For the soldier in the far-away Philippines, death lurks in many
places. Perhaps it is the enemy in the open, or the shot from the
thicket, or the assassin’s knife in the dark. These are not the
deadliest foes, however. The cholera is everywhere. Man can guard
against the one, but he falls a victim to the other. Not long since
a certain constabulary officer had met the enemy and defeated them.
Before he reached camp on the return march, however, disease laid hold
upon him for its own. Ere he reached the camp he was dead. In trying to
explain that sudden demise, a companion of the march said:
When we stopt at shacks on the roadside and asked for water it
was furnished us in a coconut shell with the native’s thumb dipt
in and the water so muddy one could not see the bottom, but down
it went with some jest about a cool death.
The thumb of the native, dipt in the shell of water, brought death to
the drinker. There is another sort of cup in which lurks the serpent of
death--the wine cup.
(563)
=Contempt of Patriotism=--See MEMORIALS OF PATRIOTISM.