f Lanao,
they never had become the undisputed masters of the territory.

One of the pleasantest friends I had while I was in the Islands was
Herr Altman, an orchid collector, who had risked his life a hundred
times among the savages of the interior in the pursuance of the passion
of his life. "One afternoon," he said, "when we were in the forests
of Luzon, my native guides approached me with broad grins. I thought,
perhaps, they had discovered some new orchid; so I followed them. But
I was unprepared for what they were about to show me. Since then I have
had much experience among the wild tribes, but at this time everything
was new to me. They motioned silence as, with broadening grins, they
now approached what seemed to be a clearing in the woods. I could not
think why they should be amused; but they are very easily delighted,
just like children, and I thought that it would do no harm to humor
them. Then I was startled by the howling of a dog and a strange sound
coming through the woods.

Still following my guides, I brought up in a growth of underbrush on a
small precipice that overlooked an open space among the trees. Looking
in the direction in which they pointed, I beheld a group of tiny black
men dancing in a circle around what seemed to be a section of a fallen
tree. Off to the side, the women, slightly smaller than the men, were
cooking a wild hog on a spit, over a smoking fire. Their hair was thick
and woolly and uncombed. Their arms and ankles were adorned with copper
bracelets. Some of the men wore leather thongs that dangled from their
legs. There were a few rude shelters in the clearing, merely improvised
affairs of branches. As the men danced they sent up a song in a high,
piping voice, and several hungry dogs, who had been watching enviously
the roasting meat, howled sympathetically and in unison. It finally
occurred to me that we were the spectators of a funeral ceremony;
that the section of a tree was nothing less than the rough coffin of
the dead Negrito. We continued to watch them for a time, while, having
finished dancing, they began their feast. The only dishes that they
had were cocoanut-shells, out of which they drank immoderate amounts
of _tuba_. The funeral ceremony, as I understand it, lasts for several
days--as long as the supply of meat and _tuba_ lasts. The coffin,
which appeared to me a hollowed log, is but a section of a certain bark
sealed up at either end with wax. The burial is made un