a unique structure built into the ancient city walls and can easily be made the most complete in the world.

Until very recently it was asserted that no game fish lives in Philippine waters. But the difficulty was in the absence of game fishermen. It is commonly said that the fish are too lazy to bite, but this, like similar statements with reference to the people, is a perverted, exaggerated statement of the facts. It is the fishermen who are generally too languid to undergo the necessary exertion. There are no finer fishing grounds in the world. Barracuda, tanguingui (Spanish mackerel), pompano, bonito, lapulapu (groupers), snappers, Sargent fish, tuna, tarpon (probably) and many others abound and furnish satisfactory sport for the most seasoned and experienced sportsman.

The various characterizations of the climate of the Philippines, ranging from "delightful" to "deadly" are all correct when proper consideration is given time, place and personality. It varies in different islands and localities, depending upon latitude, altitude, the relative distribution of land and water, the size and configuration of the island, the proximity of mountain ranges, the composition of the soil, the vegetation, the ocean currents and various other matters.3

According to the thermometer the heat is seldom excessive, but individuals measure by other standards. So great is the humidity that a reasonable degree of heat is trying to the temper and the linen. But while a "wet heat" is uncomfortable it is seldom deadly. The situation is saved by the fact that the extremes of heat and humidity never coincide. During May the thermometer will often register ninety degrees Fahrenheit, but the humidity is low and the nights, with few exceptions, cool and refreshing.

The highest recorded temperature at Manila is 103 degrees Fahrenheit in May, 1871, and 101 degrees Fahrenheit in May, 1912. The average temperature during the years from 1885 to 1912 was: January, 76.8; February, 77.5; March, 79.9; April,

8 "Climate," by Rev. Jose Algué, Census of the Phil. (1906), p. 87 et seq.

82.8; May, 83.3; June, 82.2; July, 80.8; August, 80.8; September, 80.4; October, 80.2; November, 78.6; December, 77.4.

April and May are the hottest, August and September the most humid months. On the west coast the rains begin in June and continue through November. From December to June there is little rain, and by March the country is dry and parched. On the west coast these conditions are reversed and in the southern islands it rains at all times of the year.

By ascending the mountains one can always find relief from the heat of the plains. Pine trees grow at Baguio and a fire is always comfortable in the evenings. But it never freezes although the thermometer occasionally drops to the line of a gentle frost. Personality and temperament play an important part in the health and comfort of individuals. There is truth in the statement that "it is your human environment that makes climate." Irritable, fidgety persons who insist that things should be exactly as they were at home, are seldom happy in the tropics. The well-balanced, equable and reasonable adjust their habits to the conditions, learn from the natives, recognize the limitations in their activities and live happily and comfortably ever after, or at least until time for the long vacation in some land of frost and snow. When that energetic uplift worker, Mrs. Jellyby, was asked about the climate of Borrioboola Gha, she replied:

"The finest in the world."

"Indeed, ma'am?"

"Certainly. With precautions."

Science, sanitation, and knowledge of the laws of health have rendered life almost, if not quite, as safe and comfortable in the tropics as elsewhere—with precautions.

CHAPTER III

The Native Peoples

I

NON-CHRISTIANS AND FILIPINOS

Varieties of Peoples-"East Is East and West Is West"-Extent to Which This Statement Is True-Classification of the Inhabitants—Aborigines and Malays and Subdivisions of Each-The Negritos-Various Tribes of Wild Men-Head-Hunting-The Beginnings of Civilization-The Filipinos-The Seven Groups-Various Opinions as to Their Characteristics.

The great variety of peoples, with their different languages, customs, habits, religions and degrees of culture, have made the Philippine Archipelago a sort of happy hunting-ground for students of ethnology. It has now become almost as interesting to students of social and political conditions.

It has been assumed very generally that the people of the East are incompetent racially to develop on Western lines or to acquire Western civilization; that there are inherent differences, mental and physical, which require the white man and yellow man to be educated and governed on different principles and to develop on distinct lines.

