Evening Star Newspaper, June 6, 1926, Page 78

= Visitor to Mal Terrifying Experience While Attempt- ing to Pass Through Wildest of Regions in Qucst of Angkor. tery in History ™ —Traveling Under Guidance of the Village Idiot—Magical Array of Stone Tapestry—"Most Fan- tastic Temple in the World.” At 25 vears old. Richard Hal Tiburton. finds himself with wealth of experience gained from & vagaboud tour of the world. the suthor of an entertaining book re counting his travels : s cessfiil lectur Ana he chose to follow hi clinations rather than accept a de luxe wip offered by his family when M wax graduated from Princeton For he preferred 1he poelic (o the prosuic.and sought “the heau siful, the foyous. und the ro mantic” In this spirit_he scaled the Matterhorn: then hopped to climb to the guarded peak of Gi braltar. then to spend the night on top.of the oldest pyramid finally. realizing a dream of vears, he passed one moonlit night in by the cthereal tomb of Mahal. These experiences have heen ve | lated in two preceding Installments. | Ofbers follow in this article and W0 succending ones. | As this article begins. we fuid | Mr. Halliburton at a littlg ronstal town on the Malay Penindlila pre- paring to cross that strip at its narrowest part, on the way to Bangkok. BY RICHARD HALLIBURTON. | AIN! Rain! Rain! During two s and nights the monsoon had not let for as many lours. Yet it in this flood of water that | h 16 cross the peninsuli thy cally virgin jungles.. -ompass or interpreter My plan seemed suicidal: the 1 white citizens of v Point insist ed that it would prove so. To voiubat their arguments | took adva - of every momentary the | downpoin attention to the fact that last the ruin had stopped. Then just ax 1 had screwed u age to the stiching poivt the he would open up for a greater bombard ment than ever and drown out my vesolutions. Ilowever far now to zo hack. T il o | Bangkok only | Rangoon. 600. And so. ing my predicament the while clared wer on the elements 1 procured tvo boutimen wnd a sum- | pan. which fn Malasia is not than a big dugout decked with hoavis, roofed with x low-arched mat of §alm leaves and propelled by the wind Provisioned with u dozen bananas i pushed off. followed by the goud wighes of the entire white community and with the aid of sail. vavs and tide in 24 hours reached the headwaters of | the river at a place calied Taplee. on | the Siamese side. 40 wiles frow Vie torfa Point and 40 miles from Chum pon. the railtoad station on the East | ern shore. My boatmen. having deposite { in this dripping wilderness. sailed | home. and I was left in the heart of | the peninsula. 1 found the village | chief. and after a long strugile con. | veyed to him the fact that | wanted | to cross to Chumpon It ix not S he v e indi cating water up to his 1 V1 pAntomined an elephant. e 1 e | in devision und shook his head. fn turn | pantomiming the elephant sinking i mud up to its hubs. there could be no turning back now. and I determined (o go on if it wax the last | thing 1 did on earth | After two days of failure. I procured the village idiol ns guide for $3 (wbout three weeks' wages), who was willing to risk hix veck for such a fortune. On the third morning. in the hardest rain that had vet fallen, we set out along u path (hat made a travesty of the name ! While a century ago there had been | w eartroad along the route. several iecades pust it had been smothered by the juugle and all but obilterated by floods. EFrom 6§ in the morning (il 8 in the aifernvon, my guide and I | soundly damu I de me SRS feught our way yard by yard through that clutching jungle. "Mhe wsin poured in sheets without ; every gully had become a torrent anid every stream a river. We were in mud and water up to our knees at every step, stumbling over roots, tripped by creepers, thrusting aside bamboo, falling, slipping, half- drowned. The Biamese guide fortunately knew the trail, both where it existed and where it did not exist. He knew what he was doing, for just at dark we came upon a small group of jungle dwellings in a. clearing. Aboup fee glegen natives And | tand ol d | 1 i planned | ¢ fwas 1 ta ip < fthe { {a zoological garden I was in {ing flight | stream: ay Peninsula Has the “Greatest Mys- these wretched shacks, and all came out to gaze in astonishmen’ at the {two bedraggled apparitions that had dropped with the rain from the clouds. | Wigwagging with fingers, and by | marks on the