Evening Star Newspaper, January 18, 1896, Page 22

. 22 A KING AMONG TREES pes Se Mexico’s Giant at Tule Perhaps the Stoutest in the World. Se A TYPICAL ZAPOTEC VILLAGE Scenes in a Timbuctoo of the North American Coatinent. ON THE WAY T@MITLA’S RUINS No. IV. Eiitorial Correspondence of The Evening Star. HOUGH SPELLED Qaxaca and pro- nounced Warhacker, the word sounded tunefully as Fl Do- rado in the ears of Cortes, for it was the pame of the most fruitful valley and the richest gold-pro- ducing province in Aztec land. And when the Spaniard kidnaped Montezuma in his own palace, and ru.cd through the royal captive, one of the first of the sifts extorted ftom him was the grant to Cortes of a vast tract of land In Oaxaca. So after the conquest. when a Spanish emperor occupied Monte- zuma’s shces, this grant was renewed and confirmed, and Cortes was made Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. The modern I @ian-peopied city of this name is famou not only as the spot fa but as the birthplace of Juarez and Diaz, as the present terminus of the M ican Southern railroad, and the most sox ern point yet reached in Mexico by the Pan- American route, and finally as the starting point for a drive to the Big Tree of Tui¢ and the ruins of Mitlat - In front of the worse of the two Oaxaca hotels—any one who has been in either of them will at once decide that I stayed where he did—there stood on a balmy day in last November two vehicles bound for the ruins of Mitla. In entire harmony with their and their destination they were themselves ruins, as unmistakable as any left by the Aztecs, Toltecs or Zapotecs. First came a_ dilapidated carriage, once perhaps the showy turnout of a Spanish viceroy, now a sad relic of departed worth. ored by Cortes, of broken, scratched, cracked, tattered and torn, worn peintless and threadbare, who: doors, held in place by dirty bits of str: THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 189¢-TWENTY-FOUR P. AGES. the ground «2 154 feet and 2 of its bran¢hes spread out a from the ttunk and the height of is about 16).feet. Tn ene side of the trunk is wooden tablet, over which grown untll it has become afmost a part A Oaxacan Carriage. of the tree, and a nearly iNegible inscription appears upon it, said to have been signed and placed there by the great Humboldt, who is alleged to have declared that there is no other tree to surpass this in the whole world, save a certain one which he sew in Africa. The stranger knocking about in Mexico is apt after a time to find the German savant and great American traveler something of a bore. Everywhere you run up against some reminder of the ubiquity of the man. If you wax enthu- siastic over the view from Chapultepec cr the Cathedral towers, you soon d.scover that Humboldt has seen It all, and sail whatever it was most appropriate to say. You admire the statue of Charles IV on the Paseo, ana are told that Humboldt, too, thought it was fine, surpassed only by that of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. And when the ordinary traveler thinks that he has found something new and surprising in comparatively untrodden wilds, Humboldt is thrown in his face in a most discourag- ing fashion. After a while one gets the Impression that this very comprehensive wanderer and investigator of over ninety years ago saw everything Mexican that there was tc see, walked and rode every- where, armed with barometer, thermom- eter and other scientific weapons, climbed ell the heights, measured and pictured and philosophized upon all the ruins, compared everything with something somewhere and some time else, and spared not even the Big Tre2 from his objectionable omni- preserce. When Walter Wellman finally dis- covers the north pole he will undoubtedly find Humboldt’s name carved upon it, to- gether with an inscription stating that the north pole is unsurpassed in its way by anything that Humboldt had ever seen ex- cept the south pole, which is loftier, and from, which the prcspect is notably finer and more extensive. 4s to Tule, Humboldt Never in It. These reflections under Tule tree, which were reasonable certainly at that time and place, were modified somewhat when I feund later that Humboldt did not compare the Mexican tree unfavorably with one that he saw in Africa; that (1) his writings do net contain this displeasing comparison; ZAPOTECS AT HOME. clung teriaciously when requested to open, and in ylelding generally splintered the wood work in a fresh spot. The second ve- It was a double-seated = wagon springless spr and in the last stages of decay. Each conveyance had as motive power five mules, with three leaders abreast, and was driven by a bandit in sombrero and serape. The Start for Tule and Mitla. The little group at the hotel entrance, consisting of Dr. Leopoldo Batres, conser of Mexico; his son, a bright youngster; the English engi- neer; Madame and myself, stared at the Mitla procession with dubious eyes. Final- ly Madame after a critical examination, and some hesitation marks the carriage as her choice of evils. The English engineer seats hin:self with our driver, Madame and I take the back seat, our driver's whip cracks savagely, and off we so for Tule and Mitla. The other vehicle containing Dr. Batres and his son, and creaking omi- nously under the burden of the conserva- tor’s portly form, quickly follows. Dr. Batres is to stop at the palace of the gov- ernor of Oaxaca to get papers from that