Although the provincial governor had appointed, in some instances, men whom he had never seen as presidentes of settlements, the settlements were in reality without government, and their discouraged and disgusted people were betaking themselves to the mountains whence they had been brought years before by Jesuit missionary priests. The wilder members of the Bukidnon tribe, and the Manobos in the southern part of the province, who had never abandoned their mountain homes, were preying upon their neighbours, and committing crimes of violence undisturbed. In the Agusan River valley conditions were nearly as bad. The people along the main stream were for the most part broken-spirited Manobos. Their settlements had been parcelled out among the members of the municipal council of Butuan to be plundered. The activities of these "Christian" gentlemen had been such that a number of Manobo villages were already completely abandoned, while the people of others were gradually betaking themselves to secure hiding-places in the trackless forests which stretch east and west from the banks of the Agusan. Both in the Bukidnon and in the Manobo country the trade in bad vino was being actively pushed. The principal business on the Agusan River at that time was shipping it up-stream. Opium was being imported in considerable quantities from Cebu. The use of this drug was already established among the people of Butuan, and was gradually spreading up the river. The wilder Manobos, who lived some distance back from the stream, and the Mandayas along its upper waters, were killing and plundering without let or hindrance.