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- 180 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
To show the respect and love of the people for this good and great man, I have added the account of his burial. The late Governor Johnson paid a visit to Victoria about a year before his death, and I am sorry I was not aware of the fact until it was too late, as I should have esteemed it an honor to have shaken hands with him :
" St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 23.-While the body of Governor John A. Johnson, of Minnesota, was being lowered into its grave this afternoon all industrial activity in the state was stopped for five minutes as a tribute to the memory of the dead Governor.
" The body, which had been lying in state in the rotunda of the capitol since yesterday, where it was guarded by officers and privates of the state militia, was taken to the railroad station at 9.15 this morning, escorted by ten companies of militia, preceded by a band of one hundred pieces.
"At the station the body was placed abroad a special train which left for St. Peter, Minn., where interment took place this afternoon at three o'clock. The funeral services were held in the St. Peter Presbyterian Church, where Johnson sang in the choir when a boy. While the services were in progress at St. Peter's, memorial services were held in all the churches in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The public schools are closed to-day, and the whole state is in mourning."
CHAPTER XXIV.
A TRIP TO A CORAL ISLAND.
THE Ladrone Islands, which from time immemorial have belonged to Spain, now, as is well known, belong to the United States. There is a cable station on the chief island, Guam. The Ladrone Islands lie off the coast of the Philippines, and are about three thousand miles from the Hawaiian Islands in a west-southwest direction. The Island of Guam has about five thousand inhabitants, mostly Philipinos, natives, Chinese and Europeans. Guam, with its sandy beach, its cocoanut trees and coral strand, puts one much in mind of the coral islands of story books, where an open boat with boys of various ages have landed from some wrecked vessel, and lived on fish, berries and cocoanuts, not for-getting wild pigs and goats. Altogether it is typical of what all boys read and would like to read again.
The coins used in trade are all Spanish, mostly of copper, but silver is also used. The natives make mats, just such as our natives used to make years ago in British Columbia, so finely woven as to hold water. Water is carried in the Ladrone Islands in bamboos, the divisions being cut out, and the whole bamboo filled with water and carried on the shoulder. The usual vehicle is a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a bull with long horns, the reins being fastened to the horns; certain pulls on each horn turn him to left or right. They trot along like ponies. The ruins exist of a Spanish church
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