Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, April 17, 1910, Page 19

(Copyright, 1910 by Frank G. Carpenter.) spondence of The Bee.)—1 have spent the day visiting the saw- mills and Jumber yards of Ran- goon, where the elepbants aid in preparing teakwood for ship- ANGOON, 1910.—(Special Corre- ment abroad. Teak Is one of the chief ex- ports of Burma. It is so valuable that it is #0ld by the ton, and it brings In $7,00000 or $8,0M,000 & year. The trees mre girdied in the forests and after cutting are floated down the streams and rivers td Rangoon. Both in the forests and at the ports the handling of the timber is done by ele- phants. They drag the logs to the streams and arrange the booms; they stack the planks and they carry all sorts of lumber At thé direction of their masters. Every sawmill has its elephants and there are some companies which employ several hun- dred. The average institution, however, can afford but few, for the animals sre costly, & green one bringing $800 and a prive worker often as much a8 §2.00. The elephans come from the forests of Upper Burma. The wild ones are all owned by the government, which has an elephant department to catch and care for them. The elephant commissioner keeps track of the wild herds and annually sends Qut men to hunt them and catch the young bulls. The cow elephants and a certain number of the bulls are turned back iuto the forests. The buil calves are kept and trained and are finally belng retained for the government use. In hunting the elephants, they are some- times captured in pits and sometimes led into corrals by means of tame elephants trained for the purpose. The tame beasts mix with the wild ones and lead them into the pens, whereupon the elephant hunters sort out from the wild ones those they wish to keep and turn the others back into the forests. Most of the elephants at Ran- goon have come from the government herds. S In the Lumber Yards. T wish I could show some of the huge beasts at work in the vards. They lift great logs on their tusks and stack them in plles. They carry timbers to the saws and lay the planks in order for ship- ment. Their every action shows reason and they stem to calculate cause and effect. At one sawmill 1 saw two beasts, each as gether. . Each had a4 Burman, clad In big as Jumbo, plling lumber, working to- turban and gown, seated upon his head, and he ‘was directed by him. The man used both hand and heel as well as word of mouth to tell the elephant what to do, and in addition a sharp brass hook which he jabbed into him if he did not obey. The logs handled were of great welght. I measured some which were twenty feet long and thick as a cider barrel Either of these two elephants could lift ove such log on his tusks and carry it across the yard. He would kneel down beforo the middle of a log. crowd his tusks under it and then, throwlng his great trunk over the top, would raise it bodily and carry it to the truck upon which is was to be pushed to the buzz saw. If the log proved very heavy he would rest one end on the ground and drag it In afhother part of the yard I watched an slephant piling lumber. He would lift the timbers up and lay them down on th others as evenly as though he had mea: ured each plece. Sometimes he rested a Jog on the pile and pushed it into place ‘with his trunk. At other times he kicked it up with his right hind foot. In some eases whers It was necessary to carry two logs at a time the men tied a ropes around them and the elephant would pick up the end of the rope With his trunk and plac 3t over his tusk and then, raising his head, walk off with it The elephants gather up the scraps of Jumber and lay them so that the workmen can rope them into bundies They also work at piliog the boards and loading them for the steamers. The managers tell me beasts are employed in the forests and at the lumber camps up country. They are used for all sorts of heavy transpor many of these tation. They not only carry the Togs to the streams, but ald In forming the rafts and booms. They wade or swim about, according to the depth of the water, tow- ing the logs this way and that. When the iogs come to the ports they break the booms by pushing out the key log. They then take the timbers out of the water and put them on the cars, which carry them to the mills, - In some places the elephants work to- gether, and I am told there are boss ele- phants which keep the others up to their work and pound them with thelr trunks when they lag. In some yards each ele- phant h its own job, one class being used to carry hay for the stables and to mix the bran, molasses and other food which form the dally rations of the beasts in that establishment. gk Beasts Which Wateh the Clock. These elephants at Rangoon are partie- ular as to their working hours. They seem to almost watch the clock, for they get restless as the noon hour approaches and stop now and then to wailt for the bell. When the whistle sounds and the bell rings at 12 o'clock they will drop whate ever they have on their tusks and bolt for the feeding sheds. It is the same at night. 