we slipped into a cleft bamboo held up by one of the oarsmen. After he had thumbed these over for some time, to our great amusement turning them upside down and wrongside out, an entry blank was passed up to us in the bamboo pole. When filling this paper the captain inadvertently inserted the number of the ship's full complement, forgetting, in his struggles with Spanish, that one of the crew had been lost overboard. After this blank had been studied, the official ordered the whole ship's company mustered on the quarter deck. When counted, there was of course one man short. In a voice of mingled triumph and outraged dignity he demanded the other man. The explanation that he had fallen overboard was so evidently a subterfuge that the functionary took all the smile out of our faces by declaring us in quarantine, upon the supposition that the missing man had died of cholera during the voyage. His only answer to our protest in the best Spanish we could muster was to cast off the line and head for shore. Quarantine and fumigation among the Latin races is no joke, and here was a nice situation. After a council of war we hailed a native boatman and persuaded him to carry ashore a note to the British representative. That gentleman, a jolly Scotchman, came off after dinner, and when we had warmed his heart toward us with a bottle of brandy, he said he thought the matter might be arranged if we would send by him a liberal present to the provincial governor as compensation for trifling with his authority. The next day we received an order graciously allowing us to haul down our yellow flag, and containing the Spanish equivalent of the admonitions, "Honesty is the best policy," and "Truth is mighty and will prevail." The method employed by our Scotch friend is worthy of note, because it is an index to Spanish officialism in the East. He told the governor that the man had really died of smallpox, and that our captain, thinking smallpox was quarantinable, had endeavored to hide the fact; but, being detected in the deception, he wished to apologize and be forgiven. This explanation was so plausible to a Spaniard that it was accepted along with the present. They did not quarantine against smallpox, perhaps on the theory that the visitor was more likely to take some away with him than to leave any.

The exports are mostly hemp and raw sugar. There is but thirteen feet of water in the river, so only small vessels can lie at the docks. The sugar in bamboo bags, and the hemp in loose bales, are lightered to the vessels in the strait, and tossed aboard by men standing on a series of stagings hung to the ship's sides. These Malay stevedores are small brown men whose entire clothing is not as large as a handkerchief. They are finely formed and would delight an artist's eye could he watch the play of muscles as the sugarbags go over the rail in quick succession. All over the harbor the lightermen are counting them out,* "O! ban uno, ban dos, ban tres, ban cuatro, ban cinco, ban seis, ban siete, ban ocho, ban diez,-tally;" and presently you hear some mate bellow, "You skipped number nine, you old thief," to the chagrin of the "head-man," who offers profuse apologies based upon the statement that he is not an expert mathematician, his early education having been neglected.

Iloilo was entirely too hot for comfort and too odorous for contentment, so we went over to Guimaras as often as possible, where we explored a banyan grove until we roused a python from his siesta, and ravaged a pineapple thicket until the monkeys, claiming prior right, dropped upon our backs, biting and scratching until we were glad to retreat. We found a nice coral beach from which to swim, until some natives, passing in their swift proas, shouted a warning in unintelligible Tagalog. This we finally understood after discovering from the top of a wave an encircling fleet of sharks' fins sticking out of the water.

Every night during our three weeks' stay at Iloilo the clouds gathered around the peak of Guimaras, and by midnight a fierce rain-squall was blowing. Some houses were blown down, trees were torn up by the roots, and any road which had happened to be passable was washed out. The lightning was so incessant that the watch on the vessels in the harbor could read compass bearings of objects on shore, to see if they were dragging their anchors. Nearly every noon there was a similar downpour also. As the wet season was about over, it seldom rained during the rest of the twenty-four hours.

*This is a good example of the commercial jargon, -the Spanish numerals, mispronounced, with the Japanese prefix, and ending with an English word.

