Chapter XXIV: Part II (7)

_E. M. H., Harrisburg, Pa._--Yes. We have seen some specimens of absolute novelties in calendars. They are of celluloid, decorated in artistic designs, and, besides being useful as calendars, will serve admirably as bric-à-brac ornaments, and are original, pretty, and inexpensive. They are made by Messrs. Weeks & Campbell, 149 Church Street, N. Y. City.

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_Professor, St. Charles, Mo._--To gain such a knowledge of football as you desire, your best plan is to obtain copies of the “Book of Rules” and “Football; How to Coach a Team.” Should you desire to do so, you can obtain copies through ~Outing~.

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_John S., Wilkesbarre, Pa._--The owner of the canoe is the only man who can furnish you with the required information.

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_E. W. C., East Hampton, Mass._--In the opinion of experts, fencing cannot be learnt without a master; but it would be easier to dispense with a master after some progress had been made, than before acquiring the rudiments of the art. It is almost impossible to learn the parries and attacks without some one showing you how to execute them. There are no books of any value on fencing in the English language. The best articles ever published in America on the subject were in ~Outing~ (October, 1887, and February, 1888). All reference to books in French can be found in the former number. The best “theory” ever published is that used by the French army, and published by the Minister of War. It can be obtained on application. But this is a professor’s book, and would be of little value to a pupil ignorant of the first rudiments of the art. Professor Rondelle, whose fencing academy is at No. 106 West 42d Street, and who is the _maître d’armes_ of the Knickerbocker Fencing Club and of the Manhattan Athletic Club, is now at work on a book on fencing, which, when finished, will be the most complete, thorough, and interesting book of the kind ever published.

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_A. M. R., Newark, N. J._--For the purpose you mention you can hardly do better than buy some of Rogers’ groups of statuary. They are excellent, both in design and treatment.

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_J. H. D., Philadelphia._--You say nothing of the present state of the lawn. We should think that in case you want to refresh an already well-laid lawn, a slight sprinkling of wood ashes would be better than soot.

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_Doggy, Milwaukee, Wis._--A whippet is now considered a distinct variety. Originally, it came from a cross between the terrier and greyhound, possibly the Italian greyhound.

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_Choke-Bore, 23d Street, City._--We believe the largest bag ever made in one day was that on Mr. Lloyd Price’s estate in North Wales in 1885, viz., 5,086 rabbits, 1 grouse, 1 snipe, and 1 woodpigeon. Lord Walsingham’s big bag of grouse, of which you will find an account in the Outing Club, is, however, much more remarkable.

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_Fox-hunter, Baltimore, Md._--You will find that you can obtain first-rate riding-boots from R. M. Sheridan, 30 Broad Street, New York City.

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_Medicus, Pittsburgh._--Dogs of large breeds grow until they are about two years old. You need not, therefore, be perturbed about your puppy, for he will probably be as large as you can desire.

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_Joseph M. R. City._--If you want a dog “as fast as a greyhound” he must be of that breed, for no other dog is as fast. But for the purpose you mention, we should think such cross as between a Scotch deerhound and a Great Dane would suit you.

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_Sportsman, Quebec, Can._--The best receipt for making ordinary cloth goods water-proof is the following, which was used by old Jack Russell, the noted Devonshire sporting parson. Take alum 6 ozs., sugar of lead 3 ozs.; dissolve this in 12 quarts of boiling water, and let the mixture stand 6 hours, with an occasional stir. Then strain off the liquid, and soak the cloth for 48 hours, and dry it in the shade. It is scarcely necessary to say that the cloth is best treated thus _before_ being made up into a suit.

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_Gymnast, Pittsburgh, Pa._--For a gymnast’s outfit, as well as for all kinds of gymnastic apparatus, you will do well to apply to Messrs. A. J. Reach & Co., 1,022 Market Street, Philadelphia.

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_Farmer, Westchester Co., N. Y._--The wonderful amount of butter made from the milk of one cow, as to which you inquire, is the record of “Shadeland Maud,” one of the Holstein-Friesian herd belonging to Messrs. Powell Bros., Springboro, Crawford County, Pa. This extraordinary record has, however, since been eclipsed by their “Shadeland Boon.”

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_Cruiser, Lake George._--You cannot do better than write to the Western Arms and Cartridge Company, 47 and 49 State Street, Chicago, Ill., for a catalogue of Douglass’s boats, for which they are agents. You can purchase from them such a craft as you desire for a very reasonable sum.

COPYRIGHTED.

ICE-YACHT “NORTHERN LIGHT,” FEBRUARY 14, 1887.

FROM AN INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPH BY C. E. SCHAFFER, OF POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y.]

~Outing.~

~Vol. XIII.~ JANUARY, 1889. ~No.~ 4.

AMONG THE TAURUS MOUNTAINS.

BY L. B. PLATT.

