The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair Part 19

Therefore a number of people have been trying to prove that Hwul Shan of China, discovered America ages ago. There are likewise well established the claims of the Phenicians and Greeks and even the Welsh and the Irish. But all of these were fruitless till Columbus in his high aspirations to become a great prince over unknown countries and to spread the Christian religion of his day, opened the way for the course of Western empire."

"But f.a.n.n.y," said Uncle. "I heard the man say that Columbus didn't know anything and had no chance to learn."

"Yes, Father, this glorious year has taught to the students all over this country the beginning history of our great republic even as this Fair is teaching the progress of the world. Though Columbus was the greatest man of his age, yet we know only that he was the son of a wool comber and that he attended the school at Pavia, where he showed a marvellous apt.i.tude for astronomy and cosmography. He became a sailor on the Mediterranean, some say a pirate, but the ships of one nation then preyed on the ships of another and considered it legitimate because there was then no International law. He married the daughter of an Italian named Palestrello, who had been a celebrated Portuguese sailor.

With her he received many valuable charts, journals and memoranda. He soon moved to Lisbon, which was then the center of everything speculative and adventurous in geographical discovery. Columbus made a living here by making maps. Here he studied out his theory that he could reach Asia by going west, and he made several voyages to the Azores and Canary islands, which were then the limit of sea navigation. Then began his travels for help to carry out his wonderful plans. He took with him his motherless boy, Diego. From place to place he went with a heroism of patience never surpa.s.sed. The story of the rebuffs and privations through which he pa.s.sed will be the wonder and praise of men forever.

Weary and footsore and hungry, he stopped one day before the Franciscan Convent La Rabida, in Andalusia, to beg some bread and water for his child. Then came the mysterious turning of the scales in the forces of human greatness. The Superior of the convent happened to pa.s.s by, and, struck by the appearance of the poor traveler, began to talk to him. The Superior at once saw that no ordinary man was before him. Grander views were never presented and greater plans of conquest were never known.

Christianity was to invade Asia on its eastern sh.o.r.es and meet the irresistible forces from the West. Columbus believed himself divinely inspired for this and therefore demanded that he be made high-admiral, governor-general and viceroy over all the land he reached and that for his revenue there should be given one-tenth of the entire produce of the countries. Such a far reaching demand as this could not have been acceded to only by a doubting sovereign, and he would probably have been beheaded with his puny crew of one hundred and twenty men if he had reached Asia and attempted to carry out such a wholesale scheme of subjugation.

"The months of this voyage were scarcely less full of treason, burdens, and peril than the years that had been given to make the voyage possible. A pension was promised to the man who first sighted land but Columbus saw a light rising and falling on the evening of Oct. 11, and on that account claimed and received the pension. It is said that the sailor who really saw land first foreswore his country and fled to Africa because of having lost the pension and the honor of being the first to see land. This is told by the enemies of Columbus to prove a sordid and avaricious nature. It is also told that he took such exasperating and outrageous measures to uphold his visionary schemes of conquest and government as high-admiral, governor-general and viceroy, that it became more than his home government could endure.

"His last voyage was disastrous, but whether from his own desire for gold hunting, or because from the demands of his crew, it can not be told. A man was sent to supersede him and chains were placed upon the man who had worn the robe of royalty. His last years before the public were even more bitter than his first. Until his death he seemed to spend all his time in trying to recover from the king his lost prestige, t.i.tles and possessions, but they never came. He besought Ferdinand pitifully to bestow them as a perpetual heritage upon his son, even if not to him. In a letter to his sovereigns, he said: 'Such is my fate that twenty years of service, through which I pa.s.sed with so much toil and danger, have profited me nothing; and at this day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to eat or sleep, I have no where to go but to the inn or the tavern, and I seldom have wherewith to pay the bill. I have not a hair upon my head that is not grey; my body is infirm, and all that was left me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor. I implore your highness to forgive my complaints. I am indeed in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept for others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me!'

"He died in bitterest poverty at Valladolid at about the age of seventy years. He was buried at Valladolid for a short while to satisfy the Franciscans, and then removed to Seville by request of his relatives. It was said that Columbus wished to be buried in San Domingo, and Charles V. gave authority for this to be done to the grandson of Columbus, and the family of Colon was to occupy the chapel of the cathedral. But there is no record whatever of the events of his burial at San Domingo. This is accounted for only on the theory that Drake, the English pirate, destroyed them when he sacked San Domingo.