ground, I learned that we had come 12 miles—12 miles in 12 | hours—and had 28 to do. No doubt I was as strange a_sight to them as they were to me, though with my shirt missing and khaki | shorts in shreds there was little to choose between us either in attire or. tiunks to the mud, in color. The na tive adults, 'both men anl women, were naked to the waist, with a cloth that bagged to their knees wrapped | about their loins. Of course. they were | | burefoot | * ok ok ok T SLEPT that night on a mat at the | head of a long row of these sav ages. The rain did not cease all night at daybreak fell with renewed | violence. All morning the wind rose | higher und higher, until by noon it was blowing with hurricane force and dviving a veritable cloudburst against v The storm. thank hevaen, was only 4 passing one, and by 2 o'clock had rumbled on east to imperil ships on the China Sea. With it went the rain, to the great joy of us both, for during 72 hours it had not ceased as many minutes. ‘While the trail was a worse morass than ever, who cares when there is an occasional promise of sun- shine? Meantime. what about the many ani- Is that 1 forecast at the outser of s journey? For a day and a half I completely uncons¢fous of the ‘t that this isthmus more than any e in the world was the home of wildest of wild animals and of the largest. most venomous of snakes— and T had seen nothing. Now the appearance of deer, mon keve and grouse reminded me of what 'rom that moment—since 1 was completely unarmed--I began to be uncomfort able and (o feel myself in the presence of ull the beasts for which I knew the peninkula wus notorious. The creak- of four huge black-and white herous overhead quite startled ne with its unexpectedness 1' be- gan {o anticipate danger. to look for it- and. as one alwnya can, I found it. We were a ching a stretch of bottomless pked on each side by knee-high grass. Having seen how the guide. some distunce ahead of me, had floundered In the slough. 1 chose to go through the grass and as I did su the most dramatic and tervible mo- meut it would be poxsible 1o experi we fell opon me—or better, “colled about_me, for 1 stepped squarely on top of & cobru’s nest 1w flash the outraged vccupant hud wrapped itself aronnd my unpi tected ankle. und with its hood ex panded not (wo inches from my shin glared with diubolical. lidless. in | describably malignant eyves straight | into a very ashen countenance. A dozen things flashed through my | mind almost simultaneously My hopeless position—-hours and miles | from assistance - 1he idiot guide’s in-| bility to carry or drag e the re.| uaining distance across the swollen and morasses. Aud s would die and remain in the Sinmese inngle. having paid the prlce of in- | discration . 1 There was no fear of death, but | utter despair at leaving all that was lite. I had no questioning or anxiety about the future. no repentance, no regrets. no ~upplication. 1 would lead the same life over if I were ever allowed 1o live again. though the chances are I'd go « second time where 108t men go. And all this passed through my mind in no more than u second, as T stood frozen and aghust. staring into those two murderous eves. What 1 did was done mechanicaily wnd without order from a paralyzed brain. Thus - nature often rescues us from ourselves. In my hand 1 carrled a cane staff. picked up along the route and emploved in an absent- I\ RO\ NRRL] A i." ;‘“v‘«‘ IRY [ \ 4 \V ! minded way. Not 10 minutes before I had leaned upon it too heavily and it had split half in two, leaving & sharp, splinter-like end. 1 was'still carrying the upper half from force of habit, though it was too short for service. Notilknowing too well what was happening, 1 clutched the broken end of the cane, and, sum- moning all my strength, struck at the tender nether side of the cobra's swol- len hood. The blow went true, knock- ed the reptile from my ankle, and gave me a chance to Beat a strategic retreat. Onoe freed from that poisonous em- & hwad aside aDd THE_SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. Explorer in Jungle Finds Himself Near Death Fro RERTN W \ ) ; P (AR knowing nor caring what happened to the enemy, hurried forward as fast as my very weak knees could carry me In pursuit of the guide, who, during the entire melodrama, had been plodding farther and farther ahead blisstully ignorant of the mor- tal combat raging behind him. 1 did not get very far. The