offi- cial addressed to the municipal atthorities of Tlacolula, and to overtake us at the Big Tree. The conservator of ancient monu- ments had a double mizsion on this trip. He was engaged in an inspection of the ruins in his charge, in order to see that they were in readiness for examination by the Congress of Americanistas, a society composed largely of Europeans, which ie- votes itself to the study of American an- tiquities, and which was soon to meet for the first time in its history in the new world, and in the City of Mgxico. Dr. Batres was also enlisted in a man hunt, a search for typical Zapotecs, to be displayed as ethnological exhibits before the same Congress of Americanistas. Inasmuch as he spoke the Indian dialects, Spanish and French, and had an intimate knowledge from his official position of the ruins vis- ited, he proved, as might be expected, a valuasle companion on our travels. Oaxaca has reached that stage of munici- pal development in which the streets are paved with rough cobble stones, and the enly unpleasant bits of travel in our excur- sion were within Oaxaca’s limits, before the hard, well-beaten dirt road of the country was reached. Upon this thoroughfare our vehicle moved along smoothly and rapidly, and the procession of Indian vehicles and pedestrians which we passed on their way to town kept us constantly pleased and in- terested. The Oaxaca typical vehicle is an x-cart, the oxen burdened and adorned with rude yokes, fastened to the horns and extending backward over the top of the head and neck, and the cart lumbering along on clumsy wooden wheels, with mas- sive, far-projecting hubs. Sometimes the wheel is in a single piece, the section of a tree trunk, and always in the rural districis it closely approximates this primitive form. A Giant Among Trees. Seven or eight miles from Oaxaca we turn- ed from the main road into a lane running through a grove of trees, one of the streets of Tule village, and in less than half a méle from this point we came to the church of Santa Maria del Tule and the monster tree in the churchyard. As one passes through the gateway which pierces the high adobe wall surrounding the church en- closure, he comes face to face with the mighty ahuehuete or Mexican cypress, and the sight takes his breath away. The vast bulk of its trunk and branches dwarfs into insignificance the church standing close by. It seems impossible that this area of vege- table growth should come from a single shoot, and the fact that the surface of the trunk is not smooth and regular, but is deeply indented with huge ribs standing out at intervals like the sails of a giant wind- mill, tends to strengthen the impression that the tree is a composite, a case of vegetable Siamese twins, or perhaps the Tule triplets among trees. One M. Anza is quoted as saying concerning it in the last century that “three united trunes form the famous sabino of Santa Maria del Tule.” But later travelers do rot coincide with M. Anza, and M. Charnay, the French savant, who visit- ed this province when engaged in his world- famous investigations in Chiapas and Yu- catan, expressly negatives this view. With this preface, let us plunge at once into fig- ures and announce that according to the latest measurements (those made by Camp- bell and given in his Mexican guide), the Circumference of the trunk six feet from that (2) he had never been in Africa, and that (3) according to an intimation of H. H. Bancroft he did not visit the Mitla neighbor- hood during his Mexican peramb6lations. Can it be that the great Humboldt is a great Humbug—the forerunner and model of the modern feke-fabricating foreign cor- respondent? Perish the thought. Humboldt visited President Jefferson and Washington city in 1804 and was warm in his praises of the beauty of the city’s site. A man who gives such pleasing evidence of good judgment and discerning taste cannot be a fakir. Humboldt’s statements in his Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain con- cerning the Tule tree, seen or unseen, which are made as if of his own knowledge, without reference to another as authority, are as follows: “At the village of Santa Maria del Tule, three leagues east from the capital, . b tween Santa Lucia and Tlacocheguaya, there Is an enormous trunc of cupressus ‘listicha (sabino) of thirty-six metres (118 feet) in circumference. This ancient tree is consequently larger than the cypress of Atlixco, of which we have already. spoken, the dragonnier of the Canary Islands and all the baobabs of Africa.”” This tree 1s as worthy of admiring study as any of the ruins which are so thick in Oaxaca, the cite of hundreds of forgotten cities of the ps It is a Mexican antiq- uity which, instead of crumbling gradualiy to dust, adds yearly to its vast girth and stature, and promises to live and grow for centuries to come. In ages past it was, and it still is, an object of wonder and venera- tien to the Indians. It is sald that Cortes camped under it in his historic march to Hecnduras. If he did, however, he left, to MAIN STREET OF have measured it and printed the resulting figures, have varied considerably in their reports. It has, of course, increased in size every year.,The absorption of the s0- called Humboldt tablet into the body of the tree gives an: indication-ef this growth. | will put in -tabuler’ ‘measurements me id the corresponding , |For convenience, I pane re yrs of the: ie cypress, an ‘figures concefning the California redwoods. The Tule Tree. Cccumeprenes: Height. -: feet. 160 Humboldt (1808)... Von Tempsky (1853) Ober (1883). Campbell (recent).. -154 ft. 2 in. (6 ft. from ground.) Batres ‘Expedicion (re- ~ cent). 