Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1894-02-22
ADVENTURES OF ERAs1Us WEBER,
Remarkable Things That Happened In
Strange Lands.

Remarkable Things That Happened In
| Strange Lands.
| By Sam Walter Fossil
When Erastus Weber was In the wilds
Of Central Africa and he saw venom
Gus serpent leaping toward him he would
whisk outs pair of dentists forceps,
which he always carried with him, seize
the serpent by the head and extract his
poison fangs before the snake had any
idea Of what he was doing. He did this
repeatedly, and can vouch for it as
true, because he told me himself.
| He managed tigers very easily. He
had large number of little mirrors at
tached to spiral spring. Whenever a
tiger leaped upon him, which tiger was
very apt to do every few days, he would
adrOitly slip this spring over the tigers
rectly In front of the tigers eyes, and
he would see his own image reflected in
the mirror, and taking it for another mad
tiger, would chase after it on the gallop.
The tiger would keep up this chase until
he fell down and died from exhaustion.
In the mean time, Erastus Weber would
| sit down in perfect ease and fan himself
under palm tree. This story was also
told to me by Erastus himself and so
can be relied upon in every detail.
When Erastus was in South America
he said he never had any trouble with
earthquakes. Before going there he
prudently took the precaution to prac-
| tise high leaping and was able to Jump
up perpendicular to prodigious
| height. So whenever an earthquake
overlook him he would simply leap up in
the air and stay there until it was over
| This story is not founded on mere hear
say. Like the other, it was told me by
Erastus himself
Erastus said that in all his travels
through the uncivilized regions of both
North and South America he never had
any trouble with the Indians. 1t Is true,
as he admitted, that he was scalped IL
different times. But he went into the
Indian country prepared. He always
wore false scalp with red ink in the
lining, and when the Indians cut it off.it
would bleed like real scalp. So scalp
ing never hurt him any, and as it pleased
the Indians, he rather encouraged the di-
version. ----
One time, when Erastus was standing
under tree near the equator, he saw a
boa-cOnstrictor in the branches of the
tree just in the act Of leaping upon him.
On his left hand, at about the same dis
lance, was an alligator with jaws distend-
ed to receive him. But Erastus told me
himself that he was not frightened in
the slightest degree. Just as the boa
constructor leaped from the limb, and his
head, with eyes of molten fire, was hurled
down upon Erastus, Erastus lodged the
head, leaped up and caught the tail, still
resting on the limb, pulled it over the
limb, as you would pull rope over
pulley, and drew it down until the head
and tail of the great snake dangled
equally distant from the ground. Then
quicker than a flash of lightning he tied
the tail part of the snake about the alli-
gator and so left them all three dangling
in the air. The cougar just balanced the
alligator and the alligator just balanced
the cougar, and SO the snake could nei-
ther 60 up nor down, but hung there
with those equal weights dangling from
each end of itself, unable to move one
way or the other. Erastus now quietly
laid himself down and took long and
refreshing sleep. When he awoke they
were still dangling in the air; and when
he passed the same place three years
later their white and CHASTITY skeletons
we're suspended from the tree and ratified
in the wind. know this is true, for he
gave me one of the loose teeth that had
ratified out of the skeleton of the alliga-
tor.
When Erastus came home from his
long travels we were all very proud of
him. We used to like to take him around
and show him off. He had been all over
| tb1 md boz n
stories of thrilling adventure that we
were all proud to be known as the &C.
quaintances Of such man.
When he told, for instance, how he
was once ten days and ten nights, with
out even a plank to support himself,
afi oat in the Indian Ocean, and how he
escaped at last by killing whale with a
jack-knife, making balloon of his skin
and initiating it with hot air by burning
the whales oil, and then climbing into
the balloon and floating off to Australia
when he told such stories as this, we
were all proud to be known as the &C.
uuaintance of such an experienced and
entertaining man.
So we always liked to take Erastus
around, because as acquaintances of his
we ourselves shone In lesser degree
through his reflected glory.
But we found it was dangerous to let
him go off alone much as he was sure
to come home very badly mangled and
dislocated. 1t was no unusual thing for
him to come home with his arms in the
wrong place and his feet mismated. I'm.
less he was watched he was always fall
ing off the sidewalk and stumbling into
gas trenches. He was so absorbed In
the contemplation of his Australian and
South American adventures that he was
pretty sure to walk into every coal hole
and come home covered from top to toe
with blood and coal dust.
One time, while relating how, when
travelling in the Libyan Desert, he wal
taken up by hurricane and carried 81
miles in the air and only saved himself
by making parachute of his cane anC
his palm-leaf fan-while he was telling
, this tale he walked into an elevator wei
and fell four stories, but fortunately only
broke one leg.
, As sooJ as he was able to hObble GU
: and while relating to a listener how h
escsped from msd elephant in India b!