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In order to satisfy them I caressed their babes: but that was not what they wanted, and, notwithstanding their gestures and their words, I could not make out their wishes. On the following day, the woman whom I have already mentioned as having lived for some time among the Tagalocs, arrived from a neighbouring tribe, accompanied by ten other women, each of whom had an infant in her arms.
Manilla and its suburbs contain a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand souls, of which Spaniards and Creoles hardly constitute the tenth part; the remainder is composed of Tagalocs, or Indians, Métis, and Chinese. The city is divided into two sections the military and the mercantile the latter of which is the suburb.
I spent three days with the kind Tagalocs, who received and treated me like a prince. On the fourth day I bade them adieu, and we shaped our course to the northward, in the midst of mountains covered with thick forests, and which, like those that we had quitted, showed no path for the traveller, except some tracks or openings through which wild animals passed.
I was soon on their track; and on the second day afterwards I fulfilled the promise I had made Commander Laplace, and delivered up to him his five deserters against whom I had been obliged to employ neither violence nor fire-arms. I have already had the occasion of speaking about the Tagalocs, and describing their disposition.
When the fatal sentence has been pronounced, the Tinguian who has merited it must escape, if he wishes to avoid it, and go and live in the forests; for, the old men having spoken, all the inhabitants are bound to perform their orders. Society is divided into two classes, as with the Tagalocs, the chiefs and the commonalty.
This would seem to prove the origin I attribute to the Tagalocs, whom I believe to be descended from the Malays, and these latter, being all Mussulmans, would naturally have preserved some of the ancient patriarchal customs.
This village, inhabited by Tagalocs, is thrown, like an oasis of men, somewhat civilised, in the midst of forests and savage people, and who had no direct communication with the other districts which are governed by the Spaniards.
A woman came to me with a child, to which she wished to give a name; she had been reared amongst the Tagalocs; she had spoken that language, of which she remembered a little, and could give, although with much difficulty, all the information I desired which was to me of interest.
The profession of a robber, which he willingly exercises, is agreeable to him, on account of the life of liberty and adventure it affords, and not because it may lead to riches. Generally speaking, the Tagalocs are good fathers and good husbands, both these qualities being inherent.
It is probable, and almost incontestible, that the Philippine Islands were primitively peopled by aborigines, a small race of negroes still inhabiting the interior of the forests in pretty large numbers, called Ajetas by the Tagalocs, and Négritos by the Spaniards.
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