Never a Dull Moment
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Never A Dull Moment The Autobiography of
A. Hyatt Verrill born 23 July 1871, died 14 November, 1954 Researched and edited by Doug Frizzle, 2007
stillwoods.blogspot.com ISBN Canada 978-0-9784573-1-0
Never a Dull Moment
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A. Hyatt Verrill
SYNOPSIS............................................................................................................ 6 FORWARD .......................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1
1873 - 1875 Earliest Recollections, the ocean and family............ 9
Chapter 2
1876 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876..................14
Chapter 3
1879 – 1888 Being a boy, sledding, skating, skiing, trapping.....19
Chapter 4
1880 – 1882 Boys and Accidents, Glouchester ...........................28
Chapter 5
1875 - 1883 Summer in Norway, Maine - Tanning and Mills....36
Chapter 6
1875 – 1884 Uncle Wash and the Rope-Walk ............................43
Chapter 7
1882 – 1890 Uncle Wash, the inventor .......................................48
Chapter 8
1884 - 1886 Locomotives, Waterwheels and Spending Money ..54
Chapter 9
1875 – … Childhood Pets ...........................................................65
Chapter 10
1880 – 1882 Fireworks, fires and inventions..............................71
Chapter 11
1882 – 1886 Bows and Arrows ...................................................81
Chapter 12
1887 – 1889 Indians....................................................................85
Chapter 13
1878 – 1902 I Join the Sioux......................................................89
Chapter 14
1886 – 1889 Pranks.....................................................................97
Chapter 15
1884 – 1885 The Young Naturalists .........................................105
Chapter 16
1886 By the Seashore................................................................114
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Chapter 17
1885 Summer in the White Mountains ....................................120
Chapter 18
1885 – 1887 On Ships and Shooting.........................................127
Chapter 19
1886 – 1887 Vacation Stories from Long Island Sound...........133
Chapter 20
1888 Sailing and Danger in the Sound .....................................136
Chapter 21
1888 My First Trip to the Caribbean.......................................139
Chapter 22
1889 – 1890 Dominica ..............................................................146
Chapter 23
1900 – 1904 Shows and Shooting .............................................151
Chapter 24
1892 – 1894 Marriage and a Southern Trip to Costa Rica......156
Chapter 25
1892 – 1893 Lawless Costa Rica..............................................163
Chapter 26
1894 – 1901 Early Photography ...............................................168
Chapter 27
1895 – 1938 More Visits with my Indian Friends ....................173
Chapter 28
1902 – 1906 Business, Pleasure and Dominica.........................177
Chapter 29
1906 – 1908 Adventures in Dominican Republic .....................183
Chapter 30
1908 – 1915 In Guiana and Venezuela.....................................190
Chapter 31
1914 – 1918 Story of a Live Burial...........................................198
Chapter 32
1915 – 1916 In the Wake of the Buccaneers ............................206
Chapter 33
1918 – 1922 Savage Indians and the Lost Tisingal Mine .........210
Chapter 34
1920 Indian Boorabees and the Buccaneers ............................219
Chapter 35
1922 – 1924 Cocle Indian Devil Dance.....................................224
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Chapter 36
1924 The Guaymis Tribe of Panama .......................................228
Chapter 37
1924 The Guaymi Medicine Man.............................................234
Chapter 38
1924 – 1926 Peru ......................................................................241
Chapter 39
1924 – 1926 Indians of Peru and Ecuador ...............................246
Chapter 40
1926 – 1927 Back in Panama...................................................253
Chapter 41
1929 England and Peru ............................................................259
Chapter 42
1924 – 1926 Sirionos, Head Shrinkers .....................................267
Chapter 43
1926 Over the Incan Road to an Incan Dance .........................272
Chapter 44
1934 – 1935 Yucatan Treasure Hunt.......................................280
Chapter 45
1930 – 1933 Dominican Republic’s Sunken Treasure..............287
Chapter 46
1934 – 1938 More Treasure Seekers ........................................294
Chapter 47
1937 – 1940 Chiefland and Lake Worth, Florida ....................303
Chapter 48
Final Chapter ...........................................................................310
Afterword ..........................................................................................................313
What follows is a transcription from a manuscript originally completed previous to 1950. Very few edits were performed in order to preserve the vintage nature of the grammar and contents.
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SYNOPSIS Never a Dull Moment - The Story of a Full Life
This book is the life-story of A. Hyatt Verrill, author of one hundred and seventeen books and contributor to most of the leading periodicals in America and England, as told by himself. Verrill has discovered and described more than thirty new species of birds, reptiles, shells and insects. He was the first man to discover a process of natural photography and the first to photograph marine invertebrates, and insects. He re-discovered the almost mythical Solenodon paradoxus in the Dominican Republic. He was in charge of an expedition that partly salvaged a Spanish galleon sunk in the West Indies in 1637. He discovered and excavated the remains of a previously unknown pre-historic culture in Panama and has excavated countless tombs and ruins in South America and has lived among more than one hundred Indian tribes in South, Central and North America. He has made ninety-nine trips to the West Indies and Latin America, has crossed the Atlantic eleven times and has devoted nearly forty years to jungle and desert explorations in Central and South America. He has built boats, voyaged on a square-rigger to the West Indies, cruised through the Antilles on a vessel once a pirate ship, has served as steward, assistant engineer and purser on West Indian cruise ships and has held a Master’s Certificate. At one time he was a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and as an expert rifle shot, demonstrated ammunition for the Winchester Arms Company. He knew personally such famous men as General Grant, General Sherman, P.T. Barnum, Dom Pedro of Brazil, Professors Baird, Agassiz, Dall and others, the Prince of Monaco, Crown Prince of Bulgaria as well as Will Rogers and many famous Indian chiefs. He discovered and patented a refining process for sulphur and at one time developed and worked copper and gold mines in Panama. He has collected thousands of archaeological and ethnological specimens for the Museum of the American Indian, New York City and made a series of over one hundred oil paintings from life of South and Central American Indians. He was made a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, became blood brother of a Carib chief of Guiana and Medicine Chief of the Guaymi Indians of Panama. He is the only white man to have seen the remains of the long lost fabulously rich Tsingal mine and the only white man who has been permitted to 6
A. Hyatt Verrill
live among the wild and hostile Mountain Cunas of Panama. He has been through earthquakes, hurricanes and shipwreck, has explored unknown areas in South America, been invited to attend voodoo dances and yet for all this he was still going strong at seventy-nine when these memoirs were written. The subjects of his books are as varied as his interests and attainments. They include boys' stories and adventure, science fiction, exploration, historical works, travel books, books on archaeology and ethnology, popular science, sea stories, highly technical books on scientific and other subjects, and books on maritime matters. His REAL STORY OF THE PIRATE and REAL STORY OF THE WHALER are considered classics. His OCEAN AND ITS MYSTERIES is used by the United States and British Navy and his MASTING AND RIGGING is used as a text book by the British Naval Schools. At one time he even wrote poetry that won many prizes and was published in periodicals in England and in this country. Many of his books deal with mechanics, gardening, farming, etc. and he wrote the first book on radio ever published. He is a talented artist and his paintings, mainly of Indian and Latin American scenes have been exhibited in London, New York, Havana, Panama, Lima, Peru and Valpariso, Chile. He illustrates all of his own books and designs his jackets and made all of the natural history illustrations for Webster's International Dictionary and has made hundreds of drawings of marine invertebrates for scientific monographs and pamphlets. He is considered the outstanding illustrator in this line. The story of his long and adventurous life starting with his boyhood and carrying him through the years of adventure, marriage and parenthood, literary success and constant scientific exploration and every field open to the human mind reads like a tale of fiction. We think the reader will agree that the book like the author's life - holds never a dull moment.
Although the chapters are dated, the dates merely represent the periods during which certain events related in the chapter took place. I cannot recall exact dates of many of the events. Moreover, I made frequent visits to the same place over a period of years and I cannot recall on which of these visits the events occurred. Neither can I be sure of the date on which I wrote some of my books, or in what order the books were written so that the dates on the chapters merely represent the chronological sequence of my activities.
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FORWARD As I write the story of my life it is indeed difficult to realize that nearly eight tenths of a century slipped by since my birth in 1871. Only when I meet those who were babes in arms when I was a married man who now are wrinkled, white-haired and doddering, do I realize how the years have slipped by and it dawns upon me that I am very old. Age, perhaps, is largely a mental state, and despite my many serious injuries and illnesses, I feel no older than I did fifty years ago. My joints may be a little stiff, my hair and beard may be white and my physical strength may be less, but my mind has not aged. I am as active as ever and my hands do not tremble and I can still put in s good day's work. Largely, I think an active old age results from a keen interest in many matters. A fixed determination to accomplish something worth while or the impresa as the Spaniards say with no thoughts wasted on the passing of time. Perhaps, too - excitement, danger and adventure play a large part in prolonging life, but however that may be, as I look back upon the many years that have passed I can truthfully say that I have lived a full life and never known a dull moment. Since the above was written a great change has come over my life. In September, 1953 and again in November of the same year I suffered severe paralytic strokes; the result of a fractured skull when the mast fell on me as described in the story, plus subsequent head injuries that left a fragment of skull pressing on a nerve in my brain. I soon regained the use of my limbs but cannot write, pronounce, or spell certain words and am unable to do any active, work and must spend my time in bed. The only bright spot in the picture is the constant tender care of my beloved wife, who endures all my crankiness, complaints, peevishness and crustiness without complaint and who attends to all of my correspondence and business matters. It is hard to believe that I am condemned to remain a helpless invalid for the rest of my life but I have my past to look back upon and can revisualize my adventures and activities.
A. Hyatt Verrill
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A. Hyatt Verrill
Chapter 1 family
1873 - 1875
Earliest Recollections, the ocean and
My earliest clear recollections are of a summer at Noank, Connecticut. My father, Professor A.E. Verrill, was in charge of the work of the United States Fish Commission which, that year, had selected Noank as its base for operations. In those far distant days - it was over seventy years ago - summer visitors had not discovered Noank; there were no hotels in the village, and we boarded with the family of a sea captain. The house was close to the wharf where Captain Potter's schooner was moored, and my elder brother and myself, with the Potter boys, found an endless source of entertainment on the wharves and aboard the vessels. In addition to the BLUELIGHT, the little naval tug allotted to the Fish Commission, there were always half a dozen fishing smacks, several swordfishermen, and often a whaleship in port; and I remember as vividly as though it happened yesterday how, seated on a coil of rope, I would listen open-mouthed to marvellous yarns of the sea related by the grizzled old seamen. My favourite hero was the Bo’sun of the BLUELIGHT. He would have made an ideal pirate, and doubtless it was his ugly forbidding appearance that fascinated me. He was short and thickset, with bowed legs and a body like a barrel, with a brown face, seamed and wrinkled; with a huge fiery-red moustache, a great, red, bulbous nose covered with a network of purple veins; pale blue eyes under shaggy brows; a tousled mat of red hair, and with a terrible scar across one cheek. The welt had drawn one corner of his mouth into a villainous leer, and when he became excited or angry the scar turned vivid crimson. As I recall him, he invariably wore great sea-boots, a heavy blue shirt open almost to the waist and exposing a hairy chest covered with tattooing; and a battered naval cap; and he wore great silver hoops in his ears. Although he must have worn the natty blue naval uniform most of the time, yet I cannot remember ever having seen him attired otherwise than as I have described. Neither do I recall how or when we first became fast friends. But we were great pals, for like so many rough seamen, he was very fond of children and seemed never to weary of me or to find me a nuisance. He possessed an inexhaustible fund of stories, most of which undoubtedly originated in his own fertile brain. There were tales of cannibals and how he had escaped from their clutches, yarns of shipwreck, phantom ships, sea serpents, whales and naval battles. There were even stories of Chinese and Malay pirates, of terrific typhoons and hurricanes, and of man-eating sharks, all of which I swallowed as the gospel truth. Never a Dull Moment
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Almost as fascinating as his yarns were the model boats he would whittle from bits of pine boards. He was an expert with a jackknife and would carve elaborate chains from a stick of wood or even from a matchstick. His knife was his only tool, and the miniature blocks for the rigging and the masthoops of the toy boats he made were whittled and carved from wood with his knife. And he always added a "skipper" and sailors for the little ships, realistic figures which invariably bore a striking resemblance to Captain Beardsley of the BLUELIGHT - a roly-poly, bald-headed, peppery naval officer who prided himself upon his immaculate appearance at all times. Even after all the years that had passed since it occurred, I chuckle when I think of one episode in which the dandified commander of the little BLUELIGHT was the victim and the central figure. As was often the case, I had accompanied my father on one of the deep-sea dredging trips, of the BLUELIGHT. It was choppy weather out in the Gulf Stream, the little ship was bobbing and rolling and the steward was having a hard time of it serving dinner. But with vittles on the table all went well until it came to dessert. If there is one thing that Captain Beardsley thought more of than of his uniform it was watermelon, and he always insisted upon having the fruit brought to the table entire and serving it himself. As the steward entered the ward-room carrying a platter on which a huge melon was balanced, the ship gave a sudden lurch, the steward staggered, the melon shot from the platter and with a squashy crash struck squarely on the captain's head. Never will I forget how the luscious pink meat, the watery juice and the shiny black seeds dripped and slid from the top of the skipper's bald head, over his ruddy face, his immaculate collar, his gold-braided shoulders and his chest. And never will I forget the blasting, searing string of deep-sea oaths that he hurled at the unfortunate steward, as spluttering and mopping at his face and uniform with a napkin, he leaped from his seat and aimed a kick at the terrified man. But it was difficult enough to keep one's balance with both feet on the deck, and the next instant the captain was sprawling and rolling about in the wreckage of the melon. Even a Commander in the navy is bereft of all dignity under such circumstances, and everyone roared with laughter. For an instant the skipper glowered and spluttered, and if looks could have killed there would have been a wholesale massacre in the ward-room. Then, suddenly realizing the humor of the situation, he laughed as heartily as any of the others as he scrambled to his feet. A very different type of man was Captain Chester, a huge, burly, blonde Viking of a sailor who had been whaling and sealing in the Arctic for years and who was one of the survivors of the ill-fated POLARIS expedition. Careless of his personal appearance, with shirt open almost to the waist, with trousers rolled to his knees, barefooted and in his shirt sleeves he always reminded me of a great polar bear. His voice was a bellow, his conversation was interlarded with deep sea oaths, but he was as good natured as he was rough. He was not given 10
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to relating the story of his amazing, almost incredible adventures when, with half a dozen companions, he drifted southward, on an ice floe until picked up by a Scotch whaler off Newfoundland. But now and then, someone would manage to induce him to talk. I remember once, when he was relating how, after the POLARIS had been crushed and the ice had broken up, the men marooned on the floe built a boat from the sheathing of the ship's cabins, their only tools being a gimlet and a hatchet. "But Captain Chester!" exclaimed one of the ladies present. "How could you do that?" to!"
"How could we!" he boomed. "How could we? Why, dammit we had
Among the survivors of the POLARIS who had been rescued with Captain Chester were Eskimo Joe and his wife, and one of the captain's favourite jokes was to declare that when the drifting cake of ice was sighted and the party picked up, there were more persons rescued than had been set adrift. The answer was that Eskimo Joe's wife had given birth to a son as the floe drifted southward. Little Joe, as he was called, was one of my playfellows, for Eskimo Joe had settled down in Noank and prided himself upon being a “Mer'can”. But he was a mere child in his knowledge of civilization and civilized ways, and the local wags found keen delight in playing practical jokes upon him, all of which Joe took with a good natured grin. But he was no fool, and when on one occasion, a local sharper sold Joe a broken down, sorry-looking, aged caricature of a horse, the Eskimo turned the tables very neatly. Blandly declaring that he was about to sail on a fishing trip and had no use for the nag during his absence, he offered to sell it back to the former owner for ten dollars. Thinking that when Joe returned he could again foist it onto the Eskimo at a good profit, the fellow agreed and paid over the cash. But when he reached Joe's home he found the horse dead. Blustering and threatening, he demanded his money back, but Joe merely grinned. He had sold the horse "as is", he reminded the purchaser, and had not stated whether the beast were alive or dead. The Potter boys had a huge black Newfoundland dog who always accompanied us, Captain Potter declaring that Nick - the dog’s name was Nicodemus - was better than any nursemaid and that we were as safe in his care as if accompanied by a policeman. And when, one memorable day, my elder brother missed his footing and tumbled from the string-piece of the wharf into the water, Nick proved his worth by plunging overboard and dragging George ashore, although as a matter of fact the water was not up to his waist. Unfortunately Nick was frequently in disgrace, for he possessed an insatiable curiosity in regard to skunks and never learned by experience. Time after time he would come trotting home, his shaggy coat saturated with evidence of his encounters and apparently sorely puzzled as to why he was Never a Dull Moment
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denied admission to the premises. Captain Potter had a unique method of deodorizing the dog on such occasions. This was to treat Nick to a bath of whale oil. Whether the oil actually destroyed the odor of skunk or whether it merely supplanted it, I cannot say, but it served its purpose as far as the Noankers were concerned, for to them the odor of “ 'ile” was as ambrosia in their nostrils. Nearly all of the Noank "captains" (every male inhabitant over twentyone was a “captain”) as I recall it - had been whaleman at one time or another, and from their long cruises to far distant lands they had brought home curios and souvenirs. These always fascinated me. At the entrance to the Potter's front yard, the enormous jaw of a sperm whale served as an archway over the gate. Whale’s vertebrae, each as large as an ordinary stool, marked the sides of the gravel path leading to the front door and did duty as pedestals for tubs filled with plants. In the back yard was an arbor formed of whale's ribs, and flanking the front steps were hideous stone idols from some South Pacific island. The front room was a veritable museum. On the walls were pictures of sailing ships, all apparently scudding before a stiff wind over a sea as neatly marcelled as though it had been treated to a permanent wave. Upon the mantelpiece was the model of one of Captain Potter's ships, two dome-shaped glass cases covering bunches of artificial flowers made from sea-shells, several scrimshawed whales' teeth, and a carved walrus tusk. There was a swordfish sword on which there was a painting of a lighthouse and a rakish looking schooner, innumerable bits of carved ivory, sharks teeth, a stuffed penguin, some curious savage weapons with jagged edges and points of teeth, and numerous other curios. And on one wall was a glass case filled with insects, gorgeous azure-blue tropical butterflies, a walking-leaf, moths of brilliant hues, a scorpion and a tarantula, and countless jewel-like beetles, with a gigantic Goliath beetle in the centre. It was this case of exotic insects that started the Potter boys, Little Joe, my brother and myself on new quests; collecting butterflies and moths. I suppose, at the time, we expected to secure Morpho butterflies, Atlas moths and Goliath beetles in the fields of Noank. But if so we must soon have abandoned the idea and found plenty of fun and an intense interest in the specimens we did collect. There was a keen rivalry as to who would capture the largest, showiest or rarest things, and when one of the Potter boys proudly exhibited a Cecropia moth we regarded him with envy that was almost hatred. But a few days later his find was entirely over-shadowed when my brother secured a pale green Luna. But it was not until my father suggested that we should collect caterpillars and rear them, that we really became embryonic entomologists. There are several small islands off Noank, and at times we would go to Ram Island or one of the others for a day's picnic. Father would put up a tent to be used as a dressing room when bathing and we would dig clams and gather oysters from the tide-pools on the rocks and would cook these, and the 12
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provisions brought from shore, over a fire of driftwood. Blackberry and blueberry bushes covered the islands, and we boys would wander about, pushing through the miniature jungle of bayberry, juniper and berry bushes, picking the fruit, peering into cave-like fissures in the ledges, playing we were on a desert island, and childishly thrilled at visions of finding buried treasures. Sometimes we would play we were on a cannibal island, and would steal through the brush with imaginations worked to the pitch where we would not have been surprised had a horde of naked savages suddenly appeared, shouting and waving their weapons. One day were engaged in this exciting game, my heart almost ceased beating as from beyond a dense clump of bayberry came a strange sound and I caught a glimpse of what looked to my terrified eyes like the bushy, wooly head of a cannibal peering at me through the brush. The other boys had vanished over the brow of the hill to one side, and I stood there absolutely paralyzed with fear. I was too frightened to run or even call out. Again that half-chuckle, half growl came from the fearsome form crouching behind the bushes, and then suddenly it flung itself toward me. I had a fleeting glimpse of the thing before I took to my heels, and screaming at the top of my lungs, raced for the tent. It was no naked cannibal that was rushing full tilt after me, but a big black ram, and none the less terrifying for that. I could hear his thudding footfalls as he came tearing down the hillside, and every instant I expected to be struck by that lowered head with its great curling horns. It was really only a short distance to the tent, and utterly exhausted, I stumbled on a stone, pitched forward and rolled sideways past the shelter. But the enraged ram, galloping down the hillside, could neither turn to follow me nor could he check his furious pace, and plunged like a catapult into the tent. Shrieks and yells came from within as the ram's onslaught brought down canvas, poles and guy-ropes on top of my parents. Despite my terror and my bruised and shaken state, I fairly chortled with glee as I watched the canvas thrashing and heaving and billowing about as father, mother and the ram strove madly to free themselves. The ram was the first to emerge from the wreckage, but he no longer had any interest in me. He was far more frightened than I had been, and baaing and snorting he dashed back up the hillside for the shelter of the juniper thickets. But for years afterwards, I had a deadly fear of rams, and nothing would have induced me to venture into a pasture where there was a flock of sheep.
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Chapter 2
1876
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876
The Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 was an event in my young life. We traveled by the night boat from New Haven to New York, and I well remember my father awakening me before daylight so that I would not miss seeing the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge which was being erected. New York in those days was not the huge city of today. There were no high buildings, no subways, no “L’s”, no motor cars. The only means of transit were horse-cars and hacks, and Forty Second Street was the uptown limit of business. Where the select and imposing apartment-houses now rear their multistoried facades along Park Avenue, there were weed-grown hillocks and outcropping ledges inhabited by squatters dwelling in squalid shanties constructed of odds and ends, with ragged garments fluttering from clothes-lines and with bewhiskered goats grazing on the meagre herbage, and lean swine rooting in the muck of rubbish littered roads. The Battery was still Castle Garden, many of the ocean-going steamships were sidewheelers, scores of great sailing ships were moored at the docks of South Street and West Street and the world was marveling at the gigantic size of the latest “Greyhound of the Seas”, a liner less than five hundred feet in length. Even at that early age I was fascinated by machinery of any sort, and especially locomotives, and I vividly regally the enormous conical smokestacks, most appropriately “funnels” of the wood-burning locomotives that puffed and snorted and filled the air with sparks and cinders as our train drew out of Jersey City. They were wonderfully dolled up, with boiler bands of polished brass, their immense cowcatchers painted vivid red, with scarlet drivers and trucks, with bright green cabs and with tenders ornate with gilt and scroll work and bearing the names of such national heroes, presidents and famous men as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Horace Greeley, General Sherman. Compared to the giant locomotives of today, those dinky little engines would appear like toys, but they were deemed juggernauts in those days of over half a century ago. The Centennial had attracted such huge crowds that the hotels and regular boarding houses of Philadelphia were incapable of housing the unprecedented thousands of visitors, and many of the leading families of the city had thrown open their doors and were taking in paying guests. We stopped at the home of the Waugh’s, the parents of Frederick Waugh, the famous marine artist, then a boy of fifteen. I often wonder how that first great national exposition would compare with those of recent years. No doubt there are many persons who have visited the Centennial, the World's Fair, the various other expositions and even Chicago's Century of Progress extravaganza, and who, looking back upon it, feel that the Philadelphia Centennial was a pretty poor sort of show. But for me, the 14
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Centennial was the first, last and only Exposition in my life, and personally I shall always maintain that there has never been anything equal to it. Others may have been larger, more imposing in the buildings, more elaborate and more comprehensive; but none could possibly have exhibited such marvels and wonders as were shown in Philadelphia. The world at that period was in a transitory state which has never been duplicated. The Civil War had been ended but a few years. The South had not really begun to recover from the devastation it had suffered. The Great West was still untamed, largely uninhabited by white men, much of it was unexplored, and troopers under Custer, Reno, Scott and other noted Indian fighters were battling with the hostile tribes who resented the invasion of the immigrants and the coming of the iron horse. Immense herds of bison still roamed the boundless plains, and accounts of Indian fights and massacres were items of daily news in the papers. Moreover, it was an era of countless new inventions and amazing mechanical devices. Today, familiarity has bred contempt, and we accept truly astounding inventions and scientific achievements as a matter of course, while most of the things we call “new� are merely improvements or elaborations of well-known principles or discoveries. The "Century of Progress" may have exhibited automobiles, aeroplanes, radios, internal combustion engines, electrical devices of new and revolutionary designs and efficiency; but they are all familiar things to the visiting throngs. But not so the Centennial. Electricity was in its infancy, still a mysterious almost unknown power. Internal combustion engines were unknown. There were no motor cars, no electric-driven vehicles, no electric lights, no oil-burning engines, no telephones, no breech loading, rifled cannon; none of the modern death-dealing weapons of destruction; no steam turbines; none of a thousand-and-one mechanisms, devices and appliances which people of today consider absolutely essential to life. But with the country again at peace, with the aftermath of the Civil War, the reconstruction period was in full swing, and countless new discoveries, undreamed of mechanical marvels and revolutionary inventions were being shown to an amazed public for the first time. It was like a new world, another planet, almost incredible. The great Corliss engine, with its enormous "walking beam", the central power plant of the exhibition, was one of the wonders of the world, although many a factory today can boast of engines of thrice its power. The cast iron "Twenty Inch Rodman" gun was always the centre of hundreds of marveling visitors. It was considered the very last word in cannon, a titanic weapon capable of hurling a massive spherical ball five or six miles, and I remember how proud, and conspicuous and famous I felt when General Sherman, who was chatting with my father, lifted me up and seated me in the muzzle of the great gun. But the greatest marvels were in the Machinery Hall. Here were exhibited innumerable astonishing mechanisms and labor-saving devices that caused the pessimists to shake their heads and declare that the world was becoming mechanised and that labor was in jeopardy. Never a Dull Moment
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There were carpet-weaving machines, looms, lathes, every form of known machine. The first automatic machinery was there. There was the first ancestor of the modern printing press turning out souvenir sheets, printed, cut from the roll of paper, folded and delivered in neat piles without the aid of human hands. There were crude forerunners of the typewriter, the Linotype and the telephone. There was a gigantic steam hammer at which the crowds gazed in dumbfounded amazement as the operator demonstrated its control by flattening a steel ingot at a single blow, and the next instant brought the ponderous hammer down so accurately and lightly that it barely cracked the shell of an egg placed in a glass upon an anvil. There was the replica of a mint where commemorative medals were struck in place of coins, and were sold to the visitors as souvenirs. There were primitive electrical devices which aroused the greatest wonder, but would not create interest in a ten year old boy of today; and among the other exhibits were the new fangled bicycles, high-wheeled affairs which were to supplant the popular velocipedes and “bone breakers� then in use. In the great glass-roofed Agriculture Hall, the centre of attraction was a section of one of the big trees of California. Impossible tales of the giant Sequoias and redwoods had reached the East, but most persons took them with a grain of salt and as vastly exaggerated, for, so the wiseacres maintained, no trees on earth could attain such dimensions. But here, for everybody to see, was a section of one of the stupendous tree trunks brought at tremendous expense around Cape Horn. Moreover, a corps of artisans was busy turning out cups, plates, pincushions and other articles made from the wood and bark of the giant trees, all of which sold like the proverbial hot-cakes to the milling throngs. In one section of the Exposition grounds was an Indian encampment with its tepees, its feather-bedecked braves, its plump, expressionless squaws and its chubby papooses, There were native villages from many foreign lands, and it was in the Brazilian Pavilion that I first saw Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, who was introduced to my father by one of his scientist friends. The Emperor was a most striking-looking man with a huge full beard, but he had the kindliest eyes I have ever seen and a pleasant face and a charming smile. Children are quick to take likes and dislikes, and I took an immediate liking for Dom Pedro. The feeling must have been mutual, for in later years, when he had visited Yale and called on my father to consult him in regard to securing an American scientist to take charge of scientific work in Rio, the Emperor always brought me a candy mouse. Why he should have selected this particular form of gift I never knew; but he never brought two that were the same and I remember distinctly how he chuckled and laughed over a weird sugar rodent of white spotted with vivid blue which he drew from his pocket and dangled by the twine tail before my delighted eyes. It was one of my father's students, Richard Rathburn, who was finally selected for the post in Brazil where he remained for many years. But to return to the Centennial, I am sure I must have been born with the lure of exploration in my blood, for I was always possessed with an insatiable desire to venture into 16
A. Hyatt Verrill
unknown places, regardless of consequences, and on my second day at the Exposition my exploratory tendencies resulted in an adventure that is still vivid in my mind. In the Government Building there was a large group of life-sized figures dressed in the uniforms of the various divisions of the army, and representing privates and officers of all ranks. There were mounted cavalrymen, generals on chargers, artillery, an ambulance and tents, all arranged to form an encampment. And scattered about the great hall were other figures in army and navy uniforms of former periods. The attendants and guards were soldiers in uniform, and so wonderfully lifelike were the manikins that it was sometimes almost impossible to distinguish a flesh and blood soldier from his wax counterpart. On this particular morning a group of visitors had gathered about the figure of a wooden-looking grenadier in bear-skin busby and doeskin trousers, standing near the main entrance. Some were positive that the soldier standing stiffly at attention was a living man, others were equally certain that it was merely a dummy. At the height of the argument an attendant approached with a feather duster and casually brushed the soldier under discussion. That settled the question, and triumphant “I told you so’s� from the lay figure adherents greeted this proof of their claims. But the next instant they stared in open-eyed amazement as the grenadier shouldered his musket and marched off! This episode immediately raised a question in my youthful mind. Were the soldiers and horses in the main group real or artificial? I was consumed with curiosity to find out, and I was determined to learn the truth, My Parents were examining one of the cases of war relics, and unnoticed by anyone, I slipped under the ropes surrounding the imitation encampment and went from figure to figure pinching legs and arms trying to discover whether they were flesh or wax. Suddenly I glanced up and terror filled my heart, for over me towered a great coal-black horse rearing on his hind legs, his front feet pawing the air, his steelshod hoofs apparently about to descend upon my head. To me that horse, and the blue-clad general upon his back, were most terribly alive, and hastily dodging from under, I found myself surrounded by bearded troopers in cavalry boots, and with sabres at their sides, gathered about a scout in fringed buck skin in the center of the camp. Nervous and still frightened, uncertain whether the soldiers were real or not, I rushed hither and thither searching for a way out. But whichever way I turned I was surrounded by uniformed men. It was not until I bumped full tilt into a pompous-looking captain, and the forceful contact convinced me that I was among dummies, that I recovered from my panic, and boldly ducking beneath horses and wriggling between soldiers I reached the rope barrier to find the hall in an uproar and my parents frantically searching for their missing son. But an even more exciting adventure was in store for me, when a few days later, we visited the zoological gardens. Elephants, tigers, lions, camels, Never a Dull Moment
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even giraffes, I had seen before; but the giant kangaroos were entirely new to me and I was simply fascinated by the strange beasts. Unlike the other animals, the kangaroos were not confined in a cage, but occupied a good sized field surrounded by a wire netting fence. Between the bottom of this fence and the ground there was an open space perhaps ten inches high, and as I watched the beasts hopping about in the rear of the enclosure I became obsessed with the desire to see them at closer quarters. To think was to act, and unnoticed by my parents, or the keepers, I slipped under the fence and trotted toward the kangaroos. Cries, shouts and yells from the onlookers reached my ears, but intent on my natural history investigations I continued on my way. But not for far. A giant of an “old man� kangaroo, attracted by the shouting crowd or by my presence, reared himself on his hind legs, gazed at me with his great soft eyes and then with a resounding whack of his tail, came leaping directly for me. Instantly all desire for a closer acquaintance left me, and turning, I fled for my life. Behind me I could hear the thumping of the kangaroo’s feet and tail. Screams and shouts of warning came from the crowd outside the fence. Never in my short life, not even when I had been chased by the enraged ram, had I been so filled with terror. It was nip and tuck, and as I reached the barrier and fairly threw myself under the fence the kangaroo was not six feet behind me. A well deserved lecture from the angry keeper, and a merited scolding from my father, came almost as a relief after my narrow escape, and never again was I tempted to establish friendly relations with wild animals in the zoo. But of all my memories of the Centennial the most vivid and the most unpleasant is that of a brilliant red necktie. It was a scorching hot Sunday and with the flaming necktie about the collar of my white blouse, and wearing brand new knickers with silver buckles at the knees, I went to church with my parents and the Waughs. I was hot and bothered. My collar and tie were tight, and I perspired freely. Then, on the way home, we were caught in a sudden thunder shower and the color of my gorgeous tie stained my neck and blouse a rosy pink. The next morning I awoke burning with fever, with my neck swollen and scarlet, with a sore throat and flushed cheeks. Poisoning, the doctor announced as he examined me, and poisoning it was, for the vivid dye of the necktie proved to be an arsenic compound. Fortunately it was not serious, but it cut short our visit to the Exposition and left me with a hatred of red ties which I have never outgrown.
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A. Hyatt Verrill
Chapter 3 trapping
1879 – 1888
Being a boy, sledding, skating, skiing,
It is rather strange that I should have no recollections of the winters of my very early boyhood. Doubtless I played in the snow, coasted and enjoyed the cold weather with other boys of my age. I do not even remember when I first learned to skate. But it must have been when I was very young, for I recall breaking through the ice when skating and how my clothes froze as stiff as sheet iron as I ran home. At that time I was between nine and ten years of age, and was a more accomplished skater than any of my boy companions. Moreover, I used a pair of old fashioned "rocker" skates with runners set in wood and carried up in a scroll over the toes. The rear ends were rounded, hence the name "rockers", and rockers they were. One had to be extremely careful as well as skillful when using these skates, which belonged to my father when he was a boy and, for all I know, to his father and grandfather. At the time I used them, the newer "club" skates were just coming into use. These were the ancestors of the modern skates with blades much the same, but set in wooden foot-rests which were attached to ones feet by means of a screw which screwed into the heel of the shoe, and by broad toe-straps and an ankle-strap. We boys always carried a gimlet to clean out the screw holes in the heels of our shoes when they became packed full of snow and dirt. After a time these holes became worn, and despite the straps, the skates were forever slipping to one side or coming off, resulting in many a tumble regardless of ones skill, and during the winter the local cobblers did a good business in fitting new heels to the boy's shoes, When I see the boys of today with their chrome-plated, lightweight, beautifully-made steel skates immovably attached to special skating shoes, I often wonder how well or how far they would skate if they were suddenly to find themselves equipped with the heavy, cumbersome, tricky skates of my boyhood. But we not only managed to skate, but skate well. We may not have been as fast or as accomplished in fancy skating as the boys of today, but we thought nothing of skating ten, fifteen or twenty miles, and any boy who could not write his name, cut figure-eights, grapevines and other fancy figures in the ice, or who could not leap a couple of barrels was considered a "dud" at skating. Our sleds were almost as crude as our skates when compared to the sleds of the present generation. Broadly they could all be divided into two classes or types, the “pig-stickers” of the boys and the "high sleds" of the girls. The former were low, short, heavy affairs with pointed ends and with halfround steel runners so attached to the wooden sides as to leave a space of half an inch or more between the steel and wood, thus producing a certain springiness. In using these we held the sleds in front of our chests, ran to the brow of the hill and flung ourselves and sleds forward or “belly flopper". There Never a Dull Moment
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were no "flexible-fliers" or similar devices in those days, and we steered our course by digging toes into one side or the other as we shot down hill. Some of the girls, the "Tom-boys" as we called them, used the boys' pig stickers, but no self-respecting boy would be seen on a girl's high sled. These, as the name implied, were high, often raised a foot or more above the flat runners, which were brought around in a curve or scroll at the forward end. But the ambition of every boy, the utmost in sleds of those days, was the “double ripper�, the grandfather of the modern bob-sled of Lake Placid and other popular winter resorts. It required two boys, a partnership, to make and own a "double ripper", for it required two "pig stickers", and no one boy ever dreamed of possessing more than one. Moreover the "double-ripper" required a crew of two; a captain and steersman. When two boys had joined forces and had decided to sacrifice their pig-stickers in the double-ripper cause, the next step was to secure a pine plank about sixteen inches wide and from six to eight feet in length, a heavy iron bolt, three-fourths of an inch in diameter and ten or twelve inches in length, and a supply of smaller bolts, screws, nails and odds and ends of lumber. The construction of the ripper was not difficult. With a red-hot poker, or an augur-bit if available, a three-quarter inch hole was bored in the centre of the top of one sled and in the centre of the plank about three feet from one end. Similar holes were then bored through several sections of planks or blocks of wood. These were placed on top of the sled, the plank was placed on these and the long bolt was slid through the holes. Then a washer, or a piece of hard wood with a hole through it, was placed over the end of the bolt projecting through the sled, and a nut was screwed in place and the end of the bolt riveted to prevent the nut from working off. The other sled was fastened securely, and as nearly immovably as possible, at the other end of the plank by means of screws and bolts, with blocks of wood to keep the same level as the forward end. Finally, a cross-piece of hard wood was fastened across the two sides of the forward sled with rods projecting a few inches to either side, and the ripper was complete. The usual ripper was about eight feet long and would accommodate six to eight boys and girls. The steersman or pilot seated himself at the forward end of the plank, his feet resting on the cross-piece, the drag-rope of the sled grasped in his hands, while the captain at the after-end held the ripper at the brow of the hill until the passengers were seated. Then he would run forward a few steps, and as the ripper gathered speed would leap onto the end of the plank, grasping the edges of the board resting on one hip. Of course such a ripper was a rough and ready sort of job, and while they were the speediest of means of conveyance known, they were far from reliable and were dangerous affairs. Often they would overturn and the occupants would be bruised, cut and scratched. At times, when rushing down hill at terrific speed, the foot-rest would break or work loose, the ripper would get beyond control and serious injuries would result, and many a youngster was crippled or killed by a ripper dashing into a tree, a stone wall or some other obstruction. 20
A. Hyatt Verrill
For that reason parents frowned upon them, and most of the boys were sternly forbidden to make, own or use the contrivances. But that merely made the rippers the more popular if anything, and many a boy or rather boys, made and owned rippers which were carefully secreted in barns, stables or other spots far from prying eyes of parents. Being always of a mechanical turn of mind, and with a bump of inventive genius, I was quick to see where the ordinary rippers might be vastly improved and at the same time made safer. So with a boy chum named Fred we set to work to build a double-ripper that would make the other boys green with envy. As I possessed excellent carpenter's tools and a work bench and had plenty of lumber at my disposal, we had the "edge" on the other ripper builders from the start. And when the ripper was at last completed and we dragged it proudly to the nearest coasting hill it created as much interest and wonder as was caused by the first motor car that appeared on a street in the horse and carriage days. Instead of being raised precariously eight or ten inches above the sleds, the plank of our ripper was barely three inches above the sleds, and the plank itself was over ten feet in length. The edges moreover were rounded and were fitted with hand lines of rope threaded through holes in the plank. The rear sled, instead of being immovably bolted to the plank, was hinged to it, thus permitting vertical play, and with short sections of strong chain connected to the ends of the runners and the plank. The forward sled was pivoted to the plank by means of the "fifth wheel" of a buggy salvaged from the junk pile of a friendly blacksmith, with a strong kingbolt from the same source. The foot steering-bar, instead of being of wood nailed or screwed none too firmly to the sides of the pilot sled, was a section of iron pipe passed through holes in the sides of the sled and wrapped with twine to prevent the steersman’s feet from slipping. In addition, on either side of the front end of the plank there was a hardwood lever to which the steering ropes were fastened. But the greatest innovation, the real "safety first" device, was the brake. This consisted of a block of wood with a heavy angle-iron fastened to one edge, which was hinged to the under side of the rear sled and could be dropped and pressed downward by means of a short lever on one side of the plank. Moreover, we had painted the entire ripper, plank, sleds and all, vivid red, and had added a cushioned seat, part of an old broken chair, for the steersman. Never had boys been prouder than were Fred and myself as we prepared to put our gorgeous ripper to the test and the other boys and girls flocked about, all anxious to get a first ride. It was the biggest double ripper ever seen in our neighbourhood and easily seated twelve. At last all was ready, crowded to capacity, with Fred at the rear, I seated myself on the old chair cushion, grasped the levers and braced my feet on the crossbar and shouted to Fred to push off. Gosh, how that old ripper did go! The trees on the hillside fairly rushed past us, and it took all my strength and skill to keep her on our course. At the bottom of the hill was a swamp now frozen solid, but with a stream of open water perhaps two hundred yards beyond. Never had sled or ripper been known Never a Dull Moment
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to coast the grass and weed-broken ice of the swamp for more than half the distance to the river, but as we swept down the slope and onto the level ice I realized that at the speed we were going and with our heavy load giving us terrific momentum we would rush onward to the open water. I tried to swing the ripper to one side but the runners merely skidded on the smooth ice, the ripper lurched perilously and the girls screamed in terror. But Fred kept his head. He remembered the brake and with a grinding of shaved ice the ripper slowed down and came to a stop less than twice its length from the black water of the stream. Of course, once the boys had been shown what a double ripper could be, elaborate affairs were quick to make their appearance and the boys became ripper-mad. While accidents occurred at times, yet even our parents often coasted on the double rippers. Also from time to time, new ideas and improvements were added. I believe I was the first to equip a ripper with a steering-wheel and with springs, but soon after that I lost interest in double rippers in favor of toboggans. I think my closest chum, Billy van Namo, and I were the first persons to use toboggans in southern New England. Moreover, our toboggans were made by ourselves. We bought the lumber, worked it into shape, steamed it in the family washboilers on the kitchen ranges, bent the necessary curve for the forward ends by inserting the thin maple boards between water pipes and the hot water boilers in the kitchen, and proudly produced eight foot toboggans which were the equals of any. In addition to being the first to introduce toboggans, we were the very first to use skis in Connecticut. One of our schoolmates was a Dane, and Vladimir told such glowing tales of skijoring that Billy and I made up our minds that we would have a try at skiing ourselves. Not only were there no skis to be purchased in those days, but, moreover, even had they been available we would have scorned to buy them. We both prided ourselves on our ability to make almost anything we wanted, and skis were simple. With the first snowfall we were off with our skis and at the outskirts of the city we adjusted the straps and tried them out. Rather, we tried ourselves out, for, as we soon discovered, one does not ski successfully at one’s first attempt. Moreover, we had not provided ourselves with poles, which made our task doubly difficult. However, we mastered the skis in a remarkably short space of time and spent a wonderful day traveling across fields and pastures and through the woods, and before the day was done we had become so self-confident that we even attempted coasting down a small hill. Before winter was over we had become real experts, and having learned to ski without poles we never used them. To be sure, we never attempted big jumps, but we thought nothing of rushing down a wooded mountain side between trees and taking any moderate jump, and we frequently made cross country trips of twenty or thirty miles. 22
A. Hyatt Verrill
At the time of the big blizzard, in March 1888, our skis enabled us to get about when ordinary pedestrians and all forms of vehicles were unable to move. So deeply did the snow drift during the famous blizzard that I actually skied out of our library window where the snow was up to the sill. Countless horse-drawn street cars had become stalled and had been abandoned, and Billy and I had great sport skiing over the tops of the snow-buried cars. Vladimir was a wonderful skater and it was he who introduced the sport of skate-sailing. Once we had watched him speeding at a terrific pace across the ice, going about and tacking like an animated ice yacht, we became skate-sail mad, and every boy fell to work making sails. Vladimir used a square Danish sail with a topsail which could be raised or lowered at will, but the sail I made was a lateen; others preferred bat-wing or leg-of-mutton types, and there was always keen rivalry to see which form of sail would win in the races we held. Possibly we boys missed the speed skates, the artificial slides, the skijumping, the bob-sledding and other innovations and improvements in winter sports which some modern boys enjoy at Lake Placid or St. Moritz; but we had one big advantage over the average boy of today. There was never any lack of snow and ice in the winters of my youth. We could always count upon having good skating by Thanksgiving, and thereafter until the so-called “January thaw”. It was rare indeed to have a winter when the earth was not covered with several inches of snow from Christmas time or earlier until March. The weather bureau may scoff at the “old fashioned winters”; they may assure us that the winters have not changed, that history is constantly repeating itself as far as weather is concerned; but they cannot convince me. What would the people of today do for ice if they depended upon getting it from lakes and ponds as they did in my youth? In those days there was no artificial ice, the supply for the entire year being cut from the frozen ponds and stored in immense ice-houses, with double walls packed with sawdust, which were built beside practically every lake and pond. Many of the ice companies had their own artificial ponds, which during the summer were dry and grass-grown and were flooded only when cold weather approached. In cutting the ice, devices called "ice-plows" were used. These were wooden frames with sharp saw-like blades and were drawn over the ice by horses. The men armed with steel-tipped poles split the blocked-out masses free, and pushed and poled them to the ice-houses where they were picked up by endless-chain conveyors and carried into the buildings where they were packed in sawdust. Unless there was at least eight or ten inches of ice on the ponds, the ice was not considered ready to harvest. And how often in these days is there ten inches of solid ice on our lakes and ponds? One of our favorite amusements was fishing through the ice. We would cut a number of holes five to eight inches in diameter through the ice, placing them several hundred yards apart and often extending for several miles along a Never a Dull Moment
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lake or stream. Across the aperture of each hole we would set our "rig", consisting of a strong stick with a piece of stout wire bent about it with the ends standing out at right angles. To one end of the wire the baited line was attached, while a small flag of red or blue cloth was fastened to the other end, which was held down to the surface of the ice by a pebble or some small weight. When a fish took the hook the flag would bob up and warn us we had a catch. Usually by the time we had set the last rig several flags would be up and there was plenty of exercise skating back and forth, taking the pickerel and perch from the hooks and resetting the rigs. Of course we had accidents and adventures and narrow escapes. We were as reckless and daring and venturesome as any boys, and it was always one of our favorite stunts to see who could skate across the first thin black ice without going through. Long before the ice was thick enough to support the weight of a boy if he stood still, we would put on our skates, take a flying start, and speed over the surface of a pond while the ice buckled and crackled under our feet. This was all the more dangerous as the thin black ice was as transparent as glass, and even at a short distance it was impossible to distinguish the ice from open water. When this transparent black ice became thicker we had great fun peering down through it at the bottom of the lake or pond and watching the fish swimming about. Of course now and then some boy went through. If he slowed up, hesitated or fell down he was sure of a ducking. But most of the ponds where we “skimmed the ice" were shallow, and unless a boy slid under the ice there was little danger of being drowned. But it isn't pleasant to plunge into icy water in the middle of the winter and be forced to run or walk for several miles with one's garments frozen stiff. Yet I do not think any of us ever caught cold or suffered any harm from our duckings. Even when the lakes were frozen safely, and hundreds of people were skating, there were danger spots, spring holes and open spaces of water to be guarded against. Usually these were marked by flags or signs and on the lakes where skaters congregated in numbers there would be coils of rope and ladders conveniently placed, ready to be used in rescuing anyone who went through the ice. During the winter, also, we boys used to do quite a little trapping. In those days fur-bearing animals were still common in southern New England. Foxes, both red and gray, were abundant. Every swamp and marsh teemed with muskrat. Mink were common. There were plenty of weasels and ermine, raccoons and skunk, and bob-cats or bay lynx were by no means rare even within a few miles of New Haven and other towns. Even otter were occasionally seen or killed during the winter, and after a light snow fall the woods and fields would be covered with the trails of all these creatures. But it was no easy job catching them, for their proximity to human beings had made them even more wary and crafty than their fellows of the uninhabited wilderness of the north. 24
A. Hyatt Verrill
Moreover, the prices paid for pelts in the days of my boyhood were almost incredibly low as compared with present-day prices. We thought ourselves lucky if we received ten cents for each prime muskrat skin. Ordinary skunk brought about forty cents, solid black skunks could be sold for one dollar, prime brook mink, which was the most valuable of all the animals we trapped, was worth as much as five dollars; white weasel or ermine brought from fifty to seventy-five cents: a fine red fox skin could be sold for three or four dollars, and gray fox was worth from two to three dollars. Bob-cats were not worth anything in the fur market and were so seldom trapped or shot that we always kept their skins as trophies. Raccoons had no real market value, but a good skin could usually be sold for fifty cents, while others were such a rarity that they were more valuable as natural history specimens than as furs, I cannot say when I first tried my hand at setting traps, but I had my first gun when I was thirteen, and had earned quite a little spending money by catching muskrats and other animals before that time. The muskrats were the easiest of all animals to trap, and in addition to their pelts we sold the musk to perfumery manufacturers. Now and then we would be lucky enough to find a mink in a muskrat trap, but as a rule, we found that mink traps didn’t pay. The best places for them were the big salt marshes, and it was bitterly cold and far from pleasant work tramping the marshes, breaking through the “cat ice� and wallowing in slushy mud and water on the wind-swept marshes in the cold gray light of dawn, perhaps walking ten or fifteen miles, examining trap after trap and without a single pelt as a reward. There were many mink in the ponds and brooks, but these fellows were the craftiest of creatures and almost impossible to catch. Only by setting a steel trap at the bottom of a brook and suspending a chicken or turkey head above it, was it possible to catch a mink, and very often traps set for mink would catch muskrat instead. For muskrat, we used both steel traps and box-traps, the steel traps being fastened by an iron ring slipped over a stake which was driven into the ground at a sharp angle, so that the muskrat when caught and taking to the water, as they always did, would pull the ring down the stake thereby preventing the animal from rising to the surface, and thus drowning him. Foxes and raccoons were caught in steel traps, as were skunks, and it was quite a trick to kill a captured skunk without unpleasant results. As fox hunting with dogs was very popular there was always the danger of a trapped fox being found by some hunter and shot and brought in as a trophy of his own prowess, so it was necessary to follow one's trap line as soon as it was daylight. Looking back upon it now, I can't imagine myself thinking it fun to get out of a warm bed at four o'clock of a winter morning, bolt down a slab of cold pie or some cold chicken and a cup of coffee, and trudge off to the woods with the thermometer around the zero mark. But we boys thought it fun, for we were not compelled to trap in order to earn money, but took to it solely for the sport and recreation we got from it. Never a Dull Moment
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It was wonderful as a training in woodcraft and we learned more about the haunts and habits of wild creatures in this way than would have been possible otherwise, we could recognize the tracks of any bird or quadruped and could "read sign" as well as any woodsman, And it gave us strong, tough, wiry bodies, splendid robust constitutions, an immunity to colds and winter ailments and wonderful appetites. After we were old enough to be trusted with guns, we abandoned most of the trapping in favor of shooting, and while pelts of animals killed by shooting were less valuable than those trapped, yet we could secure many more and with so much less trouble that it amounted to the same thing in the end. Moreover, when we reached the stage where we took to rifles; we became expert shots, and by using a 22 and shooting the muskrats and mink through the head we secured pelts which brought the same prices as those caught in traps. For a time we hunted muskrats by stealing to within gunshot of some pond or stream where they had their dome-shaped winter houses. There would always be open spaces of water, and lying motionless and hidden we would wait until a rat swam across one of the spaces and crawled out upon the ice. But after one or two rats had been killed the others remained out of sight and we would have to tramp for long distances to some other colony. Then one day I made a great discovery. I had killed a muskrat on the ice in the centre of a pond and was standing in the shallow water close to the shore testing the ice to see if it would bear my weight. Not a living rat was anywhere in sight, and then suddenly, as I stamped at the thin shore ice with my foot muskrats began to appear swimming about in the open spring-holes and scrambling onto the ice. At the reports of our guns they all vanished leaving three more lifeless rats on the ice. But the moment I again splashed the water, out they came once again. Never before had we made such a haul of muskrat pelts in one day, and from that time on we could be sure of a good bag by standing in the shallow water and slapping it with our feet. Why it should have brought the rats from their safe retreats in their snug lodges regardless of danger I cannot say but it always worked. Another discovery that we made was that wild ducks and geese could sometimes be lured within gunshot by making some unusual noise or by waving a colored flag. The first wild goose I ever killed was obtained in this way. He was a wary old gander who kept safely out of gunshot in the middle of a lake. I had read in some book that hunters on the plains sometimes lured antelopes within range by waving a handkerchief tied to a stick or by lying on their backs and lifting one leg in air and moving it about, and it occurred to me that the same might work with a wild goose. So, crouching behind a rock, I tied my red and gray muffler to a stick and waved it back and forth above the ledge. For a time the goose paid no attention, and then to my surprise and delight I noticed that he was gradually coming nearer. Swimming back and forth, heading first in one direction, then in another he slowly but steadily approached my hiding place, until at last he was 26
A. Hyatt Verrill
within easy gunshot. When I reached home that day and exhibited that big Canada goose there wasn't a prouder boy anywhere in the world, I am sure. Later on, I secured many a wild duck by the same method, and as I kept my discovery a secret, the other boys never could understand why I was so lucky. But most of our duck shooting was done on salt water. There were two methods of duck shooting on the Sound. One was to "line out" which meant that a number of row-boats would anchor about one hundred yards apart off some point of land or an island where flocks of ducks were in the habit of flying back and forth. Lying flat in the bottom of the boat, we would wait for the birds to fly over and then we would leap up and shoot. Provided the weather and the sea and wind were right, and the ducks flew as expected, this method was usually successful. But it was cold and uncomfortable to lie for hours in a row boat bobbing around in mid-winter, and one's muscles became numb and cramped. And very often no ducks came within range. The other method was to set wooden decoys near some rock or islet and then hide until ducks approached the decoys.
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Chapter 4
1880 – 1882
Boys and Accidents, Glouchester
One summer that I shall always remember with interest and pleasure was spent at Gloucester, Mass where the Fish Commission was stationed that year. I was about nine at the time and felt quite grown up. The famous fishing port held plenty to interest a youngster of my age, and I never found lack of amusement. The fleet of Banks fishing schooners was always interesting. I made friends with the skippers and men, and I enjoyed thoroughly boarding the vessels as soon as they came to port and looking into the wells full of strange live fish. Many of the captains had been asked by my father to bring in any unusual specimens of marine life which they drew up on their trawl lines on the Banks, and some of the most remarkable specimens of deep-sea gorgonias, fish, crustaceans, corals and other invertebrates were brought to the laboratory by the Gloucester fishermen. And in addition to bringing in such rarities for the scientists, the men would often bring odd things for my benefit. Sometimes it would be a huge, ugly scarlet and green sea-robin with immense bird-like wings. Sometimes it would be a queer little sea-horse, a transparent pipe-fish, a huge sea anemone attached to the back of a monster crab, or one of the giant deepsea hermit crabs, I remember particularly some remoras or sucker-fish which one captain brought back in his schooner's well just to show them to the “Professor's kid� together with a six foot shark to which the queer fish attached themselves. And on another occasion a skipper presented me with a baby sea turtle about a foot in length. It was these living denizens of the sea, brought to the professor's kid that formed the nucleus of the wonderful aquaria of the Fish Commission laboratories. For years my father and the other scientists had maintained aquaria wherein were sea anemones, marine worms, small fish, crabs, sea-cucumbers and other forms of marine life. But they had never attempted to keep large fish or deep-sea animals alive. But the suck-fish started a new era in aquaria. At that time many world-famous scientists were connected with the fish commission. Some had already become noted in their special lines, among them Professor Baird, Dr. Dall, Dr. Bean, Dr. Goode and others. But others were young men, special students of my father, who were studying marine life as part of their post-graduate course. Among these was Mitsikuri, the first Japanese I had ever seen, who later became Japan's most famous native naturalist. Dr. Emerton, the natural history artist was also there, as was Professor S.I.Smith, my uncle, the famous biologist of Yale. I think it was Dr. Goode who suggested establishing a large aquarium for the purpose of studying fish. But at any rate, Professor Baird was enthusiastic over the scheme, and soon we could watch all sorts of strange fish swimming about in the glass-fronted tanks. By watching them at night my father discovered that the common blackfish or tautogs lie down and go to sleep, and completely change their color when resting. For the first time scientists had an 28
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opportunity of watching a young flounder's eyes move about until both eyes were on the same side of the head. There were countless other puzzles of fish live solved, and many new discoveries made. But to me the aquaria were merely interesting things to watch. Still, being a scientist's son and surrounded by scientists, it was only natural that I should have wanted to play scientist myself, and my father supplied me with a table, with forceps and bowls and plates and watch crystals, with pocket lens and with a small microscope, with bottles and jars of alcohol, and all the equipment of the students and professors in the long sail-loft which had been converted into a laboratory. It was lots of fun watching the weirdly strange creatures through the microscope and drawing sketches of them. I had a natural talent for drawing, and for several years had been taught and trained by Dr. Emerton, so that at the time I am referring to I was by no means an unskilled artist, especially in the scientific line. And you can imagine how delighted I was when one day, showing a sketch I had made of a lovely little marine worm, my father declared I had discovered a new species. Merely because it was an almost microscopic creature of no consequence or importance to the world, and would never be seen or heard of by anyone but scientists, did not dampen my excitement in the least. I had made a discovery! I had found something that even those world-famed naturalists had never before seen; and that to me was just as wonderful as though I had discovered a new species of bird or a new planet. And I recall how Mitsikuri, grinning until his protruding teeth were fully exposed, beamed upon me through his glasses and complimented me, and how genial Professor Baird patted me on the back and declared my father had better look out or I'd become more famous than he was. I had always regarded Professor Baird with a feeling of awe. He was a huge, heavily-built man with a clean-shaven upper lip and bushy beard, and as he was the director-in-chief of the fish commission I suppose that boy-like, I regarded, him as a sort of king, or as present day boys would express it, “the big shot�. But after his jovial and friendly familiarity on the occasion of my discovery we became great friends. Dr. Dall, who was one of the first if not the first American to explore Alaska, and who surveyed and wrote a report upon our newly-acquired territory for the United States Government, was another of the scientists whom I remember most clearly. Probably he made a greater impression on my youthful mind than did the others because of the missing fingers on one of his hands. Professor Goode, I recall particularly as he always has some interesting story to tell me about the fish in the aquarium or the schooner's wells, and there were Professor Alpheus Hyatt — my namesake, Professor Ned Morse, and Dr. Scudder. Professor Hyatt had a summer home at Cape Ann and a schooner yacht. He had a daughter, Anna, who later became a sculptress and made the Never a Dull Moment
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famous Joan of Arc statue on Riverside Drive, New York, and a son. But the son always struck me as being “stuck up” and at that time I had the greatest contempt for girls. I remember Professor Hyatt telling my father that he should build a house at Cape Ann because one of our ancestors founded Gloucester and built the first vessel there. But Professor Morse said "Why not Salem? The same ancestor of Ad's founded Salem and built the first house there. And who would prefer to live in Gloucester rather than in Salem?" Professor Morse was to my mind the most wonderful and entertaining man I had ever met. He was a very boyish little man, full of pep and energy, quick as a cat forever playing jokes, fond of pranks, and with an inexhaustible store of funny stories and riddles. Everyone called him “Ned” and never referred to him as “Professor”. He had lived for years in Japan, where he had charge of the Mikado's museum, and he spoke Japanese fluently. Although he could not read music he was able to play an opera through from beginning to end after hearing it once. But to me the most fascinating thing about him was his amazing artistic ability. He could draw two entirely different pictures at the same time, one with his left hand, and one with his right. He could write with one hand and draw a picture with the other and often would amuse me by drawing a lifelike picture of some animal by starting at the tail with his right hand and at the head with his left and meeting in the middle. I became obsessed with the desire to emulate him, and for several years I devoted much of my time to efforts to do so. While eventually I learned to draw two figures at once, I never approached his almost uncanny skill in using both hands simultaneously. The laboratory at Gloucester was in a disused sail-loft on one of the docks. A number of fishing schooners were always moored alongside. Great racks of drying salt codfish always occupied much of the wharf, and the SPEEDWELL, the fish Commission steamer, was berthed alongside the laboratory. At the end of the wharf was the railway track which crossed the street leading to the dock without safeguards of any sort. It was a dangerous spot although it was used only as a side track for shunting freight cars to pick up codfish and mackerel, and was not used steadily. I had made friends with several of the small boys of the neighborhood, and often, when we tired of playing on the dock or about the vessels, or wearied of squatting on the string-piece and catching cunners and flounders, we would wander up in the town or make excursions to the nearby fields or beaches. While we had been warned always to "Stop, look and listen" before crossing the tracks, I'm afraid we were very careless and raced across without stopping to be certain whether an engine or train was coming. And then one day, as we ran shouting and laughing over the crossing, the inevitable tragedy occurred. Out from behind a box car, which had concealed it from view, a switching engine suddenly appeared bearing down upon us. With a terrified scream I reached the farther side of the tracks in safety, with only a few feet to spare. Behind me there was the screech of a whistle, the grinding of brakes, wild shouts and a 30
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single piercing shriek. Shaking after my narrow escape I turned to see men running from all directions towards the motionless engine. Filled with dread of what I might see I crept toward the group around the pilot of the locomotive and was horrified to see the engine crew lifting the motionless form of my boy friend from the track. As they carried the limp and apparently lifeless form into the nearest building, my father grasped me, his hand actually trembling, while my uncle, his face white as a sheet, hurried with Dr. Harlow after the injured boy. From the laboratory they had seen the whole terrible accident but they had not been able to see me beyond the engine, and had dashed out expecting to find me dead and mangled under the locomotive. My father was so relieved at finding me alive and unharmed that he did not even scold me for my carelessness. But I doubt if I would have heard him if he had, for I was almost hysterical, crying and sobbing, utterly unnerved and overcome. Presently my uncle reappeared, his face grave, "Not a chance of the boy living" he announced shaking his head. "His skull is badly fractured and a portion of the brain has been injured." But boys are tough little animals and the next day the surgeon brought word that Tom was not only still alive but had a chance of recovering. And then, perhaps two weeks after the accident, who should appear-at the laboratory but Tom and his father. Pale and weak, with a bandage about his head, he grinned and said "Hello", to me and then, walking to Dr. Harlow's table, he presented the astonished doctor with a small phial of alcohol containing a fragment of his brain. A few days later, Tom was again playing with me, apparently none the worse for having been struck by a locomotive and losing some of his brains. But we were mighty careful about crossing the tracks after that, and the neartragedy resulted in the railway company placing a flagman at the crossing. Speaking of boys getting hard knocks and recovering, reminds me of some of my own accidents and injuries. When less than four years old I was at Peek's Island, Maine where the Fish Commission was stationed that year just outside the laboratory was a swing, and one day my nursemaid was swinging my elder brother and was running forward under the swing. As I stood watching I was suddenly seized with a desire to run with her. But I waited too long. As I started forward, the swing came rushing back and the sharp corner of the seat struck me in the temple, knocking me head over heels and crushing in my skull. The terrified shrieks of my nurse brought father, uncle and the others on the run, and picking me up they carried me into the laboratory where they placed me on one of the tables, and washing the blood from my face and head, examined the wound with dread. I had not lost consciousness, and while I have only a hazy recollection of the incident, I have often been told that I did not even cry as they worked over me, picking bits of shattered bone from the torn and jagged wound and stitching it up. Although no serious results followed, and I was out and about had in a few days, yet it was a close shave, for the swing Never a Dull Moment
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board hit a quarter of an inch to the right it would have smashed my eye. As it was, the edge of the orbit was cracked, and for weeks my eye was so suffused with blood that the doctor was uncertain if my eye was not permanently injured. At another time I was running after my brother and some of his boy friends when I slipped and fell as I crossed a street, and my head struck the edge of the curbstone. The result was a jagged cut two inches long on my forehead, and possibly a fractured skull. But I must have been a tough little rascal, for I was out playing a few days later. On another occasion I was playing whaling with my brother. In our back yard there was a wooden coal and wood-bin with a sloping roof about five feet above the ground. This was our whaleship, and standing on the "deck" I was pretending to harpoon my brother my heaving a stick attached to a rope at him as he dashed by. But so often happened to the real whalemen, the "whale" line kinked, tripping me up and yanking me from my precarious perch. In front of the bin was a square of cast iron about an inch thick which was used as a door to the coal-chute, and this was standing upright as I plunged forward. My chest struck upon the thin edge of the iron and I felt as if I had been cut completely in half. But aside from a broken rib I was uninjured. Perhaps my bones were stronger than those of other boys, or possibly it was just luck, but whatever the reason, despite many a hard knock and many a fall from trees and cliffs and other heights, I have never broken other than a rib or two. Looking back upon my boyhood I marvel, not that we had so many accidents, but that any of us ever lived to grow up. Possibly, the percentage of arms, and legs, dislocated joints, cuts, blows and other injuries, as well as fatalities, were no greater among the boys of my youthful days than among boys of today; but as I remember it, it seems to me as if some of the boys were always getting badly hurt and some were even killed. And I sometimes tremble to think of what would have happened had there been automobiles, electric trolley cars and similar potential means of death and destruction to small boys. Yet today boys take far are greater risks and are far more careless than we were. We never dreamed of roller skating, playing ball or other games in the streets of a business section of the city, and unquestionably would have been arrested if we had tried it. But we did play in the quiet residential streets where the only vehicular traffic was an occasional buggy, the delivery teams of groceries and markets, or an ice cart. And while we had all been warned not to "hitch" rides, and were sure of a sound spanking if we were caught disobeying, yet many of the boys were constantly hitching onto passing wagons and carts. And not one of us could resist the temptation afforded by the big, covered ice carts with their loads of sawdust-covered blocks of ice and their delightfully cool interiors. At the rear of each ice cart was a low step. At one side there was a short iron arm to which a spring scales was attached, and on the opposite side was a cleat holding a big whisk broom. When ice was to be delivered, the men - they were always big brawny good natured giants with sleeves rolled above their elbows 32
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and wearing canvas aprons - the men, as I was about to say, would drag a block of ice from the load by means of their tongs, suspend it while held in the tongs, on the scales, and with a short-handled axe would chop it and trim it to the desired weight. Then with a few strokes of the broom, they would clean off the adhering sawdust and carry the ice to the house. And it was our delight to rush for the cart the moment the man had left and scramble for the chunks of ice he had chopped off. This would have been safe enough had the carts remained motionless, but the horses had been trained to move slowly forward the moment the men left, and to halt at the house of the next customer. And as the rear step of the cart was narrow, some of the boys were almost always pushed or tumbled off, with imminent danger of falling under the big rear wheels. Yet as far as I can recall, none were ever killed or run-over by an ice cart, although one boy was caught by the swinging, sharp-pointed hook of the scales and had his cheek and scalp terribly torn. And I shall never forget the fearful tragedy which occurred directly in front of my home. At that time St Mary's cathedral was being built a few blocks from our house. College Street, with its arch of enormous elm trees, was ordinarily quiet, shady, a dirt thoroughfare with very little traffic; but with the erection of the cathedral it became the customary route for lumbering wagons and carts loaded with building material. Among the other vehicles there were several huge affairs consisting of a heavy spar or timber connecting the forward and rear axles, and with gigantic rear wheels fully eight feet in diameter and eight inches wide on the tires. These strange carts were designed to transport the huge blocks of stone used in the cathedral, the blocks being swung by chains below the rear axle. Certain of the boys conceived the idea of running after the ponderous things, and stealing a ride by seating themselves upon the block of stone swaying and swinging in its chains. Over and over again they were driven off by the drivers with curses and blows of their long-lashed whips, and many a boy received a sound licking for hitching these dangerous rides. But still some of them could not resist the temptation, among those a boy named Frank who was a year or two older than myself. Over and over again he had rushed forward as one of the huge fourhorse vehicles rumbled ponderously through the street, and had scrambled upon the immense square of granite swinging and swaying in its chains. And then one day, as he dashed after one of the big teams and scrambled upon the block of stone, something went wrong. Whether he slipped, whether the stone lurched and threw him off or whether he tripped no one will ever know, but paralyzed with horror we boys saw Frank roll to one side and the next instant one of those gigantic wheels passed directly over his head. The slight jolt and our frenzied screams and shouts attracted the driver's attention, and stopping his horses he sprang from his seat and rushed, back to the motionless body Never a Dull Moment
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lying in the street. People came running from every direction. Yale students from old South Sheffield Hall on the corner, passers by, occupants of the houses on the street, terrified parents all dreading what they might find, and a gray-bearded doctor gathered about the lifeless form of Frank. Never will I forget the awful sight we boys saw as unnoticed in the excitement we edged our way through the crowd, until we could see all that remained of our playmate, an awful thing with a shapeless mass of bloody pulp instead of a head. I remember that one of the boys collapsed in a dead faint and thus added to the excitement, and the rest of us were hurried from the scene by our parents. But boys are callous beings, and even such tragedies seldom affect them very deeply, and I remember one of the boys remarking a day or two after Frank's death, that "We never thought he had any brains but there were lots of 'em in the street after the wheel went over his head." The death of another boy of the neighborhood affected me far more deeply than that of Frank. At that time there was a strong feeling against Irish and Catholics in our neighborhood, and the building of the Catholic Cathedral rather intensified the prejudice on the part of our parents, and we were forbidden to play with any of the few Irish boys who lived in the vicinity. But racial and religious narrowmindedness had no part in our young lives, and as we found the Connelly and McGrath boys good playfellows and companionable, our parent's orders were ignored. For that matter the very fact that the Irish boys were taboo made them the more attractive to our young minds, and they were great favorites. At that time one of our favorite games was "Duck on a Rock". In this game a small stone was placed on a larger one, and toeing a line ten or fifteen yards distant, the boys would throw rocks at the "duck" and the first to knock it off was the winner, of course many of the rocks struck the large stone and glanced and riccocheted in every direction and when half a dozen excited boys were playing the game it became decidedly dangerous, for anyone to venture beyond the line where the players stood. Yet very often some boy would dash forward to pick up the thrown stones that had glanced off to either side beyond the range of fire. One day as we were playing the game, Jim Connely exhausted his supply of stones, and without warning us of his intention, rushed forward just as a fusillade of rocks were thrown at the "duck". No one ever knew who threw the stone that glanced off the "duck" and struck Jim's temple, He fell as if shot and lay motionless. Terrified we stood staring at his white face with blood trickling from the jagged wound, far too frightened by the accident to do anything. Near where we were playing there was a livery stable and two of the men who had seen Jim fall came running up and lifting him gently carried him to his home half a block away. Jim never recovered consciousness, but died that night. It was an awful shock to us boys, for each one of us felt that he might be the one who threw the stone which had killed our playmate. 34
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But Jim's tragic death had one good result. The most prejudiced of our parents sent condolences to the Connelly family, with flowers for Jim's funeral, and many of them attended the services. For a long time thereafter Duck on a Rock was taboo, but after a time the game again became popular, and no one was ever injured as far as I can recall.
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Chapter 5 Mills
1875 - 1883
Summer in Norway, Maine - Tanning and
Very often, I passed all or a portion of the summer in Maine. Norway, the home of my grand-parents is now a busy little town and a popular summer resort but in my boyhood days it was a rather remote village with no railway and we traveled from South Paris, the nearest railroad station, by stage coach. It was a fascinating place for a youngster. With a broad meadow on one side, a forested hill on the other, and with Peneeseewassee Pond at one end of the village. From the pond a brook flowed through the centre of the little town, turning the old fashioned wheels of a saw mill, a grist mill and the tannery, and joining another brook that meandered across the meadow. There were trout and perch and suckers in the brooks; the pond teemed with pickerel, bass, bullheads and other fish. Bears had not yet vanished from the nearby woods, and wild life was abundant, There were rowboats and birch bark canoes on the pond, which was really a lake nearly eight miles long and over a mile in width; there were the mills, the blacksmith shop and the tannery, which always fascinated my boy friends and myself, and there were endless wonderful places to explore, and inexhaustible sources of entertainment. My real pal among the boys of the village was Ernest Drake who lived next door to my grandmother. Ernest had rabbits and a lot of pigeons, among them fan-tails, tumblers and homers; and there were the cows, the pigs and the oxen, in addition. In those days oxen were extensively used as draught animals, and one of our boyish delights was to watch the village black-smith - whose shop was under a spreading maple instead of a chestnut tree - when he shod oxen. Horseshoeing was tame and uninteresting by comparison, for the oxen always resented being shod. Moreover, they could not stand on three legs as could a horse, so they were always hoisted clear of the ground by means of broad leather belts and ropes connected with an immense hand windlass, and there they hung, helplessly dangling in mid air. Next to the smithy when oxen were being shod, the tannery was our favourite place. Undoubtedly it smelled abominably, as tanneries always do, but the only odor that I can remember was the peculiar pungent smell of tan bark which was deep on the floor, on the surrounding lot and even on the streets in the vicinity. Tanning machinery had not then come into general use, and the Norway tannery was strictly a hand tannery. Every process from the first fletching of the raw hides to the final splitting and softening was done by hand, and marvellously skillful were the tanners. So interested in the work did we become that we acquired a very good knowledge of tanning and set up a miniature tannery of our own wherein we very successfully transformed rabbit and sheep skins to leather. We even made quite a little pocket money by tanning 36
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and selling the skins of moles which we caught in the meadow. At that time it was all the rage for boys when playing marbles to have a mole skin on which to rest their knuckles when “shooting�. Partly this was due to a belief that the skins brought good luck, but largely it was just a fad. At any rate, we found a ready market for our soft-tanned mole skins, although the market soon reached the saturation point. But Ernest was equal to the emergency, and suggested that if he and I substituted chipmunk skins for those of moles, we could create a demand for the prettier striped skins of the ground squirrels. His plan worked out to perfection, and for some days we were kept busy making box traps, catching chipmunks and tanning their skins. No doubt, if we had had a longer time, we might have again altered the fashion and created a demand for still other animal skins; but the marble season came to an end with a surplus of chipmunk knuckle-rests on our hands. Another spot where we could always be sure of having a good time was at the saw mill. The grist mill was interesting, too, with its roaring, rattling stones, its great bins of grain and grits and bran and flour, but everything within it, including the miller and his men, were ghostly white with dust and somehow we never cared much for the smoke-like chocking cloud that enveloped everything. Of course, at our ages, we were not interested in historical matters, but had we been we no doubt would have been quite awed by the fact that the dusty, noisy, little grist mill at Norway was the first mill in the United States to produce white flour, and was the forerunner of the great Minneapolis mills. The saw mill was a very different sort of place. Instead of a clattering "tub wheel" enclosed in a wooden casing and out of sight in the head-race under the mill, the saw mill's power plant was a huge breast-wheel that turned ponderously and creakily in plain view. And we never felt prouder or more "grown up" than when, at the noon hour or at the end of the afternoon, the brawny, good-natured giant who owned the mill would ask us boys to shut off the head-gate. It was about all we were equal to, for the gate was operated by a big hand wheel and screw, but we always managed it and watched fascinated as the water ceased to fill the wheel’s buckets and the ponderous thing turned more and more slowly and finally stopped, dripping and green with moss and slime. Here, instead of the white flour dust that filled eyes, noses and mouths was the clean sawdust, with the mingled odors of aromatic pine and spruce, pungent oak and sweetish-sour maple and birch wood. Just below the bank by the mill, hundreds of great logs floated on the water in a huge raft, and we boys never tired of watching the men wearing spiked boots and carrying cant-hooks, as they leaped from log to log, and selecting those to be used, guided them to the runway where they were hauled into the mill. It was a tremendous temptation to us, and we longed to try jumping from one rolling, tipping slippery log to another. But we realized the danger, and that a slip would probably result in drowning, for we had been warned of this and forbidden to Never a Dull Moment
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go near the logs under penalty of never again visiting the mill. So we contented ourselves with watching the men, some of whom, for our special benefit, would now and then perform some amazing feat of log rolling or "riding" or "ending". It was almost as much fun to see the great gleaming saws bite into the wood as, clamped to the huge carriage, the logs moved slowly but steadily against the steel teeth and with a grinding roar and a cloud of sawdust the log was transformed to slabs and planks. The slabs with their outer covering of rough bark were discarded, and used as firewood or thrown away, but we boys found them ideal material for building shacks and play houses, in the nearby woods, beside the lake. At that time there were quite a number of Indians living near Norway, the sole survivors of the Passaconnowa tribe of the Wabenaki Nation. Their camp was in a pine grove on the banks of the Little Androscoggin River just outside the village, and nearly every day some of the squaws or a few of the men would go from house to house peddling baskets, birch bark pails and boxes and beadwork, I don’t recall that we boys were greatly impressed by the Indians, or much interested in them, probably because they wore ordinary clothes and dwelt in rough board shacks instead of being decked with feathers and dwelling in wigwams. But we found birch bark pails most useful and convenient receptacles when picking berries or going fishing. There was always a supply in my grandfather's carpenter shop, and we were at liberty to help ourselves when we wanted some container in which to carry angle worms for bait or for any other purpose. Today those rectangular birch bark pails, with their dull brown surfaces decorated with ornamental designs scraped on the bark, would be deemed rare and valuable museum specimens, and I groan as I think of the way we boys knocked them about, broke them or even threw them away when done with them. Most of the beadwork made by the Indians was on cloth or velvet and was designed for pincushion covers, the uppers to house-slippers, for brush holders, foot-stool cushions and similar household purposes. I think that every house in Norway must have had half a dozen pin cushions of Indian beadwork. Nearly every man wore slippers with floral designs worked in beads by the Indians and one could scarcely find a room in the village where there was not some example of the Indian art. Yet today the village might be searched from end to end without finding a single piece of Passaconnawa beadwork. The same is true of the antique furniture. My own grandfather was a wheelwright by profession, but he was an expert cabinet maker and much of the furniture in the old house had been made in his own shop. But the villagers considered such furniture as old fashioned and when ever they could afford to do so they replaced the old ladder-backed chairs and butterfly tables and banjo rockers and curly maple highboys, with ugly stuffed "ready-made" furnishings and relegated their home-made things to the woodshed to be chopped up for firewood. Many a time I have brought armfuls 38
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of splintered drawers, hand carved legs, satiny smooth table tops and fluted bed posts from the woodshed to the kitchen range or to the big open fireplace in the front room. Oddly enough, the old village cemetery was one of our favorite playgrounds, and as for many years it had not been used but was abandoned in favor of the new cemetery in the centre of the village, no one objected. I don't think it ever occurred to us that we were romping and playing over the bodies of long-dead early settlers and pioneers, and we regarded the moss and lichen-covered stones, that stood all awry or had fallen prone, such as the present day boys regard the comic section of a Sunday paper. For that matter, many of them were far more humorous than the "funny pages" and it was a regular game for us to try and see who could find the funniest epitaph. One that I remember was to the effect: "Two men from Camden came, were never known to wrangle, John Dow, Peter Howe, jingle jangle." Still funnier was the epitaph of some worthy woman who, according to the inscription on her headstone, must have been a lively corpse, for it recorded that “She had two bad legs and a baddish cough, and her two bad legs they carried her off”. Still another announced to all the world that "Here lies Jonathan Stephens, snug as a bug in a rug”. But I think the prize of the lot was that of some virigo named, Mary Gray, and which stated that: "Here lies the spouse of Peter Gray, the Lord has taken her away. Now Pete can draw a peaceful breath, since Mary’s tongue is stilled by death." Not far from the old grave yard was the Academy upon the hill. It was mainly of interest to us boys because someone started a story of the belfry in the cupola being haunted, and as a result we gave it a wide berth after nightfall. Why or how such a ridiculous rumour should have started is a mystery, but in all probability some one had seen a white owl flying into or out of the belfry in the darkness and had mistaken the bird, searching for pigeons most likely, for a ghost. Personally I didn't exactly believe in spectres of any kind, but I felt a good deal like the man who, when asked if he believed in ghosts, replied that he did not, but that he would hate like the devil to meet one. And here let me confess that, as a small boy, I was absolutely terrified of the dark. I don't know why, for I had been reared to believe that were no such things as goblins, sprites, ghosts or other supernatural things; that there was nothing in the dark to be afraid of or dreaded and that superstition was almost a cardinal sin. Yet for years I fairly shook with terror when alone in the dark. Moreover I fully realized that my fears were ridiculous, unwarranted and something to be ashamed of. And in time I succeeded in completely curing myself of all fear of darkness, or for that matter of anything else. But to return to Norway and the old Academy, which was really very historic and famous place whence many a world famed man had graduated. Never a Dull Moment
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Another historic old landmark of the village was Beale's Tavern, but this ancient hostelry was the gathering place of the men of the town and we boys were never permitted within its precincts although we played in the big coach yard and watched the hostlers grooming and harnessing the horses that drew the stage coaches over the road to South Paris and up to Bethel. It was while we were playing in the inn yard one day that one of the boys snapped a bean which happened to enter the ear of another boy. With a yell of pain he put his finger in his ear, only to force the bean in farther, and screaming with pain he raced madly for his home. Fortunately old Doctor Danforth lived near by. Hearing the youngster's agonized yells, and realizing some boy had been hurt, he came hurrying out. Without waiting to learn what had happened, he seized the boy and carried him into his office with the whole gang of boys at his heels. Somehow he managed to learn what had occurred despite the fact that we all talked at once, and calling to a couple of men who were peering in, he asked them to hold the squirming boy while he removed the bean. I still remember most vividly how awed we were as we watched the whitebearded doctor administer chloroform and saw our playmate relax; and how we shuddered as we saw, the doctor insert shining steel instruments in the boy's ear and saw the blood flow. But it was all over in a minute, with the bean safely extracted and the blood stanched and the ear bandaged. After that, we boys always regarded Doctor Danforth as a tremendously important personage and true friend, where before then we had looked upon him as a rather crusty old fogy and with a feeling of unreasonable dread because of the ominous black bag he carried. And I'm quite sure that we must have been a terrible nuisance for our cuts and bruises and minor injuries, which heretofore we had regarded as trivial and unimportant, were now taken to the doctor for treatment, and any boy who appeared with hand, fingers, head or foot bandaged by the doctor was regarded with envy by his playmates. The country about Norway abounds in semi-precious stones, and on our wanderings over the hills and through the woods and rocky pastures we boys found an added interest and excitement in searching for gems and crystals, No one ever knew where we might stumble upon something of real value, and we were all familiar with the story of how my father when a boy had found precious tourmalines in the roots of an overturned tree, thus being the first to discover the gem crystals in Maine. And of course each of us always expected to find a new and rich vein of rare minerals and thus become wealthy, I wish I might honestly say that our dreams came true and that we discovered a treasuretrove of green and pink tourmalines, aquamarines and beryls, precious garnets and purple amethysts, as would boys in a book of fiction. But no such find rewarded us, although in later years some of my friends did discover some very rich deposits. As youngsters, however, our searches resulted in nothing more than crystals of lovely rose quartz, a few beautiful amethysts, several masses of tourmaline crystals and some good garnets, all of which we found in old stone 40
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walls that enclosed sheep pastures, I would hesitate to say how many tons of stone we must have moved in razing the walls in our mad excited search when some boy shouted that he had found a mass of crystals, and we must certainly have lugged a good-sized wagon load of rocks and stones in our pockets and sacks from the hillsides to our homes during the period when, we were ardent and enthusiastic mineralogists. My father's ancestral home was at Greenwood City, several miles from Norway. Here his father and grandfather had maintained a mill and store, and here one of my ancestors had built the first house and had been the first pioneer settler in this part of Maine. And I remember how excited I was when my father hired a "rig" from the Tavern and we all drove to the site of the old homestead. The "city" had completely vanished and all that remained of the old mill and store were great wide hand-sawn clapboards and huge hand hewn timbers of the abandoned and ruined buildings. But it was exciting to have father point out all the old landmarks as he related stories of incidents and adventures he had had in his youth. He showed us the cow pasture and told us how, when he had gone to get the cows one evening and had seen what he thought was a cow lying down among the sweet fern and bayberry bushes, and he had gone over and routed it up only to discover it was a big black bear. Then he led us to a brook and pointed out the spot where he had another adventure. He was coming home late one night and took a short cut where he had to cross the brook on a log placed across it. The log was slippery, so he took off his boots to cross over, and just as he got half way across a big bear appeared and started to walk over on the log in the opposite direction. Father was so scared that without knowing what he did he yelled and threw his boots at the bear. No doubt the bear was more frightened than father, and when the heavy cowhide boots hit him he didn't stop to turn and go back, but jumped off the log bridge into the brook. There were lots other stories he told us about his boyhood days. The most interesting was how he had made all his own instruments, and had trapped for furs to pay for books on natural history, and had made collections and had learned to stuff and mount birds all by himself. He even had written a book on the birds of Maine. What he had done away back there in the woods had attracted the attention of Professor Agassiz who took him as a special student and resulted in his becoming a world famous scientist. But father's stories were not half as exciting to us boys as were those my grandmother used to tell us when it was too rainy to play out of doors. Grandmother's father and mother lived in the days of the Indian wars, and she had often heard her mother tell of the times when she sat rocking the cradle or spinning flax with a loaded rifle across her knees, expecting at any moment to hear the warhoops of savages as they rushed from the forest on a raid for scalps. There was one story my grandmother told which we boys never tired of hearing. Never a Dull Moment
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One night, when her father had gone off to the nearest settlement and had left my great-grandmother alone with the baby, she was horrified when she heard stealthy footsteps, and peering through the tiny peep-hole in the heavy oak door, she saw half naked, feather decked figures approaching the farm house. Knowing that she couldn't hope to beat them off, and thinking only of the safety of her baby, she hurriedly concealed the sleeping child with old sacks and rags. Then thinking that perhaps if she treated the Indians kindly and gave them food and drink they might spare her. She called to them, her voice shaking with terror. She almost fainted with relief when she found they were friendly Wabenakis who had come to warn her and her husband of a party of Mohawk raiders in the neighborhood, and they wanted to help their white friends fight off the savage, hostile warriors. When great grandfather returned and saw Indians about the farm he thought surely there had been a raid during his absence, and he very nearly shot some of the friendly braves before he discovered who they were. Luckily the Mohawks hadn't appeared, for even with the Wabenakis to help him, greatgrandfather might have been unable to repel the raiders. But as it was he gave the friendly Indians a big feast, and their chief smoked the peace pipe with him, and after that the white men were fast friends of the Wabenakis and the Mohawks never dared trouble them again. I don't suppose that boys of today would find such stories interesting. They’d probably yawn and prefer to read about impossible beings like Tarzan, or lurid tales of gangsters. But half a century ago, desperate battles were being waged between the pioneers and Indians on the western plains and grandmother’s stories seemed very real. She was a wonderful story teller, and she described the characters, localities, the events and every detail so vividly and intimately that we could almost see the isolated log cabin, the mother with the long-barreled flint-lock rifle across her knees, and the half naked, paint bedecked warriors.