1 am told they have to be carefully fed and that each must have his bath twice & day. At one of the yards 1 saw them washing the beast: The elephants sat down while buckets of water were thrown over them. After that thelr masters scrubbed them with rough brushes and curried them. as it were, all over. As fhe water was dashed upon them they wagged thelr tails and flapped their ears and grunted in joy. T asked one of the men if the beasts were hard to handle. He replied: “No, but we must be always on guard, and if they grow angry they make no bomes of killing us. The elephant is touchy, and if anything creeps under the blanket on his back he grows restiess and cannot work well He will tremble like a woman at the sight of a mouse, for fear, perha that the animal may run up his trunk. As I left one of the sawmills I threw a plece of silver to the man on the biggest elephant. He rubbed the beast's head with his heel and thereupon the elephant threw his great trunk high into the air and gave me a royal salute, White Elephant. Burma ranks with Slam as the land of the whitu elephant. The people here are Buddhists, and they belleve that the souls of human beings, when they pass away, £0 into the bodies of animals. Moreover, they think that the spirits of the good and noble go into the bodies of white ani- mals, and as the elephant is one of the largest of beasts, every white elephant contains the soul of a hero. King Thibaw, the last native ruler of Burma, had a palace for his white elephants, and they were treated like kings. When they went out umbrellas of white and gold were held over them, and they had golden tassels in thelr ears and golden plates on their fore- heads. They were bathed daily in scented waters and they drank out of vessels dec- ted with gold. Each beast had his own attendants, who did nothing but walt upon him, and the man who found a white ele- phant and brought it to the palace was ennobled, and pald no taxes for the rest of his life. When the British took the country they captured the white elephants, and today If one were to be found he would bo given a job at the hauling of logs. In fact, about the only pluce where the white elephant has any semblance of -roy- alty left is Siam. The common peopls there worship him, and the king now and then rides out upon one in great state The national coat of arms is & plcture of this royal beast. It has its place upon the flag and also upen the principal coins With the awakening of the country and the new movements, however, superstitions are passing away. The better classes think much as we do, and his majesty the king koeps his white elephants only out of sentiment and respect for the bellefs of his Heroes in EN can well pause a moment in their busy round of affairs to contemplate the deed of & Jei- low mortal when he serves his country or his neighbors. W meed not face the cannon's mouth or the engulfing wave Lo merit praise. Deeds worthily performed, without thought of reward, without knowledge that the facts would become known, without an applaviing throng to spur one on, are the kind that show herolsm is mot & lost trait. When on Nibruary 23 ihe lighthouse- kesper @t Green Ledge,” Conn. rowed ashore, telling lis assistant (o remain in charge until his return, the young man thought little of the solitude. He was faithful to his duty, and for a duy or two @id not greatly concern himself about the wisence of his chief. But at the end of week, when he hed been keeping vigil isht apd day, for the fog along the coast bei made it necessary to keep the gaso- engines running sound the fog ™, in addition to keeping. the lights burning at night, L assistant Was so cx- Civil Life hausted that with difficulty he dragged himeelf about. But he held to his post, and after nine days, when his food sup- ply was exhausted, relief came. His predicament became known through the fact that his chief had forged a check and left the vicinity. This led to an in- vestigation and the succoring of the vigil keeper. Such momotony as he experi- encud often drives lighttiouse keepers in- sane. e was not alone fighting