THE FIRST CENTURY RACE

THE FIRST CENTURY RACEThe Illinois Cycling Club was now in its glory, and I joined them and entered for the 100-mile race, which came off June 15, 1896. The aspirants began training for the event early in the spring, but I attended to my business days, and evenings I slipped out, unknown to anyone, practicing on the worst hills I could find, preparing for the race over the Elgin and Aurora course, but none of the boys knew that I was having any training whatever.As Arthur and Walton were to start for Connecticut the same morning on their thousand-mile run, we ate breakfast together at Lawrence's Restaurant, on Madison Street, about three o'clock in the morning. When we were about to part, Arthur said to me: "Father, do you expect to win that race today?" My reply was to the effect that if I did not, Charley Knisely and his fast bunch would have to make 100 miles quicker than they had ever made it yet.When I arrived at the club house about fifty were awaiting the command to fall in and about two or three hundred standing to see us off, and if ever a dark horse entered a race it was M. A. Richardson that morning.That evening there were reports in all the daily papers, and among other things the Chicago Times-Herald said in part: "The sixth annual run of the Illinois Cycling Club, America's largest cycling organization, took place yesterday. Many of the fast riders, anxious tomake a record over the famous Elgin and Aurora 100-mile course, tried to have the event postponed because of the heavy rains of Friday and Saturday, but the schedule could not be changed in their behalf."As it was a certainty that the rain had made the regular Elgin mud roads west of Maywood unridable, the course was taken over the Armitage road to Addison, 'seventeen miles out,' in the vain hope that this road would be in better condition. The mud just sufficiently dried to be caked and baked into a rough mass, beside which corduroy is a boulevard, furnished ample test for endurance, strength and skill, for no sooner had a mile of it been traveled than the roadside was strewn with physical and mechanical wrecks."The stunning surprise of the run was the fact that M. A. Richardson, the untrained and oldest member, a gray-haired wiry cycler, finished long first, making his appearance at the club house at 12:15, one hour before R. H. Inman, the second best man, who finished at 1:15. Upon the home run from Aurora, Richardson did some fast riding, leaving masculine brawn and youth to figure out just what had taken place."THE SECOND RACEThe next year the race was set for June 28, 1897, when many outsiders from the country came in, all intent on beating Richardson, but one can imagine their surprise when I announced that I would drive a 126-gear wheel, which was equal to a ten per cent handicap from the 80-gear then in use.i212MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.The morning was fair and hot when 140 of us lined up, of which I was the oldest by about twenty years. At the word "go" we ran in a bunch about two miles, when I pulled out, and then the race really began. At Austin Avenue I increased my speed to Twelfth Street, when I slowed down and allowed the fast bunch to pass, and when they turned west on Twenty-second, as I knew they would, I ran straight ahead through Clyde to the old Hinsdale road. This confused them, and they struck out, each man for himself, to beat Richardson in at LaGrange.When I struck the Aurora Road again there were about twenty-five ahead of me all strung out. It was a fine sight to see them between me and Hinsdale, raising a cloud of dust in the morning sun that would have done honor to the Chicago fire department, hook and ladder included. One athletic fellow from the stockyards was actually carrying his cap in his teeth, which seemed to intensify his comical grin of confidence.I entered the cloud of dust at a steady pace, and when I arrived in Aurora for registration, eight of the fastest in the bunch had registered and were out of sight on the road to Elgin.The distance as our course ran to Elgin was twenty-two miles, for which I set my pace to reach there in sixty minutes, which I made in fifty-eight minutes.One by one I passed my struggling competitors on the winding road up the Fox River Valley, registering first man at Elgin and off for Chicago before the next best man hove in sight, having the last forty miles of the road to myself, which I covered at high speed, and then ate a fine club breakfast before the second in the race arrived.DEAD GLACIERWhile studying the North American Indians in Alaska I experience a thrilling adventure in the Mendenthall Valley which memory often recalls.At Juneau, Judge Mellen, one of the eight United States judges appointed to Alaska, from Kentucky, who had accompanied me to Taku, giving me much information, invited me to dinner, when he told me I ought not to leave Alaska until I had seen a dead glacier. Mendenthall, he said was the most wonderful but hard to approach, and he and his wife declared I was just the fellow to tackle the job.That evening he sent a trusty guide to me, who had another man on the string, and said he would take both of us for $20.00, we bearing all expenses. We were soon together, with his mother, a lady of great self-respect, who advised me to caution her son, Archibald, and not allow him to plunge into danger.I sized Archibald up and decided he was a good fellow with heavy self-esteem and light experience, so I mentioned, before his mother, that the outing would be wild experience and very strenuous, at which Archibald assured me he could stand it if I could, besides it was just the job he was seeking for, as he wanted to take something home out of the ordinary.The next evening at 10:30, the time when the sun sets in Alaska in June, we left Juneau in a rowboat, as we must cross the bar at high water at about midnight,or go around about fifty miles each way, both going and returning.Our guide, who had never taken the trip before, miscalculated and we were late at the bar. This left us our choice to jump out and draw the boat through the sea weeds at once or wait until the next tide came in. Archibald reluctantly straddled over the side of the boat, mentioning that he came north for his health, and did not think that a midnight bath would be beneficial, especially such a very cold one."You will get warm enough," I said, "before noon, when we are working our way through that swamp, where mosquitoes are as big as grasshoppers and the bears as big as oxen.""Bears? What bears, Mr. Richardson?""I understand that those woods are full of bears. How is it, guide?""That is why I took my rifle along," replied the grim old mountaineer, as he tugged at the oars."Where is your rifle, Mr. Richardson?" inquired Archibald, as the white of his eyes began to show."Oh, I prefer a large knife for a close contact. Judge Mellon said we could borrow either of the Indians."Soon we were in deep water again, where the wild geese and ducks were scooting this way and that to keep out of our way, when Archibald turned his attention to the oarsman, saying, "Say, old man, I suppose we can hire plenty of guides at the hotel to go with us?""Guides," grunted the boatsman, "I can find the place myself. Besides, there ain't no hotel there.""No hotel! Where will we get our breakfast?""Plenty of fresh bear meat, sir; they kill them every day."Soon Archibald turned to me and said: "Really, Mr. Richardson, I am quite chilly now, and if it will be just the same to you I will stay at the landing while our good friend takes you to the glacier, which you are so anxious to see.""Chilly," ejaculated the old guide. "The sun will soon be up. It rises here now at 2:30 in the morning, and as for staying at the landing is concerned, would you dare stay alone with those Indians?""Alone with the Indians? Why, the Alaska Indians are civilized, aren't they?""Spose so, but Mendenthall Valley is a great place for men to come up missing."THE FOREST.At the landing, the Indians set about to prepare us breakfast of hot no-cake and coffee. The coffee is from burned wild rice, and the no-cake corresponds to our corn bread. They pound the dry corn in a mortar with a pestle and make and fry them. The guide and I filled up on about ten cakes and a quart of coffee each, but Archibald refused, whispering to me that the dishes smelled of bear's oil; besides, the excitement had taken away his appetite.Archibald then said: "That old Indian says they live here mostly on fish and bear. Really, do you think those bears are of the savage kind?""Oh, no," I replied, "only when they have cubs, but they say this is just cubbing time."Mendenthall Valley is about ten or twelve miles west of Juneau, lies between two precipitous mountain ranges over 2,000 feet high. The timber, brook and soil give evidence of great age, and no indications appear to causeone to think it is a grown-up pathway of a glacier. After entering the woods we could see nothing ahead, only timber, except at intervals an opening, which gave us a view of the mountains on either side, as we followed the brook, which led us in a zigzag course.When several miles in we discovered unmistakable evidence of where some large animal had fled at our approach, but we saw nothing but owls, eagles and other small game. I was urging the guide to hurry up, while Archibald was grumbling because we were going so fast, saying he was faint and hungry, so we stopped for lunch, and Archibald was glad to eat the no-cake, which he refused when it was hot.The foliage was remarkable for its large leaves. Wild berries were in abundance, and the trees appeared to be of great age, which caused me to remark that it seemed incredible that, where we were sitting, the ice was more than two hundred feet above our heads not so very long ago."Not so very long? Do you believe that yourself, Mr. Richardson?""Certainly I do. Once this valley was a basin of ice. Have you not studied geology, Archibald?""I have, sir, and I never learned that a glacier could ever thrive in such a d—d hot hole as this. Say, Richardson, were you living in the Glacial Period?""Which one?""Was there more than one?""Yes, sir.""Were you living in the last one?""Yes, sir.""Hear that, guide, Richardson says he was living in the Glacial Period, which was more than 40,000 yearsago, and he does not look to be more than two or three hundred years old. Will you explain, Mr. R.?""Oh, yes, the Glacial Period is now on at the poles—long ago it was on in this valley and still longer ago it was down in the states. Do you not know that our world is slowly revolving in the direction we call south? That is God's wise plan to give each part of the earth rest. Tropical animals once lived here and in Siberia."Who told you all that stuff?""Geology, sir; the same book which you have been studying. By the way, did you ever learn about the Neanderthal man whose skull was found in a cave in the Neanderthal Valley, with the bones of a bear? The man must have lived contemporary with Adam, and it seems that the bear——""Were the bones of that man and bear found in this place?""No! No! Do not get excited.""But you said they were found in Mendenthal Valley.""I said Neanderthal, where a prehistoric race once lived, but really where the bones were found closely resembles this place as well as the name, for I have been there. It is in Prussia. Now let me illustrate by our presence here, what may once have occured in the Neanderthal Valley. Suppose one of those ferocious she-bears should come spat upon us now and the guide and I should escape, while she dragged your mangled corpse——""Bah-aa-aa," roared the guide."What are you laughing at, you great fool?" said Archibald."Laughing to see your eyes bulge out.""Please do not speak that way to Mr. Archibald," I said, "he knows we're in no danger, so long as there's plenty of trees to climb."i220ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS."Your business, sir," said Archibald to the guide, "is to take us to the glacier and the quicker the better. Neither Mr. Richardson or myself care to roost in these trees over night.""Twon't be sundown till nigh midnight," grunted the guide, and we all started on.I was following close on the heels of the guide as we entered an opening, when we all stopped and gazed in astonishment at a dead glacier. Two miles or so away stretched across the valley stood a perpendicular wall of glistening ice, about 250 feet high and four miles long, reaching across the entire valley.To view a glacier fifty or more miles wide, as I found at the foot of Mt. St. Elias, winding its way high up into the mountain, where the snow drifts whirl blindly all the summer day, where no plant or animal abide, seems to be in keeping with the surroundings, but to emerge from a dense thicket, a valley teeming with animal and vegetable life, on a hot summer day and fall spat upon a dead glacier is a sight which must be seen to be realized—then to know that this vast field of ice once extended to the sea, but so long ago that thousands of acres of timber have grown up in its retreating pathway, is enough to astound any but the simple.I was lost in thought and pondered thus: In time this ice mountain will waste away to its fountain head and a peaceful river will flow down this warm valley, where the inhabitants on either side of the river will be as unable to realize the truth concerning the cold bed-fellow that once slept in this Alaskan cradle, as we are unable to comprehend the fact that there is not a spire in Chicagohigh enough to have shown its tip above the ice that once lay over that city during the Great Lakes' Glacial Period.The earth between us and the glacier was carpeted with the most beautiful moss imaginable, all shades and colors, caused by reflection of the sun from the crystal ice. A solemn silence prevailed, such as I never experienced elsewhere, broken at intervals by reports like cannons, occasioned by huge mountains of ice cleaving off to melt in the sun.In climbing the mountain side to get upon the glacier, I found ripe strawberries within a few feet of the ice, and upon the glacier small streams of water, which did not seem to melt the ice. Like all glaciers, there were great boulders upon it, which had plunged down from some far away mountain and were taking a slow cold ride. I jumped across crevices, where if one should fall in he might go down 100 feet, there to wedge in and freeze. Standing in front of this terrible monster a cool strange halo seems to surround, which is far more awe-inspiring than that of the Niagara Falls.On descending from the glacier we found Archibald in a state of agitation, as a thunder storm was approaching and all the protection we possessed was straw hats. My laughing aroused his ire and he used some very undignified language, as the rain began coming down in torrents, accompanied by a strange rattling sound, which seemed to be from overhead. Looking up we could see that several immense rocks from high up the mountain had become dislodged and had started down a deep ravine with such force as to break others from their moorings, which also joined in the mad run, roll, slip, slide, plunge. The impetus was so great and the resistance so strong that when the great boulders met they flashed fire until theentire valley of racing rocks, trees and earth seemed to be enveloped in a blue flame, which formed into a slide, sweeping everything in its path, until it brought up on the plain below with a slump.On examination we found that the immense quantity of debris covered nearly half an acre and was more than fifty feet deep. That it had swept everything in its path, including trees more than a foot in diameter, which were broken up like matches. I told Archibald that whoever got caught in the descent of such a mountain slide would probably remain as deposit until Gabriel blew his horn, to which he grunted assent.As I lingered upon the scene declaring that few people in the world had ever seen such a wonderful sight, he solemnly vowed that he saw nothing peculiar about that rock and mud different from what he could find in the road anywhere.Wet to the skin, tired and hungry, we started on, Archibald wholly unprepared for the skirmish awaiting him. It soon cleared up, but every bush we stumbled against showered down and gave us a fresh bath. My shoes hurt my feet, and especially my game toe, which sometimes cramps, took advantage of the situation and, oh, how it did hurt, but I did not mention it, for fear Archibald would say I did not enjoy roughing it any more than he did, and so we plodded on, anxious to reach the landing where I knew the Indians would give us the best they had.MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM A BEARAfter travelling about three miles, which seemed like twenty, we rested on a log, when I began rehearsing the sights and scenes of the day. I said that if compelled to stay in the woods all night, we ought to consider it a day well spent, but failing to receive a hearty response, I switched off into a more lively subject by exclaiming, as I pointed into the woods, "See! See! There is a bear behind that log." The ruse worked all right until I proposed we rush in and capture him, when Archibald declared this was the last time he should ever tour with a man who knew nothing and feared nothing.As the sleepiest dog will show signs of great activity when a tea-kettle is tied to his tail, so tired men, finding themselves in a strange forest, will pick up their heels with amazing agility when uncertainty confronts them and the landing is far away. Thus it was that our gait was quite lively, which both pleased and vexed his mother's son, Archibald, who had insisted on carrying the guide's gun since I had mentioned that catamounts came out for their serenade long before sunset. Our course was leading us through heavy timber, when I proposed that we circle around through an opening and started that way, the guide following, Archibald pushed straight through, saying that the barking of dogs proved that we were near the landing.After leaving the woods and climbing part way up the hill, I could see Archibald hurrying through the timberwhere, on account of the fallen trees, he made but little headway, so I called out to him to come into the opening where the walking was better, to which he replied, "I am not afraid to walk in the woods."At the top of the hill was a berry patch, from which I had full view along the foot of the mountain, where nearby I saw three Indians running towards me with rifles in a position to shoot. Between me and them was a dark ravine, in which dogs were fiercely barking, and knowing they were trying to kill something, I rushed forward to see, when a bouncing black bear whipped around the ledge and over the knoll in the direction of poor Archibald. He was closely pursued by the dogs, to whom old Bruin was often compelled to stop and give battle. When running the dogs were upon his heels, and when he stopped and set up for a fight he would see the gunners and light out again regardless of the dogs.I knew the bear would not hurt Archibald unless in the act of running over him, but I began shouting, "Lookout! Lookout, Archibald! Lookout, there's a bear after you. Run! Run! Run for your life," at which he started running toward me, thinking the bear was coming from the other direction. As the bear ran down the hill with the Indians trying to get a shot at him, I could see both the bear and Archibald approaching each other, while Archibald was looking over his shoulder, so he did not see the bear until he was right upon him, when turning quickly he dropped his gun and lit out unceremoniously.The panorama before me was what the girls call a peach—the shortest, funniest, and most earnest sprinting match ever recorded; Indians chasing dogs, dogs chasing bear, bear chasing Archibald, Archibald running for dearlife. Archibald did not take a zigzag course as lightning usually does, but shot straight ahead into the thicket, leaving no evidence of his late departure, but an imaginary wake. The bear, who could not stand the nipping of the dogs, turned again, and as he raised up was shot by one of the Indians.We could see nor hear nothing of Archibald, whose parting glimpse had aroused my concern, so I hurried in the direction of his disappearance, crying out his name. Leaning against a big tree I put my hands to my mouth and helloed so loud that my voice echoed through the swamp, when I was surprised at his voice so near me saying, "What in the d-v-l do you want?""Where are you, Archibald?""Here I am, up here.""Oh, yes, come down.""Did you kill him, Mr. Richardson?""Yes, he is dead.""Did he catch anybody?""No, he was not after anyone. Come down out of that tree.""Not after anyone? What is the use of your lying. If you had not shot him he would have had me in two more jumps. Is there any more of them?""No, there is not. He was not after you. He was running to get away from the dogs. You know I had no gun. It was the Indians who shot him. Come down here! Come down! Here is the gun which you threw away.""I am in no particular hurry to come down. Say, Richardson, tell me how long you expect to stay in this God-forsaken country?""Oh, about three weeks more. Why? Do you not like Alaska?""Alaska is all right, but you are so bull-headed, taking a fellow into such a hole as this. Besides, there is nothing to see here.""Haven't you seen an avalanche?""Avalanche? Nothing but stones rolling down hill.""And you've seen a glacier.""Glacier? Nothing but a chunk of ice.""And a bear right in the woods. Your friends will be glad to hear about——""Now grin, Mr. Richardson! Sit there and hold your sides to keep from bursting with laughter. I swear if I did not know anymore than you do I would never compose a book. I did think a brief account of this trip might be interesting, but no one would care for the minute details as you would give them. At least, I hope they will not get into print until after I am dead.""Why, Archibald, when you get home you will enjoy telling your friends all about your adventures and hair-breath escapes, how bravely you faced——""Oh, you get out! Let us go to the landing and get some more dodgers fried in bear's tallow, that you enjoy so much."We stood in silence a moment, when he put his hand kindly on my shoulder as he said: "Mr. Richardson, you must not think I mean everything I say, but I'm so terribly wrought up. The glacier was so much different from what I expected, and I was afraid you might get hurt up there alone. Then the landslide startled me awfully, for I thought the whole mountain was coming down, and that the world might be coming to an end, and, oh, how this bear did frighten me. I presume Ishall laugh about it when I get home, but I cannot get up a smile now.""Certainly you will laugh about this trip, Mr. Archibald, in years to come, especially when you come to consider that bears are not like wolves, panthers and those kind of fierce beasts, which kill to eat. Besides, you should not spleen at eating bear meat, for they live