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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1897-11-19, Page 2THE BRUSSELS POST. Noy: 29, 1E07 A RACE FOR LIFE. Two men stood upon the slopingfleck • said idmthee ou ta1a danEeelilthe, etstraC of a steamer lying etrandel among the i• ata cheer went up, and this time the mud banks of a lagoon in Dahomey, ! ensign rose to the mast -head. Then the the one was Captain Brown of the paw- I Carona was Put onasonth-west course, exfnl screw -tug. Corona, and the other an hour, reher taway he lt aong blue swell the flssbing water roaring from be- neath her bows and streaming away astern in atreaky lines of white and green in tam wake o£ the throbbing son gleam along the western horizon' propeller, while sickly mon ernwle' Tames Cranton, representative o ' wrecking' syndicate which had pur- chased the vessel on the chance of get- ting her afloat. There was a fiery trim- , against rim - against which the leathery foliage 0 the mangroves stood out black and clear as though carved in ebony ; while the yellow water and bubbling slime er generally begins when Sou leave the about the deck drinking in with delight the pare sea -breeze Presentlythe cap- tain descended from the bridge and Cranton addressed him: "Better have a look below now; the worst of the fey - beneath flashed back a lurid glow up- malaria swamps and breathe the sea on the rusty plates of the steamer and So the two crept down into the stif- ling haggard faces of the amen, ling forecastle, clinging tight to the "The story of this Dutchman Is a iron-runged ladder at each wild roll. tragic one," observed the captain, wip- At first it was impossible to make out ing the perspiration trona his forehead• astd witin beth knees Uel piing and thmen em "She broke two plates on a reef ; then selves against the heave oe the vessel, they beached her is here and half the and listening to the thunder of the hands died of fever,—easy to under- water outside the vibrating plates eaoh stand that. She must have been abaci time the sharp bows cleft apart a brim- ming swell. When his eyes became bargain for the syndicate." 1 accustomed to the darkness, Cranton "Yes," was the answer; "this pile of moved towards a wooden shelf, and old iron and rusty machinery has cost lending over a heap of dirty blankeou us four thousand pounds altogether. said, 'Well, Johnson, Vow are y ❑ow? Hold up your head and drink All we have got in return is the few this." A faint light streamed in hundred pounds' worth of odds and through a dirty port, as the steamer ends on board the tug, and we've buried sing urthe hallow o her head out f the and s1a all - two men. The steamer will never flout 1ponfug hair of a man, who stretched out again; in two years she'll be buried in / a claw-like hand for the draught, and a mangrove forest ; I've seen it before in gasped: " about the same, six; awful. Africa. However, we've all done our t pain in all my bones, and something • like hot iron round my skull; but the best and now we'll get out of this ghastly place before we die of fever. I'm sick now, and you don't seem very bright." So they slid down a line into a boat which lay alongside, and with a brief, "Pull, lads," dropped wearily into the stern. The crew bent to their oars, and as the blades dipped foul exhalations rose from the yeasty water across which the lights of the tug twinkled faintly through the gathering mist. It was, as Cranton had said, a ghastly place, The dingy foliage of the mangroves walled the lagoon in on every side. In Places the watery forest rose, a maze of white stems and interlacing branches from many feet of slime and froth ; while in others the arched roots crept like the tentacles of a huge octopus far out across banks of evil -smelling mud, each pale branch overhead sending down a fresh snoot to feed on the cor- ruption below. Over all brooded a dense atmosphere, heavy with the odors of putrefaction, which bring sickness and death to the European who breathes them. When they reached the tug darkness was closing down, and It was just p05- sible to make out three or four scant- ily attired figures crawling feebly about the lumbered deck among piles of hawsers, chains and miscellaneous selvage. "How are the two seamen now?" ask- ed. the captain, as he climbed over the .3w rail; and a hoarse voice answered: "Sinking fast, I'm afraid, sir; no chance for a sick man here." ICnock off now and heave the boat up. Tell them to start the fires; we go out to -morrow's tide ;" and the captain disappeared below. For a time Cranton leaned over the rail, gazing into the gathering darkness and wondering how long it would take him to recover the health and money lost in this unfortunate venture. For- est and lagoon seemed to swarm with life. From somewhere beyond the man- grove fringe the howl of a hunting leopard rang out through the stillness; water and mud heaved and bubbled with the movement of