Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-10-16
NO. 40.
A Vegetable Devil.

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A recent traveller in Madagascar.
gives the following description of the
vegetable Devil of that county, Imag-
inc pine apple eight feet high, and
thick IN proportion, resting upon its
base and denuded of leaves, and YOU will
have good idea of the trunk of the
tree, which, however, was not the
color of the anana, but dark, dingy
brown, and apparently hard as Iron.
From the apex of this truncated cone
(at least two feer in diameter) eight
leaves hung sheer TO the ground, like
doors swung back on their hinges. The
leaves were Joined at the top of the
tree at regular intervals, were about
ten TO twelve feet long, and shaped
very much like the American agrave,
or century plant. They were two feet
through in their thiekest part, and
three feet wide, tapering to a sharp
point that looked like cows horn.
very convex on the outer (but now un-
der surface, and on the inner now up
per- surface slightly concave. This
concave face was thickly set with very
strong, thOrny hooks. like those upon
the head of the teazel. These leaves,
hanging thus limp and lIfeless. dead
green in color, had in appearance the
massive strength of the oak fiber. The
apex of the cone was round, white
concave figure, like a smaller plate set
within a larger one. This was not a
Hover, but receptacle, and there
exuded into it clear, treacly liquid,
honey sweet, and possessed of violent
Intoxicating and sopOrific properties.
From underneath the rim, so to speak,
of the uppcrmOst plate, a series of long
hairy, green tendrils stretched in every
direction towards the horizon. These
were seven to eight feet long each, and
tapered from four inches TO 4 half inch
in diameter, yet they stretched out
stifiiy as iron rods. Above these e-frOm
between the upper and under cup-six
white. almost transparent palpi reared
themselves toward the sky, twirling
and twisting with a marvellous, inces-
SAINT motion, yet constantly reaching
upward. Thin as reeds, as frail as quilts
apparently, they were yet five or six
feet tall, and were so constantly and
vigorously in motion, with such subtle,
sinuOus, silent throbbing against the
air, that they made me shudder i'm spite
of myself with their suggestion of ser
pents ilayed, vet dancing on their tails.
The description | am giving you now
is part made up from n subsequent.
careful inspection of the plant. My
observations on this occasion were sud-
denly interrupted by the natives, who
had been shrieking around the tree in
their shriil voices, and chanting what
Henrick told me were propitiatOry
hymns to the great devil tree. With
still wilder shrieks and chants they sur
rounded one of the women, and urged
her with the points of their javelins,
until slowly, and with despairing face,
she climbed up the stalk of the tree,
and stood on the summit of the cone,
the palpi twirling, twirling all about
her. ''Tisk, tisk," (uTink, drink y
cried the men, and, STOPPING, she drank
of the viseid fluid i'm the cup, rising in
stantly again with wild frenzey in her
face and cholera in her limbs. But she
did not jump down a she seemed to in
tend to. Oh. no, The atrOciOus canni-
bal that had been so inert and dead came
To sudden, savage life. The slender,
delicate palpi, with the fury of starved
serpents, quivered for a moment over
her head, then, as if by instinct, with
intelligence, fastened upon
her in sudden coils, round and round
her neck and arms; then, while her
awIul screams, and yet more awful
lau. .hter, rose wilder, to be instantly
strangled down again into a gurgling
moan, the tendrills, one after another,
like great green serpents with brutal
energy and internal rapidity, rose, re-
tracted themselves, and wrapped her
about in fold after fold, ever tightening
with the cruel swiftness and savage
tenacIty of anacondas fastening upon
sheir prey. 1t was the barbarity of the
LAGOON without its beauty-this strange
horrible murder. And now the great
leaves rose slowly and stifliy like the
arms of a derrick, erected themselves
in the air, ap1 p1roaching one another,
and closed about the dead and hampered
victim with the silent force of an
hydraulic press and the ruthless purpose
Of a thumbScrew. A moment more,
and while | could see the basis of the
great leaves pressing more tightly
toward each other. from their interstices
there trickled down the stalks streams
Of viscid honey-like fluid, mingled hor-
ribly with the blood and oozing viscera
Of the victim. At the sight of this, the
savage hordes around me. yelling mad
ly, bounded forward, crowded To the
tree, elasped it, and, with cups, leaves,
and tongues, got each one enough of
the liquor to send him mad and frantic.
Then ensued grotesque and indescri-
bably hideous orgy from which. even
while its convulsive madness was turn
ing rapidly into delirum and insensibil-
ty, Henrick dragged me hurriedly away
into the recesses of the forest, hiding
ne from the dangerous brutes and the
Drutes from me. May / never see such
1 sight again"
The Great Canal of China.
The great canal of China is likely to
IN n ra tho fate of the great wall This