mostly on nuts and berries and sleep all winter. Experience is a great teacher, this day will never be forgotten. It adds to our lives and we shall look back to it with pleasure. Now, you're not mad?""Mad? No, Mr. Richardson, I half way love you, and when I think of this fright I shall think about you as both the best and meanest man on my list. I am going to eat hearty on the bear steak for supper; you see if I do not. Now you can consider yourself forgiven for all except one act.""What is that, Archibald?""When you kept calling 'Run! Run! He is after you!' He was not after me, he was before me, and you knew that you were lying all the time."The last evening I spent at Juneau with Judge Mellen and his interesting wife. It was ten o'clock when we parted. The sun was still shining and the birds singing when we shook hands good-bye, and he said: "We will meet again, where friends meet friends which they loved on earth." As the steamer pulled off from the shore I thought of the friends I had gained in Alaska to make my life more interesting in that home where the flowers fade not and the inhabitants never grow old.MY EDUCATIONIn returning to my mental endeavors, I gladly confess that before I had passed out of my teens, my lack of a common school education caused me deep regret, but I braced myself bravely against adversity and soon found myself working evenings over the very rudiments of language which I had spurned in the old Birch School House.After my marriage to Mary Hoyt, she took me in hand and together evenings we read "The Hoosier School Master," "Belle of Ores Islands," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and many other good books, after which I struck in for myself with Webster's unabridged at my elbow. By working days and studying nights I soon became conversant with Stowe, Eliot, Dickens, Shakespeare and that class of literature which illustrates human nature. Later I took up the sciences, geology, astronomy and what else I cared for, together with the languages under private instructors, which, with my experience at Evanston, gave me a comparatively good understanding as to how these great subjects are handled in our classical institutions of learning. I never aspired to scholarship; my ambition is to discern truth.For diversion I am usually working up some subject which, when formed into a book, I present to my friends, never thinking of recompense, as my business affords me more than I need, and as to notoriety, I have no ambition that way."Jim Hall and the Richardsons" was my first literary endeavor. It evolved out of my long siege in ferreting out the chronological trail of the Stafford branch of Richardsons."Rose Lind" is an assumed exposure of the far-reaching evil influences of the grain gamblers on the Chicago Board of Trade."Eight Days Out" is a burlesque on Phillip, on my visit to the Soo."Mina Faust" is a long love story."Chicago's Black Sheep" is a figurative illustration of the criminal dens of Chicago, and the work of the Salvation Army."Personality of the Soul" is a review of the prevailing religion, as I found them in my extensive travels."Twilight Reflections" is an accumulation of indications that mineral, vegetable and animal existence are the direct result of scheming and are being held or driven by an incomprehensible will power. Also, that the animal, especially man, possesses slight creative power.Somehow, I cannot think of the soul as something evolving from nothing, or as beginning its existence with the formation of the body, but rather as descending to or ascending from former existence.Pre-existence is in harmony with the teachings of Jesus, reason and eternal life. The animated body comes into existence through transformation from pre-existence. If that quality, to present, to consider, to decide, exists it must be a transformation of some kind of pre-existence. To affirm that God gave orcreated does not imply that He gave or created from that which He did not have.I will not question the Divine Power or intelligence, but I challenge man to produce an indication of existence only as transformation or evolution from existence. The only way to blot out memory is through unconsciousness, and we know it does not do it. Eternal life is for all, but souls, even in this life, often drift far apart.The unfathomable, incomprehensible, unthinkable dark pocket of forgetfullness conceals memory but it does not annihilate it. If time admits of no before, space of no beyond and matter of no annihilation, then the law of continuity is established; and if we do now live, we have lived and will live forever. Eternal life must include the past as well as the future. Life from God is a declaration of pre-existence. Existence beginning at conception or birth assumes something evolving from nothing.HAWAIIAN ISLANDSIn 1898, having nothing to detain me and knowing that my son Arthur could conduct my business better than I could, I decided to take an extensive tour around the world, taking as much time as I pleased in visiting the interior of countries to study the people in their natural condition, both physically and mentally.When our boat passed through the Golden Gate into the open Pacific a wild storm was whistling down the coast from Alaska, which caused our steamer to roll and plunge worse than anything I have ever since experienced. For five days neither sun or stars appeared, and when we got our reckoning we were five hundred miles out of our course.When we neared the Hawaiian Islands we saw whales, schools of pretty flying fish, sharks and porpoises, while large sea birds came near. Then, when we felt our cheeks fanned by the soft summer breeze, we forgot Columbia's wild Boreas and got our silver pieces, so that when the natives swam from shore to meet us we could throw the money into the deep sea, which they would dive for and usually bring up, even though they sometimes swam more than fifty feet to the spot where it went down.We found the mid-Pacific Islands all in bloom. I stayed there five weeks, in which time I visited Kilanea Volcano on the Hawaiian Island and all the otherislands, of which I will only mention my trip to Man Eating Rock, which, to me, was the most wonderful.THE ANCIENT CITADELPaukoonea, a deserted, skillfully fortified prehistoric fortress on which the man-eating rock still can be seen, is seldom visited by tourists, and still it is undoubtedly the most ancient and beautifully located kings' palace grounds on our globe. To the thoughtless it is simply a rock on an island. To the thoughtful it is wonderful.Vogue tradition has it that long ago a great world, a mid-Pacific continent, existed in this summer clime. One evening, as the sun was going down, their world sank into the ocean, leaving only the mountain top, on which more people were huddled together than could live. As a necessity the priestly clan, or kings, barricaded themselves on this protected island, where they shaped out a baking rock which would preserve all the juices of the flesh, and then ordered each tribe to furnish their portion of human beings, to be placed on the hot rock alive and cooked until palatable. This statement does not seem so inconsistent when we learn that when Cook discovered these islands the natives were allowed only a certain number of children to each pair of parents, and all the over-plus were killed at birth.At Waialua I found a guide, Major Jankea, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather spent their lives near the fort. We rode up the Helamano River about eight miles where, in a bend among the trees, he showed me a large deep footed stone covered withdots, diagonal lines and curves which he said no one could read and no one knew what it represented.At the fort we crossed the chasm on the stone debris of an ancient dam, when we began hunting for the man-eating rock. We searched in the grass, about four feet tall, and found it in about the center of the field, half buried in the earth.It was chipped and defaced all over. Originally it must have measured about three by nine feet, and would weigh several tons. As far as I saw there were no other rocks on the surface of the island. It is roughly carved out to receive the head, arm, legs and body of a man. My guide informed me that his grandfather said that the ancient custom was for four men each, at an arm or leg, to hold the victim on the heated rock until dead, and then let him be cooked for dinner.The citadel, or fort of the cannibal kings, is near the source of the Helamano River, under the Koolauloa Mountain. It is about three or four miles in circumference, protected by a perpendicular rock chasm nearly one hundred feet high. The gully surrounding it must once have served as an aqueduct, the water having been held back by the dam, which now, and probably for ages, has served as a passageway into the ancient rendezvous.Standing there in the latter half of February looking west, the scene is lovely beyond description. The green palms on the Koolauloa Mountains serve as a background, while the Helamano River, with its fringe of trees all in blossom, winds its way like a ribbon of white roses away to the dreamy old Pacific Ocean, plain in view, but many miles away. Then to feel the spell of silence, wheretumult once arose, we can but ask, "Is life a reality or a myth?" and a voice comes back from the voiceless realms of the dead, they were like us, simply passing through earth life.SOUTH SEA ISLANDS AND AUSTRALIAIn a few weeks I found myself taking in the South Sea Islands, admiring the pretty lagoons, those tiny inner-ocean retreats, where the glistening sandy beach is strewn with miniature shells cozily protected by the surrounding palm groves, upon whose outer shore the mighty waves come pounding in only to recede without disturbing the finny tribes who never venture outside of these inland tiny lagoons.At Apia, in the Samoa group, where lies the body of Robert L. Stevenson, I wondered not at his choice of selection for spending the last days of his life. Here among the South Sea Islands he could muse unmolested, far from the struggle for gain, and notoriety. There is a beautiful side to those so-called barbarian lives, and one is tempted to envy them their freedom as they laugh and sing in the bamboo shade, and bathe at ease in the soft waves of the grand old Pacific Ocean. One can but love them for their simplicity and confiding way as their wistful smile pleads for your generosity and sympathy.The wonder-land in the Friendly or South Sea Island is Tongo-Taboo. Here one finds undoubted traces of a lost continent, in the way of an archway, or portal, through which a people must have passed before the dawn of Babylonian tradition. Two immense rectangular stone columns are seen tied together at the top by an enormous slab, on which rests a huge stone bowl, The entire structure must be nearly fifty feet high.i239EASTER ISLAND.THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!There is no quarry on this little island from which it could have been taken, neither could it have been brought from a distant land, for ancient boats were not adequate.The quarry from which it came, the mysteries of the people who such art designed, and the homes in which they lived, must be nearby, beneath the waves.To satisfy curiosity, I took a shell boat to Easter Island, where those strange saint-like statues with sealed lips now stand, pre-eminent sentinels, as they have stood since the day when the Mid-Pacific continent was a prominent feature on our globe. On this tiny mid-ocean world the natives know about as much concerning the origin of their clans as we do about pre-existence. They shelter from storm in stone houses, of which the walls are four or five feet thick.Many of the inner walls still bear traces of an intelligent people. Hieroglyphic characters and paintings of birds and other animals adorn the inner walls of what must have been the mansions of nabobs, while many statues of these unknown people with thin lips and serious countenances stand facing the sea. Like the fort on the Helomano and the colossal on Tonga, they speak for themselves, and while each have no tradition of other tribes, still all their languages spring from the same roots.As I stood on deck gazing at these faces a spell came over me and from above I looked down on our world 100,000 years ago.Before me lay an elbow-shaped mid-Pacific continent 2,000 miles wide and 8,000 miles long, on which millions of half-civilized people were passing their days and yearsas we are now doing, while the land of the morning sun teemed with shore and inland animal life roaming over the vast plains sheltered by primeval forests. Suddenly, as I gazed, the world trembled and reeled as the vast plains at the rising sun begun belching forth lightning and fire amid peals of thunder destroying all animal life as an immense mountain range came forth like a budless blossom far up and down the ocean shore.In horror I turned to the mid-ocean continent and beheld it with all its cities and inhabitants sinking down, down beneath the ocean waves.From this reverie I awoke and wondered who would dare dispute, as soundings prove that such a continent, with the exception of a few mountain peaks we call islands, now sleep beneath those ocean waves, while the bones and fossils of mammalia are found on the Rocky Mountain Range.After visiting the Maories of New Zealand, one of the remaining fragments of the South Sea Island tribes, who are probably the finest specimen of aboriginies in the world, I took in Australia, where the white cockatoo parrots move in great flocks and the many species of kangaroo, from the size of a rabbit to a horse, sport in the gardens to the annoyance of the pioneer farmers, and where the sun shines in from the north windows, the north star and great dipper have disappeared, and beautiful new constellations appear in the southern skies, and the mountains of the moon are seen from the other side.NEW GUINEACopy of diary when in Torres Straits and New Guinea, 1899:April 6.Arrived at Cooktown on Japanese steamer Kusuga Maru and leave on schooner Shilo for New Guinea next day.April 8.York Island, only three white men besides Captain Mosly, live here. The captain tells sympathetic stories about the storm of March 3, when he saw the ship his son was on go down. He thinks about 200 men from pearl hunting crafts were lost in the storm.April 9.At sea, bound for Fly River. Hot as tophet, but a stiff breeze. Find small island inhabited by birds, but no land quadrupeds, as in dry season the small fresh water streams dry up.April 10.At mouth of Fly River. Approach main land. High mountains appear in the distance. Great marshes on either side, which cause Guinea fever to the whites, but not to the natives.April 11.Go ashore, several miles up the river. Birds, birds, birds on all sides. I shot a Guinea pigeon, looks like a pheasant, big as a hen, soon have her cooked. Natives never travel singly, always in groups. Several missionarieshave been eaten here. One from Boston, but the natives do not look to me particularly hungry.April 12.Head on for Port Moresby, where I am to catch Burns-Phillips Co. steamer. Go ashore on a lagoon island. Go through the palms to the miniature ocean, find a beautiful helmet shell and concluded to keep it and gather others to send home.April 13.Strike fleet of pearl shell boats. Go down in diving suit about 160 feet. Bad job, starts the blood out of my ears. Get but one shell, which I will send to Arthur. Most of the divers are natives or Japs. One shipmaster owns and supplies about twenty diving boats. All shells opened on the ship. Average about one pearl to 300 shells. I buy of native four pearls for $6.25.April 14.Port Moresby only five houses. Bishop Stowigg, English missionary, here. Find three missionaries at each of these little ports. Became acquainted with Miss Tully from Brisbane, Australia. She is lonesome and shed tears when she bid me farewell.April 15.Land at Samaria. Find a native here who came from the interior, where the people go naked and build their houses in the trees. He speaks a few words in English and considers himself an interpreter. For two silver dollars I hire him to go with me anywhere as long as I feed him, and when through with him can leave him anywhere on the shore. We board the steamer here for the west, along the north shore. Everything and everybody looks and smells as though they had sat on the equator and fried ever since they had been born.April 16.At sea. My appreciative companions are a mother and four kittens, a captive young cassowary, about four feet tall, who the captain declares will eat his hammer and nails if he does not hide them, and three dogs. All small dogs around here will dive from the bow of a boat into deep water and bring up a knife or anything you show them before you throw it in. Dear little curs.April 17.Reach Kaiser Wilhelm's land and leave steamer. Am hearing terrible stories about the natives, men who eat an antelope at a meal, women with pompadours three feet high; also hear about snakes ninety-five feet long, but the stories come from natives who cannot count higher than the number 5.April 18.Catch excursion boat at Cape Croiselles and start west in search of village where the inhabitants live in nests in the trees. Captain and mate are from Adalaide, Australia, out for the season on about the same kind of a mission that I am. Captain continually teasing me that I am about at the end of my rope. Says he will write to Chicago and inform them that I escaped a Jonah whale only to be swallowed by a Guinea nigger. The mate says he will venture into the interior with me, at which I assure him if he will not attempt to coquette with the ladies he will not be hurt. Of course, I advise the captain to stay by his anchor and avoid temptation, for I tell him I see by the size and shape of his neck that he would become completely betwaddled in the presence of nature's fair adornments, or Papuan simplicity.April 19.The mate, guide, three stalwart blacks and myself leave the boat in the night. Several miles in we cross a clear running brook, through which we wade to our hips. After climbing several mountain trails we continue for five or six miles along a zigzag course under the brow of a mountain range, crossing ravines in which the large birds, all of them beautiful in color, do not seem to fear us or fly at our approach.At openings I can view the evergreen, palm tree valley below, which seems awaking from its dreams to greet the rising sun. I call a halt and look and listen, for I am charmed.About ten o'clock, when motioned by our guide, we somewhat nervously follow him to a crystal lake, surrounded by tropical verdure, where we were confronted with from sixty to one hundred houses or nests built in the trees covered, water-proof tight, with a sort of long sea grass, which grows abundantly in all tropical marshes. Apparently some of the larger dwellings, like those of the Alaska Indians, would accommodate several families. Here and there naked people, looking out or climbing up or down the swinging ladders.The king, a young fellow, after learning our wants, invites us to stay a moon, which I think would have been perfectly safe if we did not wander away from the village.I then presented the king with the presents I had brought, six large jack knives and six cheap hatchets, after which they began to show us things, how and what they cooked, how they caught game, fight, dance, worship and lastly how they clear a guilty conscience.i247NEW GUINEA.HOME OF THE NAKED PEOPLE WHO BUILD THEIR HOUSES IN THE TREES.This is done by immersion in clear water by moonlight, when the god in the moon forgives all. They believe that the souls of the dead linger around those whom they loved on earth.The king and several others gave me rudely ornamented shell rings. A lady to whom I gave a silver dollar gives me a pretty shell which she had herself ornamented with the sharp end of a stone, also she gave me her petticoats which females wear when at the sea shore. (I have these momentoes yet.) The petticoat consists of a waist-band to which is attached loose ringlets down to the knees, all made of sea grass. Once I caught two girls winking, laughing and making fun of me. All females stand sideways to the males and look and talk over their shoulder. Many have fine physiques.There are few quadrupeds here, but this seems to be the home of birds.The cassowary is larger than an ostrich. Their flesh is said to taste like turkey. The plumage of some birds is wonderful. Especially the lyrebird, who struts like a tom-turkey. Over twenty species of the bird of paradise are said to live here.All kind of tropical fruit grow wild and in great abundance. Bread fruit trees grow quickly and furnish 500 to 1,000 pounds of food each, substance about equal to oatmeal.Many from Chicago may well envy these kind, timid, primitive people their sunshine career as compared to our daily struggle for ascendancy.As I am about to leave these people, who are huddled around me, out of curiosity I look one after another of each sex squarely in the eyes for recognition, and I get the response everytime. Not that steady stare of the snake, dog, or gorilla, but that conscious response ofaffection between souls. This satisfies me that men are not improved beasts, but rather distinct creatures endowed with certain soul-responsive looks, self-controlling powers, gifts which cannot be mentally experienced.April 24.After several days among the verdure islands with broad, glistening, sandy shores, strewn with large and small shells, I find myself among the Solomon Islands, about 500 miles from New Guinea.I am glad I came here, for it seems like a dream of the long, long ago. With the exception of a few naked natives, flying foxes, and shore fowls, these islands must resemble the great lake region at home in the carboniferous age. The age after the great Mississippi Valley inland sea had fled away from the shores. The age before the vegetation had lured the sea family through the long reptilean age into the mammalian age, when the mastodon roamed the palm groves of Michigan and the great dinotherium lived on the marshy plains of Colorado, before the Rocky Mountains had raised their now silent, dreary forms.If there was a day in Illinois when the Crustacean invertebrate families lined the hot ocean shores and the vegetation grew thirty feet high, it must have resembled this equatorial region now, for although clear today, I am told it rains almost daily, and up the mountain sides as far as I can see the vegetation is wonderful.A sort of inspiration seems to pervade the forests of New Guinea and the Samoa group, but this carboniferous clime has little charm. For although white sand beaches miles wide strewn with shell against a background of waving palms, is a sight long to be remembered, I somehowfeel I am associating with clams, turtles and pelicans of the "evening and morning of the fifth day," so I will now leave for Cape York, to catch the Futami Maru, which is to call there May 17th.

