Part 14

I waved the flag as high as I could raise it in a direction to be broadside towards those places where I thought people might have gone out around the ice after ducks, which is their main occupation a little later in the year. I hoped that they might then see my flag and come straight on for me. At last, beside the glitter of a white oar, I made out the black speck of a hull. I knew then if the pan held out for another hour that I should be all right.

With that strange perversity of the human intellect, the first thing I thought of when I realized that a rescue boat was under way was what trophies I could carry with my luggage from the pan! I pictured the dog-bone flagstaff adorning my study--the dogs intervened, however, and ate it later on--and I thought of preserving my ragged puttees in my museum.

I could see that my rescuers were frantically waving, and when they came within shouting distance I heard someone shout, “Don’t get excited; keep on the pan, where you are.” As a matter of fact, they were infinitely more excited than I. Already it seemed just as natural to me now to be saved as half an hour before it seemed inevitable that I should be lost. Had my rescuers only known, as I did, the sensations of a bath in the ice when you cannot dry yourself afterwards, they need not have expected me to throw myself into the water.

At last the boat came up, crashing into my pan with such violence that I was glad enough to catch hold of the bow, being more or less acquainted by now with the frail constitution of my floe, and being well aware it was not adapted for collisions. Moreover, I felt for the pan, for it had been a good and faithful friend to me.

A hearty handshake all round and a warm cup of tea--thoughtfully packed in a kettle--inside, and we hoisted in my remaining dogs and instantly started back, for even then a change of wind might have penned the boat with ice, which would have cost us dearly. Indeed, the men thought we could not return, and we started for an island, in which direction the way was all open.

There were not only five Newfoundland fishermen at the oars, but five men with Newfoundland muscles in their backs and arms and five as brave hearts as ever beat in the bodies of human beings. So we presently changed our course and forced our way through to the shore.

To my intense astonishment they told me that the night before four men had been out on a point of land, from which the bay is visible, cutting some dead harp seals out from a store. The ice had been extraordinarily hard, and it had taken them till seven o’clock at night to cut out twenty-four seals. Just at the very moment before they left for home, my pan of ice had drifted out clear of the island called Hare Island, and one of them, with his keen fisherman’s eyes, had seen something unusual. They at once returned to their village, saying there was a man on a pan, but they had been discredited, for the people there thought it could only be the top of some tree.

All the time I had been driving along I knew well that there was one man on the coast who had a good spy-glass, and that he had twelve children, among them some of the hardiest young men on the coast. Many times my thoughts had wandered to him, for his sons are everywhere, hunting seals and everything else. It was his sons, and another man with them, who saw me, and were now with him in the boat. The owner of the spy-glass told me he got up instantly in the middle of tea on hearing the news, and hurried over the cliff to the look-out with his glass. Immediately, dark as it was, he made out that there really was a man out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me wave my hands every now and again towards the shore. By a process of reasoning very easy on so unfrequented a shore, they immediately knew who it was, but tried to argue themselves out of their conviction. They went down at once to try and launch a boat, but found it absolutely impossible. Miles of ice lay between them and me, the heavy sea was hurling great blocks on the land-wash, and night was already falling, with the wind blowing hard on shore. These brave fellows, however, did not sit down idly. The whole village was aroused, messengers dispatched at once along the coast, and look-outs told off to all the favourable points, so that while I considered myself a laughing-stock, waving my flag at those irresponsive cliffs, there were really men’s eyes watching from them all the time.

Every soul in the village was on the beach as we neared the shore, and everybody wanted to shake hands when I landed. Even with the grip that one after another gave me, some no longer trying to keep back the tears, I did not find out that my hands were frost-bitten--a fact I have not been slow to appreciate since. A weird sight I must have looked as I stepped ashore--tied up in rags stuffed out with oakum, wrapped in the blood-stained skins of dogs, with no hat, coat, or gloves, and only a short pair of knickers on! It must have seemed to some of them as if the Old Man of the Sea had landed.

No time was wasted before a pot of tea was exactly where I wanted it to be, and some hot stew was locating itself where I had intended an hour before that the blood of one of my remaining dogs should have gone.

Rigged out in the warm garments that fishermen wear, I started with a large team as hard as I could race for hospital, for I had learnt that the news had gone over that I was lost. It was soon painfully impressed upon me that I could not much enjoy the ride; I had to be hauled like a log up the hills, my feet being frost-bitten so that I could not walk. Had I guessed this before I might have avoided much trouble.

