The Brussels Post, 1961-08-17, Page 4hornbill etridine tinatieh
bushveld; or as one 4211(iS :erns'.
ing iaa the mountatn
and dripping forest. elan, with
the creator; or when gazing at
evening over limitless sleetehee
of purpling veld.
Africa With its agricultural
methods, its hot sun, heavy rain,
storms and dry pen" a ds, .has its
conservation problen.... The main.
stimulus. for this hook is rooted
in the tragic droughts, „ The
veld, dry and brittle, or scarred
black by fire and stripped naked
of protective covering, can' offer
no substenancc. The ground,
baked hard, lies desiccated be-
neath the sun's heavy rays;:
whilst whirlwinds shroud theme
selves, like ghosts, in the dust, .,
Week after week it goes on
• until wisps of cloud presage a
change, Gradually the weather
brews until at last, pregnant and
heavy clouds start to drop their
load on the parched earth, Soon
the stem - waters, gathering,
rush over the land, tearing at ite
vitals„ A new drama is being
played: the tragedy of drought is
followed by a further tragedy of,
storm, merciless in its destruc-
tion, Watercourses, turned
into roaring torrents, gouge out
great wounds in the soil. Gullies
and runnels in the fields clutch
at the heart of the land, Sand.
deposits and washed veld' show
what has been removed of our
heritage. Dams filled with silt
mark the graves of our topsoils,
'These things are not natural,.
Muddy water we have become
accustomed to, but it is a most
dangerous symptom of „progres-
sive d.estrectinn; Gullies (don-
gas) we are used to, but most of
them were once vleie. The greets
vleis where water squelches be.,
neath the farmer's boots, and:
myriads of frogs bell in the
rains: where sedges wave in the.
breezes; where buttercups lift
their golden faces to the sung
where flocks of weaver-birds
chirp noisily, flashing crimson,
yellow and brown, as they build,
their wicker nests; where some
greenness remains well into the.
winter—the vleis are dying; and
Africa, with them„
These are the stimuli for this
book, Africa can still be saved,,
and Is worth saving.—From "The
Conservation of Natural Ra-'.
sources," by Richard C. Haw,
your rain barrel has .returned
:and brought a companion with
its" Father reined 'Prince to a
step and with amazement gazed
at the two White rain barrels,
one at the either end of the
Piazza. "Well, I declare," he •
said, "This is a 'happy end to a
mystery hut I would like to have
an explanation"
Mter the chores were • done
and supper was eaten, Father
harnessed Prince, who, after his
long trip to and from the Grange,
made it clear that he considered
an evening call all nonsense,
Father paid a call on Uncle
Pearl and made a statement and
a cleinaecn "The. rain barrel is
back and brought a second bee-
rel. with it. Now I believe that
you can explain, the mystery. I
demand as explanation,"
Tee explanation was a simple
one, When Mr. Kane, the Surly
farmer, had delivered the hay,
Father had expressed his desire
for another water cask. Mr,
Kane's departure was a hurried
one and he left Father on the
scaffold stowing away the hay.
As Mr, Kane drove out of the
yard, he noticed Father's rain
barrel and thought of all the
water casks made by his grand-
father that were still etored in.
the old shop, On the spur of the•
moment, he lifted Father's bar-
rel into the hay rack and said to
himself, "I'll take this along to
match up with one of Grand-
father's casks, The next time I
• deliver hay' in this neighborhood
I'll return John's • barrel and
make him a present of another."
On his trip home to Surry he
had met Uncle Pearl, who thus
was able to guess the secret of
'disappearance,
Father
barrel's disappearance,
Father was so delighted with
the gift of the rain barrel that
he took the next day off from
work in order to drive to Surry
to thank Mr. Kane for his pre-
sent. He was as proud of his
second barrel as he was of the
original seagoing one. We dill-
dren frequently heard his cau-
tion, "Do stay away from my
rain barrels."
