AND THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS IS OURS ALSO

THIS "wild man" of Luzon is a physical triumph sufficiently dressed in a gee string. He is industrious, courageous, imaginative, frank, loyal, honourable. He has not yet learned to lie or to squirm. He has not escaped his share of vanity, but he is not conceited-not an egoist. He has no yearning for luxuries that his own prowess or industry may not satisfy out of the means that a frugal Nature puts in his hand. He is the best farmer, the best engineer and the hardest worker in all the archipelago. He has had to throw his whole strength against the unkindness of his native rocks to wrest from them food enough to keep him alive. He can grow just so much rice. If that fails--famine catches him. He has never a margin of surplus. Each year, at best, brings him three hungry months in which food is scarce. Also the air of his country is gloriously good. And at night it is cold. So he is strong of body-and strong of will. His pride has been to hold his own in arms against the clans. No lowlander, no outside people, has ever dominated him or made him crawl. He stands up straight before you with level eyes, seeks no subterfuges and tells you the truth.

You can give him a huge load of supplies to carry-one that you yourself can scarcely lift, and then you can forget it. For all alone, he will pack it on his back a hundred miles across the mountains, through raging streams and storms and untold hardships and bring it safely to your door. He will not have broken open or lost a single parcel, nor will he have loitered on the trail.

Experienced American school teachers agree that the moun

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taineer radically differs from the Filipino, in that the former does his school work not to escape work, but with the definite purpose to be of practical help to his own people. And, through every discouragement, he adheres to that end. Mountain children, given an equal chance, in the end equal the Filipino in capacity. For what the mountaineers lack in custom and facility, they make up in virility, determination and persistence backed by superior physical and moral stamina.

Carrying the comparison further, these teachers assert that the mountain youth are more modest than the lowlanders, more tractable, readier to take advice, and better able by character and by inclination to absorb American standards of thought.

The boys often walk a month, in continuous journey, to get from their remote eyries to the agricultural schools at Muñoz or at Trinidad. An ordinary incident was that of the journey of a party of little girls from far Sagada to Easter School at Baguio, in the season of 1923. Accompanied only by an American priest, they walked the whole distance barefooted, five days and nights of it in a raging typhoon, soaked to the skin and always shivering cold, each child carrying her own food. Each nightfall they made a fire and steamed a little of the water out of their bits of clothes. As dawn broke over the storm-swept peaks up they got, and off again. And always they laughed, wholly cheerful, wholly self-dependent, wholly determined and undismayed.

Individual Americans have given these people their very best; for their characteristics are of the kind that go to the root of Anglo-Saxon sympathy, and their handicaps of the sort that the Anglo-Saxon by instinct lines up to combat. Individual Americans will continue to give them their best, in a losing fight, if such it must be, to the end.

I have talked privately to a hundred mountaineers, more or less, of the various tribes. To each one I said in preface just what I said to the lowlanders of all degrees-"I have come to find out your mind. I want to carry back to America a

true report of what you think and desire. I will convey your message whatever it is. And if you trust me I will not betray your name."

They received this appeal with grave attention. All were ready to speak, saying that the opportunity to address themselves directly to America had never been offered them before. Many added that they did not care to conceal their names; for if America remained to protect them they feared nothing, while if America should go, their lives were forfeit anyway. Not a few, having spoken once, requested next day to speak again, in order, having meditated, to amplify or emphasize their previous statement. Several times since returning home I have received enquiries from scattered points in the mountains: "Have you told our words to the people of America? Have you told them our trouble? What do they say? Will they help?"

I now feel justified in affirming that the following statements express the mind of the whole mountain people, and that any essential divergence will be found to come from some rare individual who has been isolated and either terrorized or tempted beyond his power to resist.

In essence, the statements agree so completely that to quote a few is to express them all. But, despite the courage of the witnesses, it would be inexcusable to expose them by revealing their identity. Malay vengeance waits long for its prey.

The question put was this: "Do you desire to see the Independence of the Philippine Islands, the establishment of native government, and the withdrawal of America?" And I endeavoured to convey the enquiry without colour or leading. A Kalinga expressed his answer thus:

"Mr. Quezon, of course, tells everybody that all the people in these Islands want Independence. My people don't want Independence. For that only means Tagalogs bullying us. Let more of us be educated first. If Independence came now, none of us is competent to fill higher offices. They would send Filipinos to govern us, and then there would be trouble. My

people are very anxious to send their children to school now that they see what schools can do. They say that if the Filipinos would spend some money to give us schools and hospitals and nurses, and teach some of us to be doctors, instead of sending missions to the United States, they would have some use for Filipinos. The trouble is, my people, except a few students who read papers, don't know what goes on. The lowlanders think themselves above the mountain people. They always say 'Igorots know nothing. They can't hold office.'' A Bontoc said:

"Most of my people are still savage. They can't read or write. But they do not want to be under the Filipinos. Since Spanish times we have known them. Politicos have not changed. No Filipino deals justly with us, and there will certainly be insurrection in our country if Independence comes. We have public schools and are going on all right up to now, but that is just because one American is left with us. He is our old friend. We wanted him for Provincial Governor. For he is just. He can control our peoples easily because he uses an equal hand. All Filipinos are Ilocano or Tagalog or something else. All favour their own side and none would give us, even here in our own country, any chance. But the Filipinos will not let us choose our own Governor.”

The following is the statement of a Benguet-a magnificent physical type:

"We know that we are behind in civilization. And we know that if the Filipinos were in full power, instead of teaching us they would make us their workmen. They would take from us all our wealth-our land and our animals, and raise our taxes. That is the beginning of what 'Independence' would

mean to us.

"I know that the Governor-General knows that the Igorots are against Independence, because, whenever he comes to the mountains, the representatives of all the different tribes make journeys to him, asking him to use all his power to save us, that Independence shall not come.

"Most of the educators among us, in the public schools, are Ilocanos. They seem not to want any of us to show progress. Filipino officials almost never employ those of us who have a little education and so give us a chance to learn more. Right now there are several of us fitted to be secretary of a town, or foreman of road building. I think we natives should be given opportunities. But foreign Filipinos get them all.

"We Igorots want an American Governor. This present one is a Filipino. He sits in his house with his wife. He never goes around to find the people's need.

"The Filipinos trick us and steal from us. If one of them steals a carabao, he will win, if he is rich, for the judges are Filipinos, and they will sell the case any time. The Igorot is sure to lose unless he pays the judge often. And the Igorot is poor."

Said a Bontoc-one whose experience exceeds that of most: "These Filipinos who have been put over us are really trying to treat us better than they have ever done before. But I do not think their hearts are changed. They hate us. It has happened that Americans have taken pictures of Igorots and said "These are some of the people of the Philippines.' And that makes the politicos angry for they think it puts Independence back.

"It is true that my people are very dirty. Like pigs. And ignorant. But we want to do better. We want America to stay by us and guide us till we learn how.

"The mountain farm schools are the best for us. We can't keep our health in the lowlands. But the real benefit is they teach us on the farm schools how to go back and live prosperously in our own place. But the politicos hate our farm schools, and are always trying to push away our American teachers and put in little Filipinos who know nothing but what is in their little book. We, who are farmers for thousands of years, we can tie them all up in their little book.

"We want to go to America to study. But they only send