Illustration: HON. HENRY P. CHEATHAM,

Late Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. Born in North
Carolina Forty Odd Years Ago--Educated in Public Schools and "Shaw
University"--Register of Deeds for his County--Elected to the
Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congress--Able and Progressive.]

After being domiciled we proceeded with the resident superintendent to
view the company's property, comprising several thousand acres. Rising
in altitude, and on different levels, as we approached Mt. Seymour,
croppings of coal were quite frequent, the broken and scattered veins
evidencing volcanic disturbance. The vein most promising was several
hundred feet above the level of the sea, and our intended wharf survey
was made, which showed heavy cuttings and blasting to obtain grade for
the road. The work was pushed with all the vigor the isolated locality
and climatic conditions allowed. Rain almost incessant was a great
impediment, as well as were the occasional strikes of the Indian labor,
which was never for more wages, but for more time. The coal from the
croppings which had been at first obtained for testing, had been carried
by them in bags, giving them in the "coin of the realm" so many pieces
of tobacco for each bag delivered on the ship. There was plenty of time
lying around on those trips, and they took it. On the advent of the new
era they complained that "King George men" took all the time and gave
them none, so they frequently quit to go in quest. The nativity of my
skilled labor was a piece of national patchwork--a composite of the
canny Scotch, the persistent and witty Irish, the conservative but
indomitable English, the effervescent French, the phlegmatic German, and
the irascible Italian. I found this variety beneficial, for the usual
national and race bias was sufficiently in evidence to preclude a
combination to retard the work. I had three Americans, that were neither
white nor colored; they were born black; one of them--Tambry, the
cook--will ever have my grateful remembrance for his fatherly kindness
and attention during an illness.

The conditions there were such that threw many of my men off their feet.
Women and liquor had much the "right of way." I was more than ever
impressed with the belief that there was nothing so conclusive to a
worthy manhood as self-restraint, both morally and physically, and the
more vicious and unrestraining the environment the greater the
achievement. Miners had been at wor