Quitting the broad highways of travel, it is often refreshing to turn aside from beaten paths and strike off into new regions, where foot of tourist and pen of magazine writer have not awakened the sacred silences, startled the resident deities, and broadcast their treasures upon the world.

Through such a byway among the mountains of Taurus, in Asia Minor, from the sea-coast at Mersina, through half-ruined Tarsus, and across the wide Cilician Plain to the ancient cities of Marash and Aintab we made our journey.

There were three of us, Gould, a picturesque youth of seventeen mild summers, with carefully mapped side-whiskers of a style that had never before invaded that sequestered portion of the world, and afforded unceasing entertainment to the curious and admiring natives, Lee, a missionary at Marash, in the interior, and myself, the modest chronicler of our adventures. With three horses of the light-stepping Arabian blood, whose native turf is the sharp, loose stones of the mountains, another of less noble lineage to carry our pack, and an Armenian servant to run behind, we entered upon the Great Plain of Cilicia.

Immediately we were upon historic ground. Alexander had been here before us, wading breast-deep around that rugged promontory in the distance, beaten by the thundering Mediterranean surges, and sweeping the plain of his enemies with the velocity and destructiveness of a cyclone. He had met Darius the Persian here and annihilated his magnificent array in the world-famous battle of Issus, where “all day long the noise of battle rolled between the mountains and the (summer) sea.”

Cicero had been here as Roman Governor of the Province of Cilicia; had chased the bandit mountaineers into the fastnesses of the hills, defeating them there and flushing his maiden sword with victory, for which he ambitiously claimed, but never received, a Roman Triumph.

Antony and Cleopatra had been here, sailing the River Cydnus--the same Cydnus in whose cold waters Alexander bathed, overheated by the tropic sun, and almost lost his life. And poor Antony, also overheated, lost body and soul together by the no less tropic love glances of the Egyptian Queen. And who could wonder at it, if, as Shakespeare tells us--

“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids.

* * * * *

At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers.”

And here also, on the banks of this same river, swollen and rapid with the melting snows of Taurus, not far from the sea, is the forlorn-looking city where Saul of Tarsus was born to the trade of a tentmaker and the exalted career of the greatest of the Apostles. In Tarsus, once a free city under the Roman Empire, her coins proudly stamped “Metropolis,” at one time more illustrious with academies and schools of philosophy than Athens or Alexandria, the ancient Marseilles of the Mediterranean, real estate has taken a fearful tumble since Paul boasted that he was a citizen of “no mean city,” for he “was born in Tarsus.” Seven thousand squalid inhabitants still cling with amazing tenacity to life, and carry most of the real estate around with them as personal property. There is absolutely nothing of interest to be said of it, for it is not even a ruin. It is the degenerate scion of a noble ancestry, in “looped and windowed raggedness,” whose only claim to respectability is the “high connections” of past history; and of these the most is made, for among other pretensions not the least is the ancient one, that to this very port the prophet Jonah set sail when “he entered into a ship of Tarshish and paid the fare thereof.”

Riding leisurely through the suburbs, we are soon in the heart of the Great Plain. Two hundred and seventy miles from east to west, sixty-eight in greatest breadth from white-capped sea to snow-capped mountain, are the vast dimensions of this Cilician prairie. The soil is as fertile as nature ever made, the rich alluvium of three rivers constantly depositing itself in thick layers, century after century, and yet it is a comparative desert, often stricken to death with famine and calling upon the pitying world for help from starvation. And why is it? The only sufficient answer is--the Turkish Government!

Our first night we spent in the city of Adana, the present metropolis of the Plain, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, as geographers tell us, and, as they do not tell us, of as many mosquitoes to each inhabitant. We made a careful estimate of them that very night. In fact it was not without considerable anxiety that we waited to see how many, and in what condition the survivors would be who would respond to the breakfast call next morning. For myself, I had thought that that morning would never come; or, if it did, it would come too late for me to derive any benefit from it in this present life. I noticed that the roosters around town seemed to entertain the same opinion. They started in about midnight with considerable confidence, and once in a while would all take hold and lift together in one grand crow, and then settle back disappointed--there was a hitch somewhere, the sun would not up. In the meantime, a tender regard for the feelings of my readers would not allow me to attempt any description of our sufferings--only this, that after exhausting every stratagem I could think of to outwit the enemy--all to no purpose--I simply threw back the bedclothes in the madness of despair, and said,“Come on, then, if you want to!” And they came. They came in ranks and squadrons, wing touching wing, like Milton’s fallen angels when they went down with whir and rustle and clatter of stumpy wings into the pit. And as fast as they came I lifted my hand and slaughtered them--or rather, _thought_ I did.

