The record-union., 1893-02-18

tive power. The very expertness and
bravery thus engendered are the supreme
requisites IN youths and men as seal
| hunters.
In the middle of the narrow straits of
Belle Isle. between Newfoundland and
labrador, stands weird. desolate Belle
Isle itself, the first land sighted on the
grewsome coast. There is a lighthouse
on Its southern headland, but no other
sign OF human habitation. The island is
| simply tremendous monolith of stone
nine miles long and three broad, rising
preclpitously from the sea at the outer en-
trance OF the straits, with not an iota of
Yerdure upon its iron-like sides and top.
once sailed close enough to Belle Isle,
IN little schoonerAto supply its hardy
keeper with a few newspapers and some
comforting American tobacco, which
prompted this reminiscence from the
skipper of our craft.
"Ye es," he said ruminatively, "only
once year any Government vessel lands
there, and the storms are so terrible that
every time we sailors pass we dread to
look up there, fearing the lighfus II be
blown away. How hard does the wind
| blow? Well, | can't rightly give we the
v'locity, but | can furnish facts. Twenty
years ago-'n' | well remember him-a
keeper named Vaughn had charge OF the
4iSHt. IS SOl SpIl o nalNeTln 3fI6r
green things. Awful foolish; but tWus
hard to git anybody to stay there at all,
SO they lowed his scheme for u garding.
they took hull boat loads OF soil up there
N made him a garding N acre big.
Nothln' would grow on it, but he liked to
dig IN 1t, prob'ly. One evenin' a whirlin'
sort of storm riz N sorter kept risin' all
night. When Vaughn polled his head out
III the mornin' he couldn't see the gard
ing nowhere. He didn't know at fust
| but he was leetle confused hisself, an
climbed back an took his bearin's, but
| ther' was no garding nowhere certain.
Ihat tornado had jest yanked up the
null sile an spilled it all over th' 'Lantic
Vaughn had sperit, he did. He wouldn't
stand that. So he threw up the job an
took to shown SEALS"
\ few years since l found a lighthouse
keeper IN still greater misfortune than
the Belle Isle keeper who lost his garden.
1hls was while coasting among the Bahia
ma Islands. 1t was at Double Shot Head
Keys at the edge of the grand banks of
Bahama, which you would pass, were
you crossing the banks Cubaward, as
you entered the Gulf of Mexico. 1t is a
dangerous spot in navigation, low, ugly
looking, dreary and juts out of the sea
saVagely.
The woman is a character. In Eng
ernment finally took cognizance of her
powers OF home and neighborhood ruin
and provided her husband, who was a
lighthouse keeper on the Devonshire
Coast, with this forlorn and isolated
charge. The woman is forty incarnate
tiends. Besides, she is a pirate in her
way. Alone and unaided she will haunt
the channel for merchant crafts plying
between Cuba and American ports, de-
manding tribute. Shippers have whole
some fear OF her tongue and asuperstitious
dread OF her evil eye" and will humbly
toss her pork, beef, sacks of onions or
potatoes and the like, glad to thus easily
escape her wrath and maledictions. Her
husband is an humble prisoner and slave.
Several half serious but altogether ridic-
ulous attempts to rescue him have been
made by wreckers and others haunting
the tloridan and Bahama reefs and keys,
and in each instance this virago OF Double
Shot Head Keys has nearly clubbed them
to death for their pains.
EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.