Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1890 — Page 2

ALLAN QUATERMAIN.

A Becord of Remarkable Adventure* and Discoveries.

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

CHAPTER X.—CoirmnjKD. “Well, well,” thought I, “you have come in search of adventures, Allan, my boy, and you have certainly got them. At your time of life, too! you ought to be'ashamed of yourself; but somehow you aren’t, and awful as it all is, perhaps you will pull through after all; and if yod don’t why, you can’t help it, you see! And when all’s said and dene, and underground river will make a very appropriate burying-piace.” At first, however, I am bound to say that the strain upon the nerves was very great. It is trying to toe coolest and most experienced person not to know from one hour to another if he has five minutes more to live, but there is nothing in this world that one can not get accustomed to, and in time we began to get accustomed even to that. And, after all, our anxiety, though, no doubt natural, was, strictly speaking, Qlogical, seeing that we never know what is going to happen to us the next minute, even when we sit in a welldrained house with two policemen patrolling under the window—nor how long we have to live. It is all artdhged for us, my sons, so what is the use of botheringP

It was nearly midday when we made our dive into darkness, and we set our watch (Good and Umslopogaas) at two having agreed that it should be of a duration of five hours. At seven o’clock accordingly, Sir Henry and I went on,Sir Henry at the bow and lat the stern, and the other two lay down and went to sleep. For three hours all went well, Sir Henry only finding it necessary to once push us off from the side; and I that but little steering was required to keep us straight, as the violent current did all that was needed though occasionally the canoe showed a tendency which had to be guarded against to veer and travel broadside on. What struck me as the most curious thing about this wonderful river was: how did the air keep fresh? It was muggy and thick, no doubt, but still not sufficiently so to render it bad Or even remarkably unpleasant. The only explanation that I can suggest is that the water of the take had sufficient air in it to keep the atmosphere of the tunnel from absolute stagnation, this air being given out as it proceeded on its headlong way. Of course I only give this solution of the mystery for what it is worth, which perhaps is not much.

When I had been for three hours or so at the helm, I began to notice a decided change in the temperature, which was getting warmer. At first I took no notice of it, but when, at the expiration of another half-hour, I found that it was getting hotter and hotter, I called to Sir Henry and asked him if he noticed it or if it was only my imagination. "Noticed it!” he answered; should- think so. I am in a sort of Turkish bath.” Just about then the others woke up gasping, and were obliged to begin to discard their clothes. Here Umslopoga&s had the advantage, for he did not wear any to speak of, except a raooeha. Hotter it grew, and hotter yet, till at last we could scarcely breathe, and the perspiration poured out of us. Half an hour” more, and though we were all now stark naked, we could hardly bear it. The place was like an antechamber of the infernal regions proper. I dipped my hand into the water and drew it out almost with a cry; it was nearly boiling. We consulted a

little-thermometer we had—the mercury Stood 123*. From tha snrfaca of the water rose a dense cloud of steam. Alphonse groaned out that we were already in purgatory, which indeed we were, though not in the sense that he meant. Sir Henry suggested that we must be passing near the seat of some under ground volcanic fire, and I am inclined to think, especially in the light of what subsequently occurred. that he was right. Our sufferings for some time after this really’ pans my powers of description. We no longer perspired, for all the perspiration had been sweated out of us. We simply lay in the bottom of the boat, which we were now physically Incapable of directing, feeling line hot •embers, and I fancy undergoing very unuch the same sensations that the poor fish do when they are dying on Hand, namely, that of slow suffocation. Our skin began to crack, and the blood to throb in our heads like the beating of a steam-engine; This had been going on for some time, when suddenly the river turned a little, and I heard Sir Henry call out from the bows in a hoarse, startled voice, and, looking up, saw a wonderful and awful thing. About half a mile a head of us, and a little to the left of the center of the stream—which we could now see was about ninety feet broad—a huge pillar-like jet of almost white flame rose from the surface of the water and sprung fifty feet into the air, when it struck the roof and spread Cut some forty feet in diameter failing back in curved sheets of fire shaped like the petals of a fall-blown rose- Indeed this awful gas jet resembled nothing bo much as a great flaming flower rising out of the black water. Below was the stalk, a foot or more thick, and above the dreadful bloom. And as for the fearfulness cS it and its flrce and awesome beauty, who can describe itP Certainly I can not. Although wp were now some Jive hundred yards away, it, notwithstanding the steam, lit up the whole caverp as dear as day, and we oould see that the roof here was about forty feet above tie, and washed perfectly smooth with water. The rock was black, and here and there I oould

