She is a large, rusty-looking vessel, without a sign of contraband of war, or of a chance of important usefulness about her; but she performed a valuable function. I asked half a dozen times what her occupation was before any one gave a satisfactory answer. Admiral Dewey told the story in few words. She was a cold-storage ship, with beef and mutton from Australia, compartments fixed for about forty degrees below zero. Each day the meat for the American fleet's consumption was taken out. There was a lot of it on the deck of the Olympia thawing when I was a visitor; and the beef was "delicious." I am at pains to give Dewey's word. While the Spaniards ashore were eating tough, lean buffalo-the beasts of burden in the streets, the Americans afloat rejoiced in "delicious" beef and mutton from Australia: It was explained that the use of cold-storage meat depended upon giving it time to thaw, for if it should be cooked in an icy state it would be black and unpalatable, losing wholly its flavor and greatly its nourishing quality. Australia is not many thousand miles from the Philippines-and one must count miles by the thousands out there. The Belgians have a smart Consul at Manila who is a friend of mankind.

One of the incidents in the battle of Manila-all are fresh in the public memoryis that Admiral Dewey did not make use of the conning-tower-a steel, bomb proof, for the security of the officer in command of the ship-the Captain, of course, and the commander of the fleet, if he will.

This retreat did not prove, in the battle of Yalu and the combats between the Chileans and Peruvians, a place of safety; but as a rule there is a considerable percentage of protection in its use. Admiral Dewey preferred to remain on the bridgeand there were four fragments of Spanish shells that passed close to him, striking within a radius of fifteen feet. The Admiral, when told there had been some remark because he had not occupied the conning-house in the action, walked with me to the tower, the entrance to which is so guarded that it resembles a small cavern of steelwith a heavy cap or lid, under which is a circular slit, through which observations are supposed to be made. "Try it," the Admiral said, “and you find it is hard to get a satisfactory view.” He added, when I had attempted to look over the surroundings: "We will go to the bridge;" and standing on it he annotated the situation, saying: "Here you have the whole bay before you, and can see everything." I remarked: "The newspaper men are very proud of the correspondent of the Herald who was with you on the bridge;” and the Admiral said: "Yes; Stickney was right here with us."

There were many reasons for the officer commanding the American fleet that day to watch closely the developments. The Spaniards had, for their own purposes, even falsified the official charts of the bay. Where our vessels maneuvered and the flag

ship drew twenty-two feet of water and had nine feet under the keel, the chart called for fifteen feet only!

It is not a secret that the President wanted Admiral Dewey, if it was not in his opinion inconsistent with his sense of duty, to go to Washington. Naturally the President would have a profound respect for the Admiral's opinion as to the perplexing problem of the Philippines. The Admiral did not think he should leave his post. He could cover the points of chief interest in writing, and preferred very much to do so, and stay right where he was "until this thing is settled." The opinion of the Admiral as to what the United States should do with, or must do about, the political relations of the Philippines with ourselves and others, have not been given formal expression; but it is safe to say they are not in conflict with his feeling that the American fleet at Manila should be augmented with gunboats, cruisers and two or three battle-ships. It was, in the opinion of the illustrious Admiral, when the Peace Commission met in Paris, the time and place to make a demonstration of the sea power of the United States.

The personal appearance of Admiral Dewey is not presented with attractive accuracy in the very familiar portrait of him that has been wonderfully multiplied and replenished. The expression of the Admiral is not truly given in the prints and photos. The photographer is responsible for a faulty selection. The impression prevails that the hero is "a little fellow." There is much said to the effect that he is jaunty and has excess of amiability in his smile. He weighs about 180 pounds, and is of erect bearing, standing not less than five feet ten inches and a quarter. His hair is not as white as the pictures say. The artist who touched up the negative must have thought gray hair so becoming that he anticipated the feast of coming years. The figure of the Admiral is strong, well carried, firm, and his bearing that of gravity and determination, but no pose for the sake of show, no pomp and circumstance, just the Academy training showing in his attitude-the abiding, unconscious grace that is imparted in the schools of Annapolis and West Point-now rivaled by other schools in "setting up." The Admiral is of solidity and dignity, of good stature and proportions; has nothing of affectation in manners or insincerity in speech; is a hearty, stirring, serious man, whose intensity is softened by steady purposes and calm forces, and moderated by the play of a sense of humor, that is not drollery or levity, but has a pleasing greeting for a clever word, and yields return with a flash in it and an edge on it.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE IN MANILA.

Character of the Filipinos-Drivers Lashing Laboring Men in the Streets-What Americans Get in Their Native Air-The Logic of Destiny-Manila as She Fell into Our Hands-The Beds in the Tropics-A Spanish Hotel-Profane Yells for Ice-Sad Scenes in the Dining Room-Major-General Calls for "Francisco"-A Broken-Hearted Pantry Woman.