66 metres—216.3 feet Californin Big Trees. Circumference. Height. Grizzly Giant (Mariposa). (50) Highest Mariposa tree. Keystone State (Calaveras).. 45 The Batres measurement asserting a cir cumference of over 200 feet is printed upon the only photograph of the tree which now seems to be sold in the Mexican shops. It probably gives the girth of the trunk close to the ground, where the great ribs of the tree swell outward as they enter the soll, and it is difficult to decide with precision where the beribbed trunk ends and the Toots begin. Cther variations of measure- The Tule Big Tree. ment are probably due largely to the difter- ent. degrees in whick the measurers fol- lowed the irregularities in the deeply in- derted trunk. A Oaxacan Catastrophe. While we were still trying to grasp an adequate conception of the magnitude of the Big Tree, and were puzzling ourselves as to whether it was twins, triplets, quad- ruplets or a single individual, the Batres equipage crawled slowly into view, display- ing & broken back, spliced with splints and rope. “It is well, Madame,” said Dr. Batres, “that you chose the other coach. My own has broken in two and tumbled me upon the ground.” It often happened that Dr. Batres, who was educated in Paris, spoke such un-American French that we had dif- ficulty in comprehending him, but the meaning of his’ words on this occasion, supplemented as they were by appropriate accompanying gestures, full of animation, was on the instant perfectly and painful- ly evident. a ‘ Soon our procession moved again through the streets of Tule. Our reception in this Indian village and in others through which we passed, ai like it as peas in a pod, was African, and many of the sights were Afri- can also. We were greeted at the begin- ning of the long main street by outposts of barking, snarling dogs, whose numbers in- creased and the volume of whose chorus enlarged as we penetrated’ the village. The fences on either side of the street were hedges of organ cacius, the gates were sugar cane or bamboo. As in a new n mining camp there is a gradual development in man’s habitations, begin- ning with ihe, tent, then passing to the chimneyless hut of rough logs of uneven lengths, then to the cabin of smoothed, planed logs or even ‘lumber, equipped with windows and a chimney, so there is a simi- lar evolution in Oaxaca’s villages. The aristocrats live in adobe structures with tiled roofs. The plebeians build themselves primitive dwellings of wattled cane work plastered with clay, windowless, chimney~ less, thatched either with palmetto or ma- guey leaves, according to the altitude and temperature of the Village. There are palms in abundance in tropical Mexico, but on the higher levels the maguey takes its place, the general utility plant of the Mexican, who eats its sprouts, thatches his roof and feeds his fire with its dried leaves, makes pins and needles of its thorns, twine, rope ‘and paper from its fiber, and pulque (beer) and mescal (whisky) from its juice. With us the maguey is called the century plant, because it is supposed, erroneously, to blossom only once in a hundred years. In Mexico it may be properly called the century plant, because it has at least a hundred uses. An American Timbuctoo. It is not surprising that in habitations and living occupants of the streets, from snarling dogs and patient donkeys to dark- skinned, lightly clad natives, there should be suggestions of Africa. These villages are in the same latitude with Senegal in Senegambia, with Timbuctoo, and with the sixth cataract of the Nile, with Bombay in India and Manila in the Philippine Islands. ‘The most interesting Indian village which we visited lies between Tule and Tlacolula on a by-way diverging from the main road, and boasts the euphonious name of Tlacox- ahuaja. In the old times all of fruitful Oaxaca was densely populated with a series of magnificent cities, now dead and buried and crumbled into dust. oe “And millions in these solitudes, Since first the flight of years began, Have laid them down to their last sleep.” The natives of the present living over the remains of the myriads of the past are constantly unearthing antiquities, treas- ures of the buried dead, which they sell cheaply to semi-occasional visitors. Dr. TLACOXAHUAJA, his credit be it said, no commemorative tablet a la Humboldt. In brief, the Tule cypress is possibly the oldest and stoutest tree in the world. I have seen the Mariposa group of big trees in California, which are world famous for their girth, but no one of the red- woods begins to be as impressive a spectacle as the Mexican ahuehuete. The latter is not of a height to correspond to the area ecvered by its trunk ‘and _ spreading branches, and is much shorter than a num- ber of the redwoods, both of the Mariposa and Calaveras groups. The cypress is not, however, of a squatty appearance. The smooth-surfaced trunk of the redwood shoots upward in a graceful column some- times two hundred feet before it is broken by branches, and no great expanse of foii- age adds to its spectacular effectiveness. ‘The Tule cypress, on the contrary, sends up its vast, gnarled, deeply indented, ven- erable-looking trurk only about twenty feet before it shoots out branches in every