make out long shining lines of ora unning through it like great veins, but of what metel they were I know not. On we rushed toward this pillar of fire, which gleamed fiercer than any furnace ever itt by man. “Keep the beat to the right, Quatermaln—to the right, ’’shouted Sir Henry, and a minute afterward I saw him fail forward senseless. Alphonse had already gone. Good was the next to go. Thera they lay as though dead; only Umslopogaas and I kept our senses. We were #tthin fifty yards of it now, and I saw the Zulu's head fall forward on

his hands. He had gone, too, and 1 was alone. I could not breathe; the fieroe heat dried me up. For yards and yards round the great rose of fire the rock roof was rad hot. The wood of the boat was almost burning. I saw the feathers on one of the dead swans begin to twist and shrivel up; but ! r would not give in. I knew that if I did we should pass within three or four yards of the gas jet and perish miserably. I set the paddle so as to turn the canoe from It as far as possible, and held on grimly. My eyes seemed to be bursting from my head, and through my closed lids I could see the fierce light. We were nearly opposite now; it roared like all the fires of hell, and the water boiled furiously around it. Five seconds more. We were past; I heard the roar behind me.

Then I, too, fell senseless. The next thing that I remember was feeling a breath of air upon my face. My eyes opened with great difficulty. I looked up. Far, far above me there was light, though around me was deep gloom. ■ Then I remembered and looked. The canoe still floated down the river, and in the bottom of it lay the naked forms of my companions. “Were they dead?” I wondered. “Was I left alone in this awful place?” I knew not. Next I became conscious of a burning thirst. I put my hand over the edge of the boat into the water and drew it up again with a cry. No wonder; nearly all the skin was burned off

the back of it. The water, however, was cold, or nearly so, and I drank pints and splashed myself all over. My body seemed to suck up the fluid as one may see a brick wall suck up rain after a drought; but where I was burned the touch of it caused intense pun. Then I bethought myself of the others, and, dragging myself toward them with difficulty, I sprinkled them with water, and to my joy they began to recover—Umslopogaas first, then the others. Next they drank, absorbing water like so many sponges. Then, feeling chilly—a queer contrast to our recent sensations—we began as best we could to get into our clothes. As we did so Good pointed to the port side of the canoe; it was all blistered with heat, and in places actually charred. Had it been built like our civilized boats, Good said that the planks would have certainly warped and let in enough water to sink us; but fortunately it was dug out of the soft, willowy wood of a single great tree, and had sides nearly three inches and a bottom four inches thick. What that awful flame was we never discovered, but I suppose that there was at this spot a crack or hole in the bed of the river through which a vast volume of gas forced its way from its volcanic home in the bowels of the earth toward the upper air. How it first became ignited it is. of course, impossible to say—probably, I should think, from some spontaneous explosion of mephitic gases.

As soon as we had got some things on and shaken ourselves together a little, we set to work to* make out where we were now. I have said that there was light above, and on examination we found that it came from the sky. Our river that was, Sir Henry - the wild vision of the poet. * was no longer underground, but was running on its darksome way, not now through "caverns measureless to man, ” but between two frightful cliffs which can not have been less than two thousand feet high. So high were they, indeed,that, though the sky was above us, where we were was dense gloom—not darkness, indeed, but the gloom of a room closely shuttered in the day-time. Up on either side rose the great straight cliffs, grim and forbidding, till the eye grew dizzy with trying to measure their sheer height. The little space of sky that marked where they ended lay like a thread of blue upon their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved by any tree or creeper. Here and there, however, grew ghostly patches of a long gray lichen, hanging motionless to the rock as the white heard to the chin of a dead man. It seemed as though only the dregs or heavier part of the light had sunk to the bottom of this awful place. No bright-winged sunbeam could fall so low: they died far, far above our heads. By the river’s edge was a little shore formed of round fragments of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water, and giving the place the appearance of being strewn with thousands of fossil cannon balls.

