The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 by Various
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Various >> The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897
Good-by. I live at Willowbrook, Auburn, N.Y.
GEORGE W.M.
P.S.--I am nine and a half years old.
DEAR GEORGE:
It is said that the Queen of the Hawaiian Islands allowed herself to be
influenced by bad advisers, and after a while ruled her people so badly,
that they ceased to love her.
EDITOR.
DEAR EDITOR:
THE GREAT ROUND WORLD interests me very much. I am very glad that
the children here in the United States can work so prettily in
sewing, and I think that we people ought to be proud to think that
the children in this country can really accomplish the best work
done in the world.
I would like to know if those American sailors who were arrested in
Siberia are free, or were they rearrested.
I think General Weyler is very mean for treating the wounded
soldiers of Cuba so cruelly, but I am glad that Cuba is getting the
best of the war.
Yours truly,
NANCY J.
NEW YORK CITY, June 7th. 1897.
DEAR NANCY:
You will find the latest news about the American sailors in last week's
issue of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD. Thank you for your letter.
EDITOR.
DEAR EDITOR:
I am very anxious to know if you can tell me who the Turkish Consul
in New York and the United States Consul in Constantinople are, and
how to address a letter to each. I read your paper every week, and
enjoy it very much.
HARRY A.S.
DEAR HARRY:
The Turkish Consul in New York is Chefik Bey. Address your letter:
His Excellency Chefik Bey,
Turkish Consulate,
24 State Street,
New York.
The United States Consul in Constantinople is Mr. Luther Short. Address
your letter to him:
The Honorable Luther Short,
American Consulate,
Constantinople,
Turkey.
EDITOR.
DEAR EDITOR:
Our teacher reads to us your nice paper, and we like it very much.
Will you tell us something more about the Freeville Junior
Republic, and what did they do with the insane Empress, Carlotta of
Mexico?
Your unknown friend,
RAYMOND C.
CHARLESTOWN, S.C., June 9th, 1897.
DEAR RAYMOND:
You will find something about the Junior Republic in the next number of
the Magazine.
About the ex-Empress Carlotta of Mexico, we have no fresh news for you.
EDITOR
DEAR EDITOR:
Our teacher in the Germantown Academy reads to us the paper which
you call THE GREAT ROUND WORLD. THE GREAT ROUND WORLD and _Harper's
Round Table_ I consider the best papers for boys of which I have
any knowledge. I would like to know whether the whale could walk
on land, as other animals do. My father told me that the whale was
in its former condition a land animal, which had changed its home
to the water.
Yours respectfully,
FRANZ W.
GERMANTOWN, PA., June 14th, 1897.
DEAR FRANZ:
Whales are in many respects the most interesting and wonderful of
creatures. It would seem that at one time they may have been land
creatures, and able to walk on land as other animals do. That is,
however, so very remote that we have no record of it. Scientific men
base their arguments in favor of this theory on the facts that whales
are not true fish, but are indeed land mammals adapted to living in the
water.
Their fore-limbs, though reduced to mere paddles, have all the bones,
joints, and even most of the muscles, nerves, and arteries of the human
arm and hand. The rudiments of hind-legs are found buried deep in the
interior of the animal, and in the young whales bristles about the chin
and upper lip give evidence that the whales have once been covered with
hair like other mammals.
The blubber is also arranged by nature as a means for keeping their
bodies warm. True fishes are cold-blooded animals, and not sensible to
differences of temperature.
All these different facts make people think that at some very remote
period whales were land animals.
EDITOR.
THE GREAT ROUND WORLD AND THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED ON IT.
CHAPTER I.
There was once a man who lived with his family on a large farm in a fine
valley sheltered by high mountains. The farm had need to be large, for
the family was numerous. There were the old man's children and
grandchildren, and these again had sons and daughters, and they all
lived together, in many huts, which made a village or town. Of course
they all were more or less nearly related to one another, and all called
the old man father. He was their head and chief--their king, and his
word, his commands, were their only laws. He was assisted and advised by
the oldest and wisest among the men, who met regularly to discuss the
family's affairs, and formed a sort of senate or council of elders. When
great things had to be talked over and settled, things which interested
everybody alike, the whole family was called together, and had a
mass-meeting after working hours.
