The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-01-21
BERnuDA's pEcuLIARITlEs.
Neither Soil nor Water, Animals nor
Birds, Only Coral.
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.

In no other part of the world,
think, did nature show such su
preme niggardliness as here. She
gave the Bermudas neither soil moi
water, neither animal nor bird
neither fruit, vegetables nor flower
She simply conferred the most de.
lightful weather under the canopy
and then stood off and said
"Such weather as that is boun.
tiful outfit, if you don't get another
thing" So it has proved. To the
prize weather all other things have
been added by visitors. The only
wild animals known here are the
rat and the mouse, brought by YES
sells; the casual and oleaginous
whale and the bat, that has blown
across the Atlantic by accident.
There is no game whatever, and
never has been. Of birds, the splen-
did cardina Of the tropics is here.
The blue robin of New England is
here, piping as bravely as ever.
The catbird has put in an appear
ance, and SO has that even greater
nuisance, the English sparrow, the
pirate of the winged world. Two
Spanish birds, the "chick of the
village" and the pretty ground dove
move quietly about. And that is
all. Not native bird among them.
l have said that nature gave Ber-
muda no soil. Ignatius Donnelly
thinks that these islands and the
Azores are the remains OF Plato s
faded continent-the last jot re-
naming above the sea after the
great cataclysm of one hundred
thousand years ago buried the rest
of the continent with its splendid
civilizations forever. In that case,
| should suppose there would be
some real soil, some rocks, some
drift, some sand, some clay, some
alluvium, some vegetable mold.
There is very little of the last and
not a bit of any of the others on
these islands. There is not clay
enough for pipe, or sand enough
for sand glass, or stone big or
little nearer than the coast of Geor-
gia. There is nothing here but
ground coral reefs, carbonate of
lime, digested and deposited by
that mucilaginous and shapeless
creature called the coral "insect." :"
This island is as white as so much
chalk, and about as barren. Water
soaks into it like sponge, and five
minutes after sharp shower one
can 60 out walking and find neither
mud nor moisture anywhere. On
some lowlands this comminuted
coral, with the mixture of elements
it has taken up, is not as hard as
elsewhere; and here it is occasion
ally cultivated by the admixture
with the soil of large quantity Of
fertilizers from America. 1t can
absorb unlimited cargoes of these
stimulants without having its life
much stirred by them. Tickle this
coral reef with a hoe ever so vigor-
ously, it never laughs with a har-
vest and after you have poured
into it oceans of poudrette, and
dosed it with loam and bound poul-
tices of warm ground upon its
stomach, it only smiles faint and
CHASTITY smile. But under these cir
cumstances, potatoes, onions, to-
matoes and lily bulbs are planted.
andif they can clasp rootlets around
anything softer than a cast iron
stove lid, they grow. Some things
grow in warm climate without
much encouragement. saw this
week a tamarind tree as large as
good sized New England elm, that
had been torn up by q hurricane
long ago, and stood on its very top,
its roots pointing toward the sky.
The branches that stuck into the
ground put forth roots and gave,
the wreck a new anchorage. while
the upthrown roots reverted and
set forth new limbs, and the dense
mass Of foliage now shades the
ground and invites the still fruit
full giant to forget its disaster.
There is no fresh water on the
island except what comes direct
from the clouds. The sky is the
cistern of Bermuda. The houses
are all built of the coral that is
quarried in beautiful white cubes
from the ground anywhere, seeming
fit for the sculptor's chisel there
every house is rooted with slant
roof of the same and furnished with
abundant tanks. In these the rain
is gathered and the tanks are so
very clean, and the roofs so very
white and the air is so very free
from dust that the water is the.
purest in the world-cold and pei
lucid as if drawn from the choicest
mountain spring. I never Saw such
delicious water anywhere. Nature
knew what she was about when she
omitted the Bermudian springs.
A Turkish Story.
There is Turkish proverb which
says that "The gift of q peasant
hinh y and this lR the illus