New-York tribune. [volume], June 12, 1921, Page 6, Image 56

About New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924

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THE PALISADES RECLAIMED
The foot of, the Palisades when it waa o quarryman's wastebasket
The foot of the Palisades to-day; the public'a triumph over private greed
AFEW years ago only a daring Alpine
climber could scale the Palisades.
Without marring their rugged beauty
the most inaccessible points are now
being brought within easy reach. Work has
begun this sckson on several new projects in
the park looking to the same end.
Following a long battle the last of the
quarrymen have been driven from the Pali?
sades. Their last stand was made at Hook
Mountain, which was rapidly crumbling under
the attack. It will be recalled that a series
of such quarries were in full blast a few years
ago directly opposite New York. The beauti?
ful profile of-the rocks was not only marred,
but the shore line was disfigured with un
sightly sheds for the machinery and shacks
for the workmen.
The work of the quarries ceased January 1,
and the quarrymen were required to remove
their buildings and, as far as possible, to re
store the shore line to its original natural ap?
pearance. The work of removal having been
delayed, an extension was sought and granted.
At last, however, the actual work of removal
is under way, but the quarrymen cut so deeply
into the face of the rocks that many years will
be required to heal the wounds. At several
points opposite New York the sites of old quar?
ries may still be recognized, although they have
been idie for nearly twenty years. Gradually
nature heals. The crevicea of the rocks are
filled with earth and vegetation slowly covera
them.
It is hoped that the present season will
witness the completion of the road around
Storm King, which will form an important link
in the Hendrick Hudson Boulevard that will
eventually run from New York to Albany.
The road winds along the face of the pre
cipitous rock 400 feet above the Hudson River.
At some points the mountain is being tun
neled. The roadway will enable motorists to
reach the heights of many of the mountains
of the Highlands which hitherto have been
scaled only by a few daring climbers. The
views of the Hudson in this region are unsur
passed.
At Bear Mountain the facilities for accom
niodating the crowds are being extended. New
camps and shelters are being built. There
will be new sleeping guarters and sanitary ar
rangements. According to the present plans,
there will be thirty-seven different camp
prounds in this section of the park alone. Last
year the steamboata carried 629,000 people to
Bear Mountain Park, while 638,000 made the
trip by automobile and 30,000 by train, a total
of 1,306,000 visitors. With the increased ac
commodations it is expected that this number
will be greatly increased.
With a few interruptions Interstate Park
extends to-day from a point opposite 155th
Street to Hook Mountain, above Nyack, even
beyond. The pathway along the river edge is
now continuous from the lowest end of the
park to a point above Alpine. A fine roadway
begins at a point opposite 200th Street and
winds along the face of the Palisades to a point
opposite Yonkers. The river front above Al?
pine is open to campers and every summer
night hundreds of lights may be seen twinkling
along the foot of the Palisades.
Several beaches and public parks have been
instalied along the river front above Nyack.
With the disappearance of the last of the quar
ries the shore line will be quickly developed.
It is not generally realized that an immense
amount of forestry work is being carried on
throughout the park to restore it to its original
natural beauty. More than five million young
trees and many native shrubs have been plant
ed. Several of the lakes and streams have
been stocked with fish. The buildings erected
for the comfort of the. public include pavilions,
shelters, camps and ieehouses, restaurants and
lunch rooms.
It comes as a surprise, even to New York
ers who live directly opposite the Palisades
and who pass up and down the Hudson, to
learn the resources of this great playground.
A survey of the park reveals the fact that
there are some sixty mountains within its
boundaries. Most of these are more than 1,000
feet in height, the highest being 1,400 feet
This country was for the most part inaccessi
bie before it was taken over for a park. To-day
the entire region is traversed by a network
of roads, paths and trails, some seventy in all,
totaling several thousand miles.
The park is a veritable museum for nature
lovers. There are more than fifty varieties of
spring flowers and more than one hundred
summer flowers. These grow in great tbun
dance. The region is especially rich in trees,
there being more than ninety varieties.
