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$i.oo a Year, In Advance. ' FOR GOD, FOR COUNTRY, AND FOR TRUTH." Single Copy, 5 Cent.
VOL. XV. PLYMOUTH, N. C. FRIDAY. ATJGUSTT. 1904. IL NO. 19.
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KEEP A -
; If the road is hard and rough,
Keep a-climbin'.
If you're feelin' pretty tough,
Keep a-climbin'.
Taint no use to sit and pout,
'Cause the other feller's stout,
Cittin' miffed won't help yo uout,
Keep a-climbin'.
If you're feelin' kinda' sick,
Keep a-climbin'.
"Make a cane'"' from some old stick,
Keep a-climbin.
Don't stand still if you get blue,
One more step may change your view,
Clouds will often change their hue,
fc!o keep a-climbin'.
By SIR H.
IKE most boys, I bad my
dreams of adventure; per
haps I may say more than
most hovs. Several of them
naturally were connected
with a Robinson Crusoe
life on a tropical Island.
A few years after I bad left boyhood
behind I was appointed Vice-Consul In
what were then the British and Ger
man territories of the Kamerun in
western equatorial Africa. The ques
tion of the site for my official residence
w5 being discussed by the Foreign
Office, and as I had already visited the
Kamerun in the capacity of a tourist,
I was invited to offer an opinion.
I asked for leave to select the little
island of Mondole, in Ambas Bay. On
the island I should be safe from any
attack by wild natives, I should be on
British territory, in a healthy locality,
and yet only two miles across the
water from the little civilized negro
settlement of Victoria.
My request was granted, and shortly
after I started for Mondole, in 1885,
en English builder was sent out to
erect the vice-consulate in wood, iron
and cement.
MY IIOUSEON MONDOLE.
I found Mondole Island of surpassing
beauty a little square mile of crum
bling rock, which rose to a height of
some 500 feet above the very blue
waters of Ambas Bay. To the west
was the Atlantic Ocean affd the pale
blue silhouette of Fernando Po, a large
island with a peak rising nearly 10,000
feet.
Eastward rose above Ambas Bay the
stupendous mass of the Kamerun vol
cano, more than 13,000 feet above sea
level. To the south a beautifully
wooded peninsula jutted out from the
mainland toward Mondole, from which
it was separated by barely a mile of
somewhat rough sea.
My first residence was in a little
two-roomed timber house which had
been built and abandoned by a Polish
explorer, who had attempted to found
a kingdom in the Kamerun, with Mon
dole as his impregnable capital.
A few natives fishermen mostly
lived on the western side of Mondole
Island, but for the most part this little
paradise of tropical vegetation was un
inhabited by, the human rape. Instead,
it was abundantly supplied with ser
pents. My first attempts were directed to
ward clearing a site for my official resi
dence on the central ridge of the island.
In doing this I had to wage an excit
ing battle with the snakes, which had
taken possession of most of the old
and hollow tree trunks.
These snakes belonged to the partic
ularly venomous genus of the tree
cobra, a snake that is the source of
endless African legends. All over negro
Africa one hears that the dendraspis,
or tree cobra, crows like a cock, and in
native legend it has some of the other
attributes of the basilisk.
It is further, and truthfully, cele
brated for its unusual ferocity. A
tree cobra will frequently fly .out from
its hiding place and attack passers-by,
quite unprovoked.
The two sexes, moreover, exhibit
great attachment to each other when
mated.
On the way from the beach to the
site of my projected house there was
one particularly large bombax tree.
Which was the home of a pair of these
rtee cobras. They were from about
twelve to fourteen feet long, lithe, and
of a dark slatish blue above with yel
low bellies.
ONE DUCK TOO MANY.
Again and again, as I passed this
tree, I could see the male and female
snakes lovingly intertwined, or, separ
17
fill Li
CLIJHHING.
Don't get down into the rut,
Keep a-climbin'.
Watch the road for some short cut,
K, ap a-climbin'.
Don't be gazin' at the groun',
With your face all in a frown,
Raise your head and look aroun',
But keep a-climbin'.
Don't let folks discourage yoa,
Keep a-climbin'.
Keep your goal always in view,
Keep a-climbm'.
If you do right things to-day,
Sometime you'll be makin' hay,
And you'l.l hear the people say,
'He did some climbin'.
- Tacoma (Washington) Ledger.
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0
H. JOHNSTON.
9
r
ately, mimicking some twisted branch
in rigid immobility, waiting, no doubt,
for their prey.
