g of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a
gradual spread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced
by De Quatrefages, [1] is the generally accepted one, although it is
somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered
tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been
the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact,
however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it
is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers
as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession
of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement
that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests
is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they
have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to
flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live
farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they
were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a
weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a
permanent foothold there. [2]

The attention of the first Europeans who visited the Philippines
was attracted by people with frizzly hair and with a skin darker
in color than that of the ruling tribes. Pigafetta, to whom we are
indebted for an account of Magellan's voyage of discovery in 1521,
mentions Negritos as living in the Island of Panglao, southwest of
Bohol and east of Cebu. [3] If we are to believe later historians
the shores of some of the islands fairly swarmed with Negritos when
the Spaniards arrived. Meyer gives an interesting extract from an
old account by Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (ed. Bethune,
Hakluyt Soc., 1862, p. 234): [4]

In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall
Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into
new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoca, with
all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia
and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north,
where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus
of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees:
* * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely
decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and
vnderneath were ve