Read Ebook: The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It Vol. 1 No. 53 November 11 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various Bishop Julia Truitt Editor

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 173 lines and 10432 words, and 4 pages

The Cuban parliament is to elect the men who are to go to Spain to represent Cuba in the Cortes.

General Blanco is already on his way to Cuba. Before he left Spain he stated that he felt convinced that the United States would soon find that there was no further necessity to interfere on behalf of Cuba. He said that Spain had only the best and kindest intentions toward the Pearl of the Antilles . He declared that peace would soon be restored.

While the reforms offered are not all that can be desired, still Spain seems sincerely to desire to restore peace to Cuba, and it therefore becomes the duty of all peace-loving people to withhold criticism, and wait to see what Spain will do before venturing an opinion.

The Cubans are not elated over the prospect. It is stated that they will refuse the Home Rule offered them, and persist in their attempts to win their freedom.

Se?or Estrada Palma, the Cuban delegate in this country, declared that he was in a position to state that the Cubans will accept no compromise from Spain. They are willing to give up their lives for their country's freedom, but they will never accept Home Rule as a solution of their struggle for independence.

The Cubans in Havana are feeling nervous about the demonstrations that are to be made in honor of General Weyler on the eve of his departure from Cuba, which is to take place on October 30th.

The Americans in the city are begging that a man-of-war be sent into the harbor to protect them, as they fear that Weyler's friends may make an attack upon them.

The demonstration is to be made by the volunteer regiments of Havana. These regiments are recruited from the Spanish merchants in the city, and are all bitterly opposed to the Cubans. They have passed resolutions approving Weyler's methods of warfare, and protesting against the promised Home Rule.

It is feared that these men may get so excited over honoring their favorite general that they may attack the Cubans or Americans in the city.

Weyler has desired that there shall be no demonstration whatever, but the commanders of the volunteers have stated that this is a matter in which they are quite unable to control their men.

In spite of the fact that the Spanish Government relieved Weyler of his duties, he still continues to rule in Cuba, having refused to give up his command until he sails.

He has issued a report in which he states once more that he has nearly crushed out the rebellion. He draws a lively picture of the desperate state of the island when he was appointed governor, and then shows the great improvements he has made.

According to his statement, Havana is in an absolutely healthy condition, and great preparations have been made for continuing the war now the rainy season is over; he also praises the fine condition of the hospitals in Havana--statements which have all been proved false time after time.

Every failure or defeat that he has met with he attributes to the want of soldiers. He declares that he had not enough men under his control properly to garrison Holguin or Victoria de las Tunas, and it was for this reason that they fell.

He has to say something in his own defence, but it is doubtful if many people will be deceived by this wonderful report.

Minister de L?me has called the attention of the State Department to the case, and asked why the officers on the revenue cutter allowed the vessel to escape them.

The Madrid papers think it a great pity that this affair should have occurred at a moment when Spain was trying to show her friendship for us, and declare that the officers on the revenue cutter appeared to be doing their best to avoid overtaking the ship. In Washington it is said that grave trouble may arise out of the matter.

There the matter rests for the present.

We hear from the Soudan that General Hunter is steadily advancing up the Nile.

Under cover of a heavy fire from their guns, these boats were able to reach the city and take all the observations they needed, and then, having treated the city itself to a brisk cannonading, they retreated to report.

A sad story has been telegraphed of the cruel revenge taken by the Mahdists upon a tribe of natives who refused to join them in their war against the British and Egyptians.

This tribe lived on the banks of the Nile between Berber and Metemneh, and were a quiet and industrious people, who, not wishing to mix themselves up in warfare, declined to join in it. The Mahdists, infuriated at their refusal, descended on their villages, killed every male member of the tribe, burned the houses and destroyed the property of the offenders, and carried their women off into slavery.

The British were horrified when they heard of these dreadful deeds, and vow to take a summary vengeance on the cruel Mahdists when they catch them.

It seems, however, as if they were going to have a good deal of difficulty in catching them. As yet they have not been able to come up with the enemy.

Osman Digna, the Mahdist general, steadily retreats before the British and Egyptian troops. It is supposed that it is his intention to draw the army as far as possible from its base of supplies, and then to give battle, hoping to have it completely at his mercy.

If this is his hope, he will find himself very much mistaken.