direction, as thick as large trees at the junction with the trunk, and stretching between fifty and a hundred feet from it. The diameter of the circle of grqund space underneath the tree’s spreading branches is 141 feet. From the point where the foliage begins to the tree top is about 140 feet. “The Batres and the English engineer were ar- dent pursuers of bargains in these antiqui- ties. And thereby hangs a tale, the Tlacox- ahuaja episode. As we drove slowly up the main street of the Zapotec town, ac- companied by our customary reception committee of yelping curs, there issued, it seemed, from every other house Tlacox- ahuajans of both sexes and all ages, offer- ing antiques for cur inspection, beads of jade, idols of stone or clay of varying sizes and degrees of dilapidation, but of un- varying ugliness. Finally Dr. Batres’ bro- ken-backed wagon, which led the way, stopped, the procession came to a halt and Dr. Batres disappeared in one of Tlacoxahuaja’s lanes. He was on the track of a rare treasure, his driver said, and would return quickly. Meanwhile the crowd of curio vendors took possession ‘of us. ‘When half an hour had passed without any indication of Dr. Batres’ return the En- glish engineer, evidently yearning to dis- cover behind the cactus hedges and in the thatched huts some priceless antiquity, re- centiy unearthed, could no longed restrain his uneasiness concerning the missing. con- gervator of ancient monuments, and though he_himself could speak not a word of Za- potec valiantly volunteered to go upon a tour of discovery in search of the lost one, ‘with the additional of con- idea, possibly, .! ancient himself. half hour tl perio of antiquities dis- cov ‘we no wi reciation of her offered idol, anathema- tized: us ‘vigorously bad hid “herself in her’ hut. . ae 2 ee " Scenes in an‘fndian Village. ~ In another half h I had photographed | RBumerous ns-and their dwell- ings, the patient up of curio vendors, the shifting the village street. Here, in front of. yw hut, of which a section of the thafeh roof was broken away, so that its idation framework of lUght poles protrudp@skeleton-like, was a group of Zapotecs. jome, cunning moon- faced babies on the. backs of only slightly bigger brother and gister, full-grown men dressed <in white. cqtten, with sombrero, serape and sandals; Here a ‘half-naked Zapotec with fine gnuscular development of the arms: and st laboré along the main street under ang immense, filled, cylin- drical basket,-“much larger and” heavier than hlingelf.. Heré comes ‘riding. by a Zapotec. spiatcons mounted on ‘a donkey, with baSket panniers on either, side, the damsel’s eyes shadeg from thé sun by her reboso converted int} an: impromptu. hood. While we were curidusly inspecting a pro- cession cf horsemen, followed by numer- ous heavily laden mules, which we were told, were bull fighters and their parapher- nalia_on their way to perform in a neigh- boring village, Dr. Batres appeared, eager to také his departure, and impatient and disturbed at the absence of the: English engineer, who was supposed to be -search- ing for him. After another period of shout- ing and waiting and fretting, the English- man came in sight, and as he approached we saw that his face was radiant“with the joyful enthusiasm of one who has up- unearthed a long-lost treasure.. As to whether he was in fact laden with one or more precious antiqhities deponent’ sayeth not. Presumably not, for tt is unlawful to remove such finds from Mexico, and I do not believe that the Mexican National Mu- seum was In any respect richer for our trip. As darkness gathered at the end-of our first day’s experiences we drove into’ Tlaco- lula, where we ,were to spend the night. ‘THEODORE W. NOYES. —. : AN OHIO SPARROW HUNT. Eight Thousand Victims in an After- noon and Still Plenty of Sparrows. From the New York Sun. The annual sparrow hunt js a big event in several Ohio counties. It;seems to have originated in Summit county, and to this day the hunt is conducted on a more elaborate scale In that part of the state than any- where else Only English sparrows are shot, and no matter how many are killed, iike Koko’s victims, ‘they never will be missed." Early in the month of December the farm- ers, having. got everything stowed away reatly and safely, having provided plenty of wood and having boarded up the cattle sheds for the winter, decided that it was about time to go on the warpath for spar- rows. A notice was posted up next day at Richfield Center to this effect: “The annual sparrow hunt will be held to- morrow. All are invited. Please be on hand not later than 8 o’clock a.m. Jotham Potter and Cyrus Hopkins will be captains of ‘the two teams, respectively, and will choose sides at 7:45 a.m." * On the following morning nearly 100 men were ready for théhant. It doesn’t take long to circulate sictrdn announcement in a farming community ffi! Ohio. Especially is this true during the!winter season, when there is nothing that‘ the younger peopls like better than tovisif around. When the huntéfs came together it was noticeable that netrily'all of them carried guns of modern make.''Very few old-pattern pieces were shouldéred'by the stalwart sons of the county, and ‘the‘army musket, which was so conspicuoils immediately after the war,-was no longét noticeable. “City folks heg™‘ttone it all,'"*é¢rbaked Elder -‘Paine. “They'vé come cup ite *n’ shot quail with brich loaders ’n’ fv nuthin’ will do but that ev’ry