es flank it on either side,
at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles
of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to
the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked
on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is
crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually
become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow
plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching
to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less
than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of
40 persons or a total of more than 1,200. Besides these there are
probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less
easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot
but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the
more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day
may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new
rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems,
however, to be growing.

The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of
Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three
or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast,
the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region
contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small
communities around five large centers--Santa Fe, Aglao, Cabayan,
Panibutan, and Timao--each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They
are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Pinatubo, and
their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or
less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the
Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east
of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those
of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still
farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias,
numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics
of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they
do of those of the north.

Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias
and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as
attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of
Bataan, for the sake o