The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 127, October to March, 1909
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Title: The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 127, October to March, 1909
Author: Various
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE, VOL. 22, NO. 127, OCTOBER TO MARCH, 1909 ***
THE
WIDE WORLD
MAGAZINE
AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY OF TRUE NARRATIVE
ADVENTURE TRAVEL CUSTOMS AND SPORT
+Vol. XXII.+
OCTOBER TO MARCH
1909
"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION"
_LONDON:_
_GEORGE NEWNES, LTD. SOUTHAMPTON ST. STRAND_
INDEX.
PAGE
AIRSHIP, ACROSS AMERICA BY _Arthur Inkersley._ 216
Illustrations from Photographs.
ALASKAN CHRISTMAS, MY _W. E. Priestley._ 299
Illustrations by Inglis Sheldon-Williams and from
Photographs and Facsimiles.
ALGERIA, MY EXPERIENCES IN _The Baroness de Boerio._ 292, 377, 469
Illustrations by Gordon Browne, R. I., and from Photographs.
AT RANCH, THE FIGHT AT THE _Frank Bransted._ 509
Illustrations by Stanley L. Wood.
BARRACOLA, THE CAPTURE OF ANTONIO _Stephen Norman._ 91
Illustrations by Charles M. Sheldon.
BEARS, WHEN "TENDERFEET" GO HUNTING--
+An Evening Call+ _Ernest Law._ 580
Illustrations by H. Sandham and from a Photograph.
+Two "Greenhorns" and a Bear+ _A. Wright._ 582
Illustrations by H. Sandham and from a Photograph.
+A Nightmare Adventure+ _G. Bennett._ 584
Illustration by H. Sandham.
BEULAH COUNTY "WAR," THE _H. M. Vernon._ 315
Illustrations by Stanley L. Wood and from a Photograph.
BILLIARD-CUE, ROUND THE WORLD WITH A _Melbourne Inman._ 573
Illustrations by G. L. Stampa and from Photographs and a Facsimile.
BRIGAND, EL VIVILLO, THE _Jose Mondego._ 3
Illustrations by W. R. S. Stott and from Photographs.
CANNIBAL-LAND, A WHITE WOMAN IN _Annie Ker._ 171, 278, 372
Illustrations from Photographs.
CHASE ON RECORD, THE LONGEST _Vincent M. Hemming._ 601
Illustrations by J. Finnemore, R. I.
CLIMBING IN THE "LAND OF FIRE" _Sir Martin Conway._ 145
Illustrations from Photographs.
CREEK, THE LAST _John Mackie._ 550
Illustrations by Norman H. Hardy.
CROSSING THE RIVER _J. T. Newnham-Williams._ 238
Illustrations by W. R. S. Stott.
CUPID AND THE DENTIST _Dr. Paul S. Coleman._ 464
Illustrations by W. R. S. Stott.
DALTON, MY FRIEND _Harry de Windt._ 538
Illustrations by Charles M. Sheldon and from a Photograph.
DOCTOR TOLD, THE TALE THE _Stanley L. Wood._ 273
Illustrations by the Author.
DOLPHIN-HUNTING _Victor Forbin._ 161
Illustrations from Photographs.
DOWN THE CHUTE _C. A. O. Duggan._ 436
Illustrations by A. Pearse and from Photographs and a Facsimile.
FINCHES' FESTIVAL, THE _A. Pitcairn-Knowles._ 503
Illustrations from Photographs.
"FREAK" MEMORIALS, SOME _T. W. Wilkinson._ 428
Illustrations from Photographs.
GRAND CANYON, A DARING VOYAGE DOWN THE _David Allen._ 65
Illustrations by H. Sandham and from Photographs.
GREENVILLE, THE AFFAIR AT _N. H. Crowell._ 200
Illustrations by Charles M. Sheldon and from a Photograph.
HIPPOPOTAMUS, HUNTING THE _Lieutenant Paul Durand._ 265
Illustrations from Photographs.
HORSE-RACE ON RECORD, THE GREATEST _Alan Gordon._ 111
Illustrations from Photographs.
ICE-FLOE, A VOYAGE ON AN _Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, C.M.G._ 403
Illustrations by C. J. Staniland, R.I., and from Photographs.
ISLANDS, A ROMANCE OF TWO.--II. _Frederic Lees._ 73
Illustrations by W. Edward Wigfull and from old Prints and
a Facsimile.
"JACK ASHORE." _Albert E. Craft._ 59
Illustrations by Stanley L. Wood and from a Photograph.
JAPAN, TWO GIRLS IN _Irene Lyon._ 544
Illustrations from Photographs.
LEOPARD HUNT, OUR _Thomas B. Marshall._ 331
Illustrations by A. Pearse.
LIONS IN A DAY, TEN _Walter Cooper._ 531
Illustrations by Lionel Edwards and from Photographs.
MALAYA, SOME EXPERIENCES IN _Lieut.-Col. Donald Mackenzie._ 52
Illustrations by F. C. Dickinson and from Photographs.
MARRIAGE OF LULU, THE _The Rev. A. Forder._ 361
Illustrations by W. Edward Wigfull and from Photographs.
MONTENEGRO, A STATE TRIAL IN _Mrs. Herbert Vivian._ 230
Illustrations from Photographs.
MOUNTAINEERING BY TELESCOPE _Harold J. Shepstone._ 40
Illustrations by F. C. Dickinson and from Photographs.
MOUNTAIN TRAGEDIES OF THE LAKE DISTRICT
_A Member of the Alpine Club._ 457
Illustrations from Photographs.
NILE, A TRAGEDY OF THE _Major D. G. Prendergast._ 165
Illustrations by D. MacPherson and from a Photograph.
ODDS AND ENDS
_From all parts of the World._ 101, 205, 308, 412, 516, 619
Illustrations from Photographs.
PERILOUS MISSION, A _E. F. Martin._ 394
Illustrations by Dudley Tennant and from a Photograph.
PETROFF, THE PROMOTION OF _Maxime Schottland._ 118
Illustrations by Gordon Browne, R.I.
REBEL CHIEF, HOW WE CAPTURED THE _E. F. Martin._ 566
Illustrations by C. J. Staniland, R.I., and from a Facsimile.
RECORDS, THE BREAKER OF _Herbert G. Ponting, F.R.G.S._ 367
Illustrations by Tony Sarg.
RECTORIAL ELECTION, THE HUMOURS OF A "_One of the Electors._" 126
Illustrations by G. L. Stampa and from Photographs and a Facsimile.
REINDEER, IN THE LAND OF THE _H. Chusseau-Flaviens._ 489
Illustrations from Photographs.
RETRIBUTION _Captain G. F. Pugh._ 451
Illustrations by E. S. Hodgson.
SANCTUARY, THE TERROR IN THE _Mrs. K. Compton._ 211
Illustrations by S. Spurrier and from Photographs.
SAVAGE AFRICA, COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN _The Rev. H. Cole._ 84
Illustrations from Photographs.
SAVAGE PASTIMES, SOME _E. Wav Elkington, F.R.G.S._ 354
Illustrations from Photographs.
SHORT STORIES.
+My Adventure at Arad+ _P. Harris Deans._ 185
Illustrations by Tom Browne, R.I., and from a Photograph.
+The Horror in the Pit+ _E. F. Martin._ 187
Illustrations by Alfred Pearse and from a Photograph.
+The Cruise of the "Crocodile."+
_Commander R. Dowling, R.N.R._ 190
Illustrations by E. S. Hodgson and from a Photograph.
+A Bluff That Worked+ _J. R. Strachan, J.P._ 285
Illustration by H. Sandham.
+The Yellow Fiend+ _Julian Johnson._ 288
Illustrations by Charles M. Sheldon and from a Photograph.
+The Ambassador's Trunk+ _E. A. Morphy._ 343
Illustrations by G. L. Stampa.
+Half an Hour in a Blazing Furnace+ _George S. Guy._ 346
Illustrations by W. R. S. Stott and from Photographs and a
Plan.
+The Headless Woman+ _Charles Needham._ 350
Illustrations by A. J. Gough and from a Photograph.
+Whale+ _v._ +Sharks+ _Victor Pitt-Kethley._ 419
Illustrations by Harry Rountree and from a Facsimile.
+A Battle in Mid-Air+ _T. R. Porter._ 422
Illustrations by Harry Rountree and from Photographs.
+Up in a Balloon+ _A. Soden._ 425
Illustrations by Monteith Dodshon and from Photographs and
a Facsimile.
+How I Got My Jaguar-Skin+ _Dr. T. A. Stoddard._ 523
Illustrations by Harry Rountree and from Photographs.
+Out of the Skies+ _L. H. Brennan._ 525
Illustrations by Sheldon Williams and from a Photograph.
+A Night Adventure in Yokohama+ _P. V. Alpiser._ 528
Illustrations by Sheldon Williams and from Photographs.
"SHOT-GUN JIM" _Edward Franklin Campbell._ 385
Illustrations by George Soper and from Photographs.
"SIMPLICITY HALL," OUR ADVENTURES AT--III. _Mrs. Fred Maturin._ 45
Illustrations by G. L. Stampa.
SMOKING COMPETITION, A BELGIAN _A. Pitcairn-Knowles._ 244
Illustrations from Photographs.
SPIDER'S WEB, THE _George A. Raper._ 149
Illustrations by W. R. S. Stott.
SPORTING STORIES.
+IV.--Corker's Alligator+ _Frank E. Verney._ 16
+V.--A Brush With a Bear+ _R. W. Martin, Junior._ 19
+VI.--Man+ _v._ +Python+ _Victor Pitt-Kethley._ 21
Illustrations by A. Pearse and from Photographs.
STEEPLECHASE, BARMAID'S _C. C. Paltridge._ 107
Illustrations by Norman H. Hardy and from a Photograph.
STEEPLEJACK, THE LIFE OF A _Will Larkins._ 589
Illustrations from Photographs.
SUPERSTITION, THE LAND OF _Frederic Lees._ 610
Illustrations from Photographs.
"TAPU" _D. W. O. Fagan._ 497
Illustrations by Harry Rountree and from Photographs.
TEXAS RANGER, RECOLLECTIONS OF A _Isaac Motes._ 178
Illustrations by George Soper and from a Photograph.
TURTLE-FARMING _H. J. Shepstone._ 336
Illustrations from Photographs.
TYPHOON, FIGHTING A _A. P. Taylor._ 221
Illustrations by E. S. Hodgson and from Photographs and a
Facsimile.
VOLCANO IN ERUPTION, PHOTOGRAPHING A _Frank Davey._ 323
Illustrations from Photographs.
WAILING WOMAN, THE LEGEND OF THE _D. W. O. Fagan._ 35
Illustrations by Harry Rountree and from a Photograph.
WALRUS-HUNT IN THE ARCTIC, A _David Gove._ 8
Illustrations from Photographs.
WAYS THAT ARE DARK.
+I.--My Adventures in 'Frisco+ _Ralph Stock._ 476
Illustrations by A. J. Gough.
+II.--A Sharp Lesson+ _R. I. C. Morrison._ 480
Illustrations by Tony Sarg.
+III.--"Seeing It Out"+ _Albert E. MacGrotty._ 485
Illustrations by Charles M. Sheldon and from a Photograph.
WEATHER, PROPITIATING THE _Mrs. Herbert Vivian._ 194
Illustrations from Photographs.
"WIDE WORLD" ARTISTS, THE ADVENTURES OF _J. Sydney Boot._ 135, 253
Illustrations by H. Sandham, A. Pearse, A. J. Gough, C.M. Sheldon,
E. S. Hodgson, N. H. Hardy, and from Photographs.
WIDE WORLD, THE. +In Other Magazines+ 100, 204, 307, 411, 515, 618
Illustrations from Photographs.
WILD ANIMAL CATCHING, THE ROMANCE OF _Harold J. Shepstone._ 555
Illustrations from Photographs.
WILDERNESS, GUARDIANS OF THE _Henry Hale._ 23
Illustrations from Photographs.
WOMEN WEAR TROUSERS, WHERE _L. Van der Veer._ 443
Illustrations from Photographs.
GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., SOUTHAMPTON STREET AND EXETER STREET,
STRAND. W.C.
[Illustration: "HE HELD UP THE DILIGENCE ON ITS WAY TO THE VILLAGE OF
VILLAMARTIN."
SEE PAGE 4.]
+The Wide World Magazine+
Vol. XXII. OCTOBER, 1908. No. 127.
El Vivillo, the Brigand.
+By Jose Mondego, of Madrid.+
After close on twenty years of warfare with the police,
alternated by brief spells of imprisonment and daring escapes,
the notorious Spanish brigand known as "El Vivillo" has
recently been laid by the heels for what is hoped to be the
last time. Below will be found an account of the outlaw's
exciting career, written by a Spanish journalist thoroughly
familiar with the facts.
Few of the "blood and thunder" novels that have fired the imaginations
of lovers of the sensational have dealt with so interesting and, at
the same time, so fascinating a scoundrel as El Vivillo, an Andalusian
bandit, who was recently arrested in Buenos Ayres, Argentine. At the
moment of writing he lies imprisoned, under a very heavy guard, in
the penal prison at Cadiz, but no one who knows anything about his
career and his extraordinary capacity for wriggling out of difficulties
expects that he will remain within the four walls of his jail very
long. It is freely hinted in high circles in Madrid that the hearts of
many fair and influential ladies of Sunny Spain have been lost to the
daring desperado, and that their owners will move heaven and earth to
secure his release.
Despite his life of crime and undoubted viciousness, El Vivillo has
been the favourite hero of the youth of his country for more than
eighteen years. This is not his first term behind prison bars; but all
attempts to keep him there long have hitherto proved unsuccessful.
Either by the expenditure of money in large sums, the influence of
those in high places, or his own genius as a jail-breaker, he has
walked out apparently when he pleased.
[Illustration: EL VIVILLO, THE NOTORIOUS SPANISH BRIGAND.
_From a Photograph._]
Like most heroes, either of fiction or reality, El Vivillo seems to
have borne a charmed life. Of the reckless band of lawless characters
he led during his eighteen years as premier "knight of the road,"
El Vivillo, with one exception, is the only one still alive. All
the others have fallen in skirmishes with that very excellent and
sure-shooting body of mounted police, the Civil Guards. El Vivillo's
sole fellow-survivor of those strenuous times is Pajarita, his
lieutenant, who is now undergoing a sentence of ninety-one years' penal
servitude in Cordova prison. Pajarita yields only to his chief in his
record of rascality.
A halo of romance has grown up around El Vivillo and his band.
According to the general opinion among the ignorant Spaniards of the
countryside, he is a sort of second Robin Hood, robbing the rich to
assist the poor. Some of the stories which are told of him, and on
which this view is based, are undoubtedly true, but the great majority
of them are woven out of thin air by imaginative newspaper writers.
El Vivillo was born in the Andalusian town of Estepa as long ago as
1865. As a very young boy he acquired a remarkable dexterity with
cards, and it was through the constant exercise of this talent that
he earned the nickname by which he has always been known, to the
exclusion of his family "handle." El Vivillo translated into English
means "Lively Little One," and from all accounts the future bandit was
a particularly "lively" youth. His parents appear to have been honest,
simple folks, and made a real effort to train him for a commercial
career. He was sent to Cordova to serve an apprenticeship in a business
house, but his employer soon bundled him back home again because of his
unruly ways. He then remained under the paternal roof until he reached
the age of twenty-three, when both his parents died, and he inherited a
small fortune.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE AT ESTEPA WHERE EL VIVILLO WAS BORN.
_From a Photograph._]
El Vivillo immediately started out to "paint the town red." His one
idea seems to have been to get rid of his fortune in record time,
and so successful was he that in two years he was penniless. At this
embarrassing point in his career he fell violently in love with the
girl who afterwards became his wife. She was a beautiful, dark-eyed
lass, named Dolores Gomez, and had hosts of admirers. What she saw
in El Vivillo to admire it is hard to say--indeed, what the scores
of women who afterwards lost their hearts to the bold rascal saw
in him it is equally difficult to discover. He is to-day a burly,
ruddy-complexioned man, with distinctly vulgar and repulsive features,
and it does not seem possible that he could ever have been attractive
to feminine eyes. His manner is harsh and over-bearing, and he feels,
and makes no bones about expressing, a supreme contempt for the softer
passions of the heart.
With his fortune dissipated El Vivillo was in no condition to
contemplate immediate marriage. He decided to remove the financial
obstacle in the shortest, quickest, and easiest way. After an
unsuccessful attempt to turn his skill with the cards to advantage at
the Municipal Casino of his home town, he threw in his lot with a band
of smugglers. The future bandit's ingenuity and nimble wit soon made
him a favourite with the majority of his fellow-contrabandists, but
they also aroused the jealousy of one of the leaders, nicknamed Lobo
(Wolf). The latter was renowned for his dexterity with the dagger, and
he took an early opportunity of attempting to prove to the newcomer
that his fame in that respect was well deserved. One evening, when the
members of the band were celebrating an especially successful day's
work in a café in Estepa, a quarrel broke out between El Vivillo and
Lobo over a game of cards. At the latter's suggestion it was decided
to determine the merits of the dispute with the knife, so the two
men adjourned to the street, where there was more room and a larger
audience. Heated with wine, the combatants drew their long daggers,
wrapped their coats around their free arms, and set to. A large
crowd gathered and cheered the fighters. Much to his surprise, Lobo
discovered that his opponent knew a trick or two about the use of the
knife that he himself had failed to learn, and to the astonishment of
the spectators, after a particularly lively mêlée, El Vivillo finally
ran him through the heart with a well-directed thrust. Before he had an
opportunity to get out of town El Vivillo was arrested and thrown into
prison. But that mysterious personage, the influential friend, came to
his assistance, and he was shortly at large again.
Instead of reforming him, this experience only seemed to strengthen El
Vivillo in his career of lawlessness. Soon after his release he took
to the countryside as a bandit, and rapidly organized one of the most
famous bands of brigands that have ever infested that country.
From this point in his life it is difficult to trace El Vivillo's
progress clearly. Various crimes attributed to him were undoubtedly
committed by other men of inferior calibre. On the other hand, he was
able to escape punishment for many outrages which there is no doubt
that he committed, by establishing remarkably clever alibis. On one
occasion, for instance, he held up the diligence on its way to the
village of Villamartin. After safely hiding his spoils, the bandit, by
means of a relay of horses which had been provided in advance, galloped
to a favourite retreat forty miles away in an incredibly short space of
time. There--apparently in an intoxicated condition--he showed himself
to a posse of the Civil Guard. Later, he was arrested on suspicion
and tried for the crime, but his cleverly-contrived alibi proved too
much for the officers of the law to combat, and he was triumphantly
acquitted.
Among the outrages definitely fastened upon El Vivillo are the sacking
of a mansion at Torredonjimino, when he secured more than twenty
thousand dollars; the seizure of an Andalusian millionaire on the high
road to Anteguera, when the bandit shot three servants who attempted to
defend their employer's property; and another highway robbery between
Cabra and Priego, on which occasion the bandit was captured and placed
in prison at the latter town, escaping, as usual, after two days'
confinement.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH TOWN OF SETENIL, THE SCENE OF SOME OF EL
VIVILLO'S MOST DARING EXPLOITS.
_From a photograph._]
Another exploit of El Vivillo occurred between Setenil and Villamartin.
A wealthy landowner named Don Pedro Guzman was travelling towards the
latter town, accompanied by his steward, when they were held up by El
Vivillo's band on horseback and forced to dismount. They were ordered
to throw their guns on the ground, and the bandits made a search of
their persons, relieving the master of thirty-eight thousand Spanish
reals in bank-notes and some cash--money which was destined for the
purchase of live stock at the annual fair at Villamartin.
Master and man were then seated upon the ground with their elbows
tied together at a spot hidden from the road. There they remained in
their uncomfortable posture from ten o'clock in the morning until
two in the afternoon, during which time the brigands "bagged" seven
other travellers, also going to the Villamartin fair and all carrying
considerable sums of money. The bandits then rode away, leaving their
disconsolate victims to untie themselves as best they could.
In Estepa, his native town, El Vivillo has been several times
imprisoned, usually for horse-stealing, but he invariably managed to
escape in some extraordinary manner. Some four years ago his wife
was suspected of maintaining secret correspondence with him. She was
imprisoned, and remained under lock and key for eighteen months. It
was subsequently proved that during all this time El Vivillo, although
a fugitive from justice, had managed to visit her in jail whenever he
pleased. An investigation was made, but it has never been discovered
how he arranged it.
When El Vivillo went into hiding he employed an ingenious stratagem to
put his pursuers off the scent. He would address letters to various
well-known people of Andalusia and, enclosing them to Algiers or
Tangier, would cause them to be sent to their destination, bearing,
of course, French stamps and post-office marks. This ruse effectually
convinced inquisitive police officials that El Vivillo was really out
of the country.
Many anecdotes are told of the famous bandit. There is one that
illustrates his kindness to the poor. Entering a farm-house not far
from Setenil, one day, with the intention of robbing the inmates, he
found the family in great distress. Times had been very hard with
them. Cattle had strayed or been lost or stolen; the excessively dry
season had almost ruined the crops and vines, and for some time they
had been behind-hand with the rent. Now they were finally threatened
with expulsion on the following morning if the amount due to the
landlord--some ten pounds--was not forthcoming.