THE FIRST CENTURY RACEThe Illinois Cycling Club was now in its glory, and I joined them and entered for the 100-mile race, which came off June 15, 1896. The aspirants began training for the event early in the spring, but I attended to my business days, and evenings I slipped out, unknown to anyone, practicing on the worst hills I could find, preparing for the race over the Elgin and Aurora course, but none of the boys knew that I was having any training whatever.As Arthur and Walton were to start for Connecticut the same morning on their thousand-mile run, we ate breakfast together at Lawrence's Restaurant, on Madison Street, about three o'clock in the morning. When we were about to part, Arthur said to me: "Father, do you expect to win that race today?" My reply was to the effect that if I did not, Charley Knisely and his fast bunch would have to make 100 miles quicker than they had ever made it yet.When I arrived at the club house about fifty were awaiting the command to fall in and about two or three hundred standing to see us off, and if ever a dark horse entered a race it was M. A. Richardson that morning.That evening there were reports in all the daily papers, and among other things the Chicago Times-Herald said in part: "The sixth annual run of the Illinois Cycling Club, America's largest cycling organization, took place yesterday. Many of the fast riders, anxious tomake a record over the famous Elgin and Aurora 100-mile course, tried to have the event postponed because of the heavy rains of Friday and Saturday, but the schedule could not be changed in their behalf."As it was a certainty that the rain had made the regular Elgin mud roads west of Maywood unridable, the course was taken over the Armitage road to Addison, 'seventeen miles out,' in the vain hope that this road would be in better condition. The mud just sufficiently dried to be caked and baked into a rough mass, beside which corduroy is a boulevard, furnished ample test for endurance, strength and skill, for no sooner had a mile of it been traveled than the roadside was strewn with physical and mechanical wrecks."The stunning surprise of the run was the fact that M. A. Richardson, the untrained and oldest member, a gray-haired wiry cycler, finished long first, making his appearance at the club house at 12:15, one hour before R. H. Inman, the second best man, who finished at 1:15. Upon the home run from Aurora, Richardson did some fast riding, leaving masculine brawn and youth to figure out just what had taken place."THE SECOND RACEThe next year the race was set for June 28, 1897, when many outsiders from the country came in, all intent on beating Richardson, but one can imagine their surprise when I announced that I would drive a 126-gear wheel, which was equal to a ten per cent handicap from the 80-gear then in use.i212MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.The morning was fair and hot when 140 of us lined up, of which I was the oldest by about twenty years. At the word "go" we ran in a bunch about two miles, when I pulled out, and then the race really began. At Austin Avenue I increased my speed to Twelfth Street, when I slowed down and allowed the fast bunch to pass, and when they turned west on Twenty-second, as I knew they would, I ran straight ahead through Clyde to the old Hinsdale road. This confused them, and they struck out, each man for himself, to beat Richardson in at LaGrange.When I struck the Aurora Road again there were about twenty-five ahead of me all strung out. It was a fine sight to see them between me and Hinsdale, raising a cloud of dust in the morning sun that would have done honor to the Chicago fire department, hook and ladder included. One athletic fellow from the stockyards was actually carrying his cap in his teeth, which seemed to intensify his comical grin of confidence.I entered the cloud of dust at a steady pace, and when I arrived in Aurora for registration, eight of the fastest in the bunch had registered and were out of sight on the road to Elgin.The distance as our course ran to Elgin was twenty-two miles, for which I set my pace to reach there in sixty minutes, which I made in fifty-eight minutes.One by one I passed my struggling competitors on the winding road up the Fox River Valley, registering first man at Elgin and off for Chicago before the next best man hove in sight, having the last forty miles of the road to myself, which I covered at high speed, and then ate a fine club breakfast before the second in the race arrived.

The Illinois Cycling Club was now in its glory, and I joined them and entered for the 100-mile race, which came off June 15, 1896. The aspirants began training for the event early in the spring, but I attended to my business days, and evenings I slipped out, unknown to anyone, practicing on the worst hills I could find, preparing for the race over the Elgin and Aurora course, but none of the boys knew that I was having any training whatever.

As Arthur and Walton were to start for Connecticut the same morning on their thousand-mile run, we ate breakfast together at Lawrence's Restaurant, on Madison Street, about three o'clock in the morning. When we were about to part, Arthur said to me: "Father, do you expect to win that race today?" My reply was to the effect that if I did not, Charley Knisely and his fast bunch would have to make 100 miles quicker than they had ever made it yet.

When I arrived at the club house about fifty were awaiting the command to fall in and about two or three hundred standing to see us off, and if ever a dark horse entered a race it was M. A. Richardson that morning.

That evening there were reports in all the daily papers, and among other things the Chicago Times-Herald said in part: "The sixth annual run of the Illinois Cycling Club, America's largest cycling organization, took place yesterday. Many of the fast riders, anxious tomake a record over the famous Elgin and Aurora 100-mile course, tried to have the event postponed because of the heavy rains of Friday and Saturday, but the schedule could not be changed in their behalf.

