When the other boys considered the matter, they saw that Tom was right, and they gave up the idea of making a ca.n.a.l. It was now about ten o"clock, and they were rather tired and very hungry. A second breakfast was agreed to be necessary, and once more the fire was built up and a meal prepared. Then the boat was unloaded and launched, and the boys, taking off their shoes and rolling up their trousers, waded in the water and reloaded her. It was noon by the sun before they finally had everything in order, and resumed their cruise.
There was no wind, and it was necessary to take to the oars. The disadvantage of starting at so late an hour soon became painfully evident. The sun was so nearly overhead that the heat was almost unbearable, and there was not a particle of shade. The boys had not had a full night"s sleep, and had tired themselves before starting by trying to dig a ca.n.a.l. Of course the labor of rowing in such circ.u.mstances was very severe; and it was not long before first one and then another proposed to go ash.o.r.e and rest in the shade.
"Hadn"t we better keep on till we get into the Highlands? We can do it in a quarter of an hour," said Tom.
As Tom was pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They soon reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of the great hill called St. Anthony"s Nose. They were very glad to make the boat fast to a tree that grew close to the water, and to clamber a little way up the hill into the shade.
"What will we do to pa.s.s away the time till it gets cooler?" said Harry, after they had rested awhile.
"I can tell you what I"m going to do," said Tom; "I"m going to get some of the sleep that I didn"t get last night, and you"d better follow my example."
All the boys at once found that they were sleepy; and having brought the tent up from the boat, they spread it on the ground for a bed, and presently were sleeping soundly. The mosquitoes came and feasted on them, and the innumerable insects of the summer woods crawled over them, and explored their necks, shirt sleeves, and trousers legs, as is the pleasant custom of insects of an inquiring turn of mind.
"What"s that?" cried Harry, suddenly sitting up, as the sound of a heavy explosion died away in long, rolling echoes.
"I heard it," said Joe; "it"s a cannon. The cadets up at West Point are firing at a mark with a tremendous big cannon."
"Let"s go up and see them," exclaimed Jim. "It"s a great deal cooler than it was."
With the natural eagerness of boys to be in the neighborhood of a cannon, they made haste to gather up the tent and carry it to the boat.
As they came out from under the thick trees, they saw that the sky in the north was as black as midnight, and that a thunder-storm was close at hand.
"Your cannon, Joe, was a clap of thunder," said Harry. "We"re going to get wet again."
"We needn"t get wet," said Tom. "If we hurry up, we can get the tent pitched and put the things in it, so as to keep them dry."
They worked rapidly, for the rain was approaching fast, but it was not easy to pitch the tent on a side-hill. It was done, however, after a fashion, and the blankets and other things that were liable to be injured by the wet were safely under shelter before the storm reached them.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
NEW YORK PRISON-SHIPS.
On the Long Island sh.o.r.e, where the Navy-yard now extends its shops and vessels around Wallabout Bay, there was in the time of the Revolution a large and fertile farm. A number of flour mills, moved by water, then stood there. The flat fields glowed with rich crops of grain, roots, and clover. Their Dutch owners still kept up the customs and language of Holland; at Christmas the kettles hissed and bubbled over the huge fires, laden with olycooks, doughnuts, crullers; at Paas, or Easter, the colored eggs were cracked by whites and blacks, and all was merriment.
The war no doubt brought its difficulties to the Dutch farmers; they were sometimes plundered by both parties, and they had little love for King George. They lived on in decorous silence, waiting for the coming of peace, remembering how their ancestors in Holland had once fought successfully for freedom against the Spaniards and the French. But in front of the quiet farm at Wallabout, and anch.o.r.ed in the bay, were seen several vessels, decayed, unseaworthy, and repulsive. They were the prison-ships of New York. Here from the year 1776 a large number of American prisoners were confined until the close of the war, and the tragic tales of their sufferings and fate lend a melancholy interest to the Wallabout sh.o.r.e.
The largest of the prison-ships--the old _Jersey_--was crowded with miserable captives. She was an old man-of-war, worthless, decayed; her low decks and dismal hold were converted into a jail; her crowded inmates were only thinned by the hand of death. The old _Jersey_ may well be taken as one of the best symbols of the terrors of war. Her miserable captives pined away for months and years, deprived of all that makes life tolerable. In the chill and bitter frosts of winter no fires warmed her half-clad inmates; in the hot summer they faded away beneath the pitiless heat. Disease preyed upon them, yet no physician, it is said, was suffered to visit them. They were clothed in rags and tatters; their food was so scanty and often so repulsive that they lived in continual starvation. The fair youth of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the young sailors of New York and New Jersey, confined in these floating dungeons, were the sacrifices to the ambition of King George. They died by hundreds and even thousands during the war; the whole sh.o.r.e was lined with the unmarked graves of the patriot dead; the prison-ships were the scandal of the time, and their starved inmates seldom bore long the pains of the merciless imprisonment. It is said that the bones of eleven thousand dead were found upon the sh.o.r.e, and reverently buried in a common tomb.
