TRAVEL STORIES

Victoria Falls, Zambesi

TRAVEL STORIES

RETOLD FROM ST. NICHOLAS

NEW YORK

The Century CO.

Copyright, 1920, by

The Century Co.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TRAVEL STORIES

THE GRAND CAÑON OF ARIZONA
BY WILLIAM HASKELL SIMPSON

Many of those who seek and love earth's greatest scenery have declared that they found it at the Grand Cañon of Arizona. Travelers flock to it from the ends of the earth, though the majority of the visitors, numbering every year about a hundred thousand, are Americans.

The Grand Cañon of the Colorado River, in northern Arizona, is indeed a world wonder, and there is no other chasm in the world worthy to be compared with it. It is more than two hundred miles long, including Marble Cañon, is from ten to thirteen miles wide in the granite gorge section, and is more than a mile deep. It was created ages and ages ago by the erosive action of water, wind, and frost, and it is still being deepened and widened imperceptibly year by year.

The Colorado River, which drains a region of three hundred thousand square miles and is two thousand miles long from the rise of its principal source, is formed in southern Utah by the junction of the Grand and the Green Rivers, and, flowing through Utah and Arizona to tide-water at the Gulf of California, it dashes in headlong torrent through this titanic gorge—this dream of color, tinted like a rainbow or a sunset.

The cañon is reached by a railroad running to the rim, and may be visited any day in the year. It is unlike most other scenery, because when standing on its rim you look down instead of up. Imagine a gigantic trough, filled with bare mountains on each side and sloping to a narrow channel, which in turn is carved deeply and steeply out of solid granite. You come upon it unawares from the level, timbered, plateau country. The experience is an absolutely unique one. Only when you go down one of the trails to the bottom and look up is the view more nearly like other grand mountain vistas. The first glimpse always is from the upper edge, and, having no previous standard of measurement, you find it difficult to adjust yourself to this strange condition. The distant rim swims in a bluish haze. The nearer red rocks forming the inner cañon buttes—crowned with massive table-lands that look like temples, minarets, and battlements—reflect the sunlight in myriad hues. It seems a vast illusion rather than reality. No wonder that the first look often awes the spectator into silence and tears!

But, before you have been here long, you will wish to know how it all happened. You will ask how the cañon was made.

That question was asked by a little girl of Captain John Hance, one of the pioneer guides. Hance contests with a few other early comers the distinction of being the biggest "romancer" in Arizona. He told her that he dug it all himself.

"Why, Captain Hance!" she said, in astonishment, "what did you do with all the dirt?"

He quickly replied, "I built the San Francisco Peaks off there with it!"

Just between ourselves, no one absolutely can tell just how the miracle occurred, for no human being was there at the time. But the geologist has put together, bit by bit, thousands of facts, dug from the rocks which here lie exposed like a mammoth layer-cake and his explanation is so convincing that it must stand as at least the probable truth.

Here may be seen rocks of the four geological periods which are among the very oldest of our earth. The rocks of later periods were here once, too, making a layer more than two miles high resting on what is to-day the top, but in some remote age they were shaved off by some great natural force, perhaps a glacier.

The eating away of the rocks which formed the cañon itself is modern. Scientists say it was done, as it were, last Monday or Tuesday, for it was when the top two thirds had been "shaved off," as we have said, that the Colorado River began to cut the Grand Cañon through the rocks that formed the lower third.

While the cracking of the crust, caused by internal fires, may have helped the process of cañon-making, the result of erosion is seen everywhere. Every passing shower, every desert wind, every snowfall, changes the contour of the region imperceptibly but surely. The cañon is Nature's open book in which we may read how the earth was built.

With the coming of the railroad, when this century was yet a baby, tourists began to flock in, hotels were built, highways constructed, trails bettered, and other improvements made. To-day the traveler finds here every comfort.

Although first glimpsed by white men in 1540, when the Spanish conquistadors appeared,—one expedition journeying from the Hopi pueblos in Tusayan across the Painted Desert,—the big cañon remained unvisited, except for Indians and trappers, until 1858, when Lieutenant Ives, of the army engineer corps, made a brief exploration of the lower reaches of the Colorado, coming out at Cataract Creek. It was not thoroughly explored until the year 1869, when Major John W. Powell made his memorable voyage from the entrance to the mouth of the great gorge, passing down the Green and Colorado Rivers. Though he lost two boats and four men, he pushed on to the end. It is fitting that the United States Government has erected to his memory a massive monument of native rock with bronze tablets on one of the points near El Tovar Hotel.

Powell's outfit consisted of nine men and four rowboats. The distance traveled exceeded one thousand miles, from what is now Greenriver, Utah, through the series of cañons to the mouth of the Rio Virgin. In the spring of 1871 he again started with three boats and descended the river to the Crossing of the Fathers. The following summer Lee's Ferry was his point of departure and he went as far as the mouth of Kanab Wash.

Beginning with the Russell and Monett party, in 1907, several others have essayed to duplicate Powell's achievement, and successfully, too, though without adding to our scientific knowledge of the cañon. The trips are exceedingly dangerous, for the rapids conceal rocks that would wreck any boat, and the currents are treacherous. It is safer, by far, to sit at home and read Powell's story.

The average traveler spends too short a time at the cañon. He arrives in the morning and leaves in the evening. Those wise ones, who go about things in more leisurely fashion, stay from three days to a week.

There are certain things that everybody does. Simply by looking through the big telescope at the "lookout," an intimate view may be had of the far-off north rim and of the river gorge five miles below in an air line. It is easier than actually going to those places, though both are accessible. The north rim, or Kaibab Plateau, is about a quarter of a mile higher than the south rim, where you are standing, and is thickly forested with giant pines. Clear streams are found here, and wild game in abundance. Mountain-lions hide in the rocks, and bobcats haunt the trees. It is the home of the bear, too; you may see two "sassy" young sample specimens outside the house where the Indians stay, opposite El Tovar Hotel. The way across the cañon to the north side is not an easy one, as the Colorado must be crossed in a steel cage suspended from a cable, which stretches dizzily from bank to bank. Then follows the stiff climb up Bright Angel Creek, along a trail seldom used.

The Hopi House, where the Indians give their dances every evening for free entertainment of guests, is another attraction. It is occupied by representatives of the Snake Dance Hopis, whose home is many miles northeast across the Painted Desert. You won't see the Snake Dance, of course, but you will witness ceremonies just as interesting, participated in by men, women and children of the Hopi and Navajo tribes. The little tots, especially, are very "cute." They execute difficult steps in perfect time and with the utmost solemnity, while the drummer beats the tom-tom, and the singer chants his weird songs.

Here you may see Navajo silversmiths at work, fashioning curious ornaments from Mexican coins and turquoise, also deft weavers of blankets and baskets.

The Havasupai Reservation, in Cataract Cañon, is about sixty miles away, and Indians from that hidden place of the blue waterfalls are frequent visitors around the railway station.

All of these Indians understand the language of Uncle Sam. Many of them are Carlisle or Riverside graduates, and one young Hopi is writing a history of his tribe in university English.

Have you ever ridden a mule? If not, you will learn how at the cañon, for only on muleback can travelers easily make the trip down and up the trail. Walking is all right going down, but the climb coming back will tire out the strongest hiker: hence the mule, or burro, long as to ears, long as to memory, and "sad as to his songs."

Of the visitors, fat and lean, tall and short, old and young, to each is assigned a mule of the right size and disposition, together with a khaki riding-suit, which fits more or less, all surmounted by hats that are useful rather than ornamental. It is a motley crowd that starts off in the morning, in charge of careful guides, from the roof of the world—a motley crowd, but gay and suspiciously cheerful. It is likewise a motley crowd that slowly climbs up out of the earth toward evening—but subdued and inclined still to cling to the patient mule.

"What did you see?" asked curious friends.

Quite likely they saw more mule than cañon, being concerned with the immediate views along the trail rather than the thrilling vistas unfolding at each turn. Nine out of ten of them could tell you their mule's name, yet would hesitate to say much about Zoroaster or Angel's Gate. They could identify the steep descent of the Devil's Corkscrew, for they were a part of it; the mystery of the deep gulf, stretching overhead and all around, probably did not reach them. That is the penalty one pays for being too much occupied with things close at hand.

Yet only by crawling down into the awe-full depths can the cañon be fully comprehended afterward from the upper rim.

All trail parties take lunch on the river's bank. The Colorado is about two hundred feet wide here, and lashed into foam by the rapids. Its roar is like that of a thousand express-trains. The place seems uncanny. At night, under the stars, you appear to be in another world.

No water is to be found on the south rim for one hundred miles east and west of El Tovar, except what falls in the passing summer showers, and that is quickly soaked up by the dry soil. All the water used for the small army of horses and mules maintained by the transportation department, likewise for the big hotel and annex and other facilities, is hauled by rail in tank-cars from a point one hundred and twenty-five miles distant. The vast volume of water in the Colorado River, only seven miles away, is not available. No way has yet been found to pump economically the precious fluid from a river that to-day is thirty feet deep, and to-morrow is seventy feet deep, flowing below you at the depth of over a mile.

Another curious fact is this: the drainage on the south side is away from the cañon, not into it. The ground at the edge of the abyss is higher than it is a few miles back.

During the winter of 1917 there was an unusual fall of snow, which covered the sides and bottom of the cañon down to the river. Nothing like it had been seen for a quarter of a century. Generally, what little snow falls is confined to the rim and the upper slopes. At times the immense gulf was completely filled with clouds, and then the cañon looked like an inland lake. As a rule, this part of Arizona is a land of sunshine; the high altitude means cool summers; the southerly latitude means pleasant winters.

Naturally, a place like the Grand Cañon has attracted many great artists and other distinguished visitors. Moving-picture companies have staged thrilling photo-plays in these picturesque surroundings. Photographers by the score have trained their finest batteries of lenses on rim, trail, and river, some of them getting remarkable results in natural colors.

Unmoved by this galaxy of talent, however, the Grand Cañon refuses wholly to give up its secrets. Always there will be something new for the seeker and interpreter of to-morrow.

The Grand Cañon is a forest reserve and a national monument. A bill has been introduced in Congress to make it a national park. Meanwhile, the United States Forest Service and the railway company are doing all they can to increase the facilities for visitors. A forest ranger is located near by. His force looks out for fires, and polices the Tusayan Forest district. Covering such a large area with only a few men, a system has been worked out for locating fires quickly. Fifteen minutes saved, often means victory snatched from defeat. Water is not available, for this is a waterless region except during the short rainy season, so recourse must be had to other devices, such as back-firing and smothering with dirt.

Official government names for prominent objects in the region have been substituted for most of the old-time local names. For example, your attention is invited to Yavapai Point, so called after a tribe of Indians, instead of O'Neill's Point. These American Indian words are musical and belong to the country, and the names of Spanish explorers and Aztec rulers also seem suited to the place. Thus the great cañon has been saved the fate of bearing the hackneyed or prosaic names that have been given to many places of wonderful natural beauty throughout our country. Think of a "Lover's Leap" down an abyss of several thousand feet! That atrocity, happily, has been spared us in this favored region.

This great furrow on the brow of Arizona never can be made common by the hand of man. It is too big for ordinary desecration. Always it will be the ideal Place of Silence. Let us continue to hope that the incline railway will not be established here, suitable though it may be elsewhere, nor the merry-go-round. The useful automobile is barred on the highway along the edge of the chasm, though it is permitted in other sections.

It has been my good fortune to meet at the cañon many noted artists, writers, lecturers, "movie" celebrities, singers, and preachers. The impression made upon each one of them by this titanic chasm is almost always the same. At first, outward indifference—on guard not to be overwhelmed, for they have seen much, the wide world over. Then a restrained enthusiasm, but with emotions well in check. After longer acquaintance, more enthusiasm and less restraint. At the end, full surrender to the magic spell.

IN RAINBOW-LAND
BY AMY SUTHERLAND

Until only a few years ago, the Greatest Wonder of the World lay hidden away in one of the most savage parts of Africa. The natives of that region, terrified by its mysterious columns of vapor and its subterranean thunder, did not venture within many miles of it. The white men who had looked upon it could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

And yet, more than fifty years have passed since the explorer Livingstone, journeying eastward along the Zambesi, first beheld that rainbow mist rise above the forest. Of its cause he could learn nothing from the savages; and so, except for his own conjectures, he came quite unprepared upon his splendid discovery. He approached it by the river, which above the Falls is a mile wide, and below them runs for fifty miles at the bottom of a gorge between four and five hundred feet deep, whose twin walls of black, precipitous rock show for all that distance scarcely a ledge or slope where the smallest plant may cling. So, after a peep downward at the Falls, from the island on their brink which now bears his name, he left his new-found marvel less than half seen, and departed whence he came.

