Ontario Community Newspapers

Port Perry Star, 22 Aug 1929, p. 6

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a ie: ibs ie. bad e Wild Horses of ~ Sable Island By BONNYCASTLE DALE (Written especially for the Humane Sa ¥ Pleader) It may interest my readers to hear the sixteen-mile-long, half-mile le strip of sand called Sable Island. mighty tides that rush In and of the Bay of Fundy, between W Brunswick and Nova Scotia, oft the broken rocks in the 1 of sand and have built, in the course of centuries, "The % tent, which lie in ten fathoms to two hundred fathoms, some one to two hundred miles out in the Atlantic off Halifax. The only bit of all these "banks" that appears above water is Sable Island. All the rest are sub- merged, and on them summer and ter out neighbors ply their dan- 3 calling, fishing for the cod and haddock, halibut and cusk that feed pon the great schools of small fish t live upon "The Banks".--As I write this on January the 5th a great fiéet of bankers are tugging at their dteel cables and a thousand fisher men are out in their dorles hauling frawls laden with codfish. They, one and all, pray that they may keep clear of that dread Sable Island, for 6s bars extend off each end under Water as far as the Island appears above water, On it live some fifty lighthouse tenders nd life-hoat men, and the few wireless men and some seven or eight hundred wild horses. Accounts of how these Sable Island Ponies (they are bigger than ponies, small hcrses) originated run thus: The frigate La Africaine, wrecked off thig fatal shore in 1700, had a num- ber of officers' horses aboard from old France, and some of these were Swept off as she sank, and made the sandy shore. Other acccunts say that one, Le Mercier, of Boston-- Which was then an English colony-- got a grant of the island and was given the right by the then Governor of Ncca Scotia-to land a few horses there, and they have bred and flourish. ed until in the best years there are almost eight hundred there. They live on the bayonet grass and wild grasses, and on the brackish water plants that'live in lagoons. The big lagoon is now closed in by the shore- drift- sands; and the wrecks of two fishing schooners that sailed in there the night before the great storm are plainly visible. When the snow lies deep these pocr beasts have scant pickings, they can paw up a living in all the months save March, but when the "glitter" is on the surface of the snow many perish of starvation. Every year the Dominion Govern- ment send out a steamer and the "rcund up" occurs. Picture to your- self many herds of horses, each led by a stallion, all wild as hawks. The ten men chosen from among the French-Canadians who man the lights and boats leave early in the morn- ing, each mounted on a fairly well broken Sable Island Pcny. As they gallop along towards the Northwest Bar these herds drift off ahead. Soon back they come--a" very avalanche of plunging, rearing, kicking beasts. Past the men they dart and along the beaches they pour--a black shadcw racing over the yellow sands. Into the shallows they spatter, over the dunes they climb, along the rude trail they plunge until they have done about ten miles. Now other mount. ed men and men on foot appear and edge the whinnying mass over to- wards the ude small stockade or pen, with its long outstretching wings. Now into the narrow pass dart the leaders--right across the inclosed circle and "crash"! they plunge into the fence. Back they come. Once more they turn and the leaders sail over that man-high fence as if it were but low, waving grass. The ones that fail in the wild leap turn and charge full pelt right into the pawning, struggling mass of horses that are pouring into the opening. Down they go and leaping, plunging mass rear over them, leap over them, roll over them. On goes the bar- rier gate-and the milling mass of about a uhndred horses is penned in; the other scared herds, each with its big 'dark 'stallion leading, dash back to freed¢m over the sands. Now the tired riders throw their noosed ropes into the mass, and horse after horse is dragged up to the bar- rier and fore and hind feet are speed: lly and firmly roped. Out it is drag- ged,*cn-'to a barrow it 1s lald and off it goes carried between the men down to the lifeboat and dumped in. As soon as each boat has its load, off they are towed to the steamer and a winch and a cable slip them up over the rail and dump them in the holds. Once on the way out a frantic mare it foot lashings loose and there was nothing .could be done but let it roll cut of the boat and perish in the sea, Hard, careful, kind but strenu- ous work these Jitegyardsmen do. % ~ A day's stea takes -them 11 the school children Banks", the | fishing banks, millions of acres in ex-| mon thing to see an advertisement later in the Halifax Herald, "For Sale, a partly-broken Sable Island Pony" Yet a friend of mine had one which she harnessed and drove herself, and ent horse. Sable Island to-day, as of yore, takes its regular toil of the fleet, usually fishing schooners, if all were the years would girdle its sands. Only one old ircn steamer is to be seen; those fatal beaches engulf all "their prey. Still today on its yel- low sands the wild horses race and scamper. iets ' Spring Has Come To o Saloniki, the capital of Macedonia, Saint Paul's