reaction that always follows petrifying fright suddenly seized me. All strength evaporuted: my head swam dizzily; my legs gave way. and 1 crumpled up ina convenient mud puddle. But, oh, what nice mud it was, what lovely rich brown mud. [t cozed through my fingers; I could feel its warmth and stickiness The rain had begun to fall again. It trickled in gentle rivulets down my prostrate nowe- sweet 1uin—so clean and covl—and the idiot coolte—he was standing over me with a puzzied ex pression—what a faithful, amicable old hoy! Beautiful Jungle-—beautiful world—beautiful life The third day of this desperate struggle was about to close. Becom- ing impatient at the elusiveness of our destination. 1 turned aside from our route, and with what little strength 1 had left. fought my way up a hillock, the height of which gave me a commanding view of the east 1 hoped to find the ocean, our goal, and had it not been visible T should not have hud the courage to move another foot--but ther it was. not half @ mile ahead, and the railroad close to the shore. The sight of the undiscovered Pacific, after his strog- gle across the pathless Isthmus of Panama. never gladdened Balboa's « more than the sight of the old, China Sea after my struggle cross the submerged Isthmus of Siam delighted mine. nor was Co lumbus more thrilled at the cry of ‘Land’ than 1 at my own ery of ‘Ocean’ It was rather a noisy railroad trip northward from Chumpon. We passed through Bangatore, Bangatang, Bang Peunom. Bang Baug, and finally into the Toudesi of the hangs. Bangkok. The American consul and the secre tary to the legation were both Priuce ton graduates, and, learning that my alme mater wax theirs, they gave me the key of the « Through them I it old made the acquaintunce of the Amer:, fcan minister and his charming wife, and us the protege of this hospitable fainily held an open sesamne to official woclety in the capltal. After enjoying the colorful life of that city for 10 days, T climbed aboard a French cosstal steamer—once more a vagrant, once more a. romanticist in pursuit of new skylines. Malay hor rors were forgotten, Bangkok’s hospt tality put away New und wonderful territory lay be fore me. I was on the threshold of a &pectacle that alone made all I had en- dured worth while; 7 was soon to be- come one of those god-favored mortals who had been granted the privilege, granted so few, of looking upon Angkor. R JFOR two days and nightx the Little ex-yacht that plies between Bang- kok and Saigon carried me as a deck passenger (a misnomer, as a French merchant invited me to share his first- class cabin) along the coast of Indo- China. Disembarking at the little port of Kampot, I spent a night on the beach, and next day covered 140 m“t“ in a motorbus over magnificent eeptinoal Ay . RS AT LA \:\\1»'.‘03.«\: i 3 Of deuse jungles and neat villages. This put me in Pnom Penh just in time to meet a steamer from Saigon sailing up the river to Angkor. Again, in an effort to counterbal- ance the motor-bus extravagance, [ was a “decker.” much fo the disap- proval of an English mother and her grown daughter, the only other white passeugers aboard. At sunset we en- tered the Great Lake, at the far end of which Angkor lay. Since early morning the wind had been violent, and here in the open water it howled about us with fresh fury. At 3 am., with the rain_pour- ing in torrents, the two KEnglish ladies and I were awakened and told “C'eat Angkor, fei.” “Where?” the three of uk asked i weak voices as we looked out into the raging night, and instead of see- ing Angkor saw that we were In the middle of a tossing lake with & or ¢ miles to navigate in a 10-foot sampan “Oh, out there,” the captain replied, waving his hand into the impene- trable void 5 $ With our heurts in our mouths, the three of us clambered down the lad- der and Into the fragile plunging dugout. Crack! The lightning blazed over our heads. Crash! The storm hurled us against the steam er's hull. Boom! Hiss! The waves in @ flood of cold water. almost swept us out of the tiny boat The daughter screamed between gasps for breath: the mother clung to her, speechless with fright. A fresh swirl of rain. and our ship had disappeared into the wilderness We had a boatman, but whether iie was black, white or green we could not see. No word came from him In dead and desperate silence he plied the single stern oar. fought our { way vard by vard through the dense massex of