"Officers and enlisted men embarking in small boats will lash rifles, revolvers
and heavy equipment to the boats to prevent loss in case of capsizing."
--Constabulary Manual

IN the south was the great shaggy island of Mindanao.

That mystery island that shades the equator had been the scene of the greatest conflicts of all, long before the birth of the Constabulary. That island had seen Malay against Ming; Moro against conquistadore; and brown men against brown. It has been a battleground for many breeds of men who have scrambled for a foothold on its soil.

There is a feeling of permanence about Mindanao that seems to hang in the air. One has but to step upon its gritty sand beaches and look back along the rolling, jungled hills to know that here is a land which is stern in resistance; that here is a land which is pregnant with unpleasant memories and bristling with unwritten stories. It had been stained with the blood of a dozen races of men.

It was a land where illusions and men had died--and where more men were to die.

Mindanao has no history: it is history. It was pioneered by the Portuguese, who received no historical credit. Casual navigators, these, who landed upon its coast a decade before the official "discovery." Men followed after them, as men had gone before. Spaniards with Toledo blades and glittering armor; red-coated Englishmen, and Frenchmen with waxed mustachios. Not to mention Chinese, Javanese, Japanese, and other mixed breeds of the Orient. Jesuit priests had hoisted a cassock to do battle with the Moros as they had sought, unsuccessfully, to replace Koran with Catholicism . . . after them, Americans in blue shirts and slouched campaign hats.

It had been a pageant of history and races that had passed before Mindanao--gaudy names had struggled there--but not a King of all the world had been able to say with honesty, "This island I own."

A.E. Hendryx                     Leonard Furlong

The year 1906. . . .

Commanding officer's quarters at Pettit Barracks, Zamboanga.

General Leonard Wood penning a note to Colonel J. W. Duncan of the American assault forces. "I wish you would get two of your companies together and go to Jolo at once. Nothing but blanket rolls, field mess outfit, seven days' field rations and two hundred rounds per man. In haste. Regular orders will reach you later."

The storming of the cottas on Bud Dajo . . .

Up the steep sides of the mountain, American soldiers advance against the frowning cottas, garrisoned with 1,000 armed Moros. Nine hundred and ninety-four Moros fall before the Gatling guns of the twentieth century. The trenches are piled high with the slain. Kris against Gatling gun. Spear against mountain artillery.

Civilization marches on. . . .

The year 1933. . . .

Malacanan Palace, Manila. American officials bend over a bulletin, confronted again with an age-old Moro problem. "Third Lieutenant Mariano G. Esculto, commanding officer of Camp Andres, was killed when a patrol he was leading was ambushed by Moros at sitio Cambusi, near Camp Andres, this afternoon." (Manila Daily Bulletin for November 21, 1933.) An American Governor-General stands by--in the same hall where de Sande and Figuroa stood so long ago. He confers with grave-faced men in khaki as they read on in an official bulletin: "The report of the bloody encounter, which reached here late this evening, threw Jolo into considerable excitement as this province has been quiet since the killing of Lieutenant Julio F. Barbajera on September sixth. People here thought that the government had the Moro situation well in hand, following the conferences held in Manila between Governor-General Frank Murphy and Lieutenant-Colonel Luther R. Stevens, District Commander of Mindanao and Sulu."

December 1, 1937 . . . .

The Associated Press wires carry a footnote to the conquest of Mindanao, a footnote unfinished by Portuguese and Spaniard and Dutchman and Englishman. The press despatch reads: "Three powerful planes took off today from Manila, bound for distant Mindanao Island, as the Philippine Army launched the most determined campaign in the history of the Commonwealth to crush age-old banditry in Lanao Province. Simultaneously, 116 infantrymen and officers sailed for Lanao aboard the inter-island steamer Samar to join other Insular troops who have conducted a week-long siege in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge Moros from a half-dozen cottas. Departure of the bombers marked the first time in the history of the Philippines that aerial weapons have been used in the Moro campaigns. The planes, one of which bears Major General Paulino Santos, Army Chief of Staff, will be used to attack the cottas in the event trench mortars are unsuccessful.

"One soldier was killed and nine wounded last week when Insular troops attempted to storm the outlaw stronghold. The cottas have been tunneled into the side of the hill and so far have proved impregnable to infantry attack."

This then, was the land that America had "bought" from Spain, but there was to be more to the purchase price than the $20,000,000 she had paid. America, as others had, was to find death in Mindanao.