And the loneliness of those vast solitudes brooded once more over forest and river, to be broken only at rare intervals by some wandering hunter, or perhaps by a party of men adventuring through endless toil and danger to behold a wonder whose fame, even then, spread as far as that tiny portion of South Africa where white men dwelt and civilization held sway. So things remained until the day of Cecil Rhodes, under whose auspices went forth the voortrekkers, or pioneers, to colonize the vast land now called Rhodesia, in the heart of which the Victoria Falls lie. Many of these voortrekkers, and their wives and children, died at the hands of the savage Amatabele tribe of natives; but the survivors in the end were victorious, and the country became their own.

Cecil Rhodes died, and was laid in his lonely grave among the Matopo Hills, on a rocky summit which looks far out over the land he loved. But his wishes were remembered, the greatest and the least of them; and still, year by year, the Central African Railway grows, every year a little, northward through the forests. And now it has reached the Zambesi, and over that hitherto unconquerable gorge has been thrown one of the most wonderful railway bridges ever built; and close by has sprung up a great hotel, so that the Victoria Falls and their surroundings are attainable at last by all the world.

For many days the approaching traveler has been flying through a mighty tropical forest, in which a path has been cut for the railway line, but which is otherwise so undisturbed, so vast and silent and lonely, that it is hard to believe white men can ever make a home in it. Here the lion prowls at his own sweet will, and legions of antelopes, great and small, graze on the sweet veldt. And here elephants wander in troops of fifty or more, and in the swamps the hippopotamus plows his way through the papyrus reed and the ten-foot Rhodesian grass. The little iron shanties of the railway men are the only signs of civilized life. The natives of the country are few and far between; their kraals, with the conical huts peculiar to this race of Africans, look down from the rare, slight eminences.

There is no change in the scenery, little to give warning of the wonder that one approaches. Only, above the noise of the train, a far-off murmur of sound grows upon the ear; and a little while later, floating upward from out the forest, there comes in sight a long line of snowy vapor, which, as the low sun touches it, glows with soft, many-colored lights. This mist-cloud is caused by the sudden narrowing of the great Zambesi River in the Chasm, not two hundred yards wide, which receives the Falls at the end of their leap. The cloud rises at times as much as five hundred feet into the air, and there condenses into rain, which falls in eternal showers glorious in this thirsty land, and makes in the country close about the Falls one perpetual spring.

This tract of land is known as the Rain Forest, and in its tropical magnificence, its soft and delicate beauty, can surely be surpassed by nothing on earth. All about the path laboriously cut through its jungles, rise the trunks of splendid trees, which seem to tower into the very sky; their stems, and the earth about them, are hidden in masses of giant ferns, whose long sprays sway and quiver continually under the weight of the falling drops. Strange plants of many kinds grow here; orchids droop from the trees, and palms raise their graceful heads from out the tangle. Through it all drift the rainbow vapors, and from between the trees the sun strikes in long, slanting rays, and lights up the wet vegetation, the rising mist, the falling raindrops, with an effect so tenderly and unutterably lovely that it often brings tears to the eyes.

In places the forest is more open, and here the giant Rhodesian grass grows, twelve feet high, its flower-heads heavy with wet; and palms, free from the jungle and able to grow as they will, rise thirty feet into the air, their every fringed leaf hung with gems.

At any time a few steps will take the traveler from out this Forest of Rainbows, to where he may stand on the very verge of the terrific Chasm. Here he is directly opposite the Falls, which come rushing over the further tip in a mass of foam as white as snow, to fall with a roar more than four hundred feet into the dreadful abyss. By leaning over, it is possible at times to see the river at the bottom, a boiling, turbulent torrent racing furiously to the right along its rock-bound bed; but more often all is hidden in the mist, which is hurled upward so densely that in places the Chasm seems choked with it, and it rushes past the observer with an audible sound and a suggestion of irresistible force, awe-inspiring to a degree. Opposite the Main Falls, a spot known to the natives as Shongwe, the Caldron, it is so heavy as to blot out sky, forest, and even the Falls themselves, and we are in a strange twilight, half smothered in vapors and wholly deafened with the thunderous roar of the Falls so close at hand.

Everywhere are double rainbows of surpassing brightness, sometimes arches, sometimes complete, glowing circles. They are so close, one may watch their melting colors as in a soapbubble; and they move and change continually with the sun or the movements of the spectator. They gleam softly in the cloud, brilliantly against the stern black cliffs; and tiny rainbows by hundreds dance in the falling sheets of water and among the palms and ferns of the forest.

A strange circumstance cannot fail to strike the observer, and awe him, as perhaps nothing else could, with a sense of the vast depth of the fissure into which he fearfully gazes. The spray and rain bring into being hundreds of streams, which flash over the edge of the cliff opposite the Falls in an eternal effort to rejoin their parent river. But they never reach the bottom. Long before they are half-way down, they vanish, dissipated once more into spray, and borne upward in the form of lighted mist.

Of the radiant beauty of the whole scene, one writer, a traveler of renown, says:

"I believe that on that day I was gazing at the most perfectly beautiful spectacle of all this beautiful world.

"As the sun's rays fell on that kaleidoscopic, ever-moving, changing scene, made up of rock, water, mist, and shivering foliage, the coloring of it all was gorgeous, yet of sweetly tender tints under that luminous, pearly atmosphere formed by the spray-mist. Below, where one caught glimpses of the rushing water, it was turned brown and golden, blue and rich dark green. The cliff, sparkling with dripping water, was of shining black and glowing bronze. The foliage of the Rain Forest was of the green of an eternal spring, and a myriad jewels of twinkling light were made by the water-drops on the trembling leaves. A glorious rainbow spanned the Chasm, and other rainbows flitted in the haze. As for the tender, pale beauty of the Cataract and of the luminous, pearly mist, no words could convey it to the imagination."

Another writer says: "The beauty of the pearl-tinted atmosphere, and the glory of the dazzling rainbows, are the first and the last impressions that the Victoria Falls give to the mind."

The eastern extremity of the cliff opposite the Falls is known as Danger Point; and here the Chasm turns abruptly at right angles, and becomes the famous Gorge which for fifty miles zigzags across country, with the Zambesi like a silver cord at the bottom of it. Just at the turning-point, a mass of rock has fallen from the cliff and lies below in the river—a mass which, it is interesting to note, Livingstone describes as just ready to fall, and which in his drawing of the scene is represented as almost parted from the rest. Along the Gorge a strong, cold wind blows always, and bears the mist as far as the railway bridge and the exquisite palm groves near it.

Above the Falls, the scene is scarcely less fair. Here lies the broad Zambesi, placid and calm under its sunny skies, with its fifty islands, palm-crowned, wonderful, kept ever green and spring-like by the soft spray-showers. On the banks grows the burly baobab, whose trunk is as large as a house; lovely forest fringes either shore, and gay-plumaged birds flit among the flowering trees and feast on the plentiful wild fruits. From here the mists of Victoria take the form of five towering pillars, bending with the wind, white below, but dark farther up, where they condense into rain. Livingstone says of the river at this point: "No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed elsewhere. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."

The monstrous footprints of the hippopotami are thick along the banks, and crocodiles lie sunning themselves in the open spaces. Tiny gray monkeys, with wise black faces, swing from the miles of creeper which festoon the trees. Green parrots shriek, and strange great reptiles crash a path through the tangle. The savage natives punt or paddle their dugouts on the placid bosom of the river. So recent is the white man's advent that the whole is scarcely changed from the day when David Livingstone first looked upon it and realized, with beating heart, the Wonder he had found.

TRAVELING IN INDIA
BY MABEL ALBERTA SPICER

Here in the Western world, where everything is hustle and bustle, where express-trains, automobiles, telephones, telegraphs, pneumatic tubes, and, most recently, aëroplanes save us hours of time, it is difficult to realize that on the other side of the world things are moving along at the same slow pace at which they did centuries ago. Also, here in America, where everybody is saying, "I have no time, I have no time, I have no time!" it seems strange to think that there are countries where time has no value whatsoever, where people believe they have to live thousands and thousands of lives before they reach their heaven, and, consequently, have no regard for time.

Imagine spending the whole night in the train to go one or two hundred miles! Imagine, also, everybody's surprise if some traveler should attempt to take with him into an American sleeping-car a roll of bedding, a box of ice, sawdust, and bottles of soda-water, a huge lunch-basket, spirit-lamps, umbrella-cases, hat-boxes, suitcases and bags without number, a talkative parrot, and a folding chair or two! He would be thought quite mad, of course, and would not be allowed to enter the car. Yet this is how people travel in the trains of India. Sometimes, to be sure, the chairs and noisy parrot are left at home, but quite as often golf-sticks and a folding cot are substituted. Native travelers often carry their cooking-utensils and stoves with them. No one is in a hurry, and the train often waits quite long enough at stations for them to install their stoves on the platform, and cook a good dish of rice.

Most trains have first-, second-, and third-class carriages. Europeans and Americans usually travel first-class, for the best in India is bad enough when compared with the luxuries of travel in Western countries. Most of the carriages are about half as long as those in America, and divided into two compartments without a corridor, each having a lavatory at one end. Running along each side of the compartment, just under the windows, is a long, leather-covered bench, which serves as a seat during the day, and a berth at night. It is equally uncomfortable in both capacities. Above this, folded up against the side of the car, is a leather-covered shelf that lets down to form the upper berth.

My first experience in Indian trains was at night. My turbaned servant arranged my bedding on a bench in a compartment reserved for ladies, switched on an electric fan, salaamed, and went off to find his place in a servants' compartment adjoining. Most trains have special compartments for servants. It is impossible to travel comfortably in India without native servants.

While I was in the dressing-room, preparing for the night, I heard a noise outside, and, looking out, saw an old man with a lantern, down on his knees looking under the berths. He said that he was looking for me, that he was afraid I had missed the train.

Finally, after a great ringing of bells, tooting of whistles, waving of lanterns, and chattering of natives, we pulled out into the darkness and heat. The electric fan burred, mosquitos hummed and bit, the train rocked wildly from side to side.

I was just dozing off, when lights were flashed in my eyes. More bells, whistles, and chattering natives! The door burst open, and an Englishman ordered his man to put his luggage in the compartment. I called out that it was reserved for ladies, and he disappeared with a "Sorry!"

Out into the darkness again, only to be aroused at the next station by the guard, who shouted, "Tickets, please!" The night was one prolonged nightmare of heat, noise, jolting, and mosquitos. By five, I was beginning to sleep, when I was startled by a cry of "Chota Hazree!" I sat up in alarm, wondering what those dreadful-sounding words could mean, when the shutters by my head were suddenly lowered, and a tray of toast and tea thrust in at me. I accepted it, and gave up all idea of sleep. The dreadful-sounding words, I found, meant "little breakfast."

Sometimes we had our meals from a tiffin basket which we carried with us, sometimes from a restaurant car, or again at the station café while the train waited, and sometimes, when all of these failed us, not at all. During the winter, traveling was more comfortable. It was so cold that we needed heavy rugs over us. Some of the express-trains go from twenty to thirty miles an hour.

Each time that the train stops, there is great confusion. The natives arrive at the station hours ahead of time. Here they squat patiently until the train arrives, when they quite lose their heads. In an attempt to find places in the crowded carriages, they run excitedly up and down the platform, clinging to one another, clutching at their clumsy luggage, and screaming at their servants and the trainmen. Equally agitated groups pour out of the cars and scurry off to find bullock carts or ekkas to drive them to the town, which is usually some distance from the station. Boys and women with sweets, fruit, drinking-water, toys, cheap jewelry, and various articles of native production cry their wares at the car windows. Others sell newspapers, which are apt to be weeks old, if the purchaser does not insist upon seeing the date. The platform presents a riot of strange costumes, bright colors, quick-moving figures with jingling bangles and ankles, unholy odors, and clamorous sounds.

At the stations, we were met in different parts of India by the greatest imaginable variety of conveyances—carriages with footmen and drivers in state livery, sent by the native princes, hotel and public carriages after models never dreamed of in America, bullock carts, elephants, camels, rickshaws, and, in Calcutta and Bombay, taxi-automobiles.

When your driver starts off down the street at a reckless gait, clanging a bell in the floor of the carriage with his foot, and a boy on a step at the back calls out "Tahvay!" as you bowl along, you wonder if you have not taken, by mistake, a police wagon or an ambulance. But it is all right; you hear the same shouting and clanging of bells from all the other carriages along the route. This noise is necessary to make the idlers who stroll along the streets hand in hand get out of the way of the carriages.

There are so many horses in India that one wonders why any one should ever walk, and, in fact, very few do. They are of all grades, differing as much as does the shabbiest beggar from the most gorgeous raja. The conveyances to which they are harnessed range from the rickety public ekkas to the royal gold and silver coaches used on state occasions. One sees these wretched-looking public carriages that can be hired for a few cents filled with lazy natives and pulled along by a poor little pony that looks as if it were half-starved. Contrasting with these poor over-worked creatures are the thoroughbreds which literally die in the stables of the princes for lack of exercise.