"In 1795 Spain ceded San Domingo to France and it seemed to the Spanish people to be a national disgrace for the bones of Columbus to remain on foreign soil. There were no explicit directions as to the exact spot where his bones were and it was not known then that five of the family were buried together there. What was supposed to be his ashes were taken to Havana but in 1877 while making some repairs in the vaults another tomb was discovered in which was a strip of lead from a box which proved that the place contained the ashes of the grandson of Columbus. Then a further search was made; only a few inches from the vault first opened another vault was found and in it a lead box containing pieces of bone and human dust and on the lid was written

_"D. de la A. per Ate"_

which is supposed to mean "Discoverer of America, First Admiral." A silver plate inside had inscribed on it the names and t.i.tles of Columbus. This much decomposed leaden case was placed, with its contents, in another case of satin wood and gla.s.s, and all deposited in a vault so that the contents could be seen through the gla.s.s. Spain could not think of giving up the honor of having the bones of Columbus on her own soil, and the Royal Academy of Madrid made an exhaustive study of the subject and at last published a book in which they closed the argument with the following words: "The remains of Christoval Colon are in the cathedral of Habana, in the shadow of the glorious banner of Castile. It is most fit that over his sepulchre waves the same flag that sailed with him from Palos in the Santa Maria.""

After reviewing this history, which her interest in the great Fair, and the great events it commemorated, had caused her to learn, and after consulting her note book to be sure of her correctness, there was a general discussion among them, which showed that sight-seeing was not all they were doing at the Fair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Some bodies for the heads and feet."]

It was now past noon. Aunt decided to go home; f.a.n.n.y would walk up and down the "Plaisance," and with her sketch book see what she could do toward putting bodies between some of those heads and feet she had drawn. Uncle and Johnny decided to go up to the business portion of the city to spend the rest of the day. It was a pleasant afternoon, and when they reached the viaduct from the train a great ma.s.s of people were pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. The great Auditorium building loomed up before them, with the Art Gallery on their right and the Columbus statue on their left. Under them trains were gliding by like long serpents, and out in the lake fleet steamers and sail-boats loaded with people were moving about like white spots on the blue waters. Uncle and Johnny pa.s.sed along the sidewalk in front of the hotel when something at the corner caught their attention, and they came up for a moment to look at it. Two or three men also turned, stopping by him when he stopped. Then a few more came up, and a ring of men began to form. Uncle and Johnny now noticed that they were surrounded by people, and they attempted to move out, but in vain. In a short time the crowd had become so large that the sidewalk was blocked, and none except those who were close to the center knew what the original attraction was. The people coming over the viaduct and from far down the street noticed the crowd too, and bent their steps also in its direction. Some, fearful that they would miss something, began to run. The contagion for speed spread, and soon the whole ma.s.s were speeding up the boulevard with open mouths and wide-staring eyes. Each was asking the other as he ran, "What is it?"

As they came in contact with the central surging crowd where each man and woman was trying to see over the heads of those in front, despite the fact that the object, whatever it was, was on the ground, the question was repeated. But no one seemed to know what had happened.

People in the center of the crush began to demand room and air. In vain they struggled to get out. The people still coming over the viaduct would start into a run as soon as they were on the street, and thus continually adding pressure on the outside made the positions of those inside almost unbearable. The crowd was now a pushing, clamoring one, extending some distance up and down the sidewalk and out into the street. The apparently insolvable mystery as to the nature of the accident or cause of the excitement only made the crowd more persistent and harder to manage. There were some who shouted, "give the poor fellow more air." "It's a shame to crowd around him like that." Then they would push harder than ever to see what it was.

Two men pushing each other got into an altercation. One struck the other, almost knocking him down. The crowd quickly took hold of the injured man and shoved him out into the "outer darkness," as if he had been a criminal, while the other was let alone. Some shouted for a doctor, others for the patrol and ambulance and the police. At last two officers came. After ringing up the patrol they forced their way through the crowd, which quickly fell in behind them and pressed on again with the renewed hope of seeing something. The presence of the officers only added to the general excitement, and people who had been laggards or had left in disgust came back at a double quick.

When the police got to the wall of the building they found a man who had two Newfoundland pups tied to a string. The patrol wagon was sent back empty, and the crowd, which had been sold instead of the pups, dispersed.

