Evening Star Newspaper, April 12, 1925, Page 62

Having been permitted, as the st foreigners, to join in the great migration of the nomadic tribes of Persia over the moun- Cooper and his two companions, Mrs. Harrison, the writer, and tains In search of Mr, Proest E. Schoedsack % the photographer, had been as- eigned to the Baba Ahmedi, the flercest tribe of all the Bakhtiari under the leadership of the iron chieftain, Haidar Khan. With this tribe they had witnessed the extraordinary feat of crossing the Karun River, In which the women and children had been sent over on rafts made of goatskins. These shot across on the swift diaz onal current to the opposite shore. The immense, panic-stricken herds of cattle even swam through the ice-cold water, driven by the men on a species of goatskin waterwings. BY MERIAN C. COOPER. OR many days the tribes had been climbing higher nd higher through gorgeous wild mountain country. Be- fore dawn each day we took the trail. We marched only In the cool hours of the morning in order to smave the cattle, camping before noon; at night sleeping in the open under single blankets on rocky ground Restful, that rocky ground, because daily my body grew cleaner of city poisins, lost those tissues of flabby fat accumulated in city Bagdad and town Shushtar. Sweet sleep thus from sunset through the night; then b fore dawn the trail again, always eastward; always higher skirting cliffs, climbing mountains, over for eastward, eastward, through the steep-walled snow lane, on to grass We had been marching with these people for more than two weeks, and it had been one of Shorty's chief amusements at first to spread along the route a peculiarly inelegant ex- pression for the Bakhtiari ladies to use when they drove the animals. “Ya Alil AllY* a Bakhtiari woman near us would call as she pushed the end of a stick with great vigor into the side of some reluctant beast “Knock 'em for a goal!” Shorty would answer In the same rising inflection as the tribeswoman, but using Ameri- can words. There would come laughter from every side, and to our surprise any number of women, and men and boys, o, picked up the American slang. Seeing this, Shorty and I with great &usto would sing by the hour, “Yes, we have no banan After a few days scarcely a half hour would pass on the trail without our coming on some one who could sing a snatch of that Broadway ditty. And so, one evening, jammed against this overhanging cliff, we opened up our chorus. We stopped, listened. There, in the depths of the ersian mountains, on this trail un- dden b, foreigners, out of the blackness of the night, rang out along the line several of the voices of * one of the wildest migratory tribes in Persia “Yes, we have no bananas, We have no bananas today.” F AWN crept slowly down the moun- tainside; then the sun rose. Snow peaks glistered about us. We were near the summit. In both directions the trail was swarming with a con- tinuous stream of tribespeople. On the safest of three parallel trails were climbing the horses and cow men and women. On the lower, pre- carious and gslanting, jumped the sure-footed goats and sheep, while the boys and girls who drove them seemingly clung by their toenails Thousands of feet of straight drop lay below. For the thirteenth camp of the migration we arrived at the famous Shimbar, the gathering-place of the tribes, and the tribes were indeed gathering. Down the steep hillsides of the Shimbar Valley at night camp fires gleamed almost as thickly as the stars. Here all the tribes were to come together; the animals were rested for the attack on the second mountain range; the khans settled tribal disputes or started new ones; the young bloods got practice at horse stealing and gun stealing; the women danced it reminded me of nothing so much as a division pulled out of the first line for a breathing spell before being shoved back in for a big push. There was laughter and there was fighting, and spirits mount- ed high On our second morning here some of the younger men went down to the stream that flowed with a rush through the marsh below. As they flashed by on thelr goatskin floats, hardening the young horses for swim- ming in the icy water, they called to me with merry shouts. I jolned them, stripped, and plunged in. Young Amir Hosaln Khan had long challenged me, and we swam a race The luck was in my favor. Five of his companions joined our second contest. Once more fortune favored me, though I am by no standards a fast swimmer. Only I had to bless the glorious Rve day when D. P. (a fish in the water) taught me the stroke that now enabled me to beat far stronger swimmers than I Now, apparently, Haidar had been watching this performance; so when I emerged from the last race I found him naked