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Bellefonte, Pa., July 17, 1908,
Curious Story of the Haunted
Sentry Box.
LIGHT ON THE OLD LEGEND.
fone of the Many Mysterious Disap-
pearances From Fort San Cristobal
. Accounted For by the Revelation of
the Lost One Himself.
Writing in the Journal of the Mil}
tary Service Institution, Captain Ar-
thur P. 8. Hyde of the coast artillery
tells this curious story of “the haunt-
ed sentry box" of Fort Sar Cristobal,
the ancient Spanish bullt fortress
which guards the entrance to San
Juan, Porto Rico:
“A number of picturesque sentry
boxes built of masonry and appearing
like minarets are placed at points of -
vantage in and around the fort One
of these on the sea front, and reached
only through a long and dark tunnel
from the interior of the fort, is pop-
ularly known as La Garita del Diablo,
or the devil's sentry box, usually, al-
though incorrectly, translated the
haunted sentry box. This name was
given to it by the Spanish soldiers for
the reason that a number of sentries
stationed there disappeared in a most
mysterious manner and were never
again heard from.
“An American officer was once on
duty that took him into the remote in-
terior of the island, and while spend-
ing one night in a small settlement he
engaged in conversation with a num-
ber of the inhabitants of the place.
One old man, on learning that the of-
ficer was stationed at Fort San Cris-
tobal, became especially interested and
fn the course of the conversation told
the following story:
“‘l used to be a soldier in the Span-
ish army and was stationed at Fort
San Cristobal. A number of soldiers
while on sentry duty had mysteriously
disappeared from the sentry box down
by the sea, and we had all become
convinced that it was haunted by the
devil, who, we thought, used to come
and steal the soldiers away.
“‘One stormy night It fell to my
Jot to go on duty in the devil's sentry
box, as we called it, at midnight, and
it was with some doubts and misgliv-
ings that I went with the corporal of
the guard and relieved the former sen-
try. When they left me I listened to
the soun?! «f their feotfulls reverberat-
ing from the walls and ceiling of the
dark and narrow passage, ever grow-
ing fainter and fainter as they reced-
ed, until finally the noise of the storm
and the sea completely drowned it.
and 1 was left alone with the mad ele
ments,
“‘It was a mad night and one well
calenlated to add to the feeling of ave
that the devil's gentry box always in-
tilled into the man on duty there at
night.
“ ‘Presently my attention was at-
tracted by some lights in a small tav-
ern on the shore below the fort. where
many of us were wont to go when off
duty for a glass of rum. Then [| be-
ron to think that I might be able to
cmb down over the rocks to the
shore, get a glass of rum at the tav-
ern and return to my post,
“ “The more I thought of it the more
determined 1 was to go. so finally,
leaving my rifle and belt in the sentry
box, I climbed over the wall and down
on to the rocks and so made my way
with great labor and difficulty and no
fiittle danger to the little house, where
Athe occupants were making merry
with dancing and drinking. 1 soon
fell to and enjoyed myself with them.
~* ‘When one Is dancing with a fair
senorita he sometimes forgets the pas-
sage of time, as I did on that fatal
Aight, and not until long after 1 o'clock
did I begin to think of returning to
my post. Then, realizing that the cor-
poral had made his inspection and had
fesnd me gone from my post and
with my rific and b=it left behind. I
Baw only a court martial and the gar-
rote staring me in the face, for in
those days for a sentinel in the Span-
ish army to quit his post meant sure
dearth, even in peace,
“*“To go back was out of the ques-
tion. Bre Was only one thing left
for me to do, and that was to desert.
My heart sank within me. If 1 should
be captured, the same fate would be
meted out to me; but, I reasoned, if 1
were to go back the fate would be a
certainty, whereas If 1 deserted at
least 1 had a chance of keeping out
of sight of the authorities. 1 deserted
and before morning was out of the
city and on the way to the moun-
tains.
“+1 have lived jn this little hamlet
for years and have never been back to
the capital since that day. nor have I
ever told my story to a single soul un-
ti! tonight, but now that the Spaniards
are gone I no longer fear for my life.’
“Thus we have the story of the dev-
I's sentry box from one of the very
men who so mysteriously disappeared
from it, and it would seem to be prob-
able that the other disappearances
could be accounted for in a similar
manner were the truth known. Quien
sabe?”
Captain Hyde mentions an interest-
ing fact that, although for centuries
Porto Rico was considered the legiti-
mate prey of freebooters and was at-
tacked at various times by regularly
organized expeditions of the English
and the Dutch during times of war,
with more or less success, Fort El
Morro has never been captured by an
‘ememy, and its only surrender was to
the Americans, together with the sur
render of the whole island.
Gravity Is only the bark of wisdom,
WONDERFUL MIRAGES.
false Peak of Tenerife and Illusions
In the Dardanelles.
