UC-NRLF 
 
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 liiiiltljf 
 
 
 27M SEE 
 
 TO THE POLES 
 
 
GIFT OF 
 
To 
 
 My Boys 
 
 and the millions of other 
 YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 who are standing on the threshold 
 
 of America's Golden Age every horizon 
 
 aflame with promise, and the accumulated 
 
 glow of centuries to come, illuminating 
 
 the pathway that leads to the land 
 
 of the 
 
 MORNING, 
 this volume is affectionately inscribed. 
 
 Allen Kendrick Wright. 
 
. 
 
. t 
 
To the Poles by Airship 
 
 OR 
 
 AROUND THE WORLD ENDWAYS 
 
 By 
 
 Allen Kendrick Wright 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 1910; 
 
 I 
 
 Baumgardt Publishing CoV 
 
 Los Ange'es, Cal, 
 

 
 * 4 
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 . * ' v ' 
 
 -'. : ; 4 - 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 1910 
 BY A. K. WRIGHT 
 
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 273586 
 
"We are living, we are dwelling 
 In a grand and wondrous time, 
 
 In an age on ages telling 
 To be living is sublime!" 
 
 Coxe. 
 
 For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see 
 
 Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
 would be. 
 
 Saw the heavens filled with commerce, argosies of 
 magic sails, 
 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with 
 costly bales. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Cloud-continents swing at anchor, 
 Where backward curves the sky; 
 
 Headlights gleam as flashing comets, 
 From airships sailing by. 
 
 Wright. 
 
Preface 
 
 This book stands without a rival. Occu- 
 pies a field absolutely new. Offers to the 
 reader three things which every manly 
 man and every womanly woman has longed 
 for, does now long for, will hereafter long 
 for. 
 
 First A trip around the world endways, 
 for which fortunes have been pledged and 
 scores of human lives sacrificed. 
 
 Second A voyage thru the air, over 
 lands unexplored seas unknown. 
 
 Third Chemicals from the laboratories 
 of nature for the solution of the mightiest 
 problems that have challenged human 
 attention in all ages, together with the 
 material for the most wonderful pictures 
 ever gazed upon by human eyes. 
 
 The gates of America's golden age are 
 ajar; let us enter. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
Introduction 
 
 Three unmeasurable advantages neces- 
 sarily attach themselves to this voyage: 
 
 First Our magnificent speed 325 miles 
 per hour brot scenes and incidents of the 
 voyage so close together that they appear 
 on the canvas of memory as a flash-light 
 of the world by instantaneous method. 
 
 Second We were able to study by con- 
 trast the difference and influence that cli- 
 matic conditions make upon plant and 
 animal life, as well as zone influence upon 
 civilization, and indeed upon the race of 
 mankind. 
 
 Third Traveling above the earth with 
 adjustable-telescopic-lens-windows,wesaw, 
 not simply a ribband or strand of land- 
 scape immediately adjoining our pathway, 
 but practically a continent of width, with 
 mountains, plains and waterways in sub- 
 lime and entrancing panorama. 
 
 With these advantages clearly in mind, 
 let the reader enter the last chamber of 
 Discovery in the physical temple of planet 
 Earth. 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 Sailing on Together Poem. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 First Day New Orleans to North Pole. 
 Second Day North Pole to Jerusalem. 
 Third Day Jerusalem to Pretoria. 
 Fourth Day Pretoria to South Pole. 
 Fifth Day South Pole to Buenos Ayres. 
 Sixth Day Buenos Ayres to New Orleans. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Afterglow. 
 
 a Voice of the Sphinx, 
 b Armageddon. 
 c Progress. 
 d Fruits of Peace. 
 
 e Conservation of Natural Resources, 
 f The Afterglow Poem. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Twentieth Century Poems. 
 
 The Desert 110 
 
 A Desert Rain 112 
 
 The Old Prospector 113 
 
 How the Almighty Paints 115 
 
 Mother's Room 116 
 
 I Know Not 117 
 
 Longing for You 118 
 
 The Children's Burden 119 
 
 Do It Now 121 
 
 A Woman's Heart 122 
 
 Love 's Wireless 122 
 
 Spring Fever 123 
 
 My Wish for Thee 124 
 
 Our Boys 125 
 
 Where Dwellest Thou? 126 
 
 The Homeward Trail. 128 
 
SAILING ON TOGETHER. 
 
 If I have you and you have me, 
 
 Why should we be caring, 
 We will sail life's summer sea, 
 
 Joy and sorrow sharing; 
 Bravely meet the swelling tide, 
 
 What e'er the wind or weather, 
 Swiftly outward safe we ride, 
 
 Sailing on together. 
 
 A sapphire vault the sky above, 
 
 Cloudlets floating o'er us; 
 Softly sings the bird of love, 
 
 We will join the chorus; 
 Raise your voice so sweet my dear, 
 
 'Twill help a friend or brother, 
 Doing good we've naught to fear, 
 
 Sailing on together. 
 
 Emerald seas on every side, 
 
 Too deep for mortal sounding, 
 We are floating on a tide, 
 
 With life and love abounding ; 
 When our sailing here is done, 
 
 All past earth's wind and weather, 
 We shall surely still be one, 
 
 Sailing on together. 
 
 Till we reach that mystic clime, 
 
 Life's secrets all revealing, 
 And catch the glory of the chime, 
 
 Love's golden bells are pealing; 
 Or what to me is more sublime, 
 
 (I often think I'd rather) 
 Come back to earth a second time, 
 
 And sail again together. 
 

 
 To the Poles by Airship 
 
 Parti 
 
 FIRST DAY. 
 
 New Orleans to North Pole. 
 
 The tidal wave that fell upon Galveston 
 like a destroying angel and swept our 
 whole southern coast with a hurricane of 
 disaster and death, had spent its force, 
 but the ground swell still lingered in the 
 Mississippi valley and caused the great 
 lakes to tremble in their mighty basins. 
 
 The morning of September 10th, 1900, 
 broke over the crescent city wondrously 
 clear, unnaturally calm. To the south and 
 west low-lying clouds skirted the horizon, 
 as if nature had spread a funeral pall over 
 the scenes of her desolation, but above and 
 northward the sapphire vault was as clear 
 as a Herschel lens. 
 
 Our entire party had remained in their 
 state-rooms during the night, and were 
 ready for the lifting of anchors at six 
 o'clock, A. M. Slowly, steadily, as a crea- 
 
14 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 ture endowed with life, and conscious of 
 power, the stately ship rose for TWO 
 THOUSAND FATHOMS moving neither 
 forward nor backward, swerving not to 
 right or left. Full five minutes we remain- 
 ed motionless, drinking the glory of the 
 scene, while limitations melted away before 
 the growing sense of possibility. 
 
 With face lighted with joy and gladness, 
 as of one about to consummate a long- 
 cherished hope, Lieutenant Peary, the in- 
 trepid explorer of northern climes, stood 
 with his right hand upon the helm, while 
 his left pressed the button that turned the 
 liquid-air into VACUUM-ALUMINUM- 
 Corliss engines. 
 
 Throbbing with power the ' 'NEW ERA" 
 tossed her beamed frontlet upward for an 
 instance, balanced and shot forward like a 
 thunderbolt, and the first voyage around 
 the earth endways was begun; the voyage 
 that should disclose the great secrets of 
 the UNKNOWN under the frozen constel- 
 lations of the north and reveal the won- 
 drous mysteries that lay beyond the hori- 
 zon of discovery under the fiery serpents 
 of the south, the voyage that should be 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 15 
 
 to the world of science and progressive 
 thot, what the voyage of COLUMBUS 
 was to the geographic and commercial 
 world; the voyage, that on one hand should 
 reveal more wonders than ALADDIN'S 
 LAMP professed to do, and on the other 
 put an end to the loss of life and property 
 in vain attempts to reach the poles by 
 waterways. 
 
 It was a sublime and tremendous 
 moment. Unconquerable mind was about 
 to begin her reign over material forces, as 
 contemplated by JEHOVAH when He 
 created Man and gave him dominion over 
 terrestrial things. 
 
 White as the sheen of a falcon's wing 
 lay league after league of the cotton belt, 
 set in frames of stream and forest that 
 shaded into orchard, meadow or wheat- 
 field of the farther north, which in turn 
 gave way to the wooded hills, mountains 
 and lakes of the mighty SASKATCHE- 
 WAN of British Columbia and later on 
 the unexplored empires of the Yukon and 
 McKenzie that also yielded to an unbroken 
 sea of snow-scrolls, frost-crystals and ice 
 fields that stretched away to the north- 
 
16 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 ward beyond the horizon of mortal knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 All were comfortably settled in the 
 observation section, which for several rea- 
 sons had been located in the center of the 
 vessel, and enjoying beyond measure the 
 play of light and shadow upon the broad 
 bottoms, rugged slopes, winding valleys 
 and purple hills that terraced to the trans- 
 continental divide on the west, or the great 
 forests and quiet valleys of the Cumber- 
 land and Blue Ridge, when a thunderous 
 blast from the fog-horn followed by intense 
 darkness and a trembling motion of the 
 great ship brot panic to every heart. For 
 the fraction of a minute only did the dark- 
 ness last and then an unnatural light of 
 dazzling brilliancy enveloped us. Fearful 
 lest some atmospheric maelstrom or elec- 
 trical cataclysm threatened destruction, 
 our pilot threw out the fin-like anchors, 
 reversed the propellers and brot the vessel 
 to a balance. As soon as the eyes could 
 adjust themselves to the intense light, we 
 discovered the city of Memphis directly 
 below us and also discovered the cause of 
 the marvelous phenomena about us. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 17 
 
 Earthward and apparently close to the 
 ground lay a dark circle possibly two hun- 
 dred miles in diameter, with intense black 
 spots at a number of points. The whole 
 thing had the appearance of an enormous 
 bicycle tire which suddenly inflated had 
 punctured here and there, throwing out 
 ink-black jets of smoke blown into circles 
 and rings as often seen blown from loco- 
 motives. Viewed from above, these energy 
 centers seemed sometimes circular, some- 
 times elliptical in form, the outer walls 
 ever dark, the inside changing, sometimes 
 black, sometimes blazing like fire, some- 
 times like molten sulphur. Whatever color 
 assumed, their motion was constant and 
 of frightful velocity. Without question 
 these were cyclones and but parts of a tre- 
 mendous whole, and as far as we could 
 discover the entire area of the circle was 
 being swept with electrical energy whose 
 source and origin was then unknown but 
 destined to be revealed before our journey 
 ended. 
 
 One fact which was clearly established 
 later on may as well be set down here; 
 namely, that heat and cold in their rela- 
 
18 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 tion to the earth are controlled by the 
 atmosphere whose grain or fibre is vertical, 
 
 and for this reason causes the heat and 
 
 i 
 
 cold to develop chutes or chimneys, 
 sometimes small, at other times covering 
 vast areas, but whether large or small, 
 dropping in spots, so to speak, Thus it 
 will be seen that certain localities may 
 develop extreme temperature in either di- 
 rection, while only a few miles away there 
 may not be any marked change. With 
 these facts before us we can understand 
 why zero weather may obtain as far south 
 as Texas, while on the great lakes or even 
 Hudson Bay country almost autumn 
 weather reigns. As a matter of fact, these 
 hitherto supposedly abnormal conditions 
 have been frequently noted but could not 
 be satisfactorily accounted for on the old 
 theory that temperatures were affected 
 only by " Humidity, Altitude and Lati- 
 tude. ' ' 
 
 Having made sure that we were in the 
 roof regions of an enormous cyclone dis- 
 trict two hundred miles or more in diam- 
 eter with here and there danger centers 
 capable of swift destruction, our pilot 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 19 
 
 weighed anchor, allowed the vessel to rise 
 two hundred fathoms and proceeded on 
 our way. 
 
 As the "NEW ERA" swept on and out 
 of the storm zone and descended to our 
 former level we were all conscious of a 
 wonderful relief. From a sense of intense 
 nerve tension that caused our fingers to 
 tingle and our cheeks to burn with hot 
 rushes of blood, we suddenly became nor- 
 mal and serenely comfortable; but the won- 
 derful exhilaration of physical life together 
 with the quickening of mental faculties 
 was remarked by all, and the infinite sense 
 of healing and strength resulting from the 
 electrical bath we had just passed thru will 
 always remain one of our most pleasant 
 memories. 
 
 The everyday affairs of life are the most 
 interesting transactions, and when fully 
 understood often the most wonderful. We 
 scarcely realize how much of variety and 
 beauty of the physical world about us 
 depends upon the changes produced by the 
 storms and clouds. During the first hours 
 of our voyage we were considerably puz- 
 zled over certain brilliant areas which 
 
20 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 appeared suddenly and as suddenly dis- 
 appeared in various sections of our land- 
 scape. Acres of flame gave way to the 
 limit of blackness thru which ever and 
 anon swept rivers of fire mingled with 
 blood, Great electric storms they were 
 pouring rain in torrents upon the earth 
 from the lower side, but bathed in un- 
 broken sunshine on the roofs, with waves 
 of electricized-ether (commonly called 
 sheet lightning) playing wild games over 
 the roof ridges, racing down gutters and 
 dripping from the eaves of these marvel- 
 ous cloud structures. 
 
 Deep-toned, the voice of thunder was 
 not wanting, but passing upward thru the 
 atmospheric fibre like the pipes of some 
 vast organ, all sounds were softened and 
 harmonized into richest music. This ORA- 
 TORIO of the planet earth was the gather- 
 ing up and blending into one sublime 
 harmony of all terrestrial sounds. The 
 thunder's voice, the roar of onrushing 
 trains, the tenor of whirring trolleys, the 
 song of birds and murmuring of waters, 
 the swish of electric currents thru watery 
 vapors, the sudden rending of cloud fibres, 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 21 
 
 the steady thrum of the cities strong cry- 
 ing and laughter, and the fusing of noxious 
 gases, all caught up to these roof regions 
 and swept back and forth by the tides of 
 this aerial ocean was music indeed that 
 enraptured and soothed while it fed and 
 satisfied every attribute of body, mind and 
 spirit. 
 
 That all sounds, especially the human 
 voice, travel upward better than down- 
 ward has long been recognized, but that 
 all earthly sounds should be thus blended 
 and translated thru, not six, but scores of 
 octaves by electric-ether fingers on God's 
 aeolian harp, was never dreamed by our 
 wildest imaginations till now it was demon- 
 strated by this voyage thru the hitherto 
 supposed voiceless realms of atmospheric 
 solitude. However, some intimations of 
 this marvelous process have long pre- 
 sented themselves to mortal intuitions and 
 poets have dreamed and orators have sung 
 in all ages of "THE MUSIC OF THE 
 SPHERES"; but these phantom outlines 
 upon the canvas of mortality's latent senses 
 now but occasionally made visible by the 
 flash-light of genius, will some time be 
 
22 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 realized for the world's entertainment and 
 profit; and some as yet unborn EDISON 
 will probably in the near future not only 
 record the voice of the earth as it sweeps 
 along the star-decked plains of its orbit, 
 but also the very movements of the stellar 
 constellations as they swing grandly on 
 along their shining pathways around the 
 cloud continents and thru and across the 
 vaporous oceans of limitless space; and 
 thus for man thru the economy of GOD 
 shall be conserved the broken fragments 
 of universal sound in the voiceless music 
 of the stars. 
 