None of my negro laborers would lay
an ax to this tree, nor would they at
first let me kill the snakes, as they
predicted that the most terrible conse
quences would occur a veritable war
of serpents. So this bombax tree was
left standing longer than the other
vegetable monsters which obstructed
the buildig site, and the tree cobras
became quite accustomed to our com
ing and going. They attacked no one
at first, but soon became a nuisance
from their fondness for my domestic
ducks. f
In West Africa, at the time of which
I am writing, the muscovy duck, a na
tive of Brazil, was the most useful
domestic bird. Its eggs are excellent
food, and its flesh is, as most Amer
icans know, a toothsome article of
diet.
The inroads made by the snakes on
these ducks became too serious to be
tolerated. One day I encountered the
male snake with a muscovy duck half
way down his gullet, and then and
there shot him.
Thereafter, as the negroes had pre
dicted, began a series of misfortunes.
In the first place, the female snake en
tirely cut off our communications with
the beach by the new made road. She
flew at the first party of negroes who
were descending in that direction, bit
one of them in the leg, and his death
two hours afterward, in spite of all
antidotes I could think of. caused all
the other native laborers to take to
their canoes and desert the island.
WHEN WE 'CUT THE BOMBAX
TREE.
I supplied their place with Krooboys
from my residence at Old Calabar; but
meanwhile I was left on the island
with an Indian steward and an Accra
cook till the English builder arrived
with his materials and men.
W made a determined onslaught on
the female snake, no doubt very much
at the risk of our lives. We cut down
the huge bombax tree, and our im
ported laborers their legs and much
of their bodies swathed in felt flew
at the hissing snake with long staves
and did her to death.
But it, seemed that ill luck was to
continue-to ''follow 'me so long as I re
mained on that island. '
Prior to these events, my Indian ser
vant, who had accompanied me on my.
previous African journeys, had always
been a very quiet, well-conducted per
son. But now the poor fellow was sud
denly seized with a bad attack of
black-water fever, and after recover
ing, quite lost his mental balance, and
became at times a-raving maniac.
MY DANGEROUS SERVANT.
A strong house of logs had to be built
hastily for his detention, pending the
arrival of some steamer by which he
could be sent away to a healthier cli1
mate. Although slim and spare in
build, his strength when seized by one
of these fits of raving became almost
superhuman.
One evening, as I was preparing for
bed, and was, in fact, clad in nothing
but pajamas and slippers, the door of
my temporary house was dragged open,
and the Indian servant stood before me
with flashing eyes and a huge club,
which was really an uprooted log from
the house out of which he had broken.
After glaring at me for a moment he
said:
"If you had not been such a good
master I would kill you to-night."
Not thinking it wise to trust in
definitely to his clemency or gratitude,
I sounded my. whistle and called tip my
six Krooboys.
Very friendly relations had existed
3
between the Krooboys and this Indian
servant. They therefore endeavored
in their broken English to persuade
him to go back to the log hut.
Turning on them, however, like a
tiger, he stabbed one of them mortally
and another very nearly so. The rest
of the Krooboys fled, and I was left
alone with this raving madman in the
bright moonlight on the sea beach.
Showing me the still dripping knife,
he flung it behind him into the sea,
saying as he did so:
"I do that lest I should be tempted
to stab you."
I have never in all my life been
placed in such an awkward position.
The English builder was a mile or
more away, all my men had bolted into
the bush, and the only outward and
visible sign of legal authority was at
the little settlement of Victoria, two
miles across the sea.
My first thoughts turned toward the
wounded men, in the hope that both
might be saved.
I managed to stanch the flow of
blood from the less seriously wounded
of the two. As to the other, he was
stabbed in the stomach.
While attempting to restore him to
consciousness, I was suddenly aware
that the murderer was holding a candle
and assisting in every possible way.
He betrayed no trace of his recent
excitement, but in a tome of the deepest
commiseration kept saying:
"Poor Grando! Who could have done
this? Poor Grando!"
Under the circumstances I thought
it best to avail myself of all the help
that he could render at this moment
and he was most deft in binding up the
wound.
"DURING HER MAJESTY'S
PLEASURE."
When all that could be done for the
two men with the limited means at our
disposal had been accomplished, I had
to turn to the Indian and say:
"Now I have got to put you in irons."
He held out his hands quite submis
sively for the"' handcuffs.
By this time the English builder had
arrived, and one or two of his men
helped to get out my boat and row
us over to the mainland, where the
Indian was put in custody.
He was eventually tried at a con
sular court and sentenced to be "de
tained during her majesty's pleasure."
With assiduous attentions one of
the Krooboys recovered, but the other
died.