The peak of Tenerife is known among
deep sea sailors as the “false peak.”
Owing to some peculiarity of the at-
mosphere It is always seen by mirage
in exactly the opposite direction from
which it lies, and only the fact that all
captains know that the mirage appears
long before the true peak is visible
through the most powerful glass pre-
vents many a ship frow sailing many
miles out of her course. It Is hard for
a greenhorn to believe that the majes-
te purple mountain towering astern or
oi: the port beam apparently only a
short distance off is in reality miles
away In exactly the opposite direction
and the seemingly solid earth at which
he is gazing is only a reflectiou on the
clear mirror of the air. Many weird
tales are told of shipwrecked men who
have steered for the false peak in the
expectation of finding land and have
perished of hunger and thirst while
pursuing the phantom mountain.
Sometimes the passengers and crew
of a vessel on the lookout for the false
peak see a much rarer and more beau-
tiful mirage, that of a ship in the sky.
It usually appears about 10 o'clock in
the morning. about ten degrees above
the horizon and under full sail, every
delicate spar and tapering mast clearly
visible against the blue ether and even
the play of light and shadow in the
bellying canvas plainly discernible to
the naked eye. It generally remains in
sight half an hour or more before
gracefully fading away. The oldest
mariner can never remember having
geen the mirage of a s.camer in that
latitude, but always that of a full rig-
ged ship, and this peculiar fact has
given birth to many romantic legends
about the ship in the sky, all connect-
ing Ih in some way with the false peak.
The vicinity of the Dardanelles is
the real home of mirages, and it is sel-
dom that any vessel salls along the
Syrian coast without seeing one or
more. Oddly enough, the mirages of
the Dardanelles are always the reflec-
tions of objects that can be seen with
the naked eye and are invariably dis-
torted In grotesque and fantastic cari-
catures of the things reflected. It is
certainly startling to see a steamer
bearing down with her masts where
her water line and should be and the
water line where the tops of the masts
and funnel ought to show, while her
decks are in the right place, thus add-
ing to her uncanny appearance, but
this is a frequent sight pear the Dar-
danelles. There is one peculiar feature
of the mirages which hover near the
false peak—the real objects of which
they are reflections are so far away
that very often they are never sighted
until long after the reflection has van-
ished, and sometimes not at all.—New
York Press.
The Lion's Attack.
As to a lion's method of attack Fred-
erick Courteney Selcus says in his
book: “As a rule, I think, & lion seizes
a sleeping man by the head, and in
that case, unless it is a very old and
weakly animal, death must usually be
instantaneous, as its great fang teeth
will be driven into the brain through
the thickest negro skull.” Similarly,
when a lion attacks an animal it tries
to get at the head or the throat—at the
vitals of the animal. Says Mr. Selous:
“My experience is that when a single
lion tries to kill an ox or a buffalo it
invariably seizes it near the muzzie’
with one paw and usually succeeds in
either breaking its victim's neck or
causing it to break it itself by its own
weight in falling. When several lions
attack an ox or a buffalo they will
often bite and tear it all over and take
a long time to kill it.”
Curious Old Laws.
Some of the old laws of Nepal, India,
were curious. Killing cows ranked
with murder as a capital offegse, for
instance. Every girl at birth was mar-
ried with great ceremony to a betel
fruit, which was then cast into a sa-
cred stream. As the fate of the fruit
was uncertain the girl was supposed
never to become a widow. To obtain
divorce from a husband a wife had
only to place a betel nut under his pil-
low and depart. in Nepal the day is
considered to begin when it is light
enough to count the tiles on the roof
or distinguish the hairs on a man's
hand against the sky.
Trained.
“My men work well,” said a police
commissioner, “because they are well
trained. Training, you know, is every-
thing.”
He paused and smiled.
“Two physicians were discussing.”
he said, “a certain pretty nurse.
“ ‘Was she a trained nurse? said the
first physician.
“She must have been,’ replied the
other. ‘She hadn't been in the hos-
pital a week before she was engaged
to the richest patient.’ ”—Washington
§tar.
A Limited Luxury.
Two Irishmen were discussing the
phenomenon of sleep. Said one, “Oi
hear as wan av thim poethry lads
calls it ‘bald nature's hair reshtoorer.'™
“Yis," assented the other; “shlape's
a grand luxury. It's a pity a man
can't kape awake long enough to inj'y
it. Jist whin he's thinkin’ phat a foine
long shnooze he'll be hovin', begorra,
it's mornin'!"—Judge.
Callant Lover.
“Silly boy,” she said, “why did you
get offended? Though my words were
severe, you might have seen that I was
smiling.”
“Well,” he replied magnanimously,
“your mouth is sc small I didn’t notice
it.”—Philadelphia Press.
Right overtrained turns to wrong.—
but it preserves it.—Confuctus,
Spanish Proverb,
CHAOS IN A LIBRARY.
