load was lighter, the burdens were lifted, and the music of patriotism welled in the soul. The native and the foreigner, the illiterate and the civilized, the Orient and the Arctic, breathed one heart-beat and lived in one common bond of universal brotherhood-that day.

It was one o'clock at night. The waves did not wash up so high on the beach, the little pebbles did not roll in the water. It was still, and the shadows of purple on the hills were lovelier than ever before-a bird swooped low, dipping the water with her spiny white

wings, the breeze played across the Spit and Belmont Point, the long spires of sunlight shot out over the harbor, three sails were becalmed far out toward the sea. The traffic and din along the streets grew fainter and fainter, the people were tired, the wheels were quiet, and the patient malamute was asleep at his master's door.

Rest like a mantle of warmth and friendship spread over the city, and the Fourth of July at Nome was a memory amid other pleasant recollections of the past.

EW women when instructing their maids to be sure not to neglect placing a few balls of camphor amongst the folds of their furs and other expensive clothes, as security against the ravages of the innocent-looking but destructive little moth, give a thought, or, indeed, have any knowledge whatever of the source from which the supply of that fragrant drug is obtained, and the terrible dangers to which its collectors are subject.

Camphor is the product of a species of the laurel tree known to the learned as the camphora officinarum. It is indigenous to Formosa, an island lying off the southeast coast of China in longitude

121.15 to 122.5 east of Greenwich, and latitude 21.54 to 25.19 north, and about 100 miles from the mainland, from which it is separated by the Straits of Tokien. It was given its name, signifying beautiful, by the Portuguese in the early part of the 17th century.

Formosa was owned by the Chinese for a long time, but passed into the possession of Japan at the close of the late war. This large and comparatively unknown island is divided longitudinally by a high range of mountains, the extreme altitude of which is reached by Mount Morrison soaring upwards into cloudland to a height of 12,000 feet.

The western portion slopes gently down into modulating plains inhabited by a population of nearly two million Chinese engaged in the cultivation of

sugar and rice; but the mountains and more precipitous lands on the east, running down to the Pacific Ocean, are occupied entirely by various warlike tribes of savages, principally descended from the Malays, whose only occupations are hunting, fishing, and fighting. In the latter pursuit they are actuated by their natural and inherent love of bloodshed, and a desire to acquire the property of their enemies, the most coveted being, strange to say, their skulls, which are prized beyond value as trophies of war, and sought for under all circumstances, fair or unfair, by the young men, who, without such proof of valor, can never venture to aspire to the dignity of matrimony.

It is on the high lands over-run by

these terrible nordes of head-hunters that the extensive forests of laurel which supply practically the whole world with camphor are found.

Dating from the year 1895 the annual production has amounted to, in round figures, 7,000,000 pounds. China produces about 200,000, Japan something like 300,000, and Borneo a trifle under 100,000 pounds per annum.

Japan has recently enacted laws converting the trade of Formosa into a Government monopoly which in addition to regulating the output will tend to introduce a measure of stability in the matter of price.

The Government grants permits to a limited number of individuals or companies to engage in collecting, insists

upon the planting of a new tree to take the place of each one felled (the destruction of the tree being necessary in obtaining the gum), purchases the entire product of a fixed price and furnishes soldiers to act as guards to the camps. There are at present about 1,500 of the regular Japanese army on this duty, but as the area to be patrolled is very large and difficult to travel, the protection is by no means efficient, and camps are frequently raided and the adventurous members butchered.

The mode of obtaining camphor is very primitive and curious. Usually a hardwood tree is felled, and the trunk hollowed out into the form of a long trough, the bottom of which is covered with a thick layer of adhesive clay nearly approaching in its qualities the ordinary fire clay used in foundries.

This trough, supported at its extremities, is filled with water, and a wood fire built beneath it.

Above, and covering the trough, to

which its edges are cemented with clay, is a plank perforated with a number of round holes, from two to three inches in diameter. Over these holes chips of camphor wood are piled, each pile being Covered with an inverted pot made of clay and similar in shape to a common flower pot.

When the water boils, the steam rising through the holes disintegrates the camphor gum from the chips that contain it, and the sublimated camphor crystalizes upon the inside of the pots. The crude product is then dumped into vats furnished with holes for drainage, an! beneath, in vessels placed for the purpose, is gathered a yellow oleaginous fluid known to trade as camphor oil, which is in great demand in China, being considered by the medical faculty to be a certain cure for rheumatism, and it is also used in America and Europe in correction with arts and medicine.

When drainage is completed the cam phor and oil are packed in tubs and car

ried, slung on poles between two men, to the chief city and center of trade, Tai-wan-foo, there to be delivered to the Government official appointed to receive them, and afterwards distributed amongst the four quarters of the globe.

The process of production by the aid of such old-time methods is naturally slow and tedious, but no doubt in the near future various improvements will be introduced which will greatly facilitate the work, for the Japanese are evincing a dec. ledly progressive spirit of late, particularly in the management of Government business.

To illustrate the perils that beset those engaged in the trade of collecting, we cannot do better than describe the fate tnat befell a party in 1884.

This was, of course, before Japan had acquired control, but though conditions are somewhat better now, the same dangers exist in a modified form.

An Englishman named John Bennett, in partnership with an American, from somewhere in Illinois, by the name of Bud Walker, landed at Takao, a town on the southwest coast.

They arrived with all the outfit necessary to enable them to conduct business on a large scale; engaged the services of a German named Heinz as a sort of foreman, twenty-two Chinese coolies and a cook of the same nationality, and then shipped with all their belongings, on board a small schooner which they had chartered, and bore away to round the southern point of the island, with a view to making a landing at some convenient spot on the east side, which they could use as a base for their operations in the forests.

Their better plan would undoubtedly have been to strike directly overland from Takao, but it transpired that Bennett had a notion that not only would they obtain better results by exploiting the forests on the east, but that they might also evade the impositions of the Chinese officials who collected taxes, by shipping their produce from that side, as the Chinese were particularly chary about encroaching upon the domains of the barbarian races who made their homes in the intervening highlands.

It may truly be said that this attempt

at evasion of taxation was wrong, but it must be remembered that at that time the Chinese Government farmed out its taxes, and the consequences of such a policy were most disastrous to the unfortunate debtors, white men being squeezed to the uttermost cent that their business would permit of, and the bastinado being brought into requisition in the case of natives, either Chinese or aborigines. Misfortune pursued the expedition from the first.

The schooner ("Colleen Bawn") was caught in a heavy "nor'wester" off the South Cape, and the Captain swept overboard and lost.

There was but one other white man in the crew, the mate.

His name was Gilchrist, and by almost superhuman efforts he managed to preserve the craft through the terrific storm, repaired damages, and eventually made the land, finding convenient anchorage and shelter in a small creek.

A storehouse was built of bamboo and thatch, and all the impedimenta landed and stored away to the best advantage, the schooner being safely moored close to the shore.

Over four months passed before the party had, by exploring, fixed upon the best route leading to a suitable collection of trees to commence work upon.

The pathway was cleared of undergrowth and other obstructions, and whilst Gilchrist and his crew of Malay sailors remained on the beach, Bennett and his party at the felling camp began operations.

The coolies, under the guidance of Heinz, who was the only practical man, chopped down the most promising trees and converted them into chips, the distillation, draining, and packing being superintended by Bennett and Walker.

For nearly three months, during which time they had seen no signs of natives, although one or other of the white men had frequently penetrated several miles into the forests hunting for wild boar, deer, and other game to supply the camp with fresh food, the results of their labors were all that could be desired.

However, one day Heinz took the back trail in charge of ten coolies conveying five tubs of camphor.