music.  Their lyrical poetry was not materialized.  The study of the natives must be studied as geology is.  Geology and native history have been neglected in the Tagala country.  The rocks of the Philippines have not been opened to be read like books.  More is known of the botany of the islands than of the formation of the mountains and their foundations.  The original inhabitants were Negritos—­a dwarfish race, very dark and tameless, still in existence, but driven to the parts of the country most inaccessible.  They are of the class of dark savages, who smoke cigars holding the fiery ends between their teeth!  The islands were invaded and extensively harassed by Malay tribes—­the most numerous and active being the Tagala.  Of this tribe is General Aguinaldo, and it is as a man with a tribe not a nation that he has become conspicuous.  The other tribes of Malays will not sustain him if he should be wild enough to want to make war upon the United States.  The Tagalas are cock fighters and live on the lowlands.  They eat rice chiefly, but are fond of ducks and chickens, and they have an incredibly acute sense of smell, not a bad taste in food, and do not hanker to get drunk.

The Visayas are also a tribe.  The Igolatas are next to the Tagala in numbers and energy.  They show traces of Chinese and Japanese blood.  There are no Africans in the Philippines, no sign of their blood.  This may be attributed to Phillip’s prohibition of negro slavery.  General Greene, of New York, took with him to Manila a full-blooded black manservant, and he was a great curiosity to the Filipinos.  When the English conquered Manila in 1762 they had Sepoy regiments, and held the city eighteen months.  A good deal of Sepoy blood is still in evidence.  The Chinese have been growing in importance in the Philippines.  Their men marry the women of the islands and have large families, the boys of this class being wonderfully thrifty.  The children of Englishmen by the native women are often handsome, and of strong organization.  The females are especially comely.

The early history of the islands consists of accounts of contests with frontier rebels, attacks by pirates, and reprisals by the Spaniards, great storms and destructive earthquakes.  It is remarkable that Magellan was, like Captain Cook, a victim of savages, whose existence he made known to civilized people, falling in a sea-side contest.  Magellan had converted a captive chief to Christianity and baptised him as King Charles.  More than two thousand of his subjects were converted in a day, and the great navigator set forth to conquer islands for the dominion of the Christian King, who lived on the isle of Zebu.  The Christian monarch was entertained and received many presents, making return in bags of gold dust, fruit, oil and wine.  His Queen was presented with a looking glass, and then she insisted upon baptism, and so great was the revival that Magellan set out to capture more people for the newly made Christian couple—­invaded