Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1898-11-02
FROn LIEUTENANT CROFT.
An Entertaining Letter From Our Popular
Young officer In the Far.Off Isle.

From a private letter, written
Sept. IL from Old Cavite by Lieut.. j
NJ. Croft to Mr.. Won TObel, we CLEAN
the following. which will be OF inter
est to our readers. Lent. Croft says:
"We shall have been here at Cavite
three weeks Of Wednesday, and have
had enough experience to form some
definite opinions about the country.
So far, myconclusiOns can besummed
up very briefly. 1t is hot. damp.
filthy, and not a white mans coun-
try. We have gradually fallen into
the Spanish habit of doing little or
nothing during the middle of the
day, all of our drilling Deing done be-
tween 6 and z a.. M. and 5 and 6 p. IN.
Guard mounting comes at s to $50 a.
m, and the rest of the day, except in
special cases, is passed as suits the
individual fancy.
"Many of the men have been ill. IL
being on the sick list one morning,
over ~ per cent OF II entire force,
but most of it has been due to minor
ailments. Mumps has kept five or
six at a time in the hospital. Just
now we have but one man i'm the
hospital. He has a touch of mularial
fever, but IL improving and will be
out in a few days. We have lost one
man by death from meningitis, VIM.
p. O'Leary of Belt. He was one of
our best men, always prompt, obedi-
ent and attentive to his duties and,
i'm fact, one of the most manly, sol
dierly men in the company, and one
of the most popular. 1 believe his
friends are i'm Kansas and New York.
erts, Perry McHugh and l.. d. Smith
have been i'll, but are all right now.
except Dick. who is improving rap
idly.
81 can hardly give you a very clear
idea of the place. it In SO entirely diff
ferent from anything I've ever seen
before. The town of Old Cavite,
where we are stationed, is really a
walled city occupying an island not
v a mile long by half a mile wide
in the widest part. 1t is connected
with the main land and the native
town of New Cavite by a substantial
causeway not more than a quarter
of a mile long. The landward. or
New Cavite sideisfortified by a heavy
stone wall, with sally port opposite
the causeway, and extending COM
pletely across that end of the island.
This wall must be % feet through
and about Is feet high. How wide
the wall is on top / do not know, but
1t is fitted up to accommodated troops
to command the canseway. The sea
wall is open On both the right and
left sides of this bastion for quite a
distance on both the north and south
sides of the island. and, from appear
ances, has been torn down from quite
a height. until it forms but a slightly
elevated wall above the level of high
tide. The extreme eastern portion of
the island is occupied by the Spanish
government buildings and arsenal.
and by the fort San Philip. The
buildings include the government Of
fees, machine shops. commissary and
quartermaster's offices and store
houses, magazines, barracks and Of
ficers' quarters. These are all out
side of the regular fort, but under
cover Of the walls, and shut off from
the rest of the town by u spur of the
wall. through which the road passes
by means of an opening not over 1G
feet wide, provided with iron gates.
which can he quickly closed. and is
commanded from two positions by
rifles and infantry fire. Outside of
the gate is the Plaza, which is COM
manded by artillery posted in San
Philip, which commands all the APP
proaches from the town
ION the right and left are quite eX-
tensive barracks of brick and con-
crete, with red-tiled roofs; and di-
rectly in front stands the town, with
the streets leading up from the
square The only thing to be seen
from the gate ia a mass of concrete
and brick buildings along thestreets,
and between the streets is a mass of
tropical foliage. among which the
banana shows up quite conspicuous
ly. The town proper is composed of
two-story buildings. the lower story
being brick orconcrete, usually white
washed or plastered, SO that they
look like solid masses of rock hol-
lowed out Tor rooms. The second
story is frame and projects over the
lower story from two to four feet.