of the World, and the spirit of the life of that country is called the Great Minus, representing that part of human nature which the heathens all have lost and by which men live to years unnumbered. Now, in a shrine of that land there was a stone of intolerable radiance by which the minds of men could be read as the pages of a book, and the life withered in its light at the will of the Spirit that gives and withholds. And it was so that in the delirium of approaching death the Ruler of the land cast the shrine into a cleft in the mountain and it was lost, though the mountain henceforth flames forever because of it. But it was revealed by the Spirit that gives and takes that in the quarries of the Far Off Metal River in a heathen country called the Outside Land there was one clear stone like that which was lost. Searchers were sent and it was commanded that he who found the stone must straightway return with it whence he came. Now, one of the searchers was young and loved life's pleasures; and forgetful of the great command he loved a woman of the heathen at the Far Off Metal River. One day, as he labored, he suddenly cried aloud, for he had found the burning, life-giving, and life-taking stone by which those of his race are able to know each other's minds, so that there be only justice and truth. But the young man loved the woman, and desiring to persuade her to accompany him to his own far-off land he hid from his fellows the finding of the stone. Yet it was so that though the woman loved the youth she would not leave her own land. And the Spirit that gives and takes being angry confused the brains of the searchers, so that they wandered in far heathen lands until they died. But he that hid the life-giving and life-taking stone in his bosom was condemned to sleep one hundred years, and then to wander for one hundred years in the heathen land until he should find three brothers of one race and family, whom destroying as a sacrifice he should be free to return once more to his own country. And I am come through many generations of one of those searchers who were doomed to die in exile. These are my last words before I die near a people that I know not." Pascal Sarrotte's breath came gaspingly as Nahda read. Once or twice she stopped in the reading as though overcome, but at last she finished it and for a moment stood like one transfixed by a vision; then turning wild eyes on her husband she cried, "He that had the stone was the man Tsaga," and she sank unconscious into her husband's arms. It was at this moment that Tsaga, in the living-room at Fort God's Plenty, caused his mind to relax, and said: "It is even so. There is no other way." Yet he paused ere at last with a swift action he caught the stone from his bosom with a sharp exclamation. As the three brothers turned quickly towards him, an intolerable scorching brightness struck through their eyes and stayed forever the vital forces. It was not altogether so, however, with the lad Teddie. He rose from his seat with a moan which yet was not all anguish. "My love!" he cried, and then sank back again in his place still and rigid, as a murmur of triumph rankled through the deadly brightness towards him. Thereupon the room grew dark again. save for the light of the dim candle. For a long time Tsaga looked upon the three. His face now was as that of other men with the death-look vanished; and on it was a look of lofty pity. Drawing near to Teddie, he touched the cold forehead gently and said: "Lover, thou hast found her now!" Then, turning, he vanished through the doorway into the empty world. When, next night, two horror-stricken faces peered through this doorway, the three still sat where Tsaga had left them, rigid and awfully alone, the moonbeams mingling with their smiles. For, indeed, they smiled as does a drowned man who had pleasant visions as he passed. The two who saw this thing trembled and were overwhelmed, but at last one said through the stifling cloud of her grief: "Pascal, I am come of that people-of Tsaga's people. You and I will go to the Summit of the World. We will have lives for these." This they did, and the tale of their journey is yet to be told. E men that go down for a livin' in ships to the sea, WE We love it a different way from you poets that 'bide on the land. We are fond of it, sure! But, you take it as comin' from me, There's a fear and a hate in our love that a landsman can't understand. Oh, who could help likin' the salty smell, and the blue but you can't tell what she'll do; Of the waves that are lazily breathin' as if they dreamed in the sun? they know too well what she's done! She's a wench like one that I saw in a singin'-play, Carmen they called her,-Lord, what a life her lovers did lead! And then, she'd curse you, and break you, and throw you down like a weed. You may chance it awhile with the girls like that, if you please; But you want a woman to trust when you settle down with a wife; And a seaman's thought of growin' old at his ease Is a snug little house on the shore to shelter the rest of