LORD KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. %- r (IV The conqueror of the Khalifa is now iu Cape Town as Chief of Stafl to General Roberta and it is he whom the British people expect to retrieve all the disasters that their armies have met under the other leaders. He will map out an entirely new campaign. He is considered one of the most brill iant. military men in the world to-day. ooooooooooooooooooooooooog | ACADIA. THE BEAUTIFUL LAND, g ® Scenes in Southern Louisiana Where the Q Rich Rice Fields Lie. n o o 00000000000093000000000000 AYOU NEZ PIQUE, Acadia, I 1 Y° U MA Y under au "UJI- A J brella tree," look at green roses aud eat white blackberries. You may watch the chameleon turn scar let, blue, green, brown or gray, or hear the mocking bird pour forth its wild melody from the roof of a veranda, or see a flight of white cranes descend, like great snowflakes, on a distant ricefield. This subtropical laud, with its trees ghostly with Spanish moss, its bayous ablaze with scarlet leafage, out of whose fire of color leaps the Louisiana red bird; its pale green prairies, its intense sunlight, orange sunsets, swift twilight and brilliant moonlight, is weird and enchanting. It looks as if it had been borrowed from a fairy book aud did not belong to geogiaphy at all. It is midwinter, yet the dooryards of Acadia, St. Landry and Calcasieu parishes are abloom with roses. Christmas trees of live oak or holly or mistletoe, still bright iu the little farmhouses, were dressed on Christ mas Day with fresh flowers gathered out of doors. The umbrella tree is common. Every farmer has half a dozen to HARVESTING KICK IN SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA. lend. It is easy to borrow the use of ouo on a rainy tree, and as it is chained to the ground by its roots no one ever forgets to return it. Its branches radiate from the trnnk like umbrella stays. Its foliage forms a waterproof covering like au umbrella top. Its trunk is the handle. It will keep one entirely dry in a subtropical storm. In summer it affords perfect shade from the snn. A tramp once explained liis wanderings through Louisiana by Baying that ho was a traveling tinker, mending umbrella tree?. The green rose, the only one I have ever seen, is not as large as the red rose, nor does it display its petals ns fully, but it is distinctly a rose. If some Northern floriculturist would develop the green rose further it I'UMPING PLANT FOB KICE IRRIGATING CANiL. might become a prized and unique bloom in the beautiful sisterhood of flowers. Boutonniers and bouquets of green roses might become a feature of St. Patrick's Dar in New York. White blackberries are much esteemed iu Acadia and Calcasieu, be cause they are superior iu flavor to the black" kind. Some regard them as a concession of nature to the color prejudice. They differ from the black blackberries mainly in complexion. In Louisiana is -what popularly is known as the "dishcloth plant." It produces a green pod, which yields, when opened, a large piece of cellular vegetable tissue, often used in kitch ens as a "dishcloth." The native horses and cattle in this part of the State formerly lived on sweet potatoes, grass and hay. When Noitheru farmers came here to settle I < THRASHING IUCE IN SOUTH WE-STE UN LOUISIANA. they found tliat the Creole ponies would not eat corn or oats. Both re mained untouched in their feed boxes. Iu some cases the native horses had to be starved for days before they would touch either. A Northern fanner threw an ear of corn among a herd of wild cattle. They caiue up to it, looked at it, smiled it and walked away again. Not a steer would eat it. The colonists from the North inferred that to the horses and cattle of these parishes corn and oats were an acquired taste. The bread fruit of Louisiana is the sweet potato. It will grow anywhere in any bind of soil. The varieties of sweet potatoes are almost innumerable. They yield from 200 to 500 bushels to the acre, and usually sell for fifty cents a barrel or twenty cents a bushel, though in seasons of scarcity they are thirty and even forty cents a bushel. They are the daily food of the farmers, aud are fed to horses, cattle, swine and poultry. The Louisiana sweet potatoes are wholesome, but lack the fine flavor of those raised in Virginia. Irish potatoes are regarded here as a luxury, and the people have them ou Sundays and holidays. It is supposed generally iu the North that Louisiana is a swamp country, a network of morass and bayou, und that there is little ground in its • limits that is firm beneath one's fee! 1 . This is a mistake. North of the Bed Biver, in the northwpatern part of the State, lies thefnmous hill country of Here the land is upheaved in