the rocks that filled its bed. Broad-leafed plants nodded a welcome from the waters, as we rode through the grateful shadow of the overarching trees, and shining pools smiled upon us. We crossed a bridge, came down a bit, and, breaking through the fringe of trees and shrubs, saw before us the place-of-arms of Lubuagan.



CHAPTER XXII

Splendid appearance of the Kalingas.—Dancing.—Lubuagan.—Basi. —Councils.—Bustles and braids.—Jewels and weapons.—Excellent houses.

The sight that greeted us was stirring, suggesting to the piously minded Bishop Heber's unmatched lines:

"A noble army, men and boys, The matron and the maid."

There must have been thousands of people, as many women as men, and almost as many children as women, all of whom set up a mighty shout as our little column emerged. But what especially and immediately caught the eye was the brilliancy of the scene. For, whereas the people so far encountered had impressed us by the sobriety of color displayed, these Kalingas blazed out upon us in the most vivid reds and yellows. Many of them, women as well as men, had on tight-fitting Moro jackets of red and yellow stripes; but whatever it was—skirt, jacket, or gee-string—only one pattern showed itself, the alternation of red and yellow, well brought out by the clear brown of the skin. As though this were not enough, some men had adorned their abundant black hair with scarlet hibiscus flowers, and all, or nearly all, wore plumes of feathers, one over each ear. Each rancheria has its distinctive plume; as, red with black tips, black with red, all red, white with black, and so on, some with notched and others with natural edges. Many men had axes on their hips. The whole effect was startling, and all the more that these people, erect, sinewy, of excellent build like their comrades farther south, were perceptibly taller, men five feet ten inches tall not being uncommon. Add to this a stateliness of walk and carriage, combined with a natural, wholly unconscious ease and grace of motion, and it is easy to imagine the fine impression made upon us by our first look upon these assembled people. It is not too much to say that the whole sight was splendid; but, more than this, under the surface of things, it was easy to catch at once the possibility of a real development by these people under any sort of opportunity whatever.

We had hardly dismounted before the dancing began, in general against the sun, as elsewhere. Each rancheria of the many present had its dancers, and all made a display. One event, if the sporting term be permissible, seemed to be a sort of "follow-my-leader"; the motions, however, being confined to the circle, across which the file would go from time to time, thus differing from any other dance seen. In some cases, the step was bold and lively; in others, slow and stately, with arms outstretched. The gansa music was not nearly so well marked as that of the Ifugaos; it seemed to lack definition (an opinion advanced with some hesitation, and which a professional musician might not agree with). Sometimes women only appeared; in fact, up here the sexes did not mix in the dance. If we had remained longer in this part of the country, perhaps the differences and characteristics of this expression of native genius would have stood out more clearly; but in our short time, with so much dancing going on, impressions necessarily overlapped. And, in any case, shortly after our arrival, night fell, putting an end to the show, and we betook ourselves to our quarters; Captain Harris, of the local Constabulary forces, most kindly receiving some of us in his house.

Kalinga is neither a race nor a tribe name, but a word meaning "enemy" or "outlaw," as though the hand of the people that bear it had been against everybody's else. These people have been great head-hunters, and have not yet entirely abandoned the practice, though it is steadily diminishing. It should be recollected, however, that it is only within the last three or four years that we have had any relations with them, Mr. Worcester's first visit to Lubuagan having occurred in 1907. On this occasion, immediately on arriving, he was shut up with his party in a house; and all night a lively debate went on outside as to whether the next morning his head should be taken or not, his native interpreter informing him of the progress of opinion as the night wore on.

In some respects these Kalingas differed from the tribes already visited. Their superior height has already been noted. It may be noted further that they are sloe-eyed, and their eyes are wide apart. It is said that they have an infusion of Moro blood, brought in, many years ago, by exiles from Moroland turned loose on the north coast of Luzon by the Spaniards, with the expectation that the local tribes would kill them; instead, they intermarried. Among themselves they call their important men dato, a Moro title, and their Moro dress has already been mentioned. They will not marry outside of their own blood, and their women, so we were told, would not look at a white man.

Lubuagan itself is extremely well situated on a gigantic terrace-like slope, as though, as at Kiangan, an avalanche of earth had burst through the rim of encompassing mountains. Here live the Governor of the province and the inspector of Constabulary with a detachment; their houses, with the cuartel and public offices, are disposed around a sort of parade, divided into an upper and a lower terrace. Aguinaldo marched through the place during his flight, and left behind seventeen of his men, sick and wounded. He had no sooner gone than these were all taken out and beheaded. The native town lies above and just back of the parade, with its houses running well up on the slopes. These are, everywhere possible, terraced for rice, and so successfully that two crops are made every year, as against only one at Bontok and elsewhere. It follows that the Kalingas have more to eat than their relatives to the south, and that is perhaps one reason of their greater stature.

The morning of the 12th, our one full day at Lubuagan, broke clear, bright, and hot, and so the day remained. Events during the next few hours had no particular axis. We looked on mostly, though, of course, here as elsewhere, business there was to be dispatched. The upper terrace was the scene of crowded activity, being packed with people from sunrise to sunset. Dancing went on the whole day; the sound of the gansa never ceased. A particularly interesting dance was that of a number of little girls, eight or ten years of age, who went through their steps with the greatest seriousness and dignity, a very pretty sight. In yet another the performers, nine all told, grown men, attracted attention from the fact that the handles of their gansas were human lower jaws, apparently new, in the teeth of two of which gold fillings glistened. The Ifugaos, who, it will be recollected, had accompanied us from Banawe, also danced, their steps, motions, and music forming a sharp contrast. This dance over, Comhit could not restrain himself, but made a speech, in which he declared that "These people up here, the Kalingas, are very good people indeed, but not so good as the Ifugaos." Fortunately, only his own people understood him. He had noticed on the way that the people we passed offered nothing to drink to the traveller, and had commented freely to Gallman on this lack of hospitality, so different from his country's habits. We had nothing to complain of, however, on this score at Lubuagan, for basi circulated freely the whole day, being passed along sometimes in a tin cup, at others in a bamboo; everybody drank out of one and the same vessel. On the whole, this basi was poor stuff, not nearly so good as bubud. Harris told me after the day was over, and we had taken innumerable tastes, at least, of the brew (for one must drink when it is passed), that in preparing basi a dog's heart, [40] cut up into bits, is added to the fermenting liquid to give it body. One man amused us by going around with a bamboo six inches or more in diameter and at least eight feet in length over his shoulder, and obligingly stopping to let his friends bend down the mouth and help themselves—a "long" drink if there ever was one!

But it was not all basi and dancing: councils were held, the visiting rancherias profiting by the opportunity of enforced peace to clear up issues. At these councils, which came off in the open, on the parade, the people of the rancherias interested would sit on the ground in a circle, maintaining absolute silence, while their spokesmen, a head man from each, walked around in the circle. The man who had the floor, so to say, would remain behind and address his adversary in the debate, who meantime kept on walking around with his back turned squarely on the speaker. As soon as the argument in hand had been made, both would countermarch, and the listener would now become the speaker. A great part of the debate was taken up on both sides by a recital of the crimes and misdemeanors of which the other party had been guilty. In one of these councils, one debater—wearing civilized dress, by the way—suddenly broke through the circle and disappeared, much to our astonishment, until it was explained that his opponent in the debate had charged him with having recently poisoned six persons; as this was perilously near the truth, the criminal simply ran away. The accuser was a fine-looking man, splendidly dressed, of a haughty countenance, displaying the greatest contempt for all the arguments addressed to him, his impatience being marked by "Has!" accompanied by stamping on the ground the while and striking it with the butt of his spear. This chief was in confinement at Lubuagan, but, to save his face, Governor Hale had enlarged him during our stay.