Then it occurred to me, in my half-asleep condition, that I would gather up those dead mosquitoes and pile them into a monument, so that if I should be devoured alive there would at least be something to mark the spot. But before I could find mosquitoes enough to lay the corner-stone, I fell asleep. I dreamed I was bodily lifted up on wings and borne through the air. I passed over island and ocean and continent and ocean again. And just as I came in sight of my home and saw my mother on the doorstep, there was an awful crash, and then a groan, and somebody said, “Great Caesar!” I awoke to see my friend Lee sitting upright in bed, listening with head bent forward, as if his life depended on his hearing something--his hands were uplifted and spread wide. Then there was the feeble first note of a song in the air, and the hands came together with fearful precision, and I thought, “Well, that mosquito has sung his doxology any way.” But there was no more sleep that night, and when the morning came we were a sorry company to think of starting on a long pilgrimage that day.

All the forenoon we were making preparations for our journey. There were horses to obtain, and donkeys and saddles and provisions and servants, so that it was the middle of the afternoon before we were ready to start. We were going that day’s journey in company with a small caravan. Now, if a person has never seen a caravan get under way, he has something still in this world to live for. In the first place, when the horses and donkeys are brought together, as they were in this case, into the narrow courtyard of the house to be loaded, it seems to occur to all of them at once that the proper thing for them to do under such circumstances is--to kick. And they evidently think that what is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

I left my horse standing a moment to run up stairs, and when I returned, which was at the call of Mr. Lee to “come and hold your horse,” that animal of mine had made a circuit round that yard, like a comet round the sun--heels first, and left a clean swath behind him all the way. And when you add to all this confusion the crying of servants, the barking and yelping of dogs, the howling of babies, and above all, the screaming of camels and that excruciating bray of the jackass which makes you willing to stake all you possess that he can’t do that again and live through it; why, then you can gather some faint idea of what the starting of a caravan is on a small scale.

We mounted our horses and marched off in magnificent procession. They say that the grandest moment in the life of a boy--that moment when first he feels that there was no hap-hazard about his being born, but is conscious that he came into this world for a purpose, is when for the first time he gets on a pair of red-topped boots. They are the cradle and that is the birthday of all his after greatness. And I think that it is equally true that the very sublimest and _topmost_ event in the life of any young man is when, with a belt full of pistols, a heart bursting with valor and a spur on his heel he puts his foot into the stirrup and swings himself across the back of a horse. I am ready to admit that it was so with me. I felt as though somebody ought to go ahead on the road and let people know that I was coming but that I wasn’t dangerous and probably wouldn’t hurt anybody. I remembered that it was the same country where the Apostle Paul had been taken for Mercury and Barnabas for Jupiter, and I thought that likely enough this people would take it into their heads that I was the War God, Mars, let loose upon them and careering through their country breathing fire from my nostrils and striking out hot lightnings from my horse’s hoofs.

I had two pistols; one of them had a barrel about the size of a quill tooth-pick. But I knew from what experience I had had with that weapon that all that was necessary would be to find the right man and somebody to hold him and it would then be only a question of time--I should certainly kill him. But my other pistol was altogether a different affair. It was as much too large as the other was too small. It was somewhere from one to three feet long and extended from my third rib down to my knee-pan, like a lightning rod down the side of a chimney, and kept me bolt upright and stiff in my saddle. It was so formidable that I would not have liked to fire it off without getting behind something. And I thought that if worse come to worst and we met a Circassian coming to rob us, I would just hand it over to him and let him discharge it, and watch and see what became of him.

But there was one member of our party whom I must not forget to mention, and that was the soldier or military police--the “zabtieh” as he is called. For the sake of convenience we will call him the “Government,” because he represents the Government. The advantage of having him with you is, not so much that he is a kind of traveling masked battery, concealed mostly by earthworks, nor that he always provides himself with a fast horse so that in case anything happens he can turn tail and make off so speedily that the next party going over the road will not be left without a guide and protector--not so much either that his gun is likely to be a flint-lock without any flint in it, as that when you have one of these ornamental gentlemen traveling in your company, and are attacked and plundered, the Turkish Government is bound to make good your losses in such a way that your great grandchildren, if they are healthy and long-lived, will have the benefit of them. It was this last consideration which determined us to take a zabtieh. One of the most interesting relics of antiquity, and almost the only voice out of the past, from this historic plain, is a simple monument of a single stone with the Latin inscription to the effect that a certain Roman captain--giving his name--“erects this pillar to the gods of his native land.” It was the Roman way of giving vent to homesickness, and this true patriot, stationed on these inhospitable shores so far from home, has left this pathetic monument of his longing to return. It is a beautiful tribute to that tender touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. A good, true heart he must have buckled under that Roman cuirass. Let us hope that he got his furlough with full pay.

The sun had dropped behind the mountain wall and the moon had taken his place with scarce diminished radiance when we approached the long-forgotten town of Mopsuestia. The atmosphere was so clear that we had seen the town for at least three hours, apparently only just ahead of us, but it never seemed to come any nearer. In fact, it seemed to be moving ahead on the road somewhat faster than our party. I tried to remember whether I had not somewhere read that at a certain season of the year corresponding with our first of May, the inhabitants of this country take up their houses on their backs and go off with them to a new place. But I could not make myself remember anything like that.

