The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-09

arranged to lead those who followed them
to some delightful bit of landscape. Statues
that had cost thousands of dollars were
mounted on pedestals that rose from
mounds or earth purposely contrived for
their reception. An enormous amount of
money was expended on the grounds about
the house, but the house itself was the won
der OF the community. 1t was SO large
eno pretentious and costly that its fame
penetrated the whole state, and il was
known as Bowers mansion.
Few people can imagine how the beauty
OF the place was exaggerated when it was
seen by ewes wearied of the endless sage
green undulating sea Of brush in a sta o
where grew scarcely tree or blade of
grass 1t costs hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and 20 the eye Of the tired traveller,
his throat parched with alkali dust, it
looked as IL might have cost millions. Men
went there from hundred miles distant to
lie on the grass by the pond under the
spreading branches of a tree and listen to
the muSmur Of pleasant fountains. Sandy
made his house as open and free to the
traveller as his grounds. He hung the walls
with tapestries and costly pictures, and fine
carpets and rich rugs covered the floors
and Railways. He had piano, the case of
which was magnifcently carved, and was
very proud of it, although neither himself
nor any one in his house could play upon it.
He had hundreds of beautifully bound books
IN bis library that were Of no more value
10 MIN for any use he could make of them
than the stars in Orion's belt. Sandy's mag
nlficenceextended not only to his house and
Immediate surroundings but it reached out
IN grateful recognition TO the mine that had
made him rich. In the mill that was built
to crush the precious ore the beams were of
mahogany, and the wood, the cost of which
was trebled by the expense of getting it
over the mountains, was lavishly used in
the whole structure. 1t made no difference
that the flying dust and powdered rock hid
it from sight; Sandy could spit on his large
rough hand and rub it off if the incredulous
visitor doubted and must see the wood
ITSELF
So lived Sandy Bowers in pleasure and
ease, and day by day his wealth multiplied
Seated on the porch of his mansion his eye
roved over the beautiful garden he had
made to blossom in the desert, and beyond
be beheld the growing city nearer the bright
blue waters OF Washoe The imaginative
eye beheld in the future populous metrop-
oils grown from the village of his making;
Ophlr still pouring out of its deepening
depths an endless stream of silver and gold,
and he himself enjoying the sunny days of
his old age in his garden grown more beau
tiful.
Bowers mansion still has local habita-
zion and name, but only the ghost of its
former beauty survives and casts over it
the consuming shadow of decay. The little
lake is empty and dry, the walls of masonry
have crumbled down, and the shifting sands
have crept into it. The lizard and horned
toad live there now, and the snake winds
his length along where then the goldfish
swan and the carp turned his sides to the
SUM- The gray spirit of the desert comes to
reclaim his own, and the sagebrush has
crept up from the plain below aud down
from the hill above over the once beautiful
spot. The grass and the trees have found
no life in the moistureless soil, and for all
the rare flowers that onca lent the air the
fragrance of their breath there is now to be
found only the pink wild rose.
The sombre desoletion of the hills has en-
croached upon the place, and holds it now
as firmly as if man had never made il beau
tifuL The house is deserted and ruined,
and all the many chambers open to the
winds and the rain. The Ophir of Sandy's
time is now as worthless as the Ophir of the
earlier days. Washoe, that stood a bust
ling town of many thousand people, is to-
day as deserted and dead as is Bowers
mansion. Sagebrush grows where once
were streets, and those who chung to the
place, hoping against hope that fortune
might revive and Ophir might again pour
out into its lap the millions that it did, tore
down houies for fuel and sadly bided the
hoped-for time. But the dust settled on
them while they waited, and they, too, at
length gave up the fight and rendered
Washoe back to nature.
Half way up the steep side of the hill
that rises abruptly behind Bowers man
sion, under great large pine trees, in whose
waving branches the wind murmurS
requiem, Sandy Bowers sleeps