except for a loin-cloth. He had come down to uphold the honor of the tribe. * x ok K HE current swept torrent-like along. We plunged in ne and neck neck and neck we fought through a narrow passage, around a curve. Then this man, my elder by many years, out-endured me; he drew away and left me gurgling in his wake, As I came panting out I cursed cigars, silly days with silly books in houses, gasoline-laden air. When I'm his age, they'll probably be pushing me about in a wheeled chair. I was reared in clvilization; Haidar, as men were meant to live, in the open. After Shimbar early in May and sed on over the mountains. At last we climbed another high range. This was crowned by a shecr, fifteen- hundred-foot cliff, over the top of which the horses were dragged by ropes. From its summit we saw far away, blocking our trail and stretch- ing north and south to the ends of the horizon, the snow-clad sides of the giant enemy of the tribes, Zardeh | Kuh, “The Yellow Mountain." A week later the tribes camped some 10 miles away from it, fn a glorious high, wooded county. They made no immediate effort to cross it. Our people were “stalling” for posi- tion with the Bawadi tribes, whose riflemen were expected to attack us because we were protecting, through some tribal custom, the Beldarwand tribe. The Beldarwand ralded the Bawadi during the migration last year, killed a number of their men swept them clean, carrying oft s, herds, tents, rugs, everything. car the Bawadl were going to to retaliate obody seemed to mind this halt very much, since there was fairly good grazing here, except the Raki the “thief tribe"—to whom this land belonged. Our animals were devouring their grass at a great rate and they were raving angry. First they tried to make good their loss by collecting a toll. Our tribes had to cross a rough footbridge of stones and logs over a mountain stream. 1 rode up somewhat ahead of the Beidarwand column and climbed a slope overlooking the stream. On the farther side of the bridge were grouped some 60 of the Raki men, armed with rifles and swords and long, heavy sticks. Slowly a long line of Beldarwand families and cattle came down to- ward the stream and, without halting for a second to consider the hostile group, began to go over the bridge No sooner was the first family across than two of the “thief tribe” men grabbed a donkey and were about to make off with it. I've never seen a “free-for-all” start faster. Across that bridge the Beidarwand men came running, wav- ing their long, heavy sticks. The fight was on! Not a shot was fired— both sides knew that a killing here meant a blood-feud to the death— but every man grasped his staff with both hands and, swinging it with tull force, cracked the nearest enemy in sight. * x ¥ ¥ HOUTS! Howls! Screams! A man directly below me bowled over and lay still. At that a tall, full- bosomed young woman in a red head- Kerchief, leaped to his side, grasped his stick and, despite the fact that she had a cradle with a baby in it strapped on her shoulders, tore into the melee, shrieking with rage and striking out like 2 mad thing. A man behind her swung up his club and brought it down full across the side of her head. She was knocked clean off her feet and rolled over twice, the cradle (with the baby it) spinning under her. She went over and around and around, like a foot ball player on a ball, and then rolled to her feet, still running, and leaped back into the fray. More women joined in. And over the bridge came running more and more of the Beidarwand. The Raki broke and fled. There was no toll pald that morning! I was at a conference the next day when the Raki chlefs in a solemn group came to hold council with our khans. First we feasted; then the kalian went from mouth to mouth. Finally the gray-bearded Raki leader, despite the defeat of his young men on the previous day, made an oration to the effect that the Baba Ahmedi and Beldarwand tribes must o on or pay for the stay. At this, Ali Agha and Haldar and all the stalwart Baba Ahmedi chiefs rocked with derisive laughter. “You say we must move on or pay?” asked All Agha “Ye All Agha sneered? “Go tell your people we have another choice—this!" and he tapped his rifle. Yes, might is most certainly right among the tribes. Upon learning that the Bawadi were already moving over the mountains, at a place 40 miles north of here, our tribes knew that they had a chance to go on without the risk of being shot from ambush. But we were now face to face with a crueler and stronger enemy than hostile human beings. Dirdctly above our camp towered grim and gigantic Zardeh Kuh—black rock and snow and more snow, rising straight up until the peaks were lost in the clouds. Five thousand cotton-clad people and half a hundred