ich will come the clear brightness of the
white light of mornings and the fullness of the ripening noons, all
the year around. With our bulk of the North American continent bulging
into both the great oceans, it was foreordained since the beginning
when God created the earth, that we, the possessors of this imperial
American zone, should be a great Asiatic Power. We have it now in
evidence, written in islands among the most gorgeous of those that
shine in the Southern seas--islands that are east from the Atlantic
and west from the Pacific shores of the One Great Republic--that
we may personify hereafter, sitting at the head of the table when
the empires of the earth consult themselves as to the courses of
empire. Our Course of Empire is both east and west.

The contact of American and Asiatic civilization in the Philippines,
with the American army there, superseding the Spaniards, will be
memorable as one of the matters of chief moment in the closing days
of the nineteenth century, and remembered to date from for a thousand
years. It is my purpose to write of this current history while it
is a fresh, sparkling stream, and attempt something more than the
recitation of the news of the day, as it is condensed and restrained
in telegrams; to give it according to the extent of my ability and the
advantages of my opportunity, the local coloring, the characteristic
scenery; the pen pictures of the people and their pursuits; sketches
of the men who are doers of deeds that make history; studies of the
ways and means of the islanders; essays to indicate the features of
the picturesque of the strange mixture of races; the revolutionary
evolutions of politics; the forces that pertain to the mingling of
the religions of the Occident and the Orient, in a chemistry untried
through the recorded ages. It is a tremendous canvas upon which I am
to labor, and I know full well how inadequate the production must be,
and beg that this index may not be remembered against me. It is meant
in all modesty, and I promise only that there will be put into the
task the expertness of experience and the endeavor of industry.

_Murat Halstead._

Contents.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THE ORIGIN OF THIS STORY OF THE PHILIPPINES

CHAPTER I.

ADMIRAL DEWEY ON HIS FLAGSHIP.

A Stormy Day on Manila Bay--Call on Admiral Dewey--The Man in
White--He Sticks to His Ship--How He Surprised the Spaniards--Every
Man Did His Duty on May-Day--How