The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-05-15
WHAT UNCLE
SAM SWAPS"
He Ships Queer Things and Buys
Queer Things.

1t is a curious list of things that
Uncle Sam sends to savage and half
civilized countries and as curious list
of things which he takes from those
countries in return.
In far-off Uganda, where the lions
roar as the train passes on the new
railroad, and the engineer has to slow
down now and then because a hippo
| potamus gets on the track, the natives
| buy our kerosene and find it useful,
not only for Illuminating purposes, but
for amounting their shining black bodies
TO make them shine more.
They have also taken a fancy lately
to our cheap phonogr apis, and a we'll
| to-do savage becomes a society leader
when he sets one up in his hut. They
also like our watches-the large ones,
the kind which it takes about half an
hour to wind up-and they are begin
ming to make market for them.
In return the Uganda natives send
us a peculiar gum which exudes from
tree which they call the incense tree.
This gum burns with a clean pun
gent smell and is the chief ingTedi-
ent in the incense used in Episcopal
high church and Catholic churches
in this country. For untold centuries
this gum has been exported from this
section of Africa. 1t is the 'olibanum"
of science and the frakincense of his
tory.
Inferior kinds of incense gum are
found in India and Arabia, but the
East African sort is the one most in
demand and the one which the United
States buys. So when you see incense
burned in a church you probably see
the same kind of gum burning, brought
from the same place, and smell the
same SMELL as did Solomon when, at
the completion of the temple, nearly
3, 900 years ago, Burned incense on the
altar which was before the Lord
Savages delight in watches and
clocks, but the clocks must have a
loud tick to them and the watches
must be of generous size as well as
loud of tick. The story is told of
clock-making concern which determin-
ed to get share of the West African
trade where the natives had taken
kindly to an inferior brand of clocks
sent out by rival house. A better ar
ticle in the clock line was manufac-
tured and sent out to be sold at the
same price as the goods of the rival
concern. To the establishment of the
manufacturers the invoice failed to
sell.
An investigation showed that the
cheap clocks of the first house had
large and powerful tick to them and
gong which struck the hour like a
fire-alarm bell. There upon the second
firm set to work and manufactured a
clock with still a louder tick and a
still more resounding gong in the
striking parts, and soon captured the
desired trade.
The clocks and watches of savage
and semi civilized people come
mostly from Connecticut and Biz
mingham, England. Connecticut hav-
ing practical monopoly in supplying
the watches.
Egypt sends to the United States
and England a curious article of COM
merce, consisting of fragments of
mummies--or perhaps mummies
whole-which are ground up and used
in mixing paints for artists. The
mummies are not the finely preserved
royal remains from the sepulchres of
dead kings but the mummies of the
common people of Egypt who passed
away two or three thousand years
ago and were embalmed less carefully
and laid away in less costly tombs
than their more fortunate fellow sub
jects.
Appropriately enough, poppy oil is
used to mix the peculiar brown paint
obtained from pulveriZed mummy. In
return Egypt imports quantities of imi-
tation scarabei those little stone
charms worn by the ancient Egyptians
which look like a beetle on top and
have. on the smooth under side, the
hieroglyphics of some great prince who
reigned in the Nile vally when the
world was young. The Americans
say these false scarabei are manu-
featured in Birmingham, England;
but the English declare that they come
from Connecticut where they are
made by machinery, and shipped IN
barrels to be planted by Arabian
guides in the desert sands, and dis
covered" in the very sight of confid-
ing tourists, who pay big price for
them.
The United States does a fiourishing
business selling patent medicines to
the untutored savage, who is in the