"As it was a certainty that the rain had made the regular Elgin mud roads west of Maywood unridable, the course was taken over the Armitage road to Addison, 'seventeen miles out,' in the vain hope that this road would be in better condition. The mud just sufficiently dried to be caked and baked into a rough mass, beside which corduroy is a boulevard, furnished ample test for endurance, strength and skill, for no sooner had a mile of it been traveled than the roadside was strewn with physical and mechanical wrecks.

"The stunning surprise of the run was the fact that M. A. Richardson, the untrained and oldest member, a gray-haired wiry cycler, finished long first, making his appearance at the club house at 12:15, one hour before R. H. Inman, the second best man, who finished at 1:15. Upon the home run from Aurora, Richardson did some fast riding, leaving masculine brawn and youth to figure out just what had taken place."

The next year the race was set for June 28, 1897, when many outsiders from the country came in, all intent on beating Richardson, but one can imagine their surprise when I announced that I would drive a 126-gear wheel, which was equal to a ten per cent handicap from the 80-gear then in use.

i212

MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.

MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.

MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.

The morning was fair and hot when 140 of us lined up, of which I was the oldest by about twenty years. At the word "go" we ran in a bunch about two miles, when I pulled out, and then the race really began. At Austin Avenue I increased my speed to Twelfth Street, when I slowed down and allowed the fast bunch to pass, and when they turned west on Twenty-second, as I knew they would, I ran straight ahead through Clyde to the old Hinsdale road. This confused them, and they struck out, each man for himself, to beat Richardson in at LaGrange.

When I struck the Aurora Road again there were about twenty-five ahead of me all strung out. It was a fine sight to see them between me and Hinsdale, raising a cloud of dust in the morning sun that would have done honor to the Chicago fire department, hook and ladder included. One athletic fellow from the stockyards was actually carrying his cap in his teeth, which seemed to intensify his comical grin of confidence.

I entered the cloud of dust at a steady pace, and when I arrived in Aurora for registration, eight of the fastest in the bunch had registered and were out of sight on the road to Elgin.

The distance as our course ran to Elgin was twenty-two miles, for which I set my pace to reach there in sixty minutes, which I made in fifty-eight minutes.

One by one I passed my struggling competitors on the winding road up the Fox River Valley, registering first man at Elgin and off for Chicago before the next best man hove in sight, having the last forty miles of the road to myself, which I covered at high speed, and then ate a fine club breakfast before the second in the race arrived.

DEAD GLACIERWhile studying the North American Indians in Alaska I experience a thrilling adventure in the Mendenthall Valley which memory often recalls.At Juneau, Judge Mellen, one of the eight United States judges appointed to Alaska, from Kentucky, who had accompanied me to Taku, giving me much information, invited me to dinner, when he told me I ought not to leave Alaska until I had seen a dead glacier. Mendenthall, he said was the most wonderful but hard to approach, and he and his wife declared I was just the fellow to tackle the job.That evening he sent a trusty guide to me, who had another man on the string, and said he would take both of us for $20.00, we bearing all expenses. We were soon together, with his mother, a lady of great self-respect, who advised me to caution her son, Archibald, and not allow him to plunge into danger.I sized Archibald up and decided he was a good fellow with heavy self-esteem and light experience, so I mentioned, before his mother, that the outing would be wild experience and very strenuous, at which Archibald assured me he could stand it if I could, besides it was just the job he was seeking for, as he wanted to take something home out of the ordinary.The next evening at 10:30, the time when the sun sets in Alaska in June, we left Juneau in a rowboat, as we must cross the bar at high water at about midnight,or go around about fifty miles each way, both going and returning.Our guide, who had never taken the trip before, miscalculated and we were late at the bar. This left us our choice to jump out and draw the boat through the sea weeds at once or wait until the next tide came in. Archibald reluctantly straddled over the side of the boat, mentioning that he came north for his health, and did not think that a midnight bath would be beneficial, especially such a very cold one."You will get warm enough," I said, "before noon, when we are working our way through that swamp, where mosquitoes are as big as grasshoppers and the bears as big as oxen.""Bears? What bears, Mr. Richardson?""I understand that those woods are full of bears. How is it, guide?""That is why I took my rifle along," replied the grim old mountaineer, as he tugged at the oars."Where is your rifle, Mr. Richardson?" inquired Archibald, as the white of his eyes began to show."Oh, I prefer a large knife for a close contact. Judge Mellon said we could borrow either of the Indians."Soon we were in deep water again, where the wild geese and ducks were scooting this way and that to keep out of our way, when Archibald turned his attention to the oarsman, saying, "Say, old man, I suppose we can hire plenty of guides at the hotel to go with us?""Guides," grunted the boatsman, "I can find the place myself. Besides, there ain't no hotel there.""No hotel! Where will we get our breakfast?""Plenty of fresh bear meat, sir; they kill them every day."Soon Archibald turned to me and said: "Really, Mr. Richardson, I am quite chilly now, and if it will be just the same to you I will stay at the landing while our good friend takes you to the glacier, which you are so anxious to see.""Chilly," ejaculated the old guide. "The sun will soon be up. It rises here now at 2:30 in the morning, and as for staying at the landing is concerned, would you dare stay alone with those Indians?""Alone with the Indians? Why, the Alaska Indians are civilized, aren't they?""Spose so, but Mendenthall Valley is a great place for men to come up missing."THE FOREST.At the landing, the Indians set about to prepare us breakfast of hot no-cake and coffee. The coffee is from burned wild rice, and the no-cake corresponds to our corn bread. They pound the dry corn in a mortar with a pestle and make and fry them. The guide and I filled up on about ten cakes and a quart of coffee each, but Archibald refused, whispering to me that the dishes smelled of bear's oil; besides, the excitement had taken away his appetite.Archibald then said: "That old Indian says they live here mostly on fish and bear. Really, do you think those bears are of the savage kind?""Oh, no," I replied, "only when they have cubs, but they say this is just cubbing time."Mendenthall Valley is about ten or twelve miles west of Juneau, lies between two precipitous mountain ranges over 2,000 feet high. The timber, brook and soil give evidence of great age, and no indications appear to causeone to think it is a grown-up pathway of a glacier. After entering the woods we could see nothing ahead, only timber, except at intervals an opening, which gave us a view of the mountains on either side, as we followed the brook, which led us in a zigzag course.When several miles in we discovered unmistakable evidence of where some large animal had fled at our approach, but we saw nothing but owls, eagles and other small game. I was urging the guide to hurry up, while Archibald was grumbling because we were going so fast, saying he was faint and hungry, so we stopped for lunch, and Archibald was glad to eat the no-cake, which he refused when it was hot.The foliage was remarkable for its large leaves. Wild berries were in abundance, and the trees appeared to be of great age, which caused me to remark that it seemed incredible that, where we were sitting, the ice was more than two hundred feet above our heads not so very long ago."Not so very long? Do you believe that yourself, Mr. Richardson?""Certainly I do. Once this valley was a basin of ice. Have you not studied geology, Archibald?""I have, sir, and I never learned that a glacier could ever thrive in such a d—d hot hole as this. Say, Richardson, were you living in the Glacial Period?""Which one?""Was there more than one?""Yes, sir.""Were you living in the last one?""Yes, sir.""Hear that, guide, Richardson says he was living in the Glacial Period, which was more than 40,000 yearsago, and he does not look to be more than two or three hundred years old. Will you explain, Mr. R.?""Oh, yes, the Glacial Period is now on at the poles—long ago it was on in this valley and still longer ago it was down in the states. Do you not know that our world is slowly revolving in the direction we call south? That is God's wise plan to give each part of the earth rest. Tropical animals once lived here and in Siberia."Who told you all that stuff?""Geology, sir; the same book which you have been studying. By the way, did you ever learn about the Neanderthal man whose skull was found in a cave in the Neanderthal Valley, with the bones of a bear? The man must have lived contemporary with Adam, and it seems that the bear——""Were the bones of that man and bear found in this place?""No! No! Do not get excited.""But you said they were found in Mendenthal Valley.""I said Neanderthal, where a prehistoric race once lived, but really where the bones were found closely resembles this place as well as the name, for I have been there. It is in Prussia. Now let me illustrate by our presence here, what may once have occured in the Neanderthal Valley. Suppose one of those ferocious she-bears should come spat upon us now and the guide and I should escape, while she dragged your mangled corpse——""Bah-aa-aa," roared the guide."What are you laughing at, you great fool?" said Archibald."Laughing to see your eyes bulge out.""Please do not speak that way to Mr. Archibald," I said, "he knows we're in no danger, so long as there's plenty of trees to climb."i220ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS."Your business, sir," said Archibald to the guide, "is to take us to the glacier and the quicker the better. Neither Mr. Richardson or myself care to roost in these trees over night.""Twon't be sundown till nigh midnight," grunted the guide, and we all started on.I was following close on the heels of the guide as we entered an opening, when we all stopped and gazed in astonishment at a dead glacier. Two miles or so away stretched across the valley stood a perpendicular wall of glistening ice, about 250 feet high and four miles long, reaching across the entire valley.To view a glacier fifty or more miles wide, as I found at the foot of Mt. St. Elias, winding its way high up into the mountain, where the snow drifts whirl blindly all the summer day, where no plant or animal abide, seems to be in keeping with the surroundings, but to emerge from a dense thicket, a valley teeming with animal and vegetable life, on a hot summer day and fall spat upon a dead glacier is a sight which must be seen to be realized—then to know that this vast field of ice once extended to the sea, but so long ago that thousands of acres of timber have grown up in its retreating pathway, is enough to astound any but the simple.I was lost in thought and pondered thus: In time this ice mountain will waste away to its fountain head and a peaceful river will flow down this warm valley, where the inhabitants on either side of the river will be as unable to realize the truth concerning the cold bed-fellow that once slept in this Alaskan cradle, as we are unable to comprehend the fact that there is not a spire in Chicagohigh enough to have shown its tip above the ice that once lay over that city during the Great Lakes' Glacial Period.The earth between us and the glacier was carpeted with the most beautiful moss imaginable, all shades and colors, caused by reflection of the sun from the crystal ice. A solemn silence prevailed, such as I never experienced elsewhere, broken at intervals by reports like cannons, occasioned by huge mountains of ice cleaving off to melt in the sun.In climbing the mountain side to get upon the glacier, I found ripe strawberries within a few feet of the ice, and upon the glacier small streams of water, which did not seem to melt the ice. Like all glaciers, there were great boulders upon it, which had plunged down from some far away mountain and were taking a slow cold ride. I jumped across crevices, where if one should fall in he might go down 100 feet, there to wedge in and freeze. Standing in front of this terrible monster a cool strange halo seems to surround, which is far more awe-inspiring than that of the Niagara Falls.On descending from the glacier we found Archibald in a state of agitation, as a thunder storm was approaching and all the protection we possessed was straw hats. My laughing aroused his ire and he used some very undignified language, as the rain began coming down in torrents, accompanied by a strange rattling sound, which seemed to be from overhead. Looking up we could see that several immense rocks from high up the mountain had become dislodged and had started down a deep ravine with such force as to break others from their moorings, which also joined in the mad run, roll, slip, slide, plunge. The impetus was so great and the resistance so strong that when the great boulders met they flashed fire until theentire valley of racing rocks, trees and earth seemed to be enveloped in a blue flame, which formed into a slide, sweeping everything in its path, until it brought up on the plain below with a slump.On examination we found that the immense quantity of debris covered nearly half an acre and was more than fifty feet deep. That it had swept everything in its path, including trees more than a foot in diameter, which were broken up like matches. I told Archibald that whoever got caught in the descent of such a mountain slide would probably remain as deposit until Gabriel blew his horn, to which he grunted assent.As I lingered upon the scene declaring that few people in the world had ever seen such a wonderful sight, he solemnly vowed that he saw nothing peculiar about that rock and mud different from what he could find in the road anywhere.Wet to the skin, tired and hungry, we started on, Archibald wholly unprepared for the skirmish awaiting him. It soon cleared up, but every bush we stumbled against showered down and gave us a fresh bath. My shoes hurt my feet, and especially my game toe, which sometimes cramps, took advantage of the situation and, oh, how it did hurt, but I did not mention it, for fear Archibald would say I did not enjoy roughing it any more than he did, and so we plodded on, anxious to reach the landing where I knew the Indians would give us the best they had.

While studying the North American Indians in Alaska I experience a thrilling adventure in the Mendenthall Valley which memory often recalls.

At Juneau, Judge Mellen, one of the eight United States judges appointed to Alaska, from Kentucky, who had accompanied me to Taku, giving me much information, invited me to dinner, when he told me I ought not to leave Alaska until I had seen a dead glacier. Mendenthall, he said was the most wonderful but hard to approach, and he and his wife declared I was just the fellow to tackle the job.

That evening he sent a trusty guide to me, who had another man on the string, and said he would take both of us for $20.00, we bearing all expenses. We were soon together, with his mother, a lady of great self-respect, who advised me to caution her son, Archibald, and not allow him to plunge into danger.

I sized Archibald up and decided he was a good fellow with heavy self-esteem and light experience, so I mentioned, before his mother, that the outing would be wild experience and very strenuous, at which Archibald assured me he could stand it if I could, besides it was just the job he was seeking for, as he wanted to take something home out of the ordinary.

The next evening at 10:30, the time when the sun sets in Alaska in June, we left Juneau in a rowboat, as we must cross the bar at high water at about midnight,or go around about fifty miles each way, both going and returning.

Our guide, who had never taken the trip before, miscalculated and we were late at the bar. This left us our choice to jump out and draw the boat through the sea weeds at once or wait until the next tide came in. Archibald reluctantly straddled over the side of the boat, mentioning that he came north for his health, and did not think that a midnight bath would be beneficial, especially such a very cold one.

"You will get warm enough," I said, "before noon, when we are working our way through that swamp, where mosquitoes are as big as grasshoppers and the bears as big as oxen."

"Bears? What bears, Mr. Richardson?"

"I understand that those woods are full of bears. How is it, guide?"

"That is why I took my rifle along," replied the grim old mountaineer, as he tugged at the oars.

