The next morning we crossed the island under the protection of a troop of cavalry and returned the sultan's call. (A few miles from the trail stands a mountain[3] where about eighty Moros still refuse allegiance to our government.) He lives in a nipa house but has a frame building covered with galvanized iron (still unfinished) in which he receives his guests. He sent for one of his wives (of whom he has four); he has three or four concubines, he does not know which, but these are not included in the list of wives. The prime minister has four wives and two concubines, and one of the head men, at whose house we stopped on the way, had several wives. The sultan said that the wives were usually kept in separate houses, but that his lived together in one house.
The sultana, whom we saw, was dressed in silk, with trousers of red and white striped satin and wore high heeled shoes. She has a strong face, one of the most intelligent that we saw in Sulu. Both the sultan and his wife wore diamond and pearl rings. At our request the sultan brought forth his diamonds and pearls and exhibited his uniforms, heavy with gold braid and buttons. He is now drawing a salary of about five thousand dollars a year from the American government for exerting his influence in our behalf, and as a matter of economy it might be cheaper to put the datus on the pay roll than to suppress them by force of arms. His salary, however, is probably due as much to his being the head of the church as to his fighting qualities.
We sailed from Maibun to the Bornean coast in order to take a steamer for Singapore, and as we are studying colonialism, it was probably fortunate that we did, for we found a few foreigners developing North Borneo with Chinese coolies, the natives being lost sight of entirely.
At Sandakan there are thirty-eight English, two Germans and two thousand Chinese, but we searched in vain for a native. In and about Kudat, another Bornean port, there are twenty-two Europeans and ten thousand Chinese, and here we found only a few of the original inhabitants. At Labuan there are about twenty-five foreigners, and the local business is in the hands of the Chinese and East Indians.
I refer to the plan of development adopted in those parts of Borneo at which our steamer stopped because they throw light upon the colonial question with which we have to deal. Having described briefly, but as fully as space permits, the conditions as I found them in the Philippines, I shall devote the next article to a discussion of the policy which should be pursued by the United States in regard to them.
MORO SCHOOL—ZAMBOANGA