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Chapter 6
1875 – 1884
Uncle Wash and the Rope-Walk
On the way to and from Norway we always stopped for a time in Portland to visit relatives who lived there. At that time Portland’s harbor was a busy port with great square-rigged ships and countless schooners and other vessels dotting the waters of Casco Bay or moored to the wharves. I had always been fond of the sea and of ships perhaps because many of my ancestors had been ship builders or sea captains, or perhaps because I had been so closely associated with salt water and sea-going vessels since infancy. Whatever the reason boats of all kinds had a strong attraction for me, and I was never happier than when my uncle “Wash” would take me to the waterfront and would tell me most entertainingly about the strange cargoes being discharged from incoming vessels, and would describe the foreign countries from whence they came. I am sure I learned far more about geography in this way than I ever learned in school, for it was made very real and tangible thing when I saw coffee and sugar, bales of cotton and silk, tiereces of tobacco and bundles of raw rubber, hogsheads of molasses and rum; salted hides and copper bars, logs of mahogany, fustic and rosewood, and hundreds of other commodities being hoisted from the ship’s holds and watched the swarthy, piratical, looking sailors sweating and toiling at their labors, and heard the strange jargon of a dozen foreign tongues. Another place in Portland which I often visited with Uncle "Wash" was the rope-walk. I suppose very few boys of today have ever seen a rope-walk and very probably many do not even know what a rope-walk is, for nowadays ropes are made by machinery. But in the days of my boyhood all ropes from the smallest lines to gigantic hawsers, were made by hand, and the places where they were made were called rope-walks, which was a very appropriate name for in making the ropes, or rather "lading them" to use the correct term, the men walked back and forth in a long tunnel-like shed. I never tired of watching then as they twisted the golden hemp fibres into “rope yarns” and laid these up into strands, and then laid strands on strands, little by little, until they formed a lovely beautifully smooth, hempen rope. Even now I can smell the peculiar clean odor of the rope-walk with its immaculate floor of smooth-worn pine. It was an odor unlike anything else, a combination of tar, fresh hemp and unpainted pine, very different from the equally clean and equally unforgettable odor of the sail loft near by. Here, in an immense room with walls filled with sunny windows and with a floor smoothly polished by constant rubbing through scores of years, dozens of men sat amid vast piles of snowy canvass, pushing their three-cornered needles back and forth by means of rawhide “palms”. Some of the men were young, but most were gray-headed, weather beaten old tars, many with “timber legs”. Never a Dull Moment
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In another part of the loft, many more men knelt on sheets of canvas marking and cutting and measuring as if trying to piece together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Still another set of men were busy cutting brilliant-colored bunting and sewing it into flags of all nations, the house flags of ship owners and signal flags. I remember that along one side of the loft a line was stretched, and on this were hung hundreds of flags. Many of them I recognized, but there were far more which I had never before seen, and there were some which even my uncle did not know. While we were looking at them and Uncle "Wash" was pointing out the various flags of the maritime nations of the world, one of the owners of the loft came over and joined us. He was a big, hearty, broad-shouldered man with a ruddy, crinkled face, a gray chin beard, and a fringe of gray hair. He had the thickest bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen, and oddly enough they were jet black. His eyes were almost colorless they were such pale blue, but what fascinated me the most was the fact that he had only one hand and only one finger and a thumb on that. The other arm ended just below the elbow and was fitted with an iron hook. At first I was a little afraid of old Cap'n Steve, as every one called him, for, when he talked and became a bit excited he would wave the shining steel hook about in a really terrible manner. And what wonderful things he could do with that hook. Even though he had but one hand, and that terribly maimed, still he was as expert a sailmaker as any of his men. Squatting down, he could grasp the heavy canvas between his knees, ply needle and thread with his one hand, yank the canvas forward with his hook, and would stitch a seam faster and more neatly than many a man with both hands and all ten fingers. Uncle “Wash” told me that Cap'n Steve even went hunting and could shoot more ducks on the wing than most expert shots. He always drove a spirited horse, and he had a little sailing yacht which he handled himself. But remarkable as were these feats for a man so handicapped, the stories he told were even more remarkable. I had always thought that no one could tell more exciting and breath-taking yarns than my sailor-friends on the BLUELIGHT and the SPEEDWELL but Cap’n Steve's stories of the sea made the others seem tame and dull by comparison. No doubt the old sailor had experienced some marvelous adventures in his day, for he had gone to sea when a small boy, he had been on whaleships and windjammers, fishing smacks and merchant vessels. He had been locked in the ice in the Arctic and had hunted sea elephants on Kerguelan Island. He had fought Malay pirates and Solomon Island cannibals, and it was common belief that he had at one time been a slaver and a pirate. He was a curious old character, as garrulous and full of anecdotes as possible on most matters, but as "close as a clam" as the saying is, on some subjects. I remember after first meeting him that I asked my uncle how Cap'n Steve lost his arm, and uncle “Wash” laughed and said “Why don't you ask 44
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him?" So the next time I saw Cap'n Steve I summoned up all my courage and said "Please, Cap’n Steve, how was your arm taken off?" For a moment he stared at me. Then “Bittenoff!” he growled. Of course that made me more curious than ever. But somehow the way he said it made me feel that the subject was taboo, and I never dared ask him for details nor did he ever tell me or anyone else what bit off his arm or how he lost it. It was owing to Cap’n Steve that I learned to knot and splice rope. I was watching one of the men making beautiful “Turk's Heads” and other fancy knots on a lanyard, when Cap'n Steve came along. “Purty ain’t they, son?” he rumbled. "Reckon ye'd like to know how to tie 'em yourself, eh? Well ye’ll hafter know how to splice an’ tie an’ throw a bowline afore ye can be a proper sailorman, an' Wash tells me ye're crazy over ships an' deep water." Then shouting to one of the men. "Hi. Jim Spencer, drop whatsoever ye're doin’ of an' come over an teach the Professor's kid how to splice an’ tie." Jim was a lanky fellow with a touselled tow head and freckled face and with arms, chest and back covered with wonderful tattooing which he told me had been done in some cannibal island called Raratonga. "Yep." he declared, "I was up into the bush, huntin' fer wild pigs when the Kanakas sneaked up onto me an' triced me up slick as grease. I tell ye, I was right scared 'cause them rascals like nothin' better'n a white man, what they calls ‘long pig', an I could jes' see Mr. Jim Spencer bein' boiled in a pot for to provide a Thanksgiving dinner for a crowd of niggers. But I reckon I shouldn't call 'em niggers, 'cause why? 'Cause they was a sort of yeller 'stead of black an' by Judas as fine a lookin' lot as ye could find in a month of Sundays. An' them gals! But ye're too young to be carin' 'bout gals, so we'll let that there pass. Well as I was a sayin', there I be, all trussed up an' waitin' for the pot to bile, when along comes the old chief or king or whatsoever he was with his daughter, the princess, and about a dozen big fat wives along with him. Now I ain’t sayin' as I'm no beauty an' I ain’t claimin' nawthin', but mebbe 'twas me white skin or maybe just fancy or somethin' that I dunno. All I know is the princess an' the wives begun for to laff an' scared as I was I had to laff fit to kill to see the way them big heaps of fat shook and wiggled when they laffed – the wives I mean. 'cause why? 'cause they didn't have no duds on, 'ceptin' a string of beads an' some wisps of grass, an' by Jupiter they was just like so much currant jelly. Well, as I was sayin', they all passed some remarks what I couldn't understand, bein’ twas in their heathen talk an' first thing I knowed they'd untied the ropes an' was strippin' off me clothes. Well course I knew then I was headed for the pot. 'cause why? 'cause nat'rally they wasn't goin' to cook me, clothes an all, no more'n we'd think of cookin' a hen afore takin of its feathers offen it. But I cussed 'em plenty for not waitin' 'till the wimmen folks wasn’t about an' by gum I know just how a oyster must feel when you open up his shell an' dump him out in the light of day. Howsoever, there I be, just as naked as the rest of 'em. But they wasn't goin' to bile me for Never a Dull Moment
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dinner arter all. No sir, they just tied me down to some stakes druv into the ground and along comes a old savage with a lot of pieces of bamboo full of paints, an’ some sharp bones, and begins to tattoo me. By glory I can most feel that old savage a settin' atop me chest an’ stickin’ them fish bones into me an’ rubbin' of the paint. Hurt! By Judas' black pocket, I tell ye it hurted! Took him nigh onto three months to finish the job, an' a mighty slick piece of work he done, I'll say. Yep, he had me covered up with tattooin' so well that I forgot all about clothes. 'cause why? 'cause I was just as well covered up by picters as if I had ha' been wearing britches an’ shirt. Well, about the time he was done with me I could savvy a bit of the lingo' an' I found out as how they was fixin' of me up with tattoo so the chief's daughter could marry me. Yep, it seemed white men was taboo to be married to the princess an' she havin’ set her heart onto me the only way outer the mess was for 'em to have me so everlastingly tattooed that no one could rightly say whether I was white, red, blue, black or whatsoever. Yep, they was even aimin’ to tattoo me face, an' mebbe my hair for all I know when a British cruiser comes to anchor offen the island. An' the savages not knowin' the difference ‘twixt a Yankee whaler an a Limey warship, an' thinkin’ the ship had come to lick the livers outen 'em for takin' me prisoner, they all runs off an' leaves me to be picked up by a squad of British bluejackets. My eye, ye should ha' seen them bloomin' Limeys stare when I come a runnin' to 'em a talkin’ English, or mebbe 'twas Yankee. An' – Whew! Here I been yarnin' to ye an' a tyin' Matthew Walkers an' Turk's Heads an' wall-an’ crowns an' never so much as teached ye to tie a clovehitch. By crickety, Cap'n Steve'll raise rim if I don't give ye a lesson." With that he began patiently to teach me the various simple knots, and before I left Portland I could tie many of the fancy knots and could make a presentable eye-splice or short-splice. Uncle "Wash" had a summer home on Cape Elizabeth, a few miles from Portland, and here I always had a lot of fun with my cousins. The house which was built of stone and bore a faint resemblance to a man-of-war was called the "Iron Clad" and had a high tower where Uncle "Wash", who was as enthusiastic amateur astronomer, has his telescope through which he studied the stars every clear night. Like many grown ups he thought that children should be interested in anything which interested him and he always insisted that we must gaze through the telescope and learn about the heavens. Sometimes we didn’t mind this very much, but as a rule we wanted to play out on the rocks in the evening. They were full of cracks and cave-like hollows, and were a fine place for playing hide-and-seek or robbers or pirates or cast-aways or almost anything where cliffs and caves were essential. But nice as uncle "Wash" was he was red-headed and had a quick temper, and none of us dared disobey him when he summoned us to share his astronomical observations. Sometimes we managed to sneak off, one at a time, sometimes he was so interested in some new discovery that he forgot all about 46
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us, and of course there were cloudy or misty nights when the stars were invisible. Many a fine night's games were ruined by uncle "Wash’s" interest in the heavens, but I especially remember one such evening when we got the best of him. It happened that some other cousins were visiting us, and we planned to have a clam roast out on the rocks and to have a glorious evening. But just as we were preparing to hurry off to our "lair", as we called a cave-like crevice on the point, Uncle "Wash" called us to come and see Saturn and its moons. There was nothing to do but obey, and saddened and bitterly disappointed, we put our eyes to the telescope and tried to act as if interested in old Saturn. When it came to my turn, "Whew!" I exclaimed, as I peered through the tube, "I can see five moons there! Gee. Uncle "Wash” I thought you said three! "What? What's that?" he cried excitedly. "Nonsense! Here get away and let me look." I nudged Cora and George and Alice and winked. "I can’t see but two moons." declared Uncle as he focused and adjusted the lenses, "There must be something wrong with your eyes, Al." "Well, let Cora look." I suggested. Freckle-faced Cora was a good sport and there wasn't the suggestion of a giggle in her voice as she stared into the telescope and announced that she could see four moons about Saturn. Then it was Alice’s turn, and she announced that she saw five. That was enough for Uncle "Wash". Either we all had some serious eye trouble or else we had made a momentous discovery. Gluing his eye to his telescope he became oblivious of all else and forgot us completely. We sneaked away and had a glorious time, but the next morning at the breakfast table Uncle "Wash" fixed us with a severe and baleful stare. "You young rascals" he growled in his most judicial manner, for he really was a judge, "I believe you cooked up that story about those moons just to get off and play.” Then, suddenly bursting into a hearty laugh "I guess the joke's on me, children. And I don't believe it's safe to let you look through my telescope any more. The Lord only knows what you might see next time - a new comet perhaps, or an undiscovered planet.”
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Chapter 7
1882 – 1890
Uncle Wash, the inventor
My uncle “Wash” - his full name was George Washington Verrill, was a most unusual man and today would be classed as a real "character”. He had served as Captain in the Union Army throughout the Civil War and had been wounded during the second day's battle of Gettysburg. Although he still carried the "minie ball" in his knee it didn't seem to trouble him and he didn't even limp. He was a tall, rangy man with a shock of fiery red hair, a red moustache and freckled face. Unlike my father whose strongest expletive was “Oh the devil” Uncle Wash could swear like the proverbial trooper. He spoke in a slow drawl and there was always a twinkle in his eyes and a peculiar smile on his face when he talked so that it was impossible to be sure whether he was really serious or was just "kidding". He was a very prominent lawyer and a judge but he had a flair for the sciences and took up one after another as his hobby. At the time I have mentioned he was a most enthusiastic amateur astronomer. Like all the male Verrills he was an excellent mechanic and handy with tools and he made all his own apparatus and instruments and in doing so derived as much pleasure as in the hobby itself. He was however, very slow and deliberate in his motions and it was almost painful to watch him at work. Moreover, he was a most meticulous artisan. Everything he made had to be perfect and he devoted as much care and time to some purely experimental device as to something he knew would work. His home-made telescope was a wonderful instrument fully ten feet in length yet after a few months of astronomy he forsook gazing at the stars and became transformed to an inventor. At that time he had an elderly white mare named Nancy and seeking for some outlet for his inventive mind he thought of Nancy and her harness and then and there decided that harnesses were far too complicated and out of date and that it was high time they were simplified. "Why” he exclaimed to my father, "harnesses today are exactly the same as they were when you and I were youngsters back on the old farm - not a thing has been changed. Everything else has been improved - new types of plows, harrows, wagons, carriages and all, but we have the same old bothersome complicated harness. I'll wager I can invent a harness that'll surprise you and everyone else." So for the next few weeks Uncle Wash busied himself in his "shop" amid a vast array of leather, buckles, snap-hooks and other gear and finally emerged with a strange looking contraption which he proudly announced was the last word in simplified harness. As he led old Nancy from her stall and started to put on the new fangled harness the ancient mare pricked up her ears, eyed the affair askance and for the first time in years actually shied. However by dint of gentle words of reassurance and by stroking her neck Uncle Wash finally had the new invention in place. Nancy made no objections to being hitched to the buggy although she turned her head, stared at the whiffletree and shafts and 48
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appeared puzzled. "There we are.” cried Uncle Wash triumphantly as he stepped into the buggy and gathered up the reins, "Not a buckle on it. All in one piece and just six snap hooks. Get up, Nancy, old girl” he urged as he slapped the reins. For a moment Nancy remained motionless and then moved slowly and gingerly forward. But Uncle Wash wanted action and lifting the whip from its socket touched old Nancy’s shoulder. I don't think the old mare had felt the touch of a whip in a dozen years and this plus the unfamiliar harness was just too much and things began to happen. She jumped as if a bomb had exploded under her, something gave way and still attached to the buggy on one side and free on the other Nancy bolted. The great experiment was taking place at the Cape Elizabeth "Iron Clad" where a cliff rose steeply on one side of the narrow driveway with a drop of perhaps fifty feet to the rocks and ocean on the other side. As Nancy leaped forward the buggy careened madly and Uncle Wash, still gripping the reins, was jerked free as the vehicle upset, skidded and vanished over the verge of the cliff carrying the newly invented harness with it. Nancy, however, had recovered her equanimity and was quietly grazing on Aunt Gussies flower beds. Of course everyone roared with laughter and Uncle Wash - a rather sickly grin on his face moved slowly to the edge of the bluff and gazed down at the shattered wreck of the buggy at the edge of the surf. "Well," he observed as he scratched his right ear in a ruminative manner, “That simplified harness saved my life, if Nancy’d been hitched up with an ordinary harness we'd all of us gone over.” I never heard anything further of Uncle Wash's harness invention and the next time he visited us he was deep in the problems and possibilities of power application. He could talk nothing but levers, gears, friction, belts and other mechanical devices and various types of power generators. At the time Billy and I were in the water wheel stage of our boyish interests and I had a fine little turbine that I attached to the garden hose. I expect it developed about half a horse power but it was just what was needed to start Uncle Wash off on a new line. "Do you know Al" he said “I could rig up that water wheel so it would swing the draw-bridge over the Thames River at New London." Then as he saw my expression of incredulity he turned to father, "Isn't that so, Ad?" he demanded. Father's eyes twinkled and his moustache twitched at his hidden smile. "Theoretically yes," he replied, "but in practicality, no. The gears and other devices you'd need would weigh so much and would create so much friction that the water wheel couldn't move them." It's just a question of adjusting one thing to another Uncle Wash declared. I can work that out, I’ll make a model and if that works I can have a full sized machine made in the same proportions." I don't think anyone took him seriously but once Uncle Wash made up his mind nothing short of failure could stop him. Day after day he tinkered and worked, making and testing out innumerable forms of gears drives, bearings and Never a Dull Moment
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what not and spending almost a small fortune on forgings, castings and machine parts that he could not make himself. He had become so enthusiastic and so sure of himself that he even had gone to the President of the railway and had by same means obtained a permit to try out his bridge-swinging device when it was completed. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, that time never arrived. When at last his scale model was completed we were stationed to witness the supreme test and, after a short lecture on the devices and principles involved Uncle Wash turned on the valve that supplied the water for the turbine. With a whirr the wheel in its casing sprang into life. Grinning proudly Uncle Wash swung the lever that actuated the multiplicity of gears, cams, and similar contrivances. With a final splutter the turbine came to a stop and Uncle Wash stared at it dumbfounded. "Hmm," he finally muttered, "it's lack of pressure. - That windmill tank's barely seventy-five feet high. The Turbine ought to have at least one hundred foot pounds pressure. Guess I'll have to raise the tank." Luckily for Uncle Wash he was very well off financially for it cost a considerable sum to build a new support and raise the immense water tank thirty feet. Then Uncle Wash ran into another difficulty. The windmill lacked the power to pump the water to the new level. "Why don't you hitch your machine to the pump" father asked. That would be a fine way to prove your point.� “Isn't designed for that purpose" replied Uncle Wash "No, I'll just have to get a larger windmill. Then - as a new thought entered his fertile brain - "No, by damn, I'll make one. There's room for a lot of new ideas and improvements in windmills." So, for the next few weeks Uncle Wash worked away and eventually brought forth a huge windwheel which, with the assistance of a crew of men, derricks, shears and pulleys was finally installed above the lofty tank. I think that of all Uncle Wash's numerous inventions and improvements his windwheel was the only one that actually worked and fulfilled all his fondest expectations. It unquestionably was a vast improvement over the old wheel and proved so efficient that Uncle Wash secured a patent on it. This was bought by a manufacturer in the Middle West and the money he received for it full repaid all he had spent on his bridge-moving machine and his raised tank. With the lofty tank filled to the brim Uncle Wash again invited us to witness another demonstration of his machine. With a roar the wheel spun at terrific speed under the vastly increased water pressure. Uncle Wash, grinning from ear to ear, pressed the lever. There was the sound of a bursting gun fragments of metal flew about the shop like shrapnel and a deluge of water roared from the shattered remains of the turbine case. How any of us escaped serious injury from the jagged bits of metal is a mystery, but Uncle Wash had been under fire too many times to be frightened or to loose his head. Dashing through the torrent of water he turned off the 50
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valve and stood looking half drowned, gazing ruefully at the wreckage. “Damn it," he growled "I must have miscalculated somewhere.” "I expect you forgot that water can't be compressed,” father reminded him. "And don't forget what happens when an irresistible body meets an immovable object." The next time Uncle Wash visited us was at Two Tree Island. At that time he had become intensely interested in the newly developed box kites. He dilated enthusiastically on the subject and declared that the island, with its smooth rocky ledges and lacking telegraph poles, trees or other impediments between land and water was the ideal spot for testing out the new type of kite. He suggested that we should each make a kite of exactly the same dimensions and would see which was the better. As usual Uncle Wash went to work slowly deliberately and painstakingly. Every stick to be used in his kite was planed and sandpapered and shellacked. The muslin covering was measured, cut, stitched and glued to the framework as carefully as though life depended upon it. Long before Uncle Wash had the frame-work of his kite ready, mine was completed and ready to be flown. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to turn out a job like that.” he declared. "It's lop-sided, flimsy and the sticks are rough and uneven. I doubt if it will fly at all and it'll go to pieces if it does.” “I can't see the sense in spending a lot of time and labor on a thing that may not work.” I told him “Besides, if the kite string breaks or the kite dives and hits the water you'd be out a lot of time for nothing and I wouldn't." By noon of the second day Uncle Wash's kite was ready and with the other members of the family as an audience we took our places on a smooth ledge on the lee side of the island and swung our kites into the air. A good swift breeze was blowing and the two kites rose beautifully. Higher and higher they flew. Yard after yard of twine was paid out. We had no means of knowing which kite had risen the highest until we reeled in the string and measured it but I felt sure mine was the higher of the two. Then Uncle Wash began to elaborate on the power of box kites and how large ones actually had carried a man into the air. To prove the kites lifting ability he suggested that we should send cardboard "messengers” up the strings. It was a lot of fun watching the colored disks go sliding up the strings to finally vanish as they reached the kites. But presently the lines began to sag, the kites slowly descended and it was obvious that the limit of loads had been reached. But Uncle Wash wasn’t satisfied and added one more disk to his quota. Hardly had the "messenger" traveled half way to the kite when the string parted and Uncle Wash's fine kite whirled end over end and plunged into the sea. In its descent it struck my kite which was thrown off balance and dove swiftly into the water. But my line held and I dragged the kite ashore - sodden and rather the worse for wear but still intact, I will say that Uncle Wash was a good sport. "Reckon you were right, Al." he said. "I did waste a lot of time and trouble for Never a Dull Moment
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nothing, and" he added; "that darned crazy botched job of yours beat mine at that." At that time we made frequent trips along the shores of the island gathering driftwood for use in our open fireplaces. In order to protect the lawns, flower gardens and kitchen garden from the salt spray Father had left a windbreak of tangled vines, briars and brush between high water mark and the cleared area with here and there a narrow pathway leading from the shore to the center of the island. So when we gathered driftwood we would pile it at the entrance of the nearest pathway whence we would carry it to the big woodpile back of the house. This of course meant numerous short trips in order to gather up the various accumulations of flotsam. Although Uncle Wash was quite enthusiastic over the salvaging of driftwood and greatly enjoyed the multicolored flames it produced in the open fire, yet he didn't like the idea of making two or three trips to bring in a load of wave washed wood that he could carry at one time if there had been a direct pathway. Then he made a discovery. There was a low stone wall built of cobbles, broken rock and shingle extending from one end of the island to the other just above high water mark. Here he decided was an easy and direct route and with his arms full of driftwood he started toward the house atop the wall. He had nearly reached his destination when one of the crooked pieces of wood began to slip, as sticks have a habit of doing. In striving to push the stick back in place Uncle Wash made a misstep a loose rock teetered and the next instant he reeled backward amid a shower of driftwood. Luckily for him the wall at this point crossed a small area of black mud overgrown with stiff marsh grass and sedge. Unharmed but covered from head to foot with black sticky mud, Uncle Wash rose to his feet as we dashed forward fearing he had been injured. "There's another idea that didn't work" he observed dryly as he gathered up the scattered driftwood and started toward the house across the ledges. But I think his greatest disappointment during his visit to the island came when he had a fine scheme for creating a clam preserve. On one side of the island there was a small cove with muddy bottom exposed at low tide and fairly teeming with soft-shelled or long clams. Digging the bivalves was no easy job, however, for the mud was filled with stones and shingle of all sizes and these had to be raked aside constantly. To Uncle Wash this wasteful if necessary work instantly brought forth his inventive tendency. "Why don't you make a decent clam bed, Ad?� he asked my father. "All you have to do is take out the stones, throw them up about the edges and you'll soon have a fine bed of clams free of stones.� "You're welcome to go at it." father told him, "But you'll find it a good deal like getting our farm fields clear of stones and piling them into stone walls. Remember how the Old Folks used to vow that the stones actually grew? Well, the stones here seem to grow too. But "he added "of course there's a limit to all things." 52
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For weeks thereafter Uncle Wash would busy himself methodically removing stones from the mud flat whenever the tide was out. A huge pile of cobbles accumulated and these he piled in a sort of wall just above tide level. Finally he announced that the last rock had been removed from it and it really was a vast improvement to be able to dig the clams from the soft mud without striking rocks and, moreover, the clams seemed to be more numerous than ever. Then one night there was a howling norwester and an unusually high tide. The next morning there was no sign of our "improved" clam bed. The high wind and tide had not only washed away the mud which heretofore had been protected by the stones but in addition the pile of rocks Uncle Wash had removed had been washed back to the hollow where the mud had been and only wave washed stones covered the spot. "Hmm," observed Uncle Wash, "Looks as if stones do grow. Anyhow we surely raised a bumper crop last night."
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Chapter 8 Money
1884 - 1886
Locomotives, Waterwheels and Spending
Boys are a good deal like caterpillars in their development, for like the larvae of butterflies, they go through a series of phases or transformations, each of which completely changes them for a time, without destroying their identity, before they reach maturity. But the entomologist can always foretell exactly what the ultimate result will be, irrespective of how often the larvae may change their skins and their external appearances, whereas no one, not even the boy himself, can foresee which of the various characters that he assumes will prove to be the one he becomes eventually. And while these numerous phases of boyhood may vary more or less with individuals yet, as a rule, they follow much the same course and the same lines. There is always the military phase when the boy dreams of being a soldier and for a time, actually imagines himself one. Then there is the Indian phase, the pirate, the cowboy, the sailor, the fireman, the detective, the naturalist and the mechanical phase. And nowadays the motion picture hero phase and, all too often, the gangster phase. As a youngster I went through much the same series of mental and imaginary transformations. My soldier complex found a wonderful opportunity for expression during the time of the torch-light processions of the presidential campaigns of my teens. In those days the torch light parades were spectacular affairs. Groups of men and boys would form companies, organized like true military units, with uniforms, officers, drum and fife corps and even dummy guns, and with impressive names such as "The Garfield Grenadiers," the "Republican Guards," the "Hayes Brigade", the "Democratic Zouaves," the "Hancock Hussars," etc. They were trained to carry out all sorts of fancy evolutions, and each company strove its utmost to outdo all others in gorgeous uniforms, perfection in marching, and the deafening power of its fife and drum corps. Perhaps the most important items of the equipment were the torches. Usually these were globular affairs fastened by a swivel to the end of a pole, and burning coal oil. There was almost as much smoke as flame given off by them, and to protect the marchers from the dripping oil and showers of soot, the parading campaign soldiers wore caps and capes of oil cloth of the same colors as their uniforms. One company to which I belonged was known as the "Garfield Silver Knights�, and capes of silver lined with sky blue, and silver caps with red, white and blue pom-poms, were worn during the parades, the regular uniform being bright Yale-blue with scarlet facings, scarlet and gold epaulettes, and scarlet trouser stripes. The caps were plain blue with black visors, and I was the envy 54
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of all my friends because I possessed a real army fatigue cap which had been worn by an uncle during the Civil war. One of the members of our "Knights" was a boy whose father was a pattern maker in a foundry, and who designed and supplied us with an entirely new form of torches. These were wooden muskets with the upper half of the barrel a tin cylinder fitted with an adjustable wick. I can still visualize the excitement that our new torches caused when we appeared with them the first time, and how proud we were when the Marshal of the big parade allotted us the place of honor directly behind the "hacks" in which were seated the ward leaders of the Republican party. As two of my uncles had served in the Civil War, and Uncle Wash had been wounded at Gettysburg, I had been elected Captain. But somehow it seemed to my youthful mind that the boys with drums and fifes, who marched ahead and played stirring martial airs, and were not burdened with guttering torches, had much the best of it. So I bargained with one of the drummers to trade places and swapped my "commission" for a snare-drum. I don't recall that I ever possessed either a pirate, a cowboy or a bandit complex; but the Indian phase of my existence arrived in due time. And having been brought up among world-famous naturalists I always possessed a scientific mind and was forever making collections of specimens of one kind or another. Also, my love of the sea and ships remained unaltered by any other temporary interests that occupied my body and mind. But the mechanical age of my youthful years was by far the greatest and most lasting. It commenced with my interest in locomotives. At first this was merely the fascination that any normal boy finds in a steam engine or in any powerful, perfectly functioning machine. But as I grew older I took a deeper and more practical interest which was fully shared by Billy Van Name who, at that time was my closest friend and chum. We began by "collecting" locomotives, much as we collected stamps or insects, only substituting drawings in place of the actual engines. With us it was a regular game and contest combined, and each strove to outdo the other by adding a drawing of some "new" locomotive to his collection. There was an agreement between us that the first to see, report and sketch an engine held a vested right to it, and that the other could not duplicate the “find" with a sketch of his own. During the summer months, when we were away on our vacations, we devoted most of our time to collecting all the locomotives we saw on our journeys, and when we returned to the city and to school in the autumn each had a scrap book filled with pencil sketches and colored drawings of scores of new and strange engines. Nowadays, locomotives of a certain type are all as much alike as peas in a pod, as the old saying puts it, and only an expert can distinguish the differences in valve designs, accessories and minor details of the modern juggernauts of the rails. But in our day no two locomotives were alike or even similar. There were smoke stacks of a dozen or more types; there were all sorts of combinations of driving wheels and trucks, innumerable arrangements of bells, sand-boxes, steam-domes, whistles and safety-valves atop the boilers. The Never a Dull Moment
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forms of the cabs varied as did the design of the tenders. Some had external cylinders and some internal. There were locomotives with cylinders placed horizontally, while others were set at an angle; and cowcatchers or pilots, headlights and boilers varied as much as any other portions of the engines. Moreover, in those days, the locomotives were not only numbered, but were also named, and they were truly gorgeous affairs ablaze with green, blue, and red paint, gilt scroll-work and polished brass. As a result, each and every engine we collected was easily recognized, and as our drawings contained all the details of the mechanism, we unconsciously acquired a really sound basic knowledge of locomotives. So familiar with the local railway locomotives did we become that we could identify any one of dozens of engines by the sound of its whistle. But we were not satisfied with merely accumulating drawings of the engines, we wanted toy engines, and as at that time the only toy locomotives obtainable were far too crude to pass the inspection of our critical and mechanical eyes, we decided to make our own. Not mere toys, mind you, but models, perfect replicas of certain locomotives with which we were familiar, and which were our "favorites". Our first efforts were devoted to making mere dummy models, using wood, tin, sheet brass and other easily obtainable materials. As we both possessed scroll-saws and turning lathes, as well as carpenter's tools and soldering outfits, and as we were both fairly expert in their use and were of an inventive turn of mind, we succeeded very well. I remember that the first miniature locomotive that I built was a model of Number 21 of the Old Colony Railway which was named ABINGDON. This was one of the "inside cylinder" type, with four drivers and four trucks, with huge-topped funnel, a cross-barred wooden cowcatcher, and with the steam-dome and whistle next to the smoke stack. It was a perfect reproduction about ten inches in length, and with all external working parts arranged to function when the model was moved along the wooden tracks we had laid in Billy's roomy attic. His first model was an odd switching engine; No. 36 of the N.Y.N.H. & H.R.R. A strange-looking affair with a water-tank like a thick blanket covering the boiler with four drivers, with a "lazy truck" under the abbreviated tender attached immovably to the rear deck; with cylinders set at an angle, a stubby little stack, and a standing platform in place of a cowcatcher. At first we paid no attention to the exact proportions and sizes of the various parts, contenting ourselves with producing models which so closely resembled the originals as to be easily recognized, and working mainly from drawings. But we were getting far too deeply interested in our hobby, and were acquiring far too intimate a knowledge of how and why the wheels went around to be content with such makeshifts. We wanted absolutely perfect replicas of our favorite engines, made to scale, and - although at the time that seemed a dream and quite beyond our capabilities - we wanted locomotives that actually would run by themselves. But we had learned all we could by watching locomotives from a distance, from reading all available books on the subject, and by studying the catalogs of the various manufacturers of locomotives. We realized that to 56
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acquire a real first-hand knowledge of the construction of engines we must see them in the making, and as there was no locomotive factory in town the next best thing was the big repair shop of the railway. It would have been far easier for the proverbial camel to have squeezed through the eye of the needle than for two boys to have slipped past the guards at the entrance to the railway yards, but I was equal to the emergency. Wrapping one of my model locomotives in a paper, and with a scrap book of my drawings, I boldly and confidently visited the office of the New Haven and Northampton Railway, and with the effrontery of youth demanded to see the President. Possibly the employees were so astounded by such a request from a kid that they forgot themselves, or perhaps my monumental nerve bluffed them. Whatever the reason, I was ushered into the private office of Mr. Yoemans, the Vice-president. I shall never forget how surprised he appeared when he turned from his desk to discover that his visitor was a boy. But he listened attentively to my plea for a permit to visit the roundhouse and shops, of his railway, in company with Bill, and when I showed him my drawings he became genuinely interested. "Well, Well� he exclaimed. "Did you draw all these yourself?" I assured him I had. "But they're accurate!" he declared "Yes, I'd recognize old 25 instantly - even to the new-fangled injector. And, by golly, you've drawn that new Baldwin reverse gear on 28 so well that a good mechanic could make one like it.� But he was still more interested and more surprised when I unwrapped the model I had brought. "My boy," he cried, slapping me on the back. "You're a born engineer. There are a lot of men in my shops who couldn't turn out a model better than this. I'm going to write you and your friend a pass that will let you go anywhere you please on the railway property, and will permit you to ride in the cabs of my locomotives between the New Haven and the Hamden yards. But I'm going to ask something in return. I want you to let me have that model locomotive." Whether that little model is still in existence I cannot say, but many years later I happened to visit the offices of the railway and saw it protected by a glass case in the office of the President. With the passes issued to us, Bill and I had the time of our lives. Every Saturday and holiday, every afternoon after school hours, found us in the round house or the machine shops of the railway, or riding on a locomotive to the bigger roundhouse at Hamden. In a short time all the engineers, firemen, foremen and mechanics and wipers of the local terminus knew us, and were our firm friends. We were in the seventh heaven of boyish delight when we climbed over a big, panting locomotive and armed with a handful of waste and a can of polish we burnished the brass boiler bands, the steam-dome and bell, grooming the iron horse for the next run, or wiping the hot grease and dirt from the shining connecting-rods or crimson drivers of some engine that had just come in. In the big repair shops we watched the locomotives taken down, stripped and rebuilt. And we worked as hard or probably harder than the grimy helpers as we hurried about, carrying tools or Never a Dull Moment
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handing pipe fittings and accessories to the mechanics. We were even permitted to use a small machine-lathe, and there were immense piles of old metal, discarded parts, imperfect forgings and castings, used fittings and odds and ends which were perfect treasure troves to us. Moreover, on our short runs of five or six miles in the cabs, we learned all about the gauges, the levers, the controls, and were soon able to start, stop or run a locomotive ourselves. Never will I forget the memorable day when goodnatured Tim Shevlin, the engineer of the TECUMSEE, No. l6, climbed from his seat on the right hand side of the cab and told me to “Go ahead, son. Let's see you take her out to the yards." To be sure we were beyond the maze of tracks and switches and signals when he turned the engine over to me, and it was a straight run on a clear track to Hamden. But as I placed my hand on the throttle and blew off the brakes, and opened the pet-cock control and I felt the big drivers begin to turn, and saw the white jets of steam spurt in alternate clouds from the cylinders, and the mass of steel and iron began slowly to forge ahead at my command, I do not think there was a prouder boy in the United States. After that it was a regular thing for me to take the throttle on the run to the Hamden yards, and once in a great while I was even permitted to "couple in" on an empty flat car. With this practical experience in the operation of the locomotives, and our voluntary apprenticeship in the round house and shops, we acquired a full and complete knowledge of locomotive construction and, in the end, we had the intense satisfaction of building miniature locomotives which actually ran by steam. While our interest in locomotives continued for a long time, yet gradually it took second place as we found a new interest in water wheels. It may seem strange that we should have taken to the more complicated and advanced machines first, rather than to have climbed step by step up the ladder of mechanics. But locomotives are more spectacular and impressive than millwheels which, I suppose, is the explanation. At all events, we went as deeply and as thoroughly into the technique of waterwheels as we had done with locomotives. Wherever there was a waterdriven mill within walking, riding or bicycling distance of our homes, Billy and I would hunt it up and investigate its power plant. In those days many, in fact most, of the mills and factories outside of the large towns were run by water power, and as turbines were just coming into general use we found representatives of almost every type of wheel. There were overshot, undershot, breast and back-pitch wheels, tub wheels and pelton wheels spatterwheels and scroll-wheels of all shapes and sizes from the enormous forty-foot back-pitch wheels in the pumping station at Whitneyville to home-made tub-wheels used in little wood-working or metal-working plants in the outlying towns. 58
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Of course, compared to locomotives, water wheels were simple affairs to construct, and Bill and I soon had a representative collection of model wheels of all types. We had wheels that were operated by the water from the faucets in our houses, and which would supply power for light machinery. We had powerful affairs which were designed to run with the full force of the garden hose, and we built a number which were installed in brooks or streams in the country, while the big old-fashioned types had certain fascination for us, yet our real interest centered on the newer turbines. The turbines in those days were in much the same stage as the automobiles were in the early years of the twentieth century. They were far from reliable, few mill owners understood them, and very often they were not designed or suited to the particular work or conditions under which they were supposed to operate. As Billy and I had gone heart and soul into the turbine question we soon became real experts, and quite frequently helped mill owners who were at their wits ends over their refractory wheels. On one of our water wheel exploration trips we came to a small hardware factory that was operated by water power. But not a machine was working, not a shaft turned, and the owner sat staring into the wheel pit, the picture of utter dejection. He was a big, surly-looking fellow, and we hesitated to go near him; but the sound of hammering and of muffled oaths issuing from the pit caused our curiosity to overcome our fears. Peering into the aperture we saw two men laboring at a rusty Reynolds scroll wheel, while a third was tinkering at a Hercules turbine. Summoning our courage we asked the proprietor what the trouble was. He turned, stared at us as if he had noticed our presence for the first time, and growled, 'Trouble is them damned things won't work. Soon's ever they get goin’ and I put a load onto 'em they stop. That one there-" he jerked a thick thumb toward the Hercules "-it's rated twenty horse power, and 'tother one at ten, and I ain’t needin' more'n twenty-five to run every damned machine in the place." Billy and I studied the situation. Both the Hercules and the Reynolds were good wheels, and the two before us appeared in perfect condition. The pit obviously had been designed for an old-fashioned, backpitch wheel, and the turbines were connected with the head race by wooden penstocks. Suddenly I had en idea, and with a word to Bill, we climbed over the slippery, moss covered rocks to the dam. A first glance at the grate-protected headrace explained everything. It was the same sluiceway that had supplied the earlier water wheel, and was totally inadequate to supply either one of the turbines, to say nothing of both. Satisfied that we had solved the puzzles, we returned to the mill and the owner. "The trouble isn't with the turbines," I announced, "It's the head-race. You can't get enough water through that to run either one of these turbines under a load. If you put in a bigger sluice gate, or put in a separate gate for each wheel, you'll have plenty of power. That Reynolds wheel is a twenty-inch and Never a Dull Moment
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requires …" We launched into technical details of displacements, gallons and cubic feet per minute, head pressures and other figures we had learned by heart from the perusal of innumerable catalogues and specifications. The proprietor took his cigar from his teeth and stared at us in dumbfounded amazement. "Say", he exclaimed at last, "are you just kids or a pair of them math'matical freaks I read about? How do you two young fellers know so damned much about turbines, anyhow?" We explained our interest in water wheels. The man nodded, rose, ordered his laborers out of the pit and walked to the dam. "Hmm, guess you'r right," he observed. "Looks to me like I’ve been a dumb fool, Now how'd you go about puttin' a new sluice in here?” Elated at his asking our advice we enthusiastically showed him how he could install a two-gate sluice-box with each penstock independent of the other, and before we left the mill we saw his men busily at work on the new scheme. The next time we visited the place the roar and rattle of dies, trip hammers, presses and other machinery greeted our ears, and the rush of foaming water from the tail-race was ample evidence that the two wheels were running full tilt. Mr. O'Brien greeted us with a broad grin and hearty slaps on our backs. Once the proper water supply had been provided he had had no further troubles. Thereafter he was our firm friend, and whenever we wanted anything in the way of metal parts or forgings for our models we had only to tell him and our requirements were filled in short order free of charge. At another time we visited a small paper mill which was operated by an old fashioned pelton wheel. The owner was a jovial, pink-faced, white-haired old man who was greatly amused when we suggested that he could save money and secure better results by installing a low pressure turbine. But in the end he made the change, and was immensely pleased with the result. It was our friendship with him that caused us to become greatly interested in the process of paper making. To be sure, Mr. Harper’s mill made only blotting paper and cardboard, but it was fascinating to see dirty old rags, the waste paper, the wooden spools and other rubbish torn and ground into shreds, macerated and boiled, bleached and "tubbed", to eventually ooze, as a white pulp, onto the slowly moving screens, and passing between the polished steel rollers, come forth transformed to great sheets of snowy paper. Day after day we visited the mill and watched and studied every detail of the process, until we were thoroughly familiar with the principle and construction of the various machines and devices. Then we set to work to build a miniature paper making plant of our own. It took weeks of our spare hours, but in the end we had a model mill which actually worked. To be sure we couldn't use rags and trash, but we could use waste paper as our stock, and while the product was far from white and was fragile, 60
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uneven and altogether pretty poor, still no one could deny that it really was paper. But the crowning episode of our water-wheel fad was yet to come. While at dinner one day, the door bell rang and the maid who answered it announced that it was a gentleman to see “Mr. Verrill." My father rose and left the room, to return almost immediately, a strange twinkle in his eyes. "He wants to see you, Al,” he announced. "Pardon me, but I wished to see Mr. A.H. Verrill," he said. "I represent the Excelsior Turbine Company of Pittsburgh" I assured him that I was A.H. Verrill. "But, but I” he exclaimed "We have been having a considerable correspondence with a Mr. A.H. Verrill in regard to our wheels. A correspondence of technical character, and the firm sent me on here to discuss the mechanical details and questions. Surely you…" It was a difficult matter to convince him that I, a mere boy, was the correspondent, but we had a very pleasant hour talking turbines and discussing the relative merits of various types of wheels. Of course, to construct models, to visit the various mills and factories and to purchase the tools and materials we required, we had to have quite a supply of pocket money. Father had been reared on a backwoods farm and had been obliged to earn every cent he spent, and to make all his own toys, apparatus and appliances. He believed that it was the best training in the world for a boy to learn to make what he wanted, and to earn the money he needed, and Billy's father agreed with this point of view to a certain extent. As a result, we developed our inventive and mechanical abilities to far greater extent than if we had been supplied with anything we wanted for the asking. Most of our spending money was earned by running messages or carrying packages, but very often there were no messages to be done when we needed a few dimes, so Billy and I hit upon a great scheme. This was to form a delivery "company". Billy had a printing press, and we both had bicycles. So we made a woodcut showing a boy with a package running along telegraph wires and printed "Penny Express" stamps in denominations of five, ten and fifteen cents. These were printed in sheets of ten each, and were sold by the sheet only, to our parents, neighbors and others for whom we did errands. Each purchaser of the stamps was given a printed tariff with prices for delivering messages or parcels anywhere in the city. When a message was to be sent or a package was to be carried, the sender affixed the proper amount of stamps, which we cancelled. In this way we secured quite a little capital, and as the purchasers of the stamps frequently lost or mislaid them, we earned more than if we had been paid in cash each time. We also earned money by printing circulars, letter-heads and bill heads; but my greatest source of revenue for spending money was selling minerals to the Yale students. As a Never a Dull Moment
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part of the regular scientific course, each student was required to have a representative collection of the rocks and minerals which had been studied in the class in geology, and to have them correctly identified and labeled. Many of the young men collected their own specimens, hiking about the country, visiting old quarries and mines, knocking off bits of ledges and cliffs. But there were many more who were too lazy or too indifferent to collect the specimens they required, and who could not have identified them if they had gathered them, and here was where I came in. From my earliest youth my father had taught me geology and mineralogy. I had learned to recognize all the commoner rocks and minerals, as well as many of the rarer ones on my trips to Maine and on my summer vacations, as well as on my rambles through Connecticut, I had gathered hundreds of mineral specimens, some of them really rare, and now I found a ready market for them. Breaking the larger masses into more or less uniform size, I labeled the various specimens and sold them to the students for very satisfactory prices. Sometimes a student would have all but a few of the specimens he required. Others would wait until the last minute and would purchase a collection entire. But my best customers were the wealthy fellows who wanted the very choicest and rarest minerals and were willing to pay high prices for them. Quite frequently they would buy a fine group of showy crystals for as much as ten dollars, while on the other hand I often sold a complete collection for a couple of dollars. Aside from the money I earned in this way I acquired a valuable knowledge of mineralogy and geology, while the necessity of constantly replenishing my stock gave me an incentive for long walks through the hills and a new interest in nature. Stamp collecting was another hobby which was almost universal among us boys. Of course we knew nothing about the real value of stamps, and in those days grown-ups regarded collecting stamps as a childish amusement, and no one dreamed that it would ever become an important business or would be taken seriously by adults, Neither did we boys bother our young heads over the "varieties" of a certain issue, the tint of paper or ink, the absence or presence of watermarks or perforations, or any of the innumerable details which today are regarded as of paramount importance by collectors, and upon which the value of a stamp depends. To us, all the stamps of a certain design were the same, and I shudder to think how many valuable errors and varieties we must have overlooked. Of course we traded, and as each boy had exceptional opportunities for obtaining certain foreign stamps, exchanges were lively. Billy's father, for example, was librarian of Yale and naturally received stamps from many distant parts of the world, especially Japan and China. Harry Parmelee's brother was a mate on a sailing ship and sent Harry stamps from every country where his vessel touched. There were some French boys in the neighborhood, and an English family, as well as German and Danish boys. My own father not only had a wide foreign correspondence, but was constantly receiving mail from the various Government Departments. In those days there were no "franked� envelopes, each Department having its own stamps which were distinguished by 62
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their color. Thus the Department of the Interior used red stamps, the Treasurery Department brown, and so on. And as no other boys could secure these "Departmentals" I had a real monopoly. Also, one of my relatives was residing in Persia and he sent me envelopes full of Persian and Turkish stamps, which were considered very rare and great prizes, with now and then a stamp of Cashmere or Afghanistan which was rarest of all. From Brazil, Professor Rathburn sent me full sets of stamps bearing the portrait of my old friend, Dom Pedro, and one day I came upon a real treasure trove of stamps in a collection of insects sent to my father from South Africa. The butterflies as usual were packed in the corners of old envelopes, and many of these were the corners bearing used stamps. Natal, Orange Free State, Cape of Good Hope, both rectangular and triangular; Mauritius - stamps from all the countries of Southern Africa - were there, and while many had been carelessly cut or mutilated in clipping the corners of the envelopes, there were scores of perfect specimens. Another great "find" was made by Billy. There was a Haitien servant girl employed by his family, and when Billy asked her if she ever received any stamps from Haiti she produced several sheets of unused Haitien stamps, among them some of the queer issue with each stamp divided into a number of miniature stamps designed to be cut apart and used separately for fractional denominations. On another occasion, when the Prince of Monaco visited my father, he presented me with a number of stamps of his Principality, and two Chinese students supplied some highly prized stamps of the Celestial Empire. Yet and Kan were princes and the first Chinese, other than laundrymen, I had ever seen. Their "pig tails� were so long that they would have trailed on the ground had they not been looped up with the tips passed under the 'boys’ arms and attached to the lapels of their jackets. But the young Mandarins were far too modern and Americanized for their own health. Regardless of traditions, caste or custom, they sacrificed their astonishing queues and appeared with their hair cut like the other boys. But not for long, a peremptory order from their government summoned them back to China, and months later we received news of their summary execution as punishment for having had their royal pig tails cut off. I don't recall just when or why the interest in stamp collecting waned. Probably the fad died a natural death when the boys had secured so many stamps that the acquisition of new varieties became slow and difficult, and so much exchanging had been carried on that nobody had any more stamps that could be traded. Doubtless many of the collections, containing specimens that would be almost priceless today, were thrown in the rubbish or burned for kindlings. My own collection I sold for twenty dollars. When my father heard of the transaction he was quite disturbed, not because I had sold it for so little but because he felt that I had cheated the purchaser by getting so much! And he almost insisted upon my returning some of the money I had received. Yet that collection today would be worth many thousands of dollars. In fact one, single Never a Dull Moment
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stamp that was in that album would easily sell for many thousands for it was one of the original five cent New Haven Post Office stamps given to me by the grandson of the Postmaster who issued it.
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Chapter 9
1875 – ‌
Childhood Pets
Of course I had pets, and in addition to rabbits and Guinea pigs, a gray squirrel, white mice and rats, I had some very strange and unusual pets. My first queer pet was a horned toad which one of my aunts brought from Nevada. Nowadays horned toads are quite commonly sold in pet stores and are well known, but when I was a boy they were wholly unknown in the east, and mine created a tremendous amount of interest and wonder. About the same time that I had the horned toad. Billy became the proud possessor of a number of little West Indian lizards (erroneously called chameleons) which a friend of his father brought from Nassau. As my father was a naturalist I had no fear of snakes, and was familiar with their habits and knew all the local species by sight, and I almost always had a number of harmless snakes as pets. Black snakes I soon found were illtempered reptiles and could not be depended upon to be docile, and while their bites were not dangerous, still they were painful. Garter snakes were dirty, illsmelling beasts; water snakes were even more temperamental than their black cousins, and the little green snakes, brown snakes and ring-necked snakes were too small to be of much interest. But the common puffing adders made ideal pets. They were clean, they were docile end easily tamed, and while they might puff and hiss and blow out their necks until they resembled deadly cobras, they could not be induced to bite. Moreover, they were easily fed, as their favourite food consisted of grasshoppers and other insects. I always had several of these fellows to play with, but they took second place when my father presented me with a good sized boa-constrictor which some traveler had brought back from South America. And at one time I even had a netting-covered cage full of rattlesnakes. While the rattlers could hardly be considered pets, yet they were not one half as vicious or dangerous as most persons think. In fact I found them to be arrant cowards, and I discovered that if I showed no fear, and went at them boldly, I could thrust my hand into their cage and pick one of them up without much danger of being bitten. In fact they were not nearly as dangerous as a copperhead which I owned for a time. Yet this big triangular-headed, handsome but deadly serpent was brought to my father by a countryman who had picked up the snake thinking it "some species of adder" and had carried the reptile coiled in his hat on his head! Usually, too, I had a fresh water aquarium. This was not an ordinary goldfish globe, but a big glass-sided tank arranged so that it was constantly supplied with running water, and which contained a most interesting and complete collection of fresh water life. There were several kinds of fish, striped dace, young perch, a baby pickerel, roach, chubs, a young bullhead, and most Never a Dull Moment
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interesting of all, a pair of stickle-backs who built their nest among the fresh water plants in one corner of the tank. There were also several species of water salamanders, and I never tired of watching these "newts" change their skins. After a sort of shimmy to loosen the old skin, they would reach around with their heads, seize the tip of the tail in their jaws and strip off their skin like pulling off a glove. Then, quite gorgeous in their new skin with its scarlet spots, they would gulp down the old epidermis with apparent relish. Of course the aquarium always contained one or two baby turtles, as well as tadpoles and frogs, and there were half a dozen or more species of fresh water shells. These were not only ornamental and interesting but were very useful for they fed upon the green slime which grew on the glass and thus kept the glass clear. In addition to all these ordinary creatures I had leeches or "blood suckers", freshwater shrimp, funny little water beetles or "Water boatmen" as we called them, that skittered about on the surface with their long paddleshaped legs looking like miniature oars while in the sand of the bottom there were a number of caddice-fly larvae, strange little caterpillar-like fellows who dwelt in movable homes which they constructed of tiny pebbles, bits of dead weed, minute shells and tiny twigs. Not only did I learn a great deal about natural history through the medium of my aquarium, but in addition I found a lot of fun in visiting the ponds, lakes and streams and collecting new additions to my fresh water menagerie. At this time Dr. Emerton, who was employed by my father as an artist, was a great friend of mine, and we took many long tramps together, Dr. Emerton was a noted authority on spiders which he sought and collected everywhere, and we had a tacit understanding that if I would help him collect spiders he would help me collect specimens for my aquarium. Gradually, however, I became more interested in the countless strange insects which he caught in his nets while beating the grass and bushes for spiders, than in the denizens of ponds and streams, and became a really ardent entomologist. In the meantime, however, I had acquired the two most interesting and fascinating pets that I or any boy ever possessed. The first of these was a young crow which I took from a nest in a tall pine tree. I christened him "Dom Pedro" after the Emperor of Brazil, and reared the little black rascal with all the solicitude and loving care of a young mother with her first-born child. (Editor – AHV also wrote a story on pet birds available on WWW.) And no spoiled child ever demanded more attention. The only food Dom Pedro would eat was hard boiled eggs, which he swallowed entire. And how he could eat! Like Oliver Twist he always wanted more regardless of how much I gave him. But he responded nobly to his voracious appetite and grew like the proverbial weed. In a very short time he was able to hop about, his rough, dull-black hair-like baby coat gave place to smooth lustrous feathers, quills sprouted and grew on wings and tail, and his appetite for eggs fell off. No longer did he require my unremitting care and attention. He was thoroughly competent to take care of 66
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himself, and he would eat anything and everything that was edible. He was a tame as any kitten, or for that matter much tamer; he was as bold as brass; the wisdom of the ages seemed to lurk in his knowing brown eyes, find he was full of tricks, pranks and mischief. One of the first things he learned to do was to wake everybody in the early morning. Hopping about on the window ledges he would peck at the glass, beat against the panes with his wings and caw raucously until some one admitted him. Then with clucks, and muttering in his black throat, he would go from room to room and would croak and peck at the sleeping persons until they were compelled to get up and drive him from the room. Also, he soon learned to talk. That is, he would say a number of words and would pronounce them with such perfect imitation of accent, tone or intonation of some member of the household that he repeatedly fooled us. Many a time the cook or housemaid would come hurrying when they thought my father or mother called to them, only to find that it was Dom Pedro who seemed to enjoy the joke immensely and would cackle with demonical laughter. Like all of his tribe he was an inveterate thief and would carry away and hide anything that was bright or shining that he could pick up or drag off. He would sneak up behind my mother or my grandmother while they were sewing, and pilfering their thimbles or scissors from their sewing baskets, would hurry silently away and hide the things. Then returning to the scene of his depredations before anyone missed the articles, he would perch quietly in plain sight, preening his feathers and muttering to himself, the very picture of innocence. During the day he had the freedom of the yard and house, for he never attempted to fly away or leave the premises, but at night he was shut up in a large cage to protect him from prowling cats or other marauders. Although he was quite impartial in his affections, and was on most friendly terms with every member of the household, yet he forgot everyone and everything else when my father was working among the flower beds in the garden. The instant Dom Pedro saw my father with a rake, hoe, spade or trowel in hand, he would leave anything else and with croaks of delight and cries of "Papa! Papa!� he would dash, half-hopping, half flying, to alight on father's shoulder. And when father commenced weeding, transplanting or digging, Dom Pedro would take his stand within an inch of trowel or spade ready to pounce upon every worm, ant or grub that was turned up. No monkey was ever half so mischievous or so full of curiosity as Dom Pedro. Anything new or strange drove him almost mad with excitement and I remember how we all roared with merriment as we watched the crow trying to remove a tarantula from the center of a glass paper weight on my father's library table. The library held a wonderful fascination for him. He would spend hours examining a microscope and he loved to rattle among piles of papers and magazines. Patient as my father was, the crow at times became such a nuisance and interfered with father's work and studies so much that he was forced to Never a Dull Moment
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drive Dom Pedro from the library. There was one sure and most efficacious means of doing so. Atop one of the tall book cases was a stuffed great-horned owl, and this was the one thing that terrified Dom Pedro. All father had to do was to step to the bookcase and reach for the stuffed owl and instantly, with hoarse cries of fear, Dom Pedro would rush from the library as fast as wings and feet could carry him and would give the room a wide berth for hours after. No one could ever foresee what the lovable black rascal would do next. On one occasion my sister discovered that her goldfish had vanished from their bowl, and the finger of suspicion pointed at Dom Pedro who, cocking his head first on one side and then the other, perched on a chair back gurgling in a hoarse undertone that he was "Good boy, Good boy, mama." Days later, when my father had occasion to open the big unabridged dictionary in his library, imagine his amazement when he found the missing goldfish neatly pressed between the pages! At another time Dom Pedro raided my brother's rabbit cage, and kidnapping three baby rabbits, carried them to the roof of the tool-house where he stowed them away under loose shingles. On another occasion, he entered the library during father's absence, and hopping onto the table he had a glorious time dipping his beak into the inkwell and scrawling black lines and marks over the books and manuscripts. Eventually his curiosity and his insatiable desire for investigation brought an end to his mischievous career. A surface freshly coated with red paint attracted him, and in his investigation of the colorful object he swallowed some of the pigment and died of poisoning. Mischievous as he had been, and despite his tricks and his thefts, everyone was very fond of Dom Pedro, and every member of the family mourned his untimely end. As for myself, I felt as if I had lost my best friend, and for a time I was utterly miserable. But before long I acquired my second most interesting pet to fill Dom Pedro's place in my boyish affections. This was a fledgling blue jay which I christened Sampson. Like the crow, Sampson’s infantile appetite demanded hard boiled eggs, and while he ate twice his weight in eggs each day he took his meals at regular hours and was perfectly satisfied. And he grew apace, soon developing from an ugly, pot-belied, pin-feathery caricature into a handsome blue white and black creature with a cocky crest. Also, he developed a wonderful ability to talk. Dom Pedro was a mimic and could imitate a human being to perfection, but Samson had his own individual ideas as to accent and tone and would rattle off a sentence in a high falsetto voice, interlarding the words with maniacal shrieks and cat-calls, in a way that was convulsing. And how he could whistle and sing, and mimic cats, dogs and squalling babies. As a thief he could outdo Dom Pedro, although he was not at all mischievous or curious. But he was full of fun, a real clown, and thoroughly enjoyed a joke even if it was at his expense. Once, when I was playing with him, 68
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I shoved a paper cone over his head and roared with laughter as I watched his comical efforts to remove the thing, reeling about like a drunken man and rolling over on the floor. And when at last he had freed himself he cackled with glee. Moreover, he evidently enjoyed the fun, for as soon as I had picked up the cone he hopped onto my knee and tried to thrust his own head into it. Although he was always attracted by any object that was bright or, glittering, and it was courting disaster to leave jewelry or other shining objects within his sight and reach, yet of all things he preferred money. There was nothing which fascinated him more than a bright new half dollar, and if given a silver quarter he would chortle and scream with glee, would play with it for hours, and finally hide it away, to be brought out and played with from time to time. Samson, like his predecessor, was allowed perfect freedom. But unlike Dom Pedro he possessed something of a wander-lust and would fly off on visits to other houses in the neighborhood. As long as he kept near the ground and flitted from fence to fence he was quite alright and always returned to his home. But for some inexplicable reason he was afraid of heights, and if he alighted on the roof of a house he became terrified and would squat there screeching to be rescued, and apparently incapable of taking off and using his wings. Several times I was obliged to mount ladders to remove Sampson from the gutters of nearby houses, more than once I crawled through skylights and along ridgepoles to retrieve him, and finally, one day, he somehow managed to reach a roof beyond reach of either ladders or scuttles. The house whereon he marooned himself had an ell that was topped by a steeply peeked roof, and Sampson in his wanderings suddenly found himself perching on the very summit of this. Seized with panic at his predicament, he set there screaming with terror, pleading to be saved, and fluttering his wings like a nestling begging food from its mother. No ladder in the neighborhood would reach the place where he perched, and there was no opening in the tower roof. In vain I whistled, called and coaxed for him to come down. I placed dishes of his favorite foods in plain sight on the back lawn, but poor Sampson could not be tempted to spread his wings and fly down. And then, when it began to seem as if we would be forced to summon the fire department to rescue the bird, grandmother had an inspiration. Calling to Sampson, she held up a shiny silver dollar. It acted like magic. Instantly his plaintive cries ceased, he uttered an elated bell-like note, and forgetting all fear he came winging downfall his mercenary instincts aroused. After that we had only to exhibit a silver coin to bring Sampson on the run - or rather on the wing - from wherever he might be. Of all tidbits, Sampson loved spiders the best, and one of his regular daily occupations was to traverse the entire length of the board fences separating the back yards of the block, searching every nook and corner, methodically in search of spiders. Possibly it was because stray cats traversed the same fence-highway and interfered with his spider hunts that he developed a Never a Dull Moment
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most intense hatred of felines. The mere sight of a cat threw him into a perfect paroxysm of rage, and ruffling his feathers and raising his crest he would dash at the cat screaming hatred and defiance, uttering piercing war cries, and would attack the creature like a feathered maniac. Over and over again he drove trespassing cats from fences and yards, and it was a most remarkable and amusing sight to see a big war-scarred Tom-cat turn tail and run the moment he heard Sampson's scream and saw the bird coming toward him. Sooner or later, no doubt, some cat would have stood his or her ground and would have put an end to the valiant jay's career. But Fate willed otherwise, and Sampson came to his end while still boss of the fences and yards, and died a victim of some undetermined bird malady.
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Chapter 10
1880 – 1882
Fireworks, fires and inventions
In the days of my boyhood the Fourth of July was literally the "Glorious fourth". Fireworks and noise were the order of the day from the time the bells peeled, and the field-piece on the city green roared in salute at dawn, until long past midnight. The more din and powder smoke a boy could produce the greater the fun, and no one ever dreamed of talking of a "safe and sane" Fourth of July. Of course boys got burned fingers and received minor injuries during the celebration, but the only serious casualties that I recall were the results of boys overloading home made toy cannon, and even such serious accidents were very rare. To be sure, the deadly toy pistol with its blank cartridges was unknown in those days, and hence the source of most serious Fourth of July accidents and deaths was removed. Neither were we youngsters permitted to use giant crackers, and the modern giant powder crackers, with their ear-splitting detonations, had not been invented. But we made plenty of noise with our common fire crackers and torpedoes, and for months ahead, every boy saved every penny he could get in order to insure an adequate supply of fire works for the great day. As I have said, the Fourth was ushered in by ringing bells and the thundering salute of a muzzle-loading field-piece on the city green. And again at sundown the big brass cannon roared in salute. To us boys this official heralding of the rising and setting sun was the most exciting and thrilling event of the entire day, and long before a faint glow in the east announced the approach of dawn we would be up and dressing hurriedly to dash off to the green in time to be present at the daybreak salute. And how tremendously thrilled and excited we were when with a dull rumble of heavy wheels and the clink and rattle of trace-chains and harness, the big bay artillery horses would come galloping up from the armory, an artilleryman in blue and scarlet astride the near horse's back, the gun crew seated with folded arms on the lurching caisson, and with the cannon itself, hidden under a black tarpaulin, trailing behind. Gosh, how excited we all got when the soldiers sprang from the caisson unlimbered the gun, stripped off its cover, and working with the precision and coordination of a machine, rammed a charge of powder down the grinning muzzle, slipped a primer into the touch-hole, and springing back, stood stiffly at attention, the gunner grasping the lanyard in his hand and waiting the first stroke of the City Hall clock and the word “Fire” barked by the sergeant in command. We always tried to be brave, and stand, apparently unconcerned, as the gunner jerked the lanyard, the flame and smoke belched from the gun’s muzzle and the ground trembled to the deafening report. At that particular moment in our lives, everyone of us decided in his juvenile mind that he was going to be an artilleryman. But ere the final roar of Never a Dull Moment
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the gun had ceased to echo from the Grecian facade of the old State House, we were racing off to snatch a hasty breakfast, with all thoughts and dreams of our distant futures crowded out by thoughts of the immediate present and our store of fire crackers. Although we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves during the day, and fairly reveled in the smell of powder and the pungent odor of smouldering crackers and punk, and the din we created; yet we all looked forward with keen anticipation and excitement to the evening with its display of rockets, Roman candles, pin-wheels and mines, colored fire and other spectacular fireworks, And there was always keen rivalry among the hoys as to who would have the biggest display. Even parents took an interest in this part of the celebration and spent many a dollar on giant rockets, twenty-ball Roman candles and huge pin wheels which were quite beyond the reach of the boy’s pocket books. There was one particular Fourth of July which I shall never forget, for the totally unexpected events that made that Fourth stand out above all others in my memory were as exciting and entertaining as they were unusual and unforeseen. For weeks, beforehand, my elder brother and I had been saving all our pocket money and had spent it to the last cent on a supply of night fireworks which we felt sure would outdo all others in the neighborhood. As usual, we were up at dawn, we had seen the day properly heralded by the cannon on the green, and after a hurried breakfast we gathered our crackers and punk, and seating ourselves on the front steps, prepared to make all the racket possible. Mother was away in Maine and father had gone to his laboratory in Sheffield Hall, so we were alone except for the cook and housemaid. Everything went well, we were having a glorious time, and we still had an ample store of crackers on hand, when we discovered that we were practically out of punk. But that didn't worry us. Exploded crackers made excellent substitutes, and as my last piece of punk burned too short for comfort I jumped down from my perch, searched about among the exploded crackers, and picked up one which appeared to have been a "sizzler". Pressing my fragment of punk against the supposedly dead cracker, I blew upon it when, suddenly it exploded. Fortunately for me it was more or less of a sizzler, and although it burned my eyebrows and eyelashes and blackened my face, my eyes escaped injury and the burns on my cheeks and nose were too trivial to bother me. But George was frightened, and insisted that the injuries must be cared for. So, washing the burned powder soot from my face I submitted to having the burns smeared with ointment and covered with lint and plaster. Undoubtedly I looked as if I had been the victim of a serious accident but quite oblivious of burns and bandages I was again enjoying myself with the crackers when my father returned. One glance at my eyebrowless plastered face was enough. Without waiting to ask questions he seized all our remaining crackers, ordered George into the house, and half-carried, half-dragged me into the 72
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library. In vain we protested and tried to explain. An accident had happened, father was not only frightened but angry, and for the first time in my life I saw him lose his head in his excitement. "Confound your fireworks!" he cried. "I might have known you'd have an accident, well, that finishes it. I'll put an end to further danger," flinging open the door to the cupboard, he gathered up our precious, fireworks, and laden with rockets, Roman candles and what not, he dashed from the house and into the back yard. Weeping and wailing at thought of loosing all our evening celebration, we peered from the window to witness the sacrifice, little dreaming what we were about to see. Without stopping to think of the consequences, still wrought up, angry, and thinking only of getting rid of the fireworks, father tossed them onto the ground and touched a match to the pile. And then the fun began! With a roar and a hiss a big rocket hurled itself like a blazing javelin at father's legs. He dodged it just in time to be met with a fusillade of Romancandles' balls. Jumping about, he endeavored to extinguish the sputtering fuses but too late. A mine burst under his feet. A pin wheel sprang into action, and rose, spinning like a firey top, past his face. As he leaped back and started for the house, a flaming rocket tore through the rose bushes, and landing in a pile of leaves set them afire. Fearing a conflagration, for the wooden fence was close to the blazing leaves, father dashed in that direction. But at that instant a "nigger chaser" rushed, hissing and sputtering, after him as if possessed with diabolical intelligence. Dodging to one aide, father stepped on a basket of clothespins carelessly left there by the laundress and fell head over heels. And as if they had been waiting for this very thing to happen, half a dozen Roman candles bombarded him as he struggled to his feet, surrounded by exploding mines, whizzing rockets, bursting candles and "nigger chasers" father danced for the high fence. But as he grasped the top to draw himself up and fling himself over to safety, a green ball of fire from a Roman candle struck him squarely in the seat of his pants. With a howl he released his grip, and dashing through the barrage, he reached the woodshed, ducked inside and slammed the door after him. As for George and myself, all our sorrow and grief had flown. Tears had given way to howls of delight and merriment, and we fairly danced with glee as we watched our parent being chased and bombarded by the fire works he had destroyed. Never in our whole lives had we enjoyed anything more. Never had we had such a glorious Fourth. Not until the last candle had shot its final colored ball, and the last pin wheel had sputtered out with a feeble hiss, did father emerge from his hiding place. Then, having extinguished all sparks and smouldering remains, he reentered the house, a strange expression on his face. For a moment he stood in the library door, looking at us as we tried vainly to suppress our merriment. Then, grabbing his hat, he hurried from the house. Never a Dull Moment
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"I'll bet he's mad as a hornet," George declared. "But just the same it was a great sight while it lasted." "Maybe he is mad,� I agreed. "But I'll bet he's sorry he tried to burn those things just the same. I wish he could have seen himself." We were still discussing the event, and laughing over our father's antics, when he returned, carrying a huge package of Roman candles, mines, pin wheels and rockets; a much finer lot than the ones we had bought. "I guess the joke's on me, boys," he announced. "You had one show watching me out in the yard. But I'm going to give you another show when I set these things off tonight." In addition to the fireworks there were always immense bonfires on Fourth of July night and during the day there was a big military parade. Usually, too, there would be several fires to bring the engines dashing through the streets and to add to the good time had by all the small boys. There was no motor-driven fire fighting apparatus in those days; no chemical engines, aerial trucks, water-towers and other similar devices which are a part of every city fire department today. The engines were horse-drawn steamers, the hose-carts were two-wheeled affairs, really nothing more than exaggerated hose-reels, and the "hook and ladders" carried an assortment of ordinary ladders which were raised by hand. Each fire engine house had horses of a distinct color. Thus, Number 3 used dark bay horses; Number 1, white horses; Number eight, grays, and so on. The horses were wonderfully trained, and one of our most popular diversions was to visit the nearest engine house and watch the horses dash from their stalls and take their places at engine and hose cart when the practice alarm rang at nine each evening. In order to save all possible time in responding to an alarm, the harnesses were suspended above the horses' places ready to be instantly dropped over their backs and snapped on them. The barrier to the stalls and the doors to the engine house opened by electrical controls when an alarm sounded, while the engines boilers were always kept filled with hot water with the firebox ready with wood and kindlings. As an alarm sounded, the horses dashed from their stalls to their posts, firemen sprang forward and snapped the harnesses in place, the engine house doors swung open, drivers leaped to their seats, engineers and hose-men swung onto their apparatus, and with clanging bells and galloping horses the engines lurched and thundered into the street, with smoke and sparks pouring from the funnel, before the final peal of the alarm bells had ceased ringing. Each company prided itself on the speed with which it could respond to an alarm, and the horses and men were kept up to the mark by the nine o'clock practices. There was something wonderfully exciting and thrilling about an engine dashing at break-neck speed, with sparks and smoke trailing after it, the big splendidly-kept horses dashing at full gallop, the driver with feet braced against the foot-board leaning far forward with the 74
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reins grasped in hands, and the engineer clinging to the boiler rail with one hand and feeding the roaring furnace with the other. The modern motor-driven trucks and engines may be faster, more efficient and more practical than the horse-drawn steamers of my youth, but they have lost the thrill and excitement and romance of the obsolete apparatus of my boyhood. Compared with modern machines they were mere toys in efficiency, however. They might throw a twoinch stream for one hundred and fifty or even two hundred feet but they were wholly inadequate to cope with any real big conflagration, and while the firemen worked and fought like heroes, and the smoke-belching engines throbbed and roared and high pressure steam screamed from safety valves, once a fire got well started there was little that could be done other than to save adjoining buildings from the flames. As a result, there were far more spectacular and disastrous fires in those days than at the present time, and I remember a dozen or more tremendous conflagrations which were epochal in my young life. The first of these was the Wheel Shop fire, and as the big factory was only a few blocks from my home, and a strong northwest wind was blowing at the time, blazing shingles and fragments of woodwork fell like a fiery hail in our back yard and the yards of our neighbors, and father and the other men worked like demons, carrying buckets of water and plying the garden hose to prevent the blazing embers from setting fire to the houses. Another great fire was the rubber factory which smouldered and burned for days. When the city hospital burned there was another big blaze, and the fire which completely gutted the Malley dry goods store will ever remain vividly impressed upon my mind, for it was there that I first saw a man killed. As one of the trucks swung lurching around a corner, a fireman was thrown from his precarious perch and fell directly in the path of an oncoming engine. Never will I forgot the piercing awful scream that came from his lips, rising above the roar of flames, the din of clanging bells, shouts and throbbing engines, to be almost instantly snuffed out as the ponderous wheels passed over his body, crushing him to a shapeless bloody pulp. That fearful tragedy took place within a few feet of where I stood, so near me in fact that I felt sure some of the blood must have spattered upon me, and faint and sick with the horror I pushed and struggled through the gathering crowd, striving to get as far from the scene as possible. But of all the big fires I recall, the most spectacular was when the Sperry and Barnes packing-house burned down. This huge plant was built on Long wharf, a long, narrow structure extending far out into the harbor, beyond the network of tracks of the railway yards. It was a difficult spot for the engines to reach, there were only one or two hydrants near enough to be used to supply water, and the engines were forced to use salt water from the harbor. But the tide was falling, and within a short time the last of the water had receded, leaving the wharf surrounded by mud flats. Gosh, what a fire that was. Thousands of pounds of lard, thousands of hams, tons of bacon and pork, countless gallons of oil were roaring up in flames that rose hundreds of feet in Never a Dull Moment
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air. Dense clouds of oily, black smoke billowed over the harbor and the city. Every few moments inflammable gasses would explode with detonations like heavy artillery, and would transform the burning buildings to volcanoes vomiting sparks, blazing hams, bursting lard tins and flaming timbers. To add to the excitement hundreds of hogs, which had been in the pens, broke loose and rushed, grunting and squealing in terror, through the crowds, or leaping off the wharf wallowed and struggled in the mud. But the most spectacular part of the conflagration was yet to come. The melted lard and fat poured in a blazing cataract from the buildings onto the mud flats, and spread like lava from a volcano over the surface. It lapped against the sides of boats and set them afire, it trickled into the channels and flowed in every direction, and when the tide turned and the water rose and gradually flooded the mud flats, the flaming oil floated upon the surface and transformed the harbor to a vast lake of fire. For a time it looked as if the entire water front and all the shipping would be destroyed. But luckily there was a limit to the supply of grease; before it had time to spread to the lumber yards and schooners farther up the harbor it burned itself out, and only here and there patches of liquid fire cast a lurid glare over the waters of the harbor. But the plant itself continued to burn for several days, and only died down when nothing inflammable remained to feed the flames. It was soon after this big fire at New Haven that the first steampropelled fire engine was added to the Hartford fire department. As Billy and I were tremendously interested in machinery and had shifted our immediate attentions from locomotives and water-wheels to fire engines, we decided that we must have a look at this new invention. But the marvel was at Hartford, thirty-eight miles away, and our combined resources were barely enough to pay our railway fare one way. However, we were a determined pair of youngsters, we were good walkers, and after all, thirty-eight miles meant only a day's tramp. So, bright and early one Saturday morning, we were up and away on our long hike. A friendly farmer gave us a lift of a few miles between North Haven and Wallingford; and we hitched a ride on a wagon from Meriden to Berlin, but we walked most of the way and reached Hartford in time to look over the new engine and to catch an evening train home. I often wondered how many boys of today would walk thirty miles just to see a new fire engine. Compared to the present day gasolene motor-driven machines, that first self-propelled steamer was a cumbersome and crude affair with steel-tired wheels, and capable of making twenty miles an hour at full speed on a good road. But to us and to everyone else it was an epochal invention, and all realized that its appearance spelled the doom of the fire engine horses with all the spectacular thrill that went with them. But nobody dreamed that within a few years the steam-driven marvel would be obsolete and extinct as the horses, that steam engines would be relegated to the junk pile in favor of the new gas engines, then regarded as little more than mechanical experiments. But neither 76
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did anyone dream of a hundred other marvels and revolutionary inventions which were to completely alter life and civilization within a few short years. Perhaps, never in the history of mankind, was there a period when so many new inventions and devices came into use in so short a time as during my boyhood. Professor Bell, who was one of my father’s friends, invented and perfected the telephone, and I well remember when the first crude phones were installed and how marvelous it seemed to talk with a person blocks away. Even more clearly do I remember the first electric lights. These were the "arc lights" on the street corners, and consisted of glass globes within which were two sticks of carbon with the tips close together, so that the current produced a brilliant steady spark and heated the tips of the carbons until they became incandescent. As the ends of the carbon burned away an automatic device fed the sticks forward, with the result that the lights buzzed and snapped and flickered and flashed and quite often went out entirely. The carbons had to be replaced daily, and the lights were so arranged that they could be lowered by means of a wire cable and small windlass fastened to the post. Every morning a man would make the rounds of the lights, and climbing the pole would lower the globe, remove the old carbons and put in the new ones; and we boys were always on hand to pick up the old sticks of carbon, although I do not recall that we ever found any use for them. Bad as these first electric lights were, yet they were a vast improvement over the feeble gas lights which had hitherto illuminated, or supposedly illuminated, the city streets. But the electric lights interested me for a different reason. Every morning when the man removed the globes he found them half-filled with dead and burned insects, while the sidewalks and streets beneath the lights were covered with dead and injured insects which, attracted by the new glaring lights, had beaten themselves against globes and posts. At that time I was at the height of my entomological interest, and here was a new and rich field for collecting. Among the tattered victims of man's latest invention I found rare specimens, especially the larger moths. To be sure, the majority were badly torn or injured, but once I discovered this new source of specimens I sallied forth each evening armed with insect net, cyanide bottle, benzine and specimen box, and made the round of the lights of the neighborhood. Although some fine, rare moths invariably destroyed themselves by entering the globes, or battered themselves to pieces before falling to earth, the majority either flew within reach of my net when they became blinded or confused by the light, or dropped exhausted and uninjured to the ground, hence my collection increased rapidly, and countless rare species were added to it. But I had rivals who often robbed me of the best specimens. These were the toads who gathered by scores about the bases of the light poles and gobbled up every insect that fell within their reach. Many a time, some fine big moth would flutter down and I would rush forward to secure it only to have a big toad leap at it and gulp it down before I could scoop it up with my net. Never a Dull Moment
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Following the electric lights came an era of new inventions. Many of these were electrical, but many were not. Professor Langley, who was another of father's scientific friends, and who often visited our home, produced his remarkable flying machine, and I often heard him discussing it with father. And in later years, when gasolene motors became perfected and efficient, my father often used to remark that had Professor Langley possessed a gasolene engine his machine would have proved an entire success. It was about this time that father and other scientists were invited to witness a demonstration of a new flying machine. The demonstration was to be held in the old Atheneum theatre, and father took me with him to see the wonder although nobody really believed the inventor's claims would be borne out. The "flying machine" consisted of a cigar-shaped balloon perhaps twenty feet in length from which was suspended a light framework provided with a seat, handle-bars and pedals like those of a bicycle. The pedals were connected by means of sprockets and chain to a propeller, and the handle-bars controlled the vertical and horizontal rudders. Moreover, the thing actually worked! Mounting the saddle, the inventor - who I remember was attired like a circus performer, in black velvet trunks and tights - cast off the ropes which moored his machine to the stage, and as he pedaled away the "flying machine" rose and moved slowly about the big hall. It circled about over our heads, came to a stop in mid-air, moved backward, turned, ascended or descended, and finally returned to the stage and made a perfect landing. Of course it was little more than a toy; in a high wind or even in a stiff breeze it would have been unmanageable and worthless, but it was unquestionably the first Zepplin, or rather dirigible, and aroused a tremendous interest at the time. The next great invention that I remember was the first electric street railway car. At that time all street cars were horse-drawn, and the idea of a car being propelled over the tracks by electricity was hailed with derision. The car, as I recall it, was an ordinary street car equipped with a motor and storage battery, and its first trial was a dismal failure. The test was held on Chapel Street where there was a short side-track and switch, and the sidewalks, windows, doorways and church steps in the vicinity were packed with curious throngs all intent and expectant, and all more than skeptical. At last the great moment arrived and with clanging of bell and a dull rumble the car moved slowly forward. Cheers rose from the onlookers, as it passed over the switch onto the main track. But as it reached the foot of the slight grade on Chapel Street the car came to a dead stop. Cat-calls and shouts of derision arose from the crowd. In vain the operators worked levers and controls; the car refused to take the grade. Worse yet, it could not be moved in any direction, either backward or forward, some one shouted "Get a horse!" The crowd yelled itself hoarse; and the driver of a waiting horse car unhooked his steeds, and with a broad grin on his red face he drove his team to the stalled car, hooked them on and towed the failure onto the side track. 78
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With the attention of the world focused on the innumerable possibilities opened by electrical inventions, it was only natural that Billy and I should have become deeply interested in electricity. We already possessed a fairly good knowledge of batteries, magnets and the ordinary electrical apparatus, but we had never taken much of an interest in such things. Now, however, we realized that electricity was something more than an experiment or a toy, and we devoted our spare time and our inventive minds to electrical apparatus. Our first efforts were devoted to making batteries. Dry batteries had not come into use, and the telephone and bells were operated by wet batteries consisting of jars or cells filled with a solution of sal ammoniac in which zincs and carbons were immersed. There were also bichromate of potash batteries which were far more powerful than the sal ammoniac cells, but as the sulphuric acid in these rapidly destroyed the zinc they could not be used to supply a steady current, but were restricted to temporary use and were of the "plunge" type, like the batteries still used for firing charges of dynamite in blasting. I remember that we had lots of fun with these, Billy and I trying to outdo each other in making the most powerful battery. Billy won when he produced a battery which had enough current to melt a piece of wire, and then we turned out attentions to electro-plating, we succeeded very well in this. So well in fact that we earned quite a lot of pocket money plating all sorts of things for our families and friends. Gold, silver and copper plating were easy, but nickel plating was a new industry and we had a lot of trouble finding out how it was done, as the solutions used were kept a trade secret by the firms who made nickel plating their business. But we learned a lot about chemistry during our innumerable experiments, and we finally hit upon a solution that worked. Once we had been well bitten by the electrical bug we went electricity mad. Our houses became filled with wires, we installed electric bells everywhere, we made electric lighters which we attached to all the gas jets, and we event went further and arranged these so that a single pull of a little cord turned on the gas and lit the flame at the same time. At that time one of my duties was to care for the furnace. It was a great nuisance to have to get up and go down cellar every few hours to see if the fire was too low or too high, and after thinking the matter over I decided that my friend electricity might be pressed into service and made to lighten my duties. As a result, I spent days experimenting and tinkering, until at last I devised a crude sort of thermostat which would ring a bell in my room if the temperature of the furnace rose or fell beyond certain points. It was a very simple affair, and as I had never heard of such a thing as a thermostat I really deserved a deal of credit for having invented it. Briefly it consisted of two metal rods (old stair rods as a matter of fact) with one end of each immovably fastened in a box and with the other ends placed with only a fraction of an inch separating them. Close to these ends I Never a Dull Moment
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attached the wires of my battery and bell circuit. The idea was that when the box was placed over the furnace pipe, and the ends of the rods were adjusted properly, any rise in temperature above a fixed point would cause the rods to expand and touch, thus completing the circuit and ringing the bell. But to arrange for a fall in temperature was far more difficult, and the problem baffled me, until I hit upon the idea of a pull-switch connected to the rods so that when they contracted beyond a certain point the switch was operated and the circuit made. My next electrical invention was a burglar alarm, which was the direct result of having a burglar in the house one night. Nothing could be simpler than my device, which consisted of a small block a of hard wood with an opening in one side wherein was a fixed terminal and a spring plunger, which was part of an old window lock, with one wire of the circuit connected with the plunger and the other with the fixed terminal. The block of wood was screwed to the door frame. A screw-eye was placed in the door, and a small piece of bone, celluloid or other insulating material was placed between plunger and terminal and connected to the screw-eye by a short section of strong cord. When the door was opened the insulator was pulled out, the contact made, and the alarm bell rung. It was as simple and as practical as could be and it worked to perfection. The only trouble was that after I had installed my burglar alarms no one ever attempted to burgle the house. In fact the only time that my invention ever actually gave the alarm and aroused the household was one night when I had been to a party, and coming home long after the time I was supposed to be in bed, I tried to sneak in by the back door without being seen or heard. But I had forgotten about my burglar alarms, and as I cautiously opened the door the big electric bell went off with a racket that would have awakened the dead. Instantly the house was in an uproar. Father came running from the library blinking his eyes, and with a poker in his hand. My brother George came dashing down stairs brandishing a revolver, and the frightened cries of the children in the nursery added to the excitement. After that experience my interest in electricity waned, and for some mysterious reason the burglar alarm on the back door was always out of order.
