ystem
of cruising and warfare round the Islands are incalculable. Besides
plundering and burning the towns and settlements, these bloody
pirates put the old and helpless to the sword, destroy the cattle
and plantations, and annually carry off to their own homes as many as
a thousand captives of both sexes, who, if they are poor and without
hopes of being redeemed, are destined to drag out a miserable existence
amidst the most fatiguing and painful labor, sometimes accompanied
with torments. Such is the dread and apprehension of these seas that
only those navigate and carry on trade in them who are able to arm and
man their vessels in a way corresponding to the great risks they have
to run, or others whom want compels to disregard the imminent dangers
which await them. Among the latter class, the Bisayans, or "painted
(tattooed) natives," are distinguished, an extremely warlike people of
whom great use might be made. Reared from their infancy amidst danger
and battle, and greatly resembling the Moros in their features and
darkness of skin, they are equally alike in the agility with which
they manage the long sword and lance, and such is the courage and
implacable odium with which they treat their enemies that, if not taken
by surprise, they sell their lives very dear, sacrificing themselves
in a most heroic manner, rather than to be led away as captives.

In order, however, that a more correct idea may be formed of the
wicked policy and atrocious disposition of these Moros, and with a
view to do away with the misconceptions of those who are of opinion
that incentives to trade, and other slow and indirect means ought
to be employed for the purpose of overcoming them, it will suffice
to quote the following examples among a number of others, even more
recent ones, which might equally be brought forward.

[Instances of treachery.] In 1796, the governor of Zamboanga
dispatched, with regular passports and under a safe conduct obtained
from the Sultan of Mindanao, Lieutenant Don Pantaleon Arcillas,
with a sergeant, eight men, and a guide, in order to bring into
the fortress the cattle belonging to the king's farm, which had
strayed away and got up in the lands of the above-mentioned Mahometan
prince. Five days after their departure, whilst the lieutenant was
taking his meals at the house of a "Datu," or chief, named Oroncaya,
he was suddenly surrounded by seventy Moros, who, seizing upon him,
bound him to a tree and then flay