text:
They’re growing what?

Nov 6, 2019

n Virginia and South Carolina hatcheries, biologists keep a close eye on shad and striped bass while taking time to focus on something that will never wear scales: mussels.

And down in Florida, hatchery scientists charged with making sure rivers and streams are stocked with catfish and bass are singing the praises of a tiny bird they’re raising outside their labs.

Over in Oklahoma and Louisiana? Fishery biologists have become experts in the art of raising —— [sic] and the correct way of handling —— [sic] alligator snapping turtles.

Mussels, birds, turtles: these creatures, and more, are living at national fish hatcheries across the nation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) which operates the hatcheries, welcomes their presence. After all, preserving species is what the Service does.

Last year, 13 hatcheries nationwide were involved in propagating creatures other than fish. Those hatcheries are hosts to 30 non-fish species —— [sic] shelled, feathered, hopping —— [sic] as well as growing more than 100 species of fish.

Statistics show that the past decade witnessed a spate of non-fish species growing in hatcheries. Among them: the Wyoming toad, the Barton Springs salamander and the gopher tortoise.

The expansion of hatcheries’ duties “speaks to the need out there” to look after imperiled creatures, said Nate Wilke, the Service’s branch chief of hatchery operations and applied science.

What is happening at fisheries is eye-opening, added David Miko, the Service’s division chief of fisheries and aquatic conservation.

Miko, who joined the Service about four years ago after two decades of fisheries work in Pennsylvania, has watched fisheries take on ever more duties.

Was he surprised to learn that fisheries were so closely involved with raising creatures that lacked fins? “I’d change the word ‘surprised’ to ‘impressed’,” he said.

The host hatcheries vary, but have at least one thing in common: They had the space to accommodate something new.

And this: The people running them recognized they needed to act.

They don’t have gills. They aren’t covered in scales. And they don’t swim. No matter: They’re residents of the Welaka National Fish Hatchery.

Earlier this year, 18 federally endangered Florida grasshopper sparrows arrived at the hatchery, midway between Jacksonville and Orlando. Tony Brady, the hatchery’s deputy project leader, enjoys having them on site.

“We go out in the evenings and watch them,” said Brady, who’s been with the Service 16 years. “They chase crickets.”

They’re young birds, in their second year, and will stay at the hatchery for about a year before they’re released into the wild. Some may be sent to a facility to be used as breeders.

The birds, housed in a free-standing, netted structure originally designed to be a build-it-yourself carport, are doing just fine.

And let’s not forget the hatchery’s other non-finned residents —— [sic] Eastern indigo snakes. The snakes, which are listed as threatened, live in specially built trays until spring, when they’re sufficiently mature for release into the wild.

The hatchery is home to 30 snakes. By snake standards, they’re living the good life —— [sic] fed three times a week, their living quarters cleaned daily.

Indigos, Brady noted, are non-venomous and are North America’s longest native snake. Some can exceed 8 feet.

The hatchery, Brady noted, continues doing what it’s always done —— [sic] raising two strains of striped bass for release in different river systems, as well as catfish and Atlantic sturgeon.

The hatchery once was a deer and quail farm before converting to raising fish. Now, with grasshopper sparrows flitting about in an aviary and snakes wiggling about in trays, said Brady, “we’ve come full circle.”

Ask the biologists at Tishomingo hatchery in Oklahoma about raising catfish and bass and they can rattle off stats faster than you can cast a Jitterbug fishing lure into a lake. They also can tell you about another swimming species —— [sic] one that can take off your finger with a single snap.

For almost 20 years, the hatchery has been raising endangered alligator snapping turtles, the largest snapping turtle in North America.

In the late 1990s, biologists learned that the species was in “steep decline,” said Kerry Graves, who manages the hatchery, located 100 miles south of Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma, the population had dwindled to one viable population, Graves said.

Somebody had to do something. Tishomingo opened its doors, and a pond, to nearly a dozen turtles from the Oklahoma population.

“Our interest in the beginning was to figure out how to raise these things in captivity,” he said. That meant phone calls and visits to zoos.

The research paid off. In 2002, the hatchery hosted its first nest in the pond. Five years later, with a growing population in captivity, the hatchery released its first turtle at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. “Through the years,” Graves said, “it’s just evolved.”

An evolution fueled by experts and energetic grad students who aren’t afraid to get wet —— [sic] or worse. Alligator snapping turtles are as pleasant as they are pretty —— [sic] in other words, not at all. “One time, a young one bit me, yeah,” Graves said. Another time, a grown snapper took the tip of a colleague’s index finger.

Over the years, the folks who knew nothing about alligator snapping turtles have become experts. “We’ve pretty much written the book on alligator snapping turtle culture,” Graves said.

Others have read it. Tishomingo fields requests for turtles from Louisiana, Illinois, Texas and other states where the big reptile’s future remains shaky.

For Graves, the turtle is a hard-shelled reminder of how far he’s come in Service work. He started as a grad student in Texas, bounced around a bit, and finally came to Tishomingo —— [sic] never dreaming he’d become a turtle guy.

That’s fine, too. “It keeps life interesting,” he said. “They’re really neat creatures.”

In Virginia, the Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery for years has specialized in stocking rivers that run to the Atlantic Ocean. Then it got into mussels.

The hatchery is part of a collection of Service hatcheries that have embraced mussel propagation, and for good reason: Mussels help keep rivers and streams clean. They’re also an indicator of water quality. Hatcheries in West Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina, among others, make mussel propagation a priority. The Service is working with North Carolina partners to propagate mussels, too.

The same is true at Harrison Lake. In 1994, biologist Michael Odom wrote a proposal to expand the fishery’s duties to include growing mussels. A decade would pass. Odom would be promoted to hatchery manager.

But the words Odom wrote apparently weren’t forgotten. In 2004, officials gave him a green light to propagate mussels. By 2007, with the help of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Harrison Lake had its first mussel “grow-out,” taking juvenile mussels and raising them until they would be large enough to be planted in streams.

That first effort produced mixed results and spawned the Virginia Fisheries and Aquatic Wildlife Center at Harrison Lake, a cooperative venture between the Service and Virginia’s game and inland fisheries department.

Odom realized that he and his colleagues had a learning curve not unlike a mussel’s shell —— [sic] something that rose sharply to a crest. In 2008, they tried to propagate the mussels the way nature intended, with gravid, or pregnant, females releasing their young to temporarily mature on a host fish’s gills before dropping on a stream bed. At the hatchery, that bed was located inside a tank.

Since then, the cooperative work at Harrison Lake has increased mussel production nearly every year. In 2018, it propagated 898,000 mussels. Some will be ready to be placed in streams early next year; others will need to mature longer.

The mussels range from green floaters to the James spinymussel, which is listed as endangered. Odom hopes the work at Harrison Lake will help recover some listed mussels and keep other at-risk species from taking a place on the Service’s threatened and endangered list.

As manager, Odom isn’t involved in the day-to-day mussel operations; he leaves that to others. Since he was schooled in the affairs of finned swimmers, Odom recognizes that he’s not the expert on mussels. “I’m still a fish guy,” he says.

But the shelled creatures, he admitted, have muscled their way in to his affections.

Ana Bode wasn’t long out of the University of Wyoming when a professor pointed her to a job at the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery. She’d be working with a grumpy looking creature called the Wyoming toad. Bode said OK.

That was four years ago. Since then, Bode, a biological technician at the hatchery, has become knowledgeable in the life cycles of an endangered little hopper that is prey to a fungus affecting amphibians worldwide, as well as to predation.

The hatchery has been propagating them since 1997, from tadpole to toad. It is a process involving injecting the toads with hormones to enhance their reproduction. Specialists also outfit some of the creatures with tiny transmitters to chart their movements —— [sic] toad tracking, if you will.

Attaching the transmitters calls for a deft touch, said Bode. “They’re really sensitive,” she said.

Bode has learned a truism about toads, too. Their grimace belies their true nature. The toads only look crabby.

And, yes, she has her favorites —— [sic] usually, those that look her in the eye. Forthright toads.

“It just depends on the toad,” she said. “It’s as if they’re acknowledging you, whether they really are or not.”

Wilke, the Service’s branch chief of hatchery operations and applied science, acknowledges something else: Some hatcheries will continue their mission to propagate creatures that may not swim. More hatcheries may join them, too.

“The breadth of knowledge in raising species in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is massive,” he said. “We have the facilities, the people and the experience to make this work.”

title: They’re growing what?


text:
Category:Alligator snapping turtles

For works about alligator snapping turtles (tax. Macrochelys temminckii)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Category:Alligator snapping turtles


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/45

 —but finish the story thou art upon:—'Tis finished already, said the corporal,—for I could stay no longer,—so wished his honour a good night; young Le Fever rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in Flanders.—But alas! said the corporal,—the lieutenant's last day's march is over.—Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle Toby.

was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,—though I tell it only for the sake of those, who, when copp'd in betwixt a natural and a positive law,


text:
Category:Wyoming toads

For works about Wyoming toads (tax. Anaxyrus baxteri), a toad which is extinct in the wild and thus receives a large amount of assistance and research by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

title: Category:Wyoming toads


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 6/Chapter 7


text: User:SnowyCinema/P/Dapples of the Circus


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/46

 know not for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves—That notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of Derdermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner—that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp;—and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and, except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a blockade,—he left Dendermond to itself,—to be relieved or not by the French king, as the French king thought good; and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.


text: One of a Thousand/Goss, Franklin B.

title: One of a Thousand/Goss, Franklin B.


text:
Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/118

 92 Izvestia January 1, 1921, as we may see from the following remarks by Zinoviev:

For such "trade unions" to strike is not only against the law; it is regarded as treason or desertion, and it may be punished as such. For example, the Moscow Soviet, as reported in Izvestia of July 2, 1918, resolved:

A picture of the practical workings of this kind of "trade unionism" was given to the British Labor Delegation in Moscow by one of the officers of the Printers' Union, A. Kefali, on May 23, 1920. We quote a few


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/275

 is an Igalwa town, notable for a large quantity of fine white ducks and a clump of Indian bamboo. My informants say, "No white man ever live for this place," so I suppose the ducks and bamboo have been imported by some black trader whose natal spot this is. The name of this village is Wanderegwoma. Stuck on sandbank—I flew out and shoved behind, leaving Ngouta to do the balancing performances in the stern. This O'Rembo Vongo divides up just below here, I am told, when we have re-embarked, into three streams. One goes into the main Ogowé opposite Ayshouka in Nkami country—Nkami country commences at Ayshouka and goes to the sea—one into the Ngumbi,—and one into the Nunghi—all in the Ouroungou country. Ayzingo now lies N.E. according to Gray Shirt's arm. On our river there is here another broad low island with its gold-coloured banks shining out, seemingly barring the entire channel, but there is really a canoe channel along by both banks.