Naturally there was an opportunity during the day of observing many things in some detail. Who shall say, for example, that the Kalingas are not civilized? The women and girls all wear bustles, a continuous affair made of bejuco, an endless roll, in short, of varying radius, that over the small of the back being considerably the greatest. The top of the skirt is tucked in all round, instead of being directly on the skin, as farther south. In further proof of the local civilization, the women wear false hair. One matron was obliging enough to undo her coiffure for our benefit, and held out by its end, for our admiring inspection, a mighty wisp nearly three feet long. She put it back on for us after the manner, as I have since been informed, of a coronet braid. The men gave fewer evidences of civilization, unless smoking cigars in holders will serve. However, one man brought up his wife and children and regularly introduced them to us, the woman doing her part with great coolness, while the children gave every sign of terror. This incident struck me as being very unusual. Everyone had on at least one necklace, and some three or four necklaces, of dog-teeth, of agate beads (these being immensely prized, agate not being native to the Philippines), or of anything else the form, color, and hardness of which could make it answer for purposes of ornament. One young woman had on sleigh-bells, the tinkle of which we heard before we saw its source, an incongruous sound in those parts. These bells must have been brought down by Chinese trading from the plains of Manchuria. Two or three young men displayed what looked like lapis lazuli around their necks, but what turned out at closer quarters to be pieces of a blue china dinner-plate. They had cut out the white interior and then divided the rim radially, the jewels thus formed being all of the same size and shape, with perfectly smooth edges. Here, too, were the same pill-box hats as those seen at Bontok, some elaborately beaded and costing from one to five carabaos apiece; in one case the lid of a tomato tin had been pressed into service as a hat. But the finest thing of all was the head-ax, a beautiful and cruel-looking weapon, the head having on one side an edge curving back toward the shaft, and on the other a point. To keep the weapon from slipping out of the hand, a stud is left in the hard wood shaft, about two-thirds of the way from the head, the shaft itself being protected by a steel sheathing half way down; the remainder being ornamented with decorative brass plates and strips, and the end shod in a ferrule of silver. The top of the ax is not straight, but curved, both edge and point taking, as it were, their origin in this curve; the edge is formed by a double chamfer, the ax-blade being of uniform thickness. All together, this weapon is perhaps more original and characteristic than any other native to the Philippine Archipelago. With it goes the Kalinga shield of soft wood, made in one piece, with the usual three horns or projections at the top and two at the bottom. These projections, however, are cylindrical, and the outside ones are continued down the edge of the shield and so form ribs. In the ordinary Igorot shield the horns are flat, merely prolonging the surface of the shield, or else presenting only a very small relief. As usual, a lacing of bejuco across top and bottom protects the shield against a separation in the event of an unlucky stroke splitting it in two.

We found the town unusually clean. Public latrines exist, and public drinking-tanks, both put in by Governor Hale, and highly approved of the people. The houses themselves were the best we had seen, some of them hexagonal in ground plan, and built of hard woods. The pigs stay underneath, to be sure, but their place is kept clean. Rich men have rows of plates, the dinner-plates of civilization, all around their houses, and take-up floors of split bamboo are common, being rolled up and washed in the neighboring stream with commendable frequency. All together, Lubuagan made the impression of an affluent, not to say opulent, center, inhabitated by a brave, proud, and self-respecting people.



CHAPTER XXIII

We leave the mountains.—Nanong.—Passage of the Chico.—The Apayao.—Tabuk.—The party breaks up.—Desolate plain.—The Cagayan Valley.—Enrile.

The morning of Friday, May 13th, broke clear after a night of hard rain. We set off before sunrise, our way now taking us eastward for the last stage of the mountain journey proper. The whole earth this morning seemed to be a-drip: every stream was rushing, and banks of cloud, fog, and mist crowned the heights and filled the valleys. To describe even approximately our course as we descended from the great terrace of Lubuagan is well-nigh impossible; but, as we came down, scene after scene of the greatest beauty offered itself to our admiration. The landscape softened too; we were leaving the high mountain land behind us, not too suddenly, however; for example, at one point a huge valley lay below us, bounded on the other side by a tremendous vertical wall of rock, over which fell a powerful stream. I estimated the fall at the time as at least four hundred feet.

In due course we came to an affluent of our old friend the Chico, and had to ford. The stream was up, but we got over without mishap. Fording is always a delicate operation in these, mountains after a hard rain, since no one can ever tell what the nature of the footing will be, because of the boulders swept down. On this occasion Evans's pony stopped short in mid-stream, refusing either to move on or back. There was nothing for it but dismount and investigate, Evans discovering that his pony had put one foot down between two large stones close together and so was simply caught fast. The country had now become decidedly more open; the trail for long stretches was almost a road. As a matter of fact, we were on the old main line of communication from the highlands to the Cagayan Valley. We made our first halt at Nanong, where everybody brought in gifts of chickens, eggs, and camotes and received beads, red cloth, pins and needles in return. What made a particular impression here was the number of children brought in, all wide-eyed, sloe-eyed, and some of them extremely pretty. The remainder of the day we spent going down the left bank of the Chico, encountered again at Nanong. Shortly after leaving this point two large monkeys, brown with white breasts, appeared on the edge of the trail, apparently protesting with the utmost indignation against our presence in those parts. Harris remarked that once passing this point alone he had run into eighteen of them, and that for a time he thought they were going to dispute his passage. These were the only animals we saw on the whole trip, not counting a few birds. The valley opened hereabouts, and on the other bank, the right, a sharp-edged terrace came into view, fully three hundred feet above the river and continuing for miles as far as the eye could see. This must be an unusually good example of river terrace. On our side the trail was cut out of the cliff, solid rock, with a straight drop to the river below, a stretch of two of the hottest miles conceivable, what with the full blaze of the sun and the heat radiated and reflected from the face of the cliff. I was so weak from the water I had drunk the other day that I dismounted and walked the whole way, so that, if knocked out by the heat, I should at least not fall off my pony; a tumble on the wrong side would have brought the journey to a very sudden end. But, fortunately, nothing happened, and we at last got down to the level of the river again, only to find it half in flood and fording out of the question. We were on the upstream side of a huge dome of rock, rising from the river itself, the only way around which was to cross twice. The rest of the party coming up with the cargadores, we had to wait until bamboo rafts could be built, the raft really being nothing but a flat bundle lashed together with bejuco. In this case our rafts were so small that under the weight of only one man and his kit they immediately became submarines, so that one got partially wet crossing. Our horses and ponies were swum over.

We were six hours making the two passages; still we were in luck, for had the stream been really up, we should simply have had to camp on its bank and wait for the waters to fall, a fate that sometimes overtakes the traveller in a country where an innocent stream may become a raging torrent almost while one is looking at it.

We slept that night in a rest-house just across the river from Tabuk, and next morning the party divided, Mr. Worcester, Dr. Strong, Governor Pack, and Lieutenant-Governor Villamor to continue the mountain trip into Apayao, while the remainder of us, having been invited to accompany Mr. Worcester only as far as Tabuk, went on to the Cagayan River. It may be of interest, however, to say a few words here about the Apayao country, my authority being the "Seventh Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior to the Philippine Commission" for the fiscal year 1907-1908.

This country was first visited by Mr. Worcester in 1906. The Spanish Government never having succeeded in gaining a foothold in it. "During the insurrection Lieutenant Gilmore, of the United States Navy, and his fellow-captives were taken into the southern part of it and there abandoned." "So far as is known, no white man had ever penetrated the southern and central portions of Apayao until" Mr. Worcester, suitably accompanied and escorted, crossed the Cordillera, in 1906, from North Ilokos. A later expedition, commanded by a Constabulary officer, was attacked, not necessarily from any hostility to it as such, but because it was accompanied by natives hostile to a rancheria (Guenned) approached on the way. A punitive expedition, led by the same officer, afterward met with some success, but American popularity suffered in consequence. The Apayao country is the only sub-province under a native Governor, and its Governor, Senor Blas Villamor, is the only Filipino that has ever shown any interest in or sympathy for the highlanders. His task has been a difficult one; for example, his only line of communication, the Abulug River, runs through a territory inhabited by Negritos, who had been so abused by the Christian natives on the one hand, and whose heads had been so diligently sought by the wild Tinguians of the mountains, on the other, that they had acquired the habit of greeting strangers with poisoned arrows. His mountain region itself was inhabited by inveterate head-hunters, most of whom had never even seen a white man. Conditions are improving, however; the raids against the Christian and Negrito inhabitants of the lowlands of Cagayan have been completely checked, and Mr. Worcester hopes that head-hunting will diminish. It still exists. Strong told me, on his return to Manila, that, looking into a head-basket after leaving Tabuk, he found in it fresh fragments of a human skull; for the Apayaos take the skull like the other highlanders, but unlike them, break it into pieces. But with these people head-hunting is a part of their religious belief, and so all the harder to uproot. With the others it is a matter of vengeance, or else even of sport. "On the other hand, the people of Apayao have many good qualities. They are physically well-developed and are quite cleanly. They erect beautifully constructed houses. Their women are well clothed, and both men and women love handsome ornaments. They are quite industrious agriculturists and are now begging for seed and for domestic animals in order that they may emulate their Christian neighbors in the raising of agricultural products."