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Chapter 11
1882 – 1886
Bows and Arrows
I am not certain whether it was Robin Hood or The Black Arrow that first aroused our interests in archery and quarter-staffs. At any rate, we thought it would be great fun to emulate the fictional heroes of Merrie England, and wander through the "greenwood” armed with long bows and "cloth-yard shafts," and having friendly set-tos with stout quarter-staffs. And so it was. The fancy, ready-made bows with their velvet grips, and the target arrows, didn't appeal to our sense of the fitness of things. They might be all right for use on the lawns with painted canvas targets, but they were not the sort of weapons to send a "gray goose shaft” speeding toward the heart of a leaping roebuck. So Billy and I decided to make our own bows and arrows. That in itself was an interesting occupation, and, as we soon discovered, a far from simple task. As the local lumber dealers did not include yew in their stock we decided upon hickory as a substitute. And what a job it was to shave, plane and smooth a billet of iron-hard hickory into the form of a six-foot bow! To make good arrows was, if anything, harder than to make a bow. It was not so difficult to make the shafts, but we wanted real gray goose feathers and we had a long hunt and walked many miles through the country before we found a farmer who had gray geese. And we were compelled to use all our powers of persuasion, as well as a goodly portion of our pocket money, in order to induce the farmer's wife to pluck the quills from one of her flock for our benefit. Then came the question of the arrow-heads. We tried cutting them from old hoop iron but it was slow work and the results were far from satisfactory. Billy suggested that we might use Indian arrow heads which we had picked up from time to time and had added to our collections. But these were crude things, difficult to fasten to the wooden shafts, and no two were alike or of the same size. Moreover, our supply was extremely limited. Finally we solved the problem by wheedling a friendly blacksmith into making a dozen or more heads. Armed with our primitive weapons we roamed the woods and fields, searching as diligently and keenly for imaginary game as if we really expected to see a red deer spring from its bed among the ferns. And many a visionary roebuck and fallow deer fell to our deadly shafts. Of course it was all a game. We were no longer "kids" who believed in Santa Claus and were capable of imagining themselves really members of Robin Rood's band; but we were still young enough to find keen enjoyment in pretending. And shooting at a clump of weeds which we pretended was a grazing deer, or at a tussock of grass the size of a crouching hare, was just as much fun as if we actually had driven our arrows at living creatures. Moreover, it was excellent practice and very soon we developed quite an astonishing skill as archers. To be sure, we never reached the point of super-marksmanship with Never a Dull Moment
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which Robin Hood and other legendary bowmen are credited. We never "notched" another shaft nor brought down wild fowl on the wing, nor split peeled willow wands. But we could drive an arrow into a six-inch square of paper at thirty or forty yards, and several times we actually killed crows and pigeons. But archery, we found, had its limitations and shortcomings. Arrows were always getting lost and were hard to make. There was a limit to the fun to be extracted from shooting at inanimate objects, and gradually our interest in archery waned. But quarter-staffs were an altogether different matter. There was a right jolly game for you. A lively bout with stout ash staves! No wonder the men who roamed old Sherwood Forest in suits of Lincoln Green were a stout and sturdy and tough lot if accustomed to set-tos with quarter-staffs to settle disputes. The wonder is that any survived, for quarter-staffs, even when wielded in friendly fashion, are not toys to be played with. And here let me explain to the boys of today just what a quarter-staff is and how it is used. The staff itself is a hard wood pole about eight feet in length, and tapering from a diameter of about two inches at one end to three inches or more at the butt. It is grasped in both hands, the right hand a couple of feet or more from the butt end, the left hand about two feet further forward, and then the fun begins. The object is to whack your opponent over the head, shoulders, or anywhere above the waist, and to protect yourself from being whacked by him. Unlike fencing, quarterstaff play permits neither masks, pads, gauntlets nor other protective devices, and believe me, a quarter-staff, even when wielded by a boy in fun can hit an awful wallop. There is a lot to it other than just whanging away at each other however. There is as much art and skill required in the proper use of the quarter-staff as in fencing with foils, but of a very different sort. To use the staff properly it should be held high, above the level of one's head, and the blows are dealt by short forward and downward motions of the arms and not by long sweeping blows. Lunging and poking is inadmissible. Blows are warded off by both the forward portion of the staff and by the shorter butt, and it requires much skill and practice to prevent one's knuckles from being barked and numbed by the other fellow’s staff sliding downward along the pole when one fends off a blow. The contestants stand between two lines marked on the ground twenty feet apart, and the one who drives his opponent back over the latter's line wins a bout, while every fair blow counts a point. And I can assure you that when two husky boys get started and excited, and the heavy staves go into action it's a rough game. But there's one fine thing about it. It is one outdoors sport that will never be taken up by girls or women! Of course, as Billy and I knew nothing of the rules of the game nor the technique of quarter-staff fencing, aside from what we had been able to gather from reading about it, our first bouts were rough-and-tumble affairs without regard to the finer points of the art. And it would have puzzled an umpire, had he been present, to have decided who was the winner, for we were both bruised, sore, grazed and much the worse for wear and tear. In fact, as I had landed one blow on Billy's nose and he retaliated in kind, we were pretty gory, 82
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and had anyone seen us before we had washed up and removed the evidence of battle from our hands and faces at a nearby brook, he would have felt certain we were the survivors of a bloody and desperate battle. But our hurts were not serious, we had had a glorious time, and we were both enthusiastic over the new sport. Whenever we could manage it we would hie ourselves to the grassy field we had selected as our jousting ground, and dragging our quarter-staffs from their hiding places among the bushes, we would go at it hammer and tongs. There is nothing to equal the need of self defense when it comes to training eyes and muscles to work in unison, and to keep a cool and level head, and while our lives did not depend upon our skill in warding off blows, our bodily well being did, and very rapidly we acquired a surprising dexterity in the use of our staffs. Sometimes we would fence for an hour or more without either of us scoring a blow or forcing the other back over his line, and after the first two or three bloody noses or scalp wounds, or even sore heads, were rare. But I discovered a weak spot in my chum's armor. As long as we whacked and fended and gave blow for blow, he kept his head and took it all good naturedly. But for some inexplicable psychological reason, if I happened to knock off his hat he flew into a berserk fury and struck madly, recklessly, utterly regardless of the necessity of protecting himself. Although we were the very best of friends and the closest of chums, and while our bouts were of the friendliest character and all in fun, yet somehow, now and then, I would become possessed of a devil of maliciousness and would manoeuvre until I could knock Billy's hat from his head. Thereupon he would become furious and would flail wildly with his staff, and filled with unholy delight I would beat him back and chase him all over the field, raining blows on his shoulders and arms, until at last he cooled off and begged for mercy. Still he never held any resentment, and many a time he evened scores by inventing some new trick or feint and laying me out cold. The advent of cold weather put an end to our fun with the quarterstaffs, but having become infected with the fencing fever we took to singlesticks. While these basket-hilted wooden swords were tame compared to our heavy staffs, still it called for more art and skill in defense. From single-sticks to broadswords was only a step, and by the time spring arrived we were using heavy cavalry sabres in our fencing bouts. At that time mounted broadsword contests were quite popular, and deciding that we might learn a lot about fencing if we had an expert to teach us, we sought out the local champion, an ex-cavalryman of the British Army, and stated our case. Sergeant Major Brian was a good-natured, red-headed giant with a flowing moustache which any dragoon might be proud of. Perhaps he really was a bit interested in our desire to learn the art of broadsword fencing, perhaps he may have been a little flattered at having us call on him, or possibly having nothing better to do at the time, he was willing to accept the ridiculous fee we offered him. At all events he Never a Dull Moment
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agreed to teach us. But he never gave us but one lesson. At the end of our first tryout he drew off his heavy gauntlets, removed his mask, and laying aside his sword, stood looking at us, twirling his huge moustache, a quizzical glint in his Irish eyes. "B' gorry, me lads, an' phwat do ye be wantin’ av me?" he demanded. "Sure an’it’s little oi can t’ach ye lads. Faith, an’ ye can both swing a sword as well as any an’ better'n most, though the divvil alone knows how ye learned the manner av it.” For a time a number of our school mates became interested in fencing. Some took to broadswords, some to foils, and some to rapiers, and fencing contests replaced football, wrestling and other sports. But the fad soon died out, and with no one to fence with but ourselves, Billy and I abandoned sabres and masks and sought new fields of endeavor for our restless minds and bodies.
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Chapter 12
1887 – 1889
Indians
I had always been intensely interested in the Indians and my interest had been greatly increased when my grandmother confided that one of my ancestors had been a Wabenaki (I later discovered that there had been more than one, and that I was about one-eighth Indian myself) I had read all available books on the Indians and had learned and written out everything I could find regarding their customs, costumes, habits, lives, religions, etc. Then my visit to the Wild West Show, where I met the tribesmen in full regalia gave me an added interest in the race. I had found them such a pleasant, friendly, good-natured and likable lot that I began to wonder if the White men had always been right and the Indians wrong. To ponder upon this question as to whether an Indian didn't have as much right to fight for his home as a white man and to ask myself if it wasn't possible that the Indians side of the matter had deliberately been misrepresented by the white men in order to justify their own aggression and behavior. Then I happened to read RAMONA, which had just then been published and almost before I realized it, I discovered that all of my sympathies and admiration were for the Indians. Boys are strange creatures and their mental processes and psychologies are beyond the comprehension of grown-ups; for that matter, a boy does not fully understand himself but acts and reacts largely from impulse and instinct, but his imagination is far more vivid and active than that of an adult. As a result, he is always assuming the characters of the heroes or the villains and is forever acting a part mentally, if not physically. Thus while too old to “play Indian�, I was thinking Indian a good deal of the time. At the Wild West Show I had discovered that with proper costume and make-up I could pass as an Indian even among the Indians themselves, I therefore set to work making myself a complete Indian costume with fringed leather legging, a gaudy shirt and a number of genuine beaded articles such as a pipe pouch, knife sheath, belt, gauntlets, arm-bands, moccasins, etc., all gifts from my Indian friends and from relatives who were in business in the Far West. When dressed in this costume and my face printed and wearing a wig of long black hair purchased from a costumer and with golden eagle feathers in back I became transformed into a Sioux warrior, for I looked the part, being a big boy for my age, nearly six feet tall, lean and sinewy, and very strong and straight and I felt sure that my closest friends and members of the family would never recognize me. In the privacy of my den I would attire myself as a Sioux warrior and sit cross-legged upon the floor, smoking a long-stemmed stone pipe ornamented with feathers and scalp-locks (made of horse hair) and by a sort of self-hypnosis, with which every boy is familiar, I would become for the moment Never a Dull Moment
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transformed into an Indian. In other words, as we would express it today, I had developed a strong Indian complex. It wasn't much fun to dress up and disguise myself as an Indian in the seclusion of my own room and for my own benefit, and I was torn between my boyish desire to appear in the presence of others, and my feeling that such a procedure would be childish. Then Fate played into my hands. A firm that manufactured Indian medicines brought a party of "Kickapoos" to town as an advertising and publicity stunt. They performed in a big tent, beating tom-toms, singing and performing so-called war-dances, while "Kickapoo medicines" were sold between the acts. They lived in a smaller tent only a block from my house. At first they attracted a great deal of attention whenever assembled on the street dressed in their native costumes, wearing moccasins, bare-headed, with their long hair hanging in braids or gathered loosely with a strip of buckskin, and wrapped in their scarlet or blue blankets. But very soon they became such familiar figures in our neighbourhood, that no one paid much attention to them. Here was my chance to prove to myself, and everybody else how well I could transform into an Indian, so donning my costume, painting my face and wrapping my body in a crimson blanket I sneaked out of the house one evening, and quite boldly walked down the street. The first person I met was my uncle who gave me only a passing glance, but that, I decided, was not a fair test for it was quite dark and anyone wrapped in a blanket might have been mistaken for one of the Indians, most of whom were Blackfeet, not Kickapoos. Once I had started upon my escapade, I intended to carry it through and was beginning to realize what a glorious evening was in store for me if my disguise was as perfect as I thought it. But I had to be sure that I was unrecognizable if my plans were to work out. Across the street was a tiny confectionary and notion store kept by elderly Miss Holler. She knew everyone in the vicinity for all the children bought their candy, pencils, pads, paper and toys from Miss Holler. She knew me almost as well as did my own mother. If I could fool her, I could fool anyone, so, stalking across the street I opened the door and walking in stood silently staring about with half-closed eyes. At the sound of my entrance Miss Holler appeared from her living room in the rear, but there was no sign of recognition in her eyes or voice. Then “Vat you vant?” she enquired, staring at me over her glasses. I turned slowly pointing a brown-stained hand at a jar of gumdrops, “Me want'um” I grunted. “Give me heap.” “Ach, that was it eh?” enquired the old lady. “How many you want Mr. Chief? Vell, maybe you don’t got the money, no? Vell, maybe I give you vun.” I was elated, she was completely fooled. I began by having some fun with her. As she opened the jar of candies I reached forward, shoved my hand into the jar and helping myself to a fistfull of gumdrops, I turned towards the door. That was too much for even easy-going Miss Holler. “Loafer, good-for-noddings!” she cried, “get oudt!" 86
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Seizing a broom, she came for me. She wasn't afraid of Indians, that was certain and with as much stoicism and dignity as I could command I retreated. Gosh, I would have the laugh on the old lady when she would tell me of the Indian's visit and having chased him with a broom and I told her who it was. My fun was just beginning. A few houses farther down the street was the home of an army officer, a captain who had served on the Western frontier. I knew that he was in Washington, but his wife and sisters were still there and as one of the sisters was father's assistant and secretary, and as all three women knew me well, I decided my next joke would be on the Bush family. In response to my knock, the door was opened by a colored maid who gave one terrified glance and fled screaming down the hall. Stepping inside, I closed the door and awaited further developments. I didn't have long to wait. The Captain's wife appeared, descending the stairs with a great show of courage although evidently ready to turn and run, if need be. Half way down the flight she halted and the sisters cautiously came down to form a rear-guard. "Oh dear, I do hope he is not drunk" I heard one of the sisters say. "Shush" cautioned the other, "he may understand English.” “How” exclaimed the Captain's wife, "what you wanttum? Wanttum food?" The suggestion that I might be a drunken Redskin gave me an idea, I lurched forward, waving my hands aimlessly. "Rum," I grunted "give me rum!" With a cry of despair the Captain's wife collapsed on the stairs. "Oh dear!” she wailed, “What will we do! If only the Captain were here he would know how to deal with the Indian.” "He is drunk!" declared one of the sisters in a hoarse whisper. “I knew it! Drunken Indians are dangerous. Can’t we call the police?” “How can we call the police when he is standing there?" the other sister demanded. "Isn't there some other way we can get him out?” "Perhaps if we offered him food he would go”, the other sister suggested. Then to me: "Chief, want food, chicken, meat, pie?" I squatted upon the floor barring the approach to the doorway. I shook my head and repeated the word "Rum". “Perhaps he would take cider" remarked one of the ladies. "If you give him a drink he may go." "The cider is down in the basement and I am not going near that Indian” announced my father's secretary. "I’ll go." declared the Captain’s wife “I’m not afraid of an Indian, I have seen hundreds out West and he does not look ugly." Keeping as far away as possible and clinging to the balustrade, she began to descend. As she reached the last step I arose suddenly and lurched toward her. With a terrified shriek she sank down, staring at me with fearwidened eyes as if expecting me to whip out a knife and scalp her where she crouched. I decided that the joke had gone far enough and besides I was having a hard time to control laughter which would have been unsuited to a supposedlyintoxicated Indian. Never a Dull Moment
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Turning away, I reeled to the door and vanished in the night. I had thoroughly enjoyed myself so far, and I was not through yet. Fred Norman, one of my closest friends lived near by and I decided to have some fun with him. The fact that one of his sisters had been one of my school teachers gave added zest to the lark. Again I was met by a terrified servant and when Fred's sister saw me she rushed up stairs shouting for Fred. Poor Fred! I He responded to the call nobly, but he was not accustomed to dealing with Indians and evidently was nervous and a little scared. In a sort of pidgin English, he asked me to go. Twice he took me by the arm and started to urge me on my way, but thought better of it. Meanwhile the two sisters were making audible remarks about getting a gun and when one of them hurried up stairs I decided that the matter might become serious, and bursting into laughter, revealed my identity. Everyone thought it a good joke and laughed as heartily at the way they had been fooled as at my accounts of my visits to Miss Holler and the Bush family. But I hadn't finished my evening's masquerade yet. I decided to put my disguise to the supreme test end boldly entered the “Kickapoos” tent. For a few minutes nobody paid much attention to me and if the braves noticed anything “fishy” about the strange Indian in their midst, they gave no sign of their suspicions, but not so the long-haired “doctor” in charge. With fire in his eyes he strode toward me. “Here you." he barked “No use hanging around here. We ain't hiring no more Indians for this show, especially Siouxs.” Silently I withdrew. I had had a glorious evening but I got the greatest kick out of my fun when I heard the thrilling stories of the drunken Indian as related by the Bush family and how they had driven him from their home at the point of a revolver and the Captain's sabre. It was not until Fred's sisters told of how I had fooled them that the valiant Mrs. Bush learned the truth, and by then they had told their tale to all their acquaintances in the neighborhood. Old Miss Holler was the only one who would not admit that she had not been hoodwinked. "Ach, all der time I knew who he vas. If I t’ink he vas an Indian vould I drive him oudt mit a broom? Nien! An Indian is an Indian, and maype he gidt and haf a tamahaker and take my scalp, no? Yah, a joke is a joke and ven I see you is making a joke mit me, I make a bigger joke mit you, I betcha." But as she couldn't or wouldn’t explain how she recognized me, nobody ever believed she had not been fooled as much as the others.
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Chapter 13
1878 – 1902
I Join the Sioux1
To the boys of today our Indian wars are almost legendary but when I was a boy they were current events. The Apaches under Geronimo and Cochise were raiding and fighting in the Southwest and I vividly recall the excitement aroused when word of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was received. It was only a few years after the so-called Custer Massacre that I met my first Sioux. This was the famous Ogallala chief, Red Cloud who had taken a prominent part in the epochal battle. He had come east to see the "great White Father” in Washington and came to New Haven to visit some of the professors whom he had known when they were on a scientific expedition to the Dakotas. Much to my disappointment the tall, heavily built, broad-faced war chief was not arrayed in beaded buckskin, paint and feathers, but wore a dark blue suit of clothes and a black felt, broad-brimmed hat. But he did wear moccasins and his hair fell in two heavy braids to his waist. As he neither spoke nor understood English worth mentioning he was accompanied by an interpreter, a young Sioux who was named Many Bears and spoke English fluently and from him I learned a great deal about his people. Red Cloud himself was a very taciturn and dignified Indian who never showed any surprise at anything he saw. But there was one thing that interested him greatly. This was a hair-dressing establishment and he gazed fascinated at the ladies’ switches, the transformations and the toupees displayed in the window. Here, he thought, was the Pale Faces’ display of scalps, but he must have been puzzled as to why the hair was obviously that of white persons instead of Indians. Although Many Bears explained that the objects on display were not scalps but were used by the whites to improve upon nature, Red Cloud saw an opportunity to add to his fame, and before he left for his home he purchased dozens of the "scalps". Whether or not his fellow Sioux were hoodwinked I cannot say, but if they did accept the objects as scalps it would be interesting to know the story the chief told to account for taking scalps while, at peace with the whites and on a friendly mission to Washington. Probably, however, he never even pretended they were scalps but intended them for use as ornaments. At all events, such was their ultimate end for I have seen many Sioux garments, utensils and weapons trimmed with blonde, brown and titian hair still attached to the woven foundation. It was many years after Red Cloud’s visit that Col. Cody and Dr. Carver toured the east with their Wild West Show. Dr. Carver had been taken prisoner Handwritten note “More or less a duplicate chapter. In changed form Mr. Verrill used data in the regular manuscript.” 1
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by the Sioux when a child and had been brought up by the Indians. With the signing of their peace treaty he had been taken over by officers of the Medical Corp.2 The boy who had adopted his benefactor’s name had been educated and became a dentist and had married a New Haven woman. They had a son about my age and lived only a block from my home. Young "Billy" and I were great pals and his father would entertain us by the hour with stories of his life and experiences among the Sioux. He was a very picturesque figure. Over six feet tall, and heavily built, he was a fine looking man with yellow hair falling to his shoulders and with a sweeping blonde mustache. He invariably wore a broad brimmed, low-crowned sombrero and a heavily beaded vest and when the “show” was in town or nearby he donned fringed buckskin. He always rode a striking bay and white pinto pony with ornate silver saddle and dashed at full gallop through the city streets between his home and his business. He was, probably, the most expert rifle shot who ever lived. One of his “stunts” at the Wild West Show was to toss a brick into the air, break it with a shot from his rifle and break three of the fragments before they fell to the ground. On one occasion he wagered that he could make 60,000 hits in six days shooting at objects thrown into the air. Small cubes of wood a couple of inches square were used and quite frequently he would hit a single piece two or three times. He won easily and made his score on the afternoon of the fifth day. He had about a dozen .22 calibre rifles and Billy and I had the job of cooling and cleaning them as they became overheated. His phenomenal skill with a rifle so impressed me that I was determined to become an expert myself. I do not claim I ever even approached Dr. Carver in rifle shooting but I did become sufficiently expert to break a brick and one of its fragments and to hit a quarter or even a dime in the air, while my greatest and favorite stunt was to snap a .22 cartridge into the air and explode it with a shot from my rifle. It was Dr. Carver's skill as a marksman that finally caused his quarrel with Col. Cody and resulted in the two men separating. Cody, or Buffalo Bill as he is better known, was a poor shot and was jealous of Carver who always "stole the show" when it came to the rifle shooting exhibition. In the end Cody took over the show and Carver went on tour demonstrating ammunition for Winchester’s. At the time many famous Indian chiefs were with the Wild West Show. Among them was Shot in the Eye, Gray Wolf, Call,…, Crazy Horse, Yellow Elk, Tall Man and others, all living with their families in their tepees pitched in the field on the outskirts of the city.
This chapter had areas of text that were crossed out. Some of these notes were interesting so are retained /editor 2
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Having free access to the show, Billy and I spent a lot of time with the Indians, the scouts, cowboys and other members of the troupe. We quickly made friends with the Indian boys though very few of them could speak but few words of English and as we knew only a few words of Sioux that Billy had learned from his father, we got on famously. They were quick to pick up English terms and expressions and Billy and I learned to speak Sioux after a fashion. We taught them how to play American games such as Come away, marbles, One old cat and they showed us how to play the hoop-and-spear game, whipping tops, and other Indian games. Most of the Indian boys were named after their fathers with the pre-fix young or little. There were Elks, Deers, Antelopes, Bears, Wolves, and similar names, and they soon named us after the same fashion. Dr. Carver was called Swift Gun by the Indians so Billy became Little Swift Gun. They named me Wambeske or Eagle, because of a photograph I had obtained at the Centennial exposition showing Old Abe, the famous wareagle carried by our troops during the Civil War. Among my other Indian friends, was White Eagle who had been adopted by Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) and whose English name was George Cody. We were such good friends that the other Indians always called us ‘The Two Eagles’. Little did I dream at that time that not so many years later I would take part in the show myself. One of the students at Yale was an Ogalala Sioux, a plump, round-faced Indian with an ochreous colored skin and a perpetual grin. His English name was John Rogers, but was always known by his nickname of Johnny Punkin-face. Although ordinarily he seemed a thoroughly civilized Indian wearing conventional clothes yet when Buffalo Bill's Wild West came to town Johnny would temporarily go native and for the duration of the show don buckskin and paint and feathers and join his fellow tribesmen. On one occasion when the Wild West was scheduled to arrive Johnny suggested that I should join him and play Indian. Naturally I jumped at the chance and had the time of my life. Johnny introduced me to a number of his Indian friends and relatives and told them in Sioux, "If I can be a white man, my friend can be an Indian for a few days." which appeared to tickle them immensely, even the stern-faced braves grinning and chuckling. One or two of the older men had been with the show when Billy Carver and I visited it. Also, one enormously fat squaw was known as “Too Many Toes", a most appropriate name as she was always surrounded by a bevy of children of all ages from infants strapped on cradle boards to boys and girls, ten or twelve years of age. Only two of the youngsters were her own but she was a motherly soul and "had adopted nearly every child in the Indian village." I soon discovered that a number of the young men were those I had known as a boy. There was Yellow Elk, Red Bear, White Horse, Red Wolf, Lone Deer, and others, all of whom remembered me and called me by my Sioux name "Eagle”. Among them, was my old friend White Eagle. He not only had learned to speak English fluently, but knew fourteen Indian dialects and could speak Never a Dull Moment
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Spanish, French and even some Russian, which made him invaluable as an interpreter. Years later I met him under very different circumstances. Johnny managed to find a complete Sioux costume that was a good fit, and with Annie Oakley helping with my make-up and Johnny Baker offering advice, I became transformed into a very realistic young Sioux, in fact I was such a genuine appearing young brave that I completely fooled the cowboys and others. I acquired a vast amount of Indian lore, learned to speak Sioux after a fashion, learned their sign language and made many new Indian friends. At that time a number of famous Indian warriors were with the Cody show. Among them were "Shot-In-The-Eye", “Rain-In-The-Face”, "Lame Man", "Iron Trail”, "Black Wolf", “Sunny Bear”, "Many Bears", and others, some of whom had taken part in the battle of the Little-Big-Horn. Quite a number of tribes were represented. They were Brulé and Oglala Sioux, Teton Sioux, Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Pawnees, Arapahoes, Shoshones, Grows, Utes, Comanches, KIawas, and one or two Apaches, and having for a time, put aside all old tribal enmities, there was never any trouble among them. Braves who had carried on bloody battles in the past told tales of their exploits like old cronies and squaws of half a dozen tribes gossiped and sewed and performed other duties together while the children mingled and played as if all were members of one tribe. Aside from my Indian friends I became acquainted with many other members, of the show among them Tex Cooper, the famous scout, the Esquival brothers, who were Texas Rangers, Jack Crawford, the poet-scout, many of the cow punchers and bronco busters and Vicente Oropesa, the captain of the troupe of Mexican rurales. In fact we became such close friends that I left off being an Indian and joined the rurales. Oropesa was the first man ever to spin a rope, in fact scientists scoffed at the idea declaring that it was impossible for a loop of rope to remain open while spinning, unless the honda was tied, but after once seeing Vicente's act and having examined his riata to be sure that there was no trickery, they had to admit that it could be done and that Oropesa had learned to overcome centrifugal force. No man ever lived who could equal my friend Vicente when it came to handling a lariat. Even my old friend, the late Will Rogers, admitted as much. I have seen Vicente leap upon the big dining table in the show's dining tent and spin his rope among the dishes, the loop rising and falling but never touching a dish and at times spinning about a pitcher or coffee pot, the loop growing smaller and smaller until, with a sudden upward flirt, it lifted the receptacle in air. Another of his stunts was to spin two ropes at the same time, one spinning vertically behind him, the other horizontally in front of him. And at each regular performance he would stand with his back toward an oncoming 92
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mounted man, and spinning his rope above his head, he would announce by which foot he would lasso the pony and never failed to make good. Although still a comparatively young man Oropesa had led a life that equaled any western thriller. At one time he had been a popular bull fighter but he had been forced to abandon the career as he put on weight. Then, for a time, he worked as a vaquero, but the life of a cow puncher didn't appeal to him and he took to banditry. Just how successful he and his band were he never told me, but he admitted that as a bandit he was not very good, being, as he naively explained, "too good-natured and too simpatico.” It was not of course a simple matter to abandon banditry and turn into a law-abiding citizen, especially as Vicente once seen would always be recognized, for he was a huge man, well over six feet in height and weighing over 250 pounds, although as active and light on his feet as a ballet dancer. So Vicente joined the rurales and very soon distinguished himself by his reckless daring and was commissioned a Captain. His stories, undoubtedly true, were far more interesting and thrilling than any fiction. Whenever the show was in New Haven he would dine at least once at our house, arriving in his Rurale costume, mounted on a large blue roan with white tail and mane and with hand-carved saddle heavy with silver, while the children of the neighborhood gazed open-mouthed and neighbors peeked from doors and behind curtains. It seemed rather strange that Vicente could not speak English although he understood it well enough. When I asked him why he had not learned the language he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, "Once I tried to learn Ingles,” he explained, "but when speaking it nearly ended my life I gave it up." “How did that happen?" I asked, "One time," he said sadly, "I needed the keys to our trunks and I went to the Señorita Oakley (she was wardrobe mistress) and I say to her in my best English: “Please, Mees Oakley, give me kees!” and Johnny Baker he hear and he almost shoot me. How could I know that llaves (keys) and beso (kiss) is the same word in your Ingles?" On one of his visits, Vicente presented me with a complete Charro costume of dove-gray buckskin beautifully braided in white leather and a splendid sombrero with heavy silver band and conchas. So, thereafter, when I temporarily joined the show, I became A Mexican Rurale. "But you must possess a caballo, amigo mio." he declared, and confidentally informed me that there were always two or three ponies who were pavement sore and could be bought for the proverbial song. He then selected a chunky blue roan named Benito who limped badly although Vicente assured me he would be all right in a short time if allowed to rest and had his feet properly packed with oakum and turpentine. I bought Benito for twenty-five dollars and he proved the best horse I have ever owned. Although like all of the show's Never a Dull Moment
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mounts, he had been trained to buck a little when first mounted, just to show off, he was in reality the gentlest of horses. He permitted my children to play under and over him, even lying down so the youngest daughter could crawl onto his side. And he was absolutely fearless. To him locomotives, fireworks, gun shots, elephants or anything else were all matters of course but as one of my friends observed: "It sure would take a lot to scare a horse that's been with the Wild West Show." He was of course a fine saddle pony and although I trained him to harness it never interfered with his delightfully easy gait when under the saddle. I had Benito for many years. I took him with us on a trip to Bermuda. He accompanied us on a later trip to Dominica where he died of old age, sensibly selecting a churchyard in which to pass away. Although the Cody show was made up of a conglomeration of races — Indians, Mexicans, French, British, troops, plainsmen and Russian Cossacks, it was like one huge family —aside from the Cossacks. No one liked them. They were arrogant, brutal, noisy, boastful, dirty, quarrelsome and worst of all to the Rurales, the cowpunchers and the British and U.S. cavalrymen, they abused their horses. There was constant friction between them and the others of the outfit and this reached a grand climax in the dining tent one day. Soldiers, Rurales, punchers and the rest all sat at the same huge table and the meal was about over when one of the Cossacks, - for what reason no one ever discovered, - jumped up, leaned over and dashed the contents of his coffee cup into the face of a long, lean Texas puncher. Instantly there was a riot. Dishes and their contents flew in every direction; shouts, cries, curses, the thumping of fists on flesh transformed the great tent into a madhouse, but the Cossacks were outnumbered and it was all over in less than five minutes. But it wasn’t over for the Russians. Holding them by arms and legs, husky cowpunchers and cavalrymen hurried across the tent toward the dish-washing tanks of greasy hot water, and with a "one, two, three - in he goes!" heaved their prisoners into the tanks. When at last they clambered out, their long, fur-trimmed coats soaking wet and spotted with table scraps, their high boots slopping water at every step they were greeted with cat calls, roars of laughter and shouts of derision. But the Cossacks learned their lesson and thereafter they were a meek and mild, even if unfriendly lot. I have often been asked if Colonel Cody was really the good rifle shot he is represented in stories of his life and in fiction. He most certainly was not. He may have been able to hit buffalo at close range but as a really good marksmen with the rifle he was a dud and any young puncher in the show could shoot rings around him when it came to using a revolver. When breaking glass balls tossed into the air by a man on horseback which was his only exhibition of marksmanship at a performance, he used a .45 caliber Winchester with a smooth-bored barrel and shot filled cartridges. It was scarcely possible for him to miss. His mount and the ball-thrower's moved at 94
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little more than a walk, the balls were thrown only a few feet in air and were never more than eight or ten yards from Cody's gun. To those who knew the truth he always made the excuse that to fire bullets from a rifle into the air was too dangerous as no one could tell where they might fall. But those who knew him best all agreed that, - figuratively speaking, - he couldn't hit the side of a barn at over fifty yards. In fact it was mainly because of his inferior shooting ability and Dr. William Carver's phenomenal skill with the rifle that the two dissolved partnership in the original Wild West Show. Cody taking over the show while Carver gave exhibitions of his skill. By far the best rifle shot in the outfit was Annie Oakley, but she was not an outstanding shot with a revolver, whereas Johnny Baker was a remarkable marksman with a revolver and only a passable rifle shot. As a result the two made a fine team. But there were many others who were fine shots. Oropesa was one of the best revolver shots I have ever seen and when shooting from the hip was more than Johnny Baker's equal, and he was as quick on the draw as the six-gun-men of fiction. As he expressed it: "One has to learn to draw swiftly and shoot straight when one is a bandit - or a Rurale." Then, with a shrug, "The one who draws most swiftly and shoots the straightest is the one who lives, No es verdad?" Many of the punchers and others were wont to boast of their shooting abilities but as only blank cartridges were permitted aside from those issued for the exhibition shooting, they could not prove their claims. Another matter that I have never seen mentioned in any true accounts of Colonel Cody was the fact that he was not at all popular. I do not mean that he was actually disliked, but as far as I know the only members of the outfit who might have been considered friendly with Cody were Annie Oakley, Johnny Baker, Oropesa, White Eagle, old Many Bears, Tex Cooper and motherly old Too Many Toes. He was inclined to be a bit of a stuffed shirt as we say nowadays. Perhaps he felt that, as owner of the Wild West Show, as a former Government scout and hunter, and with his world-wide fame as Buffalo Bill, he could not afford to unbend and be other than the Big Boss. Moreover, the fact that he always lived at the best hotels, that in the street parades he rode in a carriage drawn by his famous white horses, didn't help. The punchers and other riders felt that Cody should lead the parade astride a horse instead of behind a span (Ed./a pair of horses or other animals harnessed and driven together), and that to properly carry out tradition and popular ideas he should live in a tent like the others. But Cody was a showman first and a frontiersman second. His span and Stanhope were far more spectacular than a cow pony or even a Palomino, and to frequent the best hotel, attired in white buckskin, white sombrero and white gauntlets was mighty good publicity. Very probably he was right. At all events he built up a reputation and a tradition that seldom has been equaled despite the fact that the greater part of the innumerable tales of Buffalo Bill are pure out-and-out fiction. Never a Dull Moment
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Chapter 14
1886 – 1889
Pranks
Considering that men have all been boys for a good portion of their lives, and that worst of them must remember their youthful escapades and urges and inhibitions and complexes, it is most remarkable how very few men understand boys or are in sympathy with them. I venture to say that eight out of ten men played hookey, or drew caricatures of their teachers, or put bent pins in other boys' seats, or threw spit-balls at the girls or otherwise misbehaved and played pranks in school. Even college professors and severe-looking dignified teachers were many of them school cut-ups and bad boys in their youth, as I can testify from personal knowledge and association. Yet they have no patience with such behavior on the part of the members of their classes today, and fail to see any humor in matters which in their boyhood, they deemed excruciatingly funny. But boys will be boys, as they have been from the time when human beings first trod this earth, and as they will be until the last boy has vanished from our planet, and neither frowns, punishments nor discipline are going to alter their natures, stifle their exuberant spirits or eliminate their inherent love of mischief. I presume that I must have been a great trial to my various teachers, many of whom doubtless considered me a very bad boy, yet I was no worse than many of my schoolmates, and the pranks we played and our misbehavior were usually harmless even if annoying and were usually done in a spirit of fun or to tease. The few teachers who regarded our monkey tricks in that light, and who understood boys, had far less trouble than those who looked upon us as little less than criminals, and treated us accordingly. Boys, being far more natural than grown-ups, and without the self restraint, the conventions, the diplomacy or hypocrisy of adults, not only take much stronger likes or dislikes to people, but do not hesitate to let their feelings be known. Also, they possess a very keen sense of justice and fair play. Looking back upon my schooldays I now realize that these two factors were largely responsible for all the misbehavior of my schoolmates and myself. Once a boy took strong dislike for his teacher, regardless of whether he had a reason for so doing or not, or once he was punished unjustly, he became a malignant little beast and devoted far more time to making his teacher's life miserable than he devoted to his studies. Yet, very often, a boy who had been declared incorrigible by one teacher, became a "star" pupil and a most exemplary member of the class when transferred to the room of another teacher. And there are always teachers who are favorites and others who are cordially disliked by the children. Most of my own deviltries were due to very different causes. In the first place I was a very active restless, thoroughly out-of-doors boy, and confinement and forced inactivity were tortures to my youthful mind and body. As long as I Never a Dull Moment
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had something to occupy my brain and keep me busy I didn't mind; but I was far ahead of my classmates in many ways, and was held back to their level because of other studies, with the result that I had a great deal of idle time on my hands. For example, I knew more about geography than any of the pupils, or for that matter my teachers, and to be forced to waste time at lessons in something I already knew, aroused resentment in my heart. It was the same way with drawing. I could not remember when I had not been able to draw, and I not only possessed a natural talent as an artist, but, in connection with my locomotive and water wheel interests, I had become an excellent mechanical draughtsman. To be compelled to listen to the drawing teacher explain the use of triangles, T-squares, compasses etc., and to draw circles, arcs, squares and rectangles when I was quite capable of laying out a complete working plan of a locomotive or a sectional drawing of a turbine, "got my goat" as a modern boy would express it. So I amused myself by covering the paper on my drawing board with cartoons and caricatures of the old German "Professor" who taught the others how to draw. He was a queer looking old codger, with a long moth-eaten gray beard, long gray hair, a great red bulbous nose, and always wore a rusty, longtailed coat, with baggy trousers and a collar always many sizes too large for his neck; a perfect subject for caricaturing. But he couldn't see the humorous side to my sketches when, sneaking up, he peered through his thick glasses over my shoulder and saw himself as others saw him. In fact he flew into a terrible Teutonic fury and ordered me to report to the principal of the school. Fortunately the principal was a good scout, and not only knew his boys but also possessed a keen sense of humor, and although he tried to look severe his eyes betrayed him when he saw my cartoons of the "Herr professor". Even the outraged drawing teacher had to admit that he was wasting his time and mine in teaching me something which I already knew, and from that time on I was excused from drawing lessons. It was much the same with music. My elementary training had been in private schools where music was optional, and I hadn't the remotest idea of the meaning of scales, notes, keys or anything connected with music. Yet when I entered an advanced grade of the public school I was supposed to know how to read music, to draw staffs and notes on the blackboard, and even to sing, and was kept after school when I failed. Naturally I felt that this was rank injustice, and to "get even" with my teacher I plotted and schemed to bedevil her to my utmost. I filled the inkwells with plaster of Paris, I surreptitiously sprinkled carbon-bisulphide about the room, and I had a glorious time when I released three live mice in the midst of the music lesson. To that sour-faced teacher I was a really bad boy, an incorrigible. Luckily the superintendent of music was a jolly, good-natured, little old man, built on the Santa Claus model, and having talked with me in private and having tried out 98
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my musical capabilities - or lack of them - he informed my teacher that as I could not read a note, nor follow a tune nor keep a key, and my voice was hopeless, I might be excused from music thereafter. On the other hand, I was very fond of some of my teachers, and to them I was not only exemplary in my behavior but was regarded as a bright and shining light, a real “show” scholar, to be called upon whenever visitors or members of the Board of Education were present. In addition to my advanced knowledge of geography and drawing, I possessed a rather remarkable memory, and after reading a poem or a story a few times I could recite it word for word by heart. I remember one occasion when, as a part of our English lessons, we were studying the Skeleton In Armor, and were called upon in turn to recite a verse of the poem from memory. I shall never forget the amazement of my teacher when, as my turn came, I recited the entire poem from beginning to end. Yet for some psychological reason, I detested "declamation". I didn't in the least object to standing up and reciting a poem or verse or an oration as a part of the regular lessons; but to walk to the stage, make a bow and "speak a piece" filled my young soul with loathing and anger. As a result, I invariably selected some nonsensical or ridiculous piece, and on one memorable occasion I walked to the platform, bowed, and without a flicker of a smile convulsed the room by reciting: “Love all, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.” I was deeply interested in some studies and hated others. History appealed to me, and English history in particular. I liked spelling, but mathematics bored me, although later found geometry intensely interesting. When anything relating to scientific matters of natural history arose, I was always the first to answer a question, and for that matter knew a deal more about such subjects than any of the teachers. In fact one gentleman, who was the natural Science teacher in the High School, always consulted me before holding the class in order to be sure of not making some mistake; this being the result of my having corrected him on one occasion when he had made a glaring ornithological blunder during recitation. Latin bored me and Greek was worse. Not because I found them difficult. In fact Latin was quite easy, for I had a natural gift for "picking up" a language and could speak, write and read Spanish fairly fluently. But I couldn't see the sense in wasting time studying these exceedingly "dead" languages, and everlastingly reading about dividing Gaul into three parts, when there were so many more useful and interesting things to be learned. Moreover, I soon discovered that there was a difference of opinion as to how the Latin and Greek words should be pronounced, one teacher insisting that we must use the broad vowels and hard consonants, another taking just the opposite stand. Once a boy questions the infallibility of a teacher's knowledge he is as good as lost. On the whole, most of the pranks we played were really harmless, and while annoying to the teachers they usually had a funny side, and if they had been taken as jokes, instead of being treated seriously, a great deal of trouble Never a Dull Moment
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and ill feeling would have been avoided. There was one teacher at Hopkins Grammar school who realized this. He was a strict disciplinarian, a severe looking, rather crusty-appearing little man who, for some occult reason, was credited with extreme age, although as a matter of fact I doubt if he was over fifty. But he was absolutely just and fair in his dealings with the boys, and he did possess a real sense of humor. Once, I remember, I was surreptitiously looking at a comic post card on which was depicted a squalling baby with a revolver in one hand and a huge knife in the other, beneath which were the words "I want to be an angel." Absorbed in contemplation of the card, which another boy had passed to me, I was oblivious of the teacher’s noiseless approach, until standing behind me, he looked over my shoulder at the card and the silence of the room was broken by his announcing in a stentorian voice: “I want to be an angel.” Such an announcement from Mr. Ryder - for none of the boys realized that he was merely reading the line on the card - fairly brought down the house. For an instant he stared about severely, and then the humor of the situation dawning upon him he laughed as heartily as anyone and announced that we could have a five minute recess to recover from our hilarity. On another occasion I was whittling with my pocket knife at the lead bullet of a rifle shell, one of a number of shells discarded as imperfect by the rifle testers at Winchester's proving ground. Noticing that I was not studying but was busy with some object back of my desk, Mr. Ryder sternly commanded me to; "Put whatever you have in the fire." That particular room was heated by a huge cast iron stove and without a word of remonstrance or explanation, I rose walked to the stove, opened the door and tossing half a dozen cartridges into the fire, raced to my seat and ducked back of my desk. The next instant things began to happen. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the shells. The cover flew from the stove, the door burst open with a shower of sparks and red hot coals. A bullet whanged into the ceiling, and boys ducked hastily behind their desks. Even the teacher sought refuge back of his chair and crouched on the raised platform behind his table. Of course the fusillade lasted but a few moments, and no serious damage was done. When at last order was restored, Mr. Ryder sternly ordered me to stand. I expected dire punishment, and stood meekly awaiting sentence. For a moment he was silent, tapping his table with a pencil, biting his lips. Then at last: "Hereafter," he said, “You will kindly refrain from obeying all commands quite so literally. That is all." A teacher who could take a joke on himself in such a manner could not fail to win the respect and admiration of the boys, and despite his reputation for crankiness and severity, he was really liked by every boy in his classes. Very different was the principal of the school, or as he liked to call himself, the "Head Master", He was an enormously big man of the overgrown “baby-face” type, with an insufferable amount of self-conceit and absolutely out of sympathy with boys. His sole interests in life were studies; Latin and Greek 100
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were his gods, and he believed that any boy who could not find sufficient interest in life by reading Cicero and Caesar, or analyzing the classics of English and French literature, was a hopeless moron. With the exception of his own nephews, who were almost exact replicas of himself in mentality, psychology and point of view, I do not think that a boy in the school liked him. Moreover, he was a most overhearing creature who depended upon his gargantuan proportions to awe the boys, and as a result, he was constantly having trouble and we all delighted in playing tricks upon him. The school was heated by a hot-air furnace in the cellar, and on one occasion several of us boys cooked up a great scheme in connection with this. Surreptitiously boring holes through the floor beside our seats, we slipped strings through these and tied them to several bricks which we placed on top of the furnace between the hot-air pipes. In the midst of the next recitation a terrific racket came from the cellar. It sounded as if a regiment of ghosts were clanking their chains. Leaping to his feet the principal ordered one of his nephews to look after the class and rushed down the stairs, a two-foot rule in hand. Naturally no culprit could be found, and in the semi-darkness the bricks and the fine strings leading to them were not noticeable. Dusty, flustered and red-faced, he returned to the room and proceeded with the lessons. Scarcely had he started when again came the rattle and bang and clanking from below. Again he dashed down with murder in his eyes, but without result, and once more the hullabaloo followed. At last he was forced to dismiss the class, and as we very wisely removed all traces of strings and bricks he never solved the mystery of the ghostly noise. At another time one of us climbed to the belfry, cut the rope that rang the bell, and tied it with a light cord to a rafter. When the principal grasped the rope to ring the bell to summon us to our class rooms, the cord gave way at his first lusty pull and he fell sprawling and spluttering to the floor, much to the delight of all the boys present. I often wonder if my coterie of boy friends and myself were particularly given to getting into "hot water" or if all boys are the same, but I am inclined to believe that our little clique was exceptional, for compared to us the other boys of our times appeared to lead very humdrum lives. Very largely, I think, this was due to the fact that boys of similar likes and tendencies gravitated together, and that the half dozen with whom I was on particularly friendly terms were all of an adventurous experimental type, and fond of doing most unusual things. When a boy takes to experimenting nobody can possibly foresee the ultimate results, especially when the experiments take a chemical turn. I remember my father telling a story of a college student who, after having attended a series of lectures on chemistry, was asked what he had learned, and replied: "There are three kinds of gin. If you mix them together there is an explosion, a bad smell or else the experiment is a failure." Never a Dull Moment
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It was that way with us. When we dabbled with chemicals we almost always produced a bad smell, we very often had an explosion, and many times our experiments were total failures, Never will I forget the time when one of our crowd became interested in explosives and decided to try his hand at making gun-cotton. All went well, the ingredients were mixed without an explosion, and then came the problem of drying the product. Although Mort had messed about with the acids and the cellulose as carelessly and freely as though mixing sugar and water, he suddenly became fearful of the Frankenstein he had created, as it dawned upon him that he had enough explosive to blow him to pieces. So, to minimize the danger of an explosion as the gun-cotton dried, he very carefully placed a very small quantity of the mixture on each of a dozen or more stones that bordered the driveway through his yard to the barn. A few minutes later one of his uncle's lumber wagons drove into the yard. As one of the wheels happened to strike a stone there was a deafening report. The horses reared and plunged, the wagon swerved, and a second detonation followed, panic-stricken the horses bolted, the wheels bumped over the stones, and CRASH! Boom! Bang! - went Mort's home-made gun-cotton. For days the series of mysterious explosions were the absorbing topic of the neighborhood. No one could suggest a plausible explanation to account for them, and Mort very wisely refrained from mentioning his experiment. At another time one of the boys had a somewhat morbid desire to possess a human skull as an addition to the furnishings of his "den". Through an acquaintance who was a student at the Medical School, I managed to obtain the desired cranium, which, however, required. some little attention and cleaning before it was suitable for exhibition on Bert's book case. But Bert didn't mind that. He had prepared the skulls of defunct dogs, cats and other animals, and to him a skull was only a skull. In due course of time the specimen was clean and white, but it was still damp and Bert, seeking for some warm, dry spot, hit upon the oven of the kitchen range. It was quite late at night, the fire in the range had gone out, but the oven still remained warm. Expecting to remove the grisly thing very early the next morning, Bert placed it in the oven and went to bed. But unfortunately he overslept. Entering the kitchen the following morning, the cook lit the fire, mixed a pan of biscuits and opened the oven door. With a shriek that aroused the neighbors and brought the members of the household on the run she staggered back, and collapsed in a dead faint with her head reposing in the pan of dough. A good many of our pranks with the results that followed, were aimed at the "cranks", eccentrics and sour-faced, crusty individuals whom we considered our natural enemies and detested accordingly. For example there was one cranky old fellow who invariably ordered us away from the street in front of his house, and who scattered ashes on our slides in winter. Of course we retaliated by throwing snow-balls at his windows, whereupon he would come rushing out, a horsewhip in hand, and would chase us. This delighted us 102
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immensely, for there wasn't the least chance of him catching us, and as he dashed after one boy the others would bombard him with snowballs. One cold night we poured water on his front steps, and when a nice slippery sheet of ice had formed we lured him forth. As he stepped on the ice his feet flew from under him, he sat down with a jar that must have loosened his teeth, and bumped down the steps, while we screamed in derision and fiendish glee. There was another old curmudgeon who must have been born with a grouch against all the world. During the winter the avenue became the favorite place for sleighing, and hundreds of sleighs of all kinds and sizes, from the grocer's "pungs� to magnificent vehicles with prancing high-steppers wearing scarlet plumes and with the occupants protected against the cold with bear skin rugs, passed and repassed in a continual procession, while a clear space in the center of the thoroughfare was reserved for speeding and exciting races. Throngs lined the sidewalks and gathered at corners to watch the sport, and the sleighs, but old man Chidsey didn't want anyone standing in front of his store if he could prevent it. And he did his best to prevent it by throwing water, slops and soap suds on anyone who dared to approach within reach of his liquid projectiles. Of course, to us boys, that was a challenge which we lost no time in accepting, and war was declared. Whenever the old crank appeared he was welcomed with a shower of snowballs - and we took care to have them hardpacked or slushy, you may be sure - and so many of his windows were broken that he was forced to board them up in desperation. Our parents, of course, inflicted due punishment upon us when we overstepped the bounds and our victims complained of personal or property damage; but many times such things were purely accidental, and we invariably paid for windows which were broken by our baseballs, sling-shots or snowballs. Speaking of broken windows, recalls the time when boomerangs became a temporary fad. Usually we confined our boomerang throwing to the broad area of the city green or to the outlying fields; but my younger brother, feeling that he had mastered the art of the Australian aborigines, decided to exhibit his skill in the street before our house. But something went wrong, and the curved stick sailed across the avenue and crashed through the window of the home of two old maids, intending to apologize for the accident and to offer to pay for the broken pane, Clare hurried over. But before he could ring the bell one of the spinsters appeared with the boomerang grasped in her hand and with a tirade of abuse on the tip of her tongue. "You good-for-nothing boy!" she cried, "What do you mean by throwing sticks through my windows? I'll have you arrested if you don’t clear out. Now take that and get!" As she spoke, she hurled the boomerang at him. But instead of striking him as she had intended, the diabolical thing described a short arc, crashed through another of her windows, and amid a shower of broken glass issued from still another pane and fell to the ground. Clare picked up the boomerang Never a Dull Moment
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and grinned. "That's what you get for throwing a boomerang without knowing how," he observed to the dumbfounded woman as she flounced inside and slammed the door after her. At another time, Clare and some of the boys were throwing stones at a mark in the school yard when, as luck would have it, one of his missiles glanced and struck a man who happened to appear at exactly the wrong moment. The fellow staggered back, blood trickling from a wound on his forehead. Clare and the others hurried to his assistance, terrified for fear that he was seriously hurt. The wound fortunately didn’t amount to much, but my brother, realizing he was to blame, gave the man his address and told him to call at the house and he would be reimbursed for doctor’s bills and his injury. When Clare came home that afternoon he told of the incident, stating that he had accidentally hit a colored man with a stone, and that he had told the man to call. But when the fellow did call, with his head bandaged, and goodnaturedly declared that the wound didn't amount to anything and that he didn't feel that Clare was to blame, we discovered that instead of being a colored man he was a full blooded Pequot Indian. "Well, there's one good thing about it," announced Clare, "When I grow up I can tell my boys that when I was a boy there were so many Indians here that I couldn't throw a stone without hitting one of them."
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Chapter 15
1884 – 1885
The Young Naturalists
I was thirteen when I had my first gun. My elder brother and his friends were ardent amateur ornithologists, and I often accompanied them on their collecting trips, as well as when hunting game in the fall and winter. I had even been permitted to try my hand at shooting, when with George and the older boys, and of course I was crazy to have a gun of my own. Moreover, I had become enthusiastic, if not a more enthusiastic ornithologist than they, and as my father had taught me taxidermy, a gun was all I lacked before starting to make a bird collection of my own. I was a mighty happy youngster when, on my thirteenth birthday, my father presented me with a twelve-gauge, single-barrelled shot gun. There was only one fly in the ointment. Billy's mother had a horror of fire arms, and his parents refused to buy him a gun. However, as they had not forbidden him to use a gun, he solved the problem by purchasing a shot gun himself. And what a gun that was! Looking back upon it, I marvel that he wasn't killed or maimed for life. The limited pocket money at his disposal didn’t permit him to buy a breech-loader, and the weapon he bought was a cheap, ancient, single-barrelled muzzle-loader with a cranked and patched stock, a lock which could never be depended upon to work, a barrel not much thicker or better than tin, and no half-cock for the hammer. As the trigger could never be trusted to hold the hammer at full cock for firing, Billy used the antique fire-arm by drawing back the hammer and releasing it with his thumb. Moreover, as he was obliged to keep his possession a secret, he kept the gun hidden in a hollow tree in the woods, a course which naturally did not improve its condition. Eventually he wheedled his parents into getting him a fine, doublebarreled breech-loader, but for a year or more he used the old death-trap and secured many a specimen for his collection. Eventually, he became so accustomed to it, and so expert in its use, that he could bring down birds on the wing with amazing skill, possibly luck was with us, perhaps we were more skilled in woodcraft and knew more of wild life than my brother and the older boys, or possibly we possessed that inexplicable instinct essential to the successful field-naturalist. Whatever the reason, Billy and I managed somehow to secure many more rare specimens than our older rivals, and very soon our collections far excelled theirs. As always, there was a keen but friendly rivalry between Billy and my self, and when one secured some especially rare bird he made life miserable for the other until the situation was reversed. Never a Dull Moment
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I shall never forget the time, when, in a blinding snow storm, I tramped for miles along the sea shore and across the sedge-grown sand-dunes, facing a bitterly cold gale, half frozen, but urged on by the feeling that I might find some rare stragglers from the far north. And how elated I was when I secured two Maynard’s sparrows, the first ever taken in the state. But my joy was nothing compared to Billy's envy, until he secured another rarity to offset my "find." Today amateur ornithologists and oologists are frowned upon. For a boy to collect specimens of birds and their eggs is considered little less than criminal, and is forbidden by strict laws. No doubt it is an excellent and praiseworthy thing to protect our birds from the destruction which would be wrought by indiscriminate slaughter and the robbery of nests which would result were boys given free rein to "Collect", for the average boy would merely destroy bird life as a passing fad and would add nothing to the cause of science or our knowledge of ornithology or oology. But in my younger days it was very different. Billy and I, as well as most of the other boys who collected, were really seriously interested in the subject, and several of them, among others Dr. Louis B. Bishop and Dr. Leonard Sanford have become world-famous ornithologists. Moreover, in those days there was comparatively little known regarding our avifauna and the nesting habits of many birds, and we added immeasurably to the cause of science by our collecting. Many first records were established by us boys, and some of the rarities we secured still remain as the only specimens known from certain localities. As for my self, my youthful interest and experience in ornithology led to many scientific expeditions to the West Indies and South and Central America, where I obtained invaluable collections and a number of species of birds new to science. Moreover, our search for rare birds and eggs resulted in our acquiring a wonderful knowledge of woodcraft and of natural history, and developed a keenness of observation, a skill with fire arms and marksmanship which we would never have acquired otherwise. As both Billy and my self had been reared in a scientific atmosphere, we were interested in every phase of Natural History, and although primarily we were intent on collecting birds, we found almost as great an interest in the plants, trees, insects, minerals, quadrupeds and reptiles we found on our woodland tramps. We collected land and fresh water shells and added not a little to the conchology of the region. We found a number of batrachians and amphibians never before recorded from our district, as well as several new species. We discovered plants, especially orchids, and even trees which local botanists had failed to find, and my entomological collection, which started as a side issue but later developed into an absorbing study, added immeasurably to the scientific knowledge of many insects and their life histories. Even during the late spring and summer, when collecting birds was taboo, we spent practically all our spare time in the woods, often making trips to 106
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remote areas of forest, climbing mountains and pioneering through swamps. We both possessed exploratory instincts and this led us to a very dangerous but wholly delightful and thrilling undertaking. A few miles from town there was an area of quagmires, bogs, stagnant, black water and dense thickets known as Beaver Swamp. Although so near at hand, and less than a mile in width, yet no one had ever had penetrated its depths or had crossed from one side to the other, it was forbidding in appearance and had a sinister reputation; its quagmires were reputed to be bottomless and even in winter its ominous sloughs, pools and bogs remained open and dangerous. To Billy and myself the place presented an irresistible attraction. Here was an opportunity to actually explore, to penetrate an utterly unknown spot. Merely because it covered an area of scarcely two square miles did not lessen its lure in the least. It was an utterly deserted place in those days - although now drained and filled and transformed to solid land covered with houses – and the only person dwelling in the vicinity of the swamp was a strange and forbidding character known as the "Dead Horse Man", owing to the fact that he eked out a livelihood by carting away dead equines. These he stripped of hides, hoofs, manes and tails which he sold to tanneries, glue factories and other industries. He dwelt in a miserable shack constructed of odds and ends of old packingcases, bits of rusty tin and burlap bags, near the edge of the swamp. The hovel was surrounded by a bare, black mucky field whereon were scattered scores of dead horses, some reduced to bleached skeletons, others in all stages of decomposition, with flocks of croaking, cawing crows and dozens of snarling stray curs feeding on the decaying flesh and entrails. It was a dismal, fearsome place, and Billy and I always gave it a wide berth, partly because of the unbearable stench that surrounded it like a wall, but largely on account of its occupant, whom we regarded as a sort of ogre, a really dangerous, villainous being quite capable of murdering us and adding our corpses to the collection of defunct horses scattered about his premises. No doubt our dread of The Dead Horse Man was without reason or foundation. For all I know to the contrary he was an honest, entirely law-abiding and harmless fellow who earned a few dollars by such a repulsive and odorous means through necessity rather than choice. But there were ugly rumors in circulation, he dwelt alone, shunned by his fellow men, and he was a villainous-looking character: tall and gaunt with an unkempt bushy black beard and tangled snaky black hair, and lowering brows. He wore high cowhide boots, his clothes were a mess of rags and patches, and he was filthy beyond words; and he had a most disconcerting habit of staring at us with a diabolical leer on his hairy face whenever we chanced within sight of him. As I have said, The Dead Horse Man was the only person dwelling near the swamp, and the worst of it was that the particular spot which appeared to present the best chances for our explorations was uncomfortably close to the Never a Dull Moment
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fellow's shack. As keen as we were to carry out our determination to cross the morass, we didn't at all relish the idea of trespassing on his domain in order to do so. I don't know for how long we discussed and argued and considered the question of exploring the swamp and of how to go about it. But it must have been at least several weeks, and day after day we surveyed the area from dry land on either side, circled it, probed the mud, and pools about its borders, before finally determining upon our line of procedure. At the widest point in the desolate spot there was a good-sized clump of fairly large birch and maple trees rising above the jungle of alders, swamp elders, hazel and other bushes. There, we agreed, there must be fairly solid ground in order to support the trees; a sort of island in the midst of the morass, and we decided to attempt to cross the first portion of the swamp and reach the clump of trees, and then, if all went well, to continue across the quagmires beyond. It was a really dangerous and rather a hare-brained scheme, for had anything gone wrong; and we had slipped or fallen into the water or the slimy black mud, no one would ever have known what became of us and, possibly, the old Dead Horse Man would have been suspected of having done away with us. But luckily all went well. Armed with long poles and with hatchets, we approached the verge of the swamp where dry land ended and black mud, covered with a few inches of black water, stretched away between tussocks of slippery wiry grass. To attempt to jump from tussock to tussock was, we knew, courting disaster, for the tussocks were loose and wobbled at a touch, and a slip meant plunging into the mud which, even if not actually bottomless, was over twenty feet in depth, as we ascertained by means of our poles. But we had no intention of attempting the passage by such methods. In a neighboring patch of woods we had cut a number of saplings which we carried to the edge of the swamp, one of these we now pushed forward across the tussocks and steadying myself with my pole, I moved slowly and cautiously out on this. It was slippery, unsteady and it bent horribly under my weight; but I managed to keep my balance. Then Billy pushed a second sapling within my reach, and with considerable difficulty, and in danger of plunging into the morass, I shoved this forward across the tussocks. A third sapling followed, and Billy came slowly feeling his way out. Edging forward, I stood on the outermost sapling while Billy on the second, lifted the first and shoved it along until I could grasp it. Sliding this onward I walked out upon it and again Billy pushed the last sapling to me. In this way, laying a sort of creeping bridge as it were, we proceeded gradually across the swamp toward our objective. But had we realized either of what a terrible undertaking it was to prove I don't think either of us would have attempted it. It is impossible to adequately describe our sensations as we stood there, balancing ourselves precariously on slender saplings, surrounded by ominous black pools and slimy 108
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bottomless mud, in the midst of the morass. But to go back would have been as hard as to go forward and little by little we approached the thick bushes with the trees in the center of the swamp. And how thankful we were when at last the brush was within our reach, and stepping from the slippery saplings, we found a fairly firm and dry foothold among the alders. The next minute our hearts fell, as pushing through the shrubbery we came to a wide slough of open water. There, on the further side, perhaps twenty-five feet distant, was the little island we had counted upon, with its maples and birch trees. But how could we cross that black, ominous moat? For a time it looked as if we would be forced to retrace our dangerous route and abandon our attempts to cross the swamp. But we were not the kind of boys to be easily vanquished, and we were resourceful youngsters. Suddenly an idea occurred to me. Perhaps it would be possible to lash the saplings together and cross the slough on them. We invariably carried stout twine on all our trip, and with this we lashed the tips of two saplings together. Next we bound the third one to the others with the center where the others joined. Then, raising the makeshift bridge as nearly upright as possible, we let it fall across the strip of open water. But would it bear our weight? Could we edge our way across without falling? And which one of us would be the first to settle these highly important questions? We decided to draw lots and Billy drew the short straw. Taking off his shoes and stockings, steadying himself with his pole, he started across. I held my breath for the sapling bridge bent threateningly as he moved forward, and his pole offered little support in the soft peat at the bottom of the water. It was like walking a slack wire, and when he reached the center the saplings bent until they were several inches under water. But the worst was over. A birch tree leaned outward from the shore of the island, its drooping branches were within reach of Billy’s hand, and with these to steady him he quickly covered the remaining distance and stood safely on dry land. Once there, the rest was comparatively easy, for Billy quickly felled the birch tree, which reached to my side of the stream, and with this to steady me I crossed easily enough. We were delighted with our success. We felt like real explorers as we stood there in the very heart of the swamp, upon an island where, as far as we knew, no other person had ever trod. And what a fine little island it was! Perhaps half an acre in area, it was high and dry, with miniature jungles of ferns and low bushes, with numerous trees, with a little grassy glade in the center, and completely surrounded and isolated by wide, deep sloughs and stagnant pools. A sudden idea of transforming into a secret refuge came to us. We would build a camp on our island and keep it a secret, and spend our time there whenever we felt like it. But we had no intention of crossing the quagmire in the way we had done as a regular thing. We would devise some better means of doing that, and we would make a safe and easy bridge across the slough. This last was not difficult. With our hatchets we felled a good sized maple tree across the strip of water, and by trimming the branches to leave short stubs as hand-holds, we had Never a Dull Moment
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a simple but easily traversed foot-bridge. Then we discussed ways and means of crossing the swamp without danger and without constructing a permanent footway over which others might reach our secret island. At length we hit upon the scheme of making two ladder-like affairs of poles which would be strong enough to support our combined weights, which would be light enough to handle, and which would be wide and steady enough to afford a fairly safe and easy pathway. Once we had decided on this we busied ourselves putting our ideas into practice. By lashing cross-pieces to three poles about twelve feet in length, and fastening lighter poles over these, we made two sections of movable pathway. Long before these were completed we had exhausted our supply of twine, but twisted willow withes and bark, tough birch roots and wild grape vines answered our purposes, and crossing our tree-trunk-bridge we tested the new contrivances and found them satisfactory in every way. Then we started building our camp abandoning all ideas of crossing the farther side of the swamp for the present. When at last the sinking sun warned us it was high time to leave, we had our little lean-to shack well started. The return to dry land was easy, and hiding our mobile bridges among the thick bushes we turned our steps homeward filled with elation at our success and impatient to return to our secret lair. We had a glorious time on our little island in swamp. We spent entire days there, cooking our meals over our camp fire, exploring the neighboring portions of the swamp, adding improvement and comforts to our shack. One day we came upon a family of gallinules in a secluded pool. There was the father and mother and eight chicks and either because no one had ever before intruded upon privacy, or for some other reason, they were ridiculously tame and showed no signs of fear when we approached within a few yards and watched them swimming about, the chicks often climbing upon their parents' backs, and getting a free ride. Bird life was abundant in the depths of the swamp and on the island, and several species which we had not seen elsewhere were nesting there. Also, we found several orchids which had not been recorded from the district. But the best of it was the "kick" we got out of the secrecy and isolation of our camp, and the fact that we were the first persons to visit the island. Not until Billy left for his vacation in the Berkshires did we abandon our island camp. It was not much fun for me to go there alone, and none of the other boys were of the type to enjoy it. Then I became acquainted with a boy who seemed the right sort, and telling him of our secret camp, I suggested we should visit it and thereby very nearly lost my life. When I looked for the movable bridge that Billy and I had hidden I found that someone had cut down the bushes and the things had vanished. But I had crossed the morass so many times that I had lost all fear of its dangers, and decided to repeat our first feat of crossing to the island on single poles. As there were no saplings on hand I requisitioned a couple of rails from a fence and started off, while Earl stood on the shore declaring that it would take more than a secret island to tempt him on such a journey. Perhaps I was careless, 110
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perhaps the fence rail turned under me, or perhaps, with Earl talking to me, I did not concentrate sufficiently upon what I was doing. Whatever the cause, my feet slipped, I struggled wildly to regain my balance, and the next instant plunged into the inky-black mud and water. Down through the soft ooze I sank, and never will I forget the awful, terrible sensation of feeling myself being drawn down, held helpless in that tenacious horrible mud. It was impossible to move, impossible to struggle. I was held as if in the vise-like grip of some paralyzing nightmare. And slowly inexorably I was being sucked down. I yelled in terror, I clutched madly at tussocks of grass, I shouted for Earl to come to my rescue; to shove a pole, a stick, one of the rails within my reach. But the boy was so dazed with terror at my predicament that he was utterly incapable of action, and merely stood there, wide-eyed, white-faced, speechless. Down, down, I went. I felt that the end had come, that in a moment more my head would be drawn under, that I would myself choking, gasping in that bottomless mud. And then, just as the ooze gurgled about my throat, one of my hands grasped the fence rail. With all my strength I struggled to draw my self free. For a moment it seemed as the sucking mud would win. And then, little by little, inch at a time, I felt my self gaining. At last I managed to get my arms over the rail. I worked my body forward and free, and finally, utterly exhausted and spent, I drew my feet and legs from the clutching mud. But it was a mighty close shave and it filled me with such a loathing fear and hatred of the swamp that never again did I attempt to cross it, and our camp on the secret island remained deserted and forgotten. Surely there must have been a special Providence watching over us boys, for we certainly tempted Fate with our crazy-headed, foolhardy and dangerous activities. Our exploration of Beaver Swamp was one such hazardous stunt, yet it was not nearly as risky as some of the other things that we did. Our lives, during our teens, were living proofs of the old adage that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread," for no one but a fool or a boy, would have rushed into perilous undertakings with the assurance and equanimity that we did. Yet we usually came through unscathed, though how we escaped disaster will always remain a mystery to me. I was about thirteen when I decided that it would be a fine thing to have a canoe in which to paddle about the lakes and rivers. As I could not save enough money to purchase a birch bark canoe, or a wooden canoe, which were the only types then available, and as I had always made whatever I wanted and couldn't buy, I decided to build a canoe. At that particular time my closest friend, (Billy being abroad) was Fred Norman, who was as enthusiastic over my idea as I was myself. As a matter of fact neither of us had the least idea how a canoe was built, but that didn't phase us in the least, and we a set to work. We had neither plans, drawings, nor a model, aside from plans I had in my mind, and the craft Never a Dull Moment
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was built by rule of thumb. That at all is the most surprising feature of our undertaking yet after several weeks work on my carpenter’s bench, we had a framework which unquestionably was that of a canoe. The next step was to cover it with canvas, and as that proved a far more difficult feat than the construction of keel, ribs and the rest of the frame, I enlisted the services of the neighborhood shoemaker. When at last the home-made craft was completed, and had been painted a bright Yale blue, we were as proud as could be of our handiwork. Yet I have to chuckle whenever I recall the craft. It was barely twelve feet in length, it was a semi-circle in section, its bow and stern were lower than amidships, it’s keel was far from straight, the canvas covering was wrinkled and loose in places, and I had decked it over, leaving an opening barely large enough for two boys to squeeze into. A friendly expressman agreed to transport the crazy craft to the lake for a small fee, and arriving at the lake’s shores, Fred and I lifted the contraption from the wagon and launched it. But to our utter dismay the thing refused to float on a level keel. Instead, it tilted far to one side, and when I attempted to embark it promptly upset. Very obviously, we decided it required ballast; and as the only material available was sand, we proceeded to shovel damp sand into our canoe, until at last it floated properly, although the weight of the sand brought it so low in the water that there were barely six inches of freeboard. And when Fred and I had crowded ourselves into the tiny cockpit, the deck was within three inches of the water. Today I wouldn’t venture fifty yards from shore in such a death trap, unless compelled by dire necessity. Yet, for months, Fred and I paddled across the lake, a distance of more than two miles from shore to shore, we navigated its entire length of more than six miles, we explored swamps full of submerged snags, any one of which would have ripped our canvas covered craft and would have sent us to the bottom had we fouled one; and we ascended several rivers. The craft leaked abominably, with the result that most of the time we sat in water, and every little while we would be forced to land, drag the canoe ashore, dump out the water and ballast and put in new ballast. But as we had abandoned loose sand in favor of canvas bags filled with sand, this wasn't such a slow or difficult undertaking. The worst, or rather the most dangerous, feature of our canoeing was the fact that I couldn't swim, and Fred was by no means an expert or powerful swimmer. But I doubt if swimming would have helped us any, for if we had capsized or sunk we never could have wriggled free in time to save our lives. But we never did capsize, we never hit a snag, and we had a glorious time in our home-made apology for a canoe. Dangerous as it was, yet it was splendid training for us. Never was there a crankier craft afloat, and a person who could keep that canoe right side up and could paddle it and could embark and disembark without upsetting it, was capable of handling any type of canoe ever constructed. In fact when I finally had an opportunity to purchase a real 112
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Indian birch canoe, and tried it out, it seemed as steady and as safe as a wooden skiff in comparison with the canoe Fred and I were accustomed to. While I found keen enjoyment in the light, buoyant, easily handled Indian craft, and in many another canoe I have had since then yet now as I recall the past, it seems to me that I got a lot more fun out of that lop-sided, misshapen product of my own hands than from any other canoe I have ever owned.
