The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1881-03-16
A TOWER OF SKULLS.
The chastly Sight 20 be Seen on aB Island
on the Const Of Africa.


Coast, f" tells this terrible story of East
em vengeance; Heading southwark
along the Tunisian sea-board in one of
the little coasters with which these wa
tere abound, you find in the angle form
ed by the intersection of the Tunis coast
line and that of T1ipoli large, low,
nearly circular island, which at first sight
appears fully as barren and desolate as
the gray unending sands of the African
shore along the southern horizon. Your
map will tell you that this uninviting
sandbank is called the Isle of Jerbeh, a
name which, unless you happen to be
unusually we'll read in the chivalric
chronicles of the sixteenth century, will
probably leave you just as wise as you
were before. Apparently, however, your
Arab fellow-passengers are better in
formed, for the first glimpse of the island
seems to produce an extraordinary COM
motion among them. Hands are eagerly
pointed at the long grayish-yellow band
which lies almost level with the smooth
brigh water, and the slumberous black
eyes flash fire under the shadow of the
huge white turban, while the name of
Buri-er-Roos" flies from mouth to
mouth. Even should you happen to
have learned Arabic enough to know
that this mysterious word means "tower
of skulls, you are hardly likely to be
very much enlightened thereby. The
captain of the vessel, should he be an
Englishman, will give you but little
help in your embarrassment, answering
your appeal for information only'by
knowing grin and an admonition to
keep your eyes open and you'll see q
pretty queer sight before long" Little
by little huge, grayish-white mass be-
gins to define itself upon the fiat, sandy
shore of the island, standing up gaunt
and grim against the warm, dreamy
blue of the lustrous sky. AS we ap-
proach, this formless heap
gradually shapes itself into frown-
ing ramparts and turreted battle
ments and massive towers and all the
barbaric grandeur of genuine Eastern
fortress. At its feet the bright blue sea
breaks in glittering wavelets, while be-
hind it--an oasis of rich foliage amid
the hot, brassy yellow of the sandy
shore-the vast banner-like leaves of the
date palms droop voluptuously upon the
breezeless air. No painter could wish
finer study, but the most striking
feature of the panorama iststill to come.
A sudden turn of the coast reveals
projecting headland, surmounted by
tall white tower, at sight of which the
shouts of "Burj- j-er-Roos Buri-er-
Roosp burst forth again with re-
doubled energy. The strange building
is cone-shaped, and altogether not un-
like the giant ants nests of Africa or
South America, but many yards in height
and resting upon base as broad as that
of cathedral tower. Moment
by moment, as the ship nears
the land, this mysterious structure
stands out more and more plainly. 1t
is not long before you begin to notice
that the seaward face of the tower has
crumbled beneath the action of wind
and weather, revealing through a wide
gap the dark hollow of the interior.
AS you gaze, there breaks suddenly
out of it's gloomy shadow, Just where
the light enters it, a yellowish, ghostly
glmmer, like dim lantern-light seen in
vault. You have recourse to your
glass. and perceive with a momentary
thrill of horror, that this strange glim-
mering proceeds from the teeth of thous-
ands of human skulls, which fill up
the whole interior of the building.
This is the famous " Burr -er-Roos,"
or Tower of Skulls, which, for three
centuries past, has given to this remote
nook a strange and terrible renown.
The vengeance of Timour has left upon
the banks of the Oxus more than one
Golotha of this kind, which L had an
unexpected chance of examining during
the Khiva expedition of 1873. In
Europe, however, there is but one sim
liar monument, which, as might be ex-
pected, belongs to Turkey, the only
European country in which such a
relic of utter barbarism would not be
out of place in the nineteenth century;
The traveller who rides along the great
southern highroad from Belgrade to the
Sofia Pass over the Balkan, sees by the
wayside pyramidal building in which
are imbedded 10000 human skulls
Nor does this ghoul-like memento date
back to any remote age of half
human ferocity. 1t is no older than the
year 1906, when Servia's declaration of
independence was answered by Turkey
with the massacre which have left these
$4,000 Christian heads lasting memo
rial of what the unspeakable Turk {"
has always been and always will be.
But among all these trophies of death
there is not one which can claim to be
either as well-preserved or as hideously
artistic as the fatal tower of Jerbeh. 1t
seems as if those who planted it here
for an eternal monument of their VEN
geance had taken a grim pleasure in
making it imperishable as the hatred by
which that vengeance was devised. The
skulls are ranged in symmetrical layers,
like shells in the cases of a museum,
each layer being supported upon a kind
of trestle-work formed from the
larger bones of the skeletons which
has served as the materials of this
CHASTITY architecture. The care with
which every bone has been placed, and
the gradual tapering off of the higher
tiers toward the point of the cone so far