Don’t worry Ujiji is just part of a question in today’s selection, you don’t have to know where it is to score a point. Although if you do, give yourself a bonus.
The rest of the questions are easy, difficult and some somewhere in between.
But you won’t find out unless you give them a try.
And, as always, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
So enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: In which country is the Province of Lapland to be found?
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Q. 2: An ‘Anemometer’ measures what?
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Q. 3: What are baby beavers called?
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Q. 4: What is the name of the smallest and southernmost region of mainland Portugal, known primarily for tourism?
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Q. 5: What quantity is measured in ‘Amperes’ ?
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Q. 6: In the human body what is the more common name for the ‘clavicle’ ?
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Q. 7: What is the name of the main airport, one of the busiest in the world, that serves the city of Chicago?
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Q. 8: What color is the innermost zone in an archery target?
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Q. 9: What vegetable is used if a dish is cooked ‘Florentine’ ?
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Q. 10: How many compartments does a cow’s stomach have?
a) 2 b) 4 c) 6 d) 8
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Q. 11: Who said “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” at Ujiji?
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Q. 12: Which novel is the story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza?
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Q. 13: Where would you find the ‘Sea of Tranquility’ ?
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Q. 14: How many British MPs are there currently in the House of Commons?
a) 450 b) 550 c) 650 d) 750
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Q. 15: And a related question, the ‘Storting’ is the parliament of which country?
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Q. 16: Which field sport involves teams of 10 for men and 12 for women each carrying a netted stick with which a ball is caught, carried or thrown?
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Q. 17: Who flew ‘Spirit of St Louis’ across the Atlantic to make the first solo flight across that ocean in 1927?
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Q. 18: Who wrote ‘The Day of the Jackal’, a story about an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle?
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Q. 19: Which French king built the Palace of Versailles?
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Q. 20: True or false, Miley Cyrus is the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: In which country is the Province of Lapland to be found?
A. 1: Finland.
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Q. 2: An ‘Anemometer’ measures what?
A. 2: It measures wind speed.
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Q. 3: What are baby beavers called?
A. 3: They are called ‘Kits’.
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Q. 4: What is the name of the smallest and southernmost region of mainland Portugal, known primarily for tourism?
A. 4: It is known as the ‘Algarve’.
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Q. 5: What quantity is measured in ‘Amperes’ ?
A. 5: Electric current.
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Q. 6: In the human body what is the more common name for the ‘clavicle’ ?
A. 6: The collarbone.
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Q. 7: What is the name of the main airport, one of the busiest in the world, that serves the city of Chicago?
A. 7: It is known as ‘O’Hare Airport’.
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Q. 8: What color is the innermost zone in an archery target?
A. 8: Gold.
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Q. 9: What vegetable is used if a dish is cooked ‘Florentine’ ?
A. 9: Popeye’s favorite, ‘Spinach’.
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Q. 10: How many compartments does a cow’s stomach have?
a) 2 b) 4 c) 6 d) 8
A. 10: The correct answer is b) 4.
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Q. 11: Who said “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” at Ujiji?
A. 11: (Henry Morton) Stanley. (You get the point for ‘Stanley’.)
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Q. 12: Which novel is the story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza?
A. 12: Don Quixote.
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Q. 13: Where would you find the ‘Sea of Tranquility’ ?
A. 13: On the Moon.
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Q. 14: How many British MPs are there currently in the House of Commons?
a) 450 b) 550 c) 650 d) 750
A. 14: The correct answer is c) 650.
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Q. 15: And a related question, the ‘Storting’ is the parliament of which country?
A. 15: Norway.
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Q. 16: Which field sport involves teams of 10 for men and 12 for women each carrying a netted stick with which a ball is caught, carried or thrown?
A. 16: Lacrosse.
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Q. 17: Who flew ‘Spirit of St Louis’ across the Atlantic to make the first solo flight across that ocean in 1927?
A. 17: Charles Lindbergh.
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Q. 18: Who wrote ‘The Day of the Jackal’, a story about an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle?
A. 18: Frederick Forsythe.
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Q. 19: Which French king built the Palace of Versailles?
A. 19: Louis XIV.
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Q. 20: True or false, Miley Cyrus is the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus?
Fifty-one years ago today the United States 35th President, John F Kennedy, was assassinated at Dealy Plaza, in Dallas, Texas. We all know the story and the various conspiracy theories that have been written about ad nauseam over the past half century so this post is not about that.
Rather it is about one of the legacies of the JFK name, the USS John F Kennedy, the only ship of her class (a variant of the Kitty Hawk class of aircraft carrier) and the last conventionally powered carrier built for the United States Navy.
