was made to effect the capture of this chieftain, whilst old Datto
Piang, the son of a Chinaman with a keen eye to business, supplied
the Americans with baggage-carriers at a peso a day per man for the
troops sent to hunt down his refractory son-in-law. Active operations
were sustained against him, and from the military posts of Malabang
(formerly a Moro slave-market) and Parang-Parang on the Illana Bay
coast there were continually small punitive parties scouring the
district here and there. At the former camp I was the guest of the
genial Colonel Philip Reade, in command of the 23rd Infantry, when
Lieutenant C. R. Lewis was brought in wounded from a Cottabato River
sortie. Colonel Reade, whose regiment had had about the roughest
work of any in the Island, had certainly inspired his men with the
never-know-when-you-are-beaten spirit, for the report of a reverse
set them all longing to be the chosen ones for the next party. But
up to July, 1905, Datto Ali had been able to elude capture, although
General Wood personally conducted operations against him a year before,
establishing his headquarters at Cabacsalan, near the Lake Ligusan.

The most ferocious and arrogant Mindanao tribes occupy regions within
easy access of the coast. Perhaps their character is due to their
having led more adventurous lives by land and sea for generations,
plundering the tribes of the interior and making slave raids in
their _vintas_ on the northern islands and christian native coast
settlements. In the centre of the Island and around the mountainous
region of the Apo the tribes are more peaceful and submissive, without
desire or means for warfare. Many of the Bagobo tribe (which I have
twice visited), in the neighbourhood of Davao, have come down to
settle in villages under American protection, paying only an occasional
visit to their tribal territory to make a human sacrifice.

In Basilan Island, a dependency of Zamboanga, about 13 miles distant,
Datto Pedro Cuevas accepted the new situation, and under his influence
peace was assured among the large Moro population of that island. The
history of this man's career bristles with stirring episodes. Born in
1845, of Tagalog parentage, he started life as a Cavite highwayman,
but was captured and deported to the agricultural colony of San
Ramon, near Zamboanga, where he, with other convicts, attacked and
killed three of the European overseers, and Cuevas escaped to Basilan
Island. After innumerab