Between the Malay creese and the Castilian carronade the struggle was unequal, but it did not last the less long on that account, nor, obscure though it was, was it the less bloody. On both sides there was the same bravery, the same cruelty. It required all the tenacity of Spain to purge these seas of the pirates who infested them, and it was not until after a conflict of several years, in 1876, that the Spanish squadron was able to bring its broadside to bear on Tianggi, that nest of the Suluan pirates, land a division of troops, invest all the outlets, and burn up the town and its inhabitants as well as its harbour and all the craft within it. The soldiers planted their flag and the engineers built a new city on the smoking ruins. This city is protected by a strong garrison. For a time, at least, it was all over with piracy, but not with Moslem fanaticism, which was exasperated rather than crushed by its defeat. To the rovers of the seas succeeded the organisation known as _juramentados_. One of the characteristic qualities of the Malays is their contempt of death. They have transmitted it with their blood to the Polynesians, who see in it only one of the multiple phenomena and not the supreme act of existence, and witness it or submit to it with profound indifference. Travellers have often seen a Canaque stretch his body on a mat, while in perfect health, and without any symptom of disease whatever, and there wait patiently for the end, convinced that it is near, and refuse all nourishment and die without any apparent suffering. His relatives say of him, “He feels he is going to die,” and the imaginary patient dies, his mind possessed by some illusion, some superstitious idea, some invisible wound through which life escapes. When to this absolute indifference to death is united Mussulman fanaticism, which gives to the believer a glimpse of the gates of a paradise where the abnormally excited senses revel in endless and numberless enjoyments, a longing for extinction takes hold of him and throws him like a wild beast on his enemies; he stabs them and gladly invites their daggers in return. The _juramentado_ kills for the sake of killing, and being killed, and so winning, in exchange for a life of privation and suffering, the voluptuous existence promised by Mahomet to his followers.