When Uncle got out he took his bandana out of his hat and mopped his forehead, as if he had just finished tossing up a load of hay to Johnny on a hot day in the hayfield.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ONLY A COUPLE OF NEWFOUNDLAND PUPPIES."]

"Consarn them critters!" he said, "I was thinkin' of buyin' one of them Newfoundland purps for f.a.n.n.y, but the crowd was so anxious to see the trade that I've got entirely out o' the notion. I never see such curiosity people in all my life. The other day I stopped at a winder, and before I got half through seeing there were about fifteen people standin' around and lookin' over my shoulder. I guess I can't see anything any more without tollin' so many folks on that I'm liable to get crushed. If country folks was half as curious 'bout things as these city folks, they might be laffed at with some sense."

_CHAPTER XVII_

CAIRO STREET

"And so you call this the Anthropological building?" said Uncle. "What kind of things has it got inside to have such a name?"

"Well, Grandpa, if you desire to be enlightened scientifically, I may say that it is a subject beginning with Adam and including the whole human race. It is divided into five parts: zoological anthropology, showing the differences and similarities between men and brutes; descriptive anthropology, showing the differences and similarities between the races; general anthropology, which is the descriptive biology of the human race; theological anthropology, which concerns the divine origin and the destiny of man; and ethical anthropology, which discusses the duties of man to the world and his creator."

"Do tell! it's a pretty big subject, and no wonder it has a house to itself."

Inside they found skulls, skeletons, bones, savage relics consisting of dress, utensils, ornaments and weapons with amulets, charms, idols and everything pertaining to early religions the world over.

On the eastern border of south pond was to be found the outdoor ethnographical exhibit. Indian groups, Indian schools and everything ill.u.s.trating their primitive life and material progress.

There were objects, sh.e.l.l heaps, village sites, burial places, mounds, cliff houses and the ruins of Mexico, Central and South America. To see the same thing, and to only very little better advantage, would require thousands of dollars and years of perilous travel.

"The more I go through these places," said Uncle "the more I feel ashamed that I did not do my share in bringing of relics. Now I could have brought the old nightcap that sister Susan's dead husband's grandfather brought over from England; and I have a gridiron that my great aunt gave me to remember her by. And there's the snuffers and the old wood-yard rake that my grandfather made himself way back in New England, and the dress in which my aunt Harriet was married, and the horseshoe from the foot of the horse that killed cousin John's boy Tom, and sister Hanner's gold fillin' of her tooth, which was the first gold fillin' in our parts, and it came out just afore she died, and I don't know how much more. Ain't they anthropological, ethnographic biology or something like that?"

"I think, Grandpa, they would have been more useful in some kind of a cabinet in the old settler's cabin, but we needn't to fret about it any."

From here they went over to the Midway Plaisance. The "Street in Cairo"

was to be opened with a great parade of some kind and they wanted to see it. The natives call it _Mars-al-Kabia_. In fact the Street in Cairo was all the curiosities of Egyptian Cairo's streets crowded into one Chicago Cairo Street. It was a splendid sight with its gardens and squares, its temples, its towers and minaret made in the most Arabesque architecture and ornamented with the most fantastic draperies. The inhabitants had been directly transported from old Cairo across the sea to Midway Plaisance. There were the importunate street venders, the donkey boys begging and pulling at the clothing of the visitors, the pompous drivers of camels beseeching the visitors to try their "ship of the desert;"

tom-tom pounders, reed blowers, fakirs, child acrobat beggars, Mohammedans, Copts, Jews, Franks, Greeks, Armenians, Nubians, Soudanese, Arabs, Turks, and men and women from all over the Levant, all in the gorgeous apparel of the East, filling the booths or strolling about the street. They were the happiest lot of Orientals that ever got so far away from home. Drums were beating, camel drivers singing merry songs, and a curious medley of voices which the earth beneath them never heard before. At eleven o'clock somebody blew a strange kind of horn, which made the small boy almost kill himself in his frenzy to get near to see what it meant.

Musicians mounted the camels and began grinding out music that was enough to frighten even a North American Indian to death. At the first glimpse of the camels a team of steady old horses, that probably were never frightened before, ran away with the gravel wagon which they had been patiently dragging along. Little Arabs and Soudanese ran ahead of the procession turning somersets and clapping their hands in hilarious glee. There were warriors hopping about and clashing shields and swords together in mimic battle. In front of Hagenbeck's show the lions were aroused from their slumber in the den above the entrance, and they stood before the bars and roared at the procession. Then the dancing girls came skipping along, followed by a bride and her maids, for at last it was seen to be a bridal procession that was celebrating the opening of "Cairo street" in Chicago.