thousand animals were Boing to cross that snow mountain. Haldar and a chosen body of volun- teers had made the crossing possible. For three days they had climbed up Zardeh Kuh. On the first day Shorty and I went with them. For a mile they followed the course of a moun- tain torrent; then they came to the place where this torrent poured out from the sglacial snow of a deep gorge. Here they halted, put down the poles and picks and shovels they were carrying and all sat down. Then each man began calmly to take off his shoes. It was a moment before the significance of that act struck me. Their cotton slippers would, of course, be ruined after an hour in the snow. I remembered that the tribespeople had always taken their shoes off when fording streams or walking on muddy ground after a rain; for the soles were made of patched rags and were rendered ut- terly useless by a wetting. And now Haldar and his men were taking their shoes off here and were going up into the snow. Barefoot in the snow! * ok k¥ ORWARD went Haidar and his core of volunteers. Down the gorge barefoot they went, Haldar leading. Every minute or so he would stop and the men would spread out and with pick and shovel test the snow for holes; for the trail must be made around them. I peered into one of these crevices. I stared down to its black depths. Far below T could hear the rush of the mountain torrent. It was all up with man or beast that fell there. Now, we went on for a mile to & *IT SEEMED THAT NOTHING IN THIS WORLD COULD SAVE HER.” the race it was good to come back te dip my hand into the rice bowl, stuff myself full and afterward puff lazily on the kalian or water pipe, as it went round the circle of the khans, and to vow that my body should srow as hard as Haidar's After two @ays of heavy Tains:we point where the gorge came to an THE AR THE BITING W] abrupt end against a half circle of mountain—this mountain of rock and snow, which rose stralght above us and disappeared into the clouds. We halted. Where was the pass? There was no pass. The only way was up and over! To the right and in front of us the mountain was unscalable. To the left it first rose in a rock shape and then went on up Into the snow, growing steeper and steeper, until, far abov. the last thousand feet or 5o appeared almost vertical. But here to the left was the place of crossing. Toward it turned Haldar and his volunteers For an hour they climbed until they came once more to the snow edge. Here Haldar stopped and for a long five minutes studied the terrain After a little, digging in the snow with his pole, he worked his way out and only very slightly up across the slope for above 40 yards. Then he shouted an order. With a whoop and a yell two men drove their picks through the hard snow crust. Shovel men followed. As they dug a diag- onal trail in Haldar's direction other men came after, widening and deep- ening it. When the workers reached Haldar he turned them round, and they carried the deep snow path’ back in a diagonal to the first line and slightly above it. Thus the tribes were to climb, in- cased by snow walls. So protected against the otherwise sure fall to death, they were to mount little by little 'in zlgzags across the face of the mountain until they reached the summit far above. § Hour after hour Haidar and his men dug on. I often had felt in- clined to sneer a little at these tribes- men for the swagger with which they carried their guns and for the little they knew about caring for them or using them, but this attack I had to admire. It was cold up there. ,The wind blew steadily. These men had no coats of fur, no coats of any kind; they were tribesmen of warm valleys; they were clad in thin cotton gar- ments; they worked with their bare legs and feet buried deep in soft snow Hour after hour they labored. They cheered and whooped and howled They worked in shifts and sections sometimes all together. The trall went on—up and up. There was lit- tle or no grass at the foot of Zardeh Kuh, and the grass now being used was brought from the Rakl land be- low. Yes, that trail had to be dug. On the fourth day the last bit was finished and the stage set for the crossing of the tribes. “Go hang yourself, Crillon! W fought at Arques and you were not there.” That is what I found myself crying mentally at half a dozen men on the night after three unforgettable days. What wouldn't they have given to bewith us! Shorty and I were camped half way up Zar- deh Kuh, It was blowing like the devil and cold. Our muleteers had gone bolshevist; even Mahommed was ready to quit. We were com- pletely out of grub. We'd had noth- ing to eat but a little native bread once a day for two days, and we were going to sleep a bit chilly here that night, almost at the top of