The family knew nothing of the great round world but their own farm. In
fact, they did not care whether there was any world outside of their
mountains, because they had no need of any. All they wanted, for food,
clothing, or shelter, they found or raised on their own land. They had
pure running water to drink and to fish in; woods to hunt in and cut
down for fuel and building timber; meadows for the flocks and herds
which gave them milk and flesh, hides and wool; broad fields stretched
under the sun, green with the tender sprouting crops or golden with the
ripening harvest.
The family had no idea how long they and their forefathers before them
had owned and lived upon the farm. If they ever thought of it at all,
they probably thought they had been there always. Really, it must have
been a very, very long time--they were so thoroughly settled, so well
acquainted with the land and everything on it; then they were so
numerous and knew so much. It must have taken a tremendous length of
time to learn all about farming and dairy work, about building, and
weaving, and making things,--to have found out so much about the stars,
the coming and going of the moon, the years and months which it
makes,--to have so many set customs, and a religion with prayers and
worship,--and lastly, to have invented writing and no end of useful
arts, requiring skill and long practice.
There came a time when it was no longer a family, but a great many
families, which could not go on living so close together. So they began
to build separate homesteads, all around the old home, but farther and
farther away from it. They went on living exactly in the same way, only
each new homestead had its own head. The tie of blood was strong and the
separated families kept it sacred, even if they quarrelled now and then,
as neighbors and relatives will at times.
At last the valley became too crowded. There was no longer enough of
everything for all, so that quarrelling and even fighting grew almost
into a habit; the heads of families and the wise elders did their best
to keep the peace, but were not much listened to. At the same time the
younger people were beginning to wonder what there was on the other side
of the mountains. Once in a while a huntsman, in the excitement of
following his game, would climb to some high point, from which he would
look down into other valleys, with more mountains beyond. Then he would
take up some comrade with him, and they would stand there long, gazing
and wondering. Then some of the bolder, more curious boys and youths had
followed the river into the narrow passage it had broken for itself
through the mountains. The first who ventured had not gone very far.
They had felt dreadfully frightened and lonesome in that dark, wild
pass, between the two rugged rocky walls, so high that they seemed to
join at the top, showing only a little strip of blue sky, and with the
water foaming and roaring deep down below, and they had been glad to get
back into the safety and sunshine of their own valley. But they had gone
again, many together, and got farther,--for many will be brave where one
is scared,--and it became known for a positive fact that there was a way
out of the valley. Of course there was much curiosity to know whither it
led and what the land on the other side might be like.
So it came to pass that some young families, who were going to set up
new homesteads of their own, instead of crowding into some of the
scantily measured lots of poor soil which were all that was left in the
valley, collected the household goods and the domestic animals which
were their due share of the community's property, and started off
through the mountain pass, following the river. They were never heard of
more.
Others did the same. And still others, again and again. It was like bees
swarming. From time to time children, brothers, cousins said good-by and
went. None ever came back. None ever were heard from. All that was known
of them was that they did not all go the same way. Some went west, and
some south; and some northwest or southwest. And they never met or heard
from one another, either. They became and remained total strangers; did
not even know of one another's existence. But all treasured memories of
the old home--the latest gone, of course, more than those that went
first, who naturally forgot most in the course of time.
The years went by--many hundreds of years; and great changes came over
the world and the people that lived in it. They who used to keep much to
themselves and look on one another with distrust and dislike were
brought together in many ways; they made war, they traded, they
travelled, and, either as friends or foes, learned to know and take
interest in one another. What struck people most at first was how
different they were, in looks and in manners, in mind and in language.
Some were dark and some very fair; some quick and fierce, others slow
and persistent. Those who lived in the South, where the sun is seldom
clouded and the sea is bluer than the sky, were fond of all bright
things, loved luxury and ease; those whose homes were in the North,
where sad, dark woods sigh in the wind, where lanes and fields are
wrapped in mists and snow half the year, were themselves sad and dreamy,
rough of manner, but strong of heart.
But if people from different countries wondered at the differences
between them, they began to make other discoveries as they were brought
together more often and more closely.