At last it became dark, and I was glad of it, because I thought that if those people _were_ really going off with that city, they would probably want to set it down and rest when night came on, and then we should have a chance to overtake them.

And now the moonlight had effect upon us and we began to sing. First our Armenian servant, Crecor, started in. I thought I recognized the tune and was about to join in, when suddenly it changed to something else. At first I was sure it was “I need thee every hour”--next minute it was “Pull for the shore.” And I said: “All right, I would just as lief sing that.” But before I could pull my diapason and get my mouth open, it had changed again to “I want to be an angel.” “All right,” said I, “so do I.” But before I could join with him and be an angel, he had flown the track and was off again. When at last he wound up and put on the flourishes with a strain that limped on one leg like “Yankee Doodle,” and on the other like the “Old Hundredth,” and finally leaped up into the air and vanished in a heart-rending cry of anguish topped off by a howl that shook the stars, I did not try to follow him. I secretly suspected that, no matter how badly he wanted to be an angel, he never would be until he could make better music than that.

At last we came to the old river Pyramus. As we passed over the ancient stone bridge, fast falling into ruin, the musical click-clang of our horses’ hoofs on the archway was echoed back by the swift-running waters of the river beneath. Each wave of the stream seemed to be lifting itself to look at us and was struck down again by the arrowy glance of the moon, shivering and running away to tell the pebbles along the shore what a strange people with hats on, and even shirts and pants, they had seen.

But now, right ahead of us loomed up the walls of the hotel where we were to pass the night. It was by far the most high-toned hotel in the place--in fact it was the only one. It consisted of four stone walls about ten feet high without any roof. There was no bed-chamber, no bed, no carpet, no floor, no light, no fire, nothing to sit down on, nothing to eat and, so far as we could discover, no proprietor. But there _was_ a door and it was locked for fear someone might imagine there was something inside, I suppose, and then go in and steal it; and by ill-luck someone had gone off with the key. Crecor went off to hunt it up and soon returned with the clerk of the hotel who ushered us in, horses and all, through the front door into the parlor. We had thought of telegraphing ahead to have the best chamber reserved for us, but were glad that we had saved ourselves that expense. For it happened that we were the first who registered that night, with the exception of a donkey and a man and his wife, and so we had the whole range of the hotel. We selected the corner where there seemed to be the fewest stones and least rubbish and cleared a place to put up our tent. And now for something to eat.

Lee had brought along a chest full of bread, cake, canned goods, chicken, eggs, etc., so we were well provided with all but the appetite. We did not any of us want anything after that long, hot, dusty ride but just a watermelon apiece, and then to go to bed in the shortest and speediest manner. But to fall asleep was another matter. How it seemed to my traveling companions I don’t know, but there was such a horror of desolation about that place, such an awful, oppressive night-silence that made me think of all that I had ever read in the Bible about jackals howling in ruined places, hooting owls and creeping foxes and satyrs crying to their fellows, that I determined as soon as I struck the bed that if anybody got to sleep before I did he would have to be lively about it. I wasn’t going to be the last awake that night, anyway, and so I bent all my energies to the task. I had heard that if anyone would start slowly and count five hundred, it would surely put them to sleep. And so I began. I reached four hundred and fifty, and was just falling off into slumber when it occurred to me that I had only fifty more to count, and maybe I wouldn’t make it, and, of course, that excited me and woke me up. I thought that perhaps I had counted too fast, and concluded to give it another trial. began more slowly. I kept saying to myself, “Now, not too fast!” and of course. that kept me awake. I reached 499, and while I was waiting for something to happen before I said 500, the thought flashed through my head, “Well now, it seems to me it wasn’t 500 that puts folks to sleep after all, it was a thousand.” All right, I would try a thousand. I did. I went on to two thousand, three thousand, five thousand. I became wrought up. I said to myself, “I’ll do it if it takes forty thousand. I’ll lie on this bed all night, and all day to-morrow, if need be, and count a million.” And I believe I would have done it, if another plan had not happened to occur to me.

I had read somewhere that if a person could only get their body into a certain position, no matter how wide awake they might be, sleep would immediately follow. I said to myself: “Now, how glad I am that I happened to think of that.” But, then, I couldn’t remember what that position was. Never mind, I would try them all, and see if I could strike it. I had rather a narrow field to operate in, for my iron bedstead wasn’t wide enough to turn over in without rolling out. And it wasn’t long enough, so that my feet could not go to bed at the same time I did. At last I think I must have hit it, for I fell asleep, and my last thought was, “I’m glad my mother does not know where I am to-night.”

Strange to say, it had not rained in that country for four solid months, but that night it rained as though it had been saved up for our special benefit. It waked us up at midnight. It drove in above and ran in below. It rolled down the folds of the tent like so many waterspouts. We all sat up in bed and looked at each other. We wanted to say something, all of us, but each seemed to be waiting for the other and wishing he would say it first, until, there being nothing else to do, Lee carefully gathered together the folds of the tent so that the water all ran down into his bed (which he didn’t discover until he laid down again). I put on my overcoat and again crawled into bed. The last I saw of Gould, he was lying flat on his back holding an umbrella with both hands, hoisted and spread over him, and trying to sleep.

