These intrepid countrymen of ours, who are healing and uplifting a whole people, seem to me to be true missionaries. The time may come when the work which they are doing will set a standard for us stay-at-homes to follow, that is, if we send the right kind of men out there. As the song says, "Ah, those were the days when the best men won, The survival of those that were fit-- When the work to be done counted everything, And politics nary a bit." CHAPTER VI DOG-EATERS AND OTHERS The natives of the Philippines are Malays, as I have said, but they are sometimes classified as Christian, Pagan and Mohammedan Malays. The Christian and educated tribes live near the coast on the lowlands and are called Filipinos. They have intermarried greatly with the Spaniards and Chinese. There are twenty-seven non-Christian tribes in the Islands--about four hundred thousand in number in the Mountain Province of Luzon alone. These hill people are seldom seen, although during the last few years most of the tribes have come under government influence and head-hunting has been more or less given up. These dwellers in the mountains include the aborigines who were driven out of the valleys by the Malays, and also the Malays of the earlier migration, who refused to embrace the Mohammedanism of the Moros of the southern islands or the Christianity of the Spaniards. We were fortunate in having the opportunity to see some of the dog-eaters and other hill people. Our party was divided, and while several of the men went into the heart of the head-hunting country, the rest of us took the train to Baguio, the mountain capital. What a night it was! The heat was frightful, and swarms of mosquitoes added to the torture. But at sunrise, as I sat on the back platform while the train steamed through rows of cocoanut palms, past little huts and stations, I was reminded of this verse: "Mighty, luminous and calm Is the country of the palm, Crowned with sunset and sunrise, Under blue unbroken skies, Waving from green zone to zone, Over wonders of its own; Trackless, untraversed, unknown, Changeless through the centuries." Leaving the tropics behind, we climbed up, up among the glorious mountains. At last the train stopped at a little station, and we took the motors that were waiting and went on higher and higher into cloudland, where the tall pines grew and the mountains rose into the sky. We had indeed ascended "into Paradise from Purgatory." As one resident in Manila expressed it: "The heavenly coolness, the sweet pine air and the exquisite scenery give you new life after the years spent in the heat, glare, dust and smells of the lowlands." [Illustration: THE PARTY AT BAGUIO.]