countless scaly creatures; while at intervals the harsh croak of a wading stork echoed across the misty surface or a swimming alli- gator ploughed a furrow across the steamer's bows• All these sounds Cran- ton knew and loathed. He bad heard them before on the Anmzon and the Niger, and knew that they had rung the death -knell of many a strong man. But there was another sound which prom- ised life and bealth, and his flushed face brightened as 0 monotonous vib- rating note drifted up the night breeze ; it was the song of the long Atlantic swell sweeping across the thundering bar. With a last glance seawards, Cranton crawled into his stifling cab- in, swallowed a bitter draught of whis- key and quinine and flung himself down to sleep. Early next morning he was awakened by the rattling, winch and the clank of chain, and going on fleck be saw the sickly crew getting the an- chor over the bows, fireman there's raving mad, and the nigger hasn't spoke for hours." Then a 1fp of green water washed above the glass, obscuring the light, and out of the shadow rose a terrified shout. The captain shuddered as the tug lifted her bows again, and he saw the wreck of what had once been a strong man, holding a trembling hand before his eyes to shut out some im- aginary horror. We must get them on deck while it's fine," said Cranton. "Rig au awn- ing and hammocks for them. I'm afraid there'll be more down soon, and all our drugs are done." "I hope not," said the captain, "With the loss of the two poor fellows who died in the lagoon, and three help- less here, we'd be very short-handed if we got bad weather. It's lucky we shipped the three )Trooboys, but I'd give six months' pay to be safe in the Trades." As Cranton advised, so it was done; and the fever stricken sufferers swung to and fro beneath an awning as the tug rolled along across the sun -lit sea, a lonely wedge of dark hull ringed about with creaming foam, in the cen- tre of a great azure circle. A11 that day, and for several clays following there was not a breath of air to ruffle the glassy surface of the swell which ran steep and high from horizon to horizon, as it otten does off the Af- rican coast for no apparent cause. )Ev- ery morning the sun rose through a purple bazs, gleaming coppery red, and as he swung slowly west across the heavens poured down the pitiless heat of the tropics upon the plunging tug, until the pitch boiled out of the seams, and thebrass of the rails felt scalding to the touch of incautious fingers. The mate lay burning with fever in a, ham- mock beneath the shade of the bridge - deck, while every now and then afire - man dripping with perspiration, and gasping for breath, dragged himself through the stokehold gratings to col- lapse limply on deck. So the Corona drove along, westwards ever, stemming the strong Guinea current. amid the clatter of blocks, chafing of gear, and groaning of timber, while her captain and Cranton lay listlessly beside the wheel as the long hours dragged by, longing for a breath of cool air or the sight of a passing steamer from which they might obtain drugs or assistance. One evening, after the most trying day of all, the captain, who was gazing, out into the sunset, said languidly: "I see all kinds of bad weather there, and the barometer's falling fast. It's the tornado season, too, and we're loaded to the last inch, However, anything would be a relief after this." Sea and sky were one blaze of light, a hard, brassy glare above, with long lines of fiery radiance trembling across the swell below, while whirling wreaths of thin vapor drifted before an unfelt breeze across the red disk of the sink- ing sun. YOUNG FOLKS„ TLBSIE'S 311ISTAI5F, What was Tibbie? Wby, she was a dear little girl who lived way lip among the mountains of the South- land. She was short, and plump, and round, and had a cute little rosy face, with roand blaok eyes, and a cunning pug nose that of course turned up. Iles morning of the day we are go- ing CO tell about, Tibbie was dressing just as fast as she cauld in her own little room; for you must know that Tibiae's father was a well-to-do farm- er, and they ltad everything veryniee in their home. But why was Tibbie dressing so fast? 3ust because she was going to drive with her papa, fifteen miles to the town of Ferntook. Tibbie had never been in a town before, and so she whirled round and round trying to coax a refractory button of her dress to slip in place, and finally when it did she flew down stairs and into the breakfast room, the happiest little girl you ever Saw. She ate hardly anything, for you kuow that is a way little girls have of doing when any- thing really delightful is going to 110,1) - Presently the captain strode to the end of the bridge and said: "The surf will be easy to -day; there's alight air off shore or deep as she is we'd never have got out." Then the telegraph tinkled the propeller whirled up the foam astern, and with the muddy wa- ter