We turn at this point into a river on the north bank that runs north and south—the current is running very swift to the north. We run down into it, and then, it being more than time enough for chop, we push the canoe on to a sandbank in our new river, which I am told is the Karkola. I, after having had my tea, wander off. I find behind our high sandbank, which like all the other sandbanks above water now, is getting grown over with hippo grass—a fine light green grass, the beloved food of both hippo and manatee—a forest, and entering this I notice a succession of strange mounds or heaps, made up of branches, twigs, and leaves, and dead flowers. Many of these heaps are recent, while others have fallen into decay. Investigation shows they are burial places. Among the débris of an old one there are human bones, and out from one of the new ones comes a stench and a hurrying, exceedingly busy line of ants, demonstrating what is going on. I own I thought these mounds were some kind of bird's or animal's nest. They look entirely unhuman in this desolate reach of forest. Leaving these, I go down to the water edge of the sand, and find in it a quantity of pools of varying breadth and expanse, but each surrounded by a rim of dark red-brown deposit, which you can lift off the sand in a skin.


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/276

 On the top of the water is a film of exquisite iridescent colours like those on a soap bubble, only darker and brighter. In the river alongside the sand, there are thousands of those beautiful little fish with a black line each side of their tails. They are perfectly tame, and I feed them with crumbs in my hand. After making every effort to terrify the unknown object containing the food—gallant bulls, quite two inches long, sidling up and snapping at my fingers—they come and feed right in the palm, so that I could have caught them by the handful had I wished. There are also a lot of those weird,semi-transparent, yellow, spotted little sand-fish with cup-shaped pectoral fins, which I see they use to enable them to make the astoundingly long leaps. These fish are of a more nervous and distrustful disposition, and hover round my hand but will not come into it. Indeed I do not believe the other cheeky little fellows would allow them to. They have grand butting matches among themselves, which wind up with a most comic tail fight, each combatant spinning round and going in for a spanking match with his adversary with his pretty little red-edged tail—the red rim round it and round his gill covers going claret-coloured with fury. I did not make out how you counted points in these fights—no one seemed a scale the worse.

The men, having had their rest and their pipes, shout for me, and off we go again. The Karkola soon widens to about 100 feet; it is evidently very deep here; the right bank (the east) is forested, the left, low and shrubbed, one patch looking as if it were being cleared for a plantation, but no village showing. A big rock shows up on the right bank, which is a change from the clay and sand, and soon the whole character of the landscape changes. We come to a sharp turn in the river, from north and south to east and west—the current very swift. The river channel dodges round against a big bank of sword grass, and then widens out to the breadth of the Thames at Putney. I am told that a river runs out of it here to the west to Ouroungou country, and so I imagine


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/277

 this Karkola falls ultimately into the Nazareth. We skirt the eastern banks, which are covered with low grass with a scanty lot of trees along the top. High land shows in the distance to the S.S.W. and S.W., and then we suddenly turn up into a broad river or straith, shaping our course N.N.E. On the opposite bank, on a high dwarf cliff, is a Fan town. "All Fan now," says Singlet in anything but a gratified tone of voice.

It is a strange, wild, lonely bit of the world we are now in, apparently a lake or broad—full of sandbanks, some bare and some in the course of developing into permanent islands by the growth on them of that floating coarse grass, any joint of which being torn off either by the current, a passing canoe, or hippos, floats down and grows wherever it settles. Like most things that float in these parts, it usually settles on a sandbank, and then grows in much the same way as our couch grass grows on land in England, so as to form a network, which catches for its adopted sandbank all sorts of floating débris, so the sandbank comes up in the world. The waters of the wet season when they rise drown off the grass; but when they fall, up it comes again from the root, and so gradually the sandbank becomes an island and persuades real trees and shrubs to come and grow on it, and its future is then secured.

We skirt alongside a great young island of this class; the sword grass some ten or fifteen feet high. It has not got any trees on it yet, but by next season or so it doubtless will have. The grass is stubbled down into paths by hippos, and just as I have realised who are the road-makers, they appear in person. One immense fellow, hearing us, stands up and shows himself about six feet from us in the grass, gazes calmly, and then yawns a yawn a yard wide and grunts his news to his companions, some of whom—there is evidently a large herd—get up and stroll towards us with all the flowing grace of Pantechnicon vans in motion. We put our helm paddles hard a starboard and leave that bank. These hippos always look to me as if they were the first or last creations in the animal world. At present I am undecided whether Nature tried "her 'prentice hand" on them in her earliest


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/47

 That kind, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence thee for this.

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed,—and I will tell thee in what, Trim.—In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fever,—as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself, out of his pay,—that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, he had stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.—Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;—True, quoth my uncle Toby,—thou didst very


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/48

 right, Trim, as a soldier,—but certainly very wrong as a man.

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby,—when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house,—thou shouldst have offered him my house too:—A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,—we could tend and look to him:—Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim,—and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs.

—In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling,—he might march.—He will never march,


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/49

 an' please your honour, in this world, said the corporal:—He will march; said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed, with one shoe off:—An' please your honour, said the corporal, he will never march, but to his grave:—He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,—he shall march to his regiment.—He cannot stand it, said the corporal;—He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby;—He'll drop at last, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy?—He shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.—A-well-o'day,—do what we can for him, said Trim, maintaining his point,—the poor soul will die:—He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/278

 youth, or whether, having got thoroughly tired of making the delicately beautiful antelopes, corallines, butterflies, and orchids, she just said: "Goodness! I am quite worn out with this finicking work. Here, just put these other viscera into big bags—I can't bother any more."

Our hasty trip across to the bank of the island on the other side being accomplished, we, in search of seclusion and in the hope that out of sight would mean out of mind to hippos, shot down a narrow channel between semi-island sandbanks, and those sandbanks, if you please, are covered with specimens—as fine a set of specimens as you could wish for—of the West African crocodile. These interesting animals are also having their siestas, lying sprawling in all directions on the sand, with their mouths wide open. One immense old lady has a family of lively young crocodiles running over her, evidently playing like a lot of kittens. The heavy musky smell they give off is most repulsive, but we do not rise up and make a row about this, because we feel hopelessly in the wrong in intruding into these family scenes uninvited, and so apologetically pole ourselves along rapidly, not even singing. The pace the canoe goes down that channel would be a wonder to Henley Regatta. When out of ear-shot I ask Pagan whether there are many gorillas, elephants, or bush-cows round here. "Plenty too much," says he; and it occurs to me that the corn-fields are growing golden green away in England; and soon there rises up in my mental vision a picture that fascinated my youth in the Fliegende Blätter, representing "Friedrich Gerstaeker auf der Reise." That gallant man is depicted tramping on a serpent, new to M. Boulenger, while he attempts to club, with the butt end of his gun, a most lively savage who, accompanied by a bison, is attacking him in front. A terrific and obviously enthusiastic crocodile is grabbing the tail of the explorer's coat, and the explorer says "Hurrah! das gibt wieder einen prächtigen Artikel für Die Allgemeine Zeitung." I do not know where in the world Gerstacker was at the time, but I should fancy hereabouts. My vigorous and lively conscience also reminds me that the last words a most distinguished and valued scientific friend had said to me before I left home was, "Always take measurements,


text:
Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/50

 —The  which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in;—and the  as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

uncle Toby went to his bureau,—put his purse into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician,—he went to bed, and fell asleep.


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/279

 Miss Kingsley, and always take them from the adult male." I know I have neglected opportunities of carrying this commission out on both those banks, but I do not feel like going back. Besides, the men would not like it, and I have mislaid my yard measure.

The extent of water, dotted with sandbanks and islands in all directions, here is great, and seems to be fringed uniformly by low swampy land, beyond which, to the north, rounded lumps of hills show blue. On one of the islands is a little white house which I am told was once occupied by a black trader for John Holt. It looks a desolate place for any man to live in, and the way the crocodiles and hippo must have come up on the garden ground in the evening time could not have enhanced its charms to the average cautious man. My men say, "No man live for that place now." The factory, I believe, has been, for some trade reason, abandoned. Behind it is a great clump of dark-coloured trees. The rest of the island is now covered with hippo grass looking like a beautifully kept lawn. We lie up for a short rest at another island, also a weird spot in its way, for it is covered with a grove of only one kind of tree, which has a twisted, contorted, gray-white trunk and dull, lifeless-looking, green, hard foliage.