Of course we should have been very glad to go on with Mr. Worcester into the Apayao country if he had asked us; but it is practically trailless as yet, and for a party as large as ours would have been, questions of supply and transportation would have been difficult, to say nothing of the impolicy of taking a large number into the country at all. And so, on Saturday morning, May 14th, we shook hands with Mr. Worcester and his companions. His progress so far had been an unqualified success, unmarred by a single adverse incident, for the deplorable loss of life at Kiangan could in no wise be attributed to our presence or to the occasion. What the results of the visit of 1910 will be, only time can tell; but experience shows that every year marks an advance in the spread of friendly relations, not only between the Government and the people, but between the subdivisions of the people itself. [41]

The Chico being still up when we reached it, we crossed again on submarines, climbed the bank, and found ourselves in Tabuk (or Talbok), the most pestilential hole in the Archipelago. Nothing is left of it now but a ruinous church and one or two houses. The first mass was said here or hereabouts in 1689, by the Dominicans, who kept up the mission until the monks all died of fever. Did an occasional officer in the old days prove objectionable to the authorities in Manila, he got an order to proceed to Tabuk for station; it was almost certain that he would never return. The point is of unquestionable importance, commanding, as it does, the main outlet, of the Kalinga country to the plains of the Cagayan Valley; and so our own Government undertook to garrison it with Constabulary as a check on raids. The garrison remained long enough to be carried out on stretchers, and was removed to Lu-bagan, where the check is just as complete and personal control possible.

We had a long and hard day before us, but we did not know it when we set out from Tabuk at about seven in the morning. Gallman, Harris, and I kept together; our first business was to cross a vast, roughly circular plain fifteen miles in diameter, and densely overgrown with a rough, reedy grass two feet and more high. A foot-path ran across the plain, visible for only a very short distance ahead as long as one was in it, but imperceptible twenty yards to the right or left. To lose this path would have been a serious matter, as it would have been a heart-breaking thing to force one's way through the undisturbed grass.

It would be hard to imagine anything else more wearisome than that fifteen-mile stretch. The sun was riding high in the heavens, "shining on both sides of the hill"; not a breath of wind was stirring nor was there, barring a rare bird or two, a sign of life save the thousands of flies which, as our ponies pushed aside the grass overhanging the path, rose in clouds only to settle on our faces, hands, necks, backs, everywhere. We began by brushing them off, but it was of no use, and so we rode with our faces turned to a dim haze of low mountains bounding the plain on the east, and themselves dominated by still another range, the Sierra Madre, so distant as to look like a bank of immovable blue cloud. For miles our plodding seemed to bring them no nearer. If we could only get out of that sea of olive-gray grass, on which the heavy, stifling air seemed to press, and reach those nearer mountains! Twice the path led us into sinks or depressions fully ninety or one hundred feet below the level of the plain; why these could not have been avoided when the path was first struck out is hard to imagine, unless it was to get to water. For one of these sinks boasted of a clear, bold stream with all of its course underground save the part in the depression. In both were full-grown trees and grateful shade. Had we not been pressed to get through, it would have been interesting to explore these huge sinks; but we passed on, the flies, which had abandoned us on our descent, rejoining us when we climbed out on the other side. In time we reached our mountains, arid, bare, eroded, wind-bitten, and made our way slowly and painfully up and through the pass, our trail hereabouts being nothing but a trench so deep and narrow that part of the way we could not keep our feet in the stirrups. As we neared the crest of the range the pass disappeared, and for the last half-mile or so we attacked the ridge directly. When we got to the top, we found a gallant breeze blowing, and, spreading out before us, the vast plains of the Cagayan Valley. Far over in the east, and apparently no nearer than ever, rose the blue, cloud-like mountains of the Sierra Madre, now showing like a wall, which indeed they are, and one which no man has so far succeeded in scaling. But not a sign of life, of man or beast, caught our eye. And yet this valley is an empire in itself; its axial stream, the Rio Grande de Cagayan, or Ibanag, the "Philippine Tagus" of the ancient chronicles, the longest river of the Archipelago, by overflowing its banks every year, renews the fertility of the soil wherever its waters can reach. We stood here on the ridge a long time, resting and looking. Below us green ribbons, following the undulations of the plain, marked the trail of various water-courses; but, apart from this evidence of Nature's living forces, somehow or other the entire landscape was silent and desolate. We now began the descent, leading our ponies, for it was too steep to ride, and at last came to a stream where we found shade and grass, and, better yet, the advance guard of the party with food and drink ready. Our next stage was over rolling country, covered with fine short grass; once over this, the ground broke in our front, and we made the descent, finally coming out on the lowest floor of the valley at Enrile, two or three miles from the river. Night was falling as we made our way through its grass-grown streets, finding the air heavy, the people dull-looking, and everything commonplace: we had already begun to miss our mountains.



CHAPTER XXIV

Tobacco industry.—Tuguegarao.—Caves.—The Cagayan River.—Barangayans.—Aparri.—Island of Fuga.—Sail for Manila.—Stop at Vigan.—Arrival at Manila.

The great valley in which we now found ourselves really deserves more notice than perhaps it is suitable to give it here. As everyone knows, it furnishes the best tobacco of the Islands, tobacco that under proper care would prove a dangerous rival to that of Cuba, though it can never quite equal the product of the Vuelta Abajo. The cattle industry should prosper here—in fact, did a few years ago; the broad savannas, some of which we had crossed, furnishing excellent pasturage. It was proved long ago that this region was naturally adapted to the culture of silk and to the raising of indigo and sugar-cane. While tobacco was a Government monopoly, [42] the valley was wealthy, traces of wealth being still found in the hands of the people under the form of jewels, some of them costly and beautiful.

The passage of the Payne bill has already brightened the prospects of the people, and especially of the small growers, for prices paid on the spot have already gone up very considerably. The valley is sure to flourish before many years shall have passed, and nothing else would so much hasten this end as the completion of the railway from Manila. But when we passed through, a sort of general apathy seemed to fill the air: the people were listless, and so much of the tobacco crop as we could see looked neglected. A partial explanation is to be found in the belief, wide-spread in these parts at this time, that the comet had come to mark the end of all things, and that any work done would be wasted. This belief, however, did not check the native and courteous hospitality of the people; all of us were taken in for the night, Evans and I going to Senor Cipriano Pagulayan's, where we found an excellent dinner awaiting us—in particular, coffee of superlative excellence. Don Cipriano was very modest about it, explaining that the coffee had been roasted only after our arrival and ground just before it was set on; but none the less it was admirable. Now, this coffee, of course, was grown in the valley, and there is no reason why its cultivation should not be taken up on a large scale for export.

Enrile held us only for the night. The next morning we all mounted, alas! for the last time, and, escorted by a great number of local magnates, took the road for the river. Here we left our mounts to Doyle, who was to return with them to Baguio. It was with great regret that I parted from Bubud: he had carried me faithfully and well, and I shall not soon forget his saucy head, looking after us as we got down the bank to go on board the motor-launch of the Tabacalera. [43]

In a few minutes we had crossed and landed at Tuguegarao, the capital of the province, and still retaining traces of its wealth and importance in the great days of the tobacco monopoly. It has an imposing church built of brick, a hospital, and a Dominican college, all of substantial construction; its streets are broad and well laid out, but of the town itself not much can be said, as a fire swept off most of it a few years ago. Still Filipino towns rise easily from the ashes, and there is no reason why prosperity should not again smile upon this ancient borough.

We tarried two or three days in Tuguegarao, waiting for river transportation and meanwhile greatly enjoying the hospitality so generously shown us. Major Knauber, of the Constabulary, and Mr. Justice Campbell, of the Court of First Instance, invited me to stay with them in a fine old Spanish house they had together. Every evening Herr ——, of the —— Company, had us to dinner in his beautiful bungalow. At a grand baile given us the day after our arrival, Heiser asked me if I had not dined that day and the day before at Herr ——'s; on my saying yes, he laughed and remarked that he had just taken up his cook as a leper to be sent to the leper hospital on the Island of Culion. But in the East nobody bothers about a thing like that.

Tuguegarao is a point of departure for some interesting trips, notably one to some limestone caves, larger than the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. In one of these caves, receiving light, air, and moisture from fissures in the natural surface of the ground, palms (cocoa and other), bamboos, and other plants and trees are growing in natural miniature. I was told that this cave was fascinating and that I ought to go and see it. But time was pressing; although the commanding General had set no limit on my absence, I felt I ought now to return. Accordingly, on the morning of the 18th, our transportation being ready, Mr. Justice Campbell and I went aboard a motor-launch and set out for Aparri, at the mouth of the river.

All river trips here in the East have an interest; this one proved no exception to the general rule, though it presented nothing especially worthy of record. But the Rio Grande is the great road of the Valley, to such an extent, indeed, that there are no land roads to speak of. We passed between low, muddy banks, frequently of uncertain disposition, as though wondering how much longer they could possibly resist the wash of the current. The stream itself is shallow, uncharted, unbeaconed; its navigation requires constant attention, which it certainly got this day from our quartermaster, who remained on duty for ten consecutive hours. We had the ill-luck not to see a single crocodile, although the river is said to be full of them, all of ferocious temper. On the other hand, we did see the oddest possible ferry: a bundle or raft of bamboo, with chairs on top, towed across stream by a carabao regularly hitched up to it and getting over himself by swimming. This he does on an even keel, his backbone being entirely out of the water when under way.