boiling into white wreaths beneath her bows, the Corona steamed down the lagoon. A seaman leaned over the rail, waving bis bat as they passed a spit of yellow sand. "Good-bye, Tom; good-bye,,lim, Give the poor fellows a call, sir," be said. The captain smiled, then he raised his cap, and grasped alanyard, Three times the deep boom of the whistle rang out across forest and water, and thrice the red ensign flut- tered. aloft, as glowing streak of color againsb the morning blue, while rough weather-beaten men stood bareheaded inthe rising sun. Then a wheeling cloud of bats end, screaming parrots settled down again among the man- groves, and the forest closed round a lonely wooden cross. "Thank God, we're off, and there are no more left behind. We're not out of the wood yet though," observed the griny engineer, as he looked out through the gratings. Presently a dense volume of dingy (To Be Continued.) pen. Finally everything was ready, and Tibbie and her papa started. Whet a pretty drive it was, and how Tibbie enjoyed every blessed minute ot it all. To be sure, Ferulook was not every big town, but it was Wonderland to Tibbie. Why, she had never seen such stores in all her short life, and her father had to stand patiently be- fore o-fore show -windows, while Tibbie look- ed and exclaimed. He had to MU a few tbi.ngs, too, such as a beautiful wax doll that shut its oyes just like Tibbie did when she went to sleep at night; a set of dear little pink and green dishes; and a big sack ot de- licious candy for mamma. Tibbie was very sure mamma liked candy: and of her own likings in that direction she had no doubts whatever. cool. Then. she went into a shady, arbor, where there were lovely Beav- ers and a pretty fountain in the centre, and sat down with papa at a little round table, and was served with a dish of—well, I declarer Could you guess what it was, I wonder? Tibbae didn't know at all, and laughed iti.hen the waiter brought it in and said : funny, "Why, papWhal ere A ltd dishhe of et SiaaWIit?" How then she tasted it and found it was cold and sweet and—I declare! What was 111 Well, Tibbie, walked and walked all that day and said she wasn't ut bit tired and wanted to see more, b t was time to go home, pap& said, so they climbed in behind Dolly and start- ed, We are sorry to state that Tibbie fell asleep a good while before they got home, but she was only the wider awake when they all sat down to supper• Then she told them about her won- derful trip, and ber quaint little re- marks brought many smiles to the Caces of her listeners 'Tib, did you sea any black people)" asked ber big brother. "Yes, I did," said Tibbie, looking very displeased. ".Tike 'em?" think. "No;" they're awful hateful folks, 1 "Why, Tib?" in much surprise. "'Cause ever' one of 'em made feces at me. like this," and poor, innocent little Tibbie pouted both of her pret- ty red lips out as far as ever she could And then everybody laughed and i:aughed, for you see Tibbae did not know that the colored people have such queer, big mouths naturally, and so she thought they were making faces at her. Dear little Tibbiel THE DUMB MAX SPEAK. !SUM A NEW KLONDIKE. `Q� NQuite �'■'!1■rst. An riaventerMai61ns Nada�" RICHES OF LAKE WAWA DISTRICT IN NORTHERN ONTARIO. Golt.tlatrlig Quartz In /;real 4Dientl Kies - 11114111e1 50 Coey of Aae,Ns and the Climate IN 1151111, 1101 '!'here Are No Sgneors. The first reports of large discoveries of gold in the Miebipicoten, or Lake Wawa, district of Northern Ontario are cenfirmed by later investigations, and the region is now delared by experts to give promise of being as rich in gold - bearing quarts as any on the continent Very little placer mining is to be found in the Michipiooten district, and the orate over the finds of the ore is con- sequently not so intense as was created by the reports from the Kuondike. Ufub notwithstanding that the work- ing of the Micbipicoten fields requires the possession by the miner of suffi- cient capital to provide and transport the necessary machinery to dig down into the solid quartz, a steady influx of miners and prospectors into that section of country has been going on for the past six weeks. The majority I)lecovery W10105 W111 Produce ti11e5411. Now that machines have been made to repeat articulate speech, as the phonograph and the gramophone, the nest wonder which has been announced RS a scientific discovery by an eminent inventor is that by means of a simple maohine the dumb can be made to speak and the organa of our ohurcbes and concert Jodie, deliver orations, songs and operas as 14 they were in- telligent, human beings, says aWash- ington correspondent. It is not a re- production of something which bas 00015 from tae mouth of a human be- ieg—it is applying to a person a part of an organ and combining the proper- ties of the two in snob a way bloat the organ is governed entirely by the in- telligence of a man, yet, though he says nothing, from the