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Chapter 16
1886
By the Seashore
One summer which I will always recall with pleasure, was spent with my younger brother and a boy friend, Eckfort DeKay, at Woods Hole, where father had built a little bungalow-camp for our use. It had one large living room and bed room combined, a lean-to kitchen, and was on a hillside a mile or more from the village, in the midst of rolling brushy fields sloping down to the shore of Buzzard’s Bay half a mile from our camp. As our nearest neighbor was a local minister, who lived several hundred yards distant, we had the place all to our selves. There was plenty to amuse us and keep us busy. We could tramp through the woods, go rowing or fishing, or visit the wharves and the fishing boats. Then there were the laboratories and aquaria of the Fish Commission, occasional voyages to sea on the FISH HAWK or ALBATROSS, and frequent short trips on the Fish Commission launches to Gay Head, Naushon, Penikese or other places. Moreover, I was collecting birds, and hardly a day passed when I failed to secure some rare shore bird to add to my collections. Oddly enough, my ornithological enthusiasm resulted in my learning to swim that summer. Although I could shoot, ride, skate, ski, row, paddle a canoe or sail as well, if not better, than any of my boy friends, yet for some inexplicable reason I never had been able to learn to swim. I had tried and tried in both salt water and fresh, but unsuccessfully. I simply could not master the trick. And then, quite by accident and entirely unconsciously, I learned to swim. We were walking along the shore looking for specimens, when a curlew rose from beside a tide-pool and flew in a half-circle over the water. It was a long shot, but the bird was very rare and I might never have another chance, so I fired, and to my delight the curlew dropped. It fell some distance from shore, but the water was shallow, and kicking off my shoes, I waded out to secure my prize. The tide was ebbing, however, and the wind was blowing off shore, and as I splashed deeper and deeper into the water, the bird drifted farther and farther away. The water rose to my waist, to my armpits, but still I kept on, And then, suddenly, there was no bottom under my feet and to my utter amazement I discovered that I actually was swimming! Not swiftly or skillfully of course, but never the less keeping afloat and making progress. In fact I was so self confident of my suddenly acquired ability to swim that I struck boldly out recovered the bird, and holding it in my teeth, swam back until my feet touched bottom. From that time on I had no difficulty in swimming, and while I never became a powerful or long distance swimmer I became very fond of swimming, especially under water. But, my brother Clare, who learned to swim at Woods Hole that same summer, developed into a marvelous swimmer, a collage champion in fact, and 114
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yet he was drowned at sea when the steamship PRINCESS SOPHIA struck on the rocks and went down between Alaska and British Columbia. I often feel that the poor swimmer or non-swimmer has a better chance of being saved than does the powerful expert swimmer in many cases, for the latter will take chances that the former will not risk. First and last a number of my boyhood friends have been drowned, and in every case those who were lost were strong swimmers, while others who were involved in the same accidents, but who were indifferent swimmers, were saved. It’s a wonderful advantage to be able to swim, it affords a lot of sport and enjoyment, and nowadays it is rare to find a boy who cannot swim. But no matter how good a swimmer a person may be, my advice is to hold fast to anything that will float and not trust to one's skill as a swimmer when one's life depends upon it. One of our favorite haunts at Woods Hole was the guano factory. It was about the dirtiest, worst smelling place it is possible to imagine, but whenever a vessel arrived with a cargo of phosphate to be converted into fertilizers, we boys would hurry over, for the broken rock was a veritable treasure-trove of fossils. Most abundant of these were fossil shark teeth, some of which were enormous and there was keen rivalry to see who would secure the largest tooth. Ultimately Eckfort DeKay was the winner, when he found a giant tooth nearly six inches in length. In fact it was the largest tooth ever found, and as it was a really valuable specimen he presented it to my father. Quite often we made trips on the FISH HAWK or ALBATROSS, but these deep sea journeys were an old story to us, and although we were always interested in the strange creatures brought up in the dredges and trawls, we found far more entertainment in visiting the fishing schooners and listening to the sailor's yarns. There was one man in particular who was a deep-water seaman and who became a great friend of ours, and who often came out and spent an evening with us at our camp. He had been through so much and had had so many adventures that it wasn't necessary for him to draw on his imagination in order to tell thrilling stories. It fact it was little short of miraculous that he was still alive. On one occasion he had fallen from aloft and had struck on the edge of an open barrel, cutting his side wide open. The vessel was on the Grand Banks at the time, and the skipper had sewed up the wound with a sail needle and thread, using oakum as a bandage. The rough and ready surgery had proved successful, and our sailor friend proudly exhibited the ghastly scar with the marks left by the big three-cornered sail needle still plainly visible. On another occasion he had been desperately ill with fever on a West Indian island, and the doctor had left a dozen pills, one to be taken every hour, at his bedside. "Must ha thought I was a dumb fool to stay awake watchin’ the clock for twelve hours just to take them pills," he declared as he told us the yarn. "So I just took the lot to one time and went to sleep. Slept clean through for thirty-six hours, I did, and woke up cured. Reckon he was a pretty good doctor at that." Never a Dull Moment
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But the fishermen and their stories of adventures on the Banks were not one half as interesting or thrilling as the Old New Bedford whalemen and their yarns of the deep sea. We often went across to New Bedford, for whenever a whaleship came in my father would send a launch across Buzzard's Bay with a party of scientists to collect specimens when the ship's bottom was scraped. At the end of a four years' cruise, the whaleships’ bottoms would be covered with marine growths many inches in thickness, and often with corals or sea fans a foot or more in height. Some of the rarest of marine specimens were obtained from this source, and while the naturalists were collecting, we boys would wander about the docks, visiting the big greasy ships and listening openeyed to the amazing stories of grizzled old captains, swarthy Portuguese harpooners and leather-faced mates and boat-steerers. In those days, whaling was still an important and lucrative industry. The New Bedford wharves were busy spots littered with hundreds of great barrels filled with whale oil and spermaceti, with immense bundles of whalebone, with vast piles of ships' stores, and with trucks, drays and throngs of men rattling and rumbling, shouting and cursing as they discharged ships just in, or loaded the barks and schooners fitting out for a cruise to the Arctic or Antarctic, the South Pacific or the tropics. Alongside the docks were always a dozen or more whaling vessels, mostly ships, barks and brigs; some with towering masts and vast crossed yards rising high above the waterfront buildings; others with yards sent down and only the short stumpy lower masts standing ready to be "hove down” or careened for cleaning and painting in readiness for the next voyage. It was fascinating to watch a great, wall-sided, bluff-bowed ship hove-down by means of tackle attached to her lower mast-heads, and tipped over until one side of her hull was horizontal and her bottom was fully exposed. But it was more fascinating to go aboard a newly arrived ship and sit in the captain's snug cabin with its bunk hung on gimbels, its swinging lamp, its simple but comfortable furnishings, and see all the odd curios and souvenirs the skipper and mates had brought back from their cruise. Savage weapons from the South Sea islands, weird, ugly idols from New Guinea or Borneo; stuffed birds and albatross eggs from Kerguelan or South Georgia, silver and gold trinkets from Bali, twin coconuts from the Scheylles; corals and sea shells from here, there and everywhere and always the beautiful "scrimshawed" whales' teeth, the jaggingwheels carved from whale teeth or walrus tusk ivory, the chessmen of ivory and mother-of-pearl which the whalemen had made during their long hours and days of leisure as their ship aimlessly sailed about searching for sperm or bowheads and awaiting the welcome bellow of “She blows!" from the lookout at the masthead. But, best of all, were the whalemens’ stories. Stories of mutinies and of cannibals, of the strange colony of descendants of the "BOUNY" mutineers at Pitcairn Island. Tales of thrilling battles with giant whales, of in tropical hurricanes and typhoons, of being frozen in for long months in the far north, or of the gigantic sea-elephants and vast penguin and albatross rookeries on the South Shetlands or Desolation Island. Moreover, these were all true, for whalemen led lives so filled with daring, adventure and 116
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strange experiences that they had no need to embroider their yarns with fiction or imagination. Their stories were merely the narratives of incidents of their voyages, and were all set down in due form, but in quaint phraseology, with pen and ink illustrations, or even colored sketches on the margins of the pages in their journals and logs. There was one captain who had sailed his ship backward around Cape Horn, and who told of the feat much as he would have told of reefing topsails to a northeaster off Hatteras. Another had quelled a mutiny by "heading up" the ringleaders in oil casks, and feeding them through the bungholes for a week. Still another had fought twenty men single-handed, although his only weapon was a belaying pin and the mutineers were armed with lances, harpoons, blubber spades and knives, and had vanquished them. In fact, as he put it; “Only three men were fit for service� when the battle was over. But the stories we boys liked the best were the accounts of "going in" on the whales and of killing them. In those days the modern bomb-lances and gun-harpoons were unknown. The whales were captured by "hand irons", harpoons hurled by hand at the monsters, the boats "going in" on the whale until within a few yards of the giant creatures. Then, when the lines were "fast", there was the thrilling, exciting chase with the frail thirty-five foot boats being towed at express train speed by the terrified, angered leviathan as he strove to escape or, as often happened, turned and attacked the boat with thrashing, death-dealing tail or giant crashing teeth-filled jaws. And finally there was the most tense and dangerous moment of all when with the monstrous cetacean weary and resting at the surface of the sea, the boat would be paddled in until within a few feet of the whale, and the mate would drive his lance into the creature's heart. As the old veterans of the whaling game told us of boats stove, of men actually battling the wounded whales when tossed into the sea, of boats bitten to pieces by wounded and infuriated sperm whales, it seemed to us boys that the life of whalemen must be the most glamorous, exciting and adventurous career in the world —as it was. We never thought of the other side of the picture, of the filth and hardships, the drudgery of "cutting in" and trying out the blubber, the miserable food and the monotony of whaling. And today, with the old Yankee whaleship scarcely more than a memory of the past, with all but one or two old time whaling skippers gone to the last port, only the adventurous and spectacular and romantic side of the lost industry lives in the public mind. Also, at the time of which I speak, a number of the Gay Head Indians still survived, and trips to the southern end of Martha's Vineyard with the gay colored bluffs that gave Gay Head its name, were always most interesting. In those days the Vineyard had not become the popular summer resort it is today, and the island was largely a wilderness with the population confined to Cottage City and Vineyard Haven and the Indian settlement at Gay Head. Another interesting locality we visited in the Fish Commission launches was No Man's Never a Dull Moment
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Land that tiny islet off the tip of Martha's Vineyard which, in those days, was populated by a strange community of deaf mutes. Through inter marriage, the affliction had become almost universal, and while some of the inhabitants could talk intelligently and would hear as well as anyone, the majority were as deaf as the proverbial post and could merely gabble meaningless sounds. Sometimes the Fish Commission vessels went even farther, and we made trips to Nantucket and even to Block Island, while visits to Naushon, Penikese and the other Elizabeth Islands were so frequent that we soon tired of them. But we never tired of watching the sharks in the big concrete basins at the Fish Commission's docks. There was something indescribably fascinatingly sinister about these monsters as they swam lazily about turning cold, cruel, calculating eyes at us as if mentally measuring the chances of our falling into the water within reach of their jaws. Although Captain Edwards, and the scientists, and also my Father, assured us that these particular sharks were harmless and were not "man-eaters", we were mighty careful to keep from falling in and testing the appetites of the ugly creatures. I think my hatred and horror of sharks, dates from that summer, although Commander Schley's story of his narrow escape from death by a shark may have had something to do with it. Also we boys soon discovered that while the specialists on sharks scoffed at danger of the beasts, and belittled stories of sharks attacking human beings, not one of the supposed authorities was ready to prove his contentions by jumping into the water where the sharks were confined. I remember on one occasion, when one of the scientists, was pooh-poohing the idea of sharks’ man-eating propensities to a leather-faced whaleman from Nantucket, the latter drew a roll of bills from his pocket and offered to bet the naturalist one hundred dollars he wouldn't dare jump in and swim for five minutes among the sharks. But the scientific gentleman wouldn't take the bet, even when the old whaleman raised it to three hundred dollars. Of course we had lots of fun by ourselves, for we could go rowing whenever we felt like it, there were woods and brushy pastures in which to wander, we could go swimming or fishing, and we had lots of fun with bows and arrows which we bought from some Indians who had made a temporary camp, and sold baskets, beadwork and moccasins, as well as miniature canoes and other Indian curios. The bows and arrows offered were mere toys, but one of the young men made us three very powerful hickory bows and some real hunting arrows. Of course most of our "hunting" with the primitive weapons was purely imaginary, and we tested our skill at archery on clumps of weeds, juniper bushes or paper targets. But we did make a kill with the primitive weapons on one occasion. Somewhere in the vicinity of our camp a skunk had taken up its abode and had made its presence disagreeably known. In fact the beast had raided our lean-to kitchen, although it always managed to keep out of sight when we went skunk hunting with our guns. And then, one night, as we were returning to camp armed only with our bows and arrows, a black and white creature scuttled 118
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across the narrow path through the brush and squatted in the shelter of a bush as if daring us to approach closer. Without stopping to consider consequences, Clare fitted an arrow to his bow string and fired. In the dim dusky light we saw the arrow strike and prepared for the worst. But to our relief the beast gave a single bound and fell motionless. Very cautiously we approached, and discovered that the "Skunk" Clare had so neatly killed was a big black and white cat belonging to our nearest neighbor, the minister! Of course we might have tossed the defunct feline into the bushes and no one would have been the wiser; but Clare insisted that as he had killed the creature he would deliver the carcass to its owner and explain matters. But if he had foreseen the tirade of abuse and maledictions with which he was greeted when he knocked on the reverend's door and presented the remains, I am sure that the cat's fate would have remained a dark secret known only to us three. In vain Clare attempted to explain that he had mistaken the cat for a skunk. The irate parson refused to listen, and became so abusive that at last Clare lost patience, and tossing the dead cat at its owner's feet, declared that he was glad he had killed the beast, that it had been a nuisance, that it had been killing the song birds and raiding our larder, and that personally he preferred a skunk to a cat any day. A few days later we had our revenge, for the minister, when returning from the village one evening, and seeing what he thought was a cat beside the road approached it calling "Kitty! Kitty!”, only to be greeted with what might have been expected from a self-respecting skunk who had been mistaken for a cat. And what fiendish delight we boys took in calling “Kitty! Kitty!" “Nice kitty!” whenever the Reverend passed our camp thereafter.
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Chapter 17
1885
Summer in the White Mountains
I was fourteen years old when, with Fred Norman, I spent an eventful summer camping, fishing and hunting in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. That was over sixty-five years ago, and the White Mountains were not at all the White Mountains of today. They were still wild and were covered with dense primeval forests never penetrated by others than trappers, hunters, and woodsmen. There were few summer visitors or tourists, the only hotels were the Crawford House, Fabyans and a few others. Few of the localities so popular today, were reached by railway, and lumbering four and six-horse stage coaches traversed the narrow, rutty, earth roads. Bear, deer, lynx and wildcats were common, even close to the settlements; there were marten, mink, fisher and other fur-bearing animals in abundance, and every stream teemed with trout. To be sure, the rack-and-pinion railway had been built to the summit of Mt. Washington, and the single little car was pushed slowly up the slope by the strange, wood-burning locomotive with tiny driving wheels, an enormous smoke stack, and with a boiler set at an acute angle so that it would be level when climbing the steep grade. But the Tip Top House was merely a shack to serve as temporary shelter, and to visit the top of Mt. Washington was considered quite a feat, a real event in one's life. Our adventures really began when I was robbed of all my money by a pickpocket in Portland. Then, when we reached the end of the railway, we found there was no means of conveyance to our destination. So there was nothing for us but to tramp for fifteen miles over a strange road in the darkness to the house where we were to stay. To add to our troubles before we had tramped five miles, a terrific thunder shower came up which drenched us to the skin. The loungers about the railway station had told us that it was fifteen miles "more or less"; but it seemed to us that we had walked fifty miles through the black night before we saw a glimmer of light across the river. Cautiously picking our way over a narrow foot-bridge, we reached the house and to our vast relief found we were at the end of our journey. Gosh, maybe we weren't tired and hungry? And didn't the food taste good! Trout from the brook that burbled past the house, fresh, creamy milk, crisp ham and mounds of potatoes, and great bowls of freshly picked blueberries. But the bread! For some unknown reason, these mountain people never baked raised bread. They could make delicious pastry, they baked excellent soda biscuit, but a loaf of bread never appeared, and as a substitute they served heavy, greasy “pan bread� fried in a skillet. So accustomed did Fred and I become to this indigestible stuff that 120
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when, on one occasion, we stopped at a house where there was raised bread, we were both deathly sick after eating it. Dave Dolloff, the man at whose home we were staying, was a farmertrapper-guide-woodsman-fisherman-blacksmith; in short a mountain Jack of-alltrades and master of all. Throughout the mountains he was famed for his bear traps which he made on his anvil in his little forge. He had the best tilled and most prosperous farm in the district; he was admittedly the best woodsman and guide in the mountains, and the fact that he was given the contract of supplying the hotels with trout proved his fishing ability. He was a rather small man, stoop-shouldered, thin, and a stranger would have thought him a weakling and a victim of incipient tuberculosis. But in reality he was in perfect health, he could outwalk or outwork any of his two neighbors, and he was a giant in strength. One of his common stunts was to lift a two hundred pound anvil by grasping it by the nose with one hand, and he could lift a barrel of pork by placing the first fingers of his hands under the chimes. He came by his woodcraft and his strength naturally, for his father, Old Tom, who was well over eighty, was still as spry, as active and as hale and hearty as Dave, and was almost as strong. He was a remarkable looking man, with snow white hair falling over his shoulders and with a white beard, and would have made a wonderful study for some artist. He had spent all of his life in the woods, trapping and hunting, and he could relate most fascinating tales of his early days and of his adventures, and his life with the Indians. His wife, Dave’s mother, might have served as a perfect model for a pioneer woman. She was over six feet tall, thin almost to emaciation, gray-haired, and with a wrinkled hawk-like face. But she suffered terribly from asthma, and was constantly burning jimson weed to afford her relief, and the whole house reeked of the disagreeable fumes. Dave’s wife was short, stout, a red-cheeked, roly-poly, motherly little woman. Finally there were the three girls and Archie, a strapping big-boned young giant about my own age. There, was never an idle moment at Dave's. His motto was "No work, no play�, and while Fred and I were at liberty to wander through the woods, to fish for trout in the streams or to amuse ourselves as we saw fit, yet if we wanted to go on a long hike and camping trip through the mountains we had to earn it by helping Dave at his work. And he always seemed to have work to be done. There might be the ten acre field to be mowed - not with horse-drawn mowing machines but with scythes by hand, and many a day Fred and I swung our scythes from early morn until evening or raked the hay or loaded it onto the big lumbering ox cart. Then there was always wood to be sawed or chopped; potatoes to be dug, corn and vegetables to be gathered. There were the cows to be milked, the horses and cattle to be fed and watered, the sheep to be driven in from the rocky hillside pastures to the fold back of the house. And when rain or Never a Dull Moment
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bad weather put a temporary end to out-of-doors work, Dave would busy himself making snowshoes or fashioning an ox yoke from a billet of seasoned hickory. Scarcely a day passed when smoke was not rising from the chimney of his forge, as with ringing blows on anvil he hammered the glowing steel into horseshoes or the great, toothed jaws and massive springs of bear traps. Bears were common everywhere in the neighboring hills and woods in those days. Often their trails would be found within a few hundred yards of the house, and several times they raided the sheep pasture and made off with Dave's lambs or ewes. In vain he set his traps. These neighborhood bears were wise and cautious beasts and knew a trap when they saw or smelled it. Then Fred and I decided we would turn bear hunters. Neither of us had a rifle but old Tom had an old-fashioned bullet mold for making one ounce balls, and having cast a supply of these, we loaded cartridges with them and we felt capable of meeting any old bear. The trouble was the bears didn’t want to be met. For hours we lay silent and motionless, hidden among bushes in the pastures, while all about us the sheep "baaed" ceaselessly as if inviting Mr. Bear to come forth and be shot. But no shaggy form appeared from the woods. We followed the bear's trail for several miles through the dark forest, thrilled and excited, and expecting any moment to come upon bruin unawares. But although we found where a bear had torn a stump to pieces in his search for ants and grubs, and fresh footprints were plain in the muddy ground, the bear himself remained invisible. For several weeks we devoted many hours a day to hunting the elusive bear, and finally gave up. Then, the very first day that we abandoned our hunt a bear raided the flock of sheep and killed and devoured two half-grown lambs, leaving their bones neatly wrapped in the torn skins as souvenirs of his visit. But before my stay was over I did meet a bear. We were picking blueberries on Mount Chocorua, and in wandering from bush to bush over the mountainsides we became separated. But we were within calling distance of one another, even though out of sight in the thick brush and hemlock thickets. Presently I heard the sound of some one moving the bushes a few feet from me, and thinking it Fred or Archie, I spoke. There was no reply, and wondering why they did not answer I pushed through the brush and came suddenly face to face with a bear. To my startled eyes he appeared the size of a giant grizzly as he stood there half-erect, staring at me, his mouth drooling purple blueberry juice. I can't say truthfully that I was really scared. I knew that black bears were peaceful, harmless beasts if not wounded or cornered; but I was mightily surprised. Regardless of how harmless a bear may be it is rather disconcerting to come unexpectedly upon one less than a dozen feet distant. No doubt the bear was as surprised as I, and for the space of a few seconds we stood there staring at each other. Then the same idea seized both of us at the same moment and turning, we dashed off through the bushes in opposite directions. When I at last 122
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located the others, and told them of my adventure they were inclined to take it as a joke. But when I led them back to the spot and showed them the imprints of the bear's feet in the damp moss it was different, and even Dave had to admit that the bear was a mighty big one. It was on our camping trips through the mountains that we had the most fun however, although looking back upon it now, I can't see exactly where the fun came in. In fact it appears to me that it was mighty hard work, for we carried heavy packs on our backs, we tramped through the mountains twenty to thirty miles a day, much of the time wading in icy cold brooks, and Dave was a driver if ever there was one. On these hikes he always combined business with pleasure by catching trout for the big hotels, and as trout are not improved by keeping he always mapped out his route so that, at the end of the second or third day, he would be near enough to the hotel to deliver his catch. And we boys had to do our share of the fishing and cleaning the trout as well as building camps, and cutting fire wood. As Fred never could learn to handle an axe with skill, the wood cutting fell to my lot, while he helped Archie clean the fish, which suited me, or I much preferred hewing down trees and chopping logs into six foot lengths for the camp fire to squatting beside a brook and cleaning trout in the cold water. As all trout under six inches in length were supposed to be released when caught, and as many of these “shorts� were too badly hooked to survive we lived on trout most of the time although we also had bacon, potatoes and now and then a grouse or rabbit. Until a person has eaten trout three times a day for a week at a time one does not realize how gladly one would exchange the finest trout in the world for a bit of salt codfish or a tough steak. Our camps were hastily made lean-tos constructed of saplings, roofed with overlapping hemlock branches, birch bark or hemlock bark and, if we had the time to do it, we usually thatched the sides with fir or hemlock, our beds were piles of aromatic balsam fir tips which, if properly laid down with the stems stuck into the earth and the tips overlapping, are as springy and comfortable as any mattress. The nights, even in summer, were mighty chilly, and to heat the camp we built a huge fire of birch and hardwood logs just outside the open end of the lean-to. Before we curled up in our blankets, with our feet toward the fire, we would pile on several big logs and for several hours we would he luxuriously warm. But as soon as the fire died down we would wake up shivering and the most unpleasant duty of all would be to get up in the middle of the night and replenish the fire. As this fell to the lot of whoever who woke first, Fred and I were usually the unlucky ones, for Dave and Archie would sleep serenely on regardless of downpours of rain or chill winds that caused us to wake shivering and with chattering teeth. But it was a healthy life, and Fred and I thrived on it. Before long we could stand as much tramping, as many hardships and discomforts as Archie. And there were real hardships at times. I recall one trip when, for some reason, Never a Dull Moment
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the trout refused to bite, and although we fished up one stream and down another, we caught barely enough for our own use. In fact not enough, and as our provisions were practically exhausted, Dave decided to make a forced march across the mountains to Crawford Notch to replenish our supplies. Never will I forget that tramp. It was pouring rain, we were hungry, and when we at last emerged from the dense forest and managed to hook some big suckers, we sought refuge under a bridge and had the first satisfying meal in three days. But we were still many miles from the Crawford House, and as the railway was the shortest route we took to the tracks. All went well until we came to the Willy Brook trestle. The slippery ties afforded insecure footing, and after one glance at the rocks and torrent below Archie grew pale and faint and declared he could never make it. In vain we argued and coaxed. Just to show him how simple it was Fred and I walked several yards onto the trestle and back. But poor Archie merely shook his head and groaned. His father was getting impatient. There was a long tramp ahead of us and he had suddenly remembered that there was a Lodge meeting at Jackson two days later. I think Dave was the most fanatical Mason I ever met. To him a Lodge meeting was absolutely sacred, a matter of more vital importance than almost anything else in the world, and although we were nearly one hundred miles from Jackson, by the route we would have to follow over Mount Washington, he was determined to be at that meeting. Hence every minute was precious, and there was Archie, as balky as the proverbial mule, holding us up. There was only one solution to the problem and that was to blindfold Archie and lead him across the trestle. It was a mighty risky thing to do, for a single misstep would have meant death for him and probably for one or more of us. But we managed it somehow and hurried on. At the Frankenstein trestle it was even worse, and I thought we never would get across as we guided Archie's footsteps from tie to tie. Moreover, there was a train due at almost any minute, and we had barely reached the farther side of the trestle when the locomotive whistle echoed through the mountains and the train came rumbling around a curve. At Crawfords, Dave went off to hunt up supplies at a friend's home, and we boys waited for him in the shelter of the rear veranda of the hotel. It was late, dinner was over, and we could see the waitresses clearing up the big dining room and carrying unused food into the kitchen. Gosh, but the things looked good! But we had no money with us, and we appeared like tramps, However Fred always had a way with the ladies, as the Spanish say, and presently he managed to attract the attention of one of the girls who was inclined to be flirtatious, and once she and the others found that we were "city boys" and not hoboes or natives, they invited us into the kitchen and we had a glorious feast. It was nearly midnight when we reached Fabyans and the home of Dave's brother-in-law; but we were up before daylight, and by the time the sun had risen we were on our way up Mount Washington. As we climbed beyond the timber line and neared the crest of the ridge Dave realized that at the rate we were traveling he would never reach Jackson in time for his lodge meeting, 124
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so, handing his pack to Archie, he dashed forward alone, it was a terrible climb. The sun was hidden under lowering clouds, it was cold and chilly, and the wind blew so hard that as we reached the top of the ridge it almost blew us off our feet and we were forced to crawl along on all fours for a mile or more. Worse yet, we were feeling deathly ill, for we had gorged ourselves on freshly baked bread, and this sudden change of diet, after weeks of the pan bread completely upset our stomachs. At times it seemed as if we simply could not go on, and twice we sought the shelter of projecting rocks and cowered out of reach of the bitterly raw cold wind; but we could not waste time for we had a long hard trip before us and there was nothing to do but keep going. It was late in the afternoon when we at last reached the Tip Top House, but we couldn't stop to rest, for Tuckerman's Ravine was before us and to be caught in Tuckerman's after dark would be no joke. As it was we were still in the ravine when night came on, but we were below the most difficult portion of it and we finally reached the road without mishap. The ten mile tramp along the road seemed nothing after what we had been through, but we were so tired and worn out that we barely crawled along and it was after ten when we reached home, and found that Dave had arrived over two hours earlier and without stopping to rest or to eat had hitched up his team and had driven off to Jackson and his lodge meeting. Golly, how we did eat! And maybe it didn't feel good to crawl into bed! When we came to check up on our hike we found we had covered over one hundred and fifty miles in three days, and that over rough country and across the Presidential Range, and carrying guns and with forty pound packs on our backs! I was still an ardent amateur ornithologist, and I collected many rare birds and birds' nests about Dave’s farm and on our trips. But my collecting ardor almost cost me my life. About half a mile from the house I discovered a rare warbler's nest in the top of a slender sapling. The tree was too small to be climbed, and the only way to secure the coveted prize was to cut down the sapling. So telling Fred to hold the slender shoot to steady it, I commenced cutting through it with my big hunting knife, while helping Fred to hold it by grasping the stem with my left hand above the spot where I was cutting. All went well until I had the sapling almost severed, when suddenly the knife blade sheared through the wood and across my left wrist. The blood fairly spouted from the wound, and at sight of the gush of red Fred turned white and, terrified, staggered back, ready to faint. I was scared too, but I kept my head, and raising the terribly cut arm above my head I ordered him to rip open my sleeve and get a tourniquet about the arm. Then, faint from loss of blood, and still holding my arm above my head, we started for the house. Only the women and girls were there, and while one of the girls rushed off to summon Dave from the hay field the others packed wet salt on the wound to stop the bleeding. Whew! How that did hurt! But it did the trick, and by the time Dave and Archie and a couple of neighbors arrived very little blood was flowing. What a cut that was! The knife had completely severed two of the Never a Dull Moment
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cords, but by merest chance had not cut through the artery. Dave wanted to sew up the great gaping wound but as there were no antiseptics available, and only ordinary needles and thread were on hand, I refused. So they drew it together with plaster, bandaged it with cloths wrung out in salt water, and put my arm in a sling. No doubt it would have healed properly had I been content to remain quiet, but I wasn't going to let an injured wrist stop my fun, so I was out and about constantly. As a result, the wound remained open, and the first thing I knew it began to suppurate. Then I really knew what pain was, for Dave's treatment consisted of filling the cut with powdered alum twice a day. Then, with my arm still useless and the wound still open, we started on a camping trip. I must have been a mighty tough kid, for I carried my gun and used it, too, despite my handicap. But I was relieved of all duties such as chopping wood, cleaning trout or fishing. And while by good rights that trip should have finished me, as a matter of fact it saved my arm if not my life. Dave had made the trip in order to deliver some traps to an old Indian named John Lawless who had a camp on the farther side of the mountain range. When old John saw my arm he began treating it with Indian medicants and skill. Within twenty-four hours there was a marked improvement. In less than a week the wound hard healed and I began to use my arm, and within a fortnight it was completely well. But the tendons had shortened and for a number of years I could not fully open my hand nor straighten my fingers. And I still carry a terrible scar to remind me of that summer in the White Mountains and of Indian John’s bears grease and moose wood ointment.
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Chapter 18
1885 – 1887
On Ships and Shooting
In my youthful days sailing vessels still reigned supreme as cargo carriers. The coastwise trade was carried on by big three, four or five masted schooners while the deep-water ships were mainly square riggers, brigs, barks and ships. There were plenty of schooners sailing in and out of New Haven, mostly four-masters, and much of my time was spent on the wharves and upon the vessels moored alongside, and as one of my boy friends was the son of a ship-broker and chandler, who owned large interests in several big schooners, and his grandfather was the captain of a four-master, we were privileged to go wherever we wished aboard the vessels. We had lots of fun, for we were both fond of the sea and ships, and in addition, several of the fleet were in the West Indian trade, and when these little brigantines came into port we were always sure of a treat of pineapples, bananas and sugar cane, while very often the captains would bring us presents of some curio or products of the islands. So whenever we had news of the Towner or the Ruby or the Dudley coming in from Barbados, Turks Islands, St .Croix or some other West Indian island, we would hurry down to Long Wharf anxious to be the first to board the brig the moment she was moored to the dock. On one occasion my hurry to meet a ship very nearly ended my career. There was a railway crossing at the foot of the wharf, protected by big wooden gates which were lowered as a train or yard engine approached, and at each side of the gates the crossing was shut off by wooden picket-fences. But the railway employees and others who had frequent occasion to cross the tracks, and couldn’t be bothered waiting for the gates to open, had broken away several of the palings, leaving narrow openings just wide enough to permit a man to squeeze through, and with boyish disregard of danger we had taken to using these openings and crossing the maze of tracks regardless of the gates. On this particular day, as I reached the crossing, the gates were being lowered, but as I could see no train approaching I assumed that I had plenty of time to hurry across. Squeezing through the hole in the fence, I glanced to right and left and seeing nothing near I hurried over the tracks. Then, just as I reached the fence on the other side and was about to squeeze through the opening, there was a roar, a blast of a whistle, and a yard engine came rumbling toward me from behind a string of box cars. Startled by the sudden appearance of the locomotive so near me, I turned and to my horror my overcoat caught on a broken paling, holding me fast, There was no time to lose for the locomotive was within a few yards of where I struggled, trapped, beside the tracks. Crouched over as I was, I would have been crushed against the fence by the cylinders of the engine. I could not force my way through the opening, and if I Never a Dull Moment
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stepped back to turn to release my coat I would have been directly in the path of the oncoming engine. There was but one chance of escaping injury or death. Linking my arms over the pickets, I flattened myself against the fence. The next instant the engine was upon me; for a brief moment I felt certain I would be crushed to pulp as the great mass of hot metal loomed before me, with seemingly only a few inches to spare between the cylinder and the fence. Then with a roar and a cloud of steam, the locomotive swept past, car after car rumbled by, and I realized that by the narrowest of margins I had escaped. But it was a mighty close shave, even closer than I realized at first, for the front of my overcoat was smeared with grease from the cylinder and two of the buttons had been torn off by the engine in passing. It was a wholesome lesson, however, and never again did I ever cross or attempt to cross a railway track when the gates were down. Fascinating as I found the big coasting schooners, and the few West Indian brigs and brigantines which came into New Haven harbor my delight was to visit New York and wander about the South Street water front where scores of big wind-jammers were moored. From the Battery to Brooklyn Bridge a forest of lofty masts towered high above the warehouses and stores, great wide-spread yards rose tier upon tier above the docks, and vast browsprits and jibbooms reached far across the cobbled street, with martingales swung to one side to permit drays and trucks to pass beneath, and with flying jibboom tips almost touching the walls of buildings on the opposite side of the busy thoroughfare. Here were ships of every form, nationality and size, from every far corner of the world. Full-rigged three, four and five-masted ships with lofty steel sides, double topsail and topgallant sail yards and with tiny skysail yards a hundred feet and more above the decks; four and five-masted barks; barkentines and brigs; brigantines and topsail schooners. Great white painted ships of the Castle Line just in from Seattle or Vancouver and Pacific ports via Cape Horn. Clippers discharging cargoes of tea, spices and rare woods from the Orient. East Indiamen and West Indiamen. Ships manned by strange-looking crews of Malays, Lascars and Chinese. Ships flying the flags of England, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain and the United States. Old timers with painted ports along their sides and with single topsail yards. Everywhere upon the docks were great piles of cases, sacks, barrels, bales and casks; commodities from every corner of the globe, and everywhere drays, carts, wagons and trucks rumbled and rattled over the rough pavement and splashed through mud and muck; while the air was filled with the creak and whine of blocks and tackles, the clank of windlass pawls, the shouts and curses of toiling men and the mingled odors of rum, sugar, spices, hides and skins, coffee and tar, paint and bilge water. Thronging the streets and wharves, lounging in doorways, perched upon pile-heads and mooring-posts; laughing, talking, yarning, smoking and expectorating copious streams of 128
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tobacco juice, were deep-water sailormen of every nationality. Men swarthy and black-bearded with gold or silver hoops in ears; men big, blonde, tawny-haired, with pale blue eyes; little brown-skinned and yellow skinned men with almond or slant eyes and bland faces; men black, hawk-nosed, with immense turbans wound about their heads; Greeks and Spaniards, Italians and Danes, Swedes and Chinamen, Hindus and Negroes, Cockneys and Basques, Yankees and Turks, all mingling, chaffing, singing and boasting. Many reeling down the street like barges in a heavy sea, uproariously drunk; others lying dead to the world in the gutters. Some, just in from long voyages with money in their pockets hurrying toward the nearest water front dive accompanied by painted women and tough-looking weasel-faced men; others with sea-chests or kits on shoulders climbing aboard some great ship with sails bent to yards and the blue peter at her masthead, ready to sail. A marvelous, exciting place, a scene that never will be repeated, that has gone forever, but which will live in my memory for as long as I live. There was a romance in those fine old sailing ships which is entirely lacking in the steamships of today. A romance which the modern boy can never find on the water-front with its great enclosed piers where motor trucks have taken the place of horse-drawn drays, where steam or electric winches and cranes handle as much freight in an hour as the old tackles to yard-arms could handle in days, where the screams of steam whistles take the place of hoarsethroated chanteys of sailor men, where funnels and stubby cargo-booms have supplanted the graceful tapering masts, and steel guys instead of a maze of rigging are silhouetted against the sky. Even the fascination and romance of the cargoes have vanished along with the crossed yards and sails and the picturesque crews of deep-water seamen. Though goods from every far land are hoisted from the vast holds, of tramps and liners, the stenciled packing cases and barrels and bales might as well contain machinery from Michigan, hams from Chicago and typewriters from Connecticut or equally uninteresting goods as strange products of the tropics or of the Far East. To be sure, there may be bundles of raw hides from south America, bars of tin or copper from Bolivia or Peru, but the world and its trade have become standardized and mechanized and the docks and their shipping have become ordinary, dull and uninteresting compared to those of my boyhood days. To visit the waterfront and the ships when I was a youngster was a liberal and valuable education. I know that I learned far more geography of the industries and products and resources of other countries by my days on the docks and ships than I learned in school, and I acquired a first-hand knowledge of many matters which were never included as a part of our educational programme. But then, I was always passionately fond of ships and the sea, whereas many of my boy friends found nothing of interest in such matters. Always, as a boy, there was something about a squarerigged vessel that gave me a most exciting thrill, and today I still feel that same old thrill whenever I see a ship with crossed yards. Since those days I have owned and sailed many boats of various rigs, but I do not think I ever derived Never a Dull Moment
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so much real fun from any of them as I did from a little eighteen foot sharpie which I rigged as a full-rigged ship, complete in every detail and if ever I become wealthy I shall purchase a real clipper ship, if by that time, there is such a craft afloat. But all of my time was not spent on the wharves and about the ships. I was very fond of horseback riding and hunting and owned my own saddle horse, purchased with money I earned myself, as well as several guns, also bought with my own earnings. In those days game was far more abundant than at the present time, and there was excellent grouse, quail, woodcock and snipe shooting within a short distance of the cities, but I preferred duck hunting and "cooning". Looking back upon it today, I can't see where I found fun in getting up before daybreak on a bitterly cold winter morning, rowing over a choppy, freezing sea to some tiny rocky islet, and sitting for hours, motionless and cramped, for the sake of shooting a few ducks. Nor do I feel that chasing madly through dense woods and over rough mountains’ sides in the middle of the night, in order to bag a coon treed by the dogs, is the epitome of pleasure and excitement. But I can still appreciate the zest and thrill of stealing through the leafless woods to the border of some still pond or lake, and knocking over a wary black duck, or even a Canada goose, with a rifle. Still more remarkable than the fact that we boys found pleasure in what now appear like hardships, is the fact that neither I nor my more intimate friends ever met with a serious accident on any of our hunting trips. We did, however, have many a narrow escape, and while I do not recall that I ever had a gun go off when I did not deliberately fire it, or ever jeopardized another boy's life by my careless handling of fire arms, I several times had mighty close shaves through the carelessness of other boys. Once, when snipe hunting with a friend on the salt marshes, he slipped on a patch of ice and dropped his gun, a muzzle-loading shot gun, in trying to recover his balance. The gun in falling struck the hammer and the charge exploded between my ankles, ripping my rubber boots but not even scratching my skin. On another occasion I was walking with two of my boy friends, one of whom had a revolver with which he had been shooting at a target. It was a windy day, and as we walked along he was loading the pistol, when by some accident we never determined, one of the cartridges exploded, and the bullet tore through the back of my coat which was billowing out in the wind. But such accidents were very rare, and I do not recall that in all my coon hunting - which by the way affords greater chances of gun shot accidents than almost any form of hunting - a gun was ever discharged accidentally. The scene of our coon hunts was in a wild section of the country some thirty miles from New Haven where a boy friend's family had a farm which they used as a summer home. During the fall and early winter, whenever there was a school holiday and nearly every week-end, John and I would be off to the farm 130
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where we would camp out in the big kitchen and would have a glorious time hunting. In addition to coons there were foxes, bob cats, otter and many other wild animals in the district - not forgetting skunks - and we could never be certain, when we heard the hounds baying on the mountain or in the valley, whether they had located a coon or some other ''varmint". But it made no difference to us. Grabbing our guns, an axe and a lantern, off we would dash across the pastures and through the orchards and into the dark woods, stumbling over logs, tripping in brambles, narrowly escaping collisions with trees, lured on by the louder and louder yelps of the dogs, until we reached the spot where a dark object was perched high up in a tree, and with the dogs frantically barking and yapping about the base of the trunk. As a rule a well placed shot would bring the coon crashing down, but often, if the beast had taken refuge in a crotch or among thick branches, it would be necessary to chop down the tree. More than once the creature turned out to be a bob-cat instead of a coon, and then there was fun! A good sized bob-cat is a vicious beast when cornered, and more than a match for any ordinary dog, or for two or three dogs in most cases. And to attempt to shoot the cat without killing one of the dogs was impossible with the beast snarling, spitting, scratching, biting and mixing it up with the hounds. Not until the dogs withdrew, whining, torn, and bleeding, was it possible to put an end to the tartar we had caught, and more than once the bobcat bounded off into the thick brush before we had a chance to shoot. Sometimes we had an even greater surprise and a more exciting time than when we treed a bob-cat instead of a coon. Once, I remember, we dashed from the house, in response to the distant baying of the dogs, to find our best hound battling madly with a big otter. The two animals were at the edge of a small pond, the otter had a bulldog like grip on the dog's throat and was trying its best to drag the hound into the water, while the poor dog, yowling with pain, was struggling madly to prevent being drawn under and drowned. We arrived too late to save the dog; he was terribly torn and we were compelled to shoot him to end his sufferings. On another occasion we had a far more unpleasant experience - for ourselves. For this time, when we dashed up to the spot where the dogs were yelping and barking about a dead log, we were greeted by a most irritated and indignant skunk, and we beat a hasty and ignominious retreat. The worst of all, as well as the most terrifying experience, was still in store for us. Hearing the hounds baying in the river valley, we rushed from the house and took a short cut through an old orchard. As we raced forward between the trees in the darkness, I collided with something which gave to the impact but sent me sprawling. Glancing up I could see some bulky object suspended from the branches overhead. At this moment, John arrived with the lantern and to our horror we discovered that I had bumped into the body of a dead man, a body frozen as stiff and hard as wood, swinging at the end of a rope knotted about his neck and attached to an overhanging limb. It was an uncanny, gruesome discovery, and for a moment we forgot all about the baying dogs and coons, for it is far from pleasant to bump head-on into a dead man in the middle of the night. But almost instantly we both realized that we had solved the mystery of Never a Dull Moment
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the disappearance of a semi-demented farm hand who had disappeared several weeks earlier, and, as John reminded me, we couldn't do anything by standing there, and would have to wait until the next day to notify the coroner, so we left the dead man hanging there and dashed off to continue our interrupted hunt.
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Chapter 19
1886 – 1887
Vacation Stories from Long Island Sound
The summer when I was fifteen, my father rented one of the Thimble Islands in Long Island Sound. It was a beautiful spot, high and wooded, with bold rocky shores and with a large cave leading down into dark, mysterious depths whence came the sounds of restless waves. And like all the islands of the group, Big Pumpkin, as it was called, was reputed to have a pirate's buried treasure upon it. Moreover, it was especially fascinating to me because of its bird and insect life. I had never lost my interest in ornithology and entomology, and on this island I found many very rare specimens to add to my collections. It was here that on one autumn day I saw a strange bird alight in a tall oak tree, and upon shooting it I discovered to my delight that it was a passenger pigeon, the last of the species taken in Connecticut if not in all New England. Here, too, I had a sail boat or rather two boats - a sharpie and a racing catboat, and with my younger brother, Clare, we had glorious times sailing about the islands or exploring the neighboring shores of the mainland. To add to the fascination of the place there were stories of the island being haunted. Of course we all scoffed at the idea, for we had been raised in a scientific atmosphere, wherein ghosts and superstition had no place, until there was a most mysterious and uncanny occurrence which even father could not explain. A severe northeast storm was sweeping across the sound, with heavy rain and tempestuous seas which increased toward evening, until by ten o'clock it was blowing a gale with the rain rattling like hail against the roof and shuttered windows of the house. We were seated in the library, father and my elder brother reading, Clare and myself playing checkers, and the dog dozing before the open fire, when suddenly we distinctly heard the sounds of human voices outside and the crunch of footsteps on the porch. The dog also heard the sounds, for he sprang up, growling, and moved toward the door. As mother had been spending a few days in town, our first thought was that she had returned and was talking with the boatmen who had brought her over. But the next instant we realized that she could scarcely have crossed over in the terrific storm and that it might be someone who had been driven ashore and was seeking shelter or help. Of course these thoughts raced through our minds in the brief interval that it required for us to hurry to the front door. As we opened the door and peered into the night not a soul was visible and the dog uttered a single terrified howl and with his tail between his legs dashed back to the library and cowered, whining and whimpering, under the sofa. For an instant we stared into the darkness. Then father shouted asking who was there; but there was no answer, no sounds other than the roaring of surf and the howling of the wind, "It must have been someone who was afraid Never a Dull Moment
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of the dog and retreated down the path to the boathouse," declared my elder brother. "I’ll get a lantern and go down there." But the dock was deserted, there was no sign of a strange boat, and although we searched the island over we found no one. And nothing would induce the dog to stir from the spot where he cowered, shaking and whining with obvious terror under the sofa. Of course, in order to be a good ghost story, it should have developed that mother had been taken ill or had died at the time when we heard the mysterious voices and footsteps; but she arrived safely and in perfect health the following day, and as no boats or persons were reported missing, no plausible explanation for the uncanny occurrence could ever be found. Even if we heard the "ghost" of the island we never found the treasure which tradition said was buried there, but we did have a treasure mystery the following summer, when father bought Two Tree Island. This was the most outlaying island of the group, an uninhabited spot overgrown with a jungle of bayberry, juniper, sumac and poison ivy, and with two tall pine trees near the center of the island. According to local belief these trees marked the spot where there was a buried pirate treasure, and in a number of places about the trees the ground had been dug up by searchers for the supposed hoard. At that time we had a colored man named Henry working for us. He was a very honest, hard working and reliable man and father put him to work clearing the brush on the island and cutting paths. He had a little frame house and tool house, a rowboat to enable him to go back and forth between island and mainland, and father authorized the storekeeper on shore to give Henry credit for what supplies he required. Each weekend we would go down to see how the work was progressing, to pay Henry his wages and to work at clearing up the place. Also father arranged with a tugboat captain, who passed the island nearly every day, to blow the boat's whistle in passing, and he told Henry to wave to the boat so that we might be sure that all was well and he had not met with an accident or had been taken ill. On one of our week-end visits father instructed Henry to clear the area under the pine trees as we intended digging a well there, and he jokingly told Henry that if he came upon the buried treasure he could have half of it. A few days later, Captain Hewitt reported that when he had passed the island and had whistled as usual, Henry had not appeared, and he feared something might he wrong. We took the next train to Stony Creek and hurried out to the island, father quite worried and expecting to find Henry sick or hurt. But there was no response to our shouts; his shack was empty, although Henry's clothes and plenty of food were there, and the row boat was missing. There was not a sign of him anywhere upon the island, but under the pine trees was a deep hole in the earth.
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"I guess Henry must have found the treasure and cleared out," I said. "Hmm, more likely he was lonesome and went to town to visit his wife." declared father. When we returned to shore the storekeeper reported that Henry had come ashore two days before, dressed in his best clothes, and after paying his bill had gone to the railway station. That was the last we ever heard of him. Although there were wages due him he never called for the money. His wife never saw him again, and he disappeared as completely as if the ground had swallowed him up. So we always believed that Henry actually did find the treasure of Two Tree Island and made off with it.
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Chapter 20
1888
Sailing and Danger in the Sound
At this time I owned several boats, among them an eighteen foot sharpie which I had rigged as a square-rigged ship. As it was, of course, impossible to move about among the innumerable stays, braces, halliards, lifts, downhauls and what not, all lines and ropes that controlled sails and spars were led aft. It was great fun to sit at the tiller and handle the sails, and the little craft did very well even if she was not fast. My favorite boat, however, was a racing catboat. She was a regular "skimming dish" drawing only a few inches of water without her centreboard and carrying an enormous sail for her size. As the old saying is, she could sail on a heavy dew. Even if this were not literally true she could sail and make good headway in a breeze so light that other craft were hopelessly becalmed and whenever I sailed the ARIEL in a race and the winds were light and baffling I always won. But if there was a really strong wind that just suited the other craft the ARIEL was a most difficult, and, I admit, dangerous boat to handle. With such a light draught and huge spread of canvas she would have turned turtle had we not carried dozens of sand bags which we shifted from one side to the other as we tacked. Even then it was necessary for her crew of three to sit on the windward rail to prevent her from capsizing, and, as a rule, we had to take a reef or two in her sail while our competitors piled on every stitch of canvas they had. However, we never did have an accident during a race, yet the ARIEL came very near to ending my career. I had raced her the previous day and was sailing down New Haven Harbor bound for Outer Island. There was a light steady breeze and all was going well. Once or twice, as I put about I heard a cracking sound forward but paid no attention to it as I assumed it was caused by the natural weather cracks in the mast as the boom swung over. Then, as I came about and turned my head to clear the traveler-block of the sheet, there was a sharp rending sound and oblivion. When consciousness returned I found myself lying on my back in water, I was nauseated, my head felt as if it had been crushed by a road roller and when I gingerly felt of it my hand came away red with blood. Every movement was an agony, but close beside me was the ARIEL rocked gently on the small waves and gradually I realized that I was supported by the sail in water a few inches deep. I had no desire to move and the sloshing of the cool water over me as the boat rolled was pleasant. As my senses cleared I realized what had happened. The mast, probably weakened by the strain when racing, had snapped at the deck and in falling had struck my head, knocking me overboard into the belly of the sail that formed a sort of huge hammock supported by the boom and sheet and the floating mast. 136
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But I realized that something must be done, for the sail was becoming water-soaked and was steadily sinking and the water wherein I lay was momentarily deepening. Moreover, could hear a dull irregular thumping as the mast, held to the boat by the forestay and halliards, banged against her side with each roll. As her upper planking was only one-half inch cedar it would not be long before it was stove in. With a terrific effort and with my head feeling as large as a barrel I dragged myself to the boat's rail and managed to crawl aboard and drop into the cockpit. Having rested for a few moments I began cutting the lacings that held the sail to the boom and, gritting my teeth, dragged the slack but heavy canvas aboard until I could reach the gaff, with the gaff lacing cut I got the sail aboard but it was still fast to the big mast. Creeping forward I cut the lashing of the turnbuckle of the forestay and the halliards and by hauling on the topping-lift, drew the mast within reach. With the lashings of the hoops cut, the mast, boom and gaff floated free and drifted away, I was completely all-in but was not greatly worried. Some craft, I felt sure, would notice my plight and come to my rescue, but as I glanced about not another boat was visible, aside from a couple of three-masted schooners at anchor far up the harbor and a tug with a string of barges on the distant horizon. And the tide and light wind was carrying me toward the open sound. I could of course anchor, but I didn't know how badly I was hurt, I might pass out at any moment and remain unconscious for hours and after dark the low, dismasted boat anchored in mid-channel might easily be run down. On the other hand, unless some craft spotted me very soon I would be out in the Sound. There was only one thing to do and that was to try to work the ARIEL up the harbor to the docks nearly five miles distant. In those days sail boats were not equipped with gasolene kickers. The ARIEL could not be rowed, but there was a fifteen-foot ash sculling oar aboard and a big rowlock with a socket at the stern. My strength was gradually returning, the pain in my head had become a dull throbbing ache and with considerable difficulty I managed to get the heavy oar in place and commenced sculling, thanking God that I had learned to scull before I learned to row. It would have been terrific labor under the best conditions for it was a broiling hot August day and I was sculling against wind and tide. For a time I seemed to make no headway but gradually, by keeping bearings, on the distant shores, I found I was moving at a snail's pace up the harbor. To this day I do not know how I managed to endure it but after what seemed endless hours, Long Wharf was close at hand. Then, out from her dock, came a snorting fussy little tug and the captain leaning from his wheelhouse window shouted, "Do you want a tow?" My reply was far more expressive than elegant. Thatcher's boat yard, my destination was only a few hundred feet ahead and I was presently alongside his wharf. Mooring my derelict I stepped ashore Never a Dull Moment
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and telling Captain Thatcher that I wanted a new mast and spare made and ready by the next afternoon and I asked him to look at my head. "By Judas!" he exclaimed, "you sure must have a wooden head. That's a damned nasty cut but I guess it’s not stove in." With the wound washed and bandaged I telephoned to Brainard's store in Stony Creek, asked them to send word to my family that owing to trouble with the ARIEL I would not be back until the next day, and went home to our city house. Utterly done up I took a stiff dose of whiskey and went to bed and did not awaken until the next noon. My head felt better, my nausea had given place to a gnawing hunger and altogether I felt pretty well. After a good meal I called up Thatcher's, learned that the spars were ready and when I reached the boat yard found the new mast stepped, the gaff boom and sail rigged and the ARIEL ready for sea. All went well and I passed the inner breakwater I spotted my broken mast snagged on an oyster stake. Just why I did so I can't say, but running alongside I rigged my topping-lift and halliards as tackle and managed to get the flotsam aboard. Not until years later did I discover that I had suffered a complete fracture of the skull extending from my left eyebrow to the crown of my head. The bone had never healed properly and by pressing the sides of my head with my palms I can move the two sides of the skull appreciably while at the crown of my head there is a good-sized soft depression where the crushed bone has been completely absorbed. That I was not instantly killed or did not die of hemorrhage or concussion is a miracle. Apparently, however, my brain must have developed an immunity to blows for in 1948 I suffered a transverse fracture of my skull so that like old Gaul, my cranium is "divided into three parts." But I suffered no ill effects. "That old fracture is what saved you", doctor stated. "It gave just enough to cushion this blow a little. But just the same you've no business to be alive. By all rules of the game you should be a museum specimen."
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Chapter 21
1888
My First Trip to the Caribbean
At time of Henry's disappearance, I was a student in the Yale School of Fine Arts. My father, who held the dual professorships of Zoology and Geology in the Yale Sheffield Scientific School, had hoped that I would follow in his footsteps. But keen as I was on Natural History I could not see myself tied down to a teacher's life. He insisted, however, that I must study the two sciences and finally it was arranged that I should enter Art School and, at the same time take a special course in Zoology and Geology. In later life I found that the thorough training I received in these subjects proved most valuable and I felt deeply grateful to my father for having insisted upon taking the full "Sheff" course. I doubt if the years I spent in the Art School were of any real benefit other than for knowledge I gained of composition, technique and classic art. I was born with an artistic talent; long before I before I could write down the alphabet I could make recognizable sketches of various beasts, even if the drawings occasionally had five or six legs instead, of four. But I always had a ready explanation when my father called attention to this. "Oh, they're fossils" I would tell him. When seven or eight years old I learned a great deal from Dr. Emerton who was a famous scientific artist, and by the time I was nine I could turn out excellent work. I still have a collection of colored sketches of caterpillars and other insects drawn from life at that time and they are fully as lifelike and accurate as the illustrations in any scientific work. The art school however, proved to be the real means of shaping my future career. Among my classmates was Frederick Remington who became famous for his western pictures, and another student was a youth from Barbados. I was fascinated by his descriptions of the West Indies and became obsessed with the idea of exploring the islands' jungles and making collections of their fauna. How it was to be managed I could not imagine but Fate played into my hands and almost before I realized it I found my dreams were about to come true. I was to go to the islands to make collections of their fauna for the Yale Museum. Although strictly speaking no longer a boy I was probably the youngest collector to make a one-man expedition into tropical jungles, for I was barely seventeen. I had read every available book on the West Indies and had questioned and cross-questioned my friend Bassett regarding his Caribbean home, for I was anxious to learn everything I could in regard to the Lesser Antilles. Of all the few books on the islands that had been published at that time I found Ober's CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES the most complete and interesting. His descriptions of Dominica, and the fact that its fauna was almost unknown appealed to me and I decided to make that little known island my objective. Never a Dull Moment
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Although sixty years have passed since I set out on my first trip to the tropics I can recall every detail, every event, even the most trivial incidents as vividly as though it were but yesterday. In those days tourists and fugitives from northern winters did not flock to the tropics. The West Indies were regarded as remote, wild, uncivilized, pestilential; the homes of poisonous reptiles, noxious insects and savages. The ports were pictured as pest holes of yellow fever and small pox and other diseases and it was considered almost suicidal for a white man to visit them.. So it was not surprising that I felt as though I were setting out on a real adventure when I boarded the "BERMUDA� on a raw cold day in February the 22nd, Washington's birthday. Sailing ships were still the chief cargo carriers in those days, there were few passengers traveling between the islands and the States and the few steamships that sailed to and from the Caribbean seldom could accommodate a dozen passengers and, even then, were rarely filled up. Today those little ships would appear almost overgrown launches. The BERMUDA, one of the largest of the fleet, being barely over 1000 tons burden. But she was the largest vessel I had ever been on and to my still boyish eyes she seemed a really big ship. As I have never known the sensation of sea sickness I thoroughly enjoyed the voyage. Moreover, I learned a vast amount in regard to the islands for my fellow passengers were West Indians returning home. A Spanish lady and her young son from Trinidad, a young married couple from Grenada who had gone to New York on their honeymoon, a pompous elderly military man from Barbados, a planter and his wife from St. Croix and a girl of about my own age whose home was St. Kitts. Like all West Indians they were most courteous, friendly, informal and only too glad to answer my innumerable questions, and to impart all possible information on the islands. But none had much knowledge of Dominica. It seemed to be a sort of out-of-the-world spot, known mainly for its lime juice; an island of vast mountains and endless forests and more French than British. Even my girl friend, Mabel, knew very little about Dominica and I felt that I was bound for an almost unknown land. Never shall I forget the wonder and delight with which I gazed shoreward at St. Thomas our first port of call. Although I knew the size of the islands in miles, as recorded in books, nothing had prepared me for the lofty hills, the far-flung shore line, the seeming immensity of the land which on the maps was a mere speck and St. Thomas is one of the smallest of the Antilles. In those days St. Thomas belonged to the Danes. Everywhere the red and white flag of Denmark flew above homes and public buildings, and the harbor was crowded with ships of every rig and flying the flags of every nation. But St. Thomas lost all interest when I saw St. Kitts. Here were real mountains, dense forests and the lush vegetation of the tropics and here I saw my first royal palm. Never will I forget my amazement as I gazed at the great crown over 100 feet above my head and examined the mighty gray trunk that might as well have been a column turned from solid granite. I often think how 140
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much boys of today must miss without knowing it. Motion pictures, travel guides, color photographs have made far distant lands and strange scenes so familiar that there is no “kick�, no surprise or thrill at seeing the real thing, while airplane travel has destroyed all the sensation of adventure and exploration that pertains to a long ocean voyage. To be sure many miles of sea lie between our shores and the Antilles but there is a vast difference between traveling ten days by ship and as many hours by plane. Moreover, in my youth not one boy in a million had ever visited the West Indies and few indeed were the grown-ups who had ever been ''down the islands". So, feeling almost as if I were on another planet, exited, thrilled and delighted, I gazed at the lofty forestcovered mountains, their summits hidden in the clouds, as the Bermuda steamed slowly along the coast of Dominica and dropped anchor off the picturesque little town of Roseau. There is no need to describe the loveliest of the Antilles or to recall my impressions during the few days that I remained in Roseau. To me it was all one great and glorious adventure and then and there I fell madly in love with the island and its delightful people - a youthful love that none the less has endured and is as strong and constant today as sixty years ago. The resident physician, Dr. Alford Nicholls, who was deeply interested in the avifauna of the island, advised me to make my headquarters at Laudat - a tiny hamlet on the slopes of Morne Macaque nearly 3000 feet above the sea and about eight miles over the mountains from Roseau. So, the friendly doctor having sent a message to Laudat to let the people arrange my accommodations, I started out the next morning at daybreak with a husky black porter named Charles Rose carrying my heavy chest of clothes, ammunition and supplies atop his wooly head. Never will memory of that first tramp become dim. Following the lovely Roseau Valley with the broad silver ribbon of the river far below us, the trail led ever upward and soon, leaving the lime orchards and cultivated lands behind us, we entered a forest of giant bamboos. Never had I imagined anything like these great, polished, jointed reeds eight inches or more in diameter soaring upward for nearly one hundred feet, their leaves like delicate green lace forming a roof impenetrable to the sun while the mighty stems, swaying gently in the breeze, emitted low bell-like musical sounds. But greater wonders were just ahead when we reached the beginning of the jungle forest or "high bush" as the natives call it. I had read many descriptions of tropical forests yet nothing had prepared me for the reality. The incredibly enormous trees with their far-flung, hip-like roots with the lowest branches eighty feet or more above the earth; the lianas draping the branches and hanging downward like the tangled rigging of a ship, the great masses of air plants, orchids and begonias clinging to trunks and branches, the huge tree ferns with fifty foot fronds, the flaming crimson and yellow spokes of the "wild plantains� all held me spellbound. Here and there gorgeous emerald and ruby throated humming Never a Dull Moment
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birds fluttered and chirped and then, suddenly from the dark depths of the forest came a clear, flute-like, silvery song - the sweetest most appealing bird note in the world. Rose, who was a talkative chap and had entertained me by weird tales of jumbies, goblins and obeah and had told me the native "Patois" names of the birds we had seen, grinned as he saw my rapt expression. "He sing too pretty, mon," he observed, "he Siffleur montagne (Mountain Whistler) Oui, M'sieu he spirit bird for true. No mon see he but hear he sing plenty." I did not blame Rose for attributing the wonderful melody to a spirit, but later on I collected many specimens of the shy dove-gray bird although I always felt like a criminal when I shot one, even if it was in the cause of Science. So fascinated did I become in my surroundings and the vast forest through which the trail was a dusky damp cool tunnel that the steady upward climb and the miles we traveled passed unnoticed. But at last Rose reminded me that it was ''brekfus" time and calling a halt asked me to "ease me down" with his heavy burden. How he could carry a hundred and fifty pounds for hour after hour with apparently little effort or inconvenience was a mystery, but in Dominica everything is "headed". A cake of soap, a bottle of rum, sticks of sugar cane or the heaviest burdens all are transported on the men's and women's heads. Even at the hotel in Roseau the maids carried the water jars and lamps to and from the bedrooms on their heads while the waitresses "headed" their trays of dishes and food which left their hands free to serve. It is a common thing to see mountain women hurrying along the road with two huge bunches of plantains or bananas on their heads and so heavily laden that they cannot walk slowly but must keep up a steady trot and can only rest when they meet some one who will "ease them down". Their load being far too heavy-for them to lower it with their own hands. As Rose and I seated ourselves beside a crystal clear spring gushing from the rocky cliff and proceeded to eat our "brekfus mange" two of these heavily-laden mountain girls arrived and in the odd native Creole or patois asked us to "ease me down". They were pretty girls, golden-skinned with high cheek bones and fawn-like black eyes. On their heads they wore the bright colored "Madras" or turban coquettishly tied with the ends like a cockade. Neither spoke English but they chattered away with Rose, laughing and exclaiming "Eh! Eh!" and staring at me. Evidently I was as strange to them as they were to me for aside from the few white men or women were seldom seen in those days and a white boy or rather I might say a "youth" was a real novelty. "He from win'ard side the islan’” Rose explained. "He" indicating the younger of the girls "pure Ca’ib an’ nex’ one he part Ca’ib an' part capresse." I had read of the few remaining Caribs still living on Dominica and here, laughing and chatting and still studying me as if I were a new species of bird or insect, was a member of the once-warlike tribe 142
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whose name gave the word "Cannibal" to our language. Later on, when I had learned to converse in Patois, I visited the Carib settlement at La Souir on the windward side of the island and made, life-long friends of some of the tribe. Having finished our lunch and having lifted their loads to the girls’ heads I helped Rose "head" my dunnage and we continued on our way. A few hours later we left the main road and following a narrow trail through the jungle, reached the cleared fields and clustered houses of Laudat. Had I been the Governor of the island I could not have received a warmer or more hospitable welcome. Men, women, boys and girls came hurrying from their homes as Rose stopped at the largest house and was eased of his load. Nearly all spoke English quite well and all but a few elderly people could converse after a manner in my language. Old Andre at whose house we had stopped, told me that everything had been arranged and the largest room had been made ready for my use. It was spotlessly clean, furnished with a chair, a table, a stool and a bed, all hand made of native wood, and on the table was an earthenware "monkey jar" holding a bouquet of fragrant frangipani and jasmine. Although Andre, himself was almost pure African his gray-haired wife, was unmistakably Carib. His buxom daughter, LeBrun, was more Carib than Negro and his two sons- Leon and Jean - had kinky wool of the African but features of the Caribs. Wherever I looked I found the same mixture - and later learned that all in the village were related, that all belonged to either the Laudat or the Rolles family and that all had more or less Carib blood. It was a patriarchal village - almost a little country by itself, of which Andre was the ruler. Everyone had to be officially introduced by Andre who did the honors in a strange mixture of English and Patois. But it made little difference, for the names were all French and, subsequently, I found that everyone had at least two names - one that with which they had been christened, the other, the name by which they were commonly known, a custom derived directly from the Caribs. I was amazed at the friendliness and the hospitality of these mountain people. Gifts of flowers, fruit, poultry, eggs, fresh vegetables, jars of fresh milk; a freshly killed agouti and several wild pigeons or "ramier� were pressed upon me. Obviously it was impossible for one youthful American to consume the wealth of edibles for there was more than enough to feed Andre's family and Rose as well. And as my arrival seemed to call for a celebration I suggested a feast to which all were invited. We had a really wonderful time even if I was handicapped by my ignorance of Patois, for Rose or someone was always ready to act as my interpreter. I soon found that they were a most superstitious lot thoroughly believing in Qbeah, jumbies, all sorts of spirits and supernatural beings, and practically all conversation consisted of hair-raising or shivery tales of spectres, vampires, obeah spells and they worked themselves up to such a state that the slightest unexpected sound or movement would send them into a panic. Never a Dull Moment
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Not yet having outgrown my boyish love of pranks I took advantage of their highly nervous state a few weeks later. One of the boys had brought me some live Hercules beetles - giant insects six inches or more in length. Not having had time to kill and prepare them I had temporarily tethered them to my stool by means of strings fastened about the thorax. In the midst of a most breath-taking tale being related by Jules I stepped into my darkened room, carefully unfastened the string to one of my giant beetles and released him. The instant the huge insect saw the lighted candles in the next room he spread his wings and headed for the candles. At the sudden loud whirr of the beetle's wings the already nervous people screamed and screeched in fright and little wonder for the immense beetle passing over their heads cast a gigantic shadow on the walls - a black demoniacal form that might well have been a jumbie. Then, before anyone had time to gather his or her wits, the candle was snuffed out by the beetle’s onrush. Huddled together, moaning and whimpering in abject terror the people waited for what might happen next. I realized I had overdone my joke. Shouting that it was only one of my beetles that had escaped I managed to reach and relight the candles and capturing the dazed insect showed it to them. I admit I was terribly afraid that I had offended my friends and committed an unpardonable offense but to my relief and surprise they seemed to consider it a great joke, laughing merrily over their terror. But to tell the truth I do not think it ever occurred to them that I was responsible. Pages upon pages might be filled with narratives of incidents, experiences, yes, even adventures that were my lot while on the island. And there were many firm friends that I made and interesting experiences with the loveable people. There was Beché, the Carib boy - an orphan adopted by old Andre. He was a natural born artist - like so many of the Indians - and while his "art" was primitive it was highly effective and his men and animals conveyed real “action" even though he was limited to a charred stick and hand-split shingles. Never have I seen a youngster more delighted than when I presented him with a couple colored pencils- red and blue, and a blank book. I still have some of the pictures that he drew for me and they remind me strongly of some of my own masterpieces that I turned out when Beché's age. Then there was Jimmy - stocky, copper-skinned, kinky-haired with his inquisitive eyes almost Simian in their questing expression. Although six years old Jimmy knew his alphabet, but could neither read nor write and he was utterly fascinated whenever I opened a book, especially if it contained pictures. "Moi des'e M'sieu" he would whisper. And how delighted he was when I allowed him to look at a book by himself. But he was anxious to learn English, still more anxious to learn to read and write so, having bought an English primer I took on the job of teaching Jimmy to read. It was not as simple as I had hoped. Jimmy’s mind was all Patois. Even when he had learned the English names of the letters of the alphabet he would 144
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point at a picture of a cat and proudly exclaim “C-A-T-Chat" or indicating a dog "D-O-G-Chien". Even after he had mastered our language after a fashion and could talk, write and read English quite fluently, for that matter even today Jimmy always has a tendency to call all living creatures by their Patois names. And when, as I often times do, I revisit Dominica and meet gray-headed, bentshouldered old Jimmy he always recalls the days when D-O-G- spelled Chien and M-A-N was M'sieur.
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Chapter 22
1889 – 1890
Dominica
I soon found that collecting in tropical jungles is not by any means all "beer and skittles" as the saying goes. Every morning I was off before daybreak, tramping the "high bush" of the mountain slopes or searching the clearings and gardens for specimens. Returning to the village by nine I would be busy skinning, labelling and cataloging my birds, mammals, reptiles and insects. Then toward sundown, back to the forest until lengthening shadows warned me it was time to head villageward. And until midnight I would be again busy preparing the specimens collected in the afternoon. It made no difference whether the sun was shining or the rain poured down. For that matter had I restricted my collecting to fair weather I would have had few specimens indeed for it rained almost constantly day and night, an average of over 300 inches a year at Laudat. Sometimes Leon, Jules or DeglassĂŠ would take me on long tramps into the distant mountains, trips lasting for several days, in search of the great Imperial Parrot or "Ciceroo", the rare Nicholas Parrot, white-crowned pigeons, blue-headed quail-doves and other rare birds not found near Laudat. On these trips an "ajupa" or tiny lean-to hut of wild plantain and palm leaves would be our only shelter at night, The only provisions we carried with us were a few small loaves of the native bread, coffee and sometimes a piece of salt pork and we depended mainly upon agoutis, wild pigeons, iguanas and other game for food. Naturally we were soaked to the skin the entire time, for even if no rain were falling water dripped constantly from moisture-laden trees and, much of the time, we were in the clouds. But I seemed to thrive on it. I never caught cold and I gained strength and weight and I began at last to realize I was no longer a boy but actually had grown up. We also made a trip to the famed Boiling Lake - a vast active volcanic crater about eight miles from Laudat, over the highest mountains. It was an awful trip - fording rushing mountain streams, struggling up the slippery precipitous mountain sides, often having to hew a way through dense jungles of bamboo, tree ferns or spine covered palm trees. But I felt that it had been worth while when at last we reached the mighty crater with its geysers, fumaroles, steaming bubbling streams and its great boiling lake. We even descended into the crater and guided by DeglassĂŠ picked our way carefully across the throbbing shaky bottom to the verge of the boiling lake itself. But it was a risky business. New steam jets were constantly bursting out and I felt that at any moment one might open up under our feet and in many places the floor of the crater was so thin that when Leon poked a stick into it hissing, sulphurous steam appeared. I had taken the trip for the sake of seeing this vast crater and had no expectations of finding any particularly rare or interesting 146
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specimens. But within the crater itself, over one thousand feet below the surrounding ridges, I found several species of birds, numerous reptiles and many insects some of which proved new to Science - among them a new species of Hercules beetle. One of my most interesting and enjoyable experiences was my visit to the Carib settlement at Salybia or La Soir on the windward coast of the island. It was Beché's home and he took me first to his parents' house. But the next day I was alotted a new thatched hut or ajupa. All the inhabitants were Caribs, with clear yellow skins, round faces and lustrous soft-brown eyes, although there were a few of mixed Carib and Negro blood or "black Caribs” as they were called. All spoke the Creole patois, a few had some knowledge of English of a sort and nearly all spoke the Carib or "Carina” language although only about twenty elderly people used it to any extent. But there was nothing savage nor wild about the villagers, nothing to hint that they were only a few generations removed from cannibalism, and it was hard to believe that these peaceful, timid aborigines defied the armies of Spain for years until the Europeans decided the game not worth the candle so to speak, and left Dominica to the unconquered and apparently unconquerable Caribs. At the time of my visit the tribe numbered about two hundred. They lived, dressed and conversed much in the same manner as the colored folk of Laudat but they still wove their wonderful waterproof baskets, they still prepared cassava in the aboriginal manner using woven "metapees” for extracting the poisonous juice from the grated roots, and they still retained some of their tribal customs, tribal laws and tribal religion, although nominally Christians. Also they sold or rather I might say “bound-out” their children for a consideration. Beché himself had been thus purchased and virtually was a slave, although as well treated as any member of his owner's family and I came very near finding myself the owner of a member of the tribe despite my own wishes. The chief, a fine elderly Indian, became fascinated with a pair of curved bladed surgeon's scissors I used in skinning birds and as I had presented several gifts to Beché’s parents and others I gave the chief the much coveted scissors. He grunted, grinned and hurried off to return in a short time leading his pretty daughter and informed me that the ten year old girl was mine in exchange for the scissors . In vain I protested and declined the gift who appeared to take the deal as a matter of course. To the chief, my refusal merely meant that I was not satisfied, and he became quite excited, declaring she was the prettiest girl in the village, that she was an expert at basketry and at preparing cassava. In fact he appeared decidedly peeved and quite deeply insulted at my attitude. I felt it would never do to incur his displeasure and that something must be done to satisfy all parties concerned. So I accepted my involuntary purchase, appeased the chief by giving him a file and a knife for full measure, Never a Dull Moment
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and then explained that I could not be encumbered by the girl on my long trip to Morne Diablotin and that I would leave her in her father’s keeping until I returned to claim her. Apparently Carib custom provides that goods left unclaimed beyond a certain time may be otherwise disposed of, for when I next visited the village, nearly twenty years later, I found my fememine chattel married to a strapping Carib, whom I at first failed to recognize as my old friend BechÊ, and the mother of several yellow-skinned children. Needless, to say I did not claim her; but she recognized me, recalled the incident and laughing merrily exclaimed: "M'sieu was very stupid not to have know when he had such a good bargain", a statement which tickled BechÊ immensely. I had some real adventures, too. On one trip to the northern part of the island our camp, on a small peninsula with the river on two sides, we became isolated by the suddenly-rising stream. The spot was transformed into a tiny island and we were as effectively prisoners as if behind steel bars. The worst of it was we were woefully short of food. Game had been scarce, edible land crabs had been few and far between and we were almost out of coffee, cassava, pork and other provisions, and as I had planned to remain a week longer I had sent Rolles to the nearest settlement for supplies. He should have been back by the third day but there was no sign of him. For that matter even had he appeared he could not have crossed the raging torrent that had marooned us. Our meals that day consisted of a few land crabs, snails and two small thrushes. The next day our rations were reduced to a few snails, a couple of small lizards and an unwary snake. Even these might have kept us from starving had there been more, but search as we might no more snails or reptiles could be found. Until then I had never known the meaning of real hunger. I was ravenous, as were the others, and could well understand how famishing men could devour the flesh of their comrades. At last, gathering the remains of our past meals, the bones and legs of pigeons, parrots and agoutis, plantain skins and yam rinds, crab shells and other garbage, and quite unmindful of mould, ants and maggots, we made the offal into a thin stew. And never has anything tasted better. The next morning Rolles appeared on the opposite bank of the river. Although the rain had ceased and the stream had fallen considerably it was still a turgid rushing torrent with good-sized trees tossing on its surface like matchsticks and of course utterly impassable for any living being. But as we gazed with longing hungry eyes at the maelstrom I had an idea. If, I explained to my companions, we attached a bush rope (liana) to a small log and tossed it into the stream some distance above the camp, the current sweeping around the bend, might carry the billet across to within reach of Rolles. Then he had only to tie his basket of food to the line and we could haul it back. Of course the food would be soaked, but what mattered wet bread and cassava, water-logged 148
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pork and salt codfish when one was starving? Shouting and gesturing to Rolles we explained our plan. The scheme promised to be a great success. The billet of balsa wood went bobbing down stream, the coil of lianas unwound and it moved swiftly nearer and nearer to Rolles who, up to his armpits in the river was ready to grasp it. With shouts of joy we saw him seize it and a moment later, he had tied the basket to the line and signalled for us to pull in. At last we would have plenty of food, licking our chops in anticipation we hauled in the line. The basket was half way across, nearer and nearer it came. It was almost within reach when, just as we felt certain it was safe, an uprooted tree fern came leaping, twisting down stream. It was all over in an instant. The tossing, gyrating tree swept past carrying our precious food and the severed liana with it. Utterly discouraged we stood gazing dazed and hopelessly at the swollen river. Rolles shouted to us, waved a hand and turning, vanished in the forest. For the next two days we starved. But the third day was clear and the river had gone down a lot. To be sure it was still high, it ran like a mill race and branches and other debris covered its surface. But it was just as well to drown as to starve, and with stout staffs to aid us we took our lives in our hands and waded into the stream. Slipping on the rounded stones of the bottom, dodging floating branches, half-swimming at times we forced our way across and at last climbed safely up the farther bank. Half-drowned, famished and exhausted yet we made better time through that forest than ever we had made before. We scarcely noticed how bad the trail was blocked by fallen trees, washed out in places, the hollows miniature lakes, for visions of food at the settlement shut all other thoughts from our minds. Once, Leon stepped on a thorn that penetrated an inch into his bare foot. Scarcely hesitating he muttered an oath, jerked the thorn from his foot and hurried on. Several times I barked my shins against rocks and logs but I did not realize it until at the end of our journey I found my trousers legs red with blood. Five hours of this and with a wild shout Leon pointed ahead to where sunlight showed between the tree trunks. Racing forward we came to a small clearing and a thatched hut. No one was at home but within the deserted house was a jug of molasses and a slab of rank rancid, mouldy salt codfish. Never in my life has any food tasted as delicious as that malodorous salt fish and the black sticky treacle sprinkled with flies. With our worst pangs of hunger eased we took matters more calmly. A lone coconut palm towered above the hut and Jean climbed this and threw down a dozen or more green nuts. Having finished these and thus having completely exhausted the edible resources of the place, we headed for the nearest settlement in the Layou Valley. All things must have an end and at last the time came to leave Dominica and board ship for home. As a collecting trip my first expedition had been a great success. I had secured an almost complete collection of the birds, mammals and reptiles of the island and hundreds of insects. I had added a Never a Dull Moment
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number of species of birds to the avifauna and, as it turned out later, had secured four species new to Science. But the most far reaching and important result of my trip was that it shaped my entire career and my life work. For more than fifty years after, I made scientific explorations throughout tropical America, much of the time making studies of the native Indians and collecting their weapons, artifacts and handiwork. And it was an article on the Dominican Caribs that I wrote for a leading magazine that paved the way for my literary work - my magazine articles and stories and my 108 books. Many a tropical land have I known since that first trip to Dominica. I have roamed every island of the Caribbean, I have had many an adventure more thrilling than any experience of those youthful days. I have made expeditions into the trackless jungles of the Amazon, across the burning rock-strewn deserts of Peru and Chile, among the snow clad summits of the mighty Andes and to uninhabited island Edens. I have penetrated jungles where no white man had trod before, I have visited savage head-hunting tribes and have been made blood brother to a Carib chief yet my first trip to the West Indies remains the most vivid in my memory and my favorite spot on all this green earth is lovely Dominica. Many times have I revisited the island, many times I have gone hundreds, yes thousands of miles out of my way in order to again visit it. Old Andre and his Carib wife died years ago. BechĂŠ is a gray headed dignified chief. Leon's broad shoulders are bent with the years that have passed, and "Jimmy" whom I taught to read and write, is a grizzled, wrinkled, gray-headed great grandfather, But Laudat remains almost unchanged. The same houses are still the homes of the same families as of old, and when we meet, Rolles and Leon and I chuckle over our soup of garbage and our "mange" of molasses and salt codfish. And to them, one and all - to those who were my comrades sixty years ago, to those who then were tiny boys and girls but now are grown up men and women, I always remain “Moin Papaâ€?.
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Chapter 23
1900 – 1904
Shows and Shooting
My older brother George was a United States Government engineer employed in River and Harbour work and at the time of my return from Dominica his party was engaged in making surveys for dredging the Raritan River near New Brunswick, N. J. They were in need of a tide observer and George offered me the job. Although it was quite a come-down from collecting specimens in tropical jungles - especially as it was March and bitterly cold - still it was out-of-doors work and I joined his party. Our accommodations were arranged for in advance by a government man who, of course, did his best to get the lowest bid from hotels or boarding houses. As a result, we sometimes found ourselves in some strange places but the strangest of all was the boarding house where we were quartered in New Brunswick, for the only other boarders were the freaks of a side show. There was the inevitable fat lady, the tattooed man, the living skeleton who was the fat lady's husband and ate twice as much as anyone else, the bearded lady and her strong man spouse, the armless Spanish girl whose husband was the sword swallower and a delightful midget couple. With the exception of the midgets and the armless Senora and her husband, all dined at the same table as the members of our party. They were a friendly, jolly, funloving lot, thoroughly enjoying jokes - either practical or otherwise - even on one another, and apparently never realizing that they differed in any way from ordinary mortals. In fact after a few days we almost forgot that they were not like others. But there was always a fascination about watching the armless girl who, with her feet covered with mitt-like stockings leaving her toes bare, sat on a high chair and used her feet with all the ease and dexterity of normal hands. To see her put sugar in her coffee with one foot, lift the cup to her lips with the other, or with a knife held in the toes of one foot and a fork in the other, cut and eat her meat, was something to write home about. Best of all she was not in the least self-conscious - which was to be expected of a professional freak - and when she found that I could speak Spanish she became very friendly. But I never could quite become accustomed to seeing her snap open a cigarette case, extract a cigarette and place it in her mouth, scratch a match and light it - all with her toes. The midgets, too, were fascinating. Although barely two feet tall the husband had an air of immense dignity and importance that was most amusing. But somehow, when attired in morning coat, striped trousers and spats and wearing a shiny "topper" he appeared with his demure "missus� on a Sunday morning I always had the amazing sensation of being a giant and the midgets normal sized persons. Never a Dull Moment
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How the motherly, easy-going proprietress of the establishment ever managed to keep servants was a mystery, for nothing delighted the freaks more than to bedevil the waitress - especially if she were new. As a rule the girl would be merely astonished and would either stare pop-eyed or would spill the soup or other food in her nervous state. It must have been a sore trial to see a girl eat with her feet or to watch a lady lift a luxuriant moustache and tuck in a full beard before eating her soup, or to see a man absent-mindedly crush a butterdish between his thumb and finger. But the culmination was reached when as the waitress placed a platter of roast beef before the sword swallower he picked up the carving knife threw back his head and plunged the keen blade down his throat. Dropping her tray and dishes, the terrified girl dashed screaming from the room never to reappear. However, the practical joker received a most thorough tongue lashing in fluent and far from courteous Spanish and made most profuse apologies to the justifiably irate proprietress who observed, "Why don't you folks save such tricks for the show where you get paid for 'em?" It would not seem as if the work of a tide observer would be a hazardous occupation. In fact it would appear to be a safe and rather a monotonous job to sit beside some waterway and every fifteen minutes jot down the height of the tide as indicated on a painted board. But somehow, throughout my life ‘Adventure’ has always been hovering at my elbow, as one might say. To be sure, much of my life has been devoted to rather dangerous work in localities and under conditions where adventures and exciting events might well be expected. But even when leading some apparently safe and sane existence, life never became monotonous, for sooner or later something wholly unexpected and exciting would occur to add a zest to living. In fact I think the greatest "kick" I have gotten out of life is never knowing what is just around the corner - what Fate has in store for one. And little did I dream what was ahead of me on the raw, cold morning in April when I tramped across the frostwhitened marshes to my post beside the river. Here the stream was confined by earthen dykes with high wooden spiles set at intervals to mark the banks of the river when high spring tides rose above the dykes and flooded surrounding marshes. In addition to watching the tide gauge I had to keep an eye on the big dredge that was widening and deepening the channel for dredging contractors are often tricky. The dredge is held in place by huge "Spuds" at the corners and by slightly altering the position of these from where they are supposed to be, many cubic yards of dredging may be saved and none the wiser. Usually there is an inspector aboard whose duty is to see that work is carried out as per contract, but as the party was short an inspector I was the watch-dog as well as observer. Naturally inspectors are not popular with dredge owners and captains and I had several times called down the captain of the dredge and the skipper of the towboat working in the river that memorable April day. As very high tides were due and much of the marsh would certainly be under water when I quit work in the late afternoon, it was arranged that the 152
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towboat, after taking out and dumping the scows, would return and pick me up and take me to town. All went well until the incoming tide began to rise far more rapidly than expected. The dredge had been moved to a new site, the towboat had gone seaward with the last string of mud-laden scows and I was alone with my tide gauge in the midst of a vast marsh, already partly flooded, and miles from the nearest house or human being. By mid-afternoon the tide had risen until only a narrow strip of the dykes showed above the water, and it was still rising. However, I was not worried. At any moment I expected to see the towboat appear in the distance and come chugging up the river to pick me up. But I was terribly cold, I could no longer squat in the partial shelter of the dyke screened from the bitterly cold wind. I was standing ankle-deep in the icy water that was by now flowing over the dyke and there was still no sign of the rescuing tug. Inch by inch the water continued to rise. It was nearly to my knees when I splashed to the nearest spile and climbing up, seated myself on the summit. It was even colder there than on the submerged dyke. The top of the spile was not over eighteen inches in diameter and the slowly sinking watery sun had no warmth in its faint rays. There was no sign of the towboat, the slowly rising water was lapping about my feet and I was so chilled and numb that I had a hard job to balance myself on my precarious perch. And then, just as I had about abandoned all hope of being rescued, the towboat hove into site and came puffing up the river. Sliding from the spile, I managed to drop into the dingy from the tug and a moment later was thawing out in the engine room. When my teeth at last ceased chattering and I downed a couple of cups of scalding coffee I "lit on" on the captain in very plain terms. He was most apologetic. There had been a delay in dumping the scows, he declared. There was a heavy sea running and there had been difficulties in getting the empties safely moored in the river and in the stress of it all he had completely forgotten me until my brother had missed me as the party prepared to return to town. But I always had a suspicion that it was not so much forgetfulness as a plot to get even with me that had caused him to delay until the very last minute. At any rate this one experience was enough for me, so I quit the job then and there. At this time my father was revising the Zoology of Webster's Dictionary and I was engaged to make the pen and ink drawings for the new cuts. I also made a great many scientific drawings for various reports, pamphlets and monographs. Then I had the contract to make all the drawings to illustrate the New Clarendon Dictionary, the Clarendon edition of the Swiss Family Robinson, and I managed somehow to find time to write a number of articles and stories for various magazines. Time seemed much longer in those days than today. Perhaps as one grows older time appears to shorten. At all events I managed to accomplish a great deal more in twenty-four hours in those far-off days than I can accomplish Never a Dull Moment
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in a week today. In fact despite my various remunerative activities I had abundant time to go hunting, to collect birds and to have a lot of fun, My closest and best friends at the time were Clare Webb and Harry Holcomb, we were all interested in the same things, we all loved the woods and we were all excellent rifle shots. Dr. Carver's shooting had made me determined to become a real expert with the rifle. Although I never approached his skill, I did become an expert marksman. I could break a brick and two of the pieces in the air when firing from the hip and could hit quarters, pennies and dimes thrown in the air, but my special stunt was to snap a twenty two cartridge into the air and explode it with a bullet. The three of us got a great kick out of competing with one another and spent every spare moment practising with our 22 calibre rifles, all three of which were identical Marlin half-magazine repeaters. Practise certainly made perfect in our case. Any one of us could drive a carpet tack or explode a 22 calibre cartridge at ten yards, or shoot dimes from between one’s finger and thumb at the same distance, but the others never mastered my stunt of exploding a cartridge in the air. One result of our super marksmanship was three fine Thanksgiving Day turkeys. A turkey-shoot had been advertised by a local shooting gallery and its proprietor assured us that we could use our own rifles provided we used his ammunition and paid the regular entrance fee. Here was an opportunity to cash in on our skill. Thanksgiving Day, was a bitterly cold, lowering day with intermittent rain squalls, but from early morning until late in the afternoon we spent the hours in the country practising until we felt sure that the tiny bull's eye in the gallery would be an easy mark. Of course we did not enter the gallery together. Clare was the first and presently he appeared carrying a fine turkey. A few minutes later Harry took his stand and also won a bird, then it was my turn and another turk was added to the collection. Then, just for the fun of it, Clare went back but the proprietor had had enough of us. “Get the hell out of here.” he shouted ''What do you think this is, a game? And I ain't no Santa Claus either." One result of my skill was when a member of the publicity department of Winchester Repeating Arms Company suggested that I should demonstrate their ammunition. “Could I use my Marlin" I asked him. "Well,” he observed after a moment's thought "I do not see as that would make any difference for you would not be demonstrating, the rifle, but the ammunition." It was a lot of fun attending the fairs, carnivals, gun-club meets, sportsmans' shows and similar affairs and doing difficult feats of marksmanship. Oddly enough it was usually the easier feats that created the most interest and received the greatest applause. To write my name in bullet holes, or to outline the portrait of some well known man, or a duck, or a dog’s head would appear to the public as a much more difficult feat of marksmanship than to hit pennies tossed in the air or to split a playing card placed edge-on at twenty feet. 154
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Although to a really good shot it is just as easy to hit an object tossed into the air while standing on ones head as it is to hit it when on one’s feet, yet most persons are more impressed by the upside-down shooting. I had one stunt that never failed to bring "Ahs and ohs� of applause. A girl, standing in a swing, swung back and forth across the stage, wearing a cape held in place by a rhinestone clasp on the shoulders. As she swung slowly toward me I would shoot first one and then another clasp and the cape would fall to the ground. It was a rather spectacular feat, although not at all difficult. As is the case with all pendulums, the swing remained motionless for a fraction of a second as it reached the limit of its movement, and the clasps on the girl's shoulders were ten times the size of a dime, that was an easy mark at that distance. Several times I was asked to shoot a comb from the girl's hair, but I never attempted a "William Tell" act. One could never be sure that an imperfect cartridge might not prove fatal, or for some reason I might miss. When shooting a dime held between the thumb and finger of an assistant, the worst that could happen would be a flesh-wound, or the loss of a finger tip, however, I never did miss. Nevertheless I often found it hard to induce young, women to take part in the swing stunt. They did not like the idea of swinging toward a cocked and loaded rifle aimed apparently at their heart. The best assistant I ever had was a woman who had been a target in a knife-throwing act. After having body outlined by knives against a background, being shot at by a rifle was mere child's play. Another result of our marksmanship was that we abandoned shot guns for rifles when hunting. Ducks, geese, shore birds, even quail, were brought down on the wing, but neither of us ever managed to bring down a rough grouse in flight. Apparently the knack of accurate rifle shooting when once acquired, is never forgotten any more than swimming or skating and other attainments. Although I had not done any fancy shooting for many years, when a short time ago Fred Norman asked if I could split a bullet on a dime at thirty feet, I tried it and succeeded at the first shot.