Although it was retired in 2007 after nearly 40 years of service in the United States Navy, the Kennedy was a very impressive ship. For those who like the details it measures 1,052 feet long, has a beam of 130 feet, and draws 37 feet of water. The flight deck is 1,046 feet by 252 feet.
The JFK displaces 81,430 tons at full load and her compliment is 155 officers, 2,775 enlisted (ship’s company), and 2,160 enlisted and 320 officers (embarked air wing).
it’s top speed is 32 knots, and her cruising speed is 20 knots. The operational range at 30 knots is 4,000 miles while the maximum cruising range is 12,000 miles.
USS JFK is equipped with 4 aircraft elevators and features 4 steam-powered catapults and 4 arresting wires. The carrier was capable of launching and recovering aircraft simultaneously and could embark 80+ aircraft, depending on mission requirements.
Aircraft on board included 56 F/A-18 hornet strike fighters, 6 S-3B Viking ASW aircraft, 4 EA-6B Prowler offensive electronic warfare aircraft, 4 E-2C Hawkeye electronic early warning aircraft, 2 ES-3A Shadow electronic warfare (SIGINT) aircraft, 4 SH-60F Seahawk ASW helicopters, and 2 HH-60H Seahawk combat search and rescue aircraft.
Its armaments included two Mk 29 Sea Sparrow Guided Missile Launch Systems, two RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) systems, and two Mk 15 Phalanx 20mm CIWS (Close In Weapon System.)
During it’s service it was stationed some of the time in the Mediterranean area.
If you have never seen one of these babies up close and personal and wanted to get an idea of just how big and impressive they are have a look at the aeriel photograph below, taken as the JFK berthed at the island of Malta.
Compared to the houses, cars and people you can see in the shot I’m not sure the word ‘big’ is big enough to describe it.
I mean I wouldn’t want to mess with it. Would you?
Hi and welcome to fact day which does, as the title suggests, include an amazing fact about the number of ants ib the world. They may not be in your pants, but keep a look out just in case!
And now for the facts.
Enjoy.
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Halloween, which we’ve all just endured another year,
is thought to have originated around 4000 B.C.,
which means Halloween has been around for over 6,000 years
and is one of the oldest celebrations in the world.
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Most vegetables and almost all fruits contain
a small amount of alcohol in them.
Cheers!
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Some scientific studies suggest there are about
10,000,000,000,000,000 individual ants
alive on Earth at any given time.
Ants are estimated to represent about 15–20%
of the total terrestrial animal biomass,
which exceeds that of the vertebrates.
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When Pluto was discovered it was initially
believed to be larger than Earth.
Now astronomers know that it’s about
1,455 miles (2,352 kilometers) across,
less than 20 percent as big as the Earth.
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Thomas Stewart Armistead was a Confederate officer
who fought bravely in the American Civil War.
After being wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness he
was captured and placed in a camp near Morris Island
where the Union authorities used him as a human
shield to prevent fire from nearby Confederate artillery batteries.
Thomas Stewart Armistead and 599 other Confederate officers
who had also been captured became known as “The Immortal 600.”
When, on November 16, 1922, Armistead died at the age of 80 he
was the last survivor and member of “The Immortal 600.”
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The American football team the Baltimore Ravens are named
in honor of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem ‘The Raven’.
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The construction of the Great Wall of China took over 2 thousands years,
the very first parts being built as early as in the 8th century BC.
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Table for one, sir?
Amsterdam´s restaurant At Eenmaal,
founded by social designer Marina van Goor,
has become famous because the only type of table
that you can find in the restaurant is a table for one.
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The largest thermometer in the world is 134-feet-tall (40.843m)
and was built by businessman Willis Herron in Baker, California.
The thermometer is supposed to serve as a memento of
the highest recorded temperature in the U.S.
measured in nearby Death Valley
– 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.6 Celsius) in 1913.
The thermometer is no longer in operation,
and was put up for sale in January 2013.
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In 410 A.D. Alaric the Visigoth demanded that Rome give
him three thousand pounds of pepper as ransom,
an amount not to be sneezed at.
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Abu Nasr Isma’il ibn Hammad al-Jawhari was an author of
a notable Arabic dictionary containing about 40,000 entries.
He is also remembered in Arabic history for
his attempt to fly with wooden wings.
He leapt from the roof of a mosque in the old town of Nishapur,
whereupon gravity took control and
he promptly hit the ground and was killed.