Evidently when the water of the underground river is high there is no beach at all, or very little, between the border of the stream and the precipitous cliffs;, but now there was a space of seven-or eight yards. And here, oh this beach, we determined to land, in order to rest oursefves a little after all that we had gone through and to stretch our limbs. It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour’s respite from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking and arranging the canoe. Accordingly we selected what looked like a favorable spot, and with some little difficulty managed to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, Inhospitable pebbles. ** ♦“ln Kubla Khan a river ran Through cavern* meuurelcaa to sun Down to aaunJoH aaa.”

“My word,” called out Good, who was on shore the first, ■ ‘what an awful place! it’s enough to give one a fit.” And he laughed. ! Instantly a thundering voice took up his words, magnifying them a hundred times. “Give one a lit—Ho! ho! ho!”—“A fit!—.Ho! ho! ho!” answered another voice in wild accents from far up the cliff—“A fit! a fit! a fit!” chimed in voice after voiee—each flinging the words to and fro with shout* of awful laughter to the invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed with the words and with shrieksof fiendish merriment, which at last ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of such self-com-mand as he possessed. “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” the Titanic echoes thundered, shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone. “Ah,” said Umslopogaas calmly, “I clearly perceive that devils live here. Well, the place looks like it.” I tried to explain- to him that the cause of all the hubbub was a very remarkable and interesting echo, but he would not believe it. “Ah.” he said, “I know an echo when I her,r one. There was one lived opposite my kraal in Zululand, and the intombis [maidens] used. to talk with it. But if whti we hear is a full-

grown echo, mine at home can only nave been a baby. No, no—they are devils up there. But 1 don’t think much of them, though,” he added, taking a pinch of Bnuff. “They can copy what one Says, but they don’t seem to be able to talk on their own account, and they dare not show their faces,” and he relapsed into silence, and apparently paid no further attention to such contemptible fiends. After this we found it necessary to keep our conversation down to a whisper—for it was really unbearable to have every word one uttered tossed to and fro like a tennis-ball, as precipice called to precipice. But even our whispers ran up the rocks in mysterious murmurs till at last they died away in loner-drawn sighs of sound. Echoes are delightful and romantic things, but we had more than enough of them in that dreadful gulf.

As soon as we had settled ourselves a little on the round stones, we proceeded to wash ourselves and dress our burns as well as wa could. As we had but a little oil for the lantern, we could not spare any for this purpose, so we gkihned one of the swans and used the fat off its breast, which proved an excellent substitute. Then we repacked the canoe, and finally proceeded to take some food, of which I need scarcely say we were in need, for our insensibility had endured for many hours, and it was, as our watches showed, midday. Accordingly, we seated ourselves in a circle, and were soon engaged in discussing our'cold meat with such appetite as could muster, which, in my ease at rate, was not much, as I felt sick and faint after my suffering of the previous night, and had besides a racking headache. It was a curious meal. The gloom was so intense that we could scarcely see the way to cut: our food and convey it to our mouths. Still we got on pretty well, although the meat was tainted by the heat through which it had passed, till I happened to look "behind me—my attention being attracted by a noise of something crawling over the stones, and