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Chapter 24 Rica
1892 – 1894
Marriage and a Southern Trip to Costa
In January 1892 I was married and a few days later my wife and I set sail for Costa Rica where I had been offered work in the Muséo Nacionál at San José. The Panama, on which we took passage was a Spanish, bark-rigged vessel that sailed fully as much as she steamed. Her officers and crew were all Spaniards with the sole exception of the Chief Engineer who as might have been expected was Scotch and the only one of the ship's company who spoke intelligible English. As the majority of the passengers were either Spaniards or Latin Americans practically all conversations were carried on in Spanish which, fortunately, I could speak fairly well. It was a go-as-you-please voyage. Time and schedules meant nothing to the burly red-bearded Catalan skipper whose name oddly enough was Grau. We were supposed to remain in Havana harbor two days but the captain met some old friends, from another ship and it was over a week before the Panama continued on her voyage. In those days Havana was not in the least like the popular tourist resort of today. The houses were pastel shades of pink, blue, green, lavender and yellow. There were no cinemas, no electric signs, no five and ten cent stores, no American-managed hotels, and neither was there any sanitation. The only street lights were occasional spluttering oil lamps and when one wandered far from the plaza or the neighboring cafés one carried a ready pistol in one's hand and walked in the middle of the street for otherwise one was quite apt to be found a huddled heap, a stripped corpse with a knife wound under the collar bone, when morning dawned. In short Havana in those days was truly a bit of Old Spain where romance, vice and danger stalked hand in hand, where thugs and the Yellow Jack were equally prevalent and where firing squads and blindfolded patriots were more regular occurrences than daily papers. And to me, at least, it was a far more interesting and attractive city than the Havana of today. Santiago de Cuba was a filthy, unkempt, fever-ridden town, steaming hot and malodorous beyond words. Few places that I know in the tropics have changed so much in the half century and more since my first visit, for today Santiago is a model of cleanliness and sanitation. Our next port was La Guaira where our easy-going skipper offered to hold his ship an extra day to enable some of the passengers to journey across the mountains to Caracas. Our voyage, however, was not destined to be all smooth sailing over summer seas. While at anchor off Santa Marta, a terrific gale - I presume today 156
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it would be called a hurricane - came roaring across the Caribbean. To avoid being driven ashore the captain slipped his anchor chain and under full steam headed out to sea, taking the harbor master and customs guards with us. Whether the captain lost his bearings or whether he failed to realise the conditions resulting from wind and seas we never knew. But shortly after daybreak the next morning a terrific shuddering crash roused everyone. Again and again the ship struck; screams, shouts, the banging of stateroom doors and racing footsteps on the deck above added to the panic of the terrified passengers. Peering through the porthole of our cabin I could see the distant shore and the hissing, foaming waves breaking on the coral reefs on every side. One thing was certain; the ship could not sink far, and she was not likely to capsize even though she had a list of nearly forty degrees, and no lifeboat could survive for five minutes in that maelstrom even if the demoralized crew managed to lower the craft. Taking the matter calmly to allay the panic of my wife, I dressed even to necktie and money-belt and telling her to remain in her bunk stepped into the main saloon. Everywhere was utter confusion. One man dashed past me wearing a high hat and carrying a suit case but clad only in a night shirt. Women, halfnaked and screaming, dragged equally terrified children toward the stairway, others on their knees prayed for mercy and salvation, and on the deck it was even worse. With all sense of order or duties forgotten the sailors rushed hither and thither knocking over passengers, slashing at the lashings and falls of the boats while the deck passengers with their vegetables, fruits, dogs, fowls, pigs, parrots, monkeys and goats were inextricably mixed and their screams, squawks, barks, snorts and grunts were deafening. At any moment I expected the ship to be blown to bits for the Chief Engineer had mentioned that over 500 pounds of dynamite with detonators were stored in the lazarette near the stern and exactly over the spot where the ship was pounding and crashing with every sea. Then, little by little, as each wave lifted her, the Panama forged ahead, each crash on the reef was less than the preceding and presently she was free and steaming slowly, cautiously feeling her way between the wave-lashed coral heads. Now and then a shudder would run through her hull as she scraped her keel or bilges on a reef, but at last we were in open water, afloat but with a terrible list to port. Some semblance of order was restored among the crew, the wells were sounded and there were no indications of serious leaks. As the wind fell and the seas died down we limped into port where cargo and ballast were shifted to bring the ship on a fairly level keel and a diver made an inspection of the hull to report that a few plates were badly dented but that all seams appeared intact. Luckily for us all the Panama was an old time iron ship for undoubtedly, had she been a steel vessel, the comparatively thin plates would have been stove-in in a dozen places. Never a Dull Moment
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None the worse for the nerve shattering experience we reached Colon to find only blackened ruins, for the city had been almost completely destroyed by fire a few days previously. In fact the only buildings left standing were the stone Customs House, a stone church, the De Lesseps house, a few isolated huts and a small restaurant, which by some miracle or freak of Fate had been untouched as the flames roared on every side of it. The French had recently abandoned their attempts to dig the Canal, great skeleton-like dredges were rusting abandoned beside the beginnings of the big ditch, rank jungle had overgrown workshops and railway lines, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery was scattered everywhere and the endless rows of little white crosses on Monkey Hill bore mute testimony to the appalling toll of human lives the ill-fated project had cost. Twenty four hours after leaving Colon we came to anchor off Port Limon - thirty six days after sailing from New York! Few railways in the world can compare with that leading from Port Limon across the mountains to San Jose as far as the scenery and engineering feats are concerned. Today comparatively little wild life is visible from the train as it carries one ever higher and higher from the swampy coast lands to the capital, but at the time of my first visit to Costa Rica, the jungles stretching on every side fairly teemed with wildlife. Parrots, macaws, toucans and scores of other bright colored tropical birds were everywhere. Troops of white-faced Capuchin monkeys and red spider monkeys raced chattering through the trees at the approach of the puffing locomotive, and frequently deer would stand a few rods from the track and gaze curiously at the passing train with no sign of fear. At Cartago ruined houses churches with fallen walls and mud knee deep in the streets told eloquently of the recent severe earthquake and the eruption of Irazu volcano. But the inhabitants appeared to take it as a matter of course and everywhere gaudy magenta orchids - national flower of Costa Rica bloomed on the red-tiled roofs. At San JosĂŠ the damage was much less than at Cartago which is built on the slope of the volcano. The walls of the cathedral facing the plaza were cracked, a portion of the facade had fallen and some of the other churches were in ruins. But few residences had been seriously damaged, there had been no volcanic mud flow as at Cartago and even the big two story Gran Hotel was intact. San JosĂŠ was and still is a fascinating city with an ideal climate but it was far more fascinating and picturesque in those days than today. The girls and the women of the working class - the servants, market women and peasants, all or nearly all "Cholas" or Indians, wore gaudy skirts, strapless off-shoulder waists adorned with embroidery and lace with a bright rebosa or scarf of native weave across their shoulders. The girls and women of the upper class - the "gente" wore 158
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conventional clothes with mantillas in place of hats with their hair hanging loose but confined by a ribbon at the nape of the neck. And never have I seen more lovely women. All preconceived ideas of Spanish beauties were destroyed for the better older families of the Costa Rican capital were of Catalan blood and the women - and many of the men, were as fair-skinned as any Nordic with blue eyes and golden blond or coppery hair. The men in those days dressed much like the conventional Mexican - skin tight, bell-bottomed trousers, short bolero jackets, frilled shirts and bright colored sashes - but instead of the broadbrimmed sombrero, Panama hats were the rule. Every afternoon there was the daily "pasear" with the band playing in the Plaza and the girls, women and more elderly men parading around and around while the young bloods stood on the side lines ogling and admiring and commenting on the women's charms which the Senoritas took as a matter of course, smiling and nodding at their admirers. Always, too, there were a number of wealthy young Caballeros riding their magnificent horses around and around the plaza, their saddles and bridles heavy with silver and gold and with gaudy serapes folded across the pommels. At that time, Costa Rica was one of those comic opera republics where revolutions were served with morning coffee and almost as regularly. During our stay in San JosĂŠ there were three revolutions within three months but they were more amusing than serious, although to the outside world they were pictured by the press as riotous insurrections accompanied by heavy fighting and much bloodshed. Throughout these troublous times foreigners were never threatened nor molested and with the exception of a few prohibited areas were free to go where, and as they pleased. Indeed the officers of both sides were most solicitous for the safety of foreigners in their midst. In short the Costa Rican idea of warfare savoured far more of entertainment than of hostilities while the "army" was a perfect farce. The soldiery was composed entirely of conscripts, mainly young Indian or Mestizo boys who never wore shoes, could never learn to shoot properly and could never be made to understand why they should be expected to shoot, bayonet or otherwise kill or maim some fellow paisano just because some Caballero wished to feather his nest with the fat pickings of a corrupt and easy-going government. They were miserably fed, more miserably housed and never were paid, while their uniforms consisted of ill-fitting drill trousers and jacket and a cheap shako. The officers, most of whom were Belgians, were gorgeously attired and would stroll along the sidewalks twirling their moustaches, ogling the women and clinking their spurs while the little "calico army" would come trotting along a block or two in the rear, guns at every angle, bare feet pattering through the dust, talking and laughing like school boys on a holiday and making no attempt to keep time with the diminutive drummer and fifer each invariably playing or trying to play different tunes. But despite all this and the utter lack of discipline the Costa Rican troops were not to be scoffed at when it came to guerilla warfare against hereditary foes, personal courage was not lacking, like all Indians, the men were intensely patriotic and in the jungles they were perfectly at home. Never a Dull Moment
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In repeated set-tos with the Nicaraguans they had come off with flying colors and when, a few years ago, there was a brief "war" between Costa Rica and Panama the one desire of the Panamanians was to put as much space as possible between themselves and the Costa Rican troops. Even if at the time of my first visit Costa Rica could not enforce peace and maintain a stable government it could and did enforce cleanliness and sanitation which are far more important matters. Never have I seen a cleaner, more orderly city than San JosĂŠ. All streets were swept and flushed daily and anyone who by accident or design dropped a fruit skin or a bit of paper or litter in the street was liable to arrest. All sewerage was led into an underground stream that emptied into a distant river. The city was well lit by electricity, thugs, footpads and robbers were unknown and a man or woman could go anywhere at any time day or night in perfect safety which was in sharp contrast with Cuba and Venezuela. In fact the Costa Ricans were the most honest people I have ever known. It was not unusual for a countryman in the big market to place his "roll" amounting to hundreds of "Colonias" upon a table and wander about, gossiping with friends, and feeling certain his money was as safe as if in a bank, which it was. My first job was to catalog the hundreds of pieces of prehistoric pottery in the Museo each piece being not only numbered and described but with a small but accurate drawing of each specimen added to the description. When this work was finally completed I turned to collecting birds for the museum and established myself at Jimenez, a tiny settlement consisting of two rows of thatched huts and small corrugated iron houses straggling along both sides of a banana railway line. Once a week or so a train came through, picking up its load of bananas at the various haciendas, but for the remainder of the time Jimenez was completely cut off from the rest of the world. On one side rose the mighty bulk of Turrialba volcano, its heavily forested slopes stretching upward to its cloud screened, smoking summit. On the other side of the village pastures or portraros extended for perhaps a mile to deep untouched jungle of the llanuras or plains; close to the village the river flowed swiftly between jungle covered shores and was spanned by the iron railway bridge. The population was composed of a few dozen Jamaica negroes, about the same number of mestizo Costa Ricans, a sprinkling of their white countrymen and a few pure blooded Indians. It was a choice and tough lot of inhabitants most of whom spent their idle time getting uproariously drunk, gambling and fighting. Near the bridge was the big two story structure of the River Plate Company, a British organization whose engineers were engaged in constructing a plank road up the slopes of the volcano, for what ultimate purpose I never learned. Aside from this structure the only buildings worthy of the name were 160
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the railway company's commissary kept by a wild eyed German named Hugo; the juzgado and the combined dance hall, cantina and gambling house owned by the Alcalde, a gray-bearded, courteous old Don who looked like a barefooted grandee and who was mayor, chief of police, jailer and boss of the village. Ordinarily one half of the juzgado was used as the police court while the other half was provided with barred windows and stocks and served as a jail. As no other quarters were available the mayor-judge-police chief-gambling house owner stripped the court of its fittings, provided cots, a chair or two and a few other essentials and with a grandiose wave of his hand informed me that the building and all it contained were mine - doubtless including a couple of drunken mestizos locked in the calaboose. The place was comfortable enough although at times our involuntary next door neighbors were rather noisy at night. Far more disturbing were the ocelots and jaguars that almost nightly made raids on the hen coops and pig pens back of the houses and used the roof tops as their highway. Again and again we were awakened by the heavy thud as a big cat landed on the iron roof to be followed by the scraping of claws, snarls and growls and the cackling of fowls and squealing of pigs as the raider leaped upon its prey. There appeared to be no way of putting an end to the nuisance. By the time I could seize my gun and open the door the felines would have vanished in the nearby jungle. The inhabitants took the raids as a matter of course and in a short time I found that we were doing the same. Despite its small size Jimenez, was a "live" town in the wild western meaning of the term and its people made up with excitement what they lacked in numbers. Stabbing or shooting afrays or duels with the razor-sharp, longbladed, sword-like machetes were of nightly occurrence. The jail was scarcely ever empty and as the easy-going Alcalde and his two barefooted lazy soldiers made no attempt to maintain law and order, Hewie - one of the British engineers - and I, with the old Don's permission, took over. Selecting a couple of the most notorious fighters, we told them they were appointed policemen for that day and night and provided the dumbfounded rascals with tin badges pinned on their tattered shirts and instructed them to notify all and sundry that a whistle would be blown at nine P.M. and that the proprietor and occupants of the bar or other resort would be arrested and fined if the place was not closed, and lights out within five minutes after the curfew was blown. No doubt they added blood-curdling threats to our warnings, for within two minutes after the whistle shrilled every light was out, every door and window closed and not a soul was visible. That night only two prisoners were in the jail. One was a wiry little halfbreed named Chico, the other a burly black Jamaican called Santiago. As they were being released the next morning our two constables arrived and handing over their badges resigned. By no possibility could they remain sober and peaceable for more than twenty-four hours at a time they explained, but would be quite delighted if we'd put them on the ''force" the next day. Instantly Never a Dull Moment
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Santiago volunteered, grinning from ear to ear at the idea of being a "bobby". He was as strong as an ox, had the reputation of being the toughest man and best machete wielder in the district and was just the man to enforce the law - as long as he remained sober. Chico also volunteered but Santiago declared he needed no help, that Chico would be merely a nuisance and as our orders had been so well obeyed the previous night we decided that one constable was enough - especially if that one were Santiago. Only one law breaker was arrested that night and the sole malefactor was Chico. Then history repeated itself and in the morning Santiago handed in his badge, informing us that one day and night of peaceful existence was all he could stand but would be quite willing to take over again after twenty-four hours leave. As Chico was still anxious to become a minion of the law and no one else was on hand we transferred the badge to him. That night only one prisoner was brought in by the "bantam cop" as Hewie called him, who, to our amazement, came marching up the line with drawn machete prodding big Santiago before him. From that time on this became the regular routine, each taking turn at being our lone copper and invariably bringing in the other. Never did either yield to temptation and fall from grace while on duty and never in its history had Jimenez been so orderly and law abiding.
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Chapter 25
1892 – 1893
Lawless Costa Rica
At the time of which I am writing there was no extradition treaty in force between Costa Rica and the United States and as a result every crook or criminal who found Uncle Sam's territory too hot for comfort and who could get there, turned to Costa Rica as a safe refuge. Largely these were refugees from the then "wild and wooly West". I met notorious train robbers, two gun "badmen”, highwaymen, Mississippi River professional gamblers and even a member of the Jesse James gang - a cousin of the famous Jesse himself. No one ever would have guessed who or what they were or if they had reformed and were peaceful honest members of society although some never appeared without a .45 Colt slung low and tied. Several of the most notorious bandits and gunmen were employed by construction companies, and by the railway as guards for their pay-cars and cashiers. Others had turned ranchers or had taken to railroading while a few lived at ease on the proceeds of their former careers. The only one of the lot who ever looked for trouble was the erstwhile member of the James gang. He was a thick-set, burly rascal with red hair and a long drooping moustache and when slightly lit up would become boisterous and begin shooting bottles off the shelves of the bar. But not for long, at the sound of the gunshots his wife- a diminutive woman scarcely five feet in height, would appear on the scene, seize him by the ear and exclaim, "Come, Henry, it's time to go to bed", would lead him off like a misbehaving small boy. This was such a common occurrence that whenever some member of a gathering became obnoxious some one would remark: "Come Henry, it's time to go to bed." which always had the desired effect. The jungles and portreros about Jimenez abounded in wild life of all kinds and was particularly rich in birds. But it was obvious that I needed someone to accompany me on my daily tramps through the forest. Again and again I needed a rifle when my light collecting shotgun was my only weapon and moreover there was a certain element of danger involved. A fall, a poisonous snake or any one of a dozen mishaps might prove fatal to a lone man, but I had been unable to find anyone whom I trusted to act as my jungle chum and gun-bearer. Then one morning when I returned from the jungle the Alcalde came hurrying to me his face beaming. "Ah Señor" he exclaimed "I have the very man for whom you have searched. Of a truth, si Señor very strong and he knows the jungles well, and such an excellent marksman. Besides," he added," he will be of no cost to younothing, only a few centavos for the food he requires.” I asked.
It sounded too good to be true. "How do you know he is a good shot?'
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The old man raised his eyebrows and threw out his hands in a gesture of surprise. "Caramba." he exclaimed, “Of a truth he must be. It is because he is such a fine marksman that he is here. Because he shoots so truly the Señor may have his services for only the cost of his food." I was puzzled but Don Joaquin never was able to explain anything except in a roundabout way. "Who is he and what has his marksmanship to do with his presence here and his willingness to work without pay?” I demanded. "Santissima Madre, haven't I told you, Señor?" cried the Don. "I forgot, a policia from Rio Guapiles brought him this morning to await the train to Carillo, his name - quien sabe? But all the world knows him as Juanito. He is a bandit, Señor, and it is because he knows the jungles so well and is such a fine shot that he has killed many men. But now at last he goes to the prison at San Carlos for the rest of his life." "A bandit and murderer!" I cried, "And you suggest that I take him into the jungle carrying my loaded rifle! Do you think I want to be shot in the back?" Don Joaquin appeared actually amazed. "But why not?" he asked. "No longer is he a bandit but a condemned prisoner. Until the train leaves he would be most happy to hunt with you, Señor." I burst out laughing. Something in the naive way the Alcalde was trying to induce me to employ a murderer (there was no capital punishment in Costa Rica) was highly ludicrous. Even in such a wild spot as Jimenez, it was something of a shock to learn that "the very man for my purpose" was an exbandit on his way to life imprisonment. But, I thought, why not? If the River Plate Company and the railway could trust ex-train robbers and western bad men as guardians of their pay rolls why shouldn't I hire a bandit and killer as my gun bearer? "Where is this man who is such a wonderful shot?" I asked Don Joaquin. I had of course assumed that the redoubtable Juanito - whom I mentally pictured as a swarthy, fiercely bewhiskered burly rascal - was safely locked in the stocks in the little jail. But instead of leading me to the calaboose the Alcalde conducted me to his own house where, outside the door, his children were playing with a rather nice looking young Mestizo. "Hola, Juanito!" cried the Don, "Here is the Americano Señor who desires you to accompany him into the jungle. I have assured him you are a most excellent shot. Is it not true, Juanito?" The fellow grinned as he rose and doffed his hat. "Si, Señor Alcalde, most true," he affirmed. Then to me: "Seldom do I miss.” he added, "and if the Señor wishes my services - Bueno." he shrugged his shoulders, "it will be better than playing with the Little Ones until the train arrives." Something about his personality appealed to me so I hired him then and there and never did I regret doing so. During the month awaiting the train 164
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we roamed the jungles daily, Juanito carrying my rifle and most of my equipment. At any time he could have shot me and decamped and none the wiser. But he had no desire to escape the clutches of the law. Quite frankly he explained that San Carlos (the federal prison) was not such a bad place. In a few years, with good behavior, he would he given a plot of land with needed tools and seeds and could he quite content, and, with a shrug of his shoulders what difference whether he passed his days at San Carlos or elsewhere? He was a confirmed fatalist and a philosopher as well and his one regret seemed to be that he could not serve out his sentence working for me. Neither he nor the Alcalde had exaggerated. Never have I known a better bushman than Juanito and, for a native, he was truly a fine shot. Much of my success in collecting rare birds and shy beasts was due to Juanito. I did not marvel that he had made a success of his profession if he was half as skillful and tireless in pursuit of two-legged game as in hunting furred and feathered quarry. Real adventures in the jungle are much fewer than most persons suppose and if a man is familiar with the jungles there is little danger. Poisonous snakes are few, the big cats, jaguars, pumas and ocelots are only too anxious to keep out of sight, and the only real dangerous beasts are the big white-lipped peccaries when one or more of the herd are wounded. But almost any creature will fight or even attack a man when wounded and Juanito and I had one narrow escape from serious injuries or death. We had found the tracks of a very large jaguar accompanied by a cub beside the roadway up the mountain side and Juanito declared the creature had passed less than fifteen minutes before. I was anxious to add a good jaguar skin to my collection but as the trail led into dense high brush between road and forest it was hopeless to try to trail the beasts. Jaguars like many other creatures, have a habit of traveling the same route day after day so the following morning we set out earlier hoping to be ahead of the jaguars. Juanito made a detour and approached the spot from higher up the slope while I cautiously and silently moved up the road. There were no fresh tracks and I concealed myself among the bushes in hopes the jaguars would appear. Presently I heard a slight sound up the road and thinking Juanito was approaching I rose and stepped into the roadway to see a magnificent black jaguar trotting toward me with a quarter grown cub at her side. At the same moment she saw me. And the report of my rifle and her superb leap into the brush were simultaneous. Jumping onto a fallen tree trunk I fired shot after shot into the waving swaying brush that marked the big cat's headlong flight towards the forest. Juanito came dashing up. There was fresh blood beside the road and on the leaves. My first shot had not missed and cautiously and with guns ready we followed the broken bushes and blood stains through the scrub. But as we reached the open forest the trail was lost and although we searched in every direction we failed to find a trace of the jaguars. As we stood discussing the matter in low tones a bit of bark fell on my hat and I glanced up. Less than Never a Dull Moment
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twenty feet above me a huge liana formed a natural suspension bridge between two trees and crouched upon it with blazing eyes and bared teeth was the wounded jaguar, her muscles tensed for a spring. There was no time to leap aside, scarcely a fraction of a second in which to think and act, not even time to raise rifle to shoulder. Involuntarily, with a single motion I jerked the barrel of my rifle up and firing from my hip sprang back, it was a lucky shot. At the report the big cat fell crashing, snarling to the ground where I stood, but all danger was past, a few convulsive gasps, a slight twitching of the tail and the huge velvety black creature was dead. My only other real adventure while at Jiminez was of quite another type. One morning while heading across the llanuras toward the river I noticed an unusual number of thrushes and flycatchers hovering above a particular spot, among them several rare species I had not already collected. Having shot several I hurried forward to retrieve them and stepped upon a log the better to search for my specimens. Presently I caught sight of one caught among some dead branches a few yards away. Never thinking of danger I jumped from the log and the next instant fairly howled. Ten thousand red-hot needles seemed to sear my ankles and legs. I felt as though I had landed in a pot of boiling lead. Yelling with the pain I glanced down to find my feet and legs almost hidden under a moving black mass while all about the ground appeared to heave and move. I knew instantly what had happened. I had jumped into a column of army ants and I lost no time jumping out. Luckily for me it was a small army, scarcely more than a brigade, perhaps two feet in width and yet, during the few seconds which had passed between the time I leaped from the log and was back on it again, the creatures had swarmed over me from my feet to waist and my legs were dripping blood from hundreds of bites. Fortunately, also, the bite of the army ant is not poisonous and aside from the intense pain of the innumerable wounds there were no ill results. The moving column of voracious ants explained the presence of so many birds who were snapping up winged insects that rose in swarms at the ant’s approach. Subsequently I met many an army of these terrible creatures, but my first experience had taught me to give them a wide berth. However there is little real danger if one learns to recognize the signs that betray an ant army on the march, for they never move far from the closely packed column that sometimes extends for over one hundred miles and moves inexorably onward, destroying all living things in its path, uncheckable in its progress unless the ants meet fire or a wide stream. Personally I have never known of human beings being killed and devoured by army ants, but there are many authenticated reports of such tragedies. But on one occasion, during the night an ant army invaded the hut 166
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where I slept and only the fact that my comrades and I slept in hammocks with rough hair ropes saved us. Not another living thing within the hut remained when day dawned and a good sized tapir, which we had killed the previous day and had dressed and hung outside our hut, was completely devoured, only the bones and ragged remnants of his hide remaining as evidences of the army ants' passing.
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Chapter 26
1894 – 1901
Early Photography
Back once more at San Jose, I was engaged in identifying and cataloging the Keith collection of Costa Rican beetles. Then the Catholic Bishop arranged to have me make water color drawings of his splendid collection of butterflies and to mount a number of Costa Rica birds, especially a group of the beautiful Quetzal or Resplendant Trogan, all of which he planned to send to the Vatican Museum in Rome. When we finally left Costa Rica and returned to the States my father was working on the vast collection of deep sea shells dredged by the Fish Commission, and for many months I was kept busy making pen and ink drawings to illustrate the monographs he was writing. As the shells were very small - many smaller than the head of a pin - all the drawings were made through a microscope fitted with a glass prism known as a camera-lucida. The work was so very trying on the eyes that it was impossible to keep at it steadily for more than a few days at a time and between periods of drawing I turned to taxidermy and mounted a number of bird and animal skins, among them a twelve foot alligator, a twenty foot python and a grizzly bear, as well as a number of moose, elk and bison heads. It was about this time that I became interested in photography, mainly with the idea that it would be possible to photograph a great many scientific specimens and thus save a vast amount of time and the expense of drawings. Photography in those days was not what it is today. There was no sheet film and even the fastest glassplates were slow by comparison with modern film, and the only color-sensitive emulsions were far less affected by red or yellow than are the ordinary orthochromatic films of today. However, my experiments proved that almost any scientific specimen, could be far more accurately reproduced by photography than by drawing and that with special lenses and equipment the more minute subjects could be photographically enlarged ten diameters or more without the use of a microscope. I believe I was the first to invent and use an adjustable vertical camera stand and I was the first to photograph living marine animals such as sea anemones, coral polyps, etc. I also made a large and comprehensive series of photographs of moth and butterfly larvae in various stages, photographs of the imagos emerging from the chrysalids or cocoons, and photographs of the fully developed insects, many of which were reproduced in Packard's monographs on various insects and the bombycid moths. Living wild birds, mammals, reptiles and batrachians were also photographed successfully. I soon opened a commercial photography studio and was kept more than busy. Some of the work that came my way was most unusual. On one occasion I was visited by a well known lawyer who wanted to know if in my 168
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opinion a photograph could lie. It seemed that the outcome of a trial, at which he was the defendant's attorney, depended largely upon the reliability of a photograph, the prosecuting attorney having produced a photograph as evidence, and declaring that; "A photograph never lies." "Don't you believe it," I told my visitor. "Come back day after tomorrow and I'll have the proof ready.� He fairly gasped when he looked at the photographs I handed him. There was a horse and carriage dangling from the Liberty Pole on the City Green. The clock tower of the City Hall was crashing to the ground as if hit by an earthquake, and a three masted schooner was moored to a dock in front of historic Center Church. The photos won the case and even the District Attorney had to admit that a photograph was not necessarily irrefutable evidence, and the defendant was discharged. Another unusual job was to make photographic records of local fires for the Fire Department. But perhaps the most strenuous and it proved, dangerous contract was made by a large fireworks manufacturing company that was giving weekly displays at nearby Savin Rock. I used special plates and equipment and an 8 X 10 camera and to set up the tripod, snap a volley of bursting bombs, then picking up camera and plate-holders and dashing off to snap a huge set piece, then to another spot where brilliant pin-wheels or a fusillade of Roman candles and mines were being touched off, was no easy job. However, I secured some magnificent negatives and all went well until one night when something went wrong and instead of roaring skyward several huge rockets headed directly toward me like blazing comets gone mad. Throwing myself to the ground I hugged the earth as the hissing, fiery things passed over me and exploded. Aside from a few burned holes in my clothing I escaped but it was a close shave. One of the rockets knocked over the camera but by some miracle caused no damage other than a broken ground glass and a hole burned in the bellows. But I had had quite enough of photographing fireworks even though the company paid for the damages to garments and camera. About this time my father, who had visited Bermuda on a scientific expedition the previous year, suggested that I should go to the islands to collect and photograph specimens of marine invertebrates until he joined me later. The expedition was a success in every way. A great many species new to Science were obtained and for the first time living corals, gorgonias, actinians and gorgeous marine worms and other creatures were photographed in their natural environment. After our return from Bermuda my father gave a series of lectures on the islands and the results of our expedition, using lantern slides made from my Never a Dull Moment
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negatives and hand colored. After seeing these Professor Bickmore of the American Museum of Natural History arranged for me to make a trip through the Lesser Antilles to obtain photographs for lantern slides for the New York State Board of Education. It was no sinecure to carry three cameras- a 4 X 5, 5 X 7 and 8 X 10, together with the various lenses and the hundreds of glass plates where all transportation was by horse back or afoot. There were no dark rooms available for changing plates which I accomplished under an extemporized tent of black rubberized cloth which in the tropical climate was like being in a Turkish bath - only worse. As a red light was out of the question the nightly operation was carried out by sense of touch, the exposed plates being packed in the emptied boxes and sealed and fresh plates inserted in the holders, all of which took at least an hour. But despite such difficulties, tropical showers, climbing mountains through dense jungles and making exposures under every imagineable condition, when I finally returned and developed my plates I had only three failures out of nearly 500 negatives- and those three were double exposures. Of course on this trip I again visited Dominica. The years that had passed since my first visit had made few changes in the island and its people. All of my old friends were alive and well. At Laudat old André, Raoul, and the others were little changed, but "Jimmy" had grown into a strapping young man I never would have recognized. Among the photographs which Professor Bickmore particularly wanted were views of the famous Boiling Lake, pictures of the "high bush" and of the Caribs and their village. No-one previously had attempted to photograph the vast active crater of the Boiling Lake with its geysers, fumeroles, and huge cauldron-like pond of churning boiling water. From Laudat to the crater was and still is a fearful trip through jungle and forests, and across mile-high mountains. And it was far more difficult when heavily laden with view cameras, carrying cases loaded with plate holders, tripods and other paraphernalia, even when the impedimenta is carried by tireless Laudat mountaineers. But the results were well worth the undertaking, for not only were we favored with clear weather but few clouds were clinging to the mountain tops, the geysers, fumeroles and steam jets of the crater seemed to be showing off for my benefit, and, while at the boiling lake itself we were treated to the rarely seen phenomenon of the water completely disappearing, leaving a yawning black hole in the center of the great pit— all of which was duly recorded by my cameras. My next objective was the Carib settlement where, as I have already mentioned I found Beché, a family man whose wife was the chief's daughter given me in exchange for a pair of scissors. Although usually shy and fearful of a camera (at that time) the Caribs willingly posed for me, for as Beché explained, they regarded me as almost a member of the tribe. As a result, my pictures of the Caribs at their various occupations were of great ethnological value and interest as permanent records of long-lost arts and industries. 170
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Having photographed everything else of interest on the island I visited Soufriere, a tiny fishing village at the southern tip of Dominica. Just before reaching Soufriere the dug-out canoe in which I was traveling passed La Bime, an obelisk-like mass of rock, an ancient cinder cone with sheer perpendicular sides rising over five hundred feet at the water's edge, A few yards off the shore the azure blue water abruptly became black as we passed over the abysmal depths of an ancient blow-hole, and with the cone above it marking the rim of the immense crater that now forms the Bay of Soufriere. Perhaps it would be better to say one of the extinct craters for the village itself is built at the seaward edge of an enormous crater- and not too extinct at that, for a steaming hot stream flows through the village from the steaming, hissing, fumeroles and immense accumulations of glaring burned ashes and golden yellow sulphur at the head of the valley. Probably the most interesting thing at Soufriere was the great stone house built by Red Legs the pirate. Unlike the majority of pirates, Red Legs saved his loot and put away a tidy fortune. He also was unique in other respects, for he never tortured, maltreated or put a captive to death, and never did he molest women. In the end he rendered such a signal service to the crown that he received a full pardon and settled down in Dominica. But despite the fact that he was not “Wanted” and became a prosperous and respected planter, he lived always in fear that some one of his former comrades would look him up and make matters most unpleasant for him. He could not have chosen a better place for protection than the valley of Soufriere. Hemmed in on all sides by the three-thousand foot walls of the ancient crater, and accessible only by sea, none could approach the place unseen. And Red Legs’ house was a fortress in itself. The walls were massive and underneath it there were subterranean passages and galleries. A wide moat barred the way on one side, and leading down from the walled terrace surrounding the house were flights of zig-zag stairs flanked by stone walls. As a final touch the balustrade of the front stairs leading to the portico was composed of musket barrels with cutlass hilts topping the newel posts. At the time I visited Soufriere the house although in a sad state of disrepair, was much as it had been in Red Legs’ day although it had changed owners several times and was then occupied by a half crazy colored man. Today the place is almost in ruins. The piratical balustrade has been torn off and destroyed. The moat has been transformed into the head race for the lime juice mill and the house itself is falling to pieces. Second only to the home of Red Legs in interest was the active portion of the crater, where enormous accumulations of fine silica sand were covered with a thick layer of sulphur deposited by the countless steam jets. Although I had collected birds at Soufriere on my first trip to Dominica I had given no particular heed to these golden yellow sulphur piles, but as I photographed them and the surroundings the commercial possibilities of the Never a Dull Moment
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place occurred to me. But it was not until much later that I attempted to exploit the sulphur. Upon my return to New York, after having visited every island in the chain and making a side trip to British Guiana, I was thoroughly occupied making and coloring a master set of slides for Professor Bickmore. It was about this time that I first began to experiment with photography in natural colors. Although I eventually succeeded and developed a process which I called the “AUTOCHROME" it was not a commercial success. No suitable color sensitive plates were available, many of the necessary chemicals were most difficult to obtain and special paper was required. Moreover, the process required exposures of several minutes so it was of no value for photographing moving subjects. However I made quite a large number of natural color prints of scientific specimens, some of insects having been reproduced in Packard's books. The process, however, had one advantage over the natural color photographs of today for my prints never faded. I still have several and they are as brilliant and true to nature as when first made over forty years ago.
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Chapter 27
1895 – 1938
More Visits with my Indian Friends
When the Wild West Show finally went to Europe I never expected to see White Eagle again, but forty years later by one of those amazing coincidences that occur in real life but would be ridiculed in fiction we met once more. We were driving north from Florida and took a route we had never followed previously. Passing through Ashboro, North Carolina, we noticed a house painted with Indian and western scenes and with a sign "INDIAN MUSEUM" over the door. The place contained a good collection of Indian artifacts and specimens of handicraft and numerous newspaper clippings and pictures of Buffalo Bill Cody and his famous show. “Who owns this?" I asked the white woman in charge. “White Eagle." she replied. "Do you mean White Eagle who was with the Buffalo Bill Show? Where is he?" “He has a filling-station and barbecue stand down the street." she told me. Scarcely able to believe that by such a remarkable coincidence I had run across my old friend I entered the little lunch room. Never would I have recognized the tall gray-haired Indian wearing glasses and a chef's hat who was serving some customers, but he recognizes me instantly, even greeting me by my Sioux name Wambdi, although since we had last met I had been re-named “Chanku Tanka”, "Big Road" because of my many travels among Indians. He was fully as surprised and delighted to see me as I was to see him and we had a wonderful time talking over the old days. Turning the restaurant over to an assistant, he led the way back to the house and insisted that we must be his guests. In her will Annie Oakley had left him several thousand dollars and he had also inherited Johnny Baker's gold-mounted pearl-handled revolvers. He had also been remembered in Cody's will and with a small show of his own he had toured most of the southern states until, while exhibiting in Ashboro at the County Fair, he had met the widow Robinson and selling out the show he had married her and settled down. With his museum and barbecue and his filling station, he was doing well and was an Indian Councillor for the southern states. ''You'd have met another one of your old time friends if you had been here a day earlier." he told me. "Walks With The Wind, the Winnebego, had been here for a few days." Later on “Walks With The Wind”, who had heard of my visit, sent me, in White Eagle's care, a beautiful hat band of beadwork on horse-hair bearing Never a Dull Moment
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my Sioux name sign and symbols reading, "Chanku Tanka will always be welcome within the tepees of the four tribes of the Sioux during peace or war." If ever there was a “live wire”, White Eagle was one. Never have I known a more active man. Although nearly seventy, he was constantly on the go, moving as if actuated by steel spring and with amazing speed, and he talked as rapidly as he moved. He had a monomania for neatness and order. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. His home was spotless and so was the tiny farm and its denizens. His pigs were scrubbed daily until they were as pink as babies and their pen was deep in wood shavings given freshly each day. It was the same with the rest of the livestock. And the crops were in beds and rows as geometrically perfect as if laid out by a surveyor's transit. Aside from his museum, he had two hobbies, wood-working and animal freaks. There were jars of alcohol containing two-headed pigs, a three-eyed calf, five and six legged dogs and cats, a double headed turtle and other monstrosities and his poultry yard was and ornithological nightmare. He had started out with bizarre varieties as “frizzle fowl”, “silkies”, almost legless Japanese bantams and Houdins. Somewhere he had obtained a tailless rooster, a four legged hen and a wingless bantam and had added these to his flock. The result was most amazing. There were foul half frizzled, half silky, some wingless, some tailless, a rooster with three legs instead of two, bantams with naked, extra long necks and crested heads, and every imaginable combination of all, with scarcely a dozen normal birds in the lot. Like all Indians he was fond of animals and pets of all kinds. Cardinals, mocking-birds and jays would eat from his hand or light on his shoulder. He had pet snakes, a tame mountain goat, a giant land tortoise, a talking crow and several dogs but he drew the line at cats. In fact, the only Indian I ever knew who didn’t detest felines, was Ho-To-Bi, the Cheyenne opera singer. We visited White Eagle a number of times as we motored back and forth to Florida, but he eventually moved farther North in North Carolina and I settled in Florida. Although we corresponded, I have not seen White Eagle for several years. Very different from White Eagle was Chief Big Elk another Oglala Sioux, one of who’s grandfathers was Red Cloud and the other Crazy Horse. I met him at the Sportsman Show in Springfield, Massachusetts where he and his wife, a Passamaquoddy named Pretty Woman, had a booth and tepee and sold Indian curios and autographed photographs. They also appeared upon the stage and sang Indian songs accompanied by tom-toms and rattles. He was a broadfaced, heavily built man, good-natured and inordinately lazy, a typical show Indian. Yet his brother was a distinguished surgeon. Both boys had had the same opportunities for education. Sponsored by a wealthy Englishman who took a fancy to them while visiting Standing Rock Reservation they had gone to Carlisle and University of Oklahoma and had graduated from Staunton Military 174
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Academy, and had entered Johns Hopkins’ Medical School, but the education was entirely wasted on Big Elk, which goes to prove that Indians, even if brothers, vary as much as do white men. An excellent musician and trombonist, Big Elk organized an all Indian band and toured the country for a time. Then, for a while he was with Ringling Brothers’ Circus. Noted as the most expert maker of war bonnets among the Sioux, he made all of the headdresses used in Eddie Cantor’s “WHOOPIE” and then for a time settled down and had a job in the Post Office in Boston. But once a “Show Indian” always a “Show Indian”. Moreover he had been a heavy drinker, although when I met him, he had joined Peyote Cult and in accordance with the rules had become a strict teetotaler. One of the greatest delights was to get another Indian drunk, then when, suffering from a bad “hang-over” lecture him on the evils of liquor and try to induce him to become a member of the Cult. He was a likable fellow despite his short-comings and in spite of his education and the fact that the greater part of his life had been spent among white people, he was thoroughly Indian. He was a member of Bear Clan Medicine Cult, he was steeped in Sioux rituals, legends and folklore and was a highly skilled craftsman when it came to Indian handcrafts and arts. He was also an excellent artist of the “Surrealistic School” with Indian variations. He was also a firm believer in the Indian law of reciprocal hospitality. I had given him a beautiful beadwork pipe pouch which once belonged to Crazy Horse. This he felt made us brothers, and un-invited, he and his wife came bag and baggage to an adjoining apartment and took it for granted that we would feed them. It never occurred to him that it might inconvenience us and add to our living expenses for we would have been quite welcome to have lived in his house on the reservation as long as we pleased. And true Indian fashion and in accordance with Indian custom, he and Pretty Woman helped themselves to almost anything that took their fancy and would leave some present in return. The comparative value of the gift meant nothing, but as a rule the Indian objects they gave us, more than equaled what they had acquired. But when it came to food it was a very different matter. Never have I known a human being who could equal Big Elk when it came to eating. Two loaves of bread and from three to five pounds of meat, in addition to vegetables and other foods, was just an ordinary meal to him. Then there were the lobsters. He had expressed the greatest disgust "for the bugs" that he had seen in a fish market, despite the fact that he was fond of grasshopper bread. Then one day we had lobsters, for Pretty Woman came from Maine, and was fond of the crustacean. For a space Big Elk watched her eating. At last he tentatively helped himself to a taste of a claw. I will never forget his expression. A broad grin spread over his face. The "bugs" were mighty good, and in short order his wife's plate held only empty shells and Big Elk was looking for more. From then on he always wanted lobster, but I drew Never a Dull Moment
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the line. I could visualize him getting away with a couple of dozen at a sitting and with lobsters at a dollar a pound there was nothing doing, as far as the edible "bugs" were concerned, Eventually Big Elk and Pretty Woman went on their way leaving me with a fine collection of Sioux handiwork and weapons. There was a magnificent double-tailed horse-back "war bonnet", an initiation bonnet with beaded band telling in Sioux picture writing of my membership in the tribe and my name and symbol; a double-headed arrow. There was a Bear Clan Medicine Man's bonnet with buffalo horns and the painted story of the clan; beaded gauntlets, moccasins, holster, knife sheath and other objects: stoneheaded skull-crackers trimmed with scalp locks, a mink-skin—wrapped coupstick with four coup feathers used by Crazy Horse in the Custer battle, a war club with a blade made of sabres taken at the battle, a fine drum, rattles made of horn and other things, not to mention a note book full of Sioux folklore, stories, songs and traditions. Moreover, he had seen to it that I was officially adopted into his tribe and having ascertained that the original Big Road had died, he transferred the name to me. Taking all in all, our Indian guests more than repaid their debt.
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Chapter 28
1902 – 1906
Business, Pleasure and Dominica
Although I felt certain there were commercial possibilities in the Dominican sulphur there were a lot of obstacles to be overcome. It could not be refined like the ordinary sulphur of Sicily and elsewhere for it was mixed with fine powdery silica sand or ash and if melted it combined with this to form a greenish worthless mass. Neither could it be extracted by a still. It was because of this that the deposits had never been worked although there had been several attempts to do so, but all had failed. However, I was convinced that there must be some way of extracting the sulphur and in order to carry on my experiments, I had several hundred pounds of the material sent me from Soufriere. Even when I finally succeeded in separating the sulphur from the gang there was no certainty that the process which worked on a small scale would be equally efficient on a large scale. The next great difficulty was to form a company and raise the necessary capital. However, when, after a deal of finagling, I managed to secure a letter from the Cooper Chemical Company stating that they would purchase all the sulphur of the same grade as my sample, which we could produce, I managed to get several financiers interested to the extent of investing $25,000.00 which was only a fraction of what was really needed. As a result, we had to be satisfied with buying second-hand machinery and equipment, none of it being just what I wanted. However, needs must when the devil drives, as the old saying is, and having sold my photographic business we moved- literally bag and baggage to Dominica, taking Benito with us, and burning our bridges behind us. It would be a long story to tell of the innumerable failures, disappointments and troubles we had. None of the natives had ever seen machinery, none were mechanics and none were really good carpenters. It was necessary to train them individually but eventually we had good craftsmen, excellent pipe fitters, mechanics and carpenters. But as there were no words in the patois for innumerable articles, they overcame the difficulty the usual way, adding a "la� to the English names. Thus a wire nail became a "wire clew la", a boiler was a "boilerla", a monkey wrench a "monkey wrenchla�, etc. It was month before the plant was ready to test out and our limited capital was getting perilously low. Never will I forget the day when our first run of clear sulphur flowed from the tanks into the moulds. The process was a success, we had sulphur over ninety-nine percent pure and the future looked rosy indeed. Strangely enough the process I had evolved was exactly the same process invented by Dr. Frash in extracting sulphur from the subterranean deposits in far-off Louisiana. The only difference was that while he forced steam into the earth and forced the molten Never a Dull Moment
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sulphur upward, I forced steam into huge iron tanks and forced the molten sulphur downward, yet neither of us even knew of the other's existence. Once having succeeded it did not take long to accumulate some two hundred tons of sulphur and to arrange for a steamship to call at Soufriere for our first shipment. And none too soon, for our capital was exhausted. But I had authorization from the Cooper Company to draw on them at the rate of twentyone dollars per ton against Bills of Lading which saved the day. It was a simple matter to load the MANOA. So deep is Soufriere Bay close inshore that the ship anchored in sixty fathoms with her stern moored to a palm tree on shore. Then an overhead cable-way was rigged, the sulphur was sent aboard in half-hogsheads, and in a short time all was below decks and the ship steamed away. Little did we dream that our real troubles were yet to come. The second-hand boiler gave out and precious time was lost repairing it. The water of the stream was so impregnated with chemicals that it clogged the feed pump and even the injectors, and we were compelled to use a homemade, hand-worked force pump to feed the boiler. Two of the big steel tanks showed leaks and were so eaten away by the sulphur that they were dangerous, but by sheathing them inside with hard wood we continued to use them despite the risk. And then our best tank blew up. Luckily no one was injured, although one of the men who had been standing on the top of the tank was blown fifty feet in air and landed in the accumulation of tailings far down the hillside. Fortunately for him the fine sand - almost like flour - was soft and cushioned his fall, although the force of the explosion had torn his clothes to tatters. We were now reduced to one tank and the boiler was likely to give out altogether at any time. Handicapped as we were our output was very small and our only hope lay in assuring adequate capital, which, I felt, would be simple once the backers had proof of the success of the undertaking and realized that our misfortunes were the result of makeshift equipment. As I alone knew all the details of the process and hence could not leave, my associate - who was acting as Treasurer of the Company, sailed for New York, armed with all necessary documents, to raise the needed funds. But no word from him ever came back and, eventually, I discovered that he had secured the capital and had promptly decamped with it. In the meantime I was managing to produce sulphur on a small scale and was shipping it to Barbados and Trinidad, thus managing to keep things going. But at last the boiler was finished, the last tank was ready to burst at any moment and I gave up. Even if, from a business standpoint the undertaking had failed, still I had demonstrated that the sulphur could be produced at a profit of over twelve dollars per ton. But in the meantime the Union Sulphur Company of Louisiana had been producing vast quantities of sulphur and controlled the market. Even 178
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with adequate capital and equipment it would have been hopeless to try to compete with them and our project was abandoned. For another year I remained in Dominica, earning my livelihood by collecting birds and other Natural History specimens, many for the Tring Museum of Baron Rothschild. I also made a very large collection of corals, gorgonias, crustaceans and other marine invertebrates for my father. Many of these proved to be species new to science and for some time after my return to the states I was busy making drawings and photographs of the specimens. During the time we were in Dominica several palatial yachts visited the island. There was James Gordon Bennet with his warship-like yacht LYSISTRATA and his several guests, among them Lady Maxwell and Baron and Baroness Van de Velde whom everyone on the island mistook for Vanderbilts. Before he left Mr. Bennet appointed me special West Indian correspondent for the New York Herald. Another visitor was Morton H. Plant whose guests aboard his big ocean-going yacht were Lord Athlumley and Mr. Henry Colt of the Colt Firearms Company. Mr. Plant was far more interested in the problems of housekeeping, the prices of food and the costs of living on Dominica than in the natural scenic beauties of the island. But he was also keenly interested in the lime orchards, the Botanic Station and in tropical horticulture in general. He was a short, exceeding stout man with a florid face and thoroughly enjoyed a joke even if on himself. On one occasion I was driving him up the Roseau Valley road when we met an unusually pretty colored girl staggering along under a huge bunch of bananas in the tray upon her head. "Please, sir, ease me down.” she panted. Stepping from the carriage I helped her lift the heavy load from her head and she stood resting, leaning against the roadside wall. Of course we also were obliged to wait, for it would be as necessary to "ease her up" as it had been to "ease her down." "Come here, my pretty girl", cried Mr. Plant, holding out a shilling, "Here's a present for you." Then, as the girl approached and reached for the coin: "Now give me a kiss my pretty girl." he said. The girl stepped back and shook her head. "Eh! Eh!" she exclaimed, "No, M'sieu. You is too red and too fat." Plant shook with laughter. "You're the first woman who ever dared tell me the truth,” he chuckled. "And here's a Crown for being so frank about it.” We were also honored by the arrival of the U.S. cruiser Des Moines the first United States war vessel that had visited the island in fifty years. As the acting United States consul was a drink-sodden, uncouth Scotchman who detested Americans and, moreover, hadn't the least idea as to the proper Never a Dull Moment
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procedure, he asked me to take over. So I boarded the Des Moines, paid my respects to Captain McCracken and learned that his main reason for stopping at Dominica was to give his men a few days ashore where they were reasonably safe from the evil temptations presented in the larger, more popular islands. Our home was surrounded by several acres of land with broad lawns and countless mango and other fruit trees and I suggested that the men make themselves at home, put on a baseball game and gorge themselves on our fruit. The idea proved a great success. The men were served limeade, coffee and light refreshments and had a glorious time, and not a single case of drunkenness or disorderly conduct was reported by the police. Captain McCracken was really a dear soul. A naval officer of the old school; somewhat oldmaidish perhaps, but a stickler for discipline and etiquette, yet withall on almost friendly terms with every member of his ship's company, all of whom fairly worshipped him. But he had no political pull despite the fact that he had frequently distinguished himself and should have been promoted for he had risen no higher than the rank of Commander. The cruise on which he visited Dominica was his last. Upon his return to the states, he was retired and before he died was made a Rear Admiral, which must have been a great consolation in his last moments. My life, as I have already mentioned, has always been filled with unexpected events and our return trip from Dominica proved another surprise. I was at the steamship Agent's office, arranging for transportation, when the skipper of the TRINIDAD came in. "What are you doing?" he asked after greeting me. "You don’t need tickets, we left our first assistant engineer in the hospital at St. Lucia and Eddie (the Chief Engineer) will be tickled to death if you'll take his place." Naturally I jumped at the chance. Eddie Yuhl, the Chief, was an old friend of many voyages. I loved machinery and was at home in the engine room and the duties of First Assistant were, unless some unexpected trouble developed, very light indeed, consisting mainly of standing watch, keeping records of propeller revolutions, boiler pressures and other data, and seeing that the firemen and second assistant didn't shirk. But fate had still more in store for me on that voyage. Scarcely had I got settled and had donned my officer's cap when the Captain summoned me, informing me that the Chief Steward had suddenly become ill and asked if I thought I could handle his job also. After consulting with Eddie and finding that matters could be so arranged that the hours did not conflict, I became acting steward. I thoroughly enjoyed my job as a steward. I had great fun planning meals, making out menus and suggesting dishes that had not been previously served. Moreover, I taught the chef how to prepare island products in Creole style. As I was still a passenger when not serving in the roles of assistant engineer, or chief steward, I managed to find out the dates of various birthdays, wedding anniversaries and similar events and in each case a special dinner was 180
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served with fancy menus as souvenirs. One of the passengers was a wealthy excow-puncher and rancher whos birthday was due in a couple of days. I decorated the menus with Indian designs and various objects of cow-country such as saddles, spurs, pistols, stirrups, etc. I then drew a rope encircling the menu. One end being held by a figure in chef's costume with the loop at the other end about the body of a cowboy. The menu itself as nearly as I can recall was as follows; Hors-d’Oeuvres Wild West PotageFrijoles a la Mexicana PoissonTrout a la chaperejos Grilled Kingfish Six Gun EntreesPork tenderloin- Open Range Fricasse de Poulet- Chuck Wagon Roasts- Viandes Ribs of Beef, Latigo Filet Mignon aux Baked Spuds LegumesSuccotash – Trail Style Petits Pois – Green Peas Haeblamore PastriesSourdough biscuits Apple pie a la Hacienda Assorted Pastries SavoriesWelsh Rarebit a la Remuda Nuts and Raisins Cocktail, Red Eye Never a Dull Moment
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The dinner was a great success. The fact that I sometimes appeared wearing the cap and insignia of the engineering department and at other times that of the stewards' department must have puzzled some of the passengers as well as some of the crew. Then one day as we neared New York the purser asked if I could manage to find time to help him with his manifests and other duties, so for a few days I became a member of the pursers' staff. That was too much for one of the passengers. Stopping me as I hurried across the deck he demanded; "Young man, are you every officer aboard this ship? I have been expecting to see you wearing a captain's gold braid next."
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Chapter 29
1906 – 1908
Adventures in Dominican Republic
While in Dominica I had collected a great many of the giant Hercules Beetles and had obtained many of their larvae —the first known, for the Kny Scheerer Company of New York City, and soon after I was back in the States Dr. Lagai of the firm asked if I would undertake making an expedition to Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic). Although I was to collect anything and everything in the line of Natural History specimens my chief objective, the real reason for the expedition was the supposedly extinct mammal, Solenodon Paradoxus. This creature, known only from fragments of a skeleton in the Imperial Russian Museum which were collected in 1830 and labeled "Hispaniola", was related to the Cuban Solenodon. Real "missing links" of the mamalia the Solendons were, as one scientist expressed it. "Left-over fossils." As no one had ever seen a specimen of Solenodon Paradoxus, much less a living animal, and it was by no means certain that it was a native of the republic, my chances of obtaining a specimen were so remote that one of our leading naturalists declared that I "might as well try to collect a ghost.” However, the Kny Scheerer Company felt that even if I failed to find the Solenodon, the bird skins, insects, reptiles, etc. that I collected would make the trip worth while. As I realized it would take months to visit all sections of the republic in search of the "missing link” and that it might be restricted to one small area, I hit upon a novel plan for reaching the remote districts and arousing the native's interests in my search. This was to have several hundred postcards printed with a picture of the Solenodon, as he was supposed to appear in life (and as it turned out not a bad likeness at that) and stating in English, French, Spanish and German that I would purchase specimens of the animal, alive or dead, and would pay for information regarding it. Sanchez, where I landed in the republic, was as miserable an excuse for a town as it had ever been my misfortune to see. Straggling along the shore of Samana Bay, with the huge Colorado Swamp barely half a mile distant, the port had no reason for existence aside from the fact that it was the terminus of the railway into the interior. Rickety houses and outbuildings were scattered on the steep hillsides. The only thoroughfares were gulleys, cut by the torrential rains, full of holes and puddles. The only water was rain water caught in barrels and rusty tanks beneath the eaves and with no protecting covers. No one seemed to worry over the fact that countless buzzards perched on the roofs that were white with their droppings and neither did they worry because every tank and rain barrel was alive with mosquito larvae and not a building had window or door screens. Sanitation was utterly unknown. The few latrines to be seen were merely rough box-like structures perched on posts, with pigs, chickens and Never a Dull Moment
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ducks rooting and scratching beneath them, why typhoid, dysentery, malaria and hook-worm had not killed everyone was and still is a mystery. As soon as I had cleared through the Customs - which was simple as I carried a document from the Dominican Minister in Washington directing the officials to pass all my equipment free, I visited the United States Vice Consul's office. His name was Henrique LeRoux, a native of Louisiana and a fine fellow who proved a good friend. But he looked a living skeleton. I doubt if he weighed over one hundred pounds. His skin, tightly drawn over the skull, was saffron-yellow and his jet-black hair, moustache and eyes were in striking contrast. Yet LeRoux was in good health and later told me that he was a cod liver oil addict. That having once taken it for his health he had acquired the habit and, strangely enough, instead of adding to his flesh it reduced it. From him I learned that there was only one boarding house which was kept by a Turks Island widow, and not an hotel in the place. He also found me a camp boy- a Bahaman Negro named Joseph, and a most remarkable character in many respects, well over six feet in height he was thin as the proverbial lath and seemed to be all knobby joints, when he squatted or sat he bore a striking resemblance to a gigantic black grasshopper. But he turned out to be an honest, faithful and intelligent fellow and had an utter and supreme contempt for the Dominicans whom he always referred to as "stupid niggers" and "pure corruption". From his racial and physical heights he looked down upon them in lordly disdain which, at times, came close to bringing on international complications for he boldly defied everyone, whether soldiers, police or officials, by declaring he was a “subject of the King of Englan' an’ ain't to be humbugged with." At the time of my entry into the republic it was far from being the peaceful orderly country it has become today. There was not a road worthy of the name on the island; the country fairly swarmed with outlaws and bandits, and revolutions were of daily —I might say almost hourly, occurrence. In fact when I arrived a revolution was in full swing and the filthy pest hole of a town was under siege. Every man went about armed to the teeth and, placed within easy reach of the doorway of each house, was a huge cedar or mahogany log deeply notched, which could be used as a breastwork or a barricade. Theoretically the Federalistas were supposed to wear blue ribbons on their arms while the revolutionists wore red ribbons. But as a matter of fact the only way that the Federal forces could be distinguished from the "rebels" was that the former were, if anything, more ragged and dirty than their enemies. Under these conditions I left it to Joseph's discretion as to accompanying me on my collecting trips into the battle area. "They ain't been one of the stupid niggers I's 'fraid for,” he declared, "they don't been able to shoot whatsoever they aims for an’ they ain' goin’ humbuggin’ a subjec’ of the King. They all pure corruption, Chief.” 184
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Any fears of being "humbugged" by the armed forces were soon dissipated, for both Federalistas and Insurrectos seemed peaceful and friendly when they found me an Americano and Joseph a "subjec" of the King. In fact they were far more interested in begging cigarettes than in the revolution. When they gathered about I saw my chance, and began handing out my picture postcards. As they gazed at the picture and I explained what I wanted most of them shook their heads and declared they had never seen or heard of the creatures. But one elderly Insurrecto declared that, years before, his dog had killed one on the farther side of the bay- “muy lejo" (very far) with a vague wave of his arm. However, if I didn't obtain information regarding the Solenodon, I secured a fine lot of bird specimens, for the mountain side back of Sanchez was rich in bird life. Back in the town I had cards tacked up in every shop and cantina, in the ramshackle railway station, and even in the police station and barracks. Also, the next morning I walked about the market distributing the cards. But a number of days passed, weeks slipped by and there was no definite word of the "missing link" despite the fact that I had moved from place to place and had covered a wide area. Then one day a wild-looking ragged "paisano" appeared and declared he knew where the animalitos could be found. They were he said, in a series of caves across the Bay in a remote uninhabited district. So I packed our outfit in the fourteen-foot Old Town canoe I had brought with me and with Joseph folded up like a jackknife in the bow we started off. Eventually we located the caves and although we saw no traces of living Solenodons we did find two skulls and a few bones which proved the missing links had once inhabited the caverns. To describe in detail my search for the Solenodon would require a volume in itself. From all parts of the republic came reports of the animals' presence. On each occasion I investigated and followed every story but my search was without results. A Negro woodcutter declared he had not only seen but killed Solenodons, which the natives knew by the name of "Almiqui" so I hastened to Samana, established headquarters and thoroughly explored the jungles without finding a trace of my "ghosts". Still another fellow informed me that the almiquis lived in hollow trees and Joseph and I spent many weary days hunting out and knocking to pieces countless dead trees but with no results. Finally I heard that the elusive creatures inhabited a deserted Cay, at one time the stronghold of buccaneers and pirates, so we prepared to visit the island. This time there were three in the party for a young Dane named Broberg had become interested in my quest and begged to be taken along. With all our impedimenta and my canoe aboard a chartered sloop we set sail with the black skipper agreeing to call for us at the end of a month. It Never a Dull Moment
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was a fascinating spot, a real desert island without water, heavily wooded and with ruins of crumbling forts and buildings, as well as several ancient cannon, overgrown by jungle. Much to my delight we found tracks of the solenodon almost as soon as we landed. But despite the fact that we hunted from dawn until dark every day and even at night, we failed to catch a glimpse of the animals, and although I set numerous traps no almiqui was captured. We also turned our attentions to the many dead and hollow trumpet trees and while Broberg searched the caves and crannies in the rocky cliffs, Joseph and I tramped through the jungle kicking over the dead trees and hopefully watching for a Solenodon to emerge. By the time we had knocked over at least one hundred trees we began to loose interest and gave the decaying trees merely a perfunctory blow as we passed. I had just kicked one half-heartedly and had gone on to the next when Joseph uttered a terrified yell. Wheeling about I was just in time to see him tumble backward, thrashing frantically at a big brown creature scrambling across his chest. Instantly I recognized the long-sought animal and half raised my gun. But I could not shoot without hitting Joseph and the next instant the Solenodon vanished in one of the innumerable fissures in the limestone rock. I could not blame Joseph. As he had kicked a tree the animal had rushed out and clawed its way up his leg. Startled and not knowing whether the creature was dangerous, he had shouted and sprung back only to trip on a stone and fall head-over-heels. Whether this almiqui was the last survivor of his race upon the Cay I shall never know, but never, during the rest of our stay, did we so much as catch a glimpse of a Solenodon. As we still had some time before the return of the sloop and as we had about abandoned hope of finding a Solenodon or of trapping one, I suggested to Broberg that we might pretend we were marooned, that we had reached the island with nothing other than our garments and the contents of our pockets, and then try to work out means of obtaining food, shelter, water and fire. It was a lot of fun and called for a deal of ingenuity, but we finally succeeded, and eventually our experience was duly recorded in my book AN AMERICAN CRUSOE (Dodd Mead) the first book I ever had published and that is- or was until recently- still in print and having a good sale. We came very close to having to put our experiments into practice, for the third week passed, there was no sign of the sloop, and supplies -especially water- were getting perilously low. And when four days after the allotted time had passed and the vessel had not showed up it was obvious that something must be done. There was no danger of starving for there were wild goats on the Cay, pelicans, terns and other birds nested by thousands on the outlying rocks and there were still a few coconuts and sour oranges left on the trees. Broberg and I had solved the problem of obtaining water - if it rained - but the sun beat down from a 186
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cloudless sky. Matters became so bad that I even contemplated attempting to make the hazardous trip by canoe to the nearest settlement on the mainland. But before I had quite made up my mind to do so Broberg came rushing into camp shouting that a boat was in sight. It proved to be a small craft manned by two native fishermen, and by yelling, waving, and firing a gun we attracted their attention and were overjoyed to see them head for the Cay. But when at last the boat touched shore and I had a closer view of it I felt that our elation was premature to say the least, it was a clumsy dug-out cayuca, ancient, warped, cracked and full of holes. The worst of these had been covered with bits of tin from old kerosene cans but wide cracks extended from stem to stern and to prevent the wreck from falling apart it had been wrapped with telegraph wire. To put to sea in such a crazy, leaky craft seemed little short of suicidal but it was our only chance and the ragged, greasy occupants seemed to think it perfectly safe. So having agreed to pay an exorbitant sum to the scoundrels we loaded part of our dunnage in the cayuca and the balance in my canoe, which was to be towed astern. No sooner had we pushed off than my worst fears were realized. Through countless cracks and leaks the water began pouring in as our additional weight brought the cayuca below its ordinary water-line. With dishes and coconut shells we bailed for our lives and for a space kept the water from gaining on us. But once out of the lee of the cay and in the short choppy waves the crazy craft bobbed and tossed and groaned and I fully expected it to disintegrate at any moment, while water fairly spouted from numberless leaks. The two natives were terrified and insisted we must turn back. But I had no intention of being longer marooned on the cay. Stripping off our shirts we tore them into strips and forced the rags into the worst of the constantly widening cracks. But the makeshift caulking was soon forced out by the pressure and it was obvious that only by lightening the load could the craft ever reach the shore. Hauling my canoe alongside we dumped more dunnage into the tiny craft, stowing it at one end, and fully realizing I was risking my life, I climbed into the other end and cast off. Relieved of the weight of the baggage and myself the cayuca rose several inches, bringing the worst leaks above the waterline, and feeling fairly certain my two comrades could keep the water under control I grasped my paddle and headed up the Bay. By this time there was a fairly heavy sea running and I could not hope to paddle across the waves to La Ceiba, the nearest settlement and the objective of the cayuca. I could go only with the waves and wind and try for Samana, twenty-five miles distant, and to add to my peril the sun was nearing the horizon and in another hour it would be dark. I have experienced many a hazardous sea trip, in mere cockle shells of boats, I have sailed through gales and tempestuous seas and have run many a Never a Dull Moment
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dangerous rapid in frail native canoes, but never have I endured anything to compare with that awful voyage in a fourteen foot Old Town canoe through Stygian blackness for twenty-five miles of ever-increasing seas. Keeping my course by the stars, with breaking, foam-capped seas threatening to swamp the canoe, I paddled. It took every ounce of my strength to keep the craft ahead of the combers astern and checking it to avoid burying its prow as it drove into the troughs of the seas. And I was worried for fear the wind would shift. But at long last the lights of Samana appeared and six hours after leaving the cayuca I stepped ashore and dragged my canoe upon the beach before the town. Hungry and thirsty and with every muscle aching, I reached our quarters expecting to find Broberg and Joseph, for it was only a couple of hours by horseback from La Ceiba. But there was no sign of them. Had the cayuca foundered after all? Filled with forebodings and desperately in need of a stiff drink I made my way to the nearest cantina. There, seated at a table and with a half-empty bottle between them, were my two companions with doleful faces, striving to drown their sorrow at my death. Joseph's eyes rolled as if he was seeing a ghost- as he thought I wasand Broberg blinked and stared with open mouth. "Lord A'mighty, Chief, ain’ you drownded?" cried Joseph when he realized I was no spirit. "We was a mournin’ yo' deceasement, and yo' is resurrected, praise the Lord!!" As for Broberg he was too flabbergasted and overcome by the apparition of my supposed spirit, and the spirits he had imbibed, to do more than stare, and having gulped down a huge glass of raw rum he passed out of the picture. It was a notorious bandit, known as El Lobo (The Wolf) who finally put me on the track of the long-sought Solenodon. Having missed our trail one day and with darkness coming on and a heavy rain falling, Joseph and I came upon a small thatched hut in a tiny clearing of the jungle. The owner was a swarthy, heavily-built man with bristling black moustache and beard who would have made an ideal motion picture pirate. He wore a battered palm leaf hat, a short bolero jacket and blue denim trousers tucked into high boots on one of which was a rusty spur, while hanging at his side was a sword-like, cross-hilted fighting machete and a heavy revolver. He received us hospitably, assured me in the flowery Spanish manner that his house and all it contained were mine and cleared a space for us to swing our hammocks. Before the open hearth a young Meztizo woman was baking tortillas, and presently we were seated at a rough slab table dining on steaming san-coche (native stew), crisp tortillas and splendid coffee.
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The fellow was a genial host and while obviously curious to learn why I was in such an out-of-the-way spot he politely refrained from asking personal questions, talking mainly of the deplorable conditions of the Republic, the danger of bandits and the difficulties of the paisanos in striving to keep souls and bodies together. When at last I asked about Almiquis and gave him one of my picture cards he declared that only a few months previously he had seen one of the creatures that had been killed by a friend's dogs near a village called Limon. Perhaps, he added the Almiquis might still be in the neighborhood and gave minute directions as to how to reach Limon and provided me with the name of his friend. Not until weeks later did I learn that our host of that black and stormy night was the famed and feared El Lobo, who by that time had been captured. At Limon everyone seemed familiar with the Solenodons and El Lobo's friend led me to the area where his dogs had killed one. Only by setting traps could I hope to obtain the creatures, he said, for they were strictly nocturnal and lived in deep burrows. I had not been feeling well for some time and I was now desperately ill and realized that it was imperative that I should have proper medical treatment. So having made several large box-traps I left Joseph in charge with instructions to deliver any Solenodons he might capture to my friend LeRoux at Sanchez. When at last success rewarded my long search I was lying helpless and near to death with Typhoid in the military hospital at Puerta Plata with my coffin in plain sight outside my door. To this day I firmly believe that word of the capture of not one but three Almiquis saved my life. I simply could not afford to die before I had the creatures safely in New York. Although all three died my friend preserved them in alcohol and, a few days later, they were delivered at the hospital. When, at the end of three months, I set sail for New York all my troubles, my hardships and my months in the hospital seemed of little moment, for my expedition had proved a success, I had collected the "ghosts�, the only specimens of Solenodon paradoxus in the world at that time. Since then quite a number have been taken alive, for once my report was published and it was known where the Solenodons lived and how to capture them it was a comparatively simple matter to obtain them. Although several have been brought alive to the Bronx and other zoological parks none have lived more than a few months, despite the utmost care. Perhaps the Solenodon paradoxus is too much of a "left-over fossil" to adapt itself to captivity.
