THE

CHAPTER XVIII.

Our New Possessions (Continued)

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

HE most important, and by far the most interesting, as well as the least known of America's new possessions, gained by her war with Spain, are the Philippine Islands. Comparatively few Americans have ever set foot upon that far-away and semi-civilized land, the possession of which enables America to say with England, "The sun never sets upon our flag."

The Philippines lie almost exactly on the other side of the globe from us. Approximately speaking, our noonday is their midnight; our sunset is their sunrise. There are some 1,200 of these islands, 400 of which are inhabited or capable of supporting a population; they cover about 125,000 square miles; they lie in the tropical seas, generally speaking, from five to eighteen degrees north latitude, and are bounded by the China Sea on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the east; they are about 7,000 miles southwest from San Francisco, a little over 600 southeast from Hong Kong, China, and about 1000 almost due north from Australia: they contain between 5,000,000 and 8,000,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom had, prior to Dewey's victory, May 1, 1898, acknowledged Spanish sovereignty to the extent of paying regular tribute to the Spanish crown; the remainder are bound together in tribes under independent native princes or Mohammedan rulers. Perhaps 2,500,000 all told have become nominal Catholics in religion. The rest are Mohammedans and idolaters. There are no Protestant churches in the islands.

STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY

The history of the Philippines has been monotonous from their discovery by Magellan, in 1521, until the present, a monotony broken

at times by periods of adventures in which Manila has generally been the central scene.

In 1896, the last insurrection broke out. Its causes was the old oppressions: unbearable taxes, and imprisonment or banishment, with the complete confiscation of property of those who could not pay; no justice except for those who could buy it; marriage ceremony so costly that a poor man could not pay the fee; homes and families broken up and ruined; burial refused to the dead, unless a large sum was paid in advance; no provision and no chance for education. Such were some of the causes that again goaded the natives to revolution, and nerved them with courage to achieve victory after victory over their enemies until they were promised most of the reforms which they demanded. Then they laid down their arms, and, as usual, the Governor-General failed to carry out a single pledge.

Such was the condition, and another revolt, more formidable than any of the past, was forming, when Commodore Dewey, with his American fleet, entered Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, and, a victory unparalleled in naval warfare, sunk the Spanish ships, silenced the forts, and dethroned the power of Spain forever in a land which her tyranny had blighted for more than 300 years.

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

It is impossible within the scope of this article to give details. concerning all the inhabitants of this far-away archipelago. Professor Worcester, of the University of Michigan, tells us that the population comprises more than eighty distinct tribes, with individual peculiarities. They are scattered over hundreds of islands, and one who really wants to know these peoples must leave cities and towns far behind, and, at the risk of his life, through pathless forests, amid volcanic mountains, at the mercy of savages, penetrate to the innermost wilds. Notwithstanding the fact that for hundreds of years bold men, led by the love of science or by the spirit

of adventure, have continued to penetrate these dark regions, there are many sections where the foot of civilized man has never trod; or, if so, he came not back to tell of the lands and peoples which his eyes beheld.

DIFFICULTIES OF EXPLORING THE COUNTRY

There have been great exploration of these islands.

obstacles in the way of a thorough Spain persistently opposed the repre sentatives of any other nation entering the country. She suspected every man with a gun of designing to raise an insurrection or make mischief among the natives. the natives. The account of red tape necessary to secure guns and ammunition for a little party of four or five explorers admitted through the customs at Manila, is one of the most significant, as well as one of the most humorous, passages in Professor Worcester's story of his several years' sojourn while exploring the archipelago.

In the second place, the savage tribes in the interior had no respect for Spain's authority, and will have none for ours for years to come. Two-thirds of them paid no tribute, and many of them never heard of Spain, or, if so, only remembered that a long time ago white men came and cruelly persecuted the natives along the shore. These wild tribes think themselves still the owners of the land. Some of them go naked and practice cannibalism and other horrible savage customs. Any explorer's life is in danger among them; consequently most tourists to the Philippines see Manila and make short excursions around that city. The more ambitious run down to the cities of Iloilo and Cebu, making short excursions into the country from those points, and then return, thinking they have seen the Philippines. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such travelers no more see the Philippine Islands than Columbus explored America.

