Fur 1801899.1
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT
General Wheaton continued marching di- tion until word was sent back to Las Pinas and rectly south, encountering and capturing three | the troops were hurried to the front. successive lines of trenches whose positions had been chosen with considerable skill, High grass, four to five feet long, covered the fields and hills in all directions and made the fighting extremely difficult and dangerous. Before eight o'clock the sun was high and scorching and the exhausted men began to drop out in constantly increasing numbers, and from this time on the wake of the army was marked by bunches of prostrated men, five to twenty together, strung out over the fields in all directions. More than six hundred men were treated by the surgeons and many returned to Manila, while others reported forduty the following morning. Ateleven o'clock an hour's rest was given and then the march was resumed, the idea being to reach a point opposite Las Pinas and then change front to the right and advance to the bay. Ovenshine to continue bis demonstration against Paranaque, engaging the attention of those insurgents until Wheaton completed his move. ment and bottled up the intervening country. It was a pretty plan, designed to cut off the enemy's retreat, but like most others of this kind the plan failed, the wily insurgents scenting a trap and escaping before the arrival of the Americans, taking with them their stores and a big smooth bore cannon. The navy took a hand in the game and shelled the shore line and towns with great regularity. Par anaque church resembles a pepperbox, being literally full of holes.
WHE
Saturday night at seven o'clock Wheaton was just south of Las Pinas in time to hear the insurgent bugles blowing and dogs barking at the retreating enemy, after sixteen hours practically continuous marching and fighting under the burning tropical sun. In the morning the river was crossed and Las Pinas was entered and found deserted except
THE BATTLE BEGINS IN EARNEST. At one o'clock General Lawton had completed the arrangements for the attack and most of the troops were well on toward their positions on the firing lines. The 14th Infantry made a detour to the extreme left, marching in a some what semi-circular line until it reached the Zapote river half a mile east of the bridge. The 21st infantry and four guus of the artillery went against the bridge itself. The 9th infantry passed over the dyke ridges in single file, strug. gling chin deep through the muddy water until they reached the beach, when they deployed as skirmishers, lying flat along the sand and firing over into the dykes. The enemy was in an excellent position to see and comprehend all the preparations of the coming battle and accordingly made due arrangements for resistance and re- treat. The battte opened with hot volley firing on the left and heavy shelling at the bridge with the 3.2-inch field guns, which were well posted on the road, at 700 yards range. The insur- gents held fire for perhaps two minutes and then suddenly the whole line of trenches blazed out, filling the air with whistling Mausers; the big 6-inch smooth bore cannon, a relic of Cavite, followed with a tremendous boom and column of smoke, and as the old defective canister burst overhead, the better equipped Americans howled back derision.
THE ADVANCE.
The advance was immediately begun, the troops moving forward in regular line of battle, maintaining their formations with the greatest precision, and on the right the cannon were jerked steadily along, stopping only to fire, until the range had been decreased to three hundred yards. At this point a natural defence offered shelter, and a few moments' pause was made while the cannon pumped steadily away in-an effort to dislodge the enemy. The insur gent smooth bore was heard only once more, as the fire poured over the works was so hot that no one could live to go over the trench and reload it. The Filipinos had constructed their embrasure in such a way that it was impossible to load the piece without exposing the men, Over on the right the navy Colt's spurted out a stream of lead that came very close to enfilad- ing the trenches and completely cleared out the few men who remained along the beach front.
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for a few hundred families who claimed to be non-combatants: the Paranque garrison marched through to Bacoor the previous after- noon and night. The defences of Paranaque were most elaborate and cousisted of two series of trenches fifteen to twenty feet thick, and along the bay shore a line of works nine miles long served as protection against the navy shells. On Sunday and Mouday the troops rested and the Colorados and Thirteenth regi- ments returned to Manila, Reconnoitering parties scouted the surrounding country and developed the positions of the enemy, which were.
The navy brought several ships into position found strongest at Zaptote, on the road to and began a heavy bombardment, in which Bacoor On Wednesday a reconnaissance in the Monadnock, Helena, Monterey, Manila, force advanced across the fish traps and creeks Princeton, Callao, a small gunboat and two between Las Pinas and the bay and marched launches particitated. The church and prin. up the beach.
The insurgents were keeuly oipal houses of Bacoor and Zapote were thor- on the watch and allowed the men to ad-oughly riddled and the beach was swept so clean vance within one hundred yards of a trench that no one dared to come out and fire on the hidden in the dense bamboo and harmless look. ninth infantry and Colt's gun crew, who ing fishtraps, when they suddenly opened a were eagerly waiting a chance to get into the
THE NAVY BOMBARDMENT.
81
from which they fired directly trenches. What was left of the insu force broke out of their positions and for the woods. The ninth and marines over the dyke and joined General Wheaton and the boasted stronghold of Zapo lost. The parish priest of Las Pinas ward said that only a few days before the entire insurgent force had sworn on the crucifix that they would die to a man before the Americans could cross the Zapotecas del pane
Generals Lawton and Overshine were conspic cnosly exposed at the bridge, from which point they directed the troops during the fighting.⠀ The Americans lost eleven killed and forty-one wounded; the insurgent burials amounted to one hundred and sixty odd. People who have come into the lines state that the wounded car- ried away numbered over four hundred.
