will diminish. It still
exists. Strong told me, on his return to Manila, that, looking into
a head-basket after leaving Tabuk, he found in it fresh fragments
of a human skull; for the Apayaos take the skull like the other
highlanders, but unlike them, break it into pieces. But with these
people head-hunting is a part of their religious belief, and so all
the harder to uproot. With the others it is a matter of vengeance,
or else even of sport. "On the other hand, the people of Apayao have
many good qualities. They are physically well-developed and are quite
cleanly. They erect beautifully constructed houses. Their women are
well clothed, and both men and women love handsome ornaments. They
are quite industrious agriculturists and are now begging for seed and
for domestic animals in order that they may emulate their Christian
neighbors in the raising of agricultural products."

Of course we should have been very glad to go on with Mr. Worcester
into the Apayao country if he had asked us; but it is practically
trailless as yet, and for a party as large as ours would have been,
questions of supply and transportation would have been difficult, to
say nothing of the impolicy of taking a large number into the country
at all. And so, on Saturday morning, May 14th, we shook hands with
Mr. Worcester and his companions. His progress so far had been an
unqualified success, unmarred by a single adverse incident, for the
deplorable loss of life at Kiangan could in no wise be attributed
to our presence or to the occasion. What the results of the visit
of 1910 will be, only time can tell; but experience shows that every
year marks an advance in the spread of friendly relations, not only
between the Government and the people, but between the subdivisions
of the people itself. [41]

The Chico being still up when we reached it, we crossed again on
submarines, climbed the bank, and found ourselves in Tabuk (or Talbok),
the most pestilential hole in the Archipelago. Nothing is left of it
now but a ruinous church and one or two houses. The first mass was said
here or hereabouts in 1689, by the Dominicans, who kept up the mission
until the monks all died of fever. Did an occasional officer in the old
days prove objectionable to the authorities in Manila, he got an order
to proceed to Tabuk for station; it was almost certain that he would
never return. The point is of unquestionable importance, commanding,
as it does, the main outlet, of the