There had been a great storm. A ship was wrecked and the pieces were
carried away on the dancing waves. Almost all the sailors were drowned;
only a few had been thrown out on the beach alive and taken in by poor
fishermen. They were sad and lonely, for they could not understand their
hosts and had no hope of being picked up soon by another ship of their
own country, it was so far away. To while away the time and to feel less
strange among the people, they began to learn the language, asking the
names of things as they went. Fancy how astonished they were when they
found out, as the sounds of the foreign words grew more familiar, that
the names of most things in common use were almost the same as in their
own language, also a great many of the most ordinary words: just a
letter or two changed, or a little difference in the way of
pronouncing--as, for instance, _mleko_ for _milk_, _sestra_ for
_sister_, _tre_ or _drei_ for _three_, and so on, sometimes more like,
sometimes less. And there were more surprises in store for the guests.
When they had made progress enough to understand a great deal, they took
much pleasure in listening to the songs which the women sang to the
small children and the stories they told to the older ones. And these
stories were not new to them! They were the same songs and stories that
had been used for years by their mothers and grandmothers to amuse the
children, and had always been known in the country. There was the little
girl and the wolf, and the sleeping beauty, and the wicked stepmother,
and the girl whom the prince knew by her tiny foot, and many, many more.
The shipwrecked guests wondered much, and at last came to the conclusion
that they and their hosts were distant cousins; for they remembered
hearing from some aged men that they were themselves descended from a
branch of a very old family--one of many which at different times left
the old stock, long, long ago, and now, surely, here were the
descendants of another branch.
Another time, and in another country, there had been a great battle. A
brave army, led by a famous general, had come into a rich and powerful
country, to make its people subject to their own king. But the people,
too, were brave; besides, they fought for their liberty and their homes,
and that made them doubly strong. They had driven the enemy from before
their capital city after an obstinate siege and had made many prisoners.
Both nations were civilized and enlightened; therefore there was no bad
feeling after the fighting was over, and the prisoners were treated more
like guests, waiting for the signing of the treaty of peace, when they
would be exchanged. The sick and the wounded were taken care of at the
hospitals; as to the others, the private soldiers were placed in
well-kept barracks, and the officers were quartered in private families
and left free "_on parole_," _i.e._, on their promise not to try to
escape. Friendships were formed, and the unwilling guests employed their
forced leisure in studying the customs, laws, and society of the nation
into which they were thus thrown. There were highly cultivated and
scholarly men among the captive officers; yet they were naturally a
little prejudiced, so that they were not a little astonished when they
found the customs and laws not only not inferior to their own, but in
many cases almost exactly the same. More than that, they continually
came upon little habits, sayings, even superstitious customs at births,
weddings, funerals, and other occasions, which they had been familiar
with at home from childhood, and which they had been told by nurses and
old servants should be observed and respected because they were family
peculiarities, handed down from times so ancient nobody could have
counted the years. Still greater was the astonishment of those who
discovered that a great many of the religious ceremonies, prayers,
hymns, which were held particularly sacred in their native country for
the same reason, were observed and treasured with only slight
differences by those whom they had always looked upon as the merest
strangers. When the holy books and the sacred laws of both nations, also
the stories of favorite ancient heroes, were found to be so much alike
that it was clear they were all heirlooms from the same family treasure,
no more proof was needed for those who had so recently fought--and might
fight again any time--to say: "We are kin; years and years ago, our
fathers were brothers and lived in one common home."
It was not in one place, or two, or three, that such discoveries were
made, but in many and all over the world. For after chance had led to
the first, people became interested and began to look for forgotten
kindred to turn up. The well-known signs were watched, and compared,
and verified, till nowadays no one doubts that the descendants of the
families who once upon a time recklessly migrated from the
long-forgotten valley are scattered over the face of the earth and can
know one another by the token of their languages, their customs,
stories, songs, their sacred legends and laws.
* * * * *
What family is this whose history we have briefly sketched? Is it a real
family, and a true history? Or is it just a "made-up" story, the fancy
of an idle moment? No: the history _is_ a true one, and it is the
history of a real family--the family to which we all belong, and the
name of which is--MANKIND.
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