We all love life, and I was glad to be back once more with a new lease of it before me. My colleague soon had me “fixed up,” and I was presently enjoying a really refreshing sleep.

(Copyright, 1908, by Fleming H. Revell Company.)

THE WIDE WORLD: In Other Magazines.

UNIQUE POST-OFFICE IN NEBRASKA.

Some years ago, a traveller recounting his experiences of the early days of the city of Nebraska, U.S.A., says that on arriving at the odd collection of shanties that then represented the beginnings of the city, he inquired for the post-office, and was referred to an old chap sitting on a log. Of this man he further inquired where he could find the post-office, as he expected a letter. The old chap removed his sombrero, and, fumbling inside it, produced the expected letter. Since then Nebraska has grown into considerable importance as the capital of the State of Nebraska.--“THE CAPTAIN.”

CURIOUS FISHING SUPERSTITIONS.

In British Columbia the Indians ceremoniously go out to meet the first salmon, and in flattering voices try to win their favour by calling them all chiefs. Every spring in California the Karaks used to dance for salmon. Meanwhile one of their number secluded himself in the mountains and fasted for ten days. Upon his return he solemnly approached the river, took the first salmon of the catch, ate some of it, and with the remainder lighted a sacrificial fire. The same Indians laboriously climbed to the mountain-top after the poles for the spearing-booth, being convinced that if they were gathered where the salmon were watching no fish would be caught. In Japan, among the primitive race of the Ainos, even the women left at home are not allowed to talk, lest the fish may hear and disapprove, while the first fish is always brought in through a window instead of a door, so that other fish may not see.--“TIT-BITS.”

FLEMISH FISHERWOMEN.

On the coasts of Holland, Belgium, and Northern France fisherwomen are a familiar sight, with their great hand-nets and quaint costumes. Many of the towns have distinctive costumes by which their women can be recognised anywhere. Those of Maria-Kirke, near Ostend, wear trousers and loose blouses, while their heads and shoulders are covered by shawls. They carry their nets into the sea, and scoop up vast quantities of shrimps and prawns, with an occasional crab or lobster and many small fish. They often wade out till the water is up to their necks, and they remain for hours at a time in water above their knees, rarely returning until their baskets are full.--“WOMAN’S LIFE.”

CANADA FOR THE SPORTSMAN.

Canada is an ideal country for the sportsman. Notwithstanding its rapid commercial development, it still has thousands of miles of wild and unexplored land, where man has seldom or never trodden. Even in the Eastern provinces, within a very short distance of civilization, wild animals of many kinds--moose, caribou, elk, deer, and even bears--still abound. From the Atlantic coast to the Pacific slope, from the international boundary line north to the Arctic circle, Canada offers magnificent opportunities to the sportsman, whatever his tastes may be; big and small game-shooting, fishing, camping, canoeing.--“FRY’S MAGAZINE.”

THE GEESE OF NIEDER-MÖRLEN.

In the little Hessean village of Nieder-Mörlen, between Giessen and Frankfort, a strange scene may be witnessed every evening at half-past five. Some two thousand geese, which have spent the day on the river’s bank below the village, at a given signal from their leaders make their way homewards with much pomp and circumstance and raucous noise. The strangest part of the proceeding is seen when they reach the village street and, without any guidance or driving, waddle each into its own yard for the night. Like so many squads they break off in their dozens from the main body, knowing instinctively their owners’ door, and with solemn gait enter in as though conscious of their own innate cleverness.--Mr. A.H. Ross, in “THE STRAND MAGAZINE.”

Odds and Ends.

A Wonderful Balanced Rock--What a Lightning Flash Did--The Sea Captain’s House, etc.

Near Dome Rock, Colorado, thirty-two miles up Platte Canyon from Denver, is situated one of the most wonderful balanced rocks in the world. This rock, as will be seen from the illustration, is poised with very little of its surface touching the ground. The most peculiar feature about the boulder is the fact that it does not rest on a flat surface of soft earth, but is perched out on an incline with a very steep angle. The slope on which it stands, moreover, is of smooth, solid rock, too slippery for anyone to walk up, and how the boulder maintains its position is a mystery.