against death by slarvatim, but he was keeping the lights burning and the fog horn sound- ing the warning blasts. It was a case of human endurance, and the man of deter- mination won. Such herolsm as his is the kind that counts, He did not look for the plaudits of the world. His thoughts were only of bis duty. He had no concern sbout ud- vancement, and the pay is not sufficient to make & man strive as this man Qi He did bis duty. The opportunity does not come to every man to show such traits, but every man rhould be encouraged to Aet a5 worthy an example If occasion re- euiies—Waghinglon Herald o T co== f———— ] ‘o~ cocooee — ELEPHANTS [N LUMBER CAMPA UPPER BUR people. He has alephant stables connected with his paiaces, and there are several of these so-called white animals in the stalls. 1 visited them during my last stay in Bang- kok. They were chained to stone posts and were watched by keepers, who chewed the betel and spat on the ground es they made the elephants perform for me. These beasts were of an ashy gray color and they looked dirty rather than white, I am told that thelr color comes from a disease somewhat like leprosy, and that this sometimes causes the animal affected to go crazy. Indeed, a white elephant is usually & rogue elephant, « one which Rangoon 1s_ the capital of Surma. It is should, always be watched and never al- lowed to go loose. The elephants now in the stables at Bangkok sre from the northern art of Siam. All those of the country belong to the king, but the man who can send in & white elephant is still rewarded, and the advent, of a new one causes general rejoicing, for it is looked upon as a sign of good luck and prosperity. Rl Gateway to South Asia. I write this letter in what is the most up-to-date, booming city of the far east growing faster than Calcutta. It already stands third among the great ports of the Indian empire, crowding the heels of Bombay, and there are many who prophesy that it will eventually be the big- gest city of southern Asia. Lying here at the mouth of the Trawadi, it forms the only gate to one of the richest valleys of the world, and in time, by raiiroads already projected, it will be the gateway to west- ern China as well. The city has now a Ppopulation of 300,000. It runs for miles up and down the river and extends back into the flat alluvial Irawad! Gelta. It is backed Showing Lazy Papio How to Behave APILLION CREEK will soon be out of a job. It is time. For several centuries that vaga- bond stream has bLeen loitering about In a leisurely wastrel sort of way carrying off the water Uf lis drainage bLasin when it chose, but for the most part sliowing it to lie about over many otherwise fertile acres. Like certain lazy men, Paplllion creek is & &raceful genius of indolence, & symphony in somnolence, as it strays aimlessly about always procrastinating about that littie job of carrying the water to the Missouri which nature imposed when the creek was eologically put in commission. Unfortusately for that ambitionless, slug- gard little streamiet, the farmer folk of eastern Nebraska care litttle for the cul- tivation of scenery at the expense of allo ing some thousands of rich acres to lie un- productive and worse than useless. So certain very bufsinesslike and technical en- &ineers with funny little instruments of tripods were set to work to diagnose the trouble with the Bi and Little Papillion creeks. “Incurable” was their verdict Whereat the farmer folk determined the discharge of the vagabond creeks with as little consideration for their long service as they would a hired man. Th same en- @ineers were set about the work of design- ing & made-to-order creek to do the work in & real efficient way. With that order execuled the Big Paplilion and the Little Paplllion, or Paplo as tradition has seen fit to dudb it with a diminutive, will become but certain wavy meaningless lines on the old maps. Seventeen miles of canals will do the work. “The Papiliion Drainage District, - flourishing title, indeed, spells the finish of the loitering streamlets. Farmer folk have banded together and At an assessed cost of so much per acre affected, will pay for the digging of the big ditches which are to reclaim a tract of 15,000 acres of the richest land in Nebrasks. A sum of approximately $308.000 is 1o be expended in the drainage district within the little more than a year which remiin yet befors its completion on May 1, 191i. ' This means that for a triflc more than $13 an acre land which is now of no value will be made perhaps the most productive in the state, much of it lying within a hour's