|
James Cox - My Native Land
loafer, to the better side of the modern negro. The intense desire for education, and the keen recognition
of the fact that knowledge is power, point to a time when utter ignorance even among the negroes will be
a thing of the past. Prejudice is hard to fight against, and the colored man has often a considerable
amount of handicap to overcome. But just as Mr. Sala found the typical negro, "standing in the mill pond
longer than he oughter," a sad memento of the past, so the traveler can find many an intelligent and
entertaining individual whose accent betrays his color even in the darkest night, but whose cute
expressions and pleasant reminiscences go a long way towards convincing even the sternest critic that the
future is full of hope for a race whose past has in it so little that is either pleasing or satisfactory.
CHAPTER XV. OUR NATIONAL PARK.
A Delightful Rhapsody - Early History of Yellowstone Park - A Fish Story which Convulsed Congress -
The First White Man to Visit the Park - A Race for Life - Philosophy of the Hot Springs - Mount Everts -
From the Geysers to Elk Park - Some Old Friends and New Ones - Yellowstone Lake - The Angler's
Paradise.
Yellowstone Park is generally included in the list of the wonders of the world. It is certainly unique in
every respect, and no other nation, modern or ancient, has ever been able to boast of a recreation ground
and park provided by nature and supplied with such magnificent and extraordinary attractions and
peculiarities. It is a park upon a mountain, being more than 10,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Irregular in shape, it may be said to be about sixty miles across on the average, and it contains an area of
3,500 square miles.
Mr. Olin D. Wheeler, in an admirable treatise on this park, in which he describes some of the many
wonders in the marvelous region traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, thus rhapsodizes:
"The Yellowstone Park! The gem of wonderland. The land of mystic splendor. Region of bubbling
caldron and boiling pool with fretted rims, rivaling the coral in delicacy of texture and the rainbow in
variety of color; of steaming funnels exhaling into the etherine atmosphere in calm, unruffled monotone
and paroxysmal ejection, vast clouds of fleecy vapor from the underground furnaces of the God of
Nature; sylvan parkland, where amidst the unsullied freshness of flower-strewn valley and bountiful
woodland, the native fauna of the land browse in fearless joy and wander wild and free, unfretted by
sound of huntsman's horn, the long-drawn bay of the hound, and the sharp crack of the rifle.
"Land of beauteous vale and laughing water, thundering cataract and winding ravine; realm of the Ice
King and the Fire King; enchanted spot, where mountain and sea meet and kiss each other; where the
murmurs of the river, as it meanders through heaven-blest valleys, becomes harsh and sullen amid the
pine-covered hills which darken and throttle its joyous song, until, uncontrollable, it throws itself, a
magnificent sheet of diamond spray and plunging torrent, over precipices, and rolls along an emerald
flood betwixt canon walls, such as the eye of mortal has seldom seen."
The history of this park is involved in a good deal of mystery. About ninety years ago it was first
discovered, but the information brought back to civilization by the explorers was apparently so
exaggerated that it excited general ridicule. No one believed that the wonders described really existed.
Even later, when corroborative evidence was forthcoming, skepticism continued. It was almost as
difficult then to make people believe the truth about the hot springs and geysers, as it is now to make
people believe that it is possible for a man to stand on the edge of a hot spring, catch the choicest kind of
fish in the cool waters of the lake surrounding him, and then cook his fish in the boiling water of the
spring without taking it off the hook, or walking a single step.
|
