, 1906-01-29
SADNESS OF SAMAR
ovERPoWERINo SENSE OF DIES
OLATION IN ISLAND.
American Troops Seeking to Restore
Tranquility There Have Hard Task
Evidences Of Alert but Always In
visible Enemy on All Sides.

"~Campairr re in the Philippines al
ways iItC.,es hardships, but in Sa-
mar the very nadir of discomfort is
reached" says a writer. ut is not
the mere physical unpleasantness
alone which tries the soldier, but
there is a mental w~retchedness, an
overpowering depression, which seems
an inseparable part of the island.
There is mans handiwork without
mans presence. Evidences of a past
which render the present a hundred
fold more gloomy; a past represented
by the ~blackened poles, which are all
that remain of what was once a town,
grim monuments of a vanished pros
perity, scattered with seemingly hope
less irregularity over the weed-grown
c~learings. In the hemp patches and
rice fields the weeds are rapidly
springing up. the sweet potato plants
are yainly struggling against the en-
%croaching grass. The paths are almost
obliterated by the bush. R%ottening
canoes drawn up on the beach, a torn
fragment of clothing, a dozen broken
" dlS Nt5St.E, llt DltdCllUS
skull over which you trip in the long
grass, the lean NANCY ours prowling
restlessly around their former homes,
which eye you with suspicion from
afar and flee the instant you show
any disposition to approach them, the
decayed game nets, the bundles of
hemp, gathered ready for sale, then
hunInnn OF tho tfp,A 1F 4ha r,,TT-,
flight, the broken-down fsh-traps and
the wasted cocoanuts-these are the
factors which make up the unutter-
able sadness of Samar.
For the natives have disappeared"
continues the same writer. "The
peaceful, ~inoffensive dweller of the
coast town seems to have vanished
into n~othingness. One sees nobody,
save in the guise of Pulajanes, savage
fanatical enemies. One hears them,
though, hears them at every turn, and
the SOUND adds a fresh note of mourn
fulness to the sense of depression. 1t
is impossible to move out of camp, to
take a step in any direction, without
hearing the 'boudjon,' the alarm horn,
signalling your movements. 1t is a
sad note, that deep-mouthed blast,
which tells the Pulajane to prepare
his bolo Chopper and gun and warns
others to creep into the most shelter
ed corner of the jungle. From one
hill top to another the alarm is taken
up and passed along, bringing home
to you, with renewed vividness, the
hopelessness of trying to hunt down
an enemy who possesses such a per-
feet system of communications.
"One never sees the man who gives
the alarm. His identity seems merg-
ed in that of his horn. He sounds
his alarm, then vanishes into nothing
ness. The next man takes up the
note, then he, too, seems to fade away.
A thin wisp of smoke rises on a
n~eighboring headland. An instant
later answering fires blaze up on
every hilltop, and so on the WORD is
signaled along. Like the boudlon
blowers, the guardians of the fires
seem utterly impersonal. One almost
ceases to think of them as having any
actual existence. They become mere
ly a part of the gloom of Samar. 1t
is a miserable campaign, miserable
from the conditions under which it is
conducted, from the pitifulness and fu.
tility Of it all-the setback to progress
and civilization. There is no honor or
glory to be gained, no hope of re-
ward, save the satisfaction of having
done ones duty"