There is nothing picturesque about the lower reaches of the Rio Grande, though its upper course, through hilly country, is different in this respect. The remains of one or two old towns, cut in two by the shift of the river-bed, excited our curiosity. So did, from to time, the barangayans, or native river-boats, huge, clumsy, ill-built, and generally with but four or five inches of free-board amidships on full load. These craft look as though they ought to sink by mere capillary attraction. However, people are born, live, and die aboard of them, so they must be safe enough. In the afternoon the river widened and its right bank, anyway, grew bolder and occasionally more permanent-looking, and finally, about an hour before sunset, we perceived the low white godowns of Aparri. We landed not at a wharf, but at the outer edge of the huddle of craft crowding the water front, and put up at the Fonda de Aparri, having done eighty-odd miles in a little over ten hours.

All the tobacco of the Valley reaches the world through Aparri; it is consequently a port of considerable importance. But it has no safe anchorage and is frightfully exposed to typhoons, all of which, if they do not pass over the place directly, somehow or other appear to step aside to give this region a blow. There is a never-ending conflict in the adjacent waters between the currents of the China Sea and those of the Pacific, making navigation hazardous, and for small boats perilous. On the day of our arrival, calm and fair as it was, a tremendous surf was beating on the bar, the spray and foam mounting in a regular wall many feet high, and driven up, not by the gradual attack of an advancing wave, but by the tireless energy of angry waters ceaselessly beating upon the same spot.

Of Aparri itself little can be said here: but, small as it is, it has nevertheless the bustle of all seaports in activity. Many of its streets are paved with cobble-stones, and some of its buildings are, if not handsome, at least substantial. But it is cursed with flies: in our inn, otherwise comfortable enough, the kitchen and the temple of Venus Cloacina were side by side. The flies were all the more annoying that we had seen none in the mountains, nor indeed do I recollect ever having seen them in any number elsewhere in the Archipelago than at Aparri and in the never-to-be-forgotten plain of Tabuk. However, we survived the flies, and late in the afternoon of the third day went on board a Spanish steamer bound for Manila. We used our cabin to stow our kit, but lived and slept on the deck of the poop, the main deck between which and the forecastle was crowded with natives. Poor things! Each family appeared to have an area assigned to it, on which were piled indiscriminately all its earthly possessions in the shape of clothes, bags, pots and pans generally; the heap once formed, its owners sat and slept on it, with the inevitable family rooster at its highest point lording it over all. In fact, every spot on the main deck not otherwise occupied was simply filled with roosters, all challenging one another night and day by indefatigable crowing. As illustrating the difficulties of navigation in these parts, our steamer was two hours getting out of the river and across the bar, a matter of not more than a mile. Once out, she began to roll and pitch in an incomprehensible manner, seeing there was no wind and no sea. It was simply the never-ending contest between the Pacific Ocean and the China Sea. Once fairly in the latter, she behaved steadily enough.

Our journey was without incident; it did not, much to my disappointment, include the side trip sometimes made to the Babuyanes Islands for cattle. One of these islands, Fuga, is especially interesting; urn-burial prevailed in it in the past, the urns in some cases being arranged in a circle around a central urn or altar. Moreover, there is in Fuga a stone building known as the "Castle," with arched doorways, said not to be of Spanish origin, and near by is a plain strewn with human skulls and other bones, probably the scene of a battle. The skulls are remarkable from their great size, some of them being reported as extraordinary in this respect. The present inhabitants of these islands and of the Batanes live in stone houses, much like those of North Ireland and the islands west of Scotland. [44] And so we had hoped, Campbell and I, that we might get at least a look at Fuga. For, although it lies near to Aparri, it is hard to reach; small boats, even on calm, smooth days, being occasionally caught in the wicked currents of these waters and swamped out of hand. The next morning we made Kurrimao, which has a shore-line strikingly picturesque in a land almost surfeited with the picturesque. We stayed long enough to take on a number of carabaos, which were swum out to the ship, and then hauled out of the water by a sling passed around their horns.

Our next stop was at Vigan, a well-built town, many of whose houses are of stone. We reached the town in a motor-car, passing through well cultivated fields of maguey. The mountains, rising abruptly from the coastal plain, are here cut by the famous Abra de Vigan, a conspicuous gap serving as a land-mark to the mariner for miles. And it is the custom to take a ride of many hours up the pass, and then come down the rapids in two, on bamboo rafts built for the purpose. This is a most exciting trip; alas! we had to be contented with an account of it! But Vigan itself was worth the trouble of going ashore; its churches and monasteries are extensive, dignified of appearance, and far less dilapidated than is unfortunately so frequently the case elsewhere in the Islands. Not the least interesting item of our very short stay was a visit to a new house, built and owned by an Ilokano, and equipped with the most recent American plumbing. The house itself happily was after the old Spanish plan, the only one really suited to this climate and latitude. But then the Ilokanos are the most businesslike and thrifty of all the civilized inhabitants: their migration to other parts, a movement encouraged of long date by the Spanish authorities, is one of the most hopeful present-day signs of the Archipelago, I was sorry to take my leave of Vigan; the place and its environs seemed full of interest. One more stop we made at San Fernando de Union the following day, a clean-built town, but otherwise of no special characteristics. Here we met an officer of Constabulary that had been recently stationed at Lubuagan, who told us of coming suddenly one day upon a fight between two bodies of Kalingas, numbering twenty or twenty-five men each, and this in Lubuagan itself. According to our ideas, it was no fight at all, the champions of each side engaging in single combat, while the rest looked on and shouted, waiting their turn. One man had already been killed, his headless trunk lying on the ground. On the approach of the officer they all ran. Here, too, we heard from another Constabulary officer, that the insurrectos in 1898-1899 forced the Igorots to carry bells and other loot taken from the conventos and churches, and would shoot the cargadores if they stumbled or fell, or could go no farther under the weights they were carrying.

Twenty-four hours later we steamed up Manila Bay. The trip was over.



CHAPTER XXV

Future of the highlanders.—Origin of our effort to improve their condition.—Impolicy of any change in present administration.—Transfer of control of wild tribes to Christianized Filipinos.—Comparison of our course with that of the Japanese in Formosa.

The question now presents itself: What is to become of these highlanders of Northern Luzon? And if the answer to be given is here applied only to them, let it be distinctly understood that logically the question may be put in respect of all the wild people of the Philippines. Of these there are over one million in a total population of perhaps eight millions. At once it appears that any conclusions we may draw, any speculations we may cherish, in respect of the Archipelago, as being inhabited by a Christian people unjustly deprived of liberty by us, must be subject to a very large and important correction. Limiting our inquiry to Luzon alone, let it be recollected that of its 4,000,000 population nearly four hundred thousand, or one-tenth, are highlanders, and that these highlanders, in all probability, arrived in the Islands at an earlier date than their Christianized cousins of the lowlands. Let us recollect further that these people are ethnologically not savages at all; not only are they workers in steel and wood, weavers of cloth, but hydraulic agriculturists of the very highest merit. On the side of moral qualities they invite our approving attention: they speak the truth, they look one straight in the eye, they are hospitable, courageous, and uncomplaining; their women are on a footing of equality, more or less, with the men, and are respected by them. Where they have had an opportunity, they have shown an aptitude to learn of no mean quality. Physically they are the best people of the Archipelago, and under this head would be remarkable anywhere else in the world. Now, the Spaniards, with a few exceptions, made no systematic, continuous attempt to civilize these peoples; or, if they did, no measurable results have come down to our own day, even Villaverde's efforts, genuine as they were, having left almost no trace. So far from having done anything for the hillmen, the record of the Spanish at the very few points garrisoned by them is one of injustice and robbery, and worse. That of the Filipinos, [45] in imitation of their Spanish masters, is no better. At any rate, when we took over the Archipelago in 1898, a vast area of Luzon was held by a people who looked, and justly, so far as their experience had gone, upon the white man and his Filipino understudy as an enemy. The difficulty of guiding and controlling these people undoubtedly had been (and still is) great, and partly accounts for the state of affairs we encountered when we first entered the country, but it was necessarily no greater for our predecessors in the Islands than it has been for us. Now, where they failed, we, it may be said without fear of contradiction, are succeeding, and it is but the simplest act of justice to say that the credit for our success belongs to the Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine Islands, Mr. Dean C. Worcester. He would be the last man on earth to say that his success is complete; on the contrary, he would assert that a very great quantity of work yet remains to be done, and that what he has done so far is but the beginning. But it is nevertheless a successful beginning, and successful because it rests on the solid foundation of honesty and fair dealing, and is inspired by interest in and sympathy for a vast body of people universally hated and feared by the Filipino, and until lately neglected and misunderstood by almost everybody else.