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If you spray an antiseptic spray on a polar bear,
its fur will turn purple.
I wonder who got close enough to find that one out?
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The Japanese Empire was the largest maritime empire in history,
spanning more than 7 million square kilometers and gained such
notoriety that it took atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
plus plenty of other battles to defeat it.
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The movie that grossed the most money that was
adapted from a T.V. cartoon is Scooby-Doo
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Quite often when a book is made into a movie a lot of things get changed.
Sometimes this spoils the story for those who have read the book,
other times it can improve it.
In Robert Bloch’s novel the main character ‘Norman Bates’
was short, fat, older, and very dislikable.
In Alfred Hitchcock’s movie version, however,
he was young, handsome, and sympathetic, and one
of the most well-known characters in film history.
I suppose I should have said Panama hats off because that’s one of today’s questions.
You will also need to have a sprinkling of knowledge about marbles, wars, cooking and even fairytales to stack up the points today.
But if you get stuck, as always, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: An easy one to start with, where did Panama hats originate?
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Q. 2: What are toy marbles made from?
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Q. 3: How long did the ‘100 Years War’ last?
a) 106 years b) 116 years c) 126 years
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Q. 4: what is the only mobile National Monument in the USA?
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Q. 5: Here’s one for all you beer drinkers, in what month is the world famous ‘Munich Oktoberfest’ beer festival held?
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Q. 6: It contains beef or pork, but what is the main ingredient of the thick and spicy soup known as ‘Borscht’ that originated in Ukraine but is also popular in many Eastern and Central European countries.
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Q. 7: What type of building is a ‘picture palace’?
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Q. 8: From which part of its body does a cow, and presumably also a bull, sweat?
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Q. 9: How many sides has a ‘Prism’?
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Q. 10: What type of creature is a ‘horned toad’?
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Q. 11: Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
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Q. 12: What sort of fruit is a ‘Chinese gooseberry’?
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Q. 13: In the original French medieval version of the story of ‘Cinderella’ (which gave us the modern Western version) what were Cinderella’s slippers made from?
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Q. 14: In sunscreen lotions, what does the abbreviation ‘SPF’ stand for?
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Q. 15: What do bullet proof vests, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
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Q. 16: What is the most prevalent infectious disease in the UK?
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Q. 17: A ‘mahout’ is a person who works with and rides what?
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Q. 18: How many times was Richard Burton nominated for an Oscar and how many times did he win? (A point for each correct answer.)
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Q. 19: Which breed of cats, rabbits, and goats have the same name?
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Q. 20: Finally, a guy is condemned to death and has three rooms to choose from and he must choose one of them. Room #1 contains a fiery inferno; room #2 contains 50 Assassins with loaded guns; and room #3 contains hungry lions that haven’t eaten in three months. Which room should he choose?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: An easy one to start with, where did Panama hats originate?
A. 1: Okay, maybe not so easy, they originated in Ecuador.
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Q. 2: What are toy marbles made from?
A. 2: Although called ‘marbles’ they are made from ‘glass’.
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Q. 3: How long did the ‘100 Years War’ last?
a) 106 years b) 116 years c) 126 years
A. 3: The correct answer is b) 116 years.
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Q. 4: what is the only mobile National Monument in the USA?
A. 4: San Francisco cable cars.
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Q. 5: Here’s one for all you beer drinkers, in what month is the world famous ‘Munich Oktoberfest’ beer festival held?
A. 5: In September.
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Q. 6: It contains beef or pork, but what is the main ingredient of the thick and spicy soup known as ‘Borscht’ that originated in Ukraine but is also popular in many Eastern and Central European countries.
A. 6: The main ingredient of ‘Borscht’ is beetroot.
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Q. 7: What type of building is a ‘picture palace’?
A. 7: It would be understandable if you said art gallery, but in fact a ‘picture palace’ was the name given to a cinema or theater for showing movies.
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Q. 8: From which part of its body does a cow, and presumably also a bull, sweat?
A. 8: Its nose.
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Q. 9: How many sides has a ‘Prism’?
A. 9: Five.
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Q. 10: What type of creature is a ‘horned toad’?
A. 10: A ‘horned toad’ is a lizard.
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Q. 11: Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. 11: Their birthplace.
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Q. 12: What sort of fruit is a ‘Chinese gooseberry’?
A. 12: It is a Kiwifruit. It originated in China but renamed kiwifruit by growers/exporters in New Zealand.
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Q. 13: In the original French medieval version of the story of ‘Cinderella’ (which gave us the modern Western version) what were Cinderella’s slippers made from?