The purveyors of that death were the Moros, and no book would be large enough to record the history of these Mohammedans who have so smeared the pages of Far Eastern history with blood. No book even remotely concerned with the pacification of the Philippines could ignore the Moros. As the races of men ebbed and flowed across the face of Mindanao, like a disordered tide, the Moro raised a kris blade against them all. Joyfully, he raised that blade. The savage resistance of the Mohammedans to the conquistadores of Spain must stand as the most amazing epoch of military history--377 years of uninterrupted combat!

The Constabulary made a tentative gesture toward the Mohammedan country in 1903, but for several years their activities were to be secondary to the regular army. For almost a decade Mindanao and Sulu were to be the problem of Generals Leonard Wood, Tasker Bliss, and John J. Pershing.

Captain Pratt of the regulars had relieved the battered Spaniards in May, 1899, but the region was lightly held for several years. It was but a gesture of sovereignty at that early date. The future pacification was the result of the combined efforts of army, Scouts, and Constabulary, but to the army must go greatest credit for the initial establishment of American authority.

When we purchased the Moro country from Spain as a part of the Philippine Archipelago, we contracted for its pacification--a matter Spain had never been able to accomplish. The Moro country was geographically a portion of the Philippine Islands; actually, it was a country to itself.

The Moros are a race who diet on blood and steel. They were ill-disposed to accept the authority of the United States. They had never heard of the Treaty of Paris. Nor had they heard of a nation called the United States of America. Almost from the beginning they fortified their bamboo forts against encroachment. It was a matter of routine for them; they had been doing that for years. We were a new set of strange faces--that was all.

American soldiers began to learn of Imams, those white-robed priests of Mohammed, who are stern in purpose and unwavering in faith.

Behind the Imams were their official agents of death--an iron ring of swarth, corded krismen; that iron tempered into chilled steel by the dictates of the Prophet. A people who thrive where white men die. A race galling in battle, and a proud people who seek welcome death on the field of battle. Even today, in Mindanao, with the combat noises muted, the people seem always poised for battle.

The Constabulary in this country was officially organized in 1902, but it was not until early in 1903 that Captain (now Major-General, retired) James G. Harbord was assigned to command the district from headquarters at Zamboanga.

To form the newly organized force, selected noncommissioned officers were detached from the companies of the northern provinces to form a nucleus of veterans. The work of recruiting Moros to fight Moros was undertaken speedily. The decision to attempt the recruiting of Moros into the service of the United States is probably the most splendidly audacious move in the entire history of the Constabulary. No one unfamiliar with Moros and Mindanao could appreciate the qualities of officership required to make this organization successful.

By the end of 1903, the force consisted of 17 officers and 353 men (Filipino and Moro, and in itself a marvelous disciplinary feat), and they were on post at Surigao, Cagayan, Oroquieto, Zamboanga, Tucuran, Siassi, Bongao, Baganga, and Mati.

Immediately Captain Harbord encountered peculiar difficulties incident to the religious beliefs of the Mohammedans. The uniform was modified to the convenience of the Koran; as the Moros would not wear hats with brims, they were issued red fezzes with black tassels. So natty was this headgear that many of the officers adopted it as a part of their uniform.

In the vicinity of Zamboanga, the Constabulary was com posed of equal portions of Moros and Christian Filipinos. It was necessary to establish separate messes in each company, as the Moros were forbidden by the Koran to eat pork. This ban prohibited the old army stand-by of pork and beans, as well as the issue of hardtack, which contained lard as an ingredient.

The Moros came slowly to the Constabulary. By the end of 1903, one hundred and two of the Mohammedans had been enlisted.

The greatest problem of the authorities was that question of the feasibility of arming these wild Mohammedans with rifles. The Moro youth purchases his bride, or brides, from the father-in-law, the desirability of the maidens influencing the purchase price. It was pointed out that a rifle was an object almost worth its weight in gold in the interior mountains, and that many young Moros might enlist with the idea of prompt desertions with their arms

But the Moro has a peculiar, inflexible code; once he became accustomed to military discipline, he proved a loyal soldier, and desertions were almost zero in the force after organization was complete. Captain Harbord deserves great credit for the tact with which he explored this dangerous possibility.

Harbord made an effort to understand Moros, and he learned many things about these strange grim men.He discovered that to change officers too often was to affect discipline. The Moros made a personality out or their officer; if he was brave and fair, they idolized him for those two prime virtues. Officers had to be especially strong in those qualities of leadership and valor.

