On the 9th September, the Cavite rebels attacked San Roque, which is close to the town of Cavite, and burned part of it. On the 12th, thirteen persons who had been convicted by a court-martial of complicity in the revolt were shot in Cavite. The cables from General Blanco to the Madrid Government were all this time misleading and contradictory, and showed that he had no grasp of the state of affairs. These dispatches were subjected to severe criticism in the Heraldo, a Madrid newspaper. By the middle of September troops arrived from Zamboanga and other southern stations, and the garrison of Manila was brought up to 6000 men, two-thirds of whom were natives. Reinforcements were sent to Cavite, for the rebels were in great force about Silang, Imus, and Noveleta. On the 17th September another attack was made by the rebels on San Roque, but was repulsed. On the 1st October the mail steamer Cataluña arrived with a battalion of marines from Spain, greatly to the delight of the Spaniards, who gave the force an enthusiastic reception. Next day the ss. Monserrat arrived with more troops, and from this time forward troops kept pouring in. Still General Blanco remained on the defensive in and around the city of Manila and the town of Cavite, and repulsed attacks made by the rebels on the magazines at Binancáyan and Las Piñas. The rebels were now firmly established over the rest of the Province of Cavite. The natural features of this part of Luzon made the movements of regular troops extremely difficult. The country abounds in rivers which run from south to north parallel to each other at short distances. They run at the bottom of deep ravines, which present excellent positions for defence. Many of these rivers have dams across them and the sluices in these might be opened by the defenders, or the dams could be blown up in case a column of the assailants should be entangled in the ravine below, when they would inevitably be overwhelmed in the descending torrent. In places the country could be flooded and thus be rendered impassable for troops. But the industry of the rebels, skilfully directed, had added enormously to these natural advantages. From the reports of eye-witnesses I can affirm that the entrenchments of the Tagals were colossal. Tagals and Boers have demonstrated that a competitive examination is not necessary to enable fighting-men to entrench themselves. The Tagal lines ran from the delta of the Zapote River to Naic in an almost unbroken line, approximately parallel to the coast. They were doubled and trebled in front of villages or towns and across the roads. The trace was en crémaillère, the section being 6 feet thick at the top and 8 feet high, the exterior face vertical, with a revetment of bamboos fastened together with rattans. It was in fact a bank of earth built up against a strong bamboo fence.