Arizona republican., 1904-02-11

having him dragged from bed one night and paraded through the streets of Caracas dressed only in a blanket
 Curacoa is known .througout the West Indies as the place where it never rains. In this respect it differs greatly from other islands, in which terrential showers that turn a dry gully into mighty river within five minutes are of frequent occurrence
 An American consul who went there was told of this characteristic, but on the day he arrived at Willemstad the rain came down in torrents. The tile roof of the dilapidated one story hotel in which he put up did not seem to be much in the way of the downpour and in short time every room in the house was flooded.
 Why don't you repair the roof?' he asked the landlord indignantly.
 Tt rains too hard" replied the phleg- matic Dutchman.
 "Of course I don't expect you to do 1t now: But l suppose you will go to work on it when the rain stops"
 "Oh no; I don't think it is worth bothering about" said the landlord puffing philosophically at his damp pipe. 'I have been here for twelve years and it has never rained before. Likely enough it won't rain again in my life time"
 Rain would be greatly valued in Curacoa if it would only come for there is no place on earth where fresh water is scarcer. There is not a single run ming stream anywhere in the island, nor even a stagnant brook.
 There are wells it is true, and plenty of water may be found by digging, but it is all so salt that it is no more fit to drink than sea water that surrounds the island.
 How then do you manage to live ?'' an English merchant residing in Will emstad was asked.
 Well" he replied, we are some what in the position of those French peasants who complained to Marle Antoinette that they were starving be- cause they could get no bread to eat. You remember the queen told them to go and eat cake.
 We cant get water to drink but we can get any amount of whiskey and seltzer by importation, and thu Dutchmen receive all the gin they want from Holland"
 It is not really so bad as that, how ever. Most houses have a cistern or water tank which is filled periodically with water imported at considerable expense from the Venezuelan coast It goes without saying that the precious fluid is used most economically.
 Ice, which seems a necessary lux ury in the tropics, is even rarer than water. It has to be brought all the way from Boston or New York and the retal price is high. Often there is no ice to be had for love or money.
 The starting of an ice-making plant has been often mooted, but the scarcity of water has rendered it impossible
 It might be supposed that the extra ordinary lack of water would seriously affect the health of the people, but it does not. On the contrary the assert that it makes them much healthier
 The atmosphere is so dry and the climate is so arid" said a Dutch of- ficial to the writer, that we never suffer from neuralgia, rheumatism. ague, consumption and other diseases common in the damp countries of the north.
 As matter of fact Curacoa is one vast sanitarium-the healthiest place on earth. Doctors say that our climate is the best on earth for cases of nerv- ous dyspepsia.
 People have come down here from America complete physical wrecks and become as well as they ever we're in the course of a few weeks"
 The curacoa of commerce is really made in Curacoa. The principal ele- ment in the manufacture is tiny sour orange indigenous to the island and said to grow nowhere else.
 There are two or three manufactor- fes of this cordial in the island. but the bulk of the curacoa sold in the worlds makets is made in Amsterdam from oranges imported from Curacoa. Experts say that the locally manufac- tured article is far superior which is likely enough, as the oranges would naturally be fresher
 Some of the Dutch women struggle heroically to make gardens and grow tulips, as they used to do in Holland, but they never seem to hae any luck Even fiower-pot cultivation is usually a failure. What can be expected when the soil, as well as the water, has to be imported from Venezuela?
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