The sparsity of population is also well indicated by the great scarcity of food. The Spaniards had much difficulty in securing sufficient provisions. A small amount of rice, a pig and a few chickens, were obtainable here and there, but the Filipinos had no large supplies. After the settlement of Manila was made, a large part of the food of the city was drawn from China. The very ease with which the Spaniards marched where they willed and reduced the Filipinos to obedience shows that the latter were weak in numbers. Laguna and the Camarines seem to have been the most populous portions of the archipelago. All of these things and others show that the Filipinos were but a small fraction of their present number. On the other hand, the Negritos seem to have been more numerous, or at least more in evidence. They were immediately noticed on the island of Negros, where at the present they are few and confined to the interior; and in the vicinity of Manila and in Batangas, where they are no longer found, they were mingling with the Tagálog population. Conditions of Culture.--The culture of the various tribes, which is now quite the same throughout the archipelago, presented some differences. In the southern Bisayas, where the Spaniards first entered the archipelago, there seem to have been two kinds of natives: the hill dwellers, who lived in the interior of the islands in small numbers, who wore garments of tree bark and who sometimes built their houses in the trees; and the sea dwellers, who were very much like the present day Moro tribes south of Mindanao, who are known as the Sámal, and who built their villages over the sea or on the shore and lived much in boats. These were probably later arrivals than the forest people. From both of these elements the Bisaya Filipinos are descended, but while the coast people have been entirely absorbed, some of the hill-folk are still pagan and uncivilized, and must be very much as they were when the Spaniards first came. The highest grade of culture was in the settlements where there was regular trade with Borneo, Siam, and China, and especially about Manila, where many Mohammedan Malays had colonies. Languages of the Malayan Peoples.--With the exception of the Negrito, all the languages of the Philippines belong to one great family, which has been called the "Malayo-Polynesian." All are believed to be derived from one very ancient mother-tongue. It is astonishing how widely this Malayo-Polynesian speech has spread. Farthest east in the Pacific there is the Polynesian, then in the groups of small islands, known as Micronesian; then Melanesian or Papuan; the Malayan throughout the East Indian archipelago, and to the north the languages of the Philippines. But this is not all; for far westward on the coast of Africa is the island of Madagascar, many of whose languages have no connection with African but belong to the Malayo-Polynesian family. [6]