e attack. A pitched battle was fought, and no quarter
was given on either side. This fierce contest lasted a whole day,
and the Spaniards were forced to retire with considerable loss. The
combined operations accomplished nothing decisive, and served only
to check an advance on the capital by the rebels, who were already
in practical possession of the whole of Cavite province excepting
the port, arsenal, and isthmus of Cavite.

In Manila the volunteers mounted guard whilst the regulars went to
the front. For a while the volunteers were allowed to make domiciliary
search, and they did very much as they liked. Domiciliary search was
so much abused that it had to be forbidden, for the volunteers took
to entering any house they chose, and roughly examined the persons of
natives to see if they had the _Katipunan_ brand. Crowds of suspects
were brought into Manila, and shiploads of them were sent away in
local steamers to the Caroline Islands and Mindanao, whilst every
mail-steamer carried batches of them _en route_ for Fernando Po. On
October 1 the s.s. _Manila_ sailed with 300 Filipinos for Chafarinas
Islands, Ceuta, and other African penal settlements. In the local
steamers many of them died on the way. The ordinary prisons were more
than full, and about 600 suspects were confined in the dungeons of Fort
Santiago at the mouth of the Pasig River, where a frightful tragedy
occurred. The dungeons were over-crowded; the river-water filtered in
through the crevices in the ancient masonry; the Spanish sergeant on
duty threw his rug over the only light- and ventilating-shaft, and in
a couple of days carts were seen by many citizens carrying away the
dead, calculated to number 70. Provincial governors and parish priests
seemed to regard it as a duty to supply the capital with batches of
"suspects" from their localities. In Vigan, where nothing had occurred,
many of the heads of the best families and moneyed men were arrested
and brought to Manila in a steamer. They were bound hand and foot,
and carried like packages of merchandise in the hold. I happened to
be on the quay when the steamer discharged her living freight with
chains and hooks to haul up and swing out the bodies like bales of
hemp. From Nueva Caceres (Camarines), the Abellas and several other
rich families and native priests were seized and shipped off. Poor
old Manuel Abella, like scores of others, was tortured in Bilibid
prison and finally shot. He was a notary, unfo