The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-09-26
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TRUTH STRANGER
THAN FICTION
CONTINUED from Page So

SGOHItuNGO age O.y
he discovered several tombs of a period
far antedating the architecture of any
age of which the ruins have been exa-
mined, containing death masks of gold,
many other objects of the same metal
of beauty so exquisite as not to be
excelled by the jewelers. of the present
time. In one of the tonnbs he discover
ed the bodies of several persons of royal
or at least princely rank, and all The
evidence pointed to a violent death and
hurried interment, preceded by par
tial moderation. Such was the haste
with which the funeral ceremonies had
been conducted that ere the wood piled
upon the corpses was consumed the at
tendants began to throw in the moist
earth from the surface; thus each body
was covered with a layer of charcoal
and unconsumed wood. Proof after
proof is adduced to show that the inter
ments were simult aneous, and when the
fact is remembered that the Greeks
took great pains with the burial not
only of their friends and relatives, but
of enemies killed in battle or murder
ed in malice, it is impossible not to be-
1ieve that the bodies found in the hast
lily built sepulchers and under the pub
lie square of Mycenae were those of
Agamemnon and his companions. Up TO
the time of Schiliemann the generally
accepted opinion among scholars was
that the whole story was no more than
myth; now, it is known to be the
truth, and the truth has been furnished
by a man who believed that truth is
stranger than fiction.
A running glance over history shows
that in a great many instances a plain,
unvarnished tale is more remarkable
than the most fancifu1 imaginings of
the fiction writer. There, for example,
is the story of Nineveh, the city whose
ruins had been forgotten and could not
be located, even at the time when the
10000 marched in sight of them during
the memorable retreat. Scholars
doubted whether there was a Nineveh
but within two generations the old city
has been recovered, the inscriptions on
the walls of it's houses have been tran
slated and enough of its palaces has
been uncovered to show that the an
Gent descriptions of the great city fell
short of its magnificence as painted by
men who had either seen it or heard of
it from those who had.
A century ago it was not unusual to
scott at the story of the exodus of the
Jews from Egypt and of their travels
| in the district between the Red Sea,
| the Mediterranean and the borders of
Palestine. But half a century ago a
imam named Brugsch, who BELOVED that
the truth was stranger than any fiction,
undertook the exploration and investi-
cation of the district. He discovered
over 1000 proper names of places in
| that region and among them ali or
o,-rrr oil
books of Moses as the stopping places
where the wandering Jewish horde,
travelling apparently without object,
yet always on the move. fingered on the
way between Goshen and Canaan.
The scientists have done as much as
the historians to show US the strange
| ness of truth when compared with it's
opposite. A few years ago a book was
written, in a prophetic vein, to illus
trate what would probably be the con-
dition of human society in the course
OF 200 or 300 years if the present rate
of progress were maintained. The
| book made an immense sensation,
much more than it deserved. for very
few of the schemes suggested in it as
completed and in working order We're
| really new, most of them having been
tried and found wanting long before
Bellamy took UP his pen to write
| Looking Backward
But no novelist could ever force his
imagination to portray the changes
| that have come TO pass during the last
| half century. the wonderful things that
| have come true since our eat-grand-
| fathers dated their letters Ammo Do
mino 1904. Antiquarian writer's and
those curiously inquisitive people who
make a speciality of finding out things
that are generally not worth knowing,