foating water-plant, un- able to find his hand before his face How he ever found his way to the proper point on land ix a mysetery % xy wn'n thanksgiving for our de- liverance from the sampan we splashed ashére, to be met by an archaic Ford—unescapable even in thexe jungle wilds—with it light showing dimly through the rain. How far is the bungalow ”" | asked the native French-speaking chauf- feur. expecting to be told only a few stepr, “Twenty-five kilometers"—15 miles. | And the tourist bureau in Saigon advertised that their river steamers deposited one at “the very gates of Angkor”'! Angkor —tales of ite reputed glories were rumbling In my ears at Bangkok. Angkor —the wind and the ngle and the vast gray cloud of stone roared at me now as [ hurried next morning to- ward the mile-distant mystery: “Here {8 the superlative of industry, here the erown of human achieve- jment. Here, here, is Angkor, the first wender of the world, and the greatest mystery in history.” Jungle, jungle, for mile after mile on every side it smothered the earth, dense, black, consuming—and from out of it, unheralded and unbeliev- able, r the gigantic, the magical temple with ita tier on tler of gray tapestried stone, acres of carving, hundred of delicately. wrought windows, ‘miles of galldies, great lace towers—all powerful and beau- t:lul and desolate beyond imagina- tion For lack of a better name, history calls the mysterious race that once dwelt here the Khymers. Conjecture founds thelr empire in the fourth century and obliterates 1t in the twelfth. xcept for miles and acres of bas- relief pictures of battles and mythol- ogy and common life carved on the stones of the 600 ruined public build: ings found in the space once covered by the Khymer capital, we should not know one single thing about this race, ‘whose ability as artists and architects has rarely been approached. All during the latter half of the nineteenth century Angkor, the in- accessible, was left as it had been left since 1300, at the mercy of the ele ments and fhhabited by wild beasts. In 1907 France, by a “treaty” with Siam, seized a large slice of the lat- ter's eastern forest wilderness that in- cludes the site of the ancient Khymer capital, with its 15 square miles of magnificent ruins— ruins of palaces, Iibraries, gates, walls' and Angkor Vat, the mighty temple. Owing to the fact that it was the latest and most ponderously bullt, i stands today in all its original glory, while the other Khymer structures have fallen prey to the gourmand jungle and the assaults of time. | The Stamese, who are belleved to have driven the Khymers from Ang- kor Vat, insist it was buflt by divin. itles, because human being could not have been powerful enough or in- spired enough to do it. You may not be inclined to belleve this legend from seeing pictures or reading descrip- tions of Angkor; you may not belleve that it took four generations of con- stant ndustry to complete, or that o commandeered and kept ocou- pled 500,000 slaves from their 16 provinces; but when you at last look upon angkor in reality, you believe anything. Alone 1 approached the entrance, along a twelve-hundred-foot stone via- duct, 40 feet wide, that led across what was once a lake. x INTEES £ with a feeling, half of awe and half of wonder, that I, a product of the matertalistic, modern age, a vagabond, a pagan, should be granted a sight of JUNE_ b6, 1926—PART 5. “STAMPED WITH THE WIS- DOM_ OF A THOUSAND YEARS, THESE FACES SEEMED - TO READ MY PUNY SOUL.” l 1 1 this handiwork of the gods. In soli- tude 1 climbed the worn steps that led up to the second gallery, and found myself in the midst of the nost nagical array of stone tapestry on _earth. It s this proximity that lends the greatest enchantment Lo the gigantic temple. From afar Angior, with its ascending rows of colonnaded gal- leries, its hundreds of elaborutely barred windows. its labyrinth of steps, cupolas, towers, looks more llke a mirage than a reality. Only close at.hand can one fully appreciate the inconceivable intricacy and beauty of its details and orna- ments. The Egyptians might have raised this vast pile of stones in place, but only the Khymers could ever have executed the carvings. Every inch of the wonderiul wrought structure is covered with finely chiscled decorations *Hie F' the many Angkor wonders the most wonderful s the basrellef that stretches unbroken for a half mile around the second terrace. Pro- tected