The physical difficulty alone of reaching these various peoples was not only very great, but mere presence in their country involved great risk of one's life. Again, the absence of even the rudest form of tribal organization made the way hard. Take the Ifugaos, for example, about 120,000 in number, all speaking essentially the same language, inhabiting the same country, and having the same origins and traditions. Yet this large body was and is yet broken up into separate _rancherías_, or settlements, each formerly hostile to all the others, this hostility being so great that merely to walk into a neighboring _ranchería_ in plain sight, not more than two miles off across the valley, was a sure way to commit suicide. And what is true of the Ifugaos is true of all the others. Could any other field have been more unpromising, have offered more difficulties? There were those thousands of savages shut up in their all but inaccessible mountains. Why not leave them there, to take one another's heads when occasion offered? They raised nothing but rice and sweet potatoes, anyway, and not enough of those to keep from going hungry. Why concern one's self about them, when there was already so much to be done elsewhere?
To Mr. Worcester's everlasting honor, be it said, he took no such view. On the contrary, he went to work, and that after a simple fashion, but then, all great things are simple! The first thing was to see the people himself; and then came the beginning of the solution, to push practicable roads and trails through the country. Once these established, communication and interchange would follow, and the way would be cleared for the betterment of relations and the removal of misunderstandings. Today an American may ride through the country alone, unarmed and unmolested; [46] twenty years ago a Spaniard trying the same thing would have lost his head within the first five miles. And this difference is fundamentally due to the fact, already mentioned, of the honesty of our relations with these simple mountaineers. We have their confidence and their esteem and their respect, and this in spite of the necessity under which our authorities have constantly labored of punishing them when necessary and of insisting upon law and order wherever our jurisdiction prevails. The lesson has been hard to learn, but it has been driven home. The truth of the matter is, that a great missionary work has been begun; missionary not in the limited sense of forcing upon the understanding of a yet circumscribed people a religion unintelligible to them, but in the sense of teaching peace and harmony, respect for order, obedience to law, regard for the rights of others.