Greatly attached to their home, and absolutely without hope of raising
even a _peseta_ towards the sum required, the farmer and his family
were sitting round the open fireplace in dumb despair. Careful of
the duties of hospitality, however, they offered the stranger bread
and a skin of rough, red wine to satisfy his appetite. El Vivillo,
on discovering the cause of their unhappiness, declared that he, the
next morning, would bring them the sum of money they so much stood
in need of. Jumping into the saddle, he rode to the landlord's house
and, placing a pistol to the man's head, forced him to hand over ten
pounds--neither more nor less. Riding safely away he returned to the
poor farmer, and thrusting the money into the astonished man's hand,
went off chuckling over the knowledge that the landlord's rent would be
punctually paid with his own money.
[Illustration: "HE FORCED HIM TO HAND OVER TEN POUNDS."]
Perhaps the most daring of El Vivillo's exploits, however, was his
robbing of his old enemies, the Civil Guard themselves, single-handed.
He learnt that on a certain day a pair of them were going to bring
a large sum in specie into Seville. Riding out into the country,
he entered the _posada_ where the two officers were about to
commence their midday meal. He got into conversation with them, and
they finally invited him to share their repast. El Vivillo proved
himself a delightful table companion, and the two officers of the
law congratulated themselves upon meeting such a good fellow. Their
awakening was a rude one, therefore, when the bandit pulled out a brace
of revolvers and said: "I am El Vivillo; kindly hand over the money in
those two bags." The guards were helpless, and had the mortification of
seeing their guest ride away in safety with his booty.
The bandit once escaped what appeared to be certain capture by
remarkable coolness and presence of mind. While he was seated with some
friends in a house in Setenil, playing the national card game, "tute,"
one of his numerous protégés ran into the room with the alarming news
that the Civil Guard were approaching the house bent upon his capture.
His companions offered all kinds of advice--he must hide under a pile
of sheep-skins lying in the corner, he must drop out of a rear window,
he must climb out upon the roof and lie quietly hidden there, and so
on. El Vivillo, however, begged them to be quite at ease and continue
their interrupted game as if nothing were about to happen. Descending
the staircase he opened the front door and came face to face with
a patrol of the Civil Guard. They inquired whether he had seen El
Vivillo. In a firm voice he replied that he had--that he had even been
playing cards with him, but that, half an hour before, the bandit had
ridden off to a neighbouring village. The officers dashed off in hot
haste in the direction indicated, but, needless to say, did not succeed
in capturing El Vivillo on that occasion.
[Illustration: A DETACHMENT OF THE CIVIL GUARD WHICH WAS STATIONED AT
SETENIL, AND WAS SEVERAL TIMES ENGAGED WITH EL VIVILLO AND HIS BAND.
_From a Photograph._]
The brigand's family is composed of five children--two sons and three
daughters. One of the former is married, and resides in Estepa. The
three girls--Dolores, Carmen, and Consuelo--are noted beauties, with
the voluptuous figure, dark hair, eyes, and complexion that have made
Andalusian women famous. They all speak French correctly--an unusual
accomplishment in the children of a Spanish brigand; and in their small
but comfortably furnished house in Estepa there is a piano, a luxury
for Spain, which the second daughter plays with exceptional ability.
Expelled by the police to Gibraltar last November, the children
took steamer to Buenos Ayres, and so unwittingly caused the Spanish
authorities to suspect that El Vivillo, who was badly wanted, was in
hiding there. Information was sent to the Spanish Legation in the
Argentine capital, and a few days after the arrival of his family El
Vivillo was prosaically arrested at a ranch tenanted by him at the
village of Ensenada, near La Plata.
That misplaced admiration of, and sympathy for, those accused of crime
is not confined to the fair sex of any one country is proved by the
treatment El Vivillo has received since his arrest. While he was in
jail at Buenos Ayres he received hundreds of letters of commiseration
from women, many containing offers of assistance and money. It is said
that he amassed a tidy sum by charging five dollars apiece for his
autographs, which were in great demand among the Spanish señoritas of
the South American city.
[Illustration:
A WALRUS-HUNT IN THE ARCTIC.]
+By David Gove.+
A graphic account, illustrated by some very striking
photographs, describing an expedition in quest of walrus amid
the ice-packs of the Alaskan coast. "So far as I know," writes
the author, "these are the only snap-shots of the walrus in
existence."
The scene was the beach at Nome, Alaska, on an unusually warm day
towards the close of the winter of 1907. The ice had loosened its grip
upon the shore, and was drifting lazily in the roadstead; the sudden
spell of warm weather made it appear old, dirty, and rotten. I was
looking out over the broken pack, when suddenly I caught sight of a
black speck about five miles to the south-west. Noting that the keeper
of the life-saving station had his glasses to his eyes observing the
object, I inquired: "Is that a boat from the outside?"
"No," he replied; "it is the gasoline schooner _Witch_. Some people
have been out in her for a walrus-hunt."
I made haste to the mouth of the river to meet the party, and see what
the fruits of this unique expedition had been. The boat tied up to a
large cake of ice that lay aground in the mouth of the river. The first
man to come ashore I recognised as Mr. B.B. Dobbs, of the Nome Moving
Picture Company, and he appeared to be in a very bad temper.
"Good morning, Dobbs," said I. "Have you seen any walrus?"
"No, we have _not_ seen any walrus," he growled, "although we have been
looking for them for twenty-four hours. We got thirty miles beyond the
shore-ice when a gale sprang up, and the little boat became so lively
that I have had a dickens of a time trying to keep my inside in. Here,
take my camera and come with me to get some refreshments."
When he had in a measure recovered himself Dobbs continued the
conversation. "Now, listen to me," he said. "I must have a
cinematograph picture of the walrus. You are a better sailor than I am,
so I want you to take the picture for me."
"Yes," I replied; "but how about finding the walrus?"
"Why, just go and hunt for them; I will pay you well for it. The boat
is chartered, and you can sail this evening."
The thirst of the wild was on me, so I determined to add walrus-hunting
to my list of Arctic adventures, particularly as I could combine
business with pleasure. I thought that if we could locate the animals
it would be a sight never to be forgotten, and would also be a splendid
ending to the monotony of an Arctic winter.
That evening seven Eskimos piled their guns and spears into the boat,
and everything was in readiness to start, but we needed a skipper to
command the vessel. Accordingly I hurried up the beach to find some old
salt to take charge, but the camp was deserted. Scarcely a man was to
be seen in the streets; everybody was busy shovelling gravel into the
sluice-boxes, for this was the season of harvesting gold in Alaska.
Out on the creeks and along the ancient pay-streaks men were digging
for gold; the only males left in the town were a few store-keepers,
bar-keepers, and a pack of well-fed lawyers. I had bethought myself of
Dick Byers, an old sea-rover in the Arctic, and I found him sitting
in a wheelbarrow near the Breakers Saloon, his head pillowed upon his
knees, dozing. "Halloa, Dick, do you want work?" I asked. "I want you
to go on a walrus-hunt with me, and I will give you twenty-five dollars
for twenty-four hours of your service."
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, MR. D. GOVE, IN ARCTIC COSTUME.
_From a Photograph._]
He accepted my offer, and I got him aboard the boat dressed in his
sealskin breeches and deerskin "parka." The ice had no terrors for
this man: he had sailed the Arctic in whale-ships and with exploring
expeditions until he believed cruising amongst the floes to be an ideal
occupation.
We were soon out over the bar, though some little difficulty was
experienced in getting past the large floes of shore ice that were
floating in the roadstead. We did not unfurl the sails, for the
atmosphere was still, the water being smooth and glassy in appearance;
but the little boat was well engined, and cut along swiftly until the
shore and the bald mountain-tops sank beyond the range of vision.
It was now ten-thirty, and the sun was setting in streaky clouds. I
felt restless, and thought a few hours of sleep might refresh me for
the morrow. There seemed nothing to keep me on deck; Jim Flynn, the
engineer, was gesticulating to one of the Eskimos, discussing the
direction in which to look for walrus, while others were cleaning
rifles, repairing harpoons, and chattering in their weird jargon. I
crawled down into the hold, rolled myself into a piece of canvas, and
bade the world good-night.
The next thing I knew was Flynn dragging me out from beneath the
canvas. Arrived on deck, I saw some black specks on the ice. "They're
walrus, right enough," said Flynn; "I can see their two white teeth
hanging down." Closer and closer we got, until the creatures were
plainly discernible and their discordant groaning and bellowing filled
the air. The noise was like a thousand cattle, but the lowing was
deeper and in a lower key.
I stood there spellbound, for such a panorama of uncouth animals, lying
in compact masses as far as the eye could see, I had never beheld
before. They presented a curious sight, their breath exhausting from
their nostrils in clouds of steam, and they appeared to take little or
no notice of the approaching boat. It was now the midnight twilight; on
the northern horizon the rays from both the setting and the rising sun
were strangely intermingled. With the boat still moving gently ahead,
the skipper became so enraptured with the sight that he let the _Witch_
bump into a piece of ice with such force that she started a seam in the
starboard side and soon began to leak, though not seriously. Meanwhile
the old Eskimo leader was strutting along the deck puffing at his
big brass pipe as a solace for his growing excitement. Presently he
ordered the oomiak (skin boat) to be brought alongside and the hunting
paraphernalia to be placed therein.
The Eskimos, sitting in the boat ready for the fray, whined like so
many coyotes, levelling their guns and trying their sights, while they
waited in anxious expectancy for the word to start. The sun was rising
under a black cloud, and there was not yet enough actinic light for me
to take my photographs. While we waited the natives grew angry with me
for not commencing the attack, but still I delayed.
Dick put the binocular to his eyes and scanned each herd in turn, the
animals lying upon the ice in solid masses.
"There's not a female in the bunch," he announced. "Just a lot of
love-sick bulls drifting towards the Arctic."
"Why don't they live with the females and help to look after the
young?" asked Flynn.
"They are not like the polygamous seal, with his harem of twelve to
fifteen wives," said the skipper, who was a surprisingly well-spoken
man. "The walrus has one wife a season, with whom he lives upon the
ice-floes. Sometimes they go ashore, climbing up the rocks and rolling
in the green grass and fresh water; then they go back to the sea again.
The young one is born in the month of May or June, upon the ice. Then
the females, with the youngsters, separate from the bulls and migrate
north until they reach the great permanent ice-pack. Those bulls that
you see form the rear-guard of the annual migration."
[Illustration: THE FIRST HERD OF WALRUS SIGHTED--THE ANIMAL WITH
UPRAISED HEAD IS THE SENTRY.
_From a Photograph._]
"What do they use their tusks for?" I inquired.
"They are used for fighting the Polar bear, but their principal use is
when they dive down to the bed of the ocean, where they dig up clams
and mussels out of the mud; bivalves and sea-urchins form their chief
food. Their numbers have been greatly diminished in late years, for
nothing can escape the wasteful slaughter of man with his scientific
weapons of destruction. The natives, with their primitive weapons, did
not do much damage, but modern rifles may cause their extermination.
But for their inaccessibility the walrus would have vanished like the
buffalo--only his impenetrable haunts save him from extinction."
Presently Dick and I launched the dory, and paddled close to the
nearest herd. This afforded me a splendid opportunity to study those
denizens of the ice-pack in their native haunts. We crawled over the
ice to within thirty feet of where the huge brutes lay, unconscious of
our presence.
"Don't make a noise," said Dick. "The one on this side is the
sentry--he is on the _qui vive_, but I do not think he sees us. If he
does, he is careless of our proximity."
At this moment one of the walrus began to perform some acrobatic feats
in the water. These concluded, he attempted to get up on the ice. He
had only one tusk, and using this like a boat-hook, tried to pull his
unsymmetrical bulk up on to the floes. But trouble arose immediately.
The sentry challenged his right to advance, raising his ponderous
body to prepare for combat. His skin was wrinkled in heavy folds,
covered with innumerable wounds, and he looked like the veteran of many
battles. Roaring hoarsely, until his fat body swelled with exertion and
rage, he plunged his tusks into the interloper's face, and forced him
to retire.
The sentinel seemed proud of this victory, for he raised himself up
and gave a great roar of satisfaction. Then he threw himself down upon
his icy bed, rolled over upon his back, and, using his flippers like a
dipper, threw the water over his body, as if attending to his morning
toilet.
Presently an ice-raft with about twenty walrus on board went drifting
slowly past us. The weight of the animals' bodies was so great that
the ice was completely submerged, and the walrus looked as if they were
lying upon the surface of the water.
[Illustration: THE ESKIMOS ADVANCING UPON THE WALRUS.
_From a photograph._]
"Unfortunate brutes," said Dick. "This will be a sorry day for you when
the sun gets out! But here, my boy"--he turned quickly to me--"it's
time you started your game; the light is here."
[Illustration: A FEW OF THE VICTIMS.
_From a photograph._]
The Eskimos were now coming towards us in their skin boat, paddling
with muffled strokes. I put my Kodak in my pocket, got the
cinematograph out, and we crawled to the lee side of fifty walrus,
where I stole up to within thirty feet of where they lay, looking for
all the world like a herd of great swine. Some of them were fighting;
the rest lay still, with their heads pillowed upon one another. I
arranged my picture machine and wound up the film, recording every
movement they made. The six Eskimos then advanced with stealthy pace
between me and the walrus. Simultaneously six rifles cracked, and fifty
grizzly faces rose up and glared at the intruders. I kept on winding
up the film, recording this extraordinary scene. Six more shots, and
four of the huge brutes fell dead. The whole herd was now aroused, and
never in my life have I seen such a sight. The clumsy animals made for
the water, but the bullets flew fast, and presently three more fell,
while with many a flop, hitch, and straddle the others wallowed off the
ice--the clumsiest living creatures that ever attempted to walk. In the
water, however, they were in their element, swimming with the grace and
ease of a porpoise. Six mountains of heaving flesh lay upon the ice.
One gave a lurch as though trying to roll into the water, but one of
the natives fired a bullet into his brain, and a stream of blood from
the wound spouted three feet into the air.
[Illustration: "THE WALRUS CAME BACK SLOWLY, TWISTING THEIR NECKS
CURIOUSLY, AS IF TRYING TO COURT OUR ACQUAINTANCE."
_From a Photograph._]
The Eskimos believe in the effect of the human voice upon their prey,
and when the walrus rolled into the sea they started grunting a strange
guttural sound, "Huk--huk--huk."
While I watched, fascinated, the walrus came back slowly, twisting
their rubber-like necks curiously, as if trying to court our
acquaintance. Several shots were fired at them, but none hit a vital
spot, though the beasts emitted weird sounds as they disappeared
beneath the water. They came into view again at the back of the
ice-floe, bellowing and roaring; their uncouth noises rang from floe
to floe, and from every cake of ice within sight awakened monsters
plunged in alarm. The sea became literally alive with them, and we soon
became the centre of a herd of at least four hundred walrus, their
grizzly heads bobbing up all round us--the long, white tusks gleaming
conspicuously against their dark breasts. The ice-world that had been
so still was now a roaring commotion of animals, tearing in frenzy
through the water, curious and terror-stricken. Their unearthly yells
filled the air with trembling echo.
[Illustration: "THE ICE-WORLD THAT HAD BEEN SO STILL WAS NOW A ROARING
COMMOTION OF ANIMALS, TEARING IN FRENZY THROUGH THE WATER."
_From a Photograph._]
When the natives had given thanks to their gods for bringing plenty of
walrus, they cut the heads off their prizes (for the ivory) and secured
about three tons of the flesh for their families on shore. Then, in the
launch, we started for the next herd that lay undisturbed, leaving the
first mob to settle down again.
There were twelve walrus lying upon this floe, covering it from rim to
rim. My picture-taking and shooting had to be done from the skin boat.
I had my Kodak ready, and as the Eskimos leaned over the gunwale of the
boat and took aim I "snapped" my pictures just as fast as they could
shoot, making my exposures without a moment's hesitation, without the
slightest regard for background, foreground, shadows, or anything else.
Two of the walrus fell dead upon the ice-floe, and another arose in the
water close to the boat, the blood streaming from his head. Two shots
were fired, and a spear was launched into his body with a rope attached
to keep him from sinking. He was soon pulled alongside, his head cut
off, and his body allowed to sink to the bottom of the sea.
[Illustration: A SNAP-SHOT TAKEN FROM THE ESKIMO SKIN-BOAT.
_From a Photograph._]
Presently the old native leader saw a very large walrus fast asleep; it
had wonderfully long tusks, and he set out to dispatch the monster by
the primitive method used by his forefathers. He carried a spear about
five feet long, with a rope of walrus hide attached to an inflated
sealskin. Hanging the rope in a coil around his neck, he crawled upon
his stomach with the stealth of a cat, until he got within three feet
of where the animal lay. I expected to see him poise and throw the
shaft, but instead he rammed it with all his force into the walrus's
body. The creature started, turned its head round, and glared at him.
Then the enormous mass of flesh arose, and with a few spasmodic jumps
made for the water in a hobbling canter. With the spear stuck in his
side and his splay feet working like paddles upon the ice, he rolled
off the floe like a sack of wool, floundering and plunging wildly. At
first he pulled the bladder under the surface of the water, but his
great strength soon failed him, and the bladder appeared floating on
the water. One of the natives, a boy about fifteen years, was out in
the boat watching for him, and when he poked his head above the surface
to breathe the lad shot him and hauled him alongside. At this stage of
the hunt we all went back to the launch for lunch, and also to give
our quarry time to recuperate. The menu consisted of one five-gallon
can filled with walrus meat. The natives took large strips of the
half-cooked marine beef, and with their hands forced as much of it into
their mouths as the opening would contain. Then, with a knife they cut
it off close to their lips. Dick was sitting on his haunches picking
out the lean pieces and devouring it like a native, and I received
a hearty invitation to join them in this Arctic banquet. I did try
to eat a morsel, but without success--not only the odour of the meat
but the mode of eating was repulsive to my taste. After the meal the
slaughter continued until midnight. At dawn the sun arose in a mass of
dangerous-looking red clouds; to the south the murky clouds hung low.
The ice began to roll uneasily, and was soon pounding against the sides
of the vessel. Dick jumped on deck and viewed the angry aspect of the
weather.
[Illustration: FIRING AT THE WALRUS ON THE FLOE.
_From a Photograph._]
[Illustration: SOME OF THE TROPHIES--EIGHTY TUSKS WERE THE RESULT OF
THE TRIP.
_From a Photograph._]
[Illustration: A WALRUS SKULL--THE BRAIN IS LOCATED TWELVE INCHES BACK
FROM THE FOREHEAD, AT THE POINT INDICATED BY A CROSS.
_From a Photograph._]
"We are on the fringe of a south-easter," he exclaimed. "Let's scoot."
He set the course for Nome, all sails were bent to the wind, and the
engine throbbed eagerly as the little vessel tore onwards with her
port scuppers awash. I looked astern, but the scene of our carnage was
already fading in the distance. Faintly I heard the wailing monotones
of the walrus leaders calling their scattered herds together, and
mourning the loss that had so suddenly befallen them. The wind was
moaning through the rigging as we flew before the coming storm, and we
left the tenants of the ice-fields slowly flitting north.
Eighty tusks were the result of our trip, together with a splendid
moving picture of those strange animals.
We arrived in Snake River just in time to escape the coming storm. Some
of the _chechacos_ (newcomers, green-horns) came down to watch us, and
gazed in astonishment at the ivory and the few heads which hung over
the bow of the boat.
"Are them elephants?" one old gentleman whispered to Dick.
"Yes," said the skipper, gravely--"elephants of the sea." Then he
turned and walked back to the Breakers. And so ended our walrus-hunt.
SPORTING STORIES.
A further batch of breezy little narratives--exciting,
humorous, and curious--detailing the adventures of sportsmen in
various parts of the world.
IV.--CORKER'S ALLIGATOR.
+By Frank E. Verney.+
There were four of us on the bungalow veranda. Behind us, grim and
gaunt in the glow of the Southern Cross, rose the Blue Mountains;
out ahead, six miles away, twinkled the lights of Kingston Harbour;
whilst around us, from the profusion of tropical flowers, jewelled
with flitting fireflies, came sweet incense and insects of a painfully
inquisitive turn of mind.
It was not the charm of the night or the assaults of the mosquitoes
that held our attention, however, but the prospect of an alligator-hunt
on the morrow, led by the redoubtable Corker,[1] our host, who, under
the influence of plentiful potions of "planters' punch" and the
presence of two unsophisticated "subs" of the West India Regiment, had
been telling us tales of mighty deeds done in obtaining the trophies
which now covered his walls.
[1] For obvious reasons I have altered the real names of the parties
concerned.--+The Author.+
[Illustration: THE BUNGALOW FROM WHICH THE AUTHOR AND HIS COMPANIONS
STARTED OUT ON THEIR SHOOTING TRIP.