Yet the prisoners of the old _Jersey_ and the other ships were not left always without sympathy and aid. Often a boat was seen sailing from the rich farms on the Wallabout, laden with provisions for the famished patriots. The Dutch farmers from their own diminished resources gave bountifully to the sufferers. The ladies of the household worked warm stockings with the busy knitting-needle; the spinning-wheel was never idle; the fair Dutch damsels, demure and prudent, blushing with the rich complexions of Amsterdam, were never weary of their charitable toil; and many a poor prisoner was saved and strengthened by the gifts of his unknown friends. As the war advanced, too, the successes of the Americans seem to have convinced the royal chiefs that they were at least deserving of tolerable treatment. Some of the worst abuses of the system were removed. Hospital-ships were provided; the sick were separated from the healthy; the _Whitby_, the most infamous of the floating jails, was abandoned. Yet still, an observer relates, the dead were carried away every morning from the old _Jersey_, and still the horrors of captivity in the prison-ships exceeded all that had been known in every recent European war.
Several curious escapes are related. Once, in 1777, as a boat hung fastened to the old _Jersey_ unnoticed, three or four prisoners let themselves down into it quietly, cast off the rope, and drifted away slowly with the tide. It was evening, and the darkness saved them. Their escape was discovered, and guns were fired at random after them; but they floated unharmed along the East River, pa.s.sed what are now the Fulton and South ferries, and reached by a miracle the New Jersey sh.o.r.e.
Here they found friends, and were safe. At another time, in the cold winter of 1780, fifteen half-clad, half-famished prisoners escaped in the night on the ice; others who followed them turned back, overpowered by the cold. One was frozen to death. It is almost possible to see in fancy the miserable band of shivering fugitives fleeing over the ice of the restless river in the deep cold of the winter"s night, chased by the fierce winds, half lost in the blinding snow. They made their way to the Connecticut sh.o.r.e. A very remarkable escape from the Old Sugar-House is related of a Boston prisoner. He dug a pa.s.sage under Liberty Street from the prison to the cellar of the house on the opposite side of the way.
The difficulty of making the excavation will be plain to every one who looks at the labors of a party of workmen opening a trench for gas-pipes or water. Yet the Boston boy burrowed under-ground until he found himself free.
The prison-ships were retained in use until 1783. Several were burned at different times, either by accident or by the prisoners in their despair. At the close of the war the remaining ships were all sunk or burned. A few years ago the wreck of the old _Jersey_ could still be seen on the Wallabout sh.o.r.e.
THE TIGER.
The royal tiger of Asia is an animal celebrated for its beauty and its agility, cunning, and prodigious strength. Its skin is a bright tawny yellow, with glossy black stripes running downward from its back. Its tail, which is long and supple, is ringed with black, and its large head is marked in a very handsome manner. It is like a great cat. Its puffy cheeks are ornamented with white whiskers, and its big paws are like those of a p.u.s.s.y magnified fifty times. Its motions are very graceful, and whether lying down, its nose on its paw, sleeping, or walking through the paths of its native jungle with soft cat-like tread, it appears formed of muscle and sinew, without a bone in its body, so gracefully does it curve and twist itself as it moves.
The tiger is not considered a courageous beast by hunters, who say that if it is faced boldly, it will turn and slink away among the bushes, if it can. But if it can attack a hunter from behind, it will spring upon him, filling the air with its savage growls, and probably kill him with the first blow of its mighty paw.
The strength of this creature is almost incredible. It will break the skull of an ox, or even that of a buffalo, with the greatest ease. A story is told of a buffalo belonging to a peasant in India, which, while pa.s.sing through a swamp, became helplessly entangled in the mire and underbrush. The peasant left the buffalo, and went to beg his neighbors to a.s.sist him in extricating the poor beast. When the rescuing party returned, they found a tiger had arrived before them, and having killed the buffalo, had just shouldered it, and started to march home to its lair with the prey. The tiger was soon dispatched by the peasant and his friends, and his beautiful skin was made to atone in a measure for the murder of the buffalo, which, when weighed, tipped the scales at more than a thousand pounds--a tremendous load for so small an animal as a tiger to shoulder and carry off with ease.
The tiger is very troublesome to the inhabitants of certain localities in India, as it attacks the herds, and makes off with many a fat bullock; and when unable to find other provender it will even attack the huts of the natives, sometimes tearing away the thatch, and springing in with a loud roar on a startled family. Instances are rare, however, of tigers attacking human beings, except when surprised and driven to self-defense. In some portions of the country they are very abundant, and may be heard every night roaring through the jungles in search of deer and other beasts upon which they prey. Even the savage wild boar of India does not terrify this queen of cats, and often b.l.o.o.d.y battles occur between these two powerful beasts.