In the remote regions of the park many wild
animals are found. More than forty speciei
have been counted. The largest is the Ameri?
can elk, introduced from the Yellowstone Park.
More than 160 kinds of birds have been ob
served and great care is taken to guard them.
AT THE moment I first saw Angus
Jones I was taking my ease on Fun
chal beach. I lay by an upturned
market boat, careful to keep even my
feet in the shadc. This is a prime precaution
when you wear three toes leaking through
either shoe and you live under a sun that
bums like the white hot spot in a crown sheet.
It waa breathless noon. The waves came
marching in to hiss on the basalt cobblea.
Nevertheless and after a manner I was taking
my ease, the only thing I was still free to take
in all Madeira and the last thing I shall ever
give up anywhere.
Off the one quay lay a rusted tramp with
the lines of a washboiler and the flag of Siam
?of all tropic flags-?hanging over her 6tern
like a dishrag to a nail. With shoutings a
half-naked crew hauled bags and crates out
of her into shore boats. Her decks were a
litter of teak beams, ill stowed. She carried
a sloven list that brought her port chains
under, and she shouldered at her anchor like
a drunken man at a post. Moreover, the reek
of her was an offense along the waterfront.
And yet I desired her, with all her untidi
ness, her filth, her unseemly violence of ac
tivity, for prescntly when her cargo was out
she would stagger off the roadstead as she had
come and bear away for some other port?any
other port. Happy ship that could be free to
head up into the worid again. Happy souls
aboard who should leave the black beach of
Funchal behind them! And so I lay and
watched and envied her and them, admonish
:ng sand hoppers between whiles.
"Do you chance to have the loan of a match
about you?" . . .
I sat up the better to stare. The stranger
stood all of seven feet, it seemed to me, built
like a lath, hung around and about with the
wreck of tweeds. But what struck me was
his headgear. He wore one of those wool
caps, half an inch thiek, with which an in
scrutable Providence has moved the peasantry
of this blistering isle to inflict themselves. He
had the earflaps down. It made me sweat
again to see him. But he seemed amazingly
cool. And so, indeed, he was, for this was
Angus Jones.
"I am newly come from over yon." He
hooked a thumb toward the mountains that
wall the almost unknown north coast. "The
cheese from ewes is sustaining but monotonous.
The people are of an incredible simplicity.
They talk pure Portuguese of the fourteenth
century and they count on their fingers."
"You should have stayed there," I made an?
swer. "The people here are sophisticated by
tourists and poverty. Also cheese is superior
to cactns fruit, and from sugar cane one turns
at last with loathing."
"Do you work for it?"
I was long since lost to shame. I confessed
how I ballyhooed at the door of an embroidery
shop whenever a ship loosed English passen
gers for a two-hour visit,
"Not good enough," decided Angus Jones.
"Though, mark you, I should never admit a
town of this size to be as barren as you say.
Still 1 am fed up with Madeira. I am disap
pointed in Madeira. Is it believable, after my
stay of a month, I have yet to meet the famous
wine of that name on its native heath?"
"Quite, since it does not exist. You could
have met only an inferior imported Malaga
with a fake label."
He considered.
"I think I shall not stay. Tell me, how does
a lad like you or me set above getting away
from Madeira?"
"How much money have you?"
"As much as a gentleman needs."
"Not good enough," I echoed. "This is the
one place in the world you cannot leave with?
out paying for the privilege."
He looked down on my bitterness from be?
tween his ear flaps.
"Man," he said, "when dealing with people
of a racial simplicity never talk of paying.
'Tis in the nature of the lesser nationalities to
bear the white man as a burden."
And I laughed. It was a blessing to laugh.
I thought I had forgotten how.
"Tell me that after a month in Funchal," I
said. " I will teach you a new way of cooking
cactus and how to steal sugar cane when the
moon is full."
He regarded me solemnly and shook his
head.
"How long have you been here?"
"So long I would surely slip on my ear if I
should ever again walk on anything but
cobbles."