"Where is your rifle, Mr. Richardson?" inquired Archibald, as the white of his eyes began to show.

"Oh, I prefer a large knife for a close contact. Judge Mellon said we could borrow either of the Indians."

Soon we were in deep water again, where the wild geese and ducks were scooting this way and that to keep out of our way, when Archibald turned his attention to the oarsman, saying, "Say, old man, I suppose we can hire plenty of guides at the hotel to go with us?"

"Guides," grunted the boatsman, "I can find the place myself. Besides, there ain't no hotel there."

"No hotel! Where will we get our breakfast?"

"Plenty of fresh bear meat, sir; they kill them every day."

Soon Archibald turned to me and said: "Really, Mr. Richardson, I am quite chilly now, and if it will be just the same to you I will stay at the landing while our good friend takes you to the glacier, which you are so anxious to see."

"Chilly," ejaculated the old guide. "The sun will soon be up. It rises here now at 2:30 in the morning, and as for staying at the landing is concerned, would you dare stay alone with those Indians?"

"Alone with the Indians? Why, the Alaska Indians are civilized, aren't they?"

"Spose so, but Mendenthall Valley is a great place for men to come up missing."

At the landing, the Indians set about to prepare us breakfast of hot no-cake and coffee. The coffee is from burned wild rice, and the no-cake corresponds to our corn bread. They pound the dry corn in a mortar with a pestle and make and fry them. The guide and I filled up on about ten cakes and a quart of coffee each, but Archibald refused, whispering to me that the dishes smelled of bear's oil; besides, the excitement had taken away his appetite.

Archibald then said: "That old Indian says they live here mostly on fish and bear. Really, do you think those bears are of the savage kind?"

"Oh, no," I replied, "only when they have cubs, but they say this is just cubbing time."

Mendenthall Valley is about ten or twelve miles west of Juneau, lies between two precipitous mountain ranges over 2,000 feet high. The timber, brook and soil give evidence of great age, and no indications appear to causeone to think it is a grown-up pathway of a glacier. After entering the woods we could see nothing ahead, only timber, except at intervals an opening, which gave us a view of the mountains on either side, as we followed the brook, which led us in a zigzag course.

When several miles in we discovered unmistakable evidence of where some large animal had fled at our approach, but we saw nothing but owls, eagles and other small game. I was urging the guide to hurry up, while Archibald was grumbling because we were going so fast, saying he was faint and hungry, so we stopped for lunch, and Archibald was glad to eat the no-cake, which he refused when it was hot.

The foliage was remarkable for its large leaves. Wild berries were in abundance, and the trees appeared to be of great age, which caused me to remark that it seemed incredible that, where we were sitting, the ice was more than two hundred feet above our heads not so very long ago.

"Not so very long? Do you believe that yourself, Mr. Richardson?"

"Certainly I do. Once this valley was a basin of ice. Have you not studied geology, Archibald?"

"I have, sir, and I never learned that a glacier could ever thrive in such a d—d hot hole as this. Say, Richardson, were you living in the Glacial Period?"

"Which one?"

"Was there more than one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Were you living in the last one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hear that, guide, Richardson says he was living in the Glacial Period, which was more than 40,000 yearsago, and he does not look to be more than two or three hundred years old. Will you explain, Mr. R.?"

"Oh, yes, the Glacial Period is now on at the poles—long ago it was on in this valley and still longer ago it was down in the states. Do you not know that our world is slowly revolving in the direction we call south? That is God's wise plan to give each part of the earth rest. Tropical animals once lived here and in Siberia.

"Who told you all that stuff?"

"Geology, sir; the same book which you have been studying. By the way, did you ever learn about the Neanderthal man whose skull was found in a cave in the Neanderthal Valley, with the bones of a bear? The man must have lived contemporary with Adam, and it seems that the bear——"

"Were the bones of that man and bear found in this place?"

"No! No! Do not get excited."

"But you said they were found in Mendenthal Valley."

"I said Neanderthal, where a prehistoric race once lived, but really where the bones were found closely resembles this place as well as the name, for I have been there. It is in Prussia. Now let me illustrate by our presence here, what may once have occured in the Neanderthal Valley. Suppose one of those ferocious she-bears should come spat upon us now and the guide and I should escape, while she dragged your mangled corpse——"

"Bah-aa-aa," roared the guide.

"What are you laughing at, you great fool?" said Archibald.

"Laughing to see your eyes bulge out."

"Please do not speak that way to Mr. Archibald," I said, "he knows we're in no danger, so long as there's plenty of trees to climb."

i220

ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS.

ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS.

ARTHUR, CHARLIE NEWELL, MRS. OLIVER AND FRIENDS.

"Your business, sir," said Archibald to the guide, "is to take us to the glacier and the quicker the better. Neither Mr. Richardson or myself care to roost in these trees over night."

"Twon't be sundown till nigh midnight," grunted the guide, and we all started on.

I was following close on the heels of the guide as we entered an opening, when we all stopped and gazed in astonishment at a dead glacier. Two miles or so away stretched across the valley stood a perpendicular wall of glistening ice, about 250 feet high and four miles long, reaching across the entire valley.

To view a glacier fifty or more miles wide, as I found at the foot of Mt. St. Elias, winding its way high up into the mountain, where the snow drifts whirl blindly all the summer day, where no plant or animal abide, seems to be in keeping with the surroundings, but to emerge from a dense thicket, a valley teeming with animal and vegetable life, on a hot summer day and fall spat upon a dead glacier is a sight which must be seen to be realized—then to know that this vast field of ice once extended to the sea, but so long ago that thousands of acres of timber have grown up in its retreating pathway, is enough to astound any but the simple.

I was lost in thought and pondered thus: In time this ice mountain will waste away to its fountain head and a peaceful river will flow down this warm valley, where the inhabitants on either side of the river will be as unable to realize the truth concerning the cold bed-fellow that once slept in this Alaskan cradle, as we are unable to comprehend the fact that there is not a spire in Chicagohigh enough to have shown its tip above the ice that once lay over that city during the Great Lakes' Glacial Period.

The earth between us and the glacier was carpeted with the most beautiful moss imaginable, all shades and colors, caused by reflection of the sun from the crystal ice. A solemn silence prevailed, such as I never experienced elsewhere, broken at intervals by reports like cannons, occasioned by huge mountains of ice cleaving off to melt in the sun.

In climbing the mountain side to get upon the glacier, I found ripe strawberries within a few feet of the ice, and upon the glacier small streams of water, which did not seem to melt the ice. Like all glaciers, there were great boulders upon it, which had plunged down from some far away mountain and were taking a slow cold ride. I jumped across crevices, where if one should fall in he might go down 100 feet, there to wedge in and freeze. Standing in front of this terrible monster a cool strange halo seems to surround, which is far more awe-inspiring than that of the Niagara Falls.

On descending from the glacier we found Archibald in a state of agitation, as a thunder storm was approaching and all the protection we possessed was straw hats. My laughing aroused his ire and he used some very undignified language, as the rain began coming down in torrents, accompanied by a strange rattling sound, which seemed to be from overhead. Looking up we could see that several immense rocks from high up the mountain had become dislodged and had started down a deep ravine with such force as to break others from their moorings, which also joined in the mad run, roll, slip, slide, plunge. The impetus was so great and the resistance so strong that when the great boulders met they flashed fire until theentire valley of racing rocks, trees and earth seemed to be enveloped in a blue flame, which formed into a slide, sweeping everything in its path, until it brought up on the plain below with a slump.

On examination we found that the immense quantity of debris covered nearly half an acre and was more than fifty feet deep. That it had swept everything in its path, including trees more than a foot in diameter, which were broken up like matches. I told Archibald that whoever got caught in the descent of such a mountain slide would probably remain as deposit until Gabriel blew his horn, to which he grunted assent.

As I lingered upon the scene declaring that few people in the world had ever seen such a wonderful sight, he solemnly vowed that he saw nothing peculiar about that rock and mud different from what he could find in the road anywhere.

Wet to the skin, tired and hungry, we started on, Archibald wholly unprepared for the skirmish awaiting him. It soon cleared up, but every bush we stumbled against showered down and gave us a fresh bath. My shoes hurt my feet, and especially my game toe, which sometimes cramps, took advantage of the situation and, oh, how it did hurt, but I did not mention it, for fear Archibald would say I did not enjoy roughing it any more than he did, and so we plodded on, anxious to reach the landing where I knew the Indians would give us the best they had.

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM A BEARAfter travelling about three miles, which seemed like twenty, we rested on a log, when I began rehearsing the sights and scenes of the day. I said that if compelled to stay in the woods all night, we ought to consider it a day well spent, but failing to receive a hearty response, I switched off into a more lively subject by exclaiming, as I pointed into the woods, "See! See! There is a bear behind that log." The ruse worked all right until I proposed we rush in and capture him, when Archibald declared this was the last time he should ever tour with a man who knew nothing and feared nothing.As the sleepiest dog will show signs of great activity when a tea-kettle is tied to his tail, so tired men, finding themselves in a strange forest, will pick up their heels with amazing agility when uncertainty confronts them and the landing is far away. Thus it was that our gait was quite lively, which both pleased and vexed his mother's son, Archibald, who had insisted on carrying the guide's gun since I had mentioned that catamounts came out for their serenade long before sunset. Our course was leading us through heavy timber, when I proposed that we circle around through an opening and started that way, the guide following, Archibald pushed straight through, saying that the barking of dogs proved that we were near the landing.After leaving the woods and climbing part way up the hill, I could see Archibald hurrying through the timberwhere, on account of the fallen trees, he made but little headway, so I called out to him to come into the opening where the walking was better, to which he replied, "I am not afraid to walk in the woods."At the top of the hill was a berry patch, from which I had full view along the foot of the mountain, where nearby I saw three Indians running towards me with rifles in a position to shoot. Between me and them was a dark ravine, in which dogs were fiercely barking, and knowing they were trying to kill something, I rushed forward to see, when a bouncing black bear whipped around the ledge and over the knoll in the direction of poor Archibald. He was closely pursued by the dogs, to whom old Bruin was often compelled to stop and give battle. When running the dogs were upon his heels, and when he stopped and set up for a fight he would see the gunners and light out again regardless of the dogs.I knew the bear would not hurt Archibald unless in the act of running over him, but I began shouting, "Lookout! Lookout, Archibald! Lookout, there's a bear after you. Run! Run! Run for your life," at which he started running toward me, thinking the bear was coming from the other direction. As the bear ran down the hill with the Indians trying to get a shot at him, I could see both the bear and Archibald approaching each other, while Archibald was looking over his shoulder, so he did not see the bear until he was right upon him, when turning quickly he dropped his gun and lit out unceremoniously.The panorama before me was what the girls call a peach—the shortest, funniest, and most earnest sprinting match ever recorded; Indians chasing dogs, dogs chasing bear, bear chasing Archibald, Archibald running for dearlife. Archibald did not take a zigzag course as lightning usually does, but shot straight ahead into the thicket, leaving no evidence of his late departure, but an imaginary wake. The bear, who could not stand the nipping of the dogs, turned again, and as he raised up was shot by one of the Indians.We could see nor hear nothing of Archibald, whose parting glimpse had aroused my concern, so I hurried in the direction of his disappearance, crying out his name. Leaning against a big tree I put my hands to my mouth and helloed so loud that my voice echoed through the swamp, when I was surprised at his voice so near me saying, "What in the d-v-l do you want?""Where are you, Archibald?""Here I am, up here.""Oh, yes, come down.""Did you kill him, Mr. Richardson?""Yes, he is dead.""Did he catch anybody?""No, he was not after anyone. Come down out of that tree.""Not after anyone? What is the use of your lying. If you had not shot him he would have had me in two more jumps. Is there any more of them?""No, there is not. He was not after you. He was running to get away from the dogs. You know I had no gun. It was the Indians who shot him. Come down here! Come down! Here is the gun which you threw away.""I am in no particular hurry to come down. Say, Richardson, tell me how long you expect to stay in this God-forsaken country?""Oh, about three weeks more. Why? Do you not like Alaska?""Alaska is all right, but you are so bull-headed, taking a fellow into such a hole as this. Besides, there is nothing to see here.""Haven't you seen an avalanche?""Avalanche? Nothing but stones rolling down hill.""And you've seen a glacier.""Glacier? Nothing but a chunk of ice.""And a bear right in the woods. Your friends will be glad to hear about——""Now grin, Mr. Richardson! Sit there and hold your sides to keep from bursting with laughter. I swear if I did not know anymore than you do I would never compose a book. I did think a brief account of this trip might be interesting, but no one would care for the minute details as you would give them. At least, I hope they will not get into print until after I am dead.""Why, Archibald, when you get home you will enjoy telling your friends all about your adventures and hair-breath escapes, how bravely you faced——""Oh, you get out! Let us go to the landing and get some more dodgers fried in bear's tallow, that you enjoy so much."We stood in silence a moment, when he put his hand kindly on my shoulder as he said: "Mr. Richardson, you must not think I mean everything I say, but I'm so terribly wrought up. The glacier was so much different from what I expected, and I was afraid you might get hurt up there alone. Then the landslide startled me awfully, for I thought the whole mountain was coming down, and that the world might be coming to an end, and, oh, how this bear did frighten me. I presume Ishall laugh about it when I get home, but I cannot get up a smile now.""Certainly you will laugh about this trip, Mr. Archibald, in years to come, especially when you come to consider that bears are not like wolves, panthers and those kind of fierce beasts, which kill to eat. Besides, you should not spleen at eating bear meat, for they live mostly on nuts and berries and sleep all winter. Experience is a great teacher, this day will never be forgotten. It adds to our lives and we shall look back to it with pleasure. Now, you're not mad?""Mad? No, Mr. Richardson, I half way love you, and when I think of this fright I shall think about you as both the best and meanest man on my list. I am going to eat hearty on the bear steak for supper; you see if I do not. Now you can consider yourself forgiven for all except one act.""What is that, Archibald?""When you kept calling 'Run! Run! He is after you!' He was not after me, he was before me, and you knew that you were lying all the time."The last evening I spent at Juneau with Judge Mellen and his interesting wife. It was ten o'clock when we parted. The sun was still shining and the birds singing when we shook hands good-bye, and he said: "We will meet again, where friends meet friends which they loved on earth." As the steamer pulled off from the shore I thought of the friends I had gained in Alaska to make my life more interesting in that home where the flowers fade not and the inhabitants never grow old.