 The minimizing effect of vertical views 
 is plainly discernible from high buildings, 
 monuments or ferris wheels, but imagine 
 if you can the degrees of this influence thru 
 two thousand fathoms of space, Except 
 for our telescopic-lens-glass-bottomed boat 
 (even as visitors to Avalon, Catalina 
 island, view the submarine gardens) we 
 could not have distinguished any earthly 
 objects, but thanks to the wisdom of our 
 ship builder everything on earth was 
 clearly seen, the only change being that 
 all color values were absolute (no shades) 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 23 
 
 and only the seven primary colors ever 
 appeared. Human faces upturned were 
 absolutely white, their clothes if dark abso- 
 lutely black. Trees and meadow lands as 
 well as all artificial objects painted green, 
 appeared rainbow green; blue tinted struc- 
 tures, flowers, lakes and rivers appeared 
 indigo blue, while stubble lands and fal- 
 low fields were saffron, and mahogany and 
 carmine railroad trains raced as streams 
 of blood over the ground great arteries 
 running in every direction, but here and 
 there gathered into ganglion nerve-centers 
 the cities. 
 
 Among the multitude of extraordinary 
 things upon which we gazed perhaps none 
 were more wonderful and awe-inspiring 
 than the sunshine effects along the slopes 
 of the rocky mountains late in the after- 
 noon. Whether caused by the obtuse angle 
 of reflection or by some to us unknown 
 and peculiar condition of the atmosphere, 
 I know not, but the sun's rays seemed 
 broken up and blended into an ocean of 
 flame that rolled and swelled in mighty 
 surges of color from the Yukon to the Rio 
 Grande and involuntarily the possibility of 
 
24 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 the conflagration of a continent was borne 
 upon the senses and the wreck of matter 
 and crush of worlds seemed imminent. 
 
 As we gazed entranced but awe-stricken 
 upon this new creation, an exclamation 
 from one of the ladies caused us to turn 
 our eyes eastward where a scene broke 
 upon our vision that appalled every heart 
 and blanched all faces a scene that brot 
 consternation to all faculties and threat- 
 ened reason itself. 
 
 From Hudson Bay to the Aztec sea the 
 earth seemed to have dropped away and a 
 mighty void where power creative never 
 yet had energized and existence still slept 
 in the wide abyss of possibility had taken 
 its place a void as unfathomable as space 
 and black as a gulf of despair and we 
 seemed on the verge of universal chaos. 
 So vast and unmeasurable seemed this 
 utter blackness, so awful our possibility of 
 drifting into it, that only the sun in his 
 course and the great forests below us were 
 able to recall us to assurance and a sense 
 of safety. 
 
 This weird and supernatural phenome- 
 non lasted only a few minutes, but long 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 25 
 
 enough to leave an impression that still 
 causes the soul to quail when flashed across 
 the canvas of memory. Each one felt that 
 to us had been given to approach the un- 
 known and unknowable to stand for a 
 moment on the borderland of temporal and 
 eternal realities and see the veil that sep- 
 arates between the finite and the infinite 
 blown aside by the breath of the eternal 
 and omnipotent God. 
 
 From the snow-crowned peaks of Alberta 
 and the frost-white sentinels of Alaska 
 to the Laurentian Hills and Hudson Bay, 
 a splendid forest weeps and waves in 
 primeval grandeur. With here and there 
 magnificent parks of meadow land where 
 feed the caribou by thousands, and great 
 lakes upon whose broad bosoms or reedy 
 borders waterfowl by millions take their 
 summer outings and rear their young in 
 safety, while winding thru all like silver 
 ribbands thru fabrics of gauze are laugh- 
 ing brooks and mighty rivers alive with 
 fish of many kinds. 
 
 Behold the sportsman's paradise! The 
 wheat-fields of generations yet unborn and 
 lumber camps, once they are opened, that 
 
26 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 shall build the cities of a world, and then 
 let us blush at thought of our hue and' 
 cry about the exhaustion of the world's 
 natural resources. 
 
 0, we of little faith! The same hand 
 that built the world and laid the corner- 
 stones of a universe still controls the sea- 
 sons and flings far and wide all round the 
 world the conditions for a million harvests. 
 Our HOME shall not be made desolate if 
 we but do our part. 
 
 Hearts thrilled hopes beat high antic- 
 ipation was pregnant with mightiest ex- 
 pectation and all involved in a mysterious 
 sense of the untried, when at time of set- 
 ting sun we sailed into the arctic circle, 
 passed from sight of land and began our 
 flight over watery wastes and hundreds of 
 leagues of snow and ice. 
 
 But the sun did not set. Into the land 
 of deathless day we entered; thru misty 
 moonlight, o'er arctic seas, into the 
 AURORA BOREALIS the "NEW ERA" 
 plunged. Electric waves flashed from her 
 brazen prow hung in splendid halos 
 around her mighty hull and streamed far 
 out behind in flaming grandeur like the 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 27 
 
 luminous pathway of a comet's train. On, 
 still on, till the soul is lost in wonder amid 
 these scenes of phantom splendor that 
 threaten to overtax sight and sense amid 
 our new surroundings. 
 
 From henceforth be it known to you, 
 children of Time, that amid these vast soli- 
 tudes God's hand hath set the batteries of 
 snow and ice charged with electricity, 
 ether and oxygen that generates the ozone 
 for a world's life, the motive power for a 
 solar system and the air that angels 
 breathe. 
 
 The rush and roar of these elemental 
 forces the grind and crash of ice fields 
 broken up, the launching of bergs and the 
 boom and thunder of contending tides 
 thrown up in crystal spray and sparkling 
 scrolls conspired to present a scene like 
 unto Creations' Morn when the stars sang 
 and the Sons of God shouted for joy. 
 
 On, still on, we sped thru this carnival 
 of carnelian splendors till we shot out over 
 an open sea that sparkled and dimpled in 
 rainbow green beneath the beams of the 
 midnight sun when, lo ! an island not many 
 leagues in extent, but clothed in matchless 
 
28 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 verdure, loomed across our pathway and 
 the Log-Book told us the goal was won. 
 
 In a small but beautiful natural park, 
 traversed by a tiny brook and surrounded 
 by noble trees whose wondrous bloom and 
 odor ravished our souls with their fra- 
 grance, the "NEW ERA" came to anchor. 
 
 All passengers immediately sought their 
 state-rooms, but so balmy was the air, so 
 exhilarating and full of life-giving power 
 and tissue-building properties that two 
 hours of rest and slumber was all that any 
 of us required, and by three o'clock in the 
 morning the entire party were walking 
 about the island. 
 
 No words can describe nor pen convey 
 the buoyancy and elasticity of body and 
 mind the ineffable sense of strength and 
 youthful super-abundance of health and 
 vitality that came from the oxygenated- 
 electricized-salined atmosphere of this 
 aboriginal clime. Not alone thru the lungs 
 were we conscious of this marvelous influ- 
 ence, but every organ of the body, the 
 very flesh and bones, seemed renovated, 
 strengthened, and functional power quick- 
 ened; the brain and spirit revelled in crea- 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 29 
 
 tive power. Great problems heretofore 
 shrouded with mystery suddenly became 
 luminous. Doubts and questions gave way 
 to full assurance of knowledge, and the 
 spell of intuition became dominant in 
 human affairs. We seemed to have in- 
 stantly passed from all restraint and sense 
 of limitations into an absolute freedom 
 generous as the sunshine, boundless as 
 space, where the mind and heart did not 
 need longer to struggle and labor for 
 attainment, but immediately possessed 
 accurate information on any proposition 
 as if by right of inheritance. 
 
 Strange, mysterious, blessed land! Land 
 of cloudless skies and deathless days; land 
 of solitude where no voice was ever heard 
 since God spoke worlds into being and gar- 
 mented thy bosom with fragrant flowers 
 and velvet greens. No breath of unclean- 
 ness was ever wafted across thy pearly 
 strand, nor noxious weed or bristling thorn 
 did ever find root in thy soil. No pestilen- 
 tial vapors ever rise from thy mossy brakes 
 and tranquil pools. Death thou hast not 
 known, for crushed and broken hearts have 
 never wended their way in funeral proces- 
 
30 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 sion along the banks of thy crystal streams 
 nor digged lonely graves in thy fertile soil 
 wherein to bury forms of love. No requiem 
 nor funeral dirge has ever sounded across 
 thy dewy lawns; and of saddening mem- 
 ories thou hast none. Peaceful, glorious 
 land! War and bloodshed have never fal- 
 len upon thee, nor strife or tumult entered 
 thy gardens of delight. Waters from thy 
 fountains are pure as nectarous sweets; 
 flowers and fruits thine orchards bear, such 
 as to mortal sense were ne'er before re- 
 vealed. No wreck lies beneath the quiet 
 waves of that stormless sea, whose tranquil 
 tides wash thy vine-clad shores, for a sail 
 has never whitened upon its emerald 
 bosom. How low thy skies of azure bend 
 as if to bring nature's warmest, kindliest 
 greeting to her ardently worshipping chil- 
 dren permitted to rest for a few hours in 
 this summerland of the soul. 
 
 The reader is asked to accept the fore- 
 going statements not as vagaries of the 
 imagination, but as sober sense based on 
 at least three well-known facts, namely: 
 
 First That on desert lands in Nevada 
 and Arizona, fruits, vegetables and meats, 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 31 
 
 in many instances, do not putrefy, but are 
 dried and preserved by nature's processes 
 accredited to pure air and sunshine unpol- 
 luted by the conditions of civilization. 
 
 Second That the atmosphere of moun- 
 tain solitudes, especially in the regions of 
 perpetual snow, is pure with an exhilarat- 
 ing effect that is often almost intoxicating 
 in tonic power. 
 
 Third That the inhabitants of certain 
 islands of the Orkney or Orcades group 
 have not been subject to colds for two hun- 
 dred years, except when visited by the 
 crews of trading vessels. Moreover, all 
 arctic explorers freely testify that colds 
 and influenza cease among their men in 
 the intense cold of the far north and only 
 return with the return to civilization. 
 
 The open polar sea has been talked of 
 and believed in by all arctic explorers, but 
 it remained for the voyagers in the "NEW 
 ERA" to establish the fact and account 
 for it on the scientific basis of extraordi- 
 nary electrical and atmospheric conditions 
 which undoubtedly obtained in the earlier 
 ages of the world's life, when men lived 
 to be hundreds of years young, and has 
 
32 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 thru the inscrutable wisdom of God been 
 preserved in this polar region safe from 
 the degenerating influences of mankind, 
 tho destroyed in every other portion of the 
 globe by the re-adjustment that followed 
 the Noachain Deluge. And this splendid 
 remnant of the glorious possessions once 
 allotted to man not only serves as a re- 
 minder of what was lost thru the trans- 
 gression of beneficent laws and the rejec- 
 tion of God's leadership, but a token as 
 well of the transcendent glories which 
 await the race at the " TIMES of the resti- 
 tution of all things" and the dawn of that 
 glorious era when broken, thwarted lives 
 shall be made perfect and that which was 
 missed and lost shall be regained. 
 
 'Twas hard to break away from this 
 enchanted land, and the ship's chronom- 
 eter indicated full thirty minutes past 
 six o'clock the following morning when 
 we finally weighed anchor and bade regret- 
 ful farewell to this matchless gem of the 
 ocean. 
 
SECOND DAY. 
 
 North Pole to Jerusalem, Syria. 
 
 For a thousand fathoms the majestic 
 ship cleft the air in vertical lines and still 
 the little island could be seen, a tiny spot 
 of living green in the ocean's shoreless 
 blue. Smaller, and fainter outlined, at last 
 it seemed to dissolve in mists as the ' 'NEW 
 ERA" was, like a flashing meteor, hurled 
 acros the aerial ocean that rolled and 
 swelled its sublime declaration of independ- 
 ence across the vast unknown between us 
 and Siberia's ice-bound desert-prisons. 
 
 How long! Oh, how long shall it be, 
 SPIRIT of JUSTICE, ere the hand of 
 oppression shall be lifted from this land 
 of mighty possibilities and a people long 
 made to serve with rigor may lift their 
 faces toward the light which glows above 
 the hills and illumines the pathway that 
 leads to the lands of MORNING? 
 
 Secure in the knowledge that two or 
 three hundred leagues of water lay between 
 us and any known land, and presuming on 
 
34 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 a repetition of the conditions of yesterday, 
 our pilot pulled the throttle wide open and 
 the "NEW ERA" responded with a burst 
 of terrific speed that came near to being 
 our undoing. A thousand fathoms below 
 the plane of our former sailing, we were 
 virtually plowing thru rather than skim- 
 ming the waves of the atmospheric ocean, 
 and at an altitude where the air was com- 
 paratively dense. 
 
 Like a giant RORQUAL, the noble ves- 
 sel plunged on and into the Aurora zone, 
 leaving behind, not a pathway of foam, 
 but tongues of fire and scrolls of flames 
 when a roar and thunder of mighty volume 
 and paralyzing power broke about us. 
 We were in the midst of an arctic hail- 1 
 storm. The air was full of great blocks 
 of ice and masses of snow flung upward 
 in wild and awful fury from the ice-crusts 
 below pierced by electric currents of irre- 
 sistible voltage, Quickly elevating the 
 prow and dropping the propeller shaft, we 
 rose a thousand fathoms, and above the 
 ice and snow belt (tho still swept by winds 
 of frightful velocity) and discovered the 
 genesis of an arctic blizzard. For scores 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 35 
 
 of leagues, south, east and west, a great 
 storm- wave swelled its magnificent billows 
 in unconquered and unconquerable might. 
 
 Having reduced our speed to a couple of 
 degrees per hour, we studied this splendid 
 mood of storm-king amid the ice-palaces 
 of the dazzling north, and it is safe to say 
 that no more sublime and inspiring scene 
 was ever gazed upon by human eyes. One 
 moment there was an ocean of mountain 
 peaks as if congealed in the act of up- 
 heaval, then quickly subsiding, vast plains 
 or quiet valleys lay spread out in ravish- 
 ing beauty, but soon rent by fathomless 
 chasms, then all the above combined in 
 splendid and endless variety and finally 
 tossing in billows covered with whitecaps 
 as the ocean whipped by fierce winds. 
 
 Swelling in tumultuous splendor this 
 wide-flung paralysis of the northland rolled 
 on. But behold! Its face has changed 
 expression. Here and there it is shot thru 
 with glory. Electric waves submerged yet 
 ever stronger growing have created a sea 
 of blood that soon gives way to crimson 
 and gold. Stronger and stronger flows 
 the electric tide until the submerged cur- 
 
36 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 rents break above the surface, first in jets 
 of fiery drops, then tongues of flame and 
 finally in long, fine-spun fibrous-lightning 
 like millions of gleaming lances flinging 
 out over a universe God's wireless mes- 
 sages of life and health, calm and storm. 
 A signal service that falling now on mor- 
 tals slow of heart and dull of comprehen- 
 sion, awakens only idle curiosity, but some- 
 time rightly interpreted, will warn of 
 earthquake shock, volcanic upheaval, cy- 
 clones, monsoons and tidal waves, to the 
 end that famines and pestilences be for- 
 ever expunged from the catalog of human 
 affairs and of this earth it may be said, 
 as before sin fell upon it, "all is good and 
 very good. ' ' 
 
 Like a sea of sunshine this electric flood 
 swept on in marvelous transformation, 
 lighting up league on league of this bound- 
 less ocean of spotless white, and flashing 
 upward, illuminated with matchless glow 
 the sapphire vault above us. 
 
 Instinctively each to the other looked, 
 knowing by sudden consciousness upon 
 our spirits borne that we were in the midst 
 of the Aurora Borealis that grandest of 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 37 
 
 all natural phenomena God's illumina- 
 tion of a hemisphere. 
 
 How mighty, how majestic, and how 
 mysterious are nature's works! When the 
 air is calm, where sleep the stormy winds? 
 In what chambers are they reposed in 
 what dungeons confined? But when He 
 who holds them in mighty leash is pleased 
 to awaken their rage and throw open their 
 prison doors they rush forth with irresis- 
 tible might. The aerial flood pours itself 
 over mountains, seas and continents till 
 universal equilibrium of material forces is 
 established, the books of God's natural 
 laws are balanced and the universe rolls on 
 in sublime and harmonious peace. 
 