_From a Photograph._]
There was no planter in Jamaica to compare with Corker as a
hunter--certainly there was none who could show so many pelts and
heads; and if some of his stories were rather "tall," many of them
had a strong basis of fact, as evidenced by the size of the "bags"
which always accompanied his return from a shooting trip. As Jamaica
itself contains no big game other than alligator, one has to go to the
adjoining American continent for this class of shooting; and this fact
formed the assailable spot in Corker's reputation, for there were those
on the island who hinted darkly of New York naturalists, and suggested
that literature lost a great light when Corker became a planter.
Anyhow, I refrained from intruding such rude remarks on the peace of
our party out of respect for the feelings of my host and consideration
for the enthusiasm of his other two listeners.
After Corker had told his customary concluding yarn, we fell to
discussing where on Corker's walls could space be found to accommodate
the alligator hides he, with us to help him, was about to secure.
The next morning we tumbled from under our mosquito-nets and, after a
hasty breakfast, made a start. Corker had already sent on our arms,
which, in addition to our shooting impedimenta and flaying-knives,
consisted of a case of soda-water, a block of swathed ice, and two
bottles of what Corker called "milk," to neutralize the effects of the
swamp for which we were bound.
Mounting our native ponies, we rode down through the plantation by a
short cut. Through tobacco fields and fields of guinea grass as high
as our saddles, and down hill-sides as steep as the roof of a house,
dodging palms and banana trees _en route_, our ponies took us, never
faltering or making a false step, until, after a three-mile ride, we
arrived at Constant Spring. At this place we sent back our mounts and
did the remaining six miles into Kingston on an up-to-date electric
tram-car.
Through the hot, dusty suburbs, past crowds of native women on their
way to market, their heads laden with produce, their bare feet padding
the scorched road, past dismantled residences with walls torn asunder
by the earthquake of a year ago, into the stricken city of Kingston
itself our car carried us, until at length we reached the harbour-side
and inhaled deep breaths of the grand breeze which comes across the
Caribbean Sea.
[Illustration: MR. VERNEY, THE AUTHOR.
_From a Photograph._]
By eleven o'clock we had ourselves and our gear, together with two
black boys, stowed away in a large, open boat. Hoisting our sail, we
were soon bowling over the blue waters of Kingston Bay on the way to
alligatordom, the cooling breeze tempering the fierce sun-glare.
As usual, Corker was busy describing his phenomenal capacity for
conquering the beasts of the field, and would permit no silent
revelry in the beauty and joy of the scene. Sitting in the bows of
the boat, playing cup and ball with a tumbler and its contents, he
gave us innumerable hints as to the best way of stalking alligators,
illustrating the success of his methods with several modest stories
of what he had achieved at the very spot to which we were bound. I
had shot "crocs" myself on the Indian Sunderbunds, but I offered no
supplementary yarns, for I knew that Corker could easily cap anything I
might say.
However, by the time we had imbibed about as much advice as we could
comfortably hold without confusion, we rounded the western point of the
bay and found ourselves at the estuary of the Rio Cobre. Up this river,
far away from the coast, there are some of the fairest spots on God's
earth; but at its mouth it is an inferno well worthy of its description
as "Jamaica's death-hole."
A wide stretch of steaming swamp, intersected with inky streams of
stinking water, a breeding-place for the fever-propagating mosquito
and a home for all the loathsome creeping things of the island, it is
almost as bad as some of the pestilential swamps of the West African
coast, and seen in its beautiful setting of blue seas and golden beach
dotted with graceful green palms, it looks even worse.
But since it held our quarry we were prepared to disregard its hygienic
and scenic shortcomings, so we ran our craft on to a bank inshore, and,
clambering out, waded through the warm sea to the rotting vegetation
and repulsive mud and slime of the delta.
Fixing our rendezvous on a fairly dry spot close to our landing-place,
we arranged our plan of action. At this juncture Corker very generously
offered to stay behind to see that the boat and the "milk" came to
no harm, but, of course, none of us would hear of such a sacrifice.
Finally we decided to divide forces. Hunter and Madox, the two West
India Regiment men, were to go together, accompanied by one of the
black "boys," an accomplished 'gator tracker; whilst Corker and I
joined guns, the other "boy" coming with us to flay anything we might
get. Separating, in accordance with this plan, Corker and I squelched
off through the fœtid slime toward the upper end of the delta.
As we slushed along we carefully scanned the banks of dried mud,
intersecting the numerous lagoons, for "sign," listening keenly the
while for snapping jaws and splashing bodies. We had to be very much
on the _qui vive_, for at any moment, in stepping round the low bushes
or wading waist-deep through the intersecting streams, we might have
trodden on a sleeping saurian, with unpleasant results, for, despite an
unwieldy-looking body, the 'gator is capable of very swift movement,
and, what is more, both ends of him are dangerous--with his jaws he may
lop off a leg; with his tail he may break one's back.
After trudging about for some time, filling our lungs with vapour from
the steaming swamp, while our skins were irritated by the bites of
myriads of insects, we reached a dark, evil-smelling lagoon crusted
with cracking mud. At the side of it were several indentations, varying
in size, which indicated that a 'gator family had but recently been
taking the sun.
With such tangible evidence before me of the near presence of the
brutes, I suggested waiting quietly for the family's reappearance.
Corker, however, having his own idea about the wisdom of my suggestion,
told me I should only be wasting time. He therefore elected to leave me
with the boy, whilst he crossed to the middle stream "to make sure of a
decent hide," asking me to join him when I was tired of my vigil.
[Illustration: "I FIRED CLEAN INTO HIS MAW."]
As he tramped off through the inky slime I squatted down on a mud-bank,
with my rifle across my knees. Between me and the indentations was a
low clump of vegetation, which shielded me from observation without
interfering with my vision. The boy I had stationed out of sight in a
slight hollow on the far side of my mud perch. With these precautions
I set myself to wait. The sun, well overhead, beat down pitilessly on
my shadeless position, blistering the pattern of my thin shirt on to
my skin; whilst all the most vicious mosquitoes of the swamp came to
signify their appreciation of my succulent presence by dining on me,
and other creeping things began the tour of investigation which my
scanty attire of shirt, breeches, boots, and topée invited. Verily, ye
men who grumble at the hardship of waiting for driven birds on a Scotch
moor should try a day in a tropical swamp!
After enduring these manifold pleasures for an hour or more, the
surface of the lagoon began to heave, and a black snout showed itself
in the sunlight.
Looking round, and finding no cause for alarm, the wily 'gator slushed
his way to his basking place, some twenty yards distant from where I
sat. I raised my rifle slowly and covered him as he hoisted himself
out of the slime. Just then the distant crack of Corker's rifle
startled my 'gator. Raising his head he opened his capacious jaws, and
as he did so I fired clean into his maw. He shut his teeth together
with a resounding snap, coughed like a stricken cow, and slid back
into the slime. I thought I had lost him, but after a final titanic
convulsion, which spattered the blood-streaked mud almost to my
position, he swung round on to the ooze again and lay still. Advancing
to within five yards, I gave him another bullet through the eye, to
prevent accidents; then, aided by my yelling boy, we levered him up on
to the dry bank. From the end of his snout to the tip of his powerful
tail he measured about eleven feet!
Well satisfied with the result of my uncomfortable wait, and
instructing the black boy to go back to the boat with the skin when
he had taken it off, I followed the direction which Corker had taken,
wondering what luck the shots I had heard portended.
After hunting about for some time without finding him, and not hearing
further shots, I concluded he had gone back to the lagoon to get the
boy's assistance in flaying his "bag," and that therefore I had missed
him.
As I picked my way round some low driftwood by one of the soapy
streams, I stumbled over a half-buried log. In recovering my balance I
noticed that one end of the log, which was some fourteen feet long, had
been freshly splintered, and, strange to say, by rifle shots.
Suddenly the explanation dawned upon me. The doughty Corker, hero of
wonderful stories and holder of many "spoils," had fallen into that
facile error of the novice and shot a fallen log!
Picking up a stout splinter, which showed two neatly-drilled holes, I
made my way, grinning hugely, back to the rendezvous.
That night, when all had retired to rest at Corker's bungalow, his
three guests, clad in pyjamas and shaking with subdued mirth, crept on
to the veranda and fastened up in a central position among their host's
trophies a perforated redwood log splinter!
V.--A BRUSH WITH A BEAR.
+By R. W. Martin, Junior.+
[Illustration: MR. R. W. MARTIN, JUNIOR, WHO HERE DESCRIBES HIS
EXCITING EXPERIENCE WITH A BEAR.
_From a Photograph._]
The fall of 1905 found me camping on the Lehigh River, in Luzerne
County, Pennsylvania, in company with two friends named George and
Oscar Murray. This part of the country is wild and mountainous, the
nearest railroad being at Bear Creek, twelve miles distant.
Our camp stood on rising ground about thirty feet higher than the level
of the river, and was surrounded by towering pines fifty to sixty feet
in height, one of which almost touched our shack.
On the evening of which I write my two companions had decided to visit
a friend who lived in a small settlement known as Stoddartsville, some
four miles down the river, where they intended to spend the night.
After their departure I busied myself about the camp, cutting and
stacking wood and cleaning up our cooking utensils. When darkness had
put an end to work outside, I retired into the cabin and, settling
myself comfortably, began to read an old magazine I had picked up.
I must have been reading for about an hour when my attention was
attracted by the snapping of a small branch or stick outside, seemingly
at the front of the cabin.
[Illustration: "THE BEAR STRUCK AT ME WITH ITS CLAWS, RIPPING OFF MY
HEAVY LEGGING AND SCRATCHING ME SEVERELY."]
Although we kept our meat in a basket hung on the limb of a small tree
in front of the dwelling, we did not fear molestation from the bears or
wild-cats that were known to exist in the swamps and mountain ranges
around us. Occasionally a sheep would be taken by an old she-bear which
was known to have ranged the hills for the past twenty-five years, and
which was said to be a huge, gaunt creature, weighing at least five
hundred pounds; but, generally speaking, they did not cause much damage.
Neither bears nor wild-cats, however, entered my mind as I sat there
wondering what had caused the disturbance outside. My first thought was
that perchance one of the neighbours' cows or sheep, which were allowed
to roam at will, had lost its way and, being attracted by the light,
had wandered up to the cabin to investigate. With this idea in my mind,
and being very comfortable, I did not bother to look into the matter.
But just as I was about to resume my reading once more, the sharp crack
of a breaking limb, accompanied by the thud of a heavy body striking
the ground, caused me to jump to my feet in a hurry. Hastily snatching
my breech-loading shot-gun from the corner, I quickly inserted two
shells and quietly opened the door. There, in the dim moonlight, I
made out the form of a huge bear, busily engaged in pillaging our meat
basket! Without hesitation I brought the gun to my shoulder and fired
both barrels at the dark mass. With a fierce growl of pain the wounded
beast charged straight for the open door, and before I could close it
rushed right into the cabin!
The next five minutes were probably the most exciting I have ever
spent. The bear, blinded in one eye by shot and dazzled by the light,
gave me the opportunity--which I speedily seized--of rushing past it
out into the open. I ran round the cabin for my life, with the brute
at my heels, and quickly ascended the ladder at the back of the cabin
to the roof, thinking to throw my pursuer off the track. While busily
engaged in trying to push the ladder down, I was horrified to find the
bear already upon it, coming my way. Thoroughly bewildered by this
time, I commenced to climb the tall pine tree alongside the house,
hoping to hide myself on one of the upper branches. It seemed that I
made no progress at all, for the dead branches upon which I placed my
feet broke continually, and my fingers and legs, in my frantic hurry,
acted as though they were not part of my body. Almost exhausted, I
finally stopped to rest upon a stout limb about twelve feet above the
roof of the cabin. Glancing down, I saw the maddened bear preparing
to pursue me. In a panic I began to climb again, but as I reached up
for the limb above my hand came in contact with the rope we had strung
across the river to a lofty old pine about forty yards distant on the
opposite shore. Fastened to this large rope was a smaller dangling rope
with a loop, which we used, on account of the swift current, to keep us
in our course when ferrying across in the boat.
Finding that the rope would bear my weight, I started to go hand over
hand over it out across the river. At this juncture the bear, which
was but a few feet below me, struck at me with its claws, ripping off
my heavy legging and scratching me severely. This unlooked for attack
almost caused me to lose my hold, which would have resulted in a nasty
fall to the ground below. How I managed to escape being struck again
I do not know, but somehow or other I managed to keep out of reach of
those deadly claws until I had swung well out from the tree. It was
slow work making any progress, but, thinking only of the danger behind
and below me, I continued the journey until I was compelled to stop to
rest my weary arms. This I tried to do by throwing one leg and arm over
the line, the rope resting under my knee and armpit. Beneath me I could
hear the swiftly-running river, while the swaying limbs on the pine I
had just left told me that my late pursuer was moving about.
When I had somewhat rested my aching muscles, I started once more on
that heart-breaking journey to the opposite shore. Several times the
rope swung so violently I thought I must let go and fall into the swift
river beneath me, but each time I gritted my teeth and kept on. At
last, after what seemed ages, I reached the friendly pine to which the
rope was attached and lay for some time on a large branch, like a man
in a dream. After resting for a few minutes I ventured to gaze across
to the bank I had lately left, but could see nothing. Once or twice I
heard Bruin moving about along the bank; then all was quiet.
Fixing myself as comfortably as possible I stayed all night in the
tree, scarcely daring to move for fear of attracting attention. Shortly
after daybreak my friends put in their appearance, having decided to
make an early start after grouse in the neighbouring swales. Upon
their arrival I descended from my uncomfortable position and related
my experience of the night. Great was their wonder and surprise at
my nerve-racking experience, and a hunt for Bruin was immediately
suggested, George Murray starting off at once for men and dogs from the
settlement. Upon his return with the hunting party the dogs took up
the trail and followed it for nine miles down the ridge. At Long Pond,
twelve miles below us, the bear was finally brought to bay and shot by
another party. Upon examination, it was found that my two shots had
put out one eye and almost torn her ear off--hence her blind fury and
revengefulness. She tipped the scales at four hundred and sixty-eight
pounds.
VI--MAN _v._ PYTHON.
+By Victor Pitt-Kethley.+
On April 27th of last year, Mr. W. J. Cocklin, of Sequani _viâ_
Mochudi, South Africa, accompanied a party of friends on a shooting
expedition in the neighbourhood of Sequani.
Arrived at the point selected, some five miles distant from the
township, the party separated. For some little time Mr. Cocklin pursued
his way without incident; then he suddenly espied a guinea-fowl, which
he brought down with a well-aimed shot.
Hurrying over the veldt to secure his prize, he was just descending a
little fall in the ground when, to his horror, he suddenly discovered
that he was almost on top of a large python, which lay coiled up in
front of him. Catching sight of the startled sportsman, the great snake
moved. Its tail caught Mr. Cocklin between the legs, tripping him up,
and before he could save himself he was flung headlong into the deadly,
irresistible coils, which immediately closed around his body in a
vice-like grip. Desperately the hunter tried to extricate himself, but
all in vain; the python had him fast in such a way that his left arm,
holding his gun, was pinned to his side.
With the cold perspiration breaking out upon his flesh, Cocklin threw
himself this way and that in a frenzy of desperation, for he realized
only too well the horrible nature of the death-trap into which he had
walked.
He essayed to shout, hoping to make his friends hear and bring them to
his rescue, but no answer came to his calls; no human being appeared
in sight. And all the time man and snake lay there on the sunny veldt,
the reptile's mighty coils growing always a little tighter as it
endeavoured to lessen its victim's struggles.
[Illustration: "MR. COCKLIN GRIPPED THE SNAKE BY THE THROAT, STRIVING
WILDLY TO FREE HIMSELF."]
Presently, finding the pressure upon his body becoming unendurable,
Mr. Cocklin gripped the snake by the throat, striving wildly to free
himself. Over and over, this way and that, the pair rolled, the python
seeking all the time to free its hideous head or tighten its coils
sufficiently to put an end to Cocklin's struggles.
For, perhaps, ten to fifteen minutes--minutes that seemed like hours
of torture--this unequal, terrifying fight went on, and still neither
had gained any decided advantage; the man still lived, though fast
in the coils of the snake, which in turn, though it held its captive
securely, was unable to crush him outright or to release his hold upon
its throat, which prevented it throwing a coil round his neck and
strangling him.
Now, a python is so constructed that it can exert its crushing
powers to the full only when it is able to get a leverage upon some
fixed object--say, by taking a turn with its tail round a tree.
Presently--apparently realizing that something of this kind was
required to enable it to finish off its prisoner--the great snake
altered its tactics and commenced to drag Mr. Cocklin over the ground
towards a large hard-wood tree which stood some distance away.
The man saw and understood--the battle was about to enter on its last
and most dreadful phase! Desperately he fought against the snake,
trying to get at his knife, which was in his right-hand coat-pocket,
with the idea of cutting the creature's throat; but, to his horror, he
found that the reptile's coils passed over the place where the weapon
lay.
"Finding I could not get my knife," said Mr. Cocklin, in a letter
which he wrote to the _Cape Times_ subsequently, "and thinking that my
chances of surviving were not very bright, I determined I would not die
alone. I saw that the barrel of my gun projected just about an inch
through between my arm and body, where the arm was pinned to the side,
and luckily I managed to reach the trigger with my left hand. Gripping
the python firmly by the throat, and holding its head well away, I
pulled the trigger, and the bullet, fortunately for me, caught the
snake through the back. It then relaxed its grip, and I got rid of its
coils as fast as I could.
"When I got upon my feet, I put my gun down and looked for a big stone
to finish the brute with. Not finding one, I was about to put my foot
on its head and cut its throat, when the snake made another attack upon
me, getting hold of my coat sleeve, and again pulling me to the ground.
Once more it attempted to get its coils round me, but I escaped them.
It still retained its bite on my sleeve, however. I managed to get my
foot on its throat, which made it open its mouth. Then I got my arm
free, and called for my friends again. One of them heard me and came
running up. He saw that there had been a struggle, and shot the python
through the head, thus putting the finishing touch to what was for me
the narrowest shave I have ever had. It seems to me remarkable that
I have felt no ill effects from the encounter beyond being a little
short-winded and nervous for a few days."
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| _Guardians of the Wilderness._ |
| |
| +By Henry Hale.+ |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
The United States Government maintains a little army of twelve
hundred men whose duty it is to look after the vast national
forests, whose area is about five times that of Great Britain.
Here, monarchs of all they survey, these rangers of the wild
lead solitary and strenuous lives, sometimes not meeting a
fellow human being for months on end.
The United States Government maintains a curious little force of
policemen who do not patrol posts in the cities or towns, but may well
be called the guardians of the wilderness, for it is their business to
look after vast forests where few human beings live. It may seem odd
that it is necessary to have Nature's police to go here and there in
the forests and amid the mountains, but it is very necessary in order
to protect one of the great resources of America. Some of these rangers
of the wild have "beats" so extensive that one man may be the sole
protector of a miniature empire, comprising two hundred thousand acres
of primeval forest.
Mere figures cannot give the stay-at-home reader any adequate idea of
the vastness of some of the great "reserves" in which the patrolmen
live month after month. If the whole of London is measured it will be
found to contain over seventy-five thousand acres, yet no fewer than
eighty cities the size of London could easily be placed in a single
one of the American "national parks." Washington Park, situated in the
State of that name, and the greatest of them all, contains no less than
ten thousand square miles of territory.
[Illustration: A FOREST RANGERS' PACK-TRAIN ON THE TRAIL.
_From a Photograph._]
[Illustration: RANGERS MEASURING TIMBER IN A SWAMP.
_From a Photograph._]
For many years most European countries have had forest guardians and
rangers. France, Germany, Holland, and even little Switzerland, have
their armies of rangers, the French foresters being so numerous that
there is one to every thousand acres of trees under the protection
of the Government. This is quite different from the United States,
where, as has been stated, one man may be the sole protector of an area
of two hundred thousand acres; for this force of woodland policemen
comprises only about twelve hundred men all told, scattered between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast, ranging the valleys and slopes
of the Rocky Mountains, and even living far out in snow-covered Alaska.
The rank-and-file of the American Forest Service are the patrolmen
or rangers. Over them are supervisors, one of whom may have charge
of a group of national forests, and may be obliged to travel several
thousand miles a year in order to perform his duties. In Washington is
the chief forester, who is at the head of the service, and has under
him a staff of assistants, inspectors, and clerks. But the men who do
the hard work, endure the privations, and brave the dangers are the
forest rangers and supervisors, who spend their lives in looking after
the domains to which they are assigned. There are far more perils to be
encountered in the wilderness than the town-dweller might think. The
wild animals that roam here and there form but a slight danger compared
with the terrible weather to which the guardians of the woodlands are
sometimes exposed. While in many regions the summers are so warm that
the heat is almost unbearable, in the higher lands, such as the slopes
of the Rocky Mountains, winter may last for four or five months, with
the temperature so far below freezing-point that a man must be muffled
in furs up to the eyes in order to keep himself alive. Storms sometimes
prevail for days at a time, covering the ground with great snow-drifts
higher than one's head, and frequently almost burying the little huts
or cabins in which the foresters live when they are not doing patrol
duty. It is the loneliness of the life, however, which forms its worst
feature. For months the forester may not see the face of a white man,
or even an Indian--going day by day amid the trees, fording streams,
climbing mountain sides, with never a person to speak to. This is why
several rangers have at different times become insane and have been
found aimlessly wandering about, while others have suffered death from
starvation while mentally unbalanced. Remembering that a man may be
sole guardian of a tract of land as large as an entire English county,
it is not to be wondered at that occasionally the sense of their
loneliness should overpower them.