I learn that these good people, to make topographical confusion worse confounded, call a river by one name when you are going up it, and by another when you are coming down; just as if you called the Thames the London when you were going up, and the Greenwich when you were coming down. The banks all round this lake or broad, seem all light-coloured sand and clay. We pass out of it into a channel. Current flowing north. As we are entering the channel between banks of grass-overgrown sand, a superb white crane is seen standing on the sand edge to the left. Gray Shirt attempts to get a shot at it, but it—alarmed at our unusual appearance—raises itself up with one of those graceful preliminary curtseys, and after one or two preliminary flaps spreads its broad wings and sweeps away, with its long legs trailing behind it like a thing on a Japanese screen. Gray Shirt does not fire, but puts down his gun on the baggage again with its


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 6/Chapter 8


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 6/Chapter 9


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/280

 muzzle nestling against my left ear. A minute afterwards we strike a bank, and bang goes off the gun, deafening me, singeing my hair and the side of my face slightly. Fortunately the two men in front are at the moment in the recumbent position attributive to the shock of the canoe jarring against the cliff edge of a bank, or they would have had a miscellaneous collection of bits of broken iron pots and lumps of lead frisking among their vitals. It is a little difficult to make out how much credit Providence really deserves in this affair, but a good deal. Of course if It had taken the trouble to keep us off the bank, or to remind Gray Shirt to uncock his weapon, the thing would not have happened at all, but preliminary precaution is not Providence's peculiarity. Still, when the thing happened It certainly rose to it. I might have had the back of my head blown out, and the men might have been killed. I only hope this won't confirm Pagan permanently into superstition; for only a few minutes before, he had been showing me a big charm to keep him from being hurt by a gun. If he thinks about it, he will see there is nothing in the charm, because the other man who equally escaped was a charmless Christian.

The river into which we ran zig-zags about, and then takes a course S.S.E. It is studded with islands slightly higher than those we have passed, and thinly clad with forest. The place seems alive with birds; flocks of pelican and crane rise up before us out of the grass, and every now and then a crocodile slides off the bank into the water. Wonderfully like old logs they look, particularly when you see one letting himself roll and float down on the current. In spite of these interests I began to wonder where in this lonely land we were to sleep to-night. In front of us were miles of distant mountains, but in no direction the slightest sign of human habitation. Soon we passed out of our channel into a lovely, strangely melancholy, lonely-looking lake—Lake Ncovi, my friends tell me. It is exceedingly beautiful. The rich golden sunlight of the late afternoon soon followed by the short-lived, glorious flushes of colour of the sunset and the after-glow, play over the scene as we paddle across the lake to the N.N.E.—our canoe leaving a long trail of frosted silver behind her as she glides over the mirror-like


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/1


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/2


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/3


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/4


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/281

 water, and each stroke of the paddle sending down air with it to come up again in luminous silver bubbles—not as before in swirls of sand and mud. The lake shore is, in all directions,nwreathed with nobly forested hills, indigo and purple in the dying daylight. On the N.N.E. and N.E. these come directly down into the lake; on N.W., N., S.W., and S.E. there is a band of well-forested ground, behind which they rise. In the north and north-eastern part of the lake several exceedingly beautiful wooded islands show, with gray rocky beaches and dwarf cliffs.

Sign of human habitation at first there was none; and in spite of its beauty, there was something which I was almost going to say was repulsive. The men evidently felt the same as I did. Had any one told me that the air that lay on the lake was poison, or that in among its forests lay some path to regions of utter death, I should have said "It looks like that"; but no one said anything, and we only looked round uneasily, until the comfortable-souled Singlet made the unfortunate observation that he "smelt blood." We all called him an utter fool to relieve our minds, and made our way towards the second island. When we got near enough to it to see details, a large village showed among the trees on its summit, and a steep dwarf cliff, overgrown with trees and creeping plants came down to a small beach covered with large water-washed gray stones. There was evidently some kind of a row going on in that village, that took a lot of shouting too. We made straight for the beach, and drove our canoe among its outlying rocks, and then each of my men stowed his paddle quickly, slung on his ammunition bag, and picked up his ready loaded gun, sliding the skin sheath off the lock. Pagan got out on to the stones alongside the canoe just as the inhabitants became aware of our arrival, and, abandoning what I hope was a mass meeting to remonstrate with the local authorities on the insanitary state of the town, came—a brown mass of naked humanity—down the steep cliff path to attend to us, whom they evidently regarded as an imperial interest. Things did


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/6


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/1


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/2


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/3


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/4


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/6


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 9).pdf/1


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 9).pdf/2


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 9).pdf/3


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 9).pdf/4


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/282

 not look restful, nor these Fans personally pleasant. Every man among them—no women showed—was armed with a gun, and they loosened their shovel-shaped knives in their sheaths as they came, evidently regarding a fight quite as imminent as we did. They drew up about twenty paces from us in silence. Pagan and Gray Shirt, who had joined him, held out their unembarrassed hands, and shouted out the name of the Fan man they had said they were friendly with: "Kiva-Kiva." The Fans stood still and talked angrily among themselves for some minutes, and then, Silence said to me, "It would be bad palaver if Kiva no live for this place," in a tone that conveyed to me the idea he thought this unpleasant contingency almost a certainty. The Passenger exhibited unmistakable symptoms of wishing he had come by another boat. I got up from my seat in the bottom of the canoe and leisurely strolled ashore, saying to the line of angry faces "M'boloani" in an unconcerned way, although I well knew it was etiquette for them to salute first. They grunted, but did not commit themselves further. A minute after they parted to allow a fine-looking, middle-aged man, naked save for a twist of dirty cloth round his loins and a bunch of leopard and wild cat tails hung from his shoulder by a strip of leopard skin, to come forward. Pagan went for him with a rush, as if he were going to clasp him to his ample bosom, but holding his hands just off from touching the Fan's shoulder in the usual way, while he said in Fan, "Don't you know me, my beloved Kiva? Surely you have not forgotten your old friend?" Kiva grunted feelingly, and raised up his hands and held them just off touching Pagan, and we breathed again. Then Gray Shirt made a rush at the crowd and went through great demonstrations of affection with another gentleman whom he recognised as being a Fan friend of his own, and whom he had not expected to meet here. I looked round to see if there was not any Fan from the Upper Ogowé whom I knew to go for, but could not see one that I could on the strength of a previous acquaintance, and on their individual merits I did not feel inclined to do even this fashionable imitation embrace. Indeed I must say that never—even in a picture book—have I seen such a set of wild wicked-looking savages as those we


text: Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 9).pdf/6


text:
Page:Völsunga Saga (1888).djvu/9

 ÖLSUNGA SAGA: THE STORY OF THE VOLSUNGS AND NIBLUNGS, WITH CERTAIN SONGS FROM THE ELDER EDDA. EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY H. HALLIDAY SPARLING.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC BY EIRÍKR MAGNÚSSON (TRANSLATOR OF “LEGENDS OF ICELAND”); AND WILLIAM MORRIS (AUTHOR OF “THE EARTHLY PARADISE”).

undefined

WALTER SCOTT

LONDON: 24 WARWICK LANE

title: Page:Völsunga Saga (1888).djvu/9


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/283

 faced this night, and with whom it was touch-and-go for twenty of the longest minutes I have ever lived, whether we fought—for our lives, I was going to say, but it would not have been even for that, but merely for the price of them.

Peace having been proclaimed, conversation became general. Gray Shirt brought his friend up and introduced him to me, and we shook hands and smiled at each other in the conventional way. Pagan's friend, who was next introduced, was more alarming, for he held his hands for half a minute just above my elbows without quite touching me, but he meant well; and then we all disappeared into a brown mass of humanity and a fog of noise. You would have thought, from the violence and vehemence of the shouting and gesticulation, that we were going to be forthwith torn to shreds; but not a single hand really touched me, and as I, Pagan, and Gray Shirt went up to the town in the midst of the throng, the crowd opened in front and closed in behind, evidently half frightened at my appearance. The row when we reached the town redoubled in volume from the fact that the ladies, the children, and the dogs joined in. Every child in the place as soon as it saw my white face let a howl out of it as if it had seen his Satanic Majesty, horns, hoofs, tail and all, and fled into the nearest hut, headlong, and I fear, from the continuance of the screams, had fits. The town was exceedingly filthy—the remains of the crocodile they had been eating the week before last, and piles of fish offal, and remains of an elephant, hippo or manatee—I really can't say which, decomposition was too far advanced—united to form a most impressive stench. The bark huts are, as usual in a Fan town, in unbroken rows; but there are three or four streets here, not one only, as in most cases. The palaver house is in the innermost street, and there we went, and noticed that the village view was not in the direction in which we had come, but across towards the other side of the lake. I told the Ajumba to explain we wanted hospitality for the night, and wished to hire three carriers for to-morrow to go with us to the Rembwé.

For an hour and three-quarters by my watch I stood in the suffocating, smoky, hot atmosphere listening to, but only faintly understanding, the war of words and gesture that raged


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/284

 round us. At last the fact that we were to be received being settled, Gray Shirt's friend led us out of the guard house—the crowd flinching back as I came through it—to his own house on the right-hand side of the street of huts. It was a very different dwelling to Gray Shirt's residence at Arevooma. I was as high as its roof ridge and had to stoop low to get through the door-hole. Inside, the hut was fourteen or fifteen feet square, unlit by any window. The door-hole could be closed by pushing a broad piece of bark across it under two horizontally fixed bits of stick. The floor was sand like the street outside, but dirtier. On it in one place was a fire, whose smoke found its way out through the roof. In one corner of the room was a rough bench of wood, which from the few filthy cloths on it and a wood pillow I saw was the bed. There was no other furniture in the hut save some boxes, which I presume held my host's earthly possessions. From the bamboo roof hung a long stick with hooks on it, the hooks made by cutting off branching twigs. This was evidently the hanging wardrobe, and on it hung some few fetish charms, and a beautiful ornament of wild cat and leopard tails, tied on a square piece of leopard skin, in the centre of which was a little mirror, and round the mirror were sewn dozens of common shirt buttons. In among the tails hung three little brass bells and a brass rattle; these bells and rattles are not only "for dandy," but serve to scare away snakes when the ornament is worn in the forest. A fine strip of silky-haired, young gorilla skin made the band to sling the ornament from the shoulder when worn. Gorillas seem well enough known round here. One old lady in the crowd out-side, I saw, had a necklace made of sixteen gorilla canine teeth slung on a pine-apple fibre string. Gray Shirt explained to me that this is the best house in the village, and my host the most renowned elephant hunter in the district.