After travelling about three miles, which seemed like twenty, we rested on a log, when I began rehearsing the sights and scenes of the day. I said that if compelled to stay in the woods all night, we ought to consider it a day well spent, but failing to receive a hearty response, I switched off into a more lively subject by exclaiming, as I pointed into the woods, "See! See! There is a bear behind that log." The ruse worked all right until I proposed we rush in and capture him, when Archibald declared this was the last time he should ever tour with a man who knew nothing and feared nothing.

As the sleepiest dog will show signs of great activity when a tea-kettle is tied to his tail, so tired men, finding themselves in a strange forest, will pick up their heels with amazing agility when uncertainty confronts them and the landing is far away. Thus it was that our gait was quite lively, which both pleased and vexed his mother's son, Archibald, who had insisted on carrying the guide's gun since I had mentioned that catamounts came out for their serenade long before sunset. Our course was leading us through heavy timber, when I proposed that we circle around through an opening and started that way, the guide following, Archibald pushed straight through, saying that the barking of dogs proved that we were near the landing.

After leaving the woods and climbing part way up the hill, I could see Archibald hurrying through the timberwhere, on account of the fallen trees, he made but little headway, so I called out to him to come into the opening where the walking was better, to which he replied, "I am not afraid to walk in the woods."

At the top of the hill was a berry patch, from which I had full view along the foot of the mountain, where nearby I saw three Indians running towards me with rifles in a position to shoot. Between me and them was a dark ravine, in which dogs were fiercely barking, and knowing they were trying to kill something, I rushed forward to see, when a bouncing black bear whipped around the ledge and over the knoll in the direction of poor Archibald. He was closely pursued by the dogs, to whom old Bruin was often compelled to stop and give battle. When running the dogs were upon his heels, and when he stopped and set up for a fight he would see the gunners and light out again regardless of the dogs.

I knew the bear would not hurt Archibald unless in the act of running over him, but I began shouting, "Lookout! Lookout, Archibald! Lookout, there's a bear after you. Run! Run! Run for your life," at which he started running toward me, thinking the bear was coming from the other direction. As the bear ran down the hill with the Indians trying to get a shot at him, I could see both the bear and Archibald approaching each other, while Archibald was looking over his shoulder, so he did not see the bear until he was right upon him, when turning quickly he dropped his gun and lit out unceremoniously.

The panorama before me was what the girls call a peach—the shortest, funniest, and most earnest sprinting match ever recorded; Indians chasing dogs, dogs chasing bear, bear chasing Archibald, Archibald running for dearlife. Archibald did not take a zigzag course as lightning usually does, but shot straight ahead into the thicket, leaving no evidence of his late departure, but an imaginary wake. The bear, who could not stand the nipping of the dogs, turned again, and as he raised up was shot by one of the Indians.

We could see nor hear nothing of Archibald, whose parting glimpse had aroused my concern, so I hurried in the direction of his disappearance, crying out his name. Leaning against a big tree I put my hands to my mouth and helloed so loud that my voice echoed through the swamp, when I was surprised at his voice so near me saying, "What in the d-v-l do you want?"

"Where are you, Archibald?"

"Here I am, up here."

"Oh, yes, come down."

"Did you kill him, Mr. Richardson?"

"Yes, he is dead."

"Did he catch anybody?"

"No, he was not after anyone. Come down out of that tree."

"Not after anyone? What is the use of your lying. If you had not shot him he would have had me in two more jumps. Is there any more of them?"

"No, there is not. He was not after you. He was running to get away from the dogs. You know I had no gun. It was the Indians who shot him. Come down here! Come down! Here is the gun which you threw away."

"I am in no particular hurry to come down. Say, Richardson, tell me how long you expect to stay in this God-forsaken country?"

"Oh, about three weeks more. Why? Do you not like Alaska?"

"Alaska is all right, but you are so bull-headed, taking a fellow into such a hole as this. Besides, there is nothing to see here."

"Haven't you seen an avalanche?"

"Avalanche? Nothing but stones rolling down hill."

"And you've seen a glacier."

"Glacier? Nothing but a chunk of ice."

"And a bear right in the woods. Your friends will be glad to hear about——"

"Now grin, Mr. Richardson! Sit there and hold your sides to keep from bursting with laughter. I swear if I did not know anymore than you do I would never compose a book. I did think a brief account of this trip might be interesting, but no one would care for the minute details as you would give them. At least, I hope they will not get into print until after I am dead."

"Why, Archibald, when you get home you will enjoy telling your friends all about your adventures and hair-breath escapes, how bravely you faced——"

"Oh, you get out! Let us go to the landing and get some more dodgers fried in bear's tallow, that you enjoy so much."

We stood in silence a moment, when he put his hand kindly on my shoulder as he said: "Mr. Richardson, you must not think I mean everything I say, but I'm so terribly wrought up. The glacier was so much different from what I expected, and I was afraid you might get hurt up there alone. Then the landslide startled me awfully, for I thought the whole mountain was coming down, and that the world might be coming to an end, and, oh, how this bear did frighten me. I presume Ishall laugh about it when I get home, but I cannot get up a smile now."

"Certainly you will laugh about this trip, Mr. Archibald, in years to come, especially when you come to consider that bears are not like wolves, panthers and those kind of fierce beasts, which kill to eat. Besides, you should not spleen at eating bear meat, for they live mostly on nuts and berries and sleep all winter. Experience is a great teacher, this day will never be forgotten. It adds to our lives and we shall look back to it with pleasure. Now, you're not mad?"

"Mad? No, Mr. Richardson, I half way love you, and when I think of this fright I shall think about you as both the best and meanest man on my list. I am going to eat hearty on the bear steak for supper; you see if I do not. Now you can consider yourself forgiven for all except one act."

"What is that, Archibald?"

"When you kept calling 'Run! Run! He is after you!' He was not after me, he was before me, and you knew that you were lying all the time."

The last evening I spent at Juneau with Judge Mellen and his interesting wife. It was ten o'clock when we parted. The sun was still shining and the birds singing when we shook hands good-bye, and he said: "We will meet again, where friends meet friends which they loved on earth." As the steamer pulled off from the shore I thought of the friends I had gained in Alaska to make my life more interesting in that home where the flowers fade not and the inhabitants never grow old.

MY EDUCATIONIn returning to my mental endeavors, I gladly confess that before I had passed out of my teens, my lack of a common school education caused me deep regret, but I braced myself bravely against adversity and soon found myself working evenings over the very rudiments of language which I had spurned in the old Birch School House.After my marriage to Mary Hoyt, she took me in hand and together evenings we read "The Hoosier School Master," "Belle of Ores Islands," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and many other good books, after which I struck in for myself with Webster's unabridged at my elbow. By working days and studying nights I soon became conversant with Stowe, Eliot, Dickens, Shakespeare and that class of literature which illustrates human nature. Later I took up the sciences, geology, astronomy and what else I cared for, together with the languages under private instructors, which, with my experience at Evanston, gave me a comparatively good understanding as to how these great subjects are handled in our classical institutions of learning. I never aspired to scholarship; my ambition is to discern truth.For diversion I am usually working up some subject which, when formed into a book, I present to my friends, never thinking of recompense, as my business affords me more than I need, and as to notoriety, I have no ambition that way."Jim Hall and the Richardsons" was my first literary endeavor. It evolved out of my long siege in ferreting out the chronological trail of the Stafford branch of Richardsons."Rose Lind" is an assumed exposure of the far-reaching evil influences of the grain gamblers on the Chicago Board of Trade."Eight Days Out" is a burlesque on Phillip, on my visit to the Soo."Mina Faust" is a long love story."Chicago's Black Sheep" is a figurative illustration of the criminal dens of Chicago, and the work of the Salvation Army."Personality of the Soul" is a review of the prevailing religion, as I found them in my extensive travels."Twilight Reflections" is an accumulation of indications that mineral, vegetable and animal existence are the direct result of scheming and are being held or driven by an incomprehensible will power. Also, that the animal, especially man, possesses slight creative power.Somehow, I cannot think of the soul as something evolving from nothing, or as beginning its existence with the formation of the body, but rather as descending to or ascending from former existence.Pre-existence is in harmony with the teachings of Jesus, reason and eternal life. The animated body comes into existence through transformation from pre-existence. If that quality, to present, to consider, to decide, exists it must be a transformation of some kind of pre-existence. To affirm that God gave orcreated does not imply that He gave or created from that which He did not have.I will not question the Divine Power or intelligence, but I challenge man to produce an indication of existence only as transformation or evolution from existence. The only way to blot out memory is through unconsciousness, and we know it does not do it. Eternal life is for all, but souls, even in this life, often drift far apart.The unfathomable, incomprehensible, unthinkable dark pocket of forgetfullness conceals memory but it does not annihilate it. If time admits of no before, space of no beyond and matter of no annihilation, then the law of continuity is established; and if we do now live, we have lived and will live forever. Eternal life must include the past as well as the future. Life from God is a declaration of pre-existence. Existence beginning at conception or birth assumes something evolving from nothing.

In returning to my mental endeavors, I gladly confess that before I had passed out of my teens, my lack of a common school education caused me deep regret, but I braced myself bravely against adversity and soon found myself working evenings over the very rudiments of language which I had spurned in the old Birch School House.

After my marriage to Mary Hoyt, she took me in hand and together evenings we read "The Hoosier School Master," "Belle of Ores Islands," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and many other good books, after which I struck in for myself with Webster's unabridged at my elbow. By working days and studying nights I soon became conversant with Stowe, Eliot, Dickens, Shakespeare and that class of literature which illustrates human nature. Later I took up the sciences, geology, astronomy and what else I cared for, together with the languages under private instructors, which, with my experience at Evanston, gave me a comparatively good understanding as to how these great subjects are handled in our classical institutions of learning. I never aspired to scholarship; my ambition is to discern truth.

For diversion I am usually working up some subject which, when formed into a book, I present to my friends, never thinking of recompense, as my business affords me more than I need, and as to notoriety, I have no ambition that way.

"Jim Hall and the Richardsons" was my first literary endeavor. It evolved out of my long siege in ferreting out the chronological trail of the Stafford branch of Richardsons.

"Rose Lind" is an assumed exposure of the far-reaching evil influences of the grain gamblers on the Chicago Board of Trade.

"Eight Days Out" is a burlesque on Phillip, on my visit to the Soo.

"Mina Faust" is a long love story.

"Chicago's Black Sheep" is a figurative illustration of the criminal dens of Chicago, and the work of the Salvation Army.

"Personality of the Soul" is a review of the prevailing religion, as I found them in my extensive travels.

"Twilight Reflections" is an accumulation of indications that mineral, vegetable and animal existence are the direct result of scheming and are being held or driven by an incomprehensible will power. Also, that the animal, especially man, possesses slight creative power.

Somehow, I cannot think of the soul as something evolving from nothing, or as beginning its existence with the formation of the body, but rather as descending to or ascending from former existence.

Pre-existence is in harmony with the teachings of Jesus, reason and eternal life. The animated body comes into existence through transformation from pre-existence. If that quality, to present, to consider, to decide, exists it must be a transformation of some kind of pre-existence. To affirm that God gave orcreated does not imply that He gave or created from that which He did not have.

I will not question the Divine Power or intelligence, but I challenge man to produce an indication of existence only as transformation or evolution from existence. The only way to blot out memory is through unconsciousness, and we know it does not do it. Eternal life is for all, but souls, even in this life, often drift far apart.

The unfathomable, incomprehensible, unthinkable dark pocket of forgetfullness conceals memory but it does not annihilate it. If time admits of no before, space of no beyond and matter of no annihilation, then the law of continuity is established; and if we do now live, we have lived and will live forever. Eternal life must include the past as well as the future. Life from God is a declaration of pre-existence. Existence beginning at conception or birth assumes something evolving from nothing.

HAWAIIAN ISLANDSIn 1898, having nothing to detain me and knowing that my son Arthur could conduct my business better than I could, I decided to take an extensive tour around the world, taking as much time as I pleased in visiting the interior of countries to study the people in their natural condition, both physically and mentally.When our boat passed through the Golden Gate into the open Pacific a wild storm was whistling down the coast from Alaska, which caused our steamer to roll and plunge worse than anything I have ever since experienced. For five days neither sun or stars appeared, and when we got our reckoning we were five hundred miles out of our course.When we neared the Hawaiian Islands we saw whales, schools of pretty flying fish, sharks and porpoises, while large sea birds came near. Then, when we felt our cheeks fanned by the soft summer breeze, we forgot Columbia's wild Boreas and got our silver pieces, so that when the natives swam from shore to meet us we could throw the money into the deep sea, which they would dive for and usually bring up, even though they sometimes swam more than fifty feet to the spot where it went down.We found the mid-Pacific Islands all in bloom. I stayed there five weeks, in which time I visited Kilanea Volcano on the Hawaiian Island and all the otherislands, of which I will only mention my trip to Man Eating Rock, which, to me, was the most wonderful.THE ANCIENT CITADELPaukoonea, a deserted, skillfully fortified prehistoric fortress on which the man-eating rock still can be seen, is seldom visited by tourists, and still it is undoubtedly the most ancient and beautifully located kings' palace grounds on our globe. To the thoughtless it is simply a rock on an island. To the thoughtful it is wonderful.Vogue tradition has it that long ago a great world, a mid-Pacific continent, existed in this summer clime. One evening, as the sun was going down, their world sank into the ocean, leaving only the mountain top, on which more people were huddled together than could live. As a necessity the priestly clan, or kings, barricaded themselves on this protected island, where they shaped out a baking rock which would preserve all the juices of the flesh, and then ordered each tribe to furnish their portion of human beings, to be placed on the hot rock alive and cooked until palatable. This statement does not seem so inconsistent when we learn that when Cook discovered these islands the natives were allowed only a certain number of children to each pair of parents, and all the over-plus were killed at birth.At Waialua I found a guide, Major Jankea, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather spent their lives near the fort. We rode up the Helamano River about eight miles where, in a bend among the trees, he showed me a large deep footed stone covered withdots, diagonal lines and curves which he said no one could read and no one knew what it represented.At the fort we crossed the chasm on the stone debris of an ancient dam, when we began hunting for the man-eating rock. We searched in the grass, about four feet tall, and found it in about the center of the field, half buried in the earth.It was chipped and defaced all over. Originally it must have measured about three by nine feet, and would weigh several tons. As far as I saw there were no other rocks on the surface of the island. It is roughly carved out to receive the head, arm, legs and body of a man. My guide informed me that his grandfather said that the ancient custom was for four men each, at an arm or leg, to hold the victim on the heated rock until dead, and then let him be cooked for dinner.The citadel, or fort of the cannibal kings, is near the source of the Helamano River, under the Koolauloa Mountain. It is about three or four miles in circumference, protected by a perpendicular rock chasm nearly one hundred feet high. The gully surrounding it must once have served as an aqueduct, the water having been held back by the dam, which now, and probably for ages, has served as a passageway into the ancient rendezvous.Standing there in the latter half of February looking west, the scene is lovely beyond description. The green palms on the Koolauloa Mountains serve as a background, while the Helamano River, with its fringe of trees all in blossom, winds its way like a ribbon of white roses away to the dreamy old Pacific Ocean, plain in view, but many miles away. Then to feel the spell of silence, wheretumult once arose, we can but ask, "Is life a reality or a myth?" and a voice comes back from the voiceless realms of the dead, they were like us, simply passing through earth life.