[Illustration: THE METHOD USED IN CLIMBING BIG TREES.
_From a Photograph._]
It takes a good type of man to make a successful forester--he is
obliged to undertake so many different tasks and perform them all well.
His daily round does not mean merely going from this place to that in
his territory, looking out for fires and for unauthorized persons who
may come into the woods to cut down the valuable timber. True, forest
fires are perhaps the ranger's greatest anxiety, but he must also keep
a keen watch for what are called in the West "squatters"--families
who steal into the parts controlled by the Government and try to make
homes in open spots without permission. They cut down valuable trees
for fuel, occupy ground to which they have no right, and frequently
seriously injure the forest growth before they are discovered. In a
region covering two hundred thousand acres squatters may live for
months, or perhaps even a year, before being discovered by the forester
and driven out. And this eviction work is very dangerous, for the
squatter may be armed, and if he thinks he will not be detected he does
not hesitate to shoot down the guardian in fighting for the place he
calls his home. More than one murder of this kind has been committed
since the United States began taking charge of the great forests ten
years ago.
The forester must also supervise any lumbering operations which are
permitted by the Government in the region under his care. Someone may
get authority from the Forest Service to cut certain trees and make
them into lumber, and the ranger in that district must look to it that
they do not cut more than they should, that they do not damage other
trees--especially young ones--and that they do not set fire to the
woodlands during their operations. He measures the timber they cut,
and makes a report to his supervisor of what they do from month to
month. If the Government allows stock-raisers to turn cattle and sheep
into one of the woodland parks, the forester must watch the animals
and prevent them feeding at places where they would do damage. He also
oversees the stock-men and herders--and here again is liable to be
injured, if not killed, since some of these ranchmen of the Far West
belong to a desperate class, and are usually well armed and only too
ready to use their weapons.
The ranger is not only a policeman, but is frequently called upon to
act as judge when a dispute arises on his territory between rival
settlers. Sometimes he is obliged to arrest trespassers and other
wrongdoers, and take them perhaps fifty miles through the wilderness
before he can place them in the hands of the nearest magistrate. This
is one of the most dangerous features of his work, for many of the
people who go into the wild forest districts are desperadoes, who set
little value upon human life. Therefore, the ranger must be strong and
courageous, able to endure the hardships of an outdoor life, and to
"keep his end up" in a fight. For this reason the foresters are picked
men; but hard as is their life, the Government have no difficulty in
securing recruits who measure up to the necessary standard.
[Illustration: TESTING WOULD-BE RECRUITS IN THE DETAILS OF SADDLING-UP.
_From a Photograph._]
Once a year men who wish to enter the Forest Service are given a chance
to show their qualifications. Examinations are held at different places
in the West, conducted by a forest supervisor or inspector. One was
held recently in Colorado which I will describe. Most of the candidates
who "sat" for it were cowboys and ranchmen. The first day of the
examination was given up to "school-house work," and it is likely that
this unaccustomed ordeal of figures and composition caused more grey
hairs to sprout on the heads of the candidates than anything suggested
by the forestry expert in the succeeding two days. Finally, when the
examiner, with a sly smile, informed the assembled men that they might
as well put away their pens, the clerical test being over, there was a
general chorus of "Bully!" and one cowboy, with a blot of ink on his
nose and a look of despair in his eyes, rose on his high-legged boots
and fervently exclaimed, "Thank Heaven!"
The second day the applicants brought out their saddle-horses, and
at an early hour started on the trail. The forestry expert led the
way, riding with an ease that challenged the admiration of all the
cow hands. After proceeding five or six miles into the mountains, the
candidates were given axes and told to show their skill in cutting and
"scaling" (measuring) timber. Some of the cowboys, who had had little
experience with the axe beyond cutting wood for a round-up camp-fire,
had rather ludicrous experiences, but two forest guards, who were
skilled in such work, made the chips fly in a manner that excited
universal admiration.
After the candidates had been examined as to their fitness with the axe
they were given work in following obscure or "blind" trails and reading
signs. Here nearly all proved expert, for the man who rides the range
for any length of time soon acquires the ability to read the wilderness
signs like a book. A long, hard journey across the mountains, testing
the men in rough-riding, ended the day's work.
On the third day the field tests were continued. A brisk ride was made
to a water-course, where camp was pitched and notes made of the manner
in which each man proceeded to make fires and prepare a temporary
resting place. In order to test the accuracy of the men in judging
distances, the forestry expert rode over a huge triangle, and then
required the men to pace it in Indian file. The candidates were next
told to reduce their estimates to feet, and finally the examiner went
over the course with a surveyor's tape and compared the result with
the estimates. This is an important part of the forester's work, as a
ranger is often required to estimate distances with no other facilities
than his eye or the length of his stride.
One of the most interesting tests was that of packing. A pack-horse
was brought out in front of the building and each candidate in turn
was told to show what he could do in the way of putting a load on the
animal's back. They put on the blanket and the little pack-saddle, and
then stowed away the bags of feed, the tarpaulin covering, the shovel
and axe, and tied the whole load with the well-known "diamond hitch,"
which can be loosened with a single pull at the rope. It never slips,
and when it is correctly "thrown" on a well-packed animal the load
cannot be "bucked off."
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL RANGER'S CABIN.
_From a Photograph._]
Each man had a different style of packing, but all were good in their
way, and all threw the diamond hitch with a celerity that spoke well
for their experience. Each pack was critically inspected by the expert
while in process of construction and after it had been completely tied.
Then the pack-animal was stripped again and another would-be forester
took up the work. After the packing, which consumed the greater part
of the day, some compass-work was done, to show the familiarity of the
candidates with this valuable instrument. Then, to test the ability
of the men in the saddle, each candidate was sent a few hundred rods
down the trail and told to come in at a gentle lope. This trial,
the cowboys admitted, was one of the hardest of the examinations,
because they are accustomed to riding very rapidly when not going at
a dead walk. Several of the men were unhorsed by the unusual gait and
were disqualified as a result, but most of the candidates passed the
examination and were given their uniform and other equipment.
The outfit of the American forest-ranger is unique. He is usually
provided with a rifle and revolver, but in addition to this has a kit
of fire-fighting tools, as well as other implements. Entering one of
the little cabins which form the homes of the rangers you will see
coils of rope hanging from the walls, and axes and shovels piled in
the corners. An army cot, or perhaps a framework of boughs, forms the
bed, two or three logs the chairs, and the food is usually cooked in
the big mud-plastered fireplace which occupies one end of the cabin. A
single room is generally enough for all purposes, unless the ranger is
married, when the Government may provide him a larger house with two or
three apartments. He clears a little patch of land around his dwelling,
where he can raise a few vegetables, and is allowed to kill game and
catch fish if there are streams near him. In this way he adds to the
stock of rations furnished by the Government.
[Illustration: A FOREST FIRE SWEEPING ALONG AT TWELVE MILES AN HOUR
BEFORE A BREEZE. _From a Photograph._]
The ranger must always be on the lookout for fires, especially in
summer, when, in many portions of America, the temperature becomes so
hot that even rivers are dried up, leaves drop from the trees, and the
underbrush of the woodlands is like a vast tinder-heap, ready to burst
into flame at the contact of a single spark.
At such times the greatest care must be taken about kindling fires
near the woods, for if one spreads over a considerable area of ground,
the intense heat creates a wind which grows stronger and stronger
until it becomes a veritable hurricane, driving the fire before it and
burning scores of miles of forest before it is extinguished. The havoc
wrought by the fires was one of the chief reasons for the organization
of the Forest Service. One of the worst of these conflagrations is
well remembered in the States, although it occurred in what is known
as Miramichi Valley, in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It is
an actual fact that for three months of summer no rain fell in this
valley. Then, one afternoon in the month of October, a fire started in
the Upper Miramichi--no one knows how--but it was supposed a woodsman
did not take the trouble to extinguish the faggots by which he had
cooked his dinner. The first man who discovered the blaze found a
space about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide in flames in
the midst of a patch of bushes and young trees. He alarmed a camp of
wood-choppers about two miles distant, and on returning half an hour
later the party found that the fire had reached a thicket of pines,
the flames running furiously along the top branches. It had spread so
rapidly that a thousand men could not now have arrested its progress,
and the choppers were obliged to run for their lives to escape. A small
pond at the edge of the forest probably saved them, as by crossing it
they reached the open country and a spot where half a mile of ploughed
field kept the flames in check.
As in other forests of this kind, the ground was covered with a mixture
of dead leaves and other _débris_ a foot or more in thickness. This
burned like tinder, and it was discovered afterwards that in many
cases roots five feet deep in the earth had been reduced to ashes by
the terrific heat. When it is stated that a single tree two or three
feet in thickness will burn to a skeleton in fifteen minutes, and ten
thousand were on fire at the same time, a faint idea can be gained of
the magnitude of the "Miramichi fire," as it is still called. Every
condition favoured its spread, for in addition to the draught created
by the hot air meeting the cooler atmosphere about it, a strong breeze
sprang up which blew directly toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and
forced the living wall of flame down the valley.
At the Miramichi River the flames nearly leapt across the narrow
channel, and thousands of burning embers speedily ignited the timber on
the other side. Along swept the great conflagration, turning everything
in its path to ashes. Several settlements in the woods were abandoned
only just in time for the inhabitants to escape, although the roar and
crackle of the flames could be heard three miles distant. Animals and
birds, confused and blinded by the noise, smoke, and heat, perished by
thousands, though only carcasses of such beasts as deer and bears were
found afterwards to show how deadly had been the fire.
[Illustration: A FOREST FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS. _From a Photograph._]
The end was only reached where the forest ended at a stretch of open
country skirted by a salt-marsh. Here there was absolutely nothing
inflammable for the flames to feed on, and the fire burned itself out.
For a month it smouldered in the burned area, occasionally starting up
here and there, and then finally dying down for want of material to
consume. It reached the boundary-line ten hours after being discovered,
and in that time had spread over a territory eighty miles long and
twenty-five miles wide, travelling at the rate of eight miles an hour.
The Hinkly fire, as it is called, was the worst in the history of
America, for it actually consumed a large town in Minnesota, and nearly
five hundred persons who could not escape in time met their death in
the flames. A spark from a locomotive fell into a pile of dried leaves
in the forest at a spot about ten miles from Hinkly. For four months
not a drop of rain had fallen in this part of the State; yet when a
track labourer saw the leaves on fire he passed on, thinking they
would soon burn out. The fire did die down, but for two days the ashes
remained smouldering. Then a little breeze sprang up and spread some
of the embers, still red, to other leaves. The resulting flames shot
up from the ground to the underbrush and then to the trees, and in a
twinkling a forest fire had started. What wind there was blew directly
towards Hinkly, and in that direction the fire travelled, widening as
it went and gradually forming an inverted semicircle, with the village
opposite the centre, so that the ends of the circle were a mile beyond
the town before the fire in the centre had reached it. Three miles away
the people heard the roar of the flames as they shot a hundred feet
above the tree-tops, while every moment a huge trunk, burned through,
fell with a crash. The smoke came through the woods, filling the air
with thick clouds. Everybody seized what valuables he could lay hands
upon, and started to escape. Some, blinded by the smoke, ran directly
into the burning area, and never returned. Most of the people left by
the wagon-roads, only to find they were going into a furnace. More than
a hundred were burned to death or suffocated while trying to get away
by the roads.
As the flames reached the town, and the nearest rows of dwellings were
ignited, the whistle of a locomotive was heard. Through the opening
which marked the cut for the railroad track dashed a passenger train.
The roofs of the cars were smoking from the heat, and every window
was shut to keep the interiors from igniting. The engine-driver stood
at the throttle-valve, while the fireman drenched him with pails of
water from the tank in the tender. The crowds of people, running
hither and thither in the streets, rushed for the train, and everyone
who could get a foothold on the platforms was allowed to do so. Then
the engine-driver reversed the lever and backed his train into the
advancing fire. Luckily no _débris_ had fallen across the track. For
six miles that gallant man drove his engine through the flames and
blistering heat. Several times his clothing caught fire, but the
water-bucket extinguished it. In places the flames literally swept
under and up the sides of the coaches, while the metal-work on the
outside of the engine was so hot that it could not be touched. At last
the train reached a small clearing near a swamp, and the order was
given to all to leave the cars and save themselves. Everyone left but
two Chinamen, who were burned to ashes. The rails were twisted by the
heat and in some places partly melted. This fire swept over an area
about twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide.
[Illustration: FIGHTING THE FLANKS OF A FIRE WITH TREE-BRANCHES.
_From a Photograph._]
Since the Forest Service was established many heroic incidents have
occurred where rangers have risked their lives in preventing the spread
of a conflagration, knowing that if it got beyond control it might
cause untold damage. In fighting fires they use curious weapons. Water
is seldom at hand, but in any case it is not of much value in stopping
a forest fire, for it is useless to merely attempt to extinguish the
flames; all efforts are concentrated upon preventing the fire from
spreading, and so it is fought on the edge of the fire-line. The scene
of a recent fire in West Kansas was near a town, and the rangers were
assisted in their work by the anxious inhabitants. The fire was so
close, and spread so fast, that it began burning up the dry prairie
land on which the town was situated. Men, women, and all the children
old enough to be of service hurried to the locality, while a dozen
ploughs were loaded on wagons and hauled to a point on the prairie
several miles from the line of burning vegetation. Then the ploughs
were unshipped and the horses fastened to the implements, four to each.
As fast as it could be driven each team dragged its plough through the
ground, turning up the fresh soil and burying the dry stubble which
afforded food for the flames. The furrows were dug about five feet
apart, in ten parallel rows, each as long as it was calculated the
fire-line would be, should it reach the spot. While the ploughmen were
thus creating a sort of breastwork to resist the flames, the others
were placed at intervals in front digging earth with hoes and shovels,
forming piles to be used as ammunition to be thrown on the flames, or
spread over the fields as a further obstacle to the advance of the
conflagration. The children, supplied with branches, were stationed on
the leeward side of the burning area to beat down any blaze which might
spring up, thus preventing the fire-line from widening.
[Illustration: AN "OLD BURN," SHOWING THE TERRIBLE HAVOC WROUGHT BY THE
FIRE DEMON.
_From a Photograph._]
Although there were fully five hundred persons in this improvised fire
brigade, they were unable to check the progress of the blaze until
it had reached the ploughed area. The flames leaped over the first
furrow, but the stubble and dried grass between it and the second one
had been covered with earth, and only a part ignited. Realizing the
desperate nature of the situation, the people devoted all their efforts
to extinguishing the flames at this spot. As many as could procure them
obtained branches and beat savagely at the blaze, while others used
their hoes and shovels, some literally running into the fire in their
efforts to stamp it out.
Finally the breach was closed, and, encouraged by their progress, the
fighters redoubled their efforts. By midnight the long row of flames
had been turned into a mass of smoking embers. But the fire, though
conquered, was not wholly dead. Squads of men were left to prevent
another outbreak, and the others scattered to their homes to snatch a
few hours' rest until called to relieve those on watch, for prairie
fires are treacherous and may smoulder for several days, only to break
out with renewed energy. They must be entirely extinguished, or watched
closely until they die out.
Recently another fire occurred, its history conclusively demonstrating
the great value of the Forest Service. In Long Pine National Forest
a sawmill has been permitted to be operated by the Government, under
the control of the foresters. The supervisor of Long Pine Forest is
one Charles Ballenger, who has his head-quarters at Camp Crook, South
Dakota, some distance away. Camp Crook is connected with the mill town
by a telephone line, and one day Ballenger received a message that a
fire had started in the vicinity of the mill. He hurried to the place
on horseback as soon as possible, reaching there the same day the fire
started; but it spread so rapidly that a large area was ablaze by the
time he got to the spot, although the mill-hands and people in the town
had fought it as best they could. They began fighting the fire when it
was only a spot about twenty feet square, but the earth was covered
with so much dry wood and other inflammable material that the flames
were carried through the forest at a great speed, driven by the high
wind.
[Illustration: A FOREST IN EMBRYO--MILLIONS OF YOUNG TREES ARE RAISED
ANNUALLY FROM SEED TO BE PLANTED OUT FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE
GENERATIONS.
_From a Photograph._]
Ballenger realized that strenuous efforts must be made if the fire was
to be checked, and that it would be useless to try to work against
it in the direction which it was spreading. He accordingly organized
the fire-fighters into squads, and directed them how to use earth and
tree branches in working against the flames. Then an effort was made
to change the course of the fire, all hands working along one side of
the burning area. Thus its course was gradually changed towards what
are called the Bad Lands, which are destitute of trees, and where
the fire would not have enough material to keep it alive. This plan
proved successful, although it was necessary to keep up the fight for
forty-eight hours before the danger-point was passed. During this time,
however, the flames had actually covered nearly ten thousand acres,
eating into the forest at the rate of over two hundred acres an hour.
No one thought of changing the course of the fire until Ballenger's
arrival. His skill and experience, however, showed him that it was
the only method which could be taken, on account of the extent of the
forest and its extreme dryness.
The smoke of the fire could be distinctly seen from the town of Camp
Crook, and after Ballenger left for the scene several of the men went
into the second storey of a building to look at it. While there,
someone dropped a match or cigar-end, with the result that the building
was soon in flames. As all the forest rangers and most of the citizens
had gone to the forest to put out the fire there, the few who remained
could do nothing to extinguish the blaze, and most of the town was
destroyed, including the head-quarters of the Forest Service, so that
when poor Ballenger and his weary comrades returned they found they had
lost all their possessions except the clothes they stood in!
[Illustration: MAKING A HOLE TO PLANT A YOUNG TREE IN.
_From a Photograph._]
At present the rangers have to care for no fewer than a hundred and
sixty-six of these national forests, so called because they are
controlled by the American Government. They cover a territory which
is in all nearly five times the size of England. In many places past
fires as well as storms and the work of the lumbermen have destroyed so
many trees, that miles and miles of the woodland are ruined. From these
devastated tracks spring only bushes and shrubs, with an occasional
young tree. The ground is covered with charred trunks, while the
skeletons of what were once forest monarchs rise skyward.
To reafforest these denuded tracts is a part of the duty of the
rangers, and the supervisors and their men have the work of cultivating
young trees and setting them out in such places. To obtain the
necessary tree-shoots for planting they grow them from seed. For
instance, young pines are secured by taking the seed from pine cones,
which are opened by exposing them to the rays of the sun. Then the seed
is sown in the forest nurseries. There are eight of these, situated
on reserves in various parts of the West. They contain enough land to
grow five million trees at one time, and as the nurseries have been in
existence for several years, each year a million or more of these trees
are large enough to be taken to the denuded lands and planted. Already
a large area of land made worthless by the ravages of man and the
elements has been reafforested in this way, and will again be ready to
furnish a timber supply at the end of the next twenty years or so.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL STRETCH OF FOREST CLEARED OF PARASITICAL
UNDERGROWTH AND GUARDED BY THE GOVERNMENT RANGERS.
_From a Photograph._]
It does not seem possible that this mere handful of men could perform
all the duties of the American Forest Service and yet cover such an
immense region as they do, but the records of the Government show that
since these police of the wilderness began going their lonely rounds
the number of fires has greatly diminished, while the various national
parks are in a far better condition than ever before. One of the best
things about the department is that it is educating the settler in
the Far West to a better sense of the value of the forests, and the
wasteful and extravagant methods formerly pursued by the farmer and
lumberman are gradually being abandoned.
[Illustration]
The Legend of the Wailing Woman.
+By D. W. O. Fagan, of Mangapai, Whangarei, Auckland, New Zealand.+
The author writes: "In a cave under the cliffs of Manaia is a
'blow-hole' only actuated once in every month, at the time of
the highest spring tides, when it sends forth a wailing shriek.
Below I have set down the native legend concerning it, as told
to me by my old Maori friend Puketawa. Allowing for idiomatic
differences, the narrative is in his own words."
We beached our boat on the shore of the islet and waited the coming
of the flood-tide to help us against the river current in the harbour
narrows. Night had already fallen, but the sands were still warm from
the heat of the sun, and though the sky was clear and full of stars,
the shadows were very dark under the Pohotokawas, where we lay. Our
fire had sunk to a few dull embers, and Puketawa's pipe glowed like a
red eye from the darkness. Across the channel opposite, a quarter of
a mile away, rose the dark mass of Manaia, its crags among the stars.
Presently, the moon, rising from the sea behind us, lit the dark rocks
with a flood of silver light.
On three sides of the headland cliffs rose sheer from the water to a
height of two hundred feet. On the flat, table-like top a cone-shaped
mass of limestone rocks, piled one above the other, rose to a further
height of a hundred feet or so. The cliff of the seaward face was
pierced at its base by a dark cave, into which the swell broke with
gurgling echoes. On the fourth side the ground fell away in a grassy
slope from the base of the rock-cone to the white sands of the bay.