The physical difficulty alone of reaching these various peoples was not only very great, but mere presence in their country involved great risk of one's life. Again, the absence of even the rudest form of tribal organization made the way hard. Take the Ifugaos, for example, about 120,000 in number, all speaking essentially the same language, inhabiting the same country, and having the same origins and traditions. Yet this large body was and is yet broken up into separate rancherias, or settlements, each formerly hostile to all the others, this hostility being so great that merely to walk into a neighboring rancheria in plain sight, not more than two miles off across the valley, was a sure way to commit suicide. And what is true of the Ifugaos is true of all the others. Could any other field have been more unpromising, have offered more difficulties? There were those thousands of savages shut up in their all but inaccessible mountains. Why not leave them there, to take one another's heads when occasion offered? They raised nothing but rice and sweet potatoes, anyway, and not enough of those to keep from going hungry. Why concern one's self about them, when there was already so much to be done elsewhere?

To Mr. Worcester's everlasting honor, be it said, he took no such view. On the contrary, he went to work, and that after a simple fashion, but then, all great things are simple! The first thing was to see the people himself; and then came the beginning of the solution, to push practicable roads and trails through the country. Once these established, communication and interchange would follow, and the way would be cleared for the betterment of relations and the removal of misunderstandings. Today an American may ride through the country alone, unarmed and unmolested; [46] twenty years ago a Spaniard trying the same thing would have lost his head within the first five miles. And this difference is fundamentally due to the fact, already mentioned, of the honesty of our relations with these simple mountaineers. We have their confidence and their esteem and their respect, and this in spite of the necessity under which our authorities have constantly labored of punishing them when necessary and of insisting upon law and order wherever our jurisdiction prevails. The lesson has been hard to learn, but it has been driven home. The truth of the matter is, that a great missionary work has been begun; missionary not in the limited sense of forcing upon the understanding of a yet circumscribed people a religion unintelligible to them, but in the sense of teaching peace and harmony, respect for order, obedience to law, regard for the rights of others.

A beginning accordingly has been made, but what is to be the end? We should not stay for an answer, could we but feel sure that but one answer were possible. But we can not feel sure on this head; the people of the Islands, whether civilized or uncivilized, have not yet gone far enough to proceed alone. To drop the work now, nay, to lessen it, would merely be inviting a return to former evil conditions. No greater disaster could befall these highlanders to-day than a change entailing a diminution of the interest and sympathy felt for them at the seat of government. It is best to be plain about this matter: the Filipinos of the lowlands dislike the highlander as much as they fear and dread him. They apparently can not bear the idea that but three or four hundred years ago they too were barbarians; [47] for this reason the consideration of the highlander is distasteful and offensive to them. The appropriations of the Philippine Assembly for the necessary administration of the Mountain Province are none too great; they would cease entirely could the Assembly have its own way in the matter. The system of communications, so well begun and already so productive of happy results, would come to an end. To turn the destiny of the highlander over to the lowlander is, figuratively speaking, simply to write his sentence of death; to condemn as fair a land as the sun shines on to renewed barbarism. We are shut up to this conclusion, not by theoretical considerations, but by experience. The matter is worth examining a little closely, covering, as it does, not only the hill tribes, but non-Christians everywhere else.

Certain persons have demanded from time to time that the control of non-Christian tribes shall be turned over to the Filipinos. Now, pointing out in passing that the Filipinos and the non-Christians are distinct peoples, fully as distinct as the Dutch and the Germans, and that the Filipinos have no just claim to the ownership of the territory occupied by the wild men, let us ask ourselves if the Filipinos are able and fit to control the non-Christian tribes. [48]

Consider for a moment the facts set out in the following extracts:

"With rare exceptions, the Filipinos are profoundly ignorant of the wild men and their ways. They seem to have failed to grasp the fact that the non-Christians, who have been contemptuously referred to in the Filipino press as a 'few thousand savages asking only to be let alone,' number approximately a million and constitute a full eighth of the population of the Archipelago."

"The average hillman hates the Filipinos on account of the abuses which his people have suffered at their hands, and despises them because of their inferior physical development and their comparatively peaceful disposition, while the average Filipino who has ever come in close contact with wild men despises them on account of their low social development, and, in the case of the more warlike tribes, fears them because of their past record for taking sudden and bloody vengeance for real or fancied wrongs."

"It is impossible to avoid plain speaking if this question is to be intelligently discussed; and the hard fact is, that wherever the Filipinos have come in close contact with the non-Christian inhabitants, the latter have almost invariably suffered at their hands grave wrongs, which the more warlike tribes, at least, have been quick to avenge. Thus a wall of prejudice and hatred has been built up between the Filipinos and the non-Christian tribes. It is a noteworthy fact that hostile feeling toward the Filipinos is strong even among people like the Tinguians who, barring their religious beliefs, are in many ways as highly civilized as are their Ilocano neighbors,"

"The success of American rule over the non-Christian tribes of the Philippines is chiefly due to the friendly feeling which has been brought about."

"The wild man has now learned for the first time that he has rights entitled to a respect other than that which he can enforce with his lance and his head-axe. He has found justice in the courts. His property and his life have been made safe, and the American governor, who punishes him sternly when he kills, is his friend and protector so long as he behaves himself."

"Finally, it should be clearly borne in mind that the Filipinos have been given an excellent opportunity to demonstrate practically their interest in the non-Christians, and their ability wisely to direct the affairs of primitive peoples. While the inhabitants of the Mountain Province, Nueva Vizcaya, Agusan, and the Moro Province are not now subject to control by them, and the inhabitants of Mindoro and Palawan are subject to their control only through the Philippine Legislature, there are non-Christian inhabitants in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela [and eighteen others].

"At the outset, these governors and provincial boards [i.e., of the provinces just mentioned] exercised over their non-Christian constitutents precisely the same control they had over Filipinos. To the best of my knowledge and belief, not one single important measure looking to the betterment of the condition of these non-Christian inhabitants was ever inaugurated by a Filipino during this period. Indeed, the fact that no expense would be voluntarily incurred for them became so evident as to render necessary the passage, on December 16, 1905, of an act setting aside a portion of the public revenues for the exclusive benefit of the non-Christians.

"After Apayao was established as a sub-province of Cagayan and the duty of providing funds for the maintenance of its government was explicitly imposed upon the provincial board of that province, the governor stated to me that, in his opinion, it would be useless to make the necessary expenditure, and that, in his opinion, it would be better to kill all the savages in Apayao! As they number some 52,000, this method of settling their affairs would have been open to practical difficulties, apart from any humanitarian consideration!"

"Contrast with this record of inaction and lack of interest the record of the special Government provinces [49] and the Moro Province, where dwell really formidable tribes, which have until recently engaged in piracy, head-hunting, and murder. Here very extensive lines of communication have been opened up by the building of roads and trails and the clearing of rivers. A good state of public order has been established. Head-hunting, slavery, and piracy are now very rare. The liquor traffic has been almost completely suppressed. Life and property have been rendered comparatively safe, and in much of the territory entirely so. In many instances, the wild men are being successfully used to police their own country. Agriculture is being developed. Unspeakably filthy towns have been made clean and sanitary. The people are learning to abandon human sacrifices and animal sacrifices and to come to the doctor when injured or ill. Numerous schools have been established and are in successful operation. The old sharply drawn tribal lines are disappearing. Bontoc Igorots, Ifugaos, and Kalingas now visit each other's territory. At the same time that all of this has been accomplished, the good-will of the people themselves has been secured. They are outspoken in their appreciation of what has been done for them and in their expression of the wish that American rule should continue. They would be horror-stricken at the thought of being turned over to Filipino control," [50]

"So far as concerns the warlike tribes, the work for their advancement thus far accomplished would promptly be lost; for they would instantly offer armed resistance to Filipino control, and the old haphazard intermittent warfare, profitless and worse than profitless for both peoples, would be resumed."

"I say, in all kindness, but with deep conviction, that there is no reason for believing that Filipino control of the more pacific non-Christian tribes would not promptly result in the re-establishment of the old system of oppression which Americans have found it necessary to combat from the day when military rule was first established in these islands until now. I speak whereof I know when I say that the people of these tribes have been warned, over and over again, by those interested in re-establishing the old regime, that American control in the Philippines will be only temporary, and that when the government is turned over to the Filipinos the tribesmen will be punished for their present 'insubordination' and failure tamely to submit to injustice and oppression, as many of them formerly did."

