The tribune. (Buchanan, Ga.) 1897-1917, August 12, 1898, Image 1

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VOL I. N.OCTURN. Outside his nnreory windojW stands," A tall green piuo-troe And every nltfht it beckons And waves its shadowy hands: Whether the breeze flies lightly. Or whether the winds blow OTine-tree;” wild, It’s "Good night to you now, "Good night to you,, little child." , The bright moon looks through Its branches, The thin moon splendid and new; It spreads a snaro lor the dewdrops; And stars hang sparkling through: sunlight, But moonlight, and starlight, and The great-winged winds and tho breezo- With the little child to wave to What should it care for these? When in the lonely midnight. Awake with the storm and rail* He opens tho chiuk iu tho curtain To peer through the window-pane, He can hear the pine-tree saying— Over and over, too— ‘“The night is wet and windy, . But I’m staying awake with you.” Every night at bedtime A small hand waves to the tree, A small face smiles through the twilight, Pressing the pane to see 1 ; And whether the breeze wind flies lightly, Or whether the blow wild. It’s "Good night to you now, O I’ine-tree”— "Good night to you, littJe"child.” —Rosamond Marriott Watson. $ ; ACHHET’S RIDE. * $ ■ * 0 A SOUDANESE WAR TALE. O In the early stages of the Anglo- Egyptian advance" «p the Nile-in*l896, several thousand soldier? of all colors, with camels, horses, mules, guns, wagons, gunboats in sections, and the end of an unfinished "railroad, were waiting at Wady Haifa for the Nile to rise sufficiently to permit the naviga¬ tion of the Second Cataract. Mean- while, detached bodies of the cavalry and camel-corps were continually scouring the surrounding desert for marauding parties of the enemy.- A troop of two hundred men, under Captain Somerville, one" day sighted a strong force of dervishes.,about five miles from Amka, and gave chase— and a long chase it jrroved. As they advanced farther into the desert, little knots of Arabs were continually springing up from nowhere, as ,it seemed, and joining the enemy. Captain Somerville and his two hun¬ . ..brisk dred charged, with shouts and a fire “of; revolvers and carbines, and were met 4n the most provoking man¬ ner possible! The. dervishes- did not- meet the shock, but scattered, and as the troopers rode in, the dervishes closed round and engulfed the little force. In half a minute the whole scene went out in a cloud- of dust and smoke, through- which vaguely ap¬ peared black faces and" arms, flashing eyes, squealing, hobbling -camel-heads, with the mingle'd reek of" guupowder, ill-smelling hot leather and camel’s- hair dominating the Whole. There was sharp, close fighting as the British force strove to cut its way- through, which it finally succeeded in doiug, aud made for a small hillock dotted with rough black boulders. Every soldier dismounted, dropped behind one of thes$ and opened a hot fire that checked pursuit. To Captain Somerville,at five o’clock iu the afternoon, the situation did not seem comforting". The men had little water in their flasks: their cartridges were few. They could not hope; for aid from Wady Haifa, ten miles away, unless word could be sent through. When the captain called for a mes¬ senger, every one volunteered to undertake the hazardous service. Only three were selected—an English trooper of the Staffordshire regiment, an Egyptian subaltern, and: Achmet Ben Houssain, a young member of the friendly Arab scouts. Achmet was a youngster of about seventeau, proud iu the possession of a dromedary, a Martini and a belt of cartridges. He had joined tile force with his father aud most of his tribe, a3 free scouts. The three were to leave the camp separately, as soon as it became dark. When the swift darkness -of old Egypt came on, the English trooper shook hands with his comrades, tightened his belt and crept off down into the gloom on foot. The Egyjitian subaltern followed without a, word to any one. Lastly young Achmet. sailed out on his beloved dromedary, aud com¬ menced to ride around the hillock in a spiral direction that' brought him continually nearer the besiegers’lines. He trusted that his course would pro¬ duce the impr'essioii ' that he was a chief riding about on a tour of inspec¬ tion. This artifice seemed to have succeeded whoa a voice challenged him. r— - — ■ - — TRIBUNE # “Don’t G-ivo Up tile Slxlx>. ,v BUCHANAN, GA., FRIDAY, AUGUST 12. 