 We watch the clouds as they grow out 
 of everywhere into the here, and call them 
 storm-centers danger spots to be dreaded. 
 Ah, no! They are God's scavengers of the 
 skies gathering up the waste and poisons 
 of the planet into great rubbish heaps, but 
 gilded by His hand with a beauty more 
 glorious than the incarnation of morning 
 mists, till He shall see fit to set them on 
 fire with electric currents that inspire our 
 admiration. Washed, purified, vitalized, 
 
38 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 the unbranded air returns to us each morn- 
 ing bearing the freshness and balm of the 
 wooded mountains the sweetness and 
 fragrance of life and joy. 
 
 Close students of geography have been 
 impressed with the fact that in the western 
 hemisphere the mountain ranges extend 
 north and south, while in the eastern hemi- 
 sphere the general direction is east and 
 west. This striking difference was most 
 clearly defined from our pathway among 
 the clouds, also the barren steeps and tree- 
 less wastes that hold back growth and 
 progress in central eastern Europe and 
 western Asia were clearly outlined as we 
 shot out of the gates of this exposition of 
 arctic wonders and were thrilled by sight 
 of land, forests and streams. 
 
 Far to the westward the domes and 
 spires of St. Petersburg gleamed in the 
 rays of the declining sun, while lake Baikal 
 on the Siberian steeps already grew purple 
 with the shades of approaching night. Far 
 to the south and east rose the Ghauts and 
 Himalayas, while the Alps, Pyrenees and 
 Mediterranean were dimly outlined south- 
 west. Beneath and between us and these 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 39 
 
 lay the east and west valleys and table- 
 lands bathed in the saffron flood of the 
 afterglow, a marvelous picture of peace- 
 ful beauty, such as these happy valleys 
 should know were tyranny, war and racial 
 problems forever past. 
 
 Glorious as the vision was, it soon gave 
 way to a beauty and sublimity hitherto 
 undreamed even in our farthest-flung 
 imaginations. 
 
 Scarce had the afterglow faded and 
 darkness settled when the moon at its full 
 flung its soft radiance over Asia and 
 Europe, and we were sailing on and on as 
 thru an eternal calm of illumined clouds 
 and cloudless azure till this goddess of 
 the Ancients hanging high in the heavenly 
 blue proclaimed the midnight hour and the 
 "NEW ERA" anchored in the vale of 
 Esdraelon that battle-field of the nations 
 (future as well as past) and the ARMA- 
 GEDDON* of a world was flamed across 
 the horizon of our dreams. *Note See 
 Afterglow. 
 
THIRD DAY. 
 
 Jerusalem to Pretoria. 
 
 Sunrising found us twenty-five hundred 
 fathoms above the plain, all Europe 
 bathed in crimson and gold resistless 
 waves of sunshine speeding across Asia as 
 if breaking in surges of color from the 
 Yellow Sea while Africa was a dimpling 
 ocean of emerald and the Indian Ocean 
 appeared one flaming sheet of molten gold. 
 To the north and west like stately ships 
 anchored in spacious harbors, great, fleecy 
 cloud-islands floated back and forth im- 
 pelled by the soft lapping waves of an 
 atmospheric sea. While above us and 
 beyond the influence of the earth's motion 
 upon its axis the trade winds and ajl sur- 
 face disturbances the grain of the ever- 
 stable ether and elemental gases shown in 
 vertical prisms like rainbow-pillars of some 
 grand cathedral or temple of the spirits 
 of the air. 
 
 Whether this remarkable demonstration 
 of the higher regions should be accredited 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 41 
 
 to the horizontal sun-rays of the early 
 morning, or was caused by a congestion of 
 color values due to the presence or absence 
 of humidity or was but the fore-gleams 
 of a terrible and tremendous storm (thru 
 which we sailed some hours later) we could 
 not determine; tho probably the latter, as 
 indicated by the presence of "False-Suns" 
 and "Halo-Rings" often preceding storms. 
 
 For a short time we paused above Jeru- 
 salem, musing on departed greatness, 
 longing for a vision of future glories. 
 
 1 ' 0, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kil- 
 lest the prophets and stonest them that are 
 sent unto thee, how often I would have 
 gathered thy children together, even as a 
 hen gathereth her chickens under her 
 wings, and ye would not. Behold your 
 house is left unto you desolate. ' ' For two 
 thousand years the flood of thy sorrow hath 
 not been assuaged, nor the tides of thy 
 unbelief abated. The shame of thy deso- 
 lation is known of all men. 
 
 Fear not. Thou shalt be redeemed. 
 Where art achieved her proudest monu- 
 ment and poetry found her sublimest theme 
 of song, immortality and eternal life shall 
 
42 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 be brot to light and thy glory be greater 
 than in former centuries. 
 
 Turning sharply westward we sailed 
 above the great sea till the delta of the 
 Nile was reached, when once more our ves- 
 sel was headed southward and the Dark 
 Continent was ours to view. 
 
 The SAHARA, wind-swept, appeared a 
 yellow haze, but the valley of the Nilus 
 Granary of the nations and Mother of civi- 
 lization shown luxuriant with abundant 
 harvests. The SPHINX looked calmly 
 over the valley, even as she has looked for 
 six thousand slow revolving years of his- 
 tory, the embodiment of self-control and 
 peace, an expression of antediluvian con- 
 ception of two sublime attributes of the 
 ever-living God. 
 
 Africa, Africa! Thou birthplace of 
 civilization, home of ART and GENIUS. 
 When shall thy greatness be renewed, the 
 wands of thy superstitions be shattered, 
 thy darkness dispelled, thy matchless 
 waterways and inland seas be opened to 
 commerce and thy impetuous, emotional 
 people disenthralled, and their chains of 
 slavery broken? When shall thy diamond 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 43 
 
 reefs, golden dykes, and primeval forests, 
 yield streams of plenty and peace for thine 
 own people and thou once more take thy 
 place in the activities of a WORLD-LIFE? 
 
 Surely thy second BIRTH must be close 
 at hand. Verily, thou hast slumbered 
 long, but the DAY of OPPORTUNITY for 
 thee cannot be forever past. Nations shall 
 yet rise up and call thee blessed, and gener- 
 ations yet unborn shall worship in the 
 temples of thy greatness, drink from thy 
 fountains of refinement and culture and 
 learn statecraft and self-control in thy 
 schools of WISDOM. 
 
 Magnificent beyond description, easily 
 outranking all other landscapes for scenic 
 beauty, the upper valley of the Nile occu- 
 pies a place solitary and above all others. 
 Tanganyika, Albert and Victoria Nyanza, 
 the Congo Basin, and then illimitable 
 storm-clouds heaven-high rolled across our 
 southern horizon. Occasional rifts in the 
 clouds revealed unrivaled landscapes, but 
 most of the time the "NEW ERA" rolled 
 and plunged thru watery wastes now black 
 as a soul's dishonor, now gleaming with 
 scrolls and tongues of flame as electric cur- 
 
44 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 rents blazed pathways thru dark vapors 
 and thick clouds. 
 
 Even as we had witnessed the strength 
 and fury of the earth's elemental forces 
 in the polar regions, so today we were to 
 experience the full and perfect might of 
 an equatorial storm working out its gas- 
 eous equations in cloud-pavilions above 
 the DARK CONTINENT. 
 
 From the chariots of morning whirl- 
 winds flung themselves into the conflict, 
 while upon the hurricane decks of a con- 
 tinent the oilskins of space were drenched 
 with foam. CLOUD-SAILS ripped from 
 the masts of some dismantled planet hung 
 as tattered awnings over vast vaporous 
 plains, where electric batteries thundered 
 in spirit-battle. 
 
 'Twas a day of gloom and dread to all 
 on board. How long would the storm last? 
 Could the "NEW ERA" outride the fury 
 of elemental forces? Pestilential vapors 
 and poisonous gases threatened life itself. 
 Caught in vacuum-flues the noble vessel 
 descended almost to the tree tops. Grip- 
 ped in the upward rush of expanding 
 gases she shot upward thousands of feet 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 45 
 
 into regions of intense cold or scorching 
 heat. 
 
 Surely we were learning something of 
 the fundamental forces with which this old 
 world has to contend in its progress around 
 the sun. 
 
 Fortunately the steering apparatus suf- 
 fered no damage and the storm-zone was 
 crossed ere night had fallen and in com- 
 paratively fair weather we proceeded to 
 Cape Town, where we anchored in safety, 
 glad that the glories, wonders and dangers 
 of a voyage thru an African equatorial 
 storm were forever past. And yet this 
 matchless day must ever remain in mem- 
 ory as a splendid symbol of that glorious 
 time when the souls of men loosed from the 
 moorings of earth shall sail the broad 
 Pacific of eternity with their God. 
 
FOURTH DAY. 
 
 Pretoria, Africa, to South Pole. 
 
 The gaseous cataclysm of the previous 
 day having restored the equilibrium of the 
 atmospheric world, morning broke over 
 southern seas in wondrous and well-nigh 
 perfect tranquility. Soft lapping tides 
 and gentle swells proclaimed the mighty 
 deep free from contending forces, and the 
 glassy surface stretched away in unbroken 
 beauty. PEACE, white-winged, brooded 
 over this vast realm of the unknown. 
 Shadowy, intangible creations of the imag- 
 ination were the only beings that had ever 
 explored its fartherest mysteries, but, 
 
 ' ' Full well we know that fair and bright, 
 Far beyond human ken or dream, 
 
 Too glorious for our feeble sight, 
 Thy skies of cloudless azure beam.' 
 
 Human souls must ever seem timid in 
 the presence of the infinite and eternal and 
 all our spirits throbbed in minor strains 
 as the "NEW ERA" swung grandly into 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 47 
 
 space, cut loose from the known and visi- 
 ble, threw out her challenge to elemental 
 forces and began her voyage over seas 
 unknown and continents strange. Sun- 
 shine fell in unobstructed splendor every- 
 where. No need to sound fog-horns or 
 flash headlights now, for no other craft 
 ever sailed these seas, save snowy clouds 
 that dipped their white wings into the glit- 
 tering foam of far-off curved horizons. 
 Degree after degree of latitude dropped 
 behind. The ship's chronometer marked 
 twelve o'clock high noon before shad- 
 owy outlines of the ANTARCTIC CONTI- 
 NENT appeared. 
 
 Dropping five hundred fathoms, but 
 with undiminished speed, we proceeded till 
 wide- spreading lowlands gave way to low- 
 lying hills and sharp buttes, when sud- 
 denly, to left and right, giant beacon 
 lights* loomed, vast columns of smoke shot 
 upward followed by sheets of flame that 
 were quickly displaced by tremendous pil- 
 lars of volcanic ashes. Fine dust filled the 
 air for leagues in all directions, sulphurous 
 smoke partially obscured the sun and a 
 weird spectral light pervaded all space. 
 *Note Mts. Erebus and Terror. 
 
48 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Combine the haze of Indian Summer 
 with the mists of winter, fling over it the 
 soft languorous radiance of autumn days 
 with the tonic and balm of springtime, and 
 you will have the essence of this wonder- 
 ful day. 
 
 As the smoke mounted higher and 
 higher, denser and denser, and was flung 
 outward as from a central dome in great 
 awnings, sunlight failed, the lurid gleam 
 of sulphurous fires mingling with the finely 
 powdered ashes took on the countenance 
 of a sea of blood about and below us, while 
 upward against the background of cloud- 
 ing smoke appeared flashing scrolls as of 
 molten metal whipped by mighty winds. 
 
 This amazing spectacle continued for the 
 space of half an hour. Then dull rumblings 
 were heard, followed by a tremendous 
 roar, and mud, stones and molten lava 
 were thrown upward with irresistible force 
 many hundreds of feet. Shortly all noise 
 and tumult ceased, save the hiss of escap- 
 ing steam, from the smaller volcano, the 
 fiery mass in the larger crater subsided, 
 dropping down, down hundreds of feet to 
 a mere speck as seen from our telescopic 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 49 
 
 windows. But the calm lasted for only a 
 few minutes and was followed by seem- 
 ingly redoubled energy. A roar as of a 
 thousand thunders combined rose with 
 appalling vibration, the crater suddenly 
 expanded causing great chasms in the 
 rocky sides thru which great streams of 
 white-hot lava flowed outward to the sea. 
 This last terrific outburst was followed by 
 a tremendous earthquake shock that set 
 the hills trembling, rent the plains with 
 mighty seams and flung the sea backward 
 till vast plateaus hitherto submerged 
 momentarily appeared, but were soon 
 enveloped by the returning tidal-wave 
 which seemed to permanently overflow all 
 but the highest peaks of the entire conti- 
 nent. 
 
 Terrific tho the convulsions of nature 
 had been, almost normal conditions pre- 
 vailed in three hours, the smoke cleared 
 away the last lingering rays of the sun 
 fell over an unbroken sea, the fiery ser- 
 pents of southern constellations gleamed 
 in the azure vault of heaven and calm and 
 holy night filled terrestrial space and held 
 in thrall all earthly things. 
 
50 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Swiftly but quietly the "NEW ERA" 
 sped on. 
 
 Our hearts were awed and our voices 
 hushed in contemplation of the majestic 
 phenomena we had just witnessed. 
 
 A new conception of OMNIPOTENCE 
 was born in every life, and something of 
 what this earth has passed thru the smelt- 
 ing of its materials in the fierce fires turn- 
 ing of the mighty lathe the rasping of the 
 surface with floods and glaciers to fit it 
 for the habitation of man dawned on our 
 slow hearts and dimly we wondered, if such 
 be the process of material things, what 
 must be the might and splendor of that 
 new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness, and the infinite and eternal 
 glory of that after life in a PARADISE 
 without a tempter, an inheritance incor- 
 ruptible and undefiled, where life and light 
 and love shall be triumphant forevermore 
 and God be all in all. 
 
 Planet earth holds no counterpart of the 
 unutterable desolation of the physical con- 
 ditions of the south pole regions. 
 
 No open sea. No verdant land. Snow 
 and ice hold sway over all. The solitude 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 51 
 
 of death is on every hand. Silence unutter- 
 ably oppressive, appalling, commands all 
 form and substance. No sounds save the 
 adjustment of ice-crystals and the low 
 wash of distant seas on far-away ice-bound 
 coasts where bergs were quietly slipping 
 from parent shores into waters that should 
 carry them to a more hospitable clime. 
 
 Sleep, we could not. An ever-increasing 
 sense of exile of lostness bordering onto 
 annihilation gripped soul and sense, filled 
 brain and eye. That spectral sense of soli- 
 tary confinement that drives criminals to 
 insanity when placed in the death-cell, 
 raced thru nerve and artery like electric 
 currents in the muscles of a galvanized 
 corpse. 
 
 Flesh and blood could not long stand 
 such tension, and gladder hour hearts of 
 mortals will never know, than was ours 
 when our noble vessel weighed anchor and 
 flung herself a thing of life and power thru 
 rainbow-mists and halo-clouds towards 
 Patagonia's rock-bound coast. 
 
 Tho eight thousand miles away, HOME 
 was ours, by power of anticipation and 
 wireless messages of the mind. 
 
52 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 How marvelous is the mind of man! 
 We are transported on shining seas of 
 ecstacy at sight of a beautiful photograph, 
 but gaze with common-place feelings upon 
 the scenes of long past years or sublimest 
 panorama of mountains, seas and conti- 
 nents as transferred by human eyes to the 
 canvas of memory. We contemplate with 
 awe, and almost worship the genius that 
 can engrave the Lord's Prayer upon a sil- 
 ver quarter, but forget that upon the gray- 
 matter of the brain God hath written the 
 history of all ages past and traced in fade- 
 less outline the matchless landscapes of 
 youth, maturity and age upon sensitized- 
 films that forever retain their lines and 
 definition with power of absolute re-pro- 
 duction when placed in the bath of mem- 
 ory. 
 