Even near the coast there are savages who are almost as ignorant as their brethren in the interior. Mr. Stevens tells us that only “thirty miles from Manila is a race of dwarfs that go without clothes, wear knee-bracelets of horsehair, and respect nothing but

the jungle in which they live." The principal native peoples are of Malayan origin. Of these, to the north of Manila are the Igorrotes; in the islands south of Luzon are the civilized Visayas, and below them in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago are the fierce Moros, who originally came from the island of Borneo, settling in the Philippines a short time before the Spanish discovery. They are Mohammedans in religion, and as fanatical and as fearless fighters as the Turks themselves. For three hundred years the Spaniards have been fighting these savages, and while they have overcome them in nearly all the coast towns, they have expended, it is said, upward of $100,000,000 and sacrificed more than 100,000 lives in doing so.

THE WARLIKE MOROS

The fierce Moro warriors keep the Spanish settlers along their coasts in a constant state of alarm, and the visitor to the towns feels as if he were at an Indian outpost in early American history, because of the constant state of apprehension that prevails. Fortunately, however, the Moros along the coast have learned to distinguish between the Spaniard and the Englishman or American, and through them the generosity of the Englese, as they call the Angl Saxons, has spread to their brethren in the interior. Therefore, American and English explorers have been enabled to go into sections where the Spanish friars and monks, who have been practically the only Spanish explorers, would meet with certain death. The Mohammedan fanaticisin of the Moros, and that of the Catholic friars and Jesuits, absolutely refuse compromise.

The Negritos (little Negroes) and the Mangyans are the principal representatives of the aboriginal inhabitants before the Malayan tribes came. There are supposed to be, collectively, about 1,000,000 of them, and they are almost as destitute of clothing and as uncivilized as the savages whom Columbus found in America, and far more degenerate and loathsome in habits.

The Island of Luzon, on which the city of Manila stands, is about as large as the State of New York, its area being variously

estimated at from 43,000 to 47,000 square miles.

It is the largest of the Philippine group, comprising perhaps one-third of the area of the entire archipelago. Its inhabitants are the most civilized, and its territory the most thoroughly explored. The city of Manila is the metropolis of the Philippines. The population of the city and its environs is considered to be some 300,000 souls, of whom 200,000 are natives, 40,000 full-blooded Chinese, 50,000 Chinese half-castes, 5,000 Spanish, mostly soldiers, 4,000 Spanish half-castes. and 300 white foreigners other than Spaniards. Mr. Joseph Earle Stevens, already referred to, who represented the only American firm in the city of Manila, under Spanish rule (which finally had to turn its business over to the English and leave the island a few years since), informs us that he and three others were the only representatives of the United States in Manila as late as 1893.

THE CITY OF MANILA

The city is built on a beautiful bay from twenty-five to thirty miles across, and on both shores of the Pasig River. On the right bank of the river, going up from the bay, is the old walled town, and around the walls are the weedy moats or ditches. The heavy guns and frowning cannon from the walls suggest a troubled past. This old city is built in triangular form, about a mile on each side, and is regarded as very unhealthful for the walls both keep out the breeze and keep in the foul air and odors. The principal buildings in the old part of the city are the cathedral, many parish churches, a few schoolhouses and the official buildings. The population in the walled city is given at 20,000. Up to a few years ago, no foreigner was permitted to sleep within its walls on account of the Spaniard's fear of a conspiracy. A bridge across the Pasig connects old Manila with the new or unwalled city, where nearly all of the business is done and the native and foreign residents live.

It does not take long to exhaust the sights of Manila, if the people, who are always interesting, are excepted. Aside from the cathedral and a few of the churches, the buildings of the city are anything but imposing. In fact, there is little encouragement to