1808. Achinet was about to reply when he heard a pistol-shot from the other side of the position,then a volley of firing and confusion—then silence. One of the three messengers had been killed. Boused by the uproar, the dervishes near Achmet began again to fire atthd dusky hillside, so the shrewd boy, .raised his rifle and fired with, the rest, taking care to shoot so that his bullets would go high. Then he continued his round, constantly edging toward the desert. Three times they challenged the boy, but he answered so readily so that they let him pass. But all had seen him and he was watched closely. At 'last Achmet thought himself clear of the enemy. He settled in his saddle,lashed his camel over the flank with the end of his long rawhide halter, and broke into a gallop, which was injudicious, for the dervishes per¬ ceived no reason for this speed. Shouts followed him, then several bullets spit sharply as they struck • into the sand ahead. In another moment suspicion seemed to have become conviction in the Mahdist mind. Achmet heard the bub¬ bling grunts of camels being pulled up, and then the heavy padding of big feet in the rear. On he galloped. And now he heard news of another •of the three messengers. As the hill faded out in- the darkness, there was a second outburst of angry cries and a few shots. Achmet felt $ little thrj.ll as he realized that on him.' alone de¬ pended tire r'es'Cile of the two hundred. The dervishes in pursuit were firing now, but the night was dark, and they could not shoot accurately by sound of his galloping as he lashed his own beast to. a good eight-mile pace. His camel rolled and pitched like a ship at sea, while now' and again a bullet whined over his head through the darkness. But the pursuers were no* gaining. So Achmet presently let his camel relax into the regular _ natural trotting pace of the animal, and mile upon mile passed with no sound but the padding of the soft feet on sand, or the occasional splitting crack of a rifle. " •Six "miles were covered, and the trained sense of the young Arab told him the Nile was ..near. When the moon slowly rolled up, bronze and large, Over the distant ranges that border the Bed sea. Achmet had been expecting this with dread. As the light spread over the black and cor¬ rugated landscape he looked back and saw his The.light pursuers distinctly—five of them. served them equally well for a scattering volley, and to Achmet the flying lead whistled replied near. He turned in his saddle and with his Martini. The first shot wild; the next lamed a camel, and one rider was out of the chase. But he must get out of range, and he again urged the dromedary • to a gallop. The Mahdiats galloped; .too, but the gap grew wider* Hour hun- dred yards’ interval became six" and eight hundred. Already-lie" saw in the distance an irregular line which might have been a row of squat stakes, but which was the fringe of palms alono- the Nile. Straight onward Achmet rode, while the dervishes fired wildly in hope of stopping him short of a place of safety. Now the feathery palms were clear and black in the moonlight, T>vo minutes more and he rode be- neath them. Iu front foamed the rushing.Nile, surging over the hun- dred black crags and boulders that block the Second Cataract. He was . too far up-stream for northward' the camp He turned to ride on the bpntpn track hv thp rivpr wbpn it peculiar, soft; “thu,d” "camel; spqnded under- his saddle, and the hit by a bullet, grunted, tottered, and .sank to its knees. sprang ' , ", • q The boy ii)d clear with an agile bound, stood for ii moment I-p dis- may. He thought of his danger,then of the little beleaguered band up cm the hillock in the desert, and all the traditions of his tribe urged him to lay down his life if need be, but to stand fast to the service he had taken. The rocky shores of the Nile were strewn with driftwood from the dis¬ tant equatorial forests. Achmet fired two defiant shots at the oucomiug dervishes, dropped hie rifle, threw himself upon a half-stranded log, and ran it before him witharush that sent it shooting far into the whirling tor¬ rent. He went clear under water with the impetus, and the water -wa'S cdol and refreshiug. When he rose .lie was ig the