It was no wonder that, when..
• I heard • Colby girls sing "Play
in my rain barrel," I always
said to myself, "Not Father's
rain barrels." — By Esther E.
Wood in the Christian Science
Monitor.
DESTRUCTION IN KOBE Flood waters race through the streets of the Japanese port thy of Kobe
following a 40-inch rainfall.
GOOD IDEAe-Doing what comes
naturally In the hot summer
days, Charles Haase, 1 4, takes
la back flop Into the waters of
Coney Wand beach,
Spending Sunday
In Caesarea
To see Algeria, one has to leave
Algiers. So, taking our example
from a long line of Algerians
which began with Saint Augus-
tine and ended with Albert
Calms, we left behind the city's
troubled European boulevards
and teeming Moslem quarters
that climb its heights, We took
the road tc Cherchell; the Caesa-
rea of the Romans.
The worst drought in thirty
years, though it had reduced and
withered the hayfields and plac-
ed the cattle on short rations,
seemed scarcely to have touched
the lush vineyards and melon
patches that we passed in the
Mitida. the rich plain that sur-
rounas Algiers, and the apple of
the eye of the Europeans whose
farms and plantations cover it.
What secrets of past and future
rebellions, Putsches and other
tumults ceseld those neat, white
houses of the Provence or the
Auvergne transplanted to Africa
euncear.' Could a handful of
se dit i cee ex.-generals and
colonels. as rumor had it in Al-
giers. really be hiding there?
'Possibly no one, and probably
not we. would ever know the
answer
had dutifully voted "yes" to
General de Gaulle. "The rebels
will be all cleared out of those
hills in no time," the local mili-
tary commander had predicted
then, gesturing back over the
back road we had taken today.
Just as in 1958, and probably
as in the time of King Juba and
his queen as well, Cherchell was
still an armed camp. There were
about two soldiers for every
civilian visible. Its villas were
set among gardens where frag-
ments of Roman statuea capitals
and other bric-a-brac stood only
a short distance away from a
newish church.
We lunched at a seaside res-
taurant, then took in the treas-
ures of Cherchell's richly-stock-
ed Roman museum once again,
forgetting the war for a time,
Outside the archway of the
town's eastern gate, where the
Roman legions had once depart-
ed on their missions of pacifica-
tion in the eastern marches of
the province there was a new
sign:
"A cordial welcome to Cher-
chell.' But we must remind our
guests that the roads to X., Y„
and Z. (various neighboring vil-
lages) are closed at 5:30 p.m.
each evening and we ask you to
plan 'your day accordingly."
We could take a hint. We join-
ed the stream of Sunday traffic
leaving the beaches, the lush
countryside of the Mitida and.
raced back to Algiers before the
dusk brought back the shadows
of war.
Va t Continent Of
Sharp Contrasts
This Africa is a land of con-
trasts, problems and. opportuni-
ties, Dark. Africa is seeing the
light, and, though dazzled, it is
stretching itself for a new day.
Its spirit is in its people, devel-
oping and fermenting. The spirit
of Africa is born of the veld, It
enters one's bones as one sits by
the camp fire listening to the
many sounds of the wilds; or .in
the fresh dawn, one hears the
booming voice of the ground
When Father Lost
is Rain Barrel
Every Friend's Corner house
had at least one rain barrel be-
cause, during July and August,
our shallow wells often became
so low that rain water caught
in the barrels was a necessary
addition to our water supply.