'"Tis living among these islanders has
taught?you such simplicity. Mark me. For
two days I have not eaten. I require food,
iiquor and to be helped on my way. Your
case is much the same, I take it. Good. Now
I Hhy?T, Angus Jones?that all these things
shall be procured for the two of us.
Come, and let me restore your faith."
For the sake of the jest I bestirred myself
and went with him, well knowing what he
would find. We climbed to the deserted Rua
Da Praia, past the red stone tower that is
known as Benger's Folly and in a cavelike
office under the blue arms of the South Ameri?
can Line we approached its greasy little
agent. . . .
"Passige? Passige? Maybeso. Some?
times iss a trimmer or two dead coming up
from Rio and they need a man to Hamburg.
Only you must shovel coal all day and night.
Ha, ha! How will you like that? Show me
anyways your exit receipt und I will take
down the names."
"My which?" asked Angus Jones.
"Have you not paid your exit to the cus
toms?"
"I propose to take my exit, not pay it," said
Angus Jones.
"Ha, ha! But first, my friend, you must
pay. Natqrally you get no wages for a pas?
sige, therefore we cannot advance it."
"But why should"
The agent waved his arms and faded in the
eave.
"I am busy," said he, "Va-se'mbora!"
We proceeded along the rua to the sign of
the Elder-Dempsters.** . . ,
"A ship?" A bilious Anglo-Portuguese
By JOHN
behind the deBk eyed us up and down. "Would
a captain's cabin at forty pounds suit you?"
"Thanks," said Angus Jones. "I'll consider
it. But in the mean while"
"Have you paid the government tax?"
"I am unable"??
"Enough," snapped the Anglo-Portuguese.
"Va-se'mbora!" . . .
At the Booth Line agency we encountered a
lank gentleman with a languid smile who
further enlightened Angus Jones.
"Take on hands at Madeira? You're crazy.
Do you suppose we want the port closed to
us for shipping monarchist suspects? They
always head for Brazil, and we're watched
every minute."
"Sir!"
"And I'll a3k you kindly not to hang about
my place. Now, I've done my best for you.
Va-se'mbora!"
We turned into a maze of eobbled ways
behind the market, passing between rows of
shuttered shops. It was the off-season, and in
this midday hour the city dozed.
"Here should be the local version of a deli
catessen," said Angus Jones before the store
of Joao Gomez. We entered where Joao sat
intrenched amid sugar loaves and tinned
goods and silvered sausages, beneath a flock
of lard balloons no rounder nor shinier than
his face.
"Good morning," said Augus Jones. "I hope
you are quite well. I hope all your family are
quite well. Behold in me, sir, a learned medico
recently come from London with healing for
these islands. Any and all illa to which flesh
is heir are banished by a certain marvelous
drug of which I am the happy possessor.
Have you boils, fever, gangrene, distemper?
Do you sneeze, palpitate, or feel pain in sinci
put or oeeiput, tibia, diaphragm or appendix?
Are you subject to measles, dropsy, pyromania
or falling arch?"
Joao Gomez had opened one eye far enough
to envisage .the eloquent intruder and to locate
his broom.
"Va-se'mbora!" quoth Joao, and we were
eager so to do, for the broom was the ancient
kind, made of switches, and it stung.
At the bazaar where Martinho Agostinho
Sousa sold stamps, liquors, basketware and
curios of many sorts to the marauding tourist
we reconnoitered.
Martinho was within and welcomed us with
purrings and graceful gestures.
"Good morning," said Angus'Jones. "I see
you deal in many things fine and rare. I have
here an article which I am forced to sell for a
shade of its value. You can make a thousand
per cent prorit from the first collecton Give
me a dollar and call it square."
He opened a thin wallet and laid on the
counter a faded internal revenue stamp, such
as seals a packet of tobacco in a happier land.
Martinho looked at it and from it to Angus
Jones, and his suavity departed from him.
"What t' Sam Hill you take me for? And
me that run a gin mill in Lawrence, Mass.I
RUSSELL
Do I look like a fall guy? Beat it, you long
legged hobo! On your way!"