instrument will come the sound as if he woes speak- ing, only in volume and tone the sound being that given by the instrument. In other words, the miracle of the Bi- ble will be performed in a simple way by science, and just as the eyes of the blind have been opened by the oculist's knife in cutting cataract or the deaf made to hear by means of the dente, phone, so now there comes into the use of man an invention which will supply the wanting sounds and enable him to converse with articulated speech'. And the huge power of the or- gan or the siren on the shore can be converted into songs that will fill a city of choirs that cost but little, yet render the most attractive music for THE MYSTERIOUS ASSASSIN, Discovered In Time. 5,, save the Lift•, of Marshal De Saxe. One night, shortly after the celebrat- ed Battle of Fontenoy, its hero, Mar- shal De Saxe arrived at a little village in which was an inn with a peculiar reputation. It was said that in this inn there were ghosts who stabbed or strangled all who attempted to pass the night in a certain room, The conqueror of Fontenoy was far from being susceptible to superstitious terrors and was ready to fa05 an army of ghosts. He dismounted, ate his sup- per, and went up to the fetal room, taking with him his arms and his body - servant. His arrangements completed, the marshal went to bed, and was soon in a profound slumber, with his sen- tinel ensconced in an armchair by the fire. About one o'clock in the morn- ing the watcher by the fire, wanting to get acme sleep himself, approached bis master to awaken him, but to his call he received no response. Thinking the marshal soundly asleep, he called. again. Startled at the continued silence, the man shook him ; the marshal did not stir As he lifted his hands from the term in the bed, the frightened servant saw that they were red. The marshal was lying in a pool of blood! Drawing down the cover, the soldier saw a strange thing. An enormous insect was fas- tened to the side of De Saxe, and wee OPERA OR CHURCH Mr. Berliner's first conception of the idea of making an instrument produce speech of itself, instead of reproducing that of persons, was due to the fact, so he avers, that the mode of vocaliza- tion in the human body can ba almost entirely counterfeited by mechanism, and that it occurred to him that it would be a useful thing to apply the principle sof human vocalization so that the expensive choirs of churches could be obviated by machinery. That he has produced by maohinery such speech— in other words, that he bas "made an organ talk"—he asserts is true, and that the experiments, while yet in their infancy, show conclusively that the completion of his apparatus is but a matter of time and study of the hu- man voice. The method employed by Mr. Ber- liner in his experiment, was extreme- ly simple. Regarding the organ and body, it will be remembered that the lungs of a person act as a pair of bel- lows, that the windpipe is the organ through which the air is pumped, and that the vocal chords give the sound pitch, the words being formed by the movement of the tongue, teeth, and lips combined. Now, the sound of a tone, as it comes out of an organ pipe, is similar to that given up by the human windpipe before the words have been articulated by the mouth. Hence, Mr. Berliner reasoned, of this pipe sound of the organ could be conveyed to the mouth, just back in the throat, and articulated properly by the right mo- tions of the lips, tongue, and teeth, the organ could be made to talk. With a bit of rubber tubing, which was placed with one and in a pair of bellows and the other at the back of the mouth, he found that by simply giving to the mouth, the motions at would use in uttering certain words "MORE BLESSED TO GIVE" "Mamma," said Benno, eagerly, " i want a penny out ot my bank." "Very well, dear," returned mamma, taking the bank down off the shelf. "But what for?" "Patsy, the peddler's, down the street with a wagonload of oranges, for a penny apiece, and all of us fel- lows ere going' to nay one." "But mamma has oranges iu the house, Benno." "Yes, mamma, I know; but we all. want to bay 'em with our own mon- ey; We're going to have some fun." Fun with whom, Benno?" asked mamma. "Old Aunt Tilde," he said, dimp- ling; "Uncle Marcus is going there to tea Hs told us so when eve stopped to talk with him et the wood yard. Aunt Tilde's so poor, and Uncle Mar- cus is so poor, we thought we'd give them an orange rolling.. Dont you think, yourself, that will be tun, mamma?" candid - Yes, I do," said mamma, ly. So Patsy found quite a retail de- mand for his oranges in the crowd of marry -faced smell boys who sur rounded his cart, and then away they scampered, up Winchester laLane to Aunt Tilde's cottage, with its broad sign, "Washing and Ironing Done." Aunt Tilde's brother, Marcus, sat by her tiny stove, and she was busy preparing their poor little meal. Both old people were a little