The effect of the defeat was so severe that Aguinaldo's army was thoroughly demoralized for two or three days, so much so that it allowed the Americans to enter Imus without a fight.
THE TALE OF THE MAYOR OF IMUB. Four days after Zapote, the Mayor of Imus came into the American lines and tried to find someone to whom he might give the surrender of his town. A little questioning disclosed the fact that the worthy Mayor was practically “A man out a job,” as all the soldiers had gone and most of the country people had moved into the woods for a few days to allow the Americans easy entrance. However, he verbally surrendered his village and hustled off, as he explained, to try and get together a brass band to welcome the conquering heroes. There are evidences that the Mayor was honest in his par pose, but circumstances defeated him. That afternoon a drum and three brass instruments were gathered in by the soldiers, who confiscated the goods on the ground that the outfit was the remnant of General Pio del Pilar's band at- tempting to escape. A little later on a bass fiddle came across the fields, but when the sen- try called out to halt the man took to his heels and in the chase the musician put his foot through the waist. So the music was lack- ing when Imus was occupied.
Nine thousand Spanish troops were required to take this place in the former insurrection.
Zapote Bridge was crossed only after a long campaign in 1896 and again last year the Spaniards retreating from Cavite : suffered sharp defeat at the same spot. The loss of the stronghold has materially weakened the insur- gent position in Cavite Province.
THE CAMPHOR MONOPOLY IN
FORMOSA.
[FROM A CORRESPONDENT,
Taipeh, 29th June. Preparations for the operation of the cam-
galling fire from two sides. The two companies | fight. For two hours more the fight continued Phormonopoly law, which will come into force-
of Americans were momentarily caught in the open and in the first volleys the loss was most severe. For an hour the fight continuel, Gen- eral Lawton personally directing the movement being constantly exposed to the point blank fire of the sturdy insurgents. The troops fell back slowly, a short distance, until a better position was found, and there they settled down, not to fight it out but to engage the whole attention of the enemy, and prevent their use on other parts of the lines. The nearest aid was over a mile to the rear, and the swampy land made it equal to five miles, so that it was impossible to bring up help. As General Lawton said, in speaking of the affair afterwards, "the moment the ingagents opened fire I knew I had the key of the Zapote stronghold and that if I could bold the dykes and swamp at this point had the battle practically won; 80 I kept these men to their posts and rushed back to organize and force the attack on the bridge." However, the hot fire soon began to tell on the ammunition supply, which consisted of 150 cartridges carried in each man's belt. Scarcely dozen rounds per man was left when Major Starr worked his way out to the beach with a private who wigwagged to the Navy for aid.
MARINES AND MACHINE GUN LANDED The Monadnock and Helena quickly res- ponded, sending ashore one hundred and five marines and a Colt's machine gun. For three hours the little band held their precarious posi.
with increasing fury and still the gritty natives stuck to their trenches, the dead lying about them and the wounded being hurried to the rear.while the overwhelming forces of the army and navy pounded away with undiminished vigour.
THE BROKEN BRIDGE,
had been knocked out, and as a final dash A span of the stone bridge across the Zapote brought the soldiers naturally converging up to the roadway, the impossibility of dashing across disconcerted the men to some extent and there was hesitation, but it was only mo- mentary, for they dropped flat on the ground and raked over the works with a fire against whose rapidity nothing could stand. The artillery took up its position at the very edge of the bridge and burst its shells at the apparently impossible range of 25 yards. The 3.2 inche guns were nedes- sarily abandoned, as they could not be sufficiently depressed to be of any use, accordingly the little 1.65 c.m. Hotchkiss were substituted, Gradually the insurgent fire decreased, the men no longer looked over the trenches to fire, but merely laid the gans over the top and pulled the hammers. Bunches of Americans here and there stood boldly up and each picking out a spot watched for his own dusky head to scalp. Under this fire several fellows stripped off their clothes and swam the river carrying their guns and bolts. Half a dozen jumped over in the very works themselves and out out a shelter
and it has been announced that six camphor on the 5th August next, are now in progress, offices will be established, namely, at Taipeh, Tekcham, Miori, Taichu, Rinkeho and Giran. prove the present method of paoking by mak- It is the intention of the Government, to im.
ing the chests of pine instead of camphor-wood as hitherto and lining them with zino, so that
out loss by evaporation. the contents can be kept for a long time with-
If all the stills now in use are well managed they have a capacity of turning ont some 150,000 pieals a year, while the world's con- sumption
thousand piculs only. The Government there- roughly estimated at forty or fifty
fore intends to greatly decrease the present number of stills so as to keep a fair proportion between demand and supply and to ensure a fair price for the drug.
the manufacture entirely into its own hands is The advisability of the Government's taking gradually gaining advocates in official circles, but in view of the keen opposition to this course to be anticipated from the present manufactur it may be regarded as fairly certain that or two carry out the plan,
o will elapse before the authoritie
According to official announcement camphor of the best quality will at 3) yen per picul delivered and already
the manufactu ginning to complain of the which they are compelled
can
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