boy in the neighborood must be armed with a new-fangled gun wuth more'n a‘hull summer's Work?" A Xs Soon as thé’ CGhtestdnts could be pac-d_ if’ ‘line the captains jose their amen: If d%n't take Jong tb Hd that, ‘for it doesn’t re- quire much’skill té'shoot English spartows. They arego tartie that any one can get close | enough to pop them over as fast as he can sight his gun? The hunters With the guns that cdn be operated with the most, speed aré’almcst certain to be those to make the lergest scores. One side went up the valley and the other side went down, the agreement being to hunt in a circle and come together again at the center at a stipulated time in the after- noon, all sparrows to count up to the time that the contestants should report to the scorekeeper at the center. In five minutes from the time that the men started on their way the guns began to bang. All up and down the valley, during the entire afternoon, the reports filled the air until the inhabitants might have been excused for believing that a war skirmish was going on in the neighborhood. The sparrcws never had been thicker. In fact, they bad been so thick during the summer months that they threatened to eat the farmers out of house and home. One peculiar fact about shooting spar- rows is that the noise of guns seems to frighten them only temporarily. They rap- idly become accustomed to the report, as they do to everything else. They are the most complaisant little upstarts that ever immigrated into the country. On Fourth of July the same characteristic is noticeable. In early morning, when the first few. fire- crackers or miniature torpedoes are dis- charged, the sparrows will fly away to the topmost branches of the trees or to the eaves of the barns and houses, where they build nests, but before nightfall they are back again on the streets as chipper as ever, and only mind a firecracker long enough to fly a few feet away and sputter like the mis- chief when it bursts. So it isswhen hunting. The first discharge of weapons early in the mornirg sent the sparrows away to their rafest retreats, but by noon, Between hunger and the fact that they no longer dreaded the noise, they were out on the roads, in the fields, about barnyards and stealing the grain away from tke chickens as though they never had heard a shotgun. As the sun began to sink in the west the pile of sparrows began to accumulate. Some of the hunters were lucky, and shot them- selves out of ammunition before they had been out two hours. Others were not so fortunate, and straggled in just as daylight was about finished. It had been one of the best days that the sparrow hunters ever had. In round numbers 8,000 birds were slaughtered. That averaged about eighty to a man. Stretched “bill to tail,” as Farm- er Garrettson put it, “them birds would have. reached nigh seven mile and a half, allowing five inches for a bird.”. The next morning, however, there seemed’to be just as many sparrows in and about Richfield Center as ever. Jotham Potter’s side killed the most spar- rows, and therefore Cyrus Hopkins’ side will have to provide a first-class supper for winners and losers, ‘with plenty of Summit county trimmings= ‘+5 —— 11+ e+ —_— NON-ANIMAL BOOTS. ec A Feature of the Yegetarian Fad in * Englgnd. From the New York World, There are: vegethrians who deny them- selves flesh food anitary grounds only, while others cling, to,the diet on humani- tarian grounds. Phe¥irefuse to eat meat, because they déeline to even remotely sanction the slaughtet! of a living creature for any purpose.'; | 4. This feeling is cargled to the point ‘of a@ fad in Englandj and as a result “vege- tarian boots and *shoes” are advertised as for sule in the Lofidoit' papers. The- uppers are made of “‘jar‘nus’ corium,” which, by the way, is oak tanned leather, but few Becple will. recognize the fact. This is all the leather used in the shoe, however. The soles are of closely waterproofed flax belting. The vegétarians, in arguing that the skins of slaughtered animals are not necessary, say that India rubber, gut- ta percha, steel, jron and brass nails, cash- mere, cotton, elastic webbing, wood, paper, cork, straw, silk, jute and wax go-to form the modern mystery of a lady’s shoe in which ‘oftentimes mo element of leather Scribens. “1ftt00 lovely for ahythitig. You’ Taust haye been inspired when you wrote He—“Well, I was pretty hungry,” iemselves,| Proposed Plan for New Buildings at as HOUSING OF CADETS : the Naval Academy. Outline of the Report That Will Be Made to Congress. WHAT IT WILL cost ECENTLY A COM- mission appointed by the Secretary of the Navy made an ex- amination of the con- dition of the Naval ‘Academy at Annapo- lis “and reported a plan for its improve- ment. Its report was so radical that there was great doubt of its acceptance by Congress — so great, » in fact, that Secre- tary Herbert thought it wiser to withhold the matter from the consideration of the House of Representatives until some of the members of-the House and Senate could j have an opportunity to go to Annapolis and see for themselves the condition of affairs there. This opportunity. was afforded this week, partly through the courtesy of a New Yorker, Robert M. Thompson. Mr. Thompson was a member of the last beard of visitors to Annapolis, and he was so struck with the wretchedness of the condi- tions there that he undertook to push the project of remodeling the academy. At his suggestion, Ernest Flagg, the