grip of the rapids, and the bullets were cutting into the water all aroqnd him. The strong current drove him downward,and he was absolutely help¬ less in its grasp. Down chutes or whirling dikzily in eddies he went, with a grim and gasping determina¬ tion to cling to his log, and to reach the British post below. He escaped crushiug as by a miracle; often the log revolved, and he went under in a choking dash of waves, and foam. He could not see i where he was drifting, much less direct his course beyond fending blindly off the rocks as they loomed up close beside him. Suddenly, as a leaping wave lifted him, he saw the quiet rows of white tents ashore, and a little lower the lights of Wady Haifa. His voyage was finished; it onlyre- maiue 1 to laud. An eddy rolled him, log and all, shore ward, and he clutched desperately .at prdjecting crags. They helped him ".to shallow water, whence he waded ashore. Drippiug aud battered and too dazed to give the countersign, Achmet was found by a sentry, and banded j over to the officer of the guard. had Iu half an hour the bugles 1 blown and two regiments had paraded in the open and set off rapidly east- ward, singing vociferously au auda- cious parody: On the road to Dongolay! Dongolay! On the road to And Achmet Ben Houssain,provided with a fresh camel and rifle, went with them as guide;, The morning wind brought to the rescuers the sound of firing, faint in the distance, and they came to the spot a little after. jThe attacked;"'there garrison sallied as the relieving force was a sharp skirmish, hot hand-to- hand fighting. But the dervishes taken between two tires, fled. After the water-bottles had been handed over to’ the late 'besieged, Achmet was the hero of the hour. A little bewildered by the boisterous enthusiasm of the troopers, he yet stbod with the clignitv of a true son of the desert. The few words of grave commendation from his tribes- men impressed him more than all, except the fact that he was offered rifles and camels enough to supply au arsenal or a caravan. Captain Somer- ville shook hands with him aud com¬ plimented him, and Achinet felt at peace with himself, aud that he had been true to his salt.—Youth’s Com- panion. Passing of the Courier. Up to times- within the memory of living men, almost no one of means traveled through Europe without a courier. Before railroads were built and before good guide hooks ivere • printed "he was almost indispensable. His tribe survives, but iu greatly di¬ minished numbers. To the self-reliant traveler "he is of no use whatever. In- deed he 18 frequently a positive en- cumbrance, and worse. To my mind, one of tne great pleasures of travel is in learning travel by myself. There fs satisfaction, pleasure and education in planning routes, deciphering time tables, making bargains, learning by observation the lay of the land, Ehe H me ma y have been when a courier couldsave a traveler more than 1 km cost. Most certainly that is not * ue case n °w\ On the contrary, as he gets a percentage on every purchase ^is P aid P makes (which, of course, comes out of the purchaser in in- creased prices), and as it is often tor ^is interest to advise the more costly route, the ^ore costly hotel or the more costly excursion, he eats up ma ch more than his wages, while saving positively nothing. Bean de- glares that in a two weeks’ trip in southern Spain., which he made side by side with a couple having a courier, ' he invariably reached the hotel first, S 0 * the*, better rooms, saw all the ,..sights to as good advantage; yet the courier was of .his kind an expert, dhe fact is that travel, h^s become ao > general, tourist, companies, railroads and landlords have so well studied its needs, books are so plentiful, that J oU couldn t very well get oil the track or have a mishap if you tiied. Bobert Luce in Going Abroad. <2<in<lrupe<l Fowls. Traceyville, near Honesdale, Penn, - has a large number of chickens with four legs. The chicken is now a big rooster, aud he is very proud of his I extra legs. A short time ago a farmer j named McGown found a four-legged j ! chicken under one of his hens, the two extra legs being attached to tho breast, just beneath the wings. And now the managers of the Wayne County Agricultural society will offer a reward of $50 for a five-legged chicken, aud the heus-of