The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1900-08-30
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|. Comforts That Cost
: MANY LIVES ,
: 10 Secure Them.

There was discussion the other aay
In a well known florists place as to how
many lives orchids had cost. One mar
ticularly dainty specimen was pointea
out as having probably the bloodiest rec
ord, for five lives were lost in the effort
to carry the first lot that ever had been
seen to the coast. This was in Batavia
and out or party of six orchid hunters
only one reached home with the flow
ers One of the others had died from
snakebite, two from fever and one had
been lost in the swamps in the interior
and had no doubt persisted there II is a
strange thing that OF all exotic things
these the most dainty and fragile and
tenderly beautiful, should have so red a
history. Yet, If one could know all the
n,iseries and pains and frightful lonely
deaths that have been endured by the
orchid hunters, every bloom in the conn
try would seem to be dripping with blood
Many things contribute to this In the
first place, orchids usually are in wilder
nesses that, besides being almost or en-
tirely primeval, are infested with deadly
fevers and equally deadly serpents and
insects Again, so fierce is the rivalry
between the hunters for the honor and
financial profit of obtaining new or rare
specimens that the men usually GO alone,
and thus have no one on whom to call
when they get into trouble or fall i'll
Perhaps IL Is merciful that dead men
can tell no tales. Else terrible nara
tives might come from the fever-haunted
solitudes where men have lain for DAYS
and sometimes weeks dying from fever,
with no living being within hundreds OF
miles
There is the story of that hunter wig
had searched for many months for a par
ticular specimen that he knew was in ex-
istence, but which seemed as evasiye as
II 1t had the gift of motion. He had trav-
ersed mile after mile Of morass and thick
ct and jungle day after day, until he Wa.
worn out body and soul and he was
about 10 give up the search when sud
denly, through an open glade he spied the
object OF his long search. The sight gave
him new life. Quickly he rushed 10 the
tree where the glorious flower hung and
seized the stem which he saw twned
around the trunk But the stem writhed
and struck at HIM A brown kerait, the
deadliest snake Of the tropics. had been
hanging among the Turing flowers, and
the hunter died within a few hours Ac-
cidentally a party Of sportsmen, searching
the thiclSet for big game. came upon the
body. The man had killed the snake
1t lay near him, and so the whole story
was plain as If il had been told in words.
News came some years ago that a new
kind of tree cat was to be found In East
Africa. Two scientists set out indepen-
IDENTIFY. each resolved to get a specimen
beautiful brown animal with fluffy ears
-or die One Of them did dis n,fore his
expedition had gone two days march into
the back country; but the other-Bernard
Meyrick by name-a very seasoned collec-
tor--went into the heart OF East Africa
with an escort of twenty native guides
and carriers. Though passing through
the finest big game country in the world,
he shot nothing except for food; and af-
ter two severe attacks of fever, a narrow
escape from death by a snake bite, and
the desertion OF his native followers, it is
related by the New York Press, he OBJ
tanned specimen of the brown tree cat
alive and another dead. He spent two
years in the wilds before this success
came to him, but he came back to Eng
land triumphant.
Edelweiss-"nobe white in English
that beautiful, aptly named silver white
plant which grows nowhere except in the
Alps, and there only on the edges of the
most tremendous prccipices, has cost hum
dreds of lives. Most of those who sacri-
feed themselves in the search for IL were
mountaiueers, who gathered it to sell.
But scores of visitors to the Alps have
climbed to dangerous points and swung
themselves over abysses TO reach a sin
gle tiny sprg of It, and, losing their foot
| hold have crashed thousands of feet to
death. Last year two women thus
\ dragged each other over the edge of one
of the high peaks, and when the bodies
were found one had in her hand the little
growth which had cost two lives.
The magnificent blue-and- Papuan
harp butterfly of New Guinea was the
despair of scientists for years There was
one ragged specimen in the Berlin mu-
| seum-the only one known, A score of
travellers tried to get one, but in vain, for
| this butterfly, which is very rare. haunts
! the tops of the highest trees In the Wild
/ est parts of New Guinea. The Papuans
are hostile and treacherous. The first
| two collectors nearly were massacred by
them They escaped. but after six
months search and great hardships had
to abandon the quest.
| They reported that II was impossible TO
get an example Of the Paupan harp. be-
cause the natives would never allow any
stranger in the inner forests. Even when
there. one might spend year without
seeing the harp. This did not deter How
ard whitby. the famous zoologist. and
his Australian attendant from trying.
whitby was caught and tortured to death
by the Papuans the Australian. however
escaping. Several more failures occurred,
and two men-one Dutch, and the other