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Chapter 30
1908 – 1915
In Guiana and Venezuela
Soon after my return from Santo Domingo I became an Associate Editor of THE AMERICAN BOY MAGAZINE conducting the Popular Science Department. At that time Clarence Buddington Kelland was also an Associate Editor of the magazine and was writing juvenile fiction. Also, for several years, we resided at Short Beach, Connecticut, where our next-door neighbors were Ella Wheeler Wilcox and her husband, Robert, a most genial, lovable roly-poly gentleman who always referred to himself as “Mr. Ella Wheeler Wilcox". It was at the Wilcox's that I met Jack London, Isadora Duncan, Billy Burke, Mrs. Vermilyea, Zane Gray, David Belasco, Rex Beach and many other prominent persons of the Literary, Art and Stage worlds. My department in the American Boy had attracted the attention of several publishers and I wrote my KNOTS SPLICES AND ROPE WORK for the Norman W. Henley Company. Then Mr. Ripley Hitchcock of Harper and Brothers asked me to do HARPERS' BOOK FOR YOUNG GARDNERS, HARPERS’ BOOK FOR YOUNG NATURALISTS, HARPERS’ MACHINERY BOOK FOR BOYS, THE A.B.C. OF AUTOMOBILE DRIVING (which incidentally, was later translated into Japanese and used as an instruction book for the Mikado’s Army) and my career as an author was established. Also, at that period, the Aeroplane was just coming into its own and I was appointed technical adviser on gasoline engines for the Aeronautical Society. Looking back upon the planes of those days I marvel that any of the flyers ever survived a first flight. In fact, as one of them expressed it, "When an aviator lands he wants either an ambulance or a cigarette." There was no scientific or exact information or statistics regarding planes. Each and every builder and pilot had his own ideas on the subject and there were planes of every imaginable type and some beyond the bounds of ordinary imagination from the chain-driven Wright biplane to the Curtis Flying Boat, as well as triplanes, monoplanes, gull-winged planes and box-kite planes. Some never left the ground, others flew after a fashion and some were, for those days, a great success. When a Curtis Flying Boat made a trip from Albany to New York City without a breakdown it was front page news. Then Lincoln Beachy attracted world-wide attention by his spectacular flying. However, to my mind, Beachy's stunt flying was nothing by comparison with the risks he took. I have seen him take to the air in a Curtis plane where ordinary baling wire had been used to replace broken wing-stays and controls. 190
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The power plants in use were as varied and almost as crude as the planes themselves. There were opposed-cylinder motors, rotating motors, Vmotors, T-head, L-overhead and overhead-valve motors; four-cycle and twocycle motors and motors that could not be classified. But it was obvious that man had conquered the air, that aviation was destined to become an important part of civilization's progress and that aerial transportation would soon become commonplace. However, when in 1912, I stated in one of my "talks" before the Society, that "within the lifetime of many of those present, aircraft would be making regular flights across the Atlantic�, the Public and the Press ridiculed the idea. Yet less than fifteen years later the Atlantic had been flown by Alcock and Brown and by Lindbergh and the Aeroplane had become a most important and efficient weapon of warfare in Europe. My book, HARPERS’ BOOK OF AEROPLANES, was the first popular work published on the subject and with later editions brought up to date it was considered a standard work for many years. No one then dreamed that within a year or two Europe would be devastated by war and that the United States would be involved, and travelminded Americans had begun to "discover" the West Indies. Having contracted for a book on the Lesser Antilles I again set sail for the Caribbes to obtain up-to-date material, and included British Guiana in my itinerary. While there I met a young geologist who was prospecting for Bauxite deposits for the Aluminum Company of America and joined him for a trip into the interior. Although we were in the jungle for less than three weeks and were never far distant from outlying settlements, I was fascinated by the vast forests, the great rivers, the foaming rapids, the friendly interesting Indians and the marvellous wealth of bird, mammalian, reptilian and insect life, and I made up my mind, then and there, to someday explore the country and penetrate the little known interior with its many Indian tribes still unspoiled, almost untouched by civilization. How my dream was to be fulfilled was a problem, but I trusted to Fate and my faith was justified far sooner than I had dared to hope. During our short trip I had collected a few ethnological specimens Indians' bows, arrows, queyus or bead aprons, necklaces, baskets, etc., and upon my return to New York I presented these to Mr. George G. Heye who, at that time, had a notable collection of Indian artifacts in a down-town loft building. A few days later I had a call from Mr. Heye who was intensely interested in my specimens and wanted to know if I would go to British Guiana to collect ethnological material for him. Of course I jumped at the chance and having procured suitable equipment for jungle life I was soon once more at sea bound for Demerara. This time my wife and our two youngest daughters, Loyola and Valerie, accompanied me, for I expected to be in Guiana for at least a year. Never a Dull Moment
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Having leased a pleasant residence close to the marvellous Botanic Gardens in Georgetown I set out on my first ethnological expedition into the interior. I had been most fortunate in finding an experienced camp-boy, a Negro named Sam, who had been on many trips into the interior, who was thoroughly familiar with jungle life, who spoke the “talky-talky" of the Indians, who was absolutely fearless and who - to quote his own words, could, "cook anything and everything except fruit cake". For more then a year I explored the Guiana wilderness, running rapids, visiting scores of tribes, and gathering an enormous and valuable collection of Indian utensils, weapons, ornaments, headdresses, ceremonial costumes, artifacts and ceremonial objects, as well as the vocabularies of the tribes. Many of the Indians I visited were almost unknown and on one trip I traced down and visited a "lost" tribe that previously had been thought extinct. My familiarity with the Caribs of Dominica proved an open sessame when I visited the Caribs of Guiana. In fact I became a "blood-brother" of Kumwarrie (The Humming Bird) a Carib chief. It was a most interesting ceremony. The "Peiaman" (Medicine Man) having slashed our wrists they were pressed together so that our blood might intermingle and then each licked up some of the other's blood. My work was not all "beer and skittles" as the saying goes. There were hardships aplenty, many a time we narrowly escaped destruction in foaming rock-filled rapids. Often, for weeks on end, rain fell constantly day and night and on one occasion a section of the forest floor on which we had camped was floated and carried adrift by the flooded river and when morning dawned we were several miles down stream. Several times also, we ran short of provisions, as is usually the case, game and fish were non-obtainable when we needed them most, and for several days we had subsisted on coffee and a few mouthfuls of rice. But it was all in the days' work. As Sam said, we "took the rough with the smooth," in fact it would have been far more rough than smooth if I had not equipped our native bateau with an outboard motor, for hauling up rapids is strenuous work and my crew of six Indians, a bowman and "captain" were often so exhausted by the time we reached calm water above the falls that they scarcely could paddle. With the motor, the crew could rest at ease while the "kicker" drove the boat at twice the speed it could have been paddled. Coming back down the rivers was glorious sport, even if dangerous. At breakneck speed the heavy craft would rush through the foaming, churning rapids, missing rocks by inches as the bowman and captain swung the boat right or left with almost uncanny skill, and often travelling more miles in an hour than we had covered in days on our up-stream journey. Today many of the more remote areas I visited are within easy reach of Georgetown by aeroplane and one may visit the marvelous Kaietuerk Falls (Editor recognized today Kiaetuer Falls) as - the world's greatest cataract - in the space of a few hours. But in the days when I was exploring the Guiana jungles it 192
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was a ten days' journey to Kaietuerk and a strenuous, dangerous trip at that. But the stupendous waterfall was well worth the undertaking. Here words cannot fittingly describe the awe-inspiring sight of the great gorge over 1000 feet in depth into which the Potaro River plunges in an unbroken sheet of water over 800 feet in height or over five times the height of Niagara. Marvellous and impressive as were the falls they were merely an incident of my trips into the interior. There were other incidents, sometimes dangerous and exciting, at other times humorous, such as my meeting with the "Generalissimo". (Editor – This story is also related in My Thirty Years in the Jungle.) We had crossed the Guiana-Venezuela boundry and were headed down the river toward a creek where, so I had been told, there was a large Indian village. Rounding a point we came suddenly and most unexpectedly upon a house and a clearing. A couple of canoes were moored to the bank, a number of huge logs were pulled up on shore and in a rude shed two half-naked men were whip-sawing a log. Beyond this was a well-built house constructed of sawn slabs and roofed with palm thatch and with the Venezuelan flag flying from a bamboo pole. As we appeared, a man rose from his seat on a section of log in the doorway and came hurrying toward us. He was short, immensely fat, with a florid face and triple chins. His short black hair was brushed up in a bristling pompadour and his upper lip and half his cheeks were hidden by an enormous upturned black moustache. He was clad in a cotton singlet open to the waist, a pair of patched, stained cotton trousers held up by a scarlet sash, and his feet were thrust into the typical Venezuelan alpargatas or sandals. "Ah” he exclaimed in Spanish as I stepped ashore. "Visitors by the grace of God! And a white caballero at that! Ah, Señor mio," he continued throwing his arms about me and patting me on the back in Spanish fashion. "I am honored, overcome, blessed by the saints. It is the happiest day of my life, the most glorious of moments, the event of events to welcome you to my miserable and disgraceful home. It is yours, Señor, to do with as you please. But observe! It is nothing - a mere hut, a kennel, a pigsty unfit for your excellency. But what would you? It is in the wilderness, in the jungle - hundreds of leagues from anywhere. But here must I dwell - I, myself, a generalissimo of my great and glorious republic. Si, Señor, by a whim of Fate by the will of God am I here, trying to live, trying to earn honest money by having those lazy dogs saw logs into boards that I may sell. Caramba, yes! a generalissimo of Don Cipriano Castro forced to live like an Indio. To think that I, the honored, feared, envied, admired, heroic and courageous Generalissimo Don Demitrio Alvarado Leon de la Guardia should come to this! But a thousand pardons, Señor. Caramba, I forget myself, I lose my manners. I am becoming like a peon. But what would you? It is the wilderness, the jungle. Señor, enter I beg you, and do me the honor to have a drink." We had already entered the house that was quite comfortably and well furnished and the "Generalissimo" clapped his pudgy hands and shouted for Never a Dull Moment
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"Maria". When she appeared, a rival of the General in size, a real mountain of a woman with at least six chins and a decided moustache, she proved to be the Señora herself. “Ah, flower of my dreams!" cried the General beaming. "We have a visitor. Caramba, yes, heart of my soul, a caballero from the glorious Estados Unidos, the country whose Presidente is a great Generalissimo like myself, the illustrious General Jorge Washington. Bring the drinks Carissima and prepare a feast and be quick about it. His excellency is desolated with fatigue, he expires with thirst, he succombs to hunger." Leisurely she waddled off to return with bottles, decanters and glasses. Even if it was "in the wilderness, the jungle" the pompous tubby Generalissimo possessed a fine stock of drinkables - Spanish wines, Benedictines, old Cognac and the inevitable rum. I suspected lumbering was neither his only nor his most lucrative business. But it was no affair of mine if he smuggled liquor into British territory. To my queries regarding the creek and the Indian village he replied that he knew the stream but never had visited the Indian village although his laborers had mentioned it. He declared that he must accompany me. "I insist, I beg of you that I may go." he cried. "It is an honor, a delight. Wait but one little momentito until I attire myself fittingly." The "momentito" expanded into half an hour before he reappeared. I gazed open-mouthed. He was a figure glorious to behold. Upon his feet were shiny polished cavalry boots with great silver spurs. Scarlet trousers with skyblue stripes fitted skin-tight over his bowed legs. He wore a tunic of emeraldgreen resplendent with gold buttons and braid and with immense epaulets. A crimson sash and white belt supported a heavy sabre and a pearl-handled revolver and a dark-blue gold visored hat with a white and red pom-pom covered his bristly hair. "Behold!” he exclaimed. “Once again I am the Generalissimo! Vamonos, let us embark that I may see these savages, that I may permit them to gaze upon me, upon a Generalissimo." He may have been the brave, admired and victorious soldier he claimed but he was no sailor. Each time the boat tipped or bumped on a submerged log he caught his breath, gripped the gunwales and was obviously terrified. Moreover, it was hot, the heavy tight-fitting uniform must have been torture and great beads of perspiration rolled down his fat flabby cheeks. But nothing could repress his garrulity. "Ah Excellencia!" he cried, peering into the surrounding jungle, "what a spot for lurking savages. What a place for ambush, a massacre, an attack. Caramba, yes! It was in such a forest, such a jungle that I, Generalissimo Leon de la Guardia won glory. It was —” At that instant the boat grated on a log, water sloshed over the rails upon his boots and in striving madly to balance the boat he very nearly capsized it. 194
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Then it began to rain, a torrential downpour that descended in streams from the overhanging foliage. It spattered upon the General's ornate head piece, trickled from his epaulettes, ran down his trousers into his boots. For a few moments he stood it, then seizing the tarpaulin, he tried to wrap himself in the stiff canvas. I was truly sorry for him but, as he was so fond of saying, "what would you, it was the wilderness, the jungle." The shower was soon over and casting aside the canvas he looked ruefully at his bedraggled finery and water-soaked boots. At this moment the bowman gave a warning shout and we ducked as the boat swept under a twisted liana stretching across the creek. But the General was too corpulent to double far. The vine caught the pom-pom of his hat snatched it from his head and knocked it into the stream. He ripped out a volley of oaths, grabbed wildly for his hat and struck his hand against a thorn-covered palm leaf. "Madre de Dios!” he yelled in terror. “I am killed, poisoned, dying! I have been bitten by a serpent! For the love of God turn back. Let me reach my casa before I die. Let me say farewell to my beloved Maria." “It was only a palm thorn," I assured him. "Painful but not dangerous.” The hat having been recovered we proceeded but we had not gone far when we ran into more trouble. As the bow of the boat butted into a tangle of vines and foliage the bowman gave a yell and leaped overboard. Almost instantly we were surrounded by thousands of the maddened, vicious hornets whose nest we had disturbed. There was but one thing to do and very promptly we all followed the bowman’s example and sought refuge in the water. Only the Generalissimo kept his seat. But even the flower of the army of ex-president Castro could not long withstand attacks by this enemy. For a moment he fought valiantly, then, halfrising, he plumped into the creek like a giant bull-frog. He came up blowing and spluttering only to be greeted by a waiting hornet that buried its sting in the General's nose. With a cry of pain the valiant soldier ducked beneath the surface. Luckily the water was not beyond his depth for he certainly could not have swum, attired as he was, and following our examples he floundered down stream constantly ducking under until the hornets abandoned the chase. Fortunately we did not have to burn the nest for as we retrieved the boat we discovered a trail leading inland and with several woodskins hidden in the bushes. Securing the boat and shouldering our loads we prepared for the tramp to the Indian village. But the Generalissimo had had enough of it. Bedraggled, covered with mud and slime, his boots spouting water at every step, with water weeds entangled on his sword, with his wilted moustache drooping lugubriously and with his nose swollen to thrice its normal size and vivid purple, the mighty warrior was a pitiful and ludicrous figure. But he was irrepressable and would not admit defeat. "Caramba!" he exclaimed, “We survive. We yet live, we are saved. Por Dios, yes, as a soldier of experience, as a generalissimo I knew when to retreat, when to advance, when to fight. But what would you? We are Never a Dull Moment
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attacked, set upon, ambushed by superior forces, by savage enemies. Santissima Maria, yes! We are taken unawares, outflanked. We have no time for defense, for using our weapons. I order a retreat, we fall back, we retire, but the day is saved. But I, Generalissimo Leon de la Guardia, have been wounded, Caramba, yes! I have been shot in the nose!" He burst into a roar of laughter at his own mishaps. Any man who could see the funny side of it and could laugh off what he had suffered must have been all that he claimed for himself, and my heart warmed to him and I really liked the bombastic old soldier. He drew the line at tramping into the jungle. Seating himself upon a log he drew his sabre, wiped the blade on his sash, examined his revolver, mopped his face, readjusted his moustache and announced that he would remain until we returned. Grinning despite his wounded nose, he declared. "I have been shipwrecked, injured, drowned. I am accustomed to a horse, but it is the wilderness the jungle and there is no steed. Caramba, no! I remain here, I entrench myself, I guard the rear, I dry myself, I cogitate. I recall my past glories, my campaigns, my triumphs. But, Valgame Dios! I have no tobacco, no cigarettes, nothing to smoke. If your excellency could do me the favor, the kindness —.� I supplied the needful tobacco and papers, as well as matches and regretfully abandoned him to his cogitations as he shivered in his wet uniform. When we returned four hours later the Generalissimo was still upon the log. A dead cigarette drooped from his lips, his hat with its wilted pom-pom was jammed over his eyes and he was snoring lustily, doubtless dreaming of his past glories and campaigns. Although my trips were primarily for the purpose of collecting ethnological specimens for Mr. Heye I also was an undercover representative of the Aluminum Company of America and located several important Bauxite deposits, I also secured a great many live birds and mammals for the Bronx Zoo, among them a baby tapir and a giant ant-bear. After each of my trips into the interior the yard of our house in Georgetown became a real menagerie with macaws, toucans, parrots, trumpeters, cotingas and other rare birds; monkeys, sloths, ocelots, ant-eaters, armadillos and other mammals, awaiting shipment to New York. Finally, I was commissioned by Mr. Heye to make at least four oil paintings from life of every tribe I visited. Two were to be portraits of a man and woman, and the other two were to depict a man in his ceremonial costume and a woman engaged in some tribal industry such as spinning cotton, preparing cassava, weaving bead-work etc. It was not a simple matter to induce the 196
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Indians to pose. They were self-conscious, very often their fellow tribesmen poked fun at them and the more remote Indians regarded a drawing or painting with the same superstition and dread they had for a photograph. But taken altogether the results were all that could be desired and the series of paintings in the Museum of the American Indian in New York City is unique. In addition to all this I was employed by the Demerara Agricultural and Historical Museum to collect and mount a large number of birds for natural habitat groups to be sent to the Wembley Exposition in England. During my stay in British Guiana the colony was visited by ex-president Theodore Roosevelt. I already was acquainted with "Teddy" who was "deelighted" to find me in Georgetown and was most enthusiastically interested in my work, both in ethnology and ornithology. He told me of his plans to do some exploratory work in Brazil and asked me innumerable questions regarding my methods of trading with the Indians and the trade goods, provisions, etc., I carried on my trips. Also, during a "talk" that he gave at the museum, he paid me a very great compliment when, speaking of his visits at the various islands of the Lesser Antilles, he stated: "It was my friend Verrill here, who really put the West Indies on the map.�
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Chapter 31
1914 – 1918
Story of a Live Burial
Before leaving for British Guiana I had been asked to try to determine the largest size attained by boa constrictors and anacondas. Stories of giant snakes had come out of the Guianas but no scientist had ever seen a boa over twelve feet in length or an anaconda over fifteen feet long. Almost as soon as I reached Georgetown I advertised that I would pay five dollars a foot for any snake or snake skin more than twenty feet in length that had not been stretched. Numerous skins were brought to me but the majority were well under twenty feet and those that were twenty feet or more had obviously been stretched to the limit, for it is a simple matter to determine if a skin has been stretched. The scales are separated, the markings are distorted and the skin is far too narrow for its length. I then raised my offer to ten dollars a foot but I might have offered fifty dollars a foot and been safe, for the longest unstretched skin brought in measured a scant seventeen feet, although the owner confidently declared it to be over twenty feet and was amazed when the evidence of the tape and his own eyes proved otherwise. Even men who are usually most careful as to measurements often make great mistakes when it is a question of the size of big snakes. One government surveyor assured me that a few years before my visit he had killed an anaconda that measured twenty-eight feet in length. He had been too busy with his survey work to preserve the skin, but just as a matter of record, so he stated, he had placed the huge serpent on the veranda of a government rest house and had driven a surveyor's tack into the floor at each of the snake's extremities. Apparently this was definite evidence that anacondas sometimes grew to a far greater size than I had believed, for the surveyor, while admitting he did not actually measure the snake, stated that the veranda was thirty-one feet in length and that the tacks were barely eighteen inches from the ends of the veranda. "I expect the tacks are still there," he said. "If you should go to Aral you can measure the distance between them and satisfy yourself." When, a few weeks later, I visited the frontier station, I found the surveyor's tacks just as he had said. But the distance between the two tacks was exactly nineteen feet and eleven inches. At another time a local official, who had just returned from a trip into the interior, informed me that he had killed a twenty-three foot "camudi" (the Indian name of the anaconda) and had brought back the skin. This, to be sure, did measure twenty-three feet but it looked very narrow for its length. "How much was the skin stretched?" I asked him. snake." 198
"Not an inch," he declared, "It is just the same length as it was on the A. Hyatt Verrill
As I knew that his boat's crew-had been Caribs and that the Caribs regard the snakes as sacred and won't touch one, I wondered how he had managed to get the snake skinned. "I had Bagot for my bowman," he informed me when I asked him about it. “He’s a Myagong and hasn't any scruples about camudis." I was still sceptical and when, a little later, Bagot was my bowman on a trip into the jungles, I mentioned the big camudi Mr. Peters had killed, "You make for skinum him feller camudi like so?" I asked the Myagong. "Yes, me make for skinum one time," he replied. "No make for stretchum skin same way, you sabby?" I said. Bagot shook his head. Then, with a grin, he replied: "No make for stretchum skin same way," But I knew by the twinkle in his eyes that there was a joke somewhere. "How for can make skinum like so?" I asked, "Him feller camudi too much big feller for one man make for skinum. How can do?" Me fixum so can do," he chuckled. "All same tieum tail one tree, tieum head odder tree with tackle-block. Then pullum straight all same h'istum sail on boat. Him feller come straight too easy me tellum. Makeum plenty easy for skinum like so. Me say for true no make for stretchum skin. All same me sabby stretchun camudi for plenty." That explained it. The attenuated twenty three foot skin had not been stretched and friend Peters had spoken the truth when he declared the skin was the same size as it had been when on the snake. But the anaconda, skin and all, had been stretched over four feet, for Bagot admitted that before he had straighted the snake by means of the tackle it had measured a little more than eighteen feet in length. In most cases, however, reliable persons who claim to have killed snakes twenty feet or more in length do not intentionally exaggerate. They are merely mistaken in their estimate, for snakes of all kinds, and especially the big fellows, are most deceptive creatures. Few persons can judge the size of a common black snake, a rattlesnake or any other common snake. And as snakes increase in size it becomes more and more difficult to estimate their length. A twelve foot boa or anaconda is a big snake and looks a lot bigger when met in the jungle. And when the camudi is an eighteen foot monster any ordinary man would feel certain it was twice its size. On one occasion we came upon a huge anaconda coiled upon a rocky ledge close to where we were preparing to make camp. Aside from my eight Indian paddlers, the old grizzled captain, the Patamona bowman and my Negro camp boy, there was a motion picture camera man and an English Jesuit missionary in the boat. Anxious to learn how nearly a big snake's size could be estimated I asked each man in turn to guess the anaconda's length. Never a Dull Moment
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The photographer, who had never before been in the jungle, thought the snake was fully sixty feet long. The priest, who had lived for seven years among the Indians and was familiar with big snakes said thirty feet. Sam, my camp boy, was conservative and said twenty-five feet. The Indians' estimates varied from twenty to forty feet while the "Boviander" captain opined that “Takin’ all de fac's in consi'ation, I don't rightly can state posritiv'ly, but Ah knows for truf he jus’ too, long." When, having killed the anaconda with a 22 rifle bullet through its head, he was straightened out and measured he proved to be nineteen feet and six inches in length. But he was a monster. His greatest girth was thirty-three inches and he weighed over 360 pounds. Even after we had measured the huge snake it was hard to believe he was not much larger. Anyone, seeing the skin today, would not believe it to be only a trifle over nineteen feet long and thirtythree inches wide unless it was placed beside something whose size was known for the hide is really gigantic and, as far as known, is the record for anacondas. My most unusual and in a way amusing, experience with big snakes was when I was among the Caribs whose chief, Kumwarry, had been made my blood brother. Although the Caribs regard anacondas as sacred and never harm them, Kumwarry was greatly interested in my search for "The father of snakes" as he expressed it, and spent a great deal of his time searching for a giant snake. Finally, one day, he came to me with a most amazing tale. He declared he had found "The father of all snakes" in a wet savanna, a gigantic monster sleeping under a Tibisiri palm. The coiled serpent, he stated, formed a pile as high as the chief’s chest. Moreover, he insisted that he had traced the snake to its resting place by the four foot-wide trail it had left in the grass, and that the anaconda had devoured a full grown tapir and therefore would remain asleep for a long time. His story appeared to be true, for Kumwarry was not given to exaggeration and was not the imaginative type, so I began to think that at last I was about to secure an anaconda that would break all records. At the edge of the savanna Kumwarry ran the canoe ashore and showed me the serpent's trail, a deep, plainly marked rut where some huge body had dragged its course through the rank grass. With the chief leading the way we followed the trail toward a clump of palms on a little knoll rising above the level savanna. Kumwarry was greatly excited and signalled me to go ahead. I cautiously approached the palms, pushed carefully through the fringe of brush and saw coiled in the shadow of a tree - an anaconda barely fifteen feet in length. But my blood brother was not in the least perturbed at the amazing shrinkage of his giant snake. There was the wide trail, there were the palms with the snake asleep beneath them. ‘Had he not told the truth?’ he asked. The explanation was magic, he declared. Doubtless the camudi had been aware that we were approaching and knew that I would kill it if it remained of gigantic size, so by its witchcraft it had caused itself to shrink to the size of an ordinary snake. 200
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"All serpents have great wisdom," he declared. "Do not the witchdoctors keep snakes’ skins among their charms to give themselves wisdom?" Then as a final touch and in a triumphant tone he demanded: “Does not my brother see the snake's trail? Could a snake less great than I said make such a wallow? Beyond, by the last palm tree are the tracks of the tapir with blood upon the grass where the tracks end. Could this little camudi swallow a tapir?" It was useless to argue the matter. In vain I pointed out that many things might have happened to the tapir other than being swallowed by the snake and that the big trail led eventually to a crocodile's nest. Kumwarry refused to accept any such explanation. A snake might reduce its size by its magic, for that was wholly within reason from the Carib's viewpoint, but there was the trail and the tapir tracks ending in blood, and magic could not alter these so they proved the truth of his tale. I knew the chief thought he had told the truth but his desire to find the Father of Snakes and his thoughts constantly dwelling on the matter had led his imagination astray. The weird psychology of the Indian, quite incomprehensible to a white man, made magic more sensible to him than did common sense. The "magical" shrinkage of Kumwarry's Father of Snakes was nothing compared to the truly amazing shrinkage of an even more gigantic snake reported by a man who wrote a book on his alleged adventures in the Amazon jungles. According to the author's story he had come upon a monster of a snake on a river bank. The coil of the sleeping serpent was over seven feet in height and the snake's head was at the bottom of the coils which was the most amazing feature of the tale. The author went on to describe how he had killed the anaconda, which he stated was over fifty feet in length and sent the skin to the States, but, according to his story, the ship had been wrecked and the skin had been lost. There was no photograph of the monster snake in the book, but there was a picture of the sandy beach with the deep furrow-like track made by the giant snake. A few years after the book was published I was visiting at a cattle ranch in the interior of British Guiana and met a former Texas cow-puncher who was employed by the ranch owner. In due time, as usual, our conversation turned to the matter of big snakes. "Did you ever read a book by a man who told about killing a fifty foot snake on a beach down on the Amazon?" the Texan asked me. I told him I had. "Was there a picture showing the track that big snake made when he crawled over the sand?" he wanted to know. "Yes," I replied, "but no picture of the snake." The ex-cowpuncher grinned. “Well," he drawled, "I’m the hombre who rolled a pork barrel over the sand to make that track." Never a Dull Moment
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While I was occupied with my work in the Jungles of British Guyana, England and Germany had declared war. Taken all in all, the conflict in Europe affected British Guiana very little. The mother country might be at war but life in the distant colony went on much the same as usual. To be sure, a British Guiana contingent of volunteers was raised and with a great show of patriotic enthusiasm sailed away to do their bit to win the war, and they did give a very good account of themselves. But otherwise one was scarcely aware that World War One was in progress. There were a few restrictions placed on visitors, passports were required in order to enter the country, and some war measures, rules and laws were in force. Although there were a number of Germans in Georgetown most of them were long-established residents, respected merchants or planters, who had married into colonial families, I do not think that any of them were interned and for the duration of the war the German coat-of-arms with its double eagle remained on the German Consul's office, although the place was duly locked and sealed. Moreover, the war proved a blessing in disguise, for the prices of sugar, rice and rubber rose. Even though diamonds became unsaleable and temporarily worthless, gold was at a premium while the huge Bauxite deposits on the upper Demerara River were being worked to capacity and were more than making up for the colony’s losses in other industries Within a few days after I had returned to New York, Mr. Heye asked me to collect ethnological specimens in Panama, once again, I was off to the tropics. I had made several trips and had even visited the reputedly hostile Kuna Indians of Darien and had gathered a very fine collection of specimens representative of the tribes of that area, when the United States entered the war. That of course put an end to my work, for all expeditions and collecting was called off, the Heye Museum was closed to the public and scientific work gave way to war work. It was then that my interests turned to mining. It was during the time when I was occupied with my mining ventures that I witnessed a most mysterious and amazing feat. My youngest daughter, Valerie, had gone into the interior with me and we were at the little village of La Colorada where I had some promising copper deposits. My foreman, a very intelligent Puerto Rican named Juan, had once told me he could "bury people alive" and declared he had repeatedly done so with his wife. I hadn't given the matter much attention at the time but when, on Valerie's birthday, the villagers arranged a fiesta, some one suggested that as a part of the entertainment, Juan should demonstrate his burying act. "Who will you bury" I asked him, "Carlos says he's willing," he replied. 202
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"All I can say is that if he buries Carlos you'll lose a damned good workman," observed a friend who was also interested in mining. The next question was where Carlos would be interred, and we decided that a pit about ten feet deep and fifteen feet in diameter where I had excavated an ancient Indian burial would do very well. The great event was to take place in the evening and by eight everyone in the village had gathered about the excavation. Presently Juan and Carlos arrived, the latter clad in his best clothes and Juan carrying a candle, a small mirror and a glass of water. "How long do you want Carlos to be buried?" he asked me as he prepared to descend into the yawning hole. "Four or five hours will be enough," I told him, "that is, if he lives that long." Scooping a little hollow in one side of the pit, Juan placed the mirror upright with the candle in front of it and told Carlos to look at the candle. Then, standing behind Carlos' back, Juan made a few passes with his hands. Instantly Carlos swayed backward and Juan caught him and poured the water down his throat. He then lowered Carlos, who appeared unconscious, to the earth. I leaped into the hole and examined him. As far as I could determine there was no pulse, no trace of respiration. I lifted his eyelids and the fixed glassy expression of his eyes was that of a dead man. "I don't know what you did” I told Juan, “But if Carlos ever comes to life it will be more than a miracle.” Juan grinned. "He’ll be O.K." he assured me, Then covering Carlos' face and body with a strip of cloth and driving stakes into the ground at Carlos’ head and feet, Juan climbed out and told the men to fill the hole. When at last this was accomplished Juan produced a guitar, some one had a native drum, gourd rattles appeared as if by magic and to the rhythm of the instruments the villagers began to dance on the freshly turned earth of Carlos' grave. That any human being, even if hypnotized, could survive being buried under tons of earth seemed utterly incredible, but Juan didn't appear at all worried and finally, a little after midnight, he grasped a shovel and aided by the miners began excavating. Presently the tops of the stakes were reached, and telling the others to cease digging Juan began carefully scraping the earth that covered Carlos' body. Again he placed the mirror and candle in a niche in the side of the pit with a glass of water beside it. Raising Carlos’ body, which was apparently in rigor mortis he held him upright before the candle, passed his hands over Carlos' head and chest and seizing the glass of water threw the liquid into the unconscious man's face. Instantly, to our utter amazement, Carlos sputtered, blinked, shook himself and peered about as if dazed. Then, as if remembering what had occurred he grinned and climbed out of the hole. We scarcely could believe our eyes, it seemed impossible, incredible that Carlos should have survived, none Never a Dull Moment
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the worse for his four hours underground. He could only remember gazing at the candle, shutting his eyes and opening them again when Juan threw the water at his face. Juan thought little of his amazing feat. He said he could have kept Carlos buried for a week or more just as easily and, grinning from ear to ear, informed us that he had once buried his wife for two weeks before he decided to resurrect her. "Hmm” remarked Bert, “that's a trick that might come in handy if a fellow wanted a change. Wonder if Juan can teach me how to do it." Juan couldn't. He didn't know how he did it himself. He had discovered his strange hypnotic power by accident and, as far as he knew, he was incapable of any other feat of hypnotism. In addition to my "mine madness" as my family called it, I was acting for the Intelligence Department of the Navy. Personally I think the service was misnamed. Rather, it should have been; “Lack of intelligence" for not only were Germans residing in Panama handled with kid gloves, figuratively speaking, but many employees of the Canal were not only Germans but not even naturalized American citizens, among them the man in charge of the main pumping station at Chagres. As for the German merchants and others in Panama City, they were "interned" in the best hotel on the resort island of Taboga. They were permitted to receive the daily papers, but woe to the American citizen who stepped ashore on the island with a paper in his hand. Taking their ease upon the hotel veranda, the Germans hooted, reviled and insulted passing Americans to their hearts' content, but if an American so much as paused as he passed the hotel, he was ordered to "move on" by the sentries and if he failed to obey quickly enough to satisfy the soldier he was prodded with a bayonet. Moreover, many of the "interned" enemy subjects had stores or shops in Panama City and were permitted to visit their properties and attend to business at certain times. Such laxity or consideration was not surprising, for the chief of "Intelligence" on the Zone was German born, and when I learned that medical supplies, cultures, drugs and chemicals for our forces on the Isthmus went missing, I was informed that the firm was quite alright as its members had purchased a large number of Liberty Bonds. When I returned to New York I found even less intelligence in the "Intelligence". A German, who had been a purser on a merchant vessel and had been “put on the beach" at a Dutch West Indian Island because he openly had "Hoched" the sinking of the Lusitania, was in command of a submarine patrol off the New England coast. When, in a restaurant owned by a German, I saw one of girls of the floor show wearing a cape with the German flag upon it, and having seized the garment, turned it over to the Department of Justice, I was assured that it "must have been a mistake" as the proprietor was a loyal citizen who had invested in Liberty Bonds. 204
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It was the same everywhere, yet when an American born citizen of a long line of American ancestors, prepared to sail for a foreign port, his baggage was gone over with a fine tooth comb, anything in the way of documents, drawings, maps, even personal diaries, photographic material, portrait albums, scrap books, etc. were confiscated and the owner treated as though he were a spy caught red-handed.
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Chapter 32
1915 – 1916
In the Wake of the Buccaneers
I had been doing a great deal of publicity work for a number of steamship companies whose vessels served the West Indies and Latin America, writing folders, painting posters, etc., for the Ward Line, Puerto Rico Line, Quebec Line, Trinidad Shipping Co., Pacific Steam Navigation Co., and others. This work necessitated frequent visits to the islands to obtain new material and on one of these trips I dropped in on an old old schoolmate who had settled down in Frederikstead in St. Croix. Ed had a nice little estate, a large general store, a thriving commission merchant business and was also United States Vice Consul. He also owned an old two-masted schooner, the VIGILANT, that served as a packet among the islands. As he glanced through a copy of my REAL STORY OF THE PIRATES, I had given him, he remarked: "I suppose you know that the VIGILANT was once a pirate vessel." "So I've heard," I replied. "Say, I've got an idea, Al,"3 he exclaimed. "Why not take the VIGILANT and make a cruise among the islands, visiting all the old haunts of the buccaneers? Then write a book about it. I'll bet it would be interesting and would sell well." This idea appealed to me, I had always been fond of the sea and of sailing vessels. I had made a trip on a three-masted schooner from New Haven to Norfolk and thence to Machais, Maine and return. I had sailed from New York to Barbados and back on a square rigger- the bark COLUMBIA and I had even taken and passed the required examination and held a Master's ticket. To cruise among the islands as skipper of the old VIGILANT would be a most enjoyable and interesting experience and, as Ed said, it should afford material for a good book. (# Foot note: IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS, The Century Co.) The VIGILANT, built in Baltimore in 1778, had had a most varied and romantic career. Originally named the NONESUCH she was built as a privateer to prey upon British commerce. At the close of the Revolutionary War she was sold and became a notorious pirate ship. Later on, during the War of 1812, she again became a privateer and afterwards engaged in the slave trade until England's abolition of slavery in the colonies made carrying cargoes of "black ivory" too dangerous. She was then sold again and became a most successful and elusive smuggler until once more she changed owners, and under the Danish flag, resumed her original calling and became a privateer with letters of marque of Editor – This is only the second reference that we have observed to Verrill’s familiar name. His descendants referred to him as ‘Uncle Al’. 3
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the Danish Government. Then, in 1825, the VIGILANT became transformed into a man-of-war and, equipped with heavier guns and with a company of Danish marines aboard, she lured an enemy privateer to destruction, after which she served as a peaceful packet boat among the Virgin Islands. Of course during the century and more that she had sailed the seas she had undergone many repairs and alterations, and she had survived catastrophes that would have ended the careers of ordinary ships. In the great hurricane of 1876 she was driven on the reef off Christiansted, St. Croix, and again in 1916 she was sunk in another hurricane. And at some time during her long career her original square topsails had been changed to a gaff-topsail rig. But her heavy teak keel and timbers were as sound as when she first slid from the ways and she was still as staunch, seaworthy and fast as in the days when manned by pirates, she had shown her fleet heels to many a British corvette and Sloop-of-War. Within her hold were still to be seen the ring-bolts to which the slaves had been chained. In her timbers and planking there were still the wounds of bullets and round shot, and she was still the typical “long, low, black schooner with raking masts” of piratical fiction. Not the least interesting feature of my memorable cruise was the crew, originally they were all Virgin Islanders aside from Sam, my bos'n and pilot, and Joe the cook, who were both Bahama Islands men. But long before the cruise was over Joe and Sam and one other were the only remaining members of my original crew, for as Ed had warned me, whenever we touched at any of the men's home islands they would desert. But we never were short-handed. For every man we lost a dozen clamored to be signed on and had I been on a piratical cruise I could have filled the schooner to her hatches with as varicolored and vari-charactered a crew as ever swarmed over the sides of a stricken prize. Wherever we put in we were besieged by a crowd of black, brown and yellow, all hoping to become members of my crew. As a result of all this, the crew was an ever-changing aggregation shifting from brown to yellow, and black to tan; from soft-voiced French West Indian "patois men” to broguespeaking Montserratans and H-dropping Jamaicans and 'Badians. Naturally, in the constant change of personnel, we picked up many strange characters. For example there was Trouble. Unquestionably he was the most repulsive-looking and ugliest human being that ever trod the VIGILANT's deck. Bony and big with long gorilla-like arms, with a face so broad and forehead so low that his head appeared to have been artificially deformed, and, as a final touch, some accident had destroyed his nose. Above his thick blubbery lips were two round, gaping holes that, when he grinned were stretched into slits that seemed about to meet his ears and sever his black pockmarked face into upper and lower sections. He was so inexpressibly ugly that, like a prize bulldog, he was downright fascinating, and his manner of speech was almost as surprising as the soft low voice that issued Never a Dull Moment
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from his huge mouth, for he was a native of Antigua and, like all of his fellow islanders he delighted in using long words, involved sentences and an amplitude of expressions which might or might not have any connection with the subject under discussion. Being thoroughly amphibian, Trouble had swum out to the schooner and with his ragged garments dripping brine he approached me. "Ah'm beggin’ o’ yo’ pardon, Boss, for mah audac’ty an' assumption o’ the manner o’ mah absence o' dignification for so precip'tatly discommodin' o’ yo', but ah'd like for to propoun’ de interrogation effen you can absorbinate mah services fo' a member of de crew, Chief, for to circumnavigate de islan's sir." When I recovered sufficiently to ask his name he replied, "Ah was christened with de cognomen o' Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir, but ah'm most customar'ly designated by de name of Trouble, sir." His "customary designation" was most assuredly a misnomer, for never did he cause the least trouble. On the contrary he was a vertible treasure. As he had assured me when I had hired him, he "Conduc” himself “wif circumspection an' implicitness," And he spoke only the truth when he stated that, "Ah'm not expandulatin’ buncomb when Ah takes upon maself de assumptivness that Ah's a sailor, sir." Not only was Trouble a true seaman in every sense of the word. He also was a marvellous diver, when aloft he was a veritible4 monkey and he was never idle but was forever polishing brasswork or scouring decks and he could out-talk and out-argue any other man aboard. As a final accomplishment he was an expert guitarist and possessed a rich, mellow, sympathetic singing voice that, when he sung some haunting Spanish melody, fairly tugged at one's heart strings. Of course the most important member of the crew was Sam although Joe the cook might have questioned that assertion. Sam was a giant of a man, so black that, as the saying goes, "charcoal would have made a white mark on his skin" and was muscled like a Hercules. Standing at the wheel, his huge feet wide-spread, and naked to the waist, his patched dungaree trousers rolled to his knees and supported by a wisp of scarlet cloth, with brass hoops in his ears and eyes bloodshot from diving (for he was a sponger by profession) one might well have imagined him a reincarnated pirate. "By the way," I asked him as St. Croix became hazy astern and the hills of St. Thomas rose ahead with Sail Rock alee, "What is your last name?" "Ah got a right funny name, Cap'n" he replied. "Ah don' 'spec you ever hear it. It's Lithgow, Cap'n.”
Editor – This seems to be an archaic term meaning able to be turned, changing, mutable, malleable or good at many things. 4
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Lithgow! No wonder Sam looked like a corsair if the blood of Red Lithgow flowed in his veins, as in all likelihood it did. Of all the pirates who scourged the Caribbean, Red Lithgow of Louisana was the most cruel, bloodthirsty and successful, and in the end met his death at the end of a rope from the yard-arm of his own ship. But before he met his just deserts he had been one of the boisterous, murderous ruffians who had made the island of New Providence a neat and stronghold of the pirates, and like many another of his trade, he doubtless had left a number of descendants brown, black and yellow. Sam certainly had not inherited any of the shortcomings of the infamous pirate, but was about the best natured, honest and faithful fellow I ever have known. And he possessed that baffling mysterious instinct for finding his way that seems to be a sixth sense of primitive men- especially those of American Indian or African blood. Once, on a long course across open sea with never a bit of land in sight, I asked Sam; "How do you find your course? Aren't you afraid you'll get lost and go on sailing the Caribbean forever, like a FLYING DUTCMAN" "Ah don’ 'fraid, Cap'n," he assured me. "Ah jus’ knows where Ah's steerin’ for. Seems like Ah feel it like a compass inside me head." Regardless of how he accomplished it Sam invariably succeeded in hitting the objectives "on the nose" and I soon found that there was no need for me to "shoot the sun” or make use of my knowledge of navigation. I had no hard nor fast itinerary. We sailed when and where the whim of the momentand favourable winds willed. From St. Croix to St. Thomas, to St. John and Tortola. To Virgin Gorda and remote Anegada we cruised, anchoring for days in harbors that once had sheltered many a pirate ship. Tramping through jungles to find crumbling remains and dismounted cannon of pirates' strongholds and long-forgotten forts. Skirting the wave-beaten shores of Dead Man’s Chest where fifteen men, marooned by Black Beard, gambled for life until Stede Bonnet, the gentleman pirate, rescued those who had not been "done by rum and the devil." Swinging to anchor off St. Martins, half-French and half-Dutch. Visiting St. Barts, once the headquarters of Montbars where fortunes in loot had been bartered and divided upon the beach. On to St. Kitts and Montserrat. Across the blue Caribbean Sea to Tortuga, the birthplace of buccaneering, we cruised, until at last Sam steered a course for the Island of the Holy Cross- St. Croix, and our little ship's sails were furled and her anchor dropped through glass-clear water of her home port and my cruise in the wake of the buccaneers was at an end.
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Chapter 33 Mine
1918 – 1922
Savage Indians and the Lost Tisingal
Back in the States with World War One over, and with no immediate prospect of tropical jungle expeditions, I devoted my time to my literary work and wrote a number of books, among them; Marooned in the Forest, The Golden City, Jungle Chums, Uncle Abner's Legacy (which was adopted by the Gary, Indiana schools), South and Central American Trade Conditions, Pets for Pleasure and Profit, The Real Story of the Pirate, The Real Story of the Whalers, etc. Although I had made a very large collection of ethnological specimens from Panama for Mr. Heye, there were a few remote tribes I had not visited and once again I set sail for the Isthmus in the interests of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Unfortunately the rainy season was approaching and I rather feared that I would be unable to complete my work before the tropical downpours made travelling through the interior impossible. Being thoroughly familiar with the Panamanian climate I planned my campaign accordingly. Almost invariably the rains commenced in the Darien area and moved slowly up the coast, and as they were usually heavier and earlier on the Atlantic side of the isthmus than on the Pacific side, my first trip was to the so-called San Bias Indians dwelling on the islands of the San Bias Archipelago. A deal of utter nonsense has been written and told of these Indians. Even in Panama it was a popular belief that the San Bias- or to give them their true name- Towalis, were almost hostile, that some of the islands were taboo to outsiders, that no white man was permitted to see the women and that no stranger was allowed to remain on an island over night. As a matter of fact many men had been sailors on American ships, some had been to New York and elsewhere in the states. Nearly all of the men spoke English and one young Tegula-towali whom I employed spoke half a dozen European languages besides English and Spanish. To be sure, the Indians had learned by bitter experience that the average white man was not to be trusted, and more especially the Panamanians, who at least were near-whites, when it came to a matter of women, but like all sensible people they realized that there were both good and bad whites. Once their confidence was won they had no taboos. I had no difficulty in meeting and trading with the women and girls, I slept many a night in an Indian house on the islands, I even doctored a number of women and children and on one occasion I slung my hammock in a communal house occupied by both sexes. In some ways the Towalis were pretty well civilized and on one island they had established the Indian equivalent of a Chamber of Commerce, had a squad of street cleaners, a club house, a dance hall and other innovations of our so-called civilization. Actually the worst 210
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feature of the islands was the presence of a Panamanian "governor� and a number of Panamanian police who did about as they pleased and helped themselves to the Indians’ possessions. Despite their sophistication and the effects of travel and civilization, the Towalis still adhered to many of their tribial customs, arts and dress, and on some of the more remote islands, where there were no representatives of the Panamanian Government, the Indians lived much as they had when Basil Ringrose and Dampier, the buccaneers, visited and described them and were guided by them on their ill-fated journey across the Isthmus. Only once for centuries have these interesting aborigines broken into open hostilities with the whites, when a crazy-headed, irresponsible American urged the Indians to revolt and drive the Panamanians from their archipelago. There was some bloodshed and had the "Panamaniacs", as one Yankee called them, been permitted to quell the incipient uprising there would doubtless have been many lives lost- especially among the Panamanians. For once our authorities in the Canal Zone acted promptly and sensibly. A navy tug with a commission on board beat the Panamanian forces to the islands and by pledging our Government to see justice done they calmed the excited tribesmen and ordered the Panamanian force to "get the Hell out of there", although in more diplomatic terms. A short time before this one and only case of the San Bias going on the warpath, an Indian named Mandingo, with whom I had been on most friendly terms, visited me in Cristobel and, after confidentially telling me of the planned uprising, asked if I thought he and his clan should join the malcontents or remain neutral. "Why do the Indians want to fight and kill the Panamanians?" I asked him, "Because" he informed me, "we don't want to be civilized, we want to live like Americans!" Having made a most complete collection of nearly two thousand specimens among the San Bias, I returned to Cristobal, just as the first rains were beginning in the Gulf of Uraba. From time to time I had heard rumors of wild, almost unknown tribes inhabiting the mountainous area near the Costa Rican border. In fact according to all accounts it was these Indians who had so zealously guarded the secret of the fabulously rich Tisingal gold mine, that for more than two centuries had been "lost� in the forests of the area. From the time that the enslaved Indians had revolted, wiped out the Spaniards and destroyed all evidences of the mine many attempts had been made to find it. Some of the searchers had never returned, others reappeared erased from their experiences and babbling of savage Indians, but the mine still remained lost. I was far more interested in the Indians of the district than in the mine, for I knew that if rumors were true and there were Indians in that area they would be some tribe or tribes unknown to Never a Dull Moment
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ethnologists, for no one had ever reported their presence and no one had thoroughly explored the district. Boarding the first available coastwise steamer I travelled to Almirante and via an apology for a coach attached to a banana train, finally arrived at a tiny, remote station beside the river I planned to ascend. Space forbids a description of the place or the amazing character, Señor Toro, who was Station Master, commandante, alcalde, corregidor, boarding house keeper and proprietor of a strange combination of general store, trading post and saloon. #Footnote: For a detailed account of this expedition see My Jungle Trails, (L. C. Page Co.) Neither he nor anyone else could be made to believe that I was seeking Indians and not the lost mine. Although, like most Latin Americans, they considered all Norte Americanos crazy, they could not imagine anyone crazy enough to plunge into the unknown with its reputedly savage Indians for any reason other than to search for Tisingal. Toro did, however, know something of the Indians. The Terribis, he stated, were decent fellows for indios, peaceful if unmolested, although they resented strangers entering their territory. He had traded with them and even had visited some of the nearer villages. But beyond them —quien sabe? Somewhere in the remote, impenetrable mountains of the border was the village of a cacique, the king of a fierce hostile tribe. For me to reach this area would be utterly impossible, he declared, and he added, if I should reach it I would never live to return. Very obviously every man in the settlement felt the same way and I found it impossible to induce any one of them to accompany me. To attempt the trip with only my camp boy was out of the question and I was beginning to fear that I would be forced to abandon my quest when two Colombians arrived on the scene. One was a huge brawny, brigandish-looking Negro, the other a wiry Meztizo. But they solved my problem. They were utterly fearless, devil-may-care rascals, and they were expert river men. As the Negro, who bore the grandiose name of Jesu Maria de Cordova, declared, he knew the “ways of the river as well as I know the ways of my wife," At which Pepe, the Mestizo, chuckled and observed, “In that case thou knowest nothing of it.” Whether or not Jesu Maria de Cordova knew the ways of the Señora de Cordova might be a matter of opinion, but he most certainly did know the river, or at least that portion of the stream which ordinarily was navigated. And never in all my jungle experiences have I employed more willing, cheerful, faithful workers. It proved the most strenuous, difficult, laborious journey I had ever experienced. The river was very low. In many places there was not enough water to float the laden cayuca and we tramped for miles over stony palyas 212
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where a misstep meant a broken leg or disabling sprain, and the blazing sun heated the rocks until one might literally have fried eggs upon them. In other places long series of churning rapids forced us to haul the cayuca upstream by tow-lines and there were thorny jungles through which we had to hew a path with machetes, but the two Columbians never complained. For days we had seen no traces of human beings. The river and its shores showed no signs of a human being. Then one day we sighted a thatched house perched high on posts, a few hundred feet beyond the river bank, standing on the shore awaiting us, was a man. Naturally I had expected to see an Indian, but the wild-looking, ragged fellow was obviously white. He was shouting to us in Spanish and his face was half-hidden by a gray beard and moustache. "Señor," he cried as soon as we were within conversational distance. "It is by the will of God that I saw you approaching. For three months I have not known the taste of tobacco. Has the Señor, by the grace of God, a trifle to spare that he can sell to me? But a thousand pardons, caballero, permit me Señor to introduce myself. Señor, I am General Valdez Jimenea at your service. And if the Señor will do me the great honor of accepting such humble hospitality as I can offer, my house and all it contains are yours." To say that I was astonished is putting it mildly. Here, in the back of beyond, where I had thought none but Indians dwelt, was an educated Spaniard who, despite his rags, had the dignity and manners of a grandee. His story was simple enough. A Spaniard by birth and a former general of the Colombian Army, he had become disgusted with the politics of that republic, he had taken to the jungle and for thirty years had dwelt with his Indian wife far from the haunts of civilized man. Never but once had he left his home in the wilderness. When by roundabout means news of Panama's declaration of Independence reached him he had buckled on his rusty sabre and in his dugout canoe had set forth for civilization to offer his services in behalf of the new republic. But long before he reached Señor Toro's place the bloodless revolution was over. Panama was a free republic under the protective arms of Uncle Sam, and finding his services not needed the General, like the King of France, had "turned about and gone right home again." Like all the others General Jiminez assumed that I was on my way to search for Tisingal. It was difficult to convince him of the truth, but once he fully realized that I was searching for semi-mythical Indians and not the lost mine, I found he actually knew the cacique of the bravos or wild Indians whom he called Shayshans. When I asked him if he thought I might reach the tribe and the home of their chief he shrugged. "We Spaniards have a proverb that says, ‘the fortune teller of Valencia can say that when it rains the streets will be wet' but there is Never a Dull Moment
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no proverb which tells us the fortune teller can say when it will rain. I am no fortune teller. King Polu of the Shayshans I have seen thrice, in thirty years. But whether or not the Americano Señor will see him, quien sabe?” He assured me, however, that the cacique was not hostile but that he and his tribe felt that no strangers would enter his territory except to search for Tisingal, and as the Indians knew their fate would be sealed if white men should find the lost mine they took no chances and kept everyone out. I was considerably encouraged. There was no longer any doubt as to the existence of the almost mythical tribe and their cacique, and my greatest problem would be to convince the "king" that I was not interested in Tisingal. The General, however, could not give me much detailed information. King Polu, as he called the cacique, was a strange man he declared, surrounded with mystery. As a boy he had lived for a time in the settlements, had acquired a knowledge of civilized ways, of the Spanish language and of Christianity. Also, my host informed me, one of the cacique's legs was shorter than the other so that he limped. Then, piously crossing himself and speaking in lowered tones, he continued: "He is a great magician and deals in unholy matters. All the Indios, know that he flies through the night in the form of a great bird and watches what goes on. Myself I cannot say if it is true, but once I saw a monstrous bird flit past, such a bird, Señor, as never before had I seen,” and again he crossed himself, "the thing flew unsteadily for one wing was shorter than the other. I am a true Christian and a devout Catholic, Señor and believe not in supernatural matters, but perchance the Indios, being pagans, may deal with the Devil. Therefore do I always carry an Indian charm, the image of the Shayshan god, for who can say that in their country their gods may not have power to protect one from evil?" As he spoke he drew from beneath his ragged shirt a greasy scapular and a little golden image, I stared in speechless wonder, for it was a beautifully made figure of Kulkulcan, the “Plumed Serpent” of the ancient Mayas! Nothing would induce him to part with the talisman, which he said he had found on a mountain side where it had been exposed by a landslide. However, the General did help me. In fact had it not been for him I might never have succeeded on my quest. A few miles beyond his home, he told me, there was a Terribi Indian house. The Indio who dwelt there was a semicivilized fellow who spoke Spanish. Perhaps, the General thought, Juan, as the Indio was named, might be able to advise and help me. We found the thatched hut readily enough and the Terribi owner a very intelligent and sophisticated, wrinkle-faced old fellow. When questioned as to the Indians farther inland he answered willingly. Many of his people had died of influenza brought in by Indians who had visited the settlements to trade. How many were left he could not say. The cacique dwelt far away but he and the other Indians of the lower river knew nothing of him. They were gente, civilized 214
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people, while the cacique and his people of the mountains were bravos, although, all were of the same tribe. Terribi was the name given them by the Spaniards but in their own tongue they were the Shayshans. But, he added, beyond the lands of the cacique were the Doraks, they in truth were savages, When I asked if he thought I could visit the cacique he smiled. "Once," he replied, "I went to Bocas del Toro. There I saw boats that moved without sails or paddles. There I saw great birds made by white men to fly in the air. Can the white man visit the Shayshan king? Who can say? To the white men all things are possible". However, he told me it was a far journey, the river was dry and the cacique was not one to be seen easily. He either could not or would not give me any definite information. Turning, he spoke to his wife in his native tongue and instantly my interest was aroused, for many of the words were identical with words in the Guatemala Maya tongue. Was I on the brink of a most important ethnological discovery? Did the General's image of Kukulcan and the Mayan words of the Terribi language mean that the Shayshans were remnants of some long-forgotten Maya colony? During my conversation with Juan I had seen a young Indian arrive in a dugout canoe. He was now talking with Cordova, and presently the big Colombian rose and approached me. " Señor," he announced, "I have good news. Chico, yonder, will go with us. He knows the river even better than I and as he is an indio we will be safe with him. All he asks is a knife and tobacco. And," he added, "it will mean two more hands to help carry the cargo across the playas. With Chico along the Señor will not need to work like a peon." "Bueno," I told him, "But," I asked, "does Chico know the way to the house of the cacique?” Cordova lowered his voice. “Señor," he whispered, "all the Indios know where their king dwells. But none will tell unless one is a friend. With Chico we can reach the home of a comisario and if you win his friendship all will be well." I was puzzled as to the "comisario" but Cordova explained that an Indian comisario was sort of sub-chief who ruled the people within his district and-so Chico had told him- acted as watchdogs or spies and reported the presence of strangers to the cacique. Although the labor of portaging was made easier by Chico and his cayuca the travelling was indescribably bad. Portages five or six miles in length were frequent. Instead of playas of small water-worn stones there were rocks of every size, some weighing many tons, scattered in wild confusion, while clouds of biting flies and gnats made life miserable, but after a week of this heartbreaking travel we reached the home of the comisario. As he stepped from his home he appeared more like a well-to-do planter than an uncivilized Indian, for Never a Dull Moment
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he wore white home-spun cotton clothing. His costume, however, proved merely a veneer and a short time later he was more at ease clad only in a breechcloth, within his house there was not an article or utensil of civilized man aside from an ancient muzzle-loading shot gun. He did not appear at all surprised at our arrival and Chico, grinning, assured me that the comisario had known of our approach for the past four days. Toluka, as he was called, was friendly and made no objections to my proposed visit to the king. I was rather puzzled at this for I had fully expected him to try to induce me to turn back. But when, three days later, we passed through a deep canon and saw cleared land stretching from the river to the forest, with a large thatched house upon a low hill, the mystery was solved, pointing to the house, Chico exclaimed, "Mira, Seùor, the home of the caciquemy father's house." No wonder Toluka had not protested when the king's son accompanied us. Chico considered it a great joke and when, at his shouts, a canoe manned by a stocky youth crossed the river and reached the shore where we stood, Chico spoke rapidly in his native dialect and both fellows roared with laughter. My mission had been accomplished. I had reached the home of the king of the Shayshans, and a very pleasant, likable, intelligent man I found him. I was rather surprised to find him wearing a cotton shirt and trousers but what surprised me far more was his crown of Harpey eagle feathers and macaw plumes, for it was the exact counterpart of the chieftain’s headdresses depicted on Mayan sculptures and unlike those of any other known race. If, as I now felt sure, the Shayshans were descendants of ancient Mayas, it was only natural that they should wear cotton garments. # Foot note: After I returned to New York, a study of the Shaysan collection and the vocabulary proved that the tribe was of the Mayan race, as far as known the most southerly outpost of the Mayas. To make a long story short, Polu and I became good friends. He understood Spanish perfectly but insisted he could not speak it well so our conversation was in a trialogue with his son Chico helping out when the cacique was at a loss for a Spanish word. Although as the old General had said, Polu walked with a limp he was not in the least handicapped by his shortened leg; and I couldn't by any stretch of my imagination picture him flying about the country in the form of a giant bird. It was almost as impossible to believe that he actually was the mysterious, unapproachable chief of whom so many strange tales had been told. He and his family gladly traded weapons, ornaments and artifacts of all kinds, and he assured me that a number of his tribe had been summoned to gather at his house to trade, for it would be a hopeless task for me to attempt to visit even a portion of the shayshan’s villages. 216
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So docile and friendly did the Indians appear that I could not imagine them dangerous or hostile, and Polu assured me the tribe always had been peaceful but disliked and distrusted the Spanish and Panamanians and for their own protection had moved farther and farther into the wilderness. Never was the lost mine of Tisingal mentioned. Yet I was fated to be the first white man to visit the mine and live to tell of it for over two centuries. It was all because the king's daughter, a chubby "princess” of seven or eight, gorged herself on rich, oily, piva-palm nuts. Seized with a violent tummy ache her screams aroused everyone in the middle of the night and the Indians, believing some evil spirit had taken possession of her, added their wails, lamentations and incantations to the uproar. For a time neither Polu nor his wife would have none of my medicine. But when beating of drums, slaying a fowl and rubbing magic charms on the kiddy's stomach failed to drive off the "devils" the cacique turned to me for aid. In a very short time the princess’ pain was over, and she was soon sleeping quietly. To the Indians it savoured of magic and they regarded me with awe. My reward came the next morning. Expressing his gratitude in his mixture of hesitating Spanish and the few Shayshan words I had learned, he pointed to the sombre green mountains with their mysterious, fathomless purple shadows. "Vamonos!” he exclaimed, “Tisingal!”. I scarcely could believe my ears. Polu knew the location of the lost mine and was about to lead me to it as proof of his gratitude for curing his daughter! It is needless to describe that momentous tramp through the vast forest. I lost all sense of direction and I was soaked to the skin by the everdripping moisture when at last Polu halted. Parting a mass of interlacing vines and drooping ferns he pointed to a heap of moss-grown masonry rent apart by the roots of giant trees. Here, buried in the jungle, were the ruins of ages-old buildings erected by civilized white men. A few steps farther on the cacique showed me a stretch of roughly paved roadway and to one side, half-buried beneath the trees, were moss-covered bronze cannon, ornately ringed, bellmuzzled. Carefully scraping away the moss and verdigris I could distinguish letters and figures upon the breeches of the guns. Only here and there was a letter decipherable, but the word "Toledo" and the date "1515" were quite plain. Beyond any doubt I was gazing at the remains of the Spaniards' fort that once had guarded the approach to the richest mine in the New World at that time. I had seen nothing of the Doraks - the fierce, hostile savages of whom I had been warned, and Polu claimed he knew nothing of them. It was not until I was preparing to leave for my down-river journey that I learned the truth. The Doraks and the Shayshans were one and the same! Polu, with a humerous twinkle in his keen eyes, revealed the secret as we were parting. Peaceful, Never a Dull Moment
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friendly and with a veneer of civilization, the Shayshans transformed themselves into wild, naked and hostile savages when strangers sought to learn the secret of the lost mine.
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Chapter 34
1920
Indian Boorabees and the Buccaneers
When I finally reached Bocas del Toro, Panama, the rainy season had not set in although there were short daily showers. So chartering a ramshackle launch I crossed the wide bay to visit the Valientes. Although these Indians were by no means primitive and dressed and acted much like their white neighbors, yet they proved a most interesting and unusual tribe. All or very nearly all spoke English, as well as Spanish, and many bore English or American names. This puzzled me, but the explanation was simple even if surprising. When the famous William Walker’s Filibusters were defeated in Nicaragua some of the survivors found sanctuary among the friendly Indians on the shore of Almirante Bay. Here they settled down, took Indian wives and gave their children American names which, like the knowledge of English, have been perpetuated. Their chief's name, I discovered, was Charley Smith, who having been christened by a filibuster named Henry Smith, felt that he had thus become a true American, despite the fact that he was a full blooded Indian, and hence the truest of all Americans. His son, whom I employed, was really the de facto ruler, for the old chief was little more than a figurehead. The heir-apparent was as proud of his assumed nationality as his father and never tired of tapping his chest and announcing, "Me Charley Smith, American like me father." He proved a real treasure, despite the fact that he was something of a racketeer- which he doubtless felt was confirmatory evidence of his boasted Americanism. But no member of his tribe dared disregard his orders or demands. He always took my part when haggling over a trade and usually secured specimens for much less than I would have given. But it was not long before I noticed that somehow, by hook or by crook, my royal henchman invariably possessed some particularly desirable specimens after visiting an Indian's house, and these he disposed of to me at top prices. However, as such articles were always specimens I particularly desired, I winked at this double dealing and said nothing. It was by such means that I acquired some beautiful feather headdresses which came as a distinct surprise, for aside from bead collars, bows and arrows, fish spears, baskets, pottery, chakaras or hand-bags, and other handiwork I had seen nothing to indicate that the Indians still retained any of their tribal dances, habits or ceremonies, although all of the men, including the prince, had sharpened needle-pointed teeth. Then I remembered that a Jamaican Negro fisherman at Bocas del Toro had told me that beyond the Valientes, at the head of the bay, there were "wild" Indians, whom he called Borabees, and -he added, "They talks Henglish, also, but Henglish of a distinc' specie, Chief!� Never a Dull Moment
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Perhaps, I thought, there's a "nigger in the woodpile" here, and I began to wonder if Charley wasn't deliberately hoodwinking me into thinking his subjects thoroughly civilized in order to profit by my ignorance. So, quite casually, I repeated what the fisherman had told me and asked him if there were such Indians, and like an afterthought, remarked, "Did you get these feather headdresses from them." He grinned and chuckled. "Boorabees!" he exclaimed, "Me Boorabee. All Indians you meet Boorabee". He then proceeded to explain that the name Valiente had been given the tribe by the Spaniards, but was never used by the tribesmen who despised and hated all Spaniards, and that the true name of the tribe was Boorabee. "How about the "wild" Indians?� I demanded. "No one could consider your people wild. And how about the feather crowns?" "Me, all men here have 'em" he informed me. "When we have stick dance we wear 'em. We not make 'em. Trade 'em from wild Boorabees." So there were "wild" Boorabees and, rather to my surprise, Charley quite willingly agreed to guide me to them. For miles upon miles we skirted the shores of the bay, passing countless islands (traversing dozens of hidden waterways, crossing the mouths of wide rivers, but never catching a glimpse of a human being, a hut or even a canoe. The whole vast area appeared utterly deserted, but game and fish were abundant and we never lacked fresh meat. Each day the mountains ahead loomed higher and higher in the far distance, the opposite shores of the bay drew closer and closer and passing into a narrow estuary we reached the end of our journey, for the prince informed me that the first of the "wild" Indians’ homes were only a short distance up the creek. But there were certain preparations to be made before he was ready to go ashore. From among his belongings he produced red and blue paints and drew his tribal mark across nose and cheeks, adding dots and circles on chin and forehead. Then stripping off his shirt, he donned a huge bead gorget and strings of jaguar teeth, placed a crown of giant ant-bear hair upon his head and stood transformed into a decidedly wild-looking aborigine. The boat was run ashore at the edge of a wide, muddy playa fully two hundred feet from the wooded bank, and the only means of crossing this was a crude and dangerous pathway of slimy, slippery logs. At every step the logs moved and rolled and I momentarily expected to find myself floundering in the slimy black mud. But by some miracle I finally reached firm ground. Beyond the mud flat was a steep, high ridge and reaching its summit we came within sight of the Indian houses. 220
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The four thatched huts were on a second ridge and between the two was a deep gully filled with stagnant green-coated water littered with jagged, broken branches. Across this dismal natural moat a large tree had been felled to serve as a bridge, it would have been a ticklish feat to cross this even if bark and branches had remained upon the big log. But branches had been trimmed away, every trace of bark had been removed or had fallen off, and the bare muddy feet of Indians traversing the crude bridge for years had polished its surface until it was as smooth as glass. At the moment, however, I scarcely noticed all this, for my attention was focussed upon the Indians who were watching us from where they stood on the farther side of the ravine. I had expected to see naked savages, but these men differed little from the Valientes I had seen. All wore trousers or shirts, and although their faces were hidden by painting and their long hair fell over their shoulders, though they were bedecked with beads, teeth and feathers, yet they appeared no wilder, no more savage than Charley who was shouting to them in the Boorabee dialect. "All right," he announced presently. "He say we come across.” Without as much as glancing downward at the treacherous surface of the log he walked boldly onto the extemporized bridge as casually and confidently as if trending a pathway on solid ground. Could I ever manage it? I wondered. I had an almost irresistible desire to "coon" it, to straddle the log and hitch my way over. But the eyes of the "wild" Indians were upon me. Charley, who had joined them, was watching, too, and it would never do for me to "lose face" and prestige in the Indians’ minds. Taking off my canvas "sneakers” and assuming a confidence I did not feel I started barefooted across the log. All went well until I had passed the centre of the span. Then one foot slipped, I swayed, waved my arms wildly to recover my balance, and dropped the shoes I was carrying into the slimy pool below, fully expecting to follow them the next instant. Then, with a sudden flash of common sense, and recalling that a rapidly moving body maintains its own equilibrium more readily than a slowly moving object, I made a mad dash for the bank. Just as I reached the end of the log I stubbed my toe, plunged forward and butted head-first into the Indians, knocking two of them over like ninepins. I came to a standstill - or rather a sitstill - staring at the nearest Boorabee, unable to believe my own ears. Roaring with laughter he greeted my arrival with the most incongruous words that ever issued from the lips of an Indian. "Gadzooks!” he ejaculated, "Merican makeum passin’ funny ent'prise." Was I dreaming? Had my violent collision with the Indians affected my brain? No wonder the Jamaican fisherman had said these Boorabees spoke “Henglish of a distinc ' specie." Never a Dull Moment
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With my brain in a whirl I regained my feet. But I had another shock coming. One of the Indians, apparently a chief, who had been talking with Charley, extended his hand, "Me admire ye makeum come this side," he said. "Me fren’ Charlie speechum ye be he fren! so makeum me fren’ ye, forsoot. Hell, yes!" I cannot adequately describe the strange sensation I had at hearing the man interlard his broken English with the quaint old fashioned obsolete words "Admire”, "speech", "forsooth", "passing", "enterprise", "gadzooks." Shades of good Queen Bess! It was for all the world as if the characters from some ancient book had uttered words aloud, What did it mean? Where on earth had these aborigines in the jungles picked up the long-forgotten, longunused words and expressions? Each minute my wonder increased. Within the hour I had heard more than twenty words of the same old vintage and more than once I found myself on the point of saying "prithee" or "forsooth". The chief asked me to "bide” in his house. I was told how many "leagues" it was to the next village. I traded a denim "jerkin" for a "pike"; gave a "bauble" of beads for a woven pita-hemp "wallet”, secured a bow and "shafts" and had been told that there were "full many" Indians farther up the river. I had heard women referred to as "lassies", had heard "perchance”, "mayhap", "aforesaid", "alack", "belike", "methinks", “misdoubt", "albeit" and many similar words used dozens of times, and had been assured that I would meet with "good cheer" if I "enterprised" the trip to other villages. I had heard Indians exclaim "Zounds!” I secured a "pollard" which the Boorabees used for "clouting" an enemy or a wounded animal, and had learned that there were not a "monstrous" number of the tribe in the area. And I had both "drained" a calabash of chicha and "Quaffed" palm wine. The Indians “guzzled” their food and did not "wot" how they happened to speak the quaint English, in fact they knew "knowt" about the matter and assured me that "gain" I visited other villages I would find the occupants all using the same words. There was a most amazing and ludicrous commingling of up-to-date oaths and modern slang with the words and expressions of bygone days. Undoubtedly these had been picked up from the Valientes, but none of Charley's people used the old-fashioned words. Where and how had these Indians learned them? Suddenly the solution dawned upon me. Strange it had not occurred to me sooner. The bay had been the favorite rendezvous of the buccaneers who had always had been on friendly terms with the Indians, for freebooters and aborigines had one trait in common. Both were enemies of the hated Spaniards. According to all accounts, practically every buccaneer leader of note had employed Indians as guides, hunters, fishermen or scouts and on many an occasion the success of piratical raids on Spain’s commerce and cities had been due directly to the Indian allies of the buccaneers. Wafer, Ringrose, Dampier, Sharp, Esquemelling and other chroniclers of those days had particularly 222
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mentioned this and had minutely and accurately described the customs, habits, life and weapons of the Indians they met. Their descriptions of the tribesmen of the Bocas del Toro district fitted the Boorabees perfectly. The Indians' fish spears, bows, arrows, clubs canoes, huts, headdresses and even their facial painting- everything aside from a few modernities they now possessed - were the exact counterparts of the same things described by the buccaneer authors. Of course the Indian allies of the freebooters had learned the language of their English friends and with their hereditary hatred of all things Spanish, the Boorabees had clung to the English tongue. Those who dwelt nearer the settlements and those who had become associated with the filibusters had lost all traces of the ancient form of their adopted language. But these "Wild" Boorabees, far from civilization, never wandering from their remote jungle homes, still employed the words and phrases of buccaneering days. It was not impossible nor improbable that the quaint old English had been carefully perpetuated because of some belief or superstition that they were a "medicine" or fetish, or even a part of their religion. Whatever the reason, the fact remained that the words and phrases were there. As I mulled over the matter and jotted down lists of words I had heard, another revelation came to me. Boorabee Buccaneer! There was no more difference between the two than one might expect between the English and Indian pronunciation. Beyond any reasonable doubt the ancestors of the tribe had adopted the name of their buccaneer friends, just as their relatives near the settlements referred to themselves as "Americans". And through the centuries the "Buccaneer� had become Indianized to ''Boorabee."
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Chapter 35
1922 – 1924
Cocle Indian Devil Dance
By the time I arrived at Colon the rainy season had arrived but it was still good weather on the Pacific coast so I lost no time in moving across the Isthmus. I had planned to make an extended trip into the mountains of Chiriqui to visit the Guaymis, but I felt sure that long before I would be ready to return the heavy rains would make travelling impossible. However there were still the Code Indians much nearer at hand and their territory could be reached over fairly good roads. Arriving at Penonome, I gathered my remuda, four pack-horses and three saddle horses, and with two native wranglers and my camp-boy Raymond, we headed for the mountains, Although the Cocle Indians were, with few exceptions, pretty thoroughly civilized, long experience had taught me that even among the most sophisticated Indians there were usually ceremonial objects and dress, tribal dances and arts, and I hoped to collect some ethnological material among the Cocles and to make a series of paintings. Unlike all other Indians of the Isthmus each family of the Cocles has two houses, one an open shed-like structure with thatched roof, which is occupied during the dry season; the other a substantial dwelling with wattled sides and palm-spathe shingled roof which is their home during the rainy season. Although their chief means of making a livelihood is gathering rubber, which they trade at Penonome, they are an agricultural tribe with well-tilled fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and other vegetables. At the first few houses I visited there was nothing of interest, aside from baskets of various forms and weaves. But as I penetrated farther into the mountains and reached the Cocle villages I was not disappointed. Just as I had suspected, the Indians still retained many of their tribal arts and customs. Many of the men wore garments of bark-cloth painted in bright colors. At their dances and on ceremonial occasions they wore feather head dresses and shoulder capes of skins of the pink spoonbill, macaws or other bright plumaged birds, and their drums were unique. Best of all were the costumes they wore during the annual Kukwa dance. Kukwa in the Cocle dialect means tree cloth, a fact that interested me greatly, for the root "Kwa" is identical with the Maya “Gua" meaning tree, which occurs in the name Guatemala. Were the Cocles, like the shayshans of Mayan stock, I wondered. Quite a number of the words in their language are obviously derived from the Maya tongue, but that might be explained by the supposition that there were Mayan outposts or colonies as far south as Cocle and that Mayan words introduced at 224
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that distant time, had been retained, just as the Boorabees had retained the quaint old English of buccaneering days. The purpose of the Kukwa dance was to drive out or exorcise the devils or evil spirits and, in many respects, was very similar to the annual "funny face" dance of the Senecas of New York state. Both tribes are civilized but both retain the devil dance. Moreover, in the Cocle Kukwa dance, the costumes are entirely of bark cloth and, in the Seneca dance, the weirdly-carved masks worn by the participants are cut from living trees. In other words both Seneca and Cocle dancers symbolize the tree or woods spirits, regarded as beneficent, who overcome and drive away the evil spirits. Like the Iroquois, also, the Cocle Kukwa dancers are masked, and no Seneca mask carved from a tree could be more bizarre, fantastical or terrifying than the contraptions made and worn by the Cocles. The basis of the mask is the skull of some animal, usually a peccary, deer or jaguar. This is covered with bark cloth or hide painted in various designs and with a long, narrow painted cape or "tail" which hangs down the wearer's back. As a final touch, horns of cattle, deer or goats are attached to the top of the skull. Any self-respecting devil would take to his heels if he saw a group of these grotesquely masked, bark-cloth-clad figures approaching. But the Cocles do not trust to their frightful appearance alone. Armed with long-lashed whips, beating drums, blowing horns, leaping, prancing, dashing about, they rush hither and yon among their fellows - and even into the outlying settlements, lashing at everything and everybody within reach of their whips, very much in the manner of the Iroquois dancers, but far more strenuously. Originally the Kukwa dance was a strictly Indian and pagan ceremony, and despite all efforts of the Catholic padres, the Cocles refused to abandon their devil dance. In the end the priests compromised. The Cocles agreed to hold their traditional dance during the feast of Corpus Christi so that it became a feature of the Christian celebration, and both padres and Indians were satisfied. In addition to innumerable baskets, bark cloth garments, complete Kukwa costumes, feather capes, drums and musical instruments, carved wooden stools and other specimens, I obtained several of the Cocle’s huge earthenware burial urns, for in the more distant areas these Indians seal their dead in the urns which are placed in ovens hollowed in a bed of clay surrounded by charcoal and combustibles. The pyre is lit, the remains within the urn are cremated and the interior of the furnace is transformed to brick, thus forming a permanent hermetically sealed tomb. Warned by the heavy clouds that gathered about the mountain tops and the ever-increasing frequency of showers, I left the Cocle villages and returned to Penonome just as the rains began to fall in earnest. While awaiting the coastwise steamer by which we were to return to Panama City, a native brought me a small stone image, and in the store kept by the Senores Conde, I saw a most unusual and interesting piece of ancient Indian pottery, unlike anything I Never a Dull Moment
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ever had seen from Central America. After some difficulty I obtained this and was told that it came from an area on the Rio Grande where there were many stone idols and monuments and many auacas (graves) from which numerous gold objects had been taken. Naturally my keenest interest was aroused, for no archaeologist ever had reported such prehistoric remains in the vicinity, But Mr. Heye had not authorized me to carry out archaeological researches and it would have been impossible to do so owing to the torrential rains. When Mr. Heye received the image and the tray he was most enthusiastic over my finds and wrote: "They are unique, I think you are about to write a new chapter of Central American archaeology." The writing of that chapter was, however, postponed. I was instructed to go to Peru, Chile and Bolivia to collect until the rainy season was at an end in Panama and then return to the Isthmus and carry out my original plan to collect material among the Guaymis. I had long wanted to visit Peru and the neighboring republics, I was deeply interested in the numerous little known tribes of the trans-Andean region and upper tributaries of the Amazon. In addition there were the ruins and remains of the Incan and pre-Incan civilizations. Moreover, our daughter Loyola lived in Lima and our youngest daughter, Valerie, was in Antofogasta, Chile. Lola had married Frank Cintron, the first Puerto Rican to graduate from West Point, whom she met while in Panama, where Frank was captain in command of a Puerto Rican company during the war. At the close of hostilities he had secured a position with the W. R. Grace Company in Chile where the marriage had taken place. Later he had been transferred to Lima. Their daughter, Consuela, was destined to become the world-famous female bullfighter known as Conchita. Valerie's husband was an Englishman, "Bob" Ellis, whom she had met while on a visit to Lola. He was at that time paymaster for the AntofogastaBolivia Railway and being unable to obtain leave of absence, Valerie had travelled alone for some four thousand miles to be married, and thereby created no little attention in the press. Although all of my children inherited my natural artistic talents and were excellent artists, Valerie was the only one who inherited my love of travel and adventure and my keen interest in nature, wild life and my darker-skinned fellow human beings. She had accompanied me on some of my shorter trips into the jungles of British Guiana and into the interior of Panama. She was a thoroughly good sport, fearless, and taking the "rough with the smooth" without complaint, and she had a keen unfailing sense of humor. In later years "Bob", who had become an auditor and accountant, was sent to Manilla, and for several years they resided in the Philippines. When they returned to the states Valerie became well 226
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known for her feature "Citizens of One World” over Station … and her series of newspaper articles, "Many Miles Ago”. As I had not seen either of the girls for a number of years I naturally looked forward with a great deal of pleasure to visiting them at their homes in South America.
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Chapter 36
1924
The Guaymis Tribe of Panama
Dwelling in the heart of the high mountains and lofty plateaus of the wildest interior portions of northern Panama, the Guaymis are one of the few unconquered tribes of Indians. For many years they carried on a savage relentless war with the Spaniards, until finally the invaders decided that the Guaymis’ country was not worth the losses they sustained, and left the Indians in undisputed possession of their ancestral mountain land. Of course some of the Guaymis had been captured and enslaved, some of the sub-tribes near the borders of the Indian country had been conquered and the survivors had become Christian subjects of Spain. Like many Indian races of both South and North America the Guaymi race covered a very wide territory and was made up of a great number of tribes, sub-tribes and clans who, prior to the Spanish Conquest were often fighting among themselves. These outlying Indians were conquered but the true Guaymis of the unexplored mountains never capitulated. Like the unconquered Mapuches of Chile their independence was recognized and on the maps of Panama their territory is marked "La Zona de los INDIGENOS." Tales of the ferocity of the Guaymis and of their determination to prevent all white men from entering their country were as numerous as the similar stories of the Kunas and San Blas and I was assured that my attempt to visit the tribe meant almost certain death. The Zona was rich in alluvia gold and the Guaymis, knowing that they would be doomed, once the white men discovered the precious metal, took no chances and kept everyone out, and hair-raising tales were told of prospectors being killed or tortured for venturing within the "forbidden district� of the bravos. Although I felt certain that the stories were greatly exaggerated, yet I knew there was a grain of truth in them. Only a short time previously a party of naturalists, engaged in collecting birds for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, had ventured within the boundaries of the Guaymi zone and had been warned to leave, with threats of what they might expect if they failed to do so. Needless to say they lost no time in getting out. But members of the party admitted that they had experienced no trouble until one of the men had started panning the sand of a stream with hopes of finding gold. Unquestionable the party had been shadowed by the Indians day and night and the chances were - I felt sure - that had the ornithologists confined their activities to their bird collecting, they never would have been molested and never have seen a trace of an Indian. Personally I had little fear of being ordered out of the Guaymi country. I had had a great deal of experience with reputedly hostile tribes and never had trouble. I had learned the Indians' ways and understood their psychology, as 228
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well as any white man can hope to understand it, and I had always succeeded in winning the Indians’ confidence and friendship. I never carried arms, other than a light shotgun, and never permitted my camp boys or native Panamanian "wranglers" to go armed, and I knew that from the moment a stranger entered a tribe's district he was constantly under the watchful eyes of the Indians. Moreover, news travels swiftly by seemingly mysterious means among primitive races. On one occasion, while among the Caribs of British Guiana, Sam and I and two Indian porters traveled for nearly forty miles through uninhabited unbroken forest to a remote Carib village. Yet the Indians were not in the least surprised at our arrival and had known the number of men in the party, what arms we carried, when we had left our camp and the purpose of my visit. How they learned this I never discovered. Much the same thing has happened on many of my trips, but in some cases the Indians freely explained how they obtained their knowledge while in others I discovered the seemingly inexplicable methods of communication. We may think of radio as a recent invention of the white man but the primitive Indians of South and Central American, and many of the tribes of Africa, were using wireless telegraphy ages before Benjamin Franklin experimented with a kite and lightning. Drums may be heard for distances of many miles in jungle country and messages sent by drum-beats may be relayed again and again for hundreds of miles within a very brief time. Some of the tribes of Brazil use remarkable water-drums by which they can convey messages for over one hundred miles down a stream or for half that distance up a stream. They even have very cleverly made "amplifiers" on the receiving drums which magnify the faint vibrations until they are audible sounds. But perhaps the most remarkable savage radio I have found consisted of two dead and hollow gigantic trees, one in the uninhabited forest, the other beside an Indian village. By some strange freak or unexplained natural law, the two trees were synchronized and by tapping on either with a club the sounds were transmitted to the other, although fully twenty miles apart. Considering all this I felt reasonably sure that by the time I reached the border of the Guaymis' territory signals or communications of some sort would have been transmitted telling of my intended visit and my purpose. As it happened I did not have to rely upon such uncertain matters in order to visit the Guaymis. At one of the outlying settlements I met and became friendly with Tonotalandi, one of the chiefs of a tribe that dwelt on the outskirts of the Zone and who carried on a more or less regular trade with the Panamanians, a sort of go-between for the true Guaymis, with his tribe serving as "buffer state" as one might say. He assured me that if he vouched for me I would be permitted to enter the forbidden district and might even have an opportunity to visit the Guaymi chief. Much to my surprise, when we reached his home, I discovered that his "tribe" was largely mythical, that in reality he was Never a Dull Moment
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a true Guyami who served as a sort of sentry or outpost, much as did the corregidors of Chief Polu of the Shayshans. He was as good as his word and accompanied by him and two of his men we traveled by horseback for several days over some of the narrowest, steepest, most dangerous and worst mountain trails I ever have seen until at last we rounded a precipitous spur and came to a level plateau beautifully cultivated and with thatched roofs of houses peeping from among the trees. We had reached the first village of the unconquered Guaymis; the home of Neonandi, chief of all the Indians of his district. For many days I dwelt in Neonandi's home, picked up a working knowledge of the Guaymi language and recorded a very complete vocabulary. I met many members of the tribe and secured a great many fine specimens and a vast amount of valuable information regarding their lives, habits, customs, ceremonies, etc. Like all the Guaymi houses, that of Neonandi was a huge structure built of split logs set upright in the ground and roofed with a heavy thatch of interwoven palm leaves. Around the inner sides of the walls were a number of small platforms partitioned off by mats of plaited fibre or palm leaves, each of these cubicles being occupied by a family. Hence the building was an apartment or communal house for while each family has its own fire, the carved wooden benches, the floor and everything else was in common. Never have I met a finer lot of Indians. Tall for Central American aborigines, they were stalwart, well proportioned, with pale russet or ochre skins, high-bridged noses, brown or hazel eyes and dark brown or black hair, all very different from the dark-skinned, badly proportioned, flattish-nosed, sloe black-eyed, coarse blue-black haired majority of the tribes of tropical America. Their costumes were unlike those of any Indians I had met and consisted of loose shirts and trousers of hand-spun, and hand-woven cotton ornately decorated with vari-colored appliquĂŠ work in geometrical designs. Although some were bareheaded the majority wore hand-made narrowbrimmed hats of palm leaf. There were no crowns to the hats but many were encircled by woven bands holding feathers of various birds. On their feet they wore sandals of plaited rawhide or tough fibre and slung by a band over the shoulder was the inevitable chakara or carryall, of pita hemp. Nowhere had I seen chakaras to equal these. Almost as soft as silk, woven in beautiful geometric designs of brilliant red, orange and black they were so closely, perfectly made that they were water tight. From Neonandi I learned that the Guaymis have no true villages but dwell in communal houses of six to eight related families which are scattered over an immense area, often several days marches apart, with the country roughly divided into three districts, each ruled by a separate chief. One of these was Neonandi, another his cousin, Ixtanandi, while the third or head chief, the 230
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cacique or king, to whom the others are subject was known as Montezuma. Here indeed was a surprise. I had already noticed a number of Nahua words in the Guaymi vocabulary and when I learned that their cacique was known as Montezuma I felt certain that the Guaymis were of Nahua (Aztec) lineage and, were survivors of Aztecan outposts or colonies who had been cut off from their fellows and completely forgotten centuries ago, just as the Shayshans were descendants of Mayas. Neonandi, however, had no knowledge of how or why the head chief was called Montezuma. It always had been that way, he declared. Always the cacique, regardless of his true name, was Montezuma. This fact taken in connection with the Nahua words in the language (when the vocabulary was checked at the Museum in New York it was found that nearly forty percent of the words were Nahua or of Nahua derivation) would have been almost conclusive evidence of the Aztec origin of the Guaymis. But there was even stronger proof. Neonandi and the other chiefs wore headdresses of the long tail plumes of the resplendent trogan or Quetzal, the sacred bird of-the Aztecs, and no one else was permitted to use them. All the designs used in their decorations and ornamentation were similar to those of the Aztecs, and the Guaymis, alone of all known existing Indians still used the Aztec throwing stick or "atlatl" which the Guaymis call "n’adtli�. And very expert they are at throwing a six foot spear by means of this ancient accessory. Naturally I was most anxious to penetrate farther into the Guaymi country, visit Montezuma and witness some of the tribal dances and ceremonials. Although Neonandi seemed perfectly willing to take me anywhere, yet he pointed out that it would mean a long difficult trip, that it would be impossible for me to visit more than a portion of the houses, but, he added, he could arrange matters so that collecting specimens and making paintings of the Indians would be much easier and simpler. Instead of visiting the outlying Indians he would have them visit me - a sort of Mohamet and the Mountain idea . The following day a dozen or more strange Indians arrived. All wore headdresses of eagle, egret, wild turkey, or owl feathers and were bedecked with beautiful bead collars, necklaces of peccary, jaguar and human teeth, and all had their faces painted in patterns of red and black. Neonandi, too, wore ceremonial dress, with a gorgeous crown of long iridescent Quetzal feathers on his head and a necklet of small golden bells and delicately wrought gold figures of frogs, birds and other creatures. As he addressed the council I could not catch all he said, but I understood enough to know he was arguing my cause, whatever he said met with their approval, for every now and again one or another would grunt "K'uank" (good) and nod his head. As Nueonandi ceased one of the council rose and addressed his fellows. Each in turn did the same and then through Never a Dull Moment
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Tonotalandi who spoke Spanish well, Neonandi explained that he had proposed sending word to the other chiefs who in turn would send word to their subjects, calling upon the Indians to gather at a certain rendezvous on a prearranged date so that I might visit them altogether at one time. It was a fine plan but one of the councillors had a better idea. Perhaps, he said, many of the Guaymis might not heed the summons; white men were not liked and the wilder, shyer Indians might stay away. But if they were summoned to a ceremonial dance they could not refuse to attend. All agreed to this and I felt really honored when Neonandi asked if it met with my approval. The means by which the messages were sent was most interesting for it was done with knotted cords of various colors and combinations of color, each color or arrangement of colors having its special meaning: white cords signifying locality or place, black strings a date, red strings the purpose and so on, while the number and form of the knots indicated the details. It was astonishingly like the quipos messages of the Incans, and long and complicated messages could he conveyed in this simple manner. The cords having been prepared in triplicate, one set was handed to each of three young Indians who were stripped to "breech cloths and wore a chakara containing dried meat, parched corn and tobacco, and whose faces were painted to indicate they were official couriers of chief Neonandi. Silently as ghosts they slipped from the house and at a steady dogtrot started on their long journey. The meeting had been arranged for eight days later and a few days before the date we left Neonandi’s home and mounted on horseback and afoot we headed for the spot where the ceremonial dance was to take place. It was hard going, the only trail was a narrow footpath barely wide enough for a horse to pass and in places nerve-trying, for the trail skirted the verges of terrifying precipices; it traversed narrow knife-edged ridges with deep purple-shadowed canyons on either side and we were constantly ascending some steep mountainside or slipping and sliding down the opposite slope. Most of the time we were well above the timber line with the only vegetation coarse grass and sort of bracken, but the scenery was awe inspiring and superb with soaring cloud-draped peaks, tumbling cataracts and roaring rivers. Aside from Neonandi, Raymond, my Negro camp boy, and one Indian, all the men, women and children of Neonandi's house were afoot. Although when at home the women wore ankle-length sleeveless Mother Hubbard type gowns of handwoven cotton, when traveling over the mountains they stripped to breech cloths and with loosely-fitting capes about their shoulders, carrying their customary clothing in bundles on their backs. The men also went light, wearing only their trousers or even breech cloths alone. I did not blame them, for the long, clinging cloth garments greatly impeded walking, especially when wet by the mist of clouds and by frequent showers. 232
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Chapter 37
1924
The Guaymi Medicine Man
In the afternoon of our third day's march we reached the designated meeting place. It was a beautiful spot where a great flat-topped hill rose in a perfect pyramid. Obviously at some time in the distant past the natural summit had been leveled off, and in the centre of this level area stood the temple or ceremonial house, a huge structure of timbers and thatch. It was fully one hundred feet in length by sixty feet wide and fifty feet high, with its eaves reaching within a yard of the ground. A few yards to one side was a small house which Neonandi informed me had been erected for my own use. But I found I already had a tenant. Just inside the entrance a shrewd-faced, wrinkled little Guaymi squatted upon a small raised platform. His headdress of owl feathers indicated he was a medicine-man or priest-chief and, grinning and bobbing his head, he announced that he was there to protect me from evil spirits. I soon discovered that he also had other reasons for his presence. No Indian could enter to trade without passing this Cerberus at my gates, who allowed none to pass, without paying toll - or maybe duties - in the form of objects that, later on, he traded to me at a profit. Like Prince Charley of the Boorabees, he was a grafter but being a priest or medicine-man the other Indians regarded him with respect and superstitious fear and handed over many things which I never could have obtained myself. Almost as soon as we arrived Neonandi entered the big ceremonial house. Presently he returned and told me that the dance-chief or head priest was very ill and that unless he recovered no ceremonial could be held. Would I try to cure him? Neonandi asked. I agreed to try and Neonandi led me to the temple where, stooping low, I crawled under the eaves. Everywhere within, rafters and beams were hung with flowers, bright plumaged birds' skins and streamers of dyed cotton. In the center was an alterlike table piled high with every kind of food known to the Guaymis and decorated with the tasseled stalks of maize, flower-covered branches of coffee trees, plume-like pampas grass and glorious orchids. Around two sides of the structure were rows of benches hewed from logs and carved wooden stools, and in one corner was a low platform partitioned off by screens of plaited palm leaves. Here, wrapped in animal skins and cotton blankets, lay a very old, wizened, gray-headed Indian, his face pinched and drawn with pain. I quickly diagnosed his trouble as nothing worse than colic, gave him some pills and a laxative and assured him and Neonandi he would be quite himself by the next day. As we left the temple Indians gathered about, gazing almost reverently, for word had spread that the white man had been doctoring their dance-chief, a 234
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sacred personage and a great witch-doctor. If he sought my help then, they reasoned, I must be a greater medicine-man than the priest. Even at the time we had arrived there were scores of Guaymis already there. Dozens of spirals of smoke rose from camp fires and Indians in gorgeous dress were everywhere. I thought that all participants in the coming dance must be present, but all through the night and the following day more continually arrived until by the morning of the appointed day fully one thousand Guaymis had gathered at the mountain top. Certainly Neonandi's message-strings had brought results. But the most important Indians of all had not arrived. Montezuma and his retinue were missing. Neonandi felt certain the cacique would come but as hour after hour passed with no signs of him even the assembled tribesmen began to fear their king had failed them. But at last from far away, came the faint sound of a cow horn trumpet and instantly all was excitement. Shouts of "Montezuma! Montezuma!� arose on every side. Horns and whistles were blown, drums were beaten and the air reverberated with the sounds. Presently from beyond a projecting spur of the mountain side a group of mounted Indians approached. A welcoming roar of greeting rose from a thousand Indians’ throats and the ruler of the Guaymis reined up beside us and leaped from his jaded horse. I had mentally pictured Montezuma as an old, grim-faced Indian, but to my surprise he was a young, finely built and very light-skinned man with regular features, broad forehead, intelligent face and erect dignified carriage. His costume was no different from that of Neonandi and the other Indians but his crown of sacred quetzal plumes set off by a band of golden and scarlet macaw feathers, was a regal headdress, while about his throat was a chain of intricatelywrought golden beads supporting a six-inch gold disk fringed with golden bells. But I was even more surprised when Montezuma spoke to me in fairly good Spanish, although later I discovered that a few set phrases comprised his whole knowledge of the language. He was most friendly and gracious and assured Neonandi that he would order his subjects to permit me to photograph and paint them and would tell them to bring all the handiwork they had and to trade with me. Then, accompanied by Neonandi and Ixtanandi he disappeared within the temple. As the sun sank behind the western ranges and light grew dim, flaring torches were lit and the Indians converged about the temple. Drums began to throb, flutes shrilled and rattles shook and the crowd of Indians commenced to dance, chanting in unison, leaping and bending low in time to the music as they moved around and around the ceremonial house. Then, abruptly, the music ceased and like wraiths the Guaymis vanished under the eaves. I was of course most anxious to enter and witness the ceremony but Neonandi had warned me to remain outside, explaining that evil spirits were to Never a Dull Moment
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be driven out and that as I was a stranger and a white man the devils might enter my body. Presently the measured beating of drums and low tones of flutes and Pan's pipe within the temple ceased, Neonandi appeared and touching my arm lead me into the temple. I was elated for I was about to witness a sacred ceremony of the Guaymis, to see what no other white man had ever seen. Guttering torches cast a fitful glare and filled the huge building with aromatic smoke. On one side the men were seated in row after row of closely packed savage-looking figures staring fixedly ahead, smoking their ceremonial pipes of carved jadeite, and giving no sign that they were aware of my presence. Between them and the central altar was a fire of logs and here several girls were cooking thick unsweetened chocolate while others stirred a huge pot of rice chicha. Moving silently about, other girls were serving the bitter chocolate and chicha to the men, while on the farther side of the building sat the women with eyes fixed upon the earthen floor and their long hair falling over their faces. Arranged about the altar were small earthenware effigies of birds, beasts, reptiles, human beings and impossible monsters, as well as miniature plates, pots and other dishes. Seating myself upon a low stool reserved for me I accepted the chicha and chocolate handed me and endeavored to sit as silently and immovably as the Indians. Presently Neonandi rose, approached the altar and addressed the assembled tribesmen. What he said I could not catch for he spoke very rapidly and used many phrases and words I had not previously heard, and, even at its best it is a hard tongue to understand or speak with its guttera1 clicking, throaty sounds almost impossible for a white man to pronounce. As he ceased speaking a chorus of "K’uanks!" indicated approval. Then Montezuma stepped forward in full regalia and with the yard-long quetzal plumes of his crown gleaming like emeralds in the torchlight. Very eloquently he spoke and as he concluded a roar of "K'uank! K'uank!" came from the audience. As the cacique resumed his seat a weirdly strange figure came hopping to the center of the earth floor. Wonderfully clad, adorned with strings of teeth, feathers, animal skins and tassels of human hair, with a crown of white egret and owl feathers on his head and with face almost hidden by intricate painted designs. I recognized him as the old dance-chief whom I had doctored. Very obviously my treatment had effected a perfect cure, for he was as lively as the proverbial cricket, leaping into the air, waving his skinny arms and shouting in a high cracked voice. As he ceased the thunder of approving "K'uanks!" was deafening.