In 1898, having nothing to detain me and knowing that my son Arthur could conduct my business better than I could, I decided to take an extensive tour around the world, taking as much time as I pleased in visiting the interior of countries to study the people in their natural condition, both physically and mentally.

When our boat passed through the Golden Gate into the open Pacific a wild storm was whistling down the coast from Alaska, which caused our steamer to roll and plunge worse than anything I have ever since experienced. For five days neither sun or stars appeared, and when we got our reckoning we were five hundred miles out of our course.

When we neared the Hawaiian Islands we saw whales, schools of pretty flying fish, sharks and porpoises, while large sea birds came near. Then, when we felt our cheeks fanned by the soft summer breeze, we forgot Columbia's wild Boreas and got our silver pieces, so that when the natives swam from shore to meet us we could throw the money into the deep sea, which they would dive for and usually bring up, even though they sometimes swam more than fifty feet to the spot where it went down.

We found the mid-Pacific Islands all in bloom. I stayed there five weeks, in which time I visited Kilanea Volcano on the Hawaiian Island and all the otherislands, of which I will only mention my trip to Man Eating Rock, which, to me, was the most wonderful.

Paukoonea, a deserted, skillfully fortified prehistoric fortress on which the man-eating rock still can be seen, is seldom visited by tourists, and still it is undoubtedly the most ancient and beautifully located kings' palace grounds on our globe. To the thoughtless it is simply a rock on an island. To the thoughtful it is wonderful.

Vogue tradition has it that long ago a great world, a mid-Pacific continent, existed in this summer clime. One evening, as the sun was going down, their world sank into the ocean, leaving only the mountain top, on which more people were huddled together than could live. As a necessity the priestly clan, or kings, barricaded themselves on this protected island, where they shaped out a baking rock which would preserve all the juices of the flesh, and then ordered each tribe to furnish their portion of human beings, to be placed on the hot rock alive and cooked until palatable. This statement does not seem so inconsistent when we learn that when Cook discovered these islands the natives were allowed only a certain number of children to each pair of parents, and all the over-plus were killed at birth.

At Waialua I found a guide, Major Jankea, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather spent their lives near the fort. We rode up the Helamano River about eight miles where, in a bend among the trees, he showed me a large deep footed stone covered withdots, diagonal lines and curves which he said no one could read and no one knew what it represented.

At the fort we crossed the chasm on the stone debris of an ancient dam, when we began hunting for the man-eating rock. We searched in the grass, about four feet tall, and found it in about the center of the field, half buried in the earth.

It was chipped and defaced all over. Originally it must have measured about three by nine feet, and would weigh several tons. As far as I saw there were no other rocks on the surface of the island. It is roughly carved out to receive the head, arm, legs and body of a man. My guide informed me that his grandfather said that the ancient custom was for four men each, at an arm or leg, to hold the victim on the heated rock until dead, and then let him be cooked for dinner.

The citadel, or fort of the cannibal kings, is near the source of the Helamano River, under the Koolauloa Mountain. It is about three or four miles in circumference, protected by a perpendicular rock chasm nearly one hundred feet high. The gully surrounding it must once have served as an aqueduct, the water having been held back by the dam, which now, and probably for ages, has served as a passageway into the ancient rendezvous.

Standing there in the latter half of February looking west, the scene is lovely beyond description. The green palms on the Koolauloa Mountains serve as a background, while the Helamano River, with its fringe of trees all in blossom, winds its way like a ribbon of white roses away to the dreamy old Pacific Ocean, plain in view, but many miles away. Then to feel the spell of silence, wheretumult once arose, we can but ask, "Is life a reality or a myth?" and a voice comes back from the voiceless realms of the dead, they were like us, simply passing through earth life.

SOUTH SEA ISLANDS AND AUSTRALIAIn a few weeks I found myself taking in the South Sea Islands, admiring the pretty lagoons, those tiny inner-ocean retreats, where the glistening sandy beach is strewn with miniature shells cozily protected by the surrounding palm groves, upon whose outer shore the mighty waves come pounding in only to recede without disturbing the finny tribes who never venture outside of these inland tiny lagoons.At Apia, in the Samoa group, where lies the body of Robert L. Stevenson, I wondered not at his choice of selection for spending the last days of his life. Here among the South Sea Islands he could muse unmolested, far from the struggle for gain, and notoriety. There is a beautiful side to those so-called barbarian lives, and one is tempted to envy them their freedom as they laugh and sing in the bamboo shade, and bathe at ease in the soft waves of the grand old Pacific Ocean. One can but love them for their simplicity and confiding way as their wistful smile pleads for your generosity and sympathy.The wonder-land in the Friendly or South Sea Island is Tongo-Taboo. Here one finds undoubted traces of a lost continent, in the way of an archway, or portal, through which a people must have passed before the dawn of Babylonian tradition. Two immense rectangular stone columns are seen tied together at the top by an enormous slab, on which rests a huge stone bowl, The entire structure must be nearly fifty feet high.i239EASTER ISLAND.THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!There is no quarry on this little island from which it could have been taken, neither could it have been brought from a distant land, for ancient boats were not adequate.The quarry from which it came, the mysteries of the people who such art designed, and the homes in which they lived, must be nearby, beneath the waves.To satisfy curiosity, I took a shell boat to Easter Island, where those strange saint-like statues with sealed lips now stand, pre-eminent sentinels, as they have stood since the day when the Mid-Pacific continent was a prominent feature on our globe. On this tiny mid-ocean world the natives know about as much concerning the origin of their clans as we do about pre-existence. They shelter from storm in stone houses, of which the walls are four or five feet thick.Many of the inner walls still bear traces of an intelligent people. Hieroglyphic characters and paintings of birds and other animals adorn the inner walls of what must have been the mansions of nabobs, while many statues of these unknown people with thin lips and serious countenances stand facing the sea. Like the fort on the Helomano and the colossal on Tonga, they speak for themselves, and while each have no tradition of other tribes, still all their languages spring from the same roots.As I stood on deck gazing at these faces a spell came over me and from above I looked down on our world 100,000 years ago.Before me lay an elbow-shaped mid-Pacific continent 2,000 miles wide and 8,000 miles long, on which millions of half-civilized people were passing their days and yearsas we are now doing, while the land of the morning sun teemed with shore and inland animal life roaming over the vast plains sheltered by primeval forests. Suddenly, as I gazed, the world trembled and reeled as the vast plains at the rising sun begun belching forth lightning and fire amid peals of thunder destroying all animal life as an immense mountain range came forth like a budless blossom far up and down the ocean shore.In horror I turned to the mid-ocean continent and beheld it with all its cities and inhabitants sinking down, down beneath the ocean waves.From this reverie I awoke and wondered who would dare dispute, as soundings prove that such a continent, with the exception of a few mountain peaks we call islands, now sleep beneath those ocean waves, while the bones and fossils of mammalia are found on the Rocky Mountain Range.After visiting the Maories of New Zealand, one of the remaining fragments of the South Sea Island tribes, who are probably the finest specimen of aboriginies in the world, I took in Australia, where the white cockatoo parrots move in great flocks and the many species of kangaroo, from the size of a rabbit to a horse, sport in the gardens to the annoyance of the pioneer farmers, and where the sun shines in from the north windows, the north star and great dipper have disappeared, and beautiful new constellations appear in the southern skies, and the mountains of the moon are seen from the other side.

In a few weeks I found myself taking in the South Sea Islands, admiring the pretty lagoons, those tiny inner-ocean retreats, where the glistening sandy beach is strewn with miniature shells cozily protected by the surrounding palm groves, upon whose outer shore the mighty waves come pounding in only to recede without disturbing the finny tribes who never venture outside of these inland tiny lagoons.

At Apia, in the Samoa group, where lies the body of Robert L. Stevenson, I wondered not at his choice of selection for spending the last days of his life. Here among the South Sea Islands he could muse unmolested, far from the struggle for gain, and notoriety. There is a beautiful side to those so-called barbarian lives, and one is tempted to envy them their freedom as they laugh and sing in the bamboo shade, and bathe at ease in the soft waves of the grand old Pacific Ocean. One can but love them for their simplicity and confiding way as their wistful smile pleads for your generosity and sympathy.

The wonder-land in the Friendly or South Sea Island is Tongo-Taboo. Here one finds undoubted traces of a lost continent, in the way of an archway, or portal, through which a people must have passed before the dawn of Babylonian tradition. Two immense rectangular stone columns are seen tied together at the top by an enormous slab, on which rests a huge stone bowl, The entire structure must be nearly fifty feet high.

i239

EASTER ISLAND.THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!

EASTER ISLAND.THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!

EASTER ISLAND.THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!

There is no quarry on this little island from which it could have been taken, neither could it have been brought from a distant land, for ancient boats were not adequate.

The quarry from which it came, the mysteries of the people who such art designed, and the homes in which they lived, must be nearby, beneath the waves.

To satisfy curiosity, I took a shell boat to Easter Island, where those strange saint-like statues with sealed lips now stand, pre-eminent sentinels, as they have stood since the day when the Mid-Pacific continent was a prominent feature on our globe. On this tiny mid-ocean world the natives know about as much concerning the origin of their clans as we do about pre-existence. They shelter from storm in stone houses, of which the walls are four or five feet thick.

Many of the inner walls still bear traces of an intelligent people. Hieroglyphic characters and paintings of birds and other animals adorn the inner walls of what must have been the mansions of nabobs, while many statues of these unknown people with thin lips and serious countenances stand facing the sea. Like the fort on the Helomano and the colossal on Tonga, they speak for themselves, and while each have no tradition of other tribes, still all their languages spring from the same roots.

As I stood on deck gazing at these faces a spell came over me and from above I looked down on our world 100,000 years ago.

Before me lay an elbow-shaped mid-Pacific continent 2,000 miles wide and 8,000 miles long, on which millions of half-civilized people were passing their days and yearsas we are now doing, while the land of the morning sun teemed with shore and inland animal life roaming over the vast plains sheltered by primeval forests. Suddenly, as I gazed, the world trembled and reeled as the vast plains at the rising sun begun belching forth lightning and fire amid peals of thunder destroying all animal life as an immense mountain range came forth like a budless blossom far up and down the ocean shore.

In horror I turned to the mid-ocean continent and beheld it with all its cities and inhabitants sinking down, down beneath the ocean waves.

From this reverie I awoke and wondered who would dare dispute, as soundings prove that such a continent, with the exception of a few mountain peaks we call islands, now sleep beneath those ocean waves, while the bones and fossils of mammalia are found on the Rocky Mountain Range.

After visiting the Maories of New Zealand, one of the remaining fragments of the South Sea Island tribes, who are probably the finest specimen of aboriginies in the world, I took in Australia, where the white cockatoo parrots move in great flocks and the many species of kangaroo, from the size of a rabbit to a horse, sport in the gardens to the annoyance of the pioneer farmers, and where the sun shines in from the north windows, the north star and great dipper have disappeared, and beautiful new constellations appear in the southern skies, and the mountains of the moon are seen from the other side.

