The evening times., 1899-03-28
THE 1NsUReENr CAPITAL.
AstOr Battery Man Describes the
Headquarters of AEuInaIdo.

Headquarters of AGuInaIdo.
New York, March 29-John N. Ostrand-
er, late private in the Astor Battery who
in the Philippines, furnishes TO the press
some interesting information concerning
Malolos He says:
''One of the last things | did before
leaving Manila was to visit Malolos. Ag-
unaldo's capital. near where the hottest
! lighting of the Filipino war is going on
; today. Nat Robbins and l got leave of
absence for one day on December IL last.
and hurried away after reveiIIe to catch
; the 6 a. m. train from Manila for Malolos.
We wanted to interview Aguinaldo and
photograph him.
THE distance is 80 kilometres. or about
% miles; but the riekety old train on the
rickety old road took five hours and half
TO make the journey. There were fifteen
or twenty stops on the way, most OF them
at wretched little stations near small viii
lagos. AT every station a Filipino sentry
opened each car and examined it carefully
10 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 it rice fields. At the time We pass
ed over the road the rice in these fields
was just beginning to show above the wa
ter. 1t is poor country TO campaign
through.
AT Caloocan we saw a big. rusty, old
fashioned krupp gun. It's bore looked big
enough for man to crawl into. The gun
was of an obsolete type, dirty, and neg
lected, but l suppose the Filipinos used it
of Inf
The country around Malolos Is of the
same swampy nature that we travelled
across. 1t is all bamboo jungle or rice
fields, miserable stuff. The water is full
OF malaria germs. and 1t must be boiled
| before it is fit to use.
We saw no fortifications around Ma
! iolos, nor any signs of forts-not even en-
! trenchments. There were old earthworks
around Caloocan, overgTOwn with bram-
oles, etc, so | suppose they were thrown
up by the Spanish. At Malolos there was
nothing of the sort last December though
the Ftlipinos may have placed them since.
We went 10 AguinaldO's headquarters
after breakfast He occupied a big stone
building two stories high. about as long as
a city block and about half block deep.
Ihis house was the meeting place of the
Filipino Congress. Aguinaldo's guard and
some others OF his soldiers occupied the
ground floor. The building is next door to
big church and faces public square.
Here Filipinos were peddling rice and meat
ana machetes-apparently the chief staples
of the country
Aguinaldo had at that time in Malolos
an army of 1000 men. They lived chiefly
IN straw huts-cacas de nipas | 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 shoul-
der Robbins and | happened TO 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 we had come
from Manila TO interview Senior Aguin-
aldo. The man spoke no Spanish but in
the Tagalo language he called a lieutenant
who understood US. When | told the lieu
tenant what we wanted he shook his head
very haughtily and waved US away with
fancy movements of his lean little arms
so Robbins and | walked I'D and down
in the square and took snapshots with
his camera. We saw Aguinaldo at an omen
window in the second story of the build
ing talking with an elderly man. Robbins
tried 10 get snapshot OF the dictator.
but the Filipino soldiers thought the cam
era was an Internal machine and made
signs for US TO go away.
ASulhaIdo Is biliOuS-loOking Young
man. | suppose he derives his jauudicej
complexion from the mixture of Chinese
Iagalo, and Spanish blood in his veins
he has only one object in life-to make
money out of this war. He accepted a
bribe OF S3c0,G 600 from the Spanish and
quit hghtlng, but he took it Up ag-in
as soon as Dewey captured Man Ia We
also saw Del Pillar with Aguinaldo. He
IS tne dietator's butcher, his Weyler Gen
del Pillar is about Aguinaldo's age and size.
He has narrow face with beady back
eyes chin Whitfield dcwn to a point and
the general appearance of rat.
Robbins and took caramata. or two
wheeled native carriage and drove all
through the town of Maioios and the half
dozen wretched little suburbs around if
The place has a population of 10000 or
j.. Geo
In the afternoon we saw AguinaIdo's
soldiers drilling. They are lean. little
brown men. with great powers of endur-
ance-especially at running. Many of them
served in the Spanish army and as soon
as Spain was beaten they ran home wirb
their rifles, ammunition and uniforms. The
Filipino soldiers are dressed as the Span
iards were. in uniforms OF blue seersucker
and straw hats. These men began drilling
as soon as the Spanish army quit fighting.
They have drilled faithfully every day.
They were out in companies and battal-
ions, and they spent most of the time EISc-
ticing the manual of arms
we never saw them az skirmish drill
or doing anything in open order | think
they are full of enthusiasm because Aguin
aldo makes them think the Americans are
worse than the Spanish. They have plenty
CT Mauser rifles, wherever they got them.