aorta, They diad not hear the door -latch softly lift- ed, nor notice the widening crank until suddenly half a. dozen golden or- angbs mane rolling across the floor, beautiful, sun -browned smooth -skinned early Flortdas. Uncle Marcus forgot his rheumatism, and scrambled for them as eagerly as a boy would. Then half a dozen more cams roll- ing in. Surprise." called out a chorus of bays' voices. ' Cut 'em up for lea," nivissd. Ben- no, with bis mouth ab the window crack. llrula Marcus broke the skin of en Grange, and the fresh, delicious odor fi.11erl the room, I declare, I think this town has TRE CORRECT SOUND was produced on the volumes of air coming out of the tube in the mouth, tust as it would have been made by he mouth in speaking with air from the windpipe. Though not a sounclwas uttered by his ons mouth, which dumb- ly went through the pantomime mo - bions used in articulation, there were words spoken by the vibrations just as if they were done in the ordinary way—only, of course, as there was no use of the vocal chords which give the varying pitch, the sound was all in the same key. The use in churoh choirs would be a great feature of the service, Mr. Ber- liner suggests that for a choir there ought to be four men, each one articu- lating from a different tube, repre- senting different pitches, or different voices, such as bass, tenor, soprano, and contralto. Thus all the varying shades of music could be cheaply pro- duced at a third of the present ex- pense., But the chief benefit to humanity will be the use to which the dumb eau put this new invention. The dumb are able to move the lips in the motions used in speaking, though they cannot utter a sound. Now, if the sound. be brought into the back of the mouth, forced out, and properly articulated by the teeth, lips, and tongue of the dumb person, the result will be speech. With a simple and cheap apparatus this effect can be obtained. Of course, it will require time for such a person to learn the correct motions to give to the mouth in order to produce the right words, lint that will come readily with the practice, just as one learns the typewriter or to ride a bicycle. smoke streamed away from. the Coro- same ai the bin :molest boys in no's funnel, and the boat trembled sucking at a wound from, which the ii.," said Aunt Tilde wiping her spec - throughout to the vibration of her blood flowed freely, Owl es, panting engines, for the roaring liar The man sprang to the fireplace, When Benue ant clown to his own lay close ahead veiled in a white smot.h- .;rasped the tongs, and ran back to ,Bali cf. sugared Fl.orida,s that night ho er of tonna. Out she went, swinging a i the, bed. (Seizing the monster, he met looked up ee mama. streamingforefoot hip,.., into the air, it into the flames, where it was in- "Orange rolli.ngs are lots of fun," he or plunging to the bites in a. white-1,10nlly consumed. said. __ , eroded grniler, wallowing and diving' Ileln ?vas called, and thn marshal with floods l decks until at last the , eeia soon out of danger; bub the great The history of the fan is almost .as d ho roan and fell gowned, who had eseapell fire and steel 1 old ea the history of the, world, One surf smoothly s pas sad an s siuoothly nn the glassy undulations of for 7•t;nrs, had barely escaped dying of, I might almost; imagine Tvo flaunting the Atlantic. the bite of an insect, Ile had found. a primitive fan of palm leaves or tea,- " ecr" Nf r i rrra, I cone and home " the ghost, theta in the garden cif. Eden. olv a ,. S 1'E At .half -past three on Monday morn- ing, just before the first glimmer of daylight appeared, we sighted anoth- er steamer. No rockets were left; but fortunately there was a Roman can- dle, earl this was supplemented by k blue light. Tile vessel was abone three miles away, and passing us. at that distance, orF about two minutes af- ter the blue light had died out, we all strained our eyes in anxious sil- ence; but the stranger was keeping a good lookout, and at the enc, of that time a bright light appeared from its deck for a moment; and then up into the clear sky shot a majestic rocket, and bursting ab a great height, show- ered clown its colored balls. I have seen many rockets, but never enjoyed the sight of one so much as I did them. A deep sigh of relief passed through all the assembled watchers; and al- most immediately after, we could see all three of the steamer's lights, show- ing she was steering straight for us. She soon got alongside as nearly as of these are Americans, but Canadians sbe dared to come; and ber captain from the Sudbury district and from I having arranged to tow us to Madeira, still further east are represented by distant about one hundred and ninety miles, it we could keep our vessel afloat we were taken in tow. To manage this we had to lower one of our boats; and the trouble we had in getting that boat safely afloat gave us some idea of the difficulty and danger there would have