innumer able little mountains, which rise sixty or seventy feet above the surrounding landscape. The highest peak in the State is in this wild district, and it towers 150 feet above the Gulf of Mexico. Tho hill country might make the mountaineers of the Alps ot the Andes smile, but it is as serious a fact in this State as are the Highlands in Scotland or the Catskill Mountains in New York. This mountainous country is the lumber belt. It is full of sawmills, and turns out vast quantities of hand some yellow pine lumber for the North trn market. In the southwestern part of the State lies the Acadian country. It is a laud of beautiful prairies aud of magnificent yellow pine forests that in the distance look blue. This is the upland of Louisiana, the foothills of the little Switzerland to the north. It is the rice belt and cattle country of the State. In Acadia the prairies are small, being ten or twelve miles long aud five or six miles wide. They are girded round by yellow pine forests, through which run bayous. It is a fertile parish, but not as pretty to the eye as Calcasieu. The Calcasieu prairie is the largest in the State— about fifty miles loug and from five to forty miles wide. The parish itself, which is also the largest in the Com monwealth, comprises 4000 square miles, and is about two-thirds tho size of Connecticut. Here the land is firm and solid. In digging wells the farmers have togo deeper to find water than they do in Wisconsin. The laud, which is now fifty tot ixty feet above the Gulf of Mexico, was once its bed, and cou- PUERTO RICO'S WONDERFUL LACE TREE—WHIT, WITH LASH TWISTED FROM THE FIBRE OF ITS OWN STICK-LACE ROSETTE FROM THE SAME FIBRE. tains a great deal of sand. The roads are sometiunis dry within twelve hours after a semi-tropical rain. There is so little mud, except in proximity to rice marshes, that one may ride a bicycle ulong a highway covered with water. This is the upland, and yet it is the rice country. The explanation is sim ple. From a foot to two feet under the soil lies a bed of clay which is im pervious to water. Wherever laud lies in a shallow sancer shape, so that its edges are slightly higher than its interior, the falling rain will till it to the rim and form a marsh, because the water cannot percolato through the underlying bed of clay and escape. In Louisiana you will find the low grounds hard and dry and marshes on the ridges. The alluvial land which lies iu the Mississippi bottom seems to be plan tations part of the time and part of the time Mississippi ltiver. Swamps are not unknown there. "We are having a Louisiana bliz zard," said a Northern settler in Cal casieu parish. "The thermometer has fallen to seventy degrees above zero." The children in the country goto school barefoot all winter. In a coun try schoolhouse, on a sharp midwinter day, there was only one child who wore shoes. All the children had shoes at home, but they did not care to wear them. The well-to-do French farmer, with land by the league and cattle by the hundreds, with money buried iu the ground or hidden in hollow trees or deposited in the bank, goes barefoot the year round, except when he visits I the parish town. His winter dress is a straw hat, a calico shirt and a pair of blue cotton trousers. He goes with out collar, cravat and shoes. His feet are as insensible to cold as are the hands of a Northern man who never wears gloves. It is a common sight in Acadia, on a winter's day, to see a man from the North, in a heavy ul ster, talking to a barefooted French farmer in his shirtsleeves. Her Clncl). "Mildred," said her mother, "I don't believe that young man cares for you at all. In my opinion he comes here to see you merely because he has no place else to go." "Oh, mamma," the girl replied, "you are mistaken—you wrong him. I have proof that he loves me." "What is it? Has he asked you to marry him?" " No, but I accidentally said I ' had saw ' the other evening, and he immediately afterward said something about ' having came,' just to make me feel that he was somewhat shy oa grammar. You needn't tell me that anything less than love—deep, soul* ful, everlaiting love —would induce * man to do that."