THE PHILIPPINES.

An Interesting Letter from a Soldier Boy Campaigning in the Far East.

(Continued from last issue.)

Daet, Luzon, P. L, March 12, 1900.

We delayed at Laend only long enough to bury the two dead soldiers of Co. B. It was hard to bury them there among the mountains and leave their graves to none but the Filipinos to care, just in that town, I'm thinking. But that is one of the hard things in being a soldier, and really it doesn't matter.

By a hard march we managed to reach the Venus, or rather the shore where she lay, just at dusk. C and D companies and we who were with them had marched 26 miles since 6 o'clock that morning. It was raining hard and the surf was high. Four boats managed to get to the ship but ii became darker and and the surf became higher and it was dangerous to get off more boats. So. wet as they were, they bad to wait until next morning to come aboard.

A grey dawn came next morning that didn't brighten much and we got the men aboard the ship. Got them on decks, over-crowd-ed at that, which were lightly covered with fine brown dust or ashes, and now we found it in the air; you could hardly open your eyes, and it began to grow dark again. The volcano Mayan was in eruption and it was not long before the decks were covered with nearly a quarter inch of brown ashes. The men were thoroughly miserable. There was no cabin for them to go into, four hundred of them were lying in the ashes in their wet clothes, and there was nothing to do but endure it. About noon it grew a little brighter, and we put out of the bay.

At 4 o'clock we reached San Miguel bay and the major and I reported to Gen. Bates on board the Paragua. a light draft gunboat We were ordered to take on ten days rations at daylight and prepare to move on Daet, the. capital of Camarines Norte. We got the rations and in company with the Marietta and Paragua reached Mercedes about noon March 4. The men of B and C companies and battalion headquarters were loaded into small boats and towed into the mouth of the river. We were ready to land under fire, but it was not necessary for we were met at the beach by a native who told us everything was peaceful. Nevertheless we were careful in our movements. Mercedes is the port for Daet, about four miles distant, and is a small hamlet, about five or six store warehouses for the storage of hemp.

When the men were on land we started for Daet accompanied by several natives, who told us that there had been a considerable garrison of insurrectos there

but they had left to help defend Neuva Caceres, doubtless many of them had died at Libmanan. We found Daet deserted save for a few of the better class

of men, who told us that the tales spread among the natives of the atrocities the Americana would commit were something appalling. We took quarters in the old governor's residence and here we are.

The next day I went back to Mercedes with a guard and unloaded the Venus— all our company property was aboard, besides a large consignment of rations and sales stores. Bull carta were secured and in three days I had everything at Daet. By this time companies A and D had arrived from Mambuloo, about forty miles up the coast, where they had landed and marched down, meeting no resistance, but having had a hard march on account of the many rivers they had to cross, some by swimming and some on improviapd rafts. The next day, March 9, companies Band G left for Libmanan, which is to be their station.

We are settling down here for a etav of several months, through the rainy season, we nave two companies, about 180 men and six oafcers. Daet is a decayed town. We found it nearly deserted, but the people are coming in, a prbclamation having been issued inviting them in. There are four or five good stone buildings and the ruins of half dozen more, which were burned during previous insurrections. The old church is an immense affair, over two hundred years old. The other buildings are of wood and nipa thatch, mainly the latter. We keep on a heavy-guar- d, for every day some native comes in with a tale of a band of insurrectos three or four miles out. Today it is a band at Irdan will attack us as soon as they have their arms made. These people don't know what they are "up against," for they fight with .bolos, bows and arrows and spears. On one march we ran into a band of 13th century knights; they were mounted, and carried long lances and spears, their only weapons, and their leaders, who know the truth, incite them to fight us. and then the leaders turn Ladrones when the bands are defeated.

This has been a rather long-drawn-out report of a three week.--, "hike" pardon the word, it is the only term we use here, and my first experiences under fire.

Will write soon of the country and people.

Charles C. Pulis.