Sealskins are a costly commodity, in more ways than one. More perilous than almost any other mentionable pursuit, seal-hunting is yearly exacting a greater penalty in human lives than it ever did before. Hunted for generations, the seals have become more wary, and year by year they retire farther and farther into the well-nigh inaccessible ice of the highest northern latitudes.
It is not sport, this hunting the seal from the icy, storm-swept coast of Newfoundland; it is toil, whereby in part the hardy Newfoundlander wins his scanty measure of bread, and the chase is beset with multitudinous and unforeseen perils.
The wind gathers the ice into floes, and jams it against the coast, an immeasurable, jagged expanse of it, interspersed with plains; then the Newfoundlander takes his gaff and his food and his goggles, and sets out from his little harbor, starting at midnight that he may come up with the pack at dawn. But the wind which sweeps in the ice inevitably sweeps it out again, without warning, in an hour, or a day, or a week; nor does it pause to consider the situation of the men who are twenty miles offshore. It veers and freshens, and drives the whole mass, grinding and heaving, far out to sea, where it disperses it into its separate fragments.
The lives of the hunters depend upon the watchfulness of the attenuated line of lookouts, from the women on the headland to the first sentinel within signaling distance. But tragedies occur notwithstanding. Some years ago of five sealing-schooners that penetrated the drift ice then blocking the northernmost extremity of Baffin's Bay one only returned. Two or three years previously, at Kedy, near Cape Voronoff, Siberia, three hundred Russian sealers, at work upon an ice-floe, were driven northward into the frozen ocean, owing to the sudden springing up of a southerly gale, and were never heard of again.
At St. Paul's Island, one of the Pribyloff group, off the coast of Alaska, are the graves of seventy odd sealers, found frozen stiff and stark on an ice-floe that drifted ashore one night.
As with sealskins, so with pearls. The pearl-diver's occupation is among the most dangerous known. Generally either an Arab or a full-blooded negro, he is invariably a man of splendid physique and indomitable courage. Long practise has enabled him to remain under water for two minutes at a time without apparent inconvenience. Nevertheless, the life of a professional pearl-diver is not considered by experts to be worth more than six or seven years' purchase.
Many succumb every season to a strange and deadly form of paralysis. Many more are eaten by sharks, drowned through getting their feet entangled in weeds, caught in crevices in the rocks while exploring the depths of the sea, or seized and devoured quickly by shoals of gigantic octopi—those ghouls of the ocean—which invariably infest the fishing-grounds.
It is estimated that of the hundreds of egret-hunters who each year set out for the heronries of Yucatan, a full ten per cent. never return. Deep in the deadly, fever-laden recesses of the forest swamps of the hinterland these beautiful birds breed. The hunter pursues them remorselessly, his life in his hand, for the snow-white tail-feathers are worth from five to eight guineas.
The climate is deadly. The atmosphere is saturated with miasma and infected with myriads of poisonous insects.Alligators lurk, too, in the black slime of the tortuous bayous, which constitute the only means of inter-communication. An egret-hunter who runs short of ammunition or quinin simply lies down in the bottom of his canoe and waits for death. Usually he has not long to wait. On the average, for every half-dozen aigrettes—one may see hundreds being worn any afternoon in Bond Street—a man's life has been sacrificed.
Hardly less perilous, if any, is the orchid-hunter's profession. Orchids love warmth and moisture, and warmth and moisture in tropical countries are synonymous with miasma and fever. Wild animals also and poisonous serpents abound in the umbrageous depths wherein the rarer varieties lie hidden. Not infrequently, too, the collector has to seek his specimens among savages or semicivilized peoples, who strongly resent his intrusion into their midst.
One firm of orchid-importers reported a year or two ago that they had had five collectors killed in as many months by the wild tribesmen of the Western Himalayan slopes; while other three, even more unfortunate, were made prisoners and carried off to undergo the nameless horrors which have from time immemorial been characteristic of Central Asian slavery.
