nd become
acquainted with all the secrets, of their indiscreet masters, to
whom the Filipinos remain an enigma which their conceit prevents them
attempting to decipher.

[Spanish lack of prestige deserved.] It is easy to understand how
Filipino respect for Europeans must be diminished by the numbers of
these uneducated, improvident, and extravagant Spaniards, who, no
matter what may have been their position at home, are all determined
to play the master in the colony. [Social Standing of Filipinos thus
enhanced.] The relative standing of the Filipinos naturally profits
by all this and it would be difficult to find a colony in which
the natives, taken all in all, feel more comfortable than in the
Philippines. They have adopted the religion, the manners, and the
customs of their rulers; and though legally not on an equal footing
with the latter, they are by no means separated from them by the
high barriers with which, not to mention Java, the churlish reserve
of the English has surrounded the natives of the other colonies.

[Spanish-Filipino bonds of union.] The same religion, a similar form
of worship, an existence intermixed with that of the indigenous
population, all tend to bring the Europeans and the Indians
together. That they have done so is proved by the existence of the
proportionately very numerous band of mestizos who inhabit the Islands.

[Latin races better for colonists in the tropics.] The Spaniards
and the Portuguese appear, in fact, to be the only Europeans who
take root in tropical countries. They are capable of permanent and
fruitful amalgamation [52] with the natives. [53]

[Initiative and individuality missing.] The want of originality, which
among the mestizos, appears to arise from their equivocal position,
is also to be found among the natives. Distinctly marked national
customs, which one would naturally expect to find in such an isolated
part of the world, are sought for in vain, and again and again the
stranger remarks that everything has been learned and is only a veneer.

[A compromise civilization.] As Spain forcibly expelled the
civilization of the Moors, and in Peru that of the Incas, so in the
Philippines it has understood how to set aside an equally well-founded
one, by appropriating in an incredible manner, in order to take root
itself the more quickly, all existing forms and abuses. [54]

[Imitation instilled and self-respect banished.] The uncivilized
inhabitants of the Philippi