The place of the Indian as general
factotum in my service was taken by a
very intelligent negro ex-slave, named
Solomon. Solomon had been freed as a
boy by one of her late majesty's cruis
ers, and had been landed for educa
tion at the little Baptist mission set
tlement of Victoria, in Ambas Bay.
Here he received an excellent train
ing. He was so ugly and ungainly in
his movements that it was difficult
to realize what a truly noble hearted
creature was concealed under his gro
tesque mask. Solomon was one of the
many wonders I have encountered in
the negro world; had he lived he might
have been another Bishop Crowther.
POOR SOLOMON!
lie took the keenest interest I re
member, in the revision of the Old and
New Testaniuiits, and was one of the
first persons in that part of Africa
to secure a copy of the revised Bibje.
lie was a hard and steady worker,
who kept the men in order without
violence, and felled timber, quarried
stone, collected and skinned birds,
beasts and reptiles, and was always in
a good temper, ready with a cheery
answer to even the crossest question.
It seemed to me that with the ac
quisition of Solonitfu my troubles on
Mondole were over. But the slaughter
of the snakes was not yet expiated,
according to the negro opinion. One
day, when SoJmon bad been with me
for three months, he proposed crossing
to the adjoining peninsula to cut tim
ber and convey the logs back to Mon
dole. For this purpose he preferred,
he said, to use native dugout canoes
rather than my little boat.
He started early in the morning, but
I never saw him again. Late in the
afternoon the canoemen returned, blue
with cold, and their bodies wrinkled
and flabby with long immersion in
the water.
They described hew, just as Solomon
had started to return with his little
flotilla a great sea had come in from
the open Atlantic and swamped the
canoes.
This in itself was a matter of little
moment, where every native swam like
a fish, and where the contents of the
canoes would float But it was sup
posed that a crocodile or shark had
seized Solomon and dragged him un
der. One result of all these worries and
anxieties was that I became seriously
ill with black-water fever, and was
obliged to move to Old .Calabar.
On several occasions subsequently
I returned to Mondole and attempted
to' reside there, for the place was su
premely beautiful, and" possessed fea
tures of great natural interest; but
every' time something untoward hap
pened either to myself or to some one
else staying in the house.
Nothing occurred, it is true, that
might not equally well have taken
place without the snakes' curse, in
which I need hardly say I placed no
faith whatever.
DISPROVING THE SUPERSTITION
After my transference to East Africa,
and the cession by England to Ger
many of the Ambas Bay settlements,
the house was removed.
The island is probably now under
cultivation by German planters, who
must have removed without regard for
superstition the tree cobras, and have
been able to show the natives, by the
prosperity which attends the cultiva
tion of cacao in these regions, that the
misfortunes of the English Vice-Consul
had no connection whatever with
supernatural causes. Youth's Com
panion. A FATHER'S LETTER.
Quaintly Expressed Advice For the Young;
Sir Philip Sidney.
When Sir Philip Sidney was twelve
yeafs old he had made such good
progress in his studies that he wrote
to bis father a letter in Latin and one
in French; In those days, we must
remember, if one has to read at all, it
was necessary to read in Latin, and
French was the language of courts, so
both tongues were begun early and
studied more practically than we now
adays think requisite. But young
Philip's letters seem to have greatly
plesaed his father, for in return Sir
Henry wrote a charming letter of ad
vice and counsel, well worth reading in
full.
We can quote only a little of it. but
advise you to read it all. As to study,
he wrote, in the old spelling:'
"Apply yowr study to suche howres
as yowr discrete master dothe assigne
yow, earnestlye; and the tyme, I
knowe, he will so lymitt (limit) as shal
be both . sufficient for yowr learnings
and saf for yowr health. And mark
the sens and ibe matter that yow read,
as well as the woordes. So shal yow
both enreiche (enrich) yowr tongue
with woordes and yowr wltte with
matter; and judgment will growe as.
yeares growyth in yow. Yf
yow hears a wise sentence, or an apt
phrase, commyte yt to yowr memorye,
with respect to the circumstance when
yow shal speake yt."
Good advise, it is not. And yet how
differently a modern father would
write, even if he chose the same ideas
to express. Would he not put it more
like this?
"You'd better'be regular in studying
your lessons, for you will find that
your teacher knows about what you
can do without hurting yourself. Put
your mind into it, and try to get the
sense out of it, and you'll acquire a
good vocabulary as well as learn some
thing. Then the older you grow the
more sense you'll have. If you find
something well said, store it away, so
you can repeat it when it will tell."
Yet the two fathers, he of the six
teenth and he of the twentieth century,
mean the same t. ing. From 'Books
and Authors," in St. Nicholas.
The Keally Clever Pone.