—Gbicpgo Timss. THE CURIOUS LACE TRES. One or the Many Marvel* of Oar IJttU Puerto Rico. Some exquisite lamp Bhadaa, nap kins and centre pieces bare eome from our dear little Puerto Bico this winter. Thoy are made from tlie in nar part ol LACE ROSETTE AT ESP OF STICK, SHOWING THE NATURE OF THE FIBRE. the lace tree; to be more explicit, from a lace-like fibre, which grows be neath the bark. The outside of this curious tree very much resembles the white and mottled mistletoe boughs one sees exposed for sale during the holidays, but the inside of the younger limbs and branches is a mass of the lace fibre, Bometimes pure white in color and again yellow, tending to brown. Though the lace tree is ap parently a very hard wood, the interior fibre may be unwrapped in sheets, which the Puerto Rican ladies convert i into drawn work or embroider in bright j colors. Whips are made of the branches, a ! part of the branch being left for the i stock and the fibre lace drawn out to form a topknot rosette. A long lash is plaited at the other end. The manufactured lace fibre is very expensive, but nothing can be more beautiful than the effect of light through the lamp shades. The cocoa nut palm grows sheets of fibre on the outside, so that it '.ooks as if it is tied up in old mats, but the lace tree grows its delicate textile fibres inside, with vast improvements iu texture and color. The women of Puerto Rico do beau tiful decorative work with this natural lace, the net of the fibre being so line that it lends itself to the most delicate designs. It is dyed the brightest hues and made into flowers, which are ap plied to the lamp shades of the same or arranged in shapes of brilliant moths and butterflies. The large fire fly of the tropics is exquisitely simu lated. On the centrepieces for table adornment, the Spanish rose is fre quently imitated. This rose is white iu the morning, pink at noon aud a deep crimson at night, hence there are three roses togo with the centrepieces aud these are daiutiiy attached bj means of minute fibres to correspond with the hour of the day. Each coloi of the rose has a meaning. The white rose signifies that the daughters of the liomse are too young to think of mar riage; the pink rose that they are so ciety debutantes, aud the red rose thai they are married. Tommy a* a llumoriitt. "Tommy Atkins is a regular hum orifct at times," the subaltern con tinued with a grin. " Did you evei hear the story of the court-martial it the Hussars? No? Well, yor must know that, just as in the ordin ary trial, a prisoner may object to the preseuce of a juryman whom he think: has already some prejudice or grudge against him, so at a court-martial he is always asked if he is satisfied with the officers selected to try him. Well, this particular Tommy,when the pres ident asked him the regular question, looked at the officers sitting solemnly before him aud answered : 'Certain lv; I object to the 'ole blooming lot of yer.' I believe that they were so astonished at this startling reply that they had to put off the trial till thej could make out what was the right thing to do under the circumstances.' —St. James's Gazette Correspondence. The Balaclava Cap. In England just uow womeu ar» busy knitting comforts for the Britisl soldiers in South Africa —sleepinghel mets, tam-o'-shanters, cardigan jack ets, cuffs, scarfs, mitteus, socks and ohest and back protectors. The Bal> aclava cap is the favorite object witl these patriotic knitters. It ia cold o nights in South Afrioa, and some o: the soldiara find the Balaclavas verj useful. GOOD WATER FROM TREES. Wliy Woodsmen In the South Always Carry an Auger In Their Kit. In many sections of the forest lands of the south during the dry seasuus a mau may walk for miles without find ing a stream of water or a spring by which to qucueh his thirst. If, how ever, he is an experienced hunter and woodsman, he will not have to drink water from the stagnant pools in order to keep life in his body. Queer as it may seem, an experi enced man can hunt for days through such dry tracts and yet experience no incouvenience ou account of the lac-k of water. Nature has provided a means which is only known to the in itiated. Every old huntsman carries with him, when going on a long hunt, a small anger, by which he can secure a refreshing driuk and water to cook with at any moment. A cottonwood tree or a willow is tiie well which the wily huntsman taps. He examines encli tree until he finds 0110 that lias what a woodsman calls a "vein." It is simply an attenuated protuberance. By boring into this "vein" " "tream of clear wafer will flow out. It is not sap, but clear,pure water. The huntsmeu say that the water is better than the average to be had from the ordinary wells. There is no sweetish taste about it, but it has a strong flavor of sulphur, and is slightly carbnoated. The reason for this phenomenon cannot easily be explained, but that a supply of water can bo contained in a tree is not so surprising. The fact of its flowing is the wonderful feature, showing that it must be under pres sure, or, in other words, that there is more at the source of the supply. When it is considered that the trees furnish the water in the dry season, and that the grouud is literally baked, it is the more remarkable, especially