El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-10-20
ON THE ELI ISLANDS.

F, and have that luxury OF luXurieS to sea
voyers-a land dinner. Aud Their
l we saw more names: Wrinkled oil
women, plump and smiling young girl:
pleasure to look at: ma jestic youo
men clothed in loose arrange ment O
dazzling white with bronzed breas
and naked legs, and the head of
cannon-swab of solid hair combet
straight out and dyed rich red
Only 60 years ago they were sunk il
darkness: now they have the bicycle.
g We strolled about the streets O
the White Folks little town and around
lover the hills by paths and road:
among European dwellings, and by an6
| by we stopped to ask au elderly English
cOlOnist a question or two, and to
sympathize with him concerning the
torrid weather, but he was surprised
and said:
'This? This is not hot. You ought
I'VE supposed that this was summer.
But If it Isn't summer what does it
| lack?
sit lacks half year. This is mid
winter.'
8" Il had b en- suffering from colds for
several months, and & sudden change
of season, like this, could hardly fail to
do me hurt. 1t brought on another
cold. 1t is odd these sudden jumps
from season to season. A fortnight ago
we Is America in midsummer, now
it is midwinter: about week hence
we shall arrive in Austr ALA in the
spring.
"'It is fine race, the Fijians, with
brains in their heads, and an inqniring
turn of mind.
SIT appears that their savage auces-
tors bad doctrine of imm 1rtali,y in
their scheme of reli gion-with limita-
tiOns. That is to say, their dead friend
would 60 to a happy hereafter if he
could be accumulated, but not ether
wise. They drew the line: they thought
that the IN ssionary's doctrine was too
sweeping, too comprehensive. They
called his attention to certain facts.
For instance, many of their friends
had been devoured by sharks: the
sharks, in their turn. were caught and
eaten by other men; later, these men
were captured in war and eaten by the
enemy. The original persons had en-
tered into the composition of the
soarks; next, they and the sharks had
become part of the flesh and blood and
could the particles of the original men
be searched out from the final conglo-
crate and put together again? The
inquirers were full of doubts, and con-
slider ed that the missionary had not ex-
amined the matter with the gravity
and attention which so serious thing
deserved.
The missionary taught these exact
ing savages many valuable things, an0
got from them one-a very dainty and
poetical idea; Those wild and ignor-
ant poor children of nature believed
that the flowers, after they perish, rise
on the winds and float away to the fair
fields of heaven, and otlurished there
forever in immortal beauty
The story of the ornithorynohus is
also good. He says it was perh APPS the
only animal that did not go into the
ark at the time of the flood, but that
fact did not seem to brother it very
much, for he says there were plenty of
logs floating around on which to take
rest w hen not swim ming. AS to food,
i. had plenty. When it wanted fish it
caught them and when it wanted eggs,
it laid them.
SOME INDIAN TALES.
"Ir dia was quite now field for Mr.
Gle III ems. Some of the observations
are really very funny. Speaking of In
dian railros DIS he says:
latter while we stopped at a lit
tie wooden coop of a station just with
in the curtain of the sombre Jungle q
place with deep and dense forest of
great trees and scrub and vines all
about It.. TIL royal Bengal tiger is in
great force there, and is very bold and
From this lonely lit
tie station message once went to the
railway manager in Calcutta: "Tiger
eating station master on front porch;
telegraph instructions.
SIT was there that I had my first
tiger hunt. l killed 13, We were
presently away again, and the train
began to climb the mountains. In one
place seven wild elephants crossed the
track, but two of them got away before
| could overtake them
''Some of his stories, however, are as
pathetic as Others are humorous. In
stance the following:
"'We all know about Father Damien,
the French priest, who voluntarily
forsoOk the world and went to the leper
island of Molokai to labor among it's
population of sorrowful eXiles, who
wait there, in slOw-consuming misery,
for death to come and release them from
their troubles; and we know that the
thing which he knew beforehand
would happen, did happen: that he be-
came leper himself and died of that
horrible disease. There was still an
other case of self-sacri6ce, it appears.
| asked after Billy Ragsdale, inter
prefer to the parliament in my time
a half white. He was brilliant young
fellow, and very popular. AS an inter-
prefer he would have been hard
to match anywhere. He used to stand
up in the parliament and turn the
English speeches into Hawaiian and
the Hawaiian speeches into English
with a readiness and volubility that
were astonishing. | asked after him,
and was told that his prosperous career
was cut short in a sudden and uneX-
pee ed way, just as he was about to
mary a beautiful half-caste girl. He
d discovered, by some nearly invisible
sign about his skin. that the poison of
leprosy was in him. The secret was
his own, and might be kept concealed
for years: but he would not be treach-
erous to the girl that loved him; he
would not marry her to doom like
his And so he put his affairs in order
and went around to all his friends and
babe them goodbye. and sailed in the
leper ship to Molokai. There he died
the lOathsome and lingering death that
all lepers die.
'''And one great pity of it all is, that
these poor sufferers are innocent. The
leprCsy does not come of sius which
they committed, but of sins committed