Behind that type of officer, the Moros would go smiling and happy to their deaths.

The Moro was a soldier, no question of that; and when sworn into the service of the United States his stern nature made duty an inflexible pleasure. On one occasion, when Lieutenant Wood was Acting Chief Justice of the Tribal Ward courts, he had in the guardhouse a Moro prisoner convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged.

Wood felt badly about the hanging, as the victim was a brother of one of his most trusted Constabulary soldiers. On the eve of the hanging the Lieutenant visited the guardhouse and found to his surprise that the Sergeant of the Guard had detailed the soldier to guard his jail-bird brother. Naturally Wood wondered if conniving for escape was the plan. He decided to leave the guard as it was, and retired to his room, from which place he could oversee the situation.

When dusk settled and the sentry was at the farthest end of his beat, the prisoner burst from jail and ran for the wall. His brother, the sentry, turned and saw him. He paused for a moment, and then laid his rifle on the ground. In a flash he was racing after his escaping brother.

As Wood watched, the sentry overhauled the escaping prisoner. There was the flash of a bayonet in the dim light--and no necessity for a hanging in the morning!

The Constabulary found an entirely different situation in thee Moro country from the conditions that had prevailed in the northern islands. There, in Mindanao and Sulu, the disorders were not temporary post-war disturbances or incidental to the era of insurrection, but were, and for centuries had been, the normal order of affairs.

No government had broken down in Mindanao. No government had existed there! Two Sultans and a great number ot Datus had controlled the actions of their personal followers. The Sultan at Jolo was supreme in matters pertaining to the religion; there his authority ended.

The stern Lawarn Code and the Koran were the law, but the kris overshadowed the Koran as an instrument of justice. The problem confronting the government was how to stop this "merry carnival of human sacrifice, murder, slavery, kidnapping, cattle-raiding and piracy," and to convert the inhabitants of this vast jungle into useful citizens capable of a certain measure of self-government.

Young Constabulary officers of selected character played a great part in the civil affairs of the country. Many of them were appointed Acting Chief Justices of the Tribal Courts, serving as patrol leaders in capturing bandits and then as judges of the court that condemned the bandits. Quite often, unusual judicial conditions prevailed.

Lieutenant James L. Wood was one of these jungle justices--a traveling justice similar to our Circuit Court justices. His position also as a Constabulary Lieutenant often placed him in a peculiar situation. Naturally, it was not in accord with judicial dignity that the Judge should wear a pistol, but the fact remained that the Judge (in his capacity as a Constabulary officer) was the object of concerted Moro attack, even in the Court chambers.

While Wood was serving as a Judge, General Bliss realized the position of the Lieutenant and sent him a shoulder holster that bore an interesting history. It was constructed so that a small, leather-covered piano wire fitted into the muzzle of the revolver, with a hand-spring circling the cylinder. When wanted, the gun would fairly leap into the hand. The holster had been given to General Bliss by his lifelong friend, "Whispering Smith," who had designed it and carried it for many years for the Santa Fe railroad, and who was rated as one of the fastest gun men of the early West.

The holster had been of particular interest to Wood, for his initial experience in Mindanao had almost been his last, due to a stiff holster. He had been a Third Lieutenant then, only three days in Mindanao, and had gone with a group of brother officers to the wedding of a friendly Moro. The other officers had worn no side arms, but Wood a youngster of twenty-one, had been proud of his new service revolver and holster, and had worn them. The officers were given a place of honor on a high platform.

The groom approached, with bales of silk, brass gongs, and a retinue of shackled slaves to complete the purchase of the bride. As the wedding party watched, one of the slaves escaped into the bush, and the young Moro was disconcerted and lacking in the payment. Hastily he asserted the prerogative of his rank and clapped the nearest of his men into the slave line. It was a matter that could be straightened out later, for this policy of degrading a free tribesman was contrary to Moro law.

The procession moved on, the young free Moro sullen in the slave line. The wedding got under way, and the slaves were seated on the floor in front of the officers' platform. As interest turned to the bride, the young free Moro seized a barong and went to work on the crowd. The slave keeper dropped, split from shoulder to pelvis; the Moro turned to the officers' platform.

Wood alone was armed--and his holster was stiff and new. For the longest seconds of his life he tugged at the weapon--it came free at last and the Moro went down under Wood's accurate fire.