We then returned to the canoe, whose occupants had been getting uneasy about the way affairs were going "on top," on account of the uproar they heard and the time we had been away. We got into the canoe and took her round the little promontory at the end of the island to the other beach, which is the main beach. By arriving at the beach when


text:
Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/466

 *Glaze, first use, 8, 10, 176, 308; Chinese, 19–21, 418; of Raku ware, 34; of Hizen porcelain, 70; of coloured Satsuma faience, 137, 169; of Same ware, 153; of Kyōmizu ware, 212; Zengoro's use, 220; of Kutani ware, 237, 244; of revived Kutani ware, 251; of early Seto ware, 265, 271; of later Seto ware, 273; of Oribe ware, 275; polychrome or flambé, of Owari and Mino, 279, 302; of Takatori ware, 315; of Rakuzan ware, 336; Kajū Mimpei's use, 351; of Oniwa ware, 375; Miyagawa's use, 418.
 * Gobosatsu. See Mizoro.
 * Gojō factory. See Kyōmizu ware.
 * Gokei, Seifū, potter, 226.
 * Gombei of Karatsu, potter, 312.
 * Gombei Shigiyoshi, potter, 336.
 * Gonse, Louis, error as to Chinese influence on Japanese art, 18.
 * Gorodayu Goshonzui, potter, Chinese instruction, 21; kiln at Arita, 22, 28, 42; his porcelain ware, 22–24, 41; imitations of his ware, 24; lack of contemporary influence, 26–29.
 * Goroemon Kagetoyo, potter, 301.
 * Goroemon, Mori, potter, 333.
 * Gosuke, potter, 304.
 * Goto Saijiro, Kaga potter, learns secrets of Arita porcelain, 237; manufactures porcelain at Kutani, 237.
 * Gowland, W., on dolmen pottery, 2.
 * Gozaemon. See Numanami.
 * Grains-of-rice decoration, 419.
 * Gusai, Rokubei, potter, 211.
 * Gyōgi, priest, ancestry, 8; interest in people's welfare, 9; and the potter's wheel, 9; fame as a keramist, 9.
 * Gyōgi Bosatsu, traditional potter, 333.
 * Gyokusai. See Yahei (Tanaka).
 *
 * , potter, 246.
 * Hachirobei, Moto-ishi, potter, 108.
 * Hachiroemon, Chikuzen potters of two generations, 316.
 * Hachiroemon, Iida. See Iida.
 * Hachizo, Korean potter in Chikuzen, 313; descendants, 316.
 * Hafu-gama ware, 272.
 * Hagi ware, 343–345.
 * Haji family, potters, 255.
 * Hakuan, potter, 274.
 * Haku-yaku-de ware, 301.
 * Hara Yosobei, potter, 258.
 * Harima province, Himeji porcelain, 372; Maiko ware, 373; Akashi wares, 373, 374.
 * Haritsu, potter, his Raku faience, 386; modelled ware, 387.
 * Harunori, Tokugawa, chief of Kishiu, patron of Zengoro, 220, 375; private kiln, 374.
 * Harutaka, Fuji, potter, 117.
 * Haruzane, Higuchi, potter, 417; his "grains-of-rice" porcelain, 419.
 * Hase. See Miyagawa Kōzan.
 * Hasegawa family, potters, 202.
 * Hashimoto Hachibei, potter, 254.
 * Hattori Tsuna. See Kōren.
 * Havard, Henry, on Keizer's imitation of Japanese porcelain, 85.
 * Hawthorn pattern, 78.
 * Hayakawa Kabei, potter, 318.
 * Hayashi family, potters, 115, 117.
 * Heibei, Funaki, potter, 338.
 * Heibei, Higuchi, potter, 118.
 * Heiemon, Hirata, potter, 326.
 * Heii, Boku. See Boku.
 * Hei-ichiro, Kimura, potter, 333.
 * Heishichi, Moto-ishi, potter, 109.
 * Heisuke, potter, 246.
 * Heizo, Iwamatsu, potter, 114.
 * Hi-dasuki Bizen ware, 331.
 * Hideyoshi, the Taikō, as a patron of keramics, 29–31.
 * Higashijima Tokuemon, potter, develops decoration with enamels, 61, 112.


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/285

 we did, we took our Fan friends in the rear, and they did not see us coming in the gloaming. This was all for the best it seems, as they said they should have fired on us before they had had time to see we were rank outsiders, on the apprehension that we were coming from one of the Fan towns we had passed, and with whom they were on bad terms regarding a lady who bolted there from her lawful lord, taking with her—cautious soul!—a quantity of rubber. The only white man who had been here before in the memory of man, was a French officer who paid Kiva six dollars to take him somewhere, I was told—but I could not find out when, or what happened to that Frenchman. It was a long time ago, Kiva said, but these folks have no definite way of expressing duration of time nor, do I believe, any great mental idea of it; although their ideas are, as usual with West Africans, far ahead of their language.

All the goods were brought up to my hut, and while Ngouta gets my tea we started talking the carrier palaver again. The Fans received my offer, starting at two dollars ahead of what M. Jacot said would be enough, with utter scorn, and every dramatic gesture of dissent; one man, pretending to catch Gray Shirt's words in his hands, flings them to the ground and stamps them under his feet. I affected an easy take-it-or-leave-it-manner, and looked on. A woman came out of the crowd to me, and held out a mass of slimy gray abomination on a bit of plantain leaf—smashed snail. I accepted it and gave her fish hooks. She was delighted and her companions excited, so she put them into her mouth for safe keeping. I hurriedly explained in my best Fan that I do not require any more snail; so another lady tried the effect of a pine-apple. There might be no end to this, so I retired into trade and asked what she would sell it for. She did not want to sell it—she wanted to give it me; so I gave her fish hooks. Silence and Singlet interposed,


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/286

 saying the price for pine-apples is one leaf of tobacco, but I explained I was not buying. Ngouta turned up with my tea, so I went inside, and had it on the bed. The door-hole was entirely filled with a mosaic of faces, but no one attempted to come in. All the time the carrier palaver went on without cessation, and I went out and offered to take Gray Shirt's and Pagan's place, knowing they must want their chop, but they refused relief, and also said I must not raise the price; I was offering too big a price now, and if I once rise the Fan will only think I will keep on rising, and so make the palaver longer to talk. "How long does a palaver usually take to talk round here?" I ask. "The last one I talked," says Pagan, "took three weeks, and that was only a small price palaver." "Well," say I, "my price is for a start to-morrow—after then I have no price—after that I go away." Another hour however sees the jam made, and to my surprise I find the three richest men in this town of M'fetta have personally taken up the contract—Kiva my host, Fika a fine young fellow, and Wiki, another noted elephant hunter. These three Fans, the four Ajumba and the Igalwa, Ngouta, I think will be enough. Moreover I fancy it safer not to have an overpowering percentage of Fans in the party, as I know we shall have considerable stretches of uninhabited forest to traverse; and the Ajumba say that the Fans will kill people, i.e., the black traders who venture into their country, and cut them up into neat pieces, eat what they want at the time, and smoke the rest of the bodies for future use. Now I do not want to arrive at the Rembwé in a smoked condition, even should my fragments be neat, and I am going in a different direction to what I said I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are so many ways of accounting for death about here—leopard, canoe capsize, elephants, &c.—that even if I were traced—well, nothing could be done then, anyhow—so will only take three Fans. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of sporting chances along here, or one can never get on.

No one, either Ajumba or Fan, knew the exact course we were to take. The Ajumba had never been this way before—the way for black traders across being viâ Lake Ayzingo, the way Mr. Goode of the American Mission once went, and the


text:
Page:Tales from Shakespeare - Lamb C and M, Rackham A (1908).djvu/286

two chief families in Verona were the rich Capulets and the Montagues. There had been an old quarrel between these families, which was grown to such a height, and so deadly was the enmity between them, that it extended to the remotest kindred, to the followers and retainers of both sides, insomuch that a servant of the house of Montague could not meet a servant of the house of Capulet, nor a Capulet encounter with a Montague by chance, but fierce words and sometimes bloodshed ensued; and frequent were the brawls from such accidental meetings, which disturbed the happy quiet of Verona's streets.