Next morning we arose before daylight, called for our hotel bill, paid it (it was only fifteen cents for the whole company), mounted our horses and rode out of the front door with a long day’s journey of forty-five miles before us, a blazing sun above us, and the River Pyramus flowing by our side. The memory of that day is like one of those winterbird’s nests swinging on the tree, frozen stiff with rain and dreary enough, without a warm feather in it or a note of song. I have a confused recollection of a sun that was unmistakably hot, a white road that made it hotter, and a desert wind that was “Hottentotter.” I recollect, too, that I rode a horse that was never happy unless he was ahead, and I was never happy unless he was behind. I remember that I carried a sun umbrella, and every time a horse tried to go ahead of mine he would elevate his hind feet and lift me into the air, still holding on to my umbrella, until I had all the experience of going up in a balloon. But I _do_ have a very distinct recollection of every time I came down again. It seemed to me that that saddle was all pommel, for though I went up and came down perhaps a hundred times, I never could land anywhere else.

We passed trains of camels, herds of donkeys, men and women on foot, and here and there a Mohammedan under the shade of a tree or wall going through with a gymnastic performance of standing on his head, which is the way he prefers to say his prayers. On every side was wilderness, parched and withered, without a spear of grass or a green leaf. But all things must have an end, and so must our journey. We made up our minds when we went to bed on the third night that next morning we would get up at three o’clock and push through, a journey of a day and a half, to Marash.

And what a morning that was!

We had pitched our tent in a valley, between the high perpendicular walls of two mountains. The moon rode full overhead and passed along just on the broken edge of one of them, now leaping a chasm, now dodging behind a crag, now looking down through a leafy gorge with a brilliancy of glory such as our moon never attains, except in the frostiest nights of winter, by the aid of a ground covered with snow. I was able to read a newspaper with ease. I tried it, holding it off at a natural distance. I could see distinctly every feature and line of a photograph of my mother which I took from my inside vest pocket and gazed at, as I thought possibly for the last time. I could even see to read my own writing as I penned what I thought might possibly be my last words. What made me think so was this: We were to start that morning through a mountain pass infested by robbers. Now, I hope my readers will meditate on this, and try to be as scared as I was. It was the same pass in which Mr. Montgomery, of Marash, with a friend, had been robbed but a short time previous. They had passed a group of Circassians, the highwaymen of that region, lying by the roadside, holding their horses and waiting for someone to come along. They had gone but a short distance when there was a clatter of hoofs around the bend of the mountain, a flashing of pistol barrels leveled straight at their heads, and a command to dismount and give over. And there was nothing else to do. The five Circassians stood over them with knives and made them empty their pockets and give up their weapons. Then they took their horses and left them to make the best of their way home on foot, some twenty or thirty miles across the mountain. And now we were entering that same pass. And it was night.

We had not gone far, groping our way up the narrow trail in single file over rough stones, not speaking above a whisper, and wishing that our horses’ hoofs were shod with velvet, when Lee turned about and said: “Have you got your shooting-irons ready? We must be pretty near the place now where Montgomery was robbed.”

Oh dear! I felt awful. I wanted to go back. It wasn’t what I came for, to be shot down on that cold mountain in the dark by a shirtless Circassian. The next moment we came where there was a big tree right ahead of us and oh, horrors! we could hear distinctly the voices of several men in conversation. At the same time I thought I heard something in the bushes beside me. Then I was sure of it. Then I saw it move. Then a man stepped out into the road close to me. I drew my pistol and held it where he could see the flash of the barrel in the moonlight.

He stood still and I passed him, turning round in my saddle to keep my eye on him.

We all had our pistols out and were ready with pale cheeks, and hearts that thumped like drumsticks.

But we passed by unmolested.

Lee said afterwards that if we had not been well armed and looked so formidable we should probably have been attacked and robbed. I was glad that I _looked_ so.

The only other incident of any importance before we reached Marash was the downfall of the Turkish “Government.” He was riding ahead in grand style, full of the proud consciousness of having brought us safely through the mountains, pricking his horse with the sharp corner of the stirrup, which is used for a spur, and then playfully reining him up on his haunches, when suddenly, but with the utmost grace, horse and rider, with pistols and knives and gun, with brown rags and red rags fluttering in the wind, head down and feet uppermost, went tumbling over into the bushes. When he appeared again, unhurt but drooping at both ends like a dog when the boys have just got the pan securely fastened and are urging him to run, it was a sight that did us all good. We hadn’t laughed before in three days, and from that moment our feelings began steadily to improve. At last we came out into the open plain and ascending a rise of ground, saw in the far distance, hanging on the side of the mountain like an avalanche which has run half-way down and stopped in a gorge, the white houses of the city of Marash.