Rubber is purchased at a terrible price. The mortality in the State of Amazonias, in Brazil, corresponds with almost diabolical exactness to the number of tons of rubber produced. In fact, it is said each ton costs a human life, and although there are no such horribly fiendish atrocities in Brazil as has been charged against the Congo, it is nevertheless true that the laborers who are brought into the rubber-fields do not average more than three years of life; and are, if not in law, at least in fact, subjected to hardships never known or endured by the slaves in the United States, or even by the slaves in the coffee countries of Brazil.
Of nearly seven million pounds of camphor obtained annually, Formosa produces all but about six hundred thousand pounds, but very few people have the faintest conception of the dangers to which Japanese camphor collectors are exposed in the Formosa hills when gathering this product. Up to the present, in fact, the Japanese have found it impossible to control the head-hunting savages of the hills, and the development of this valuable industry depends equally upon the success of their measures for encountering and suppressing these determined and as yet unconquered tribes.
Formosa, which is shaped somewhat like a huge sole, has a rugged, mountainous back-bone, in which Mount Morrison towers into the clouds to a height of twelve thousand feet. Throughout the wild penetralia of these mountains lurk a number of warlike tribes of varying strength, whose lives are devoted to hunting, fishing, and fighting with one another, their one community of interest being a passionate ardor in the collection of human heads, whether of their tribal enemies or of the Chinese coolies who live on the verge of the hills or are engaged in the camphor industry.
The tree from which camphor is obtained is a species of laurel indigenous to Formosa, and it is on the mountains overrun by these terrible hordes of head-hunters that the extensive forests from which practically the world draws its supply of camphor are found.
What bread is to the American or European poi is to the native Hawaiian. No meal is complete without it, and for the great majority of the natives it forms the principal article of diet.
Poi is made from a tuberous root about the size of a large sweet potato. It is first baked and afterward pounded up with water until a smooth paste is obtained, much resembling a wheat flour paste, except that the color is a pale pink or purple.
This paste is allowed to ferment slightly and is then ready for use. Formerly each family prepared its own poi, the work being done by the men, as in fact were most other cooking operations. Poi factories, in which machinery grinds and mixes the material, have largely supplanted the old method.
Many of the white residents of the islands eat poi to almost the extent of the natives, but the taste is largely acquired and strangers seldom care for it. Poi has a high food value, and since it formed the principal food of the old Hawaiians some persons credit it with the splendid physical development of the race.
Poi was always eaten from wooden bowls or calabashes and was conveyed to the mouth by the fingers, one, two or three being employed according to the consistency of the food, which fact establishes a designation of one, two or three finger poi. White poi eaters now usually employ a fork or spoon in lieu of fingers, although it is still common even in the highest families to give native dinners or "luaus" at which knives and forks are taboo and fingers only used.
There is as much etiquette among the Hawaiians in eating with the fingers as with modern table implements, and the graceful motion by which a portion of poi is twisted up on the fingers and transferred to the mouth would not shock the sensibilities of the most refined. An invitation to a real luau at which poi, baked pig, fish baked in leaves and cocoanut in various forms were the chief features of the menu is an experience which every visitor to Hawaii sincerely covets.
The story of the founding of the City of Mexico is one of the most extraordinary tales in history. It happened in 1325, at least, it began a long time before that, but was an accomplished fact about 600 years ago.
In the first place, imagine an almost inaccessible mountain, crowned with a valley at the height of 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. In the centre of this valley was an immense lake. When the Aztecs arrived, led by the priests of the God of War, they found it in the possession of hostile tribes.
For that reason, and because the priests declared that in a certain part of the lake where there stood an elevation of stones an eagle had been seen devouring a serpent, they began the construction of the city on this spot, immediately over the deepest waters of the lake. There had long existed a prophecy among the Aztecs that their wanderings would end when they should have reached a place where the priests would behold an eagle resting on a cactus plant, devouring a serpent.