These extracts speak for themselves. So far as is known, the report from which they are drawn has gone unchallenged. Is it necessary any further to consider the question of a transfer of control from the present authorities to the Filipinos or to any other authority? Would not any change in the present administration be singularly unwise? Of course, the views and arguments set forth here are extremely unpopular among the politicians of the native ruling class. But then no Filipino likes the plain, unvarnished truth, a fact that should receive full weight in considering any demand or request of native or racial origin, involving questions of government.

With our own treatment of the American Indian in mind, our people should be the last to consent to any change in the relations or administration of the wild men of the Philippine Islands not fully justified by the amplest necessity, not warranted by well-grounded hopes of greater improvement. These men, for the first time in their history, are having a chance. That chance is fair to-day, and will continue fair so long as its administration lies in American hands., competent, trained, and experienced.

In taking over the Philippines, we have incidentally become responsible for a large number of wild men. Their fate is bound up in that of the Islands. Now, these islands may remain under our control, or they may not. Obviously, then, the question has its political side: we may grant full international independence to the Philippines. In the belief of some this would be merely a signal for civil war in the Archipelago, the issue of which no man can guess. But whether or not, in granting independence to the Philippines, we shall be signing the death-warrant of the highlander. Let us repeat that, this people form one-tenth of the population of Luzon: save as we arc helping him, he can not as yet assert himself beyond the reach of his spear. Shall we be the ones to mark this as the limit beyond which he shall never go? Let us not deceive ourselves: a grant of independence means the abandonment of hundreds of thousands of people to perpetual barbarism.

What would happen if the Islands fell into alien hands of course no one can tell. But there is strong ground for believing that Japan would enter a mighty bid for the sovereignty of the Archipelago, if we ever contemplate parting with it. Now, Japan in Formosa has for years been struggling, and without success, to control or subdue the aborigines of the mountains, a people of the same blood as the Igorots, of the same habits and traits, savage head-hunters, the terror of all the plainsmen of no matter what origin. It is interesting to read [51] that "among other measures taken by the Japanese authorities to 'control' the aborigines was the erection of barbed wire entanglements charged with electricity," the idea being, after surrounding a savage position by these entanglements, to have the troops drive the savages upon them. Many people have refused to believe that this electrical process has ever been put into effect, but the Kobe newspaper goes on to quote the correspondent of the Times in confirmation. And a correspondent from Shanghai, writing [52] to give the truth about the state of affairs in Formosa and to defend the Japanese against the charge of ill-treating the savages, nevertheless admits having been shown the entanglements, which, he says, are "as harmless as any ordinary fence wire during the day, except in cases of serious uprising on the part of the savages. At night it is charged, but all the savages know this grave fact." According to the Times correspondent, some three hundred miles have already been set up, and the work will be pushed until the aborigines "are wholly caged." Lastly, the Chronicle reports the Governor-General of Formosa as fixing a term of three years for the suppression of the bravest and fiercest tribe of all, numbering 50,000, at a cost of 17,000,000 yen. Now, we have no interest here or elsewhere in what is, after all, a municipal affair of Japan's. She must and will settle her own problems as seems best to her, and, if she is driven to "suppress" her Formosan aborigines, it is none of our business. Moreover, before pronouncing upon the matter, we should in all fairness hear the other side, although it does look as though the electric wire fence must be admitted. But there is enough in what is reported from Formosa to give us pause when we consider the possibility of parting with the control of the Philippine Islands, whether to Japan or to any other nation.

In so far as the wild tribes of the Archipelago are concerned, we have made a happy beginning; we owe it to our self-respect to carry on the work to a happy end. This we can do by heeding the simplest of rules: Leave well alone.



The Independence of the Philippines.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis iv. 9.

"If we lose sight of the welfare of the people in a creed or a phrase or a doctrine, we have taken leave of our intelligence, and we have proved ourselves unfit for leadership."—A Letter to Uncle Sam.

Shall we give their independence to the Philippines? To this question an answer is still to be made by the American people. Not only do we not know whether we shall give this independence or not, but we have not yet decided whether we ought to or not. Even if we could suppose that the country had made up its mind on the subject, it would still be true that no competent authority has considered the manner in which our country would translate its desires into action, whether in one direction or another.

The reason of this state of affairs is not far to seek: our people neither know anything about these islands, nor do they care anything about them. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that our ignorance is the logical result of our indifference. The Islands are far away, as it were, inhabited by a different race, busied, on the whole, about things that form no part of our life, whether national or private. We have, as a people, bestowed no serious thought upon them; we have not yet raised the disposition to be made of them to the dignity of a national question.

I.

The Philippines became ours by the fortune of war. On the subsidence of the immediate questions raised by the war, we have continued in the ownership of the Islands without concerning ourselves thus far as to the ultimate place they are to occupy in our national ecomony. Of this state of affairs, but one opinion can be expressed: it is extraordinary. Even in a grossly material point of view, our attitude is indefensible; if we regard ourselves as landlords, we are indifferent to our tenants; if as mere owners, then are we careless of the future of our property. We have not assumed the responsibilities involved with any national sense of responsibility; we have neither declared nor formed any policy. But in this fact lies the extraordinariness of the situation. Of the soundness of our title to the Islands at international law there is not the shadow of a doubt; the Islands are ours. What do we intend to do with them? Why have we not, after fourteen years' possession, found an answer to the question, or, in other words, declared a policy? Nations, no less than individuals, must take an interest in their property, and society demands as a right that any property of whatever nature shall be adjusted in respect of relations to all other property. We have followed this course as regards Cuba and Porto Rico; but, apart from taking the Philippines and continuing to own them, we have made no adjustment of their case. The property, as such, has been administered, and, on the whole, well administered; the amount of work done, indeed, is astonishing. But that is not the issue: however good has been the official administration of the Archipelago, whatever the progress under our tutelage of its peoples as a whole, no one knows to-day what relation will be permanently established between the Archipelago and the United States, what our policy is, or is to be, in respect of the Islands. And yet upon our declaration of a policy hangs their future. The matter in its interest and importance is national; equally national is the indifference we have displayed with respect to its settlement. Both the United States and the Philippines are entitled to a decision.

II.

At the outset of any consideration of the question in hand, it is obvious that we are not shut up a priori to any one solution. Thus, we may decide, to keep the Islands, or we may grant them immediate independence, or independence at some future date; we may establish a protectorate, or give a qualified independence, or even turn them over to some other power—for example, England or Japan; or, finally, we may secure an international agreement to neutralize the Islands, thus ostensibly guarding them against the ambitions of powerful neighbors of colonizing disposition. All of these solutions have at one time or another been mentioned; not one of them has ever been officially announced by the Government, or ratified by the people. Although they are all possible, yet a moment's thought shows that they are of very different weight: it is hard to conceive, for example, of our turning the Islands over to England. Excluding, then, cession to any foreign power, we may roughly arrange the various possibilities in a scale, as it were: (a) absolute retention; (b) qualified retention; (c) protectorate; (d) neutralization; (e) international independence at some future date; (f) immediate international independence. On examining this list thus arranged, certain deductions appear. The stated various possibilities are not all independent, nor are they all exclusive one of the others. Thus (a) excludes all the rest, or, better, implies (b), (c), and (d), and excludes (a) and (f); (b) and (c) between them are not independent, since a qualified retention may pass into a protectorate. Neutralization not impossibly may ultimately call for a protectorate. Future, independence, so long as unaccomplished, implies (a), (b), (c), and (d), while (f) is completely exclusive. It may, however, not prevent foreign absorption, if, once out, we stay out.

We shall not here take up all of these possibilities. Whatever other conclusion may be reached, the American people must first pass, either tacitly or explicitly, on retention or independence. If either of these extreme be selected, the other possibilities go by the board. If both are rejected, the remaining four will then have their day in court.

Our immediate purpose, then, is to discuss the question with which this investigation opens, with the definite purpose of suggesting, if not of reaching, conclusions that may help others in forming a decision. It is only when individual decisions have so increased in number as in some sort to form a body of public opinion that future action, whether for or against independence, is to be expected.

III.

However unjustly the American people may treat its own self in respect of tariffs and other issues deeply affecting its welfare, it may be taken for granted, and is so taken here, that in foreign relations the desire of the people is to do what is right. The right determined, a duty is imposed. Clearly, then, we must first try to discover in this case what is right—what is right for us, what is right for the Islanders. It may be that what is theoretically right, or regarded as theoretically right, shall turn out to be practically wrong; or that what is right for the one shall be wrong for the other. Again, some common standing-ground may be found, where the right of each, converted into the rights of both, may so far overlap as substantially to coincide.