drive of Omaha, the market center of the west. Land which could have been bought almost for the asking a few years before this reclamation project was born is not to be had now for less than 3200 an acre. The salvation of the long flooded lands is to be accomplished by deep cut water- ways leading from Millard in the general direction of the Big Papillion creek and again from Ralston along the route of the Little Papio, to join later, discharging into the Missouri river below Fort Crook. For the construction of the mighty drain- age system which is to turn the marshes of the flood plain of the Big and Little Papios into a firm, tillable ares, a great array of machinery is belng put into use. At last the sleeping, stagnant waters of the creek are to be made to do some work. Diverted into the drainage ditches the creeks will furnish the motive medium for the floating of the monster dredge barges which are to eat their ‘way through along the plotted line of the artificial ‘water- ways to the outlet on the Missour! river. One of the pair of fioating dredges which are to accomplish the Titan task of cutting the canal system is now in operation com- ing down the valley from Miliard. The sec- ond, which has been dubbed the mud turtle, an appelation exceedingly fiming for so ungainly and utilitarian a craft, was launched last week in the Papio near Sey- mour lake. » Each of these dredging machines consists of heavy barges of large carrying capacity equipped with monster machines which tear their way through the soll, tossing aside three and a half cubic yards of earth @t a mouthful. The greatest of these mi chines is the “mud turtle” which was in- troduced to the dark bosom of the Paplo the other day The launching of the Mud Turtle was not an affilr of ceremony. Twe automobile loads of engineers and contractors, to- gether with the men who have buiided the unhandsome boat, were all that gathered to see her slip down. the ways into the HE PAPILLION stream. muddy The Mud Turlje is-en hon- wor] est & boat with muth more of strength than grace, so, naturally, she had 10 do the wrong thing at the w rong time in the presence of the launching party slipping off half way down the siide and then sticking awkwardly in the presence of company At last the big bulk settied into the water, where it is now *being fitted with the engines which will Operate the dredge apparatus. The huil alone weighs 200 tons and the machinery to be put aboard weighs 150 tons more. The dredge meas- ures 44 by 15 feet and is constructed of heavy lumber and timbers. A crane eighty feet long weighing twenty tons will carry the big dredge bucket. The lower end of the drainage where the cut is sometimes twenty-eight feet in aepii, is being cut by what the contraciors call in technical phraseology a ‘drag . This machine operates directly on the soll without the use of a floating barge as & means of transportation. The dredging machines have a maximum excav ting ca- pacity of about 100,000 cuble yards & month each. The whole operation of cutting the big ditches will require but about twenty- five men. Practically all of the work is done by steam power. The drag line op- eraies from Gilmore to Papiilion. Traliing behind the big floating dredges a floating dermit and boarding house Lo the ~They are working at home all the time In their progress down the valleys of the creeks. tem workmen. The blg canal will nave a waterway of 110 feet, while the smaller waternay of sixty feet are designed to carry without overfiow, even at flood time. T efficiency of the actual cut s to be en- hanced by the erection of high banks on either side by use of soll cavated will have & These big canals off all the water e the ex- The excavation work the Pollard-Campbell Dredging company of Omaha. The Towl engineering company of Omahs and Kansas City was employed by the stockhoiders of the district 1o lay out the work. is being done by INANAGE CANAL -~/ by some of the biggest rice lands of the world, and it exports more rice than any other port on earth. The amount to be shipped this year is valued at $5,000,000, and the river 18 now filled with great steamers loading for Japan, China, Aus- tralia, India, Europe and North and South America. Among them are river boats and barges which have brought rice in from the country, and there are great fieets at the mills loading and unloading their cargoes. Rice is the money c the country and it makes the comparatively rich Burmese Barma in a Bird's Eye. But, before I go further, let me a birdseye view of this country. You all know its location. Better perhaps than