os 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.

A beginning accordingly has been made, but what is to be the end? We
should not stay for an answer, could we but feel sure that but one
answer were possible. But we can not feel sure on this head; the people
of the Islands, whether civilized or uncivilized, have not yet gone
far enough to proceed alone. To drop the work now, nay, to lessen
it, would merely be inviting a return to former evil conditions. No
greater disaster could befall these highlanders to-day than a change
entailing a diminution of the interest and sym