been, in the state of the sea, in getting everybody safely away in the boats. We bad. two more night and days of pumping end bailing, the water still gradually gaining on us, Once or twice we, managed to lower it an inch or two; but we soon lost the advantage we had gained. So matters went on. The last night, before we got in, Ino- ticed that every now and then little dark shadows flitted across the deck; which I was at a loss to account for. The mystery was explained the next morning, for ons of toe children hap- pening to go into the after wheelhouse, which was not used in a general way, found nearly all the rats in the ship assembled there. They had forsaken the hold, either because they considered the risk of drowning was too great there or possibly with some desperate hope of being able to leave the ship before she went down. We made areal on them, and eleven rats came to an untimely end; " the rest they ran away." large contingents. Mr. C. A. Armstrong, immigration manager for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a party of Canadian P,a- cifie Railroad officials have just com- pleted A TOUR OF INSPECTION through the newly discovered fields. Mr. Armstrong reports that only a lit- tle prospecting has been done through the district. and states bis belief that very large discoveries of gold will be made there within the .next few mon the. What is known as the Michipicoten district contains about 5000 acres of land, and extends 103 miles east and west by 64 miles north and south. The distriot lies worth from Sault Ste. llfarie, between Georgian Bay and Mis- sanahle, on the line of the Canadian Pacific, and is most readily reached by steamer from Sault Ste. Marie and thence by canoe up the Michipicoten River. Mr. Armstrong said that he saw many gold specimens. He was con- vinced that the district is full of prom- ise, but he saw no development. The deepest pit that had been sunk in the entire district did not reach 10 feet down, and not more than a single shot had been fired in any one place. Mr. Bishop, a New York company promoter, while standing talking to Mr. Armstrong, picked up a gabble on the sandy beach of Lake Wawa, and made the passing remark, 'See how strangely this is seamed.." Then be gave at a rub and added, "By George, look at this 1" The pebble was all inlaid with seams of gold. Several somewhat similar experiences bad come to Mr. Armstrong's notice during his trip. THE GOLD TERRITORY POTATO CROP IS A FAILURE, Not Since 1810 has Ilan 11N41 Item se &mull or NO roar 10 natality 1114 NOW. Not since 1802 bas the potato crop of the United States proved so nearly a failure, says the American Agricultur- ist, in its final report of the ',yield of 1807. Campared with the liberal crop of last year there is an apparent toll - log off ot nearly 30 per cont, in ton- nage and the quality of the whole is greatly deficient. County and town- ahip returns from all the leading po- tato growing States to this week by newspapers show the yield of potatoes to be 174,000,000 bushels, against 215,- 000,000 in 1815, 280,000,000 in 1805, 185,- 000,000 in 1854, and only 155,000,000 in the short crop of 1802, The average rate of yield per acre is placed at 04 bushels, taking the country at largo, against 80 hashols in 1800, 80 in 1805 and 02 in 1802, Vier, is the most dengerons wbnn it pits on the garb of Virtue,—Publius Syrus, is well cut up by rivers, is easy of ac- cess to Lake Superior and Huron, and is nowhere expensive to get at. The 11'Lichipicoten River and Wawa Lake are delightful summer resorts on the north shore ot Lake Superior. Unlike the )londike, there is no hardship but much pleasure in ti spring, summer or autumn visit to the country for arty man who is a novice at prospecting, eyt man who is a novice at prospecting,,yet wishes to try his luck at gold mining, Mr. Armstrong's advice is emphatio- cally, Don't." Sault Ste. Marie is centrally the best supply town. St. Joseph Island and Rosa is the garden of the country, and can supply the agricultural products at reasonable rates. Mr. Armstrong says he saw excellent potatoes, par- snips, radishes, turnips and carrots in the old Hudson .Say post at Lake Wawa. Oats, barley and timothy hay grow very well, as do also cultivated raspberries. Wheat is risky,but often burns out a good crop. Te land is level and consists of olayey loam, sandy loam and sand free from stone. The good land is in flats, hedged in by bluffs of solid rook, in which the mineral is found. The climate is emi- nently healthful and not too severe for enjoyment. At the present time there are, Mr. Armstrong says, about 1000 trospectors scattered over the dis- rict. THE SIN OF FRETTING•. There is one sin, which, it seems to me, is everywhere end by everybody underestimated. and quite too much overlooked in valuation of character. It is the sin of fretting. It is com- mon as air, as speech—so common that, unless it rises above its usual mono- tone, we