The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-03-01
TOUGH But TRUE.
The Captains Story Was as Good as the
Biggest Kind of q Lie.

The Captains Story Was as Good as the
biggest Kind of a Lie.
II is extremely difficult to tell a lie.
Falsifying is as easy as to roll down a
creased plane. But a sublime lie, in
which one hand touches the stars and
the other dives down through the
earth and comes out the other side,
that requires genius. | remember in
my youthful days having an immense
respect for George because he could not
tell lie. As l advanced found that
to do so he would have required the
brilliancy of Hamilton, the astuteness
of Robert Morris and the cleverness of
Franklin-which he did not have-but
was simply the well-shaped marble
Washington we know to-day.
The difficulty consists in the fact
that truth no longer confines herself to
her proper realm of probability. She
takes to herself such unlimitable
bounds that the most brazen-cymbaled
lie possible to be conceived, dreamed
or manufactured has, metaphorically,
physically and spiritually, taken a
back seat.
l am led to these reflections by some
remarks of my friend, Capt. Ebenezer
Luffhard. 1t seems truly sad that the
world has changed so much that man
can no longer tell lie without its be-
ing detected as the truth.
We were speaking of the launching
of ships.
do you know" said the captain,
that down in the Caribbee islands
people build ships up on top of an old
volcano? Yes, sir: thOusan' feet 'bove
sea level. Yes, sir, Dutchmen. An
bowed if they don't launch 'em, too
A smile went around the circle which
made the glasses jump on the table. 1t
was an incredulous smile.
but by the tarnel cells! I've seen
EN-. A lot of Dutchmen. Live in u
crater. Thousan' feet up. An so steep
you have to go up steps cut in the rock
to get to it. An they built ships there
in the crater o a volcano. An what's
more, not a stick of timber grows on
the blasted place"
"Now, cap ventured one of his
hearers. Fur be it from me to say a
gentlman an old skipper, like meself,
amt confnin' hisself to the truth. An
I've of'en herd tell of folk, long the
Bay o Fundy, buildin' ships way off in
the woods, noways nigh the water.
But thar the tide rises sixty feet an
launches them ships as slick as though
they was built in ship yard. But,
dash my skin. if ever herd of a tide
risin' a thousan' feet! How do they
launch them ere boats?7
Lower 'em down the rocks, clear
into deep water. I'm son of a sea
cook, if havn't seen them Dutchmen
lower 'em down-thousan' feet!'
Ichuckled over one of the captain s
best What was my disgust to subse-
quently find in Down the Islands, :"
by William Agnew Patton, page 90,
the name of this remarkable spot in
Saba, small Dutch island, rising out
of the sea in sheer walls of rock. That
the inhabitants really live one thousand
feet up in the air, in the crater of an
extinct volcano, Mr.. Patton says in his
very interesting book:
1.-THE people of Saba are celebrated
throughput lHS NdTIOoSdu inldhuS iOL
the fishing boats they build in crater
the oldest places imaginable for a
shipyard. When the boats are ready to
be launched they are lowered down
the overhanging precipices into the
sea. There is no timber growing on
the island, no beach from which to
launch boat when it is built. no har-
Dor to shelter one when launched, and
T
their trade of ship-building and cruise
all about the Caribbean archipelago in
the staunch, seaworthy craft they con-
struct in the hollow of crater on the
top of their mountain colony"
Alas! the captain had but told us the
truth. Let us charitably conclude that
he thought the story so improba BILE
that it would answer as well as lie
| PHILADELPHIA Times.