had previously seen. Whether, however, the Bisaya language be substantially one
and the same tongue throughout, there is no doubt but that it is divided into several
dialects, so widely different that the parties speaking them are not mutually intelligible.
They may really be practically considered as so many distinct nations, and
thus among the more civilised inhabitants of the Philippines there are in all probably
no fewer than a doren distinct people.
In character the more civilised nations of the Philippines may be described as
simple, docile, indolent, credulous, rather excitable, and very superstitious. The
Spaniards affirm that they are as easily led by an European of good understanding
that takes the pains to understand them, as the horse, the ox, or the buffalo. They
are in fact led, guided, and virtually governed by the Christian priesthood, who may
be truly said to have conquered them, and to have maintained them since in subjection.
Of their wonderful credulity and proneness to imposition, some singular instances
have been recorded. In 1672, a report was spread in one of the Bisaya islands that
his majesty the King of Spain had gone on a fishing party,—that he was fallen upon
and made prisoner by the Turks, and that for his ransom the inhabitants of a certain
district were demanded. The people of the district in question abandoned their
houses, fled to the mountains, and it was with the utmost difficulty that they were
disabused of their delusion and induced to return. In the same year a silver mine was
supposed to have been discovered in the district of Tanavan, but an impostor gave
out that it could not be worked, unless the vein was first anointed with an unguent
made of “ old women’s eyes ” and similar ingredients. All the old women were immediately
concealed by their friends,—the district was in a state of commotion and the
ministers of religion had the greatest difficulty in reassuring its inhabitants. In 1832
a ship of war having brought 250 soldiers from Spain to Manilla, a report immediately
got abroad among the women engaged in the state manufactory of tobacco, that the
object of this force was to seize their children for the purpose of watering with their
blood, in the manner of a charm, the gold and silver mines of Spain. The women
fled from the manufactory, began to hide their children, and the men took up arms.
To disabuse them in this case also was a work of some difficulty. But the most dangerous
insurrection took place in 1820, when the Asiatic cholera made its first appearance
in Manilla. The people ascribed its introduction to the foreign European resident
or sojourning strangers. A commotion was the consequence, in the course of which
several innocent persons were assassinated, among whom were some French naturalists,
considered, on account of their preserved specimens, the greatest offenders.
Notwithstanding such weaknesses as these, the natives of the Philippines have
many estimable qualities. They are a good-natured, cheerful, happy, and hospitable
people. The Spaniards found them, on their first arrival, much inferior both to the
Malays and Javanese in the social scale, and at present they must be considered, on the
whole, superior to either of them. They are, indeed, the people of all Asiatic and
American nations who have made the greatest advance in civilisation under European
rule, if, indeed, others have not rather retrograded. Their education has not been
neglected: many have acquired the use of the Spanish language, which has been
encouraged, and it has been observed that more of the humbler classes can read and
write than even among European nations. As mariners, in so far as skill and presence
of mind are concerned, they excel the natives of Hindustan, as is shown by their
frequent employment in British ships as quartermasters or steersmen, a duty which
cannot be entrusted to any Hindu or Mahommedan of our own possessions.
In 1849, the total number of the civilised native inhabitants of the Philippines,
subject to Spanish rule, was reckoned to be 3,698,730 souls. This statement is founded
on the registers of the tribute or capitation tax to which all natives, with trifling
exceptions, as well as all mestizo-Chinese are subject. The usual estimate is that
one person in five pays the tributo or poll-tax, but it appears that in some cases the
calculation is at the rate of one in four. Many parties, however, it is well-known evade
paying the tax, and the general belief is that the population is understated. Several
additions have to be made to the numbers even as here given. The wild independent
tribes are estimated to amount in Luzon alone at 200,000, and in the Bisaya islands
to 50,000. In the Spanish part of Mindano the independent idolatrous tribes have
been estimated at 7500, and the Mahommedan at 70,000. This is, however exclusive
of the inhabitants of the same island, beyond the pale of Spanish rule,’and these
have been computed at 800,000. The negro population has been reckoned for Luzon
at 7700, for Negros at 3476, and for Panay at 5400. This does not include those of
Mindoro, or those asserted to exist in Mindano, and the usual estimate for the negros
in the whole Philippines is 25,000. To these numbers have to be added parties not
included in the registers of the native capitation tax, namely, Spaniards 1500, r
Spaniards 3500, mestizo Spaniards 20,000, and Chinese of the pure blood, 8000.