architect who designed the new building for the Corcoran Art Gallery, now under construction in this city, prepared a gen- eral and comprehensive plan for the new academy, and this plan was made a part of the report of the commission appointed by Secretary Herbert. At the same time, Mr. Thompson tendered the use of a private car to take such of the members.of the House and Senate and’ such naval officers as desired to visit Annapolis last Wednes- day for the purpose of seeing for them- selves the need of the tings which the a FT - Secretary of the Navy will recommend to Congress shortly. The recommendations Old Cadet Quarters, of the commission (of which Commodore Matthews was the head) are locked up in Secretary Herbert's office, and he declines to make them public. But from a personal inspection of the condition of affairs at Annapolis this week, and from an examina- tion of the plan of Architect Flagg, I can form a pretty good idea of what Congress will be asked to-do. _ I found Capt. Cooper, the superintendent of the academy, in his office in the library building. . This is. Peg ape was once the g6ternor's” house, Ww! strange ‘to say, is one Of the few. biiidings which are to be left:standing if the Flagg pian of reconstruction’ is adopted. It was built in the early part of the century, and additions were made in 1878 and 1888. It is a two- story brick building, with attic, covered with a roof of slate and tin. But it was built with the solidness of the brick struc- tures of the early part of the century, and there is not a flaw in its walls. The library is down stairs and the superintendent's of- fice is upstairs. Under the proposed recon- struction this building is to be remodeled for supérintendents’ quarters. View of the Grounds. From the windows of the library bugding you can get a fair idea of the lay of the land, and from a ground plan which hangs on Capt. Cooper's office wall a still more adequate idea of the way the buildings are scattered. There are about fifty buildings in the academy grounds. These are scat- tered all over the government property with very little of regular order. About 2s much system as is to be found anywhere Is in the row of buildings used as officers’ quarters, ranging along the straight drive- way which leads from the entrance of the grounds to Capt. Cooper's office building, These quarters were erected in the early sixties, but they are in pretty fair condition, and they will probably be left standing when the academy is reconstructed. The chapel stands at the end of this row of buildings just opposite the library build- ing. On the other side of the library build- ing is the parade, running down to the sea wall which protects the grounds from the Severn river. another sea wall protects the grounds from the waters of Annapolis har- bor, which »pens on Chesapeake bay. At the angle made by these walls stands the gymnasium building, on the site once occu- Gymnasium. pied by Fort Severn. In fact, the founda- tion-of this bulking was the foundation of the fort, built in 1808 and 1809 of stone. It is circular in shape, and has a superstruc- ture of iron and wood with tin roof built in 1893. This is another of the buildings well constructed and well adapted to its present use. None of these buildings I have ramed is badly located. But the other forty odd bulid- ings, with hardly an exception, are placed at the most inconvenient points in relation to each other, and most of them are ready to fall down in a good storm. For example, the armory, which the cadets must visit before going to drill, is situazed at the end of the grounds farthest from the parade ground where the drill is held. The recitation rooms are scattered over the grounds so irregularly that the cadets, after one hour of recitation, must leave one building and march to another building in ancther part of the grounds to give another recitation and to another building in still another place to give the recitations of the third hour. Condition of the Buildings. And here is the condition of some of the buildings, as no doubt it will be reported to Congress in the near future: 3 The boat house is a brick and corrugated iron building with tin roof, built in 1891. There is a two-story structure on land with a shed extension over the water used for hoisting boats. The lower story of the main building is used for making repairs and for the storage of boats, and the upper story is furnished for a rigging loft. The founda tions of this building are giving way, which, taken in company with the fact that it is badly placed and entirely inadequate to present needs, ought to be enough to con- demn it. If there is one practical need evi- dent at a naval academy, it is for a good boat house. -What is known as Stribling row is a row of brick buildings with slate roofs, built for midshipmen’s quarters from 1849 to 1854, some of them two stories high, and some tkree stories, with an attic. The founda- tions of these buildings ‘have settled, the walls are een, Seo —— ae been placedebetween some ot em. feep them from falling together, and the buildings are FIRE CHIEF A. HL RUNGE © His Restored Health Was Due to Paine’s ~~ Celery Compound, The position of chief of fire department in a big city ke Minneapolis, with its acres. of valazble building property, crossed by numerous rallroad lines and dotted with factories where the fires are never “banked,” is one of the utmost responsibil- ity, and can be