Various

“ For miles and miles the surface of the water is a mass of foaming wave-tops, tossed ceaselessly to and fro amid the rocky obstructions, forming currents and fierce eddies beside which the famous Niagara whirlpool seems insignificant.
There are places where the surface of the Colorado is seven thousand five hundred feet below the brink of the gorge, and at nearly every point it is close on six thousand feet. Looking across from one edge of the canyon to the other, the distance seems to the novice to be two miles. ”

“ You're a lucky man to be able to get from this wretched place—with your fortune made, I warrant, but a very unpleasant recollection, withal, of the infernal climate."
For several moments, which seemed an eternity of time, so dead was the silence, no one replied. The three men—a little taken aback at Ivory's audacity—gazed at him with frankly hostile eyes. The first to speak was Dr. Maxwell, in slowly pronounced phrases, as keen as a lancet:—
"In saying that my patient is a lucky man in being able to get away from Ichaboe, you never spoke truer words in your life, Jasper Ivory. ”

“ It is the loneliness of the life, however, which forms its worst feature. For months the forester may not see the face of a white man, or even an Indian—going day by day amid the trees, fording streams, climbing mountain sides, with never a person to speak to. This is why several rangers have at different times become insane and have been found aimlessly wandering about, while others have suffered death from starvation while mentally unbalanced. ”

“ The Ngatahi, rushing up to seize her, heard a cry, "Aie-e-e, Taurau!" They beheld her stand a moment on the brink, and, with a second cry, leap out into the dark. The bones of the women and children remain yet in the cavern. Therefore the place is "tapu." [3]
[3] "Tapu"—sacred, accursed.
The fish swim, uncaught, under the cliff; No fisherman's line plumbs the deep water that covers the bones of the lovers. Once in every moon the spirit of Heruini returns to wail for the lover whom she slew. For one hour she sits in the weed-grown cavern beneath the cliff, and sends her cry across the waters. ”

“ There seemed nothing to keep me on deck; Jim Flynn, the engineer, was gesticulating to one of the Eskimos, discussing the direction in which to look for walrus, while others were cleaning rifles, repairing harpoons, and chattering in their weird jargon. I crawled down into the hold, rolled myself into a piece of canvas, and bade the world good-night.
The next thing I knew was Flynn dragging me out from beneath the canvas. Arrived on deck, I saw some black specks on the ice. "They're walrus, right enough," said Flynn; "I can see their two white teeth hanging down." ”

“ Let not one escape," was the cry. The gates of the stockade were closed, preventing egress, and the work of death went on, whilst the sobbing women clung together, shuddering, in their quarters. A party of the Ngatitoa had meanwhile sallied forth to fall upon the sleeping camp beyond the walls. It was done. Through a broken gateway some twenty of the Ngatahi broke from that riot of blood and death to struggle, fighting, to the shore. Launching one of the canoes, battered, broken, and wounded, with scarce ten men at the paddles, they made their limping way across the bay. ”

“ A wide stretch of steaming swamp, intersected with inky streams of stinking water, a breeding-place for the fever-propagating mosquito and a home for all the loathsome creeping things of the island, it is almost as bad as some of the pestilential swamps of the West African coast, and seen in its beautiful setting of blue seas and golden beach dotted with graceful green palms, it looks even worse. ”

“ Say so to one of the guides or trailsmen and he may smile; for at Bright Angel trail the width is no less than thirteen miles, while the tourist who stands on the brink at Grand View and looks directly across covers with the glance a distance of eighteen miles. The eye is indeed deceptive here, for if you descend to what is known as the top of the inner gorge and look down upon the river the Colorado appears to be a muddy creek twenty or twenty-five feet wide. ”

“ Love's ears are quick to distinguish. It was the voice of Heruini.
With a shout to his comrades to follow, he raced across the "marae" to see, in the moonlight, Heruini struggling in the arms of Parema and some of his followers! All unarmed as he was, he sprang on Parema and bore him to the ground. In the confusion the trembling girl escaped.
Taurau was dragged from Parema's throat. Yet, ere they could slay him, the Ngatahi were borne back by the rush of the enraged Ngatitoa. A comrade thrust his forgotten weapons in Taurau's hand, and he leapt into the fray. ”

