asinan and La Union provinces, there is an organization
known as the "Guards of Honour." Its recruits are very numerous,
their chief vocation being cattle-stealing and filching other people's
goods without unnecessary violence. It is feared they may extend their
operations to other branches of perversity. The society is said to
be a continuation of the _Guardia de Honor_ created by the Spaniards
and stimulated by the friars in Pangasinan as a check on the rebels
during the events of 1896-98. At the American advent they continued
to operate independently against the insurgents, whom they harassed
very considerably during the flight northwards from Tarlac. It was
to escape the vengeance of this party that Aguinaldo's Secretary of
State (according to his verbal statement to me) allowed himself to
fall prisoner to the Americans.

The _Pulajanes_ of Samar seem to be as much in possession of that
Island as the Americans themselves, and its history, from the
revolution up to date, is a lugubrious repetition of bloodshed,
pillage, and incendiarism. The deeds of the notorious Vicente Lucban
were condoned under the Amnesty of 1902, but the marauding organization
is maintained and revived by brigands of the first water. Every
move of the government troops is known to the _pulajanes_. The spy,
stationed at a pass, after shouting the news of the enemy's approach
to the next spy, darts into the jungle, and so on all along the line,
in most orderly fashion, until the main column is advised. In July,
1904, they slaughtered half the inhabitants of the little coast village
of Taviran, mutilated their corpses, and then set out for the town of
Santa Elena, which was burnt to the ground. In December of that year
over a thousand _pulajanes_ besieged the town of Taft (formerly Tubig),
held by a detachment of native scouts, whilst another party, hidden
in the mountains, fell like an avalanche upon a squad of 43 scouts,
led by an American lieutenant, on their way to the town of Dolores,
and in ten minutes killed the officer and 37 of his men. After this
mournful victory the brigands went to reinforce their comrades at
Taft, swelling their forces _en route_, so that the besiegers of Taft
amounted to a total of about 2,000 men. About the same time some 400
_pulajanes_ were met by a few hundred so-called native volunteers, who,
instead of fighting, joined forces and attacked a scout detachment
whilst crossing a river. Twenty of the scouts were cut