Seassa is situated ninety miles south of Jolo. Few of the men liked to be on duty there. At first entrance of our troops they had to go into camp, as there were no barracks. Barracks were built later at Seassa and Buangior by the soldiers stationed at these places. The captains of those companies were mean and cruel to their men, and worked them very hard. Some men were almost killed by the hard work at these barracks and in the swamps cutting timbers for their construction. Some while at work in the swamps had mud slashed in their eyes and almost put out. The mud poisoned them. Some had their feet poisoned by the black mud. The captains made the soldiers do the work, instead of hiring natives, and kept the money appropriated for this work and used it for their own benefit.

A soldier had no opportunity to report such frauds. If he wrote to the department commander to report anything without the permission of his immediate commander he would be court martialed. And of course an officer guilty of such conduct was not generous enough to permit a private to report his conduct to a superior officer, and thus the privates were ill treated by some unscrupulous officers.

[Pg 84]

The hardships of the service were greatly increased or diminished according to the honesty and unrightness of the officers in command. A private is only a tool in the hands of his officers, and can be managed just as they please as long as the private remains in the service. I always thought it better to obey all orders, agreeable or disagreeable, and serve out my time of enlistment and get a good discharge, and then be free and independent. I enlisted merely to get the experience of army life, and to know just what the service really is. I found out to my satisfaction all about the army that I cared to know. The army is all right when its officers are all right. But many of them fall far short of the standard—officers who will not give a private justice as he should.

A few soldiers deserted the army. I cannot blame a man much for it. Some had good cause. But to desert the army in the Philippines and attempt to get away from the islands is almost impossible. Any one leaving there must have a passport to present when they attempt to go on board any vessel, and then if the passports are not properly executed they cannot go on board.

I know of a few soldiers trying to get away, but the farthest point they reached was Hong Kong. They would be caught very easily.

The one who reached Hong Kong was apprehended by English officers and returned to Manila and delivered to the American authorities.

One man who enlisted in Manila was discovered to be a spy for the Filipinos, securing all the information possible for the advantage of the[Pg 85] Filipinos, and conveying it to them at every opportunity. This spy had gone with a company to which he was assigned, to Bungio for duty. While at Bungio he induced two other soldiers to desert their company and go with him to the Filipinos, promising each a commission in the Filipino army. He was an officer in the Filipino army, and a very dangerous man, resorting to all kinds of schemes and treachery to accomplish his purposes. Having pursuaded two soldiers to go with him they seized a small Morro boat, and with their rifles and a good supply of ammunition they set out in the darkness of the night headed for the island of Mindanao. Ninety miles of water lay before them and their small boat. They encountered a rough sea, lost their bearings, and finally the boat capsized, and they lost their clothing and one gun after a battle with the sea for three days. Instead of reaching Mindanao they drifted on the Island of Jolo, about twenty miles from the town of Jolo, almost starved to death. In preparing for their trip they had not thought as much about rations as about ammunition. They fell into the hands of the Morros, who carried them to Jolo and delivered them to the Americans, who placed them in prison. Two of the poor fellows\' feet were blistered all over by marching over the hot sands, having lost their shoes when the boat capsized. These two were unable to walk for some time. They were tried and sentenced to terms of imprisonment from five to six years. This was the common fate of all who tried to desert the army and get away.

I was on duty on several islands and in many[Pg 86] towns in the Philippines, but Jolo suited me better for service as a soldier than any other place I was in. I was on duty in Jolo for thirteen months, and know a great deal about the place. Most all the soldiers who did service there liked it. Sailors enjoyed their visits to Jolo. Quite a number of sailors told me that they had been in a great many towns of the tropical countries, but that they would rather live in Jolo than any of them. The most undesirable feature of the town is that there are no pleasure retreats except to go to the mountains and among the Morros, and besides, we soldiers were confined very closely within the walls and on duty. The town is very small. A man can walk all through in less than an hour.

I have known of recruits on going into Jolo express their delight at the idea of doing duty in such a fine place, and wish they could stay there the three years of service for which they had enlisted. But in less than two months, seeing the same things every day, they wanted to get away, and would have given anything for an opportunity to go to another post. Everything became monotonous, and seemed somehow to be wrong.

This seemed to be the common experience of all. The town is beautifully laid out with broad streets, which are set with beautiful shade trees that are green winter and summer. A person can walk all over town the hottest days and be in the shade all the time.

Three small, but very nice parks with beautiful[Pg 87] and delightfully fragrant flowers and shrubbery lend a charm to the town.

I have been walking out in the town at night, and would smell the sweet odors from the parks for two or three blocks away. This was not occasionally so, but all the time. The soldiers enjoyed sitting in the parks and on the piers at night, taking in the cool sea breeze after a hot day. I have seen as many as three and four hundred soldiers sitting out on the piers before going into quarters.

