Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/80

68 ETHNOLOGICAL NOTICES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,

TAKEN FROM THE SPANISH.

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BEFORE THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

In the year 1843 a work was published anonymously at Madrid in 2 vols, entitled "Estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1842" written I understand by Señor Don Sinibaldo de Mas, who had been then lately sent out by the Spanish Government to their possessions in the East, for the purpose of enquiring into and reporting on their condition, statistical and moral. After being out there 16 months engaged in the enquiries assigned him, he returned to present his report respecting them and shortly afterwards published this work which is evidently an enlargement of his report, embracing several further topics which were not perhaps strictly within the compass of his original mission. Among these he now entered into a consideration of the origin of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, and of their relationship to the other people in their neighbourhood, supporting his opinions, which appear to me very worthy of our attention, by evidences drawn from their manners, their physical characteristics, and especially their language. Believing that the information he was thus able to communicate with his conclusions thereon would be new and acceptable to the Ethnologists of this country, I have several times during the past year sent to the Continent through different channels for a copy of the work from which to make a full translation for this Society of those parts which relate to our Science. I regret to say that those attempts have been hitherto made in vain, and the work appears to be already what is technically termed out of print. I had, however, shortly after its publication had a copy of the work lent me at Havana, and I was so much struck with the originality, and as they appeared to me the soundness of the opinions advocated in it, that I then made a condensed trans-