FIFTH DAY. 
 
 South Pole to Buenos Ayres. 
 
 Mindful of our dangerous experience 
 over arctic seas, we proceeded slowly and 
 kept sharp lookout for strange phenomena, 
 and had we not done so, we should have 
 missed one of the most remarkable and 
 momentous discoveries of our entire voy- 
 age, 
 
 Matchless theme for song or story a 
 submerged continent, the "LOST ATLAN- 
 TIS" has been located in various quar- 
 ters of the globe by different writers, until, 
 like the great American desert, this funda- 
 mental factor in the world's development 
 during bygone ages, had become a fugitive 
 and vagabond with no permanent resi- 
 dence, no settled run, and its very exist- 
 ence was questioned. 
 
 Some three degrees from the pole we 
 noticed a peculiar expression on the coun- 
 tenance of the mighty deep as of shallow 
 water breaking over shoal-lands; also dis- 
 covered that a vast area immediately 
 
54 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 northward shown amber color as if re- 
 flected from white sands. 
 
 Our pilot brought the vessel to anchor, 
 descended to within fifty fathoms of the 
 water whence submerged forests of splen- 
 did trees became visible. For league after 
 league the submerged coast-line of this pre- 
 historic continent was clearly defined by 
 rocky bluffs, wooded heights or splendid 
 lowlands. Many of the larger trees had 
 fallen as if in the path of some fierce tor- 
 nado, but many were standing, thru whose 
 leafless branches washed the Antarctic 
 sullen tide. 
 
 Winding valleys once fertile and well 
 watered by splendid rivers could be traced 
 far inland, dotted with houses and frequent 
 villages, all built of stone, quarries of 
 which appeared in many places. 
 
 Far inland and probably quite centrally 
 located (tho we did not discover either 
 east or west boundaries) arose magnificent 
 ruins of a once populous and splendidly 
 built capital city. Large areas of the resi- 
 dence portions with regularly platted 
 blocks and wide avenues still remain in 
 almost perfect condition, but the business 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 55 
 
 blocks, most of which were evidently two 
 and three-story buildings, were badly 
 wrecked, almost certainly by earthquake, 
 as great fissures still appeared in many 
 places. The flat-tiled roofs, broad veran- 
 das and spacious gardens of the residence 
 portions indicated a love of outdoor life, 
 as well as a comparatively mild climate, 
 while the architectural beauty and variety 
 spoke of refinement and thrift. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting feature of 
 this incomparable ruin was a number of 
 well preserved ships, with gaunt, spectral 
 masts and shreds of tattered sail, anchored 
 in the spacious harbor, the lake source of 
 a navigable river. Their builders have 
 vanished, but they remain, mute witnesses 
 of former greatness with sodden hulls and 
 decks washed white by ceaseless waves, 
 telling with voiceless language of departed 
 glory. But who can summon their dead 
 crews to life? Unfurl their shredded sails 
 or unloose them from their moorings for 
 another voyage? Would that some power 
 could translate their log-books, reprint the 
 story of their voyages and tell of the car- 
 goes they carried. 
 
56 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 More interesting still would be the his- 
 tory of this vanished race. How long ago 
 did they live and whence came they? 
 Were they the LOST TRIBES of ISRAEL 
 thus doomed to utter extinction the an- 
 cestors of the HYKSOS or shepherd 
 dynasty that overthrew the Egyptian 
 Pharaohs preceding the advent of Israel in 
 Egypt the progenitors of the mongol race, 
 the Incas, Aztecs or Mound-Builders 
 or antedating all of these did they belong 
 to that race once called the "SONS OF 
 GOD" who, contracting marriages with the 
 daughters of men introduced such wicked- 
 ness into the world that God destroyed 
 them with a flood that could not be abated? 
 
 How little of the world's history we 
 really know! And much of that is pre- 
 served only in ruins. The overgrown 
 hearthstones, crumbling walls, dismantled 
 towers, broken columns, thwarted hopes 
 and blasted dreams. Just a few fragments 
 here and there and most of these are blood- 
 stained and battle-scarred. The civilized 
 nations stagger under THIRTY BIL- 
 LIONS of WAR TAXES today and 
 still we summon armies, build navies, 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 57 
 
 strengthen fortresses and prepare for one 
 supreme world-struggle when once the 
 forces of hate shall dethrone reason and 
 gain the ascendant in the hearts of man- 
 kind. 
 
 How long, Lord, ere the nations shall 
 comprehend the victories of PEACE and 
 get far enough away from barbarism to 
 appreciate the charm, dignity and glory of 
 brotherly love; grow a race of statesmen 
 with brains and hearts large enough to 
 understand the PATRIOTISM of PEACE, 
 and predicate world-power and greatness 
 upon the proposition that ALL MEN are 
 BROTHERS, and that each man's weal 
 shall be every man's care; That it is higher 
 statesmanship to prevent war than to plan 
 magazines of destruction? 
 
 With reluctant, sobered hearts we sailed 
 away from this indestructible mausoleum 
 of a race, pondering deeply many ques- 
 tions, when, lo, that mysterious, intangi- 
 ble, unexplainable thing hitherto known 
 as the " MIR AGE of the DESERT" 
 loomed on our northward horizon. 
 
 The "NEW ERA'S" secretary has wit- 
 nessed this remarkable creation many, 
 
58 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 many times on the plains of northeastern 
 Colorado, before that stretch of desolation 
 was subjected to Irrigation's Dominion, 
 when streams of living water broke forth 
 in the desert, mighty lakes nestled among 
 the sand hills and lapped their crystal 
 waves on grassy wooded slopes, and magic 
 cities appeared in the Lowlands, but noth- 
 ing ever half so marvelous as this which 
 now seemed to emerge from and brood over 
 the southron sea. 
 
 First came the white-fog in snowy scrolls 
 and fantastic forms, rolling, twisting, turn- 
 ing like a living thing, permanent but ever- 
 changing towards evanescence like the gos- 
 samer outlines of some half-forgotten 
 dream; Then great steel-blue banded col- 
 umns, surmounted by Alhambran arches, 
 domes, turrets, minarets, bastions and 
 cathedral spires in endless profusion were 
 lifted into place by the viewless hands of 
 gravitation. 
 
 Now advancing, now receding, like the 
 myriad changes of the starry constella- 
 tions in the eternal minuet of the centuries, 
 this unsubstantial creation of the atmo- 
 sphere assumed form and beauty as glori- 
 ous as the incarnation of the morning 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 59 
 
 mists; Rainbow tints hung in festoons from 
 cornice and facade or flashed in halos from 
 turrets and domes till cities reeled, 
 houses became heaps, and all dissolving in 
 the twinkling of an eye naught remained 
 save the broad bosom of the unruffled shin- 
 ing sea. 
 
 Whether these matchless creations that 
 enrapture beauty-loving eyes are caused 
 by varying degrees of temperature and 
 humidity, and the presence of some undis- 
 covered element in the atmosphere, or are 
 the negative outlines of prehistoric cities 
 photographed upon nature's ether-films 
 (as trees are sketched on photographic 
 rocks) I do not know; but certainly it is 
 worth a trip half way round the world to 
 see one of these marvelous moving pic- 
 tures produced by Nature's magic powers. 
 
 At four o'clock P. M. the islands of Tier- 
 ra-del-Fuego, the Straits of Magellan and 
 the mainland of South America were 
 sighted, and a shout of joy and thankful- 
 ness arose from every throat. By sun- 
 down we were anchored in the spacious 
 harbor of Buenos Ayres, glad and happy 
 that in one more day our voyaging would 
 be o'er. 
 
SIXTH DAY. 
 
 Buenos Ayres to New Orleans. 
 
 Since ADAM first led his blushing EVE 
 adown the rose-bordered pathways of 
 EDEN, even to the still waters of Hidde- 
 kel, no more beautiful scene was ever 
 gazed upon by mortal eyes than the wide- 
 flung Llanos and Pampas plains of Argen- 
 tina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil when 
 spring-time freshness clothes their mighty 
 greens and adorns their sunny slopes. 
 Lowing kine in peaceful valleys, wind- 
 swept fields of wheat on breezy uplands. 
 Grazing lands sufficient for the flocks and 
 herds of a hemisphere; Wheat fields large 
 enough to grow the breadstuffs of a world 
 are here spread out in unbroken levels that 
 bewilder the mind by reason of their large- 
 ness. 
 
 Somewhat of their vastness may be 
 judged from the fact that the Trans-An- 
 dean Argentine and Chile railroad now 
 building has one stretch of track one hun- 
 dred and seventy-five miles long, as 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 61 
 
 straight as a beam of light, and many 
 sweeps of thirty miles without a curve. 
 
 Upward, still upward, rose the "NEW 
 ERA" till the great city blocks appeared 
 as pawns and bishops on a giant chess- 
 board, and the snowy crests of the Andes 
 gleamed like immense mirrors westward, 
 and Rio de Janeiro was visible on our 
 forward port. 
 
 In the realm of souls far on toward the 
 steeps of the eternal hills lie breezy up- 
 lands, well watered as a garden of delight, 
 where mortals first feel the veiled intima- 
 tions of their Immortality, autumn days 
 filled with the harvests of achievement. 
 What this stands for in the soul's world, 
 South America is to the planet earth. No- 
 where else such vast plains, such lofty 
 mountain ranges, such magnificent forests, 
 such tremendous waterfalls, such an abun- 
 dance and variety of animal and vegetable 
 life. This is God's CLEARING-HOUSE 
 of the world's physical forces; The chem- 
 ical laboratory whence are generated the 
 gases necessary to sustain animal and 
 vegetable life all over the earth; The navel 
 of the planet where converge all the ele- 
 
62 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 mental forces, and radiate all the streams 
 of physical energy. 
 
 From this inheritance, untouched, un- 
 polluted and forever inviolable, flow the 
 streams of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and 
 carbon that are forever purifying and re- 
 generating winds and waters, producing 
 vegetation, neutralizing putrefaction and 
 maintaining the permanency of the sea- 
 sons. 
 
 From this laboratory of nature, with 
 converters of immeasurable capacity, 
 gases are blown, vapors condensed, colors 
 mixed, shades and tints in endless variety 
 compounded, till the whole lower atmo- 
 sphere, violent with deadly fumes and on 
 the verge of self-destruction, is caught by 
 the trade winds and borne to distant lands, 
 where affinities coalescing conserve the 
 vegetable and animal life of the world. 
 
 Viewed from above, the grain and fibre 
 of the atmospheric ocean furnished vast 
 prisms for the refraction of sunlight, till 
 from the mouth of the Amazon to the crest 
 of the Andes and the Uruguay to the Ori- 
 noco the rolling tides of a continent wide 
 rainbow glowed and blazed in indescriba- 
 ble splendor. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 63 
 
 Like all the sunrise and sunset glories 
 of a thousand ages past commingled and 
 blended in harmonious proportions, this 
 sublime landscape fell fresh from the hand 
 of the great Limner, changeless forever- 
 more. Six thousand slow revolving years 
 of history record but little change. Some- 
 how in the inscrutable wisdom of the In- 
 finite these vast solitudes seem almost im- 
 mune from the changeful touch of human- 
 kind. For beasts and birds and creeping 
 things this vast domain seems held in trust. 
 Here the lower orders of creation must 
 make their final stand against the en- 
 croachment of the forces of destruction. 
 
 "Summer and winter, day and night, 
 cold and heat, seed-time and harvest, as 
 long as the earth remains." Let flood and 
 flame and famine do their worst, 
 
 " Behind the dim unknown 
 Standeth God within the shadows, keep- 
 ing watch above His own/ 
 The eternal years are His. 
 
 The "Pearl of the Antilles," the flash- 
 ing tides of the Carribean, and the Panama 
 Canal, all in full view, make a splendid 
 
64 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 picture as they lie framed by the coast-line 
 of Central America, Mexico and the United 
 States, but more wonderful and entrancing 
 than any or all of these is a scene below, 
 about and above us, never before looked 
 upon by human eyes, 
 
 The mightiest rivers of the globe flow 
 in the ocean, the Japan Current and 
 the Gulf Stream. The flow of all land 
 streams combined could scarcely equal 
 these. Born in the Indian Ocean and the 
 Carribean Sea, they flow on forever; al- 
 ways full, yet never overflowing their 
 banks, these mighty arteries supply the 
 waters that make the circulatory system of 
 a universe. Out of these vast cauldrons 
 ever brimming full by the fiat of the eter- 
 nal God, land-locked and sun-heated, 
 rise the mists and vapors that supply all 
 the land streams as well as the equalizing 
 currents which satisfy the compensation- 
 escapement of the expansive heat of the 
 tropics, and the congested cold of the poles. 
 Without these, the frigid ZONES must be 
 destroyed by eternal cold, the torrid 
 ZONES consumed by endless burnings. 
 
 From our thousand fathoms of altitude 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 65 
 
 we could clearly define the beginnings of 
 this tremendous river, and its fountain 
 head is in the Carribean Sea. 
 
 Carefully scrutinized by the aid of our 
 telescopic windows reinforced by the laws 
 of light refraction, the tiny currents, ever 
 larger growing, reaching out like root- 
 fibres, but converging to a common point, 
 the tributaries of this perennial stream 
 could be seen gathering volume and mo- 
 mentum until the vast flood becoming irre- 
 sistible burst all barriers, and sweeping by 
 the Floridan coast took up its splendid 
 rush for the heights of Labrador, Green- 
 land's promontories and Europe's wide- 
 flung coast lines. 
 
 How great the influence upon European 
 climate, vegetation, animal life and rain- 
 fall of this majestic flood, has perhaps 
 never been fully realized; But certain it is 
 that southern California has had two or 
 three serious droughts and consequent crop 
 failures, in less than forty years, co-inci- 
 dent with the time when from some un- 
 known cause the Japan Current has been 
 deflected northward to the Behring Sea, 
 thus failing to distribute necessary vapors 
 from the Golden Gate southward. 
 
66 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 We speak with great swelling words of 
 OUR harvests and OUR progress and 
 development in material prosperity, but 
 forget that if GOD should cancel or change 
 the movements of ocean currents, or post- 
 pone the engagements of winds and clouds, 
 or revise the schedule of the sun as he 
 marks the standard TIME for the seasons, 
 that the sky would become brass and the 
 earth as iron. That " Pestilence would 
 walk in darkness and destruction waste at 
 noonday. ' 
 
 If such be the might, grandeur, power 
 and influence of these ocean currents, how 
 shall I tell of the marvelous counterpart of 
 these in the atmospheric world above us? 
 
 Speculative science (guessing at the un- 
 known) tells us that the earth is enveloped 
 in an ocean of atmosphere fifty miles high 
 (just why fifty miles is made the limit is 
 not made clear), and beyond that is an 
 unknown SOMETHING, probably lumin- 
 iferous Ether (or diluted moonshine?) 
 which pervades limitless space; Also that 
 the upper regions are absolutely cold and 
 forever dark because there is nothing from 
 which the sun can be reflected. As tho the 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 67 
 
 almighty power that created all things 
 could not make a sunbeam luminous in 
 itself. 
 
 Why should it be thot a thing incredible 
 that the power which could create a sun- 
 beam could make that sunbeam generate 
 light by some other process than refrac- 
 tion? 
 
 In all seriousness let the reader ask him- 
 self, "Why not suppose the sun to be 
 composed of RADIUM, or some other sub- 
 stance possessing inherent luminous prop- 
 erties? 
 
 The truth is that many of the deductions 
 of scientific research are mere guesswork, 
 and the scientists themselves are not agreed 
 on many propositions and conclusions that 
 the Common Herd are asked to accept 
 without question. 
 
