Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1934, Page 88

~ & — SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 9, 1934. few days in taverns and stews all they had gotten, by giving themselves to all manner of debauchery with strumpets and wine. Such of these pirates are found who will spend two or three thousand pieces of eight in one night, not leaving themselves peradventure a good shirt to wear on their backs in the morning. My own master would buy, on like occasions," a whole pipe of wine and, placing it in the street, would force every one that passed by to drink with him, threatening also to pistol them in case they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer. And, very often, with both his hands, he would throw these liquors about the streets and wet the clothes of such as walked by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not, were they men or women.” SO MUCH for her sordid past; now for her present, around which has been woven so much of the lofty in poetry and prose, so many “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.” At 20 minutes to midday on June 7, 1692—descriptions of the cataclysm by eye-witnesses have been preserved—a noise resembling thunder was heard in the mountains beyond the harbor. Three distinct shocks followed, the last more terrible than the first, splitting Port Royal open in a dozen places. These shocks were felt in all parts of the island. A tidal wave ensued. W.J. Gardner, the historian, summarizing two fellow his- torians, Edward Long and George Wilson Bridges, writes of the destruction as follows: “Not only did the earth tremble, and in some parts open beneath the feet of the terror-stricken inhabitants, but the hor- rors of the event were intensified by the mysterious, awful sounds, that one moment appeared to be in the air and then in the ground. The wharfs loaded with merchandise, and most of the forti- fications, together with all.the streets near the shore, sunk into the harbor and were completely overwhelmed. * * ° Though there was no breeze, the sea rose in mighty waves, tearing ships from their anchorage and sweeping them over the sunken ruins of the town. Some of these were utterly destroyed, while others were saved and proved the means of sav- ing many that were struggling in the waves. In places the earth opened, swal- lowing up many helpless creatures, but in some cases persons were seen only partially covered. Not 200 houses were Jeft, and in all it was computed that nearly 2,000 persons had perished.” Bridges notes: “On the road to Six- teen-Mile Walk two mountains fell and met. The riven hills were closed with colossal masses of disjointed rock, which stopped up the bed of the-river and which in some places still remain—the eternal witness of the day’s dreadful convulsion. The water, thus confined, rose to an overwhelming height, and then, bursting its adamantine barrier, bore all before it. “There was scarcely a mountain in the island that did not change its out- line, or a rock which was not split. * * * The tremendous convulsions were re- peated with little intermission, though with decreasing violence, for the space of three weeks, and every fissure in the rocks, every cleft in the cracked and parched earth, was steaming with sul- phurous fumes. The air reeked with noxious miasmata and the sea exhaled pn offensive putrid vapowr. . “The insupportable heat of a tropical Midsummeér was not for many weeks refreshed, even by a ‘partial breath of air; the sky blazed with irresistible flerceness; swarms of mosquitoes cloud- ed the atmosphere, while the lively peauty of the mountain forests sud- denly vanished and the fresh verdure of the lowland scenery was changed Ro the russet gray of a Northern Winter. The canefields were disfigured by masses of fallen rock and presented to Bhe wearied eye a barren wilderness, parched and furrowed. S “The ruins (of Port Royal) are even get visible in clear weather from the surface of the waters under which they Me.” i T REMAINED for the immortal genius of Thomas de Quincey to put the " most ‘exquisite touch to ‘the structure of poetry and llusion built up around the destruction of “the most wicked place in Christendom” and “the richest spot in the wuniverse.” De Quinecey’s Moonlight on the beach near Port Royal. sublime imagination, coupled with the truth that the mind of man always attaches greater importance, greater glamour at least, to the past than to the present, saw the catastrophe from a distance of time and space sufficient to lend enchantment. His brilliant pen, like some magic wand, anointed the sunken city, transmitted to her his own immortality and made her, with Atlantis, one of the great monuments of Trop- icalia. “God smote Savannah-la-Mar (a mythical name for Port Royal) and in one night, by earthquake, removed her, with all her towers standing and popu- lation sleeping, from the steadfast foundations of the shore to the coral floors of ocean. And God said, ‘Pompeil did I bury, and conceal from men through 17 centuries: This city I will bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of My mysterious anger, set in azure light through gen- erations to come; for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome of My tropic seas.’ “This city, "therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her apparel mounted, streamers flying and tackling perfect, seems floating along the noiseless depths of ocean, and oftentimes in glassy calms, through the translucid atmosphere of water that now stretches like an air- woven awning above the silent encamp- ment, mariners from every clime look down into her courts and terraces, count her gates and number the spires of her churches. She is one ample cemetery and has been for many a year; but in the mighty calms that breed for weeks over tropic latitudes, she fascinates the eye with a Fata-Morgana revelation, as of human life still subsisting in sub- marine asylums sacred from the storms that torment our upper air. “Thither, lured by the loveliness of Selfish BY ADA JACKSON Since no one ever speaks of it She shinks that none can spy Her deep-laid, cunning stratagems, The subtle art whereby She takes the softest cushion, vests Her in-the warmest chair And piles her plate the highest with The choicest of the fare. . She thinks no one has seen how guick She is 10 take, how slow To give a penny-piece away— She thinks that none can know The hours she lies and plans o’ mights ~ How best 1o minister To her own comfort, and who shell Make woy to pleasure her. Wish smug complacence thus she thinko— She does not understand = That ‘avarice stamps every line Of her rapacious hand; ‘That in Ker hard, covetous eyes - And lips pursed cunningly Greed's sign is written, bold and plain, For all the world to see! cerulean depths, by the peace of human dwellings privileged from molestation, by the gleam of marble altars sleeping in everlasting sanctity, oftentimes in dreams did I and the Dark Interpreter cleave the watery veil that divided us from her streets. We looked into the belfries, where the pendulous bells were waiting in vain for the summons which should awaken their marriage peals; together we touched the mighty organ keys that sang no jubilates fcr the ear of Heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of human sorrow; together we searched the silent nurseries, where the children were all asleep, and had been asleep through five generations. ‘They are waiting for the heavenly dawn, whispered the interpreter to himself, ‘and when that comes the bells and the organs will utter a jubilate repeated by the echoes of Paradise.’” This article was written by Mr. Corcoran for the American Foreign Service Journal and The Star. Shelter Belt Plan HE shelter belt proposed by the administra- tion as a solution of the drought problem of the Great Plains area is meeting with a mixed reception, but fully half of the views expressed to the forest service are enthusiastical- ly favorable to the plan and only 20 per cent opposed to the plan. The remaining 30 per cent are either skeptical of the value of the plan or just plainly of no opinion. According to Chief Forester Silcox the plan is feasible. Trees can and do grow in the area in which it is proposed to erect a belt of trees 100 miles wide. “Criticism, suggestions and honest difference of opinion are most essential to the success of this undertaking,” said the forester. “If the trees are planted now and they are selected with the view to withstanding the drought, there is no doubt that shelter belts can be es- tablished over this region where the average annual precipitation does not fall below 18 Inches.” The existence of some 2,000,000 acres of shelter belts in the plains States from North “If we accept the drought of the last few years as a permanent change in climate, then it is hopeless to fly in the face of nature. My honest advice would then be for the people to move out of region. We know, however, that the drought is only a passing climatie stage.” He counts on a swing back to nor- mal regional precipitation adequate to the maintenance of shelter beits, as well as many sgricultural uses. Shelter belts are not expected to prevent the occurrence of droughts, but to lessen their ef- fects, helping to conserve rainfall and prevent snow from being whipped away into coulees or draws to run off in the Spring thaws with- benefiting the crops or the trees. They are expected to slow down the velocity of the work of eradicating bovine tuberculosis froms the dairy herds of the Nation has been greatly stimulated and many States now find them- selves several years ahead in the work, During October, for instance, 1,805,000 cattle were tested in the Nation, each of the 48 States being represented in the work. Nearly Flax in Demand ESPITE unfavoreble growing conditions #n _most of the flax producing sections of the world, this year's crop runs somewhat higher then last year, yet despite this fact, the prices L better.