The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-12

! crew Wa ~ 80. e.. -.U- ~otes wnlch
might make the captain of a 4. and 0.
steamer look grave, oneis much more in
clined to admire them than to laugh at
| them.
The freight brought back by the Nal
dive Bungalows from India and Malacca
consists chiefly of rice, which is the great
local import; but the outward bound
cargoes are usually very miscellaneous
indeed. One vessel is loaded with what
you might take for telegraph wire at
first sight. and indeed it is something
quite as strong-the famous light brown
''coir rope" twisted out Of dried grass,
and used as cordage by all the native
boats Of the Indian ocean-while ali the
rest of the scanty space is cralnmed with
those small cowrie shells which are still
current as money in not few parts of
the east. A second craft is freighted
with tortoise shells and third with
cocoanuts.
Were you to board the fourth bugga-
low you would find plenty to admire, for
the mats that form her cargo-woven
out of rushes by the Maldive ladies'
are very neatly and prettily worked, and
often much more elaborate in pattern
than one would have expected. But you
had better avoid the fifth, which, loaded
with something that looks like decaying
leather, though it is really dried fish-is
not to be rashly approached, unless you
wish to learn to your cost why hun
dred scents make one dolor.
Should you wish to be presented at
court las many people are curiously
anxious to be who denOunce all courts as
''haunts of effete luxury you have not
far to 60 Easternmost of thegroup lies
the isle Of Male (from which the Nal
dives take their name of ''Male-Diva" or
Male islands) tiny kingdom of 1000
souls, mile long by half a mile broad,
in which reigns the royal Tom Thumb,
who holds the rank of sultan of the
Maldive isles. His majesty is accessible
enough, and all that you have to do is to
send him gift Of knife or Ratchet,
aud express your wish to "lay your hon.
age at his sublime feet"
But you will find at his court mighty
little "effete luxury" Of any kind. Con-
Quoted by anative lord in waiting Whose
official dress appears to consist chiefly of
a turban and a shirt you march up to
high mud wall and halt before a clumsy
gate of moldering planks, fanked by two
small iron ship guns Within lies vast
court yard, at the far end of which, in
kind of alcove rooted with palm leaves,
squats on a reed mat a stout, heavy old
man, with broad, unmeaning face, who
is no other than the sultan himself. He
will ask you many strange questions
upon your own country and people, po-
litely express his wonder that a bar
barian unbeliever from the ends of the
earth" should be so civilized, and finally
Of he happens to be pleased with you)
will pop into your mouth with his own
august fingers squeezed up pile of
greasy rice from the dish before him, or
else offer you some one of his wives of
whom he has got tired.
The isle Of Male itself is brisk and
bustling little place in the trading sea-
son, the sultan having been "cute"
enough to ordain that his own island
shall be the only one where any business
shall be transacted with foreigners. Its
people are for the most part quiet, easy
going set, the men being chiefly en-
ployed in fishing and the women in
making mats.
1t is hard for any one to realize that
this quiet, beautiful, prosperous little
settlement has within the memory of
living men been the scene of one of the
most fearful tragedies on record. Yet
such is actually the case. To the older
islanders who can remember it, the very
name of the terrible spring of 1847 still
carries with it a weight of horror eX-
ceeding that with which South Austria
liza recalls her fatal BLACK Thursday"
In truth Dante himself could hardly do |
justice to the horrors of such storm |
among these defenseless islands, most Of |
which are low and fat enough for the |
sea to sweep right over them. Whittier |
were the doomed wretches to fly with |
the devouring waves all around them |
and the whirlwind bowling above? One
can fancy them looking forth over the |
wild waters on that grim April morning, !
with the same dumb despair that crept |
over the giants of the elder world when |
they saw the coming Of that great day |
of wrath, long delayed and long disbe- !
lieved, when 1.-The fountains of the great /
deep were broken up and the windows |
of heaven were opened"
Down comes the destroying hurricane,
and before the blast of its fury tall |
palms are torn away like grass, and |
large boats hurled far up onto the /
shore, while the light native huts melt |
away as if they had never been. Prone |
equal in this hour of universal doom.
Women clasp their children to their
breasts with unavailing shrieks Of agony,
for their cries are lost amid the hellish
din of that sky rending uproar, in which
even the cannon of Gettysburg would
have been unheard as an infants wall.
Crash on crash, the great pillows come
up the land. each in turn sweep
ing away its tale of human victims. and
the narrow space of dry land which is
still left amid that roaring ocean of ruin
grows smaller and smaller every mo-
ment, as the white crested armies of
death come marching onward.
And now. far in the distance. Almighty
wall of dark water is seen towering high
above the white Tipped wrath of the sea.
On 1t comes, swift and merciless as a
pursuing tate. One shock. one deafen-
ing crash, one boiling Whirl of foam, |
and allisover. The once happy and beau