Lucky enough it was, however, that the affair rested there, as all of the party might have suffered severely for their amusement and fondness for carronading. It only caused the government to increase their strictness in giving passports to the country, which now were only conceded on the pleas of urgent business, or of ill health when that was backed by a medical certificate; the alcalde also became more strict in seeing that all travellers through the province were provided with these documents. CHAPTER XVII. In the course of these excursions to the country, the native Indians, with a stray half-breed, generally of the China Mestizo race, are nearly the only people met with, as few Europeans are settled in the provinces, except in the provincial capitals, or near the alcalde, whose dependents they generally are. Should a stranger be able to speak to the natives in their own language, he has a much better opportunity of becoming acquainted with their character, habits, and feelings, than if he is merely able to speak Spanish, a language which only a very small proportion of them understand in the country, although most of those in the neighbourhood of Manilla can speak it after a fashion. For although the law makes it requisite for the Capitan of every pueblo to be able to speak as well as to read and write Spanish, yet this is not always the case, as I have frequently met with these officials, more especially in out-of-the-way places, who did not understand it. Nearly the whole, certainly above three-fourths of the population, make use of the Tagala or Tagaloc language, which, so far as I am aware, is quite peculiar to these islands, having little or no similarity to Malayee, so that it does not appear to have been derived from a Malay root, although some few Malay words have been engrafted on it, probably from the circumstance of that language being made use of in the province of Bisayas, which is the only place in the islands where it is spoken. In Pampanga province, the natives speak a distinct language, differing entirely from Tagaloc, quite as much as Welsh does from English, although many of the Pampangans, on growing up, find it useful to know how to speak the Tagaloc, which most of them understand a little of. The _Negritos_, who are found in some parts of the islands, are a peculiar race, with features exactly resembling the African negro, although in general smaller made men, but formed with all the characteristics of the African. They also use a distinct language, and have very little intercourse with either of the other races--many tribes of them living, even up to this day, independent of, and unsubdued by, the Spaniards, whose active missionaries have however of late years been making every effort to reduce them to allegiance to the government of Manilla, as well as to the religion of the cross.