The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1923-10-19
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CAPTAINS OF
BY ROGER POCOCK
Copyright by BobbsMerrn Company
By ROGER POCOCK

sort.
In Canada the British governor set
up a friendship between the French
Canadians and the government which
has lasted ever since. That was on the
eighth of September. but on the fifth
another British dignitary sailed for
home, having generously given a large
slice of Canada to the United States.
In Haiti there was an earthquake.
in Brazil a revolution; in Jamaica a
storm on the tenth which wrecked the
British ship Spitfre, and in the west
ern states Mount Saint Helen's gave
a fine volcanic eruption.
Northern Mexico was invaded by two
filibustering expeditions from the re-
public of Texas. and both were cap
tured by the Mexicans. There were
eight hundred fifty prisoners, some
murdered for fun, the rest marched
through Mexico, exposed TO all sorts
Of cruelty and insult before they were
lodged in INSTRUMENTATION jails. Cap
tain Edwin Cameron and his people on
the way to prison overpowered the es-
cort and fled to the mountains, whence
some of them escaped to Texas. But
the leader and most of his men being
captured, President Santa Ana ar
ranged that they should draw from a
bag of beans, those who got black
beans TO be shot. Cameron drew a
white bean, but vas shot all the same.
nDA rn,,th ~ d Crittnnlan Irnu. a
white bean, but gave it TO a comrade,
saying: you have a wife and chill
dren l haven't, and l car afford to risk
another chance" Again he drew a
white and lived to be a general in the
great Civil war. )
General Green's party escaped by tun-
neling their way out of the castle of
Perot, but most of the prisoners per-
ished in prison of hunger and disease.
The British and American ministers at
the City of Mexico won the release Of
the few who were left alive.
In 1912 Sir James Simpson, governor
of the Hudson's Bay company, with
his b%ell-topper hat and his band, came
by canoe and march across the north
ern wilds to the Pacific coast. From
San Francisco he sailed for Honolulu
in the Sandwich Islands, where the
company had a large establishment
under Sir John Petty. On April six
teenth he arrived in the III. B. ship
Cowlitz at the capital of Russian
America. "Of all the drunken as well
as the dirty places" says he, that 1
had ever visited, New A~rchangel was
the worst. On the holidays in particu-
lar, of which, Sundays included, there
are one hundred siXty-fiye in the year,
men, women and even children were to
be seen staggering about in all direc-
lions drunk" Simpson thought all the
world, though, of the Russian bishop.
The Hudson's Bay company had a
lease from the Russians Of all the fur
trading forts of southeastern Alaska,
Saint Diogenes. There Simpson
found a flag of distress, gates barred,
sentries on the bastions and two thou
sand Indians besieging the fort. Five
days ago the officer commanding, Mr..
Mclaughlin, had made all hands drunk
and ran about saying he was going to
be killed. So one of the voyagers lev
eled a rifle and shot him dead. On the
whole the place was not well managed.
From New Archangel (Sitka) the
Russian Lieutenant Zagoskin sailed in
June for the Redoubt Saint Michael on
the coast of Behring Sea. Smallpox
had wiped out all the local Eskimos, SO
the Russian could get no guide for the
first attempt to explore the River Yu-
kon. A days march south he was en-
there was a feast, and the throwing
Of little bladders into the bay in honor
Of Ug-iak, spirit of the sea. On De-
cember ninth Zagoskin started inland
"A driving snowstorm set in, blind
ing my eyes a blade Of grass
seventy feet distant had the appear
ance of a shrub, and sloping valleys
looked like lakes with high banks, the
illusion vanishing upon nearer APP
proach. At midnight a terrible snow
storm began, and in a short space Of
ten minutes covered men, dogs and
sledges, making a perfect hill above
them. We sat at the loot of z hill,
with the wind from the opposite side,
and our feet drawn under us to pre-
rent them from freezing, and covered
with our parkas. When we were COW
cred up by the snow we made holes
with sticks through to the open air.
In Il short time the warmth of the
breath and perspiration melted the
snow, so that a man-like ave vas
formed about each individual" So
they continued for five hours, calling
to one another to keep awake, for in
that intense cold to sleep was death.
fore we catch cold from the draft.
Fremont was exploring from the
Mississippi valley a route for emf
grants to Oregon, and in that journey
climbed the Rocky mountains to plant
Old Glory on one Of the highest peaks.
He was a very fine explorer, and o
long afterward conquered the Mexican
state of California. completing the
outline of the modern United States.
But Fremont's guide will be remem-
bered long after Fremont is forgotten,
for he was the greatest Of American
frontiersman, the ideal of modern
c~hivalry, Kit Carson. OF course he
must have a chapter to himself.