From the very beginning of our war with Spain the peninsular kingdom had reason to fear that the loss of Cuba would be but one of the disasters to befall it in the war with the United States. It was recognized in all quarters that the Queen Regent would have been willing to let the Cuban insurrectionists have their island without further protest, had it not been for the fact that giving up probably would have incited an insurrection at home, resulting in a loss of the crown to her son before he should have a chance to wear it. It was quite well understood as a like probability that the Philippine islands, that splendid colony of Spain in the East Indies, would be lost to Spanish control at the same time, and that the island of Puerto Rico, the last remnant of Spain's great colonial possessions in the Western hemisphere, after Cuba's loss, would gain its freedom too. The Queen Regent having spurned the only course in Cuban affairs which the United States would permit, with American war-ships threatening Manila, it became immediately apparent that the other horn of the dilemma which had been chosen was as fatal to Spanish sovereignty as the first would have been. Even Cuba, with all its abominations, scarcely afforded so remarkable a picture of Spanish oppression, miscalled government, as may be seen in the Philippines. It is only the remoteness and isolation of these unhappy islands that has prevented the atrocities there perpetrated from arousing the indignation of the whole world. Readers are familiar enough with the shocking barbarities practiced in times of disorder by the Spanish authorities, and they do not need to be multiplied here, but in the Philippines is demonstrated the utter incapacity of the Spanish for the exercise of civilized government over a dependent province even in times of so-called peace. The Philippines are extremely interesting in themselves, but are seldom visited by tourists, partly in consequence of their lying out of the ordinary lines of travel and partly because of the policy of Chinese seclusion cultivated by the government. The climate, too, is unhealthy, even beyond what is usual in the tropics, and the unsettled state of the country, swarming with exasperated savages and bandits of the worst description, makes excursions beyond the limits of the principal cities very perilous. About 600 islands are included in the group, and the total area is considerable--some 150,000 square miles, three or four times that of Cuba, Exact data, however, are difficult to obtain. There are a multitude of insignificant islets hardly known except upon the charts of navigators; but Luzon almost equals Cuba in extent. Altogether the islands probably contain less than 8,000,000 souls; so that Spanish cruelty finds plenty of raw material to work upon. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POPULATION.