When we were visiting in the native states, the chiefs sometimes offered us saddle-horses. The first time I rode one of these, I started off gaily, nothing fearing. From a gentle canter my mount suddenly broke into a dead run. Supposing that horses in all countries understood the same language, I said "Whoa," first mildly, persuasively, then loudly, imploringly; but without the slightest effect. On he sped faster and faster, until he overtook another horse, apparently a friend of his, for he slowed down to a walk beside it. I learned afterward that a sound similar to that used in America to make a horse go is used in India to make him stop. So the poor dear did not understand in the least my frantic cries of "Whoa!"

The only other swift-moving animal that it was my misfortune to encounter in India was a camel. This was in the north, in the desert of Rajputana. We were going to visit some tombs about five miles from the city. The others went in carriages, but I preferred to try the "fleet-footed camel." The creature knelt docilely enough to let me climb into the saddle back of the driver; then he unfolded his many-jointed legs and rose, throwing me forward and backward in a most uncomfortable manner.

He walked haughtily about the grounds of the guest-house a few minutes, turning up his nose at everybody, then suddenly let his hind legs collapse, almost throwing me off. The driver succeeded in making him understand that there was no use making a fuss, that he would have to take us. Off across the desert he started, at a gait so rough that I know of nothing with which to compare it. At first, I tried to hold to the saddle, but it was too slippery, so there was nothing to do but to throw my arms about the driver, and hang on to him with all my might. I returned in a carriage!

At Mysore and several other places, we saw camel-carriages. They make a queer sight, these ungainly, loose-jointed animals shambling along in the harness. In Bikanir, we watched the camel corps drill. The natives in this part of India are very finely built men, and they look most imposing in their gaily colored uniforms and turbans as they sit erect on the arrogant camels who snub even their masters.

Camel carriages of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab

There are so many slow, lazy ways of traveling in India that it is difficult to say which is the slowest.

Perhaps the bullocks, when they walk, are the slowest of all. They do, however, sometimes trot, and that at a rather brisk pace. They are beautiful animals, and very different from those in America. Their skin is wonderfully soft and silky. Between their shoulders is a large gristly hump. From their chin down between their fore legs hangs a loose, flabby fold of skin.

Of these, the most beautiful are the huge white bulls sacred to the Hindu god Shiva. These lead a life of leisure and luxury. They roam about the streets unmolested, eating from the fruit- and vegetable-stalls at will. Some are housed in the temples of the god.

Those who are not so lucky as to be held sacred have a rather hard time of it. They do most of the heavy hauling, and often suffer very cruel treatment from their drivers. In fact, no other animal is so much the victim of the cruelty and ignorance of the natives as these poor bullocks.

We drove in all sorts of curious-looking conveyances behind these somewhat refractory creatures. Once we drove out into a desolate region to visit some deserted temples, seated on the floor of a bullock cart with an arched cover of plaited bamboo over us. The men along the road walked faster than our bullocks, which went so slowly that, had it not been for the jolting of the cart, we should scarcely have known that we were moving.

In the southernmost part of the peninsula, along the Malabar coast, where there are no trains, we traveled in cabin-boats rowed by natives. It took them all night to row from Quilan to Travandrum, about fifty miles along the backwater. They sang from the moment they began to row, timing the stroke of the oar to the rhythm of their song. In the morning, they appeared as smiling and fresh as they had the evening before when we started.

In Madras, we rode in rickshaws like those of China and Japan. In many parts of India, men take the place of animals, both in carrying people and in transporting cargo. Several times we were carried up mountains in dholies by coolies. These dholies consist of a seat swung between two poles by ropes. They are carried by two or four men, who trot off up the hill with the poles resting on their shoulders, while the passenger dangles between them. They used to come down the mountains so fast that we were quite terrified. The seat would twist and sway, hit against trees, graze along the side of rocks, while our porters would dance along, talking and laughing, without paying the slightest attention to us. Then there are various kinds of push-carts used in different parts of the country.

Of course, the really Indian way of traveling is on elephants. Very few, however, except princes and foreign travelers, ever ride on these lordly animals. In the "zoos" in Calcutta and Bombay there are elephants for the children to ride. The riders climb steps to a platform the height of the elephant's back, then jump into the howdah, where they are tied fast to make sure of their not falling. The old huthi, as the elephant is called there, sways off, waving his trunk, flopping his ears, and blinking his eyes. He makes a tour of the gardens, then returns to the platform to get other children.

At Jaipur, Gwalior, and a number of other towns where there is a fort on a hill, elephants can be hired for the ascension. The huge creatures knelt down while we clambered into the howdah with the aid of ladders. When they rose, it seemed like an earthquake to us on their backs. They climbed the hill so slowly that the others of the party who walked arrived ahead of us. Our huthi would smell about carefully with his trunk before taking each step, then he would put a huge foot forward cautiously, and throw his great weight upon it slowly, as if afraid that the earth would give way under him. It took him so long to accommodate his four feet to each step, that I was thankful he had not as many as a centiped.

To appreciate an elephant in all his glory, one should see him in the splendor of princely procession. Designs in bright colors are painted on his forehead and trunk, trappings of silver ornament his tusks, head, and ankles, a rich cloth of gold and silver embroidery hangs over his colossal sides, and on his back is perched a rare howdah, often of gold and silver, with silk hangings. Aloft in the howdah rides the prince, resplendent with gold, silk, and jewels. In front, on the elephant's neck, sits the mahout, urging him on with strange-sounding grunts, and prods from a short pointed spear.

The elephants are reserved for state occasions. Most of the princes now have automobiles, which they look upon much as a child does its latest toy. The mass of the people depend upon the bullocks and horses to cart them about. There are now, also, in most parts of the empire, telephones and telegraphs; but they are such ancient systems and so unreliable that they are not to be compared with ours. India is through and through a lazy country, where nobody is in a hurry.

WHERE THE SUNSETS OF ALL THE YESTERDAYS ARE FOUND
BY OLIN D. WHEELER

In Montana, Idaho, and northern Wyoming lies the region where center the headwaters of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Green, and Snake rivers—the last named a branch of the Columbia. In the early years of the last century it was virtually the center of all human activity in the Rocky Mountain region, being a prolific, but dangerous, trapping-ground for the fur trade of those days.

Here the cloud-piercing peaks of the American Rockies reach their greatest altitude, and the scenery is of the wildest and most impressive character. The Grand Teton, 13,747 feet elevation, overlooking the magnificent Jackson Lake basin, has been climbed but twice by white men.

Since the Yellowstone Park was established, in 1872, the wonders of this region have been more or less familiar. But prior to 1870 they were believed to exist largely in the fertile imagination of the trapper.

The Park region, as we will call it, lay between the old-time northern and southern routes of frontier-day travel across the continent. It is true there were Indian trails leading across and through it, but the Indians, superstitious by nature, seem to have avoided the localities of the geysers and hot springs, and their north and south bound trails lay to the east or west of these areas that now fascinate and interest us.

In 1807, along one of these outside trails—one that just skirted the eastern side of the geyser zone, which here lies along a well-defined north-and-south axis—came the first white man who visited the region. He saw the two beautiful lakes, Jackson and Yellowstone, the dazzling Grand Cañon and its two falls, probably some of the hot springs, and possibly some of the inferior geysers. His trail is shown—marked "Colter's Route in 1807"—on the map of the great explorers Lewis and Clark in 1814. But it was after their return to civilization that they learned of this "hot springs brimstone" locality.

John Colter was a prince of adventurers. His life as a border hero, explorer, and trapper rivals that of any character of fiction; his discovery of the Yellowstone, while on a mission to an Indian tribe, was purely accidental, but it brought him lasting fame. He, himself, probably never realized its importance.

Two or three other old-time and adventurous mountaineers, particularly James, or "Jim," Bridger, afterward visited this locality, but people in general utterly refused seriously to consider, let alone believe, what these men told them regarding it.

Bridger was a man of remarkable ability as a guide and mountaineer, although unable to read, or even to write his own name. He was the discoverer of Great Salt Lake, and as a guide and natural-born scout had no superior, if, indeed, an equal, among frontiersmen. In this capacity he served numerous government and other expeditions and explored and traversed a large part of what was then the Far West. He could tell many a good story about his hairbreadth escapes, and lived to a ripe old age.

To attempt a word-picture of this region and its weird and unusual features is almost useless, and yet every one who visits it endeavors to do so. No words can be found adequately to describe the hot springs, that are numbered by the thousands, and the marvelous hues of their waters and their basins, rimmed and ornamented by fluted and beaded parapets of indescribable delicacy and beauty. Nor can the geysers, leaping suddenly from their deep, nether-world reservoirs, be pictured by words in such a way as to convey to the mind a real image of their strange and fascinating reality.

The first printed description of one of them was by another trapper, Warren A. Ferris, of the old American Fur Company. He visited a geyser area in 1834, but his account of it was not published until July, 1842.

Numerous waterfalls are found here, from cascades a few feet in height to cataracts having twice the leap of Niagara; lakes lie deeply embosomed among the high peaks or the heavy forests, and one of them, twenty miles in length and a mile and a half above the ocean, is now being navigated—think of it!—by motor-boats; thousands of miles of crystal trout-streams, kept supplied with trout by the government hatcheries, radiate in every direction; a natural glass cliff, an Indian quarry for arrow-heads in the ancient days, towers above a lake formed at its base by the wise and cunning beavers. There is, too, a low mountain of pure sulphur, with beautiful boiling sulphur-pools splashing at its foot; and, in contrast to these, there is a gruesome volcano of mud belching from a dark, malodorous cavern, while almost beside this is a beautiful, clear pool of hot water formed by a stream flowing from beneath a green Gothic arch.

The wonderful cañons, exhibiting such different phases of nature's sublime handiwork, awe the beholder. One shows the marvelous way in which lava, cooling, arranges itself in massive, black, symmetric slabs and columns; these enclose a beautiful fall that adds a touch of lightness and beauty. The Grand Cañon is the most startling and extraordinary example of color harmony and nature sculpture to be found in the universe. A Japanese, in the poetic imagery of his race, has said that these brilliant cañon walls have caught and emblazoned upon their mural precipices the sunsets of all the yesterdays—a beautiful conception. One stands awed to silence in the presence of "Nature's immensities" seen here and is almost overwhelmed by the profound splendors and majestic glories of this cañon.

In another respect this park land stands in a category by itself. By federal enactment all of the Yellowstone Park proper and some additional territory bordering it has been made a vast national game-preserve, something not originally planned.

As settlement has increased and the valleys have become occupied by farmers and ranchmen, the game has been forced into the higher valleys and parks of the mountains, or into their remote recesses. Here, within the park boundaries, deer, elk, antelope, bears, mountain-sheep, moose, bison, and the smaller game, birds (between 150 and 200 species), and fur-bearing animals, have a refuge where no hunter or trapper penetrates and danger rarely intrudes. In the Jackson Lake country, hunting is allowed for a limited period.

There are thousands of these various animals that know they are absolutely immune from harm by man when within the bounds of this park. Most of them have never seen a dog nor heard the sound of a rifle. Under these conditions their natural timidity is greatly lessened, and many of them, even bears, become surprisingly tame.

From the supply which Yellowstone Park affords, state and city parks and various game-preserves are being stocked. Experienced men round up the yearling elk into corrals near the railway sidings, and there load them into freight-cars, with plenty of alfalfa hay, and then they are forwarded to their destination. Many carloads are shipped each winter.

The writer recently visited the park in winter to see the game animals. Heavy snows covering their pastures drive them down from their high ranges to the lower hills, cañons, and draws about Gardiner and Mammoth Hot Springs, and here the Government, during times of storm and stress, feeds them alfalfa hay and thus saves them from starvation. Elk by hundreds, or even thousands, dot the hillsides,—there are from 30,000 to 40,000 of them by actual count,—while antelope in goodly numbers range on the open and lower hill-slopes. In Gardiner Cañon beside the road the beautiful mule-deer and the white-tailed deer, touchingly innocent and trustful, and the mountain-sheep—the big-horn fellows—stand or lie, eating alfalfa, and enjoying the protecting care of a beneficent, animal-loving government. They become almost as domesticated as barn-yard animals. Indeed, at Mammoth Hot Springs, the deer actually haunt the kitchen doors and rear themselves on their hind legs against the porch railings, or even climb the steps and peer into the doors and windows, mutely begging for food, which they often take from one's hand. At night they lie on the snow under the large trees, or, in some cases, even sleep in the large cavalry-barns, which have been vacant since the soldiers were removed from the park in the fall of 1916.

