The Springdale news., 1898-08-26
Mlp OCEAN, July s, 1898.

! inger, at this place.
 Mlp OCEAN, July s, 1898. DEAR FOLKS AT HOME
 Well, tonight or tomorrow we will reach the Ladrone Islands. We have had lovely trip and the ocean is as smooth as mill pond. We will be on the Philippines in five or SIX days more. We have had a good tune, and celebrated the 4th of July in regular style. We fired our cannons and large Amer can flags were up at every mast, and we mad a good celebration. We had good speaking, and singing by the glee club and music by the band. For dinner we had roast beef, beans, bread, apricot cobbler, rice pudding, and condensed mllk tor our coffee. After dinner we had tug of war (rope pulllng) be- tween different companies and had a good time i'll general.
 Our exercises now don't take up one hour a day so we have plenty of time to read and do whatever we want to- Yesterday our ship ran ahead of the others and we set target afoat and they turned the cannOns on 1t at one and two miles. Our gunners are ali right and did some fine shooting.
 On the morning of the 4th we saw land and our ship stopped and the General and staff went ashore to look at the island. It was Weeks Island, and no one lives there.
 Every evening after supper we have lots of good music and the evenings pass away very pleasantly. It is much warmer here than 1t was in Colorado or California, but then 1t is only touch of Arkansas weather.
 We have a large tank built on deck and ocean water IS forced into it all the time so we can all go swimming whenever we want to-. | We have all the fresh water we want for we have the machinery to fix the salt water, and we have an ice plant on board ready to set up when we take Manila, and we will then have ice; and we have a big outfit to boil all the water used so we will have good healthy water. Our boys are all having extra good health. We have 42J0 men on the four sh ips and only two have died.
 We boys are all anxlous to know what IS gong to happen when we get to Manila. hope we will hold the Philippine Islands, as they are very rich islands about like the Hawailn Islands.
 Some of the officers think we will be in Washington City III 6 months and be discharged from the army. Lots of the boys are homesick al ready and are planning and think ing ahead to the time when they will get home. 1 am not homeslck. I want to see this thing through, ana am enjoying the trip hugely, 1 and would not have missed 1t for anything.
 JULY 9.-Well, we are in sight of land, and can see four islands ahead of us about 70 miles. They are Spanish islands, and we won't go close until morning. Of course We will go up within ten or twenty miles of them.
 Yesterday afternoon our ship ran ahead again and had target practice and thls time they gave our infant l ry boys chance. They gave each man , to cartridges and set a large tarket afloat and backed off half mile. We raised the sights on our guns and every available space on the sides of the ship on both decks was llned with soldiers and they gave command fire at will, and of all the noise 1 ever heard 1t was when we turned loose on that target. The smoke and the roar was something new to us, and then every minute or two the can mons would help out. Our Spring field rifles are wicked guns and klck worse than any shot gun ever got hold of. After the practice was over we gtt the tarket and 1t had been hit by 94O bullets. The prac tice yesterday cost the U. $. over 5000.
 CAvIrE, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. JULY 16, 1898. Yesterday morning we sighted the Philippines and at noon gun boat (Boston) came out and met us. All day yesterday and today we travelled along about three miles from shore. and this eve at i