Note 2 — XX

Yap camotes from Philippines.In a letter from Father Cantova to Father d’Aubenton, dated from Agdana (i.e. Agaña, of the Marianne Islands), March 20, 1722, describing the Caroline and Pelew Islands, it is said:—“The fourth district lies to the west. Yap (9° 25′ N., 138° 1′ E. Gr.),2 which is the principal island, is more than forty leagues in circumference. Besides the different roots which are used by the natives of the island instead of bread, there is the batata, which they call camote, and which they have acquired from the Philippines, as I was informed by one of our Caroline Indians, who is a native of the island. He states that his father, named Coorr, ... three of his brothers, and himself had been cast away in a storm on one of the provinces in the Philippines, which was called Bisayas; that a missionary of our society (Jesus) received them in a friendly manner ... that on returning to their own island they took with them the seeds of different plants, amongst others the Other arrivals of Micronesians.batata, which multiplied so fast that they had sufficient to supply the other islands of the Archipelago with them.” Murillo Velarde states that in 1708 some Palaos were wrecked in a storm on Palapag (north coast of Samar); and I personally had the opportunity, in Manila, of photographing a company of Palaos and Caroline islanders, who had been the year before cast on the coast of Samar by foul weather. Apart from the question of their transport, whether voluntary or not, these simply were six examples, such as still occur occasionally, of Micronesians cast up on the shore of the Philippines; and probably it would not be difficult to find several more; but how often, both before and after the arrival of the Spaniards, might not vessels from those islands have come within the influence of the north-east storms, and been driven violently on the east coast of the Philippines without any record of such facts being preserved?3 Even as, on the west side of the Archipelago, the type of the race seems to have been modified by its long intercourse with China, Japan, Lower India, and later with Europe, so likewise may Polynesian Possible influence on Filipinos.influences have operated in a similar manner on the east side; and the further circumstance that the inhabitants of the Ladrones4 and the Bisayans5 possess the art of coloring their teeth black, seems to point to early intercourse between the Bisayans and the Polynesians.6