Three hours after we were riding through its streets, climbing up and up until we reached the high wall surrounding the buildings of the Mission. We rode in through the gate, and before we could dismount the missionaries were upon us. They welcomed us so heartily that we could not have been happier if we had returned home to America.

CALIFORNIAN LYRICS.

I.

A MORNING TRYST.

The oleander bends its boughs above the running water,
Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo!
Ah! the iris skies above her have a less bewildering blue
Than the eyes of the rancher’s daughter.

The oleander shall hear vows above the running water;
Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo!
If she choose me for her lover, she shall find me fond and true,
True and fond for the rancher’s daughter.

The oleander swings its blooms above the running water;
Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo!
In the clover bees are humming: shall I dare be bold and sue
For the lips of the rancher’s daughter?

The oleander breathes perfumes above the running water;
Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo!
Shyly, shyly she is coming while the sun is in the dew
On her path--ah! the rancher’s daughter.

II.

SNOW-WIND.

Down from the stately Sierras, down through our valley of flowers
Sweeps the snow-wind from far summits; the white rose trembles and
cowers;
The red rose flaming beside it, bends quivering and yields
Its homage to the strong wind, rushing on to the green wheat fields.

III.

A PINE-CONE FIRE.

Not two, not three, but twenty! Now half of twenty more--
Huge cones that the kings of the forest, the kings of the forest
bore.
Now, snap and blaze and sparkle, oh, banners of fire that flow
Towards fire of the stars! Glow royally, hearthstone, glow;
Burn, cones, in fiery blossoms. Each crown-like flower disclose
Your petals of coals that drop down in ashes of rose.

_Minna Caroline Smith._

AMERICAN COLLEGE ATHLETICS.

I.--HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

BY J. MOTT HALLOWELL.

(Continued from page 241.)

ROWING.

A History of the development of boating at Cambridge would in itself fill a large-sized volume, and would only be a repetition of what has been often written before. The boating interest of the college dates its rise from a time long antecedent to that of any other athletic contests, as we understand them now, and the first intercollegiate race, in 1852, was rowed more than ten years before Harvard began her intercollegiate baseball games. At first desultory races with Yale were rowed, in which Harvard was usually victorious; then the National Rowing Association of American Colleges was formed, and Harvard annually sent a crew to the Intercollegiate regatta. About this time also, 1869, a four-oared crew was sent to England, but was defeated by six seconds in a four-mile race with Oxford University. Endless disputes, before and after the races, and the occurrence of many fouls caused by the large number of entries, at last caused Harvard and Yale to withdraw in disgust from the National Rowing Association, and in 1878 were begun the annual boat races between the two colleges, rowed on the Thames at New London. These races are still continued and now form the only intercollegiate boat races in which the university crew rows. For seven years Columbia also rowed on the same course, but last year this race was abandoned. With Yale eleven races have been rowed over the Thames course, Yale winning six and Harvard five.

Of all athletic training at Cambridge, that for the university crew is the longest and most trying. Soon after college opens in the fall, the captain collects a crew of the most promising candidates who are not in training for football, and begins a little desultory practice on the river. About the first of December the work begins in earnest and from then until the Yale race the following June, the candidates for the crew pursue systematic training. During the winter, social pleasure is cut down, as the men have to be in bed at an early hour, with possibly the privilege of sitting up one night in the week. Daily practice is taken upon the rowing-machines in the gymnasium accompanied by light chest-weight work and a run out-of-doors. As soon as the ice is off the river, the crew begins work on the water and soon after goes to a training table for the rest of the year. Then not only are regular hours of retiring necessary, but the men must report at eight o’clock every morning for a short walk before breakfast. This sort of training accompanied by work on the river, gradually increased in severity, continues until the last of June, the day of the Yale race.

The Charles River flows within five minutes’ walk of the college yard, furnishing a fairly good piece of water for practice; and a little over a mile below the college, it opens into “the basin,” a broad sheet of water almost two miles in length. On this course are rowed the class races every May. The three principal rowing events of the year at Harvard are comprised in these class-races, the Freshman race with Columbia College and the contest with Yale University.

THE LACROSSE TEAM.

FOOTBALL.

In October, 1872, the first University Football Association was formed at Harvard. At this time football as a game was but little known in the United States; a few of the other colleges had formed a league, but the character of their game was absolutely different from that now played in America. It was modeled after the English “Association” game, and was played entirely with the feet; the ball could not be touched by the hands while the game was in progress, but instead was kicked or “dribbled” by the player in making his runs. At Harvard the game had a strong resemblance to our present method, and American football is a distinct outgrowth of a rough, rushing game as played for some fifty years on the college campus at Cambridge, a game at first modeled on no pattern, begun with no rules, but of an irregular, unrestrained growth, a sort of curious combination of “Association” football as played in England, and the college rush of those days in which an unlimited use of the hands and fists was allowed in order to gain possession of the coveted prize. About the year 1872, however, some Harvard men who had become acquainted with the English “Rugby” game, seeing the resemblance between it and the Harvard game, made a careful study of the former, and recognizing the need of regular rules, adopted a set of rules peculiarly like the Rugby, but adapted to the method of play then in vogue at Cambridge.