when the roots of the trees do not ex tend to any great depth into the grou ud. Owing to the fact that water cati be obtained by tupping cottonwood and willow tree*, very peculiar testimony was recently heard in a case iu the federal court here. About 20 years ago, at a certain point on the Missis sippi river, one of the islands which was formed by the channel forking and surrounding a largo tract of laud was deserted by the stream on the Tennes see side. Years afterward this land was claimed by the man who owned property iu Tennessee adjoiniug the former island. His claim was that the island had been washed away, and that the present land was formed by accretion. The former owner, to prove that the land had been washed away, sawed off the top of a cottonwood stump that was on the island and showed that it contained 5(5 circles, or rings, begin ning at the heart. His statement was that a ring was formed iu the tree every year, hence the tree was a sap ling 55 years ago,and was conse pient ly growing there 3(5 years before thu island became a part of Tenuessee. Iu order to prove that a ring was formed every year he testified that while hunting, about '2O miles from that place in 1865, he had tapped a cottonwood tree for water, and had put a plug iu the hole afterward to keep the water from wasting. His theory was that the treo in its growth would have covered up the plug aud that the number of rings from this plug to the bark of the tree would l>e,in the year 189'.*, 34, showing that a ring had been formed for every oue of the >4 years it had been imbedded in the wood. 'llie tree was found and sawed up. The plug was discovered, and was dis tant from the outside of the tree ex actly 34 rings. Although such testimony would not be doubted by a woodsman, it was not received as evidence by the court. Tin- Strnnsi' Thing* We Hear. The car was very crowded. Just beside the woman sat a very pretty girl and hanging to a strap was a very nice young man, and since everything was in such close quarters, the wo man had no choice but to play the part of eavesdropper. And this is what she heard: "How is ev< rytliing out in Rocky Heights now?" asked the young man. "It's so dull," answered the young woman. "You've no idea how dull it is. I've been wanting to come into town to visit Susie, but they won't let me." "Why not?" asked the man. "1 don't know," she said. "Good ness knows they're anxious enough to get me married of?'. 1 should think they'd he only too glad to huve me come." "Would you marry?" The young man seemed partial to questions. "Would ] marry?" she repeated. "\'es, indeed 1 > ould." "Hut why don't you?" came an other question. "Because nobody asks me. I will marrv }ust the tirst man who wants me," she said inuocently. "Well, will you have luo? be said. Silence for a moment, and con cealed anxiety on the part of the hs teuer. "Will you have me? I'll come out with the ring tonight," he said. "l)o you know what my father and mother would say?" she said sud denly. "N'o, what?" " 'Praise God from whom all bless ings flow.' " Tli«» Increasing > aim of Dinitiondu, The war in South Afiien, it is learned, has been the cause of the great rise in the price of diamouds. For the last few years these precious stones have become more and more valuable, till the war lias accentuated [ their price to such a degree that the gems are not only things of beauty, I but a good investment as wall. TEE GEEAT DESTROYER* SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE, i \ \ The I'.mn Heller's Song—One of Goutli'i l'erorations— A Climax by AVlilch the Famous Temperance Lecturer Thrilled Ilia Hearers—A Powerful Illustration. Do yon pee yonder farmer just planting Ills Held? He does all the work, friends, but I get the yield. He's drinking tlie fruits of bis lands and bis klne, If I w«it a few years his whole farm will be mine. Chorus. He's working for me. He's working for roe. My wife and my children he feeds, don't you see? Both houses and lands ho Is earning for me. He's working for me; yes, working for me. Do you hear that mechanic complain of his fate? Cursing trusts and monopolies tnrly and late? Vet though wages are low and prices are dour. He still can find money to buy him hi? beer. Chorus. Rly wife and my daughters wear satins, while be la buying mo horses and carriages—see? Then see that poor washwoman, wrinkled and gray; She works, and her husband soon drinks all her pay. He once worked himself; then I nsed to get more, Lint a half loaf is bettor than none, to be sure. Chorus. My wife and daughters have jewels, but she Is washing to help pay my servants for me. Then there's that policeman with uniform gay. He's paid by the town, but the work—well, now say, Were it not for