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.

At first my interest in military matters was not appreciated by my army
friends, who could not see what business I had to be wandering around
without a gun in places where guns were in use. I had, however, long
since discovered that reliable first-hand information on any subject
is likely to be useful sooner or later, and so