Thus was evolved a regular game limited by rules which were the result of a curious combination of three different factors: the game informally played by “sides” chosen from athletically inclined students, the rough fights of the Freshman and Sophomore classes in the annual rush, and lastly the influence of the adapted rules of the English Rugby game.

In the fall of 1874 Yale issued a call to Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and Rutgers to form an Intercollegiate Football Association, but Harvard could not join, because her game was so radically different from that played at the other colleges. The Yale _Record_ remarked: “Harvard said that her game was so strictly scientific as to prevent her from ever contending with other colleges whose games were so entirely devoid of skill.” If Harvard had consented to join the League, American football to-day would be a very different game, but she could not have retained her own rules as they were fundamentally different from those in use at the other four colleges, and they, naturally wishing to retain their own rules, could have out-voted her. By her action in refusing to join the League, and her superiority--principally shown in games against Canadian teams--she forced first Yale and then the other colleges to adopt the Harvard game. In 1875 the first Yale-Harvard game was played under the Rugby Union Rules, practically the same as those used at Cambridge; and in 1876 the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed between Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton. The game that Harvard introduced, Yale and Princeton have since developed.

In 1875 Harvard defeated Yale by four goals and four touch-downs to nothing. The next year she suffered defeat from Yale by one goal to three touch-downs, and since that time the Cambridge team has won not a single Yale game, and only a few from Princeton. The season of 1884 was especially disastrous. In vain the college paper, the _Crimson_, published semiweekly exhortations to the players to play better football, and to the undergraduates to take more interest in the team. The make-up of the eleven was excessively weak, and both the players and the rest of the undergraduates seemed indifferent concerning its success, so that at the close of the season it was disgracefully beaten by Yale and Princeton, and was defeated even by Wesleyan and the University of Pennsylvania. The undergraduates felt little regret when the Athletic Committee, who had for a long time been opposed to the game on account of its brutality as then played, announced that they considered it “brutal and demoralizing,” and that thereafter Harvard was forbidden to engage in any Intercollegiate football games. For a year the rule was enforced, but in 1886 it was reconsidered and Harvard again took her place in the football arena.

That year’s rest was fortunate, for it served as a breathing spell in which the college could pause and reflect for a brief space, so as to discern just what the fault was that had sent Harvard to the rear in football, while she still retained her prominent position in other games. When in 1886 she was allowed to resume her old position in the League, she began work with a grim determination to recover her lost prestige. With comparatively untried material to work upon, Brooks, ’87, the new captain, produced an eleven which was second only to Princeton and Yale. The record of Captain Holden’s eleven in 1887, the defeat of Princeton, the game lost to Yale at the New York Polo Grounds, and the dissatisfaction and dispute over the result, are still too fresh in the memory to need repetition.

The football played at Cambridge in the last two seasons shows that Harvard has regained her position as one of the leaders on the football field. For the seven or eight preceding years, Harvard football had been nothing more than a weak imitation of the game of Yale and Princeton. Upon the re-establishment of Harvard in the League, in the autumn of 1886, the game was first played with a slight attempt at originality. But the previous decline had been too great to admit of more than an attempt, and most of the time had to be spent in learning what the other colleges already knew. In 1887 for the first time in many years Harvard began the season on an equal footing with Yale and Princeton, with an equal knowledge of the science of the game and as clear a perception of what the requirements of the coming year would be. Instead of tamely imitating the game of the previous year as played by the two other colleges, she mapped out a plan of work of her own, and developed a scientific, heavy, rushing game, a system in striking contrast to the Yale and Princeton style, and entirely different from the heavy, bull-headed, rushing game as played by all the colleges six years ago. This style of play had its defects, but it possessed that which more than counterbalanced them all--it showed that at last Harvard football was logical and scientific, original in its conception and systematic in its play, and that the college again had taken her position as one of the leaders in the development of the American game of football.

LACROSSE.

Although lacrosse is not a game very generally adopted in this country, it has been successfully played at Cambridge for nearly ten years. The Association is but a young brother of the other clubs, having been formed as late as 1879. It was quickly followed in 1881 by the formation of the Intercollegiate League, with Harvard as a leading member, and in 1881, 1882, 1883, 1885, 1886 and 1887 the lacrosse championship fell to Cambridge, and in two of these years the Oelrich’s Cup was also secured at the annual tournament in New York. When lacrosse was first played at Cambridge, fifteen dollars expended for advertising and policemen, and seven dollars received as gate receipts was not an unknown experience at a championship game. But successful teams, and the natural advantages of the game, have gradually extended its popularity, and now each year the rapidly increasing number of players attests the growing interest felt by the college.