Uncle Arthur had two such
barrels, both large hogshea
that had been stained a dark \
brown. One stood by the shed
door and was under the gutter
that drained that side of the shed
roof. The second was by the
dining room door and got a par-
tial runeeff of water from the
roof of the main house. In June,
after the hogsheads had been
emptied, scrubbed, and dried, we
children were instrueted to keep
away from them until fall, For
the remainder of 'the year, we
played with the barrels as much
as we wished,
In fall, we tossed horsecheste
nuts rote them, and, after a rain.
storm had filled the barrels, le=e
sailed a fleet of chips on the
placid circle of water. During
the winter months some sneer
etccurnelatecl in. the • barrels be„
there was always room foe nue
Up - ended snowshoes. W h eft
spring eanie, Uncle sometimes
rolled the barrels to the Minn
side of his shop, tilled them with
hay, and, in each, Set a hen Ore
a clutch of eggs. Uncle's .raitt
barrels were indeed objects
both entertainment and utility. '
One spring, Uncle decided that
a third rain barrel was desirable
aide to give the rain barrel a
second coat of paint and so take
it back into the barn?" Father's
answer was a positive "No,"
When, he discovered that the
barrel was missing, he was com-
pletely mystified.
As soon as supper was over,
Otis was sent to ask Cousin Her-
man about the missing barrel,
while Father himself went to see
- Dan and Uncle Arthur on the
same errand. The results were
everywhere the same. No one
had seen the missing rain barrel.
Father recalled that Austin
and his friend Harold Bisset
loved a practical joke, and he
sought them out to inquire if
they had hidden his prized cask.
The vehemence-of their denial
convinced him of their innocence,
The missing rain barrel was
for a number of days the chief
'topic of conversation at Friend's.
Corner, Father recalled that it
had been in place on Saturday
when a Stripy farmer had deliv-
ered a load of hay. Father was
especially positive of this fact
because he had pointed out the
cask to his Surry friend, Mr.
Kane, whose grandfather had
,.been a wet cooper in the previ-
ous century,
Mother remembered that on
Monday a wagonload of furni-
ture had gone by the house and
she wondered if the movers had
taken the barrel to hold some of
their possessions. Uncle Arthur
reminded us that we had spent
Tuesday evening at his house so
that it would have been possi-
ble for someone to have taken
the barrel in our absence. But
who would take a rain barrel?
Did someone' recognize it as a
water cask? Was the old con-
tainer once more going to sea?
No one knew the answers to the
questions.
Father's mystification and re-
gret over his missing barrel in-
creased as the days went by, One
day Uncle Pearl grew weary of
Father's regretful remarks about
his missing water cask and he
gave us the, first clue when he
said, "John, I wouldn't worry
any more if I were you. I feel
sure that your barrel has gone
for a visit and will return in due
time,"
That was all that 'Uncle Pearl
wand say in spite of Father's
questioning. Nevertheless, Un-
cle's comment reassured Fathen
though it at the same time in-.
creased his wonderment at the
disappearance of his barrel, Who
ever heard of a rain barrel going .
away for a visit? Where would
it go? How would. it return
home?
, Within a week, all of the ques-
tions were answered. One Sete
tirdeen when Father and. Mother
And Otis returned from an all-
day session of the Pomona
Grange, they drove home tefind
Only Shep and Joe there to meet
theta. because. Ben and I Were
Visiting with Aunt Harriet: As
they &tete into the doOryard,
Mother ettlairried, "Look, John,
ON THE ROAD TO VIENNA - En tuts to Vienna fie meet with
President Kennedy; SOviet Premier Ithruthchev tctilki With Czech
Foreign Minister Vaclav David on arrival at Cierree,. Szechos-
since the Old Farmer's Almanac
prophesied a dry summer.. He,
secured an emptied molasses
barrel from his friend Mr, Long,
who kept the Grange Store at
McHards. When he brought the
barrel home, we children dis-
covered to our joy that the c(M-
tainer had in the bottom several
inches of molasses-sugar. At no
little labor and with much
smacking of lips, we scraped the
sugar from the barrel into tin
pie plates which Aunt Nellie had
provided for us. Our labors gave
us delicious topping for our
breakfast buckwheat cakes. Our
harvest was indeed so bountiful
that no neighborhood family was
without its pan of molasses-
sugar.