from the weather by a zal- lery, it has withstood the ravages of time and is as vivid and fresh todav as it was 700 years ago. Ome could spend weeks before ti 3 picture and not see it are fully 50,000 figures chiseled upe it in such inextricable confusion one's head begins to swim from examining them. Some day the artistic world will recognize the Khymers as the greatest artists that ever lived—though per- {haps they never lived. Perhaps they were angels, as the Siamese insist, descended from heaven to carve this superhuman work. A flight of steps worn almost to slide leads from terrace to terrace, and into the galleries. through which one could walk all day and never retrace one’s steps. They were once the scene of great activity; they are silent now except for the endless sereech and whir of a million hats that swarm in the black recesses of this desolate building. Angkor Vat, after all. is only the greatest and best preserved of a vast array of magnificent sandstone struc tures once inclosed in the city of Ana- kor Thom, which in the days of its glory had several million people and was the luxurious capital of a mighty empire. The number and dimensions of the city's ruins are staggering— and, oh, how melancholy, how in- describably desolate! How was it possible for such a ruce as the Khymers to disappear 8o ahso- lutely? Did it happen in a day? Was this Heavenly city, with its vast popu- lation. its armies, its palaces, its might amd glory. surprised by its enemies and destivyed uvernight by the sword? What diabolical wrath was spent upon it! No sooner had the roar of tumbling battlements died away than that insatiable fiend, the jungle, rush- al m Enraged Cobra ed upon the prostrate magnificence and suffocated all but a few of the most indomitable giants. Of the remaining buildings the Temple of Bayan is in a class of in- itself. Mutilated, over- thrown, the lodgment for a forest of trees and vines, it is still the momt original and fantastic temple in the world. Formerly it contained 61 tows ers, each faced near the top of alf four sides, with a great carved coun- tenance of Brahma 8 feet high. Although many of the faces are lost, a number remain. and the sight of them. looking calmly out to the four quarters of lHeaw as passive as Sphinxes, is weird and wonderful. The cracks and yawns in the joints of the stones upon which they are carved give each of them a different and con iorted expression. some wry, some smiling, some evil. Lianas have crept across the eye of one: lichens and moss have blindeg another, They peered at me from tho tree ; they pursued me with their soru- tiny like @ bad conscience, no mattes where I tried to escape. Stamped with the: wisdom of a thousand years, they seemed to read my puny soul and mock the awe of them that reste there. Slowly and wonderingly T climbed about these fabulous ruins. The sun set beyond the western jungle tops, and before 1 realized that day had gone twilight enveloped me. Every bird became hushed: the faint~ est breeze seemed to hold its breath. Not even a cricket broke the pall of ilence that sank upon this might From the shadows, death and oh | livion crept forth to seize tlhe city from the retreating sunshine: gho drifted beside me as | moved ar dreamed through the gathring dark ness. Loneliness—loneliness—in al this stupendous graveyard of man and monument, 1 stoud—the enly Hving human being tCopyr 19262 Perpetual Electrification. LECTRIFICATION ghat lasts lor rears—perhaps forever—hag beer achieved by a Japanese physicist, Prof. Mototaro Eguchi, at Tokio. 1le has taken a simple wax mixture, meited it, and allowed it to harden while ir o’ strong electric field between two metal plates, with the result that the wax cake retains g strong electric charge permanently. Some of these akes have kept their charge sinece 1919, and show no signs of losing it A’ complete reartungement of the atoms in the wax is the secret of this Prof. Eguchi believes. This mav cause fmportant changes in the theors of the atom. Some of the wax cakes< have retained a surface charge o 120,000 volts to the square inch Aerial Bicycle May Soon Be Perfected | | BY STERLING HEILIG PARIS. May 27 HE aerial bieycle is again being importantly experimented with. | Some of the greatest construc- | tors, like the Peugeots, are | tuking it up--since the great |and unexpected success of the motor- |less airplane. To objections that the motorless