Not infrequently, when we were steaming along the 20th parallel of north latitude—­that is to say, well in the torrid zone—­and were wafted by the trade winds that were after us at about our own speed, heavy showers came up in the night and spoiled the luxurious content of those who were spread on the decks.  The boys got in good form through the longest journey an army ever made—­for the distance is greater from the United States to the Philippines than from Spain—­and every week the skill of a soldier in acquiring the lessons of the climate and the best methods of taking care of himself will become more useful, and the tendency will be to settle down to the business of soldiering, make the best of it and accept it as educational—­an experience having in it the elements of enduring enjoyments.  “The days when I was in Manila, away down in the south seas, but a little way from the island from which came the wild man of Borneo,” will be pleasant in remembrance, and there will be perpetually an honorable distinction in identification with an ambitious yet generous enterprise, one of the most remarkable a nation can undertake—­not excepting the Roman conquests all around the Mediterranean, and that touched the northern sea, invading England.

In the later days of August there were in the prisons of Manila, which answer to the penitentiary and jail in the American States, 2,200 prisoners, one of whom was a Spaniard!  The prisons are divided only by a high wall and contain many compartments to assist in classification.  There are considerable spaces devoted to airing the prisoners, and one in which the privileged are permitted to amuse themselves with games.  The guard consisted, when I visited the place, of sixty-three soldiers from Pennsylvania.  There were many women imprisoned.  One who had been shut up for more than a year was taken into custody because she had attempted rather informally to retake possession of a house of which she had been proprietor and out of which she had been fraudulently thrown.  Her crime was a hysterical assertion of her rights and her uninvited tenants were Spaniards.

One of the buildings contained the criminals alleged to be desperate, and as they stood at the windows the chains on their right legs were in sight.  It was plainly seen in several cases that the links of the chains used were about three inches long and that three or four turns were taken around the right ankle.  In a group of prisoners waiting for supper to be handed them in pans in the open air a large number wore chains.  Many of the prisoners were incarcerated as insurgents, having offended by refusing to espouse the Spanish cause or by some other capital criminality in that line of misconduct!  A commission was investigating their cases and the Filipinos who had not satisfied the Spanish requirements were represented by an able lawyer who was well informed and disposed to do justice.  Sixty-two of the inmates of the penitentiary held for discontent with the Spanish system of government were to be discharged as soon as the papers could be made out.