That evening, a solemn-faced young Constabulary Lieutenant went to his quarters to accomplish an exemplary job of holster pruning.

So Wood, a few years later, was grateful indeed to sit on the judge's bench with "Whispering Smith's" holster beneath his arm.

The Moro Province was under a special form of semimilitary rule, with a Commander of the United States Army acting as Governor. It was desired, as soon as was possible, to convert this military regime into a civil government. With that in mind, the Constabulary was hurried into organization to be the agents of that government.

Between the years 1903 and 1937 the Constabulary was to engage in hundreds of cotta fights, and to quell twenty-six major uprisings of sufficient seriousness to be listed as "campaigns."

Harbord was indeed busy in Mindanao and Sulu.

He had whipped the Moro Constabulary into condition to take the field--in itself a most remarkable feat. The Moro is one of the finest individual fighters of any race of men, but he is not amenable to military discipline. It required a man of great quality of leadership to accomplish that result: Harbord had proven himself the man for the job.

No one who ever knew General Harbord could forget that peculiar walk with the little twitch of the left shoulder. Even the Moros remembered it. When Harbord first came to Mindanao, in 1903, he was already slightly bald, disguising the red hair of his youth. He has changed very little with the years.

There was certainly an element of splendid organization and sympathetic understanding in the nature of Harbord to enable him so to win the confidence of the savage Mohammedans. They were ready to fight in 1904.

And there was fighting to be done. . . .

A line of cottas was stretched across Mindanao, and Sulu and the Moros were massing to resist the American invasion of their country. They had some 34,000 official warriors in the field, but every man capable of bearing a kris was dangerous. The total Moro population of the southern islands was about 400,000, and the fighting men were distributed with 19,000, in Mindanao, 10,000 in Sulu and about 5,000 on Basilan Island.

The Moro cottas were forts of bamboo and nipa, with stout double walls of tree trunks packed with earth or broken coral. They were defended by lantakas, which are ornately carved, swivel cannon of the Moros, and are older than the written history of the archipelago. Some authorities have stated that these cannon of the Malay pirates were among the earliest form of portable ordnance. They fired a ball weighing from one quarter of a pound to twice that weight, and they were adaptable for use on land or mounted in the bows of their vessels. The pirate garays--the long, outrigger boats with bulging lateen sail--used the lantaka on their slave-stealing expeditions through the East Indian Archipelago.

But the most stern line of defense of the cottas was the line of individual combatants who waved the great fluted and wavy-edged blades that are a marvel of steel craftsmanship. Elsewhere, it has been written that these Moro krises were the equal, in temper and edge, of the best blades of Toledo and Damascus.¹

In 1903, the Constabulary was not in sufficient strength to consider the subjugation of the Moros, nor did they reach that state for some years. In the beginning, the conquest of Mindanao, and Sulu was strictly an army job, and the regulars were in the field officially against the Moros until the battle of Bud Bagsak on June 16, 1913.

The regular army took the field with magazine rifles, with Vickers-Maxim machine guns, with mountain artillery, and with the finest officers of the military establishment in command. Generals Pershing, Wood, Bliss, and countless others acquired their military reputations fighting against the Moros in the Philippines.

There can be no question but that the regular army of the United States was very efficient in the Moro country in that ten-year period of combat with the Mohammedans. The decade of resistance the Moros set up against our regular army is a most remarkable feat of arms. The long-range tactics and the rapid-fire weapons of the army, with few exceptions, prevented the Moros from getting to close quarters. The result was an unfortunate period of unequal warfare that aroused great criticism in the United States.

The late John Hackett, for many years editor of the Mindanao Herald of Zamboanga, and in the early days a civilian information operative working with the army, estimated that 15,000 Moros met their deaths in consequence of the campaigns. This was accomplished with a casualty list in the regular army that was virtually negligible.

In considering the argument from the military viewpoint, there can be no question but what something had to be done about Mindanao and Sulu. Murder and piracy had been unrestrained there for centuries; the lives or deaths of men were held in the palms of the Moro Datus who were the law of the land. Such had always been the rule in Mindanao, and the Moros had seen no reason for a change because of a title change in land ownership due to our purchase of the country from Spain.

These Mohammedans are not pretty objects, nor are they sympathetic objects, but the warfare they waged against the United States was justified. They had resisted the entrance of a dozen races of men; there was no valid reason for their excepting American troopers.

And they did resist--with the most severe resistance that our arms have encountered in the history of our nation.

