y the tiny men found
there to-day. If so, then they were driven to the highlands by the
cataclysm that in prehistoric ages might have broken up the mainland
into islands, leaving only the summits of the mountains visible.

Or otherwise, might not these wanderers, who have their prototypes
among the pigmies of dark Africa, or in the dwarfs inhabiting New
Guinea--might they not have set sail from Caffraria, New Guinea, or
the country of the Papuans, long years before the Christian era, like
the "Jumblies," in their frail canoes, perhaps escaping persecution,
driven by the winds and currents, to land at last on the unpeopled
shores of Filipinia?

In time came the Malayans of low culture, now the pagan tribes of the
interior, and a conflict--primitive men fighting with rude weapons,
clubs, and stones--ensued for the possession of the coast. In that
event the smaller men were driven back into the territory that they
occupy to-day. The races intermingled, and a medley of strange,
mongrel tribes resulted. They have wandered, scattering themselves
abroad about the islands. Influenced by various environment, each
tribe adopted different customs and built up from common roots the
different dialects. These tribes have always been, and always will
be, mere barbarians and savages. In the pure type of Negritos,
spindle legs, large turned-in feet, weak bodies, and large heads
are noticeable. Shifting eyes, flat noses, kinky hair, and teeth
irregularly set,--these are Negrito characteristics, though they
frequently occur in the _mestizo_ types. The Igorrotes of Luzon,
whose ancestors were possibly the aborigines and the worst element of
the invaders, are to-day the cannibals and the head-hunters of the
north. In Abra, province of Luzon, the Burics and their neighbors,
the Busaos, both of a Negrito-Malay origin, use poisoned darts, tattoo
their bodies, and adorn themselves with copper rings and caps of rattan
decorated with bright feathers. The Manguianes, of the mountains of
Mindoro, dress in rattan coils, supplemented with a scanty apron.

These Malayan races were, in their turn, driven back by later Malays,
who became the nucleus of the Tagalog, Bicol, Ilocano, and Visayan
races, taking possession of the coast and mouths of rivers, and
governing themselves, or being governed by hereditary rajas, just
as when, three centuries ago, Magellan and Legaspi found them. The
Moros, or Mohammedan invaders, were first heard from when, in 159