Over at the bison range and corral on Lamar River, in the northeastern corner of the park, one sees an interesting sight. Here the mountain scenery of the park reaches its finest development. In summer or winter the ride to the corral from Mammoth Hot Springs is a treat. In summer the bison herd of about three hundred—there is a so-called wild herd of about a hundred some miles farther south—ranges in a beautiful valley and on the adjoining hills and mountain-slopes near the Petrified Forest and Death Gulch. It is under the care of a keeper who lives here with his family, in a comfortable home provided by the Government. The bison are rounded up at intervals during the summer so that their condition and whereabouts shall be always known. The herd originally consisted of only twenty-one animals, purchased by the Government in 1902 at a cost of $15,000.

In January, 1917, I made a trip by sleigh, drawn by a pair of sturdy horses, to the bison corral. On the hills at intervals along the entire route large bands of elk were to be seen. The snow was more than two feet deep, and it required two days, mostly at a walk, to travel the thirty-five miles between Gardiner and the corral. The thermometer registered from ten to fifteen degrees below zero, and for the week following the mercury ranged, in the morning, from thirty-two to fifty degrees below.

In winter the bison are kept in a large pasture-corral a square mile in extent, lying along Rose Creek and Lamar River, and here they remain very contentedly. Long before daylight each morning the herd congregates about the corral gate, waiting for feeding-time. Soon after daylight a sleigh is driven into the inclosure, loaded with alfalfa hay and drawn by a pair of horses that have become so accustomed to the buffalo as to pay no attention to them, even though the latter crowd close about them. The hay is pitch-forked to the ground as the sleigh is slowly driven along, and the animals line themselves out, following it until all are supplied. In an hour or two, after they have eaten their fill, they "mosey" over to the steaming creek that has its sources in some hot springs in the hills, drink slowly and long, and then sedately walk back along deep trails in the snow, the mother bison followed by their calves, to the feeding-ground, where most of them then lie down and sleep for a good part of the day. Mock fights or hunting jousts are indulged in by some of the younger animals and afford variety and amusement, to the participants at least. In the dim light of a winter morning the animals resemble a herd of young elephants.

Reference has been made to the fact that this particular locality is especially interesting from a geographical standpoint. Including the Jackson Lake country it is in this respect one of the most important and interesting regions on the continent. It lies on both sides of the great Continental Divide, which twists and turns in all directions in its course northward and southward.

Outside of the limits of Yellowstone Park itself, the mountain structure found here is, perhaps, not greatly different from that of other parts of the Rockies. The Teton range lies south of the park, and is one of the most prominent and commanding in the entire Rocky Mountain chain. The park region itself seems to be a vent for the pent-up heat of the earth. It is not improbable that these boiling springs and geysers may serve as escape-valves, and be the means of preventing very serious volcanic disturbances, such as occurred here in past ages.

As a watershed the region is equally remarkable. It has been noted that here four of the largest rivers of our country have their sources, interlacing with one another. It is, indeed, a network of thousands of mountain streams forming, ultimately, four great rivers, each flowing to a different point of the compass. The headwaters of the Snake River, joining with the Columbia, find their way into the North Pacific Ocean. The waters of the Green, after a journey through the great cañons of the Southwest, flow into the Pacific through the Gulf of California. To the east flows the Yellowstone, which merges its waters with those of the Missouri, and, after a journey of three thousand miles, flows into the Atlantic through the Gulf of Mexico.

This unique region is no longer difficult of access. Railways reach it from three sides, the north, west, and east, and the Government has spent between one million and two million dollars in establishing excellent roads to enable travelers to view the beauties of the Yellowstone. Here is to be found the finest automobile trip of its length in the country, supplemented by telephone-lines and large and costly hotels. The construction of these buildings must be carried on in winter, and the nails used have to be heated in order to handle them.

With the year 1917 will disappear the last remnant of the old stage-coaching days, a mode of travel which for years was the only method of land travel in the West, and which until now has been the method of transportation in the park. Beginning with this season, automobiles will displace the horses and coaches and numerous other changes in the way of increased comfort, convenience, and pleasure have been planned. The old six-day now becomes one of five days, with several advantageous changes in route and in the time to be spent at different points.

The policy of our Government in establishing these national parks has since been followed by other nations, and it has been praised by such thoughtful observers as, for example, Lord Bryce, ex-ambassador to this country from England. That it has accomplished the object of its originators and is a blessing to mankind is now beyond question.

FIRECRACKERS
BY ERICK POMEROY
TEMPLE OF THE EMPRESS OF HEAVEN, CHINA

This is the thirteenth day of the fifth moon of the thirty-third year of Kwang-su, very early in the morning—that is, "very early" for me, because I ordered my "boy" last evening to call me at eight o'clock this morning and not a minute before. Here, in the rambling old temple where we live, we have learned to go to bed with the sun on the fourteenth and on the last day of each Chinese moon, because we know that the wailing pipes of the early morning celebrations before the gods on the first and fifteenth of the moon will be certain to wake us at a truly heathenish hour. But when an extra, unannounced, unexpected festival day is ushered in with cymbals, pipes, and firecrackers, then we just have to lose our morning sleep and try not to lose our tempers. This morning is one of those dawns of misery. Even as I write the temple bells, the drums, and those peculiar jig-time horns are setting up a discordant hubbub in the courtyards, while at intervals a big cracker sends me springing into the air with a start that fearfully tries my nerves. At first this morning I endeavored to sleep, but I soon gave that up to don my kimono and sally forth to find out the cause of this gratuitous Fourth of July. Out on the terrace in front of the inner gates of the temple, to which the rays of the rising sun had not yet bent down, there was gathered a small group of men and boys watching such a display of firecrackers as would have attracted a whole City Hall Park full of people at home. Yet their interest was apparently much like their numbers—very small. They just gazed at the exploding end of the red string of noise without any comments and without any more evident interest than they took in seeing that the small boys picked up all of the unexploded crackers that were blown out of the danger circle by their more powerful brothers. My appearance in a kimono and straw sandals seemed to furnish them with more excitement than the rope of crackers which hung from the firecrackers pole hard by. Such a din! Can you imagine a string of firecrackers, large and small woven together, of over one hundred thousand?

But I am getting ahead of my story. By way of introduction I meant only to tell you that I have for some time been planning to write a letter to your good editor in the hope that he might be willing to pass on to you of the fast-disappearing American "firecracker age" my story of how this country, the native land of the "whip-guns," manufactures and uses these crackers which we think of as belonging only to our Fourth of July.

The desire and determination to write this letter had their birth one day in a city of North China when I was walking along the street where many of the firecracker-makers live—since dubbed "Firecracker Row" on my private chart of the city—and when I suddenly realized how much I should have liked as a boy, when I was "shooting off crackers," to see these places and to know their ways of manufacture. It is difficult not to be interrupted nor to interrupt these lines. Now there are two little pigtailed heads stretched up just over my window-sill, peeping in and asking if I do not wish to buy the tiger-lilies they have gathered on the hillside. So first I will try to tell you how the crackers are made and then how they are used out here, in the hope that you may find as much interest in reading the story as I have found in gathering the information and pictures for it.

Several times I went into the city to visit Firecracker Row, and on one occasion took a series of photographs to show more clearly than words will do the important steps in the process of manufacture. The first step consists in cutting the rough brown paper into pieces long enough to make a hollow tube of several layers in thickness, and wide enough to give the tube a length just twice that of the finished cracker. From the top of his pile the workman takes a pack of these slips, lays them out with one end arranged just like steps, and then slides down the stairs, as it were, with a brush of paste, so as to make the outer ends of the slips stick fast when rolled against the tube. Then he bends the other—the dry—end around an iron nail, and places the nail under a board, which rolls it along the slip until all the paper has curled around it. Once the cracker skeleton is thus formed, he gives it an extra roll or two down the bench for good measure, slides it off the nail into a basket, and has another started before you realize what he is about. Then one of the small apprentices in the shop arranges the skeletons together in a six-sided bundle, like those on the drying board in Cut II, in each of which he puts just five hundred and seven. Why that particular number, I could not find out.

Once dry, the skeletons receive their covering garment of red paper, which makes them so truly "little redskins"—this from the hands of one of the workers without the aid of any machine whatever. He just rolls one of the narrow slips around the tube with his fingers and hurries the growing agitator into another basket to await the time for stuffing in the material that will make him such a lively fellow. Once more, however, they all have to be packed up into the six-sided bundles, this time with two stout strings tied around them a third of the way from the top and bottom, leaving the middle free. The worker takes his big knife and chops right down through the whole bundle to make the clean ends for the tops of the shorter tubes.

These shorter tubes next have a thin paper covering pasted over both tops and bottoms before the bottoms are closed by tapping them with a nail that is just a little larger than the hole in the tube, so that it crowds down some of the paper from the sides. With the bundles right side up, the workman then makes holes in the paper cover over the top, scatters on this the powder dust, and distributes it fairly evenly among the five hundred and seven hungry ones by means of a light brush. When the dust has been tamped a little, the powder finds its way to the middle of the tube in the same manner, the fuse is inserted by another workman, the top layer of dust added, and the whole supply of bottled fun packed in by another tamping with a nail and mallet. Completed and still crowded together in the bundles, the little redskins, with the fuses sticking out of their caps, seem to wear a festive, promising look that clearly says: "You give us a light, and we'll do the rest. And what a high old time it will be!"

When asked how many of these bundles one man could make in a day, the good-natured master of the shop said that one man is counted on to make twenty bundles up to the point where the powder is put in, when the crackers are passed along to others to finish and weave into strings. What a "string" means here in this land, where the diminutive "packs" we used to buy for a nickel would be scored, may be gathered from a glance at those which the maker is holding up in Cut I and at those on the drying-boards in the view shown in Cut II.

Once the crackers have been fully prepared for stringing, either they are put together in such strings as you see in the pictures or they have bigger fellows—four or five times the size of the little ones—plaited in at regular intervals. Then they are wrapped neatly with red or white paper in long packages bearing on the face a red slip with the shop's name printed on it in gilt characters. Some of these packets would have seemed monstrous—needlessly extravagant—in those days when I used to make one or two nickel packs last the better part of a Fourth of July morning by firing them one by one in a hole in the tie-post or under a tin can. To give these longer strings sufficient strength to hang from a pole, as is the usual way of firing them, the workmen weave in with the fuses a light piece of hemp twine. But even this is not an adequate protection against a break in those monster strings that come out on special occasions. The one that started this letter to you was fifteen feet long when I arrived on the scene to investigate the disturbance and had already lost one-half its numbers (I have seen strings from thirty to fifty feet long). To keep such a string from breaking, the Chinese fasten it at intervals to a rope which runs through the pulley at the top of the pole, and then draw the line up until the bottom clears the ground. As the explosions tear away the lowest crackers, the rope is let down and, at the same time, held out away from the bottom of the pole to make a graceful curve of the last few feet of the string. When such long strings have eaten themselves up, you can imagine the amount of fragments around the base of the pole. There are literally basketfuls of them to be first wetted down to guard against fire and then swept up or allowed to blow away when the winds so will.

Thus far you have heard only of little and big crackers. However, there are many distinguishing names among the Chinese for the several varieties and sizes, which I am going to give you before passing on to the story of the special uses of crackers in the Chinese life. First come the ordinary pien p'ao, or "whip-guns," the small ones which derive their name from the similarity which their explosion bears to the snapping of a whip. Sometimes they are called simply "whips," in the same way that the Chinese speak of many things by shortened or changed names. To make these names seem more real to you I have had my Chinese teacher write out for me on separate slips the characters which represent them. More diminutive than the ordinary crackers are the "small whips," about an inch long, that are made especially for the small children to use without danger. For one American cent you could buy about one hundred of these. Then above the whip-guns the next class is the "bursting bamboos," which are said to have taken their name from the fact that in early times bamboo was used as the tubes for these crackers. If such were the case, a line of them must have "made the splinters fly." Even still more powerful are the "hemp thunderers," or, to take a little liberty with the translation, the "hemp sons of thunder," whose name also indicates their construction and their magnitude. Bearing a close similarity in power to our cannon crackers, these have been known at times to break the second-story paper windows in a small compound. They play an important part in the worshiping, or propitiating of the gods in our courtyard, inasmuch as it is considered good form to set them off at intervals while the whip-guns—which my teacher assures me "do not require any watching"—are keeping up their unbroken stream of praise and prayer. They may be considered as good lusty "Amens" throughout the service.

Slightly different in form are the "double noises," which are nothing more or less than our "boosters" that go off first on the ground and again up in the air. To intersperse these throughout the explosions of the whips during any special demonstration is also considered good form. Then allied to these we find another booster, which when it explodes on the ground drives ten others up into the air to become the "flying in heaven ten sounds" with the Chinese. These are only "for play," and that chiefly in the homes from the thirteenth to the seventeenth days of the first moon of the year. With the "lamp flower exploders," that is, our flower-pot, the list of the most common forms of crackers and fire-works becomes exhausted, although the Chinese have several other less usual species, together with many alternative names for both these and the ones I have mentioned.