In 1903, the regulars under Leonard Wood had a series of serious cotta fights in Lanao Province in Mindanao while Major Scott was engaged in a lengthy campaign after the Datu Hassan in Sulu. Hassan had sent word to the American government to the effect that "if they wanted him, they could come and get him."

Scott got him--after many weeks of weary warfare.

During the next year, the campaigns after "Ali in the Valley" occupied the attention of the army. Ali had organized the Moros of Mindanao into a tremendous coalition. He was eventually surrounded in his cotta, completely surprised, and destroyed, with most of his family, by long-range bombardment.

The Constabulary had no part in these operations save for a minor collaboration with the army in a few inconsequential skirmishes with Moros. While the army campaigns were in process, the Constabulary was gradually extending its influence to the more isolated regions. The post at Siasi was taken over from the regulars on June 20, 1904. Siasi is in the heart of the Moro country on the island of that name. A few months later, the Insular Police took over the island of Tawi-Tawi with a station at Bongao.

On Basilian Island, a station was established at Isabela. Here, Captain Sandford, with 49 men, occupied the old Spanish fort that was a relic of the unsuccessful days of the conquistadores. On clear days Sandford could almost look into the bastions of the old fortress of Senora del Pilar at Zamboanga, fifteen miles away.

In Cotabato Province, 95 men under Captain Long were occupying stations at Cotabato, Libungan, Tumao, and Taviran. To this sector came two raw young officers who were extremes in temperament, nationality, and appearance. Lieutenant Gilheuser was one, a big blond German, fresh from the Prussian army.

The other was a slim, dark American boy, very carefully groomed and sporting a tiny mustache. As one considered his slight frame and slender wrists, he seemed ill-adapted for service in this organization of rough fighting men who took jungle in their stride.

But he was to develop--in the opinion of many--into the greatest warrior of them all. His name was Leonard Furlong. His short, wild life must have been an unhappy one. There could have been no other reason for that dashing, frenzied career of battle that he waged in Mindanao.

Twenty years after Furlong had fired his last shot, this writer stood with wrinkled and ancient Moros on the sites of some of the Cotabato battles of this Captain of Constabulary. We talked, the Moros and I, of those old days of murder and piracy and ambush, when the kris had been the law and the measure of a man. The Moros are always ready to talk of battle.

These scarred old reprobates with blackened teeth and betel-stained lips, were no exception. Our conversation that day was filled with grand names: Allan Fletcher of the Scouts, called "Papa" by Moro and Filipino and American--a grand campaigner; Lieutenant Whitney of the prodigious strength gained a shuffle of bare feet and the twitch of a turban; then we talked of a Lieutenant named Cochrun--"a brave man, si," was his accolade; a youngster's name came into the conversation--Jesse Tiffany. The Moros fought him on their cotta walls. He, too, was valiant--a nod of the turbans confirmed him with the greatest praise a Moro can bestow on a man.

But when I mentioned Furlong, a glisten came into the eyes of ancient Moros who talk of redder and grander days. They sent up the most impressive salute to Valhalla that I can ever hope to witness. I see them now as I write--a circle of genial old ruffians, almost ready themselves to mount a white horse to Paradise. Their turbans are off now and their chins at rest on their scarred and brawny chests. After twenty years, they bend a neck to the memory of Leonard Furlong--"most desperate fighting man of all."

Furlong in Mindanao, Crockett in Samar: the Constabulary may well be proud of them.

Far away on the south coast, in Davao Province, the Constabulary had stations at Davao, Mati, and Baganga, with Williams, Taulbee, Bernal, and Fort in command of a garrison of 115 men. The bloody region of Lanao was tentatively occupied with stations at Iligan and Misamis under the leadership of Griffiths, Wood, and Heartt. The dread region near Lake Lanao which was to be the scene of the bloodiest battles of the Moro wars was not under occupation. Misamis Province was in command of Captain Gallant, with Lieutenant Campbell and a police force of 78 men.

At Siasi, DeWitt and Sowers held forth with 40 men. Lieutenant Johnson was at Bongao with his 33 native infantrymen. Another Johnson was in Zamboanga, and a Moro in the mountains was sharpening the spear that was to skewer him on Basilan Island.

Surigao will be remembered as the station where the surprise attack had cost the life of Captain Clark. It was garrisoned in 1904 with 73 men under Captain Waloe and Lieutenants Lattimore and Burrell.