Thus he pursued us with rude outcry, but
at the end lapsed and blew us along with a
final vernacular blast: "Va-se'mboral"
We arrived with speed at the Praca da Con
stituicao, the main square. Angus Jones wa3
somewhat winded, but unsubdued.
Then with an evil humor I pointed out to
him the Golden Gate, hospitably open to all
vagrant airs that stirred among the plane
trees.
"That is the soeial heart and center of Fun
?chal," 1 told him, quite truly. ?
The hairy and muscular proprietor of the
Golden Gate was nodding over the great poree
lain handles of his beer pumps like a switch
man in his tower.
"Good morning," said Angus Jones. "I see
you have no billiard marker. 'Tis a great pity,
but soon mended."
The proprietor rolled out with a formidable
roar, rubbing his eyes.
"Pedro, my glasses! Billiar'? On the min?
ute, mos' honorable sir. How stupid am I that
a ship should be in and I catched in a sleeping!
We have a ver' fine table of billiar', Freneh
or English, if you please should look. Pedro,
my glasses! Is it a Castle liner you arrive
by, mos' honorable? Will you have beer or
wheesky-sod'?" He bobbed and leered, blind
as an owl. I might have warned Angus Jones,
but 1 did not. I only stood where I had a clear
space to the door.
"All in good time," said Angus Jones. "I
speak of a marker. In billiards, if you mark
me, the marking is a proper art. Now, there
1 meet you as an expert. Give me charge of
your billiard room and 1*11 double your busi?
ness."
"Billiar'? Yes, yes; only wait. Pedro!"
Pedro appeared as from a trap, with a pair
of spectacles.
"Do I get the job?" asked Angus Jones.
"Jobe!" exclaimed the proprietor. "What
jobe?" He put on his glasses and eyed the ap
plicant up and down. "Ah-h-h! You wish??
What is here?" he bellowed and fell back on his
bar.
"I, seek a place as billiard marker," said
Angus Jones.
"Sagrada Familia! Pig spy of a monar
chist!"
The Portuguese equivalent of a bungstarter
whiffed Angus Jones by an eyelash. The
rafters shook. We had a start to the door,
and needed it. Jones cleared the sill with the
aid of a ponderous foot. In_the driving hail
of oaths and beer mugs we tore across the
Praca. A little soldier in blue linen started
up from somewhere. Two others ran out of
a doorway. A crippled beggar threw his
crutch at us with a curse. Loungers, raea
mufftnu, streetcars, joined the chase with clam
orous giee as we turned up an alley. All
Funchal joined in the chorus behind us.
"Va-se'mbora \ Va-se'mbora!"
And so consigned we fled at last to safety
URSELF
among suburban gardens and burst panting
through a cane brake.
We regained the water front by a devious
route and came down toward the quay among
odorous fishing smacks and tangled nets. Hot
ter, more desolate than ever, lay that black
griddle of the foreshore on which Angus Jones
was now condemned to wander with me. Noth?
ing moved along its pebbly waste but heat
waves and boiling surf and hopping insects
in clouds.
Off the jetty lay the Siamese tramp, still
heaving in the ground swell, and we came
down to the edge to stare aeross at her. As
pariahs before a vision of paradise we stood
and yearned toward that disreputable hulk.
They had almost finished. with her cargo.
At this moment they held a clumsy crate bal
anced over the side in a sling, seeking to lower
it upon a shore boat about the size of a
dinghy. The crew swarmed like furious ants,
and a white officer in dirty ducks flailed amid
the riot. As the chain swung we saw the
crate was really a cjumsy cage in which
ramped a huge and tawny form.
"The circus," I murmured.
"Ha!" said Angus Jones. ?
"Not the kind of circus you mean," I as?
sured him. "No clowns, no ringa, no shell
games. It's a kind of fifth-class traveling
menagerie, from what I hear, backed as a
new venture by his exceHency the governor
himself. They'U house it in that round barn
up the promenade where the cinema lives, and
anon those natives who have the price will sit
around on the benches and tremble and
scratch themselves."
"But why should it be thus?" asked Angus
Jones.
