Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1910-05-12

Correspondence of Indianapolis News.
Capetown, South Africa-Some years
Ago, on one of those occasioans when
John McCutchcon laid aside the cray
On and turned to the typewriter, he pro-
duced the story of the man who met
the brick. This tale of how the ages
had brought together the man walking
along the street, and the brick, loos
ened by the rains and diSlodged by the
wind. Just the instant he was passing
under the wall. Is Very likely to come
into the mind of the American pilgrim
to the land of the nativity of the in
fart to be born into the worlds family
of nations on May 81.
After all, if way back In the ages be-
tore even the black man penetrated into
the south of the great, weird African
continent, there had not here been
queer VOLCANOES that, in cooling, crystal
ilzed carbon in strange matrices and
packed the great volcano pipes or
vents with them; If child playing
along the Orange river one day in 1867
mad not picked up sparkling CLASSY
stone; If great English colonial had
not had an idea which became a great
republic and made him the first great
American: Tiff after all these things
had not happened, today the boats
bound for the Cape of Good Hope
would not be filled with people journey
Ing to be present at the birth of a
new U. S. A.--the Union OF South
Africa.
Some time-man has no idea when
the queer VOLCANOES went dead They
began to weather: their cones to wash
away. Down with the silt, on it's jour
ney to the sea. went the crystallized
carbons released from the matrices.
Some got as far as the beds of the
nearby streams. now named the Orange
and the Vaal rivers. The cones of these
VOLCANOES had disappeared before man
came and the VOLCANOES, leVeled, were
engulfed and lost in the semiarid
waste, which to the maps of Africa is
known as 1.-The karoo'
India. its riches and it's wares, was
the lure. Columbus sought an all water
route and made notable failure: Bar
tholomew Diaz, six years before. sail
Ing south Instead of west, succeeded
when he discovered and rounded the
Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese
Fronting by the discovery of their nav
igator, opened the route to India and
for some time became the masters of
the east. Then the Dutch aspired. and
supplanted, the Portuguese and then
gave way before the British
In the long cruise to India there was
one spot that all sailors aimed for. 1t
was the bay nesting under a great
table mountain just ON the west of the
cape itself. There was fresh water, a
haven for the distressed. scant
source of fresh food. And man, in
writing. was not long here establishing
postoffice. Capetown came into ex-
lstence, one might say as one of the
most peculiar postoffices the world has
known. Letters were left for the next
boats back to India or Europe. They
were placed under great stones on
whose face the handy man of the bark
would chisel a notice like unto this:
undre thys stone, We ship Nancy Lee
hath left papers to be carried back ia
London"
The prize was great and the strug-
gle for the control of India became
acute. and necessarily. military The
cape became the strategic point of con-
troll. The Dutch garrisoncd it and dur
ing their occupancy South Africa's
"Puritans" came to Join the Dutch
burghers. Then We're the Huguenots
fleeing from France. The British sup
planted the Dutch. as the British India
company succeeded the Dutch India
company. British domination, and GER
tain British customs, We're distasteful-
more than that, abhorrcnt-to the
Dutch and Huguenot. who had become
blended into new people of peculiar
sluggishnesS and characteristics an(
strong religious beliefs. The tension