“ Sometimes, amongst this same tribe, a man will actually bespeak a wife before she is born, by arrangement with a certain family; and, in order to forestall other suitors, he also offers his services to her parents as a kind of slave. He works away, patiently awaiting the birth and growth of his future wife. Should it be a male child, of course his disappointment is great. As soon as the child can tell her right hand from her left, her mother whispers into her ears her future relationship with the great big man who milks the cows and hoes in the garden. ”

“ Naturally, therefore, it is the peak that attracts the attention of the more daring climbers, and watchers using the telescopes that are trained upon this mountain are frequently afforded wonderful glimpses of what it means to ascend its steep sides and cut one's way step by step up its ice-covered slopes. Some nasty accidents, too, have been witnessed through the glasses which command this famous mountain—hapless climbers have been seen to miss their footing and hurtle downwards for hundreds of feet until lost to view in some abyss. ”

“ What she saw in El Vivillo to admire it is hard to say—indeed, what the scores of women who afterwards lost their hearts to the bold rascal saw in him it is equally difficult to discover. He is to-day a burly, ruddy-complexioned man, with distinctly vulgar and repulsive features, and it does not seem possible that he could ever have been attractive to feminine eyes. His manner is harsh and over-bearing, and he feels, and makes no bones about expressing, a supreme contempt for the softer passions of the heart. ”

“ The mere idea was unbearable, and that evening one of the men brought down the Agricultural Journal.
"Here's a chapter," said he, "on the only effective way to rid a house of Six-and-eightpence's moss—quitoes. It's very dangerous, and the chapter concludes with directions and pictures as to how to revive anyone who is caught by the fumes before they can bolt. It's much the same as for drowned people. You work their arms and legs up and down, don't you know, and pull out their tongues, and so on." ”

“ The one bright day in the weary monotony of a long sailing-ship voyage—the one day in which, with a month's pay in his pocket, Jack is as good as his master, when he may eat what he likes, drink what he likes, do what he likes, so long as he turns up when the boatswain musters the hands to work after the all-too-short holiday. ”

“ My picture-taking and shooting had to be done from the skin boat. I had my Kodak ready, and as the Eskimos leaned over the gunwale of the boat and took aim I "snapped" my pictures just as fast as they could shoot, making my exposures without a moment's hesitation, without the slightest regard for background, foreground, shadows, or anything else. Two of the walrus fell dead upon the ice-floe, and another arose in the water close to the boat, the blood streaming from his head. Two shots were fired, and a spear was launched into his body with a rope attached to keep him from sinking. ”

“ Before the great cattle plague in 1884, thirty head of cattle was the usual dowry paid by the bridegroom. Then the young man sends a number of his friends to seize his sweetheart when coming out of her house in the early morning. She screams and resists, whilst her friends follow, feigning grief. The captors take her in triumph to the house of her lover's mother, where she remains within doors as a guest for a month, the food being supplied by her lover. If she is in good condition at the end of the month, he is considered a worthy suitor ”

“ It takes a good type of man to make a successful forester—he is obliged to undertake so many different tasks and perform them all well. His daily round does not mean merely going from this place to that in his territory, looking out for fires and for unauthorized persons who may come into the woods to cut down the valuable timber. True, forest fires are perhaps the ranger's greatest anxiety, but he must also keep a keen watch for what are called in the West "squatters"—families who steal into the parts controlled by the Government and try to make homes in open spots without permission. ”

“ Here they went through no fewer than fifteen different rapids in a distance of twenty-five miles. Several times Monett was torn from the boat by monster waves, but being an expert swimmer and very strong he managed to keep himself from being drowned or dashed upon the rocks, although his escapes were miraculous. At length they emerged from the last gorge at the little town of Needles, California, where their appearance excited the utmost astonishment. They had started on the journey with clean-shaven faces, but their hair and beards had grown until Russell and Monett looked twenty years older. ”

“ I thought that if we could locate the animals it would be a sight never to be forgotten, and would also be a splendid ending to the monotony of an Arctic winter.
That evening seven Eskimos piled their guns and spears into the boat, and everything was in readiness to start, but we needed a skipper to command the vessel. Accordingly I hurried up the beach to find some old salt to take charge, but the camp was deserted. Scarcely a man was to be seen in the streets; everybody was busy shovelling gravel into the sluice-boxes, for this was the season of harvesting gold in Alaska. ”

