rifling offences. Except the momentary bodily pain, however, these
appear in most cases to make little impression on a people who have
been accustomed to corporal punishment from their youth upwards. Their
acquaintances stand round the sufferers, while the blows are being
inflicted, and mockingly ask them how it tastes.

[Change from Malayan character.] A long residence amongst the earnest,
quiet, and dignified Malays, who are most anxious for their honor,
while most submissive to their superiors, makes the contrast in
character exhibited by the natives of the Philippines, who yet belong
to the Malay race, all the more striking. The change in their nature
appears to be a natural consequence of the Spanish rule, for the same
characteristics may be observed in the natives of Spanish America. The
class distinctions and the despotic oppression prevalent under their
former chiefs doubtless rendered the Filipinos of the past more like
the Malays of today.

CHAPTER V

[The familiar field for travellers.] The environs of Manila, the Pasig,
and the Lagoon of Bay, which are visited by every fresh arrival in the
colony, have been so often described that I have restricted myself
to a few short notes upon these parts of the country, and intend to
relate in detail only my excursions into the south-eastern provinces
of Luzon, Camarines, and Albay, and the islands which lie to the east
of them, Samar and Leyte. Before doing this, however, it will not be
out of place to glance at the map and give some slight description
of their geographical conditions.

[Archipelago's great extent.] The Philippine Archipelago lies between
Borneo and Formosa, and separates the northern Pacific Ocean from the
China Sea. It covers fourteen and one-half degrees of latitude, and
extends from the Sulu Islands in the south, in the fifth parallel of
north latitude, to the Babuyans in the north in latitude 19 deg. 30'. If,
however, the Bashee or Batanes Islands be included, its area may be
said to extend to the twenty-first parallel of north latitude. But
neither southwards or northwards does Spanish rule extend to these
extreme limits, nor, in fact, does it always reach the far interior
of the larger islands. From the eastern to the western extremity of
the Philippines the distance is about nine degrees of longitude. Two
islands, Luzon, with an area of two thousand, and Mindanao, with one of
more than one thousand five hundred square miles, are togethe