Old lord Capulet made a great supper, to which many fair ladies and many noble guests were invited. All the admired beauties of Verona were present, and all comers were made welcome if they were not of the house of Montague. At this feast of Capulets, Rosaline, beloved of Romeo, son to the old lord Montague, was present; and though it was dangerous for a Montague to be seen in this assembly, yet Benvolio, a friend of Romeo, persuaded the young lord to go to this assembly in the disguise of a mask, that he might see his Rosaline, and seeing her, compare her with some choice beauties of Verona, who (he said) would make him think his swan a crow. Romeo had small faith in Benvolio's words; nevertheless, for the love of Rosaline, he was persuaded to go. For Romeo was a sincere and passionate lover, and one


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/287

 Fans said they only knew the way to a big Fan town called Efoua, where no white man or black trader had yet been. There is a path from there to the Rembwé they knew, because the Efoua people take their trade all to the Rembwé. They would, they said, come with me all the way if I would guarantee them safety if they "found war" on the road. This I agreed to do, and arranged to pay off at Hatton and Cookson's sub-factory on the Rembwé, and they have "Look my mouth and it be sweet, so palaver done set." Every load then, by the light of the bush lights held by the women, we arranged, I had to unpack my bottles of fishes so as to equalise the weight of the loads. Every load is then made into a sort of cocoon with bush rope.

I was left in peace at about 11.30 ., and clearing off the clothes from the bench threw myself down and tried to get some sleep, for we were to start, the Fans said, before dawn. Sleep impossible—mosquitoes! lice!!—so at 12.40 I got up and slid aside my bark door. I found Pagan asleep under his mosquito bar outside, across the doorway, but managed to get past him without rousing him from his dreams of palaver which he was still talking aloud, and reconnoitred the town. The inhabitants seemed to have talked themselves quite out and were sleeping heavily. I went down then to our canoe and found it safe, high up among the Fan canoes on the stones, and then I slid a small Fan canoe off, and taking a paddle from a cluster stuck in the sand, paddled out on to the dark lake.

It was a wonderfully lovely quiet night with no light save that om the stars. One immense planet shone pre-eminent in the purple sky, throwing a golden path down on to the still waters. Quantities of big fish sprung out of the water, their glistening silver-white scales flashing so that they look like slashing swords. Some bird was making a long, low boom-booming sound away on the forest shore. I paddled leisurely across the lake to the shore on the right, and seeing crawling on the ground some large glow-worms, drove the canoe on to the bank among some hippo grass, and got out to get them.

While engaged on this hunt I felt the earth quiver under my feet, and heard a soft big soughing sound, and looking round saw I had dropped in on a hippo banquet. I made


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/288

 out five of the immense brutes round me, so I softly returned to the canoe and shoved off, stealing along the bank, paddling under water, until I deemed it safe to run out across the lake for my island. I reached the other end of it to that on which the village is situated; and finding a miniature rocky bay with a soft patch of sand and no hippo grass, the incidents of the Fan hut suggested the advisability of a bath. Moreover, there was no china collection in that hut, and it would be a long time before I got another chance, so I go ashore again, and, carefully investigating the neighbourhood to make certain there was no human habitation near, I then indulged in a wash in peace. Drying one's self on one's cummerbund is not pure joy, but it can be done when you put your mind to it. While I was finishing my toilet I saw a strange thing happen. Down through the forest on the lake bank opposite came a violet ball the size of a small orange. When it reached the sand beach it hovered along it to and fro close to the ground. In a few minutes another ball of similarly coloured light came towards it from behind one of the islets, and the two waver to and fro over the beach, sometimes circling round each other. I made off towards them in the canoe, thinking—as I still do—they were some brand new kind of luminous insect. When I got on to their beach one of them went off into the bushes and the other away over the water. I followed in the canoe, for the water here is very deep, and, when I almost thought I had got it, it went down into the water and I could see it glowing as it sunk until it vanished in the depths. I made my way back hastily, fearing my absence with the canoe might give rise, if discovered, to trouble, and by 3.30 I was back in the hut safe, but not so comfortable as I had been on the lake. A little before five my men are stirring and I get my tea. I do not state my escapade to them, but ask what those lights were. "Akom," said the Fan, and pointing to the shore of the lake where I had been during the night they said, "they came there, it was an 'Aku—or devil bush. More than ever did I regret not having secured one of those sort of two phenomena. What a joy a real devil, appropriately put up in raw alcohol, would have been to my scientific friends!

Wednesday, July 24th.—We get away about 5.30, the Fans


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/289

 coming in a separate canoe. We call at the next island to M'fetta to buy some more aguma. The inhabitants are very interested in my appearance, running along the stony beach as we paddle away, and standing at the end of it until we are out of sight among the many islands at the N.E. end of Lake Ncovi. The scenery is savage; there are no terrific cliffs nor towering mountains to make it what one usually calls wild or romantic, but there is a distinction about it which is all its own. This N.E. end has beautiful sand. beaches on the southern side, in front of the forested bank, lying in smooth ribbons along the level shore, and in scollops round the promontories where the hills come down into the lake. The forest on these hills, or mountains—for they are part of the Sierra del Cristal—is very dark in colour, and the undergrowth seems scant. We presently come to a narrow but deep channel into the lake coming from the eastward, which we go up, winding our course with it into a valley between the hills. After going up it a little way we find it completely fenced across with stout stakes, a space being left open in the middle, broader than the spaces between the other stakes; and over this is poised a spear with a bush rope attached, and weighted at the top of the haft with a great lump of rock. The whole affair is kept in position by a bush rope so arranged just under the level of the water that anything passing through the opening would bring the spear down. This was a trap for hippo or manatee, and similar in structure to those one sees set in the hippo grass near villages and plantations, which serve the double purpose of defending the vegetable supply, and adding to the meat supply of the inhabitants. We squeeze through between the stakes so as not to let the trap off, and find our little river leads us into another lake, much smaller than Ncovi. It is studded with islands of fantastic shapes, all wooded with high trees of an equal level, and with little or no undergrowth among them, so their pale gray stems look like clusters of columns supporting a dark green ceiling. The forest comes down steep hill sides to the water edge in all directions; and a dark gloomy-looking herb grows up out of black slime and water, in a bank or ribbon in front of it. There is another channel out of this


text: One of a Thousand/Avery, Winslow W.

title: One of a Thousand/Avery, Winslow W.


text: One of a Thousand/Babbitt, Nathan S.

title: One of a Thousand/Babbitt, Nathan S.


text: One of a Thousand/Babcock, James Francis


text: One of a Thousand/Babson, Fitz James

title: One of a Thousand/Babson, Fitz James


text:
Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/201

Rh like Shachi with the great Indra, or Sri with Krishna himself. And then, O best of monarchs, the son of Kunti, Arjuna, with Vasudeva, gratified Agni—the carrier of the sacrificial butter, in the forest of Khandava (by burning the medicinal plants in that wood to cure Agni of his indigestion.) And to Arjuna, assisted as he was by Keshava, the task did not at all appear as heavy, even as nothing is heavy to Vishnu with the help of means in the matter of destroying his enemies. And Agni gave unto the son of Pritha the excellent bow Gandiva, and a quiver inexhaustible and a war-chariot marked by the sign of the monkey. And it was on this occasion that Arjuna relieved the great Asura (Maya) from fear (of being consumed in the fire.) And Maya, in gratitude, built (for the Pandavas) a celestial court decked with every sort of jewels and precious stones. And the wicked Duryodhana, beholding that building, was tempted with the desire of possessing it; and deceiving Yudhish-thira by means of the dice played through the hands of the son of Suvala (Duryodhana's maternal uncle and chief adviser,) sent the Pandavas into the woods for twelve years and one additional year to be passed in concealment thus making the period full thirteen.

"And on the fourteenth year, O monarch, when the Pandavas returned and claimed their own property, they did not obtain it. And thereupon war was declared. And the Pandavas exterminating the whole race of Kshetrias and slaying king Duryodhana obtained back their ruined kingdom.

"This is the history of the Pandavas who never acted under the influence of evil passions; and this the account, O first of victorious monarchs, of the disunion that ended in the loss of their kingdom by the Kurus and the victory of the Pandavas."

And so ends the sixty-first Section in the Adivansavatarana of the Adi Parva.


text:
Portal:The Platt & Munk Co.

Published

 * Dapples of the Circus (1923) by Clarence Hawkes

title: Portal:The Platt & Munk Co.


text:
Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/119

 Rh sentences only from this extremely interesting and important speech—which the printers assert led to the imprisonment of all the chief officers of the union:

One may exhibit a sitting of the Moscow Soviet, consisting exclusively of Communists; one may show a sitting of the Russian Central Board of Trade Unions, consisting exclusively of Communists, but one cannot show a single free workmen's meeting that will have a Communist majority.

Here are thousands of Moscow printers, behind whom stand scores of thousands of Moscow and other Russian workmen who, at the epoch of the Russian Revolution, under a government that calls itself a workmen's government—a government realising its socialistic programme, a government calling Socialism to life, a government annihilating the parasitic classes—those thousands of Moscow printers, I say, and behind them scores and hundreds of thousands of Russian workmen, have all of them under this government no right to vote, no right to assemble, no right to print. As in the time of the Czar's government, the printers are forced to print, not their own thoughts, but calumnies against themselves.

Communists sometimes use menaces of arrests against the workers to oblige them to leave their posts in the board of the Union voluntarily, and in practice this often happens. Sometimes they do it otherwise; they say that if a Communist is not elected to the Board or Factory Workers' Committee, they, the Communists, will arrange things so that their workers will receive less food and other necessary things. And sometimes this produces its effect. This affirmation can be verified in a series of factories in Moscow.