Sarcey’s Fearfully Bad Luck With
Custodians of His Books.
Francisque Sarcey bad a splendid U-
brary, of which be was very proud,
and there are many stories told in
Paris about the singular fates, comic
and tragic, that overtook the librarians
who successively looked after the late
critic's books.
The first was a released convict, who
pleaded that to be much among good
books would reform him. Sarcey, pug-
nacious in print, was the kindliest of
men in practice. He ylelded to the
plea. Unfortunately his protege car
ried the ethical cure too far, for one
day he decamped, taking with him the
best of M. Sarcey’s good books.
The second was a distinctly minor
dramatist, Debrit by name and debris
by nature. He had worn himself into
an incurable melancholy by persistent
addiction to the humorist vaudeville
habit. Sarcey saw that abstinence
from further composition could only be
secured if the man had some light oc-
cupation with a living wage. He es-
tablished him in the vacancy left by
the convict. A few days later as the
critic, returning from the theater, drew
his carriage up before his door he
Leard a smash of shivered glass above
him, followed a minute later by what
he no longer dared to call a dull thud
on the pavement below. The woe be-
gone librarian, wearied of life, had
turown himself out of the window.
With his last breath he cursed Sarcey
as his murderer.
Third in order was 9ne Bernard, a
gladsome youth, whose bilthe tempera-
ment promised relief from the gloom
cast by his predecessor. In the height
of his glee he pulled out all the books
80 as to rearrange them in more log-
ical order on the shelves. He stacked
them in craggy pyramids all over the
floor. But it happened to be the spe
cial day of the week whereon Sarcey
was wont to have a few of his the-
atrical friends, male and female, to
lunch with him. After lunch a dance
followed as a matter of course. Noth-
ing could dismay the librarian. He
whisked the pyramids to four walls
aud joined in the dance. Next day he
asked permission to go home and see
his mother. He never returned. The
pyramids had to be sorted out by Sar-
cey's manservant and put pellmell on
the shelves again.
The last librarian was Mlle, Blouska,
an elderly Polish maiden, who proved
an invaluable assistant until she per-
ished miserably in the fire at the char-
ity ball in Paris.
INDIAN MARRIAGES.
Peculiar Rites of the Hopi and the
Navajo Tribss,
Marriage among the Topi, a tribe of
the Pueblo Indians, is an institution
regarding which those most concerned
have least to say. When the parents
of a girl find it expedient for her to
get married, they look up an available
man and negotiate with his parents.
After the matter has been arranged
the principals are notified. The girl goes
to the bome of the groom's parents
and grinds corn for them for three
weeks, while the groom makes a kind
of sash for the bride. Then one morn-
ing at sunrise they both bathe their
heads in cold water, which completes
the ceremony. There have been in-
stances of the groom's refusing to go
through the performance, which has
then proceeded without him and been
accounted valid, and several weeks
later he has yielded and had his head
bathed.
The Navajo ceremony is much more
elaborate and impressive, but then the
Navajo girls are much nicer. The reg-
ular tariff on a Navajo girl entering
the port of matrimony for the first
time is twelve horses. On the second
occasion the tax is nine horses, while
subsequent entries are free.
This is not purchase woney, but is
merely a tribute of respect to a
mother-in-law and a token of apprecia-
tion of the care and expense involved
In bearing and rearing the lady, a
recognition not unworthy of considera-
tion by civilized grooms. On the other
band, and deserving of great condem-
nation, is that law of many tribes, un-
written, but of much sanctity, that a
man and his mother-in-law shall never
meet after the ceremony.—A. W. Dim-
ock in Outing Magazine.
Coral Islands,
A coral island is sometimes tern to
pleces by a great storm, showing that
islands disappear in more ways than
one. This happened to an atoll in the
Marshall group in 1905, when it hap-
pened to be in the path of a terrible
hurricane. Waves about forty feet
high swept over the hapless speck of
land, carrying every particle of ver-
dure and every form of life into the
sea, and not a human being was saved.
The upper part of the coral was bro-
ken off and swept away, and a few
days later nothing but the placid wa-
ters of the ocean was seen where the
atoll had stood.
Music as Advertised.
“Come Where My Love Lies Dream-
ing.” with illustrated cover.
“Trust Her Not,” for 50 cents.
“] Would Not Live Always” with-
out accompaniment.
“See, the Conquering Hero Comes.”
with full orchestra.
“There Was a Little Fisher Maiden.”
in three parts.
“The Tale of a Swordfish,” with
many scales.
“Home, Sweet Home,” in A dat.
Let Him Off Easy.
YLola—Last night young Borem de-
clared he would willingly go to the
ends of the earth for me. Grace—And
what did you say? Lola—I finally got
him to make a start for home and let
it go at that.—Chicago News.
room. It was evident tha dreaded
to intrude. He wanted to get as far
away from other people as possible.