Zamboanga became headquarters for Constabulary and army operations in the south. For more than four centuries Zamboanga has been the headquarters of men who scrambled for a foothold in the Moro country. The town broods on the memory of a martial past.

As the years hurried by, Bagumbayan, the pirate village that was, became Zamboanga, the metropolis of Mindanao. The undertone of its growth was the mutter of battle, for the city has been little else than a military reservation and concentration point. There is no hinterland to promote a sound commercial growth, for the peninsula of Zamboanga is spined with a backbone of rugged mountains. Today, a few white prospectors have scaled those peaks in search of gold. Otherwise, they remain as God created them.

No visitor to the southern islands can remain long unaware of the brooding presence of the old forts of Spain. They were abodes of horror in the old days, and they seem to retain those memories of retching death on the kris. These great thick walls and towering bastions were a gesture of futility--a gesture of the Spanish occupation of Moroland.

The Spanish fought a waiting war against the Moros. Their indecision developed into the most lengthy wait of history. For almost four centuries they cowered behind walls of stone. The Spaniards took up the Moro wars with a great confidence and a brave flutter of pennons. They dropped the conquest with a feeling of apathy and stark fear.

Only in Mindanao, of all the world, did the Spaniard of the looting age fail to make conquest. There, the conquistadores met men who considered warfare one of the major pleasures of an otherwise drab existence. They met Malays who struck with ferocity and withdrew silently through the tall grass. They met men who were inspired by a major defeat, and who deliberately prolonged the warfare for the sheer joy of fighting.

Under the impact, the Spaniards wavered and sought walls of stone. Their occupation of Mindanao became mole-like. Their greatest engineering feat was the construction of the noble fortress of Nuetra Senora del Pilar at Zamboanga.

Today, this moss-grown old fort dominates the town of Zamboanga. Today, as in 1904, it is the headquarters of the regular army in Mindanao and Sulu. Tomorrow, it will be headquarters for the southern division of the Philippine Commonwealth army--and they will still be fighting the Moros.

With Zamboanga's old Spanish fort as supply base, the regulars began to spread out across the face of Mindanao and Sulu. Their job was to accomplish what Spain had been unable to do. Massed men and rapid rifle fire replaced the arquebusses and the gaudy "Regiemento Rey y Riena" of Spain. America took to the open field. The old Spanish forts became supply stations. Vigorously, the army carried the war to the Moros.

The reverses they suffered were minor; they had too many guns and too much artillery. The Moros were never able to get hand to hand, except by surprise night attacks.

The Moros prowled the flanks like leopards, harrying the camps at night, striking quickly to kill a straggler, but were never dangerous except to small, isolated patrols. The army kept together, in large bodies of well-armed men.

In Mindanao and Sulu, exactly the same condition was to prevail as had been the case in the northern islands. The army blasted the Moros from their main positions and broke up the organized resistance. Then, as in the north, the army withdrew, and the Constabulary was left with the responsibility of the actual pacification of the country. The army campaigns were the usual large troop movement operations; the Constabulary operated with the small patrol system, in desperate hand-to-hand encounters.

The patrols were moving out, in 1904, to establish their chain of small patrol stations. Far across the straits on Palawan Island, the Constabulary set up four stations. At Cuyo, Coron, and Puerta Princesa, sergeants had charge of a few men on outpost duty. At Balabac, at the extreme southern tip of Palawan, Lieutenant Walker was experiencing the ultimate in isolation with his post of 45 men.

Palawan Island was a no-man's land, of no particular interest to American or Moro. The post at Balabac was a scene of grim memories. In the earliest Spanish days it had been an outpost of the conquistadores, and there 122 men of a garrison of 375 had died in a single year. The Spanish soldiers had so dreaded Balabac that they had suffered self-inflicted wounds to avoid station there. The malaria fever was malignant. Even today, Balabac is a forbidding place. To Lieutenant Walker, in 1904, it must have been a place where one lived on the jungle. It was a long sail, and reliefs were infrequent.

For more than three decades the Constabulary was to be battered by Moros in this southern archipelago of the Philippines.

1
The reader interested in the Moro, his weapons, mode of attack, customs, religion, and early history, is directed to the author's Swish of the Kris -- their military history. This account carries the Moros through four centuries of their fighting existence.

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Original publication © 1938 E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

This publication (HTML format & original artwork) © 2001 Bakbakan International.

Transcription courtesy of Ashley Bass.