he owners of these islands,” says an old writer, speaking of the Southern Philippines about a century and a half after Magellan, “are those who people the mountains,” having retreated thither before invasions of more vigorous tribes (Moro), who hold the coasts and “bear themselves among those people as princes.” The Bagobo still “people the mountains” of Mindanao between the crest of the range which culminates in the volcanic Mt. Apo, the highest peak in the Philippines, and the waters at the western side of the head of the Gulf of Davao. They form a population of some ten or twelve thousand, still largely pagan; since the American occupation of the Islands, a considerable number have been induced to settle in the lowlands between their original mountain fastnesses and the coast.