When such means have no result, the Communists let the local Soviets or the Central Council of Trade Unions dissolve the Board of the Trade Unions; such was the case with the first Central Board of the Printers' Union.


text:
Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/202

 ( Adivansavatarana Parva continued. )

Janamejaya said, "O excellent of Brahmanas, thou hast, indeed, told me, in abstract, the history, called Mahabharata, of the great acts of the Kurus. But, O thou of ascetic wealth, recite now that wonderful narration very fully. I feel a great curiosity to hear it. I behoveth thee to recite it therefore in full. I am not satisfied with hearing in the abstract the great history. That could never have been a trifling cause for which the virtuous ones could slay those they should not have slain, and for which they are yet applauded by men. Why also those tigers among men, perfectly innocent and quite capable of avenging themselves upon their enemies, calmly suffered the persecutions of the wicked Kurus? And why also, O best of Brahmanas, Bhima of mighty arm and having the strength of ten thousand elephants controlled his anger event though wronged? Why also the chaste Krishnā—the daughter of Drupada, wronged by those wretches, and able to burn them, did not burn the sons of Dhrita-rashtra by her wrathful eyes? Why also did the two other sons of Pritha (Bhima and Arjuna) and the two sons of Madri (Nakula and Sahadeva,) themselves injured by the wretched Kurus, follow Yudhishthira inveterately addicted to the evil habit of gaming? Why also did Yudhish-thira, the foremost of all virtuous men, the son of Dharma himself, and fully acquainted with all duties, suffer that excess of affliction? Why also did the Pandava Dhananjaya having Krishna for his charioteer, who by his arrows sent to the other world that dauntless host of fighting men, (suffer such persecution?) O thou of ascetic wealth, tell me all these as every thing happened, and every thing that those mighty charioteers achieved!"

Vaisampayana said, "O monarch, appoint thou a time for hearing it. This history spoken by Krishna-Dwaipayana is very extensive. This is but the beginning. I will recite it. I will repeat the whole of the composition in full, of the illustrious and great Rishi Vyasa of immeasurable mental power and


text:
Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/203

Rh worshipped in all the worlds. This Bharata consists of an hundred thousand sacred slokas composed by the son of Satyavati of immeasurable mental powers. He that shall read it to others, or they who shall hear it read, shall attain to the world of Brahma and be equal to the very gods. This Bharata is equal unto the Vedas, is holy and excellent; is the worthiest of all to be listened to, and is a Purana worshipped by the Rishis. It containeth much useful instruction on Artha and Kama (profit and pleasure.) This sacred history maketh the heart desire for salvation. Learned persons by reciting this Veda of Krishna-Dwaipayana to those that are noble and liberal, truthful and believing, earn much wealth. Sins such as killing the embryo in the womb are destroyed assuredly by this. A person, however cruel and sinful, by hearing this history, escapes from all his sins like the Sun from Rahu (after the eclipse is over.) This history is called Jaya. It should be heard by those desirous of victory. A king by hearing it may bring the whole world under subjection and conquer all his foes. This history of itself is a mighty act of propitiousness, a mighty sacrifice, to give blessed fruit. It should ever be heard by a young monarch with his queen, for then they may have a heroic son or a daughter who shall be the heiress to a kingdom. This history is the sacred Dharma-shastra; this too is the great Artha-shastra; and this also is the Moksha-shastra: it hath been so said by Vyasa himself of mind that is immeasurable. This history is recited in the present age and will be so recited in the future. They that hear it have sons and servants always obedient to them and doing their behests. All sins that are committed either by body, word, or mind, immediately leave him who hath heard this history. They who hear, without a spirit of fault-finding, the story of the birth of the Bharata princes, have no fear of maladies, let alone the fear of the other world.

"For extending the fame of the high-souled Pandavas and of other Kshatrias versed in all branches of knowledge, high-spirited, and already known in the world for their achievements, Krishna-Dwaipayana, guided also by the desire of benefitting the world, hath composed this work that is excel-


text:
Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/204

170 lent, bestowing fame, granting length of life, sacred, and heavenly. He who, from desire of acquiring religious merit, causeth this history to be heard by sacred Brahmanas, doth acquire great merit and virtue that is inexhaustible. He that reciteth the famous generation of the Kurus becometh immediately purified, and acquireth a large family himself, and is respected in the world. That Brahmana who regularly studies this sacred Bharata for the four months of the rainy season, is cleared of all his sins. He that hath read the Bharata may be regarded as one acquainted with the Vedas.

"In this have been described the gods, the royal sages, the holy Brahmarshis; the sinless Keshava; the god of gods Mahadeva and the goddess Parvati; the birth of Kartikeya (the generalissimo of the celestials) sprung from and reared by many others; and the greatness of Brahmanas and of kine. This Bharata is a collection of all the Srutis, and is fit to be heard by every virtuous person. That learned man who reciteth it to Brahmanas during the sacred lunation, becometh purified of his sins, and not caring for the heavens as it were, attaineth to a union with Brahma. He that causeth even a single foot of this poem to be heard by Brahmanas during the performance of a Shraddha, that Shraddha becometh inexhaustible, the Pitris becoming ever gratified with the articles once presented to them. The sins that are committed daily by our senses or the mind, those that are committed knowingly or unknowingly by any man, are all destroyed by hearing the Mahabharata. This history of the exalted birth of the Bharata princes is called the Mahabharata. He who knoweth this etymology itself of the name is cleared of all his sins. And because this history of the Bharata race is so wonderful, therefore, when recited, it assuredly purifieth mortals from all sins. The Muni Krishna-Dwaipayana attained his object in three years. Rising daily and purifying himself and performing his ascetic devotions, he composed this Mahabharata. Therefore should this be heard by Brahmanas with the formality of a vow. He who reciteth this holy narration composed by Krishna (Vyasa) for the hearing of others, and they who hear it, in whatever state they may be, can never be


text:
Page:Zora Neale Hurston - Lawing and Jawing.pdf/3

 JUDGE Seventeen years?

(to woman) You been tekin! keer of dis man for seventeen years?

WOMAN Naw, but he been so mean to me, it seems lak seventeen years.

JUDGE Now you tell me just where he hurt you.

WOMAN Judge, tell you de truth, I'm hurt all over. {Rubs her buttocks) Fact is I'm cut.

JUDGE Bid you git cut in de fracas?

WOMAN

(Feeling the back of her

left thigh below her

buttocks) Not in de fracas, Judge - just below it.

(She starts to show the

JUDGE where she has been

cut. He motions to stop her.)

JUDGE Stop! (to Officer Simpson) Grab him. Put him in de shade.

CLIFF Judge, I'm unguilty! I ain't laid de weight of my hand on her in malice. You got me 'cused of murder and I ain't harmed a child.

JUDGE Lemme ast you something. Didn't you know dat all de women in dis town belongs to me? Beat my women and I'll stuff you in jail. 90 years. Take ‘im away.

(CLIFF is led off to jail. JUDGE looks angrily at the boy who is holding hands with the pretty girl). You runs me hot and I'm just dyin' to sit gn yo ' case. Whut you in here for? :

BOY Nothin’.

JUDGE Well, whut you dobn' in my court, you gater-faced rascal?


text:
Page:Zora Neale Hurston - Lawing and Jawing.pdf/4

 4.

BOY My girl wanted to see whut was goin' on, so I brought her in.

JUDGE Oh yeah! (Smiles at GIRL) She was usin' good sense to come see whut I'm doin', but how come you come in here? You gointer have a hard time gittin' out.

BOY I ain't done a thing. I ain't never done nothin'. I'm just as clean as a fish, and he been in bathin' all his life.

JUDGE You ain't done nothin', hunh? Well den youse guilty of vacancy. Grab 'im, Simpson, and search tim - and if he got any concealed weapons, I'm gointer give ‘im life- time and eight years mof,

(The OFFICER seizes the

boy and frisks him,

All he finds is a new

deck of cards. Thé JUDGE

looks at them in triumph.) Unh hunh! I knowed it, one of dese skin game jelly-beans. Robbin! hard workin' men out they money.

BOY Judge, I ain't used 'em at all. See, dey's brand new.

JUDGE d

Well, den youse charged wid totin' concealed cards and attempt to gamble. Ten years at hard labor. Put him in de dark, “impson, and throw de key away.

(He looks at the girl and

beams.) Don't you worry bout how you gointer git home. You gointer be took home right, ‘cause I'm gointer take you myself. Brirg on de next one, @lerk.

CLERK Jemima Flap-Cakes, charged with illegal possession and sale of alcoholic liquors.

JUDGE

(She is a fat, back, belli-

gerent looking woman.

JUDGE looks coldly at her.) Well, you heard whut he said. Is you guilty or unguilty? And I'm tellin' you right now dat when you come up befo! me it's just like youse in church. You better have a Btrong determination, and you better tell a good experience.


text:
Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/166

156 for the things he admired. He did not apparently care to hear himself praised, but he could very accurately and perfectly mark his discernment of excellence in others. He was at times a keen observer of nature, and again not, apparently. Something was said before him and Lowell of the beauty of his description of a rabbit, startled with fear among the ferns, and lifting its head with the pulsation of its frightened heart visibly shaking it; then the talk turned on the graphic homeliness of Dante's noticing how the dog's skin moves upon it, and Harte spoke of the exquisite shudder with which a horse tries to rid itself of a fly. But once again, when an azalea was shown him as the sort of bush that Sandy fell into a drunken sleep under in "The Idyl of Red Gulch," he only ingenuously asked, "Why, is that an azalea?" To be sure, this might have been less from his ignorance or indifference concerning the quality of the bush he had sent Sandy to sleep under than from his willingness to make a mock of an azalea in a very small pot, so disproportionate to those uses which an azalea of Californian size could easily lend itself to.