Thessalonica--how mag- Wificent is her setting! Encircled in moufitains over which famed Olympus towers in majesty and beauty, mirror- ed in the rich blue of her bay, this city whose history is one of continual conflict, is now growing in size and importance, at strides which make one gape in wonder, From the wide French window of a modern apartment house, one has an unobstructed view across the Jow roofs of the neighboring houses, across the gleaming bay to snow-capped Olympus. As the outlook is broad and lovely beyond words, one's thoughts become lofty; one waxes poetical at thinking of the dark past, the vigorous present and the hope- ful future of Macedonia and all Greece. For the moment there could be no finer symbol of Greece than a pine treé in the early spring when, still dark and somber with the gar- ment of winter, her branches are tip- ped with the fresh, fair green of her new garb. So is Greece, in that stage of changing her raiment, and putting on the garment of progress; there is still about her the lingering charm of the old regime which she is fast shedding as her sails fill with the keen wind of freedom and hope. Far below in the cobbled street a peasant woman passes on her way to the city market. Her costume is heavy and colorful, as is that of her husband who leads his patient, heav- ily burdened donkey bedecked in a collar of blue beads. They pass the gate of the general's house where an Evzone (Greek soldier who wears a strange costume of Albanian origin) leans sleepily on his baeyont, the breeze stirring his short, full kilt and the long tassel on his little skull cap. A barefoot fisherman, with his tray of wares upon his head, moves swift- ly and easily through the crowded streets passing a vendor of arrowroot cream whose big, round, folding table makes a spacious tray for his little bowls of pudding. A hamal, head down, bent double under his incredible load, has right of way on a narrow pave- ment. A Jewish matron, arms folded under her narrow apron, wears a long open coat lined and trimmed with rabbit's fur and a most amazing head- dress. This costume and the others are fast disappearing as the Near East sheds her old manners for the standardized garments of the West. The c1d citadel of the city lies sun- drenched behind the remnants of the old city wall, unchanged and unchang- ingly aloof above the teeming modern city of trams and buses, shops and hotels. How soon will the springtime of progress creep up those narrow streets of the old Turkish town, turn- ing the darknes sof antiquity into the freshness of modernity? And the man who, like the rising sap of the pine tree, makes growth and progress possible--is he too changing with the external things about him? Antiquated business methods, ancient superstitions old enmities must all give way before the purifying elements of education and enlightenment; till this land shall stand, like the pine tree on the hillside, clothed in fresh rai- after the long winter of oppression and ignorance, Pick Up Yo' Feet Pick up yo' feet; don't shuffle along! Raise up yo' haid; start humming a song! Look wif a smile at folks what you meet; Lif' up yo' hald, chile; pick up yo' feet- Raise up yo' thoughts; look up at the sky! Lit" up yo' voice; sing: "Hebben is nigh!" Send all de glooms back whar dey . belong; Lif' up yo' feet, an' raise up yo' song! Stick out yo' chest, an' th'ow out': yo' voice! Put back yo' shoulders; praise rejoice! Join dat joy chorus; make it com- plete. Lif' up yo' heart, an' pick up 'yo' feet! 3 ~--Douglas Hurn. it seemed to be a fully-hroken, obedk | 1ald bow to stern the wrecks of all] ment. For spring has come to Greece, | CUT, PARRY AND LUNGE The fencing class of the United States Army Camp at Fort McKinley, Me., learns to use a sabre. Canada, . The Heiress: ogo . A British View That man is rightly suspect who spends a couple of months in Canada and returns home with the complete truth about the great Dominion in his handbag. But our impressionist need not seek to put upon canvas the complete truth of the subject before him, but only the truth of his experi- ence of that subject; and this article, and the one that shall follow it, pre- tend to be no more than one man's experience of Canada. My only rea- son for supposing that it may possess some value are that I journeyed from New Brunswick to Vancouver favor- able for touching the political, educa- tional, and artistic life of the country, and that sometimes a*practicing nove- list is a fairly good instrument, by reason of his curious mental work- ing, for using every particular incid- ent as a symptom and looking through it to larger truths behind. First, then, let me state boldly that my final picture of Canada, now that 1 am back in a comparatively quiet old country, and all the multiplied sensations have had a spare moment or two in which to settle into some sort of pattern, is the picture of--and it will still persist in this form--a great hearty, magnificent girl, a daughter in all the glory of her de- butante years, a dazzling young heir- ess just came into her own, a restless creature, at once proud of her vigor- ous youth and selfconsciously diffid- ent about it, noisy and yet wistful, self-assured and yet sensitive, con- fident about many things and humble about some strangely unsophisticat- ed and