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Instantly Montezuma and Neonandi sprang forward, and seizing me by the arms hurried me, for I was too astonished to protest or speak, to a spot beside the altar, was I to be sacrificed? Had all this seeming friendship on the part of the Indians, all this gathering of the Guaymis and this ceremony been only a ruse to lead me to my end - to be a human sacrifice to the ancient gods of these descendants of the Aztecs? I couldn't believe it, but I admit that for once I did feel most damnably nervous. But as I glanced at the two chiefs, Neonandi's grin and Montezuma's smile reassured me. Then, in a mixture of broken Spanish and Guaymi, using simple words and phrases I could understand, Montezuma explained, and what he told me was more amazing than all that had gone before. I had duly and unanimously been elected a member of the Guaymi tribe! Neonandi had proposed it, Montezuma had seconded it and the dancechief High-Priest had carried the motion without a dissenting vote. I realized it was up to me to say something so as well as I could I made an impromptu speech in a weird fixture of Spanish and Guaymi with a few English words added for good measure, which was duly, but I fear far from literally interpreted by Neonandi and was greeted with tumultuous applause. The next moment the dance-chief came hopping from his corner carrying a basket and an ornate chakara. With a claw-like hand he drew a bead collar and gorget from the chakara and quickly fastened them about my neck. Next came a string of jaguar teeth and a filet of bird skins and tufts of hair. A painted drum was slung over my shoulder and Montezuma deftly drew the tribal mark of the Guaymis across my cheeks and nose, adding two round spots below the lines, then from the basket he took a crown of ant-bear hair and placed it upon my head. I was dumbfounded, for the ant-bear crown and cheek dots were the insignia of a medicine-chief of the tribe. I fully realized how greatly I was being honored but I must confess that I felt rather silly and self-conscious with all those Indians staring at me, for even the women turned to gaze at the unique sight of a white man being transformed into a Guaymi. The transformation complete, Montezuma announced that my name was Cuviboranandi (The white medicine-chief from over the waters), addressed me as "Brother� and presented me with a carved jadeite pipe. I was now a full-fledged Guaymi medicine-chief honored as no other white man, and all because I had cured an old Indian suffering from tummy ache. Strange, I thought, that for the second time an Indian's insides should have proved the open sesame to the most carefully guarded secrets of the Shayshans and Guaymis. The ceremonies and dance that followed my initiation were extremely interesting but there is no need of describing them in detail.
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When at length the ceremonies were at an end the Indians gathered outside the temple and prepared for their grand finale, the strange "stick dance" of the Guaymis. About a cleared level space flaring, resinous torches had been placed, although the bright moonlight rendered them unnecessary. Around this arena the women and the majority of the men squatted on their haunches waiting for the sport to begin. At one side stood the band, gaily bedecked with feather crowns and huge headdresses of fur and hair, carrying drums, flutes, whistles and trumpets. Near them, and arguing excitedly, were several Indians, some carrying seven-foot poles about three inches in diameter, pointed at one end and brilliantly painted, and all wearing stuffed skins of ocelots jaguars, deer, otters, sloths and other animals strapped to their backs. These were the dancers and there seemed to be considerable difficulty in deciding who should start the dance, when, a few moments later, it was in full swing I was not surprised that each man hesitated about being the first victim, for compared to the Guaymi stick-dance, football or hockey are gentle games. Everything at last being arranged the band struck up, marched several times about the arena and took up its position at one side. Then two Indians sprang into the open space, one carrying his heavy spear-like stick poised like a harpoon in both hands; the other with hands empty. Instantly they commenced dancing, the unarmed man hopping and leaping, spreading his feet wide apart, dodging back and forth, and constantly looking over his shoulder at the other fellow who, with poised stick, shuffled and skipped keeping time to the band. Suddenly he lurched forward, the pole hurtled through the air and with a dull thud struck the other's legs. He went down as if shot and a roar of merriment and applause arose from the audience. Limping but with a broad grin on his face, the man picked himself up and again began to dance. Again his opponent threw his stick but this time the other dodged, the pole passed between his legs and the crowd fairly screamed with delight. Now it was his turn and as the other danced he threw the stick and brought the fellow down at the first throw. But by this time the arena was crowded with dancers and stick throwers and the heavy poles flew thick and fast. According to rules a dancer must continue to serve as a target until he evades a stick, whereupon the thrower takes his place, but in the mad fusillade of sticks and the maze of dancers it was a mystery to me how anyone was certain who hit another or whose partner dodged. That some of the Indians were not crippled or killed seemed miraculous, but the stuffed animals' skins protected their spines and Tonotalandi stated that serious injuries were rare. I had been watching the dance with keen interest and I soon noticed that the poles were not thrown hit or miss. There was a trick to it, the idea being to hurl the pole so that its point struck the ground and the staff spinning about swept 238
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the dancer's legs from under him. A great deal of skill was requited to accomplish this, but even greater skill was needed to evade the stick. I regretted that I had no flash powder and was unable to secure photographs of the dance, but when I mentioned this the two chiefs solved the difficulty by ordering a special stick dance to be held the following day. Never in the history of the Guaymis had such a thing been done but the word of Montezuma was law and although the Indians demurred at first they went through with the daytime dance. Moreover, they invited me to take part in it. Being now a member of the tribe I was expected to follow tribal customs and there was no way I could squirm out of it. However, as at my first try I knocked my partner over like a tenpin I was not called, upon to serve as a target. But I still suspect that the fellow purposely allowed himself to be bowled over. During the next few days I carried on a lively trade for every Guaymi seemingly had something I wanted and my collection of specimens grew rapidly. I obtained beaded gorgets, gold ornaments, headdresses, complete costumes, stuffed animals used in the stick dance, the sticks themselves, musical instruments, necklaces and gorgets, dozens of chakaras, baskets and sandals; cotton spindles and weapons, throwing sticks or atlatla of various forms; primitive looms, crockery and wooden dishes, rice mortars and pestles, carved wooden stools and bowls, jadeite and soapstone pipes and, best of all – a complete set of the little, beautifully modeled effigies used as proxies are for absentees at the ceremonial feast. These always are broken and destroyed to prevent evil spirits from entering them and by this means bewitching the beings the figures represent. But Neonandi had a special set made. Perhaps some weird and secret incantation made them impervious to evil spirits or maybe the chief felt that no devil would dare enter the proxies when in the hands of such a mighty medicine-chief as myself. At all events they are priceless specimens, the only ones of their kind in any museum in the world. When finally it was time for Montezuma to leave he placed one hand upon my shoulder the other over his heart. "You are one of us, my brother," he said. "Though your skin is white you are my kinsman. You are Cuviboranandi (The white chief from over the waters). Every Guaymi in the land knows of you and whenever you return, even though all of my blood and all who have been here are dead, still will you be known as a Guaymi and welcomed everywhere." He probably spoke the truth. Indians’ memories are long and no doubt, should I ever return to the Guaymi country, I would be regarded, not as a stranger and a white man, but as an Indian chief. It was a slow, tedious and difficult job to transport my collection across the mountains to Neonandi's home. Often the slopes were so steep that the laden pack horses had to be eased down by ropes or helped upward climbs by hauling and pushing, and in many places the trail led between tufa banks where Never a Dull Moment
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the space between was too narrow for the pack trunks to pass and it was necessary to cut grooves with machetes before we could proceed. After a few days rest at Neonandi's house I was ready to start on the long trail to the settlements. As I bade the chief farewell and mounted my horse Neonandi grinned and spoke, "He says", interpreted Tonotalandi, "If there is anything the Guaymis make or have that you haven't got he doesn't know what it is."
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Chapter 38
1924 – 1926
Peru
My first impressions of Peru, as the ship steamed along the coast, were not by any means favorable. After the lush green of the tropical lands and islands with which I was so familiar the wrinkled, dull-brown mountains, bare of all vegetation, and the glaring deserts stretching far inland, were depressing. But when I came to know the republic better I really fell in love with it and to my mind Peru is the most interesting and desirable of all the republics in South America. Frank and Lola met us at Callao and we drove to Lima over a splendid concrete highway as straight as the proverbial arrow. In one spot the road had been cut through an immense pre-Incan burial-mound and all about were human skulls and bones, bits of ancient textiles and broken pottery. But one soon became accustomed to such things when in Peru. Everywhere about Lima - throughout the Rimac Valley, as well as elsewhere, there are countless ruins of pre-Incan and Incan civilizations, innumerable burial mounds or huacas and other remains of the pre-Columbian days. The bunkers and hazards of the golf club grounds are Incan walls and grave-mounds. Many of the recently built houses are surrounded by heaps of skulls and bones unearthed in digging the foundations, and if one has a garden one is far more likely to dig up a skull than to find a stone. Passing through Lima with its splendid thoroughfares, magnificent buildings and centuries-old churches, we drove out the park-lined Avenida Leguia (now Avenida de Arequipa) to the charming suburb of Miraflores where Lola had her home. Perhaps the most surprising feature of Peru is the contrast between the barren deserts and austere mountains and the lush green fields, the palm trees and growing crops, and the wealth of gorgeous flowers of the areas under irrigation. Nowhere in all my travels have I seen greater and more colorful floral display than the gardens and parks at Lima and Miraflores. Open fields are masses of sweet peas, walls, roofs and even palm trees are hidden beneath masses of pink-flowered climbing geranium; bougainvilla of every shade, golden rain vine, corallita and night-blooming cereus are everywhere. Heliotropes become good sized trees. English violets cover the ground and roses of endless varieties attain gigantic size without losing their sweetness. It is all a question of water. There is a saying in Peru that if a pail of water is spilled on the desert a tree will spring up. This is scarcely an exaggeration. The soil is very rich, being impregnated with nitrates and other chemicals, and wherever there is dampness there is vegetation. Along the railways, every water tank station is hidden amid palms, trees, vines and flowers, Never a Dull Moment
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and the pipe lines stretching across the deserts may be traced for miles by the rich green vegetation that has sprung up wherever there is a leak. It is a strange sensation when traversing a vast barren desert to come upon a valley vividly, indescribably green with sugar cane, cotton, fruit trees, maize and alfalfa. Being an almost rainless land Peru's agricultural riches depend entirely upon irrigation. Long ages before the days of Pizarro, the Indians had learned to irrigate the land and had constructed vast aqueducts and canals extending for hundreds of miles from the coastwise valleys to the distant mountains with their glacier-fed streams, and many of these ancient irrigation systems are still in use today. About the first thing I did after arriving at Lima was to call upon President Augusto Leguia. We had known Señor Leguia for a long time (before he had become President of the Republic and was a political exile). He was very fond of Lola and Valerie and almost worshipped Concha. He greeted me most effusively, asked innumerable questions about my work, assured me of official cooperation in every way possible and gave me a signed order which would permit me to visit and confer with him at any hour of the day or night. Leguia unquestionably was a dictator, even if there were so-called elections. Members of his cabinet were notoriously dishonest, he overlooked if he did not condone the outrageous activities, drunken brawls, brutalities, and graft of his son, Juan, and he unquestionably arranged to have his daughters feather their nests with taxation of prostitutes and other disreputable industries. Very probably he accumulated a tidy fortune by hook and by crook, but who are we to point a finger at Latin American graft in governmental circles? People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But to my mind - and I knew Señor Leguia personally, his good deeds far outweighed the bad. To his political enemies he was of course the "tyrant" and the “despot". He certainly did rule with an iron hand, and not particularly hidden by a velvet glove at that. But no man in the history of Peru ever did one-tenth as much for his country as Leguia. Callao, once a filthy, disease-ridden pest-hole, was cleaned up, sanitized and modernized. Great docks were built to permit the largest steamers to unload and load cargoes and passengers directly upon the quays instead of anchoring far off shore. Two magnificent concrete highways connecting Callao and Lima were built. The once awful, roughly -cobbled, filthy streets of the City of the Kings that had seen few if any repairs since the time of Pizarro, were replaced with perfectly surfaced thoroughfares. Plazas and parks were laid out. The palatial Hotel Bolivar and the million dollar Country Club were built. Strict laws were passed to protect Peru's priceless and irreplaceable antiquities from vandals. The gold reserve was built up. Industries – especially if foreign capital were encouraged. A competent, courteous, snappily-dressed police force was organized. Up-to-date traffic rules were enforced by traffic police under the training and supervision of a Peruvian who had been a traffic cop in New York City. Laws permitting visitors to bring their automobiles into Peru duty free 242
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were passed in order to attract tourists. The Army was placed in command of Spanish officers and the tiny miniature Navy was officered by United States Naval officers loaned by our government. In the outlying districts excellent highways were constructed across deserts and mountains to connect the capital with distant towns and villages, and millions were spent on providing Lima with an adequate supply of pure water. Although of pure Spanish blood, yet Leguia was ever a true friend of the native Indians. He took over vast estates whereon Indians were little more than slaves and parcelled them off among the tribesmen. The humblest, poorest Indian could always have an audience with Leguia and could confidently tell the Señor Presidente of his troubles which almost invariably were rectified. As a result, the Indians fairly worshipped Leguia. On one of my visits at the ancient Pizarro Palace he showed me a gift he had just received from an Indian village. It was a complete and perfect replica, perhaps a foot in length of the palace "throne room" with a recognisable figure of Leguia seated in the great chair upon the dais and wrought entirely of native silver. On another occasion the Indians of a district near Ayacucho presented Leguia with a hand woven rug of llama, alpaca and vicuña wools over ten feet in width and nearly one hundred feet in length made to fit the main hallway of the palace, a fabulously beautiful specimen of the Peruvian Indians’ greatest art, which had required the united labors of dozens of men and women for a period of months. Although a devout Catholic, Leguia did not permit the Church to ruin the State. When, on one occasion while writing my book, THE INQUISITION, I wanted to search through old documents of the inquisition in order to be certain of facts and figures, and the Archbishop refused to let me see them - or rather declared they did not exist. President Leguia sent him a note. Although worded in the most polite language it was tantamount to an order for it stated it was the wish of the president that I should have access to the documents and that obstacles placed in my way would be a discourtesy to Leguia. Needless to say I had no further trouble and was granted permission to go through all records in the cabildo with their wealth of data on the Inquisition in Peru. Neither must we forget that Leguia crushed Communism which threatened to sweep the South American republics. Demonstrations by the Reds were ended almost before they began. No mercy was shown them. Mounted lancers of the picturesque palace Guard charged them, cutting them down with sabres and shooting them like wild beasts. After one such affair I counted over twenty bodies being loaded into a truck at the main Plaza. Stern measures perhaps, inhuman and bloodthirsty, you may say. But if Leguia had not nipped Communism in the bud our Latin American neighbors would by now have become hotbeds of Communism and a constant menace to ourselves. Moreover, Leguia knew his people. Measures which would have been efficacious with Anglo Saxons would have been deemed cowardice and Never a Dull Moment
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weakness by the Cholos of Peru. Only violence and bloodshed could control them. Naturally Leguia made countless enemies both political and personal. Numerous attempts were made to assassinate him, and there were many abortive uprisings. But he seemed to bear a charmed life. He was absolutely fearless and on several occasions, when warned that there was a plot to assassinate him, he would walk or ride unattended and unguarded through the very district where the murder was supposed to take place and if there is one quality that the Peruvians admire more than all else, it is bravery. Moreover, he maintained a highly efficient and "hush hush" Secret Service organization, under the supervision of Canadian F.B.I. men who usually learned of plots before they were fully hatched. Probably no one factor led to Leguia's final downfall as much as did this Secret Police. They were accused of extortion, graft, oppression, false charges and arrests, kidnapping and imprisoning alleged conspirators without trial and numberless other crimes. Some of these allegations undoubtedly were true, but then, our own police are not always guardians of the law but resort to intimidation, protection, the "third degree", framing and similar tactics. The end of Leguia's regime came suddenly and wholly unexpectedly. Breaking out in Arequipa the revolt spread like wildfire. Leguia fully realized that he was doomed and he might readily have escaped, but he waited until he had seen his wife and daughters safely aboard ships and by then it was too late. To his everlasting credit be it said, his son Juan stuck by him - it was, perhaps, the only decent, praiseworthy deed of his life. Although the revolt was successful, although Leguia and his son were helpless prisoners, the ex-president had too many admirers, too many influential friends, too many foreign capitalists to permit the rebels to put the two to death. Both, however, were cast into prison. Leguia, at that time a very ill man with an incurable malady, died in prison during my third visit to Peru. But eventually Juan was released and sought refuge in the States. No horse-drawn or motor-driven hearse was permitted to carry the body to the grave. In a plain coffin it was borne on the shoulders of his closest friends and, aside from myself and family, not a score of persons stood with bowed heads as the mortal remains of Peru's greatest benefactor and most vilified ruler was borne slowly, through back streets to a nameless grave. At the time of my first visit to Peru the republic was celebrating its Centennial of Independence and Lima was ablaze with colored lights, gaudy with bunting and filled with distinguished visitors from all parts of the world. Among them were a number of scientists from the United States. There was Mr. Popenhoe, the plant introducer from our department of Agriculture, Professor Von Kleinschmidt, the professor of Psychology of the University of Southern California, Dr. John Oliver La Gorce of the National Geographical Society and Professor Seville of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Saville, who had seen and examined my archaeological finds in 244
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Panama, was even more enthusiastic than Mr. Heye. I had, he declared, discovered an entirely new and remarkable culture and being more of an archaeologist than ethnologist he wanted me to commence excavations as soon as I returned to Panama and put off the Guaymi trip until later. However, he was not the boss and Mr. Heye's instructions were to complete my ethnological work before starting on the archaeology in Pamama. As some of the visiting scientists had never seen a mummy disinterred and were keenly interested in archaeological work, Professor Seville suggested that we should spend a day excavating graves and selected a pre-Incan cemetery in the desert some twenty-five miles from Lima and accessible by automobiles. We had a most enjoyable outing. A number of graves were excavated and the mummies unwrapped. Although nothing of great scientific interest or value was obtained we secured quite a collection of textiles, pottery, wooden tools used in weaving, ornaments and weapons, as well as several women’s work baskets, containing needles, thread, thimbles, cotton spindles, etc., in addition to some mummified dogs, cavies and parrots. I was intensely interested, for it was my first experience in this type of work and I made up my mind then and there, to some day carry out extensive archaeological researches in Peru.
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Chapter 39
1924 – 1926
Indians of Peru and Ecuador
My brief holiday in Lima over I prepared for my trip into the interior. Lola's mayor domo was a young Huanca Indian from Ayacucha named Theophilus, and I borrowed him to accompany me as interpreter for, once away from the larger towns and the coastal settlements, very few of the natives spoke or understood Spanish and Quechua was the universal language. Devised by the Incas, the Quechua was the official language of the "Kingdom of the Four Corners of the World" as the Incan Empire was called. It was a combination of the simplest and best features of several Indian dialects - a sort of aboriginal Esperanto - which could be understood by the numerous races and tribes under Incan rule. Probably it was the simplest, most perfect language in the world, for the verbs are all regular, there are no exceptions, no complex involved syntax and grammar, yet it is capable of great flexibility and expression. Today it is being taught in the schools and colleges of Peru. The Central Railway of Peru, by which we travelled to Huancayo, is the highest railway in the world and one of the greatest of engineering feats. Steadily ascending the Andes it zigzags by hair-pin turns and switchbacks, through tunnels and over incredible bridges to the very crest of the backbone of the Andes at Ticlio, the world’s highest railroad station, 15500 feet, above the sea. Then, via a tunnel piercing the flanks of Mt. Meiggs, the line descends to Oroyo with the gigantic smelters and enormous works of the Cerro de Pasco Copper Company, and thence through fertile valleys and fields of barley, alfalfa and other crops to Huancayo. I had planned to reach Huancayo in time for the famous Sunday market when Indians from many miles about gather by hundreds in the city's market square and streets to sell and barter their products and handiwork. Nowhere in South America - if in the entire world - is there anything to equal it, for to the Indians it is as much a fiesta as a business matter and for centuries since untold years before the days of Columbus - Huancayo has been the center of the Indians’ commerce and barter and weekly "get together". Often they must start on the journey from their native villages several days before the great event, trudging patiently along the weary miles heavily laden with their goods or driving burros and llamas, and as it requires an equal time to return to their homes it would seem, that most of their lives must be spent traveling back and forth between the market and their homes. At dawn on Sunday they begin to arrive, dressed in their best, the women staggering under enormous bundles on their bent backs, with tiny children carrying loads heavier than their chubby selves, the men urging on plodding llamas and tiny burros, but all happy, laughing, shouting and chatting in the Quechua tongue. 246
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Indescribably colorful and picturesque is the sight they present in their fiesta garments. Upon their heads the women wear home-made hats of innumerable forms and colors - high-crowned, round-crowned, narrowbrimmed, broad-brimmed, of felt, straw, cloth and of every imagineable color and combination of colors. The head-gear of the men varies as much as that of the women but every form of hat has its meaning. By their hats you shall know them, might truthfully be said of the Peruvian Indians, for each village has its own type of hat and any Indian can tell at a glance where another Indian has his or her home. But the knitted, tightly-fitting cap with ear-tabs and tasseled, pendent crown is universally worn by the men. The blouses of the women are of the gaudiest cloth decorated with heavy embroidery and about their shoulders their inevitable mantas of handwrought rainbow-hued alpaca or llama wool are secured by huge silver pins terminating in spoons - a handy and ingenious combination of utility and decoration. Their belts are hand-woven of brilliant hues and striking designs. From wrists to elbows their arms are encased in ornate gauntlets and, reaching to the ground are wide, voluminous skirts of orange, mauve, cerise, sky-blue or emerald-green, made even more voluminous by countless petticoats. The men are almost as gaudy as their women for what their knee-length trousers and blouse-like shirts lack in color is more than offset by their heavy ponchos of every color of the spectrum. No matter how great a load a woman may carry there is always space for a wide-eyed baby and, without a weight upon her back, an Indian woman feels at a loss. Often, if she has no baby or burden to be carried, a woman will pick up a stick or stone or billet of wood and slinging this upon her back will trudge off with a complacent satisfied expression, far more at ease and feeling more properly equipped than without the superfluous weight. Unlike the Indians of North America or the majority of those of South America, the Andean women rely entirely upon neck and shoulders for sustaining their burdens and knot the ends of the supporting cloth about their throats. How they can breathe when carrying heavy burdens in this manner and bent nearly double by the weight, is a mystery. But not only do they manage to breathe, in the rarified mountain air they traverse enormous distances, climb the highest, steepest mountains and move at a dog-trot without the least sign of exhaustion or panting for breath. Arriving by twos or threes, singly or in family groups, they form a steady procession. Then, once within the city, they separate and stepping aside at once squat by the roadside and commence undoing their bulky packages. As each village or community specializes in some particular handicraft or commodity each, by ages-old custom has its allotted place in the mile-long row of squatting forms. There are the pottery sellers with their wares. Great earthen cooking pots, fat-bellied ollas, graceful and ornamental water jugs, pitchers, Never a Dull Moment
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plates, saucers and figurines of every shape and color. Squatted at the edges of ponchos or blankets are the hat sellers with their colorful head-gear spread before them. There are sections of the street where nothing but rawhide goods are displayed- ropes, halters, whips, reins, bridles- all beautifully and skillfully made. Other sections are restricted to sandals and moccasin-like shoes. There are others where weird "medicines" are sold- bits of bark and roots, the dried bodies of foetal llamas, dessicated lizards, frogs and snakes, pills and powders, charms and talismen to keep off evil spirits, and, by the Indians considered most potent of all, sea shells and starfish from the distant ocean that to them is a fabulous lake that they have never seen. But the most colorful, the largest of all the sections of the Huancayo market is the area devoted to the sale of textiles, for of all native arts and crafts the weaving of cloth is the most important and reaches the highest perfection. No race has ever equaled the textiles woven on crude hand looms by the Indians of Peru, in Incan and pre-Incan days. In the ancient graves cloth has been found with over 200 threads to the inch and every type of weaving known to civilized man was known and made by the Peruvian aborigines centuries before the "discovery" of America. Although today none of the cloth made by the Indians equals or approaches the beauty and quality of their pre-Columbian work, the products of their hand looms, woven from hand-spun cotton, llama, vicuna or alpaca wool, more than equals the products of modern machinery and will outwear and outlast our machine-made textiles by years. And nowhere in Peru or elsewhere is there such a variety of native textiles to choose from as at the Sunday market of Huancayo. Ponchos, scarfs, belts, skirts, rugs, blankets, all are there. To describe or even to mention the innumerable articles of Indian make which are on sale would require pages, for everything imaginable is there. Carved wooden ware, baskets, purses in the form of men and women cleverly knitted of wool, wallets of carved leather, carved calabashes, hides of jaguar, puma, deer and bear, chinchilla and viscachas, foxes and vicunas; coca leaves and the crude lime that must be masticated with them; jerked meat and frozen potatoes, and slings exactly like those of Biblical days. Every mountain Indian carries a sling and is expert in its use. With it and a stone he can bring down a partridge, a viscacha or other game at fifty yards or can drive llamas on a hillside by throwing stones about their feet yet never hitting them. One no longer marvels that David could kill Goliath with his sling after seeing an Andean Indian use the primitive weapon. Taken all in all the Huancayo market was an ethnological treasure house. I could pick and choose, select my specimens of every art, industry and handicraft without leaving the city, and I made the most of the opportunity. Theophilus was indispensable. Not only was he the perfect interpreter without whom it would have been impossible to deal with the Indians, but, being an Indian himself and a Huanca, he secured whatever I desired at a fraction of the 248
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prices they would have cost me. By the time I was through I had accumulated an enormous collection - enough to fill three huge packing cases. It was a pretty good start, and there were still many more areas and many more tribes to visit. From Huancayo we went inland over the secondary ridges of the Andes to Ayacucho, the birthplace of Peru's independence, and Theophilus’ native town. A very ancient city, built by the Spaniards on the site of the Incan city of the same name, Ayacucho is a most fascinatingly picturesque town. Probably in no other city in Peru has the beautiful old Spanish Colonial architecture been so well preserved. Time seems to have stood still as one strolls about the roughly paved streets, with outjutting balconies, arched doorways, barred windows, shady patios of centuries-old buildings on every side, and with the mellow-toned, squat-towered churches with ornately sculptured facades facing sleepy plazas where burros doze in the sun and kneeling llamas placidly chew their cuds and poncho-clad Huancas squat beside their wares, slowly masticating the inevitable pellet of coca leaves and lime. But time to an Indian means nothing. At the time of my visit, Ayacucho was supposed to be celebrating the Republic's centennial. It was a gala occasion and colored streamers, flags and popping firecrackers indicated as much. Also, groups of Indians attired in their most colorful costumes, and wearing feather headdresses, paraded the streets to the sounds of their huge bass drums, the shrilling notes of quenas (Incan flutes) and the musical tones of Pan's pipes. In the plazas Indian women danced, their voluminous, multicolored petticoats flaring out as though they were hoop-skirts, their voices blending as they sang plaintive ancient Incan melodies. Here and there dignified-looking Indians moved slowly- and often rather unsteadily-their polished black staffs ornate with silver indicating that they were chiefs or corregidors of certain villages. Obviously, despite rules or regulations, there were beverages far more potent than the native chicha to be had, for many of the Indians were well on the road to oblivion and the majority were far from sober. Fortunately rum is an expensive drink in the Andes and the ordinary Indian is financially unable to buy enough to become thoroughly drunk. Even the jefes with their staffs of office had spent their last soles and followed us about begging for money with which to buy more rum. They were about the most persistent pan-handlers I ever have met and when all other pleas failed they offered to sell me their official staffs. I would have been very glad to have secured them but Theophilus warned me that as soon as the owners sobered up they would demand their staffs and if I refused to return them I would never be able to purchase or trade anything in any of the Huanca villages, for the staffs are almost sacred. They are heirlooms as well as symbols of the owners’ official status and have been handed down from father to son for hundreds of years since first presented to Never a Dull Moment
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recognized chiefs by the Viceroy Toledo. To the jefes they are priceless, almost as precious as life itself. On the few rare occasions when some stranger had taken a befuddled jefe at his word and has bought his staff it invariably has been restored to its rightful owner, even though the purchaser conveyed it as far as Lima, for with all their faults the Peruvian governors, a1caides and other officials stand by the Indian jefes when it comes to a matter of their precious staffs. There were few ethnological specimens to be found at Ayacucho but I did manage to obtain some musical instruments, including a sort of mandolin made from the carapace of an armadillo, some feather headdresses and beautifully carved and decorated tortumas (calabash bowls). Then having exhausted the possibilities of the town, we continued on our way, visiting the more remote villages and, eventually leaving the Andes behind us and penetrating the montana or Perene district where the tributaries of the Amazon flows through dense tropical forests. This is the home of the strange Auenshas and Campas tribes who wear long cassock-like robes of their native hand-woven cotton cloth patterned after the cassocks of the brown-robed Franciscan Friars who were the first white men to penetrate the trans-Andean forests. Bandolier-like bands of white and black seeds in geometrical designs are worn across their shoulders, their edges fringed by the skins of brilliantly plumaged birds. Also, many wear belts hung with human ribs, for not so very long ago these tribes were implacable hostile savages who killed all strangers who entered their territory, and as souvenirs, preserved their ribs. Today they are peaceful and friendly enough but fortunately for the ethnologist retain practically all of their old customs, ceremonies, decorations and handiwork. Also, although many possess firearms they still use short powerful bows of black palm wood and arrows of many types, as well as blow guns and wurali-tipped, poisoned darts. Not many miles from the territory of these tribes, in the neighbourhood of the Gran pajonal, are the head-shrinking Indians. Although known collectively as Jivaros there are a number of separate tribes among the head hunters of the Peruvian and Ecuadorean jungles. Not only do they differ in customs, dress and even in dialects, but also in their methods of shrinking heads. The Ecuadorean tribes remove the skull through a slit in the back of the scalp, which is sewed up and the skin filled with heated sand. By holding the head over a smokey fire it is both smoke tanned and shrunken. Finally it is filled with heated pebbles until shrunken to the desired size. The lips are then sewn together, to prevent the spirit of the deceased from cursing his executioner and feathers and other ornaments are attached to the hair. The head shrinkers of the Gran pajonal district of Peru and the upper reaches of the Rio Tigre use quite a different process. The severed head is first soaked in a tanning solution made from various leaves and barks. It is then placed on a smooth stone or slab of hard wood and beaten with a wooden club until the skull is broken. The 250
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fragments of bone are then withdrawn through the neck and the head shrunken in much the same manner as I have described. This process gives far better results than the Ecuadorean method. The features of the face are more lifelike or perhaps I should say deathlike and are less distorted, and the color of the skin is a rich brown instead of nearly black. Although formerly the head hunters were as a rule hostile and dangerous they are a peaceful, rather friendly lot today. No doubt their alteration of character is due partly to the fact that strangers who visit them are usually in search of shrunken heads for which they pay high prices for the rather grisly souvenirs are outlawed by Ecuador and Peru. But like liquor during our prohibition days, anyone in the "know" may still purchase the heads in almost any Ecuadorean or Peruvian city. One must, however, be very familiar with the trophies and able to distinguish the genuine from the imitation, for the natives make most excellent counterfeits from the skin of horses’ tails, moulded over a wax form which is melted out when the skin is dry. Many a tourist has proudly exhibited a "shrunken head" and has told a thrilling tale of the risks he ran in obtaining the trophy through the shrunken head black market at an exhorbitant price, little dreaming that the "head" had once been the hide of the caudal appendage of a defunct equine. Originally the head-hunters shrunk only the heads of enemies killed in battle, but as the number of heads a man owned indicated his bravery and valor, they soon took to killing and decapitating any outsider they met whether Indian or white man. And as they found that the heads had a commercial value they became even more indiscriminate, until the governments passed strict laws forbidding the sale or even the possession of genuine shrunken heads. Unquestionably these laws did result in cutting down the output, but the Indians of the more remote districts still have plenty of shrunken heads, many of which show indications of being quite new. They also shrink the heads of sloths, jaguars, dogs, monkeys and other beasts. I managed to collect a number of these, as well as some unusually fine human heads, shrunken hands and feet and one entire body shrunken to about 20 inches in length. The body was that of a Meztizo or a white man who in life had worn a heavy moustache. As neither hair nor nails are reduced in size by the shrinking process the specimen appears to have a truly gigantic moustache reaching to below his shoulders, the finger and toenails are as long as the fingers while the hair upon the body gives the effect of a tightly-fitting fur garment. In addition to these specimens I obtained weapons, baskets, implements used in shrinking heads, bows and arrows, blow guns and darts and several of the long spears with steel blades made from machetes and sharp as razors with which the head hunters kill and decapitate their victims. Finally, and in some ways most important and valuable of all was a complete ceremonial costume made of bark cloth and completely covered with black, white blue and red bead-like seeds arranged in elaborate patterns and forming a somewhat conventionalized human face on Never a Dull Moment
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the front of the tunic. As far as known this is a unique specimen. Although practically every museum has a more or less complete collection of headshrinkers’ head-dress of toucan breasts and parrot feathers, as well as various seed belts necklaces and other ornaments, only the Heye museum has the entire ceremonial dress which was worn only during the celebration and dance following the return of victorious warriors bearing numerous heads of their foes.
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Chapter 40
1926 – 1927
Back in Panama
It was a simple matter to locate the archaeological site in Cocle. The remains were scattered over an area of fully one hundred square acres and everywhere were stone columns and monoliths, some lying upon the earth, others half-buried, and all slanting at every angle, while scattered about were countless sherds of polychrome pottery. The entire area was overgrown with a dense jungle of thorny vines and brush six to eight feet in height and fairly alive with vicious ticks. Only by hewing a pathway with machetes was it possible to see the stones, and the first thing to be done was to clear away the jungle and burn it. When this had been accomplished I found that the stone columns were in regular rows forming an enormous quadrangle in the center of which was group of carved monoliths and the section of an enormous column fully three feet square. Also, a short distance from each of the four corners of the quadrangle, there were two immense columns even larger than the central monolith, and, at one side, I found a great stone platter or tray with hollowedout center and with the rim carved in the form of a crocodile. Here indeed was an archaeological discovery. But where was I to begin? I decided to start excavations about the central monument and there, just beneath the surface, we came upon a number of small stone idols of human form. But my greatest finds were yet to come. Hidden by five to six feet of alluvial soil between the columns of one row were dozens of marvelous carved effigies, some seven or eight feet in length. There were human figures, animals of various kinds, reptiles, birds; some forming ornamental tops to the columns, others covering the entire surface. Nothing like them had previously been found, I knew, and each day's work unearthed more. On one was a circle of human figures supporting an elaborate seat or throne. Another showed Siamese twins, and there were two which terminated in figures which unquestionably were pachyderms. Previously all the so-called elephant sculptures, pottery and bas-reliefs had been "explained" by the savants as being merely ant-bears, macaws or tapirs with exaggerated snouts. But here at Cocle were beautifully sculptured creatures not only with trunks and tusks, but with the unmistakable big leaf-like ears and the typical elephantine forward-bent joints of the hind legs. No Indian of preColumbian days could merely have imagined an animal with such distinctive characteristics. Moreover, one of the two showed a burden strapped upon the animal's back. Then, between the columns of another two, I found numbers of great blocks of pink, yellow, red and white jaspar, all carefully tooled to form short cylinders with slightly hollowed tops, while the largest, of rich orange jaspar, had the entire circumference carved in low bas-relief showing various figures with joined hands as if dancing. Never a Dull Moment
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Although all of the columns and carved monoliths were of flinty-hard diorite, yet they were so ancient that this almost imperishable rock had decomposed from the surface to a depth of two inches or more almost completely obliterating the strange sculptured inscriptions upon them. There was also a vast amount of sherds. The earth between and about the columns was literally filled with broken pottery of the most beautiful polychrome ware, totally unlike any other pottery ever found. As excavations progressed and long-buried monuments were exposed I found that the columns and the corner monuments formed a regular design, a sort of gigantic sun-dial, with the great central monument serving as a gnomon and the corner monoliths marking the four cardinal points of the compass. Unquestionably, at the time when the place was occupied, and the stone columns were perpendicular it would have been a fairly simple matter to have determined the exact time of the solstices as well as the time of day or night by means of the gigantic astronomical affair. But what was the explanation of the effigies, monuments and tens of thousands of fragments of pottery? Not until I had excavated stone columns with their bases surrounded by piles of sherds and with marks where pottery had been broken against the stone, did the solution dawn upon me. The pottery had been "killed", sacrificed, as one might say, but why? Perhaps, I decided, the stone column-enclosed area might have been a temple. Perhaps the vast amount of highly ornate pottery had been sacrificed during ceremonials. Neither could I account for the topsy-turvy condition of the stone columns and the idols. Some, as I have said, were prone upon the earth. Others were buried beneath many feet of soil and sherds. Those that still remained upright leaned at sharp angles in every direction. Moreover, the gigantic corner monoliths were broken into several sections which were scattered about at various distances from the base still buried in the earth. When, after days and weeks of excavating, I discovered that the great carved central monument was broken into three sections and that the central section was over twenty feet from the base and upper sections, I knew beyond all reasonable doubt that only a terrific earthquake could have produced such results. If, as must have been the case, the place had been destroyed by such an upheaval it would explain the vast quantities of "killed" pottery. The people, panic stricken, with the very earth heaving, undulating, rising and falling beneath their feet, would have rushed to the temple and in a frantic desire to placate their gods; would have sacrificed their most valued belongings, recklessly smashing their marvelous pottery against the stone columns. Then, as work progressed and I located outlying groups of columns invariably surrounded by sherds, I made another discovery. A short distance below the surface was a thick layer of volcanic ash. Obviously it had been intensely hot when it fell, for it had fused with fragments of pottery and the surfaces of the columns. 254
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Within a few miles of the site the great Guacamayo volcano loomed high against the sky. Inactive, still it was by no means "'dead", for here and there in the ancient crater steam rose from crevices and fissures and patches of sulphur gleamed yellow in the sun. Here was the answer. At some far-distant time the volcano had burst forth in full eruption. Terrific earthquakes tortured the earth and millions of tons of incandescent ashes fell, burying the homes and the villages, the temples and the lands of the people and utterly destroying them. No wonder the Cocle culture is unique. In a single day - in a single hour perhaps, an entire race with a culture all its own had been wiped from the face of the earth. The culture, the peoples’ arts and crafts had been so completely destroyed that there was no chance of their becoming merged with or influencing other Central American races and cultures. At what period of the past, how many centuries ago, this destructive cataclysm took place no one can state with certainty. But it was such a remote time that diorite columns six to eight inches in diameter had decomposed until only a solid hard core an inch or two in diameter remained, and diorite is a very dense, hard and enduring rock. Moreover, many of the sculptured figures and carved monoliths still standing in their original upright positions were buried beneath fifteen to twenty feet of soil, not volcanic ash which covered only a foot or two of the lower portions of the stones. I doubt if there is any reliable data on the time required for diorite to decompose in the climate of Panama. But for fifteen feet and more of decomposed vegetation and alluvial soil to accumulate must have required an enormous length of time - not improbably well over two thousand years, perhaps several thousand. With the earth so completely filled with pottery fragments digging was hard slow work. Moreover, it had to be done with a great deal of care, for many of the pieces were very large and well worth preserving. Not infrequently I would find nearly all of the fragments of a bowl or plate or other dish close together and in such cases they could be restored. Occasionally, we would come upon an unbroken article. But to remove it without injury was a slow and delicate job. Wedged in among fragments and hard-packed earth the object could be recovered only by carefully and patiently digging away the surrounding detritus. Hours of labor with slender knife blade, stiff brush and forceps were often spent on a plate, saucer, platter or bowl. And on many an occasion I had my labor for nothing and found, as the last bit of earth was removed, that the object was a fragment after all. Surely and steadily, even if slowly, the specimens accumulated. Dozens of sculptured stone figures and columns were sun-dried, burlapped and packed in strong cases. Scores of packing cases were filled with pottery fragments, each piece wrapped in paper, and, packed as carefully as the most delicate Dresden ware were the entire pottery objects I had found. Never a Dull Moment
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I had been working at the site for a year. I had collected and shipped thousands of specimens, yet barely ten acres of the area had been excavated when Mr. Heye decided he had enough. Unfortunately he is primarily a collector and once he had a comprehensive collection from Cocle he was satisfied, naturally I was bitterly disappointed for I had hoped to carry out the work until the entire area had been covered. I had never come upon a burial. Never had a grave been found, yet I knew that somewhere in the area there must be graves and then in these graves there should be perfect specimens of the choicest pottery, weapons, and other prized possessions of the deceased, and in all probability ornaments and other objects of gold. I was right. A few years after I ceased work at the Cocle site a party from the Field Columbian Museum began excavations a few miles from where I had been forced to leave off. There was a perfect treasure trove. In the graves they found magnificent pottery, beautiful elaborate golden objects, delicately carved bones of manatees and other animals, some mounted and inlaid with gold - the richest most valuable collection of specimens ever taken from Central American burials. After all, I could console myself, I had discovered the original culture, I had been the first to secure specimens, I had been the first in the field and it was I who, as Mr. Heye had stated, had "written a new chapter of Middle American archaeology." surely that was enough to satisfy anyone. Moreover, even had Mr. Heye decided to continue the work I would not have been able to carry on. For some time I had not been feeling at all well and back in the Zone at the Hotel Tivoli I became really ill. However, I thought little of it and assumed that it was merely a return of my old pernicious tropical malaria, and loaded myself with quinine. I had reserved passages to England by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company but by the time I reached Colon I was so much worse that I cancelled the reservations and took passage direct for New York. A few days before we reached Havana a terrific hurricane had swept over the island and ill as I was I was determined to go ashore and see what havoc it had wrought. Few persons know what a real west Indian hurricane is like, for the worst hurricane that ever swept over Florida was a mere gale by comparison with hurricanes that have devastated many of the West Indian islands. Their power and force are almost inconceivable. During the hurricane that hit the Dominican Republic in 1936 solid stone buildings that withstood earthquakes, wars and hurricanes for four centuries were completely demolished and reduced to rubble scattered far and wide. Coconuts torn from trees were driven like cannon balls through the walls of houses. Automobiles were lifted and carried for blocks to be smashed to pieces against buildings and trees. Loaded freight cars were toppled and rolled over and over, steel rails were torn from ties and 256
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were driven like javelins through trees and many people were beheaded or cut in two by sheets of galvanized roofing. No one knows or ever will know what velocity the winds reached for no recording device made by man could withstand such a blow. On one of my trips to the West Indies in the MARAVAL we ran into a hurricane, for in those days there were no warnings of the presence of the storms and ships' captains had to rely upon their barometers and their weatherwiseness. Captain Mathewson knew that a hurricane was near but the MARAVAL could not outrun it. The wind was terrific but the seas that preceded and followed it were worse. Tremendous waves broke over the ship fore and aft, one even washed across the bridge sixty feet above the sea. On the forward deck was a load of railway rails and three inch iron pipe lashed down with wire cable. One gigantic wave broke over the bows burying the forward deck under foaming green water - and as the vessel rose to the next sea and the water poured off, not a vestige of rails, pipes or lathings remained. I have one prized photograph showing the stupendous wave about to break over the bows and with the deck load intact and another, taken a few minutes later, with the deck as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. On another trip on the old CORONA a hurricane hit us southwest of Bermuda. For forty-eight hours we were hove-to with oil bags over the bows and a sea anchor, and within a half mile of us we saw a big three-masted schooner lose one mast after another until she wallowed in the seas a dismasted hulk. The hurricane that hit Havana in 1926 left death and destruction in its wake. As we drove about the city the streets and buildings looked as if they had been under heavy shell fire for days. Unlike the majority of hurricanes, this one was "freaky". It was as if it had consisted of dozens of tornados, for there were areas completely demolished and other sections close by which apparently had not been touched. Along the Malecon many of the houses had their fronts completely destroyed, yet within the rooms, fully exposed to view, curtains, draperies and furnishings had not been disturbed and the occupants were carrying on as usual, although with as little privacy as any fish in a glass globe. So terrific was the force of the wind that it had lifted the huge bronze eagle from the top of the Maine Monument and had carried it bodily for five blocks, and the big turret guns of the Maine that had been about the base of the monument, had been lifted and blown like so many packing boxes in every direction, one having been upended with its muzzle wedged in a catch-basin. At the suburb of Vedado a lofty building of steel and concrete was complete but the facing had not been put on. One would suppose that the structural steel frame would have offered little resistance to the wind, but the hurricane left it a twisted, tangled mass. As one of the construction engineers said; "It did everything but tie knots in the steel girders." Never a Dull Moment
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Pure will power and my desire to see the results of the hurricane had seen me through my tour of Havana, but once aboard the ship I collapsed in my berth and remained there until we reached New York. It was a terrific effort to get up, pass quarantine and immigration officers and the Customs, and by the time I was done I was so bad that I had an official phone my doctor and ask him to be at my hotel when I arrived. I knew I was exceedingly ill, but I didn't realize how ill I was or what ailed me. It didn’t take long for Dr. Scheerer to diagnose my trouble. "Abcess on the kidney as big as a hen’s egg" was his verdict. "If you want to live you must have your kidney removed." "Not on your life!" I told him. "I intend to live or die with both of my kidneys," "It'll be die." he assured me cheerfully. "But how did you get this way?” "I expect it's the result of those Cocle ticks," I said. "Day after day I was covered with them. Their poison always effects some gland." Each day the Doctor came, shook his head and marveled that I was still alive. But in the end I won. The abscess suppurated and burst and I convalesced rapidly. "I suppose you feel mighty cocky to think you survived with both kidneys." said the physician when all danger was past. I laughed, "And I'll bet you feel mighty disappointed at not taking out my kidney," I replied.
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Chapter 41
1929
England and Peru
As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we took our interrupted trip to England where I wrote my THIRTY YEARS IN THE JUNGLE for Bodley Head and contributed a number of articles to Blackwood's Magazine and an account, illustrated by colored plates, of the Cocle culture for the London Illustrated News. While in London Frank and Lola joined us and left for a tour of Europe leaving Concha in our care. We employed a very nice English girl for her "amah" and as she did not speak or understand Spanish, Concha was compelled to speak English which accounts for the fact that she still speaks the language with a decidedly British accent and pronunciation. It was during this residence in England that I met the then Prince of Wales. It was a very informal meeting and, as a matter of fact, I did not at the time realize that I had met Prince Edward. I had gone into a tobacconist's shop on the Strand to purchase some American smoking tobacco. The only other customer was a young man who appeared interested in my purchase and asked a number or questions about the various brands of American tobacco and cigarettes. We had quite a conversation and when he finally left the proprietor of the shop asked, "Are you aware with whom you have been conversing, Sir?" "I haven't the slightest idea," I assured him. "But my dear sir,” he exclaimed "It was his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, sir." "Well, Prince or not he certainly knows a lot about tobacco," I replied. But Lola did me one better. She was very fond of horse back riding and each morning took an early ride through Hyde Park. "I met the nicest old man, this morning," she announced one day, "He was as jolly as could be and wanted to know all about Peru, I forgot to ask his name but asked me if I rode every day and wants me to join him." "What did he look like?" I asked her. "He was short and quite chunky and wore a full beard," she said. I began to suspect and asked "And he rode a white horse, didn't he?" “Why yes, but how did you know? Dad.” I laughed. "Your jolly old man is the King of England," I told her. "Everyone knows that the King rides incognito through Hyde Park mounted on a white horse early each morning when it's fair weather. It's a sort of unwritten rule that he has the park to himself at that time." Never a Dull Moment
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"I don't care if he is the King," Lola declared. "He's just as nice and jolly and homey as can be." I expect that His Majesty derived as much pleasure from the chance meeting as did Lola and he unquestionably learned a deal about Latin America and Latin American conditions from an entirely new point of view. Soon after we returned to New York we again sailed for Peru. This time, however, I was on my own, for I had planned to devote most of my time to writing, although I hoped to do some archaeological work also. It was during this visit to Peru that I wrote my THE INQUISITION which necessitated a vast amount of research among ancient records and documents many of which had never been seen or read by anyone except the prelates of the Catholic Church, perhaps the most conclusive evidence of the accuracy and the impartiality of the book is the fact that it was read and approved by a Protestant Bishop, a Catholic Bishop and a Jewish Rabbi, and was recommended by the Paulist Fathers of New York. I had signed a contract with the Bobbs Merrill Company to write a book on the Old Civilisations of the New World and it behooved me to do some personal investigations and to visit all, or as nearly as possible all of the most noteworthy remains of Incan and pre-Incan civilizations and to do some excavating. In this work Dr. Julio Tello of the wonderful Larco Herera Museum at Lima was of invaluable assistance. A pure-blooded descendant of the Incans, and a graduate of European and American colleges, Dr. Tello had a wider, more intimate knowledge of the ancient cultures of Peru than any other archaeologist. Probably no other museum in the world had a larger, more complete collection of ancient Peruvian objects and I spent many weeks at the museum examining, studying and familiarizing myself with the various epochs or periods of preColumbian civilizations that were represented. Also, Dr. Tello secured permission for me to excavate and collect specimens and suggested various little-known sites for my investigations. It was a most interesting work. One never knew what new and priceless objects one might unearth. It was a most exciting game of scientific grab-bag and I was lucky. Among other notable specimens I obtained a beautiful bronze battle-axe complete with haft, bronze spears, knives and other weapons; innumerable specimens of pottery, magnificent textiles; a huge pendant of roughly-cut lapis lazuli; looms and ceremonial staffs, necklaces of agate, topaz, amethyst and other semi-precious stones, and a magnificent opal, ceremonial paddles and feather headdresses and ornaments; the first balances and first bone buttons that had been found, as well as countless other specimens, the most interesting, perhaps, being several portrait jars of Wira Kocha, the chief deity of the pre-Incans and always represented as a benign bearded man wearing an eared cap and shoulder cape. But from the layman's point of view by far the most interesting mummy I had found was that of a girl in her teens; who had lived and doubtless loved and had passed away some two thousand years ago. 260
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Her dessicated body was wrapped in 35 yards of the finest lace, she wore a dress of brown lace overlaid with lace of Alice-blue, as perfectly preserved as though recently made. Her hair was cut in a boyish bob, her eyebrows had been carefully plucked, her finger and toe nails were enameled red and traces of lipstick showed on her shriveled lips. Beside her was a beautifully woven vanity bag containing a pair of bronze tweezers for removing superfluous hair, a bronze knife, a silver spoon, a powder box and a puff of feathers, a little gourd that still held rouge, another with red lip pigment and still another with dried-up black that had served her for mascara, as well as a broken string of pearl beads, a silver thimble, needles and wooden spatulas with other odds and ends exactly what might be found in the hand-bag of any girl of today. Evidently womens' ways and vanities have changed little during twenty centuries or more. But the pre-Columbian Peruvian miss had not been an idle girl. With her there were interred two small hand looms, each with a section of unfinished tapestry on which she had been working when Death found her. Having completed my archaeological work in Peru we sailed for England where I devoted a great deal of time to the Peruvian, Aztecan and Mayan antiquities in the British Museum. Finally, with the manuscript of the book completed I returned to the States. The greater portion of my archaeological specimens had gone to the Museum of the American Indian in New York City and Mr. Heye, Professor Seville and Mr. Orchard were most enthusiastic over them. Several were unique, among these being a ceremonial cup with a carved bone bowl mounted on a base in the form of a fish composed of red Spondylus shell, mother of pearl and black bitumen. My finds had been so noteworthy that once again I sailed for Lima, this time to collect both ethnological and archaeological specimens in Peru, Chile and Bolivia. My first trip was to Lake Titicaca and thence to the ruins of marvelous Tiahuanaco in Bolivia. Some time was spent in and about La Paz where I secured a quantity of ethnological specimens from the Atymaras. Then up the eastern coast of Titicaca to the remote village of Aitchicaitchi where I collected among the Collas, and finally to ancient Cuzco and Machu Picchu, then a trip over the mountains and into the rich and fertile trans-Andean valleys, the country of the little known Yungus Indians. With an enormous collection of specimens ranging from huge bass drums, gigantic Pan's pipes and feather headdresses with yard-long plumes to silver ornaments and pins, turquoise jewelry and minute figures of silver wire and wool, I returned to Lima. My collections having been shipped we went on to Antofogasta, Chile where Valerie and Bob were living. By railway and horseback I traveled inland to Potosi, Cochabamba and Sucre, and penetrated the almost unknown forest and jungle country of the Santa Cruz and Rio Grande. There I collected among Never a Dull Moment
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the Panos who, greatly to my surprise, spoke a Carib dialect and were unquestionably of Caribbean stock- the most westerly of Carib tribes. At that time the vast area about the Rio Grande and Santa Cruz with their various tributaries was almost wholly unexplored and unmapped. During the great rubber boom in the eighties, a few trading stations and garrisons had been established on some of the rivers and small steamers navigated the streams, but the Bolivians never dared venture far into the Chaco with its hostile bravos, and with the collapse of rubber exploitation the stations were abandoned, the jungle took over and the Indians were left in peace. No one knows how many or what tribes inhabited the immense, unpenetrated area. But among them were the strange inexplicable Sirianos - the Bearded Indians. Exceedingly primitive, short, almost dwarfs, wearing no garments whatsoever, the men's faces are covered with heavy bushy beards giving them the appearance of Australian aborigines or South Sea islanders rather than Indians. Their weapons are as remarkable and as inexplicable as the tribe itself. Their bows are enormous, out of all proportion to the undersized owners, and the arrows are gigantic. They have no culture, no fixed abodes, but are nomads, with no arts or industries and whose sole possessions are their huge bows and arrows, strings of wild animals’ teeth and crudely made head ornaments of toucans’ feathers. At the time of my trip the Santa Cruz area was a hard seven days’ journey from the nearest Bolivian town, but today it may be reached in a few hours by air. Much of the jungle has given way to cultivation, settlements have been established and before many years have passed the last of the "wild" Indians will have become merely a tradition. While at Antofogasta, I obtained an immense collection of archaeological specimens from Tal tal (Chile) containing, among other unique artifacts, a great number of beautifully-made miniature arrow heads of obsidian, agate, and other stones very similar to the so-called "bird points" of Oregon and our Northwestern coastal areas. Even more unusual, and previously unknown, were figures of animals, birds and human beings, often less than an inch in length, made by chipping the bits of stone in the same way the arrow points had been produced. Having finally completed my work and with all my collections shipped we sailed aboard the old ORTEGA bound for England via the Straits of Magellan, the Falkland Islands, Montevideo, Brazil, the Cape Verdes, Portugal and Spain. If there is any truth in the old saying that the longest way around is the shortest way home, then we were taking a very short cut to the States. It was on this trip that we made the acquaintance of Sir Kay Muir and Lady Muir, his charming Bulgarian wife. The Baronet had extensive interests in South America and was on a tour of inspection of his alpaca and sheep ranches in Peru and Chile and his coffee plantations in Brazil. As the Muirs planned to 262
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remain for a time in San Paulo, Brazil, we parted company at Santos. But we arrived in London at the same time and were most cordially invited to pay them a visit at Blair Drummond, their Scotch residence near Stirling. Blair Drummond was a magnificent fourteenth Century castle with turrets, battlements, mullioned windows, and was a treasure house of centuriesold wainscoting, medieval armor and weapons, tapestries and paintings. In 1921 the interior of the upper story had been gutted by fire but there had been time to save nearly all of the contents. The conflagration proved a blessing in disguise for it enabled Sir Kay to put in central heating, electricity and running hot and cold water without in any way changing or interfering with the interior of the castle. The estate was enormous, with hundreds of acres of magnificent primeval forests of oak, fir, pine, beech and other trees; with hundreds of acres of grazing land for flocks of black-faced sheep and blooded cattle, with more acres of cultivated land and with magnificent gardens and vast greenhouses about the castle. Upon the estate was a good sized village with Post Office and telegraph office, and there was a lovely lake and a river teeming with salmon and trout. In the Trossacks, Sir Kay had some five hundred acres of grouse land, craggy stag country and one of the few remaining fir forests wherein the almost extinct Capercaillie lived. Although a most democratic and unassuming man, Sir Kay was adamant when it came to a matter of long established British customs. Despite the fact that Lady Muir was very fond of horse back riding, no saddle horse was permitted at Blair Drummond, although shaggy-coated highland ponies were used when a stag hunt was held. To even dream of riding for pleasure was unthinkable. It simply "wasn't done, you know" and was strictly reserved for the Rugby estate and fox hunting. He just as meticulously adhered to ages-old Scottish customs. Once each year there was the "netting of the salmon" a formality that, dated back to the dim and distant past when, in order to maintain his fishing rights to the river, the laird of Blair Drummond had to seine the fish from the shore of his next door neighbors, the McGregors of Dunne Castle. It was considered something of a gala event, which everyone attended, picnicking beside the river while the men, under the watchful eye of Sir Kay, cast and drew the seine, hauling in dozens of great salmon and scores of trout. The salmon were promptly tossed back into the stream but most of the big trout were saved, to be distributed as gifts among innumerable employees and the tenants of the estate. There were a number of dolmans and other prehistoric remains on Sir Kay's property and Lady Muir, who had been greatly interested in my archaeological work, was most anxious to do some excavating. At the base of one of the centuries-old beech trees near the castle there was a large mound and I suggested that there would be a good spot to begin. But Sir Kay would have Never a Dull Moment
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none of it. In the first place he insisted it was not a burial mound but merely an accumulation of soil and sod about the tree. In the second place, any digging might injure or destroy the tree, and finally he didn’t approve of desecrating graves even if they were the graves of ancient pagans. However, Lady Muir was not to be deterred and kept at it until at last he gave in and an under gardener and a helper commenced digging under my supervision. In a very short time stone work was revealed. Soon we came to a low narrow doorway of stone closed by two stone slats. These having been carefully removed we peered into a stone-lined chamber, but the wealth of relics and mouldering skeletons, Lady Muir had hoped to find were not there. Portions of a skull and a few bits of bone were all that remained of the ancient Pict who had been laid to rest within the tomb, and the only relic was a fine earthenware vessel in perfect condition. The piece of pottery went to the Edinburgh Museum and a special paper was devoted to it. But despite all pleas Sir Kay refused to allow the fragments of human remains to become specimens. Carefully gathered up, even to the last stray tooth, they were placed in a box and duly interred in the earth above the tomb. Although he pooh-poohed the idea, the Baronet was really quite proud of the tomb, and although he put his foot down on any further digging he had the tomb wired for electric lights with stone steps leading down to the entrance. Of course Blair Drummond had its ghost, a limping wraith with mutilated face and with a most romantic history who haunted one of the towers and its lofty parapet high above the main entrance to the castle. When, in the middle of one night, I was awakened by sounds of dragging footsteps and a clanking chain issuing from the haunted tower I decided to do a little investigating. I admit that it was a bit creepy, stealing through the dim and lofty hall and up the spiral staircase within the tower, with its stone steps worn hollow by the feet of generations of armor-clad men-at-arms, cross-bowman and archers and sentries with pike and halberd. And to add to the creepiness I could hear the footsteps climbing the stairway ahead of me although no sign of a presence could be seen. Upward I went, trailing the ghostly footsteps until at last I reached the parapet and open air. Half expecting to see a spectral apparition I peered about, for rattling sounds seemed to issue from the ancient battlements. Then, abruptly all was still; only the distant song of a nightingale and the eerie cry of an owl broke the silence. For a time I stood there pondering. What, I wondered, had caused the ghostly sounds? Then I recalled a story told my father by Dr. Elliott Coues, the great ornithologist and an ardent ghost hunter, and the solution dawned upon me. When I made a phone call to the Station Master at Stirling my suspicions were confirmed.
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"I heard the ghost last night," I observed, as we all met at breakfast, and proceeded to tell of having followed the spectral footsteps up the haunted tower. Sir Kay snorted, "Bosh, all bosh!” he declared, "No such things as ghosts. All imagination or dreams." Lady Muir laughed. "Just the same," she said, "I don't believe you would have followed the sounds up the tower stairs." Sir Kay gnawed at his moustache. "Of course not," he declared "I'd be sensible and stay in bed. All poppycock anyway," Then, with a sheepish grin. "But you may be right, Nadja, might as well let well enough alone, you know." "You needn't worry about the ghost hereafter,” I said. "I laid him by the heels. Your ghost is nothing but the vibrations caused by a goods train passing over Stirling bridge." I then proceeded to explain that some strata of rock extended from the castle to beneath the bridge and acted as a sort of sounding board, and that the mysterious footsteps and clanging sounds began and ended at precisely the same times that the train reached and left the bridge. "But we won’t let anyone know," said Lady Muir. "Every old castle simply must have a ghost, you know." While in England at that time I wrote Under Peruvian Skies for Hurst and Blackett. I also exhibited my oil paintings of South American Indians and views at the Royal Geographical Society. I had already sold a number while in Peru and the favorable press comments and sales in London were most gratifying. In addition I wrote a number of stories for the English boys' magazines, articles for the WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE and other periodicals, and had a deal of fun tracing the origins of the odd names of old inns and public houses. To my surprise I discovered that very few Englishmen had ever given such matters a thought. They simply accepted them as they were and it never had occurred to them to wonder why a pub should be called the "Goat and Compasses", the "Goat and Whistle”, the "Soiled Apron", the "Three Necked Swan" and similar strange names. When, in some of my articles, I explained that the Goat and Compasses was originally GOD ENCOMPASETH US, that the Goat and Whistle had been GOD BE WITH US, that the Three-necked Swan should be the THREE NICKED SWAN and so forth it became quite a popular diversion to trace names, the origins of which were usually as much a mystery to the proprietors as to the public. I had taken our car to England with us and having visited practically every portion of the British Isles and toured the Continent we returned to the States. Never a Dull Moment
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Chapter 42
1924 – 1926
Sirionos, Head Shrinkers
In many respects the most interesting and remarkable of all of these forest tribes are the Sirionos of the Rio Grande and Beni districts in the interior of Bolivia. When twenty-five years ago, I reported and described these Indians they were unknown to ethnologists and had it not been for my photographs they would have been considered mythical. Even as it was my reports were regarded with more or less skepticism by a number of scientists. At that time it was a long, difficult two weeks' journey by horseback, foot and canoe from Cochabamba to the Geni, and only a few rubber gatherers, some Catholic missionary Friars and an occasional prospector had ever visited the Sirionos. The stories they told of these Indians were regarded as imaginary tales. But when the area was made accessible by aeroplanes and was opened up for settlement, one or two ethnologists visited the Sirionos and wrote quite voluminous reports of their investigations. All agreed with my original reports and my theory that these extremely primitive Indians are the remnants of some very ancient unknown race, for they have no affiliations with any other known Indians although their language is a form of or related to the Tupian. To the casual observer the bushy beards of these men and their nonIndian features are their most striking and remarkable characteristics, for they look far more like natives of the Solomon Islands than like American aborigines. They are very primitive and wear no garments whatsoever, but decorate their hair with bright colored feathers and wear strings of animals’ teeth about their necks. They are undersized, the men seldom over five feet and an inch or two in height, and they are docile, peaceful and extremely timid. They have no houses but erect flimsy shelters of palm leaves and have neither villages nor fixed homes, but wander about the forests hunting game on which they depend for their living, although since white men have settled in the district and have cultivated food plants some of the Sirionos have learned to raise small quantities of maize, sweet potatoes, cassava and peanuts in tiny cleared patches in the forests. They eat anything and everything from insects to reptiles with the exception of snakes and anteaters which are taboo, and devour every portion of the animals even to the skin after the hair or feathers are removed. For hunting they use bows and arrows which are truly most remarkable, for they are the largest in the world. The bows often are over ten feet in length and two or more inches in diameter at the center, while the arrows are eight to ten feet in length, an inch and a half or more in diameter and are feathered for a length of sixteen inches or more. In using these giant bows the string is held stationary in the right hand and the bow is pushed forward with the left hand. To aim the arrow the Indian puts his head between the bow and string and sights along the arrow, jerking his head out of the way as the string is Never a Dull Moment
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released. If when hunting, an animal is treed too high to be shot from the ground, one Indian climbs into the tree to within easy bowshot of the creature. Then another Indian fires an arrow at half force which is caught by the hunter in the tree and is fired at the treed animal. The Sirionos’ arts and crafts consist of making very poor and crude pottery by the coiled clay method, spinning or rather twisting Pita hemp fiber and wild cotton for bow strings, and weaving very crude hammocks of bark. In many respects the Sirionos are very similar to the Bogenahs or “Sabaheros" of northern Panama and the equally primitive Pogsas of Brazil. All three tribes have many characteristics in common. Men of all three have well developed, often luxuriant, beards and all three tribes are almost monkey-like in their curiosity and their fondness for playing tricks. All three tribes are peaceful, timid and devour anything and everything and none of them build anything more house-like than the flimsiest palm leaf shelters. No one knows just how many Sirionos inhabit the jungles and forests of their area but it is doubtful if there are 2000 altogether. Although for many years various missions were established, the missionaries found it impossible to convert the Sirionos. But today the majority of the known members of the tribe are at various missions and in government schools while others are on the plantations of white settlers. But many yet remain hidden in the forests and avoid all contacts with outsiders. Strange and interesting as are the Sirionos from the ethnologists’ viewpoint, the public at large is far more interested in the head-shrinking Indians of the South American forests. There is something about the rather gruesome, ugly, black miniature heads that appeals to the morbid streak in many people. Also there has been an immense amount of nonsense written concerning the "mysterious", "secret" and "unknown" method of shrinking human heads. In reality the processes - for there are two - are neither secret, unknown nor mysterious. In fact they are very simple, and anyone, if so inclined, could shrink a human or an animal's head just as well as (and by the use of chemicals) even better than the Indians. The process differs according to the tribe, for although ordinarily the head-shrinkers are referred to as Jivaros, there are a number of tribes dwelling along the upper tributaries of the Amazon in the interior of Ecuador, Peru and Brazil who shrink the heads of their enemies as war trophies. The most widely used method is to carefully remove the skin from the skull through an incision in the back of the head. This is sewn up and the lips are sewn together to prevent the "Spirit" from cursing. The skin is then soaked in a decoction of various barks which toughen and partially tan the skin and shrink it to some extent. The head is then filled with hot sand and is pressed, moulded and the features worked into more or less natural form 268
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It has been stated by certain persons that the Indians never shrunk the heads of white persons, and that they never shrunk any portion of a body other than the head. As a matter of fact they shrunk feet, hands, limbs and entire bodies, and in the Larco Herera Museum in Lima, Peru, there was the upper half of a woman's torso, together with the head, perfectly and really beautifully shrunken. I have personally collected shrunken hands and feet among the Indians as well as heads of white men and one complete body. As the fingers and toenails and hair do not shrink, the body- about two feet in length, appears to be covered with long hair, the finger and toenails are all out of proportion and the man's moustache, for he evidently was a white man or a mixed breed, almost completely conceals the face. In addition to human heads these Indians shrink the heads of sloths, monkeys and other creatures. This was done as an “honor" for the Indians believe they were descended from sloths and to preserve the animals’ heads was considered a mark of respect. In addition to the various head-shrinkers there are a number of other head hunting tribes in the interior of Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Some of these remove the skin of the face, and cure and dry it to form a mask. Others remove all flesh and skin, from the skull, extract the teeth and fasten the lower jaw in place with gum. They then decorate the skull with painted designs, adorn it with bright hued feathers and often finish it off with the antlers of deer or the long curved tusks of peccaries for "horns". Finally, there are tribes, such as the Maraccas of Brazil, who remove the facial skin of the head, cure it with decoctions of bark and stuff it with cotton. Artificial eyes of shells, semiprecious stones or even teeth are inserted in the empty sockets and the entire face is painted in intricate designs of bright colors. No one, not in the know, would recognize the finished products as human heads for they appear far more like masks carved from wood. Although at the present time comparatively few Indian tribes take heads as trophies, it was a widespread custom in days long past. All or nearly all of the pre-Incan races of Peru took trophy heads and there are countless paintings on pottery, clay figurines and designs woven in ancient textiles showing warriors carrying trophy heads. Also, many have been found in ancient graves at various sites in Peru and in Mexico. After all it is merely a matter of choice or, custom, as to whether a victor lops off the head of his enemy or takes his scalp. For that matter taking the head has its advantages for a badly wounded but still living man may be scalped and may survive, but there is no question of an enemy being dead once he has lost his head. In addition to heads and scalps, for several South American tribes take scalps, there are Indians who prefer the ribs of their foes as trophies while a great many are satisfied with their enemies' teeth made into a necklace or belt. One might assume that head hunters are savage, war-like and hostile savages but this is far from being true. I found the Jivaros and their headNever a Dull Moment
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shrinking neighbors very pleasant, gentle, friendly and likeable people. To be sure they no longer take or shrink heads - unless in the more remote and inaccessible areas, and many of them have become laborers on rubber plantations, ranches, outlying farms, in lumber camps or gathering Chincona bark. Many of them now speak the Quechua language and some speak Spanish of a sort. But the older men, as a rule, still retain their shrunken head trophies and regret the passing of the good old days when warriors would return from a raid with the heads of their enemies dangling from their spears. As my guide, camp boy and interpreter on my expedition to the head hunters I had hired a young Jivaro who had been employed at the lumbering camp of a friend of mine. Tamanduy proved a real treasure. He spoke Quechua and fairly good Spanish and could understand and speak some English. Also, I soon discovered that he was the son of a chief and that any friend he vouched for would be received with due confidence and friendship. As a result, my visit was most successful and I obtained a fine lot of ethnological specimens including lances with steel heads beautifully fashioned from old files, bows and arrows, war clubs, textiles and pottery, carved wooden stools and figures, ceremonial objects, blow guns, a complete costume and headdress of bark cloth covered with bright colored seeds and feathers to form a conventionalized human face, and of course a choice assortment of shrunken heads of both men and sloths and other rather grisly trophies. When I finally was ready to return to civilization in order to ship my collections and to make preparations for my next trip, I decided to give Tamanduy a treat by taking him on a visit to the city. He never had seen a large town and everything was new, strange and amazing, but Indian like, he gave no outward signs of his constant amazement, wonder and curiosity until as we sauntered along the main street he uttered an exclamation of astonishment and stood, gazing with a fascinated expression, at the window of a toy shop where several dolls' heads were displayed. "They are marvelous!" he exclaimed. "Of a truth the white men shrink heads better than my people. They are beautiful while those of my people are black and ugly. But why, my master, do the white men take only the heads of women?" I was about to reply- to explain that the "shrunken heads" he so greatly admired were merely toys, but changed my mind. I recalled the incident of Red Cloud and his "scalps" and I chuckled to myself at the idea that came to me. "There are also the heads of males" I replied to the Indian’s query, “but they are elsewhere." When I prepared to set out on my next expedition and Tamanduy was about to depart I presented him with several of the papier mache dolls’ heads. He was overwhelmed with delight and I really felt guilty and rather ashamed of myself for encouraging his belief in the white men's shrunken heads. Greatly did I regret that I could not be present when he exhibited the heads to his fellow 270
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tribesmen. I would have given a lot to have seen and heard the amazement they created. In all probability, however, the Indians soon discovered that the heads were not composed of dried and smoked skin and that the hair was glued on. But being past masters at falsifying shrunken heads themselves they probably assumed that the white men were up to the same game. However, I'd be willing to wager that the dolls' heads still have a place of honor in the chief's collection of war trophies.