rny business he'd soon lose his job. riieru'd be few to "pull la" for this blue coated "bob." Chorus! I make the men drunk and he "pulls tlieni," you see. Not a man ou the "force" but Is "solid" with mo. A Iteminiscenre ol Jolm B. Gougli. Jinny and many a day ngo, on the then frontier line of the Valley of the Minne sota, In the at that time beautiful village of Mmikato, word wont out that Cough had beeu engaged by the local lyceum bu reau to lecture on temperance. Gough came. Hi was received by a committee of men who had fought Indians, swam rivers, ■•polled the virgin forests, opened new soil uudurocl poverty, suffered hunger and never surrendered their belief In the right. Thev escorted him to the opera house and stage. His speech was slow at first, gestures few, illustrations not many. The village topers were out in force, and some more decent uion for whom women were praying to give over the habit of drink. He told jomotliiug of his own life, of the misery drought by drink, of th« laws of self-de uial anil self-sacrifice. He was intense at ill times, aud this Intensity bore down up- Dii the listeners until he had made them jn« with himself. Even the small village ooy inclined to cat calls and gurgling whistles was silent, and there came through the sepulchral hall no sound but the raw cry of the winter wind from out side. He made some plight comment on the iojdition of a drunkard's family—the waut which came upon them, the loss of self-re jpect. He described the degradation of spirit which rested with the habitual Jrluker and how if that spirit was not d«- •itroyed mere> signing of the pledge would not redeem. He pleade l for exercise of will power, more potent in affecting re lurm than all tho drugs and medicines in be world. This was but developing the uinds of Ills bearors for a climax. Suddenly he swung one arm high In the air and shouted: "A drunkard and his fall to the depths >[ everlasting hell is like the man who .■limbs to the top of St. Peter's In Home, lie is on the very summit of the groat lome, the blue sky above and the world !nr, far beneath, lie looks down from his perch, and having nothing to grasp, to iold to, grows dizzy. "Everything is whirling now before him. His senses leave him. He Is swooning. His (eet slip. He is o(T of tie dome. He is lu '.lie air. He is falling "Down! "Down! "Down! "To the earth beneath and tho ruin ol himself. "Thus descends the drunkard— "Down! Down! Down! "To tho fires of hell and tho ruin of his soul!" The whole exclamation was accompanied >vlth such use ot his right arm 'nil body as to bring tho fearful descent imt.Jdiately to the eye of the mind. A shudder ran over the audience. The iob.s of women were heard. Men felt un comfortable. Men and women nro living to-day who still feol tho power of that 11- .ustration, uttered by lips long since cold —Chicago Times-Herald. A Terrible Drink Story, Day by day instances are made public oT | (ho disasters duo to drink. The wonder is that the working classes, who are th» (.'rentest sufTerers from tho demon, do not rise and demand the total cessation of the manufacture and sale of alcohol as a bev friige. In London a man and his wife went to bid farewell to a British Army lteservlst I who was sailing for South Africa. They became Intoxicated, the woman was knocked down by an omnibus and taken to j a hospital. Hut as she had n dread of hos- I pltnls her husband would not let her re- I main, being too drunk to realize the seriousness of her condition. When h« invoke in the morning he found his wife dead by his side. Equally pitiful stories nre heard daily by magistrates aud coron ers, but hulf the havoc wrought by drink is never published.—Christian Budget. Prosecution of "Kratidy l>rou»" Sellers. Tho sale of "brandy drops" by candy ilealersto school children has now become such a liagrant evil in Jersey City, N. J., that School Superintendent Henry Snyder, Dr. .Tollu D. McQill, who Is President of the Police Board, and Assistant Prosecutor Van Winkle joined in a plan for the sup pression of the sales by prosecution of the tellers under the law prohibiting the sola of liquor to minors. The Crusnde in Brief. The Society of Total Abstainers, just formed in Vienna, is th€ Hist ever estab lished In Austria. A large American Insurance company an nounces that It will provide a special pol icy at a lower rate for abstainers. Scotland has beaten England In tho num ber ot teeto' chief magistrates elected ttils year. -he provosts ot thirty-three towns are total abstainers. Nearly one-third of the towns and town ships ot Ohio are now without legalized saloons, largely as the result of the efforts ol the Anti-Saloon League. . . _i
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers