Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1899-07-12

boundaries of nations. are swaying
upon the map, there is sixteenth
century performance, and the per-
formers are just as truly OF that age
and time as though they wore armor
and fired blunderbusses.
"Fred Funston was sixteenth cen-
tury knight, born three centuries too
late. He did the best ne could to
rectify the error of his birth by pranc-
ing up and down the frontiers OF the
world hunting adventure.
".He.: got as. good an education as
the schools of his township aud conn7
ty and state could give him, and in
1889 set out for the jousts of the tour
ney.
'He began his career as a Santa Fe
train collector and half n dozen cow
boys in New Mexico and Colorado
and western Kansas who laughed at
the little toy collector, rs they called
him, put their faces in court plaster
and bought new guns. One OF his
favorite pastimes was to disarm burly
cowboys who insisted on shooting
holes through the roof of the smoker.
"This sport grew tiresome and
Funston went back and took years
schooling on the proceeds of his saw
ings, after which, having passed the
civil service examination, he got
place in the agricultural department
at Washington as botauist, and went
into Dakota and Montana collecting
grasses for the collection in. the gov
ernment museum.
ga year later Funston was assigned
to the Death Valley expedition which
was sent to survey that fearful alkali
waste in southern California, where
the temperature ranges above 80 de-
grees Fahrenheit all the year round.
1t was q fearful trip-a journey across
the desert of Sahara would have been
a Sunday school picnic in comparison.
Every man who went III that expedl-
tion except Funston is either dead or
insane.
One day Funston started across the
desert 125 miles after the mail. He
got lost, the canister OF water gave
out, his horse fell under him and for
twenty-four hours he walked without
food or water with the thermometer
registering ITO and the sun beallng
down upon him.
''He dared not lie down and rest
and his mind began to deceive him,
but he found the road and kept
straight in spite of the calling voices
in the air, the booming of imaginary
cannon and the gurgle OF deceitful
water.
''Two days afterward he wrote me a
letter and devoted less than three lines
to the incident, and it was only by
prodd1ng and questioning that [ ever
got the truth from him.
CATER coming back from DeathYal-
ley, Funston went to Alaska, still
working for the government, collect
ing botanical specimens. After fifteen
months he returned home and equip
ped himself for another expedition
which today is record breaker for all
Alaskan travellers.
In April, 1898, Funston left Chill
coot inlet, and with party of miners
went over the divide to the head Of
the Yukon river. Two Indian guides
took him down to the mouth of the
Porcupiue river. He tackled his boat,
the Nancy Hanks, up tue Porcupine
to Rampant House, an abandoned Hud-
son Bay company trading post. There
he and missionary started to spend
the arctic winter
The monotony of the thing palled
on Funston, and with single Indian
he started for an evenings walk to the
Arctic ocean. Funston and the Indian
got lost. One day they came across
party of Indians going to q whaling
fleet, in the Arctic ocean. Funston
and his Indian joined the party and
came up to the feet, which was frozen
in the ice, where he told the news of
the presidential nomination III 1892
and of the election of Cleveland.
"He started back to Rampant House
and got there just as the morning of
spring was dawning. He had made a
journey of niue hundred miles in the
dead nj ght of an arctic winter. Peary's
famous journey in Greenland was only
four hundred miles, and it was made
in the light of midsummer.
"But Funston was too busy to get
famous. Leaving Rampant House, he
| went down the Porcupine river and on
down the Yukon to its mouth alone in
an open boat, journey of over
thousand miles. He made his report,
quit the government service and went
to Central America, where he tried to
establish coffee plantation and failed.
''Then he showed mp in the Cuban
army, where he served under Garcia,
enlisting as private and coming out
as lieutenant.colonel and chief OF
artillery in the division of the army
led by Garcia. His rank is higher
than that OF any other American Off
Ger in the Cuban army.
''He,was wounded three times, once
through the lungs, once through the
arm aud once in the thigh. He lay
three months en- bull-hide hammock
in the Cuban hospital, fearing every
moment that tbs guerillas who slaugl-
tered the sick might come and end his
misery.
"Thc story of no other American
who has lived in this last half of the
nineteenth century has SO much ad-
ventures and romance in it MS has this
brief story of Fred Funston. The
love of the romantic is SO strong in the
people, even in these humdrum days,