described by General
Wood thus:--"It was larger than twenty of the largest _cottas_ of the
Lake region or Sulu, and would have easily held a garrison of four or
five thousand men. It was well located, well built, well armed, and
amply supplied with ammunition. There were embrasures for 120 pieces
of artillery. Eighty-five pieces were captured, among them many large
cannon of from 3 inches to 5 1/2 inches calibre. The other pieces in
the work, small _lantacas_, were carried off or thrown into the river"
(_vide_ First Annual Report of the Moro Province).

Datto Ali thenceforth became a fugitive with some 60 armed followers
and about a hundred others whom he pressed into his service as
carriers. After the battle, Datto Djimbangan, Ali's brother, was
taken unawares at his ranche by a detachment of American troops. He
was conducted as a prisoner to Cottabato, and in February, 1905, he
was transferred to the Zamboanga jail to await his trial for sedition
and rebellion. Again the Taracas ventured on a series of attacks on
the American military posts in the locality. A body of troops was
despatched there in March, and after ten days' operations this tribe
was routed and dispersed, the American casualties being two men killed,
one drowned, 10 wounded, and one officer slightly wounded. On May
8 a party of 39 men and two officers, reconnoitring about Simbalan,
up the Cottabato Valley, was attacked, 13 men being killed, two taken
prisoners, six wounded, and the two officers killed. It would appear
that the guides were conducting the party safely, when a lieutenant
insisted on taking another route and landed his troops in a plateau
covered with _cogon_ (pampas-grass) about eight feet high. On emerging
from this they all got into a stream, where the Moros suddenly fell
upon them. The punitive Simpetan Expedition immediately set out for
that district and successfully operated from the 13th to the 28th
of May without any American casualties. Datto Ali, who was again
on the warpath, is the son-in-law of old Datto Piang, the terror
of the neighbourhood in his younger days and also just after the
evacuation by the Spaniards. Ali declared that he would not yield to
the Americans one iota of his independence, or liberate his slaves, and
swore vengeance on all who went in his pursuit. Being the hereditary
_Datto_, the inhabitants of the valley generally sympathized with him,
at least passively. In the latter half of 1904, constant endeavour