At the top of the slope were the mound and ditch of an old "pah"
(fort). Whence I wonder did those old-time Maoris obtain their
knowledge of military fortification? Vallum and fosse, scarp and
counter-scarp, the place looked like a Roman "castrum." It needed no
great stretch of fancy to imagine the glint of moonbeams on brazen
armour, the clang of shields and steady tramp of the legionaries on the
ramparts.
I glanced at Puketawa, and saw by the sheen of his eyes through the
shadows and the fierce short puffs at his pipe that his mind was back
in the old legendary days, when these same cliffs rang to the clash
of weapons, the fierce shouts of contending warriors, and the dying
screams of the vanquished.
As the tide rose and a heavier swell rolled into the cave, there came
from its dark mouth a long, sobbing cry--half wail, half shriek--the
anguished cry of a woman in distress.
So sudden and startling was the sound in that lonely place, that I
half sprang to my feet. Though reason told me that what I had taken
for a cry of distress was but the jugglery of air and water in the
rock-crevices, I remained half erect, ready, at a repetition, to launch
the boat to aid. It came again, more sorrow-laden, more piercing than
before.
Puketawa must have divined my thoughts, for he laid his hand upon my
arm.
"It is Heruini who cries for her lover," he said.
"Who is she?"
"Listen. This is her story as it has come down through the years from
mouth to mouth of the 'Tohunga,'[2] even unto this day." And then he
told me the following narrative:--
[2] Priests, who preserve the oral traditions of the tribes.
* * * * *
Ere the first of the Pakeha (white men) set foot in Aoa-te-Aroha
(New Zealand), and before the tribes of the north were welded into
one nation, Kokako was chief of Ngatitoa. Here, at Manaia, was the
stronghold of the tribe. Their lands lay broad and fertile from Waikara
in the west, through Parna, even to Tukaka in the north. Flanked on
three sides by the sea and the precipice, the place was a strong one.
By the slope alone could the enemy approach, and that was guarded by
the "pah," whereof, as you see, the wall and ditch remain to this day.
Look also how the back of the "pah" is set against the rock face.
Through the rock behind runs a steep path leading to the shelf below
the crags. Narrow, walled by high rocks on either side, this path
was also guarded by a stockade. Beneath the topmost crags is a cave.
From the cave's mouth to the cliff edge the space is narrow--scarce
a spear's length in width. Up this path, should the "pah" fall, the
Ngatitoa could retreat, when all was lost, to the cave, where, in the
floor, there was a pool of water.
Before that time of which I speak the Ngatitoa was a tribe numerous and
warlike. Now, half the fighting men had fallen in long wars, and the
tribe was much weakened. Yet was Kokako still a great chief, and five
hundred warriors followed him to battle.
Peace had endured for a year, but still the warriors kept ward on the
ramparts. The times were evil; tribe fought with tribe, chief with
chief, and none knew when the foe might come against them.
Southward across the bay lay the "hapu" (settlement) of Ngatahi, of
which tribe Parema was chief. Now Parema was a man of guile, crafty
and faithless. When words were fairest on his lips, then treachery was
blackest in his heart. Bitter had been the feud between the tribes, but
for a year there was peace.
Kokako was old, and weary with much fighting. His strong sons had
fallen in battle, and of his children there remained to him but one
daughter, and she was very near to his heart.
Heruini, a maiden of seventeen, beautiful as the dawning, loved her
cousin Taurau, and they decided to wed. Already preparations for the
marriage were being made.
Kokako was glad that the youth had found favour in Heruini's sight, for
Taurau was his dead brother's son, and he thought: "It is well. Taurau
will be chief at my death, and after him the son of Heruini. Thus shall
my seed not perish from the land."
Now it befell that Parema and certain of his followers, to the number
of two hundred, came to visit Ngatitoa. That they were uninvited
did not matter--the ovens were heated and a feast was made for the
visitors. Afterwards, as the chiefs talked in the "Whare-runanga"
(house of assembly), Parema rose, saying: "Greeting, Kokako. It is
peace between Ngatahi and Ngatitoa. Miami, my wife, groweth old. Give
me, therefore, thy daughter Heruini. I would make her my second wife.
Thus shall peace be strengthened between the tribes."
The insult was great. That Kokako's daughter, their "wahine-nui"
(chieftainess), should be sought as a mere secondary wife fired the
blood of the younger warriors. Taurau and many other Ngatitoa sprang
erect, their weapons in their hands. Yet Parema was safe, for he was
their guest, and the laws of Maori hospitality forbade violence. Kokako
stilled the tumult and answered scornfully:--
"Parema mistakes. He has feasted too well, and talks with a proud
stomach. He is not now in the 'hapu' of the Hakerau tribes, who sell
their women like pigs. (Parema's wife was of the Hakerau.) To-morrow
Heruini weds Taurau, my brother's son. Let Parema and his followers
attend the 'hiu' (wedding-feast)."
The sleeping "whares" of the single women occupied one side of the
"marae" (open space in the centre of a "pah"). Here Heruini, with
two of her favourite women, slept in a separate "whare." The Ngatahi
visitors camped without the walls.
In the middle of the night, towards the dawning, when sleep is heaviest
on the senses, Taurau, where he slept in the men's "whare," sprang from
his couch. In his ears rang a woman's scream, shrill and piercing. He
heard his name called in affrighted accents. Love's ears are quick to
distinguish. It was the voice of Heruini.
With a shout to his comrades to follow, he raced across the "marae" to
see, in the moonlight, Heruini struggling in the arms of Parema and
some of his followers! All unarmed as he was, he sprang on Parema and
bore him to the ground. In the confusion the trembling girl escaped.
Taurau was dragged from Parema's throat. Yet, ere they could slay him,
the Ngatahi were borne back by the rush of the enraged Ngatitoa. A
comrade thrust his forgotten weapons in Taurau's hand, and he leapt
into the fray.
Then there rose on the still night air a confused clamour of shrieks,
yells, the clash of weapons, and screams for mercy. Kokako raged in the
midst. Taurau's "mere" (battle-club) drank its fill of blood. "Slay,
slay! Let not one escape," was the cry. The gates of the stockade were
closed, preventing egress, and the work of death went on, whilst the
sobbing women clung together, shuddering, in their quarters. A party of
the Ngatitoa had meanwhile sallied forth to fall upon the sleeping camp
beyond the walls. It was done. Through a broken gateway some twenty
of the Ngatahi broke from that riot of blood and death to struggle,
fighting, to the shore. Launching one of the canoes, battered, broken,
and wounded, with scarce ten men at the paddles, they made their
limping way across the bay. Of the Ngatitoa, some fifty had been slain.
* * * * *
It was dawn. The first rays of the sun lit the dark waters. High on the
rock-shelf sat Taurau and Heruini. Behind them lay the mouth of the
dark cavern, before them the precipice. He had been on watch since the
midnight hour, and his love came to him with the morning.
Night and day had the sentinels looked across the bay from the lofty
cliff. Six months had passed since the deed was done, yet had Ngatahi
made no sign. Nevertheless, Ngatitoa knew that they would surely come
to seek "utu" (vengeance) for the slaying. So, in the dawning, Heruini
listened to the "korero-tara" (love-talk) of her lover.
Suddenly, with a cry of "Ai, Ngatahi, Ngatahi!" she pointed across the
sea. Far away under the distant headland appeared a dark blot upon the
face of the waters. As they gazed, the blot became a line of little
dots, that grew as they came.
Taurau sprang up. Shouting, "E tana, e tana!" (the foe, the foe), he
raced down the narrow path.
At once the sleeping "pah" stirred to preparation. The outlying folk
were gathered within the walls, and Ngatitoa sat grimly down to await
the enemy.
[Illustration: "THE CANOES ADVANCED IN LINE--A THOUSAND PADDLES,
STRIKING AS ONE, BEATING THE WATER TO FOAM."]
In twenty great canoes, each carrying a hundred men, they came. Parema
had, with promises of slaves and plunder, enlisted the tribes of the
Hakerau to his cause.
Who shall tell the fury of that oncoming? The canoes advanced in
line--a thousand paddles, striking as one, beating the water to foam.
The rowers, straining every muscle, panted on their stroke. The
grinning figure-heads hissed through the foam of their coming, and
in the centre of each canoe, aloft on a platform, stood a chief who
chanted his "waiata" (war song), swaying his body as he beat time with
his spear above his head.
The canoes raced for the beach. The speed of their onset carried them
high upon the sand, and the warriors leapt to shore. Parema moved at
once to the assault. The Ngatahi warriors and the wild men of the
Hakerau swarmed into the ditch. On them rained a hail of spears and
stones from the defenders of the "pah." They fell by scores, and were
trampled, shrieking, underfoot by their onrushing comrades. Like the
sea beneath the breath of the tempest, to and fro in the ditch surged
the heaving, struggling mass of men under that pitiless shower.
With ladders and logs of wood, some mounted the wall to hurl themselves
against the gate, attacking the stockade with axes in a vain endeavour
to tear it down. The gate opened, and, Taurau at their head, out
poured two hundred chosen Ngatitoa in a splendid sally. Shouting their
war-cry, "Hai-o! Hai-o!" they swept the assailants from the wall and
across the ditch. Naught remained in the ditch but the dying and the
dead.
Then Parema changed his tactics. With trunks of trees, bags of earth,
and the bodies of the dead the ditch was filled. Over these, piled
pell-mell on their shrieking, wounded comrades, the Ngatahi rushed
again to the assault. Then, whilst some engaged the defenders, others
carried brushwood and dry fern, piling it in a great mound against the
stockade. Fire was put to it, and soon the whole face of the "pah" was
ablaze.
[Illustration: THE HEADLAND, SHOWING ENTRANCE TO THE SEA CAVE--THE
CAVE'S MOUTH IS BEHIND THE INTERVENING ROCK MARKED WITH A BLACK CROSS.
THE WHITE CROSS HALF-WAY UP THE CLIFF SHOWS THE ENTRANCE TO THE UPPER
CAVE AND THE LEDGE FROM WHICH TAURAU FELL. _From a Photograph_.]
Then, when the fire had done its work, came the final assault. The
weakened stockade fell before the rush, and the weary defenders found
the enemy amongst them, hacking and hewing. Out-numbered, out-matched,
out-generalled, Ngatitoa was broken and driven back.
Kokako was slain, but Taurau still fought. Scarcely forty men struggled
up the steep path and gained the shelter of the second stockade. After
them swarmed the enemy to repeat their stratagem. But the women were
watching on the cliffs. Down on their heads thundered an avalanche of
rocks. A moment, and the narrow path before the stockade seethed with
shouting, exultant men; another, and it was bare of living thing.
Parema, seeing the slaughter, drew off his men, saying:--
"Now hunger fights for us."
For the Ngatitoa there was no food. Their food was all in the "pah"
from which they had been driven. Weary with fighting, spent with
hunger, the warriors yet manned the stockade. With them stood also
the women. There was no thought of surrender. Well they knew what to
expect--torture and death for the men, insult and slavery for the women.
* * * * *
Three days had passed--for the Ngatitoa, days of misery and want; for
the enemy, of feasting and merriment. Many of the warriors died, hunger
gnawing at their hearts. Scarcely a dozen remained capable of bearing
arms. The women and children had taken refuge in the cave. With them
was Heruini. One by one they died in the dark, as famine slew them. Now
three yet lived; now two; next, Heruini was alone among the dead.
The air amid the corpses was dank and fetid. Affrighted at the presence
of the dead, the girl crept to the mouth of the cavern. Weak and
fainting, she leant against the wall of rock.
That night came the final assault. Ere it was delivered Taurau, seeing
that all was lost, bade his men make good the defence to the utmost,
and climbed the path toward the cavern. If, haply, Heruini were alive,
he would take her by a secret though perilous path that he knew, and,
entering the bush, make a bid for safety by flight.
Cautiously, warily, he made his way upward, keeping ever in the shadow.
As his foot touched the edge of the shelf, Heruini, dazed with hunger,
half blind with misery, thinking him one of the hated foemen come to
take her, flung out her arms and thrust with all her might.
[Illustration: "TOTTERING AN INSTANT, CLUTCHING AT EMPTY AIR, EVEN AS
HE FELL TAURAU CALLED HER NAME."]
The blow, though feeble, was yet enough on that dizzy verge. Tottering
an instant, clutching at empty air, even as he fell Taurau called her
name. The moon broke through the flying scud. She saw his face for an
instant, and then it was gone. The Ngatahi, rushing up to seize her,
heard a cry, "Aie-e-e, Taurau!" They beheld her stand a moment on the
brink, and, with a second cry, leap out into the dark. The bones of the
women and children remain yet in the cavern. Therefore the place is
"tapu."[3]
[3] "Tapu"--sacred, accursed.
The fish swim, uncaught, under the cliff; No fisherman's line plumbs
the deep water that covers the bones of the lovers. Once in every moon
the spirit of Heruini returns to wail for the lover whom she slew. For
one hour she sits in the weed-grown cavern beneath the cliff, and sends
her cry across the waters. Men, hearing the voice, called the place
'Tangiwahine (the place of a woman's wailing). Even so it is named to
this day.
Mountaineering by Telescope.
+By Harold J. Shepstone.+
An interesting account of the giant telescopes which have been
erected on the Swiss mountains. They are very popular among
visitors, who are enabled to watch climbers ascending difficult
peaks, and in this way many accidents have been detected, the
prompt dispatch of rescue-parties saving scores of lives. The
instruments are so powerful that on clear days it is possible
to see a distance of a hundred miles, and persons forty miles
away appear almost within hailing distance!
A new attraction has been added to the long list which Switzerland
offers in the form of the powerful observing telescopes which have
been erected all over the country. You find them everywhere--in the
grounds of the leading hotels, at the various railway stations, and at
almost every point from which a panoramic view of the mountains can be
obtained. There is one on the Jungfrau, for instance, which stands at
an altitude of just over ten thousand feet above sea-level, and there
are many others at elevations varying from five to seven thousand feet.
They are rendered conspicuous by their construction and size, and are
of an efficiency which, aided by the atmospherical conditions in the
mountains, almost dumbfounds the tourist from more murky regions, for
it is wellnigh incredible what one can see through these giant glasses.
[Illustration: THE TELESCOPE AT THE RIFFELALP.
_From a Photograph._]
It is only during the last few seasons that these telescopes have been
erected to any extent, but the innovation has deservedly "caught on."
Few of us have time or the physical strength to ascend the highest
peaks in the Alps, but we can now do our mountaineering by means of the
great telescopes, a peep through which brings the solitary and almost
inaccessible regions of ice and snow to our very feet. The instruments
produce a wonderful stereoscopic effect, everything standing out boldly
and clearly, and appearing to be only a few yards away. There, right
in front of us, looms forth in solitary grandeur some bleak and lofty
summit which only the feet of the most experienced Alpinists have ever
trod. Below are the gullies, so treacherous to the climber, and to the
right and left great ridges which can only be safely crossed by the
exercise of the greatest skill. Here and there are mighty crevasses and
great glaciers. Without the slightest exertion on our part the whole
beauty and grandeur of the mountain is placed before our eyes.
The telescopes fulfil other useful purposes besides gratifying the
sightseer. If we have friends making some dangerous or difficult
ascent, we can turn the glass upon them and watch their progress step
by step. Every famous ascent nowadays is invariably watched through
telescopes in this way. If the climbers are forty, or even sixty,
miles away they can be detected and their movements followed almost as
easily as though they were within hailing distance. This watching of
climbers is one of the favourite pastimes of visitors. You can see them
cutting steps in the ice when negotiating some difficult ridge, watch
them paying out rope as they skirt along the edge of some dangerous
crevasse, and, in a word, share the pleasure and excitement of their
trip.
[Illustration: "SHE FOUND HERSELF SHOOTING DOWN TOWARDS THE EDGE."]
The telescopes, too, have often been the means of saving life. When
Alpinists are in serious difficulty, the guides at once make signals,
and a relief party is promptly sent to their aid. The signal is the
repetition of a sound, the wave of a flag, or the flash of a lantern
at regular intervals, at the rate of six signals a minute, followed
by a pause of a minute, with a continuation every alternate minute.
Observers using the telescopes have often detected these signals
before anyone else and given the alarm, when aid has at once been
dispatched to those in distress. Sometimes, too, telescope-watchers
have discovered climbers in difficulty, and have sent someone to their
help. Were it not for the instruments, in fact, many men and women
who have ventured far without guides would have perished. Only the
other week a lady tourist, who had gone up the mountain alone, had a
narrow escape from death, and probably owes her life to the fact that a
guide happened to be idly watching her through one of the telescopes.
In endeavouring to take a short cut down to the hotel she missed her
footing, and in an instant found herself shooting down towards the edge
of a sheer drop of a hundred and fifty feet. By the merest chance she
was thrown into the branches of a pine tree some twenty feet over the
edge, and there she hung, unable to move. The horrified observer at
once left the telescope and informed the hotel proprietor, and in just
under the hour four guides with ropes had reached the spot and rescued
her. She was comparatively uninjured, but almost dead with fright.
One might be inclined to think that with the numerous mountain railways
that have penetrated into the very heart of the Alps during the last
few years, the big observation telescope was really a superfluous
luxury. As a matter of fact, however, the railways have rendered the
telescope more necessary than ever. Indeed, the railway authorities
do not consider their equipment complete unless at the very summit of
their line they erect one of these giant instruments. These wonderful
railways--monuments of engineering skill though they be--only land
one several thousand feet below the actual summit. The view here, of
course, is grand, but the snow-covered peak, the almost untrodden
summit--the very thing the ordinary individual most wishes to see--is
almost undiscernible to the naked eye. But with the telescope it is
different. The summit comes right into the field of vision in an
instant, grand and majestic, standing out boldly and clearly, appearing
to be only a few yards away. Then the glass can be turned upon the
whole surface of the mountain, and in this way one learns more about
the formation of the rocks and glaciers and steep ridges than he would
do by weeks of arduous climbing among them.
A word or two about the telescopes themselves will be appropriate here,
for they are no ordinary instruments. The one at Nürren is valued at a
hundred and twenty pounds. It is a double instrument, and two persons
can look through it at the same time. The other instruments depicted
in the various photographs are valued at from sixty-five to ninety
pounds apiece. They were made by the famous optical firm of Carl Zeiss,
of Jena, and represent the last word in telescope construction. Not
all the telescopes through which visitors may peep for a small fee on
the mountains of Switzerland were supplied by this firm, though there
are certainly a large number of them. They are to be found on the
Riffelalp, above Zermatt; on the Schynige Platte, near Interlaken; on
the Rigi, the Weissenstein, near Solothurn; the Wengern-Alp, on the
Jungfrau Railway; at Berne, Grindelwald, and other places.
[Illustration: THE FIVE-INCH TELESCOPE AT NÜRREN.
_From a Photograph._]
Without going into technicalities, it may be added that the instruments
are fitted with the new Jena glass, which is perfectly transparent,
and, therefore, gives a clear image. In cutting and polishing the
glasses every care was taken to eliminate chromatic aberrations, this
being of great importance for landscape observations, the image being
thus freed from the distracting coloured borders with which every user
of ordinary glasses is familiar. The instruments may be roughly divided
into two classes: monocular and binocular (_i.e._, those through which
the observation is made with one eye only, and those through which
it is made with two). The former are mostly fitted with a revolving
appliance, the turning of which allows of a rapid change of magnifying
power. The object glasses in these instruments vary from four inches
to five inches in diameter. The four-inch instrument magnifies objects
thirty-five, fifty-three, and seventy-three times, according to the
turning of the wheel, and the five-inch glass instrument thirty-five,
fifty-eight, and a hundred and sixteen times.
The binocular instruments are contrivances astonishing in their effect.
It is well known that our power of perspective rapidly decreases as
the distance from the object increases. The reason of this is that
the facial angle at which objects appear decreases with the distance,
and finally becomes so slight that we lose all power of estimating
it. We can, however, enlarge this angle by approaching the object, or
by bringing it apparently near to us. This is accomplished in these
five-foot telescopes by the employment of an artificial medium, so that
separate objects in a landscape view twenty miles distant--houses,
trees, people, etc.--appear as if they were only eighteen yards away.
The effect is wonderful and charming. Mountain peaks and wooded
valleys, which when seen through an ordinary telescope are all
apparently on the same plane, stand out sharp, clear, and in glowing
natural colours.
There is a telescope on the Uetliberg, close to Zürich, through which
on a clear day it is possible to detect the stone signal on one of the
peaks of the Diablerets, near Lausanne, almost at the other end of
Switzerland, being a distance of not less than ninety-six miles. This
signal is only about four feet high. Climbers on the Titlis, forty
miles distant, can easily be seen through this telescope, as well as
the hotel on the Faulhorn, sixty miles distant, and, in very fine
weather, the small trigonometrical signal itself. From the instrument
on the Rigi the crevasses in all parts of the Alpine chain, and
also one of the church clocks in Schaffhausen, may be plainly seen.