strangly puritan. Such a port- rait is not, I think, flippant nor facile: every eolorful: adjective has been carefully tested before being picked up on the brush; and if it presents something wholly lovable and admir- able, it presents my view. It might, of course, be the portrait of almost any young person of 21, and, indeed, I was amazed to find when I tried to formulate my impressions of Canada, that the adjectives which precisely described a "Modern Girl" could also precisely describe a nation. Her Pride And Her Humility To call Canada England's debutante heiress is assuredly to say the right thing. Which of her sister Domin- ions can compare with her in prosper- ity or promise? Everywhere you go in her you get the same impressent trade position and a boundless hope for her future. The talk everywhere is of booming minerals, oil, wheat, wood-pulp, and hydro-electricity. One Canadian dramatist that I met had made an exceedingly amusing comedy out of his ability to escape the talk of 'mineral and oil shares. Every- where you go you find the assurance that the American continent already is, or soon will be, the peographical centre of the world; which assurance, it seems to me, is fully justified. The fact is that Canada has caught, and rightly, a manner of! splendid confi- dence from her cousin, friend, and bedfellow, the United States. And this mention of her pride brings us to her wistfulness and her humility. Under all. her self-assur- ance you feel that she is not wholly at case about the road she is travell- " All Set For the Fray motor-cars to-human characters. Her Inberent Patriotism you go on across the continent, meet- ing Canadians of every type, you will be astonished at your growing aware mes sthat there is a divergence bet: ween the surface of Canadian life and its roots. Its surface is American, but its roots are hungrily British, That sounds supercilious; as though 'fone should say that: Britain is the antithesis of America in the matter of the quantitative measurement of life, which would be profoundly un. ture; al Ithat I mean is that Europe, old and leisured, is a better soil than the new world for qualificative values to flourish in, and that Canada is hold- ing hundrily to the best of her British traditions, not simply for sentimental reasons, but because she is a little afraid of a tendency in her own nat- ure and believes them necessary to her salvation. Warrants. for this assertion will meet you at every turn, striking, perhaps to an Englishman is the unblushing quality of Canadian patriotism, Patriotism in Canada is conscious, articulates and higlhy vocal; in these islands, as we know, it 18 tsubconscious, inarticulate, and rather ashamed. In Canada patriotic socle- ties flourish that could hardly find a bership Tn England--b we do not care to organize our pat- riotism. "Songs of England," "Daugh- ters of Empire, "Daughters of Britain" "Royal Societies of St. George"--they blossom in every town and township. And patriotic speeches are delivered in such generous and emphatic phra- seology as would draw 'rom an Eng- lish audience many a murmured "Wow-wow!"" from beneath their denbing heads. If John of Gaunt were to deliver in the Albert Hall to-day his celebrated address on England, he would only, I am persuaded, plunge a modern British audience into dis- comfort as acute as thelr agreement was complete; in Winnipeg or Moose Jaw--God bless them!--he would get splendidly away with it. Songs are sung in Canada that could have no parallel -in England--always except- ing our one curious lapse, "Land of Hope and Glory," which we allow our- selves (so I imagine) for the sake of its uproarious tune, taking its words in our stride, unheedingly. A Great Tradition And all this 1s as it should be, sure: ly. Over here the roots of our Brit- ish tradition are too old and strong to need worrying about; in a new land; and which the seeds of a differet tradition blowing up from the south, they must be guarded and tended. I have been to a St. George's Day din- ned in England, when the Roast Beef was brought in with trumpets and banners and a congregation standing, and I knew that nine out of ten of my standing neighbors were feeling as foolish as myself and as inclined to giggle. I went to a similar St. George's Day dinner in Winnipeg, and every item in the gay program seem- ed right: indeed, I was so rash on o J Por 3 This for the first or so, But as The most |. "ber "aviator dord" is used in the sus- : 'a lapse of al year, in which he exhibited his usual disinclination to talk about himself and his personal activities, COLONEL'S INTEREST AROUSED His interest aroused by the Yuca- tan discovery, Colonel Lin con- sulted Dr. J, C. Merriam, president of the Carnegie Institution of Wash. ington, and, on invitation, advised the institution regarding - the methods of making aerial surveys in the tropics. At Dr. Merriam's suggestion he agreed to photograph in Arizona and New Mexico localities known to con- tain ancient Pueblo. ruins as well as unexplored fegions, It was during his stay with his bride at the archmological camp at the Pecos ruind"in this State, that the photography program was initiated, He and Mrs. Lindbergh took pictures in Chaco Canyon, Pajarito Plateau and in the Rio Grande, Chama and Pecos Valleys. Air surveys have been checked with