Persia. Shorty was dressed onl in a light suit. His lips were cracked and bleeding. But both of us were at the peak of happiness. We had done it. There was no doubt about it. We had seen as great a struggle for existence as there is, and we had {t for the screen. Somewhere, somehow, there may be a battle of man against nature that equals this for epic sweep and dra- matic intensity, but I don't believe it. This is what happened. Three afternoons befors, When Shorty and I had been down bathing in the snow st m that ran by our camp and, feeling like young fighting cocks, were running up toward the trail, we saw that it was lined with people who were moving straight for the snow gorge. What was this? No one had told us that the tribes would move that day. In an hour it would be dark! It wasn't possible that any one would try to climb Zardeh Kuh in the night. We hurried back; we gan, In our camp all was commotion. Haidar had been raging like a crazy man, Mrs. Harrison said, cursing his brothers for dogs and sons of dogs, because they had sent ahead thel Number Two wives, with most of their effects, to make camp along the sides of the gorge itself. Thus they would climb the mountain first on the morrow and miss the struggling mob in the trail. This method of avolding the dangera of the ascent was an in- fringement of Hatdar's rights. He had led the trail-diggers, and he should be first over Zardeh Kuh. Burning with anger he now started off Mrs. Haidar Number Two, with most of his camp. Seeing them set out was enough for Shorty and me. We gathered to- gether our men and mules and fol- lowed. Darkness had come on by the time we struck the glactal ice and moved out into the snow gorge. Care- fully we picked our way along, every man alert for those deep holes that meant “good night” forever. We could not afford to lose any animals in that way. We worked slowly up the gorge, near the end of which we saw little camp-fires burning. Here we found our people, and, throwing our blankets on the rocks just above the snow, we slept. * * ¢ e % were.off before dawn, leaving our mules and mule-man behind and taking only a camera-donkey. On foot we climbed higher and hizh Zardeh Kuh, zigzasein R, WASHINGTON * “ON CAME THE HORDE-THOU- SANDS UPON THOUSANDS--AS IND TEARS THROUGH THEIR COT- TON DRESSES.” snow trails. Three-quarters of the way up we unslung the camera equip- |ment. It was impossible to operate the camera on the trail itself because there was only room for a single per- son to pass between the snow walls 50 we climbed gingerly out on the surface of the slope. It was still exrly morning. and the snow crust was as hard and smooth as glass. The angle was terrifically steep. 1 hesitate to venturs a guess on how steep it really was. On the oftside, where w wled | BY OLIVER P, NEWMAN. | T is easy to believe that the | statue of Andrew Jackson, oppo- | site the White House, recently the eternal!” (as humorously sug- gested in Washington) when a traflic expert urged that Sixteenth street be extended through historic Lafay- ette Park to the Executive Mansion. No soll in America is more thickly 'sown with the romances and trag- edies of American life. For a cen- tury and a quarter the greatest men and most beautiful women of the Nation have trod Lafavette Park as a stage. Statesmen, diplomats, mili- tary heroes, foreign sovereigns, art- ists, poets, adventurers and beggars have swarmed in, upon and about this beautiful little square, directly opposite the north front of tire White House To disturb its artistic symmetry at this late date would be to outrage such sensitive departed souls as the gallant Stephen Decatur, the bold warrior, Danlel E. Sickles: the quaint, gayly charming Dolly Madison: the master orator, Daniel Webster; the rollicking poet, Tom Moore: the pompous general, George B. McClel- 1an; Clay, Calhoun, Van Buren, Blaine, Hanna, Seward and a great host of other history makers, including every President from Washington down. George Washington himself, ap- proving L'’Enfant's plans, brought La- fayette Square into being and called it the “President’s Park,” but not without a knock-dawn and drag-out battle with old David Burns, one of the original owners of the Jand com- prising the District of Columbia. Burns' holdings included the site of the White House. He held out for a high price, and Washington spent au year dickering with him, usually in Suter’'s quaint tavern, in Georgetown, where the President would stop on his journeys between Mount Vernon and Philadelphia. “Had not the Federal City been laid out here,” Washington finally told Burns in exasperation, you would die a poor tobacco planter.” “Ay, mon,” retorted Burns, “an’ had ve no’ married the Widder Custis wi a' her naygurs ve'd ha'e been a land