afrplane starts on the air from a height it is answered that there is no objection, at the beginning. to the airbike rushing down hill to get its firat support on the air in- creased, If the wind be in its face, so much the better. The world moves. Nobody would have thought four years ago that motorless airplanes | could navigate on high. as they have done. | \With the air-bike, country bovs will | skim over fences and fields to school They will hit the ground. pedal on their wheels again to gather force, at need, and rise into the air again. Mamuna, in the evening. sesing Henry home so early, will ask: “How did you come?” with worried intuition. The boy will brag, proud and guilty: “I cut across over Bigelow Then mamma will fiing up her arms and holler: “Do you hear that, father? Henry has been flying high again!” In cities, boys will plague their par- ents for permission to join some sub- urban “aviette” links. promise never io jump «ays mamma. ‘“Remem- ber the boy who tried to skim the shacks in shanty-town and broke his leg! Do you hear me, Oswald?" An aviette sald to be backed by the great Delago firm has a total weight (very light wood and thin varnished silk) of 47 pounds, the bicycle itself alone weighing 24 pounds. By scien- tific calculation, it ought to rise. It is established to quit the earth at a roll- ing speed of 221-3 miles per hour. Gabriel Poulain, former bicycle champion, on a machine similar in weight and spread, has already quit the earth and “‘skimmed” yards of the Decametre purse for aerial bicycles, founded, years ago, by Robert Peugeot. ut the Decametre conditions requirs the 10 yards to be done in both senses, altitude and dis- tance, in the mame trial. The 10 yards distance must be done at 10 vards altitude. Poulain, they say, beats the 10 yards distance, even double or treble; but in doing #o, he does not get or maintain the 10 vards altitude. Also, they say, he has made his 10 yards altitude all right; but in golng in for aititude, he side-slips or otherwise capsizes. It has been done before. Remember the name of Frank Rettich. He is the lad whose air-bike, before the vear 1920, rose and skimmed 9 feet and then 11 feet, at the height of a man's knees. Rettich got off the earth by unaided means—it was done without a motor, without being thrown into the alr, without rolling off a height. He rose and skimmed 11 feet distance by his muscular force on the pedals. Frank Rettich will go down in his- tory with Wilbur Wright and Santos- Dumont. He was the first bicycle skimmer of the air; and his exploit was as humble and immense as the crowds of boys who will follow him! Rettich did not win the Peugeot rize; but the first Aviette Club, organ- zed on the spur of the moment by Paris Aero Club members, presented ‘him with a purse of $250 as a mark ef esteem. The Rettich t; of aviette, which Poulain and otl have improved, lacks some small trifle really to skim the air—instead of side-slipping and making “jumr," So did French pllots before the Wrights showed the small- trifie of “warping.” ‘Warping was apparently a small trifle, yet the whole of flying was in that little modification of the planes’ sing and righting of the Rettich- Poulain machine are already obtained by a particularly ingenious device for varying the slant of the planes. The back wheel is regularly smaller than the front one. On the bike is fixed a sort of biplane, the spread of whose upper surfaces, 6% yards by 3 yards, gives a bearing on the air of about 15 square yards. The lower plane measures about 4 yards by 13§ yards, and there is a small direction rudder at the rear. The pilot, on the saddle in the center of the apparatus, is a little below its center of gravity. As the planes are fixed rigidly to the bicycle frame, how is he to vary their slant while H;“lhfi 1 | ‘The part of the frame hub &£ gha back. whosl [ the 10 |flage POULAIN ON HIS ORIGINAL BIKE-PLANE. axle and thus describe. in sinking downward, an arc the center of whose circle is the hub of the front wheel. ‘When the pilot thinks he has the | necessary rolling speed on the ground | (about 10 yards per second), he slips a hand-lever attached to the handle- bar—which shoots open the boit hold- ing the bicycle frame on the back wheel's hub. With a jerk of the haunches, he makes it slip off, frame and saddle sinking under him and him- self with them. The whole apparatus (except the wheels themselves) being of a plece, it