 Some years ago Professor Haeckel, of 
 Germany, stood before the scholarship of 
 the world as sponsor for the theory of 
 " Spontaneous Generation." He declared 
 that " ONE-CELL-LIFE" (from which all 
 other living organisms were subsequently 
 developed, or could be developed) had been 
 generated in bygone ages in Protoplasm, or 
 
68 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 mud, at the bottom of the sea, where abso- 
 lute darkness must have reigned. 
 
 Within the last five years another cele- 
 brated German professor has gone on rec- 
 ord as believing that LIFE may be pro- 
 duced by means of rays of light generated 
 by RADIUM. 
 
 Which, if either, shall we believe? 
 
 Who can give satisfactory information 
 as to the causes that produced the PETRI- 
 FIED FORESTS of Arizona? 
 
 The only SANE CONCLUSION that we 
 may reach is, that there have been and are 
 today forces, powers and processes at 
 work in the material world about us that 
 cannot be accounted for on any theory 
 except that there is a CREATIVE INTEL- 
 LIGENCE, The CHRISTIAN GOD, behind 
 all things. 
 
 As a matter of fact the upper regions are 
 not generally and permanently cold, as has 
 been abundantly demonstrated by ther- 
 mometers attached to balloons that have 
 reached an altitude of seven or eight miles, 
 where warmer temperatures have always 
 been recorded. 
 
 Liquid air is produced by a series of con- 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 69 
 
 tractions and expansions, but all the heat 
 generated by earth, seas and sun flows 
 upward by expansive power, and there is 
 no known cause for contraction, since the 
 cold atmosphere always seeks the lowest 
 levels possible, and the cold of the polar 
 regions is continually brooding low over 
 land and sea as it sweeps on toward the 
 equatorial furnace. But its movements 
 are forever being modified by electrical 
 currents which are constantly emanating 
 from the earth and at right angles from 
 any given point; Who has not noted the 
 warm and cold waves of air along the* 
 country road, even in winter time, with 
 snow heavy all around? 
 
 In Colorado warm winds rush down from 
 the eternal snow and ice-fields of the conti- 
 nental divide in February and March, melt- 
 ing the snow of the plains, the ice of the 
 streams, and pull the frost out of the 
 ground. 
 
 As already stated, the ocean currents are 
 born in the Indian Ocean and Carribean 
 Sea; and here, too, originate the trade 
 winds, those atmospheric currents that con- 
 
70 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 trol the winds and storms of planet earth. 
 With movements constant as the law of 
 Gravitation they flow on forever, tho mod- 
 ified by mountain ranges. Nature's means 
 of transportation for the vital forces that 
 constitute the air we breathe, and bringing 
 to us, it may be, the things that once consti- 
 tuted the brain of a Cicero, or the muscles 
 of Rome's fiercest gladiator. 
 
 Not unto angels but unto MAN was sub- 
 jected the inhabitable world about to be. 
 All material forces conserve MAN'S inter- 
 ests. The earth has a thousand magazines 
 of power for which MAN alone holds the 
 keys. A million implements of blessing 
 are ready for MAN'S hands. Tho we catch 
 the sound of almost universal wasting all 
 about us, still the forces that work for 
 LIFE are stronger than those that work for 
 death, and an eternal RESURRECTION to 
 new life is ever going on in the things that 
 do appear. And more than this, MAN him- 
 self is the masterpiece and crowning glory 
 of all the visible universe. Surely, surely 
 there awaits MAN a new heaven and a 
 new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 71 
 
 and MAN is destined to IMMORTALITY. 
 
 "0 the depth of the riches both of the 
 knowledge and wisdom of God! how un- 
 searchable are His judgments and His ways 
 past finding out." 
 
 The Gulf of Mexico, one burnished sheet 
 of living gold, lay smiling and beautiful, 
 kissed into tranquil glory by the last lin- 
 gering rays of the departing sun. Purple 
 shadows climbed higher and higher along 
 the broad plateaus and breezy uplands that 
 terraced the blazing summits of the Cor- 
 dillera. Far beyond their rugged majesty 
 the broad Pacific flamed in incomparable 
 grandeur, while cloud-continents swinging 
 full and free in the upper air reflected the 
 tremulous radiance of the AFTERGLOW 
 upon the western sea. 
 
 But dearer far than the afterglow, than 
 voices of sea or land, are the lights that 
 flash and gleam from the towers and domes 
 of the Crescent City as the "NEW ERA" 
 drops to quiet anchor in the land of HOME, 
 sweet HOME. 
 
72 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Low-arched to earth the heavens bend, 
 
 The wind-harps thrummed and soothed to 
 rest; 
 
 Shades of night with day's rich colors blend, 
 
 The sun has marked a trail of glory in the 
 west. 
 
 God's hand hath set the evening star 
 So low, it soon must pass from sight 
 
 Beyond the purple hills; and ocean's bar 
 Shall darkened be. 'Tis calm and holy night. 
 
Part II 
 
 AFTERGLOW 
 
 Desirous of visiting the wonders of 
 Egypt alone, I left the hotel in Cairo 
 shortly after four o'clock in the afternoon 
 with my "Liquid Air Motorcycle " and 
 rode for eight miles along the shaded road- 
 way to the Great Pyramid. Leaving the 
 wheel, I climbed the great pile, passed 
 round to the other side, and, descending, 
 walked over to the Sphinx to watch the 
 effect of a sunset across Sahara. This 
 done, I passed around to the eastern base 
 of the Sphinx and reclined between the 
 mighty paws to enjoy the beauty of the 
 valley. Somewhat weary, I soon passed 
 into quiet slumber. When I awoke the 
 twilight had shaded into glorious moon- 
 light. Reluctant to break the languorous 
 spell of the matchless hour, I leaned against 
 the rounded throat in the shadow of the 
 wondrous face, musing of the past, ponder- 
 ing the future, when the great lips seemed 
 to move and a voice of marvelous richness 
 did speak. 
 
74 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Listening, this I heard: 
 THE VOICE OF THE SPHINX. 
 
 Part First. 
 
 "The dream of the centuries is realized; 
 the great canal is done. Upon the bosom 
 of the southern sea float the navies of the 
 world, gathered in honor of the opening 
 day. All nations have joined hands and 
 treasuries in building the 'Olive Branch.' 
 Wood and metals of all lands are wrought 
 into her mighty hull. Her drawing rooms 
 are enriched with jewels from every clime; 
 from her masts stream the pennants of the 
 world. Even now the tranquil tides of the 
 Carribean and the wide-flung Pacific, 
 mingling in the great canal, are flashing 
 from her gleaming prow on the trial trip 
 thro the heart of the 'Cordillera'. 
 
 "In all lands of the Orient this day, June 
 1st, has been declared a gala-day and the 
 people everywhere are in holiday attire 
 with celebrations and merry-makings of 
 various kinds. In South America univer- 
 sal truce had been declared and Revolution- 
 ists vied with Governmentals to do honor 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 75 
 
 to the glad day, In the United States; 
 enthusiasm is boundless; Uncle Sam has 
 for once laid aside his peculiarly patriotic 
 garb and passed to the parade grounds 
 clad in spotless white. Ineed, he had 
 issued a proclamation requesting all citi- 
 zens, everywhere, to clothe themselves on 
 that day in whitened Ramie-Cloth em- 
 blem of universal peace. Arnid booming of 
 cannons and playing of bands, the people 
 gathered by millions to listen to inspiring 
 and congratulatory addresses. Horses and 
 carriages, automobiles, railroad trains and 
 trolley lines, water-craft and flying ma- 
 chines, all, everywhere, were decked in 
 crystal sprays, even Nature herself appear- 
 ing in robes fit for the Ascension morning. 
 Yes, the Panama Canal is done. Her gate- 
 ways wide-open flung invites the commerce 
 of the nations. 
 
 "The 'Cape to Cairo' Railroad recently 
 completed, has just issued Time Tables and 
 Freight Rates. Double-tracked, rock-bal- 
 lasted, equipped with electric engines, Pull- 
 man, Observation and Hunting Cars, sched- 
 uled to one hundred miles an hour thro 
 grandest natural scenery as well as the 
 
76 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 most wonderful achievements of man for 
 six thousand years, a passage by her 
 splendid ways is necesasry to the future 
 happiness and prosperity of the race of 
 mankind. 
 
 "Leaving Cape Town, one soon will 
 reach the scenes of Bloemfontein, where 
 spectre hosts of Boer and Britain still 
 struggle in spirit battle drop over the 
 rocky Velt to Orange River and the Brake- 
 man shouts 'Kimberley and the diamond 
 fields.' Ten minutes and you are off again, 
 along the hills that skirt the Belus valley, 
 past Johannesburg, with visions of Cecil 
 Rhodes and streams of gold, to Mafeking. 
 Leaving Pretoria to the right with her 
 memories of 'Oom Paul', you enter the 
 four-hundred-mile avenue of mighty 
 forests and tangled swamps that leads to 
 Buluwayo of the Matebeleland and the 
 chasm and falls of the Zambezi. Shoshone, 
 Niagara, Zambezi, these three, and the 
 greatest of these is Zambezi. Inspiring, 
 majestic, approaching the sublime, this 
 handiwork of God appeals to you as noth- 
 ing else can. A full thousand yards in 
 width and fathoms deep, this mighty river 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 77 
 
 drops more than a hundred feet sheer into 
 the lava-cleft furrow, regains its splendid 
 quiet and tranquilly flows away to the sea. 
 Slowly, steadily, the train glides out upon 
 the longest, highest bridge man ever built, 
 till you seem simply suspended by view- 
 less hands in mid air and a sickening feel- 
 ing takes possession of you as you think 
 what a moment of time may mean to you. 
 "Now, for the heart of the Dark Conti- 
 nent. Thundering across plateaus, swing- 
 ing around mountains whose bases are 
 clothed in tropical verdure and their sum- 
 mits white with eternal snow, sweeping 
 thro beautiful parks, towering forests or 
 winding slopes of magnificent waterways 
 to Tanganyika, where an ocean liner 
 awaits to carry you three hundred and 
 fifty miles across the tranquil deeps of 
 this inland tropical sea. Shades of Nim- 
 rod! Surely the Happy Hunting Grounds 
 of the Great Spirit are not far away, for 
 a few hours in these mountain solitudes 
 means Lion, Tiger, Behemoth, Elephant, 
 Rhinoceros and Giraffe. Sweet dreams 
 are these on a moonlit sea, but you are at 
 the landing place, and 'The Ostrich Plume 
 
78 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Limited' is waiting to carry you on, and 
 on, past Albert, Edward and Victoria 
 Nyanza, the fountains of the Bahr-el- Azrek, 
 Fashoda, Khartoom and the Six Cataracts 
 of the Nilus Flood to Assouan, the longest 
 dam, the largest artificial lake in the world 
 and the greatest irrigation scheme ever 
 planned, to Diospolis-Magna, Luxor, the 
 Terrestrial home of Jupiter Ammon, Biban- 
 el-Meluk with her broken sculpture, crumb- 
 ling temples and six thousand years of 
 history. Karnak's wondrous facade and 
 spacious halls still smiles a welcome, but 
 Twenty Stadium North and West the 
 granite cliffs of the Hekatompylos, deep 
 gashed and thunder riven, beckon, and 
 Cairo with her Lotus-eaters and compara- 
 tive study of humankind is near. Adown 
 the banks of the Nilus. What memories 
 stir the blood slow pulsing thro mine arter- 
 ies! Israel and the land of Goshen; Moses 
 and Amense; the Pillar of Fire and the 
 First-Born slain; the Pyramids and 
 Pharaoh, Alexandria, Cleopatra, Caesar 
 and Antony. Behold a star is gleaming! 
 Yes, the Ptolemys light-house, Colossus of 
 Rhodes, has fallen, but a Radium globe has 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 79 
 
 taken its place and you are at your jour- 
 ney's end. 
 
 "The way of the Euphrates has been 
 dried up that the way of the kings of the 
 East might be prepared and already the 
 iron horse is neighing across the Arabian 
 sands and Mesopotamian hills from the 
 Persian gulf to Jerusalem, where art 
 achieved her proudest monument and 
 poetry found her sublimest theme of song. 
 
 "A line from St. Petersburg to Beyrut 
 has cleft the Caucasus and already rations 
 for a mighty army are being stored in the 
 Cedars of Libanus. 
 
 "Once more the forces of hate and de- 
 struction are converging in Palestine; 
 again the Spirit of War is brooding over 
 the Plain of Esdraelon that battlefield of 
 ancient nations. From Carmel to Mt. Gil- 
 boa; from Tabor to the Hills of Asher 
 shall the lines extend, till, reeking with 
 human blood, Kishon again runs crimson 
 to the sea. 
 
 "THE DAY OF WRATH IS AT 
 HAND." 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 Armageddon. 
 
 " Peace negotiations are broken. Diplo- 
 macy is at an end. The arbitrament of 
 war is on. The nations of the world stand 
 aghast. Yet for this hour all have been 
 preparing. The standing armies, battle- 
 ships and armored cruisers what else 
 could all this artillery of destruction mean? 
 Martial music girdles the earth and fills 
 the sky. From near and far the clans are 
 gathering. The savagery in man is once 
 more in the ascendant and must find ex- 
 pression in one supreme effort. The 
 world's Armageddon is on. 'For nation 
 shall rise against nation and kingdom 
 against kingdom, and there shall be fam- 
 ines and pestilences and earthquakes in 
 divers places. All these are the beginning 
 of sorrows.' Verily, I say unto you this 
 nation (the Hebrews) shall not pass (from 
 power) till all these things be fulfilled. 
 The chronometer of the universe is strik- 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 81 
 
 ing Twelve: THE HOUR OF THE JEW 
 HAS COME. 
 
 "Intoxicated by her triumph over Rus- 
 sia, Japan has inspired the people of Asia 
 to demand in international diplomatic 
 circles a recognition of the Monroe Doc- 
 trine as applied to Asiatics. This granted, 
 emissaries of the Sunrise Kingdom have 
 easily stirred the people of the Philippines 
 and Hindostan to demand absolute self- 
 government, also China to inaugurate a 
 commercial war upon the United States on 
 account of the harshness of her Chinese 
 exclusion laws and also to insist that Chi- 
 nese be admitted to equal privileges with 
 European nations whose people desire to 
 emigrate to America, while Islam and 
 Buddha's millions have risen in one heroic, 
 half -frenzied effort to force back the tide 
 of the Nazarine's teaching. 
 
 France and Germany, forgetting old 
 troubles on account of the common danger 
 Mongol invasion have joined hands 
 with Russia in a final attempt to crush 
 Japan, while Italy and Turkey have sep- 
 arated on religious grounds. 
 
 "Thus the summer of 191 found the 
 
82 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 armies of the world concentrating their 
 engines of slaughter on the old battle field 
 of nations the plains of Megiddo. Ex- 
 tending from Mt. Carmel to Gilboa were 
 the trained legions of the United States, 
 France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Austria 
 and England, twenty millions in battle 
 array, while northward from left to right, 
 China, Turkey, Japan and India had thirty 
 millions of stalwart defenders ranged 
 along the Hills of Asher to Mt. Tabor. 
 Defences of stone and earth reached the 
 entire distance from the Great Sea to Jor- 
 dan valley and a half million cannon of 
 every range and calibre were massed in 
 batteries on either side. 
 