entrusted only to a man of un- questioncd character and ability. Auzust H. Runge, who has filled this responsibie | pesition for several yeurs with so much credit to himself and to the city, was born in New York | In 1852, where he received a common school cdu- cation, What such a man as this has to say ean scarce- ly fail to carry weight with it: “With the hope that what I say may in some way be brought to the attention of others who, like mysclf, have suffered without any apparent cuuse, I feel constrained to recite a brief tale regarding en experience which I trust may never be repeated in my case. “A few months: ago, owing doubtless to the exacting nature of my detics as head of the fire “departirent, I began to feel a sort of languor and listlessners, to disguise which T was compelled to bring into play all the streagth of will I could command. The feeling grew upon me, however, and in a short time it took such possession of me that it affected my appetite and caused insomnia. I approached my meais with a feeling amounting almost to nause: ind my bed with all in such a dilapidated condition that they are falling to pieces rapidly. They are hardly worth the cost of removai, and they areentirely unfit for occupancy. The recitation hall, built in 1 three-story brick building with basement and attic and a tin roof. Its walls are cracked badly, the foundations having set- 2-3, is a Armory Showing Supporting Timbers, tled so as to render the buiiding unsafe. It is of no value, and will not even pay the cost of removal. A very similar wreck is the seamanship building, which was once the ntess hall. It was built in 1846, just after the crea:ion of the academy, and was enlarged in 1853. It is a two-story brick build:ng with baseiment and a slate roof. It is entirely unfit for its present use, and the foundations nave set- tled and the walls have cracked to such un extent that it is ansafe for occupancy. Some Dilapidated Structures. ‘Two buildings which were erected in 1854, known as the Lyceum building and the ob- servatory, each one-story high, are in need of so much repairing that they are virtual- ly useless. Another old one-story building used as a paint and carpenter shop fs unfit for use. So is a frame shed of one story used for storage. The armory is the gem of the collection of old buildings. It is a one-story brick build- ing with a slate roof. It was built between 1877 and 1881. It is 250 feet long and 83 feet wide. It is in such a tumble-down con- dition that along one side for fully 200 feet heavy timbers have been bolted together in a framework which might well be the struc- ture of a new building, their mission being to hold the armory together and keep it from collapsing on the cadets some after- noon. The cadet quarters are in a four-story brick building, by far the most imposing structure on the academy grounds. This building was erected in 1869. The basement is used for kitchen and bath rooms, the first floor for a mess hall, offices and recitation rooms, the second, third and fourth floors for cadet rooms and the attic for drawing rooms. This building is the one on which the old naval officers at Washington dwell with the greatest vehemence when they are discussing the needs of the academy. Value of the Property. " In addition to the buildings which I have described as unfit for present occupancy, the gas works, an irregular brick building of one story, built about 1852, is falling to pieces, and two two-story brick buildings, formerly used as fencing rooms, are not ssfe. The other buildings on the academy grounds, while they are for the most part old and in many cases not large enough for the demands made on them, could be made available for use by the expenditure of a good sum of money. They include the steam engineering building, built in 1866; the boiler house, a new brick building, valued at $26,- 000; the stable, valued at $2,000; the chemical laboratory, valued at $800; the physical la- beratory, valued at $20,000; the sick quar- ters, valued at $13,000; the bakery, valued at $500; the laundry, valued at $2,000; the superintendent's quarters, valued at $20,000; officers’ quarters and board house, valued at $19,000; marine officers’ quarters, valued at $10,000; marine barracks, valued at $20,- 000; chapel, valued at $25,000. ‘An examination of the Flagg plan shows that all of these buildings, valued at nct less than $175,000, will have to be torn down eventually to make room for the new struc- tures proposed, if the plan is adopted by Congress; but the remodeling would be gradual and it would be a great many years before some of them were removed—in fact, it is likely most of them would have outlived their usefulness before they were attacked. For, if it is true, as reported, that the cost of the improvements is to aggregate $6,000,- 000, it will be a great many years before Congress will have appropriated that sum, even if it makes the hoped-for beginning by appropriating $100,000 at the present session. The Proposed Plan. The plan for the remodeling of the grounds and the construction of new build- restless night which TI was almost certain was before me. Matters became so serious with me that I could no longer keep silent about myself, and speaking of it to one of my friends one day, he suggested that I try Paine’s celery compound, I purchased a bottle and before I had taken & dozen deses I knew that the suggestion was a good | one. 1 felt an improvemeat. 