surveyor the noo, no' a mighty poor one at that.” Through the brambles and thickets of Burns' tobacco plantation, now radically altered by the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the ‘White House, Treasury Department and other historic edifices, Tom Moore, the eloquent Irish poet, rambled dur- ing his sojourn with Burns at the site of the new Capital, whence he wrote his friend, Thomas Hume, back home: Thus let ns meet and mingle converse dear, By Thames at home. or by Potomac hare. O'er lakes and marsk, through fevers and through fogs, 'Mid.l’ bears and Yankees, Democrats and Thy foot hall follow me: tby heart and eyes With me shall wander and with me despise. e OON after the little “Capital in the wilderness” had been rudely sack- ed by the English and was heroically struggling to regain its composure, on a certain Sabbath morning of a rainy Spring a coachload of wor- shipers might have been discovered, in frritating difficulties, hetween what is now the White House and Lafay- ette Park They were aristocrats from George- town taking their weekly journey through the muddy road, now Penn- sylvania avenue, clear down to the navy vard to attend divine services lat Christ Chapel, the only Episcopal jchurch in the neighborhood. And they were stuck in the mud. The gentle- men, in highly polished pumps and | silk’ stockings, and the grand ladies, in flounces and petticoats, had to make their way as best they could to the edge of the road while their slaves extracted vehicle and horses from the mire, “Why don’t we build a church of our own up here,” demanded one of the gentlemen, “and save ourselves this terrible journey every week?" From this incident sprang St. John's Church opened in 1816, the oldest building on Lafayette Square and one of the most noted structures in the Capital. Benjamin Latrobe, the great architect, designed it in the form of a perfect Latin cross, which has since been enlarged. This many- sided man was also the first organist of St. John's (the “President's church,” of which nine Presidents were members), and, at the end of i5 years of free service, he was presented with @ silver goblet costing $50. Madison, Monros or Adams might have been observed on a Sabbath day { picking his way over the mud or | through the dust frem the White House across Lafayette Square to St. John's. A few years later the gallant ‘'emmodore Stephen Decatur and his sutiful wife would have been en- came to life and roared out “By | structure. meet And, as the two men lay bleeding on the sod a moment later, Decatur with a bullet in his abdomen and |square, Barron with one in his hip. Decatur knew he would probably never see|walls have echoed the voices of the illustrious men and women of u not return and help | American history, where the queenly us in the war?” he asked Dolly “I could not,” replied Barron. “I|yvears after retiring from the White House, returned to hold court again, “If you had written me the cir-|as gracious, as charming, as tactful, cumstances I would gladly have sent the money,” said Decatur, in |height almost his last consclous moment. home or wife again. “Why did ¥ had no money with which to return.” HREE da beautiful “Kaloram: Heights and her Lafayette Square became the Russian legation, | Polk, of his where Baron Tuvl held lively sway, writing home that “Washington, with D. C., APRIL 12, 192 Barefoot Thousands of Persian Nomads Travel in Mountain Snow First Foreigners to Witness Spectacular Journey Share in Perils—Story of the Riotous Fight With the “Thief Tribe”. body slipped. there was nothing to stop | steel points of the legs of the tripod him from rolling breathlassly thousands | dug deep into the snow and gave him of feet to the very foot of the moun- Mahommed and I perched quite | ance and hold on safely on the edge of the trail, han ing our feet down into it, but Shor had to set up his motfon-picture cam- era well outside the trail He started oul, thrusting the ends of his tripod deep into the snow for support. Once he began to slide and | barefoot in I thought it was all over except the shouting. But the very weight of | sight the heavy apparatus saved him. The | flashing countered strolling to St. John's from jits their magnificent house on the north- west corner of the square, also built by Latrobe and still ganding and All the national figures of the|then stirring, early days of the Republic |Henry attended St. John's, where a pew is|cussed always reserved in readiness for the President of the United States In |retary modern times the congregation would contain such noted figures as Ad- [Jackson, and put Clay mirals Dewey and Peary, Senator | House. Depew, Gen. Joe Wheeler, Chief| Then Justice Fuller (& vestryman), Levi Z. Leiter and his charming