s were not as those
we knew in other climes and years. We saw no penciling of smoke on
the edges of the crystal fields touched up with dainty ripples too
exquisite to be waves--that which is a delight for a moment and passes
but to come again, in forms too delicate to stay for a second, save
in those pictures that in the universe fill the mind with memories
that arc like starlight. The glancing tribes of flying fish became
events. We followed the twentieth parallel of longitude north of the
equator, right on, straight as an arrow's flight is the long run of the
ship--her vapor and the bubbles that break from the waters vanishing,
so that we were as trackless when we had passed one breadth after
another of the globe, as the lonesome canoes of the Indians on the
Great Lakes.

CHAPTER IV

Interview with General Aguinaldo.

The Insurgent Leader's Surroundings and Personal Appearance--His
Reserves and Ways of Talking--The Fierce Animosity of the Filipinos
Toward Spanish Priests--A Probability of Many Martyrs in the Isle
of Luzon.

Practically all persons in the more civilized--and that is to say the
easily accessible--portions of the Philippine Islands, with perhaps
the exception of those leading insurgents who would like to enjoy the
opportunities the Spaniards have had for the gratification of greed
and the indulgence of a policy of revenge, would be glad to see the
Americans remain in Manila, and also in as large a territory as they
could command.

Spaniards of intelligence are aware that they have little that is
desirable to anticipate in case the country is restored to them along
with their Mausers and other firearms, great and small, according to
the terms of capitulation. They get their guns whether we go and leave
them or we stay and they go. It is obvious that the insurgents have
become to the Spaniards a source of anxiety attended with terrors. The
fact that they allowed themselves to be besieged in Manila by an
equal number of Filipinos is conclusive that their reign is over, and
they are not passionately in favor of their own restoration. Their
era of cruel and corrupt government is at an end, even if we shall
permit them to make the experiment. Their assumed anxiety to stay,
is false pretense. They will be hurt if they do not go home.

The exasperation of the Filipinos toward the church is a phenomenon,
and they usually state it with uncandid qualifications of the
inadequate definition of the opinio