Letting this brief description suffice for the physical characteristics of the islands, we find the ethnological conditions even more curious. The population is estimated at between seven and eight millions, divided into about eighty distinct tribes. Of these there are probably some millions of people who have never heard of us to this day, and many of whom may never have heard of Spain. The original inhabitants are a black race of uncertain origin, - "Negritos," the Spaniards call them, who have been driven from the coast line to the mountain fastnesses. Their relation to the other inhabitants is about the same as that of the North American Indians in the early part of this century. They are savages, file their teeth, tattoo their bodies, and make household ornaments of the dried and varnished heads of their conquered enemies. These blacks were driven back, but were never subdued, by the Malays, probably some hundreds of years ago; and these were again driven, but also never conquered, by an immense incursion of Mohammedans from no one knows just where and when. These Malays and Mohammedan-Malays, and the "Igorrotes" or "wild men," now form the bulk of the population. The first are part heathen, but having ingrafted upon heathenism the forms of the Church of Rome. The Igorrotes are apparently pagan aborigines, and are distinct from either the Mohammedans, the Malays, or the Negritos. They occupy and share with the Negritos the large territory that was not under Spanish control. The term "Igorrotes" has become a general one for all the untamed tribes except the Negritos and the Moros. Some of them show mixture with the Chinese. Others are copper-colored and take scalps like the North American Indians. One tribe makes a specialty of head-hunting, like the Dyaks of Borneo.

Personally I have little choice between the savage negro; the Malay, running amuck with his murderous kris, or sneaking among the islands in his piratical proa; or the Mohammedan fanatic, who thinks the way to salvation lies over the dead body of a Christian. These objectionable individuals do not really represent the entire population, but they are sufficiently numerous to leave a lasting impression upon the visitor.

Later than the Malays came the Chinese; during the reign of Philip II came the Span

ish; and about a hundred years ago there was another Chinese invasion. The Spaniards numbered only about five thousand, exclusive of the military, and were largely of the official class. Add to this mixture a multitude of half-castes of various antecedents and all degrees of character from virtue to villany,- political refugees, outlaws, that class of patriots who have left their country for their country's good, and some Sepoys remaining from the English occupation, and you have the stony ground on which it has been proposed to transplant republican institutions. The so-called "Filipinos," who were originally supposed to be agreeable to this undertaking, are neither the aborigines nor the people of the first or second invasions, but mostly the half-castes and Catholic Malays; in the main docile and peaceful people who had been goaded into rebellion by the rapacity and inhuman cruelties of the Spanish officials and the Church of Rome. Believers in a personal devil will find him fully represented in the government of the Philippines. The Tower of Babel may not have had its counterpart in the islands, but the effect is there. Perhaps the best illustration of the almost hopeless mixture which we foreigners are undertaking to amalgamate is the official recognition by the Spanish government of thirty different tongues, and I was told there were double that number of dialects.

Mr. Whitelaw Reid, Justice Harlan, and other expansionists seriously suggested that we establish a territorial government over these people. "Negritos, Igorrotes, Pagan Malays, Catholic Malays, Moham-. medans, Chinese, Mestizos, Spanish, Coolies, Dwarfs, and Sepoys; farmers, fishermen, miners, traders, soldiers, slaves, cannibals, savages, pirates, cut-throats, thieves, and lepers,- Fellow citizens, we welcome you! Brutalized by invasion, rebellion, and three hundred years of Spanish oppression, plunder, and inquisition; throw down the arms with which you have maintained strife for centuries, march side by side to the polls, and elect your territorial representatives!" Distinct from this medley is a majority of tractable people, and a sprinkling of Europeans and of educated Filipinos who might compare favorably with some of our own citizens (expansionists for example), and who are probably just as capable of governing others if they could be started right and

were strong enough to control the discordant elements. With some needed help and wise guidance, the native who understands his compatriots could do this better than any strangers.