daughter, Daisy, accompanied perhaps by the [when he was Secretary Leiter son-in-law, Lord Curzon, whose wedding was performed in this|diplomatic corps, Army and Navy, at which Peggy O'Neale, President Chester A. Arthur, im-|Keeper's daughter, maculate as always in attire, might | the grand dames of the “cour. circle” been seen hurrying across , Who sought to snub her. Lafayette Park to St. John's without slightest sign of having ‘Jjust |markable Latin American excused himself from the week end |their poker party of New York friends|Cora. long enough to attend services, from which he promptly returned to the | Vaughn, gaming table in the White House. |his From the Decatur house at day- |held bachelor court in the Decatur|ganization of scientists and men of break on the fatal morning of March 22, 1820, Commodore Decatur slipped quietly into the street, mounted his |Ville. horse and galloped to Bladensburg | XVIL for his tragic duel with Commodora James Barron, whom he had criticized for not returning from Europe to help in the War of 1812, Thoughts of his |beds, fine new home and charming, popular 5—PART the necessary second to get Now came the horde twisting snake, white mmow surface, Closer! column was men, Like a great barefoot— It will be long befors I forget the ross my mind like great back duck furnishes better viands needs only cooks” The mansion ed to the capablé hands of and fts walls heard dis- “Mill Boy of the Slashes,” Adams, the White came soft-footed, mild-man- nered Martin Van Buren, the Decatur House as of State, and there giving the gay parties to Edward Livingston and added further notable dwelling place. the English Minister, language and big heart House and French Minister, Baron Hyde de Neu- ! intimate of Louls refugee and Judah P. Louisiana, nificently with Senator from tapestries of | fittings from was used Government dramatic paintings—an old gray- bearded man with a child of three perched oh his shoulders, and both he and the child erving with pain and cold as he stumbles on, leaning heavily on two sticks: a sick boy, his face drawn so that his teeth seem | almost to stick out through his upper 1ip, fastened sprawling across the back of a donkey; an old, old woman, her gray hair straggling about her wrinkled face, beating a line of loaded cows; a little girl carrying on her back a calf almost as big as herself; Mr: struggling courageously on, despite her reoent fever; a white woman here among the tribes, escorted by Haldar and his son; women, women old and young, nearly all carrying bables and shivering as the biting wind tears through their cotton dresses and at their feet and legs and throats. On came the horde! Thousands upon thousands! And so slowly they climbe * ok ok K N account of a shoulder of rock the snow trail, at one place just above us, was only a few inches high A meream behind me made me pause | and look back at this spot. I saw a heavily loaded donkey stumbling just outside the trail. For one precarious second it stood balanced above eter- nity. Then it began to slide. It lost its footing and fell. Rolling over and over, gathering speed as it went it spun downward. Now it was going with tha swiftness of an alr- plane in a nose-dive, falling, falling, falling, until far below it became only a tiny black dot The woman in charge of it shriek- ed and, tearing her face with her nails, hysterically leaped outside the snow lane. There was a mighty howl all down the line of climbers as she squatted on her bare feet and hegan to slide. It meemed that nothing in thiz world could save her When she had shot along 50 yards with gathering speed, however, she struck the outside end of a turn in the trail below. Here she went shooting in 1o safety between its high snow walls But the howls below kept up, for when the woman had jumped outside the path, she had dislodged a few small pleces of the rock, which now fell faster and faster. Bullets could be no more dangerous. Every one threw himself low to escape the falling stones. From them came one of the dang of the climb. Every year many w injured or killed by dislodged rock musicians occupied the outer h Many hundreds of persons, ladies| and gentlemen, attended It was what would be called, in the soclety of Washington, a very fashionable levee. Forelgn ministers, their fam ilies and suites; judges, members « both houses of Congress and many citizens and strangers were of the company present. 