The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-28
|MACHIAS IS IN PORT
,sArrloRs TELL or VISIT TO
 AFRICA.
Gunboat in Pensacola Carried Consul General to Treat With King Menelik-Numbers of Ala
 banians See Ships.


 Pensacola. Fla. March H.-(special.)- Completing trip of nine thousand miles. the gunboat Machias of the United States navy. dropped anchor here Sat urday morning and will remain for tar get practice and other details of practice There Is story connected with this ves- sel that Is above the ordinary ship and there Is not a true American but who will not be interested, l~s
 As known to readers of the press, the Machias was the ship which carried Con- sul General Skinner, the United States representative at Port Said to effect A treaty with King Menelik, the African monarch. And that journey being through the Jungles of the dark continent, will never be forgotten by those who were parties to 1t. The sailors on the Machias were very willing to talk of the matter when a representative of The Advertiser went aboard, and this is the way they told 1t:
 Yes. sir; our ship carried Consul Gen. eral Skinner into that forsaken part of the world, and it was a trip, too. We were at Beirut when orders came to pro- ceed to Port Said. which is. a fine coaling place, and one that does as much busi- ness as any port in America. In fact the great bulk of the trade was carried on with the United States and from one to three steamers per day could be caught for the United States.
 We took on Mir. Skinner at Port Said and went around to the Abysslnian terri tory, later laying at anchor. while a com pany of our marines and some bluejack- cts accompanied the consul into the re- cesses of the country for the purpose of effecting a treaty. The place We remain cd at was known as Jubitil, sort of capital city, and one of no mean propor- tons. It is in French Somaliland, and of course the French people are seen there in no small numbers, The houses there are built of a spongy substance which, when taken from the sea, gets real hard, and the French artisans mould this into houses of nice pattern.
 We laid there for many days, and some of the men. who acted as a body- guard to the representative tG the United States, had made application for such an assignment many days before In fact some of them had lost sleep thinking of the adventure they were to undergo. And it was an adventure. to be sures I was one of the party, and as we marched through the jungles,, and passed and re- passed hills, mountains ,etc., we were almost led Into a trap that would have meant death for the whole party. It was discovered soon after we had began the journey that there was treachery in the wind; that the camel driver had in mind a plan to lead up through a wrong trail and in this manner lead the little party of Americans into a trap for no other purpose than of wiping out the entire bunch. Our interpreter, ,wbo was also close to the camel drivers and guides, got next to this plan and used force to ex- tract a solemn promise that nothing of the kind would be attempted He did this by taking the ring-lcader. as he might be called. down on the ground and with a brandlshed knife, threaten to carve him into mince meat unless proof was offered that all would go straight in the future. This being settled. we pro- ceeded. 2.
 After going for. short time. we were again frightened little by a noise in the night which we. took for the woodsmen trying some more of their treaehery Our marines captain, with four volunteers. went on a reconnoitering tour and discov- cred hundreds of monkeys, almost as big as a man, scurrying over the hills at sight of QUE ciothinE.
 The journey to the old king himself was at length completed and the neces- sarv and 0esired t0nmalsties apara finizh- ed. He loaded us down with gifts for President Roosevelt, iireinded in which were several live lions. elephant tusks, hyenas and other animals understand that one of the Hons died, on the voyage to Port Said, and that the other lion was so vicious that 1t had to be placed in a Zoo for safety.
 T must tell you, however. that we had much fun with. the lion we had with US on the Machlas. The animal would wrestle with the boys; playfully bite their ears. paw at them and in other ways act even more fawiliarly than a dog. We hated to part with 1t.
 From Abyssinia we went to Port Said. entering the Suez canal at that point then went down to Naples. Nice, Gibraltar and other places, finally coming up to Guam .tanamo, m Cuba, and later to Pensacola. When we sighted the shores of Florida this morning. no man but who has been out of thes best country in the world for many months can rightly grasp our feel ings. And outside of our immediate crew you are the first American that we have talked to in all that time"
 The Machias, with the Brooklyn and San Francisco form what h known as the European squadron. The San Fran now while the other two ships are at anchor at Pensacola.
 Huge Crowd of Alabamians.
 A huge crowd of Alabama people took advantage of the cheap excursion rates from various parts of Alabama Sunday and spent the day in Pensacola. The ho- tel registers were filled with the names of some of the most prominent people in Alabama. Of course the naval ships were the attractions. and in the after noon every excursionSboat of any conse- quence in the bay was busy taking pas- sengers to the dozen naval vessels in the harbor. As might have been expected, the principal ship to be visited was the Brooklyn, the one which did such, noble service in the Santiago disturbance It was on this ship that Admiral Schley stood and directed the fight. and the bridge on which the great commander trod was occupied by hundreds of the Alabama visitors during the afternoon of yesterday.
 There were also a great many people from Georgia in the city on Sunday and these saw the cruiser Atlanta to advan- tage. The cruiser was not directly off the city. but lay at the navy yard preparing Co go out target practlcing in few days
 The new Maine, the Kearsarge, the Florida, Bancroft, Cleveland, Nevada. Arkansas, Baltimore, Machias and others were al anchor in plain view of the city wharves, and the decks were crowded all during the day.
 Railroad Catalpa Farm.
 The Louisville and Nashville Railroad