the Bostonian, when asked where it was, replied “Burma? give you Burma? Of course I know where it 1s. 1 have a cousin out there, but he calls it Bermuda. The Burma from which I am writing s away off here on the oppusite side of the world. It lies near the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, several hundred miles south of the Himalaya mountains and just across the way from the peninsula of Hin- dustan. On the morth it runs close to Tibet, and on the east it skirts the Chinese province of Yunnan and French Indo- China, with the Siamese states on _the south. The country is as long as from Canada to the Mexican gulf and wider than from New York to Cleveland. It is bigger than France, Germany or the Spanish peninsula, and it has a population of 10.- 000,000, of whom 8000000 are the proudest, best dressed and most lovable people of Asia. On the irawadi. I came into Burma up the Irawadl river. The capital, Rangoon, from where 1 write, lles about twenty miles from the mouth of one of the streams forming the delta. The Irawadi one of the greatest of the world's great rivers. It rises somewhere in Tibet and flows a thousand miles through this country before it reaches the sea. It s down so much silt that the blue the Bay Bengal made it. In coming here we traveled through what looked like pea soup before we caught sight of land, and In the river itself the water was as brown 4s catmeal gruel and almost as thick. It left a rich sediment in the bath tub of the steamer and gave the atmosphere a yeilowish tint under the tropical sun. The deposit is so great thet the shore creeps ©on into the sea several inches a year. Im- mense sand bars are created and pllots have to direct the steamers this way and that. The dredges are always kept work- ing and the goverament is nmow contem- plating bullding a series of jotties like those we have at New Orlemns. These will confine the waters o a narrower channel and the force of the river will scour the course clean. Coming up to Rangoon the stream Is often several miles wide and the shores at the mouth so far apart that as we hugged the north bank we could hardly sce the land on the south. We passed Syriam, where the Burma Ofl company has its enormous refineries, and then steamed up toward the oity which, with its lumber yards, rice mills and shipping, looked more ike one of the great ports of Kurope than Asia. Long before the town came In sight we could see the tall spire of the Golden Pagoda, and as we steamed closer anotier #haft of gold came Into view. It was that of the Soule Pagoda, & Burmese monument which rises high out of the business blocks in the very heart of the eity. Our ship came right up to the wharves and we stepped out Into one of the queerest crowds to be found in all Aste This clty is more an Calcutta, Cairo or Constantinople East Indlan rather than Bu carr! waters of yellow by of are hours than 1t is and it has people of every nation and of al moet every tribe of the Asiatic continent. It has 50,000 Chinese, a large number of Malays, 5,000 Buropeans and more than 100,000 Indians from all parts of Hindu- stan. The people are of all colors, black, white, yellow and brown, and they wear all sorts of costumes: The Hast Indian coolies are naked, except for a ecloth around the waist and & red or white turban. Their black skins shine like Jet under the tropical sun Many of the Chiness are rich, and they are clad in silks or fine cottons, while the Burmesas strut about in silk skirts of the most delicate colors, their heads covered with gorgeous silk turbans. They wear Jack- €ts of silk or fine cotton, and move about like human butterflies here and there through the crowd. In addition there are tall-hatted. long-coated Parsees from Bombay, worshipers of fire, who are de- voted to banking and trading, and 1 an, skinny black Chettles, money lenders from Madras, who wear only a sheet of cotton wrapped around thelr bare per- sons. There are Indian boys in caps of ®old thread, cotton jackets and walst cloths; Hindoo women with rings in thelir noses, and Burmese girls clad in cotton or sllk, with plugs in their ears. The costumes are so many I cannot describe them. SR On the Streets. The traffic about the wharves and through the city is carried on by strange snimals, and in strange vehicles. The passenger cab 1s the gharry, a yellow or black box hauled by an Indian peny and driven by a Hindoo or Burman. The heavy freight 18 dragged over the roads in carts by the humped cattle of Hindu- stan, and great loads of goods are pushed and pulled along by half-naked men. The men work as hard