1 stood and shook hands with them for near three hours Toward the close of the evening I passed through the crowded rooms with the venerable Mrs. Madizon on my arm.” When death ended Doily Madison's social leadership and took from he the seat on the floor of the House, graciously voted her by the Repre- sentatives, her home was occupied by Admiral Wilkes, but when Wash- ington was gripped by war Gen George B. McClellan made it his headquarters and stamped through its spacious rooms in glittering goid brald, followed by a large and ornate staff. For more than a quarter of a century it has been the home of the Cosmos Club, the famous social or- arts and letters with whom the Cap- ital is bountifully supplied YoiE H ACING each other on opposite sides of the park more than a half ptury ago were two houses of | tragedy. One was the Seward-Blaine | house, which stood on the site now Philippe, his ample means enabling |occupied by the Belasco Theater. The sleeping peacefully back on|him to outfit his home with the finest Lafayette Square were probably in his mind as he faced his antagonist and | ard him say: other was the quaint Sickles home Then | gtfll standing on the west side of | came the Civil War, when the house | he square. 1¢ 18 said that the lot on | which the former stood was once won hope, Decatur, that when we |2fter Which it passed into the hands|py Henry Clay in a poker game and in the next world we will be |0f Gen. Edward. Fitzhugh Beale, the | (raded f better friends than we have been in * x ok ¥ distinguished military the Decatur House, is anothet historic dwelllng whose most in her old age, agreeable and popular 1837 appropriated $30,000 chase Madison's diary which made it later all Washington | markable widow thronged the little park opposite possible for his re- scenes of her early social triumphs, White House, as Decatur's body |only to find, among a new generation, was borne from his home, followed|that she was to enjoy by President Monroe and his cabinet,|umphs than ever and the Supreme Court and practical- Iy every member of Congress. on Mistress Decatur soon moved to|eagerly attended as the more modern affairs in the White House “All the parlor. For she had institution President’s come an in Georgetown | soctal last public reception “including the east room, were lighted select boarding house, at which lived Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and other leaders of that time. It was once the home of Roger B. Taney, later to achieve fame on the Supreme 1 Court, and of Secretary of the Navy James K. Paulding. In a bedroom on the third floor of this house Secretary Seward was nearly stabbed death on the night of April 14, 1865, at the same moment Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater. In the same room James G Blaine died, after having lost his life's ambition, the presidency, and after two sons and one daughter had passed away in the same building. Shortly before the Civil War the Seward-Blaine house was the ren- dezvous of the gay and ~ wealthy young men of Washington, who oc cupled it as a club. It was from a window of this club that Phillp Bar- ton Key, nephew of the composer of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and at the time District attorney of Wash- ington, received the signal (a waving kerchief) from the window of the Sickles residence, across the park, Harrison | a mule. Commodore Rogers and| pyilt the house upon it, which for has remained the property of that il- | many year# In the early days was a lustrious family ever since On the northeast despite rigid attempts at protection. One must stay in the trail, or if or went outside it, one must keep we! clear, ax did Shorty, of the climbers’ line of march. On and on mounted the endless black, twisting line of the tribes. As the sun grew hotter, tt began te soften the snow. Soon the dogs wera leaping safely outside the limits of the trail, though often causing great excitement by dislodging stones Shorty, too, now worked with more ease. And ever the thousands cams on. When the sun began to sink ba- hind the mountain line. the trail was atill full of the advancing horde. . . . For three days thus the tribes were orossing. Every morning we climbad to a new place on the mountain for pictures. Every evening we oamped somewhere down near its foot. But on the third night we found our selves lying under the stars on a rock high up in the snow itself; and were done with our work on this sid of Zardeh Kuh. The next day for the summit! We were off at dawn. We thought the show would be over by the time we reached the mountain top; b when, at last, we arrived there, we found it in full swing Down the mountainside steeply and vet more steeply swepl a natura winding road of deep glacial snov And upon the stern rock walls th loomed above it thousands of delica purple flowers had been scattered some old pagan god. Down th sheer snow lane, with itx flower decked walis, as far as eve could ses, moved a continuous line of black dots We rode down P erowd Here, there, animals 1 snow. The old, the a weak were