After my companion had gone to Borneo I had the misfortune to contract typhoid fever when alone in Busuanga, and being ignorant of the nature of the malady from which I was suffering, kept on my feet until I could no longer stand, with the natural result that I came uncommonly near paying for my foolishness with my life, and have ever since suffered from resulting physical disabilities.  When able to travel, I left the islands upon the urgent recommendation of my physician, feeling that the task which had led me to return there was almost accomplished and sure that my wanderings in the Far East were over.

Shortly after my return to the United States I was offered a position as a member of the zooelogical staff of the University of Michigan, accepted it, received speedy promotion, and hoped and expected to end my days as a college professor.

In 1898 the prospect of war with Spain awakened old memories.  I fancy that the knowledge then possessed by the average American citizen relative to the Philippines was fairly well typified by that of a good old lady at my Vermont birthplace who had spanked me when I was a small boy, and who, after my first return from the Philippine Islands, said to me, “Deanie, are them Philippians you have been a visitin’ the people that Paul wrote the Epistle to?”

I endeavoured to do my part toward dispelling this ignorance.  My knowledge of Philippine affairs led me strongly to favour armed intervention in Cuba, where similar political conditions seemed to prevail to a considerable extent, and I fear that I was considered by many of my university colleagues something of a “jingo.”  Indeed, a member of the University Board of Regents said that I ought to be compelled to enlist.  As a matter of fact, compulsion would have been quite unnecessary had it not been for physical disability.

My life-long friend and former travelling companion, Doctor Bourns, was not similarly hampered.  He promptly joined the army as a medical officer with the rank of major, and sailed for the islands on the second steamer which carried United States troops there.  As a natural result of his familiarity with Spanish and his wide acquaintanceship among the Filipinos, he was ordered from the outset to devote his time more largely to political matters than to the practice of his profession.  He did all that he could to prevent misunderstandings between Filipinos and Americans.  He assisted as an interpreter at the negotiations for the surrender of Manila on August 13, 1898, after taking part in the attack on the city.  Later he was given the rather difficult task of suppressing a bad outbreak of smallpox among the Spanish prisoners of war, which he performed with great success.  He was finally made chief health officer of Manila, although he continued to devote himself largely to political matters, got numberless deserving Filipinos out of trouble, and rapidly increased his already wide circle of Filipino friends.  Through his letters I was kept quite closely in touch with the situation.