as the animals, and the white sweat stands out upon their black skins as they drag the freight on- ward. There are fine carriages, owned by the Europeans, and even auto- mobiles, with Hindoo chauffeurs in tur- bans. I ride about in & gharry at a cost of about 10 cents a trip, and my baggage was carried from the steamer to the hotel on a cart drawn breech-clouted Hin- doos. On the way I saw a Burman riding a bicycls plated with nickle. He had pulled his red silk skirt high up his thighs, and I observed that he had silver clasps on each leg, just over the knee, to hold it. He wore a turban and jacket, and sat straight as he rode. This afternoon I took s street car trip out into the country. The rallway was an overhead trolley, and the cars were divided into two classes, the first of which costs double the price of the sec- ond. In order to see the people I rode second class, sitting between a Bengal Hindoo in jacket and calico trousers, and a Burmese girl, dressed in a cotton sa- Tong, A jacket and a pink shawl, which was thrown over her shoulders. She had a fat cigar in her hand, and asked me to smoke. Behind me were two Hindoos wearing skull caps embroidered with gold, and a Burmese gentleman, well clad and wearing amber plugs in his ears. In front was a Burmese woman, with a baby in her arms. The child's head was shaved clean, excepting a patch on the crown the size of a dollar. And then there wers Mohammedan women, close velled; Arabs in fez caps, East Indian eoldiers in tur- bans and Chinese With queues hanging down their silk gowns at the back. As we rode on we passed the carriage of the governor, a magnificent landau, hauled by white horses, with coachmen and foote men gorgeous in livery, and a troop of outriders in front. We went by rice mis lumber yards, in which elephants re working, and at everr turn of the wheels saw & new picture of this Burmese blograph show, which is one of the strange est of the far east FRANK -G also and we CARPENTER. XYGEN artificial piration and the untiring efforts of two hospital physiclans, saved the lifs of “Baby" Wilke, 2 weeks old, mon of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilke of 15 Lynch street, Brookiyn, in the Eastern District hospital of that borough. The liitle fellow was so close to death that all tests to detect breathing falled to show anything: the Pulse practically was still, and it was al most impossible to detect any action of the Jeart for at least fifteen minutes at times. The body, too, was cold, rigid and discolored. Notwithstanding such discouraging con- ditions, Drs. Liebovicski and Cobn re- fused to give up the fight for the child’s life. They were rewarded finally by see- ing & convulsive movement, and an in- slant afterward the youngster opened iis eyes and began to cry. Mother's milk was placed in a dropper and supplied o the chiid » drop at & tme In & few hours the baby was well enough (0 nurse naturally, and it is thought mow it is out of danger. Those who saw the child say they never knew of & case in which & person so near dewth was dragged back to life. There were thoss who (nsisted the baby was dead. The doctors Wetected, however, Just the flicher of heart action and devoted Alelr energy and skill Lo strengtheming it The baby, who has not yet been named, was taken 10 the hospital on February 1 It had been suffering from an aflment which the outside physicians had ‘been unable to diagnose or te cure. Drs, Lieb- ovicski and Cohen examined the patient and sald it was suffering from stomach trouble. A sedative was administered. The case was watched closely. On Thursday night the baby went into conviusions. Its body became blue and fts pulse dropped to practically nothing. Red and black splotches appeared on the skin. Hot and cold water plunges were used. There was no response. Oxygen then was Eiven, but without effect. The form stif- fened and the eyes turned upward. Mir- ror and -other tests for breath were applled. They showed no traces of the child's breath. There was & warm area on the shoulders and the chest, and that inspired the doctors with hope. Finally they succeeded In bringing the child back to consciousness. From that time on until early yesterday the baby was racked by a series of com- vulsions, with & particularly severs one al 2 o'clock. That time even the doctos thought life extinet. They continued, how- ever, to force oxygen into baby's lungs and 10 resort to artificial respiration, It was not until fifteen minutes after. ward that the heart, lungs, respiratory organs, and the pulse besan (0 sssert thomselves.—New York Press, . vt