overn a Mohammedan population
mixed up with Confucians, cannibals, headhunters and religions of
twenty different varieties, and he studied as he went along all the
methods employed in similar situations to preserve order without
creating religious wars.

He even made a special journey to Java at the invitation of the Dutch
government, where the Dutch governor gave him all the assistance in
his power. Here he found the problem more closely allied to his own
than elsewhere.

So that on his arrival in Manila he had gathered information upon most
of the problems which would shortly confront him from sources {175} of
unquestioned authenticity and from men of unquestioned ability. Some
friend one night in Manila spoke of the large number of books that
filled the walls of his house and wondered when he expected to get
time to read them. Wood's answer was that he had read them all and
only used them now as reference books to refresh his memory.

New as the problems were, therefore, he had by the time he began
active work as Governor whatever preparation any one could secure for
the work in hand.

The Spaniards had failed in their government in the Philippines as
they had elsewhere. In Mindanao and Sulu--the country, or islands,
inhabited by the Moros--they had failed signally because of their
intolerance of the religious beliefs of the people and their careless
impatience generally towards a colony which from its very nature could
not produce much money. Furthermore they did not send sufficient
military forces or sufficiently able officers to maintain their
supremacy. And finally they did not deal with the people through the
native clergy and priests. Consequently when the Americans came in the
Moros were united only {176} in their hatred of the white race, placed
no confidence in anything their rulers told them and only obeyed
white-man-made laws as long as the white man was in sight.

After all a sultan or datu had his position and authority which had
come down to him through generations and his religion which had been
taught him from birth. He saw no reason why he should give up these
without a struggle just because some other man arrived with a
different religion and a different form of sultan government. The
country was such that it was easy to avoid the new rulers.
Transportation over large parts of the southern islands was through
jungle and pathless forests where even riding a horse was impossible.
Streams withou