Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-02-27
A QUEER LOUISIANA COLONY.
Men who Live ON StiIts-A village In
Which There Are No Women.

Men who Live ON StiIts-A village In
Which There Are No Women.
| From the New York Sun.
| From prehistoric days people living on the
! marshy borders of lakes have preferred to
place their dwellings in convenient position
| for their boats, and have used spiles, driven
into the edges of the lakes, for the foundations
| of their dwellings, which were at once houses
| and wharves. On the banks of Lake Maracaibo,
| in Venezuela. are several of these villages, and
| they are to be found in obscure places in Asia
and on the west coast of Africa.
| Taking the Shell Beach cars from New Or
leans and passing through fair and fertile
| country by the ancient battlefield where Jack
son won his iaurels. whose long line of fortiti-
/ catiOns repaired by the cOnfederateS may still
be seen. you reach in hour the shores Of
| Lake Borgne: There is fine new club house
| here, owned by the hunting and fishing club,
/ containing sleeping rooms enough TO accom-
modate half the club at once. From the OBJ
strong glass what looks like cluster of low
| huts away to the distant curve of the lake
shore. This is the Malay village OF lake dwell
| lers.
There is a hotel here, too. kept by an old
| Spanish Creole and his wife, shy, slender,
| brown girl with bare feet and a calico sun bon
net of Unreasonable depth of tunnel and
dim obseurity down in its depths in which her
| big dark eyes look soft and shadowy. They
keep a pet alligator about the place, tied to a
stake, and inclined To be extremely open with
strangers. who pat him on the head and whistle
upper lid and shuts il again with bang that
Is unpleasantly emphatic. There is solitary
tremely reserved disposition, whose bill the
hotel keeper, with an eye to decoration and
exquisite Iberian taste, has painted vivid
green. A long pier runs out from the hotel a
hundred yards into the lake, where boat may
be hired to go anywhere, even TO the Malay
village, though the little French boatman
warns you they. the Maays, are not sociable,
and are lamentably careless in the use of the
knife.
The viI1aoa IL On bour,s soil acrorS the o,,r,o
| OF the lake, and there, in the brown, OOZy
marsh, away from any human habitation, with
only the fiat, DIM horizon in sight, is this pri-
meval phase of civilization. a sleepy, crawl
ing bayou runs through the village, and the
water marks on the piles tell how hi h the tide
rises at certain seasons, so that they are sur
rounded entirely by water in the spring. Just
now a little coarse grass pricks through the
Shiny earth, leprous with salt resduum from
the tides, and swarms of fierce, bloodthirsty
mosquitoes rise in clouds as feet wadiag
through the mud disturb them. There are
eight houses here, built up on piles ten feet
high, and made of hewn timbers roughly put
together and admitting air and light every
squares divided into three rooms, with batten
shutters hung on leather hinges, and no door
To any doorway, except the one that leads to
the rude, unroo1ed gallery. The houses are
mostly about 80 feet long by 1S wide, andsome
SIX or eight men occupy each one Almost all
OF the men away fishing at the moment,
but an ancient weather-beaten party greetS
cIvllly enough in a sort of bastard Spanish,
difficult to understand. His face is the color of
There are two or three others lOuHging about
with pipes in their mouths, more or less free
translationS of the first ancient mariner, but
not a woman to be seen. 1t is n strictly mascu-
line community. No woman is allowed within
its borders.
There is a legend at the Shell Beach that
once. yearning for the sweet amenities OF fem
mime companionship, one woman was imported
friendship that had lasted for years were
snapped The laws of the village were Set at
nausht and every night disputes, accentuated
with knives, arose as to the recipients vi her
favor The heads of the community consulted
together 1t was evident that this dusky Helen
was destined to bring on WARFARE like that of
the Kilkenny cats, 50 il resolved itself into q
question OF the first law of nature. The whole
body, exhausted with diSsentIon, consenting,
the unhappy female taken out into the
marsh, tied to- q stake and abandoned to the
mosquitoes, who made short work of her. They
picked her bones clean, since which time no
woman has been allowed to set foot within the
village. But this is only legend.
The men support themselves by hunting and
fishing, and live in a primitive fashion, ruled
over by sort OF patriarch, who settles disputes
and governs the community in ali important
matters.
The sole amusement is gambling with an
original sort of card, OF which there are only
twenty-SeVen in the pack, all of them quite I'M
like the cards in general use. This, with
game something like the .'old horse of child
ren forms the occupation OF all their idle hours.
They have no religion apparently, and if crime
Is committed among them who knows? The
waters of the bayou would tell no tales, and
blood might cry aloud from those vast lonely
marshes ana no ear listen closer than the low
blue skies.
They have but little furniture. The only
toucn high art is displayed in the dull brown
blanket suspended before the inner door. They
sleep on boards supported on trestles, with no
bedclothes other than a blanket, and, above ali,
no mosquito netting. There great heavy
tables of hewn timber, where they eat their
meals and play their games. y few pots and
kettles and huge cal then jars where their
water remains cool and fresh, complete the list
OF their possessions.
Twenty years ago or more few Malays and
Lascar Seamen deserted from their ships at the
| New Orleans leyee, driited out here, and found
! the deSolate marsh to their taste. They have
gradually accumulated more Asiatics from time
| To time, until they number now something like
fifty men, who live this single, amphibious lite
with perfect cOntentment. Dwelling almost all
/ OF the time upon the water and crawling out
upon the Shiny banks TO eat and sleep; drop
| ping into unknown graves, and Oblivious to
all the ouLer world as if in another planet.
Ardent Spirits and Digestion.
From the Nineteenth Century.
With respect to the action of ardent spirits
on digestion, experiments made with
proof spirits" and with brandy Scotch whisky
and gin and the conclusion is that, so far as
salivary digestion is concerned, these spirits
when used in moderation and well diluted as
they usually are when employed dietetically
rather promote than retard this part of the di-
gestive process, and this they do by causing an