The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-03-30

Facts About MaIOIOs and the Road
to II From Manila.

facts ABOUT mhiOiOh ana the noHu
to "a From Manila.
The New York World prints the follow
ing, written by john N. Ostrander, late
private in the Astor Battery:
One of the last things / did before leav-
| ing Manila, was to visit Malolos, Agui-
| fighting of the Filipino war is going on 10
day. Nat Robbins and got leave OF alb
sence for one day on Dec. II last, ana
| hurried away after reveille to catch the 9
a. m. train from Manila for MaIolos. We
| wanted TO interview Aguinaldo and photo,
graph him.
The distance is thirty-nine kilometers,
or about twenty-five miles, but the rick
| ETY. old train on the rickety old road took
five hours and half to make the Journey.
| There were fifteen or twenty stops on ths
way. most Of them at wretched little sta
| tons near small villages. At every sta
! ton a Filipino sentry opened each car and
/ examined il carefully TO see that no one
! was carrying arms or ammunition.
The country all the way between Ma
Mia and Malolos is low, swampy land
! three-fourths of it bamboo jungle and the
| rest of IL rice fields. AT the time we
passed over the road the rice in these feds
was just beginning to show green above
the water. 1t is poor country TO campaign
! through
| AT Caloocan we saw a big rusty, Old
/ fashioned Krupp gun. Its bore looked big
was of an obsolete type, dirty and neg
| leeted, but | suppose the F'ilipinos used Il
! to make some sort of bluff.
The country around Malolos is of the
same swampy nature as that we Travelled
across. II is all bamboo jungle or rice
fields, miserable stuff. The water is full
of malaria germs and il must be boiled
before 1t is fit 70 use.
We saw no fortifications around Malo-
los. nor any signs of forts-not even in
trenchments. There were old earth-works
around Caioocan, oVergrown with BRAN
bles, etc. SO I suppose they were thrown
up by the Spanish. Al Malolos there was
nothing of the sort last December though
the Fiipinos may have placed them since
We went to Aguinaldos headquarters
after breakfast. He occupied a big stone
building two stories high, about as long
as city block and about half block deep
This house was the meeting place of the
Filipino Congress. Aguinaldos guard and
some others of his soldiers occupied The
ground floor. The building is next door to
big church and faces a public square
Here Filipnos We're peddllng rice and meat
and machetes-apparenty the chief staples
of the country.
Aguinaldo had at that time in Malolos an
army of 5000 men. They lived chiefly in
straw huts-casas de nipas. l suppose
Aguinaldo has a much larger army than
that now.
Before the entrance Of the big stone
house Filipino sentry was marching Up
and down with a Mauser rifle on his
shoulder. Robbins and / happened 10
be out of cards, so we wrote our names on
a piece of paper. This we handed TO the
sentry and explained in Spanish that he
had come from Manila to interview Senior
Aguinaido. The man spoke no Spanish,
but in the Tagao language he called
lieutenant who understood US. When 1
told the lieutenant what we wanted he
shock his head very haughtily and waved
us away with fancy movements of his lean
little arms.
SO Robbins and 1 walked up and down
in the square and took snapshots with
his camera. We saw Aguinaldo at an
open window in the second story of The
building talking with an elderly man.
Robbins tried to get a snapshot of the
dictator, but the Filipino soldiers thought
the camera was an Internal machine and
made signs for us to so away
Aguinaldo is a bilious-look young
man. l suppose he derives his jaundiced
complexion from the mixture of Chinese.
| Tagalo and Spanish blood in his veins
He has only one object in life-to make
money out of this war. He accepted a
bride of 100000 from the Spanish and quit
fighting, but he took it up again as soon
as Dewey captured Manila. We also saw
Del Pillar with Aguinaldo. He is the
! dictator's butcher. his Weyler. Gen. del
Pillar is about Aguinaldo's age and size.
He has a narrow face with beady black
eyes, a chin whitfield down TO point and
the general appearance of a rat
Robbins and took caramata, or two
wheeled native carriage and drove all
through the town of Malolos and the half
dozen wretched little suburbs around Il.
The place has population of 10000 or 49,
600.
In the afternoon we saw Aguinaldo's
soldiers drilling. They are lean little
brown men with great powers of endur-
ance-especia1ly at running Many of
them served I'm the Spanish army, and. as
soon as Spain was beaten, they ran home
with their rifles. ammunition and uni
forms. The Filipino soldiers are dressed
as the Spanards were. in uniforms of
blue seersucker and straw hats. These
men began drilling as soon as the Span-
ish army quit fighting. They have drilled
faithfully every day. They were out i'm
companies and battalions and they spent
most of the time practicing the manual of
arms.
We never saw them at skirmish drill
or doing anything in open order. l think
| they are fun of enthusiasm because Agui-
naldo makes them think the Americans
are worse than the Spanish. They have
plenty of Mauser rifles, wherever they got
! them.