perceived sitting upon a rock in my immediate rear a huge species of black fresh-water crab, only it was five time the size of any crab I ever saw. This hideous and loathsome-looking animal had projecting eyes that seemed to glare at one, very long and flexible ant#nae or feelers, and gigantic claws. Nor was I especially favored WfEETTfs company. From every quarter dozens of these horrid brutes were creeping up, drawn, I suppose, by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out of holes in the precipice. Some were already quite close to us. I started quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that' he jumped up with a howl, and set the -wild echoes flying’ in sober earnest. Just then, too, atffether, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse’s leg, and declined to part with it, and, as may be imagined, a considerable scene ensued. Umalopogaas took his ax and cracked the shell of one with the flat of it, whereon it set up a horrid sort of screaming which the echoes multiplied a thou-sand-fold, and began to foam at the mouth, a proceeding that drew hundreds more of its friends out of unsuspected holes and corners. Those on the spot perceiving that the animal was hurt fell upon it like creditors on a bankrupt, and literally rent it limb from limb with their huge pincers and devoured it, using their claws to convey thp fragments to their mouths.

Seizing whatever weapons were handy, such as stones or paddles, we commenced a war upon the monsters—whose numbers were increasing by leaps and bounds, and whose stench was overpowering. So fast as we cracked their armor others seized the injured ones and devoured them, foaming at the mouth, and screaming as they did so. Nor did the brutes stop at that. When they could they nipped hold of us—and awful nips they were—or tried to steal the meat. One enormous fellow got hold of the swan we had skinned and began to drag it off. Instantly a score of others flung themselves upon the prey, and then began a ghastly and disgusting scene. How the monsters foamed and screamed, and rent the flesh, and,each other! It was a sickening and unnatural sight, and one that will haunt all who saw it till their dying day—enacted as it was in the deep, oppressive gloom, and set to the unceasing music of the many-

toned nerve-shaking echoes. . Strange as it may seem to say so, there was something so shockingly human about these fiendish creatures—it was as though all the most evil passions &ad desires of man had got into the shell of a magnified crab and gone mad. They were so dreadfully courageous and intelligant, and they looked as if they understood. The whole soene might have furnished material for another canto of Dante’s * Tnferno, ”as Curtis 6aid. “I say, you fellows, let* get out of this or we shall"all go off our heads,” sung out Good; and we were not slow to take the hint. Pushing the canoe, around which the animals were now crawling by hundreds and making vain attempts to climb, off the rocks, we bundled into it and got out into midstream, leaving behind us the fragments of our meal and the screaming, foaming, stinking mass of monsters in full possession of the grounds. “Those are the devils of the place,” said Umslopogaas with the air of one who has solved a problem, and upon my word I felt almost inclined to agree with him, Umslopogaas’s remarks were like his ax—very much to the point. “What’s to be done next P” said Sir Henry, blankly. “Drift, I suppose,” I answered, and -we drifted accordingly. All the afternoon and well into the evening we floated on in the gloom beneath the far-off line of blue sky, scarcely knowing when day ended and night began, for down in that vast gulf the difference was not marked, till at length Good pointed out a star hanging right above us, which, having nothing better to do, we observed with great interest. Suddenly it vanished, the

darkness became intense, and a familiar murmuring sound filled the air. “Underground again,” I said with a groan, holding up the lamp. Yes, there was no doubt about it. I could just make out the roof. The .chasm bad come to an end and the tunnel had commenced. And then began another long, long, long night of danger and horror. To describe all its incidents would be too wearisome, so I will simply say that about midnight we struck on a flat projecting rock in mid-stream and were as nearly as possible overturned and drowned. Uowever, at last we got off, and proceeded upon the uneven tenor of our way. And so the honrs passed till it was nearly three o’clock. Sir Henry, Good, and Alphonse were asleep, utterly worn out; Umslopogaas was at the bow with the pole and I was steering, when I perceived that the rate at which we were traveling had perceptibly increased. Then, suddenly, I heard Umslopogaas make an exclamation, and next second came a sound as of parting branches, and I became aware that the canoe was forced through hanging bushes or creepers. Another moment, and a breath of sweet open air fanned my face, and I felt that we had emerged from the tunnel and were floating upon clear water. I say felt, for I could see nothing, the darkness being absolutely pitchy, as it often is just before the dawn. But even this could scarcely damp my joy. We were out of that dreadful river, and wherever we might have got to this at least was something to be thankful for. And so I eat down and inhaled the sweet night air and waited for the dawn with suoh patience as I could command. To b« Continued.

