GEOGRA PHIC LITER A TURE 517 



a tax was required for the license to run the oil-press for extracting value 

 from the ripe cocoanuts. The producer had to pay for a license to sell 

 his bananas or rice or milk ; the owner could not kill his buffalo or his hog 

 for needed meat without a tax of two to four dollars ; he could not even 

 fell a tree on his own homestead without paying for the privilege. " It 

 must be remembered that a man's wages are frequently not more than 

 five or ten cents per day ; that a large majority of the people cannot get 

 work at any price; and that the taxes are not the whole story, for the 

 village friar is yet to be reckoned with, and he has ways of his own for re- 

 lieving his parishioners of their pence " (page 237). Sometimes the friars 

 were kindly and generous, but so many were otherwise as to lower the 

 average, and apparently more than nullify the occasional benefit of their 

 presence. Their charges for marriage were so extortionate " as to give 

 rise to a widespread and almost necessary custom of dispensing with it" 

 (page 347) ; the minimum charge for burial in Masbate was fifty dollars, 

 or seventy-five if a coffin was used (which itself was sold by the priest at 

 a good price); one padre was not content with prohibiting the burial in 

 holy ground of bodies whose families could not pay the charges, but 

 " caused them to be exposed on the trees about the village square, where 

 they were left to the tender mercies of carrion-eating birds until such 

 time as relatives or friends compensated the holy father in advance for 

 his services" (page 314). On the whole, it seems evident that the civil 

 conditions in the island have been such as to check progress, to pre- 

 vent industrial development, and to render miserable the lives of the 

 people. Referring to the people themselves, Professor Worcester 



says : " The writers in our current literature who lump the whole popu- 

 lation of the Philippines as barbarians and savages are grossly in error" 

 (page 472). In addition to the Caucasians, Chinese, and a few Japa- 

 nese, there are more than eighty distinct tribes, conveniently grouped 

 as Negritos, pagan Malays, Mohammedan Malays, and civilized Ma- 

 lays. The Negritos "are rapidly disappearing, and seem destined to 

 speedy extinction" (page 473)-; the pagan Malays comprise the im- 

 portant tribes of aborigines retaining primitive characteristics. Some 

 of them are savage in disposition and are given to head-hunting and 

 other bloodthirsty customs, though most are harmless and docile and 

 eminently susceptible to civilization. The Mohammedan Malays, or 

 Moro, retain divers traits of savagery, some of them intensified by 

 the fanaticism of a barbaric religion ; the most obnoxious of them are 

 the juramentados] who, having taken oath to die killing Christians 

 as the price of eternal glory, arm themselves, enter the nearest town, 

 and run amok among the residents, slaying every living being within 

 reach until themselves slain ; but even these people yield to wise govern- 

 ment combining justice and firmness, as shown by the success of (leneral 

 Arolas in dealing with them. The civilized Malays are hospitable, 

 cheerful, fairly honest according to their lights, self-respecting, genial, 

 and notably ready to tolerate judicious government; most of them are 

 constitutionally indolent, though in those islands in which hard natural 

 conditions make it difficult to earn a livelihood they are noted for their 

 industry ; yet it is not to be forgotten that they are primitive people, 



