Entries from August 2006 ↓

A French archaeologist, traveling among the Andes in search of knowledge and specimens, had a great desire to explore some of the caves in the sides of the precipices. They were doubtless ancient tombs and would probably yield him a treasure. He selected a favorable spot therefore, rigged a sort of chair or seat between two leather cords, and engaged two Indians to let him down from the brow of the precipice. “A descent of 300 feet made in this way,” he tells us, “is extraordinarily long.” However, he reached the cave in safety, and on forcing a passage into it was rewarded by finding two skulls and a mummy–”thoroughly dry,” he says, “and pretty solid.” He passed a string through the eyeholes of the skulls and attached them to his belt. Then he took the mummy in his arms and signaled to the Indians to draw him up. With his heels he defended himself against the jutting rocks and in a few minutes was almost on a level with the top. The Indians knew nothing about his load. Just then the yellow skull of one of their ancestors appeared before their eyes and the idiots gave a start of surprise. The Frenchman thought they must have let go the cord.

“It was the affair of a second,” he writes. “What passes in the brain of a man at such an instant is indescribable. I did not drop a yard, but I experienced all the horror of a man in rapidly falling through space. My hands let go the mummy, and while covered with a cold sweat, I was helped over the edge of the cliff by the Indians the mummy bounded from rock to rock and landed in bits at the bottom of the chasm.”

He overwhelmed the Indians with invectives, but to no purpose. Such dead men, they assured him, if disturbed in their sepulchers, had the habit of kissing the Indians, who perished infallibly under their deadly breath. One of the two declared that his own father had died in that way. The other assured the Frenchman that at the moment when the head of the mummy showed above the edge of the rocks it opened its mouth. If it had not luckily fallen into the abyss it would have cursed them forever.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, July, 1895[/tags]

Zadig; or the Book of Fate, by Voltaire. Printed for John Brindley, 1749.

Thanks to Cosma Shalizi for recommending this book! I had a great time post-processing it.

Weston, the pedestrian, on his walk from Portland (Me.) to Chicago, a distance of 1,237½ miles, is “marching on” with a good prospect of success. He arrived at Syracuse (N. Y.) from Oneida, a distance of 28 miles, about nine o’clock on Monday morning. He says he is now 18 hours ahead of time. We have before published the conditions upon which Mr. Weston attempts this almost unheard-of feat, but the following brief resume of them will not prove uninteresting. He is to walk 100 miles in twenty-four hours during his journey, and has the privilege of trying five times to do it. He has made one attempt, starting from Dedham (Mass.) in which he failed, owing to injuries received from the crowd at Pawtucket. He will try again after leaving Buffalo. If he does not succeed in any of these attempts, he forfeits six-tenths of the stake, whether he walks the 1,237½ miles in twenty-six days or not. Six men in carriages accompany him to see that all is fairly done. The stake is $10,000, and he is confident of winning. Edward Payson Weston is twenty-seven years of age, five feet seven and a half inches high, and weighs 125 pounds. His walking dress, is a jacket, tight-fitting black pantaloons, stout brogans, with red tops, round top hat, and buff gloves. He is a canvasser by profession, and is to distribute on the road 30,000 copies of his little paper, The Time Table.

[tags]Peninsular Courier and Family Visitant, November, 1867[/tags]

A horrible story has just been brought to light at Owasso in which a woman named Nellie Hayes is charged with cremating her new born babe, Mrs. Abram Truax at whose house the woman was stopping, being the informer. She says that the Hayes woman was taken sick at her house last May, when birth was given to a child which she deliberately threw into the cook stove and watched it burn. She gives as her reason for not divulging it sooner that her husband, who was father to the babe, threatened her life if she did so. An investigation is being made. The Hayes woman is now serving a term in the Detroit house of correction. She denies the crime.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, August, 1895[/tags]

Second Engineer Wilson De Hart, of the fated steamer Longfellow, lives with his wife and children at 126 West Eighth street, and was among the saved, says Louisville Courier-Journal. His wife dreamed Wednesday night that the boat was lost with all on board and it preyed so on her mind all day Thursday that she tried to persuade her husband not to make the trip. After bidding him good-by on the boat she told the chief engineer, Dan Halley, of her dream, and with tears in her eyes, begged that he endeavor to influence her husband to remain at home, as she knew the boat would be lost. On learning of the accident she ran almost all the way to Promley in her endeavor to keep pace with the floating wreck, and was almost wild with grief before the news of her husband’s rescue reached her, and she then refused to be convinced until he was brought to her.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, April, 1895[/tags]