/IS * u ,"A /1- .H \ I
| pi(Jh^eesJsle
[Copyright. 1903. by F. A. Ober.J
ROBINSON CRCSOE. LSE(L by the puo
caries, or wild
hogs, tliat ranged the island, 1 had left
camp and started out after them. It
was great fun for awhile, for I fell to
with a herd of about a dozen and had
secured two of the "varmints" when
the survivors, seeming to think that
"turn about is fair play," began bunt
ing me. Then the situation assumed a
different aspect entirely, for the pec
cary when aroused is one of the most
bloodthirsty of creatures and as re
vengeful as an Indian. Fortunately
for me, a great gum tree stood conven
iently near, and by means of the lianas
that swung from its branches I was
soon safe from harm and looking calm
ly down upon the little black beasts us
they raged around the trunk. But a
peccary, as is well known, can enter
tain only one idea at a time, and the
idea that possessed the shallow brains
of my friends below was how to effect
my destruction. After rooting around
awhile they all sat down In an attitude
of expectation and patiently waited for
me to descend. And they would sit
there, I felt sure, knowing peccary na
ture as I did, until they starved me to
death rather than allow me to escape.
I had only a few rounds of ammuni
tion suited to their needs, but I killed
three more before it was exhausted
and peppered the hides of several oth
ers so that if they ever had entertained
the idea of leaving they abandoned it
entirely. I had not a morsel of food
about me. 'The limbs I sat astride of
were not so soft as they might have
been if they bad been made to order,
and I was getting uncomfortable when
1 noticed a commotion in the herd.
The leader of the band, a grisly old
tusker with recurved fangs like Turk
ish scimlters, suddenly stood up and
sniffed the air; then he uttered a
"whoof" of rage and despair, struck a
2:10 gait and disappeared in the jungle,
followed by all the survivors. 1 was
saved by a black man and a dog.
It may or may not be true that the
peccary has as intense a dislike for
the black man as he has for a dog,
but anyway the combination proved
effective in this instance. The man
who appeared at this Juncture was the
THE SURVIVORS BEGAN HUNTING ME.
only other in that forest save myself,
my sable servitor, Pappy Ned. He had
been out nil night hunting crapauds,
or forest frogs, nnd was on his way
back to our camp with a backload of
bntrachians, the legs of which were to
be served up in a style which only
Pappy Ned knew to perfection.
"Goramighty, massa!" he exclaimed
in astonishment. "Was dat yo' gun
goin' off pam! pain! lak yo' shoot in' a
reg'mlint ob sogers? Ki, but it's lucky
ole Pappy Ned come 'long, hey? L>em
hawgs done know Pappy Ned an' jes'
cl'ar out when dey hear um a-comin'
along wiv dis yer dawg. Dey don' lak
niggers, an' dey don' lak dawgs nuther,
jnt dey'se death on de buckra man."
"Well, pappy, the buckra man, as you
call me, has brought death to the pec
caries this time, and they've good rea
son for not liking me, I fancy. Hut
you came along just in the nick of
time, old friend, and I owe you another
reward for saving my life a second
time." He had nursed me through a
fever a few months before.
"Oh, me massa, dat ain' nuffln'. Me
only too glad to sarve me good massa,
fo' shuah. Yo' Jes set down an' rest.
while me done cut up an' skin dose
hawgs—one, two, three, fo', ilbo. Golly,
massa, we done gut 'nulT meat fo' do
Christ mus dinnah, uin* we? Not tn
inenshun dis yero bag wlv two dozen
One fat crapauds in uni, sail."
I'appy Ned sot to work dressing (or.
to be exact, undressing) the peccaries,
lieing careful not to taint the flesh with
the contents of the peculiar musk gland
which the species carries 011 its back,
and while ho is thus engaged seems a
good opportunity for me to make my
explanation as to the exact location of
Crusoe's island.
It Is not, as ninety-nine persona in a
hundred think, the island of Juan Fer
nandez, on the southwest coast of
South America, but It Is a good many
miles nearer the coast of our own Unit
ed States, in the southeastern part of
the Caribbean sea. I will not waste
any time, either the reader's or my
own, in argument, but respectfully re
fer the earnest inquirer to old Crusoe
himself. Itobinson Crusoe, Esq., mar
iner, of Bristol, England, whose adven
tures were first written out and pub
lished by Daniel De Foe In 1719, was
somewhere In latitude 11 degrees north
of the equator when he was wrecked—
that is, of course, assuming there ever
A PECCARY,
was an entity called "Crusoe" In the
flesh. But, whether he ever existed or
n&t, that is where De Foe placed his
hero when he had him wrecked on the
coast of his island. To quote the
words of Crusoe himself, just before it
happened, "The master made an ob
servation as well as he could and found
that he was In about 11 degrees of
north latitude, so that we wore gotten
beyond the coast of Guiana and beyond
the river Amazones, toward the Orino
co, commonly called the Great river."
Now, that would be evidence sufli
ciont for any sailor, but let Crusoe fur
ther explain, as he does well along in
his narrative, when he first circum
navigates his island kingdom: "The
land which I perceived to the west and
southwest was the great island of
Trinidad, on the north point of the
mouth of the river Orinoco."
Trinidad, as everybody knows, Is off
the north coast of South America and
is one of the finest British possessions
in the West Indies. The only other is
land which fully answers the descrip
tion given by Crusoe in relation of lo
cation to Trinidad is that of Tobago,
from which Sir Walter Kaleigh prob
ably derived the name of the "weed"
we call tobacco.
