PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: II. S 



south, the Balingtang Channel (depth of 95 fathoms without bottom) lies 

 between them and the Babuyanes. The Balingtang Islands, lone rocks 

 rising pei'iDendicularly from the sea, lie in the center of the Balingtang 

 Channel and form a connecting link between the Batanes and the Babu- 

 j^anes groups. 



PEOPLE. 



The Batanes people form a separate race, speaking their own language, 

 or languages, for that of Isba3'at is different from the language of the 

 other islands. Professor >Scheerer = considers the inhabitants of Batan 

 and Sabtan to be of Malay stock, while those of Isbayat are mixed Ma- 

 layan and Papuan. They are kindly, intelligent, enterprising and ex- 

 tremely industrious. Throughout the Babuyanes and northern Luzon the 

 Batanes people have the reputation for being excellent workers. The 

 two principal islands, Batan and Sabtan, are overpopulated and the 

 arable land is largely taken up, hence there has been consideraljle emigra- 

 tion and one finds people from the Batanes scattered throughout the 

 Babuyanes Islands and Luzon. 



In the days before the Spanish occupation, the constant warfare be- 

 tween the villages made purposes of defense the first requisite in the choice 

 of a village site, hence the inhabitants lived on the hilltops, going dovm 

 to work in the fields by day, after the manner of the Pueblo Indians of 

 America. The ruins of these old towns are to be seen on the hills above 

 San Vicente (Batan) and Itbod. Itbod was extremely elaborate, being 

 built more in the form of a single fort than a village. Eemains of a 

 large cistern and of storehouses show that the inhabitants were prepared 

 to resist a siege, and ruins of small buildings, apparently watchtowers 

 overlooking the cultivated patches, show the precautions which were taken 

 against surprise. It was here that the natives made their only stand 

 against the Spaniards, being overcome by cannon planted on a neigh- 

 boring hill. 



With the coming of the Spaniards the hill towns were destroyed and 

 the people forced to move into seacoast villages, the sites of which were 

 as a rule dependent upon the presence of gaps in the coral reefs. 



HISTORY. 



The group was discovered by William Dampier in 1687 and named by 

 him the Bashi Islands, after an intoxicating drink brewed from sugar 

 cane (now however termed palic by the islanders). Later in the same 

 year three Dominican missionaries visited the Batanes, but after the 

 death of two of them, the survivor returned to Luzon. In 1734 four 

 Dominicans arrived and stayed for a short time, but it was not until 

 1791 that the Spanish regime was fully established. From September, 



= Scheerer, Otto: Mitt, der Deutsch. Gesellschft. f. TVatiir und Volkerkunde 

 Ostasiens, Toltyo ( 1906) , 11, Pt. I. 