“ Some of the cowboys, who had had little experience with the axe beyond cutting wood for a round-up camp-fire, had rather ludicrous experiences, but two forest guards, who were skilled in such work, made the chips fly in a manner that excited universal admiration.
After the candidates had been examined as to their fitness with the axe they were given work in following obscure or "blind" trails and reading signs. Here nearly all proved expert, for the man who rides the range for any length of time soon acquires the ability to read the wilderness signs like a book. ”

“ Few of the "blood and thunder" novels that have fired the imaginations of lovers of the sensational have dealt with so interesting and, at the same time, so fascinating a scoundrel as El Vivillo, an Andalusian bandit, who was recently arrested in Buenos Ayres, Argentine. At the moment of writing he lies imprisoned, under a very heavy guard, in the penal prison at Cadiz, but no one who knows anything about his career and his extraordinary capacity for wriggling out of difficulties expects that he will remain within the four walls of his jail very long. ”

“ Through tobacco fields and fields of guinea grass as high as our saddles, and down hill-sides as steep as the roof of a house, dodging palms and banana trees en route, our ponies took us, never faltering or making a false step, until, after a three-mile ride, we arrived at Constant Spring. ”

“ He alarmed a camp of wood-choppers about two miles distant, and on returning half an hour later the party found that the fire had reached a thicket of pines, the flames running furiously along the top branches. It had spread so rapidly that a thousand men could not now have arrested its progress, and the choppers were obliged to run for their lives to escape. A small pond at the edge of the forest probably saved them, as by crossing it they reached the open country and a spot where half a mile of ploughed field kept the flames in check. ”

“ Almost exhausted, I finally stopped to rest upon a stout limb about twelve feet above the roof of the cabin. Glancing down, I saw the maddened bear preparing to pursue me. In a panic I began to climb again, but as I reached up for the limb above my hand came in contact with the rope we had strung across the river to a lofty old pine about forty yards distant on the opposite shore. Fastened to this large rope was a smaller dangling rope with a loop, which we used, on account of the swift current, to keep us in our course when ferrying across in the boat. ”

“ On the staff of the Boston, U.S.A., detective department was a young Englishman named Walter Collins. Fair, sturdy of build, and brave as the proverbial lion, Collins, a man some thirty-two years of age, had gone to America with his parents when quite a boy. After a public-school education he obtained a position as stenographer in the Seventh Division Police Court, and later entered the force as a patrolman. His intelligence and the clever capture of "Kid Skelly," a famous burglar, gained him promotion, and in 1903 Collins became a full-fledged detective officer. ”

“ The Malay is dignified, if he is nothing else, and to lose one's temper with him is to lower one's own dignity, and that means lowering his respect.
When a man is worried, however, he is apt to forget the little niceties. Two gang robberies and a murder within ten days, and not a particle of evidence to go on, would fret most policemen's tempers, to say nothing of receiving one's reports back from the Resident minuted, "The police appear to be doing their duty in a somewhat perfunctory manner." ”

“ The canoes raced for the beach. The speed of their onset carried them high upon the sand, and the warriors leapt to shore. Parema moved at once to the assault. The Ngatahi warriors and the wild men of the Hakerau swarmed into the ditch. On them rained a hail of spears and stones from the defenders of the "pah." They fell by scores, and were trampled, shrieking, underfoot by their onrushing comrades. Like the sea beneath the breath of the tempest, to and fro in the ditch surged the heaving, struggling mass of men under that pitiless shower. ”

“ The man replied that he did not know the man referred to.
"That's strange," continued Collins. "He told me down at the bank to meet him here."
"What bank?" queried the bar-tender.
"Barracola's," replied the detective.
In an instant the young Italian had grasped Collins by the arm, and, pulling him toward him, whispered fiercely, "You confounded fool! Don't you know that name is forbidden? You must be an outsider." ”

“ Below are the gullies, so treacherous to the climber, and to the right and left great ridges which can only be safely crossed by the exercise of the greatest skill. Here and there are mighty crevasses and great glaciers. Without the slightest exertion on our part the whole beauty and grandeur of the mountain is placed before our eyes. ”

“ No thought of the "Black Hand" had entered his mind in all this, but he seemed to scent something wrong, and the detective instinct in him was aroused. He was curious to know what the Boston saloon-keeper's business with so prominent and respected a man as Antonio Barracola, the Italian banker, could be; and so, his business in New York finished, Collins returned to Boston. His chief there, on receipt of the New York telegram, had placed a watch on the saloon-keeper's movements from the moment he had arrived back in town. ”