What Water Costs.

From a profusely illustrated article on "The New Croton Aqueduct,” by Charles Barnard, in the December Century, we quote the following; "It is a curious commentary on the demands of modern civilization to observe the effect of building this dam. The million people in the city need a reserve of drinking waterr ahdlwentyone families must move out of their quiet rural homes and see their hearths sink deep underwater. The entire area to be taken for the reservoir is 1471 acres. Twenty-one dwellings, three saw and grist mills, a sash and blind factory and a carriage factory must be torn down and removed. A mile and a quarter of railroad track must be relaid, and six miles of country roads must be abandoned. A road twenty-three miles long will extend around the two lakes, and a border or ‘safety margin’, three hundred feet wide will be cleared all around the edge to prevent any contamination of the water. This safety border will include a carriage road, and all the rest will be laid down ter grass. As the dam rises, the water will spread wider and wider over fields, farms and roads. Every tree will be cut down and carried away. Every building will be carted off and the cellars burned out and filled with clean soil to prevent any possibility of injury to the water. Fortunately there is no cemetery within the limits of the land taken for the reservoir. Had there been one it would have been completely removed before the water should cover the ground. • Fifty-eight persons and corporations, holding one hundred and eleven parcels of land will be dispossessed in order to clear the land for the two lakes and the dams, roads and ■safety borders.” ONfe of the youngest monarchs in the world is King Thantai, potentate of Annam. Ue is nine years of age, very precocious and fully conscious of the importance of his position, He is I solemn and thoughtful, disdains childish sports, and spends all his time in the seclusion of his palace, studying, conversing with aged counsellors and poring over books and manuscripts. He is learning Chinese and French, and shows remarkable aptitude in the acquisition of foreign tongups. He is very arbitrary and exacting, and his teachers stand in great awe of him. Style it everything for a sinner, and and a leetle ov it won’t hurt even a saint 1

STRANGE IDEAS.

What a Great Many People Believe About the Moon. Supposed Effects on too Hind and on Many of the Ordinary Affairs of Every-Day T.iq, —Superstitions as Old as the Human Baca. Speculations concerning the nature or the moon, or the extent to which it influences terrestrial phenomena, are not confined to astronomers and other men of science who tell us that it is a dead planet devoid of atmosphere and water, for many unscientific people think it consists entirely of the latter, not to mention others who are inclined to the superstition that chalk or green cheese may enter largely into its composition, says the London Gr .phic. In fact, according to a Wiltshire legend, there was once a farmer’s wife who,, seeing the reflection of the moon in the river, thought that it was a cream cheese and endeavored to fish it out of the water with a rake. Perhaps it was as well for this worthy dame that her efforts were not crowned with success, for it is recorded that on one occasion AN UNFORTUNATE DONKEY, Having been suspected of swallowing the moon while drinking from a river, was tried in due legal form, and, on being found guilty, had its body ripped open in order that the useful planet might be liberated, once again to shine upon the world below.

Witches are thought to have more or less influence over the moon, and the heathen Chinee considers it to be, like the sun. a favorite article of diet with certain mischievous dragons, who are supposed to swallow it arid thus produce eclipses. Whether the digestive powers of one of these voracious monsters would be equal to the occasion, however, has never yet been satisfactorily proved. Possibly the sun or moon, taken in a raw state, might produce dyspepsia ; but the Celestials lose no time in making such hideous noises as may be calculated to impress the dragon with a sense of his iniquity and c use him to disgorge his strange meal with as little delay as possible. THE MAN IN THE MOON. The Canadian Indians tell their children that if they point at the moon their fingers will be bitten off. Some of the tribes of North America believe that there isa frog in it, and the Hin*dus can see on the moon’s face something very like a hare; but among ourselves the popular legends have fixed upon a man and a dog as its sole inhabitants. The man in the moon is generally supposed to have been consigned his present abode as a punishment for gathering sticks on the "Sabbath—the idea, it is said, having probpbly originated from the reference in the Book of Numbers to a man who was stoned to death for a similar offense. . rv