There are also many other athletic clubs of more or less importance in the college, which, however, seldom take part in intercollegiate games--the polo, shooting, canoe and bicycle clubs, and the sparring association. In tennis, Harvard has furnished some of the leading players in the country--R. D. Sears, H. A. Taylor, J. S. Clark, P. S. Sears and Q. A. Shaw; and the extent to which the game is now played is shown by the fact that, in reply to the questions of the Faculty athletic committee, out of 1,031 men who replied, over 600 named tennis as one of their usual forms of outdoor exercise.

FACULTY REGULATION OF ATHLETICS.

In 1882 there entered into Harvard Athletics a new factor, in the shape of interference with, or rather attempted guidance of, athletics by the college authorities. With this purpose in view, a committee on athletics was appointed, consisting of Prof. C. E. Norton, Prof. J. W. White and Dr. Sargent; a committee which for a time was more discussed, more abused, and more misunderstood than any other unfortunates who ever had the complimentary misfortune of being appointed to guide college athletes into the path they ought to follow. The immediate cause of its appointment was to prevent several abuses which the Faculty believed they saw increasing coincidently with the growth of intercollegiate athletics.

The public sentiment of the undergraduates was favorably inclined toward the regulating action of the Faculty, and although some of the overzealous raised an outcry against any interference on the ground that such would injure their chances of success, the majority and the more cool-headed undergraduates agreed that some regulation of the growth of athletics was needed.

The members of the committee were all very strongly of the opinion that athletics were essential to the highest welfare of the students; but at the same time they thought they saw tendencies growing which, unless checked, would be likely to more than offset all the advantages which were to be gained. They felt that the drift of affairs during the past few years had been toward the effacement of that clearly defined line which separates amateur from professional athletics, and that for the preservation of intercollegiate athletics a strict observance of this line was necessary. The first step in interfering with the _laissez faire_ system of athletics was to dismiss the men employed as trainers by the Athletic Association, and to forbid any “professional” trainer from appearing on the college grounds. Till that time each would-be athlete had chosen his own trainer, usually the professional selected by the H. A. A., but often some professional walker or sprinter who had no connection with the college. As a result petty disputes arose among the various trainers, and were continued on the track; and there was bitter rivalry in obtaining the best runners, in order to secure the advertisement of having trained a “record” man. Of course, imbued with this feeling, the trainers neglected the development of the weaker men who entered into track athletics for the sake of exercise, but with no hope of breaking a record. It was to remedy this evil that the committee on athletics forbade professional trainers to appear upon the college grounds. At the same time, realizing how necessary it was for the men in training to have some one to look after them, they sent a request to the corporation that some man might be appointed with a fixed salary, to have a place in the gymnasium and to act as a trainer for all the athletes. Their recommendation was accepted, and after a delay of about a year Mr. J. G. Lothrop was engaged to superintend the general exercise of all the track men, and also the special work of those training for the intercollegiate games, and he was installed in the gymnasium as “assistant in the department of physical science.” The satisfaction occasioned by this change has borne fruit in the large number who now work in the gymnasium classes during the winter, the many candidates for the intercollegiate team of track athletes, and the brilliant record of the team in annual intercollegiate games.

The second step taken by the committee, in 1882, was to prohibit the Harvard baseball nine from playing games against professionals. Previous to this, President Eliot had written to the Faculties of all the colleges with which the Harvard nine played matches, asking them whether they would forbid the nines of their respective colleges to play games with professional clubs in case Harvard took the initiative. Affirmative answers were received from all except Yale, and she alone rejected the proposition. Nevertheless, in October, 1882, the Harvard athletic committee forbade the nine to play further games against professionals; but the other colleges, instead of adopting the plan, as, naturally, it was supposed they would, neglected to support the position taken by Harvard, and up to the present time every college nine in the country except Harvard is allowed professional practice. At Cambridge the rule has been strictly enforced since it was adopted in 1882.

If the athletic committee won any favor with the undergraduates by their successful regulation of track and field athletics, it was all lost by this baseball regulation. The step was taken with the idea of drawing a strongly marked line between amateurs and professionals, thus effectually preventing the professional tendency from increasing in college athletics; and also to prevent the game from becoming a monopoly played by a few skilled players, instead of being participated in by the whole college. It was a measure passed with a good aim, but nevertheless one which has flown wide of its mark, for its only practical result has been to heavily handicap the Harvard nine.

When any game in any branch of athletics is successfully played by a university team, experience shows that greater interest is always aroused throughout the entire college in that particular sport; that more “scrub” teams are formed, and a larger number of undergraduates practise the game, than when they have only a weak, defeated university team as a model. A higher standard of ’varsity play may, perhaps, lessen the number of candidates for the team; but these candidates form only a very small proportion of the number who incidentally play the game, while the greater enthusiasm aroused largely increases the number of mediocre players. Thus this prohibition, besides weakening the nine, besides enforcing more work on the captain and the team, really defeats the very aim that the committee had in view, and lessens rather than increases the number of men who play the game for general recreation.