As a mother the tiger is very devoted, and will fight for its pretty kittens to the last extremity. A story is told of an English officer who, while hunting in India, came upon the lair of a tiger, in which a tiny kitten, about a fortnight old, was lying all alone. Thinking that the mother was probably among the beasts killed by his party, the officer took the kitten to the camp, where it was chained to a pole, and amused the whole company with its graceful gambols. A few hours later, however, the whole camp was shaken by terrible roars and shrieks of rage, which came ever nearer and nearer. The kitten heard them, and became a miniature tiger at once, showing its teeth, and answering with a loud wail. Suddenly there leaped into the camp inclosure a furious tigress with glaring eyes. Without deigning to notice the robbers of her baby, she seized the little thing in her teeth, snapped the small chain which held it with one jerk, and briskly trotted off with it into the jungle. Not a man in the camp dared move, and no one was malicious enough to fire at the retreating mother that had risked her life to regain possession of her baby.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROYAL BENGAL TIGER.]
Any one who has watched the feeding of caged tigers in a menagerie can easily imagine how terrible a hungry tiger would be, were he running free in his native jungle. As supper-time approaches, the tigers begin to roar and growl, and march restlessly up and down the cage. When the keeper approaches with the great pieces of raw beef, their roaring makes everything tremble. With ferocity glaring in their eyes, the tigers spring for the food, and begin to devour it eagerly. They often lie down to eat, holding the meat in their fore-paws like a cat, rolling it over and over while they tear it in pieces, growling savagely all the while.
The royal tiger is found only in Asia; for the beast called a tiger in South America and on the Isthmus of Panama is properly the jaguar, and its skin is not ornamented by stripes, but by black spots. It is not so powerful as its royal relative, but very much like it in its habits.
Like the tiger, it is an expert swimmer, and as it is very fond of fish, it haunts the heavily wooded banks of the great South American rivers, and is a constant terror to the wood-cutters, who anchor their little vessels along the sh.o.r.e.
The crocodiles and the jaguars are at constant war with each other. If a jaguar catches a crocodile asleep on a sand-bank, it has the advantage, and usually kills its antagonist; but if the crocodile can catch its enemy in the water, the jaguar rarely escapes death by drowning.
Jaguars are not as plentiful on the Isthmus of Panama as formerly, before the scream and rumble of the locomotive disturbed the solitudes of the dense tropical forest. Still, large specimens are occasionally killed there, and their beautiful skins bring a high price when brought to market.
BICYCLING.
BY THE CAPTAIN.
One of the prettiest and most interesting sights ever seen in the gay city of Newport was the parade of bicyclers last Decoration-day, where, among the one hundred and fifty riders, were to be seen the uniforms of twenty-five crack clubs.
The ill.u.s.tration of the procession on next page shows it on Bellevue Avenue while pa.s.sing the quaint and beautiful Casino Building. First of all rides the commander, Captain Hodges, of the Boston Bicycle Club, and directly behind him, riding three abreast, are the six marshals of the procession, who act as his aides. Then come the men of the New York Club, in gray and scarlet, riding in column of fours, and followed by the long line of glittering steel and gay uniforms that stretches for nearly a mile along the pleasant street.
Crowds of people have gathered to watch the procession, and their cheers, as some particularly well-drilled club pa.s.ses, cause the men to ride with great care, and to preserve their lines so well that they move with the steadiness and precision of a body of cavalry.
Of all the riders in this long procession, the youngest was probably the best. Theodore R----, or "the young captain," as he is called, is but fourteen years old, and looks much younger. He lives in Philadelphia, and has practiced riding the bicycle in a rink in that city until his performances upon it are as wonderful as those of a circus rider on his horse.
In the picture of "the young captain" he is represented as mounted on his own machine, of which the driving-wheel is but forty-two inches in diameter. His most wonderful riding is, however, done upon a bicycle twelve or fourteen inches higher than this, and of which he can but barely touch the pedals as they come up. Thus he keeps the machine in motion by a succession of little kicks or pushes. He rides bicycles so tall that to gain the saddle he has actually to climb up the backbone of the machine after he has set it in motion with a vigorous push.
"The young captain" is a very bright boy, and excels in all games and feats of skill, while at the same time he is a good scholar, and stands well in all his cla.s.ses.
Since the great Newport meet of bicyclers, or "wheelmen," as they are now generally called in this country, a number of letters containing questions about bicycles have been written by boys anxious to become riders, and sent to YOUNG PEOPLE. In the following hints to young riders I will try and answer all these questions:
Any active boy of ten years of age and upward may become a wheelman.