The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-06-20
CAMPAIGNING IN MAAS|N
CORPORAL FINLEY TELLS OF
MANY HARDSHIPS.
Guarding the Railway Track-A Fill
pino Orgy-My Honolulu Lady and
Coon Songs by Tagalos.

Especial correspondence of The starr.
MAASIN. philippine Islands). May
S.-The Oregon troops have been out
campaigning with Lawton's column for
sixteen days, and today is the first time
we have received mail or heard from
the outside world except through the
drivers of the ration wagons, who come
in once in five days with a complete
collection of rumors and hop dreams.
our life has been pretty hard here,
md it Will take six months or year of
comfortable life to enable us to look
back on many of our experiences with
pleasure. Our greatest difficulty is with
or rather without paper, stamps and
envelopes. The climate spoils them.
Our chaplain is able to get some for us
once in a while, but if we do not use
them Immediately we can't use them at
all.
After the battles of Malabon and
Polo, the Oregon regiment was station
ed along the railroad between Malnta,
ten miles north of Manila, and Bocane,
twelve miles nearer Malolos. -Four
companies were at Malinta, and the
others at the little villages between.
one company at place. Our work was
guarding the railroad track and supply
ing train guards.
The country all the way from Caloo-
can to Malolos was fortified by the
Filipinos with great trenches and
breastworks. most of the latter loop
holed for rifles and the rolling nature
of the country, together with the jungle
made their retreat from trench to
trench, generally very safe. On the
night before the American assault on
the Malabon trenches, the Filipinos had
great picnic in them. Their women
and children were there, and they had
several brass bands. They ate, drank
I "beno," and shouted abuse and oaths in
English, Spanish and Tagalo at the
Americans all night. Their buglers
played all the American calls, and the
brass bands played besides Filipino
tunes, all the popular American songs
coon" songs and others. My Honolulu
Lady including and ended the orgy
near daylight by playing, Marching
Through Georgia. The natives are very
good musicians on string and brass in
struments. Their vocal music is bad;
their voices are like the voices of the
Chinese. No Tagalo could get a posi-
tion to sing even at a dog fight
! The next day the great trenches
/ which had taken months to build, were
taken by thin skirmlsh line of Am
elican aoldlers of the Oregon and other
/ lrcgiments, and at Polo the Oregons
captured three brass drums, over hun
dred brass band instruments, and the
Filipinos were going toward Malolos al
a rate that is called in Spanish
''pronto." The rice fields were Uttered
with clothing, hats. cigarettes, boiled
rice bamboo canteens, game roosters,
| and other Filipino bric-a -brac.
The Filipino soldiers equipment con-
sists of a Mauser or bennington rife, a
! box of cartridges, joint of bamboo
! filled with water and some boiled rice
! tied up in a section of banana leaf The
surplus ammunition and supplies are
! carried by the non -combatants The
crack Malolos regiments have red
trousers as a uniform for the men;
others wear the blue and white drilling
of the Spanish army; others white cot
! ton. and all wear white clothes when
they wish to enter the American lines
as amigos We have frequently found
amigos" with their right shoulders
black and blue from the kick of a rife
and found cartridges in the sacks OF
rice that as amigos" they were carry
ing through the lines to their starving
families.
After the night attack on the Oregon
and Minnesota regiments in which three
| Oregon boys were killed and mutilated
and one wounded, and four Minnesota
men were killed and thirteen wounded
it was determined to punish the eleven
companies of Filipinos that had head
quarters at Santa Maria, a small city
about five miles from the railroad. That
afternoon seven companies of the Ore
gons, eight of the Minnesotas, one gun
of the Utah battery, and "a Hotchkiss
cannon, assembled at Bocane, and left
there at dawn the next morning for
Santa Maria under the command of
General Wheaton. A skirmish line was
formed at once and Santa Maria was
reached at 8 o'clock. When we We're
within 900 yards the Filipinos opened a
hot fire kept up for about twenty min
utes from the church and block house
both of which We're loop-holed. Then
! the church bell rang as retreat signal
! Their buffalo carts moved out in the
rear, and the whole population retreat
ed, their haste being increased by the
three inch and the HotchlIiss cannon,
and volleys from the Springfields and
! Krag -Jorgensens of the infantry. As
! Santa Maria was danger to the rail-
Iroad, ii and the surrounding hamlets
were destroyed by fire. The troops re-
turned to their respective stations and
our life at Malinta resumed the normal
state of guard duty, eating and trying
to sleep, and at the same time fighting
| flies, tieas, ants and mosquitoes. The
next Sunday night our outpost was at
| tackled by the natives. 1t had been NOV
! ed after dark, and after the Filipinos
| had fired about fifty shots into a vacant
! field they retired, while the track patrol
assisted them with a hot fire.
JOHN b. FINLEY,
Corporal Company |, Second Oregon.
UNCERTAIN SUGAR STOCKS.
Make an investment in low price dry
goods that Kerr is now Offering and il
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