 "As the sun rose over the heights of 
 Gilead on the morn of Sept. 1st, 191 , 
 five hundred thousand brazen throats 
 spoke in tones of death from Carmel to 
 Gilboa. The hosts of Buddha, Mohammed 
 and Confucius responded with equal power 
 and for four murderous hours the air was 
 full of shrieking shot, hurtling shell and 
 bursting bombs. Suddenly the hills of 
 Asher became silent, the smoke of battle 
 lifted, and down the slopes and across the 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 83 
 
 valley swept a million men with guns 
 gleaming and banners flying, while fierce 
 battle-cries rent the air and the earth 
 trembled beneath their splendid tread. 
 The infuriated hosts of Islam and Buddha 
 with their red caps and shining bayonets 
 seemed a river of blood mingled with fire 
 cleft in twain by the saffron plumes of the 
 Mongol horde. Up the slopes they come. 
 They are met by sheeted flame cannon 
 balls mow great swaths thro their ranks, 
 leaden hail smites them down in windrows 
 electric wires, blazing from mighty dyna- 
 mos, scorch and wither thousands under- 
 ground nitro-glycerine magazines explod- 
 ing creates havoc for a moment, but nof 
 nearthly power can stop this human tide; 
 higher and still yet higher it rolls, over the 
 breastworks they go and swords flash 
 blood-red in hand-to-hand conflict. The 
 roar of artillery has ceased; friend and foe 
 mingle in personal combat. 'Tis a strug- 
 gle for self-preservation. The chug of 
 bayonet and swish of sword, rush of charge 
 and dying groans extends over hill and 
 vale till the sun dips in the crimson tide of 
 the great sea and night shuts out that aw- 
 
84 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 ful scene. Slowly, sullenly, the Oriental 
 warriors recross the Kishon, but they leave 
 behind on those blood-stained heights one 
 hundred thousand, lovers, husbands, fath- 
 ers, silent in the embrace of death. Hoping 
 for confusion and disorder that might 
 change to panic, sunrise of the second 
 witnessed seven hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand Anglo-Saxons hurled like a human 
 avalanche across the plain. The attempt 
 was futile. All day long the battle ebbed 
 and flowed, a mighty sea of death wherein 
 valor and patriotism availeth not. Plainly 
 it was a war of extermination, or universal 
 peace; neither side could surrender; all 
 should not die. 
 
 "The genius of destruction seemed to 
 have entered this maelstrom of hell. To 
 the awful carnage of deadly strife was 
 added the horrors of Asiatic cholera on the 
 one side and a scourge of black death on 
 the other, and all aggravated by the hot- 
 test September Syria shall ever know. 
 
 "Driven to desperation by the intoler- 
 able stench of decaying bodies, the twen- 
 tieth day saw cessation of hostilities, to 
 bury the slain; over a million were laid in 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 85 
 
 unknown graves, but with reason de- 
 throned and hate still in the ascendant on 
 the morrow the struggle was on again. 
 
 " Certain it was, at Home, desire for 
 peace on some terms was gaining ground. 
 The absolute and utter crime of war was 
 growing plain to all nations. 
 
 " Enervated by the intense heat, blinded 
 by dust of the swirl and hurricane of 
 charge and counter-charge, side by side 
 with the dead putrefying in the trenches, 
 the flower and manhood of the allied forces, 
 day after day, week after week, resisted 
 the onslaught of the seemingly ever in- 
 creasings hosts of fanaticism and religious 
 maniacs, who fought like furies rather 
 than men, and revelled in destruction like 
 fiends incarnate. 
 
 "So passed September's thirty leagues 
 of time, and October's golden scroll began. 
 A crescent of fire the moon hung in the sap- 
 phire vault where worlds are born, stars 
 cradled and suns are wrapped in swad- 
 dling bands of fire. Meanwhile the sinews 
 of war are gathered up by the sons of Abra- 
 ham, and not a dollar on stocks or bonds 
 could any government borrow with which 
 
86 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 to prosecute the conflict. Like Hagar in 
 the desert, the armies in the field seemed 
 on the verge of famine when the sun of 
 October ninth dipt into the western sea, 
 leaving a trail of amber light that hung 
 like a golden mist over the hills of Pales- 
 tine while the contending armies were awed 
 into a truce by an unnatural calm as often 
 precedes some great calamity about to 
 overtake the world's material forces. Are 
 the laws of gravitation about to be sus- 
 pended. Light and heat withdrawn? 
 Consternation appeared on every face. 
 Every heart trembled on the verge of 
 panic. At nine P. M. the moon was gone 
 the plain of Esdraelon was silent as a 
 tomb. When lo! a cohort of mailed war- 
 riors in forms of lambent flame swept down 
 the valley, Saul (Israel's first king) in the 
 lead. Benhadad and the Syrian horsemen 
 soon followed, and then appeared in mar- 
 tial array the hosts of Joshua and Gideon, 
 the Philistines and Samson, Goliath and 
 Israel's poet king, the vassals of Persia 
 and Egypt's heroes, Sennacherib and the 
 ANGEL OF THE LORD, Tamerlane, 
 Tancred, Richard of the Lion Heart, Sala- 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 87 
 
 din and the Crusaders. In sublime and en- 
 trancing pantomine the battles of the ages 
 past were reproduced the spear and 
 shield, battle-axe and sword, fiery chargers 
 and swift footmen, kings, princes and 
 prophets, one marvelous vision of the 
 eternal failure of war and forces of hate to 
 solve the earthly problems of the Offspring 
 of God. 
 
 "As the fiery squadrons wheeled into 
 spirit battle, now advancing, now retreat- 
 ing, a sickening sense of the awfulness of 
 war was borne in upon the reason and con- 
 science of the mighty armies of flesh and 
 blood witnessing the God-revealed phe- 
 nomena of the midnight hour upon the 
 accursed plain. 
 
 "With the first streaking of dawn of 
 October 10th, the vision passed. The im- 
 pression indelible forever, remained. 
 
 "As the sun broke across the Galilean 
 hills a strain of wondrous music swelled 
 along the plain from Carmers heights to 
 Jordan's flashing tide. As the echoes, 
 faint from farthest distance borne, ceased, 
 a tremendous blast of bugles rent the air, 
 and changing, a mighty voice became, from 
 
88 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 out of the EVERYWHERE into the 
 HERE, slowly, grandly saying, 'PRO- 
 CLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE 
 LAND TO ALL THE INHABITANTS 
 THEREOF! THE YEAR OF JUBILEE 
 HAS COME!' 
 
 "Thrilled forty million hearts! A uni- 
 versal shout of 'PEACE' arose till the 
 hills seemed to reel and tremble as with an 
 earthquake shock; Rabbi Ben Israel rode 
 slowly adown the valley with a magnificent 
 banner of pure white borne proudly aloft, 
 inscribed with one word, 'PEACE' in 
 letters of gleaming gold, that waved and 
 tossed, a thing of life in the tranquil atmo- 
 sphere as if by fitful breezes borne. 
 
 "The first to join him was the com- 
 mander of the American forces, bearing 
 aloft the Stars and Stripes, but above them 
 streamed a pennant of white. England, 
 Germany, France, Russia, Austria and 
 Italy, all with white above, flags below, 
 soon followed, and were quickly met by 
 Japanese and the Hindostan, Ottoman 
 Crescent and Cross, and the fiery dragons 
 of SHIH-PA-SANG, all, all beneath the 
 streamers of shimmering white. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 89 
 
 "A proclamation of UNIVERSAL AND 
 EVERLASTING PEACE was immediately 
 signed by representatives of every nation, 
 dispatched to Beyrut, cabled to every 
 seat of government, ratified and spread 
 abroad in every land. 
 
 "The SPIRIT of everlasting LOVE has 
 come to reign f orevermore. ' ' 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 Progress. 
 
 "Five years have passed into eternity. 
 Years of absolute peace and world-wide 
 prosperity. National debts everywhere 
 have been paid in full, a spirit of brother- 
 hood and universal good-will is abroad in 
 every land. The navies of the nations 
 converted into merchant marine are busy 
 with the commerce of the world. Receipts 
 of the Panama Canal alone have been suf- 
 ficient to satisfy every national obligation 
 of the Americas, while the millions hereto- 
 fore expended upon the army and navy 
 have been invested in highways of com- 
 fort and free telephone lines for every 
 Home. That bane of country life iso- 
 lation removed, the congested population 
 of the cities flowed out upon the farms, 
 and wages rose in mills and factories, shops 
 and stores, till the family income warran- 
 ted setting the children free; and the Red 
 Cross Society is being recognized in such 
 a way as to provide homes and education 
 for every child of misfortune. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 91 
 
 "The reduction of taxes alone in Ori- 
 ental lands has warranted the opening at 
 public expense, Chautauquas and public 
 libraries in every community; also pleasure 
 parks with magnificent art galleries and 
 pavilions where trained orchestras dis- 
 course matchless music every evening of 
 the year. So pronounced has been the 
 favor of the people for these better things 
 that beer-gardens and wine rooms have 
 been abolished from want of human beings 
 who would waste their lives in everlasting 
 shame. 
 
 "The Spirit of Universal Justice en- 
 throned in a majority of lives, Hope gilds 
 every face, and ignorance and superstition, 
 children of hate and fear, have given place 
 to knowledge and wisdom. Business has 
 come to mean friendship, and government 
 the highest exponent of love: That mael- 
 strom of destruction for manhood and bot- 
 tomless pit for money, the Standing Army, 
 has become a fountain of blessing, produc- 
 tive energy, in every realm of human de- 
 sire, and the face of planet Earth is fast 
 becoming a garden of Delight, A paradise 
 
92 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 without a tempter, an inheritance without 
 a stain. 
 
 "By means of underground waterways 
 the Nilus is fast converting the Great Des- 
 ert into an empire of material splendor that 
 shall call forth the admiration of the world 
 and SAHARA shall yet become the HOME 
 of a self-reliant and happy people, the 
 ages-oppressed-long-suffering sons of Ham. 
 
 "By universal consent and the everlast- 
 ing laws of Truth and Right, Palestine 
 belongs to ISRAEL. Gathered there ere 
 long shall be the splendid remnant of that 
 mighty people who have wrought the per- 
 petual miracle of maintaing their per- 
 sonal identity, customs, laws, govern- 
 ments and heroic virtues without a coun- 
 try, without a Home, thro Two Thousand 
 years of unflagging persecution, wherein 
 Millions have suffered wanton cruelties and 
 violent martyrdom, unprovoked, yet thro 
 all have ever led in the far-flung battle- 
 line of progress, gracing every age, enrich- 
 ing every land, inspiring all people with 
 the very Genius of unsullied and unfad- 
 ing greatness. Call the Roll ol earth's 
 greatest in every realm! Summon the 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 93 
 
 dead to life from Mesopotamia westward 
 thro Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees of 
 terrestrial Longitude! Round the Cape of 
 Good Hope in every worthy achievement! 
 bcour the broad Pacific of Time even to 
 the Golden Gate of Eternity, Statecraft, 
 Poesy, Music, Art, Finance, Moses, 
 David, Raphael, Angelo, Mendelssohn, 
 Beethoven, Rothschilds, Disraeli, and 
 fathom if you can the vision of Jehovah's 
 promise 'I will bless thee and make thee 
 a blessing/ " 
 
 " Vigorous from the loom of suffering 
 with infinite patience borne, the King to 
 his own has come. 
 
 " Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Streams of 
 honor and blessing shall yet flow from thy 
 gates to Mount and sea in every land. 
 
 "In the Pyrenees, Alps, Ural, Caucasus, 
 Himalayas, Ghauts and Altai mountains 
 unmeasurable water power has been devel- 
 oped, and electric car lines extend all over 
 Europe and Asia, with the result that dia- 
 lects and tribal relations have been broken 
 down, and social and business intercourse 
 unrestricted makes for mutual apprecia- 
 tion and respect, and the vast multitudes 
 
94 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 that have lived in hopelessness and desper- 
 ation are fast exploring the wonders of the 
 new worlds abounding on every hand at 
 their very doors, while facile transporta- 
 tion has banished famine, and what was 
 worse, the fear of it. 
 
 "In the Hindoo-Koosh Mountains hot 
 springs abound, and following their under- 
 ground channels vast beds of radium were 
 found. Pyramids of this original source 
 of Light and Heat (substance of the central 
 Sun of our Universe) have been erected at 
 frequent intervals across northern Europe 
 and Asia, resulting in such a modification 
 of temperature that these magnificent areas 
 have become the most desirable agricul- 
 tural regions, thus relieving the unpleas- 
 ant conditions of the overcrowded popula- 
 tions that have for centuries blocked the 
 ways of moral and individual progress. 
 
 "In the extremely cold portions of the 
 earth liquid air factories have been estab- 
 lished, and liquid air is piped to all equa- 
 torial regions. These factories consist of 
 steel flues one thousand feet high, with 
 suction fans at the bottom. From thence 
 the atmosphere, greatly reduced in temper- 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 95 
 
 ature, is forced through a series of vaults 
 and pipes that alternately expand and com- 
 press it till liquefaction is reached. Ozone, 
 electricity and oxygen thus combined, have 
 proved an absolute remedy for Tubercu- 
 losis in every form, and the White-Death- 
 Scourge is limited to the present genera- 
 tion. 
 
 "Thus shall be consummated earth's 
 physical redemption, and all her forces and 
 powers become subject to man's dominion 
 to conserve the health, happiness and prog- 
 ress of a race destined to ultimate perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 "PEACE, PATIENCE, LOVE! Un- 
 conquered, unconquerable, immortal pow- 
 ers! These three shall work their ways 
 sublimely on to universal dominion and 
 their victories shall be as enduring as the 
 light of the fixed stars, their reign as glori- 
 ous as the presence of the Infinite God in 
 an eternal EDEN. 
 
 "Six thousand slow revolving years 
 have passed since I was born; Highest ex- 
 pression of Humanity's loftiest Ideal 
 wrought in enduring stone. I stand thro 
 all ages for ABSOLUTE SELF-CONTROL 
 
96 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 and EVERLASTING PEACE, Sublime 
 attributes of the EVER-LIVING GOD." 
 
 High in the heavens a golden ball by 
 viewless hands of gravitation swung, the 
 moon flooded the Earth with a splendid 
 radiance, lighted the tranquil face with 
 infinite charm and kissed the placid Nilus 
 with unfading glory as the midnight hour 
 returned me safe to Cairo. 
 
THE FRUITS OF PEACE. 
 
 With the heresy of war expunged from 
 the catalog of human affairs, all tides of 
 mortal energy flowed in streams of 
 blessing that wrought abundant prosperity 
 in all material lines; but most pronounced 
 was the leaven of progress in personal up- 
 lift to mind, conscience and aspiration, 
 which not simply renovated, but absolutely 
 re-created the basis of character: Lofty 
 purposes and holy ambitions possessed all 
 thot and life: Unconquered mind and 
 Freedom's holy flame blazed the ascending 
 pathway for an exalted patriotism which 
 expressed itself in an enthusiasm for the 
 maintenance of government, her laws and 
 ordinances. 
 
 To live for one's country. To pre- 
 serve and conserve the dignity and 
 glory of highest citizenship became a pas- 
 sion among the youth of the world. Every- 
 where the reach and grasp of finer sensi- 
 bilities and keener susceptibilities became 
 apparent. Rapidly and permanently all 
 the higher virtues were invested with the 
 
98 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 charm of heroism. Courage was no longer 
 considered as simply a physical trait, but 
 entering the realm of TRUTH men dared 
 to quit white-lying and legal trickery, 
 abandoned diplomacy that sought to out- 
 wit the other fellow (tho still employing 
 splendid skill and finesse in every worthy 
 enterprise) and standing in the open in- 
 vited inspection of motive whether in busi- 
 ness or politics. Both men and women 
 came to see that moral excellence and per- 
 sonal worth should be the standard of 
 social rank, rather than wealth that too 
 often flowed in streams of debasement. 
 
 Out of this new interpretation of the so- 
 cial order came a generation of children no 
 longer hedged by artificials, not cut and 
 plugged to size, but natural. The genius 
 of each one developed under inspiration of 
 highest motives and absolute freedom, the 
 scope and field of educational attainment 
 is infinitely widened. 
 
