he natives of the Philippines are Malays, as I have said, but they are sometimes classified as Christian, Pagan and Mohammedan Malays. The Christian and educated tribes live near the coast on the lowlands and are called Filipinos. They have intermarried greatly with the Spaniards and Chinese. There are twenty-seven non-Christian tribes in the Islands—about four hundred thousand in number in the Mountain Province of Luzon alone. These hill people are seldom seen, although during the last few years most of the tribes have come under government influence and head-hunting has been more or less given up. These dwellers in the mountains include the aborigines who were driven out of the valleys by the Malays, and also the Malays of the earlier migration, who refused to embrace the Mohammedanism of the Moros of the southern islands or the Christianity of the Spaniards.
We were fortunate in having the opportunity to see some of the dog-eaters and other hill people. Our party was divided, and while several of the men went into the heart of the head-hunting country, the rest of us took the train to Baguio, the mountain capital. What a night it was! The heat was frightful, and swarms of mosquitoes added to the torture. But at sunrise, as I sat on the back platform while the train steamed through rows of cocoanut palms, past little huts and stations, I was reminded of this verse:
"Mighty, luminous and calm
Is the country of the palm,
Crowned with sunset and sunrise,
Under blue unbroken skies,
Waving from green zone to zone,
Over wonders of its own;
Trackless, untraversed, unknown,
Changeless through the centuries."
THE PARTY AT BAGUIO.
Leaving the tropics behind, we climbed up, up among the glorious mountains. At last the train stopped at a little station, and we took the motors that were waiting and went on higher and higher into cloudland, where the tall pines grew and the mountains rose into the sky. We had indeed ascended "into Paradise from Purgatory." As one resident in Manila expressed it: "The heavenly coolness, the sweet pine air and the exquisite scenery give you new life after the years spent in the heat, glare, dust and smells of the lowlands."
We were passing over the far-famed Benguet Road, one of the finest highways in the world, which wound in and out through the gorges of the mountains, repeatedly crossing the river that roared beneath. For twenty miles we zigzagged up the slopes, with widening views of great hills opening before us, and cascades bursting out from beneath the mountains, till we came out on the plateau of Baguio, five thousand feet above the sea.
This road, which has been a favourite theme for discussion by politicians, was opened to traffic in 1905. It is true that the cost of the roadway was beyond what anybody had anticipated, on account of the many bridges that had to be repaired each year after the rainy season, and also after the destructive typhoons that sweep over the island—one in 1911 brought a rainfall of forty-six inches in twenty-four hours—which hurl avalanches of débris from the mountain slopes. For this reason a new road from Bauang to Baguio has been commenced, not nearly so direct but requiring only a few bridges, and it is to be hoped will prove successful and more economical than the other.
Baguio, in the midst of glorious mountain scenery, where the temperature never goes above eighty and the nights are deliciously cool, really is an ideal health resort for a tropical country. The Philippines have Mr. Worcester and Mr. Forbes to thank for this blessing. Government buildings were erected, and the whole force of the government was moved up there for the hot season, with the rich return of the improved health and greater efficiency of the employees. A hospital for tuberculosis was built, and a much needed school for American children, the Jesuit observatory was established, and Camp John Hay was laid out as a permanent military post. Many people bought land and put up little bungalows. A teachers' camp was started by the Bureau of Education for American teachers from all over the Islands, where they had not only rest and recreation but the mental brushing up of good lectures after months in lonely stations.