e boat that was dredging at the
mouth of the Malabon river. This was twenty miles from Manila. The
object of the dredging was to make a channel in the shallow water at the
river's mouth sufficient to enable gun boats to enter the river, which
was deeper after leaving its mouth. This was very slow work, requiring a
great deal of time and labor to perform it. This dreging had been going
on for a month. We were on duty there for ten days, and, judging by what
I saw, it must have required two months' more work to open the desired
channel.

From our station numbers of natives could be seen on shore, and passing
up and down the river. It seemed that the country was full of Filipinos.

We watched them a great deal. Their methods of catching fish was very
interesting to us. They never used a pole, hook and line as we would. At
night great crowds could be seen, each one in a boat, and carrying a big
torch. They would be near the beach, going out but a little way from the
edge of the water; they would beat and splash in the water, and drive
the fish into large traps or nets, just like a hunter driving quail into
a net, only the fishermen were more noisy.

After beating the water and banks until it was supposed the fish had
gone into the net, or trap, they were left in it until next day, when
they were seined out. Great quantities were caught in this way.

Another method of fishing was to get in a boat with a long gig and move
the boat slowly, and when a fish was near enough gig it. The large fine
fish were only caught in this way.

Our detail returned to Manila in the evening of April tenth, and
remained there until that portion of the 23d Regiment was ordered to
the Island of Jolo, where we started on the seventeenth day of May. I
had been in the old walled city of Manila a little more than six months;
part of my regiment had been there ten months. We had had very hard
service there, and the close confinement, almost like imprisonment, made
us glad to change, and held out a hope that we would find easier service
and more interesting.

The wall of the old city of Manila extended entirely around the old
city. The sally ports and all the streets were always guarded until no
soldier could go outside without exhibiting a pass to the guards signed
by the company and commanding officers. All the time that I was
stationed there I was never out without the required pass.

Guards were stationed on top of the wall, and made it unsaf