The colonial policy of the United States is based on the assumption that the Filipinos, so far as desires and inherent capacities are concerned, do not differ materially from white men and that they are capable of being educated and trained to govern themselves. It assumes that the principles of good government will be recognized and accepted by all men and that an Eastern people with a fair degree of development may successfully conduct a popular form of government and that such a government is the best for them.

The fact that the attempt is being made to apply this theory

in the Philippines adds greatly to the general interest in the character of the native people. Although the Philippines are in the East, they are not entirely of the East as the word is commonly used. The Filipinos are Malays, who for more than three centuries were governed by Europeans and subjected to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. During that period the great majority of them became Christians, many sincere and devout, others mere technical adherents. The nature of their contact with Europeans has differed from that of any other Oriental people. It was not until comparatively recent times that they were brought under the influence of Western theories of life. The Christian civilization under which they and their ancestors were trained was that of Spain in the days of the religious revival, which is known as the Catholic Reaction. The spirit of modernism which in Europe and America influenced the Catholic Church like all other institutions, never reached the Philippines, and, of course, the independent spirit of Protestantism was never known there.

With few exceptions writers who philosophize about Eastern matters assert that East and West are antithetic terms, connoting moral and intellectual conditions separated by an almost impassable gulf. This view is accepted by almost all European residents in the Orient and by most of those who have come in close contact with the people. It is crystallized in Kipling's oft quoted lines:

"Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain

shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently by God's great judg-
ment seat."

1 See Townsend, Asia and Europe, Chap. 23; Cromer, Modern Egypt, I, Introduction.

"Those who have been in the East and have tried to mingle with the native population know well how utterly impossible it is for the European to look at the world with the same eyes as the Oriental. For a while, indeed, the European may fancy that he and the Oriental understand one another, but sooner or later a time comes when he is suddenly awakened from his dream, and finds himself in the presence of a mind which is as strange to him as would be the mind of an inhabitant of Saturn." Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 558.

This alleged inherent social and racial difference is supposed to be so great and of so permanent a nature as to render impossible any real comprehension of the people of one part of the world by those who have developed under a different environ

ment.

In philosophizing about the East, people think of India and China; the Malay race, with the exception of the Japanese is included by implication only. It seems, however, that even the Chinese are not such mysterious and incomprehensible beings as we have been led to believe.2

There is a growing disposition to question the common theory of an inherent difference between the people of East and West and to treat what is called the literary interpretation of the Orient with scant respect. According to Doctor Reinsch, “The conventional and vulgar antithesis of the Orient to the West with its short delineation of contrasts has been altogether misleading." He believes that there is no evidence of any distinct racial differerences which render the people permanently antagonistic, but that by profoundly influencing each other they will both contribute their share in developing the ideal of an “all human civilization of the future."

In a recent book, Professor E. H. Ross says that "to the traveler who appreciates how different is the mental horizon that goes with another stage of culture or another type of social organization than his own, the Chinese do not seem very puzzling. Allowing for differences in outfit of knowledge and

2 Our conceptions of these strange people have really not been much more just and accurate than were theirs of the Westerners. We have been taught that China is a "sort of fantastic, topsy turvy land; a land of pagodas and pigtails and porcelain; where the people ate birds' nests, and chow dogs; where merchants and missionaries struggle eternally with illusive mandarins against a background of willow pattern, serenity chequered by periodic cataclasms." Bland, Recent Events and Present Policies in China (1913), p. 4. This is not much more accurate than the old Chinese idea of the people of the outer world.

"The barbarians [all other than Chinese] are like beasts and are not to be ruled by the same principles as natives [Chinese]. Were any one to attempt controlling them by the great maxims of reason, it would tend to nothing but confusion. The ancient Kings well understood this and accordingly ruled barbarians by misrule." Quoted in Foster, American Diplomacy in the Orient, p. 44.