The Falls City tribune., 1909-07-23
The Meek-Dsvis Tragedy.

than in others, but a little in all. This
predisposition for the antiquities
forms the basis of the science of
Archaeology so much priced and
studied by dreamers and thinkers,
who have spent their lives delving
in the ruins of dead nations whose
only history, or at least that which is
most visible, is written in the carved
rocks of their fallen temples, mighty
in their decay. Where men have been
other men are likely TO go
and from the things they have done
ineligible to the Senses, the explor-
er strives to learn the story of that
precedent p~eople-how they lived,
were housed, and clothed; what they
did, what religion they protested, and
what affairs they reared to their now
forgotten gods. The impulse to do
these things arises sua sponte out
of the very nature of man, and can
not be resisted any more than he can
resist the desire for continued con-
sciouus life.
Something very like it was at the
bottom of that imposing pageant of
the eleventh century called the Cru
sades, when the hostile nations of
Asia and Europe, representing two
~contending religions, were armed
against each other and d~isputing the
empire of the world. Fol- a thous-
and years annual pilgrimages were
made from all over the civilized
world to the Holy Land, by the fol-
lowers of Christ, the ardor for
which was increased under the reign
of Constantine in the fourth century,
until in the curse of time the en-
thusiasm and fanaticial zeal inspired
thereby took possession of all the
western nations, and the shout, 1T
is the will of Cod" was taken up all
over Europe and the general move
ment, IN which there was not the
faintest glimmer of common sense,
was made to the east to wrest
from the infidel, the Holy sepulchre
of the Saviour.
The same impulse takes us to the
silent cities where the dead are at
rest, whether they were ours in life,
or emily fellow mortals who once were
but are not, as all now existant, one
day will be.
Far away to the southwest where
the great Colorado of the west ming
les it's waters with what the early
g~eographers called the great South
Sea, | n ce visited a spot in the
midst of an everlasting d~esolation,
and SO lonely in it's surroundings
that, in the language of the Ancient
Mariner,
80 lonely twas, that God himself
Scarse seemed to be there"
At this spot two hundred miles
from any civilized habitation and
about a quarter of a mile from the
ship yard by the sea, two men,
"nameless here forevermore" who
had died at that ships landing years
before, lie buried out on a salt marsh,
where the monster heaving sea covers
it fathom deep, twice every twenty
four hours, with it's restless and re-
s~istless tides. The graves were en-
closed by a rude fence that could
only be seem at ebb-tide, and then
not for long, except at neap-tide
which occurs in the dark of the moon,
and then for a few days the tides
appear to sleep and the resting
place of those lost men is freed from
Gulf. Spring tide at hat place, which
occurs at new and full moon, rises
to the heighth of thirty-three feet, the
second highest tide in the world,
In an idle hour and when the tide
was low, I went out to visit those
graves on the lonely marsh. There
was nothing in sight that appeared
to be possessed of life, and not a
sound was to be heard, except that
produced by silence-for silence it
self is sometimes so profound as to
be audible. What | thought on that
visit is not to the purpose, but |
could not refrain from some specu-
lations on the monotony of the etew
nal ebb and flow of the tides above
those lonesome graves, till the sea
shall give up its dead and the heavens
be rolled together as a scroll. But
to be buried in such an out-of-the-way
place, where habitation was impos-
sible, where the living can seldom
come and where nc sound ever
breaks upon the brooding silence,
but the rush of the tides flowing
from and back to the sea, seemed
an awful fate even for the dead.
To me it was a shrine, a sacred
snot a small section of Gods acre.