There is much more intellectual clev
erness among the girls of to-day than
there was fifty years ago. A flippant
cousjn says: "It loos not pay for a
girl to be clever. Men are afraid of
you i you are, and the other girls
hate you." But between a pedantic
prig and a well educated young wo
man there is a vast difference. The
really clever women are those who dis
guise their learning and pose as amia
ble and charming idiots.
The Man in Love.
The ordinary man in love is a sorry
sight compared with his mistress. He
makes his love conventionally and con
tinually disappoints the wo.nau, who
wishes to see new lights gleam in his
eyes. He is in poignant fear of discov
ery; he has a. horror of ridicule; his
one dread is lest he make a fool of
himself. But a woman is a cheap chit
indeed if she spends a thought on
such nonsense; her abandon is su
perb, Londoa Queen.
MISSED.
(The renW of a lonelv husband vrhose
wife has asked in one of her letters: "Do
you miss me, dear?")
"Do I miss you, dear?" you ask me,
utv I 1 u
oince you ve journeyea iar air ;
Am I conscious of your absence?'
Ah, my treasure,
ure, I should say!
I hnve ceased to lock the windows
When I go to bed at night;
I have ceased to care a cooky
Whether everything's all right. .
If the kitchen gas keeps burning
I don't know it and don't care;
'Neath the bed thieves may be hiding,
I've sworn off looking there.
Darling, I have ceased to bother
With the bird and with the cat,
They're attended to by Maggie,
Who has full charge of the flat.
I have ceased, my dear, to worry.
When the busy day has fled, .
And I get to feeling sleepy,
I just tumble into bed.
No more peering round in corners.
No more nightly chores for me;
From a score of vexing duties
For the present I am free.
Do Lmiss you, dear, you ask me!
Yes, oh yes. my heart's delight;
I've quit getting up and hunting
After burglars in the night.
If it storms I lie and listen
To the drops' splash on the pane,
Never minding if the curtains
And the rug are soaked with rain.
In vour absence I am getting
Gladly rested, sweetheart mine;
You will hardly recognize me.
People say I look so fine.
JUaggie has your sofa pillows
All in her room now, my dear
Yes, I miss you every moment,
I'm so free from bother here.
Chicago Record-Herald.
Hewitt "Gruet says that his wife
can cook and play the piano with equal
facility." Jewett "I'd hate to eat her
cooking." Brooklyn Life.
The spider in the baseball game
Would surely be a winner,
For catching ,rflies" ! car.'t b beat.
The gluttonous old sinner.
Willie "Mr. Oldboy, why do tfcey
say you are in your second childhood?"
Mother-"Willie!" WilIie"Ob, I
know; it's because you're baldheaded,
just like baby Dick."-Bostoa Tran
script. $
Teacher "Thomas, mention a few of
the proofs that the earth is round like
an orange." Tommy Tucker "I didn't
know we had to have any proofs,
ma'am, I thought everybody admitted
it." Chicago Tribune.
"You say that stout char In the op
posite box owes his fortuns to poll
tics?" "Well, yes; he got so awfully,
defeated the. first time he ran for of
fice that he has stuck strictly to busi
ness ever since." Pucs.
Oh. Love will fina
The way, some say,
But will it find
Her father kind
Enough to pay the way?
Philadelphia Press.
"No," he said, "I'm not sure whether
my wife's Christmas gift to me was
meant to please me o- to humble my
pride." "What did the give you?"
asked the friend. "She had a crayoa
portrait of me made by an amateur
artist." Philadelphia Ledger.
"But," said the merchant to the ap
plicant, "you don't furnish any refer
ence from your last place." "You
needn't worry about that," replied the
man with the close-cropped head and
prison pallor. "I wouldn't be her
now if it hadn't oeen for cry good be
havior in my last place."
"I'll admit that the eminent trage
dian we have just mentioned is exceed
ingly irascible and sometimes indis
creet in his manifestations," faid the
play goer; "but he is p fine actor."
"Yes," answered Stormington Barnes,
"he knows how to act, but hi does not
know how to behave." Washington
Star. ,
"Tommy," said the economical
mother to the boy with the loose
tooth, "I'll give jou ten cenio if you'll
let me pull that tooth." The boy
thought it over and then went to hi
bank. "The fun of doin that is worth
more'n ten cents," he caid. "I'll give
you fifteen if you'll let me. pull one of
yours." Chicago Evening Tost.
The British Board of Agriculture es
timates th t there are 1,S71,G1!) dogs in
the . country one to every score of
human beings.
In twenty per rent, of the marriages
In the German Empire last year the
bride was older than the groom.
i