"Well, those who carry fleas"
"No, but why should they tremble?"
"This is a far island. No one hereabouta
has ever seen any animal more savage than
a goat."
"True," said Angus Jones, with a grimace as
if he had bitten into a sour fruit. "It is their
simplicity. I had almost forgot."
Strange that he should have taken the word
in defeat and disillusionment at that moment,
for just then the thing happened. There burst
a- shrill screaming from the tramp, and ita
knot of toilers flew apart like bits of a bomb.
Men leaped into the rigging, climbed the spars,
shot down the hatchways. The haryring cage
sagged and cracked, and overside flashed, with
an arching spring, some great body all lithe
and tawny in the sunlight. It plunged and
presently reappeared, surging for shore.
I felt suddenly conspicuous on that beach.
We stood far from shelter. Nor are cobbles
good to run upon.
"I think we'd better be going," I suggested,
and caught sight of my companion and stopped.
He still wore his wool cap, and it occurred
to me even then that he had not turned a hair
throughout our flight. But now his face was
curiously splotched red and white and his eyes
blazed seawarfl in fixity. He did not budge.
"Tell me," said Angus Jones, "tell me what
i
was that word with which they harried ua t
while back? 1 seemed to spy a meaning, The
one word they had for us alike?"
"Va-se'mbora?" I said, fidgeting, "Oh, it'l
the common repulse to beggars and nuisance*.
You say it when you want to be rid of sobm
one. Va-se'mbora! Which means in the rer
nacular, Chase yourself."
"Chase yourself," repeated Angus JonM
softly. "Think of that now! They seek to tax
us. They refuse us dole. They beat us hert
and yon. They will not let us go, though we
would only leave their country for their coun
try's good. Withal they tell us: Chas? your?
self! And they are, as you say, a simple peo?
ple, living on a far island."
The tawny head was close in. |
"It's time to move," I urged.
But Angus Jones picked up an oar and etrt
the painter from a fishing boat and went down
to the water's edge. He made a singular fif
ure on Funchal beach, drawn to all his lean
height, with the clothes flapping on him as h?
struck a noble pose. For myself 1 retreated
among the boats where I might hide in some
cuddy.
"Observe the epic grandeur of the scene,"
declaimed Angus Jones. "Here I stand <m ?
rock in mid-Atlantic to meet the raging men
arch of the midmost jungle. 'Tis lofty, il
credible?in a sense, miraculous."
The man was mad. I called to him agal*3,
"For heaven's sake, come away!"
But Angus Jones smiled out over tha blue
bay.
"As if St. Patrick were to welcome a aea
serpent in the dales of Wexford!" he added,
rasmg his oar.
And there crawled out of the wash at his
feet a full grown male lion, gaunt and soppinf.
with crimson jaws distended.
From afar among the fishing boats I thought
many things very swiftly: that I must close
my eyes tight against the cruel, bright Ma?
deira sun and what it would show?tbis for
one; that I should never again feed crude
Malaga to a man with an empty stomach?for
another; that perhaps the animal might be
somewhat assuaged with the sea water and
finally that here, after all, was a miracle, as
he had said.
For quite surely I saw Angus Jones feteh
the jungle monarch but the one wailop withbis
oar.
"Down!" thundered Angus Jones.
The lion snarled, spat, crouched?and be?
gan to shake its paws in the air and to lick its
fur like any prowler of the back fence, all iot
lorn and bedraggled.
"Kitty, kitty!" said Augus Jones.
The lion blinked up at him. He stooped ?rw
tickled it between the ears. When he stood
up again the rope was noosed about its nec*
and the other end of the rope was in hia hand.
He hailed me to stand forth, and I obeyed i?
fear and great wonder.
"Do you see me?" said Angus Jones. "I aM
come of the dominant race. Do you see my
cat? It is the proper pet for such a man. And
now"- He drew a long breath through ??
nose. "And now we will resume our investj
gations amid the haunts of these simple iaV
anders." ,
So we turned back and made our secow
(Continued on page twelve) ^j^J