268 SPANISH FORCES. [1845. 



enemy draw off; had they attempted to close with him, 

 he had no further means of resistance. They also 

 made a very determined attack upon one of the villages 

 in a bay on the eastern side of Luban, and took many 

 captives. They are particularly careful, in their habits of 

 plunder, not to incommode themselves with any but 

 articles of value, seeking gold, silver, arms, or ammuni- 

 tion, and cautiously avoiding any objects which may be 

 recognized so as to bring them under the fang of the law ; 

 and it is to this extraordinary cunning, that, although 

 frequently captured by the Spaniards, it is difficult to 

 attach to them any tangible fact of piratical complexion. 



At Samboanga, the Spaniards have a large force of 

 faluas, commanded generally by one of their most expert 

 officers, and promotion usually follows success. It is 

 seldom, however, that they are fortunate either in coming 

 up with, or in capturing, these Illanons, who, by the 

 measures before alluded to, not only elude pursuit, but 

 also compel them to haul off in discomforture upon reaching 

 their ambuscade. Upon finding themselves too closely 

 watched at the mouth of the Bay of Illana, they have 

 been known to drag their vessels over the isthmus, and 

 get to sea by the north eastern coast of Mindanao, and 

 maintaining the ruse by keeping up sufficient excitement 

 to amuse the Spanish force, collected in the Bay of Illana, 

 commit, without restraint, the most bare-faced acts of 

 piracy upon the shores of the Philippines, thus left 

 exposed by the assemblage of the Spanish force to the 

 southward. 



These are the famed Illanons ; but we have another 

 notorious station in sight of Sooloo, upon the Island of 