The machinery of the Spanish government of the islands consisted of the governor-general, appointed for three years, and a cabinet and council which, acting together, formed the chief executive. Under the governor-general were provincial governors corresponding to our State governors. "Little governors » had charge of smaller districts, and their deputies were placed over collections of families. We can form an idea of this method of control if we suppose our President and Cabinet to be aliens appointed by the Spanish ministry, both National and State assemblies abolished, and the Supreme Court made subordinate to the orders of the Executive. Then place the appointments for State governors, mayors and aldermen in the hands of the President, and give these officials so little remuneration that it would not pay office expenses.

Nearly everything from the cradle to the grave was taxed, either by the Church or the State; the fees for marriage and burial being so large that birth, matrimony, and death become luxuries which could be afforded only by the prosperous. The taxes were collected by the officials who were responsible each to the ranking officer, and subject to severe penalties if they failed to turn over what was essential to the support of the State. Now, suppose our aldermen were collecting taxes in each ward; the mayor collecting them from the aldermen, the State govers from the mayors, and the President from the State governors, each with power to assess, legal or usurped; and you will understand the evils of the Philippine system, whose possibilities for plunder would stagger even a Tammany politician.

If the individual refused, or was unable to pay the amount arbitrarily assessed against him, he could be tortured, imprisoned, or transported, often leaving his family in distress, and in some instances he was murdered. Any show of prosperity immediately drew the attention of the taxgatherers, the same as in China; and after the taxes were paid a large portion of the money was stolen,- more than in America. One unique extortion was the obligation to purchase yearly, at a considerable price, a cédula, or evidence of identity. In case of internal disorder persons without these cédulas were treated as outlaws and were sometimes shot. They were used as passports, and no one was authorized to cross boundary lines without one, and no civil process could be commenced without exhibiting it. The courts were apparently subject to the orders of the governors, who had authority to interpret the laws and were merely fleecing-machines. A case might not be concluded as long as the litigants had any property from which to extort fees, and even a person found innocent of a capital charge might be recommitted if there was any money in it.

The islands have been priest-ridden to the last degree. You cannot realize the immense temporal power of the ecclesiastics. The archbishop sat beside the governor-general in the council and actually exercised a veto power. As the provincial governors seldom understood the language of their subjects, and the priests made a study of the dialects, the government was really in the hands of the latter. With the exception of the Jesuits a more corrupt lot would be hard to find. The educational system was controlled by them, and is of course, therefore, very defective. Persons of means sent their children to other countries for improvement, although there was a fair university at Manila. JAMES J. WAIT.

CHICAGO.

real level as they had previously been above it. The next ten years were spent in apparently discouraging but really solid development. The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed to the western coast, and many of its branch lines were built, opening up the great wheat fields in the south and centre, the lignite and bituminous coal mines in the Territories, and the great park or mixed farming country in the north. The railway monopoly was abolished, and the Northern Pacific railway entered the Province, while less noticeable but none the less important improvements were the extension of wagon roads, the draining of large areas, the building of bridges and schoolhouses, and generally the framing of the municipal system and the development of industries subsidiary to the leading ones of grain-growing, ranching, and lumbering, namely mining, fishing, and dairying. The once sole industry of the country, the fur trade, had steadily declined for a number of years in the south, but the traders, chiefly the Hudson's Bay Company, turned their attention to other

affairs. This famous company has become a great departmental store and land corporation in the south, while in the far north it still carries on the trade in furs around the shores of Hudson Bay and up through the Mackenzie River district to the Arctic Ocean. Though the fur trade has declined considerably, it is still in the aggregate very important, the annual exports of furs from Manitoba averaging over $600,000.

When at length, in the early 'nineties, the tide began slowly to turn toward Manitoba, the Province had all her institutions established and ready to receive the newcomers, while in like manner the framework of industrial, political, and religious life was laid in the whole western country. This slow development, while very disappointing at the time, may have been one of the causes why Manitoba and the Territories never had any of that "wild west" life which marked the opening of States to the south; for property and life were always as secure as they were during the same period in eastern Canada.