Soon after March 25th, General MacArthur, commanding the Second Division of the Eighth Army Corps, advanced from Caloocan up the railroad to Malolos, the insurgent capital, some twenty miles away. Malolos was taken March 31st. Our February killed were six officers and seventy-one enlisted men, total seventy-seven, and a total of 378 wounded. By the end of March the list swelled to twelve officers and 127 enlisted men killed, total 139, and a total of 881 wounded, making our total casualties, as reported April 1st, 1020. Also 15% of the command, or about 2500, were on sick report on that date from heat prostrations and the like. [217] For these and other reasons, farther advance up the railroad was halted for a while. Meantime, General Lawton, with his staff, consisting of Colonel Edwards, Major Starr, and Captains King and Sewall, "the big four" they were called, had come out from New York City by way of the Suez Canal, bringing most welcome reinforcements, the 4th and 17th Infantry. These people arrived between the 10th and the 22d of March. What happened soon after, as a result of their arrival, must now become for a brief moment, a part of the panorama, the lay of the land General Lawton first swept over being first indicated. Luzon is practically bisected, east and west, by the Pasig River and a lake out of which it flows almost due west into Manila Bay, Manila being at the mouth of the river. Under the Spaniards, all Luzon north of the Pasig had been one military district and all Luzon south of the Pasig another. The Eighth Army Corps always spoke of northern Luzon as "the north line," and of southern Luzon as "the south line." The lake above mentioned is called the Laguna de Bay. It is nearly as big as Manila Bay, which last is called twenty odd miles wide by thirty long. On the map, the Laguna de Bay roughly resembles a half-moon, the man in which looks north, the western horn being near Manila, and the eastern near the Pacific coast of Luzon. General Otis had learned that at a place called Santa Cruz, toward the eastern end of the Laguna de Bay, there were a lot of steam launches and a Spanish gun-boat, which, if captured, would prove invaluable for river fighting and transportation of supplies along the Rio Grande de Pampanga and the other streams that watered the great central plain through which the railroad ran and which would have to be occupied later. So as soon as possible after General Lawton arrived and the necessary men could be spared, he was sent with 1500 troops to seize and bring back the boats in question. Of course the country he should overrun would have to be overrun again, because there were not troops enough to spare to garrison and hold it. But for the present, the launches would help. This expedition was successful, leaving the head of the lake nearest Manila on April 9th, and returning April 17th. It met with some good hard fighting on the way, sweeping everything before it of course, inflicting considerable