pivots on the hub of the front wheel, dragging the planes back with an upward slant—the slant de- sired to favor the attack on the alir, and so on. Collot was the first man to camou- his gearings with pasteboard. Now, nearly all do it, so that impor- tant detaile cannot be easily jearmed by rivals. Almost none of the trials are pub ¢ seen. The men seek gurages on little-used macadam roads of the Paris suburbs. and make every effort to avoid inspection. It has even been sald that “a mechanical novelty has been found.” but that the inventors are “not yet able to handle it succe fully.” Another is claimed to “skimming.” by means of “his third and fourth pedals”—which indicates a second set, geared directly to the air propelier. Regularly. when an outline plan of an aerial bike is published (photo- graphs are entirely discou ), raged), the air propeller is merely indisated in the Paris Said to Be Getting - Coffee Fro & PARIS, May 27. HE bright man who brings me two-pound packages of burnt coffee berries—that 1s, not ground--regularly every Satur- day has given me a blow under the fifth rib. It is news, if true—at least to me—and I sat through the egotiations of Paris whici gave us ‘control” of the Philippines and “ceded” to us Porto Rico definitely. He said ‘This is & new blend. It is Santos (that is, the Brazilian coffee, ‘which 1s at the base of all coffee drunk in France, except for the patrons of very dear marks), Martinique (that is, the West Indian Island which France has owned and colonized and assimi- lated for nearly 300 vears). Porto Rico (which is United States West Indies) and Samar. “‘Samar coffee” Where does that come from? 1 never heard of it."” k:“()h. somewhere off there—in Amer- a.” ) ‘“‘Samar is not in America. It is one of the Philippine islands.” ‘‘Yes, that's it. But the Philippines are American, too. A shipload came to Havre with that coffee for our com- pany.” gow it may have been a phantom ship of the Paris coffee runner's im- agination in his efforts to please his customer. Coffee is a tropical fruit; the Philippines are tropical: Philippine tobacco comes to France by the ship- load—why not coffee? The French are great coffee drink- ers, more universally so than Ameri- cans, who sometimes drink tea. Michelet, the canny historian, said that there would have been no French revolution if the French had not been drinking so much coffee. Fre coffee usually exasperates American newcomers. For the early breakfast the liquid coffee of the day before is reboiled with the water that is poured over the fresh-ground coffee in the filter, and often chickory is put in to boil with the rest. This gives the dark molasses color and the light bitterness which is liked, and deceives the unwary into thinking that the cof- feé is strong. French servants often m Philippines tastes. They say it is (00 strong and gets on their nerves. This is the reason given by my cof- fee blender for using so much Brazil- ian coffee. “Porto Rico is grand,” he says, “but it is too strong alone,” which is as it may be. At the World Fair of 1900 1 remember that the Guatemala pavilion served us the cof- fee of that country, ground fresh, with nothing but pure water, bolling, poured over it. And it was not black, but golden, and it was most decep- tively strong. It kept also the aroma which Americans desire. But what about Samar coffee, which I believe in without seeing the dis- tinct berries” A very scientific German statistical book tells me quite wonderful things about our country’s foreign expansion. ‘There are eight United States *foreign possessions”: () Territories-—Alaska, Hawaii. (b) Colonies—Porto Rico, Virgin Is- lands, Panama Canal Zone, Philippine Islands, Guam, Tutuila Group (Samoa). For the Philippines, I find that there are 7,083 islands thus called, only 2,441 of which have names of their own. Samar 1s one of these, with 13,530 in- habitants. Are they really taking time from their sunny existences to Brow coffee and send it to Paris? The German statisticlan does not mention it. He says simply that the principal exports of the Fhilippine Islands, lumped together, are, in order of importance: Sugar, coco oll, Manila hemp, cotton, embroideries, fruits and tobacco and cigars (these are sold to France by a Spanish company). No coffee—unless it comes under the head of fruits and they, all told, amount only to a bare $1,000 a year. -Perhaps some one has started doing something in