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There are many volcanoes in the islands, and they exist from the North of Luzon to the Sulus in the extreme South, a distance as great as from Scotland to Sicily. There is one on Luzon that bears a close resemblance both in appearance and phenomena to Vesuvius. The likeness in eruptions is startling.
The Sulus boast of the deed, and admit that they received assistance from both Zamboanga and Ternate, the two nearest Spanish and Dutch ports.
If that be final, the Tagals and other tribes of Luzon, the Visayans of Negros and Cebu, and the Mohammedan Malays of Mindanao and the Sulus, having each far more than the requisite population, may demand admission next winter into the Union as free and independent States, with representatives in Senate and House, and may plausibly claim that they can show a better title to admission than Nevada ever did, or Utah or Idaho.
Their religion Muhammadanism sits even more lightly on the Sulus than on the Brunais, and their women, who are fairer and better looking than their Brunai sisters, are never secluded or veiled, but often take part in public deliberations and, in matters of business, are even sharper than the men.
We left Batu Puteh in Richardson's canoe early one morning, and, although we had a strong stream with us going down, we did not reach Bilit till evening. Bilit is a large village made up of Malays, Orang Sungei, and Sulus. Quite a crowd met us on our arrival, and they seemed not a little excited.
The Sulus are a bloodthirsty and hard-hearted race, and, when an opportunity occurs, are not always averse to kidnapping even their own countrymen and selling them into slavery. They entertain a high notion of their own importance, and are ever ready to resent with their krises the slightest affront which they may conceive has been put upon them.
These junks are said to come chiefly from Amoy, where the cottons, etc., best suited for the Sulus are made. Their cargoes consist of a variety of articles of Chinese manufacture and produce, such as silk, satin goods, cottons, red and checked, grass-cloth clothing, handkerchiefs, cutlery, guns, ammunition, opium, lumber, china and glass-ware, rice, sugar, oil, lard, and butter.
That a difference should be made in a vessel with or without Chinamen, seems singular; but this, I was told, arose from the circumstance that English vessels take them on board, in order to detect and prevent the impositions of the Sulus. Vessels intending to trade at Soung should arrive before the Chinese junks, and remain as long as they stay, or even a few days later.
The trade requires great knowledge of the articles purchased, for the Chinese and Sulus are both such adepts in fraud, that great caution and circumspection are necessary.
We are actually and now responsible, not merely to the inhabitants and to our own people, but, in International Law, to the commerce, the travel, the civilization of the world, for the preservation of order and the protection of life and property in Cuba, in Porto Rico, in Guam, and in the Philippine Archipelago, including that recent haunt of piracy, the Sulus.
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