complete the population of the entire Archipelago it would be necssary to a a
of the Sulu and other islands, some of which are populous, extending from Mindano
to Borneo, but for this we haveno date whatever. Making allowance for this and tor
the admitted defects of the registers, the whole population of the Philippines m 1849
will probably not be exaggerated if we take it in round numbers at five millions,
which after all is but one-half of that of the single island of Java. '
The population is very unequally distributed, being usually in proportion to
extent of fertile land in the different islands. A c c o r d i n g to the registers for 1849
the population of Luzon was 2,418,445, or near 65 parts in 100 of the whole of that
of the Archipelago, giving about 42 inhabitants to the square mile. The population
of Panay was 566,957, making 123 to the square mile, which is three times the rate
of that of Luzon which has a great extent of mountain and sterile land, while Panay
has comparatively little, and is in reality the most fertile and densely peopled island
of the Archipelago. The relative population of £ebu is 113 to the square mile, that
of Leyte only 24, of Samar, 18; and of Negros but 9. _
According to the registers for 1849 the total number of marriages in a population
of 3,698,730 was 34,055 : of births, or as they are called “ baptisms, which would
include still-born children, 139,833, and of deaths, 83,986. The excess of births
over deaths would, according to these figures, make the period in which the population
would double itself about 45 years. This maybe compared with the actual
censuses as given by the public registers. The first census framed on these data is
for the year 1735, and it makes the population of the then Spanish Philippines
837,182. In 1799 it was 1,522,224, and in 1849 it rose to the number already given.
According to these figures the increase in the first period of 64 years was better than
80 per cent., and in the last 50 years no less than 148 per cent. This seeming discrepancy
may be accounted for. The first period was one of disorder, insurrection,
and commercial monopoly. I t was within it that the English invaded the country,
occupied its capital, and raised an insurrection of the natives and Chinese, which
lasted for several years. The last period, on the contrary, has been one, for the greater
part of it, of commercial freedom and most of it of uninterrupted tranquillity.
The increase of population, as expressed by the proportion of births to marriages,
varies greatly in the different provinces. Throughout the great island of Luzon the
doubling period is made to extend to an average of 76 years. In three of its
twenty provinces, indeed, the deaths are in excess of the births. In the populous
province of Tondo, which contains Manilla, the capital, the doubling period reaches
to 195 years, whereas in North Ilocos, it is no more than 35. In the poor island of
Mindoro, peopled in a good measure by emigrants of doubtful character from Luzon,
the doubling period reaches to 187 years, while on the other hand, in the fertile
islands of Panay and £ebu, it falls to twenty-five. These results are curious, and
would be satisfactory, could we implicitly rely on the data.
As to the constitution of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, m so far as regards
age of puberty, period of gestation, and length of life, there is no reason to suppose
that they differ in any respect from the rest of mankind. According to the registers of
population, there were living in 1848, sixty-two individuals whose ages exceeded 100
years. It is remarkable that four and twenty of these belonged to one province,
Iloilo, the most populous one of the fine and fertile island of Panay. The senior of
the whole, and who had attained the age of 137, was a native of the metropolitan
province of Tondo in Luzon. , ,
The agriculture of the Philippines, in so far as concerns the prmcipal crop, nee,
is in point of skill and ingenuity, greatly below that of the islands of Java, Bali, and
Lomboc. The only material agricultural improvements which the European conquerors
have made, consist in the introduction of some exotics, as maiz, tobacco,
coffee and cacoa, and a better culture of the sugar cane and the rearing of the horse
and ox. For the main corn crop, rice, the ground is prepared for the plough by levelling
it with a small harrow armed with wooden spikes and loaded with a weight. The plough
itself consists of a single piece of crooked timber tipped at the lower end with iron,
being at once handle, beam and share, without coulter or mould-board. Like the harrow,
it is drawn by a single buffalo, the horse and ox never being used in field-labour. After
ploughing, the seed is sown broad-cast without any subsequent harrowing and transplanting
as practised in the best husbandry of Java : the artificial irrigation, so extensively
practised in that island is equally unknown; all seems to depend upon the
periodical rains which, it is obvious, perform more than half the labour of tillage. The