De Mas recommends that the Spanish Government should buy the saleable portion of the Mahomedan and pagan tribes, convert them, and employ them in the cultivation of land; and he gives statistics to show that there would be an accumulation of 120 per cent., while their removal would set the Indians together by the ears, who would destroy one another, and relieve the islands from the plague of their presence. This would seem a new chapter in the history of slave-trade experiments. He calculates that there are more than a million pagans and Mahomedans in the islands. Galvey's "Diary of an Expedition to Benguet in January, 1829," and another to Bacun in December, 1831, are histories of personal adventures, many of a perilous character, in which many lives were lost, and many habitations destroyed. They are interesting as exhibiting the difficulties of subjugating these mountain races. Galvey conducted several other expeditions, and died in 1839.
There are few facts of more interest, in connection with the changes that are going on in the Oriental world, than the outpouring of the surplus Chinese population into almost every region eastwards of Bengal; and in Calcutta itself there is now a considerable body of Chinese, mostly shoemakers, many of whom have acquired considerable wealth, and they are banded together in that strong gregarious bond of nationality which accompanies them wherever they go, and which is not broken, scarcely even influenced, by the circumstances that surround them. In the islands of the Philippines they have obtained almost a monopoly of the retail trade, and the indolent habits of the natives cannot at all compete with these industrious, frugal, and persevering intruders. Hence they are objects of great dislike to the natives; but, as their generally peaceful demeanour and obedience to the laws give no hold to their enemies, their numbers, their wealth, their importance increase from year to year. Yet they are but birds of passage, who return home to be succeeded by others of their race. They never bring their wives, but take to themselves wives or hand-maidens from the native tribes. Legitimate marriage, however, necessitates the profession of Christianity, and many of them care little for the public avowal of subjection to the Church of Rome. They are allowed no temple to celebrate Buddhist rites, but have cemeteries specially appropriated to them. They pay a fixed contribution, which is regulated by the rank they hold as merchants, traders, shopkeepers, artisans, servants, &c. Whole streets in Manila are occupied by them, and wherever we went we found them the most laborious, the most prosperous of the working classes. Thousands upon thousands of Chinamen arrive, and are scattered over the islands, but not a single Chinese woman accompanies them from their native country.