1 continued to use | it, amd felt restored. My appetite is good, and I sleep well, and instead of an irksome grind my business is again a pleasure to me I attribute this bappy state of affairs’to Paine’s celery com- na As in the case. of Fire Chief Runge, the begin- ning of poor health is very apt to rob one of the will power to start immediately about getting cut of danger. It s this inertin of poor b that makes an ordinary “‘run-down'’ bodily condition so | dangerous, and so-Iikely to go on to something worse. Every day it js clearly shown it won't do to live tired out, and on the verge of breaking down. The languor and the lack ot strength are sure to Increase. | Now 1s the time to throw off disease. As the new year begins there are fewest bindrapees Lo get- ting beck strength and sturdy health. The brac- ing weather arouses a longing for health. Paine's celery compound, taken now, does its best service toward driving out disease and establishing Grim health. ings by Mr. Flagg stands on an easel in the library at Annapolis. It has been at the Navy Department in Washington and has been admired very much by naval officers. It is a radical plan. In the first place, i proposes to reclaim some of harb the river bed beyond the jp a wall, by the way, which, like many buildings, is crumbling to its fall. of meeting at an obtuse angle | Of the sea wall where the river Severn enters | the harbor will meet at a right angle. On the river side, the parade ground will extend, as now, right down to the sea wall. ! About 300 yards from the line of the river wall (I estimate from the plan as drawn by Mr. Flagg) a deep-water basin is to be cut | into the harbor side. A boat house will be built from one end of this basin, extending in the direction of the harbor wall toward the river. Corresponding to this at the other end of the parade ground will be the long, narrow armory. Between these two, connected with them by colonnade pas- sages, like those which connected the wings ot the court of honor at the world’s fair, Chicago, will be the dormitory building. It will be shaped like a letter E whose tongue has started off in the wrong di- rection, That is, two wings of the dor- mitory building will extend parallel with the armory and boat house and from the connecting wing, which faces the parade, an extension will be thrown out toward the parade. This extension will be three stories high. On the ground floor will be an assembly room; on the second floor, a dining room; on the third floor, the kitchen, In the center of each of the three sections of the dormitory building will be a court and the dormitories will be arranged so that there will be a study room for two students, with a bed room for each, one on each ‘side, and all three of these rooms will have direct ventilation. The stair- wsys connecting the upper and lower floors will be between the main dormitory building and the assembly room extension. New Arrangements. Under this plan all the living rooms will be grouped together within easy distance of the armory and the boat house, to which there will be covered passageways. And the armory will be beside the parade, while the boat house will be built at the edge of the deep-water basin." Directly opposite the entrance to the besin will be a promenade landing on which there will be a band stand. There will be a broad promenade behind the band stand, its arc cutting a piece out of the "strip of lawn between the band stand and the chapel. This strip of lawn will be cut up by paths. The chapel will be trefoil shaped and it will stand just opposite the entrance to the grounds. On each side of the entrance will extend the line of officers’ quarters, as now. At the end of the grounds opposite the living and exercise buildings will be grouped the academic buildings. The larg- est of these will have offices for the su- perintendent and the academic board in @ lorg structure at right angles with the line of officers’ houses. Two wings ex- tending out from this toward the lawn in the middle of the grounds will contain the recitation and lecture rooms. On the other side of, the main structure will be the li. brary wings. Between the academic buil irgs and the officers’ quarters will be the physical and chemical laboratories build- ing. On the other side of the academic buildings, near the wharf, will be three buildings—the coal house in the middie, the steam engine house on one side and the power house on the other. Mr. Flagg has only sketched out the pro- pcsed architectural features of the new buildings. These are to be left for future development. What is wanted of Congress row is that it adopt the proposed group- ing of the buildings and appropriate the money necessary to begin the rearrange- ment of the grounds. GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN, — Written for The Evening Star. Three Similes. Our bodies frail are the ships that sall O'er Life's insurgent se: Their precious freight, the souls that walt And long for liberty. Onur consciences true, the captains who Maintain a stern command; ‘They know the shoals where danger holds, And steer us eafe to land. —MARY WRIGHT DAVIS. PE ms Pe They’re Great Travelers. From the Mexico Herald. “Whut’s that?” asked Farmer Corntossel, pointing over his wife's shoulder to the magazine she was reading. “It's a piccer of one o’ the s. »ots.”” “By jing!’ he exclaimed, ‘lectively, “these here bacilluses see:-< be gittin' ‘nter, everything.”