He even blushed painfully when he
gave his order, and the most casual
observer could have told that he
bashful. Just as his
# moment later they were all around
that one table.
“He doesn’t look it, does he?" queried
a pleasant faced old lady in an audible
whisper.
“She looks at least ten years older
than he,” murmured a girl at the next
table.
He flew to the hatrack, tossed a half
crown to the waiter and tried to ge
through the door without opening it.—
London Telegraph.
The Left Twin.
The survivor of twins is sometimes
sredited with curious powers. In folk-
lore he takes his place with the sev- |
enth son and with the child born with
a caul. All these are supposed to have
either special powers of healing or in
some cases to be gifted with the mys-
terious power of second sight. “In
Essex, England,” says W. G. Black in
his book on “Folk Medicine.” “a child
known familiarly as a ‘left twin'—i. e.,
2 child whe has survived its fellow
twin—Iis thought to have the power of
curing the thrush by blowing three
times into the patient's mouth if the
patient is of the opposite sex.” This Is
folklore, pure and simple. Another
country notion generally held is tha:
if twins are boy and girl the latte:
will never become a mother. The
physiology of the subject is obscure,
but there is probably ground for the
bellef. Another idea not infrequently
met with is that the Intelligence of
twins is below the average. It is al-
ways difficult to prove a negative, but
it is very doubtful whether facts sup-
port this notion of limited Intelligence
to any extent whatever. It is much
more probable that their physical
strength is likely to be something less
than normal.
The French “Mrs. Malaprop.”
Calino, the French “Mrs. Malaprop,”
floes not amuse so much by the con-
fusion of his words as by the guaint-
ness and unintended plainness of his
remarks. He entered the service of a
well known doctor, who, after Calino
had been buying hay for his horses for |,
awhile, made up his mind that the hay
was worthless.
“That is very poor hay that you've
been buying.” the doctor complained.
“But the horses eat it, sir,” said
Calino.
“No matter. It's bad hay.”
“Yes, sir,” sald Calino respectfully.
“I'll change it. I know you are a
much better judge of hay than the
horses are!”
One day the bell rang. and Calino
came in.
“A patient has arrived, sir,” he re
“An old patient or a new one?" asked
the doctor.
“New one, of course, sir,” said Ca-
lino. *The old ones never come back!”
Calino admired very much the beau-
tiful teeth of a lady among his mas-
ter’s patients,
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Her teeth are
as fresh and sound and white as a
newborn baby's!”
‘““Are your bowels regular ?"’ That is
one of the first questions a physician asks
when he is called to attend a sick person.
To keep the bowels open and keep them
regular is a prime necessity of health. Dr.
Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets will keep bowels
and liver in a healthy condition, and pre-
vent many a fit of sickness,
EE —————————————————————————————
Castoria.
CASTORIA
FOR INFANTS and CHILDREN.
Bears the signature of
CHAS. H. FLETCHER.
The Kind You Have Always Bought.
In Use for Over 30 Years.
CASTORIA
The Centaur Company, New York City.
|
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Bellefoute Shoe Emporium,
BIG REDUCTION
IN LADIES OXFORDS
BEGINNING
FRIDAY, JULY 3rd,
and Continuing for 10 Days
I will sell all our Ladies Ox-
ford Tiesat Very Low Prices.
This is very early for a re-
duction in Oxfords but I need
the money and you need the
shoes.
YEAGER'S SHOE STORE,
successor to Yeager & Davis.
" Bush Arcade Building, BELLEFONTE, PA.
Lyon & Co. Lvon & Co.
Lyon &. Company.
SUMMER
Cearance :-:. Sale
of all Summer goods is now on. We will not
quote a few ‘‘catch em'' prices and charge more
for other goods. We will make a clean sweep in
prices of all Summer Goods, nothing reserved.
We must have the room for the New Fall Goods
so everything must be sold,
00
Organdies, French Lawns, Ginghams, Per-
cales, Cotton Voiles, all this season goods at first
cost. Waistings in plain, figured and stripe at
clearance sale prices. Light colors in Wool stuffs
at prices that means dollars saved for you. Long
Gloves in black and white, all sizes. Silk Lisle
and Cotton gloves at less than cost. Summer
Hose and Summer Underwear for men, women
and children. All must be sold.
ommmnen on (3) sensssem—
SUMMER CLOTHING
for men and boys, must be sold regardless of
prices. 50 washable Suits for children, ages 3 to
10 years, at manufacturers price.
OO semen smme
Don’t let a few prices quoted mislead you.
We must sell off our Summer stock and the lowest
prices will tell you we mean to undersell every-
one. Come to our store and be convinced.
LYON & COMPANY,
47-12 Allegheny 8t., Bellefonte, Pa.