You never could be sure of Harte; he could only by chance be caught in earnest about anything or anybody. Except for those slight recognitions of literary traits in his talk with Lowell, nothing remained from his conversation but the general criticism he passed upon his brilliant fellow-Hebrew Heine, as "rather scorbutic." He preferred to talk about the little matters of common incident and experience. He amused himself with such things as the mystification of the postman of whom he asked his way to Phillips Avenue, where he adventurously supposed his host to be living. "Why," the postman said, "there is no Phillips Avenue in Cambridge. There's Phillips Place." "Well," Harte assented, "Phillips Place will do; but there is a Phillips Avenue." He entered eagerly into the canvass of the distinctions and celebrities asked to meet him at the reception made for him, but he had even a greater pleasure in compassionating his host for the vast disparity bet ween the caterer's china and plated ware and the simplicities and humilities of the home of virtuous poverty; and he spluttered with delight at the sight of the lofty epergnes set up and down the supper table when he was brought in to note the preparations made in his honor. Those monumental structures were an inexhaustible joy to him; he walked round and about the room, and viewed them in different perspectives, so as to get the full effect of the towering forms that dwarfed it so.

He was a tease, as every sweet and fine wit is apt to be, but his teasing was of the quality of a caress, so much kindness went with it. He lamented as an irreparable loss his having missed seeing that night an absent-minded brother in literature, who came in rubber shoes, and forgetfully wore them throughout the evening. That hospitable soul of Ralph Keeler, who had known him in California, but had trembled for their acquaintance when he read of all the honors that might well have spoiled Harte for the friends of his simpler days, rejoiced in the unchanged cordiality of his nature when they met, and presently gave him one of those restaurant lunches in Boston, which he was always sumptuously providing out of his destitution. Harte was the life of a time which was perhaps less a feast of reason than a flow of soul. The truth is, there was nothing but careless stories, carelessly told, and jokes and laughing, and a great deal of mere laughing without the jokes, the whole as unlike the ideal of a literary symposium as well might be; but there was present one who met with that pleasant Boston company for the first time, and to whom Harte attributed a superstition of Boston seriousness not realized then and there. "Look at him," he said, from time to time. "This is the dream of his life," and then shouted and choked with fun at the difference between the occasion and the expectation he would have had imagined in his commensal's mind. At a dinner long after in London, where several of the commensals of that time met again, with other literary friends of a like age and stature, Harte laid his arms well along their shoulders as they formed in a half-circle before him, and screamed out in mocking mirth for all comment on the bulbous favor to which the slim shapes of the earlier date had come. The sight was not less a rapture to him that he


text:
Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/165

Rh

Cambridge began very promptly to show him these hospitalities which he could value, and continued the fable of his fairy princeliness in the curiosity of those humbler admirers who could not hope to be his hosts or fellow guests at dinner or luncheon. Pretty presences in the tie-backs of the period were seen to flit before the home of virtuous poverty, hungering for any chance sight of him which his outgoings or incomings might give. The chances were better with the outgoings than with the incomings, for these were apt to be so hurried, in the final result of his constitutional delays, as to have the rapidity of the homing pigeon's flight, and to afford hardly a glimpse to the quickest eye. It cannot harm him, or any one now, to own that Harte was nearly always late for those luncheons and dinners which he was always going out to, and it needed the anxieties and energies of both families to get him into his clothes, and then into the carriage where a good deal of final buttoning must have been done, in order that he might not arrive so very late. He was the only one concerned who was quite unconcerned; his patience with his delays was inexhaustible; he arrived smiling, serenely jovial, radiating a bland gayety from his whole person, and ready to ignore any discomfort he might have occasioned.

Of course people were glad to have him on his own terms, and it may be said that it was worth while to have him on any terms. There never was a more charming companion, an easier or more delightful guest. It was not from what he said, for he was not much of a talker, and almost nothing of a story-teller; but he could now and then drop the fittest word, and with, a glance or smile of friendly intelligence express the appreciation of another's fit word which goes far to establish for a man the character of boon humorist. It must be said of him that if he took the honors easily that were paid him he took them modestly, and never by word or look invited" them, or implied that he expected them. It was fine to see him humorously accepting the humorous attribution of scientific sympathies from Agnssiz, in compliment of his famous epic describing the incidents that "broke up the society upon the Stanislow." It was a little fearsome to hear him frankly owning to Lowell his dislike for something overliterary in the phrasing of certain verses of "The Cathedral." But Lowell could stand that sort of thing from a man who could say the sort of things that Harte said to him of that delicious line picturing the bobolink as he—

That, Harte told him, was the line he liked best of all his lines, and Lowell smoked well content with the praise. Yet they were not men to get on well together, Lowell having limitations in directions where Harte had none. Afterwards in London they did not meet often or willingly. Lowell owned the brilliancy and uncommonness of Harte's gift, while he sumptuously satisfied his passion of finding everybody more or less a Jew in finding that Harte was at least half a Jew on his father's side; he had long contended for the Hebraicism of the name.

With all his appreciation of the literary eminencies whom Fields used to class together as "the old saints," Harte had a spice of irreverence that enabled him to take them more ironically than they might have liked, and to see the fun of a minor literary man's relation to them. Emerson's smoking amused him, as a Jovian self-indulgence divinely out of character with so supreme a god, and he shamelessly burlesqued it, telling how Emerson at Concord proposed having a "wet night" with him over a glass of sherry, and urged the wine upon his young friend with a hospitable gesture of his cigar. But this was long after the Cambridge episode, in which Longfellow alone escaped the corrosive toucli of his subtle irreverence, or, more strictly speaking, had only the effect of his reverence. That gentle and exquisitely modest dignity of Longfellow's he honored with as much veneration as it was in him to bestow, and he had that sense of Longfellow's beautiful and perfected art wlnV'h is almost a test of a critic's own fineness.

As for Harte's talk, it was mostly ironical, not to the extreme of satire, but tempered to an agreeable coolness even


text:
Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/205

Rh affected by the fruit of their deeds good or bad. The man desirous of acquiring virtue should hear it all. This is equivalent to all histories, and he that heareth it always attaineth to purity of heart. The gratification that one deriveth on attaining to heaven is scarcely equal to that which one deriveth on hearing this holy history. The virtuous man who will reverence heareth it or causeth it to be heard, obtaineth the fruit of the Rajasuya and the horse sacrifice. This Bharata is said to be as much a mine of gems as the illustrious Ocean or the great mountain Meru. This history is sacred and excellent, and is equivelant to the Vedas; worthy of being heard, pleasing to the ear, purifying, and virtue-increasing. O monarch, he that giveth a copy of the Bharata to one that asketh for it, doth, indeed, make a present of the whole Earth with her belt of seas. O son of Parikshita, this pleasant narration that giveth virtue and victory, I am about to recite in its entirety. Listen to it! The Muni Krishna-Dwaipayana regularly rising for three years composed this wonderful history called the Mahabharata. O thou bull amongst the Bharata monarchs, whatever about religion, profit, pleasure, and salvation is contained in this, may be seen elsewhere; but whatever is not contained herein is not to be found anywhere.

And thus endeth the sixty-second Section in the Adivansavatarana of the Adi Parva.

( Adivansavatarana Parva continued. )

Vaisampayana said, "There was a king of name Uparichara. And the monarch was devoted to virtue. And he was very much addicted also to hunting. And this monarch of the Paurava race, called also Vasu, conquered the excellent and delightful kingdom of Chedi under instructions from Indra. Sometime after, the king gave up the use of arms, and dwelling in a recluse asylum practised the most severe austerities. And the gods with Indra ahead once approached the monarch during this period, believing that he sought the headship of the gods by those severe austerities of his. And the


text: Index:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf

title: Index:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf


text:
Index:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/styles.css

.chapter { text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.5em; }

.chapter.num { text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 120%; margin-bottom: 1.5em; }

.chapter.title { font-variant: all-small-caps; }

.half { text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 120%; }

.title-header { text-align: center; font-size: 144%; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-transform: uppercase; }

.wst-block-center { max-width: 25em; }

.wst-toc-table { font-variant: small-caps; max-width: 25em; font-size: 92%; }


text:
Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/164

154 but with pride such as the Europeans, who adored him much longer, could never know in him.

When the adventurous young editor who had proposed being his host for Boston, while Harte was still in San Francisco, and had not yet begun his princely progress Eastward, read of the honors that attended his coming from point to point, his courage fell, as if he had perhaps committed himself in too great an enterprise. Who was he, indeed, that he should think of making this

his guest, especially when he heard that in Chicago Harte failed of attending a banquet of honor because the givers of it had not sent a carriage to fetch him to it, as the alleged use was in San Francisco? Whether true or not, and it was probably not true in just that form, it must have been this rumor which determined his host to drive into Boston for him with the handsomest hack which the livery of Cambridge afforded, and not trust to the horse-car and the express to get him and his baggage out, as he would have done with a less portentous guest. However it was, he instantly lost all fear when they met at the station, and Harte pressed forward with his cordial hand-clasp, as if he were not even a fairy prince, and with that voice and laugh which were surely the most winning in the world. He was then, as always, a child of extreme fashion as to his clothes and the cut of his beard, which he wore in a mustache and the drooping side whiskers of the day, and his jovial physiognomy was as winning as his voice, with its straight nose, and fascinating forward thrust of the under lip, its fine eyes, and good forehead, then thickly crowned with the black hair which grew early white, while his mustache remained dark: the most enviable and consoling effect possible in the universal mortal necessity of either aging or dying. He was, as one could not help seeing, thickly pitted, but after the first glance one forgot this, so that a lady who met him for the first time could say to him, "Mr. Harte, aren't you afraid to go about in the cars so recklessly when there is this scare about smallpox?" No, madam," he said, in that rich note of his, with an irony touched by pseudo-pathos, "I bear a charmèd life."