From the observation station on the Riffelalp the movements of the
Matterhorn climbers can be followed as clearly as if they were within
hailing distance. Through the telescope on the Schynige Platte in the
Bernese Oberland the timid and unapproachable chamois may be observed
on precipices miles distant, and persons on the four-miles-distant
Faulhorn are easily distinguishable.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE ALMOST BURIED IN SNOW AND DOING THEIR UTMOST
TO STRUGGLE THROUGH IT."]
When it is remembered that there were seventy five fatalities in
the Alps last year, and three hundred and fifty more or less grave
accidents to climbers, it will be seen that observation of the
movements of persons upon the mountains through the telescopes fulfils
a useful purpose. There is no doubt that Mr. Turner, a well-known
English Alpinist, owes his life to-day to the fact that he was watched
in this way during his attempt to cross the Col Bonder-Krinden (seven
thousand two hundred feet high) last season. He was accompanied by a
guide named Amschwand. An observer at a telescope watched their ascent
and followed them step by step, until a blinding snowstorm arose. They
were then lost to view for several minutes, when suddenly they were
detected apparently almost buried in snow and doing their utmost to
struggle through it. The observer gave the alarm and, it being then
late in the afternoon, it was decided to send a search-party out on
the following morning at sunrise. Meanwhile the couple on the mountain
realized that their only hope of life was to reach a hut on the pass,
and they heroically struggled on through six feet of snow. They arrived
at the hut exhausted and without food, for they had brought none,
as the Col, under ordinary conditions, is easy to climb. The snow
penetrated into the hut and the unfortunate pair were literally buried
beneath it. Next morning ten guides left Adelboden to search for them,
solely because their distress had been noticed through the telescope.
The rescuers, however, were driven back by avalanches, several of
them being injured. A second search-party was finally got together,
and they succeeded, after great hardships and at no little risk, in
digging their way to the hut, where they found Mr. Turner and his guide
starving, frost-bitten, and in the last stage of exhaustion. They had
been imprisoned in the hut for forty-eight hours. After administering
restoratives the rescuers carried the couple to Adelboden.
Last season thirteen persons lost their lives in the Alps while
attempting to gather edelweiss and other mountain flowers. There is
no doubt the number would have been greater were it not for the part
played by the telescopes. Two young English ladies staying at Zermatt
decided to collect some edelweiss and take it back to London with them.
They learned that the flowers could be obtained within four hours'
journey up the mountain, and one bright morning started off in the
highest spirits. Everything went well until late in the afternoon, when
they were returning with their prize, much pleased with themselves as
the result of their adventure. If they had followed the same path as
that which they had taken, all would no doubt have been well; but,
believing they could make the journey shorter, they descended by a
different route and came to grief. Suddenly they found their way
blocked, and decided to negotiate a short but dangerous ridge. In doing
this one of them fell a distance of some twenty feet, fortunately into
fairly soft snow, but the weight of the lady's body broke her ankle,
and there she lay, unable to move. With the greatest difficulty her
companion got down to her and remained by her side. Then a snowstorm
came on, descended, and blotted them from view. This accident was
witnessed through a telescope by a boy, who had sense enough to give
the alarm, and two guides were at once dispatched to escort the ladies
down the mountain. They soon found them, but it was clear that if
the rescuers had not arrived when they did the two girls might have
fared very badly. They had completely lost their nerve, and were found
huddled together in the snow, crying hysterically.
[Illustration: THE GIANT TELESCOPE AT SCHYNIGE PLATTE, NEAR INTERLAKEN.
_From a Photograph._]
Few mountains look more absolutely inaccessible than the mighty
Matterhorn, standing up at the head of the Zermatt Valley like a
prodigious obelisk, some fifteen thousand feet in height. The first
impression one gets on viewing the mountain is that one could no more
climb it than he could scale Cleopatra's Needle. Naturally, therefore,
it is the peak that attracts the attention of the more daring climbers,
and watchers using the telescopes that are trained upon this mountain
are frequently afforded wonderful glimpses of what it means to ascend
its steep sides and cut one's way step by step up its ice-covered
slopes. Some nasty accidents, too, have been witnessed through the
glasses which command this famous mountain--hapless climbers have been
seen to miss their footing and hurtle downwards for hundreds of feet
until lost to view in some abyss. It is then that search-parties are
at once organized, and for hours their movements in turn are eagerly
watched through the telescopes. Then comes the pitiable sight of the
return of the rescuers, dragging the dead bodies over the ice behind
them. Fortunately, such incidents as these are rare, and to the
ordinary visitor the mountain telescopes of Switzerland are appreciated
for the wonderful scenery they reveal and the opportunities they afford
of doing one's mountaineering by deputy.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
Our Adventures at "Simplicity Hall."
+By Mrs. Fred Maturin.+]
An amusing narrative, setting forth the trials and tribulations
of a party of Rand residents who essayed to found a "Simple
Life" colony out on the South African veldt. From the first
everything seemed to go wrong, and life became in consequence
rather more complicated than usual. "I have suppressed the
actual names of the persons concerned," writes the authoress,
"but the facts are quite correct."
III.
February 18th.--A week has passed away fairly peacefully, and now the
last fresh trouble is that we have got to fumigate this house with a
very dangerous mixture of vitriol and prussic acid to kill various
non-paying guests, such as mice, mosquitoes, etc.--the etceteras being
the worst of them all.
Six-and-eightpence had to sleep in the cottage two nights because
he had such a very bad cold, and in the morning, when we asked him
was it nice sleeping in a room again, he replied, with his usual
courtesy, "I should have slept excellently but for the moss--quitoes."
Six-and-eightpence is very prim and precise. He never says "mosquitoes"
like other people, but always "moss--quitoes," the "quitoes" coming
some time after the "moss." Every morning after that he appeared at
breakfast with some polite remark about the "moss--quitoes."
"Would a net be any use?" I asked; "for you can have mine." But
Six-and-eightpence says that nets would be _no_ use for the special
kind of wingless "moss--quito" that apparently infests this cottage at
night.
The mere idea was unbearable, and that evening one of the men brought
down the _Agricultural Journal_.
"Here's a chapter," said he, "on the only effective way to rid a house
of Six-and-eightpence's moss--quitoes. It's very dangerous, and the
chapter concludes with directions and pictures as to how to revive
anyone who is caught by the fumes before they can bolt. It's much the
same as for drowned people. You work their arms and legs up and down,
don't you know, and pull out their tongues, and so on."
"Oh, dear," put in Veronica, "I don't feel up to any more dangers. The
thunderstorms have stopped for a bit, and I'm longing for some peace.
It's not two days since Jaikeran used Jay's Purifier for the pudding
instead of milk, finding some mixed ready in a jug, and then put nails
and screws into the pudding in mistake for cloves. And what I feel is,
do let's have a spell of rest!"
"The thunderstorms may come on any day again," said Mr. H----, "and I
don't like moss--quitoes any more than Six-and-eightpence does, and we
might have to turn into the house to sleep."
"Decidedly," said our solicitor, trying to scratch his shoulder-blades
as gracefully as might be. "I am for exterminating the moss--quitoes."
So it's to be done. We have spent evenings reading up the directions,
and it is plain we run the risk of losing our lives, for when the
chemist at the nearest town received our order for enough vitriol and
prussic acid to finish off a colony, he protested and refused to supply
it, making sure some huge plot was on to wipe out the population.
Someone is always writing to the papers to say that some section of
the community must be got rid of for the good of the country, and the
chemist said he would have nothing to do with it.
"But," explained our solicitor, "it's for--ahem--moss--quitoes."
"Oh," said the chemist, greatly relieved, "all right, then; but you
must sign for it, please, sir. And I suppose you know the risks? One
drop of this vitriol splashing into your face will burn to the bone. As
for the prussic acid, a grain wafted by the wind to your open mouth,
and you're a dead man."
"Thank you," said Six-and-eightpence, trying to look as if the prospect
rather pleased him than otherwise; "good morning!"
Six-and-eightpence sent me a message by the butcher--would I come in to
help him carry back the ingredients? The other men had declined, saying
they were his moss--quitoes, not theirs, and he was afraid, if he tried
to carry eight gallon-bottles of vitriol and nine jars of cyanide
(which is prussic acid) down the hill to our cottage, they might fall,
and the vitriol burn out his eyes. So I went in to help.
The prussic acid was all sealed up in a most important manner with huge
Government seals, and the chemist said good-bye to us as if he would be
surprised to see us again.
You get into the train to come here at a level crossing where there is
no station, and when you get out at another crossing you yell, as I
said before, to the engine-driver, and if he can manage it he stops,
though sometimes he can't stop till he has got some way off. This
happened with the vitriol and things. They were strewed along the level
crossing, and when the train flew past too far they had to be hastily
picked up, and as the vitriol was in ordinary whisky-bottles (the corks
put in loose, so that it shouldn't splash when we wanted to open them)
it was an awful business.
"Hi, there!" said Six-and-eightpence to the guard, who, blithely
unconscious of the nature of the bottles he was sweeping up off the
line into his arms, began putting them down with bangs close to an old
lady with several young children round her. "Hi! Easy! That's vitriol!"
"And pray, sir," said the old lady, who seemed convinced that the only
purpose vitriol could have been invented for was to throw into people's
faces, "and may I ask what you are doing with vitriol here? Guard, what
does all this mean? Heaven knows, this country is infested with enough
criminals without our being obliged to travel with vitriol-throwing
ruffians!"
"My dear madam," said Six-and-eightpence, politely, "who said that I
intended throwing this vitriol at anyone?"
"Of course you intend throwing it at someone!" said the old lady,
indignantly. "Do you think I was born yesterday, sir? Do you think I
never read the papers? Do you think I don't know what vitriol is for?
Guard, stop the train and summon a policeman! At once!"
Luckily we arrived at our stopping-place in five minutes, or what would
have happened I don't know. Six-and-eightpence had retreated into the
extreme corner of the carriage, clasping the vitriol bottles in his
arms and in vain entreating the old lady _not_ to attack him tooth and
nail, or she certainly _would_ get the stuff into her face.
We were thankful to find ourselves out on the open veldt.
February 20th.--It's late at night, and I am writing up this record of
the doings of Simplicity Hall because by to-morrow evening I may either
be unconscious or be sitting contemplating the dead bodies of everybody
else, for we all get up very early to-morrow morning to fumigate this
house with hydrocyanic gas.
Every chink has to be closed up to make it effective, and for four
mortal hours this evening we have all been cutting brown paper
into strips and standing on ladders and chairs pasting up the very
badly-fitting doors and windows of this abode so that none of the
precious and deadly gas shall escape.
The process is that you first place in each room four receptacles
for the ingredients, which when mixed instantly kill everything
near--men, beasts, or insects. You have to clear out of the house
all food of every kind, all plates, dishes, saucepans, and jugs--in
fact, the entire contents of the kitchen; also anything in the way of
furniture, clothes, ornaments, pictures, etc., that you don't want to
have bleached out of recognition. The _Agricultural Journal_ blithely
informs you that the process "causes no inconvenience of any kind,"
as all you "need remove from the house (to a safe distance) are----"
and then follow the above items, which we soon discovered to mean that
the entire house had to be dismantled and every stick in it hauled
out on to the veldt. You naturally don't want _anything_ you have to
be bleached to a cinder, so out it all has to come. The lifting, the
shouting, the dragging, and the running to and fro have lasted till
now--midnight. Being a fine night, and the barometer high, we decided
to get everything out so that at daylight the fumigation could be
started, after which everyone has to rush helter-skelter through the
doors, shut them, lock them, and paste a notice on them to say whoever
goes inside is a dead man. (The Transvaal law compels this.) Then you
sit all day on the veldt upon your possessions till eight hours have
passed, after which the thing is done, and you start to fix up your
house again the same as when you first came into it.
[Illustration: "WE DECIDED TO GET EVERYTHING OUT."]
There is a full moon, and by it we can see all our possessions strewed
round Simplicity Hall for about half a square mile. Tall cupboards
tower towards the stars, the dining-room table has all the chairs and
Mr. H----'s packing-case piled on to it, and dressing-tables stand
about, hung with bits of everyone's wardrobe, a pyjama suit floating
in the breeze here, a lady's nightdress there. In the centre of the
circus, in an open ring, sits Jaikeran on the kitchen range (which
likewise had to be removed, said the _Agricultural Journal_, "unless
you wished to have your oven permeated with prussic acid," the editor
evidently thinking it possible that such might be our wish). In this
fashion does our domestic prepare, in some sort of style, an evening
meal for us on a "Puffing Billy" stove set on the grass.
Everybody is in a temper, and once more the Simple Life is subjected to
curses low and deep, as we all sit balancing ourselves on odd pieces of
furniture, eating by the light of tallow candles which eternally go out.
We should have done the horrid thing at night and let it work while
we all slept in the tents, but the chemist warned us not to dream of
attempting it in anything like dusk or darkness. Each person has to be
told off to stand ready in one room with their allowance of vitriol,
and the prussic acid safely fastened up in a paper bag, tied at the
mouth with a long piece of string, so that you can drop it into the
vitriol and get away before the fumes suffocate you; which happens in
one and a half seconds exactly.
Should you stumble in the dark over something, nothing can save you,
though they tell the rescuers how to get on their hands and knees
with their heads in a wet blanket, and crawl close to the floor,
in the event of a friend being caught, and a cheerful illustration
of four corpses in a row is appended. Six-and-eightpence is a very
highly-strung man, and is already in a state of nervousness about the
whole thing, bordering on hydrophobia or suicidal mania. Anyhow, he has
been talking all the evening in a very despondent way, bequeathing
things (such as the old Ratner safe in his office, his "Van Dam on
Divorce," his book of trout flies, his _kaross_, etc.) to one or the
other of us, "just in case anything happens," he says. And we are quite
certain that were we to attempt to do this thing at night something
would happen for certain. Six-and-eightpence would lose his head, and
either lock himself or someone else into one of the rooms after the
stuff had been mixed, forgetting which side of the door he was on,
or something like that. Or the MacPhairson would be too long and too
careful over his mixing and fall senseless; and then, however much we
should like to, how could we leave him to die? One of us would have
to get into a wet blanket (first pumping the water out of the well
half a mile away, by the by) and go to his rescue, and, of course, be
overpowered in turn. Someone else would then have to go to _them_, and
soon it would be like the ten little nigger-boys--"And then there were
none."
So, talking it over--and the pasting-up of the house having taken us
till long after dark--we decided to wait until the friendly daylight.
We are now retiring to rest, and all bade each other "Good night" much
as shipwrecked castaways would do on an open raft in mid-ocean, with
sharks waiting for them, and only someone's blanket and each other left
to eat. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't rather put up with the
"moss--quitoes" than all this.
February 29th.--I was aroused at daylight on the 21st by Veronica
saying, in sepulchral tones, "The day has arrived, E----. Get up."
I've always pictured that's how the warder rouses condemned criminals
from their slumbers, after which somebody else appears with the
cheerful query (as Jaikeran now did) as to what you would like for your
last breakfast.
The criminal, to judge by narratives, invariably "does himself proud"
over that last breakfast, ordering steak and oysters, kidneys on toast,
and all kinds of things that can't possibly have time to do him any
good.
We each ordered our own favourite dish, and sat down on odd pieces of
furniture or boxes to eat it, and gazing at the wide scene of peace
around, with the beauty of the typical African morning (it being a very
rare thing in Africa to wake to a wet morning), we remarked in turn
what a "lovely world it was," and other dying speeches of that sort,
and then rose to repair to the house, where the tins had been placed
overnight in the rooms, the prussic acid and the vitriol all ready in
rows of bottles on a tray, and nothing to do now but the fateful mixing.
"Now," said the Electrical Engineer (who, having passed in electricity,
is supposed to know something about everything else under the sun),
"everyone will please take jugs and go and pour your water each into
your own cans in the room allotted to you. Then come back here for the
vitriol, each carrying your mask."
By the chemist's advice we had made ourselves thick masks of felt,
covering the nose and mouth, with slits for the eyes.
These, as soon as the water had been poured into the cans--Jaikeran
standing looking on at these preparations with a countenance of
terror--we each tied over our faces with tapes. Then we all started to
feel our way back into the dining-room, where our vitriol was to be
doled out to us.
"My eye isn't big enough," groaned Veronica. "I can't see where I am
going. Someone please cut the slits larger for me." And Veronica sat
down, and then each of us in turn, while the others stood and applied
scissors to the slits, at the imminent risk of cutting out our eyes.
No one could breathe, and the panting in the room was awful.
"Come here," said the Electrical Engineer to Jaikeran, "and have your
mask on, you Jaikeran."
Jaikeran, trembling like a leaf, fell on his two knees to the
Electrical Engineer and held up his hands in prayer.
"Sahib have mercy on Jaikeran!" he quavered. "Sahib no kill poor
Jaikeran this time! Sahib spare my life, and sahib have tit-for-tat."
When the Electrical Engineer said, "Don't be a fool!" and tried to fix
his mask on for him, he made for the open door, and the exasperated
Electrical Engineer started to chase him round and round the cottage.
We would have let him go back to his home--a patch of mealies, two
cows, a hut, and a skinny brother--shining clearly about three miles
away on the broad table of green, but we had to have Jaikeran to help;
so the Electrical Engineer caught him, assured him that (if we could
manage it) no one would die that day, and, leading him back by the
scruff of his neck, it seemed as if now, at last, all was once more
ready.
"I am of o--pinion," said Six-and-eightpence, when we once more stood
ready round the table in the dining-room, "that we should each be armed
with a wet blanket in case of necessity."
"Jaikeran," said I, "go to the tents and fetch the blankets. Juldee!"
"Now," said the Electrical Engineer, "go, Jaikeran, to the well and
fetch a bucket of water, and keep your mask on, Jaikeran; it's too much
trouble to fix again. You can see your way through the eyelet holes."
So Jaikeran departed in his mask across the veldt for the water, and
returned with a string of affrighted Dutch villagers behind him.
"For certain they are dynamiters," said one old back-veldt Boer.
"Or coiners," said another.
"No," whispered a third. "It is as I told you. The English are all mad.
The Indian servant-man says it is to be a mosquito hunt! And each one
engaged in it risks his life! Who but lunatics would act so?"
The Dutch contingent now made a kind of cordon round the house and
watched proceedings closely, in case it should be necessary to send a
runner for the police from the nearest town.
Meanwhile we in the garden proceeded to soak our blankets, wrapped our
heads in them, and, re-entering the house, assembled again round the
dining-room table and announced we really were ready at last.
"The heat is too cruel!" suddenly said Veronica. "Couldn't we have
something to drink before we begin? If not, I shall faint."
It was by this time getting on for 11 a.m., and a cloudless day, such
as you expect in the Rand midsummer, and what with the felt masks and
the blankets and the fright we were all in, we were in an awful state,
and so it was imperative that whisky should be served out to the men
and lemonade and sal volatile to the ladies.
"And how are we to drink it?" said someone from under his mask.
"Sit down all of you," said the Electrical Engineer, "and I'll come
round and pour it into your mouths while each of you lifts your mask
slightly up. We can't undo them now." So we sat in a row, and the
villagers crowding towards the house beheld the operation. One of them
said this sort of thing could not be permitted to go on, and so he
rushed after a cart going up the hill towards the town and told the
driver to make for the police-station and tell the mounted police they
were wanted at once.
"Are you all ready?" said the Electrical Engineer. "Then come to the
table and I'll dole out the vitriol first."
We each stood with a tin pannikin and received the stuff, though it
was difficult from under our masks and blankets to see whether it was
going into the pannikins or over our hands or feet, which a single drop
would, of course, burn to the bone.
"Go quickly," shouted the Electrical Engineer when it was done, "and
pour it into the water in the tins. I _quite_ forgot, when I decided
on tin pans, that the corrosive fluid will burn through the tin in two
minutes. _Run!_"
"How can we run," howled Mr. H----, holding his at arm's length
and jerking himself towards the room he had to do, "with this
thrice-infernal stuff under our noses?"
"If you don't you'll have no nose left," shouted the Electrical
Engineer, making for his own room.
We all got rid of our vitriol without mishap to ourselves, flinging the
cans when finished to the floor, where they instantly burnt large holes
in the carpets, which had been left standing to get fumigated too.
"Bang goes six pound seven and eight three-farthings!" the MacPhairson
was heard to mutter, as a frizzling noise heralded the cremation of his
Axminster--bought second-hand for Simplicity Hall. "It's no' me as will
beleeve anny more in the Simple Life!"
We next collected to receive our bags of cyanide. We all stood round
while the Electrical Engineer uncorked the big sealed bottles and
started removing the prussic acid, which was in powder and lumps,
each lump being large enough to polish off a town full of people. We
drew our masks very close over our mouths during this part of the
proceedings. The back doors, and, indeed, all the doors, had to be left
wide open through which to effect our escape the instant the chemicals
mixed, and we all knew that if one speck of the poison floated down
anyone's throat, that person was done for. A joyous breeze blew through
the cottage, and the prussic-acid powder flew about and no one dared
breathe, much less speak.
The Electrical Engineer poured the lumps and powder into our paper
bags, Jaikeran standing by, his mask on, a blanket round his head, and
his knees simply knocking together.