Strings of firecrackers

Hexagonal bundles of firecrackers
drying in the sun

The time when the Chinese receive most crackers is at the New Year season, when, among the well-to-do families of Tientsin and Peking, it is customary to give a boy the equivalent of our fifty cents for his purchases. In Peking the shops issue special red notes, like our old "shinplasters" in value, for this one use at the New Year. In giving the cracker money to the boys, the parents often make smaller presents to the girls, who are wont to buy paper flowers with their pennies, in proof of which the Chinese have a proverb which runs, "Girls like flowers; boys like crackers."

But this juvenile use of the whip-guns consumes only an infinitesimal part of the whole supply of the year. At many festivals and on many occasions the head of the house, the manager of the shop, or the officers of the gild require great quantities of these propitious harbingers. Greatest of all occasions is the passing of the year, when the people keep up the successor to the ancient custom of setting off the "bamboo guns" in order to drive away the evil spirits of the past twelvemonth and to usher in all that is good for the coming one. All night long the crackers have been popping in the town below, and an early gathering in the temple is held to add the final touch before the new day shall break.

When morning came, I wandered leisurely to my office through the business section of the town to watch the fun at the big shops. Never shall I forget the picture of that street with its dozen or more great red strings of crackers hanging in front of the bigger hongs and seemingly waiting for some word to start the fusillade. Fortunately this came and the storm broke as I waited. For sheer noise, vivacity, and demonstrative liveliness I never have seen the equal of those snarling, bursting lines that poured out their wrath with incessant fervor upon the evil spirits below and shot up their welcome to the good ones above. Then, although this display on New Year's Day seemed grand enough to last a long time, there came more explosions as the shops took down their doors and began their routine business on the fifth or sixth of the moon. Furthermore, custom demands in certain parts that throughout the first ten days of the year there shall be occasional snappings of the whips, to be followed on the fifteenth, at the Feast of Lanterns, by a still greater demonstration.

When a new shop is opened, it is customary for all the front boards to be left up until just before the opening ceremony takes place; then one or two boards are taken down, the manager and his assistants come out to light a string of crackers, and, as the whips are snapping, the remaining boards come down to the sound of this propitious music of the land. Very often there are several strings hung from poles or tripods, and one is lighted after the other in such a way as to maintain a long, unbroken stream of noise.

In most parts of the empire it is also customary for an official, when he receives the seals of office from his predecessor, to have a string of crackers let off at the proper moment. And I must confess to having yielded myself to the pressure of my Chinese assistants in having purchased a few for use at the time we opened our new office at this place. Likewise, when a military official is leaving a post, he is usually accorded a send-off with crackers which have been subscribed for by his men.

And thus, from what has gone before, you may catch some idea of the persistency with which the little redskins have poked their noses into almost all the important celebrations of the Chinese life.

CURIOUS CLOCKS
BY CHARLES A. BRASSLER

Many of the German cities of the Middle Ages enjoyed great prosperity, which they liked to exhibit in the form of splendid churches and other public buildings; and each one tried to excel the others. When, therefore, in the year 1352, Strassburg was the first to erect a great cathedral clock, which not only showed the hour to hundreds of observers, but whose strokes proclaimed it far and near, there was a rivalry among the rich cities as to which should set up within its walls the most beautiful specimen of this kind.

The citizens of Nuremberg, who were renowned all over the European world for their skill, were particularly jealous of Strassburg's precedence over them.

In 1356, when the Imperial Council, or Reichstag, held in Nuremberg, issued the Golden Bull, an edict or so-called "imperial constitution" which promised to be of greatest importance to the welfare of the kingdom, a locksmith, whose name is unfortunately not recorded, took this as his idea for the decoration of a clock which was set up in the Frauenkirche in the year 1361. The emperor, Charles IV, was represented, seated upon a throne; at the stroke of twelve, the seven Electors, large moving figures, passed and bowed before him to the sound of trumpets.

This work of art made a great sensation.

Other European cities, naturally, desired to have similar sights, and large public clocks were therefore erected in Breslau in 1368, in Rouen in 1389, in Metz in 1391, in Speyer in 1395, in Augsburg in 1398, in Lübeck in 1405, in Magdeburg in 1425, in Padua in 1430, in Dantzic in 1470, in Prague in 1490, in Venice in 1495, and in Lyons in 1598.

Not all, of course, were as artistic as that of Nuremberg; but no town now contented itself with a simple clockwork to tell the hours. Some had a stroke for the hours, and some had chimes; the one showed single characteristic moving figures, while others were provided with great astronomical works, showing the day of the week, month, and year, the phases of the moon, the course of the planets, and the signs of the zodiac.

On the town clock of Compiègne, which was built in 1405, three figures of soldiers, or "jaquemarts," so-called (in England they are called "Jacks"), struck the hour upon three bells under their feet; and they are doing it still. The great clock of Dijon has a man and a woman sitting upon an iron framework which supports the bell upon which they strike the hours. In 1714 the figure of a child was added, to strike the quarters. The most popular of the mechanical figures was the cock, flapping his wings and crowing.

The clock on the Aschersleben Rathaus shows, besides the phases of the moon, two pugnacious goats, which butt each other at each stroke of the hour; also the wretched Tantalus, who at each stroke opens his mouth and tries to seize a golden apple which floats down; but in the same moment it is carried away again. On the Rathaus clock in Jena is also a representation of Tantalus, opening his mouth as in Aschersleben; but here the apple is not present, and the convulsive efforts of the figure to open the jaws wide become ludicrous.

One of the first clocks with which important astronomical works were connected is that of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, now restored. Below, at the height of a man's head, is the plate which shows the day of the week, month, etc.; these calculations are so reliable that the extra day of leap-year is pushed in automatically every four years. The plate is more than three meters in diameter. Above it is the dial, almost as large. The numbers from 1 to 12 are repeated, so that the hour-hand goes around the dial only once in twenty-four hours. In the wide space between the axis which carries the hand and the band where the hours are marked, the fixed stars and the course of the planets are represented. The heavens are here shown as they appear to an observer in Lübeck. In the old works the movement of the planets was given incorrectly, for they all were shown as completing a revolution around the sun in 360 days. Of course this is absurd. Mercury, for example, revolves once around the sun in eighty-eight days, while Saturn requires twenty-nine years and 166 days for one revolution. When this astronomical clock was repaired, some years ago, a very complicated system of wheels had to be devised to reproduce accurately the great difference in the movement of the planets. The work consumed two years. There are a great number of moving figures on the Lübeck clock, but they are not of the most conspicuous interest. In spite of this, however, they excite more wonder among the crowds of tourists who are always present when the clock strikes twelve than the really remarkable and admirable astronomical and calendar works.

The Strassburg clock has, more than all others, an actually world-wide fame; and no traveler who visits the beautiful old city fails to see the curious and interesting spectacle which it offers daily at noontime. To quote from one such visitor: "Long before the clock strikes twelve, a crowd has assembled in the high-arched portico of the stately cathedral, to be sure of not missing the right moment. Men and women of both high and low degree, strangers and townspeople alike, await in suspense the arrival of the twelfth hour. The moment approaches, and there is breathless silence. An angel lifts a scepter and strikes four times upon a bell; another turns over an hour-glass which he holds in the hand. A story higher, an old man is seen to issue from a space decorated in Gothic style; he strikes four times with his crutch upon a bell, and disappears at the other side, while the figure of Death lets the bone in its hand fall slowly and solemnly, twelve times, upon the hour-bell. In still another story of the clock, the Saviour sits enthroned, bearing in the left hand a banner of victory, the right hand raised in benediction. As soon as the last stroke of the hour has died away, the apostles appear from an opening at the right hand of the Master. One by one they turn and bow before Him, departing at the other side. Christ lifts His hand in blessing to each apostle in turn, and when the last has disappeared, He blesses the assembled multitude. A cock on a side tower flaps his wings and crows three times. A murmur passes through the crowd, and it disperses, filled with wonder and admiration at the spectacle it has witnessed."

In 1574, the Strassburg astronomical clock replaced the older one. It was mainly the work of Dasypodius, a famous mathematician, and it ran until 1789. Later, the celebrated clock-maker, Johann Baptist Schwilgué (born December 18, 1772), determined to repair it. After endless negotiations with the church authorities, he obtained the contract, and on October 2, 1842, the clock, as made over, was solemnly reconsecrated.

In very recent days, the clock of the City Hall in Olmütz, also renovated, has become a rival to that of the Strassburg Cathedral. In the year 1560, it was described by a traveler as a true marvel, together with the Strassburg clock and that of the Marienkirche in Dantzic. But as the years passed, it was most inconceivably neglected, and everything movable and portable about it was carried off. Now, after repairs which have been almost the same as constructing it anew, it works almost faultlessly. In the lower part of the clock is the calendar, with the day of the year, month, and week, and the phases of the moon, together with the astronomical plate; a story higher, a large number of figures move around a group of angels, and here is also a good portrait of the Empress Maria Theresa. Still higher is an arrangement of symbolical figures and decorations, which worthily crowns the whole. A youth and a man, above at the left, announce the hours and quarters by blows of a hammer. The other figures go through their motions at noonday. Scarcely have the blows of the man's hammer ceased to sound, when a shepherd boy, in another wing of the clock, begins to play a tune; he has six different pieces, which can be alternated. As soon as he has finished, the chimes, sixteen bells, begin, and the figures of St. George, of Rudolph of Hapsburg, with a priest, and of Adam and Eve, appear in the left center. When they have disappeared, the chimes ring their second melody, and the figures of the right center appear,—the three Kings of the East, before the enthroned Virgin, and the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt. When the bells ring for the third time, all the figures show themselves once more.

Clocks operated by electricity are, of course, the product of recent times.

England's largest electric clock was, as our illustration shows, recently christened in a novel manner. The makers, Messrs. Gent & Co., of Leicester, entertained about seventy persons at luncheon on this occasion, using one of the four mammoth dials as a dining-table, a "time table," as the guests facetiously styled it.

The clock was installed, 220 feet above the ground, in the tower of the Royal Liverpool Society's new building, in Liverpool. Each of the four dials, which weigh fifteen tons together, measure twenty-five feet in diameter, with a minute-hand fourteen feet long. The hands are actuated electrically by a master clock connected with the Greenwich Observatory. After dark, they are illuminated by electricity, and are visible at a great distance.

Still larger are the dials of the great electric clock, situated 346 feet high, in the tower of the Metropolitan Life Building, on Madison Square, New York City. They measure twenty-six and one half feet in diameter. The minute-hand is seventeen feet from end to end, and twelve feet from center to point, while the hour-hand measures thirteen feet four inches in all, and eight feet four inches from the center of the dial outward. These immense hands are of iron framework, sheathed in copper, and weigh 1000 and 700 pounds respectively.

The big clock and the ninety-nine other clocks in the building are regulated from a master clock in the Directors' Room, on the second floor, which sends out minute impulses, and is adjusted to run within five seconds per month.

At night, the dial, hands, and numerals are beautifully illuminated, of which we present a picture, the enlarged minute-hand showing the length of exposure. The time is also flashed all night in a novel manner from the great gilded "lantern" at the apex of the tower, 696 feet above the pavement. The quarter-hours are announced from each of the four faces of the lantern by a single red light, the halves by two red flashes, the three quarters by three flashes. On the hour, the white arc-lights are extinguished temporarily, and white flashes show the number of the hour.

This takes the place of the bells operated in the daytime. They are in four tones, G (1500 pounds), F (2000 pounds), E flat (3000 pounds), and B flat (7000 pounds), and each quarter-hour ring out the "Westminster Chimes," in successive bars. These are the highest chimes in the world, being situated on the forty-second floor, 615 feet above the street level; and they attract much attention from visitors.

MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE—PART I
BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

It was some time in June when we found ourselves drifting about Normandy in our motor-car, and one peaceful evening we came to Bayeux and stopped there for the night. Bayeux, which is about sixty miles from Cherbourg, was intimately associated with the life of William the Conqueror, and is to-day the home of the famous Bayeux tapestry, a piece of linen two hundred and thirty feet long and eighteen inches wide, on which is embroidered in colored wool the story of William's conquest of England.

William's queen, Matilda, is supposed to have designed this marvelous pictorial document, and even executed it, though probably with the assistance of her ladies. Completed in the eleventh century, it would seem to have been stored in the Bayeux cathedral, where it lay, scarcely remembered, for a period of more than six hundred years. Then attention was called to its artistic and historic value, and it became still more widely known when Napoleon brought it to Paris and exhibited it at the Louvre. Now it is back in Bayeux, and has a special room in the museum there and a special glass case so arranged that you can walk around it and see each of its fifty-eight tableaux.

Matilda was ahead of her time in art. She was a futurist—anybody could see that who had been to one of the recent exhibitions. But she was exactly abreast in the matter of history. It is likely that she embroidered the events as they were reported to her, and her records are beyond price to-day. I suppose she sat in a beautiful room with her maids about her, all engaged at the great work, and I hope she looked as handsome as she looks in the fine painting that hangs above the case containing her masterpiece.