his life. So that was old Poisson's dream,-did you know the Cap'? A brown little Frenchman, clever, and brave, and quick as a fish,- And a rose-covered cottage for them and him was his darlin' wish. "I 'ave sail," says he, in his broken-up Frenchy talk, "Mos' forty-two year; I 'ave go on all part of de worl' dat ees wet. I'm seeck of de boat and de water. I rader walk Wid ma Josephine in one garden; an' eef we get tire', we set! "You see dat bateau, Sainte Brigitte? I bring 'er dh'are "Dose engine one leetl' bit cranky,-too ole, you see,- Wid t'irty ton coal in de bunker, I tek' dat sheep t'rou' hell. "But I don' wan' risk it no more; I had bonne chance: All summer he talked of his house,-you could see the flowers He thought he had done with the sea, but the sea hadn't done with him! It was late in the fall when he made the last regular run, Clear down to the Esquimault Point and back with his rickety ship; She hammered and pounded a lot, for the storms had begun; But he drove her, and went for his season's pay at the end of the trip. Now the Holloway Brothers are greedy and thin little men, With their eyes set close together, and money's their only God: So they told the Cap' he must run the Bridget again, To fetch a cargo from Moisie, ten thousand quintals of cod. He said the season was over. They said: "Not yet. You finish the whole of your job, old man, or you don't draw a cent!" (They had the Bridget insured for all they could get.) And the Captain objected, and cursed, and cried. But he went. They took on the cargo at Moisie, and folks beside, Three traders, a priest and a couple of nuns, and a girl For a school at Quebec,-when the Captain saw her he sighed, The snow had fallen a foot, and the wind was high, When the Bridget butted her way thro' the billows on Moisie bar. The darkness grew with the gale, not a star in the sky, And the Captain swore: We mus' make Sept Isles to-night, by gar!" He couldn't go back, for he didn't dare to turn; The sea would have thrown the ship like a mustang noosed with a rope; For the monstrous waves were leapin' high astern, And the shelter of Seven Island Bay was the only hope. There's a bunch of broken hills half sunk in the mouth Of the bay, with their jagged peaks afoam; and the Captain thought She had waited forty years for a night like this, Did he think he could leave her now, and live in a cottage, the fool? She headed him straight for the island he couldn't miss; And heaved his boat in the dark, and smashed it against Gran' Boule. How the Captain and half of the people clambered ashore, The death-white shroud of the tempest covered the island from sight. How they suffered, and struggled, and died, will never be told; We discovered them all at last when we reached Gran' Boule with a boat; The drowned and the frozen were lyin' stiff and cold, And the poor little girl with the curls was wrapped in the Captain's coat. Go write your song of the sea as the landsmen do, And call her your "great sweet mother," your "bride," and all the rest; She was made to be loved, but remember, she won't love you, The men who trust her the least are the sailors who know her the best. THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN BUFFALO, GIANT ELAND, AND COMMON ELAND BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, AND FROM DRAWINGS BY PHILIP R. GOODWIN N THE BUFFALO EARLY a quarter of a century ago the African buffalo were smitten by a terrible scourge, a cattle sickness of such virulent character that as it traversed the continent, from north of the equator to south of the Zambezi, it swept the herds from the face of the earth. Domestic cattle suffered equally, and a few of the big bovine antelopes suffered slightly. Of the buffalo in East Africa and Uganda probably not one in ten thousand was left alive! It was an appalling calamity. The destruction was far more sudden than is ever the case when man is the sole agent, and far more complete for the length of time involved. But there was a vital distinction. When the disease had spent its force, it vanished, and the scattered survivors were left free to recover the Vol. LIV.-64 lost ground. The extraordinary vigor of natural reproductive power, of wild fecundity when there is a vacant place for its action, was then shown to the uttermost. The few remaining buffalo found themselves in precisely the position of the feral horses and cattle turned loose by the Spaniards on the grassy plains of America. They had what was for their purposes a nearly vacant continent to conquer by dint of their reproductive power. Except where civilized man has been present, and in spite of the presence of the native foes of the buffalo, this reconquest has been largely achieved. This fact shows that this animal at least can more than hold its own as far as its brute enemies are concerned, and, where the climatic conditions do not forbid, will populate to near the limit of its food supply. Buffalo are now common beasts in East Africa and abundant in Uganda. The wise policy of the British Government in pro 681 |