As in all other parts of the Philippines, chicken fighting is a favorite sport in Jolo. Outside of the city wall is built a grand stand and pit for chicken fighting. It is all enclosed, and ten cents (Mexican) admission is charged unless you have a chicken to enter. Some fine chickens are entered in these fights, and a great deal of money is put up on them. Gambling is not prohibited, and chicken fighting is engaged in every Saturday all day long. The natives will gamble away the last cent they possess before they will stop. A suburban town of Jolo is Buss Buss, nearly half as large as Jolo, and built out over the water on bamboo poles driven into the mud, and left projecting above the water. The houses are then built on these poles.

Buss Buss is built over shallow water, running out over the water for one hundred and fifty yards. The houses are all built of bamboo. This seems to be a Chinese town. Many Chinese live there and engage in business in Jolo. Chinese are engaged in various kinds of business in Jolo, but all live in Buss Buss. The Chinese and Morros are[Pg 88] not friendly, and it is probably due to this fact alone that caused Buss Buss to be built.

Major Sweet was in command of the post at Jolo for some time. He would not allow more than one hundred Morros inside the city walls at one time for fear of trouble with them. The Morros supplied our forces with vegetables, fish and fruit, which they brought in and sold to us. To prevent the town from filling up with Morros a strong guard was stationed at the gate, which was closed at six in the evening and opened at six o\'clock in the morning. The Morros would be crowded around the outside of the gate every morning waiting for it to be opened to go in and dispose of their produce. Frequently there would be twice as many as were allowed inside at one time. When the gate was opened they would rush for it, but not more than one hundred were allowed to pass inside. When one disposed of his produce, etc., and returned to the gate he was allowed to pass out, and another from the outside could pass in, and so on until all had been in and passed back.

Not far from Jolo, out towards the foot of the mountains, is a coffee field. There are several others on the island besides that one. In these coffee fields a great many Morros work all the time gathering and cleaning coffee, etc. The method is like all others of theirs, very rude and poor. They dig out long troughs of wood and place them in running streams in such a way that the water will run in at one end and out at the other. Into these troughs the unhusked coffee is poured, and then it is tramped under the feet of the[Pg 89] cleaners until the husks are all broken off and float away with the water. The coffee is then taken out and sacked and dried out for shipping. This is the only method I ever saw in use for coffee cleaning.

Tropical fruit is everywhere abundant. The bread fruit tree grows in Jolo to a great size. The fruit is about the size of a cocoanut, except it is of a flattened shape. It is covered by a thin soft hull easily cut open with an ordinary pocket knife. The first time that I ever saw the fruit I ate half of one. I thought it as good as anything I ever ate. I believe it will alone sustain life. Cocoanuts and bananas grow in profusion. Cocoanuts are cut and dried, then exported. Oil is manufactured of the dried cocoanuts, which is of excellent quality. We used it to oil our rifles all the time we were stationed in the Philippines. Chinese and natives caught quantities of fish, which were cut up and exposed to the sun several days to dry. The fish get almost black in this process of drying and smell badly before they are dry enough to be sacked and shipped. I saw a great deal of this business, but never learned where it was shipped to or what use was made of it.

Hemp is produced from a native plant growing wild in the forests, and looks something like the banana plant. It is baled and exported in great quantities. Natives bring in small bundles of it from the mountains. Red pepper grows abundantly in the woods on the high and dry lands. It grows on a small bush, which is loaded with the pods, which are very strong.
 
The natives in all the islands make a beverage of the dew which collects in the cocoanut buds. This dew and water stands in the buds and is collected early in the day. It is called tuba, and is liked by all the soldiers. I drank but little of it. I saw soldiers get drunk on it, and be crazy for a week. It is like all other beverages of the islands, but little is necessary to make a man drunk.

About twice every month we went out on a practice march for one day, only leaving about one company on guard. Every man would carry his dinner, and have almost a picnic, enjoying it much more than at other times and places, when we would be marched out in double time several miles and have a hard fight. We went out on these practice marches up the beach and returned across the mountains, stopping to rest frequently and and gathering and eating cocoanuts. If any Morros were around we would give one a cent of Mexican money to climb the trees and get cocoanuts for us. The trees are hard to climb, but a Morro seems to climb them very easily. He will tie a piece of hemp just above his ankles and go right up a tree by jumps until the top is reached. Having secured the cocoanuts we would cut a hole in them and drink the icy water in them. This water is very nice and cold, and is particularly so to hot and tired soldiers.

When we would start out on what was a practice march most of the men would think we were going out to fight, and would not know differently until we returned, for it was generally known only to the officers where we were going or what the[Pg 91] object of the march was. Sometimes we would have a long, hard march, and always through the woods and forests, for there were no roads. In the forest marches we frequently c............