The _Aeta_ carries a bamboo lance, a palm-wood bow, and poisoned arrows when out on an expedition. He is wonderfully light-footed, and runs with great speed after the deer, or climbs a tree like a monkey. Groups of fifty to sixty souls live in community. Their religion seems to be a kind of cosmolatry and spirit-worship. Anything which for the time being, in their imagination, has a supernatural appearance is deified. They have a profound respect for old age and for their dead. They are of extremely low intellect, and, although some of them have been brought up by civilized families living in the vicinity of the _Negrito_ mountainous country, they offer little encouragement to those who would desire to train them. Even when more or less domesticated, the _Negrito_ cannot be trusted to do anything which requires an effort of judgement. At times his mind seems to wander from all social order, and an apparently overwhelming eagerness to return to his native haunts disconcerts all one's plans for his civilization.
For a long time they were the sole masters of Luzon Island, where they exercised seignorial rights over the Malay immigrants, until these arrived in such numbers, that the _Negritos_ were forced to retire to the highlands. The taxes imposed upon primitive Malay settlers by the _Negritos_ were levied in kind, and when payment was refused, they swooped down in a posse, and carried off the head of the defaulter. Since the arrival of the Spaniards, the terror of the white man has made them take definitely to the mountains, where they appear to be very gradually decreasing.
The Spanish Government, in vain, made strenuous efforts to implant civilized habits among this weak-brained race.
In 1881 I visited the Cápas Missions in Upper Pampanga. The authorities had established there what is called a _real_,--a kind of model village of bamboo and palm-leaf huts,--to each of which a family was assigned. They were supplied with food, clothing and all necessaries of life for one year, which would give them an opportunity of tilling the land and providing for themselves in future. But they followed their old habits when the year had expired and the subsidy ceased. On my second visit they had returned to their mountain homes, and I could see no possible inducement for them to do otherwise. The only attraction for them during the year was the fostering of their inbred indolence; and it ought to have been evident that as soon as they had to depend on their own resources they would adopt their own way of living--free of taxes, military service, and social restraint--as being more congenial to their tastes.