The idea is held by a vigorous few, and incessantly expressed, that the American people, through force of arms, is holding in subjection and depriving of liberty another people; that this state of affairs is wrong, bad for both sides, and should come to an end by an immediate grant of full independence to the Filipino people, because no one nation is good enough to hold any other in subjection. It is pertinent to remark, that these ideas so far have found no nation-wide expression: as already said, they are the expression of only a few, but they may be the private opinions of many. Taken together, they constitute what may be called the purely abstract view of the case. This view takes no account of attendant conditions; it asserts that the right is one and only one thing, and can not be anything else; that is to say, it defines the right and refuses to admit that any other definition will hold, or that any elements can enter into the definition other than those which it has seen fit to include. If no other aspect of the case be correct, our duty is indeed plain. But it is conceivable that this view may not be correct, or at least that so many other factors have to be considered that what might be true in the abstract is subject to very considerable modification when applied to things as they are.

Of this, no better illustration can be given here than the error committed when it is asserted that we, one people, are holding another people, the Filipino, in subjection. As a matter of fact, there is no Filipino people. A certain number of persons, about eight millions, inhabit, the Philippine Archipelago, but it is no more correct to call these one people than it is to call the Europeans one people, because they happen to inhabit the European continent. It is well to keep this point in mind, because, unless a grave error is here committed, the impression prevails that it is one single, homogeneous people whom we are unjustly depriving of independence. At any rate, if not categorically expressed, the connotation of the idea of homogeneity exists. How far this is from the truth is so evident to any person having the slightest real acquaintance with the Philippines, that it would hardly be worth while to dwell upon the matter here, were it not for the ignorance of our people at large. It is convenient to speak of the Filipino people, just as it is convenient to speak of the Danish people, or of the English; but whereas, when we say "Danish" or "English" we mean one definite thing that exists as such, when we say "Filipino" we should understand that the term stands for a relatively great number of very different things. For example, confining ourselves for the moment to the Christianized tribes, it may be asserted that the inhabitants of the great Cagayan Valley, the tobacco-growing country, are at least as different from those of the Visayas, the great middle group of Islands, as are the Italians from the Spanish. Precisely similar differences, increasing, roughly, with the difference of latitude, may be drawn almost at random between any other pairs of the elements constituting the Filipino population. The Ilokanos, to give only one more illustration, have almost nothing more, in common with the Bicols than the fact that they both probably come from the same original stock, just as the English and the Germans have the same ancestors. All these subdivisions speak different languages, and the vast majority do not speak Spanish at all.

But this is not all. The Filipino peoples are divided into two great classes, the Christian and the non-Christian. Now, these non-Christians number over a million, and are themselves broken up into many subdivisions, not only differing in language, customs, habits and traditions, but until very recently bitterly hostile to one another, and so low in the scale of political development that, unlike our own Indians, they have never risen to any conception of even tribal government or organization. Moreover, in Moroland, in the great island of Mindanao with its neighbors, the situation is further complicated by the fact that the dominant elements are Mohammedan. Over most of these non-Christians the Spaniards had not even the shadow of control. The appellation "Filipino people" is therefore wholly erroneous; more than that, it is even dangerously fallacious, in that its use blinds or tends to blind our own people to the real conditions existing in the Archipelago. It is correct to speak of the Filipino peoples, because this expression is, geographically, accurately descriptive; but it is absolutely misleading to speak of the Filipino people, because of the false political idea involved and conveyed by the use of the singular number. Similarly, there is no objection to the term "Filipino" or "Filipinos," so long as we understand it to mean merely an inhabitant or the inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago, more narrowly the Christianized inhabitant or inhabitants; but it is distinctly wrong to give to the term a political or national color. It may be remarked now that the divisions, both Christian and non-Christian, of which we have been speaking, determined as they are by natural conditions, are likely to survive for many generations to come. At any rate, the fact that many, and those the most important, constituent elements of the proposed independent government are widely separated by the seas, and that even those situated on the same islands are confined by mountain ranges hitherto extremely difficult to cross, makes it plain that the homogeneity necessary to the formation and permanency of a strong government will be hard to secure, or, if ever secured, to maintain.

When, therefore, it is proposed to grant independence to the Philippine Islands, let it be recollected that this grant is to be made not to a single homogeneous people, of one speech, of one religion, of one state of civilization, of one degree of social and political development, but to an aggregation of peoples, of different speech, of different religions, of widely varying states of social and political development, of little or no communication with one another—to an aggregation, in short, whose elements, before 1898, had had but one bond, the involuntary bond of inherited subjection to Spanish authority, and all of which to-day are distinguished by the characteristic trait of the Oriental, absence of the quality of sympathy.

IV.

Since, at international law, our title to the Islands is unclouded, it follows that our responsibility in the premises is complete. If, therefore, in the administration of our responsibility, our wards should make a request for independence, it is our duty to examine this request, to inquire into its origin, and then to investigate its reasonableness with the purpose of determining whether, in the circumstances, our wards are able, prepared, or ready to undertake the responsibilities which they pray us to discharge upon them.

That the request for independence is made, and frequently made, there can be no doubt. It has been made in the past and it will continue to be made in the future. One hears it in speeches, and the native press echoes it. Regularly the Assembly closes, or used to close, its sessions by a resolution calling upon the United States to grant immediate independence to the Philippine Islands. Apparently the request has some volume; in any case, it is more or less loudly made. Now, if the demand is widespread, if it conies from all ranks of society, from the humblest peasant in the rice-paddies to the richest merchant of Manila, from the tobacco-planter of the Cagayan Valley to the hemp-stripper of Davao, if it is made in full recognition of the responsibilities involved, then, whether we are disposed to grant it or not. it is a serious matter. It becomes serious, objectively, because so many people arc asking for it. Even if the demand come but from a few, the matter is nevertheless, subjectively, one of concern, because we are responsible, and no factor or element should be overlooked in making up our minds.

Now, it is a fact that the chief demand for independence comes from the Tagalogs, the subdivision or tribe of the Filipinos (we are using the word here and elsewhere as a convenience merely) inhabiting Manila and the adjacent provinces. We speak in all kindliness when we say that they are distinguished by a certain restlessness of disposition, by a considerable degree of vanity. They are not so given to labor as some others—for example, the Ilokanos, to whom they are measurably inferior in point of trustworthiness. More numerous than any other tribe except the Visayans, they are also wealthier and better educated. Some of them have therefore earned and achieved distinction, but these are exceptions, for in general they are characterized by volatility and superficiality. They are more mixed in blood than other tribes. It is not without significance that it was these same Tagalogs who organized in the past the chief insurrections against the domination of Spain, principally, as is well known, because of the misrule of the friars. It is also a fact that the farther one removes from Manila the feebler becomes the cry for independence. If we consider the condition of the loudest supporters of the movement, we find them all, or nearly all, to be politicians, politicos. Some of these politicians are not Tagalogs—for example, Senor Osmena, the Speaker of the Assembly, is a Visayan; so that it would perhaps be more accurate to say of the entire propaganda that it is an affair of the politicians, supported chiefly by Tagalogs. In other words, it is worth while to ask ourselves if the demand for independence be real, arising out of the necessities of the people, or artificial, exploited by the politicians for ends not unfamiliar to us here in the States. It is useless to appeal for a decision to public opinion in the Archipelago, that shall include the whole population, for no such public opinion exists or can exist. And if it be argued that lack of public opinion is no disproof of the existence of a real desire for independence, the rejoinder springs at once to the tongue, that independence would be a sham where public opinion is impossible. There is cause to believe that the true aspect of the case is to be found in a remark made by a young Tagalog (to Mr. Taft himself, if we recollect aright), that there was no reason why independence should not be established at once, seeing that the two things needed already existed in the Philippines, to-wit, the governed in the shape of the peasantry of the fields, and the governors among the gente fina, the gente ilustrada (the superior classes) of Manila. However this may be, a native newspaper of Manila, distinguished by its hostility to all things American, by its insistent demand for independence, did not hesitate to accuse the wealthy Filipino class of being "refractory to the spirit of association," of being "egotistical and disdainful toward the middle and lower classes," and of refusing "to join their interests with those of the lower classes." [53]

We do not go so far as do some, and believe that the whole agitation is but a conspiracy to place the destinies of the Islands in the hands of an oligarchy. But, in all probability, a Tagalog oligarchy would be formed; for the capital, Manila, is Tagalog, the adjacent provinces are Tagalog, the wealthy class of the Islands on the whole is Tagalog, and there is no middle class anywhere. The mere fact that the capital is situated in the Tagalog provinces would perhaps alone determine the issue, apart from the fact that the Tagalogs are the dominant element, of the native population. Before granting independence, therefore, we should be reasonably sure that we are not in reality placing supreme control in the hands of a few.

