Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1894-03-10
AN EARTHLY PARADISE.
II We Would but Look Around, We Would
Find 1t at Our Doors.

- We Voutu Dut LOOK Around, we w Oul0
Find 1t at Our Doors.
That this earth Of ours is becoming a
Tat and uninteresting sort of place is a
faliacy born of indigestion and a weak
imagination.
There IS considerable portion of htl-
mainly who measure their happiness by
what they can kill. And still for these
the rogue elephant tra1nps down the tea
plants IN Ceylon and the man eating
tiger figures in the Indian jungles. The
South American possibilities in the hunt
ing way are barely explored.
Frank B. Sanborn reports that Albania
is splendid hunting ground for the
wild boar, a quarry more dangerous than
any In this country except the grizzly
bear. The African continent still
swarms with game, and except in the
equatorial belt is not too unhealthful to
visit. In many OF our states we have
reached the time when the enactment of
game laws is necessary. but there is
sport enough yet in Idaho, Montana, the
vast lake region of northern Minnesota,
the Maine woods, the tarpon's and alli-
gators haunts in Florida, and especially
the wild regions of British Columbia.
The bison has vanished, but there was
never much sport" in his senseless
slaughter.
Quieter minds find pleasure in the
| study of men and customs-past and
present. In our own land there is ma
terlal for the archaologists to study for
many years. Whether among the Won
| derful ruins of the cliff dwellers' villages
or IN the relics of the mound builders
there is work to be done rivaling Schlie-
mann's IN the Troad, Layard's at Birs
Nimroud, or Champoliion's in Egypt.
There are the living as well as the dead
the African dwarfs, the Fuegan giants,
the Melanesian cannibals, the Dyaks of
Borneo. There are the north African
potentates who will obligingly kill the
! amateur photographer, and Kaffirs who
Will feed him fat on juicy CONNECTIONS of
grasshoppers and snake pie.
There are those who seek neither
beasts to kill nor men to study, but
pleasant places to hide where winds blow
soft. These there are and always will
be, so sturdily does earth resist its de-
spoilers. The most tourist infested spot
IN the world. Switzerland, is full of I'M
visited hooks, while railroads into the
heart of central Asia and over the eau
casus and through Bosnia. and the Da-
nubian states take one to fresh haunts
and homes. In British Columbia are
glaciers finer than the Swiss. and off the
coast are balmy islands where. lollinG
on his veranda in the air of June, one
can look landward see towering peaks
topped with eternal snow.
For that matter, one doesn't have to
leave New York to find places where
only the green of spring is needed to
make paradise. Where are wilder and
nob.er crags than the Palisades, fairer
ranges of low mountains than the High
lands and Shawangunl1s? Tie Golden
Horn Is not more beautiful than the
Narrows, the Bosporus than our Hud-
son. on whose western bank almost on
posite New York the rattlesnake still
sounds his alarm, strange birds fit at
dawn and mountain laurel and mulber-
ry grow in profusion.
Come, sirs. a truce to melancholy.
The world is fair. Needs but to see if
so the artist eye, the poet soul. the gift
OF imagination. With these one NAV
grip firm his communication ticket and
cry to aid black blasphemy of pessi,nism
an answer stout, ''The earthly paradise
Is here.-New York Recorder.