Confident that they had found the spot ordained to be their abiding home, they began to construct rafts of the trunks of trees, covering them with thick layers of earth, upon which they built rude huts of more or less solidity. Groups of dwellings soon began to form themselves in regular order, thus determining the primitive streets of the new city.
They also constructed boats and oars of different sizes useful in peace and war, and while certain of their number occupied themselves in defending their homes and brethren from the onslaughts of hostile tribes, others continued to improve and enlarge the new city. Gradually the lake was filled up, and terraces arose, one after another, in the place once occupied by the deep waters.
This was in itself a herculean labor, unsurpassed in ingenuity and durability by any similar work of ancient or modern times. Upon the first of these terraces was constructed the Teocalli, or sacrificial temple. It was begun in 1216 and not completed until 1325, a period of 109 years, from which time may be dated the official foundation of Tenochtitlan, to-day the modern City of Mexico.
The latest and best five-cent weekly. We won't say how interesting it is. See for yourself.High art colored covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.
6—Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On The High Gear.7—Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.8—Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.9—Motor Matt's Air-Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.10—Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.11—Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.12—Motor Matt's Peril; or, Castaway in the Bahamas.13—Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.14—Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of theHawk.15—Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of theGrampus.16—Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.
6—Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On The High Gear.
7—Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.
8—Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.
9—Motor Matt's Air-Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.
10—Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.
11—Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.
12—Motor Matt's Peril; or, Castaway in the Bahamas.
13—Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.
14—Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of theHawk.
15—Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of theGrampus.
16—Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.
The most popular publication for boys. The adventures of Frank and Dick Merriwell can be had only in this weekly.High art colored covers. Thirty-two pages.Price, 5 cents.
675—Frank Merriwell Cut Off; or, The Result of the Great Spring Rise.676—Frank Merriwell's Ranch Boss; or, Big Bruce and the Blossoms.677—Dick Merriwell's Equal; or, The Fellow with the Flying Feet.678—Dick Merriwell's Development; or, The All-around Wonder.679—Dick Merriwell's Eye; or, The Secret of Good Batting.680—Frank Merriwell's Zest; or, The Spirit of the School.681—Frank Merriwell's Patience; or, The Making of a Pitcher.682—Frank Merriwell's Pupil; or, The Boy with the Wizard Wing.683—Frank Merriwell's Fighters; or, The Decisive Battle with Blackstone.684—Dick Merriwell at the "Meet"; or, Honors Worth Winning.685—Dick Merriwell's Protest; or, The Man Who Would Not Play Clean.686—Dick Merriwell In The Marathon; or, The Sensation of the Great Run.687—Dick Merriwell's Colors; or, All For the Blue.688—Dick Merriwell, Driver; or, The Race for the Daremore Cup.689—Dick Merriwell on the Deep; or, The Cruise of theYale.
675—Frank Merriwell Cut Off; or, The Result of the Great Spring Rise.
676—Frank Merriwell's Ranch Boss; or, Big Bruce and the Blossoms.
677—Dick Merriwell's Equal; or, The Fellow with the Flying Feet.
678—Dick Merriwell's Development; or, The All-around Wonder.
679—Dick Merriwell's Eye; or, The Secret of Good Batting.
680—Frank Merriwell's Zest; or, The Spirit of the School.
681—Frank Merriwell's Patience; or, The Making of a Pitcher.
682—Frank Merriwell's Pupil; or, The Boy with the Wizard Wing.
683—Frank Merriwell's Fighters; or, The Decisive Battle with Blackstone.
684—Dick Merriwell at the "Meet"; or, Honors Worth Winning.
685—Dick Merriwell's Protest; or, The Man Who Would Not Play Clean.
686—Dick Merriwell In The Marathon; or, The Sensation of the Great Run.
687—Dick Merriwell's Colors; or, All For the Blue.
688—Dick Merriwell, Driver; or, The Race for the Daremore Cup.
689—Dick Merriwell on the Deep; or, The Cruise of theYale.