 Not simply five, but scores of senses are 
 manifested. Extraordinary powers physi- 
 cal, musical, intuitive, hitherto regarded 
 as GIFTS and their possessors as 
 11 FREAKS," are now known to be but 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 99 
 
 normal conditions for mankind and the 
 creations of inventive genius necessary to 
 satisfy the new conditions have led to un- 
 limited fields for business and govern- 
 mental effort. 
 
 Instead of millions for battleships, 
 gatling-guns and other magazines of de- 
 struction, governments now appropriate 
 millions for schools of INVENTION, 
 where sons and daughters of a race 
 of ever-increasing longevity reign as kings 
 and queens in the realms of discovery or 
 creative force, or serve as priests and 
 priestesses in the temples of domestic hap- 
 piness across whose thresholds no shadow 
 of war or pestilence ever falls, for with 
 right-thinking and living almost every 
 form of disease and scourge has vanished 
 from the earth. 
 
 Relieved from the financial burdens of 
 war, with the millions of men who com- 
 posed standing armies returned to indus- 
 trial pursuits and producing wealth instead 
 of destroying it, the resources of nations 
 have so tremendously increased that ample 
 provision has been made for all unfortun- 
 ates as well as criminals, the slums of cities 
 
100 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 have been almost abated and poverty and 
 crime have almost ceased to exist. 
 
 With the reign of perennial peace came 
 an appreciation of the real value of life, 
 its range and register clearly defined gave 
 new zest and wider interpretation of man- 
 hood, an exalted MANHOOD that was 
 more than surface polish, beyond esthetic 
 culture, above all earthly rank partaking 
 of divine permanency and greatness, as the 
 standard of desire and hope of attainment. 
 
 With no spirit of war, ghost of ven- 
 geance, nor phantom of destruction racing 
 thru heart and brain in the earth-life 
 watches of the soul, all deformities of De- 
 sire and Disposition (as well as of body) 
 largely disappeared and a well-balanced 
 self-controlled, beautiful race multiplied 
 and replenished the earth and received for 
 INHERITANCE, dominion over all mate- 
 rial forces. 
 
 Thus was consummated man's physical 
 regeneration, ever-inspired and led on by 
 "THE PRINCE of PEACE." 
 

 
 CONSERVATION OF NATURAL 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 My purpose holds 
 
 To sail beyond the limit of seasons, 
 And the pathways of all wandering stars, 
 
 Till I reach the TREE of LIFE, 
 In the midst of the GARDEN of HOPE, 
 
 And eating thereof, live forevermore. 
 
 How large the life in the GARDEN of HOPE ; 
 
 How sweet the fruit of the TREE of LIFE ; 
 
 How mighty the strength that surely can cope 
 
 With the spirit of Shadow, Darkness and 
 Strife. 
 
 How matchless the vision of Growth and of 
 Growing ; 
 
 How sweet to the senses ; Oh the infinite span 
 Of the healing and feeling and rapture of 
 Knowing 
 
 The mysteries and wonders and glories of 
 MAN. 
 
 "New occasions teach new duties; 
 
 Time makes ancient good uncouth. 
 We must upward still and onward 
 
 Who would keep abreast of truth. 
 
102 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Lo! before us gleam her campfires; 
 
 We ourselves must pilgrims be, 
 Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly 
 
 Thru the desperate winter sea, 
 Nor attempt the future's portal 
 
 With the past's blood-rusted key.' 
 
 When the Bell of Destiny summons to 
 the hereafter and the gray night of Time 
 fades into the crimson of Eternity's morn, 
 it will be found that most of our ills have 
 been imaginary; that the calamity howler 
 has been the worst foe of progress; the 
 demagogue the most troublesome pest of 
 the ages; the pessimist the most dangerous 
 microbe that ever afflicted humanity. 
 
 Ever since Pharaoh instructed the mid- 
 wives of Egypt to strangle the male chil- 
 dren of Israel, "Lest the Hebrews crowd us 
 out of the land and we be homeless/' the 
 exhaustion of the public lands has been a 
 favorite cry of the political shepherds of 
 every nation. And yet, viewed from the 
 standpoint of bread-stuffs, the world today 
 is larger and richer than ever before. 
 
 Not to draw too fine a point, let it be 
 roughly stated that from the Dakotas 
 northward for a thousand miles stretch the 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 103 
 
 virgin soils of Canada and British Colum- 
 bia, rich in all the elements of wheat-grow- 
 ing and favorable to highest civilization. 
 While the great Plains of Argentine Re- 
 public, South America, could grow food- 
 stuffs for all of Europe for centuries to 
 come. 
 
 As far back as '97, Siberia's frozen 
 steeps produced three hundred thousand 
 tons of potatoes, with possible capacity of 
 millions, while her mines yielded in thirty 
 years, half a billion of gold, and yet we 
 think of her, and have been taught to 
 think of her as a barren waste of snow and 
 ice. 
 
 To the above let there be added the mil- 
 lions of acres being reclaimed by irrigation 
 in America, Africa and India. Above all 
 these place the fact of intense farming. 
 With improved methods, five acres now 
 produces more of the eatables of life than 
 fifty acres did a few years ago. 
 
 In fact, one enterprising American ad- 
 vertises to show a comfortable living for 
 a family from twenty hens and the rear end 
 fragment of a city lot. 
 
 That man ought to be hailed with the 
 
104 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 ECLAT of a Columbus, receive a gold 
 medal for meritorious services to his coun- 
 try, be brevetted a Brigadier General in 
 the realm of Finance, and have his name 
 inscribed in the HALL of FAME by a 
 grateful people. 
 
 If a blessing is pronounced upon a man 
 who causes two blades of grass to grow 
 where only one grew before, how much 
 more honor ought this genius to have who 
 piles up heaps of dollars where nothing 
 was visible before, and also adds to the 
 gayety of nations and the entertainment of 
 his neighbors by the songs of thoroughbred 
 hens? 
 
 "The world's supply of fuel is about 
 burned out, and as for timber to build 
 cities, there soon will not be enough left to 
 grow sprouts sufficient to whip bad girls 
 with." 
 
 So shouts the demagogue and would-be 
 statesman; and yet there are billions of 
 feet of untouched forests in Oregon alone, 
 while more millions of tons of coal are 
 today within easy reach of railroads' trans- 
 portation than was ever before known. 
 The golden fringe of day dawning upon 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 105 
 
 the Dark Continent brings to view the 
 emerald foliage of more timber than has 
 been cut since Columbus discovered Amer- 
 ica. Add to this all the underground 
 oceans of crude petroleum whose mighty 
 fountains are being touched by diamond 
 drills all round the world, and the new 
 processes for reinforced concrete and 
 structural steel that engineers are daily 
 offering to growing cities and begin to 
 understand that this old world has not yet 
 attained her prime. That the " barrel of 
 meal has not wasted, the cruse of oil has 
 not failed. ' ' 
 
 With vision cleared and hope renewed, 
 let us swing the TELESCOPE of PROG- 
 RESS away from the slow ascending 
 plains of material resources to the cloud- 
 less peaks and unmeasured heights of that 
 limitless realm of man's energy, progress 
 and possibilities. 
 
 The waste of all peoples in all lands in 
 all centuries past in all other lines cannot 
 equal, by any standard of measurement, 
 the waste of war alone, namely MIL- 
 LIONS OF HUMAN LIVES and still we 
 cry out for increased armies and enlarged 
 
106 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 navies. If we really mean business, let us 
 be consistent. 
 
 Administer the ordinances of PEACE 
 to the affairs of nations and enforce them 
 upon the conscience of mankind by the 
 persuasions and visions of prosperity and 
 real progress, and the conservation of the 
 world's natural resources will assume a 
 form and vigor that will enlarge the orbit 
 of a world and cause the powers of dark- 
 ness to sit up and take notice. 
 
 HUMAN LIFE IS THE GREATEST 
 NATURAL RESOURCE OF THE UNI- 
 VERSE. 
 
 But what has all this to do with airship 
 squadrons hovering about the poles, sail- 
 ing thru luminous pathways of comets, 
 whose orbits and habits of flight are as 
 yet undetermined or a summer outing 
 trip to Mars? 
 
 Simply this: Young people need to get 
 a vision of largeness. Need to get out of 
 the whirlpools and eddies of the current of 
 time, away from the merry-go-round of 
 scientific limitations, into the broad, 
 swift-flowing channels of WISDOM that 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 107 
 
 break from the FOUNTAINS of INTEL- 
 LIGENCE and CREATIVE POWER that 
 direct winds and tides, sunshine and 
 storms, and hold a universe in their grasp. 
 Need to understand that next to GOD, 
 Man is the largest and most wonderful 
 being ever created. Need to know that as 
 all fruits and fowls and animals and grasses 
 and grain have been improved only by be- 
 ing operated upon by a higher intelligence, 
 even so Man himself can be improved only 
 as directed and inspired by a higher intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 Need to get out of the guide lines of Lati- 
 tude that have always limited man's prog- 
 ress around the world to commercial lines 
 and slow-changing seasons. Need to sail 
 GOD'S Longitudinal world, where seasons 
 change in an hour, and fauna, flora and 
 climate, mark STANDARD TIME with the 
 pendulum of epochs. 
 
 Need to know that * ' There is a spirit in 
 man and the inspiration of the Almighty 
 giveth him understanding." 
 
 Need to know that this old world is and 
 always has been the object of creative 
 watch-care and love. 
 
108 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Need to know that "The eternal God is 
 our refuge and underneath are the Ever- 
 lasting Arms." 
 
 If this much has been learned from our 
 trip around the world endways, we shall 
 have made the greatest discovery possible 
 to mankind and our reward is infinitely 
 great. 
 
 Dear young people: My song is ended; 
 my story done. 
 
 When your voyaging is over, your sailing past, 
 may you rest on the shores of everlast- 
 ing life 
 
 Where living waters forever flow, 
 Where trees of beauty and healing grow. 
 
 VALE. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 109 
 
 THE AFTERGLOW. 
 
 The light falls softly over the hills, 
 
 As in autumn days of the Long- Ago. 
 The thrush's song by the woodland rills 
 And the plaintive voice of the whippoorwills 
 With memories sweet my being thrills 
 And the tender light of the Afterglow 
 Brings rest and peace; rest and peace. 
 
 Forgetting age and its weight of pain, 
 
 A boy again I roam the fields; 
 The cow-bell's jingle I hear again 
 Barefooted splash thru mud and rain 
 Breathe fragrance-sweet of new-cut grain. 
 
 Earth, sea and sky new beauty yields 
 
 From worry and care, sweet release; sweet 
 release. 
 
 Sometime, somewhere in the Afterglow 
 
 I shall pass the heights of time and place ; 
 Where living waters forever flow 
 Where trees of beauty and healing grow 
 In the spirit-world I shall surely know 
 
 The welcome smile of my Father's face; 
 Be led in paths of peace; perfect PEACE. 
 
110 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Part III 
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY POEMS 
 
 THE DESERT. 
 
 There is a wondrous fascination in her wide- 
 flung desolation, 
 
 And a splendid nerve and courage that 
 solitudes inspire. 
 
 There is a fierce determination born of Hope's 
 glad inspiration, 
 
 With the light and life and gladness of 
 Ambition's holy fire. 
 
 She has days for languorous pleasure under 
 skies of wondrous azure, 
 
 She has crimson dawns, and sunsets that with 
 richest saffron glow. 
 
 She has every scenic treasure, beyond mortal 
 pen to measure, 
 
 When the sun has flamed her grizzled buttes 
 agleaming white with snow. 
 
 When the purple twilight changes into night 
 across her ranges, 
 
 And a soft and subtle radiance floods the 
 earth and low arched sky, 
 
 Stands she then in wondrous glory, matchless 
 theme for song or story, 
 
 Clothed in tranquil nameless splendor, most 
 entrancing to the eye. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 1 1 1 
 
 Over silent sagey washes flames the sign of 
 
 gains and losses 
 That allured the empire builders in the days 
 
 of Forty-Nine, 
 Silver-pro wed in days of olden, now they're 
 
 copper-hued or golden, 
 Ships of fortune, treasure laden, proudly 
 swinging into line. 
 
 She has matchless lights and shadows over 
 
 vast but grassless meadows; 
 She has prehistoric cities that with magic 
 
 mirage grow; 
 Also crystal lakes and fountains nestled in 
 
 among the mountains, 
 
 While adown her sun-baked washes streams 
 of mighty volume flow. 
 
 Till the soul is lost in wonder, fadeless scenes 
 
 of phantom splendor 
 She will surely bring you from the realms 
 
 of legends bold; 
 Facts and fancies she will render of romances 
 
 strong but tender, 
 
 That alone in voiceless language of the 
 desert can be told. 
 
 Land of legend and tradition, hopes renewed 
 
 and high ambition, 
 Land where men of largest genius for their 
 
 souls true freedom found, 
 Land of vague, mysterious longing, truth to 
 
 other world belonging, 
 Land where health and deepest wisdom doth 
 forever more abound. 
 
112 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 A DESERT RAIN. 
 
 The rain was falling very fast, 
 The wind blew fiercely down the wash; 
 
 It pulled my tent stakes up at last 
 And blew me out of bed, b'gosh. 
 
 It swelled my apples nice and plump, 
 To batter turned a sack of flour; 
 
 I tell you, sirs, it made me hump 
 To keep real sweet in that dark hour. 
 
 I couldn't sleep a single wink 
 
 For holding on to bed clothes tight, 
 
 And if I wandered round I'd sink 
 To knees in mud, on that fierce night. 
 
 There is no loss 'thout some small gain: 
 The storm that pushed my castle o'er 
 
 Swept every rat past earthly pain, 
 Not one was left beneath that floor. 
 
 So now I live serene and blest, 
 No rats to gnaw my sour-dough bread, 
 
 Nor scamper 'cross my peaceful breast 
 When I am snugly tucked in bed. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 113 
 
 THE OLD PROSPECTOR. 
 
 There's a man with pick and shovel 
 
 Camped beside a granite spring; 
 Every day he's panning gravel, 
 
 Every day I hear him sing: 
 "Struck it rich in Colorado, 
 
 Guess I'll find some pay dirt here 
 Then go home to wife and babies, 
 
 Bring them joy and hope and cheer. 
 
 "Staked a claim in Boise basin, 
 
 Quicked a thousand many a day; 
 Heard of better things in Klondike, 
 
 Sold my claim and walked away; 
 Lost my all on Chilkoot passes, 
 
 Snowslide caught me, went dead broke; 
 Since then life holds naught but ashes, 
 
 All my finds go up in smoke.' 
 
 Thus I heard this hero singing 
 
 As I paused upon my way, 
 And I feel his tribe is bringing 
 
 Wealth of empire day by day; 
 Founding states in quiet fashion, 
 
 Building railroads o'er the plain, 
 Quiet, patient, hopeful genius, 
 
 Deserves to strike it rich again. 
 
 Kindly heart, tho' hands are caloused, 
 Streaks of gray his temples crown; 
 
 Tho' he's broke (or mighty near it,) 
 Don't you think he will lay down. 
 
114 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 Ever cheerful, hopeful, buoyant, 
 Still the time for him must come, 
 
 When from out life's purple canyons 
 He must hit the trail for home; 
 
 Pack the burro, throw the diamond, 
 
 Leave the sluice box far behind; 
 Cache the shovel, horn and rocker, 
 
 Bare his breast before the wind; 
 Hark, the call from o'er the mountains, 
 
 Speed thee toward the setting sun; 
 Never fear, he'll reach life's fountains, 
 
 For his work has been well done. 
 
