hundred and eighty villages had fallen to ruins.
Then came an epidemic which swept away nearly all the natives of Guam;
and the island of Tinian (one of the group) was depopulated and its
inhabitants brought to Guam.

[Illustration: NATIVE HOUSE AND PALMS, LADRONE ISLANDS.]

Nearly all the new arrivals soon died. In the year 1760, a census showed
a total of only 1,654 inhabitants left in all the islands, and the
Spaniards repopulated them by bringing Tagals from the Philippines.
These, mixed with the remaining natives and Spaniards, have steadily
increased. The population of the islands in 1899 was estimated at about
9,000. The people are generally lacking in energy, loose in morals, and
miserably poor. Their education has been seriously neglected. Their
religion is Catholic, no Protestant missions having been encouraged--we
might say, not allowed--there or in the Philippines or the Carolines.

TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, ETC.

The islands of the northern group are mountainous, the altitudes
reaching from 2,600 to 2,700 feet. There are evidences of volcanoes all
over the archipelago, and some mountains contain small craters and cones
not yet extinct. The climate of the Ladrones, though humid, is
salubrious, and the heat, being tempered by the trade winds, is milder
than in the Philippines. The yearly average temperature of Guam is 81 deg.
Streams are everywhere copious--though the clearing of the land has
diminished their size of late years. The original flora consists
generally of Asiatic plants, but much has been introduced from the
Philippines and other sources.

Cocoanuts, palms, the bread tree, and tropical trees and plants
generally, thrive. The large fruit bat which abounds in the Philippines
is indigenous to the Ladrones, and, despite its objectionable odor, is a
principal article of food. Swine and oxen are allowed to run wild, and
are hunted when needed. There are only a few species of birds; even
insects are rare; and the reptiles are represented by several kinds of
lizards and a single species of serpent. No domestic animals were known
in the islands until introduced by the Spaniards.

When the United States steamship Charleston opened fire on the little
city of Agana, July 4, 1898, the people had not heard of the war, and
the governor said he thought "the noble Americans were saluting" him,
and was "deeply humiliated because he had no powder to return their
salute." It was an easy, bloodless victory. The g