the East Sea Island of Samar. It would be variety from the Bouth Sea Island craze of our paint- ers and book writers. One chief exporter of Portv Rico coffee—he is a Spaniard who has al- ways lived among Americans—crosses my path in Paris often. He- will tell me whether there .is coffee from Samar. For the good renown of my countrymen in the Philippines, 1 be- mummm#mm " blended, in Paris, tmu,.nanmwearzm De | bition is to As Result of Promising Experiments ispot where it is a part of the apps | ratus. | “Such atr-propeller gearings as have | been examined appear to be often it | genious. At the moment when the wheels quit the earth the pedal force is thrown onto the air propeller by | means of an easily worked hand laver | Considerabie force is thus gathered o1 fthe air. As a matter of fact, both mo { tor boats and rolling vehicles on land | have been propelled by such attack on {the air alone. It would not be suffi | cient. however, to work up the roiling «peed at 221-3 miles per hour neces sary to ma the planes take hold of | the’ air and find support thereon. Others have no air propeller at al in analogy to the motorless airplanes Where the latter get support fron | height and on lifting_winds, the att bike gets the same by this rolling speed on earth -and coming down te bump the earth again, which makes | the “skim."” | When the machine is thus withou an air propeller it can nevertheless {take unespectedly long “skims” b | rolling down hill—and even get some | thing like the motorless airplane’s fl: | ing movement when able to roll swiit Iy down hill and mount agajnst the wind. 1t is difficuit. of course, to work rising speed when rolling against tl wind on the flat earth: but Henrigue: on the parade ground at lssy. is said to rise rolling with the wind, then turning rotind in whole or in part when in the air. obtains the motorless airplane’s flying for a little bit of « while—before he capsizes. which regu larly seems to happen Poulain, who has an air propeller tries to breast the wind (he seeks wind); and when he has the strength to rise and does not capsize his ani keep on brensting the wind Dby air-propeller force with his pedals If he could once get well started. this r. he might continue to swing ahead on the air. who knows? Who knows? Two vear: g0, the roto-motor ship seemed a wild stors Both of them (if you look back) seemed wilder than the aerfal bicycle. The Peugeot Decametre prize, the say, could be won tomorrow by more | than one of the experimenters em | ployed by the great constructors. Bu | which would give away their plans for 10,000 francs—less than $3507 The aerial bicycle, they say, is pra: tically a succe: a wildly populs: TR case. The aim any thing in it that will support a. patent Of course, they will bring it out even tually anyway by agree ment. But they hate to be without a patent! This is why no prize of a few thou sand francs can make the great com structors hurry. The aerial bicycle is Its own prize Purses are of no consequence. The real thing is the “skimmer”—to patent it and sell it evervwhere, for Henry to skim over the good roads! e probably would New Hair Measures. 'HE human hair may now be meas ured and classed as accurately ax an automobile part. Charles Nessie of New York. president of the Ameri can Master Hairdressers’' Association exhibited at their convention recentiy two machines, one called a “metre scale,” and the other an “adjustabie square.” The adjustable square detects the quantity of hair on the head with it accuracy. The normal human ead, ' the instrument show: has from 100 to 130 square inches Thair covering the scalp, The ndrfiber of hairs varies from a mere 100,000 up to 250,000, depending” upon the tex ture. Human hair grows at the rate of half an inoh per month. ‘The metrescale analyzes the quality of the hair. Tt has shown that chem! cally the composition of human halr has a striking similarity to wool, and, like wool, it shrinks. This machine detects the rate of shrinkage, which enables the permanent waver te teil what kinds of halr can.and what can- not be waved, Oil Keeps Eggs Fresh. BATHING eggs in ofl is the latest method for Kkeeping them fresh and sterflized, according to reportx from the General Electric Company. Eggs at the rate of 380,000 per 10-hour {day are passed-through a bath of hot oil having a temperature of 235 de Fahrenheit. “The oil is said te the pores in the eggshell and pre- from antering,