It was the closing hour when we got to the Bayeux museum, but the guardian generously gave us plenty of time to walk around and look at all the marvelous procession of horses and men, whose outlines have remained firm and whose colors have stayed fresh for more than eight hundred years. There is something fine and stirring about Matilda's tapestry. No matter if Harold does seem to be having an attack of pleurisy, when he is only putting on his armor, or if the horses appear to have detachable legs. I could see that the Joy, who is a judge of horses, did not think much of Queen Matilda's drawing, and their riders were not much better. Still, it was wonderful how they did seem to "go" in some of the battles, and they made that old story seem very real to us. Tradition has it that the untimely death of Matilda left the tapestry unfinished, for which reason William's coronation does not appear.

Next day, at Caen, we visited Matilda's tomb, in a church which she herself founded. Her remains have never been disturbed. We also visited the tomb of the Conqueror, on the other side of the city at the church of St. Etienne. But the Conqueror's bones are not there now; they were scattered by the Huguenots in 1562.

We enjoyed Caen. We wandered about among its ancient churches and still more ancient streets. At one church a wedding was going on, and Narcissa and I lingered a little, to assist. One does not get invited to a Normandy wedding every day, especially in the old town where William I organized his followers to invade England. No doubt this bride and groom were descendants of some of William's wild Normans, but they looked very mild and handsome and modern, to us.

Caen became an important city under William the Conqueror. Edward III of England captured and pillaged it about the middle of the fourteenth century, at which time it was larger than any city in England, except London. To-day, Caen has less than fifty thousand inhabitants, and is mainly interesting for its art treasures and its memories.

Our travel program included Rouen, Amiens, and Beauvais, cathedral cities lying more to the northward. It was at Rouen that we started to trace backward the sacred footsteps of Joan of Arc, saint and savior of France. For it is at Rouen that the pathway ends. When we had visited the great cathedral, whose fairylike façade is one of the most beautiful in the world, we drove to a corner of the old market-place and stopped before a bronze tablet which tells that on this spot on a certain day in May, 1431 (it was the 29th), a young girl who had saved her country from an invading and conquering enemy was burned at the stake. That was five hundred years ago, but time has not dulled the tragedy of the event, its memory of suffering, its humiliation. All those centuries since, the nation that Joan saved has been trying to atone for her death. Streets have been named for her and statues have been set up for her in public squares all over France.

There is little in Rouen to-day that Joan saw. The cathedral was there in her time, but she was never permitted to enter it. There is a wall which was a part of the chapel where she had her final hearing before her judges; there are some houses which she must have passed, and there is a tower which belonged to the castle in which she was imprisoned, though it is not certain that it is Joan's tower. There is a small museum in it, and among its treasures we saw the manuscript article "St. Joan of Arc," by Mark Twain, who, in the "Personal Recollections," has left to the world the loveliest picture of that lovely life.

It was our purpose to leave Rouen by the Amiens road, but when we got to it and looked up a hill that, about half-way to the zenith, arrived at the sky, we decided to take a road that led off toward Beauvais. We could have climbed that hill well enough, and I wished later we had done so. As it was, we ran along pleasantly during the afternoon, and attended evening services in an old church at Grandvilliers, a place that we had never heard of before, but where we found an inn as good as any in Normandy.

It is curious with what exactness fate times its conclusions. If we had left Grandvilliers a few seconds earlier or later, it would have made all the difference, or if I had not pulled up a moment to look at a lovely bit of brookside planted with poplars, or if I had driven the least bit slower or the least bit faster during the first five miles; or—

Oh, never mind—what happened was this: we had just mounted a long steep hill on high speed and I had been bragging of the car,—always a dangerous thing to do,—when I saw ahead of us a big two-wheeled cart going in the same direction as ourselves, and, beyond it, a large car approaching. I could have speeded up and cut in ahead of the cart, but I was feeling well, and I thought I should do the courteous thing, the safe thing. So I fell in behind it. Not far enough behind, however, for as the big car came opposite, the sleepy driver of the cart awoke, pulled up his horse short, and we were not far enough behind for me to get the brakes down hard and suddenly enough to stop before we touched him. It was not a smash—it was just a push. But it pushed a big hole in our radiator, smashed up one of our lamps, and crinkled up our left mud-guard. The radiator was the worst. The water poured out. Our car looked as if it had burst into tears.

We were really stupefied at the extent of our disaster.

The big car at once pulled up to investigate and console us. The occupants were Americans, too, from Washington—kindly people who wanted to shoulder some of the blame. Their chauffeur, a Frenchman, bargained with the cart driver who had wrecked us to tow us to the next town, where there were garages. Certainly, pride goes before a fall. Five minutes earlier we were sailing along in glory, exulting over the prowess of our vehicle. Now, all in the wink of an eye, our precious conveyance, stricken and helpless, was being towed to the hospital, its owners trudging mournfully behind.

The village was Poix; and if one had to be wrecked anywhere, I cannot think of a lovelier spot for disaster than Poix de la Somme. It is just across in Picardy, and the river Somme is a little brook that ripples and winds through poplar-shaded pastures, sweet meadows, and deep groves. In every direction are the loveliest walks, with landscape pictures at every turn. The village itself is drowsy, kindly, simple-hearted. The landlady at our inn was a large, motherly soul that, during the week of our stay, the Joy learned to love, and I to be grateful to.

For the others did not linger. Paris was not far away, and had a good deal to recommend it. The new radiator ordered from London might be delayed. So, early next morning they were off for Paris by way of Amiens and Beauvais, and the Joy and I settled down to such employments and amusements as we could find while waiting for repairs. We got acquainted with the garage man's family, for one thing. They lived in the same little court with the shop, and we exchanged Swiss French for their Picardese and were bosom friends in no time. We spruced up the car, too, and every day took long walks, and every afternoon took some luncheon and our spirit-stove and followed down the Somme to a little bridge and there made our tea. Then, sometimes, we read; and once, when I was reading aloud from "Joan of Arc" and had finished the great battle of Patay, we suddenly remembered that it had happened on the very day on which we were reading, the eighteenth of June.

How little we guessed that in such a short time our peaceful little river would give its name to a battle a thousand times greater than any that Joan ever fought!

One day I hired a bicycle for the Joy, and entertained the village by pushing her around the public square until she learned to ride alone. Then I hired one for myself, and we went out on the road together.

About the end of the third day we began to look for our radiator, and visited the express-office with considerable regularity. Presently the village knew us, why we were there, and what we were expecting. They became as anxious about it as ourselves.

One morning, as we started toward the express-office, a man in a wagon passed and called out something. We did not catch it; but presently another met us, and, with a glad look, told us that our goods had arrived and were now in the delivery wagon on the way to the garage. We did not recognize either of those good souls, but they were interested in our welfare. Our box was at the garage when we arrived there. It was soon opened and the new radiator in place. The other repairs had been made, and once more we were complete. We decided to start next morning to join the others in Paris.

Morning comes early on the longest days of the year, and we had eaten our breakfast, had our belongings put into the car, and were ready to be off by seven o'clock. What a delicious morning it was! Calm, glistening, the dew on everything. As long as I live I shall remember that golden morning when the Joy, age eleven, and I went gipsying together, following the winding roads and byways that led us through pleasant woods, under sparkling banks, and along the poplar-planted streams of Picardy. We did not keep to highways at all. We were in no hurry, and we took any lane that seemed to lead in the right direction, so that much of the time we appeared to be crossing fields—fields of flowers, many of them, scarlet poppies, often mingled with blue corn-flowers and yellow mustard—fancy the vividness of that color!

Traveling in that wandering fashion, it was noon before we got down to Beauvais, where we stopped for luncheon supplies and to see what is perhaps the most remarkable cathedral in the world. It is one of the most beautiful, and, though it consists only of choir and transepts, it is one of the largest. Its inner height, from floor to vaulting, is 158 feet. The average ten-story skyscraper could be set inside of it. There was once a steeple that towered to the giddy height of five hundred feet, but in 1573, when it had been standing three hundred years, it fell down from having insufficient support. The inner work is of white stone,—marble,—and the whole place seems filled with light.

Beauvais has many interesting things, but the day had become very warm, and we did not linger. We found some of the most satisfactory pastries I have ever seen in France, fresh, and dripping with richness; also a few other delicacies, and by and by, under a cool apple-tree on the road to Compiègne, the Joy and I spread out our feast and ate it and listened to some little French birds singing, "Vite! Vite! Vite!" meaning that we must be "Quick! Quick! Quick!" so they could have the crumbs.

It was at Compiègne that Joan of Arc was captured by her enemies, just a year before that last fearful day at Rouen. She had relieved Orleans, she had fought Patay, she had crowned the king at Rheims; she would have had her army safely in Paris if she had not been withheld by a weak king, influenced by his shuffling, time-serving counselors. She had delivered Compiègne the year before, but now again it was in trouble, besieged by the Duke of Burgundy.

"I will go to my good friends of Compiègne," she said, when the news came; and taking such force as she could muster, in number about six hundred cavalry, she went to their relief.

From a green hill commanding the valley of the Oise the Joy and I looked down upon the bright river and pretty city which Joan had seen on that long ago afternoon of her last battle for France. Somewhere on that plain the battle had taken place, and Joan's little force for the first time had failed. There had been a panic; Joan, still fighting and trying to rally her men, had been surrounded, dragged from her horse, and made a prisoner. She had led her last charge.

We crossed a bridge and entered the city, and stopped in the big public square facing Laroux's beautiful statue of Joan which the later "friends of Compiègne" have raised to her memory. It is Joan in semi-armor, holding aloft her banner; and on the base in old French is inscribed, "Je yray voir mes bons amys de Compiègne"—"I will go to see my good friends of Compiègne."

Many things in Compiègne are beautiful, but not many of them are very old. Joan's statue looks toward the handsome and richly ornamented hôtel de ville, but Joan could not have seen this building, for it dates a hundred years after her death. There are the handsome churches, in one or both of which she doubtless worshiped, when she had first delivered the city, and possibly a few houses of that ancient time still survive.

Next morning we visited the palace. It has been much occupied by royalty, for Compiègne was always a favorite residence of the rulers of France. Napoleon came there with the Empress Marie Louise, and Louis Philippe and Napoleon III both found retirement there.

I think it could not have been a very inviting or restful home. There are long halls and picture-galleries, all with shiny floors and stiffly placed properties, and the royal suites are just a series of square, fancily decorated and upholstered boxes strung together, with doors between. But then palaces were not meant to be cozy. Pretty soon we went back to the car and drove into a big forest for ten miles or more to an old feudal castle,—such a magnificent old castle, all towers and turrets and battlements,—the château of Pierrefonds, one of the finest in France. It stands upon a rocky height overlooking a lake, and it does not seem so old, though it had been there forty years when Joan of Arc came, and it looks as if it might remain there about as long as the hill it stands on. It was built by Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles VI, and the storm of battle has often raged about its base. Here and there it still shows the mark of bombardment, and two cannon-balls stick fast in the wall of one of its solid towers. Pierrefonds was in bad repair, had become well nigh a ruin, in fact, when Napoleon III at his own expense engaged Viollet-le-Duc to restore it, in order that France might have a perfect type of the feudal castle in its original form. It stands to-day as complete in its structure and decoration as it was when Louis of Orleans moved in, more than five hundred years ago, and it conveys exactly the solid, home surroundings of the mediæval lord. It is just a show place now, and its vast court and its chapel and halls of state are all splendid enough, though nothing inside can be quite as magnificent as its mighty assemblage of towers and turrets rising above the trees and reflecting in the blue waters of a placid lake.

It began raining before we got to Paris, so we did not stop at Crepy-en-Valois or Senlis, or Chantilly, or St. Denis. In fact, neither the Joy nor I hungered even for Paris, which we had once visited. The others had already seen their fill, so, with only a day's delay, we all took the road to Versailles.

It was at Rambouillet that we lodged, an ancient place with a château and a vast park; also, an excellent inn—the Croix Blanche—one of those that you enter by driving through to an inner court. Before dinner we took a walk into the park, along the lakeside and past the château, where Frances I died, in 1547.

We were off next morning, following the rich and lovely valley of the Eure, to Chartres. We had already seen the towers from a long distance, when we turned at last into the cathedral square, and remembered the saying that "The choir of Beauvais and the nave of Amiens, the portal of Rheims and the towers of Chartres would together make the finest church in the world." To confess the truth, I did not think the towers of Chartres as handsome as those of Rouen, but then I am not a purist in cathedral architecture. Certainly, the cathedral itself is glorious. I shall not attempt to describe it. Any number of men have written books trying to do that, and most of them have failed. I only know that the wonder of its architecture, the marvel of its relief carving, "lace in stone," and the sublime glory of its windows somehow possessed us, and we did not know when to go. I met a woman once who said she had spent a month at Chartres and put in most of it sitting in the cathedral, looking at those windows. When she told me of it I had been inclined to be scornful. I was not so any more. Those windows, made by some unknown artist, dead five hundred years, invite a lifetime of contemplation.