Because Dan and Annie lived
in a small house they found that
one rain barrel was sufficient
to catch the water from the
eaves. Dan whitewashed the ex-
terior of his barrel every spring.
One May when Olive and I were
watching him whitewash, he
said, "This whitewash dries
quickly. Why don't you girls run
home for your crayons and, put
some fancy decorations on my
rain barrel?" The result was that
the decorating of Dan's rain bar-
rel became a yearly chore, one
that we continued after 'we be-
came academy students.
Cousin Herman, who had two
rain barrels, one by the back-
door and the other by"the front
door, gave strict orders that we
children were not 'to play with
the barrels during the summer
months. In October, after he had
turned each barrel bottom up, it
was understood that the barrels
were ours and we made good
use of them, The one by the
front door Austin called "the
snowman barrel" because it was
his habit, after every snow
storm, to fashion a snow figure
to stand on the barrel-pedestal.
Austin was a boy who enjoyed
history, and so, it was that Col-
umbus, Napoleon, Lincoln, Bry-
an, and Teddy Roosevelt, at one
time or another, guarded Ethel's
front door.
The barrel at Ethehe back
door was our goal when we play-
ed tag in the back yard, and it
became a drum, which, beaten
with the clothes pole, summoned
"Indians" to the warpath.
At our house we had only one
rain barrel, and Father was very
proud of it because it had once
been the water cask on Grand-
father's schooner, The Meridian.
It was nearly as large as a hogs-
head. and had a brass faucet
about three inches from the bot-
tom, It had been made some
fifty years earlier by Roscoe
Griridle, a wet cooper who made
barrels and casks to hold water
and !molasses. Father painted the
barrel every spring and, in Ode-
ber, rolled it into the at There
it would be protected from the
winter storms,
Actually, the one rain barrel
did not catch all the rain wetter
that we needed, When. a sudden
summer shoWee carne, the cry
alwaye was, "Boys, put out the
wash tubs," Otis and Ben, would
run to the shed for Mother's tin
was: tubs, which they hurriedly
put in, place under the gutter
deeitis. We ehildreil liked to
listen to the certaintiing of the '
water in the tin tubs arid to
watch 'their filling. with Weldon*
Watete
teethe often remarked that
We needed Another rain barrel,
and suggested that Fathet secure
molasses barrel from Mr. Long.
Father's reply Wee always the
eainet "Na triolasees bartel is
good enough to pair up with
Captain Wood's Water ask:"
rather plated eueli high value
.trii, his barrel that at.season
did we children plitY With It,
One April, as was his otistoml,
Father painted the Water teak
lend placed it ea the end of the
'piazza with his usual congtatitra-
toey terriarke, A few dayS Ae is
When Mother noticed that the
del Was riot in its tteual place,
t. 'she' Geld to Vathet, "Wei you itte,A
1). Well vapor, darker and me
than the rest Of the sea
tied sky, began to solidify into a
net mountain system„ the Die.
De: chenotia. Albert Cams, who
[teed to come here to relax with
friends on Sundays when he edite
ed Alger-Republieein in the
h ipeful thirties and did stock-
company theatrical preseenitione,
called it a "brow-like mass,
brown and green, the mossy old
gee which nothing would dis-
lodge, a refuge and gateway foe
tux sons,. one of which an' I."
Some of Tipasa's indilferent
stones awaited us in Minding
noonday sunshine. on a headland
that dreamed its way Jut into
tee bay. Saint Salsa, a young
girl who embraced Christianity
in the fourth century, was sup-
posed to have been eonetemned
here for having rleetrot ed an
idol.