Here is the circus of the "Plaisance," where the visitors are the actors and the clowns. Every hour can be seen a bevy of pretty girls escorted by a brother or some dapper young man. The camel drivers hail them. What a chance for a lark! "Let's have a ride on the back of the queer creature," says one maiden. "Oh! you wouldn't dare," replies brother.

"Wouldn't I, though? Just watch me," is the modern maiden's response.

She approaches the dromedary, which opens one eye by way of recognition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hurrah! It humps in front, jumps behind, and paces in the middle."]

She pa.s.ses silver to the hand of the dark-skinned menial. The other girls giggle. A great crowd gathers round to see the fun which experience has taught is coming. Now the bold young woman is in the saddle, and holding tightly, as advised, to the strap which hangs near by. The dromedary opens the other eye, shuffles his rear and longest legs in the dust with a sound that resembles the hum of an approaching cyclone, gathers himself for an effort, and suddenly presents to the gaze of all beholders a rear elevation notable for its suddeness and its alt.i.tude, if not for its architectural beauty. Though catapulted about ten feet higher than she had had any idea of going, the American young woman does not scream. That would be unbecoming woman in this woman's era. She merely presses her lips tighter together, lets her smile fade away at the corners of her pretty mouth and grasps the strap as if her life depended upon it. The crowd, of course, laughs.

By this time the dromedary has shuffled himself some more along the brick pavement and opened the ugliest mouth ever seen this side the Nile. Now he shows his front elevation, and the smile which had returned to the lips of his fair rider fades again as the other end of the animated catapult is put into operation. But only for a moment. The bystanders have only begun their second laugh when the American young woman is seen to be herself again. She is out for a good time, and she is having it. The dromedary winks three times and puts a sinuous, swaying sort of motion into his body. His fat feet and angular legs begin to describe semi-circles. The saddle and its rider twist and gyrate and revolve and stop short, only to start quickly off again in some other direction, and the triumphant journey through the "Street in Cairo" has begun.

It is a very narrow thoroughfare, this oriental street, and it has no sidewalks. The crowd falls to either side. As the courier of the desert humps through the lane made open for him, his rider is seen smiling and happy. She knows she has a pretty foot, and that it is neatly clad in red shoes with tapering points and the most becoming of hosiery. She knows her figure is trim, and that her cheeks are bright and her eyes flashing. Applause follows her from the mosque to the temple of Luxor, and rolls back again as her beast turns for the homeward march.

She has had a ride on a real dromedary, caused palpitations in a hundred masculine hearts, and made 500 of her s.e.x envy her the possession of such feet, figure and nerve. But these are not her sweetest triumphs.

The consciousness to her most grateful and satisfying is that the courage and the independence of the modern young woman of America have been exemplified and vindicated.

They must get their fortunes told. There were no gypsies in this Cairo such as camp along the country roads or in the edges of the villages and tell sighing swains about their loves. Here was a seer imported direct from the banks of the Nile.

His father studied the stars and read lives from the palms of men's hands. His grandfather did the same. He came from a race of wise men.

The first seers of his family sat in the shade of the early sphinxes and told Egyptian maidens to beware of young men who came up from the Red sea with false promises.

But his fortune-telling was of the same kind as one finds everywhere. A young man paid the price and held out his hand. The wise man took hold of the fingers, bent them back from the hand and pushed the cuff half way back to the elbow. He traced the course of the veins, ran his coal-black finger along each wrinkle of the palm, and all the time muttered to himself. Sometimes he nodded his head and gurgled approvingly. Again he hesitated and groaned feebly, as if the signs were sad. The young man had a scared look in his eyes. Then the interpreter began to tell what the aged seer had to say:

"He says that you had sickness. It was not long ago. You were afraid.

But it's all right. You won't be sick any more. Have health, good health. Feel good all time. Don't be afraid."

"I'm glad to hear it," said the young man.

"Before you worked where you do now you had another kind of work. You did something else. You will change. Not the same kind of work next time. No, no. You will have good time. A man will give you work. It is different from what you do now. He is short, fat, very rich man. Go with him. You will do well, make money--lots of money. Fat man will make you have better clothes."