Mr. Taft secured mine from Batangas, where all the best ponies come from, through the kindness of Mr. Benito Legarda, the staunchest of Americanistas . Batangas was a most unquiet province, the last, in fact, to become pacified, and Mr. Legarda had to pay an insurrecto for bringing the horses through the insurgent lines and delivering them at Calamba, near Manila. Although he did not know their exact origin when he bought them, Mr. Taft said that if the facts became known he would be accused, in certain quarters, of giving indirect aid to the revolutionists; but he wanted the ponies so he did not return them.