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Chapter 43
1926
Over the Incan Road to an Incan Dance
As mentioned in a previous chapter, many portions of the amazing Incan road are still in serviceable condition and are in use at the present time. It was over this ancient highway that had been trod by the feet of the Inca's legions, by racing fleet-footed chasquis, by the steel-shod horses of Pizarro's army and by countless thousands of plodding llamas and millions of the Incan people of the past, that I was to travel by modern automobile to witness an Incan dance. "Would you care to see a real Incan dance?” the curator of the Lima museum had asked me, I answered in the affirmative. "But how," I asked, "is that possible?” Don Julio’s eyes twinkled and his brown face was wreathed in smiles. "Anything is possible with my people," he replied. "Then, more seriously - "I do not wonder that you ask, however, it is possible, There are some places in Peru where the Indians still keep up the customs of their ancestors." I admit I was astonished, I thought I knew the Peruvian aborigines as well as any white man can know them, I spoke the Quechua language, I had visited the most remote districts and tribes, but nowhere had I met Indians who retained anything more than vestiges of Incan days. Dances, yes, plenty of them, but usually more Spanish than Incan, or else local tribal dances with no indications of Incan influence and with costumes half-Spanish. But if Don Julio said there were spots where Incan customs still held sway I knew it must be so, for being an Indian himself, albeit a graduate of Harvard and of European universities, he possessed a more intimate knowledge of his people's ways than any white man ever could hope to gain. Moreover he assured me that the people of Huarachiri - his home town, not only perpetuated the ancient Incan dances but danced to genuine Incan music played on Incan instruments and wore real Incan costumes. The dances, so he told me, were held in a remote spot in the heart of the mountains; only the privileged few could witness them, and to reach the scene we were to travel by automobile over a portion of the ancient Incan road. During my travels and explorations I had seen small sections of the road, I had crossed frail, spider web-like suspension bridges over yawning canyons, I had ridden and tramped over stretches of perfectly surfaced pavement but nowhere had I come upon a portion of the road that would have been passable for motor vehicles for any great distance. Yet my friend was assuring me that we could motor for nearly one hundred and fifty miles over the “Emperor’s Road" to witness an Incan dance performed by descendents of 272
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Incans in Incan costumes - surely I was about to step back into the dim and distant past! We started at dawn, speeding from the City of the Kings over the recently constructed concrete roads until, turning east, we entered a rutty narrow cart road, We bumped, slewed, swayed over stones, into deep ruts, over dilapidated bridges spanning irrigation canals, passing between gray adobe walls backed by acres of white-boiled cotton, and swept through a tiny village of wattled huts. Then crossing the cattle yard of an estancia and passing through a grove of gnarled old olive trees, we came abruptly to the vast desert stretching in endless rounded ridges of buff sand with the Andes rising in tier after tier in the hazy distance. Two rows of stones marked the trail, and rising and dipping over, the ridges and into the hollows like a ship in a heavy swell, and ever with a mirage, like shimmering water, ahead of us we drew nearer and nearer to the mountains. Presently stony hills broke the sea of sand, becoming more and more numerous with the desert winding between them like a river of sand flowing from some unseen source and we began to climb steadily upgrade. Gradually the last traces of desert were left behind and we were on the desolate rock strewn plain or puna, on every side rose the foothills and the only sign of a trail was a barely distinguishable, twisting, turning lane where the larger stones had been removed. We had been constantly ascending and looking back we could see the desert we had crossed like a heaving buff sea hundreds of feet below us. Here the trail skirted the banks of a deep barranca, a dry river bed in a world of sharp black rocks, glaring red and yellow cliffs, and great bare brown mountains. We might well have been a thousand miles from any human habitations, and then-abruptly, we passed through a narrow defile and into a different world. Here was a well defined roadway. The stones had been removed and laid in low walls on either side, the steep ascent had been graded and the road carried around obstacles or had been cut through the hills. At last we were on a branch of the Incan Road that needed only to be slightly repaired and widened to form an excellent highway and although the gradient was barely noticeable it was long, steady and a hard pull. Suddenly Don Julio's car came to a clanking sputtering stop. In vain his chauffeur labored but the car seemed determined to remain forever where it was and my friend advised me to go on. "There is only the one road," he assured me. "You cannot miss it and we'll eventually catch up with you." "But you may be too late, the dance may be over when you arrive," I said. "Better come in my car - there's plenty of room." He grinned. "No fear of the dance being over," he chuckled. “It won’t start until I arrive. You see - well, I'm a hereditary cacique and the dance is in my honor.� Never a Dull Moment
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It seemed like marooning them but at last I detoured around the stalled car and drove on. Julio had been right about the road, we were compelled to follow it; it would have been impossible to go astray, for the rocky, cactusdotted puna on both sides would have been impassable for any vehicle other than an army tank and even a tank would have found its progress effectually barred by one of the deep perpendicularly walled quebrada, that cut across the wild land everywhere. Now the tremendous peaks of the Andes rose in great ridges, jagged saw-toothed ranges and dizzying precipices, multicolored, with patches of white crystalline salt deposits giving the effect of snow fields and with areas of giant cacti and bromeliads looking, from the distance, like green vegetation. Before us, rising abruptly from the puna was an almost perpendicular wall of rock speckled with huge boulders, its summit seeming to pierce the sky. And up the face of this precipitous barrier ran a slender, whitish line, zig-zagging back and forth - the Incan Road. Stopping the car I gazed at the incredible sight in wonder and dismay. Wonder that any people of the past could have constructed such a road and dismay at thought of attempting to drive over it. But Don Julio has told me that a car could and had made the trip, and with a mental prayer that all was well with my car, that the steering gear wouldn't fail and that brakes would hold, I took the first ascent. It wasn't really as bad as it had appeared or as I had feared, but it was bad enough and it was far from pleasant or reassuring to look down. There was no guard rail, no wall of any kind between us and eternity. Less than eight inches of roadway was between the car's outer wheels and the edge of the abyss and we seemed actually to overhang space. The road bed itself was in good shape except here and there where boulders had tumbled from heights above and made driving a ticklish business or where a patch of loose sand caused the rear wheels to spin and the front wheels to slew and skid toward the edge of the precipice. But the worst was yet to come, as I discovered when I reached the first bend. There was no curve, no rounded bend, but merely a sharp angle, the road running bang into a precipice and then starting steeply up in the other direction directly above the section we had traversed. There was nothing to do but go on for it would have been utterly impossible to turn and go back, and I managed to make it - with a couple of inches to spare - and commenced climbing the second stage of the zigzag. How we had climbed! The roadway we had just ascended was already hundreds of feet beneath us and by craning necks and looking up we could see more of the zigzags overhead. Far, far beneath us the, puna lay like a vast map and miles away, a tiny, black dot, was Julio's car crawling like an ant toward the base of the mountains. We had already climbed for three thousand feet and below us, as we gazed across the wild desolate 274
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Andean landscape, two great condors sailed in vast circles upon broad motionless wings. Peeking up I counted the visible sections of road. "Only four more!� I declared most gratefully, "That last one goes over the top," Up and up and up with laboring motor we climbed, negotiating the angles by backing and filling, with the fearsome precipice ever beneath us, until at last we reached the end of the fourth section only to find that before us rose a second mountain higher than the first with the ancient road still zigzagging toward the clouds. By this time we were becoming accustomed to the heights, to traveling with the running board projecting into space, to wondering whether the car would negotiate the next turn or go over the edge, and to speculating if a miniature landslide or dislodged boulders would bar our way and, unable to go onward or to turn about, we would be marooned in mid-airs as one might say. Then, as we rounded a sharp bend, a herd of wild horses and burros appeared suddenly and as if by magic. Kicking up their heels and snorting wildly they dashed along the road ahead of the car. Here was a nice how-do-you-do. The beasts couldn't leave the road and we were forced to crawl onward at a snail's pace for fear of bumping into them or that they might turn and attempt to go back. Moreover, every few minutes the big gray stallion leader would lay back his ears, snort and charge at us until at the last instant and at the last moment, decide not to attack the car, and with a flick of his heels at the radiator would go galloping back to his harem. For mile after mile we barely crawled along in the horses' trail expecting that at any instant they would try to pass us and with our nerves on edge for fear the leader might actually kick the radiator. But at last they came to a narrow gully and went scrambling up like goats, dislodging stones, sand and boulders that came down in a miniature avalanche and nearly blocked further progress. All things have an end, however, and at last we were over the top of the ridge and traveling along a fairly level road. Then rounding an out jutting shoulder of the mountain side, we came to a vast hidden gorge and knew we had reached the end of our thrilling journey. It was a marvelous scene. With its snow-capped summit in the clouds a magnificent conical peak soared upward like a gigantic wall. Sloping from its base was a great mass of huge golden-yellow boulders with fifty foot cacti like giant candelabra rising from among them. On both sides were deep canyons and between these and extending out in a great triangle from the mass of rocks, was a level open space several acres extent. In a sheer thousand foot wall the earth dropped from this little plateau to the bottom of the gorge, a gorge that would have dwarfed our Grand Canyon; a gorge whose walls were ten to fifteen Never a Dull Moment
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thousand feet in height and so vast that the great branching tree like cacti appeared like tiny shrubs from our viewpoint beside the ancient Incan road. There was no sign of dancers, no Indians other than a few men and women lounging beside the road and all in ragged conventional clothes. They grinned when I asked about the dance and told them Julio would be along soon, but made no reply. At last his car appeared, toiling laboriously up the grade far beneath us and eventually coming to a steaming halt beside us. Following Julio and the Indians, we descended the nearest quebada, climbed up the steep further side and reaching the level area seated ourselves on low wooden benches that were covered with bright colored ponchos that were placed about. Suddenly there was a burst of strange wild music, and as if conjured from air, Indians sprang from among the rocks, shouting and rushing toward us. Men and women, fifty or more, ablaze with color, gleaming with silver and gold ornaments, long haired, bare 1egged, every one dressed in the ancient costume of Incan days, they might have stepped bodily out of centuries past. Beyond them were the musicians, a typical Incan band with the dualtoned drum, the quenas and trumpets and the Pan’s pipes, while one of the quintet played upon a sort of mandolin made from the carapace of an armadillo. Joining hands the performers, singing and keeping step to the music, commenced to go through the intricate motions of the dance of welcome. Every pose and every participant was an exact counterpart of those depicted on ancient Peruvian ceramics and textiles. The tunics of the men, open at the neck and sleeveless, were decorated with geometric and symbolic patterns typical of Incan art. Woven belts fringed with tinkling seeds and bits of bone were about their waists; garters of feathers or fringed wool were about their sturdy muscular legs, raw hide moccasin-like shoes were upon their feet and strings of bones and feathers were about their necks. Massive silver or gold bracelets were upon their arms, golden images of the Sun God and Tiger God gleamed on their chests and huge gold or silver pendants hung from their ears, while upon their heads were bright colored llautes topped by plumes and with a borla or fringe above their foreheads. The women’s costumes were just as thorougly Incan. They wore loose skirts of blue, yellow, red or other colors bordered with strange symbolic designs in contrasting tints, and gorgeous shawls or capes covered their shoulders. Upon their heads they wore bits of magnificently woven textiles confined by gold or silver fillets and the wealth of great silver moon-headed or sun-headed silver pins, silver armlets, anklets and necklaces were all those of the women of Incan days. Such people were those whom Pizarro and his fellows saw, robbed, enslaved and butchered, and as I watched them I felt that somehow, by some magical means, I had been carried back to the time of the conquest and must be matching a dance in the days of Atahualpa. 276
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Also, I saw with surprise that these dancers were not the squat, broadfaced, dull-eyed brown skinned aborigines so typical of Peru. The men were fine, strapping well-built fellows with muscular legs, pale olive skins, lean faces, clear cut features, aquiline noses, thin lips and keen eyes, while many of the women were no darker than a brunette white woman and were strikingly pretty. And all had a proud, superior bearing totally different from the cringing, down trodden subservient Indians I previously had seen. Such people as these, I thought, must have been the dominating type in the days before the Spaniards came, and I was not surprised when Julio told me that the dancers were members of families claiming direct descent from Incan nobility and prided themselves on their royal blood. With the first dance over and awaiting the next act, I learned from my friend that we were on most historic ground. Here, from time immemorial, since long before the Incas ruled, the people had held their tribal dances and their ceremonials. Here, in long past days, there had been a tambo or rest-house and a signal tower as well as a "Royal Inn� for it was an important stopping point on the great highway. Once again the dancers ran from among the rocks and began the corn planting dance. So vivid was the interpretative pantomime that one almost could see the freshly turned fields, the farmers dropping the kernals of maize into the furrows and the women following after with bare feet trodding the ground into the furrows. Dance after dance followed, twenty in all, and each symbolic and interpretative. There was the llama shearing dance in which the dancers carried the odd spoon-bladed silver shears used by the ancient Incans, The courtship dance, the Birth of the Sun dance, the harvest dance, the wool spinning dance, the cloth weaving dance and others, but the two that impressed me the most and stood out pre-eminently above the others both for vividness and the skill exhibited by the participants, were the battle dance and the llama-marking dance. In the first, a single man supplied the music, standing in the centre of the dancing space and beating an Incan drum with one hand and playing upon a bone quena at the same time. There was nothing of the North American Indian war dance about this performance. Rather it was more like a Russian dance, for much of the dancing was done with doubled knees and with prodigious leaps into the air. No women took part, the men dancing in pairs and going through a mimic struggle until one combatant was vanquished. Without missing a step, or a motion of the dance, the vanquished were bound by means of short staffs to which one leg and both wrists were lashed. Did this prevent the mimic captives from dancing? Not a bit of it. If anything they danced harder, faster, better than before. On one foot, with doubled knee, they danced as I never have seen Russians dance, and leaped, twisted and whirled in the air until, with a final roar of the drum and Never a Dull Moment
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a piercing note from the quena, the dance ended and victors and vanquished rushed to the shelter of the pile of boulders. The marking of the llamas was the last, an exceedingly pretty and really fascinating performance, but rather difficult to describe. Once a year the Indians gather to round-up their llama herds and mark the calves. But instead of branding them the owners mark them by inserting colored woolen yarns or ribbons in the animals’ ears. Also, instead of roping or lassoing the llamas, the Indians drive them into corrals by throwing stones from slings about the creatures' heels. In the dance each man carried a sling and each woman a small blanket or poncho. As they danced, the slings and ponchos, held aloft by the dancers in couples, were passed and repassed, woven in and out somewhat in the manner of ribbons of a Maypole dance. Amazing skill was needed for at times ponchos and slings seemed inextricably mixed but always, as the motions and steps were followed, the apparent snarls were untangled. Then as the men whirled their slings and went through the motions of throwing stones, the women, who represented the llamas, covered their heads with their ponchos and rushed about in mock terror. Suddenly dropping to their knees, they spread the ponchos, on the ground and tearing off their necklaces threw them upon the squares of cloth. With triumphant cries the men circled about and then, tossing their slings over the women's heads, they seized the ornaments, replaced them on their captives’ necks and waving the brilliant ponchos danced from the stage. We rose to go but we were not to escape so easily. With loud shouts, yelling, laughing and singing, the horde of dancers rushed from their hiding places. Joining hands they encircled us, made us prisoners and forced everyone to join in a wild, mad, dance of farewell. As we crossed the quebrada and climbed into our cars, the Indians stood in a closely-packed throng upon the plateau and waving hands sang the plaintive, yearning farewell song of the Incans. Ayhualla! Ayhualla! Inti guard thy weary journey. Ayhualla! AyhAalla! All our love is going with thee. Over deserts, over mountains, All our thoughts and prayers are for thee. All we live for, all we wait for Is for thee to come again, Ayhualla! Ayhualla! Inti guard thy weary journey. Ayhualla! Ayhualla! Never will I forget the scene, the Indians in their gorgeous Incan costumes and flashing ornaments bathed in the golden light of the sinking Sun, the majestic snow-capped Andean peaks towering above, the great purple278
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shadowed gorge below, the marvelous Incan road clinging like a slender thread to the mountain side and the yearning chorus floating to us from across the Quebrada where, watching our departure, were the only remaining people who still retain some of the customs of their Incan ancestors. As we commenced that long and dangerous descent toward distant Lima, and the chant-like song faded in the distance, I thought of that time, centuries ago, when the same sad song must have reached the ears of Atahualpa as the doomed monarch awaited death at the hands of his inhuman betrayers, while his faithful friends, beyond his prison's walls, sang their Ayhualla to the Emperor who was about to die.
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Chapter 44
1934 – 1935
Yucatan Treasure Hunt
Back in New York I devoted myself to my literary work, writing BARTONS MILLS, THE AMERICAN INDIAN, GREAT CONQUERORS for Appleton Century as well as articles and stories for various newspapers and magazines including SEA STORIES, AMAZING STORIES, COMTONS (Ed.-Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia) and others. I had no expectations of returning to jungle explorations but as usual the unexpected happened. I received a letter from a friend in Boston asking if I would consider taking charge of an expedition to recover Mayan treasure in Yucatan. He explained that a young aviator named Wallace Hope claimed to have stumbled upon a cache of gold when forced down in the jungle, and that a couple of wealthy young Boston fellows wanted to search for it, but that their parents refused to consent unless they were accompanied by someone who was familiar with Spanish and had experience in jungle exploration. My friend had recommended me and, he added, if I was favorably inclined, he would have the aviator and the two others - call on me and talk matters over. I replied that if Hope could convince me that he had located a treasure, or even unknown Mayan remains, I would be glad to undertake the expedition provided it was adequately financed. A few days later Lyman, Pete and Hope arrived. According to his story, Hope had been flying for the rebel forces under Escobar in northern Mexico. He and another American aviator had not been paid as agreed and were virtually prisoners, but had finally managed to go up unattended and that his fellow aviator had headed for Texas while he set a course for El Salvador. When he neared Carmen he was getting low in gas and refueled at that port. Taking off from Carmen he had been flying about fifteen minutes when engine trouble developed and he realised he would have to land or crash in the jungle. About five miles away was a broad river with a very distinctive horseshoe bend, but everywhere was unbroken forest with no sign of a house, settlement or clearing. Then he caught sight of a small treeless area apparently covered with low growth and as his engine died he volplaned down and pancaked his plane in the brush. He was uninjured but the plane was a wreck. He fully realized his predicament, he had no firearms, not even a machete, the compass was smashed and he was in the heart of a jungle, miles from any other human being. Glancing about he noticed a low hill and thinking that from the summit he might obtain a sight of the river he started to climb up the rise when the ground caved in and he tumbled down a flight of stone steps and found himself in a subterranean chamber. In one corner was a huge grotesque stone figure and in the center was a trough-like stone. Hung to the sides of this were a number of metal rods bearing large metal sheets. Upon examining these he discovered they 280
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were gold, covered with symbols and figures. A slight sound caused him to glance about and he saw a large snake crawling toward him. Terrified, he rushed from the chamber and stopping only to secure the emergency rations in his plane he headed for the river, realizing that if he could follow down the stream he eventually must reach settlements or the coast. From that point on his story was rather indefinite, struggling through the jungle he remembered only that he had finally come to a camp of Chicle gatherers who had provided him with a guide and that he finally reached a small port where he sailed for the states. "How many of the hooked rods were there?" I asked him. "Thirteen, I think," he replied. "How many plates on each?" "Fifty-two on the one hook I looked at," he stated. asked.
"Would you recognise any of the figures you saw on the gold plates?" I
"I think so" he said. I showed him a sheet of drawings of Mayan symbols and glyphs. "There's one," he announced, "There's another. That one was there too." Unhesitatingly he pointed to half a dozen of the figures. I was beginning to believe his strange tale. He was an uneducated chap. He had no knowledge of Mayan archaeology whatsoever. Such an underground vault as he had described had never been recorded, yet he had described a stone idol accurately. The number of rods and the number of plates on each were correct for Mayan years and cycles and he had unhesitatingly identified Mayan symbols, dates and glyphs that should have been on golden books of the Mayas relating to the story and history of the race and in all probability a key by which all Mayan inscriptions could be deciphered. However, I intended to have the opinions of other archaeologists more familiar with Maya history than myself. Both declared that they felt he was telling the truth and Dr. Mason of the University of Pennsylvania Museum stated: "If, as I feel convinced, Hope stumbled upon such a cache the contents would be of inestimable value. No single museum in the world would be able to pay what they would be worth. You will understand that we cannot take any active part in any expeditions such as you propose without jeopardizing our relations with the Mexican Government. But we are intensely interested and I wish you success. Of course, if and when the material is in this country it would be a different matter." Convinced that Hope's story was true- at least as far as the cache was concerned, I agreed to take charge of an expedition. But there was a great deal to be done, many details to be attended many arrangements to be made before we could start on the expedition. Everything of course would have to be strictly "hush, hush". If even a rumor of Hope's find and our plans reached the ears of Mexican officials we never would be permitted to land on Mexican soil nor undertake any search unless accompanied by Mexican troops and Never a Dull Moment
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representatives of the Museo Nacional. And anything we might find would go to the Mexican museum. Matters were made even more risky by the fact that I had established a reputation as an ethnologist and archaeologist. But I also had gone on many an ornithological trip and felt that we might get by if we had our own boat and visited Yucatan on a "hunting� expedition and to collect Natural History specimens. My greatest fear was that Hope might "spill the beans". He was a heavy drinker and when under the influence of liquor might talk too much. I tried to impress upon him the need of secrecy, declaring that if I found he had talked I'd maroon him in the jungle or on some uninhabited cay. I also reminded him of the fact that he would receive no money whatsoever until we reached our destination and he had made good his story. He swore by everything holy and unholy that he'd stay on the wagon, that he'd never even hint of his find or our trip, but he added, he never could stand a trip in a small vessel across the Gulf of Mexico. He must travel on a large steamship and even that would be torture for he invariably was deathly seasick. Here was an unforeseen problem, but we finally arranged that when the time came for us to sail he could take passage by a Ward Line ship to Progresso and would wait our arrival in Merida. The next and perhaps most important matter was to secure a boat suitable for our venture and to add to our party, for in an emergency Hope would be useless and although Lyman and Pete were accustomed to small boats we needed more than three able-bodies men if we expected to be successful in our jungle work. I therefore got in touch with George Allen England, the author, who had been in Yucatan, spoke Spanish fluently and was of an adventurous type. He was delighted at the idea. For a fourth member, I hoped to secure Valerie's husband Bob Ellis. He was a powerfully built fellow, a veteran of World War One, a qualified sharpshooter, spoke Spanish like a native and was not afraid of anything. And he was a good sailor. Bob and Valerie, however, were in Cuba. He had resigned from his Chilean job, gone to New York and from there had been appointed an auditor for the Cuban Power and Electric company and resided in the Vedado suburb of Havana. Whether or not he would be able to obtain a leave of absence was a question that only could be settled when we talked the proposition over and as I planned to set out from Havana that could wait. Without much difficulty I succeeded in obtaining a permit for us to visit Yucatan on a "hunting" trip and a Mexican friend in the Consulate provided me with a letter addressed to all Mexican Port and Customs officials instructing them to treat us with every courtesy and to aid us in every way, I suppose that technically and legally, even if not morally, I was conspiring to violate Mexican laws and to smuggle contraband out of Mexico. But I did not have a guilty conscience. Lyman and Pete had signed an agreement not to dispose of any relics we might find otherwise than to some museum, and I had arranged with certain museums’ officials to have any golden 282
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objects returned to the Mexican museum upon payment of their bullion value and after American scientists had completed their studies of the specimens. I therefore felt that I was planning to aid Science, that I merely intended to give archaeologists a break and that, eventually, everyone would be satisfied - the specimens would be in Mexico where they belonged, the treasure hunters would have their money and American archaeologists would have a “scoop". Our next difficulty was to obtain a suitable boat. England and Lyman agreed to attend to that and went to Florida in search of a craft. They succeeded in getting one but when they reached Havana and saw the vessel I had my doubts for it was the most God-awfulest looking boat for open sea cruising that I had seen. It was slooprigged, thirty feet on the waterline with fifteen foot beam and four feet draught, powered with a gasolene motor and with a cabin that looked like a freight car upended and standing about four feet above the deck. The captain and owner of the VIGILANCE was an aged, bony Norwegian with antiquated and unique ideas of navigation and who, as it developed, had a case of jitters if he didn't have at least ten fathoms under the keel despite the boat's four foot draught. The mate and engineer was competent enough but had a bad case of inferiority complex when it came to the skipper. The third member of the crew had signed on as radio operator and cook. But, as we later discovered, he knew nothing whatsoever about radio and even less about cooking and was soon demoted to deck hand and was practically excess baggage even then. Bob had no trouble obtaining leave and was enthusiastic over the trip, not so much because he expected to find the cache but because of the opportunities for fishing, for he is about the most ardent fisherman I ever met. The day after the VIGILANCE arrived a terrific storm swept Cuba. Giant waves broke over the sea wall and Malecon and thundered at the base of old Morro and the harbour was ordered closed. At the end of three days the gale had died down, and the harbour was opened but mountainous seas were still running. However, the boys were impatient and I told the captain that if he dared risk going out I was willing. As we headed toward the harbor entrance hundreds of people crowded the Malecon expecting to see us founder and I rather expected they would not be disappointed. So high were the waves once we were in the open sea that Valerie, watching from her house at Vedado, could not see the top of our mast between the seas and seated on the deck-house steering I could not even see the lofty Capitol as the VIGILANCE wallowed in the trough of the seas. Most of the men were more or less seasick and even Bob looked pretty pale around the gills, but when I glanced astern and saw a silvery flash at the end of the trolling line and shouted "Fish� he came to life and hauled in a fine kingfish. When we finally contrived to set the mainsail the VIGILANCE rode more easily and, moreover, the seas were rapidly falling. By mid-afternoon it was fairly smooth and despite the Captain's frantic protests I headed toward Never a Dull Moment
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shore over the submerged barrier reef and into the calm water beyond. We anchored in the Rio Hondo and without further adventure reached Cape San Antonio. I warned the captain that if we held the course he had set we’d never make Yucatan owing to the strong northern current running through the strait but he merely snorted. When morning dawned with no sign of land ahead he still continued on his course until afternoon, when with only open water on all sides he got out his ancient compasses, triangles and out-of-date map and at length shifted the course to due south. Just before sundown we sighted land finally dropped anchor off the little island of Holbox (pronounced Allbosh) with its almost unknown Maya village hidden by a fringe of jungle. All inhabitants flocked to the beach, for no strangers had visited Holbox in twenty years and the people never before had seen a North American. They welcomed us cordially, treated us royally and held a gala dance in our honor. The place was a real Utopia. There were no police, no jail, no court, no lawyers, no clergymen, no undertaker and as far as I could see, no cemetery. "Don't the Holbox people ever die?" I asked the Head Man of the village. "Only the very young and the very old.” he replied. I glanced about there were plenty of young as well as a number of elderly men and women to be seen. "What do you mean by very young and very old?" I enquired. "When they are too young to creep and too old to creep," he said. Then pointing at two white headed, white bearded men drying coca beans. "The viejo on the right is my great grandfather." he informed me. “He is not more than ninety-five and still carries a load of wood as well as anyone. The other is Pedro Vasquez, he was ninety-seven last month and how do you suppose he celebrated his birthday? He got married. Ah, Senor you should have seen the bride - so charming, so beautiful and only ninety-two!" It was a real spotless town also. The cleanly swept streets were immaculate and the interiors of the houses were as clean as any New England housewife’s kitchen, while men and women alike were dressed in white and not a soiled garment could be seen. There were no taxes, no salaries to be paid public officials and what funds were needed for municipal purposes was obtained by a game, similar to Bingo, held in the plaza each week. The sole industry was shark fishing. Once a month the dried fins, jaws, oil and hides were taken to Progresso and netted about seven dollars gold per shark, and as it was seldom that a days fishing failed to bring in from ten to a dozen big sharks the industry was highly profitable. Our next stop was Progresso where another terrific Norther burst upon the port with winds of hurricane force. We expected momentarily to see the 284
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VIGILANCE drag anchor and pile up on the beach, but by good luck more than seamanship the crew managed to get a line to a big ocean going Ward Line tug and rode out the blow in safety. From Progresso we sailed for Campeche where, as in every port the officials were most courteous and obliging, thanks to the letter of my Mexican friend, but they never could agree as to the proper classification of the VIGILANCE. On our papers issued in Havana she was rated as a yacht, but at Progresso the Port authorities insisted that she should be entered as a coasting ship, while the Campeche authorities declared she was an ocean-going passenger ship, and to cap the climax the Carmen officers issued clearance as a "Vessel in the likeness of a yacht." Storms were now getting to be a habit and in the Gulf of Carmen another gale came howling out of the north, kicking up a heavy nasty sea in the shallow bay and I felt sure the VIGILANCE would be pounded to pieces before we reached shelter in the lee of the island. It did not take long for me to become fully convinced that Hope was a most accomplished liar and that his story of the cache was out and out fiction. We ascended every river that flowed into the bay. Every one had plenty of “S" bends but nowhere was there heavy open forest such as Hope had described. It was all second growth and dense impenetrable jungle through which one had to hew a way with machetes and it was obvious that no man could have forced his way through such a jungle otherwise. Moreover, the area was all low ground barely above the level of the rivers, and any subterranean vault would have been filled with water. During the daytime clouds of vicious biting gnats or "roderos" swarmed over us and when they retired at sundown hordes of even more vicious mosquitoes took over. All in all, it was the worst place I ever had seen and we were rather glad than otherwise when we had proved that Hope's tale was a tissue of lies, and abandoned our search. But it still is a mystery to me how he had been able to so accurately describe his alleged find. Possibly his fellow aviator had found such a piece and had told Hope of it without revealing its location and Hope had merely guessed at it. Even if we did not find the mythical cache we had a glorious trip. We spent several days at a large cattle ranch and were treated like visiting royalty by the manager an educated, high class Mexican and had an opportunity to watch the vaqueros make raw hide lariats with which they rode down and lassoed jaguars as well as cattle. At the little town of Carmen with its quaint busses built of solid mahogany, we inspected the up-to-date automatic bakery which produced thousands of fancy biscuits that were shipped to all parts of the republic. At Campeche the Captain of the Port invited Bob and myself to a dance and plied us with some fiery native liquor which he declared was made of Never a Dull Moment
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sulphuric acid and gunpowder; which, after one swallow, I felt must be the literal truth. By surreptitiously pouring our liquor into a cuspidor and constantly asking for more, we won the admiration and wonder of the natives who declared that the Norte Americanos had steel-lined throats. At Progresso we sat on stone benches and sucked endless peeled oranges at five for a cent. We purchased gorgeous genuine serapes and handwrought gold and silver filigree jewelry in the market at Merida and experienced the terrific earthquake that almost totally destroyed Oaxaca. We visited the nearby Maya ruins. We paid a farewell visit to Holbox and by utterly disregarding the captain's orders we crossed the Yucatan Channel and hit San Antonio right on the nose as one might say. Then the storm gods had a last fling at us and for three days we anchored and rode out the gale in the mouth of the Rio Honda, finally arriving at Havana alive and well but minus England who had left us at Carmen to go to Vera Cruz. Despite the fact that the trip had been a failure as far as its objective was concerned I think everyone was satisfied except Hope who was left at Merida and when last seen was maudlin drunk and well on the way to complete oblivion.
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Chapter 45
1930 – 1933
Dominican Republic’s Sunken Treasure
I resided for some time in Cuba where I wrote Cuba of Today, Jamaica of Today, Panama of Today and West Indies of Today for Dodd Mead. My Lost Treasures had already been published, by Appleton-Century and when I returned to New York the editor of the New York Herald Sunday Magazine asked me to write a series of articles on hidden and sunken treasures. Evidently these created considerable interest, for I was contacted by a wealthy broker and was asked if I would consider taking charge of an expedition to try and salvage the sunken galleons on Silver Shoals, about one hundred miles north of the Dominican Republic. I replied that I'd be glad to undertake the work but that it was an outand-out gamble and would cost a lot of money. Although, as I pointed out, there was abundant proof that fifteen Spanish plate ships carrying many millions of dollars worth of gold, silver, pearls and precious stones had been driven on the shoals by a hurricane in 1637 and had gone to the bottom. Moreover, in 1687, Sir William Phipps, who later became Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, has located one of the lost galleons and had salvaged some five millions of dollars worth of bullion, although in his journal he admitted that he never had been able to get to "ye belie of ye shyppe wherein lyeth the graiter treasure." That was only fifty years after the galleons went down. During the centuries that had passed since then the wrecks might have completely rotted away. They might be so overgrown with coral as to be invisible. All but the one Phipps had salvaged might have gone down in water too deep for diving or they might have been battered to pieces and their precious cargoes scattered far and wide over the ocean’s floor. Finally, the Shoals covered an area of nearly six hundred square miles and it would be worse than to hunt for a needle in a haystack to attempt to search the entire Shoal. Yet there was no data, map or record to indicate where Phipps had found his wreck and, in all probability, the ships had been scattered by the storm and might have gone down anywhere at widely separated spots. How much would such an expedition cost? Was his only remark, as I ceased speaking. I figured roughly in my head, "somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars." I replied. It was arranged that I should meet the men interested in the undertaking at dinner the next night and before the meal was over the full amount had been pledged and the money was to be placed to my credit in the bank the next day. Never a Dull Moment
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Then came the bank crash. Some of the men lost everything they had, one died from shock, others lost so much that they could not afford to risk a dollar on such a gamble as the proposed expedition. But there were a few who still had plenty of funds and wanted to carry on. They admitted however that fifty thousand was more than they could risk. "How much could be accomplished for twenty-five thousand?" they wanted to know. "Not quite half as much as with fifty thousand." I told them. "The cost of outfitting, boat, equipment and other items would be the same regardless of the amount of capital. Off hand I’d say we could go to the Shoals, spend two months or so and see what could be found. If we did happen to locate a wreck we might have time to salvage it. If not we'd at least know where it is and could go back to it some other time.� ''Do the best you can," was the verdict and I at once commenced my preparations. There was an immense amount of work to be done, diving and salvaging equipment, provisions, fishing tackle, fire arms, tools and what not to be purchased, a boat to be chartered and fitted out and a crew, as well as divers and their tenders to be hired. For our mother vessel I selected the ELIZABETH ANN, a converted subchaser belonging to my cousin, Louis Round, a master navigator, who had been using her on freight and passenger service between Stonington and Block Island. For actual salvage work I obtained a twenty-five foot launch, and in addition I purchased a flat-bottomed ten-foot sharpie and two Gloucester dories and three outboard motors. There were also the ELIZABETH ANN'S lifeboats and her captain's gig, a speedy little mahogany launch. In order to fit the vessel for our work it was necessary to almost completely rebuild her interior. The holds, that had been used for carrying fish and lobsters, were transformed into a dining room and kitchen aft and a radio room, storage room and officer's berths forward. Folding berths were put on either side of the dining room and the deck-house saloon was completely altered to accommodate two more berths and to provide an office for myself. For the crew, Louis and I selected steady reliable New London youths of good families and personally known to us, all of whom were experienced seamen. The engineer was an expert diesel man whom we borrowed from the factory in Bridgeport and for divers I had Crilley and Davis, the two best divers in the United States at that time. All of this took time and we had no time to spare. At last all was ready with the exception of a cook, and at the last minute he turned up - a real deepsea, old square-rigger galley boss, whose one besetting fault was love of rum, but who could cook and how! As I had decided to clear from Nassau in order to avoid publicity and press stories of our project, I took steamer to the Bahamas where the ANN 288
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arrived two days after I did. A few days were required to obtain the necessary ship's papers and off we went for Puerta Plata. However, Louis had found that the extra boats and heavier deck cargo would not be safe on the ocean run from New London and they had been shipped by freight steamer to Great Inagua. As the steamer had not arrived by the time we reached the island we had several days to wait. But time didn't hang heavy on our hands. The vast, salt-pans were interesting and we made a visit to the flamingo nesting grounds at a shallow lake where some twenty thousand of the grotesque pink birds transformed the mud flats and shallow water to a sheet of red. We had a quick run to Puerta Plata where, twenty-six years before, I had spent nearly three months in the hospital with my coffin awaiting me. I found that a number of my friends of those days were still living and much to my amazement, recognized me. A little diplomacy, some influential friends and a knowledge of Spanish made it a simple matter to obtain clearance, but the question arose as to what port we were to clear for. I know everyone suspected our purpose but Silver Shoals was not a port of entry so we cleared from Sosua, an abandoned Fruit Company port about thirty miles from Puerta Plata. But as there were no officials there no one knew if we ever touched Sosua either going to or coming from the Shoals. There was no difficulty about locating the Silver Shoals. From miles away we could see the white breakers and upflung spray of the ocean swells breaking on the coral reefs, and at half speed, with a lookout at the mast-head, we approached cautiously. On every side the deep indigo sea was broken by the pale-green of submerged coral heads and it was a delicate piece of seamanship to turn and twist and zig-zag between them. When about four miles from the reefs, Louis stopped the ship. go?"
"Well, Al" he said, grinning at me “here’s the place - now where do we
I have already stated that nowhere, in Captain Phipps’ account of his salvaging, did he state just where he had located the wreck. It might have been at the northern or southern or eastern or western part of the shoals or anywhere between. I had spent days searching everywhere for possible clues on old maps and crude charts. Sir William, I felt, must have had some sort of chart even though he did rely upon the average time of six gold watches to give him his longitude. But if such a chart existed it either had been lost or destroyed. However, among a lot of old documents I came across a Spanish map of the area dated 1630. It clearly showed that at that time many of the reefs were sandy cays and even had coconut trees upon them. In a way this was discouraging. If the area had been lowered by earthquakes the wrecks might be far to deep to salvage or to locate, but it was just as likely that the cays had been washed away by hurricanes. I had already written to friends in England enlisting their aid and from one I received a copy of a "fly”, a single sheet, that corresponded to an Never a Dull Moment
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"extra" of today, published a few days after Phipps’ triumphant arrival in England, and giving what we of today would call an "interview” with Sir William. Here I found a clue at last. Although no definite location of the wreck was given, Phipps mentioned the depth of the water where he had anchored, he gave the compass bearings from this spot to the wreck, he stated how long it required for the long boat to make the trip from the ship to the reef and it gave the depth of water over the wreck. With the best available chart of the area before me I went at it, noting depths, estimating the distance from ship to wreck by the long boat’s time and at last felt certain that there was only one small area that fulfilled all the conditions. So when Louis asked "where to?" I noted our position on his chart, compared it with the draft I had made and gave Louis a course. “Keep sounding,” I said, "when you get 26 fathoms drop your anchor. If I’m right, the wreck should be directly Northeast by North about five miles away.” As the anchor cable roared out and the Ann swung to the breeze everyone was excited and every available pair of binoculars was aimed at the distant reef as if the men expected to see a wrecked galleon high and dry. Lowering the sharpie with an outboard motor, Dave, Crilley, Louis and I headed Northeast by North. As we drew close to the reefs, and peering into the transparent water saw the multicolored masses of gigantic corals, the waving sea feathers and the deep black yawning caverns, Davis whistled. "Holy cats!" he ejaculated, "What a hell of a place for a wreck!" Shutting off the motor and paddling slowly between the coral that was just awash we peered at the bottom, searching for something that might be the coral-covered remains of a ship. "There's a gun!" shouted Louis. Instantly the boat came to a standstill. There was no doubt about it. Lying on the bottom as white as if covered with whitewash was a cannon. "There's another” announced Crilley. "And an anchor, no, two of them.” I yelled. "Hot diggity dam, we've found it!" Yelled Davis with a slap on my back that nearly knocked me overboard. "You're a damned good guesser, Al," declared Louis, "if this is old Phipps' wreck". "Maybe it's not,” I admitted, "But it's just where I figured his should be. Anyhow, by the looks of those guns and anchors, it's old enough to be one of the galleons.” 290
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Excited, eager to get to work, a buoy was dropped to mark the wreck and we returned to the ship. Rapidly diving gear was overhauled, the air pump assembled, compressed air tanks placed in the big launch and away we went. Although the guns and anchor proved the presence of a wreck there were no signs of hull, timbers or other remains of the wreck itself. From the surface the entire bottom appeared almost level, pale-gray or white and overgrown in some places by what looked like low brush. But when Davis, in his grotesque suit touched bottom on a white area and stepped into the "brush" he almost vanished amid the long branches of a jungle of stag-horn coral. Climbing to the white hillock he knelt and began digging with his crow bar and raising a cloud of white that completely concealed him. A tug on the line signaled to send down a rope. Presently the diver signaled to haul in and up came a mass of metal and fragments of wood. The men went almost crazy. There was no doubt now that we had found a wreck, for the iron, coated with a black oxide, was readily identified as the chain-plate of a ship. As the cloud of white cleared away and the bottom was again visible, we saw Davis moving forward until he was beside the anchors. From our boat they did not appear to be large - the larger apparently three or four feet in length, but when Davis with obvious effort raised the smaller anchor to an upright position it was higher than his head. Later, when we lost our largest anchor, we used the big anchor salvaged from the galleon, a fifteen hundred pound hand-forged, ancient "mud hook" with huge, strange-shaped flukes and a massive socket to secure a wooden beam close to the immense ring large enough to admit two turns of a five or six inch hemp cable. "That must have been some ship!" exclaimed Louis as Davis let the anchor fall back into place. "That other one's big enough to hold an ocean liner." The cannon proved equally deceptive. When eventually we salvaged them we found they weighed nearly half a ton each. To our disappointment they were iron instead of bronze and bore no visible inscriptions or dates. But there was no question as to their age. The great bell muzzles, ornate breeches and rings, and the trunnions beneath the barrels all were of sixteenth-century type. From a spot some distance beyond the guns and anchors Davis sent up a swivel-gun fork, the sling of a water-sail and more chain-plates. Evidently he was at the bows of the wreck and I signaled him to go in the other direction and see what he could find. More and more metal fittings came up, there were massive cylinders of iron that puzzled us at first but were finally identified as mast-head caps, and finally Dave sent up the huge metal rudder-pins. We now knew the length of the wreck that was hidden beneath a thick cement-like formation of pulverized broken coral. There is no necessity for recording our work in detail. The divers broke a way into the galleon's galley and recovered a grindstone, knives, a huge crudely-made kettle of copper plates riveted together, a bath brick and scouring Never a Dull Moment
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board, kitchen forks and spoons, a small copper saucepan that had been patched with platinum and a roll of strip platinum that looked like the strip of tin used in sealing a sardine tin. We also salvaged cutlasses, still hanging in a rack, ancient blunderbusses and pistols, boarding pikes and halberds and a few stray doubloons and pieces of eight - probably the contents of pockets or wallets of the doomed crew. When we first arrived hundreds of sharks appeared as if from nowhere. There were a dozen species at least, among them several monster white sharks, hammer-heads and Tiger sharks fully twenty feet in length. Throughout the trip Crilley had been maintaining that sharks never attacked human beings. Beebe had so stated, he declared, and Beebe ought to know. The fact that both Louis and I had known men who had been attacked and injured - among them the late Admiral Schley, Crilley would not be convinced. As the anchor splashed overboard and the surrounding water almost boiled with the monsters I turned to the diver. "There's your chance to prove you're right, Crilley," I said. "just strip and dive overboard." But he refused to try the experiment and when I jokingly suggested to Davis and Louis that we should toss Crilley over the side he ducked below decks. The sharks were very hungry and would seize and swallow anything from empty tin cans to newspapers. After a few days the ship's garbage had taken the edge off their appetites and before we left they were very choosey, although they never refused oily cotton waste, we caught a number and the men had great sport shooting them, yet they never became wary and throughout our stay there were always big sharks cruising about the vessel. On the shoals, however, the only sharks were comparatively small, but huge Morays hidden among the coral, barracuda and jewfish were numerous. The greatest menace and nuisance were the giant groupers. As soon as a diver began stirring up the bottom several of these immense fish would appear, bumping against the diver's legs, butting into their backs and often knocking them off balance in their anxiety to gorge themselves on the creatures dislodged by the divers. We had not been working very long until we realized that it would be impossible to reach the "Belie of ye shyppe" for we had no drills nor pavement breakers with which to break through the fifteen to eighteen inch layer of cement-like lime. Also, we found that instead of resting on an even keel as we had supposed, the wreck was on her side and that the only means of breaking a way into the hold, the strong-room or the cabins would be by using dynamite. That was one item we had overlooked. The nearest place where dynamite was obtainable was Puerto Rico and we couldn't spare the time required for the trip, for funds were running low and the squally rainy season was liable to break at any time. Having done all we could, and with the forehold half-filled with salvaged fittings, anchors and weapons, as well as several stacks of dinner plates 292
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firmly cemented together by lime, we bade Puerta Plata farewell and laid our course for Nassau.
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Chapter 46
1934 – 1938
More Treasure Seekers
I remained for several months in Nassau where I was engaged in making a number of model fish groups for the Munson Line's exhibit at the Rockefeller Center office. One of these was a scene showing a diver working on a treasure chest, with remains of a sunken vessel and with groupers, giant sharks and other fish swimming about. It was made to accurate scale and was really a most striking and lifelike scene. Upon completing my work at Nassau I went to Lake Worth, Florida where I was to collaborate with Mr. Ernest Williamson, the underseas photographer, who was trying to write a book telling of his submarine work. Before I had left New York I had worked with him on an underseas motion picture film he was making and didn't look forward with too much pleasure to the preparation of his proposed book. He was in many ways the most difficult man to work with that I have ever met. Not only was he most temperamental and inconsistent, but he was obstinate, considered himself always right, and could not be convinced even if he was obviously wrong. I would spend hours rewriting and rearranging his notes to form readable material only to have him blue pencil the manuscript and ruin it with his own phraseology and inconsequential additions. He declared that the only way to write a book was to do it by following a graph he had designed and had hung up on a huge chart. In vain I argued that a book wasn't a business report or survey based on the high and low peaks of trade, neither was it a report or survey based on the high and low peaks of a physician's record of a patient's temperature or heart action. Of course the final result was that I threw up my hands and left him to his own devices, Although I had told him that if he let me do the book in my way I knew of a publisher who would accept it, he refused to do so and in the end had the book published by an obscure book manufacturer. Both type and illustrations were miserable. However it cured me of ever again trying to ghostwrite for anyone. (Ed – Probably this book is Child of the Deep. With Williamson Undersea Photographs by John Ernest and Frances Jenkins Olcott Williamson, published 1938 by Houghton Mifflin.) While in Florida I toured the state, gathering data and information for my ROMANTIC AND HISTORIC FLORIDA, Dodd Mead, and completed the book. Again back in New York, I wrote BEFORE THE CONQUERORS and a number of articles for various periodicals. Apparently the treasure hunt bug was still biting in New York and I was again contacted by a syndicate planning another expedition to Silver Shoals. Although I would not have invested ten cents in any treasure hunt there was ever a lure of adventure which I never could resist. But this expedition was doomed to fail before it even started. In the first place the capital was divided, 294
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one-half, to be devoted to securing the ship and equipment, was handed over to a young amateur yachtsman named Weagant who, because he had managed to sail across the Atlantic and find Europe, considered himself an expert navigator but who, in reality, couldn't have navigated a skiff in a millpond. The other part of the capital was placed in my hands to be used in the work at the Shoals and to pay the divers and their helpers. The boat was a two-masted Newfoundland schooner which Weagant bought and was totally unfitted for the trip in view and had to be almost completely rebuilt. Never having handled so much money before, the owner spent recklessly. He squandered hundreds on fancy red Russian leather cushions for the settees in the crews’ cabins. Had an electric built-in refrigerator large enough for a palatial steam yacht installed. To supply electricity, he bought several hundred storage batteries and installed a big gasolene motor in place of a Diesel. He also spent thousands on elaborate photographic equipment, motion picture cameras and a crazy underseas camera of his own invention made from a pressure cooker and which never worked. Although he had declared the schooner’s tanks could carry enough fuel for five hundred miles under power alone and sufficient water to last us two weeks, he used so much space for dark room, battery room and refrigerator that the sizes of the tanks were reduced until barely enough fuel for one hundred miles and not enough water to last five days could be carried. This however, I did not discover until we were at sea. Moreover, he had declared that the schooner could make ten to fourteen knots under power and was a "fast" sailer. As a matter of fact she couldn't make over eight knots under full power and with all sail set in a fair breeze. Finally, to cap the climax, he had a deck of matched planking which of course could not be caulked and leaked like a sieve, soaking berths, equipment and everything else below, while the storage batteryelectrical plant could not supply enough juice to cool the huge refrigerator. Although the schooner was supposed to clear from New York for Nassau in January it was March before she sailed and then only to be caught in the ice in the Hudson until rescued by a Coast Guard boat. I had already gone to Nassau and cable after cable came from Weagant demanding more funds and misrepresenting conditions. Finally I received word of the vessel having sailed, but when nearly three weeks passed with no word from her I notified the Coast Guard that she was missing. The next day a ship reported her about two hundred and fifty miles off her course. However, she finally arrived but the ice of the Hudson had so injured her planking that she had to be hauled out and repaired at a cost of nearly one thousand more. With the exception of Davis and Al, the two divers I had selected, and their tender, the engineer and a young fellow who was an artist and a very decent chap, the crew consisted of Weagant, a "mate" who was an Englishman and incompetent, two wealthy New York playboys who throughout the trip were usually drunk, and the cook, a Danish gardener who had worked for Never a Dull Moment
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Weagant's father and knew less about cooking than the skipper knew about navigation. The latter certainly was a weak sister. He never could make any decision without first consulting the 'Dane’, a loud-mouthed bully who acted as though he was everyone’s boss. And if Weagant was criticized he would immediately burst into tears. Had it not been for the fact that I had hired the divers and felt personally responsible for them I would have resigned and never would have sailed on the ill-fated expedition. Everything went wrong. Eventually we did reach Puerto Plata but when we sailed for the shoals they failed to appear and after a deal of calculations and guesswork the "navigators" decided they were only sixty miles off their course. After several hours sailing with no signs of the shoals they discovered they were as far off to the west as they had been to the east. However, after sailing back and forth for a couple of days they located the shoals but miles from the location of the wreck. I then sent Davis, and another of my men on a scouting trip in the dories and they managed to locate and mark the area where we had anchored the ELIZABETH ANN. Our troubles, however, had just begun. Contrary to my orders the launch was left moored among the reefs over night and as I had feared, the launch had been sunk by seas when day dawned. Of course all hopes were ended although Davis by almost superhuman endurance, managed to salvage the launch engine and the big motor-driven air compressor. There were barely enough funds left to pay the divers and I was mighty thankful when I finally reached Great Inagua and saw the last of the schooner. I did not realize, however, what a holy mess Weagant had made of matters back in New York. But a short time afterwards he took the only way out by hanging himself in his own attic. The treasure of silver Shoals will never be salvaged for the shoals were completely submerged by the earthquake that caused the great tidal wave that devastated the northern coast of Hispaniola a few years ago. In 1948 I flew directly over the spot where the Shoals had been. There was only the deep blue of deep water where foam-wreathed reefs and pale-green coral heads should have broken the surface of the sea. I had had enough of treasure seeking to last me some time and I devoted myself to writing. On the way north I toured throughout Virginia gathering material for my ROMANTIC AND HISTORIC VIRGINIA for Dodd Mead. Then I wrote THEY FOUND GOLD for Putnams; MINERALS METALS AND GEMS, PERFUMES AND SPICES, STRANGE SEA SHELLS AND THEIR STORIES for Page and OUR INDIANS for Putnam. The latter so appealed to the Indians that it had a very large sale to the tribesmen who have come to regard it as a sort of Indian bible. 296
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At this time I was at the peak of production. I usually had two books going at the same time. I think I made a record when I had seven books published in one year, for it warranted an item in the World Almanac. I also believe I hold a record for speed for I wrote FOLKS SAY OF WILL ROGERS in seven days and SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICAN TRADE CONDITIONS in ten days. (Ed - Folks Say of Will Rogers-a Memorial Anecdotage by Payne and Lyons, editors!? Published Putnam, 1936) At this time the C. G. Merriam Company of Springfield, Mass., were getting out a new edition of Webster's Dictionary. Years before I had made nearly all the drawings of Natural History subjects for the Dictionary and Mr. Munroe, the President, wanted me to make new drawings for the new edition and also for the smaller Student Dictionary. In order to facilitate my work I went to Springfield, little dreaming that this move was the most important event in my entire life, for it was in Springfield that I met the woman who was to become my second wife. Born in Marshfield in the extreme northern section of Vermont, Ruth is five-eighths Indian, one of her forbears having been a Tuscarora and another, a Wabenaki. Inheriting the instinctive love of the wilds and of Nature from her ancestors she has an almost uncanny mastery of woodcraft. She has the physical endurance of an Indian and can swing a six pound axe and fell a mighty tree as quickly and accurately as any Yankee lumber jack, and like any experienced explorer, she can "take the rough with the smooth" as well and as uncomplainingly as myself, she is an excellent artist and many of the beautiful pen and ink drawings illustrating several of my books are her work. Also, she is a fiend at research- something I most heartily detest- and has dug up a great deal of the little-known and forgotten historical events related in my Romantic and Historic states books, THE HEART OF OLD NEW ENGLAND, ALONG NEW ENGLAND SHORES, some of my STRANGE STORIES series And AMERICAS ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS. For a number of years I had bean working on material for a book dealing with Wira Kocha, the bearded god of the pre-Incans and my theory that the ancient Peruvian cultures had been introduced by voyagers from western Asia. Ruth became intensely interested in this work and began delving deep into the history and the archaeology of Mesopotamia and early Egypt. And in order to have a more intimate and accurate knowledge of the subject she even learned many of the phonetics connected with the symbols of a form of writing known as "Sumerian Linear Script". She has also earned a reputation as an expert genealogist specializing in old New England families. Our marriage marked the beginning of the happiest period of my entire life. Never have we quarrelled, not even a serious "lovers’ tiff" has cast its shadow over our married life even if our opinions on certain matters are not the Never a Dull Moment
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same. Like myself she is a firm believer in reincarnation and when the time comes for either of us to pass away we will have no fear, for we know we will be reunited in another phase of existence. I had thought that I was done with treasure hunts but in Springfield they again caught up with me. There was an apparently authentic tale of a huge treasure hidden on the banks of the Suwanee River near Chiefland, Florida. Originally, according to the map on which everything was based, there had been three caches. One had been located and salvaged and although no one knew exactly how much the salvager recovered in the way of precious metals he became a wealthy man overnight, founded a bank, built a business block and prospered accordingly. Another of the three hoards had been located but as the finders worked at the heavy chest, which was encased in a layer of old-time blood and lime cement, it had slid into quicksand. Again and again the finders had relocated it only to have it slide farther and farther finally coming to rest at the bottom of the river. Discouraged and with funds exhausted they had abandoned it. Then others had a fling at it and- as we eventually discovered- had salvaged a large part of its contents. The third cache had never been located and several persons in Florida were so convinced that the treasure could be recovered that they had formed a syndicate and wanted me to take charge of the work. Our landlord was a rather romantic fellow and a treasure hunt appealing to him, he agreed to put up more cash and join the syndicate. While I had always regarded any treasure hunt as a gamble with the cards staked against one, the adventure, the opportunity for collecting specimens and the out-of-doors life lured, and I was becoming weary of spending most of my time at a typewriter. As Ruth felt the same way about it I took over and with Buckler, our landlord, and Ruth's daughter, Rose, we drove to Florida, for Buckler insisted that Ruth come along as cook to himself. Before leaving Springfield I had contacted three young fellows in Ithaca, New York, who had with far more courage than experience gone into the divine business as the Finger Lakes Salvage Company and had arranged with them to come to the site with their pumping and diving equipment. Fowlers Bluff where the treasure trove was hidden was about the wildest, least known area in western Florida. Swamps, forest and jungle were almost uninhabited. Game and wild life was abundant. Wild turkeys, Florida cranes, egrets, ibis, pileated woodpeckers, Everglades and swallow-tailed kites, limkins and countless other shy birds were common and quite tame; there were panthers, wildcats and bears and it was one of the few remaining areas where there were still several ivory-billed woodpeckers. Quite close to the location of the cache there was a small house occupied by a lanky tracker named Dave, his wife and son. Dave eked out a precarious existence by hunting, fishing, trapping and occasionally selling a hog. 298
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When sober, which was seldom, he was a decent enough even if shiftless individual, but most of the time he was on the verge of if not over the edge of being dead drunk. When only slightly intoxicated he was dangerous and rumor had it that there were several notches on his gun. The "skipper" as we called our landlord, Buckler, arranged to board with Dave but the rest of us lived in tents, ate out of doors and Ruth cooked over a piece of bent sheet iron, covering the camp fire. Eventually, we repaired a tumble-down shed and transformed it into a more or less weather proof building which we used for a kitchen and dining room. It was midwinter when we arrived, it rained nearly every day and it was bitterly cold. Often the thermometer dropped to twelve or fifteen degrees, for days at a time it never rose above thirty-three or thirty-four and if it was over forty or forty five, it seemed warm. Vicious mosquitoes, biting flies, ants of innumerable species, gnats and voracious "razor-backed" hogs added to the spice of life but no one complained. All were confident that there was a fortune a few feet beneath the surface of the sand. The big pump was emptying the coffer dam at the rate of hundreds of cubic feet each day and in a short time the treasure would be within reach. Finally Mort got into his diving suit and went down. At his signals we hauled up pieces of coquina rock, chunks of old cement bearing the imprints of rough canvas and iron bands, even the impression of an old hand-forged ornate hinge and a little later up came fragments of rotten wood with rusty hand-made nails and a portion of a massive hasp. The chest was in the hole but the cement coating had broken off. Of course all were jubilant. Even if the ancient chest had gone to pieces its precious contents were down there somewhere. The work of cleaning out the debris became worse and worse. Huge pieces of rock had broken off and fallen into the hole and it was impossible to remove these without drilling and breaking them. A big jumper drill was rigged but it was back-breaking, Herculean labor to work it for hour after hour. But all this was forgotten when one memorable day when work ceased and the drill was drawn up we saw a bright yellow streak on the shining surface of steel. Was it gold? Minutely I examined it with my pocket lens. There was no doubt that it was a smear of soft yellow metal and when it was affected by nitric acid we knew we had struck gold at last. Somewhere at the bottom of the hole were golden coins or bars. We scarcely could wait to begin drilling the following day, but not until we had drilled dozens of holes did we again find smears of gold upon the drill. However, it was going to be some job to salvage the treasure which obviously had broken from the rotten chest and had fallen into the countless cracks and crevices of the river bottom. The sight of the evidences of the gold being there turned the Orlando members of the syndicate into madmen. One executed a wild dance, shouting Never a Dull Moment
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and singing. Another threw himself full length upon the ground beside the drill and gazed at the smear of gold as if in silent adoration. Another assumed a Napoleanic pose and wanted to be photographed "over the gold," and one of them even committed suicide. Treasure madness infected them and the malady was destined to have dire results. Immediately plots and counter plots developed. One member brazenly approached me and suggested doublecrossing his partners and taking over. Although supposedly business men of good standing they became transformed to crooks of the first water. They buried the hatchet among themselves and hatched out a scheme to hijack the treasure when we recovered it. They or their hirelings fired at us from ambush. They tried to do away with us with poisoned candy and oranges but had been too liberal with the arsenic, a fact that saved our lives for it acted like an emetic, although Buckler was dangerously ill for some time and lost several teeth as the result of the corrosive action of the poison. We never could pin these acts on any one individual. And despite their evil machinations we continued with the work, yet with conditions as they were we could not risk salvaging the treasure. If we removed it and the Orlando bunch knew of it we would be sure to lose it, and very probably our lives as well. I doubt if any other treasure seekers ever were in such a predicament. We had found the gold, it was within our reach yet valueless to us. There appeared to be only one course to follow. This was to secretly move the gold to another part of the hole and fill the cofferdam with sand and rock. This, we hoped, would cause the rascals to assume we had managed to get the treasure safely away under their noses so to speak. They might then lose interest and, at some future time; we could quietly return and, if luck were with us, recover the hoard. We were just in time; hardly had the cofferdam been filled with sand, rocks and debris when two guards were put on the watch. What they surmised when at last we packed up and abandoned the site we never knew. But we did know that they suspected we had divided the treasure, one portion being shipped by express to Springfield, the other portion concealed in my car. The "gold" shipped by express, however, was merely the skipper's revolvers and not an ounce of precious metal was in my automobile. Yet we were tailed all the way to Winchester, Virginia, by an open gray car with three of the toughest looking thugs I ever have seen. At Winchester I was parked opposite the telegraph office awaiting an answer to a wire when the gray car drew up behind us and one of the gorillas strolled up and peered inside. As he saw my rifle leaning beside me and a thirtyeight Colt on the seat he looked rather surprised. "Them guns loaded?" he asked. I assured him that they were. Piled on the back seat were a number of netting-covered boxes containing live snakes and other specimens for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His roving eye noticed these, "What’s in them boxes?" he demanded. 300
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"Just some live rattlesnakes" I told him. He jumped back as if struck. At that minute another of the trio appeared. "Where you headed to?" he asked me. "New York," I said without glancing up from the paper I was reading. As he stepped closer his pal grabbed him. "Look out!" he exclaimed "That car's full of live rattlers!" The other drew back. "What route you goin’ by?" he asked. "Route One " I replied. The two strolled back to their car and sat there with the engine idling. Presently I went over to the telegraph office, found the wire I had waited for, got into our car and started the engine. For a few blocks the gray car followed at a considerable distance. Then, as we barely made a traffic light, I gave the Nash all she had. By the time the light had changed I was far ahead and gaining. Making two sharp turns I swung from the highway onto an old dirt road through the woods and a moment later the gray car went tearing past on the main highway. We took another route north and never saw them again. Even if we did not salvage the Suwanee River treasure, we did find out who placed it there. Previously its history had been largely a matter of conjecture. The original map of the site was dated 1823 and at that time several notorious pirates frequented the Gulf of Mexico and often hid out on the lower Suwanee. It had been attributed to Billy Bowlegs Rogers, to Gasparilla, to Black Caesar and to others. But during our work we had uncovered the remains of a Yankee whaleboat. Although covered by sand and mud and with a good sized water oak growing in it, yet the ribs, some of the planks, the "lazy cleat" and the snubbing post of teak were still well preserved. Hand-forged wrought iron nails had been used in its construction fixing its age approximately. In his report of the Battle of New Orleans General Jackson mentioned that "Lafitte and his pirates" came up the river “in their whaleboats." As far as I have been able to ascertain Lafitte was the only one of his ilk to use whaleboats. Moreover, at the time when Gasparilla was preparing to abandon his Florida lair, and came to the end of his career by a Federal gunboat, Jean Lafitte was there. Although not at that time, a pirate but a smuggler and a pirates "fence", he had been "trading" with Gasparilla. Seeing how matters were going he had sailed away by the northern Bocas while the gunboat was busy with Gasparilla’s ship. What could be more natural than for him to put into the Suwanee, hide his treasure and lie quietly concealed until all danger was past. It was not surprising that he never returned for, according to a British Admiralty report, a few months later he was killed on a pirate ship in battle with a British corvette. Of course all this is not definite proof that the Suwanee Never a Dull Moment
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treasure was hidden by Lafitte, but it is strong circumstantial evidence of its origin and enough to satisfy me.
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Chapter 47
1937 – 1940
Chiefland and Lake Worth, Florida
It was while we were on the Suwanee that we acquired Oswald, the most fascinating, lovable, interesting and intelligent pet that I have ever owned or known and who became the only real tame trained barred owl in the world. I was collecting birds and saw the big owl in the top of a cypress tree. He came tumbling down at my shot but when I went to pick him up I found him blinking, apparently unharmed, aside from a broken wing-tip. Much to my surprise he showed no anger, no resentment, not even fear. He made no attempt to bite, although he snapped his bill. Lifting him to perch on a stick we held between us, Ruth and I carried him some two miles back to camp, where, putting on heavy gloves I prepared to bandage his wounded wing. I had expected him to put up a fight but he submitted without the least resistance as I set and bandaged the broken bone. The following day Ruth's daughter, Rose, was eating a cookie as she watched the owl, and rather cautiously offered him a morsel, which he took from her fingers very carefully. From that time on he ate from our fingers and never bit us. Very soon he was so tame that he was not confined to a cage and showed signs of super intelligence. Upon our return to Springfield he was given a perch by the window where he showed intense interest in the horse of a milk wagon. Motor cars did not interest him at all but he would crane his neck, peer around the corner and even flit to another window as long as the horse was visible. He was very playful, delighting in turning over and over, in parrot fashion, on his perch. He discovered a long narrow rug and would roll and unroll himself in this again and again. He had an insatiable curiosity regarding edibles and insisted upon sampling anything he saw us eating and would recognize foods that he disliked and never tease for them a second time. He became very fond of coffee but if we failed to put sugar in it he would hop over and tap the sugar bowl with his beak. He rapidly developed super intelligence, one Friday morning Ruth gave him a warm shower in the bath tub and after that, just as surely as Friday morning came around he would fly to the tub, and tap on the faucets until he received his bath. He quickly learned his name and would come at a call. Perching on our shoulders he would carefully preen our eyebrows and even our eyelashes with his beak. He learned to shake hands when requested, would give us a gentle tweak on the cheek when we asked him to give us a kiss and apparently understood everything we said. He took violent likes and dislikes and would get wildly excited and snap his beak viciously if someone he disliked entered the room but would show every sign of delight when a person he liked appeared. If any of us put on hat or coat to go out he would protest and when this proved Never a Dull Moment
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unavailing he would sulk. He was very fond of looking at pictures - especially if colored, and the comic sheets of the Sunday paper were his favorites. He knew when the pages were upside down and would attempt to turn the page about and if he failed to do so would walk around to the otherside where he could see the pictures right side up. After looking at a page for a time he would try to turn it over to look at the next page. He loved to be dressed up and made no objection when I placed a pair of glasses over his eyes and photographed him "reading" my STRANGE BIRDS AND THEIR STORIES. We learned a great deal about barred owls’ habits from Oswald. He always slept lying across his perch, balanced on his breast and partly spread wings and with feet and head hanging down. He would crawl up the draperies or upside down in the manner of a parrot and invariably held his food in one foot when he ate. Much of the time he spent on the ground where he would scoop a hollow in which he would nestle. He was terribly afraid of blue jays and when, on one occasion when he was in a large cage, I tossed in a dead jay he almost had a fit. Finally quieting down he sat motionless, gazing at the dead jay. At last, gathering courage, he pounced upon it and in a frenzy of joy but not attempting to eat it, tore it to bits and scattered feathers everywhere. His one fault was that he would occasionally hoot at night although in subdued tones. I am sure he tried to talk and he did succeed in speaking - if it could be called that - a few simple words but we learned to understand nearly every vocal sound he made and his various wants and wishes were treated with consideration. His pictures appeared in the news and in magazines, he was featured on the air and he posed for motion pictures. When, later on, we went back to Florida, Oswald went with us. We had him for eight years until he finally died of old age, passing away in his sleep. It seemed almost as if we had lost a member of the family and for months Ruth wept whenever she thought of him. In Springfield, at the end of our Suwanee treasure hunt, I wrote several books and magazine stories and broadcast from station WEEI in Boston. We had a long visit from Big Elk, a Sioux, and his wife Pretty Woman, a Pasamaquoddy Indian from Maine. One of Big Elk’s grandfathers was Crazy Horse and the other Red Cloud, but Big Elk, himself was a typical "show Indian". Although he had been well educated at the Stanton Military Academy, the University of Oklahoma and had studied at John Hopkins, he was content to drift along, mooching on his friends and appearing at Sportsmens shows and carnivals. He had the reputation of being the best headdress maker among the Sioux and made all the elaborate "warbonnets" used in Eddie Cantor's "Whoopee”. He was a fine trombonist and at one time toured the country with an all Indian band. Once a heavy drinker he had joined the Peyote cult the members of which must be total abstainers and his greatest joy was to get some other Indian drunk and then by ridicule and upbraiding, induce him to join the 304
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Peyotes. But he served a good purpose for he knew countless Sioux folk lore tales which I could use in my books and stories. I had long been interested in tanning hides and after seventy-eight experiments I hit upon a new process by which a deer hide or goat skin could be beautifully tanned in a week, moreover, leather tanned by my process could be washed like cloth, even boiled, and remained as soft and pliable as ever. My experiments must have been a sore trial to Ruth and I still marvel at her patience and forbearance. The set-tubs were usually filled with hides in some process of tanning; as often as not, hides were soaking in the bath tub, and if the apartment didn't smell like a tannery it was only because my process was practically odorless. The "Skipper” whose mind was set on going back to the Suwanee enlisted the brains and ability of a radio wizard named Beebe who devised a really remarkable and efficient metal-detecting device. About this time, too I had a letter from a diver in Duluth who, having heard of our treasure hunt, wanted to have a try at it. He unquestionably was a master diver and the upshot of it all was that we arranged to return to Florida, taking Beebe and his apparatus, and having the diver meet us. We were then to start work on the abandoned cache at Fowler's Bluff. To make a long story short, after several months work we gave up. Although the diver investigated the interior of the coffer dam he reported very deep cracks and fissures into which the bulk of the gold had apparently sunk. To have recovered it under such conditions would have cost a fortune. (Editor – a hand written scrawl within the typing reads something like “However, we found out later that the diver, Flynn, had found the cache and taken possession of the gold.”) In the meantime by the aid of Beebe’s machine we had located the third treasure chest. Digging down we came to the heavy log cribwork on which it had rested but it had slipped from these and sunk into deep boiling quicksand, Again and again we located the chest by probing but it was hopeless to attempt to get it from under the quicksand. The only method would have been to dredge a cut from the river and let the stream wash away the quicksand and that would have cost far more than we could invest. So, once again the site was abandoned and Buckler, Flynn and his men, Beebe and another partner, Niles, went north. Later on a resident had a boat basin dredged in the bank. This washed out the quicksand and the chest was exposed, it was salvaged by a local hotel owner. It contained gold, silver, coins, gems, etc. valued at $600,000. Ruth and I had made up our minds to remain in Florida and turning pioneers we hewed a home for ourselves in the wilderness. About a mile and a half from the little town of Chiefland I obtained several acres of land. It was covered with a forest of pine and oak, with areas of brush and jungle and looked hopeless. We took possession in April and while Ruth felled trees and cleared brush and palmetto, I fenced in the land, planted a garden and started in Never a Dull Moment
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on the house, camping out in the meantime in an abandoned tumble-down Cracker's cabin. How we managed to accomplish it is still a mystery to me for I had no help in my house building, Ruth was busy from morning until dark cutting, clearing, burning the brush, but single-handed I built a six room house, and by the middle of June we moved in. Never did the old time pioneers work harder then we did. But it was fun. On every side were dense woods and forest where there was abundant wild life. Often, as I worked on the house, wild turkeys would take dust baths in the "road" a few yards distant. Deer tracks could be seen everywhere and later, when my crops were up, they became almost as much of a nuisance as the rabbits and half-wild swine. There were quail everywhere, gray and fox squirrels and countless birds many that I never before had seen and I added constantly to my collection of mounted birds. Bob cats prowled about the house at night. A panther killed a deer within a hundred yards of the property and there were two black bears about. One was a half-grown cub that played and frolicked nightly with our dog; the other a gigantic brute. On one occasion he killed a calf close by and when I trailed him the next day I found he had carried his kill for over two miles and into an impenetrable swamp without even letting the calf drag on the ground. We found a live oak tree where the big fellow stood to sharpen his teeth on the bark and the scratches were seven feet above the ground. We had no desire to meet him but we did come unexpectedly upon him one day when he was sitting on his haunches and gorging himself with blackberries. However, he was too intent on the subject in hand to bother about us- even had he been so inclined and, believe me, we didn't bother him. Our home was built on a very historic spot; the site of the ancient Indian village of ANHIARKA, where De Soto made his first stop in his march northward to explore Georgia which ended in the discovery of the Mississippi and his death. I soon found that it did not pay to cultivate the everyday vegetables and devoted my time to raising crops and ornamental plants never previously seen in this locality. Among them were asparagus, chayotes, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, leeks, chards, gerberas, dahlias, cinerarias and many others. Our garden prospered and I took delight in raising crops which everyone vowed could not be grown in that part of Florida. Before long my ANHIARKA GARDENS became a show place, an experimental farm, and we had visitors from far and near. Also, I had a free museum filled with mounted birds, mammals, reptiles and insects and we also had a menagerie with over sixty live reptiles, mammals and snakes. Most of these were only temporary guests and went from time to time to the Philadelphia Zoo, while the mounted specimens went to the University of Miami museum with some going to the University of Florida and Cornell. While it was fun even if mighty hard work farming, yet it was obvious that it wouldn't yield a living income. Then my tanning process saved the day 306
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and as fame of my buckskin spread I had more tanning than I could do. I also turned to repairing and making furniture. Every Cracker and Colored family for miles around had broken-down chairs, tables and other furniture and with the second World War on it was impossible for them to purchase new furniture. I built a nice shop, managed to obtain a lathe, saws, planer and shaper and operated them by a pulley attached to a rear wheel of the car. In the first four months I repaired over two hundred and fifty chairs and made a number of now ones. I also made a number of cedar chests, vanities, settees, benches, chiffoniers and other furniture and Ruth did the upholstering and we soon gained a reputation for being able to fix anything or make anything. We had made moccasins for dozens of people, wallets, pocket books, holsters, handbags and other articles of buckskin and rattle snake hide and I made a fine pair of chaps for one man. Varied and strange were the objects brought to us to be repaired. Clocks, false teeth, radios- anything and everything imaginable. But we drew the line at most of these. Then the manager of a big turpentine company arrived with saddlebags and worn-out mule harnesses and wanted to know if I could repair and make harness, nothing ventured nothing have. I built a harness maker's bench, secured needles, wax ends and thread and almost before I knew it I was repairing harnesses and making new ones. Then came the saddles. Ancient broken down trees were brought in, some of Civil War vintage but seldom were they so far gone that I could not build a good stock saddle on them. I don't know how many saddles I made but I turned out a lot and they were mighty good saddles if I do say so myself. I think that at that particular time I was the only harness maker and saddler in the state of Florida, It was not by any means all "beer and skittles" as the British say. The winters were very cold, often the thermometer dropped to twelve above zero, the land was poor, the hogs running free were constantly uprooting fences, rabbits, flying squirrels and countless insect pests meant a constant battle. The local Crackers and the Colored folk were poor and we had to work from dawn until well into the night in order to keep the wolf from dozing on our doorstep. Ruth had found employment in town and was working like a slave to help out. She painted houses inside and outside, was housekeeper for the family of the principal of the local school, took over the janitorship of a church and for a short time cooked at the only hotel. We were both overdoing and I was no longer a young man. The end came when Ruth found me unconscious on the floor one evening when she returned from work in town. “Complete breakdown," was the doctor's verdict. "working too hard under a nerve strain plus a touch of Flu and the old pernicious malaria.� For weeks I was unable to do a stroke of work and Ruth of course was forced to remain with me. "You can’t keep this up," Dr. Young warned me as I slowly recovered. "You can't stand the cold weather and the hard physical labor. Better go south where it is warmer." Never a Dull Moment
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It seemed the only thing to do. We were not tied down. Rose had married a local boy and had a young son, but we hated to abandon our little homestead on which we had lavished so much care and labor. ‘Where would we go?’ was another question. I remembered Lake Worth with its ideal climate, its friendly people and the blue Gulf Stream washing its shores. It was to my mind the most perfect spot in all Florida and we decided to go there. Selling our property for almost nothing, we packed our most essential belongings in the car and headed southward, what we would do once we reached our destination was a problem, but I felt confident that with our combined varied abilities we could get along even though our total capital was but seventy-five dollars, and we both had a sublime faith in Fate. It was mighty hard sledding at first. There was not a vacant house, apartment or room available. But I recalled Horace Greely's famous advice to “go west young man" and though I was no longer a young man we took his advice and kept going west for eight miles until we found a little log cabin for rent. I found that there was an Art League in the city and arranged to hold an exhibition of my paintings of South and Central American scenes and Indians, Much to my surprise they aroused a great deal of interest and I sold a number. Then I discovered that there were many persons with artistic tendencies who were anxious to learn to paint so we started art classes, Ruth teaching drawing and water color work while I taught oil painting. The classes were most successful and we soon had all the pupils we could attend to, both Ruth and I sold quite a few paintings and we held several joint exhibits which are rather unique. But we were not destined to continue to earn a livelihood in this way, I had been taking my pupils on short trips and on one of these Ruth amused herself by wading about in shoal water and gathering shells. She was quite excited and enthusiastic over her finds, fighting conchs and hatchet conchs, an apple murex and pen shells, nothing rare or unusual but it gave me an idea. Why not devote our time to systematic collecting and start a shell business? For I felt sure, there must be many conchologists who would gladly purchase Florida shells. From that humble beginning- a few common species Ruth found- grew my later shell business, within six months from the time we started Ruth and I had collected between fifteen and sixteen thousand shells, and many very rare or new to this part of Florida, and I was receiving orders faster than I could fill them. Before very long we were forced to give up the art classes. We had found a nice house in town and Ruth took making shell jewelry from culls that were not fit for specimens. Through trades and purchases I obtained more and more foreign shells until I had the largest assortment of specimen shells in the United States with over nine thousand species and about one hundred thousand specimens constantly in stock. 308
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I wanted Ruth to see the West Indies I loved so well. And deep in my heart I longed to again visit Dominica. In fact in the back of my mind I had nebulous ideas of settling down to spend my final days on the loveliest island of the Antilles, I needed West Indian shells. There was a constant demand for these but it seemed impossible to obtain them, yet I knew where they could be found, or at least where they had been common in past years. It was a red letter day when we boarded a Pan American plane at Miami bound for St. Thomas on our shell collecting trip to the Lesser Antilles. Ruth fell in love with the islands and I had a wonderful time meeting old friends whom I had not seen for many years, but we were bitterly disappointed to find that terrific hurricanes had played havoc with the shells. The reefs had been stripped bare and shells by tens of thousands had been piled upon the beaches, broken and worthless. But here and there we found living shells, and at Dominica traps were set in deep water with most excellent results. When we returned to Lake Worth at the end of our three months outing we had between fifteen and twenty thousand specimens, including many rarities, five species new to Science and a fine specimen of one of the rarest shells in the world- the Murex Spectrum, the only other known specimen being the type in the British Museum. Never again, will I explore tropical jungles and visit strange Indian tribes. My days of adventure are over. As my mind, harks back to my jungle days, as I recall the risks I took, the hairbreadth escapes I had, the accidents I suffered and the illnesses I endured with Death hovering over me, I marvel that I survived. But despite it all I am still going strong and recently completed my one hundred and fifteenth book, A BOOK FOR COLLECTORS Americas Ancient Civilizations, for S. P. Putnams Sons, I find abundant recreation in my garden, thrills of expectation when a shipment of shells arrives from some distant land, and supreme happiness and contentment in the companionship and love of Ruth.
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Chapter 48
Final Chapter
For as long as I can remember coincidences were so much a part of my life that I came to regard them as every day matters. Time and time again I would use every effort to contact some person whom I had not seen for a number of years and whose whereabouts were unknown, only to meet them face-to-face on some busy thoroughfare or in the midst of crowds at some exhibition, parade or other function. Looking back upon it, I can see that coincidences ruled my life, and were responsible for many of the more important events of my career. If it had not been for the coincidence of a Barbadian being a fellow student at Yale Art School I might never have gone to Dominica or any of the West Indies. And, if it had not been for a series of coincidences, I might never have met and married my beloved wife. Very often, too, coincidences brought success to undertakings that appeared hopeless. For example, when in Santo Domingo I was forced to seek shelter in the home of El Lobo, the famous bandit, he told me where I could obtain and did obtain the supposedly extinct Solonodon paradoxis. Thus bringing to a successful conclusion a search that had lasted for over a year. On another occasion when in Santa Domingo, and searching for a very rare species of bird, I made a mistake and took the wrong trail through the jungle and came to a little native settlement consisting of a few houses and a tiny chapel. There was no priest or minister but daily services, consisting of prayers and songs were carried out by one of the villagers who, at the time of my arrival was suffering from a bad attack of malaria and asked me to take his place. Although religious activities are not in my line, I agreed and carried on to the best of my ability. Nobody had asked me why I was wandering about in the jungle and I had not mentioned the purpose of my quest. But a few days after I had been “conducting religious services" one of the boys brought me a dead, but perfect specimen of the very rare tanager for which I had been searching. I have come to realize that coincidences were directly responsible far many of my most important and noteworthy undertakings and achievements and on more than one occasion they saved me from death. When I reached Puerto Plata, desperately ill with typhoid and scarcely able to walk, I found that the American Consul was an old college classmate and when, two days later, the cruiser Dubuque arrived, Captain Rogers, whom I had known in my boyhood days, placed the ship's surgeon and all his resources at my disposal, thereby saving my life. My meeting with White Eagle after forty years was a remarkable coincidence, but I was destined to experience an even more astonishing coincidence on that same journey north. 310
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At Darien, Connecticut we decided to stop over night at some tourist cabins. Why we selected those particular cabins, I cannot say as there were many in the vicinity. The man in charge would have been taken for a Colored man by most persons but I saw that he was an Indian at once. "You are an Indian aren't you?" I enquired. He answered in the affirmative. "A Pequot from Norwich, Connecticut?" I ventured. He stared at me. "How you know that" he demanded. "I know Indians very well" I told him "and recognized you as a Pequot, and know that most of your people live near Norwich." Something about the man seemed vaguely familiar. Where had I seen him before? Then it dawned upon me, but I couldn't believe such a coincidence possible. "Do you mind taking off your hat?" I asked him. "Why you want that?" he asked. "I want to see the scar over your left ear" I told him. He gaped, but slowly removed his hat. "You big medicine; how you knew I have scar there?" It was incredible but true. The evidence was there. “I can even tell you how you got that scar.” I told the amazed Indian. "You were passing Hopkins' Grammar School in New Haven when a boy threw a stone at a mark and it glanced off and struck you." The Pequot was staring at me as though I were a ghost. "I can even tell you what the boy said when you called at his father's house and he paid you ten dollars for your doctor's bill. He said ‘When I grow up and have children I can tell them that when I was a boy Indians were so thick I could not throw a stone without hitting one.' Never have I seen such a mixed expression as the Indian gaped at me in speechless wonder. At last he found his voice. "How you know all that? You mighty big medicine." "I know, because I was there," I told him." The boy was my younger brother". After more than fifty years I had met the Pequot, whose story I have told in another chapter. The coincidence was the more remarkable as he was leaving early the next morning. In order to learn the truth about the Indians he had traveled all over the United States and Mexico and was on his way north to visit the Indians of Canada. I experienced an even more remarkable coincidence in New York where I had gone to have some specimens identified by experts at the American Museum of Natural History. As visitors with packages were not allowed in the Museum unless vouched for by some member of the staff, I was wondering whom I could call upon when I thought of an old friend of the family, Dr. Sanderson Smith, conchologist at the museum. At Forty-second Street I boarded the 6th Avenue ‘L’, and as I entered the car, the first person I saw was Sanderson Smith himself. That in itself was a remarkable coincidence, for had I been a minute earlier or later I would have taken another train and had I entered another car I would not have known that Dr. Smith was on the same train. But our meeting proved to be even more amazing when he told me that the ferry on which he crossed from his Staten Island home had been delayed by fog and that for the first time in twenty years Never a Dull Moment
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he had taken that particular train. I once asked a famous mathematician what the chances of such a coincidence would be and he replied that it would be impossible to calculate, as such a vast number of factors entered into the equation, but certainly would hot be less than one in hundreds of millions. Perhaps some of the modern "thinking machines" could give a correct answer to the problem. I think the most remarkable coincidence of my entire life occurred in Vera Cruz, Mexico. We were dining under the arcades of the CafÊ Prendez facing the plaza. The restaurant was crowded with diners and there were but few empty chairs and there were a number of cafes with arcades facing on the plaza. Presently an American passed the diners and other empty chairs and seated himself at the table just back of us. Turning, after seating himself, he asked: "Are you not Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill?" I replied in the affirmative. "I thought so" he said, "where were you twenty-one years ago today?" "In Lima, Peru" I told him. "Yes", he said "and you took us for a nice ride to Chosica in your big Auburn car. You do not remember me. I am Makerson of the American Consulate, and my son "Bobby" was a school-mate of your granddaughter Conchita. He is in the Navy now and has just obtained a month's shore leave. I am here to meet him and as soon as he arrives we are going back to Mexico City where I am stationed.� He never explained what seemingly occult force had drawn him like a magnet to the CafÊ Prendez and our table. In fact he did not know who he would meet there but had an overpowering urge to find out. Yes, in a great many ways, this was the most remarkable coincidence of my entire life. Moreover it did not appear to serve any purpose. He and I had nothing in common, our paths had never crossed and he had not been a particularly close friend in Lima, but as I do not believe that such a coincidence could have been purposeless, it must have had some bearing on our destiny even if we had no interests in common as far as known. THE END
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Afterword This autobiography and the process of transcribing and organizing the chapters was a fascinating exploration into the life history of Hyatt Verrill. From the beginning chapters as a young boy he is describing working on so many projects and with total dedication. The reason that this is brought up is because there is also so much omitted from this life story. The deaths of his father, mother, brother, sisters are all missing. The birth of daughters and son, the divorce of his first wife are missing in this autobiography. World events during Verrill’s lifetime included the two World Wars and the great depression but they are only scarcely mentioned; Hyatt preferring to describe the works in progress, but says volumes about the man. Verrill, with each chapter, presents a new task or tasks – projects that must be done – he immerses himself and ourselves in those projects, those life works while providing us with a snapshot of the resources available to him at the time. It is interesting that Verrill comes from a family of privilege, his father is a world renowned zoologist. His father worked throughout his lifetime as did Hyatt. But we recognize in his concluding chapters that for all the work Verrill has done, for all the royalties from 115 books. Hyatt and Ruth have $76 when they relocate to Lake Worth, Florida. We have reason to wonder why his net worth is so inconsiderate when we see no mention of squandered fortunes. Hyatt grew up in a new age, during the industrial revolution and in the New World where all things were possible. Verrill describes the evolution of mining, steam power, electricity and transportation that appear before his eyes. This holds him and us in awe, as he describes these events and how he matures along with these changes. There is no lacking enthusiasm, there is every bit of the adventurer as Verrill meets and greets these changes to lifestyle. At the same time he respects the older systems, the slow boats. He recognizes that getting there is half of the trip. A word on spelling and grammar, I confess that this was not a strong matter of interest to me, initially. But it has become a small matter of interest. As described Verrill’s life was during the industrial revolution – it was also a time when the printed word became in vogue. Now with Microsoft’s Word we can use U.S. or U.K. spelling. Both are English, but his was a time when these changes were evolving, when these differences were in a more fluid state. The same can probably be said about grammar, there were lots of local grammatical and spelling variations, there were few global standards and they were not generally or popularly known. I have retained most of the grammatical and Never a Dull Moment
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spelling, warnings that Word has pointed out. I think that it adds authenticity and dates the work correctly. As well, there are inconsistencies in spelling and grammar – I think this also points out the evolutionary status of English in print – and again these have been retained to a great extent. These grammar and spelling issues have come up many times in the process of digitizing the various stories from magazines that have been in the works for the past few years. Just a word on derogatory terminology that is contained in this story, times were very different as were attitudes and sensibilities. Overall my belief is that Verrill had a respect for all mankind – today we might take offence to his use of some terms but they appear to be acceptable at the time of composition – remember these chapters were composed more than fifty years ago. Finally I should thank Hyatt Verrill, the adventurer, explorer and writer who has so generously created this autobiography and his other writings. I hope his enthusiasm for work – for life, rubs off on you. What you can do. At this time all of the published works of A. Hyatt Verrill are out of copyright. These works should be available to everyone. If you can locate some of his stories that are in whole or part, not on the web then they should be digitized and put there. They can then be referenced to Wikipedia or you may contact me and I will be happy to establish links to them. We have seen little of Verrill’s art work – it would be great if we could post some to the web. A very few are on our website. Verrill lived and traveled through so many places – he must have left some tracks – post them on the web, please. Thanks, Doug Frizzle. http://stillwoods.blogspot.com/
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