ground surveys made by bers of the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, Phillips Academy and the Laboratory of Anthropology here. Numbers of the photographs are sub- jects, heretofore unknown to archam- ologists, sighted from the air. PHOTOGRAPHS ARE IMPORTANT The photographs have been devel- oped by Wesley Bradfield in the Ia- boratory of the School of American Research kere, and have been Sent to i Carnegie Institution at Washing- n. Perhaps no other civilization of the New World, with the exception of the Aztec Indians in Mexico, has spurred historians to greater romantic fanta- sies than the Mayans. The script, archaeologists have reported, contain several true, phonetic characters and approaches, thereby, the syliable or alphabetic system. Yucatan and neighboring districts are strewn with monumental ruins of Mayan culture. It was on one of these ruins that the colonel chanced, and his curiosity aroused, he circled it several times, making notes for future references. tliat was the genesis of his venture into archeological photography. -- ee Here -At Last Negotiate for Production of "Baby" Auto to be Sold by Mail Order House For $200 New York, N.Y,--(AP)--The New York Times to-day says negotiations are under way for the large scale pro- duction of a new "baby" automobile which would be sold through a mail order house for $200. The car is the invention of James B. Martin of Gard- en City, NY. A feature of the oar is that it has no axles in the usual sense of the word, each wheel being independently mounted i nthe reinforced body, Rub- pension of each wheel instead of a spring. The new car has a wheelbase of 60 inches, compared with the 103%-inch wheelbase of the smallest car now be- Ing produced in the United States. Mr. Hargin sald his invention will do 60 miles on a gallon of gasoline. He declared he planned to have it shipped in a weatherproof packing case with a hinged door which may b eused as a garage. -------- ; Favor "Friendship confers favor but so as the 'party obliged, ny Er | She De a Australia 'flight merely 'ho 5 adventure, and endeavored to keep = | mention of it jut of the newspapers, ~~ E unting his experiences, i ; said the trip was an easy He was away for 30 days, and "Except for one day--between Bris- and Charleville--I had fair the whole way. There were ideal flying conditions except for oe casional rainstorms," he said. "The engine did not give me a moment's anxiety. Considering that I am not an expert, that is a high tribute to the reliability of my outfit. "I'can see no reason why any owner pilot-should not be able to make the round-Australia trip and thoroughly, enjoy himself at the same time." Cap= tain Grosvenor continued. - "Australia is an ideal country for flying, and pro- vided that the right time of years is chosen, the trip is simplicity itself. Of course, it is necessary to follow the more or less beaten track. Except for 'the sector between Camooweal, "Darwin and Wyndham, the landing grounds are well placed. My advice to anyone is to buy a plane, hop off on a tour of the Continent, and start on a stage every morning at daybreak." While at Darwin, news came that the Australian aviators Moir and Owen were missing in the last hop of their flight from London. Captain Grosvenor flew more than 400 miles along the coast in search of them, and passed within 40 miles of where they were eventually found at Cape Don lighthouse, Give 'U But No Take 'Um Victoria, B.C.--Coast Indians of British Columbia, whose wooden carvings are famous all over the world, cling to their ancient tribal totem poles--even after they have given them away. This arrangement of potlatch giving caused some em- barrassment to the Canadian and Brit- ish Columbian governments in a re- cent incident. Last spring, Lord Willingdon, Governor-General of Canada, visited the west coast of Vancouver Island, where the totem pole carving of early days was particularly fine. At Noot- ka, historic scenes of the Spanish oc- cupation, the natives presented His Excellency with a totem of heroic size, which had stood in théir village per- haps for centuries. The gift, how- ever, was given according to the rules of the ancient Indian potlateh, and-it was intended that the recipient, after receiving it, should return it with thanks, ' The Governor-General prepared to follow the native custom, and it was proposed to place a brass plate on the to and Cen- "| pole, indicating that it had been ac- . cepted by the representative of the great white chief in London. Some Ottawa officials, however, interpreted the gift too literally, and prepared to remove it to the national capital, to the great alarm of the Indians. The Provincial Government has now indi- cated its objection to the removal of tribal relics of any kind. ---- Portrait was like any one by day, Her Hair screwed in a knot. Bang! would go the oven door, Like a pistol shot. Oh, very much like any one-- Busy at her labors, helling peas and stringing beans And nodding to her neighbors, But when aight came the buttons burs Up nd down her back, And out weuid come a giddy moth Flapping through the crack. '| She'd: paint her lips and powder, And flit into the night. Oh, such an one I never saw-- «So fond of candlelight. --Thomas Hill 'McNeal in Poetry,

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