The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-10-05
THE BRAVE RESCUE.
A STORY OF CEYLoN.

I was al only child, and my father was
q widower, so that our actual necessities
in that cheap and frugal country, Cey-
Ion, We're easily provided for.
Our nearest neighbor was Mr.. Fors
ter, planter, by far wealthier than we
We're. Now Oswald Forster and | were
plighted lovers, but the very idea of al
engagement between his only son and
the daughter of his embarrassed neigh
Dor was gall aud wormwood to Oswalds
father-a proud, strong-willed man.
DESTROYS to etface from Oswald's mind
the idea of marrying poor little Ellen
Travers, Mr.. Forster, with his wife's
concurrence. proposed to send his son
to Europe, confident that foreign travel
and change of scene would soon obliter-
ate from his memory the image of the
lonely little girl beside the great tank of
Mlnary. And now word concerning
the tant; itself, the name of which, |
fear, conveys to readers but very in
adequate conception Of the stipend, us
reality. The tank of Minary, Justly
reckoned among the marvels which the
island of Ceylon has still to show, is
perhaps the grandest OF the artificial
lakes ever planned by mortal engineer.
More than two thousand years have
passed since, before the Christian era, a
Buddhist king bade his subjects toll to
erect tho massive walls of hewn stone
and tough chunam that environ that vast
sheet of water, twenty-five miles in cir
cumference.
With the Minary lake, or tank, which
lay close 10 my own home, had been
from childhood familiar, and l dearly
loved the mirrorlike expanse of its calm
waters, studded with floating islands of
the crimson blossomed lotus of India,
the red flowers and green leaves of which
covered many thousand acres of the sur
face. Strange fish of brilliant colors
glided in glittering shoals through the
deep, clear water, rarely disturbed by
prov on paddle; bright birds of every
size, from the scarlet famingo to the
tiny oriole or the towering adjutant,
haunted it; and all around grew in dense
prousion the mighty trees and flower
ing creepers of the virgin forest, whence
came at times the complaining cry of
the mountain cat, the belling of the
deer, the panther's snarl, or the crash
ing OF cane and sapling, as>wild ele-
plants forced their way through the
trachless recesses of the Jungle.
Alligators were very common, snakes
plentiful, and the scorpion, the cent?
pede, and the tree leech were often to
be met with in the more swamly and
tangled tracts of the woodlands.
Oswald was going away, and it would
be but very seldom that we were to meet
henceforth, since, poor fellow, he was to
sail by the Lord Dalhousie, expected at
Point de Gale on the thirty first of the
month.
fEI went with heavy heart to the spot
where we always met. To my surprise
l did not at first see him for whom
looked, and begun to fear that he had
forgotten to keep his wonted tryst; but,
on drawing nearer, beheld a sight that
for the moment froze my very veins
with horror, and caused the cry of an
;uish that rose to my lips 70 die away.
Oswald, lying on the turf among the
roots Of the gigantic palm tree, seemed
to be asleep, overcome. probably, by the
unusual heat, while around him was
loosely coiled something that resembled
stout rope, curiously streaked with
black and orange and white-something
that caused the withered leaves ana crisp
grass to rustic, as it stirred, writhing.
1 had never seen living tic palUpGa,
but l knew at the first glance that the
snake before my eyes was no other than
a large specimen of that dreaded reptile,
which in Ceylon takes the position that
IN continental India belongs TO the CO.
bra, and for the bite of which there is
no known remedy. Twice within the
last three years laborers ON my fathers
plantation had been brought in dying
from the Venom OF the tic palunea, but
in each instance the skill of the native
snake charmer had led to the capture of
the reptile, aud it was not believed that
any of this species, rare as well as dan