Even as a volunteer surgeon in the yellow fever hospitals he was nominally to be a prisoner always; hence he must go to Cuba by way of Spain and under the Spanish flag; otherwise Spanish sovereignty would lapse and he might escape from its power. He planned to reach Manila in time to take the next mail-boat, the Isla de Luzon, for Barcelona, where he was to transship for Cuba. Mrs. Rizal was to reside in his absence with his relatives at Biñan or in Manila. But the steamer that took him from Dapitan made but a slow voyage. He had time to attend en route a dinner in his honor at Dumaguete, and to perform an operation on the eyes of a patient at Cebu. He reached Manila a few hours after the Isla de Luzon had sailed. Nearly a month must elapse before another steamer would start for Barcelona. Meantime he was detained on the Spanish cruiser Castilla, a beautiful vessel that two years later lay at the bottom of Manila Bay riddled with American shells. But his confinement seems to have been easy. In a few days the officers were his friends. The captain repeatedly invited members of his family to dine with him on board. Mrs. Rizal came to see him, and so did former pupils of his that had drifted from Dapitan up to Manila. He wrote letters to his family, including one of great tenderness to his mother, in which he included loving messages to all the household at Los Baños. [200] The captain of the Castilla was one of many Spaniards that counterpoised the grim tale of his usual treatment under their flag. Governor-General Ramón Blanco, still remembered in the islands for his kindly, gentle ways, was another. He furnished Rizal with letters of recommendation to high Spanish officers in Spain and in Cuba. One of these to General Azcárraga, Spanish minister of war, was as follows: [201] Manila, August 30, 1896. Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend: I recommend to you with genuine interest Dr. José Rizal, who is leaving for the Peninsula to place himself at the disposal of the government as volunteer army surgeon to Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapitan he has conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is, in my opinion, the more worthy of praise and consideration in that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of the secret societies that have been formed. I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem, and remain Your affectionate friend and comrade Ramón Blanco. On September 3, the next mail-steamer, the Isla de Panay, departed for Barcelona, with Rizal as a kind of self-watched prisoner, guarded by his parole and not otherwise; for here as before it is to be remarked as one of the curiosities of this story that however his enemies in the Government might hate him they seemed to have full confidence in his word of honor.