do not even observe it. Watoh any ordinary coming together of peo- ple, and see hew many minutes ib will be before somebody frets—that is, makes more or less complaining statement of something or other. which probably ev- ery one in the room, or in the car, or on the street corner, it may be, knew before and probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is edit, it is hot, it ,s wet, it is dry, somebody has broken an appointment ill -cooked a meal; stupidity or ball faith somewhere has resulted in (lie - comfort. There are plenty of things to fret about, It is simply astonishing bow much annoyance may be fowl& in the course of every day's living, even of the simplest, if one keeps a sharp eye on that side of things. Even Holy Writ says we are prone to 'trouble as sparks fly upward,' But even to the sparks flying upward, in the. blackest of smoke there is a blue sky above. and the less time theyy waste on the road the sooner they will roach it. Fret- ting is all time wasted on the road. Having sighted and passed the in- hospitable island of Porto Santo, we arrived off the east end of _Madeira. By this time there was fourteen feet of water in the after -hold, and the stern of the vessel was still lower in the water. There is a considerable race off the east end of the island. caused, I suppose, by unequal soundings; and the way the poor ship rolled in this broken water was sickening. She would make a heavy roll. say to port, and Ilea she would stop, end as the weight of water followed the roll, she would continue to roll the same way as before„ till you felt sure she was going to capsize; then she would slowly right, and go through the same performance the other way. However, wo soon got under the lee of the island end into smooth water. Our steamer had come from a, South American port, which the ifortuguese are pleased to consider unhealthy. Though there was nobody i11 on board, and the vessel had left that port some three weeks or more, she was obliged to hoist the yellow quarantine flag on nearing Madeira. As we passed the sig- nal staff a lot of little flags went up. I was standing by the captain at the time, and board him mutter something in which the word "fools" was notice- able. I asked what the signal meant, The question asked was: "Are you in distress?" A brief "Yes," was the re- ply. Again up went the little flags from the station, and this time they said. "Do not anchor if you can help it and that because we were flying the yellow flag. These inhospitable Portuguese, rather than run the most remote risk, of disease, would have al- lowed us to go to the bottom without any help. Our captain answered. Must anchor, or beach her;" and shortly after, we did anchor. But not a soul was allowed on board to help us; and a guard was set over us, to prevent any of the passengers or crew from landing. However, we got some help at last. The people of Madeira are noted for their powers of swimming and diving. No diving -dresses were to be had; but without them. we got two of the best divers to come off, and though not al- lowed to come on board, they were al- lowed to work outside the ship. They had two 'boats made fast astern, and they dived in turn, taking a header with a lump of oakum in one hand, and in the other a short chin piece of wood to drive in the.oakum. They bad a depth of twenty feet to dive to get to the leak, still each; time they man- aged to drive in the lump of oakum before coming up; and after a time, they so far stopped the leak that the pumps began to gain on it. This was all that was wanted; and six hours af- ter, l.ter, the water was so far reduced that the engineers were able to get at the leak from the inside. Two or three days longer we were kept prisoners on board a vessel that could not move; and then one of the huge Castle line of steamers cams in, to whish I joyfully transferred myself and luggage after a hearty good -lye to the captain and others. Thus, by God's help, and the care and patient perseverance of the cap- tain and his officers, not a life was lost or 55 parson injured, and. the good ship herself was kept afloat. Four days later T. reached Plymouth. (The end.) ' TJP IN FIGURES:, Teacher—Come, come, Dick; what tomes after ton? Dick—Eight, nine, ton-•er---donna. Teacher—Bobby, can 'you ' /tell Dick whet tomes after ten,? iiohii y Yes'm—jock, queen and king, sermon is not ha f written yet. Interviewer --Are you favorably im- pressed with this country? Eminent Foreign Lecturer... Very. T'm taking in a thousand dollars a week, LONDON'S RT6T2RING MAYOR. The relaxed Lord Mayor of London, Sir George Ifatldol-Phillips, has, dur- ing the 12 mouths he has been in et- , fico, raised for charity 43,500,000, the bulk of it being the Indian famine fund, Six George is an orthodox Tow 1 and recently Remo a "Kesler" banquet at the Lord Mayor's tionse, whore all the viands were prepared strictly in accordance with the i'4lasaio ritual.