the. county, are expected ' to. do their duty,—New Y6rii Press; THE SAMOAN WIDOW’S GRIEF". It Clustered Around tho Family Rifle After Her Husband Had Ileeu Katon. The Samoan will give away any¬ thing which he possesses when an¬ other member of his family comes along and asks for it. This makes persoual property a most fluctuating matter. Oue thing, liowever, is never given away under any circumstances, and that is the rifle which each man keeps in good order and in readiness for the outbreak of hostilities, No attempt has been made by the Euro¬ pean officials to disarm the natives, but a close watch is kept on the im¬ portation of any new munitions of war. When the yacht John Williams of the London Missionary society returned from a tour of the stations in New Guinea, which are served by Samoan pastors, it brought the sad news that Neemia, a respected " native mission¬ ary in a remote nook of the Gulf of Papua, had been eaten by his imper- feetly converted congregation. The mission vessel arrived too late to snve the pastor, but just in time to rescue his wife Masina, who was defending her house with a single rifle against a horde of savages. MasinawasTfougnt back to Apia in the John Williams, her grief somewhat tempered by the knowledge that for some time to come she would be a central figure at all district meetings of the mission, where she would be expected to tell her story. * In a few days the treaty officials received from Icing Malietoo an official communication signed with the royal sign manual and duly sealed with the great seal. Iu it he recited the caunabalism which had been prac¬ ticed upon Neemia and the bravery of Masina. Iu consideration of these sad events aa d the great grief into " hieh the "n ido.w was plunged, lie had g lv en her permission to retain the tamily rifle and her store of ammuui- tion aud to bring it ashore with her. rhe mischief had been done and was beyond repair. All that remained for ^ ie °‘*idal board to do was sharply to remind tke lung that he had no pow ee p rald Finding permits for the con- trabaud muuitionsof war and to assure him that the Berlin treaty took no cognizance of grief so profound that d mu ®J Fe assuaged by rifles. —New rork Sun. I’igeons in War. During the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war the eyes of the whole world were • open to the knowledge that homing pigeons are not merely playthings. Constituting as they did the only means of com¬ munication with the outside world, they gained a warm place in the hearts of the residents of Paris. So important was the part played by them iu this war that it led to mauy of the European powers expending enormous sumsof money in the equip¬ ment of homiugpigeon services, which are still maintained upon a magnifi¬ cent scale. Messages carried by the navy de¬ partment pigeons are written on the thinnest rice paper, incased in a tiny aluminium holder, capsule shaped, fastened to the bird’s leg. Professor Marion of the Annapolis Naval acad¬ emy is the inventor of this message holder, which is water tight and weighs only eight grains. I’igeons used iu carrying dispatches upon the ocean are trained up and down the coast for about 100 miles each \.a,\ i om home, flaming on the coast has a double purpose—cc- custommg the birds to their baskets and getting them used to being tossed as well as making them familiar with the coast, When birds are liberated at sea, upon sighting land they will start for it at once, striking the shore at the nearest point. Having once reached land they will proceed homo by the nearest overland route. , * An Arctic Railroad. ‘ * A railroad is being talked of to ex¬ tend entirely across northern ^jweden and Norway from the northern end of the Gulf of Finland, northwest to Ofo- teu on the Atlantic, .about 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. A part.of the route is formed by an old railroad built for carrying, iron ore, most of which is north of the Arctic Circle, and Sweden has now provided for ex- tending it 148 miles to the Norwegian from border at a point only 25 miles Ofoten. At the other end the railroad will connect with a line in Finland, down to the east ebast of the Gulf of Finland, aud from the Finnish border to Ofoten the length of the line will be just 300 miles. The Swedish line is estimated to cost about $6,000,000 and is,to. be built largely for strategic reasons.