We left Chartres by one of the old city gates, and through a heavenly June afternoon followed the straight, level way to Châteaudun, an ancient town perched upon the high cliff above the valley of the Loir, which is a different river from the Loire—much smaller and more picturesque.

The château itself hangs on the very verge of the cliffs, with starling effect, and looks out over a picture valley as beautiful as any in France. This was the home of Dunois, who left it to fight under Joan of Arc. He was a great soldier, one of her most loved and trusted generals. We spent an hour or more wandering through Dunois's ancient seat, with an old guardian who clearly was in love with every stone of it and who time and again reminded us that it was more interesting than any of the great châteaux of the Loire, Blois especially, in that it had been scarcely restored at all. About the latest addition to Châteaudun was a beautiful open stairway of the sixteenth century, in perfect condition to-day. On the other side is another fine façade and stairway, which Dunois himself added. In a niche there stands a statue of the famous old soldier, probably made from life. If only some sculptor or painter might have preserved for us the features of Joan!

Through that golden land which lies between the Loir and the Loire we drifted through a long summer afternoon, and came at evening to a noble bridge that crossed a wide, tranquil river, beyond which rose the towers of ancient Tours, capital of Touraine.

The Touraine was a favorite place for kings, who built their magnificent country palaces in all directions. There are more than fifty châteaux within easy driving distance of Tours.

We did not, by any means, intend to visit all of the châteaux, for château visiting from a diversion may easily degenerate into labor. We had planned especially, however, to see Chinon, where Joan of Arc went to meet the king to ask for soldiers.

This is not on the Loire, but on a tributary a little south of it, the Vienne, with the castle crowning the long hill, or ridge, above the town. Some time during the afternoon we came to the outskirts of the ancient place, and looked up to the ruined battlements and towers where occurred that meeting which meant the liberation of France.

The château to-day is the ruin of what originally was three châteaux, built at different times, but closely strung together, so that in ruin they are scarcely divided.

The oldest, Coudray, was built in the tenth century, and still shows three towers standing, in one of which Joan of Arc lived during her stay at Chinon. The middle château was built a hundred years later, on the site of a Roman fort, and it was in one of its rooms, a fragment of which still remains, that Charles VII received the shepherd-girl from Domremy. The Château of St. George was built in the twelfth century, by Henry II of England, who died there in 1189. Though built two hundred years later than Coudray, nothing remains of it to-day but some foundations.

Chinon is a much more extensive ruin than we had expected. Even what remains must be nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and its vast crumbling walls and crenelated towers make it strikingly picturesque. But its ruin is complete, none the less. Once through the entrance tower, and you are under nothing but the sky, with your feet on the grass; there is no longer a shelter there, even for a fugitive king. You wander about viewing it scarcely more than as a ruin, at first, a place for painting, for seclusion, for dreaming in the sun. Then all at once you are facing a wall in which, half-way up, where once was the second story, there is a restored fireplace and a tablet which tells you that in this room Charles VII received Joan of Arc. It is not a room now; it is just a wall, a fragment, with vines matting its ruined edges.

You cross a stone foot-bridge to the tower where Joan lived, and that also is open to the sky and bare and desolate. While, beyond it, there was a little chapel where she prayed, but that is gone. There are other fragments and other towers, but they merely serve as a setting for those which the intimate presence of Joan made sacred.

The Maid did not go immediately to the castle on her arrival in Chinon. She put up at an inn down in the town and waited the king's pleasure. His paltering advisers kept him dallying, and postponing his consent to see her, but through the favor of his mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, Joan and her suite were presently housed in Coudray.

The king was still unready to see Joan. She was only a stone's throw away now, but the whisperings of his advisers kept her there. When there were no further excuses for delay they contrived a trick—a deception. They persuaded the king to put another on the throne, one like him and in his royal dress, so that Joan might pay homage to this make-believe king, thus proving that she had no divine power or protection which would assist her in identifying the real one.

In the space where now is only green grass and sky and a broken wall, Charles VII and his court gathered to receive the shepherd-girl who had come to restore his kingdom. It was evening, and the great hall was lighted, and at one end of it was the throne with its imitation king, and, I suppose, at the other this fireplace with its blazing logs. Down the center of the room were the courtiers, formed in two ranks, facing so that Joan might pass between them to the throne. The occasion was one of great ceremony—Joan and her suite were welcomed with fine honors. Banners waved, torches flared, trumpets blown at intervals marked the stages of her progress down the great hall; every show was made of paying her great honor—everything that would distract her and blind her to their trick.

Charles VII, dressed as a simple courtier, stood a little distance from the throne. Joan, advancing to within a few steps of the pretended king, raised her eyes. Then for a moment she stood silent, puzzled. They expected her to kneel and make obeisance; but a moment later she turned, and, hurrying to the rightful Charles, dropped on her knee and gave him heartfelt salutation. She had never seen him, and was without knowledge of his features. The protectors she had known in her visions had not failed her. It was, perhaps, the greatest moment in French history.

In the quest for outlying châteaux, one is likely to forget that Tours itself is very much worth while. Tours has been a city ever since France had a history, and it fought against Cæsar as far far back as 52 B.C. It took its name from the Gallic tribe of that section, the Turoni, dwellers in the cliffs, I dare say, along the Loire.

Tours was beloved by French royalty. It was the capital of a province as rich as it was beautiful. Among French provinces, Touraine was always the aristocrat. Its language has been kept pure. To this day, the purest French in the world is spoken at Tours. The mechanic who made some repairs for me at the garage leaned on the mud-guard, during a brief intermission of that hottest of days, and told me about the purity of the French language at Tours; and if there was anything wrong with his own locution, my ear was not fine enough to detect it. To me it seemed as limpid as something distilled. Imagine such a thing happening in—say Bridgeport. Tours is still proud, still the aristocrat, still royal.

The Germans held Tours during the early months of 1871, but there is now no trace of their occupation. It was a bad dream which Tours does not care even to remember.

Tours contains a fine cathedral, and the remains of what must have been a still finer one—two noble towers, so widely separated by streets and buildings that it is hard to imagine them ever having belonged to one structure. They are a part of the business of Tours now. Shops are under them, lodgings in them. One of these old relics is called the clock-tower, the other, the tower of Charlemagne, because Luitgard, his third queen, was buried beneath it.

MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE—PART II
BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

It was a July morning when we got away from Tours—one of those sweltering mornings—and I had spent an hour or two at the garage putting on all our repaired tires and one new one. It was not a good morning for exercise; and by the time we were ready to start, I was a rag. Narcissa photographed me, because she said she had never seen me look so interesting before. She made me stand in the sun bareheaded and hold a tube in my hand, as if I had not enough to bear, already.

But I was repaid the moment we were off. Oh, but it was cool and delicious gliding along the smooth, shaded road! One can almost afford to get as hot and sweltering and cross and gasping as I was for the sake of sitting back and looking across the wheel down a leafy avenue facing the breeze of your own making, a delicious nectar that bathes you through and cools and rests and soothes—an anodyne of peace.

By and by, being really cool in mind and body, we drew up abreast of a meadow which lay a little below the road, a place with a brook and over-spreading shade, and with some men and women harvesting not far away. We thought they would not mind if we lunched there, and I think they must have been as kind-hearted as they were picturesque, for they did not offer to disturb us. It was a lovely spot, and did not seem to belong to the present-day world at all. How could it, with the homes of the old French kings all about, and with these haymakers, whose fashions have not minded the centuries, here in plain view to make us seem a part of an ancient tale?

Chenonceaux, the real heart of the royal district, is not on the Loire itself, but on a small tributary, the Cher. I do not remember that I noticed the river when we entered the grounds, but it is a very important part of the château, which, indeed, is really a bridge over it—a supremely beautiful bridge, to be sure, but a bridge none the less, entirely crossing the pretty river by means of a series of high foundation arches. Upon these arches rises the rare edifice which Thomas Bohier, a receiver-general of taxes, began back in 1515. Bohier did not extend Chenonceaux entirely across the river. The river to him, merely served as a moat. The son who followed him did not have time to make additions. Francis I came along, noticed that it was different from the other châteaux he had confiscated, and added it to his collection. Our present-day collectors cut a poor figure by the side of Francis I. Think of getting together assortments of coins and postage-stamps and ginger-jars when one could go out and pick up châteaux! It was the famous Catherine de Medici, daughter-in-law of Francis I, who finished the palace, extending it across the Cher, making it one of the most beautiful places in the world.

We stopped a little to look at the beautiful façade of Chenonceaux, then crossed the draw-bridge, or what is now the substitute for it, and were welcomed at the door by just the proper person—a fine, dignified woman, of gentle voice and perfect knowledge. She showed us through the beautiful home, for it is still a home, having been bought by Mr. Meunier, of chocolate fame and fortune. I cannot say how glad I am that Mr. Meunier purchased Chenonceaux. He did nothing to the place to spoil it, and it is not a museum. The lower rooms which we saw have many of the original furnishings. The ornaments, the tapestries, the pictures, are the same. There is hardly another place, I think, where one may come so nearly stepping back through the centuries.

We went out into the long wing that is built on the arches above the river, and looked down on the water flowing below. Our conductor told us that the supporting arches had been built on the foundations of an ancient mill. The beautiful gallery which the bridge supports must have known much gaiety; much dancing and promenading up and down; many gallant speeches and some heartache. The Joy wanted to see the dungeons, but perhaps there never were any real dungeons at Chenonceaux. Let us try to think so.

Orleans is on the Loire, and we drove to it in the early morning from Meung, where we had spent the night. I do not know what could be more lovely than that leisurely hour—the distance was fifteen miles—under cool, outspreading branches, with glimpses of the bright river and vistas of happy fields.

We did not even try to imagine, as we approached the outskirts, that the Orleans of Joan's time presented anything of its appearance to-day. Orleans is a modern, or modernized city, and, except the river, there could hardly be anything in the prospect that Joan saw. But it was the scene of her first military conquest, and added its name to the title by which she belongs to history. That is enough to make it one of the holy places of France.

It has been always a military city, a place of battles. Cæsar burned it, Attila attacked it, Clovis captured it—there was often war of one sort or another going on there. The English and Burgundians would have had it in 1429 but for the arrival of Joan's army.

Joan was misled by her generals, whose faith in her was not complete. Orleans lies on the north bank of the Loire; they brought her down on the south bank, fearing the prowess of the enemy's forces. Discovering the deception, the Maid promptly sent the main body of her troops back some thirty-five miles to a safe crossing, and, taking a thousand men, passed over the Loire and entered the city by a gate which was still held by the French. That the city was not completely surrounded made it possible to attack the enemy from within and without, while her presence among the Orleanese would inspire them with new hope and valor. Mark Twain, in his "Recollections," pictures the great moment of her entry.

It was eight in the evening when she and the troops rode in at the Burgundy gate.... She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of torches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end. Everywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned, white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked tears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses, her mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver statue. The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men and women who believed they are seeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed their fingers.

This was the twenty-ninth of April. Nine days later, May 8, 1429, after some fierce fighting, during which Joan was severely wounded, the besiegers were scattered. Orleans was free. Mark Twain writes:

No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory as Joan of Arc reached that day.... Orleans will never forget the eighth of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it. It is Joan of Arc's day—and holy.

Two days, May seventh and eighth, are given each year to the celebration, and Orleans in other ways has honored the memory of her deliverer. A wide street bears her name, and there are noble statues, and a museum, and church offerings. The Boucher home, which sheltered Joan during her sojourn in Orleans, has been preserved—at least, a house is still shown as the Boucher house, though how much of the original structure remains no one of this day seems willing to decide.

We drove there first, for it is the only spot in Orleans that can claim even a possibility of having known Joan's actual presence. It is a house of the old half-timbered architecture, and if these are not the veritable walls that Joan saw, they must, at least, bear a close resemblance to those of the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where Joan was made welcome. A few doors away is a fine old mansion, now a museum, and fairly overflowing with objects of every conceivable sort relating to Joan of Arc. Books, statuary, paintings, armor, banners, offerings, coins, medals, ornaments, engravings, letters—thousands upon thousands of articles gathered here in the Maid's memory. I think there is not one of them that her hand ever touched, or that she ever saw, but in their entirety they convey, as nothing else could, the reverence that Joan's memory inspired during the centuries that have gone since her presence made this ground sacred. Until the revolution, Orleans preserved Joan's banner, some of her clothing, and other genuine relics; but then the mob burned them, probably because Joan delivered France to royalty. We were shown an ancient copy of the banner, still borne, I believe, in the annual festivities. Baedeker speaks of arms and armor worn at the siege of Orleans, but the guardian of the place was not willing to guarantee their genuineness. I think Narcissa, who worships the memory of Joan, was almost sorry that he thought it necessary to be so honest. He did show us a photograph of Joan's signature. She wrote it "Jehanne," and her pen must have been guided by her secretary, for Joan could neither read nor write.