- The yUtenCy ul lunar influence in worldly matters was at one time almost universally acknowledged, and even now many of the errors and superstitions connected with the moon still hold their ground among the rustic population of the country. Not only is the restless ocean governed by the pale luninary of night, but a kind of tidal arrangement was supposed to exist in the bodies Of -animats, their marrow and brains fluctuating with the increase and waning of the moon. It is n popular holier that the"r .vs of" the latter. Tailing upon a sleeping person, cause his face to become distorted, and. as some aver, even deprive him of his senses; in fact, lunatics were so named from their supposed susceptibility to lunar influence, and ‘‘moonstruck” Ts a common term for a state of mental a her ration bordering on imbecility. It is still commonly supposed, as it was in the days of the Homans, that the violence of madness increases with the moon and decreases as the latter is waning, the worst paroxysms occurring when ; .the planet is at the full. —l ... 'L tme superstition that when the moon comes in and goes out on a Sunday seed plan tod during that month will not grow. Hair, it is said, should be cut at the new moon, otherwise it is liable to fall off; corns, on the other hand, should be cut during the waning of tho moon, in order that they may gradually diminish and ultimately disappear. There are also many simil r superstitions, the general idea in them being that anything which may be done before the full moon is productive of increase or growth, the contrary being the case if the moon be waning.

WEATHER SIGNS.

Some savages imagine that a fresh moon is created every month, and it may possibly have be-m a somewhat similar idea that has caused the new moon to become the so eject of the numerous customs and superstitious fancies which one not unfrequently meets with. It is customary with country people to bow or courtsy to the new moon, and by some it is also supposed that a wish made at such a time will be gratified. It is held too, that the money in one’s pocket should be turned for Hick. To see the moon through glass, however, is considered unlucky. When the moon is on its back, that is to say with the horns of the crescent pointing upward, it is thought by some to indicate frost. Sharp horns of the ••ew moon are supposed to presage wind; and when the outline of the entire plannet can be traced it was in Scotland looked upon as a sign of bad weather. ,

VERY COSTLY DRUCS.

expensive Medicines Of the Modern Pharmacopoeia. Some medicines are very expensive. • At a recent exhibition of the American Health association in Brooklyn one manufacturing chemist, E» Merck, exhibited a case of bottles, about enough to fill an ordinary barrel, the total value of which was over $30,000. The most costly drug in the case was labeled "Hom-atropine hydrobromato. cryst,” It was all in one bottle, containing six pounds, and was valued at I $12,600, or at the rate of $2,100 per 'pound. This drug is an alkaloid, artificially prepared from atropine. Its effects are similar to those of atrophine, out not so lasting. It is a preparation

of belladona and is chiefly used in treatment of the eyes, and always in minute quantities. It expands the pupil of the eye. „ "This substance is a striking illustration of the application of chemistry to well-known medicines. The physician does not deal so much with substances in their crude form as with the quintessences or active principles, says the Mew York Sun. By this means all superfious matter is removed and only that part which is needed to be used |in the healing art iff given to the ■ P a tient Thu 3, not only have the ! foots, herbs, flowers, seeds, barks, 1 juices, ores, and earths of undent medicine been,forced to give up their essential and active parts to the retort or crucible of the chemist and to reap- ; pear freed from dross or inert matter, reduced in quantity, but vastly magnified in intensity of action,; but entirely new combinations of elements, have been devised by'chemical science and formed by chemical art, and previously unthought-of modes of action in the human organism have been achieved by some of these new formations. As the healing art has become specialized, and no one physician claims to be able to treat all ailments, so the use of special drugs for special treatment has become neces-> sarv, so that it is difficult to find even a druggist who is familiar with every one of the drugs now in the market 1 The United States pharmacopoeia is a huge book with the contents of which but few are thoroughly familiar. Yet to get a list of drugs in actual use it will be necessary to study also the German pharmacopoeia and the Britis h pharmacopoeia. In the exhibition referred to one house showed 150 articles Only out of 6,000 produced in the laboratories.