"Now," said the Electrical Engineer, "the moment has arrived! Keep
your heads! Each take your bag, please" (out went all our hands), "and
walk quietly into your allotted rooms. Carry the bag by its string,
held well away from you. Walk up to the tins, where the water and the
vitriol will be already mingled. Slight fumes will be already rising,
so _don't_ go too near. Drop your bags into the vitriol and water, and
instantly, without one second's delay, rush from the house, shutting
and locking doors behind you. Jaikeran! Clear out, unless you want to
die!"
Before we each reached our allotted room, Jaikeran was making for the
horizon and his skinny brother, and we haven't seen him since....
There was a deathly silence as we each entered the different rooms. It
is impossible to say what we looked like--for a moving lump of dripping
blanket was all that could be seen of anyone.
"What the dickens!" shouted Mr. H----, colliding with
Six-and-eightpence in his room. "Who and what are you? Get out of my
way!"
"My dear fellow, whoever you are," said the muffled voice of
Six-and-eightpence, "this is _my_ room. I can't see a thing. Where the
dickens are the tins of vitriol?"
"Is that you, Six-and-eightpence?" said Mr. H----.
"Yes. Is it you?" responded the other. "This isn't your room, old chap;
it's mine. Yours is next door. For Heaven's sake, get out. The others
have thrown in their stuff. They're off. We shall be overpowered, I
tell you."
"Well, I can't find my room," said Mr. H----, desperately. "Here, throw
the stuff down anywhere. I'm off; come on."
As it turned out later, Six-and-eightpence's prussic acid did go into
the tins, or at any rate most of it. But Mr. H---- lost his head,
thinking he could smell through his blanket the deadly fumes already
pouring from the other rooms, and, hearing everyone else making a dash
for the open air, he upset his with a crash.
He rushed for what he thought was the door, but it was the window,
all pasted up. His blanketed head went crash at the glass, luckily
not breaking it, and then, realizing that he had made a mistake, he
groped round for the door. But--it was shut and locked! Muffled in his
blanket, Six-and-eightpence, thinking Mr. H---- had gone out before
him, had run out, slamming and locking the door behind him! His prussic
acid was already mingling with the vitriol. Mr. H---- could smell it!
When we all got outside we threw off our masks and blankets, and
someone said, "Where is H----?"
"He's not here!"
"Then he must be in the house!"
"Good heavens! Not here?" said Six-and-eightpence, looking round him
in a dazed way and rubbing his eyes. "Why, yes; I must have done--yes!
I've locked him into my room! This comes of our being muffled in these
blankets!"
"Good heavens, man!" yelled the Electrical Engineer, "he'll be dead by
now!"
We all made a run for the house, clean forgetting our blankets, and
burst open the hall door again.
It was strange; but there were not half the fumes we expected. What did
it mean?... However, we did not stop to inquire....
Six-and-eightpence dragged open his bedroom door, and there, prone on
the floor, lay Mr. H----, rolled in his blanket and kicking faintly.
"Who's there?" he demanded. "I'm almost done for, you fellows!"
"Wonder you're not done for entirely," said they, hauling him out by
his blanket and the hair of his head combined. "Didn't we say old
Six-and-eightpence would do just this? Out you come!"
And in a few seconds the rescued one lay on the veldt, and kneeling
beside him we all cried, "Saved!" and tried very hard to shed tears of
joy....
* * * * *
The day passed somehow, all sitting on the veldt, and Mr. H---- (in the
only arm-chair, propped up affectionately with pillows) described to us
in moving terms what it had felt like to be face to face with death.
"Did you see the whole of your past life laid before you in a
flash--like they say drowning people always do?" we asked.
"Yes," said Mr. H----, in tones of gloomy triumph; "I did, and I can
tell you it wasn't pleasant."
Privately, I wasn't surprised to hear it, though I didn't say so.
"What was it like--the going off under the fumes?" asked someone else.
"It was like being rocked to sleep," said Mr. H----, in a sentimental
tone. "And I heard church bells ringing, and I said to myself, 'They
are ringing for my funeral. My poor, poor mother! And the guv'nor, too!
This will bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'"
"Please don't talk of it!" cried Veronica, wiping her eyes. "I feel (I
don't know if you do, E----?) that this should be a lesson to us all to
be more charitable to each other. I didn't believe, Mr. H----, and I
must freely confess it, that you had it in you to feel and speak like
this! It shows how we may be mistaken."
"I don't wear my heart on my sleeve," replied the hero, languidly,
leaning back in his chair. "I knew you all misunderstood me, but I made
up my mind to bear it, certain that the truth must out, even though I
_didn't_ give a potato-masher to the establishment."
"And," said I, "truth is stranger than fiction any day."
The hero glanced sharply at me, for I was sitting gazing up at our
roof-tree, and now and then I sniffed.
After a pause I said, sniffing again:--
"Does anyone smell a very strong smell of some gas--hydrocyanic gas,
I suppose? Where is it coming from? We pasted up all the windows and
doors," I added, rising from my chair.
Everybody now sniffed in turn, and all declared that the smell grew
stronger and stronger.
Suddenly both I and Veronica gave a shout together.
[Illustration: "'WONDER YOU'RE NOT DONE FOR ENTIRELY,' SAID THEY,
HAULING HIM OUT BY HIS BLANKET AND THE HAIR OF HIS HEAD."]
"Veronica! Everybody!" I cried. "We pasted up the windows and doors
and forgot to shut the ventilators of the chimneys. Every bit of gas
has escaped! All our trouble has been for nothing. And as for your
death throes, Mr. H----, well, I don't want to be rude, but it has all
been----"
"_Bunkum!_" finished Willy-Nilly. "Church bells and all, old chap!"
* * * * *
At eve we re-entered the cottage--cautiously at first, then more boldly.
Nothing had happened--nothing at all!
Flies buzzed in hundreds around us as if they had enjoyed the nice
aromatic bath they had had. Every scrap of gas had gaily escaped up the
wide chimneys. It was two in the morning before we had got the cottage
shipshape again, and the breakages and general damage would be hard to
calculate.
"I've done with the Simple Life," said Mr. H----, the erstwhile hero of
this memorable day. "If you don't mind, I think I'll leave. There's not
enough repose about the life, don't you know."
"And I, too," said the MacPhairson. "It's too expensive! Me Axminster's
ruined, me bagpipes have gone to glory, and me tent's in smithereens."
So these two have left.
As for those of us who still remain at Simplicity Hall, we have decided
to leave the "moss--quitoes" and "etceteras" alone, hoping that, as we
mean to sleep in the tents till the Rand winter comes on, we may in the
end starve them out.
+The End.+
[Illustration:
Some Experiences in Malaya.]
+By Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Mackenzie.+
For many years the author was Chief of Police in one of the
native States of the Malay Peninsula, and here relates three
queer little adventures which befell him in his official
capacity.
"Do you mean to say you can't get any evidence whatever to go on?"
"No, Tuan."
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DONALD MACKENZIE, THE AUTHOR.
_From a Photograph._]
"Then you and your detectives must be a lot of fools! In England a
burglar or a murderer might be clever enough to hide all traces of
his crime, but out here they are all coolies, and must leave no end
of evidence which any officer who knows his work could easily follow
up. If you can't do the simplest detective work, you and your men had
better return to duty and leave your work to me. The next crime I will
investigate myself. You can go."
I was Chief of Police of the native State of Sungei Ujong,[4] in
the Malay Peninsula, and Detective-Sergeant Cassim stood rigidly at
attention before me in my office. As I finished he saluted and left.
[4] Now combined with Jelebu and Negri Sembilan.
I was a fool--doubly a fool, for I had not only made a statement which
I knew was wrong, but I had lost my temper. The Malay is dignified, if
he is nothing else, and to lose one's temper with him is to lower one's
own dignity, and that means lowering his respect.
When a man is worried, however, he is apt to forget the little
niceties. Two gang robberies and a murder within ten days, and not a
particle of evidence to go on, would fret most policemen's tempers, to
say nothing of receiving one's reports back from the Resident minuted,
"The police appear to be doing their duty in a somewhat perfunctory
manner." I had to trust to my detectives, and they had failed to help
me.
The following morning Barton, the Collector of Land Revenue, came to my
office.
"Morning, old chap," he said. "You might send a detective to my house
to see if he can find out anything. A burglary was committed last
night, but the beggar must have been disturbed, for he only took away a
Bee clock."
"I'll go myself," I said. I would show Sergeant Cassim how easily a
crime could be detected, I told myself.
Like most of the houses in the place, Barton's was a bungalow. The
upper halves of all the outer doors were venetianed, the doors
themselves being merely fastened by bolts top and bottom. We did not go
in for locks.
The burglary seemed quite simple of explanation. The "boy" must have
forgotten to bolt one of the doors, and a midnight thief had simply
walked in. Of course, the "boy" denied having failed in his duty--a
Chinaman naturally would do so. But why the thief was contented with a
clock, value two dollars, when he could have taken twenty times that
amount beat me entirely.
As we left the compound to return to the office the doctor met us on
his pony.
"You are the very man I was looking for," he said to me. "I had a thief
in my house last night. One of the veranda doors was found open, but
the queer part of the business is that he only took a clock. Thank
goodness, he did not walk off with the Sultan's Cup."
"That's funny!" I replied. "Exactly the same thing happened to Barton
last night, even to the article stolen. Let's go and have a look."
Examination convinced me that the robbery had been carried out in
identically the same manner, and I grew puzzled.
"What does your 'boy' say?" I asked. "He probably forgot to bolt the
door. I am almost sure that is what happened at Barton's."
"I can answer for that," replied the doctor. "I am a pretty late bird,
as you fellows know; I did not turn in till about two last night, and I
fastened the two doors myself."
If ever I searched a house thoroughly I did that one, but not a scrap
of any sort of evidence could I find, in spite of my boast. I next sent
the sergeant-major to scour the pawnshops, but without success; no one
had tried to pawn a clock that day.
The climax was reached the following morning when, as I was returning
from early parade, one of the Resident's "boys" met me with a note:--
"You might come up to the Residency and investigate a burglary which
took place here last night. A clock was stolen."
I trust neither the boy nor my Sikh orderly fully understood my remarks
on the subject. The doctor and Barton might pass their little robberies
off as a joke, but a burglary at the Residency was a very different
matter.
Exactly the same thing had occurred. A door had been found open and
a clock gone. Nothing else had been touched. The Resident's remarks
on the efficiency of my force as guardians of the peace were not
complimentary, but distinctly to the point. Very sore, and very much
mystified, I put my pride in my pocket and sent for Sergeant Cassim.
When he arrived I took him on one side and discussed these three
bewildering robberies with him.
"Perhaps you can make something out of them," I said. "I believe it is
the servants in each case."
He walked round the Resident's drawing-room, examined the floor of the
veranda and the steps, and then said:--
"I shall be able to tell the Tuan to-morrow morning who committed the
robberies."
"If you are so certain, why not now?"
"The Tuan must give me time to think and act."
That afternoon I received a letter through the post addressed to me in
Malay. It contained a slip of paper bearing the following words, also
in Malay:--
"If the Tuan will pretend he is going away to-night, and will return
about eleven and hide near the veranda of his house, he will catch the
burglar."
I have received a fair number of anonymous letters in my time, which
usually meant nothing, but this was the oddest of them all. Why on
earth should I pretend to leave for the night? Why could I not have
been told merely to hide?
Suddenly the reason flashed across my mind--the guard! When I was
living at head-quarters a guard, consisting of a lance-corporal and
three men, was posted at my house from sunset till sunrise; in that
district it was extremely useful to have four fully-armed men ready to
accompany me anywhere at a moment's notice. When, however, I was absent
on a tour of inspection the guard was dispensed with. It was apparently
essential for the detecting of the burglar that the guard should be
absent.
Of course, it might be only an excuse to get the house unguarded till
the hour named in order that the burglar could enter before my return,
and so doubly fool me; but I determined to risk it.
Accordingly I sent for the sergeant-major and told him I was going to
investigate the last gang robbery myself on the spot, and that I should
not be back till the following morning. He need not therefore post my
guard.
A little before sunset I drove to a police-station about six miles
away, and sent my dogcart back with instructions to return for me at
six the following morning. I then told the sergeant in charge of the
station that I was going to investigate the matter of the gang robbery,
and that I should probably stay the night at the Towkay's (Chinese
headman).
I visited the place, and, after spending an hour or so making
inquiries--incidentally having to split a bottle of the vilest apology
for champagne with the hospitable Towkay--I walked back to my house.
I suppose I must have been hiding at the side of the veranda for nearly
an hour when a figure appeared at one of the dining-room doors. Being
barefooted, I had not heard him approach the house, and I must confess
that his sudden appearance was somewhat startling. He fumbled with the
venetians for a couple of minutes; then the door opened silently and
he entered the house. No sooner had he done so than the light of a
bull's-eye lantern began to flash about the room; the man was evidently
no ordinary thief.
[Illustration: "CREEPING ON TIP-TOE TO THE DOOR, I WAITED WITH WHAT
PATIENCE I COULD MUSTER."]
Creeping on tip-toe to the door he had entered by, I waited with what
patience I could muster, intending to commence operations by knocking
the thief down as soon as he appeared. Presently the light went out,
and I had drawn my arm back to let him have my fist on the side of his
head, when a voice said:--
"Tuan, here is the burglar."
It was Sergeant Cassim himself!
"What on earth does this mean?" I demanded. "Where is the man?"
"I am he. Did not the Tuan see me enter the house?"
"Of course I did; but what is the meaning of it?"
"The Tuan told me I was a fool, and that no man committed a crime in
this country without leaving some trace of it; also that the Tuan would
prove this to me by investigating the next case himself. I am a Malay,
Tuan, and do not like to be called names when I have not deserved them.
I knew that crimes were often committed and no trace left, so I thought
I would prove this to the Tuan. Did I leave any traces?"
"No, you certainly did not."
"But if the Tuan had only thought, he must have known these were not
real burglaries; they were all exactly alike, even to the article
stolen. Has the Tuan ever known such a thing happen before? Even the
letter did not help him. Surely no thief gives himself away--in this
country, at least! I was quite prepared for the Tuan to tell me he saw
the whole thing when he got the letter. He must have forgotten how he
spoke to me."
Cassim was evidently a reader of character and knew how I would take
his rebuke, which I had undoubtedly fully deserved.
"You are right and I was wrong, Cassim," I said; "I am sorry I spoke
as I did. But you were doing a very risky thing. Suppose Tuan Barton,
or the Tuan Doctor, or the Tuan Besar (the Resident) had caught you in
their houses?"
"Who would have suspected or said anything to me? I am the
detective-sergeant, and if I find a house open at night it is my duty
to investigate the matter. I _was_ seen, but the Tuan never thought of
asking even that. If he had asked the Sikh sentry at the Residency,
he would have said he had seen me walk round the building, for he
challenged me. Why did the Tuan forget such a simple inquiry?"
"Of course, no one knows anything of this?" I said, evading his last
question.
"Surely the Tuan can trust me?" he replied.
"All right. Keep it to yourself. I am much obliged to you for the
lesson, and in future we will work together. Produce the clocks, and
make up any story you like as to how you found them. The thief, of
course, must have cleared out, and these burglaries must go in the
crime book as 'Undetected: property recovered.' Oh, I forgot. How did
you manage to open the doors?"
"That is very easy, Tuan," he replied, and he proceeded to show me. It
was the simplest thing imaginable, but I am not going to give it away,
for obvious reasons. Perhaps they have not got locks on the doors out
there yet. I do not, however, mind telling a brother police-officer.
I have never told this yarn before; it would not have been fair to
Cassim while he was in the service. It happened over fifteen years
ago, and he must now have retired on pension. I hope it is the
highest he could get, and that he is enjoying life under the shade of
his own coco-nut plantation, for he was a thorough good fellow. No
doubt he sometimes chuckles when he thinks of how he taught the Tuan
Superintendent a lesson, not only in dignity, but also in the art of
detecting crime.
Meanwhile the two gang robberies, which were the cause of Sergeant
Cassim's little joke at my expense, seemed as far off discovery as
ever. They had taken place within forty-eight hours of each other and
less than five miles apart; and, so far, not a vestige of a clue could
be found to work on.
"Look here, Cassim," I said, the morning after his exploit at my house,
"something has got to be done. It is absurd, our being beaten like
this. I don't want the Tuan Besar to report to the Tuan Governor that
the police have not been able to do anything in the matter, or someone
will get into trouble about it."
Cassim was as much bothered as myself, for complaints would probably
mean the loss of his stripes, if nothing worse. An undetected crime of
any magnitude was an unpardonable offence.
"Shall I read the Tuan my notes on the robbery at Ah Sing's again?" he
asked.
"Yes. We may find we have overlooked something."
He got out his note-book and proceeded to read.
"Towkay Ah Sing reports that shortly before midnight on Thursday he was
awakened by the door of his house being broken open. He was sleeping
in a small room at the back, and his two coolies were asleep in the
kitchen. He rushed out to see what had happened, and found the front
room full of men; he thinks there were about a dozen. Their faces were
blackened, and he could not recognise any of them; one had a lighted
torch in his hand. The two coolies came in almost at the same time as
himself. One of them had a stick, which he raised to strike a member
of the gang, but he was stabbed in the side with a knife. Ah Sing and
the two coolies were then knocked down, their hands and feet tied,
and they were carried into the kitchen and thrown upon the floor.
After about ten minutes the robbers left. One of the coolies managed
to free his hands, and he unbound the other two. The gang took away a
box containing clothing and jewellery from the front room, and another
containing seven hundred dollars which Ah Sing kept under his bed. That
is all, Tuan."
"And you found no traces of the robbers in or round the house?"
"Nothing except the extinguished torch."
"Ah Sing gave you a full description of all the articles stolen?" I
asked.
"Yes, Tuan. He also says the money was in rolls of a hundred dollars,
and that each roll had his 'chop' (private mark) on it."
"Well, he can say good-bye to his dollars," I said. "The robbers won't
be such fools as to keep the 'chopped' papers they were wrapped in."
"The only other thing Ah Sing could state was that the men spoke the
Fuhkien dialect," said Cassim.
"That is not much use as a clue, I am afraid. There are hundreds of
Fuhkiens in the State. I will give a hundred dollars to the detective
who can clear up this case. Why not try and earn them yourself, Cassim?"
"I will try, Tuan," he replied. "Shall I read the notes of the other
robbery?"
"No; one at a time is enough. If we discover this one it may help us
with the other."
As he left the office my Chinese clerk came in with a number of passes
for me to initial.
In order to protect employers of Chinese labour, no coolie was allowed
to leave any of the native States without a pass. Before a man could
obtain a pass he had to produce from his employer a certificate giving
his name and province and stating that he owed nothing to the mine or
estate. This was attached to the pass, which was in English and Malay,
and signed by the chief police-officer. On every road, at its junction
with the neighbouring State, was a police-station, where all passes
were examined.
"So-and-so, Fuhkien," began the clerk, putting the letters down in
front of me, one by one, to be initialed.
What was it Cassim had said? "Ah Sing says the men spoke the Fuhkien
dialect." Now, the robbers would not attempt to dispose of the stolen
property in the State where the robbery had been committed. They knew
that every police-station and pawnshop had been warned. They would
therefore try and take it out of the country. I would mark every
Fuhkien's pass and have him searched at the frontier station he tried
to leave by.
"Hold on," I said; "I have not been listening to what you read out.
Begin again." He did so, and I initialed every Fuhkien's pass in red
pencil, those of other provinces in blue. When the passes were brought
in, I also signed all the Fuhkiens' in red ink.
I then telegraphed to each frontier station:--
"Search all Chinese whose passes are signed in red ink; detain all who
cannot account satisfactorily for their property, and report."
At six that evening I received a telegram in Malay from one of the
police-stations:--
"Eleven Chinese with passes signed in red ink arrested this afternoon,
accompanied by a bullock cart in which is a box containing clothing and
jewellery and seven hundred dollars. Can give no satisfactory account
of themselves."
Within half an hour a sergeant and six Sikhs were on their way to bring
the Chinamen to head-quarters.
They arrived the following morning, and I at once sent for Ah Sing. As
soon as he entered the charge-room he exclaimed:--
"Why, Tuan, there is my box which the robbers took away; it has my
'chop' on it!"
Sure enough it was, and it contained all the stolen property, tallying
exactly with his description, even to the rolls of dollars in the
"chopped" wrappers.
If ever a detective was astonished, Sergeant Cassim was.
"Who has won the hundred dollars, Tuan?" he asked.
"I have," I replied.
"But how did the Tuan discover it?"
"You gave me the clue yourself," I said. "You told me the robbers spoke
the Fuhkien dialect, so I signed all the Fuhkien passes in red ink,
and ordered that every man with one of these was to be searched at the
frontier stations."
"The Tuan was right," cried Cassim. "Every man leaves some trace of his
crime, and I thank the Tuan for proving it to me."
No defence was offered by the prisoners--they had none; and in due
course they were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude each.
Thirteen years afterwards I was Secretary to the Council and Chief of
Police of the international settlement of Kulangsu, in the province of
Fuhkien.
One afternoon I was taking a walk on the mainland, when a Chinaman met
me.
"Tabek, Tuan," he said.
As about a third of the male population of the province have at one
time or another been immigrant coolies in the Malay Peninsula, it was
no uncommon thing to be greeted in that language.
I returned his salutation, and was passing on, when he stopped and
said:--
"Does not the Tuan remember me?"
"No, I can't say I do," I answered. "Where did you know me?"
"In Sungei Ujong. Does not the Tuan recollect a gang robbery at Towkay
Ah Sing's, when one of the Towkay's coolies was stabbed? The gang was
caught, and each man got ten years in jail."
"Yes, of course I remember it," I told him; "but what do you know about
it?"
"I was one of the robbers, Tuan. The Tuan saw me every day in the jail
for four years. I was put to mat-making."
"Oh, you were, were you?" I said. "Well, I hope you have given up gang
robbery now?"
He grinned.
"By the by," I continued, "there was another gang robbery committed
close to Ah Sing's and only two days before it. Did you ever hear
anything about that?"
[Illustration: THE "MALE" AND "FEMALE" KRISES REFERRED TO IN THIS
STORY.]
"Suppose the Tuan found out who did it, would he have the men
arrested?" he asked.
"It was so long ago that even if I found out it would probably be
impossible to get up a case, for it would now be only hearsay evidence.
No; I don't think I would do anything."
"We committed that robbery also, Tuan," he said.
At one time or another most people have gone in for collecting things;
for twenty years my hobby was savage weapons. My Malay sergeant-major
took a keen interest--or, with his innate courtesy, pretended to do
so--in my collection, and I owe many of the weapons I have to him. Many
of them have curious histories, but none more so than that connected
with two Booghis krises.
Under our paternal rule the Malay is not allowed to wear his kris.
He has a keen sense of his own dignity, and he wore his kris, as our
ancestors did their swords, to uphold it. The resenting of an insult by
the shedding of blood being contrary to our modern ideas, however, we
disarmed him.
One day Sergeant-Major Etot brought before me a man who had been
arrested for carrying a kris. He was an ordinary-looking Malay, but
he had a deep scar across one side of his face, from the nose nearly
to his ear. He said he was a Booghis, and that his tribe lived in the
interior of Sumatra; that he had only the day before arrived from
there, and did not know he was not allowed to wear his kris.
The sergeant-major showed me the kris, and said he had never seen one
quite like it before; he had questioned the man about it, and he had
told him that the Booghis had two kinds of krises only, which they
named the "male" and the "female," which were very similar to each
other, having but a slight difference.
The man in question was wearing a "male" kris. I asked him if any
distinction was made as to who wore either weapon, and he said that the
wearing of the "male" kris was dependent on a man's valour--in other
words, I take it, the number of people he had disposed of. It seemed
somewhat hard on him, a stranger, to be deprived of his weapon when he
did not know he was committing an offence by wearing it, so I gave him
a dollar for it.
"If you come back to this country," I said, "bring a 'female' kris, and
I will buy it from you."
Some two years later I was sitting in my office one morning when I
heard the sergeant-major order the reserve duty men to fall in with
their rifles; half a minute later he appeared before me and reported
that a man had run "amok" in the village, and after killing one man and
wounding two others he had bolted into the jungle.
Now an "amok" is akin to a mad dog, and can only be treated as such.
As soon as the fit has left the man he never offers resistance, but so
long as he is under its influence the only course to pursue is to shoot
him and so stop his murderous career.
"Serve out buckshot to the men," I ordered (we were armed with
Sniders), "and send them into the jungle in pairs to look for him. They
are to take him alive if they can, but if he is still 'gelah' (mad)
they must shoot him. When you have sent them, come down to the village
with me."
When we arrived there we found one man dead, stabbed through the heart;
two others had also been stabbed, but had only received flesh wounds.
No one knew anything about the affair save that a man had suddenly
appeared, had run "amok," and then made for the jungle. No one knew who
he was. I sent the body of the dead man to the hospital to await an
inquest, and the other two to the doctor to have their wounds attended
to.
About a couple of hours later the sergeant-major again appeared in
my office. He was accompanied by a Malay constable, who reported as
follows.
He and another constable had been searching the jungle for the "amok,"
but, not having found any trace of him, set off on their return to
head-quarters. As they were walking along a narrow path in Indian file
he suddenly saw a man dash out and stab his comrade, who was in front
of him, in the neck with a kris. Realizing that he must be the man they
were searching for, he jammed home the breech-block, cocked his rifle,
and let the stranger have the charge of buckshot in the head, dropping
him dead. The wounded policeman died within a minute or two, and,
seeing he could do nothing for him, the survivor returned at once to
report the matter.
[Illustration: "HE SAW A MAN DASH OUT AND STAB HIS COMRADE."]
The sergeant-major and I accompanied him to the spot, and there we saw
a ghastly sight. The unfortunate policeman lay dead, with his carotid
artery severed, while his murderer was sprawled on his face about a
couple of yards away, also dead, half the back of his head blown away.
The sergeant-major turned the man over on to his back, and there,
staring at us, was the Booghis from whom I had got the "male" kris a
couple of years before; there was no mistaking the curious scar right
across one side of his face.
Stooping, the sergeant-major picked up a kris which was lying close to
the man's hand. He eyed it intently for a moment, wiped the blood off,
and then, taking the blade between his thumb and forefinger, he handed
me the hilt.
"The 'female' kris, Tuan," he said, politely.
"Jack Ashore."
+By Albert E. Craft+.
The airy assurance with which "Jack Ashore" gets into--and out
of--serious scrapes has become almost proverbial. This story
describes the adventures which befell a party of British seamen
who went for a ramble in a Chilian port.
It was in the early months of 1896, and I was an able seaman on
board the ship _Micronesia_, of Liverpool, then lying in the port of
Antofagasta, Chile, where we were discharging a cargo of coals loaded
at Newcastle, New South Wales. A quarter of a mile away was the French
barque, _La Provence_, loading a cargo of saltpetre for Havre.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, MR. A. E. CRAFT.
_From a Photograph._]
Amongst our sailors was a Frenchman, and he, being one of our boat's
crew, had made the acquaintance of his countrymen on board the other
ship in his various trips, it being the custom of the captains then in
port to call upon each other and all to go ashore in the one boat. Thus
they benefited by having the full complement of their crew on board to
work cargo--which they had to do in those days, except on the occasion
when their particular boat had to act as ferry.
We had been there something like eight or ten days when part of the
crew of the French ship got the usual twenty-four hours' liberty in
which to go ashore and enjoy themselves.
Liberty day! The one bright day in the weary monotony of a long
sailing-ship voyage--the one day in which, with a month's pay in his
pocket, Jack is as good as his master, when he may eat what he likes,
drink what he likes, do what he likes, so long as he turns up when the
boatswain musters the hands to work after the all-too-short holiday.
So, with the jingling coins burning holes in their pockets, and their
hearts as light as school-boys', they pushed off from their ship. And
we, knowing where they were going, stared moodily across the bay,
longing to be with them.
A diversion occurred, however, when we saw the boat's head swing in our
direction, and a few minutes later range alongside our ship.
Up to our deck climbed the merry Frenchmen, laughing and jabbering
like so many monkeys. Soon they were in animated conversation with
our messmate, "Frenchy," whom we presently discovered, by adroit
questioning, they were persuading to obtain leave from our captain and
go with them.
And he got it, too--minus the month's pay--and immediately set about
rigging himself out in his shore clothes. This did not suit us at
all--at least, some of us. Why should he have leave of absence, and we
not? we asked each other. We would go and ask the captain, too.
The end of it was that we got the desired leave--five of us, Frenchy
making the sixth--but only for the one night. We were given to
understand we must be on board by four bells--six o'clock--next morning
ready to turn to.
"And look here, Craft," was the captain's parting injunction--"no
monkey tricks, mind. I look to you, as leading seaman, for the good
behaviour of the rest. Further, I shall hold you responsible for these
men turning up in the morning, or else"--he shook a warning finger at
me--"not another hour's liberty this voyage for any of you."
Promising obedience--I would have promised anything just then for a run
ashore--we hustled off to prepare ourselves. This did not take long.
Throwing aside our coal-grimed dungarees, we each donned white trousers
and jackets and broad-brimmed straw hats. With these on we felt equal
to the best, happily unconscious of a few small rents, a missing
button, or the fact that the virgin whiteness of our "shore togs" was
marred by many and various stains.
But what about money? For the moment we had forgotten that. True, the
Frenchmen had a month's pay in their pockets, but we had no intention
of sponging upon them. Well, then, we would take some clothing, we
decided. There were numerous places in Antofagasta where we could trade
them. There was old Don Carlos, as he was called, whom we had heard so
much about, and his Jew partner Miguel. Perhaps they were not so black
as they were painted, and we had been told they would buy anything from
a hard-up sailor. For myself, I was the envied possessor of a whole
Australian sovereign, so you may guess my bearing was in accordance
with my wealth.
"Now, then, all aboard!" sang out one of the Frenchmen. Into the boat
we scuttled with our bundles, and, giving way with a will, we soon
covered the stretch of water between the ship and jetty and pulled the
boat alongside, mooring her head and stern.
Not a hundred yards along the quay, who should we come suddenly upon
but Don Carlos and his partner.
"Talk of the old gentleman!" cried someone in the rear. "I shouldn't
wonder if the old sharks haven't been watching us all the while. I bet
you they know we have something to trade."
"Halloa, boys"--Don Carlos's greeting was hearty enough, as was the
hand-shake all round--"going to have a little run round? That's right,
_amigos_; nothing like it. Too much salt water is not good for anybody.
What! no money! Well, now, that's too bad. Got something to sell, have
you? All right, come along to the store and have a drink with me; then
we'll talk business. Come on, now, boys, every one of you. A drink at
my expense!"
For a Chilano he spoke excellent English, with a slight American
intonation and accent, and had a certain geniality of manner which
appealed to the simple minds of the sailors.
Off we sailed, the two Chilanos and myself in the van, and soon arrived
at the "store," a combination of ship-chandler's shop, café, card-room,
and billiard saloon.
Inside, our hosts were the very essence of geniality. They served us
with drinks and cigars--real Havanas at that--telling us to "Drink up,
boys, and have another," until we were unanimous in our verdict that
they were "true blue" and not the unscrupulous sharks we had been led
to believe.
A second drink was served out, and over this Don Carlos and his party
made an inspection of the articles we had for sale.
By a previous arrangement it had been agreed upon that our Frenchy was
to have the entire handling of this part of the programme, not only
because he spoke Chilano like a native, thereby putting a stopper upon
any by-play between the two merchants, but also because we knew him as
a man who could drive a hard bargain.
Therefore, knowing that our interests--and our capital, too, for that
matter--were in safe hands, we just lay back and smoked and drank our
"piscoe," and allowed him to do the haggling. Nor did we take the
slightest interest in the bargaining until our attention was suddenly
arrested by high words and a long, burring curse from our shipmate.
We looked up to see him on his feet, shaking his fist in Don Carlos's
face--which was as white as the Frenchy's was red--and talking thirteen
to the dozen.
The volubility and the rapidity with which he delivered himself were
simply marvellous. We could for the time being simply sit still and
gape at him, open-mouthed and wondering. Such a jargon of sounds, such
a jumble of languages, it would be hard to conceive. First French, next
broken English, and then a mixture of Spanish and Chilano.
At it he went, tacks and sheets, for all he was worth, never giving
the Chilano a chance to open his mouth. And from it all we gathered
that Don Carlos, polished rascal that he was, contended that the drinks
and cigars we had received--free, gratis, and for nothing, as we
thought--were sufficient pay for the "few paltry rags" we had brought
ashore. And he'd be hanged, he said, if he'd pay another cent!
"Gif me six dollars, you shark--zat ees une dollar for each piece of
us," hissed Frenchy; "or I vill, I vill----" He ended up with a mixture
of imprecations, while his fist, thumping upon the table, jarred every
glass upon it.
The Chilano was obdurate. Finding his voice at length, he swore by
all the saints in South America that he would see our man in Jericho,
or some even warmer locality, before he would give him a ha'penny.
Springing to his feet, he ordered us all outside, threatening to call
the _vigilantes_ to shift us if we did not go.
"Gif me ze monai first; gif me ze monai," shouted Frenchy, spluttering
with rage. "Or return to me ze artickeels."
Seeing trouble looming large on the horizon, and remembering the
captain's instructions and my promise, I stepped forward with the
intention of taking it upon myself to come to an amicable settlement.
I was too late, for Frenchy, beside himself with rage, reached forward
and, laying violent hands upon Don Carlos's prominent nose, gave it a
pull that made him squeak like a bos'n's pipe. At the same moment up
jumped old Miguel, who had hitherto remained a silent observer, and
seizing a stout malacca cane, loaded at one end, he brought it down
with a crash on to Frenchy's skull.
[Illustration: "LAYING VIOLENT HANDS UPON DON CARLOS'S PROMINENT NOSE,
HE GAVE IT A PULL."]
This was the signal for what followed. As the unfortunate seaman
toppled to the floor, his face covered with blood, we five
"Micronesias" made a forward rush.
What else could we do? I am peaceably inclined, and would rather run a
mile than fight a minute; but what Englishman could stand by and see a
shipmate keel-hauled for standing up for his rights, without wanting to
know the reason? Good intentions, captain's orders, my promises--they
all blew away like a royal sheet in a breeze.
With a "Come on, boys!" we got right down to business. The table, laden
with glasses, cigars, and bottles, the chairs upon which we had been
seated, as well as other sundries, instantly found a resting-place
against the wall, all in a more or less complete state of dilapidation.
While I and another fellow attended to Miguel and his wildly-swinging
malacca cane, with the intention of rescuing Frenchy, the other three
busied themselves with Don Carlos, who had now been reinforced by his
man-of-all-work--a big, lumbering, evil-faced Chilano.
The Frenchmen from the other ship formed the after-guard. They did not
take any hand in the fight, and for that matter we did not blame them.
Frenchy was our shipmate, not theirs. It was in our interests that he
had got a cracked skull, and so we had a double right to punish his
cowardly assailants.
This, by the way, did not prove a very difficult job. They were cowards
at heart, were these scoundrelly Chilanos. A short, sharp tussle, a
few well-directed blows given with all an Englishman's zest, and we
had Frenchy out of the mêlée, while, with a quick wrench, I possessed
myself of the loaded cane.
A horse-rug in the corner caught my eye, and in a twinkling we had
Frenchy in it and hustled him outside--I, meanwhile, calling off our
men and bidding them make tracks for the boat. As we gained the open
air, and stooped down with our burden so that we might get a better
grip of the improvised stretcher, the man-of-all-work made a flying
leap towards me and, with a savage downward blow, endeavoured to drive
a knife between my shoulder-blades. Only my quickness of movement saved
me. Almost before he could recover himself I had jumped up and caught
him a resounding crack on his figurehead that laid him low. Old Miguel
joined him next with a similar dose. Don Carlos had by this time made a
rapid exit and, running to the corner, was howling vociferously for the
_vigilantes_. But what did I care for _vigilantes_ now? My blood was
fairly up. Into the store I rushed, followed by my shipmates, leaving
the Frenchman to the care of his countrymen, and in less time than it
takes to tell the place was in the most artistic state of wreck you can
well conceive.
Then, triumphant, we marched off--a defiant, victorious squad, tattered
and torn to a degree. For myself, my white coat had gone entirely; a
cotton singlet which I wore was minus an arm, and that which was left
was splashed with blood; my white trousers were torn from the ankle to
the knee, and one of my shoes was missing.
We had not proceeded far, however, before we found that Don Carlos's
howling for the _vigilantes_ was taking effect.
From this street and that figures came running, and swelled a rapidly
growing mob, which followed on our heels, hooting and throwing
missiles. Higher up the street a shout was raised, which cry was taken
up and echoed by the mob. An officer of _vigilantes_, with drawn sword
and bristling moustache, pushed his way through the crowd and called
upon us to halt. Failing to get his way by word of mouth, he started
pricking us in the legs with his sword-point. Hearing me give the order
to "rush him," and seeing in me the man whom he believed to be in
command, he directed his attentions to me. "Halta! halta!" he cried,
peremptorily, but I pushed him aside and marched on. Then a sharp stab
in my leg made me hop. For a moment only did I hesitate, then my back
stiffened, my hand shot forward with the malacca at the first guard,
and with my old R.N.R. drill in my mind I engaged him--his sword to my
cane.
For some time we went at it hammer and tongs, while the crowd stood
back in awestricken amazement. Acting only on the defensive, I warded
off his cuts with a coolness which surprised me later on, but soon a
stinging sensation in the shoulder caused me to change my tactics.
Pressing him hard until an opening presented itself, I brought him to
the ground with a "cut one," delivered with all the force I possessed.
Then came the retreat. Away we flew--the Frenchmen, with our wounded
man, towards the mountains; some of our men up one street, some down
another, while I made a bee-line for the wharf and the boat.
The howling mob behind pursued me hotly. Occasionally I would stop
and shake my cane at them, which had the effect of bringing them to a
momentary halt. Then I was off again.
I don't wonder at their halting when I swung round upon them, for I
must have cut a most awful figure. Blood-stained and ragged, with
the excitement of battle showing in my eyes and face, they must have
thought I was mad, and for the moment I suppose I was.
Soon the wharf hove into view. Out in the bay I could see the lights
of my ship. With beating heart and laboured breath I sped on. Suddenly
someone rushed out at me from a dark corner. For a moment I staggered;
then, as he raced on at my side, I discovered, to my joy, that it was
one of my shipmates.
Another hundred yards and we should be safe. Then, without warning, we
ran straight into the arms of a cordon of _vigilantes_ drawn up in a
semicircle awaiting our approach!
It was all over. Unresistingly we allowed ourselves to be manacled,
and, guarded on either side by half-a-dozen men with shouldered rifles
and fixed bayonets, we were driven off to the "calaboose," two officers
on horseback bringing up the rear of the cavalcade.
Thrown into a cell, where I found my comrades already housed, I had
ample time to meditate upon the events of the last hour or two. I had
been in many a scrape before, but this was the first time I had ever
been on the hither side of prison walls, and now that the excitement
had passed, I fairly recoiled at the disgrace of it.
My head ached, my feet were lacerated, I was dirty, blood-stained,
and nearly naked. I looked around the filthy place, at the no less
filthy Chilanos--our fellow-prisoners, who jeered at us derisively--and
groaned aloud.
Though feeling my position keenly, I was by no means sorry for what
I had done. I had acted, I told myself, just as any other Englishman
would under the circumstances. I had been goaded into it, and the blame
lay with Don Carlos and his rascally compatriot.
Arraigned before the judge the next day we presented a bedraggled
appearance. Through an interpreter the charge was explained to us,
evidence was heard, and the case decided. After we had been removed
we found that the prison-sheet contained the following notice:
"Alberto Crafto, José Essien, Juan Andres, Carlos Parko, Tomaso Mahan,
twenty-five days' imprisonment each." The Frenchmen were not in
it--they had apparently got clear away to the hills.
[Illustration: "I BROUGHT HIM TO THE GROUND WITH A 'CUT ONE,' DELIVERED
WITH ALL THE FORCE I POSSESSED."]
Prison life was not so bad, save for the taint and the vile companions
amongst whom we were thrown. We were fairly well treated and fed, had
plenty of outdoor recreation, and labour of any description was never
asked of one.
This last was the thing which preyed upon me. I like being busy at any
time, besides, the enforced idleness left too much time for unwholesome
thinking.
At length I asked permission to work. "What can you do?" questioned the
Commandante. "Do? Anything!" I told him. "Mend a roof, make a chair, do
joiner work, paint----"
"Paint, ah!" he cried--some idea had evidently struck him. "Well, I
will think of it."
The end of it was that I was given the job to paint the office at which
ships received pratique. This office stood on the wharf adjacent to the
landing-place. It was a building constructed of inch-and-a-half deal
planking, and consisted of two rooms. I was also given tools with which
to do a little repairing.
Nothing could possibly have suited me better. The moment I entered it I
thought: "Here is my chance of escape!" A thin, wooden floor, a rickety
old wharf, and beneath that the water and safety--I could not have
wished for anything better.
Each morning I was escorted to the office by two _vigilantes_, who
locked the door upon me and immediately went off, returning only to
give me my midday meal, and later to escort me back to prison.
An hour after being left alone I had weighed up all the chances.
Another went by, and by dint of strenuous exertions I had made a very
fair show of painting on one of the walls--this in case of any undue
inquisitiveness.
Next I found a suitable place, away from observation, at a point where
the floor was covered with reed matting, and began, carefully and
noiselessly, cutting through the planks.
Between times I showed myself at the one window in case anyone should
be spying; then I would do a little painting and hammering, but I
always returned to my chief objective--sawing my way through to the
water.
Using every precaution--covering up and disposing of even the minutest
particle of sawdust--always on the alert, and working like a Trojan
whenever my jailers were expected, I made such good progress that by
the third morning a hole large enough to permit of my body passing had
been cut through the twelve-inch deals of the jetty, the pieces which
I had cut out being carefully stowed in the space between the floor of
the office and the jetty. The way of escape was open!
The only thing that bothered me was that I should be compelled to make
my attempt at esca
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