—Iron Age. NO. 3(). CUBA’S INFANT WARRIORS. Native l*oys of Teu Who Are Fighting? Like Veterans. “►Spanish warfare has made soldiers of babes.” This remark from the lips of Marti referred to the ten years’ struggle which ended so disastrously for Cuban freedom. Had Marti li\*?l through tho present war his epigram¬ matic utterance could have been ap- plied even moro appropriately to the existing insurrection. Eor ftever ia the history of warfare, ancient or modern, have children been forced to fight for freedom as have the boys of Cuba. Every insurgent camp is wit- ness to this, and Gomez, Garcia, Lacret, Mendez and the host of other brave leaders have found it simply impossible to restrain the boys of teu, twelve and fourteen who insist on handling rifles and machetes. Little wonder, however, that these boys are fighting for freedom, for as a rule, they are the last of a name, all that is left of the heroic families that died from starvation or by the bullet of the Spaniard. They know no pity, for they were accorded none. They are men in trials, and the only fear is that when the war is over they will be desperadoes of the next decade. Grover Flint tells the thrilling story of a boy of eleven who fought by his side like a hero of Balaclava. Nor is this the only instance, for these young fellows fight with all the determina¬ tion and desperation of men. Few of tluftn realize the full import of the strife, for to them it is a war for ven¬ geance, and even if they are not prop¬ erly recruited and entered among the soldiers, they yet manage to keep in touch with the leaders, and seem to sniff a battle as a dog does its game. When the moment for action comes they nre in the middle of the strife, lying low if the rest of the troop is advancing cautiously, and dashing forward at the right moment to kill or be killed. To them life seems to have no value, but to end it us did their fathers and brothers. As spies they have proved of in¬ estimable value to some of th,e insur¬ gent chiefs. One of Geueral Maceo’s most ardent followers was a young mulatto barely fifteen years old. He was killed jn the last yhargo the great leader made before he met his own death. It was to him that Maceo in¬ trusted some of Jds inor:t imp ahuTm or t communications lor Gomez, variably,the Spanish boy successfully eluded the troops. He knew every hill and dale, every plantation and shelter in the Western provinces, and there it was that his services were most largely called into requisition. At Bayauio there were found on the field of carnage at least a dozen of these brave little fellows, each with I the machete still firmly gripped, heroes whose lives had hardly begun before the bullet of the Spaniard ended them. There lies in the cemetery of Havana the bodies of a group of students whose story has been told aud retold, but whose zeal in the cause of Cuba Libre has ever beeu an inspiration to the young patriots. A monument has been erected to their memory, but no stone marks the trenches in which lie hundreds of children who have their lives that their country rnigbV be free. Mine. Meissonier’s Gift to France. Mme. Meissonier’s legacy to the Louvre is more important tliau was thought. Among the oil paintings of her late husband are the “Madonna del Bacio, ” “Le Chant,’’two portraits of himself, one executed in 1872 and the other in 1889, “Une Messe a la Chapelle de la Yierge Miraculeuse a St. Marc de Venise,” “Samson Abat- tant les Philistins,” “Un Soleil Oou- cliant dans la foret de St. Germain,” “Cavalier#,” “Louis XIII,” “Eu route,” “J, J. Eousseau, descendant un viel escalier de hois a Lausanne,” “B.uine des Tuileries, Siege de Paris,” for which Mine. Meissonier refused 800,000 francs. With the above are fifteen water-color" paintings aud a .quantity of-studies- in . pencil. “Le Chant” was painted in 1883. The ehanteuse or songstress is Mme. Meis- sonior.—London News. Showery. Boy—Mr. Smithers wants to know if you’ll lend him an umbrella. He says you know him. “You may say that I do kuow him. He will probably understand why you didn’t bring the umbrella.”—Boston Transcript. Tlu> Cause of Canrer. As the result of 50 years’ experience and investigation it is claimed that cancer is chiefly caused by eating too muck meat and especially pork.