Adventure Magazine Cover — page 198: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

196 Asia. They were Nestorians, mostly, and built churches all the way into Sinkiang in China. Among such tribes as the Keraits, the Christians were very numerous—hence the Prester John legend. In the day of Genghis Khan these Nestorian Christians, the tribesmen of the Gobi region, had al- most forgotten ritual and reading, but clung to the symbol of the Cross, and to semi-barbaric prayers. They were probably better Christians than most of us in America today. Anyway, the Mongols were, literally, death to Muhammadans. But they dealt, for them, leniently with the semi-Christian Georgians of the Caucasus and really spared the Armenians. Marco Polo and the first Jesuits were kindly received at ““Kambalu’”’ Khan-Valigh—King’s City, and Kublai Khan is said to have been half-Christian in his ideals. The Nestorian churches still existed. Hulagu, the Mon- gol prince who conquered Bagdad, wiped out the Assassins, etc., and protected the Christians in his province. (I’ve read a contemporary Muhamma- dan account that complains of how the “cursed Nazarenes”’ put on their best garments, men, women and children, and paraded the streets openly, with songs, on the day that Hulagu issued his decree. Also, this Mongol threw open the Sepulchre to Chris- tians. His wife was one. His successor, Abaka, was also. At this time the Mongols in the Syria sector sent several letters to St. Louis, the Pope, etc., urging that the Franks and Mongols unite in driving the Moslems out of Syria and Egypt. But the Chris- tians were too busy scrapping among themselves. And when the Mongol khans requested priests from Europe, two or three barefoot Jesuits were sent, brave men, but lacking authority, prestige or pres- ence. By degrees the Mongols in Asia were con- verted to Buddhism, in Persia, the Black Sea region, etc., to Muhammadanism. So much for lost opportunity and the narrow- mindedness of our medieval European princes and Popes. We’ve sent enough missionaries since into all Asia and accomplished infinitely less than could have been accomplished then.—Harotp LAMB. HIS doesn’t answer a comrade’s query concerning ancient earthworks in Tennessee but it presents us with another set of earthworks to find out about. Will some archeologist or historian give us the answer? Cavanalee Farms, Russellville, Tennessee. Attention, ‘“Camp-Fire” of April 8, article by Carl Painter, Chattanooga, on prehistoric earth- works in Cumberland Mountains. All I know of them is that as far back as 1844 they were com- mented on but nobody knew anything. The article I read was in an old Southern Magazine of about that date. HERE is something on that order in my own neighborhood about three miles southeast of where I live. For identification, we call it the Whitesburg Silver Mine. It is prehistoric, for Adventure descendants of the old North Carolina “Land Granters”’ still live here, probably half the popula- tion, and there are no family legends of their working at it. About ten years ago we formed a small company of “gold hunters” and opened up one shaft. It went down forty feet and stopped square at solid rock. We then opened up another shaft. It went down to the same level and turned horizontally into the hill. We uncovered the chestnut timber sup- ports of the horizontal shaft and utilized them. There was a mud cave-in and we were afraid to go farther and the crowd did not care to spend any more money unless we knew what we were after. The formation of that district is peculiar and the rocks heavy. They may have iron or lead but I do not think there is any silver or gold. There was a tremendous amount of work done originally. Looks like regular railroad cuts. There is a local legend that the work was done by Spaniards from Mexico, that the Indians closed in on them one day and they put one part of their treasure in the shaft we failed to follow up, carried the balance to Bays Mountain and buried it. The Indians drove them across the Mississippi. This was a long chase, as I live in upper east Tennessee. In later years some of the Spaniards got together and started back. Yellow fever got them near Natchez. What I want to know is, if the yellow fever carried them off near Natchez, who preserved this message for the men who came with Boone?— H. G. PATTERSON. HAT he says would seem to be true—that he has employed his spare time in seeing the out-of-the- way corners of the earth. Major Charles Gilson follows Camp-Fire custom and rises to introduce himself on the occasion of his first story in our magazine. His work is well known in England. Though I’ve done a good deal of globe-trotting, I actually lived during the early years of my life in foreign countries. As a young soldier on foreign service, having no relations to speak of, I invariably employed my leave in out-of-the-way places. I started off in Malta, but was invalided home from there with Malta fever; but, though I very nearly died, went out to the Boer War in South Africa shortly afterward. There I marched on my flat feet as a company officer many thousands of miles; and my memories of that romantic country are still very fresh and delightful. I saw a great deal of very stiff fighting, and was not dangerously wounded until the last engagement in which my regiment took part. At Diamond Hill I had every man with me killed or wounded, but myself never got a scratch. For a time I was doing ox transport work, and al- though I was only a very young man at the time, about twenty-two years old, I had command of a big convoy, many thousands of oxen and hundreds of natives of all nationalities—Basutos, Zulus, Fin- gos, Cape Boys, Hottentots, etc. COMmMICLOOO CO