We drove to the Place Martroi to see the large equestrian statue of Joan by Foyatier, with reliefs by Vital Dubray. It is very imposing, and the reliefs, showing the great moments in Joan's career, are really fine. We did not care to hunt for other memorials. It was enough to drive about the city, trying to pick out a house here and there that looked as if it might have been standing five hundred years, but if there were any of that age—any that had looked upon the wild joy of Joan's entrance and upon her triumphal departure, they were very few indeed.

It is a grand, straight road from Orleans to Fontainebleau, and it passes through Pithiviers, which did not look especially interesting, though we discovered, when it was too late, that it is noted for its almond-cakes and lark-pies. I wanted to go back, then, but the majority decided against me, and in the late afternoon we entered the majestic royal forest, and by and by came to the palace and the little town and to a pretty hotel on a side street, that was really a village inn for comfort and welcome. There was still plenty of daylight, mellow, waning daylight, and the palace was not far away. We would not wait for it until morning.

I think we most enjoyed seeing palaces about the closing-hour. There are seldom any other visitors then, and the fading afternoon sunlight in the vacant rooms softens their garish emptiness and seems, somehow, to bring nearer the rich pageant of life and love and death that flowed through them so long, and then one day came to an end, and now it is not passing any more. It was really closing-time when we arrived at the palace, but the custodian was lenient, and for an hour we wandered through gorgeous galleries, and salons, and suites of private apartments, where kings and queens lived gladly, loved madly, died sadly for about three hundred years. Francis I built Fontainebleau, on the site of a mediæval castle. He was a hunter, and the forests of Fontainebleau were always famous hunting-grounds. Louis XIII, who was born in Fontainebleau, built the grand entrance staircase, from which, a hundred years later, Napoleon Bonaparte bade good-by to his generals before starting for Elba. Other kings have added to the place and embellished it; the last being Napoleon III, who built for Eugénie the bijou theater across the court.

It may have been our mood, it may have been the tranquil evening light, it may have been reality that Fontainebleau was more friendly, more alive, more a place for living men and women to inhabit than any other palace we have seen. It was hard to imagine Versailles as having ever been a home for anybody. At Fontainebleau I felt that we were intruding—that Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise, or Eugénie might enter at any moment and find us there.

The apartments of the first Napoleon and Marie Louise tell something, too, but the story seems less intimate. Yet the table is there on which Napoleon signed his abdication, while an escort waited to take him to Elba, and in his study is his writing-table; and there is a bust by Canova; but that is marble, and does not encourage the thought of life.

For size and magnificence the library is the most impressive room in Fontainebleau. It is very lofty, very splendid, and it is two hundred and sixty-four feet long. Napoleon III gave great hunting-banquets there. Since then it has always been empty, except for visitors.

The light was getting dim by the time we reached the pretty theater which Louis Napoleon built for Eugénie. It is a very choice place, and we were allowed to go on the stage and behind the scenes and up in the galleries, and there was something in the dusky vacancy of that little play-house, built to amuse the last empress of France, that affected us almost more than any of the rest of the palace, though it was built not so long ago and its owner is still alive. It is not used, the custodian told us—has never been used since Eugénie went away. I believe nothing at Fontainebleau gave more delight to Narcissa and the Joy than this dainty theater.

From a terrace back of the palace we looked out on a pretty lake where Eugénie's son used to sail a miniature, full-rigged ship, large enough, if one could judge from a picture we saw, to have held the little prince himself. There was still sunlight on the tree-tops, and these and the prince's pretty pavilion reflecting in the placid water made the place beautiful. But the little vessel was not there. I wished, as we watched, that it might come sailing by. I wished that the prince had never been exiled, and that he had not grown up and gone to his death in a South African jungle. I wished that he might be back to sail his ship again, and that Eugénie might be young and have her theater once more, and that Louis Napoleon's hunting-parties might still gather in the painted ball-room and fill the vacant palace with something besides mere curiosity and vain imaginings.

We had meant to go to Barbizon, home of the artist Millet, but we got lost in the forest next morning, and when we found ourselves, we were a good way in the direction of Melun and concluded to keep on, consoling ourselves with the thought that Barbizon is not Barbizon any more, and would probably be a disappointment, anyway. We kept on from Melun, also, after buying some luncheon things, and all day traversed that beautiful rolling district which lies east of Paris and below Rheims, arriving toward evening at Epernay, center of the champagne district. We had no need to linger there. We were anxious to get to Rheims.

We were still in the hills when we looked on the valley of the Vesle and saw a city outspread there, and in its center, mellowed and glorified by seven kindly centuries, the architectural and ecclesiastical pride of the world, the Cathedral of Rheims. Large as the city was, that great central ornament dwarfed and dominated its surroundings. Thus Joan of Arc had seen it when, at the head of her victorious army, she conducted the king to Rheims for his coronation. She approached the fulfilment of her mission, the completion of the great labor laid upon her by the voices of her saints. Mark Twain tells of Joan's approach to Rheims, of the tide of cheers that swept her ranks at the vision of the distant towers.

It was the sixteenth of July that Joan looked down upon Rheims, and now four hundred and eighty-five years later it was again July, with the same summer glory on the wood, the same green and scarlet in the poppied fields, the same fair valley, the same stately towers rising to the sky. But no one can ever feel what Joan felt, can ever put into words, ever so faintly, what that moment and that vision meant to the Domremy shepherd-girl.

Descending the plain, we entered the city, crossed a bridge, and made our way to the cathedral square. Then presently we were at the doorway where Joan and her king had entered—the portal which has been called the most beautiful this side of paradise. How little we dreamed that destruction and disfigurement lay only a few weeks ahead!

It is not required any more that one should write descriptively of the now vanished glories of the church of Rheims, it has been done so thoroughly and so numerously by those so highly qualified for the undertaking. Fergusson, who must have been an authority, for the guide-book quotes him, calls it, "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages."

The cathedral was already two hundred years old when Joan arrived in 1429. But it must have looked quite fresh and new, then, for nearly five centuries later it seemed to have suffered little. Some of the five hundred and thirty statues of its wonderful portal were weatherworn and scarred, to be sure, but the general effect of beauty and completeness was not disturbed.

Many kings had preceded Joan and her sovereign through the sacred entrance. Long before the cathedral was built, French sovereigns had come to Rheims for their coronation. Here Clovis had been baptized nearly a thousand years before.

It was a mighty assemblage that gathered for the crowning of Joan's king. France, overrun by an invader, had known no real king for years—had, indeed, well nigh surrendered her nationality. Now victory, in the person of a young girl from an obscure village, had crowned their arms and brought redemption to their throne. No wonder the vast church was packed, and that crowds were massed outside. From all directions had come pilgrims to the great event—persons of every rank, among them two shepherds, Joan's aged father and uncle, who had walked from Domremy, one hundred and twenty miles, to verify with their own eyes what their ears could not credit.

We are told that the abbot, attended by the archbishop, his canons, and a deputation of nobles, entered the crowded church, followed by the five mounted knights who rode down the great central aisle, clear to the choir, and then at a signal backed their prancing steeds all the distance to the great doors.

Very likely the cathedral at Rheims had never known such a throng until that day, nor heard such a mighty shout as went up when Joan and the king, side by side and followed by a splendid train, appeared at the great side entrance and moved slowly to the altar.

I think there must have fallen a deep hush then—a petrified stillness that lasted through the long ceremonial, while every eye feasted itself upon the young girl standing there at the king's side, holding her victorious standard above him—the banner that "had borne the burden and had earned the victory," as she would one day testify at her trial. I am sure that vast throng would keep silence, scarcely breathing, until the final word was spoken and the dauphin had accepted the crown and placed it upon his head. But then we may hear, borne faintly down the centuries, the roar of renewed shouting that told to those waiting without that the great ceremony was ended, that Charles VII of France had been annointed king. As in a picture we seemed to see the shepherd-girl on her knees saying to the crowned king: "My work which was given me to do is finished: give me your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old, and has need of me."

But the king raises her up and praises her and confers upon her nobility and titles, and asks her to name a reward for her service, and we hear her ask that Domremy, "poor and hard-pressed by reason of the war," may have its taxes remitted.

Nothing for herself—no more than that; and in the presence of all the great assemblage Charles VII decreed that by grace of Joan of Arc, Domremy should be free from taxes forever.

There within those walls it was all reality five hundred years ago. One did not study the interior to discover special art values or to distinguish in what manner it differed from others we had seen. For us the light from its great rose-window and upper arches was glorified because once it fell upon Joan of Arc in that supreme moment when she saw her labor finished and asked only that she might return to Domremy and her flocks. The statues in the niches were sacred because they looked upon that scene, the altar paving was sanctified because it felt the pressure of her feet.

Back of the altar stood a statue of Joan unlike any we had seen elsewhere, and to us more beautiful. It was not Joan with her banner aloft, her eyes upward. It was Joan with her eyes lowered, looking at no outward thing, her face passive—the saddest face and the saddest eyes in the world—Joan the sacrifice of her people and her king.

It may have been two miles out of Rheims that we met the flood. There had been one heavy shower as we entered the city, but presently the sun broke out, bright and hot, too bright and too hot for permanence. Now suddenly all was black again, there was a roar of thunder, and then such an opening of the water-gates of the sky as would have disturbed Noah. I turned the car over to the side of the road, but the tall, high-trimmed trees afforded no protection. Our top was a shelter, but not a complete one—the wind drove the water in, and in a moment our umbrellas were sticking out in every direction and we had huddled together like chickens. The world was blotted out. I had the feeling at moments that we were being swept down some great submarine current.

I don't know how long the inundation lasted. It may have been five minutes or thirty. Then suddenly it stopped—it was over—the sun was out.

There was then no mud in France,—not in the highroads,—and a moment or two later we had revived, our engine was going, and we were gliding between fair fields—fresh, shining fields where scarlet poppy-patches were as pools of blood. How peaceful it all was then, for there is no lovelier land than the Marne district from Rheims to Châlons and to Vitry-le-Francois. Yet it has been often a war district—a battle-ground; it has been fought over time and again since the ancient allies defeated Attila and his Huns there, checking the purpose of the "Scourge of God," as he called himself. It could never be a battle-ground again, we thought—the great nations were too advanced for war. Ah me! within two months from that day men were lying dead across that very road, shells were tearing at the lovely fields, and another stain had mingled with the trampled poppies.

Châlons-sur-Marne, like Rheims and Epernay, is a champagne center and seemed prosperous. There are some churches there, but they did not seem of great importance.

It was in July when we were on the Marne. In an earlier chapter I have told how, only three weeks later, when we had reached Vevey, Switzerland, the "great upheaval" came, and with what disturbing consequences. We did not leave Europe with the early rush. For a time we hesitated about leaving at all. But then uncertainties increased. With Italy planning war, the possibility of not being able to leave when we were ready was not comforting. So in October at last we got a military pass to take the car out of Switzerland, and on one of the last days of the month set off up the Rhone Valley, down which Cæsar's armies once had marched, and drove to Brigue, and the next day crossed the Simplon Pass—up and up more than six thousand feet, where the snow was flying, and where there are no villages any more, but only a hospice, and here and there a wayside shelter. Then through a wild, savage-looking land—down and down, into Italy, arriving in the rain at Domodossola, glad, oh so glad, for safe shelter and food and beds!

I will not tell here of our month's wanderings in Italy. But one day our reliable car was loaded on a vessel for home, and a little later we were aboard the same ship, breasting such storms as made it seem impossible that only a little while before we had been in a sunny land, gliding smoothly over a solid surface that did not heave, and toss, and roar, day and night, without end; then by and by a day came when we were gliding once more over smooth, solid ground—this time in our own land, far from the quaint villages, the bright rivers, the ancient castles, the sunny slopes, and perfect roads of France.

Yet America is not without its glories. And though it has fewer quaint villages and no ancient castles, it has at least as fair scenery, as fertile lands, and its roads are growing better and more numerous every day. Our wayside inns will improve, too, I am sure of it, until America, like France, may become another paradise. Narcissa and the Joy were patriotic enough to be gladdened at the sight of New England shores and hillsides, and, as Narcissa says:

"Well, if we didn't see America first, we'll probably have plenty of time to see it now."

LETTER-BOXES IN FOREIGN LANDS
BY A. R. ROY

The first letter-box ever used was established in Paris in 1560. It is true that a kind of letter-box was in use in Italy before that time; it was not used, however, by the postal service, but as a place for denunciations directed to the police.

The first letter-box in Germany was established in 1766, in Berlin. At first the boxes were simple; both for depositing letters and for removing them the cover was lifted. During the last century a great many different styles of boxes have been introduced, but the so-called Swedish system is now in universal use.