He said that Americans did not understand Asiatics, but he was an Asiatic himself and did understand the Filipinos, and thought that he eould settle the whole affair.  The minister had cabled to Washington for instructions.  Naturally the offer was not accepted.

I was reminded, by this extraordinary incident, of a previous occurrence.  I spent the month of March, 1893, in Tokio when returning from my second visit to the Philippines, and was kindly invited to inspect the zooelogical work at the Imperial University.  When I visited the institution for that purpose, I was questioned very closely on the islands, their people and their resources.  The gentlemen who interrogated me may have been connected with the university, but I doubt it.

We reached Hongkong on February 22.  Here I had an interview with Dr. Apacible of the junta, while Mr. Schurman visited Canton.  Apacible told me that the Filipinos wanted an independent republic under an American protectorate.  Pressed for the details of their desires, he said that “the function of a protector is to protect.”  Further than that he could not go.  I tried to convince him of the hopelessness of the course the Filipinos were then pursuing and of the kindly intentions of my government, but felt that I made no impression on him.

We arrived at Manila on March 4, 1899, too late to land.  Firebugs were abroad.  We watched a number of houses burn, and heard the occasional crackle of rifle fire along the line of the defences around the city.  The next morning there was artillery fire for a time at San Pedro Macati.  Everywhere were abundant evidences that the war was on.

This left little for us to do at the moment except to inform ourselves as to conditions, especially as Colonel Denby had not yet arrived, and General Otis was overwhelmed with work and anxiety.

I renewed my acquaintance with many old Filipino and Spanish friends and improved the opportunity, not likely to recur in my experience, to see as much as possible of the fighting in the field.

One day when I was at San Pedro Macati, Captain Dyer, who commanded a battery of 3.2-inch guns there, suggested that if I wished to investigate the effect of shrapnel fire I could do so by visiting a place on a neighbouring hillside which he indicated.  Acting upon his suggestion, I set out, accompanied by my private secretary, who, like myself, was clad in white duck.  The Insurgent sharpshooters on the other side of the river devoted some attention to us, but we knew that so long as they aimed at us we were quite safe.  Few of their bullets came within hearing distance.

We were hunting about on the hillside for the place indicated by Captain Dyer, when suddenly we heard ourselves cursed loudly and fluently in extremely plain American, and there emerged from a neighbouring thicket a very angry infantry officer.  On venturing to inquire the cause of his most uncomplimentary remarks, I found that he was in command of skirmishers who were going through the brush to see whether there was anything left there which needed shooting up.  As many of the Insurgent soldiers dressed in white, and as American civilians were not commonly to be met in Insurgent territory, these men had been just about to fire on us when they discovered their mistake.  We went back to Manila and bought some khaki clothes.