t on an expedition. He is wonderfully light-footed,
and runs with great speed after the deer, or climbs a tree like
a monkey. Groups of fifty to sixty souls live in community. Their
religion seems to be a kind of cosmolatry and spirit-worship. Anything
which for the time being, in their imagination, has a supernatural
appearance is deified. They have a profound respect for old age and
for their dead. They are of extremely low intellect, and, although
some of them have been brought up by civilized families living
in the vicinity of the _Negrito_ mountainous country, they offer
little encouragement to those who would desire to train them. Even
when more or less domesticated, the _Negrito_ cannot be trusted to
do anything which requires an effort of judgement. At times his mind
seems to wander from all social order, and an apparently overwhelming
eagerness to return to his native haunts disconcerts all one's plans
for his civilization.

For a long time they were the sole masters of Luzon Island, where
they exercised seignorial rights over the Malay immigrants, until
these arrived in such numbers, that the _Negritos_ were forced to
retire to the highlands. The taxes imposed upon primitive Malay
settlers by the _Negritos_ were levied in kind, and when payment was
refused, they swooped down in a posse, and carried off the head of
the defaulter. Since the arrival of the Spaniards, the terror of the
white man has made them take definitely to the mountains, where they
appear to be very gradually decreasing.

The Spanish Government, in vain, made strenuous efforts to implant
civilized habits among this weak-brained race.

In 1881 I visited the Capas Missions in Upper Pampanga. The
authorities had established there what is called a _real_,--a kind
of model village of bamboo and palm-leaf huts,--to each of which a
family was assigned. They were supplied with food, clothing and all
necessaries of life for one year, which would give them an opportunity
of tilling the land and providing for themselves in future. But they
followed their old habits when the year had expired and the subsidy
ceased. On my second visit they had returned to their mountain homes,
and I could see no possible inducement for them to do otherwise. The
only attraction for them during the year was the fostering of their
inbred indolence; and it ought to have been evident that as soon as
they had to depend on their own resources they would adopt their
own way o