434 7,090

Total American Forces 827 12,041 147 112 974 12,153
Philippine Scouts 77 4,565 23 413 100 4,978

Total Strength 904 16,606 170 525 1,074 17,131

Besides the American troops, there is a voluntary enlistment
of Filipinos, forming the Philippine Scout Corps, a body of rural
police supplementary to the constabulary, commanded by a major and 100
American first and second lieutenants. Until recently the troops were
stationed over the Islands in 98 camps and garrison towns, as follows,
viz.:--In the Department of Luzon 76, Visayas 8, and Mindanao 14;
but this number is now considered unnecessarily large and is being
reduced to effect economy.

The Army, Navy, and Philippine Scouts expenses are entirely defrayed
by the United States Treasury. A military prison is established in
the little Island of Malahi, in the Laguna de Bay, whence the escape
of a prisoner is signalled by three shots from a cannon, and whoever
captures him receives a $30-reward. As the original notice to this
effect required the recovery of the prisoner "alive or dead," two armed
natives went in pursuit of an American soldier. To be quite sure of
their prey they adopted the safe course of killing him first. Such an
unexpected interpretation of the notice as the grim spectacle of an
American's head was naturally repugnant to the authorities, and the
"alive or dead" condition was thenceforth expunged.

CHAPTER XXIX

The Land of the Moros
"Allah Akbar!"

The Military Department of Mindanao comprises the large island of
that name and the adjacent insular territories inhabited chiefly by
Mahometans, called by the Christians _Moros_ (_vide_ p. 129, et seq.).

The natural features of these southern islands are, in general,
similar to those of the other large islands of the Archipelago,
but being peopled by races (exclusive of the settlers) of different
habits, customs, religions, and languages, some aggressively savage
and warlike, others more or less tractable, but all semi-civilized,
the social aspect is so distinct from that of the islands inhabited
by the Christian Filipinos as almost to appear like another quarter
of the tropical globe.

Early in the year 1899 General John C. Bates was appointed to the
command of the Mahometan islands. In Mindanao Island there was no
supreme chieftain with whom to treat for the gradual introduction