Tipasa, one of Africa's very
few Roman towns that still keeps
its Roman name, looked like a
leafy canvas still in the making,
Its little fishing port awash with
haphazard color Even the severe
gray customs house with tri-
color flag floating over it scarce-
ly spoiled the impression of a
village on a Greek island, or per-
haps some tiny Italian Dort to
the south of Naples,
The red berets of one ox two
marine paratroopers, who only
lately had been pawns in the
:lends of ambitious generals,
added extra dots of color to the
discreet waterfront cafe. Barbed
wire kept us out of Tipasa's most
interesting Roman remains, its
amphitheater, temples, houses.
Cherchell still lay fifteen miles
westward, beyond the mountain
barrier. There was a narrow
cor niche road, winding round and
round the mountain's shore side,
and somewhere about halfway, a
beach. The beach and its Sunday
bathers had once been strafed by
a phantom rebel band that
emerged from somewhere in the
depths of the mountain, and, al-
most as quickly, ducked back into
Its recesses,
But that had been long, long
ago, and we were surprised when
he saw the barbed.wire and the
sentry box that said "halt."
A gendarme, hatless and wear-
ing ' loose American fatigues,
waved us down, "Where did you
want to go'?" he asked, as though
we might just possibly have been
heading for Timbuctoo and tak-
en the wrong turn somewhere,
"This road is closed. Didn't you
hear about what happened at the
beach? You must take the back
road to Cherchell."
"But that beach business was
long ago," we demonstrated.
"Surely there's nothing wrong
now?"
"You can't use the road,"
shrugged the gendarme, almost
apologetically, Obediently we
swung around and headed back
for the fork to take the back
road.
Could there be, after all, rebel
fellagha still lurking in the
mountain's depths? We looked
up at the Djebel Chenoua with
new respect. After all the smug-
sounding communiques issued in
Algiers about the success every-
where of the "pacification," could
there be a pocket of "unpacified"
territory only 30 miles from.
Algiers?
Any doubts we had on, this
score were soon ended when we
rounded a bend and saw that the
telegraph peke had been neatly
cut—sawed through, cleanly and
efficiently, with saws—for about
a quarter of a mile. It had been
done recently, An. emergency
line had been strung from near-
by trees.
In. Desalk, another thriving
town of the Mitida, where the
ruins of a Roman fortified. farm
complete with oil-press stood by
the road, a sign warned that the
read was closed every evening
after '7:30 p.m.
Then, scarcely realizing it, we
had come around the maintain
and, were driving Into Cherchell
or Caesarea, where Juba II, a
Ntunidian King with a Roman
education, tilled most of North
Africa with the daughter of
Cleopatra as his queen.
I had last visited Cherchell just
after the French referendum of
September, 1958, when Algeria
Piereekere, who like most
French families when they are
"roughing it" insist on portable
tables, tablecloths and silverware
brought from home, were al-
ready comeortably installing
themsesvet in the slender sha-
dows of their tiny cars by the
roadside, as though they had
never heard of a plastic bomb
or a tfereriet greade, Only a
lazy helicopter, its blades chop-
ping the impossibly blue sky in
desultory fashion, hovering near-
by like a giant dragonfly, and
truck-loads of soldiers passing
by, recalled that this was a coun-
try at war.
Next came Blida and Boufarik.
Their Sunday outdoor markets
were gay and colorful in the sun,
their squares still adorned with
the monuments to the French
soldiers. planters, and parliamen-
tarians that built the "Algeria of
papa" which. General de Gaulle
sternly warned, is gone forever.
M o si e en countrywomen, a
single eye regarding us quizzical-
ly and with an occasional brief
flash of humor from the swaths
of their -white balks, arid their
husbands with faces crinkled and
creased by the implaeable sun
milled around the markets,
And then we Were in the plain
again, on the Way to the sea,
We passed El Afroun, Botirkika,
Marengo tiny islands of Europe
In a cultivated 'but indifferent
African. conntryside. From the
top of a. ridge our car can down
toward the almost impalpable
bay of Tipasa, the Phoenician
trading post Which in the time
tee Constantine became a centre
of Mediterranean Christendom,
As we drew near, a mess of
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