I long held the theory that this was
Crusoe's island, and in order to prove
it went down there on a hunting and
exploring expedition, afterward writ
ing a book about my adventures which
gives all the evidence, even if it does
not sufficiently establish the facts. At
any rate, I "played Crusoe" for months
in Tobago, the island of the ancient
mariner's adventures, built a hut of
palm leaves in the forest and for a
time lived as good old Robinson lived,
with the exception that I did not have
any goats; neither did I tempt an at
tack of rheumatism by residing in a
cave. I even bad my poll parrot, iny
hammock under the palms and my
"Man Friday," only the latter was not
a Carib, like Crusoe's factotum, but a
black man, honest and faithful old
Pappy Ned, who soon finished skinning
those peccaries and was ready togo
CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, DECEMBKR 17, 1903.
SO,
and I followed FREDERICK A. OBEB.
after with my
gun. As Tobago is a tropical Island th<
meat would not keep a great while, and
we really had much more than we could
eat, but Pappy Ned said he knew ot
some black people over on the othei
side of the forest who would devour
what there was left provided he could
get word to tbem In time.
There never was a more beautiful
situation for a hut than the site of
mine on a hilltop above the forest line,
with views of tropical woods and shin
ing shore, and, as the weather that
Christmas day was simply perfect, I
ordered my man to make our "spread"
in the open, beneath the cocoa palms,
sheltered from the blazing sun by the
golden rooftrees only. So he set the
table out of doors and lost no time in
getting at the cooking, which was done
over an open lire. Pappy Ned was as
adept at preparing exquisite dishes
from next to nothing as any Parisian
chef that ever lived. We had a garden
filled with such plants as the manioc,
tanla. sweet potato, arrowroot, yam,
etc., not to mention corn and mountain
rice. From a wild grove of coffee trees
I obtained the fragrant berry for my
morning beverage; also cacao, or choco
late, from another copse on the border
of the forest, while the cocoa palms
above and around my hut held a de
licious cool drink in their unripe nuts.
Pappy Ned dried and grated the cassa
va tubers, making "farine." from which
he cooked great cakes more than n foot
across. The juice of the cassava Is
poisonous in its crude state, but it is
converted into a palatable substance by
heat and forms the basis of the noted
"cassareep," or pepper pot. We always
had a pepper pot on hand as a stand
by, into which we threw the odd pieces
of meat left over after ordinary re
pasts, and a goodly amount of the pec
cary flesh was thus disposed of, the
cassareep acting as a preservative as
well as condiment. But pepper pot
was a poor man's makeshift, Pappy
Ned always declare* and the day be
fore he had walked the beach for sea
turtle ejcKS, %-veral score of which he
had brought back to camp, together
with a fine fish he had caught on the
shore.
After working three or four hours
over the open fire Pappy Ned came to
announce, "Dinnali done ready, sah,"
at the same time Landiug rnu a
"cashew cocktail" made from the ju>->«
of an aromatic fruit brewed with ruw
and stirred to effervescence with a
"swizzle stick."
The grand repast of the day opened
with gumbo soup, followed by flsli,
frogs' less and turtles' eggs, while in
the center of the table was peccary
roast, flanked by a nicely browned
guinea bird and a native wild turkey,
with a vast assortment of vegetables
from my garden. There were no drinks
artificially cooled, ice being an unob
tainable luxury in Crusoe's island, but
there were tropical fruits in abun
dance—pines, guavas, mangoes, oranges
and custard apples—all of which had
been plucked within a stone's throw of
my hut.
One thing only was lacking—a good
ly company—to enjoy that Christmas
feast in Crusoe's island. But we were
content, for, as Pappy Ned observed,
"De good (Joramighty done gib us all
we want, mo' dan we need and a heap
sight mo' dan we desarve."
FREDERICK A. OBER.
1 >ON'T TR I ST TO J J lil^l
I CON-FI-DENCE 1
The act of confiding in or placing firm trust ESS
|[|| or reliance on any person or thing. y§jl
rjj In this s reat Republic the people, |§§
&Eg have confidence that it is a Gov
eminent of, by and for the people. I^o
And the people have confidence in the pS
I first I
I NATIONAL 1
| BANK, I
|e| That it is of, by and for the people.
iSs DIRECTORS.
||| (rEO. A. WALKER, JOSIAH HOWARD, NSEGER Hi
IR2 B- W. GREEN, w I SVKPQ T o ' Ss?
' W> U j. E> SMITH, (CHI
K IP ' FELT ' W ' S - WALKER, JOSEPH KAYE. EH
gi Their Confidence in the Bank. ifj
Eg Ca P ital ----- $50,000.00 ■if
Earnings of 19 years left in the Bank, 55.000.00
I $105,000.00 j||
The People's Confidence in the Bank fij
| AS SHOWN: '
a Deposits, Dec. 14, 1903 - . $421,433.17 fjl
Deposits, Dec. 14,1902,- --- - - 366,769.23 11
Gain Jin one year, - $54,663.94 s
M The First National Bank has the confidence of thousands lS|l
Eggj ======== of depositors, WHY?
Because the only royal road to a man's confidence is |§3
rS| to deserve it; there is no other.
H| EMPORIUM. PA. |||