NEW GUINEACopy of diary when in Torres Straits and New Guinea, 1899:April 6.Arrived at Cooktown on Japanese steamer Kusuga Maru and leave on schooner Shilo for New Guinea next day.April 8.York Island, only three white men besides Captain Mosly, live here. The captain tells sympathetic stories about the storm of March 3, when he saw the ship his son was on go down. He thinks about 200 men from pearl hunting crafts were lost in the storm.April 9.At sea, bound for Fly River. Hot as tophet, but a stiff breeze. Find small island inhabited by birds, but no land quadrupeds, as in dry season the small fresh water streams dry up.April 10.At mouth of Fly River. Approach main land. High mountains appear in the distance. Great marshes on either side, which cause Guinea fever to the whites, but not to the natives.April 11.Go ashore, several miles up the river. Birds, birds, birds on all sides. I shot a Guinea pigeon, looks like a pheasant, big as a hen, soon have her cooked. Natives never travel singly, always in groups. Several missionarieshave been eaten here. One from Boston, but the natives do not look to me particularly hungry.April 12.Head on for Port Moresby, where I am to catch Burns-Phillips Co. steamer. Go ashore on a lagoon island. Go through the palms to the miniature ocean, find a beautiful helmet shell and concluded to keep it and gather others to send home.April 13.Strike fleet of pearl shell boats. Go down in diving suit about 160 feet. Bad job, starts the blood out of my ears. Get but one shell, which I will send to Arthur. Most of the divers are natives or Japs. One shipmaster owns and supplies about twenty diving boats. All shells opened on the ship. Average about one pearl to 300 shells. I buy of native four pearls for $6.25.April 14.Port Moresby only five houses. Bishop Stowigg, English missionary, here. Find three missionaries at each of these little ports. Became acquainted with Miss Tully from Brisbane, Australia. She is lonesome and shed tears when she bid me farewell.April 15.Land at Samaria. Find a native here who came from the interior, where the people go naked and build their houses in the trees. He speaks a few words in English and considers himself an interpreter. For two silver dollars I hire him to go with me anywhere as long as I feed him, and when through with him can leave him anywhere on the shore. We board the steamer here for the west, along the north shore. Everything and everybody looks and smells as though they had sat on the equator and fried ever since they had been born.April 16.At sea. My appreciative companions are a mother and four kittens, a captive young cassowary, about four feet tall, who the captain declares will eat his hammer and nails if he does not hide them, and three dogs. All small dogs around here will dive from the bow of a boat into deep water and bring up a knife or anything you show them before you throw it in. Dear little curs.April 17.Reach Kaiser Wilhelm's land and leave steamer. Am hearing terrible stories about the natives, men who eat an antelope at a meal, women with pompadours three feet high; also hear about snakes ninety-five feet long, but the stories come from natives who cannot count higher than the number 5.April 18.Catch excursion boat at Cape Croiselles and start west in search of village where the inhabitants live in nests in the trees. Captain and mate are from Adalaide, Australia, out for the season on about the same kind of a mission that I am. Captain continually teasing me that I am about at the end of my rope. Says he will write to Chicago and inform them that I escaped a Jonah whale only to be swallowed by a Guinea nigger. The mate says he will venture into the interior with me, at which I assure him if he will not attempt to coquette with the ladies he will not be hurt. Of course, I advise the captain to stay by his anchor and avoid temptation, for I tell him I see by the size and shape of his neck that he would become completely betwaddled in the presence of nature's fair adornments, or Papuan simplicity.April 19.The mate, guide, three stalwart blacks and myself leave the boat in the night. Several miles in we cross a clear running brook, through which we wade to our hips. After climbing several mountain trails we continue for five or six miles along a zigzag course under the brow of a mountain range, crossing ravines in which the large birds, all of them beautiful in color, do not seem to fear us or fly at our approach.At openings I can view the evergreen, palm tree valley below, which seems awaking from its dreams to greet the rising sun. I call a halt and look and listen, for I am charmed.About ten o'clock, when motioned by our guide, we somewhat nervously follow him to a crystal lake, surrounded by tropical verdure, where we were confronted with from sixty to one hundred houses or nests built in the trees covered, water-proof tight, with a sort of long sea grass, which grows abundantly in all tropical marshes. Apparently some of the larger dwellings, like those of the Alaska Indians, would accommodate several families. Here and there naked people, looking out or climbing up or down the swinging ladders.The king, a young fellow, after learning our wants, invites us to stay a moon, which I think would have been perfectly safe if we did not wander away from the village.I then presented the king with the presents I had brought, six large jack knives and six cheap hatchets, after which they began to show us things, how and what they cooked, how they caught game, fight, dance, worship and lastly how they clear a guilty conscience.i247NEW GUINEA.HOME OF THE NAKED PEOPLE WHO BUILD THEIR HOUSES IN THE TREES.This is done by immersion in clear water by moonlight, when the god in the moon forgives all. They believe that the souls of the dead linger around those whom they loved on earth.The king and several others gave me rudely ornamented shell rings. A lady to whom I gave a silver dollar gives me a pretty shell which she had herself ornamented with the sharp end of a stone, also she gave me her petticoats which females wear when at the sea shore. (I have these momentoes yet.) The petticoat consists of a waist-band to which is attached loose ringlets down to the knees, all made of sea grass. Once I caught two girls winking, laughing and making fun of me. All females stand sideways to the males and look and talk over their shoulder. Many have fine physiques.There are few quadrupeds here, but this seems to be the home of birds.The cassowary is larger than an ostrich. Their flesh is said to taste like turkey. The plumage of some birds is wonderful. Especially the lyrebird, who struts like a tom-turkey. Over twenty species of the bird of paradise are said to live here.All kind of tropical fruit grow wild and in great abundance. Bread fruit trees grow quickly and furnish 500 to 1,000 pounds of food each, substance about equal to oatmeal.Many from Chicago may well envy these kind, timid, primitive people their sunshine career as compared to our daily struggle for ascendancy.As I am about to leave these people, who are huddled around me, out of curiosity I look one after another of each sex squarely in the eyes for recognition, and I get the response everytime. Not that steady stare of the snake, dog, or gorilla, but that conscious response ofaffection between souls. This satisfies me that men are not improved beasts, but rather distinct creatures endowed with certain soul-responsive looks, self-controlling powers, gifts which cannot be mentally experienced.April 24.After several days among the verdure islands with broad, glistening, sandy shores, strewn with large and small shells, I find myself among the Solomon Islands, about 500 miles from New Guinea.I am glad I came here, for it seems like a dream of the long, long ago. With the exception of a few naked natives, flying foxes, and shore fowls, these islands must resemble the great lake region at home in the carboniferous age. The age after the great Mississippi Valley inland sea had fled away from the shores. The age before the vegetation had lured the sea family through the long reptilean age into the mammalian age, when the mastodon roamed the palm groves of Michigan and the great dinotherium lived on the marshy plains of Colorado, before the Rocky Mountains had raised their now silent, dreary forms.If there was a day in Illinois when the Crustacean invertebrate families lined the hot ocean shores and the vegetation grew thirty feet high, it must have resembled this equatorial region now, for although clear today, I am told it rains almost daily, and up the mountain sides as far as I can see the vegetation is wonderful.A sort of inspiration seems to pervade the forests of New Guinea and the Samoa group, but this carboniferous clime has little charm. For although white sand beaches miles wide strewn with shell against a background of waving palms, is a sight long to be remembered, I somehowfeel I am associating with clams, turtles and pelicans of the "evening and morning of the fifth day," so I will now leave for Cape York, to catch the Futami Maru, which is to call there May 17th.

Copy of diary when in Torres Straits and New Guinea, 1899:

April 6.

Arrived at Cooktown on Japanese steamer Kusuga Maru and leave on schooner Shilo for New Guinea next day.

April 8.

York Island, only three white men besides Captain Mosly, live here. The captain tells sympathetic stories about the storm of March 3, when he saw the ship his son was on go down. He thinks about 200 men from pearl hunting crafts were lost in the storm.

April 9.

At sea, bound for Fly River. Hot as tophet, but a stiff breeze. Find small island inhabited by birds, but no land quadrupeds, as in dry season the small fresh water streams dry up.

April 10.

At mouth of Fly River. Approach main land. High mountains appear in the distance. Great marshes on either side, which cause Guinea fever to the whites, but not to the natives.

April 11.

Go ashore, several miles up the river. Birds, birds, birds on all sides. I shot a Guinea pigeon, looks like a pheasant, big as a hen, soon have her cooked. Natives never travel singly, always in groups. Several missionarieshave been eaten here. One from Boston, but the natives do not look to me particularly hungry.

April 12.

Head on for Port Moresby, where I am to catch Burns-Phillips Co. steamer. Go ashore on a lagoon island. Go through the palms to the miniature ocean, find a beautiful helmet shell and concluded to keep it and gather others to send home.

April 13.

Strike fleet of pearl shell boats. Go down in diving suit about 160 feet. Bad job, starts the blood out of my ears. Get but one shell, which I will send to Arthur. Most of the divers are natives or Japs. One shipmaster owns and supplies about twenty diving boats. All shells opened on the ship. Average about one pearl to 300 shells. I buy of native four pearls for $6.25.

April 14.

Port Moresby only five houses. Bishop Stowigg, English missionary, here. Find three missionaries at each of these little ports. Became acquainted with Miss Tully from Brisbane, Australia. She is lonesome and shed tears when she bid me farewell.

April 15.

Land at Samaria. Find a native here who came from the interior, where the people go naked and build their houses in the trees. He speaks a few words in English and considers himself an interpreter. For two silver dollars I hire him to go with me anywhere as long as I feed him, and when through with him can leave him anywhere on the shore. We board the steamer here for the west, along the north shore. Everything and everybody looks and smells as though they had sat on the equator and fried ever since they had been born.

April 16.

At sea. My appreciative companions are a mother and four kittens, a captive young cassowary, about four feet tall, who the captain declares will eat his hammer and nails if he does not hide them, and three dogs. All small dogs around here will dive from the bow of a boat into deep water and bring up a knife or anything you show them before you throw it in. Dear little curs.

April 17.

Reach Kaiser Wilhelm's land and leave steamer. Am hearing terrible stories about the natives, men who eat an antelope at a meal, women with pompadours three feet high; also hear about snakes ninety-five feet long, but the stories come from natives who cannot count higher than the number 5.

April 18.

Catch excursion boat at Cape Croiselles and start west in search of village where the inhabitants live in nests in the trees. Captain and mate are from Adalaide, Australia, out for the season on about the same kind of a mission that I am. Captain continually teasing me that I am about at the end of my rope. Says he will write to Chicago and inform them that I escaped a Jonah whale only to be swallowed by a Guinea nigger. The mate says he will venture into the interior with me, at which I assure him if he will not attempt to coquette with the ladies he will not be hurt. Of course, I advise the captain to stay by his anchor and avoid temptation, for I tell him I see by the size and shape of his neck that he would become completely betwaddled in the presence of nature's fair adornments, or Papuan simplicity.

April 19.

The mate, guide, three stalwart blacks and myself leave the boat in the night. Several miles in we cross a clear running brook, through which we wade to our hips. After climbing several mountain trails we continue for five or six miles along a zigzag course under the brow of a mountain range, crossing ravines in which the large birds, all of them beautiful in color, do not seem to fear us or fly at our approach.

At openings I can view the evergreen, palm tree valley below, which seems awaking from its dreams to greet the rising sun. I call a halt and look and listen, for I am charmed.

About ten o'clock, when motioned by our guide, we somewhat nervously follow him to a crystal lake, surrounded by tropical verdure, where we were confronted with from sixty to one hundred houses or nests built in the trees covered, water-proof tight, with a sort of long sea grass, which grows abundantly in all tropical marshes. Apparently some of the larger dwellings, like those of the Alaska Indians, would accommodate several families. Here and there naked people, looking out or climbing up or down the swinging ladders.

The king, a young fellow, after learning our wants, invites us to stay a moon, which I think would have been perfectly safe if we did not wander away from the village.

I then presented the king with the presents I had brought, six large jack knives and six cheap hatchets, after which they began to show us things, how and what they cooked, how they caught game, fight, dance, worship and lastly how they clear a guilty conscience.

i247

NEW GUINEA.HOME OF THE NAKED PEOPLE WHO BUILD THEIR HOUSES IN THE TREES.

NEW GUINEA.HOME OF THE NAKED PEOPLE WHO BUILD THEIR HOUSES IN THE TREES.

NEW GUINEA.HOME OF THE NAKED PEOPLE WHO BUILD THEIR HOUSES IN THE TREES.

This is done by immersion in clear water by moonlight, when the god in the moon forgives all. They believe that the souls of the dead linger around those whom they loved on earth.

The king and several others gave me rudely ornamented shell rings. A lady to whom I gave a silver dollar gives me a pretty shell which she had herself ornamented with the sharp end of a stone, also she gave me her petticoats which females wear when at the sea shore. (I have these momentoes yet.) The petticoat consists of a waist-band to which is attached loose ringlets down to the knees, all made of sea grass. Once I caught two girls winking, laughing and making fun of me. All females stand sideways to the males and look and talk over their shoulder. Many have fine physiques.

There are few quadrupeds here, but this seems to be the home of birds.

The cassowary is larger than an ostrich. Their flesh is said to taste like turkey. The plumage of some birds is wonderful. Especially the lyrebird, who struts like a tom-turkey. Over twenty species of the bird of paradise are said to live here.

All kind of tropical fruit grow wild and in great abundance. Bread fruit trees grow quickly and furnish 500 to 1,000 pounds of food each, substance about equal to oatmeal.

Many from Chicago may well envy these kind, timid, primitive people their sunshine career as compared to our daily struggle for ascendancy.

As I am about to leave these people, who are huddled around me, out of curiosity I look one after another of each sex squarely in the eyes for recognition, and I get the response everytime. Not that steady stare of the snake, dog, or gorilla, but that conscious response ofaffection between souls. This satisfies me that men are not improved beasts, but rather distinct creatures endowed with certain soul-responsive looks, self-controlling powers, gifts which cannot be mentally experienced.

April 24.

After several days among the verdure islands with broad, glistening, sandy shores, strewn with large and small shells, I find myself among the Solomon Islands, about 500 miles from New Guinea.

I am glad I came here, for it seems like a dream of the long, long ago. With the exception of a few naked natives, flying foxes, and shore fowls, these islands must resemble the great lake region at home in the carboniferous age. The age after the great Mississippi Valley inland sea had fled away from the shores. The age before the vegetation had lured the sea family through the long reptilean age into the mammalian age, when the mastodon roamed the palm groves of Michigan and the great dinotherium lived on the marshy plains of Colorado, before the Rocky Mountains had raised their now silent, dreary forms.

If there was a day in Illinois when the Crustacean invertebrate families lined the hot ocean shores and the vegetation grew thirty feet high, it must have resembled this equatorial region now, for although clear today, I am told it rains almost daily, and up the mountain sides as far as I can see the vegetation is wonderful.

A sort of inspiration seems to pervade the forests of New Guinea and the Samoa group, but this carboniferous clime has little charm. For although white sand beaches miles wide strewn with shell against a background of waving palms, is a sight long to be remembered, I somehowfeel I am associating with clams, turtles and pelicans of the "evening and morning of the fifth day," so I will now leave for Cape York, to catch the Futami Maru, which is to call there May 17th.

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