The Tagbanúas are very fond of music and dancing. On the evening of my arrival at Yuahit, a collection of about a dozen huts with forty inhabitants, they gave an open-air performance in my honour. My party consisted of a boat's-crew of eight Tagal sailors of the Navy, two servants, an interpreter, and two companions. The orchestra consisted of four brass gongs of varying sizes, and a tom-tom. Torches were stuck in the ground to illuminate the scene, and the whole of the inhabitants of the hamlet turned out and watched the proceedings with greatest interest. The dances were performed by men, women, and children, one at a time, and were perfectly modest and graceful. The women were dressed in shirts and bright-coloured patadions, and were adorned with silver rings, brass bangles, and armlets, some had strings of beads round their necks. The best dance was performed by a young woman, holding in each hand a piece of a branch of the bread-fruit tree, which they call Rima, with two of the large handsome leaves. These she waved about very gracefully in harmony with her movements. The spectators behaved very well, and were careful not to crowd round me. I rewarded the dancers with beads and handkerchiefs, and the musicians with cigars. This dancing seemed to me a very innocent amusement, but I was sorry to find that the missionary took a different view. He associated the dances with heathen rites and forbade them, confiscating the dearly-bought gongs of his converts, as he said they were used to call up evil spirits. However, I observed that he had hung up the largest gong to serve as a church-bell, after having sprinkled it with holy water. I remembered having read how the Moravian missionaries in Greenland put a stop to the dancing which formerly enlivened the long dark winter of that desolate region, and I asked myself why the Christian missionary, whether teaching in the icy gloom of the Arctic circle, or in brilliant sunshine on a palm-fringed strand, must forbid his converts to indulge in such a healthful and harmless recreation, in both cases almost the sole possible amusement. I could see no reason why the heathen should have all the fun. The labours of the missionary were, however, very much to the benefit of the Tagbanúas, as inducing them to settle down, build houses, and raise crops for their support. The Spanish gun-boats had stopped the inroads of Moros by sea, and detachments of native troops along the coast stopped the raiding by land. For twenty years the Tagbanúas had suffered little, and for several years absolutely nothing from the Moros, yet they apparently could not realise their security, and were afraid to accumulate anything lest it should be taken from them. To the ravages of the pirate, there has succeeded the extortion of the usurer, and John Chinaman waxes fat whilst the wretched Tagbanúa starves.