We told you in a recent number about the railway that the troops were laying across the desert. With the aid of the iron horse--as the locomotive is often called--the dreaded desert can be crossed with ease, and the invading army can have all the supplies it needs following it wherever Osman Digna leads.

There is sad news from the Philippine Islands. A cyclone and tidal wave have visited the island of Leyte, which is one of the Philippine group, and have done a great deal of damage, sweeping over a vast tract of country and killing thousands of people.

A tidal wave, or, more properly speaking, an earthquake wave, is an extraordinarily high wave, supposed to be formed by the disturbance caused by an earthquake in the bed of the sea.

The action of the earthquake causes the waters to retreat from the shores, and gather themselves into a mighty mass, which suddenly turns and advances upon the shore in one huge wave of enormous height. This wave sweeps on over the land until it has spent its force, when the waters rush back to the sea once more.

The force of such a wave is so great that it destroys everything in its path, tearing up rocks and boulders, and carrying them along inland with it.

In 1746, when the coast of Peru was the scene of one of these catastrophes, a war-ship was lying at anchor in one of the bays. The wave came sweeping down upon it, lifted it up on its crest and bore it several miles inland, depositing it on the side of a hill.

The island of Leyte, which has just been visited by one of these terrible waves, is one of the smallest of the Philippine group. Its trade was carried on with Manila, on the island of Luzon, where the rebellion is raging. It was a thriving little island, and boasted of several busy towns, all of which have been completely ruined and in part swept away by the earthquake wave.

At the present time Africa seems to be the storm-centre for all the warring foreign powers.

It has long been the policy of the various European rulers to conquer and hold portions of the lesser known quarters of the globe, and plant colonies there to employ their surplus population, and to increase their trade and importance.

The West Indies, the East Indies, and Australasia have all been settled in this way. Africa was the last country to excite the ambition of Europe, but its turn has come, and it is now being forced to yield up its secrets to the explorer and its riches to the trader.

Sixty years ago the map of Africa was almost a blank. Egypt and Morocco were marked out at the north and east, Cape Colony at the extreme south, and here and there a little outline of territory on the gold coast. All the rest was vaguely marked as Sahara or the Great Desert and the Soudan.

To-day the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Spanish have all planted colonies on it, and the map of Africa looks as business-like as the map of Europe.

It is not to be supposed that these various nations have taken their slices of Africa without much contention and disagreement. We have told you about the troubles with the Boers in the Transvaal, and of Germany's determination to stop the British advance in that direction.

We have also mentioned the check given by Menelik of Abyssinia to the Italians, and of the fight of the Mahdists to keep the Soudan out of the hands of Egypt and England.

Fresh trouble is now arising between the English and the French.

You must not get the idea that the English are doing dreadful things in Africa, because they are concerned in most of the troubles that are disturbing the "Dark Continent."

The fact of the matter is simply that England and France are the largest landholders in Africa, and are therefore interested in most of the quarrels. The British colonies are also much more scattered than the possessions of any of the other powers, and consequently England has more neighbors to dispute with than the others, and from this fact appears to be more quarrelsome than she really is.

The present trouble between France and Great Britain concerns the boundary line between the possessions of the two countries in Western Africa.

This line has been in dispute for nearly thirty years, and has been the subject of four treaties in ten years.

One of these agreements laid out the northern boundary line of the British possessions on the west coast, the Niger territory as it is called, but it failed to come to any decided understanding about the western boundary.

You must understand that these tracts of land which have been taken possession of by the European powers are not by any means deserted or uninhabited lands. On the contrary, many of them teem with people, and these lands on the west of Africa are especially populous. You must bear in mind that the extensive slave trade which existed for so many years was carried on with the west coast of Africa.

Many of these black people are intelligent races of men, and all are divided into tribes and kingdoms governed by rulers and kings.

To obtain possession of these lands, it has been necessary for the different nations of Europe to fight, or make treaties with numberless small native rulers and kings. The Europeans have seized the country belonging to these people, but have allowed the kings and rulers to retain their positions, provided they paid tribute and performed certain services for their conquerors. You remember about the King of Benin. He was one of these tributary kings, and his country lay in this very Niger territory about which we are now speaking.

When the French wished to define the northern boundary line between their possessions and those of the English, it was quite easy to do so, because they had already made treaties with the rulers of the various provinces and their rights in the country were established.

With the western side it was not so easy, for there were two great stumbling-blocks in the way. One was the kingdom of Gando, the other the territory of the Borgus.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet