Note 1 — XIV

The Bicols.The Bicols are found only in this district and in a few islands lying immediately in front of it. Of their coming hither no information is to be obtained from the comprehensive but confused histories of the Spanish monks. Morga considers them to be natives of the island; on the other hand, it is asserted by tradition that the inhabitants of Manila and its vicinity are descended from Malays who have migrated thither, and from the inhabitants of other islands and more distant provinces.1 Their speech is midway between that of the Tagalogs and the Bisayans, and they themselves appear, in both their manners and customs, to be a half-breed between these two races. Physically and mentally they are inferior to the Tagalogs, and superior to the inhabitants of the eastern Bisayan Islands. Bicol language.Bicol is spoken only in the two Camarines, Albay, Luzon, the Islands of Masbate, Burias, Ticao, and Catanduanes, and in the smaller adjoining islands. The inhabitants of the volcanic mountain Isarog and its immediate neighborhood speak it in the greatest purity. Thence towards the west the Bicol dialect becomes more and more like Tagalog, and towards the east like Bisayan, until by degrees, even before reaching the boundaries of their ethnographical districts, it merges into these two kindred languages.