Among the expensive drugs is aconitine alkaloid, an amorphous powder from acenitum napellus, produced from monkshood or wolfsbane. It is used in febrile diseases and neuralgia, A bottle of this containing about three pounds is valued at $489.50. A bottle of anemonia containing 3f ounces, about the size of a pony of beer, is valued at $191.45. There are thirteen different preparations of caffeine in small bottles at from sl6 to S2B a bottle. This medicine has lately been applied successfully in Bright’s disease. There are various preparations, from the Calabar bean that are very costly. They are used in diseases of the eye and lockjaw. One preparation is called physostigmine alkaloid, and 4 ounces of it cost $437.50. Physostigmine hydrochlorate crystals in a bottle about the size of a Coney Island glass of beer, containing 5$ ounces, cost $503.14. A small bottle ol physostigmine salicylate crystals, containing 3 ounces, cost $1,810.05. There is a preparation from the leaves of taborana pilocarpus pennatifolius called pilocarpine nitrate crystal, used in consumption, A bottle of this containing 1 pound 6 ounces—is valued at $678.75. A preparation from quassia of bitter wood (picuena excelsus) is used for dyspepsia. A small bottle of this containing 10 ounces is valued at $218.75. *

His Time Had Come.

The most remarkable specimen ol the fatalist which ever came beneath the writer’s knowledge, says the Washington Post, was old Unc’ Davey Trent, an aged house servant in South Carolina, who had fallen by the vicissitudes of war from the proud position of maiah domer r to Kunncl Robert Trent; sah,” to the humble lot of owning himself and choring around the house of M ij. T. Unc’ Davey could break crockery. The fragile ware would somehow slip through his trembling black fingers and dash into a hundred fragments on the hard pine floor. ‘‘There, Uncle Davey, that makes the fourth plate this month,” his mistress complained. "How can you be so careless?” ‘‘Unc’ Davey an’t keerliss, Miss Carrie,Bress yo’ heart. Unc’ Davey neiber bruk nutfin’ in he life. Dis yer plate time come, dass all. Hit time war eoine, 4 Plate mus’ die; you mus’ die; Unc’ Davey die sometime, ’spose—heaben know when; eberyting has ter die. Plant die, chicken die, cow die Dis yer ears die. Eberything die ’cep’ God. Don you tek on ’bout wan 111’ s isser. Unc’ Davey nebber dun bruck it tall. Hit jes’ die nat’ral, lak'er Chrischen. Hit gone stret to heaben. Plat got soul, fersho.”

Jones’ Self-Restraint.

She—Mr. Jones, look at that impudent man on the other side of the street He has been following us for the last ten blocks. Jhnes—Why didn’t you tell me so before. I’ll teach the impudent puppy a lesson. Walking boldly across the street Jones says to the man: “Look here, Snip, I am very sorry I’ve not got the money to pay you for that last shit but you ought not to follow me up and dun me when Tin trying to capture that girl. She has got lots of money, and if I succeed you will not only get your money, but also an order for a wedding suit" Snip goes off satisfied. Returning to the young lady Jones says: "I am glad you called my attention to that cowardly scoundrel. I don’t think hfe will ever stare at you again. I had great difficulty in restraining myself. ”-~Tsxas Siftings.

Have You Lost Your Memory?

If so you are in luck. The very latest fad is to affect absent mindedness. For instance, a young lady starts out for the theater with a young man. She must forget gloves, rubbers, her fan, or opera glasses, and they must arrive in the middle of the first act Then she must forget the name of the play, forget to thank the man who gave up his seat in the car, and enter the house without saying good-night to her beau.

The French Way.

They executed a murderer in France, the other day and a Paris paper records the fact that “he went to his death without a word.” Later on it observes that “certain people had their sympathies aroused because be was deaf and dumb.”