The best detective stories on earth. Nick Carter's exploits are read the world over.High art colored covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.
638—A Mental Mystery; or, Nick Carter on a Difficult Trail.639—The Sealed Envelope; or, Nick Carter's Search for a Lost Fortune.640—The Message in Blue; or, Nick Carter's Clue to a Vast Conspiracy.641—A Dream of Empire; or, Nick Carter and the Queen of Conspirators.642—The Detective's Disappearance; or, Nick Carter is Saved by Adelina.643—The Midnight Marauders; or, Nick Carter's Telephone Mystery.644—The Child of the Jungle; or, Nick Carter's Ingenious Ruse.645—Nick Carter's Satanic Enemy; or, The Case of an Easy Mark.646—Three Times Stolen; or, Nick Carter's Strange Clue.647—The Great Diamond Syndicate; or, Nick Carter's Cleverest Foes.648—The House of the Yellow Door; or, Nick Carter in the Old French Quarter.649—The Triangle Clue; or, Nick Carter's Greenwich Village Case.650—The Hollingsworth Puzzle; or, Nick Carter Three Times Baffled.651—The Affair of the Missing Bonds; or, Nick Carter in the Harness.
638—A Mental Mystery; or, Nick Carter on a Difficult Trail.
639—The Sealed Envelope; or, Nick Carter's Search for a Lost Fortune.
640—The Message in Blue; or, Nick Carter's Clue to a Vast Conspiracy.
641—A Dream of Empire; or, Nick Carter and the Queen of Conspirators.
642—The Detective's Disappearance; or, Nick Carter is Saved by Adelina.
643—The Midnight Marauders; or, Nick Carter's Telephone Mystery.
644—The Child of the Jungle; or, Nick Carter's Ingenious Ruse.
645—Nick Carter's Satanic Enemy; or, The Case of an Easy Mark.
646—Three Times Stolen; or, Nick Carter's Strange Clue.
647—The Great Diamond Syndicate; or, Nick Carter's Cleverest Foes.
648—The House of the Yellow Door; or, Nick Carter in the Old French Quarter.
649—The Triangle Clue; or, Nick Carter's Greenwich Village Case.
650—The Hollingsworth Puzzle; or, Nick Carter Three Times Baffled.
651—The Affair of the Missing Bonds; or, Nick Carter in the Harness.
For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by
STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
IF YOU WANT ANY BACK NUMBERSof our Weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to us with the price of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail.POSTAGE STAMPS TAKEN THE SAME AS MONEY.
IF YOU WANT ANY BACK NUMBERSof our Weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to us with the price of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail.POSTAGE STAMPS TAKEN THE SAME AS MONEY.
MOTOR STORIES
Every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of Motor Matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. Surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the Tip Top Weekly.
Matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them.
HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY AND THOSE TO BE PUBLISHED:
1—Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.2—Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.3—Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.4—Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."5—Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.6—Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.7—Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.8—Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.9—Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.10—Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.11—Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.12—Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.13—Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.14—Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the "Hawk."15—Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the "Grampus."16—Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.
1—Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.
2—Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.
3—Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.
4—Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."
5—Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.
6—Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.
7—Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.
8—Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.
9—Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.
10—Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.
11—Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.
12—Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.
13—Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.
14—Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the "Hawk."
15—Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the "Grampus."
16—Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.
To be Published on June 14th.
17—Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.
17—Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.
To be Published on June 21st.
18—Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.
18—Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.
To be Published on June 28th.
19—Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.
19—Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.
To be Published on July 5th.
20—Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor Boys.
20—Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor Boys.
PRICE, FIVE CENTS
At all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price.
Added table of contents.
Images may be clicked to view larger versions.
Some inconsistent hyphenation (i.e. "war-like" vs. "warlike") retained from the original.
Page 14, changed "Ortera" to "Ortega" ("can't understand this Don Ramon Ortega").
Page 16, corrected "action" to "actions" in "The boy's actions were peculiar."
Page 26, changed "Ysabelle" to "Ysabel" ("Ysabel vanished into the tower").