The same marvelous riches that distinguish Cuba are the inheritance of Luzon. The native people are more promising in the long run than if they were in larger percentage of the blood of Spain, for they have something of that indomitable industry that must finally work out an immense redemption for the eastern and southern Asiatics. When, I wonder, did the American people get the impression so extensive and obstinate that the Japanese and Chinese were idlers? We may add as having a place in this category the Hindoos, who toil forever, and, under British government, have increased by scores of millions. The southern Asiatics are, however, less emancipated from various indurated superstitions than those of the East; and the Polynesians, spread over the southern seas, are a softer people than those of the continent. However, idleness is not the leading feature of life of the Filipinos, and when they are mixed, especially crossed with Chinese, they are indefatigable. On the Philippine Islands there is far less servility than on the other side of the sea of China, and the people are the more respectable and hopeful for the flavor of manliness that compensates for a moderate but visible admixture of savagery. We of North America may be proud of it that the atmosphere of our continent, when it was wild, was a stimulant of freedom and independence. The red Indians of our forests were, with all their faults, never made for slaves. The natives of the West Indies, the fierce Caribs excepted, were enslaved by the Spaniards, and perished under the lash. Our continental tribes-the Seminoles and the Comanches, the Sioux and Mohawks, the Black Feet and the Miamis-from the St. Lawrence to Red River and the oceans, fought all comers-Spaniards, French and Englishonly the French having the talent of polite persuasion and the gift of kindness that won the mighty hunters, but never subjugated them. We may well encourage the idea that the quality of air of the wilderness has entered the soil. When, in Manila, I have seen the men bearing burdens on the streets spring out of the way of those riding in carriages, and lashed by drivers with a viciousness that no dumb animal should suffer, I have felt my blood warm to think that the

men of common hard labor in my country would resent a blow as quickly as the man on horseback- that even the poor black-emancipated the other day from the subjugation of slavery by a masterful and potential race, stands up in conscious manhood, and that the teachings of the day are that consistently with the progress of the country-as one respects himself, he must be respected-and that the air and the earth have the inspiration and the stimulus of freedom. The Chinese and Japanese are famous as servants-so constant, handy, obedient, docile, so fitted to minister to luxury, to wait upon those favored by fortune and spurred to execute the schemes for elevation and dominance, and find employment in the enterprise that comprehends human advancement. It must be admitted that the Filipinos are not admirable in menial service. Many of them are untamed, and now, that the Americans have given object lessons of smiting the Spaniards, the people of the islands that Magellinos, the Portuguese, found for Spain, must be allowed a measure of self-government, or they will assert a broader freedom, and do it with sanguinary methods. As Americans have heretofore found personal liberty consistent with public order-that Republicanism was more stable than imperialism in peaceable administration, and not less formidable in war, it seems to be Divinely appointed that our paths of Empire may, with advantage to ourselves, and the world at large, be made more comprehensive than our fathers blazed them out. But one need not hesitate to go forward in this cause, for we have only gone farther than the fathers dreamed, because, among their labors of beneficence, was that of building wiser than they knew, and there is no more reason now why we should stop when we strike the salt water of the seas, and consent to it that where we find the white line of surf that borders a continent we shall say to the imperial popular Republic, thus far and no farther shalt thou go, and here shall thy proud march be stayed-than there was that George Washington, as the representative of the English-speaking people, should have assumed that England and Virginia had no business beyond the Allegheny Mountains, and, above all, no right to territory on the west of the Allegheny and Kanawha, and north of the Ohio river, a territory then remote, inhabited by barbarians and wanted by the French, who claimed the whole continent, except the strip along the Atlantic possessed by the English colonies. Washington was a believer in the acquisition of the Ohio country. He was a man who had faith in land-in ever more land. It is the same policy to go west now that it was then. Washington crossed the Allegheny and held the ground. Jefferson crossed the Mississippi, and sent Louis and Clark to the Pacific; and crossing the great western ocean now is but the logic of going beyond the great western rivers, prairies and mountains then. We walk in the ways of the fathers when we go conquering and to conquer along the Eastward shores of Asia.

One of the expanding and teeming questions before the world now, and the authority and ability to determine it, is in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States, is whether Manila shall become an American city, with all the broad and sweeping significance attaching thereto. Manila was not dressed for company when I saw her, for she had just emerged from a siege in which the people had suffered much inconvenience and privation. The water supply was cut off, and the streets were not cleaned. The hotels were disorganized and the restaurants in confusion. The trees that once cast a grateful shade along the boulevards, that extended into the country, rudely denuded of their boughs, had the appearance of the skeletons of strange monsters. The insurgent army was still in the neighborhood in a state of uneasiness, feeling wronged, deprived, as they were, of an opportunity to get even with the Spaniards, by picking out and slaying some of the more virulent offenders. There was an immense monastery, where hundreds of priests were said to be sheltered, and the insurgents desired to take them into their own hands and make examples of them. The Spaniards about the streets were becoming complacent. They had heard of peace, on the basis of Spain giving up everything but the Philippines, and there were expectations that the troops withdrawn from Cuba might be sent from Havana to Manila, and then, as soon as the Americans were gone, the islanders could be brought to submission by vastly superior forces. There were more rations issued to Spanish than to American soldiers, until the division of the Philippine Expedition with Major-General Otis arrived, but the Americans were exclusively responsible for the preservation of the peace between the implacable belligerents, and the sanitary work required could not at once be accomplished, but presently it was visible that something was done every day in the right direction. There was much gambling with dice, whose rattling could be heard far and near on the sidewalks, but this flagrant form of vice was summarily suppressed, we may say with strict truth, at the point of the bayonet. The most representative concentration of the ingredients of chaos was at the Hotel Oriental, that overlooked a small park with a dry fountain and a branch of the river flowing under a stone bridge, with a pretty stiff current, presently to become a crowded canal. It is of three lofty stories and an attic, a great deal of the space occupied with halls, high, wide and long. The front entrance is broad, and a tiled floor runs straight through the house. Two stairways, one on either side, lead to the second story, the first steps of stone. In the distance beyond, a court could be seen, a passable conservatory-but bottles on a table with a counter in front declared that this was a barroom, as it was. The next thing further was a place where washing was done, then came empty rooms that might be shops; after this a narrow and untidy street,