 Now he looks with hunger-longing, 
 
 To a land not far away; 
 To a home of peace and plenty, 
 
 In the realms of endless day; 
 To that land beyond the river, 
 
 Where prospectors can't grow old, 
 Where the hills are rich in silver 
 
 And the streets are paved with gold. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 115 
 
 HOW THE ALMIGHTY PAINTS. 
 
 Morning. 
 
 Storm-dark cloud 'gainst heaven's blue, 
 
 Lightning-flash by thunder's roar attended 
 Plains, meadows, woodland flushed with dew, 
 
 Rainbow tints with bursts of sunshine 
 
 blended. 
 Night's curtain folded; Stars at rest, 
 
 Orchestral airs of winds and waves in chorus, 
 Flames streaks athwart the blushing east 
 
 Morning, glorious morning streaming o'er us. 
 
 Noon. 
 
 Wealth of sunshine falling o'er the world, 
 
 Illumines mountain, plain and cool retreat; 
 Like quivering lances penciled rays are hurled, 
 
 In color-surges o'er fields of wind swept 
 
 wheat ; 
 In cataracts it rolls, o'er fleecy films of clouds, 
 
 Till vast creation thrills with life and power, 
 And all the earth in matchless witching mood, 
 
 Proclaims life's zenith in the noontide hour. 
 
 Night. 
 
 Low-arched to earth the heavens bend, 
 
 The wind-harps thrummed and soothed to 
 
 rest, 
 The shades of night with days rich colors blend, 
 
 The sun has marked a trail of glory in the 
 
 west; 
 God's hand hath set the evening star, 
 
 So low it soon must pass from sight, 
 Beyond the purple hills; and ocean's bar, 
 
 Shall darkened be: 'tis calm and holy night. 
 
116 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 MOTHER'S ROOM. 
 
 Twas very small, a baby's nest, 
 
 (Ten feet or less by seven) 
 Yet large enough to hold earth's best, 
 
 And all I think of heaven; 
 Where Mother sewed and Mother cried, 
 
 And all our tears of sorrow dried, 
 With tender loving kisses. 
 
 From out this room at morn we went, 
 All girded for life's work or play, 
 
 And here we always were content, 
 To rest awhile at close of day; 
 
 Its peace and calm our foosteps lured, 
 And all our aches and pains were cured, 
 
 By Mother's pats and kisses. 
 
 Oh, blessed spot to memory dear, 
 Oh, land of childhood's matchless dreams; 
 
 Thy memory still my heart doth cheer, 
 Still thru my soul thy glory streams; 
 
 Where quickly cured was every grief, 
 And mother's presence brought relief, 
 
 With low sung lullabies and kisses. 
 
 Oh, Mother dear, my heart doth yearn, 
 To know thy voice and love again, 
 
 And oft thru memory still I turn, 
 
 To thy dear arms for ease from pain 
 
 To have thine arms around me thrown 
 And call me once again thine own, 
 
 And bless my face with kisses. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 1 1 7 
 
 God grant again that Mother's room, 
 
 May be my habitation; 
 When far beyond all clouds and gloom, 
 
 Long past earth's strong vexation, 
 Oh, lead me then to Mother's room, 
 
 Beyond the clouds, beyond the tomb, 
 My Mother's room in Heaven. 
 
 I KNOW NOT. 
 
 I know not when the chord shall break 
 That binds thee to this world of Time; 
 I know not when thy soul shall take 
 Its flight for some serener clime; 
 I know not when that other land 
 Shall need the light thy presence gives, 
 I know not when some angel band 
 Shall bear thee where thy Saviour lives; 
 But this I know, so sweet a life 
 Must some day pass to heavenly plains, 
 Must leave behind all pain and strife 
 To live where God forever reigns. 
 
 Must reach that fount from whence it draws 
 The Light and Love that brightly shines, 
 Through highest truth and holy laws 
 That keeps and saves by power divine. 
 Must breathe the air that angels know, 
 Must live beside that splendid river 
 Where trees of Life in beauty grow 
 And live with God for aye and ever. 
 
118 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 I'M LONGING FOR YOU. 
 
 We have splendid mornings bright and fair,- 
 With cloudless skies and tonic air, 
 
 And scenic beauty everywhere, 
 But oh, I'm longing for you. 
 
 At sultry noon a dreamy spell, 
 
 Whose languorous ease no words can tell, 
 Comes o'er my soul, (I love it well), 
 
 But still I'm longing for you. 
 
 There are twilight hours of wondrous calm, 
 That fall o'er mind and heart like balm, 
 
 Or rhythm and flow of sacred psalm, 
 But still I'm longing for you. 
 
 There is work to do and plans to lay, 
 There is cark and busy care all day, 
 
 But still my thought will flee away, 
 Dear heart, I'm longing for you. 
 
 Foul or fair, by land or sea, 
 Best or worst, whate'er it be, 
 
 Counts for naugnt away from thee, 
 Evermore, I'm longing for you. 
 
 Your love makes bright each darkened way,- 
 Your presence gladdens every day, 
 
 I'm lonesome when from you I stay, 
 Sweet wife, I'm longing for you. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 119 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S BURDEN. 
 
 Talk not to me of "men with hoes/ 
 
 Nor of burdens on the white man lain; 
 I come to speak of children's woes, 
 
 To tell of nerve and mental strain, 
 Of boys and girls in public school, 
 
 Reduced to nervous wreck by rule, 
 For seven thousand this way went, 
 
 Whom to the schools were last year sent. 
 
 At three to kindergarten sent, and when 
 
 The tale of bricks is done, and papers 
 Nicely folded, or perchance in mats 
 
 Of various fashion formed, 
 The race is on. 
 
 To gain the prize no effort must be spared, 
 Nor yet the paling cheek and muscles 
 
 Flaccid grown, considered be ; for these, 
 You know, to culture and refinement, 
 
 The outward symbols are; 
 While hollow eyes and headache speak 
 
 Of mental poise; and discipline of 
 Mind exalted high is more desired 
 
 Than health and other common things. 
 
 1 ' Keep off the grass, ' ' nor yet, 
 By quiet waters 'neath shade-trees run, 
 
 Tomorrow is : examination must be borne 
 In seven branches (written work) 
 
 And less than ninety is disgrace. 
 
 So hot and fevered is the brain, that 
 Slumber tardy comes, and troubled with 
 
 Mutterings ; broken is rest, and the heart, 
 Robbed of its growing time, no longer 
 
 Blood supplies for lunches cold; 
 
 Indigestion lays its murderous hand 
 
 On nerve and brain ; the end is nigh. 
 
120 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 'Tis time to speak of (mysterious Providence), 
 With choking voice, but the truth is, 
 
 A false standard of education has 
 Upon ambition's altar 
 
 Another victim placed. 
 
 And truly the sacrifice is whole 
 
 Intellect alone remains: the spirit-soul 
 Has never cultivated been ; 
 
 The moral powers are undermined, 
 Because to accident is left their development. 
 
 No text book in all their realm; 
 Ambition's holy fires are kindled, 
 
 Not, save to light the way for brains; 
 Farther on in college halls (that realm of myth) 
 
 Is found the torch of reason, 
 By whose flickering light, Faith, 
 
 Is entombed in the grave-yard 
 Of dead languages. 
 
 Spectre hosts of heathen gods 
 As sponsors stand, when doubt is born ; 
 
 Wrapt in science clothes, 
 (Those swaddling bands of hell) 
 
 Into the business world they go, 
 Cold and keen as the surgeon's knife; 
 
 Their motto: "Every man a rogue 
 Till honest proved." Everything is questioned, 
 
 Money alone is the measure of success. 
 
 On with the dance of death; be still 
 About these dangers, speak not the truth, 
 
 Lest you be pessimist in heart and will, 
 Old fogy, out-of-date, uncouth. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 121 
 
 DO IT NOW! 
 
 'Tis well to sing of a home on high, 
 (But the world needs workers now). 
 
 Of a palace home far beyond the sky, 
 Of great things we '11 do by and by, 
 
 But the world wants work done now. 
 
 In conventions we oftimes enthuse, 
 (The world needs work right now) 
 
 Resolve all our powers we'll use, 
 But many times neglect or refuse, 
 
 To do our best just now. 
 
 Come, lend a hand to the poor and weak, 
 The world needs this work now; 
 
 The broken hearts some kind words speak, 
 And keep your own life sweet and meek, 
 
 Do your best, do it now! 
 
 Go help that soul out of sin and pain, 
 
 This help is needed now ; 
 Till it stands straight for truth again, 
 
 In cold or heat, or snow, or rain, 
 Do the best you can; work now. 
 
 This day is the best day for you, 
 
 The world is calling now, 
 For God and man be strong and true, 
 
 Be helpers many or be they few, 
 Do your best, Oh, do it now ! 
 
122 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 A WOMAN'S HEART. 
 
 Go scour the earth and sweep the land; 
 Go search the angels' quiet home, 
 Go visit all the shining stars 
 That gleam in Heaven's sapphire dome. 
 Go bring the wealth of ages past, 
 Earth's jewels rare, all works of Art, 
 Bring all the songs of seraph choir, 
 Then go and win a woman's heart. 
 Go place them in a balance fine, 
 All treasures gleaned from everywhere, 
 The wealth of stars and seas and land, 
 All works of art and jewels rare; 
 Against them weigh a woman's heart, 
 A heart of love to hold in thrall; 
 You will find a Christian woman 's Love 
 Will surely far outweigh them all. 
 
 LOVE'S WIRELESS. 
 
 It flashes from her sparkling eyes, 
 I caught it from her finger-tips; 
 It came (as lightning from the skies) 
 When first I kissed her rosy lips. 
 
 Love thrilled her song with tender strain ; 
 Love glinted from her waving hair; 
 By day by night, Love's sweet refrain 
 Now breaks in music everywhere. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 123 
 
 SPRING FEVER. 
 
 I long for hills and leafy woods 
 Where streams come tumbling down; 
 I long to leave far, far behind 
 The pavements hot and brown. 
 
 I long to rest where nature sheds 
 Dewdrops and fragrance sweet; 
 To substitute the winding trail 
 For trolley-crowded street. 
 
 I long to hunt and fish and dream 
 Where feathered songsters call; 
 Where eagles rush and bob-cats scream 
 Near thunderous waterfall. 
 
 I long to leave all work behind; 
 To take slow quiet ease 
 From all restraint of any kind 
 And do just as I please. 
 
124 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 MY WISH FOR THEE. 
 
 I would that today through woodland ways 
 By the pools of a sparkling river 
 Where autumn leaves a carpet weaves, 
 That with shadows and sunlight quiver, 
 You might slowly walk and quietly talk 
 With the soul of your own soul's choosing, 
 Or rest on the leas 'neath the stately trees, 
 While soul held soul in a double musing. 
 
 I would that for thee 'midst wild-flowers and 
 trees, 
 
 Forgotten all heartaches and sorrow 
 
 The prophet of ways for thy life's autumn 
 days 
 
 Naught could picture but a sweeter tomorrow. 
 
 Till a beauty and glow like the autumn days 
 throw 
 
 Over woodlands and swift flowing river 
 Reflected should be in soul chosen by thee, 
 And your soul should be mated forever. 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 125 
 
 OUR BOYS. 
 
 Oh! Bless the boys! The baby boys, 
 
 In long white skirts and dresses; 
 With rosy cheeks and dimpled hands 
 
 With curls and golden tresses. 
 And bless the boys some later on 
 
 In kilts and knickerbockers; 
 They rode the dining chairs for steeds, 
 
 Made railroad trains of rockers. 
 
 Then bless the boys with bat and ball, 
 
 With marbles, tops; with bows and arrows; 
 When sick with croup with colic wild 
 
 We trod with them life's narrows; 
 And bless the boys when school days came, 
 
 When first from home they started; 
 Both glad and sad we watched them go. 
 
 Our Babies had departed. 
 
 Ah, no! They are our Babies still, 
 
 Though near to manhood grown; 
 Each day they draw around our hearts 
 
 New ties before unknown. 
 Each day we love them more and more; 
 
 They bring our deepest joys; 
 God keep them safe for earth and Heaven, 
 
 Our own sweet darling boys. 
 
126 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 WHERE DWELLEST THOU? 
 
 In lowlands damp, with poisoned air, 
 
 In canyons dark with mid-day gloom, 
 Where prejudice and ignorance are, 
 
 And blatant self fills all the room; 
 On sunlit mesas bright and fair, 
 
 On mountain heights with glory kist; 
 Mid wonder scenes and tonic air, 
 
 With rainbow-lights and halo-mist. 
 Ye men and maidens answer now 
 
 This question fair, Where dwellest Thou? 
 
 In palace high or hovel low, 
 
 In brown-stone front or cabin rude? 
 It is not this that I would know, 
 
 But o'er what truth thy heart doth brood. 
 Does high born zeal and lofty plan 
 
 Engage your mind and thrill your heart, 
 Does cheer and help for every man 
 
 Appeal to you as noblest art? 
 To this, your aim and purpose vow, 
 
 A matchless realm, where dwellest Thou. 
 
 Up, onward now to highest things ; 
 
 Drink deep the joy achievement brings; 
 To all that's best now lend thy aid, 
 
 For progress stand. Be not afraid; 
 Unconquered mind and daring soul 
 
 (If purpose true once gain control), 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 127 
 
 To seas unsailed, to lands unknown, 
 Thou shalt attain and claim thine own. 
 
 All lands, all realms before thee bow 
 To homage pay. Where dwellest Thou. 
 
 Thy path illumed by sacred fire 
 
 Leads straight to land of Heart's Desire; 
 Where charm and glory rule the days 
 
 And every hour is glad with praise. 
 Fill full thy life with noblest deeds; 
 
 Thy Soul's best, give for human needs; 
 Uplift, sustain, the rights of man, 
 
 Build only Love on Wisdom's plan. 
 Let all the world bring tribute now. 
 
 A great soul dwells where dwellest Thou. 
 
128 TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 
 
 THE HOMEWARD TRAIL. 
 
 The homeward trail is calling, 
 
 To the kiss and the sunny smile, 
 Where peace and calm are falling, 
 
 And living is worth the while; 
 There's help in time of trouble, 
 
 There's love that's deep and strong, 
 A face that more than doubles 
 
 My joys the whole day long. 
 
 There's a something (can't define it) 
 
 That races my being thru, 
 (If I would I couldn't decline it), 
 
 That comes along with you; 
 That lifts me out of the present, 
 
 That brings content and rest, 
 That makes my way all pleasant, 
 
 And every day most blest. 
 
 There's something about you, darling, 
 
 That's more than a " woman's way; 1 
 Rich as the song of a starling, 
 
 On wing at the break of day, 
 That inspires to noble endeavour, 
 
 The pure, the good, the true, 
 Thru days and years forever, 
 
 I'm looking upward to you. 
 
 Sometimes I catch the vision, 
 Then it's off and away again, 
 
 And my soul is left at tension, 
 That is close akin to pain; 
 
TO THE POLES BY AIRSHIP 129 
 
 Then the lilt and rapturous glory, 
 
 Of your sunny hazel eyes, 
 As a sweet and happy story, 
 
 Lifts me up to the skies. 
 
 So the homeward trail keeps calling, 
 
 My pulse beats wild and high, 
 To my soul is this absence galling, 
 
 As the days drag slowly by; 
 So over the hills and mountains, 
 
 To the ocean's shoreless blue, 
 To the soul-inspiring fountains 
 
 Of a love that is strong and true. 
 
 Forever this call is coming, 
 
 To the home in the unseen land, 
 And ever my heart turns homing, 
 
 Led by your loving hand; 
 I long for the peace and quiet, 
 
 Your presence brings to me, 
 Your rocker with mine close by it, 
 
 To rest, sweet rest, with thee. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Due two weeks after date. 
 
 
VB 13394 
 
 273586 
 
 ,f 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY