Omaha daily bee., 1902-03-23

~" of childish fear with which, bur-
led in his we'll thumbed robin
IS49EE9I son Crusoe," he crept after Fri
day and his master, cautiously,
tremblingly through the tropic underbrush,
to peer out at the horrible Caribs dancing
around their cannibal banquet on the beach?
In after years did not the dull pages of
the history lesson suddenly glow with
human interest when that canoe full of
fierce savages, very lion-like and terrible
of countenance, with red-painted cheek
bones" rushed out to battle with the sail
ors of Columbus. and we recognized our old
enemies of the story book? Most incredi-
bly, fierce and brave" Columbus called
them, quite amphibious, fighting with
equal skill from the water, after their
canoe was overturned"
On the little island of Dominica, which,
oddly enough was the first of their strong
holds to be discovered and the last to be
surrendered, live in almost inaccessible
mountain forests pitiful remnant of the
Carib race. For the sake of the old child
hood memories, this brief sketch of their
latter end, before they die out utterly,
seems worth the writing.
How Columbus Pictured Island.
A strange, wild beautiful island, this Do
minca. Columbus, at loss for words to de-
scribe it, crumpled a sheet of paper and
threw it down upon the table before Queen
Isabella. One could easily imagine that, at
first. its highest peak, well named Mount
Diablotin, had stood alone, lashed by gi-
gantic seas, which, by a miracle, had been
turned into billows of red, damp earth and
gray volcanic ash, over which nature had
thrown a marvellous mantle of countless
shades Of green, woven with fantastic pat
terms in brillant-colored tropic flowers
A weird uncanny land of dark, mys-
terious forests, through which the noon
struggles feebly; of darker, more mys-
terious gorges, into which the sun falls not
at all.
land beneath which seethe wicked,
world-od volcanic fires, full of devil
haunted spots, where sulphurous waters
bubble up steaming hot, spewing out horrid
masses of Shiny mud, tinted in unnatural
hues of vivid red and green, with weird,
oily gurging like some monstrous living
thing. In the crater OF Mount Diablotin
itself a boiling lake lies like a huge silver
spider, Turing strangers through his net
of emerald green to slay them with deadly
invisible vapors an English tourist and
his guide the latest victims, only a few
weeks ago
Surely this island, with its savage beauty
strange, lion-featured Caribs, who fitted
noiseless and mysterious as their own for
ests, from shadow to shadow, until they
burst with diabolic shouting, a wild hur>
ricane of death, upon the white-face in
vaders Of their land.
Unlike All Other Indians.
Wrapped in fascinating mystery is this
Carib race. Unlike all other Indian tribes
in appearance and customs, their origin
is speculative; their habits travellers tales
too often evidently untrue. Occupying the
chain of islands known as the Lesser An
titles, they were very different from the
peaceful Arawaks of Trinidad, only a few
miles distant from their southern islands,
or the easily conquered Indians of Porto
Rico so near them to the north Indeed
they had a pleasant habit Of assembling
great fleets OF war canoes and sweeping
down upon the larger islands, killing or
carrying off for slaves their less warike
population. Tradition says that each year,
gathering from their various islands, they
would travel in their trail boats. over 300
miles Of turbulent sea, to the mainland Of