strapped bidckward donkeys and cows And whoopin laughing, crying and weeping bling and falling, with bleedi and feet, with pain-racked bodies. cotton-ciad horde swept on d down . . . down the mo tainsid We went with them, went dowr ward mile after mile, aimost kne desp in the soft snow. We car round a high rock point and the below—far below—snow and mo: tain ended. Out the horisor stretohed green valleys. throug which, in the golden sunshine, ripp silver streams feeding the luxuria young grass Here was the prize of the galla fight. Here was the land of pier Grass! Grass a . (Copyright., 1925.) Romantic Drama in Lafayette Square History which told him the coast was cle and that the beautiful yvoung w Congressman Daniel E. Sickles wc |be at home if he called Key did not know that the dash Congressman, suspicious of the tw had set a trap for herwise th tragedy of February have been averted. The ager lov however, obeyed the signal crossed to the Sickles house. The dignant husband, at the club, awa Key's return, met him in front «c the club and shot hip, killing hiw instantly From the Sickles home the con demned wife was banished and Sic- Kles hired Edwin M. Stanton to defend him. This brilliant lawyer, afterward Lincoln’'s Secretary of War, nd, for a few days prior to his death, a jus tice of the Supreme Court, cleared Sickles under the unwritten law A few years later Sickles raised a regiment for the Union Army, distin guished himse il War, lost a leg at Gettysburg, hecame recor ciled with his wife, and was appoin ed Minister to Spain. And in 1916 and 1917 his old home was the headquar- ters of the militant suffragettes wlo picketed the White House Next to the Seward-Blaine house was another historic structure 1 | standing and now part of Cosmos | Club. It was built early e la century, by Benjamin Ogle Tavloe | that famous dilletante, whose salons were the most noted in America for |the forty years following 1829, In | timate of every personage of his t | Tayloe steadfastly re public of fice, remained ¢n friepdly terms w all, and, because of his substar means, lived in grand style thro out his life. Before it was purchased by Cosmos Club the Tavloe house been noted as the home of V President Hobart and Senator I« Cameron of Pennsylvania. In the McKinley administrations | because of its proximity to the Ex ecutive Mansion and the political Status of its occupant, Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, it wag knoven as "“Th | Little White House * ok ok * 1D1m;n,\'Au4r across from Dolly Madison house, at the Ve mont avenue corner of the square | was the home of Senator Charles Sumner, later to become part of the | famous Arlington Hotel, from which Grover Clevelund went to the Whits House, and where many distinguished | Washington visitors were entertain ved. among them being President Diaz | of Mexico, Emperor Pedro of Braz Adelina Patti, Aldert of Belg m whe a prince, and any others. Next to the hotel on the west st stands the great structure used 1| the British as their legation, when Sir Henry Bulwer was Minister, ac companied by his brilliant nephew dwen Meredith, the author of “Lucille,” which was written there In this house the Ashburton treaty was negotlated, between Bulwer and Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who lived a block west on H street facing the square, in the oid Corcoran home, the “gift house,” which had been presented to him by the peopl: of Massachusetts, and which, in later years, became the French legation and afterward the homs of Senator Chauncey Depe Contemplation of the history of this little square, makes it easy understand why Washingtonians will not calmly sit by and see the historic spot disturbed for the convenience of modern motorist (Oopyrignt, 1925.) A Glass Substitute. NEW kind of glass of organic origin, which is reported to per- | mit the passage of ultra-violet Light, has recently been perfected by two Austrian sclentists, Herr Pollak and Horr Ripper. The new glass is called pollopas, and it is made by a chem- ical condensation of urea with for maldehyde. Pollopas is considerably lighter than ordinary glass, weighing about one and one-half times as much as an equal volume of water while common glass often has triple this welght. ‘It is quite soft, being somewhat softer than mother-of pearl, and 1s eastly abraded. It is very transparent. An Unusual Courtesy. MERICAN mall, if first-ciass, o cuples_an exclusive position of honor in Bulgaria. Under a court order fssued, every letter coming from the United States is treated as registered mail, is taken to its ad- dress by a registered mail carrie and has to be receipted for on de livery. Letters from France, Great Britain and Germany are treated as ordinary medl unless registered.