Church bells and church plate, as related in a recent WIDE WORLD article, are not the only kinds of buried treasure of which there are traditions in Worcestershire. Mr. J.W. Willis Bund, in his “Civil War in Worcestershire,” says: “There is hardly a family who possessed a landed estate at the time of the Civil War that has not some legend of concealed treasure. For instance, the Berkeleys, of Spetchley, say their butler, to save the family plate, hid it under one of the elms in the avenue. The butler was wounded, and tried with his last breath to confide his secret to a member of the family, but could get no further than ’plate,’ ‘elm,’ ‘avenue,’ and died; so that the plate remains hidden to this day.” The occasion upon which the Berkeley plate was hidden was the sack and burning of their family mansion at Spetchley, upon the eve of the Battle of Worcester, by the Scots troops who accompanied Charles II. from the North. Sir Robert Berkeley was a devoted Royalist and had suffered much for the King, and members of his family were serving in the Royal army; but the Scots, who had fought upon both sides, were not careful to distinguish between friend and foe. The only portion of Spetchley which escaped the flames was the stabling. Here Cromwell made his head-quarters, and after the war Judge Berkeley converted the building into a house and lived there for many years. The elm avenue in Spetchley Park, where the plate was buried, still exists, and is one of the finest in Worcestershire. For the photograph given above we are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. T. Duckworth, of the Worcester Victoria Institute.

The curious little building seen in the next photograph stands at the end of a private walk on the shores of the River Orwell, in Suffolk. It is known as the “Cat House,” for the reason that, in the “good old times,” a white cat used to be exhibited at a window visible from the river as a signal to smugglers, who flourished in the locality. When the animal was shown, the “Free-Traders,” as the contrabandists were euphemistically called, knew that the coast was clear, and promptly sailed up and landed their cargo, secure from the attentions of the “preventives.” Near “Cat House” is Downham Reach, which was the scene of some of Margaret Catchpole’s most exciting adventures.

The accompanying photograph depicts a terrific oil fire, which occurred on the night of June 23rd, 1908, at Warren, Pennsylvania. The conflagration started through a tank being struck by lightning, and in a very short time twenty-five oil-holders, large and small, together with the wax-house, were destroyed. The fire burned for nearly twenty-four hours, and its fierceness is almost impossible to conceive. The total loss incurred was something like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The extraordinary-looking dwelling seen in the next picture was built to exactly resemble a steamship’s bridge, with chart-room and other appurtenances all complete. This curious erection is situated at Algorta, near Bilbao, in the North of Spain, and is called “Casa-Barco,” or “house-boat.” It was probably built by a retired sea-captain, who felt like a fish out of water until he had provided for himself the same environment to which he had been used during his active career at sea. One can imagine the old gentleman taking his evening walk to and fro along the lofty bridge, scanning the surrounding country with a sailor’s eye, and half inclined now and then to ring for “more speed,” or to send an order down the tube to the steersman.

The cat seen in the next photograph was the pet of the crew of the ill-fated whaler _Windward_, which was wrecked in Baffin’s Bay last season. After the disaster pussy had a long, cold voyage in the open boats in which the ship-wrecked men pulled--amidst ice-bergs, snow, and tossing seas--for over five hundred miles, encountering dangers and adventures galore, till after three weeks of fearful exposure and hardship they were picked up by the whaler _Morning_, in which the correspondent who sent us the picture was a passenger. “Pussy then made up for her sufferings by making her home in my bunk,” he writes. “During the cold nights of the Arctic autumn I found her a very good substitute for a hot-water bottle.”

On the foreshore of the Mata Beach, Mangapai, New Zealand, stands the remarkable rock shown above. It is an almost perfect sphere of hard blue rock, shot with white quartz, of an entirely different formation from any other known rocks in the district. The mystery is, of course, to know how it reached its present position on the soft sandstone of the beach. Popular opinion is that in distant ages it was shot from a volcano, since extinct. The rock, which probably weighs twenty tons, rests in a cup like depression in the sandstone formation on which it stands, and is so nicely poised that four strong men, encircling it with their arms and all pushing one way, can set it spinning on its base.

The two snapshots reproduced above illustrate striking phases of an exciting Mexican pastime--that of flooring bulls with the hand from horseback! The rider, galloping after the bull, seizes it by the tail and, passing his leg over the tail for the sake of leverage, pulls the poor beast round sideways until it trips and goes crashing to earth amidst a cloud of dust. Needless to say, the bull-thrower needs a strong hand and steady nerves, or he may find himself in trouble.

[Transcriber’s Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]