The drive out from Boston was not too long for getting on terms of personal friendship with the family which just filled the hack, the two boys intensely interested in the novelties of a New England city and suburb, and the father and mother continually exchanging admiration of such aspects of nature as presented themselves in the leafless sidewalk trees, and patches of park and lawn. They found everything so fine, so refined, after the gigantic coarseness of California, where the natural forms were so vast that one could not get on companionable terms with them. Their host heard them with misgiving for the world of romance which Harte had built up among those huge forms, and with a subtle perception that this was no excursion of theirs to the East, but a lifelong exodus from the exile which he presently understood they must always have felt California to be. It is different now, when people are every day being born in California, and must begin to feel it home from the first breath, but it is notable that none of the Californians of that great early day have gone back to live amidst the scenes which inspired and prospered them.

Before they came in sight of the editor's humble roof he had mocked himself to his guest for his trepidations, and Harte with burlesque magnanimity had consented to be for that occasion only something less formidable than he had loomed afar. He accepted with joy the theory of passing a week in the home of virtuous poverty, and the week began as delightfully as it went on. From first to last Cambridge amused him as much as it charmed him by that air of academic distinction which was stranger to him even than the refined trees and grass. It has already been told how, after a list of the local celebrities had been recited to him, he said, "Why, you couldn't stand on your front porch and fire off your revolver without bringing down a two-volumer," and no doubt the pleasure he had in it was the effect of its contrast with the wild California he had known, and perhaps, when he had not altogether known it, had invented.


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/1

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/1


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/2

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/2


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/3

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/3


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/4

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/4


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/5

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/5


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/6

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/6


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/7

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/7


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/8

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/8


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/9

title: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/9


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/10


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/11


text: Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/12


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/13

HE home of the Shetland pony is the Shetland Islands, a group of about a hundred sea-girt, wind swept islands, situated in the North Sea about fifty miles northeast of the north of Scotland. These lonely islands together with the Orkneys, which are much nearer the mainland, form one of the shires, or counties, of Scotland.

These islands were inhabited many centuries ago by those little dark people called the Picts. Much has been written about them, but they have so many legends and myths surrounding them, that they belong partly to fairy-land, although they were a real people who flourished many centuries ago on these strange islands. But finally the Norsemen, who were much larger and stronger, came to the islands


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/14

 and drove out the Picts. The islands were also settled by the Scots, so that to-day the real Shetlander is a mixture of Pict, Norse, and Scotch.

These people are a very simple folk, who follow the sea from June until September, the herring fisheries of the islands being the most important industry.

The main island of Shetland is about fifty miles in length, but it is so indented with voes, or bays, and so irregular that nowhere is the inland farm more than three miles from the sea.

This island of Shetland is the largest of the one hundred islands that form the Shetland group. Its seacoast is as wild and weird as nature could well make it. The winds and the waves have been hammering away at the coast-line for untold ages, and their workmanship is very wonderful. Thus it is that one sees caves and grottoes along the coast. Great pillars of solid rock, called drongs, stand far out at sea, rearing their heads like the giants of


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/15

 old. Natural gates of solid rock often guard the narrow waterways that lead to some voe where a native town is located.

The country also abounds with strange tales of the Picts and the old Vikings, of the haunts of fairies and witches, so it is altogether an eerie place.

Twenty-seven of the islands of this group are inhabited, while there are about seventy which are used only for grazing the diminutive horses, cattle, and sheep, for all the domestic animals on these islands are very small, like the Shetland pony, so well known to us.

From very ancient times these little horses have existed on the Shetland Islands, just as the little cows and sheep have, but it is only within the last seventy years that they have been exported in large numbers. But not all Shetland ponies are so fortunate as those which find their way to America and England, to become the much-adored companions of children, for many of them find their way


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/16

 into the mines, where they have to work very hard down in the dark and the dampness.

When we speak of a child's pony, we usually refer to the Shetland, although there are two other kinds which are important and much in demand. But the Shetland, because he is the smallest, is the favorite. The Welsh pony, which has existed in a wild state in the mountains of Wales for the past two thousand years, is the next larger of the ponies, while the high-stepping dandy, the Hackney, is the largest of the three. He is usually about fourteen hands high, and is only one step removed from a real horse.

The true Shetland is from nine to twelve hands high, that is, from thirty-six to forty-eight inches. A hand, which is the unit of measurement for the height of a horse, be he large or small, is four inches. The weight of the Shetland pony is anywhere from two hundred and fifty pounds to four hundred, or even more if he is very


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/17

 fat. He is not a plaything, but a real little horse. His build is that of a dray-horse, being very blocky.

Some horse-fanciers, such as Colonel Balfour, have succeeded, by long breeding, in making a more slender Shetland. This is the type of pony usually seen in the ring, or horse show. Such a little beauty is Silver Tip, Second, who is valued at ten thousand dollars.

These little ponies are very clever and easily taught tricks, so from the early centuries old writings tell of the trick ponies which were shown at the country fairs in old England and on the Continent.

The life of the Shetland pony on his native heath is anything but the rosy path that he treads once he is imported and becomes a child's pet. Not only are these islands cold, but their vegetation is also scant. The islanders take much better care of their small sheep and cattle than of their ponies.

These little horses are very hardy, and


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/18

 much exposure has developed a long, thick coat, so that in Shetland they are left out all winter long and made to paw the snow away from their scant feed. This is so scarce on the moor that they usually come down to the seashore and paw in the snow for seaweed and mosses.

The little colts are foaled in the spring and allowed to run with the mares, often till they are a year old. So it is not a strange thing for a Shetland colt who is only six months old to be out in the bitter winter cold, shivering at the flank of his dam. The Shetland pony when foaled weighs only about thirty pounds, and is a very awkward little horse, all legs and head, but he shapes up rapidly.

The most common colors of Shetlands are black, gray, white, and brown, although the English breeders have produced some fine dapple bays and other fancy colors.

For his size and weight the Shetland pony is the most wonderful little animal


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/19

 that has ever been taught to labor for man. His strength and endurance are remarkable. His willingness also is endless. Be kind to him, and he will give you all the strength and speed there is in him. He will pull a load several times his own weight, or will travel light for hours at his steady, even, mincing trot, his head up, his heavy mane and tail floating out to the breeze, and his entire manner plainly saying, "Don't you see how important I am? I am working for my little friends."

Although the gentlest and the most lovable and loving little chap imaginable, when trained, yet the wild ponies of Shetland often take on the character of their hard environment. Among themselves the stallions often fight terrible battles, which occasionally end in the death of one of the combatants.

Is it any wonder that they become hard like their lives when we consider how they are left to shift for themselves in winter? Even if they are sometimes sheltered and


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/20

 fed, yet it will be in an open shed where a domestic, full-sized horse would freeze. Their feed, when they are lucky enough to be fed at all, is only what the cattle and sheep leave. But for the better part of the year they shift for themselves, and survive or perish as fate wills. They are mere shadows of their usual plump selves when the spring at last comes and the scant feed appears on the moor.

Is it not wonderful that these little horses, reared in hardship, so soon adapt themselves to the ways of civilized men? This is perhaps why they take so kindly to petting and return so much gratitude for what is done for them by their little masters.

Under the saddle, or harnessed to the phaeton, they are equally willing. Once they become attached to their small owners, they take a certain pride in their little friends, and seem to develop a great sense of responsibility.

In these days of machines, when so


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/21

 much is artificial, what better playmate could children have than one of these little horses? Learning to care for him and to drive him under all conditions, develops character as almost nothing else will. It teaches the child to be kind, thoughtful, and self-reliant. All that one may need to know about a large horse may be learned from driving this little animal. The child who can ride a Shetland gracefully need not fear a larger mount. The child who can guide him successfully under all conditions by the rein, can, when he is older and stronger, drive any horse.

But the Shetland's best trait is his affection for his little friends. He will watch for their coming as eagerly as a dog. He will nicker at their approach, and nuzzle their hands with genuine affection when they finally appear.

In the harness he is the very soul of fidelity. He will go and go till he drops, and even then will wish that he had more strength and horse love to give.


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/22

 So if you wish to make the children happy and at the same time develop their character; if you wish to have them learn to be kind, self-reliant, and happy, give them a Shetland pony. He will show them more country and give them more perfectly safe adventures than any other investment of an equal size.

Besides all this, he will show them fidelity and patience, and will find his way into their child hearts and teach them love, which is the greatest of all human treasures.

For a perfect picture of the Shetland, in all his small horse charm, I refer you to that wonderful horse book, "Black Beauty," and the chapter on Little Merrylegs. It will do your heart good to read about him, and to know how wonderful and lovable these little horses really are.


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/23

T the time of our story there dwelt in the northern part of the Island of Shetland a Norwegian named Hans Pederson. He and his good wife and their two children, Hans, aged ten, and Olga, aged eight, comprised the family. By that I mean the human family; but the cattle and sheep often wandered into the house at the back door, or even a small colt might be taken in to carry him safely over a cold spell.

Most of the people on the island were either Norwegian, or Dutch, or descendants from the Norse or Picts, but so blended by time that they were a sort of new race, the Shetlander of to-day.


text:
Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/24

 Hans Pederson's farm boasted about twenty Shetland ponies, four cows, and fifty sheep. Like most of the islanders, Hans also owned a fishing smack, and from June until September he was off with the fishing fleets of the island. This left the farm in the care of his good wife and the boy and girl, so the two children became very expert little farmers.

They knew all the ponies, the cattle, and even the sheep. They could do almost anything with the stock that their father could. They knew every acre of the farm, both in the hills and on the moors. The farm was like most of those in Shetland, scant of soil and generously sprinkled with rocks. In fact, much of the soil had to be made by carting on sods and seaweed, the latter being also used for fertilizer.

Three years before the opening of my story, there had been foaled at the Pederson farm a Shetland colt which afterwards gained the name of Black Fury. This was