A. 13: They were made from squirrel fur which when you think about it is a lot more sensible than glass. The reason we ended up with a glass slipper is because the French word for squirrel fur is ‘vair’, which was misunderstood by Charles Perrault, writer of the modern version, to be verre, which means glass. You got it wrong Charlie and I guess so did most people who answered this question!
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Q. 14: In sunscreen lotions, what does the abbreviation ‘SPF’ stand for?
A. 14: ‘SPF’ stands for Sun Protection Factor.
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Q. 15: What do bullet proof vests, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
A. 15: They were all invented by women.
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Q. 16: What is the most prevalent infectious disease in the UK?
A. 16: The Common Cold.
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Q. 17: A ‘mahout’ is a person who works with and rides what?
A. 17: Elephants.
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Q. 18: How many times was Richard Burton nominated for an Oscar and how many times did he win? (A point for each correct answer.)
A. 18: Richard Burton was nominated seven times for an Oscar and surprisingly never won any. The correct answers are 7 and 0.
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Q. 19: Which breed of cats, rabbits, and goats have the same name?
A. 19: Angora.
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Q. 20: Finally, a guy is condemned to death and has three rooms to choose from and he must choose one of them. Room #1 contains a fiery inferno; room #2 contains 50 Assassins with loaded guns; and room #3 contains hungry lions that haven’t eaten in three months. Which room should he choose?
A. 20: He should choose room #3 because the lions would be dead if they hadn’t eaten in three months.
I think I prefer the final one the best because of its irony and the fact that it illustrates that people can sometimes delude and convince themselves into believing they saw what the really didn’t.
Anyway, here they are, so choose your own favorite, but whatever you do….
Enjoy.
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The US Constitution contains many
spelling and grammatical errors.
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The term ‘Lunatic’ is derived from the Latin word ‘luna’ meaning ‘moon’.
It originated from the belief that insanity is caused by changes in the moon.
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Thirty-three light years away there is an
exoplanet completely covered in burning ice.
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James Stephen “Steve” Fossett was an American businessman,
and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer
who, in 2002, became the first person to
fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon.
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At its peak the Roman Empire
stretched for 2.51 million square miles,
but it was only the 19th largest empire in history.
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Throughout the 1800s people were buried alive so often
that coffins included mechanisms to allow those people
to ring a bell in the graveyard.
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Homer and Langley Collyer, two compulsive hoarders,
were found buried beneath a collapsed pile of
the things they had stored in their house over the years.
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The last time a cavalry charge was used on the battlefield
was during WWII when a Mongolian cavalry division
charged a German infantry division.
Two thousand Mongolians were killed
and not a single German died.
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In ancient Egypt some servants were covered in honey
to attract flies away from the pharaoh.
(I suppose it’s better than the alternative!)
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June 28, 2014 was the 100 year anniversary of the assassination
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria,
heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
who was killed in Sarajevo along with his wife Duchess Sophie
by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip.
This was the incident that led to the Great War,
also now known as World War I.
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Although several notable people died on the toilet,
one of the most famous is probably Elvis Presley.
Doctors attributed his death to too many prescription drugs.
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When pizza deliveryman Brian Wells
was stopped by the police in the middle of a bank robbery
no one believed his story that he had been forced to do it
by some people he had delivered pizza to.
He kept on pleading with the officers saying that
the necklace he was wearing was a bomb.
Unfortunately for him though,
the bomb squad didn’t show up early enough.
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Almost one-seventh (840) of all the languages on Earth
are spoken in one country…
Papua New Guinea.
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When it was first built,
Disney’s Tomorrowland
was supposed to represent
the far off future year of 1986.
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A famous proponent of healthy eating and organic farming,
Jerome Irving Rodale died of a heart attack
while being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
Some of his last words were that [he] would
“live to 100, unless [he was] run down by a a sugar-crazy taxi driver”.
Appearing fast asleep during the show, Dick Cavett joked
“Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?”
before discovering that his 72-year-old guest had indeed died.
I know it’s June but you will see later why the title says April. The fools bit is appropriate all year round for these guys as will also become clear.
Now for the story.
A cunning master criminal and his accomplice were caught after a burglary attempt at a place of business in Maplewood, Minnesota, thanks to an alert police dispatcher and a real dumb-ass criminal.
As a result Todd J. Weiss 32, from Minnetonka and his sidekick Justin G. Evans, 38, from Savage, were arrested at the scene. Both face third-degree felony burglary charges.
The incident took place around 4:45 a.m. April 1 (Fools Day appropriately enough, hence the title).
Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell said a 911 dispatcher first got a call and hang-up, then another call from the same number.
The second time, the call stayed open. The dispatcher overheard pieces of a conversation about where police were and the dangers of getting caught.
“If it goes off, they are right across the street,” one of the men said, according to the charges.
Police Chief Schnell said it was “pretty clear based on some of that conversation that this was a burglary”.
The phone had been in Weiss’s pocket and whatever he was doing at the time, he had inadvertently pressed the phone’s emergency-call feature, twice!!
As with all 911 calls, the dispatcher could see the location of the caller, in this case a car-repair shop at White Bear Avenue and County Road D.
Officers arrived to see the two men leaving the building wearing dark clothing, the charges said. One was carrying a television, the other a box.
Upon seeing the officers, the men dropped their booty and ran for it. Officers ordered them to stop, then sent police dogs to nab them.
Weiss refused to speak to police after he was read his Miranda rights. Evans said he had taken more than a dozen Xanax and the police report confirmed that he “appeared to be under the influence of the substance”.
He denied being inside the business, saying he was outside behind nearby apartments having relations with his girlfriend.
Both men’s criminal histories include burglary and theft, according to Minnesota court records.
Police Chief Schnell rightly praised the 911 operator, but it has to be said that morons like these who phone 911 while burglarizing a property make it a bit too easy for the cops to catch them.
One of my blog friends, Kenton over at the Jittery Goat, wrote a post recently as part of the daily prompt series about the first book/story he read that gave him an interest in reading and writing. His choice was a good one, “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
On a few occasions I have been asked the same thing and it is a very good question to put to anyone who is interested in either reading or writing or both.
When I was growing up the main influence as regards reading and writing was school. I’m sure that is the same for many of you. I was both fortunate and unfortunate here.
For a few years I had an excellent English teacher. Someone who was interested in the subject she taught, but someone who was equally interested in passing on her enthusiasm for reading and writing to her pupils. She was a great teacher and a great influence on her pupils. One could not but develop a taste for English literature, for exploring other writers and for writing too.
Now for the bad news.
As happens in schools, as you progress through the grades sometimes your teachers change. And unfortunately mine did.
I got lumbered with the most awful teacher there has probably ever been. Another woman, but this woman was one of those self-absorbed dullards who would probably have made any subject the most boring and tedious thing in the world.
She could take the most exciting story and just drain the life out of it. With poetry she did the very same, just killed it stone dead with her monotonous voice and her complete lack of feeling for the subject.
Watching the proverbial paint drying or concrete setting was real exciting stuff compared to this woman’s classes!
The result?
Sadly, for a few years she turned me, and I would guess almost all her pupils completely off both reading and writing. I will never forgive her for that.
However time passed and although I’m not sure how exactly it happened, I got the urge to start to read again. Perhaps to ease myself back into it I decided to start with some short stories rather than a long book or novel.
And what a great choice that turned out to be.
The first story I read in my new life as a reader once again was called “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”. It was a tale set during the American Civil War and was written by Ambrose Bierce, who himself was a veteran of that war, and a gentleman of whom you will hear a lot more in future fasab posts.
And so I have been reading and writing ever since, mostly for my own amusement and occasionally, as in this blog, also for the amusement of others.
I’d be interested to find out what you make of this story so I have reproduced it below. If you are unfamiliar with it, or want to refresh you memory if you have read it before, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.
And when you are finished let me know what you make of it.
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AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE
by
Ambrose Bierce
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A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners–two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain.
A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest–a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.
Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground–a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators–a single company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock.
A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.
The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace.
These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift–all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality.
He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by– it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and–he knew not why–apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
II
Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime.
Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.
One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”
“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.
“About thirty miles.”
“Is there no force on this side of the creek?”
“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.”
“Suppose a man–a civilian and student of hanging–should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar, smiling, “what could he accomplish?”
The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder.”
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.
III
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened–ages later, it seemed to him–by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity.
They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness — of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! — the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible!
He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface — knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought, “that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! — what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor!
Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck.
He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf–he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass.
The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat — all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears.
Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly — with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men — with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
Farquhar dived — dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream — nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.
The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:
“The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!”
An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.
“They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me–the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.”
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round — spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color — that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream — the southern bank — and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Aeolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape — he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.
All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which — once, twice, and again–he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them.
His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue — he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene — perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon — then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
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If you prefer to listen while you do something else, here is an audio version of the story:
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part one of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part two of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part three of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part four of four
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