But let us suppose that in fact the populations of the Archipelago were quite generally to ask for independence. We must again ask ourselves, How genuine or real would this demand be? It is not very difficult to answer this question. The Filipino is most easily led and influenced; indeed, it is to be doubted if anywhere else in the world a being can be found more easily led and influenced. [54] For example, it is relatively not an uncommon thing, certainly in the Tagalog provinces, for a man having a grudge against a neighbor to invite three or four friends to join him in boloing his enemy. The invitation is frequently accepted, although the guests may themselves have nothing whatever against the victim-to-be. Early in 1909, a miscreant who had been parading himself in women's clothes as a female Jesus Christ, upon exposure by a native doctor, out of revenge got together a band of nineteen men, and with their help proceeded to cut the doctor to pieces. This occurred within a day's march of Manila. The example just given suggests another Filipino trait, the readiness with which the more ignorant will swallow any and all religious nostrums, and form absurd sects, usually for the financial or other material benefit of their leaders. In yet another case, a murderous bandit [55] of Tayabas Province, a Tagalog province, whom we caught and very properly hanged, used to promise as a reward for any deed of special villainy in which he might be interested, a bit of independencia (independence), and then would show a box with the word painted on it, declaring that it contained a supply sent down to him from Manila. He never failed to find men to do his will. Our purpose in citing these examples, whose number might be indefinitely multiplied, is not to show that the poor, ignorant Filipino is especially criminal of disposition, but to point out the ease with which he can be led by other men. If, under evil influence, he will altruistically, as it were, consent to almost any crime, obviously he can be induced to consent to almost anything else. His consent or acquiescence can not be taken to indicate appreciation of the issue.

If told, then, by his political leaders that he must ask for independence, the Filipino most certainly will ask for it; and the fact that in the majority of cases he has no idea of what he is asking for will make no difference to him, just as this makes no difference to his cacique, or boss. But it ought to make a great deal of difference to us. We may be giving him edged tools to play with, only to find when too late that the edge has been turned against him, a result for which we should then be directly responsible. If a general or universal request could be taken to show that lack of independence is operating to deprive the Filipino of his liberty and to estop him in the pursuit of happiness, the situation of affairs would be confessedly acute. But it is a fact patent to all who know the country, that the Filipino enjoys a freedom at least as great as that of the average American citizen, and is at complete liberty to pursue happiness in any way consistent with the law of the land and with the rights of others. We must conclude that a request, even if universal, would not necessarily be for us a safe guide of action. The universality shown might prove merely that all had agreed to what had been proposed by the leaders, and would leave untouched the merits of the case.

V.

Intimately allied with this question of reasonableness are those of readiness, preparedness, capacity to assume the burdens as well as the rights and privileges of independence.

On readiness, we need not dwell; it is the readiness of acquiescence, not of preparation: the Filipinos are ready, just as children are ready to play with matches. But preparedness and capacity call for more consideration, however brief.

No one will pretend that the Filipinos have had any political training. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, only 350 years ago, they were all uncivilized. Many of them are still semi-savages; others are savages pure and simple. These facts are indisputable. If, then, we turn to history for assistance, we can not find a single instance of any real political evolution in any of the various divisions of the inhabitants of the Archipelago. The exception furnished by the debased Mohammedan sultanates of the great Island of Mindanao is only apparent. The germ of fruitful growth is everywhere missing. Now, the Spaniards assuredly took no steps to teach their new subjects the art and science of government; there was every reason, from their point of view, why they should not teach this art and science. On the other hand, our own course has been totally different. We have lost no time in putting political power into the hands of the natives, so that to-day, after fourteen years' possession, municipal and provincial government are almost wholly native. To crown all, we have given the Filipinos an elective legislature, an Assembly, all the members of which are native. Students of the subject at first hand, impartial observers on the spot, declare freely that we have gone much too fast, and that we have granted a measure of political administration and government beyond the native power of assimilation and digestion. With this opinion, sound though it be, we are not immediately concerned: the point we wish to bring out is that the experiment we have made is not free; that the case is one of constrained motion, since everyone knows that the mighty power of the United States dominates the entire situation, and that under these conditions the Filipinos have been exercising themselves in the form of government, rather than in responsible government itself. The Filipino government as such has faced no crisis: behind its treasury stands that of the metropolis. Order is assured by the garrison maintained by us, internal police by the Constabulary, another agency of American origin. But, even if all this were not true, it is questionable if an experience of only eight or nine years affords sufficient ground for the belief that a nascent government could exist and advance under its own power alone.

Our training, ample and generous though it may have been, as it has not, for lack of time if for no other reason, prepared the native to govern himself, so it furnishes no real test of his capacity to govern himself. Self-government is not a function of the mere ability to fill certain offices, to discharge certain routine duties of administration: it depends for its existence and maintenance on the possession of certain qualities, and still more, perhaps, on the possession of those qualities by a majority of the people who practice or are to practice self-government, on an educated and inherited interest of the citizen in the questions affecting his welfare in so far as this is conditioned by government. Tested in this wise, the Filipino breaks down locally; to believe that anything else will happen internationally is to blind one's self to the teaching of experience.

But there is yet another test. If political independence is to be of value to those who have it, if it is to endure in any useful way, it must rest on economic independence. The state must be able to meet its obligations, and by this we do not mean merely its current bills, its housekeeping bills, as it were, but its obligations of all and whatever nature, interior police, finance, administration, dispensation of justice, communications, sanitation, education, defense. We do not find these things too easy in our own land, and all of us can without effort bring to mind examples of independent societies in tropical regions, where, these things being neglected, the resultant government is a mockery. Have we any reason to believe that the Filipino, untrained, inexperienced, occupying an undeveloped area of special configuration in a region where continuous effort is disagreeable and initiative distressing, will achieve success where others of greater original fitness have made a failure?

Evidently the possibility of obtaining an answer to this question depends on the possibility of determining, within allowable limits of precision, the qualities and defects of the Filipino peoples. Now, this is a difficult thing to do, but it is not an impossible thing; at any rate, a first approximation may be derived from the authorities quoted in the "Census of the Philippine Islands," 1903, pp 492 et seq. In time, these authorities range from Legaspi, 1565, to our own day, and include governors, prelates, travellers, engineers, priests, etc., among whom are found Spaniards, Englishmen, Americans, and Filipinos, As might be expected, all sorts of qualities and defects are reported. Classifying these, and rejecting from consideration all, whether quality or defect, not supported by at least five authorities, it may be concluded, so far as this induction goes, that the Filipino is, on the one hand, hospitable, courageous, fond of music, show, and display; and, on the other, indolent, superstitious, dishonest, and addicted to gambling. One quality, imitativeness, is possibly neutral. It would appear that his virtues do not especially look toward thrift—i.e., economic independence—and that his defects positively look the other way. If the witnesses testifying be challenged on the score of incompetency, let us turn to the reports of the supervisors of the census, contained in the volume already cited; for these cover the entire Archipelago, and set forth actual conditions at one and the same epoch, 1903, the date of the census. Moreover, these supervisors, as welt as the special agents and enumerators, were nearly all natives. When, therefore, these supervisors report the mass of the Christianized Filipinos as simple and superstitious, we may be sure that we have the truth; but we are also inevitably led to the conclusion of economic unfitness. As this matter of economic independence is one of the first importance in determining the future of the Islands, we must look for all the light possible on the question. A flood is thrown on it by an article entitled "Nulla est Redemptio," published in the (native) La Democracia, of Manila, October 10, 1910, and believed to be the production of perhaps the ablest Filipino alive to-day. Premising that agriculture is the chief source of Philippine wealth, and that this source failing, all others must fail, the author points out that, although taxes are lighter in the Archipelago than in any other country, production is much less, and that this is the chief cause of the prevailing economic distress. He points out further that the Assembly is wholly native, as are all municipal and nearly all provincial officers, and that therefore they, and the constituencies that elected them, must assume responsibility. Now, what has been achieved? The provinces have spent money on buildings and parks, but, with one brilliant exception, none on roads. Nothing has been done for agriculture. Of the municipalities, the least said the better; they are a wreck in the full extension of the word. And, as the hope of a people must rest in its youth, what does he find to be the case? Thousands of candidates in pharmacy, law, medicine; as regards the Civil Service, enough candidates to fill all the posts in the Islands for generations to come. But of farmers, young men willing to return to the fields, their own fields, and by the sweat of their brow to work out the salvation of the country? None: the development of this principal element of national existence is left to the ignorant and indolent peasantry. He draws no less gloomy a picture in respect of capital and property. Nine-tenths of Manila, and all important provincial real estate, is mortgaged. Capital is furnished at exorbitant rates of interest, and usury prevails. In the country, no security is accepted save real property, and then only when the lender is satisfied that his debtor will be unable to pay, and that the security will pass.