A "Rain of Blood"

Captain Joshua Slocum was the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat. Spray. In 1900, he published a best-selling book about the trip, Sailing Alone Around the World. The book has become a classic of nonfiction sea adventure prose. In the passage below, Slocum describes a strange natural phenomenon that occurred during his stay in Melbourne, Australia.

The Spray (From: Wikipedia)

It took him three years, 1895-1898, to accomplish this feat. He sailed a 37-foot yawl that he built himself while in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He called it the

"I should mention that while I was at Melbourne there occurred one of those extraordinary storms sometimes called 'rain of blood,' the first of the kind in many years about Australia. The 'blood' came from a fine brick-dust matter afloat in the air from the deserts. A rain-storm setting in brought down this dust simply as mud; it fell in such quantities that a bucketful was collected from the sloop's [Spray] awnings, which were spread at the time. When the wind blew hard and I was obliged to furl awnings, her sails, unprotected on the booms, got mud-stained from clue to earing.

"Red dust storm at Belmore Bridge, Maitland, New South Wales, Australia"
(From: Wikimedia Commons)

The phenomena of dust-storms, well understood by scientists, are not uncommon on the coast of Africa. Reaching some distance out over the sea, they frequently cover the track of ships, as in the case of the one through which the Spray passed in the earlier part of her voyage. Sailors no longer regard them with superstitious fear, but our credulous brothers on the land cry out 'Rain of blood!' at the first splash of the awful mud." (p. 177, Dover Edition, 1956) --Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World

Chasing a Moonshiner "Far and Squar"

A policeman with wrecked automobile and
confiscated moonshiner, 1922. Pairing this picture with
the story here is not quite accurate. The story here about
"Byron" probably happened in either the 1950s or 1960s.
(From: Wikipedia) 

"'The facets of human nature are never in greater play.' These are Byron's words (though Byron is not his real name), which explain the fascination of his work to him and the common bond between the moonshiner, or blockader, and the revenuer. At their best, they respect each other as honorable men constantly testing each other over the years to determine whose skills are the sharper honed.

Once, for example, Byron was chasing a moonshiner's car through the mountains. He thought he was gaining ground when suddenly he missed a curve and spun into a ditch. The moonshiner could have made a clean getaway, but instead his car backed up as fast as he'd been moving forward.

'You hurt, captain?' asked the mountain man. He insisted on calling Byron captain, even though he'd only been a sergeant in the Marine Corps.

Then, however, he saw that Byron was unhurt and could back the car out of the ditch. 'How fur ahead of you was I?'

'Down to the turn, I think,' replied the revenue agent.

'Reckon it was a quarter mile more, captain.'

Byron knew that man was being truthful, according to the codes. If he or any other agent were to testify in court that a moonshiner on a chase was driving 120 miles per hour when he actually was doing only 90, that would not be playing 'far and squar.' An agent who lies is an unworthy competitor.

They resumed their positions and the pursuit went on. Byron failed to catch the man. The next time he came into Balsam Grove, he was asked with a smile, 'How's your driving, captain?'

And he was obliged to reply, 'Improving.'" (284)
--Michael Frome, Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains

Rogers, you're fired.

Harold L. Ickes was U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1933 to 1946. 

Harold L. Ickes (From: Wikipedia)

"Ickes was a strong member of Franklin Roosevelt's cabinet. He felt that he could resist, or even insult, members of the Senate... because he had the President's backing. He worked hard at conservation and left noteworthy accomplishments... However, he suffered from shortcomings in his own personality--which he recognized. He was temperamental, unpredictable, stubborn, given to tantrums, a many-sided man, difficult to understand, who could look out his office window and shudder with sentiment at the sight of a tree being removed from Rawlins Park, then turn around and blaspheme some well-intentioned and perfectly competent subordinate...

...a [national park] superintendent was summoned to his office. The man stood before his desk. The Secretary did not look up but continued working through his papers. 'Rogers,' said Ickes after a time, without ever greeting the man or even looking at him, 'you're fired.' The man's jaw dropped; he was wordless. Ickes continued with his desk work. The superintendent withdrew from the Secretary's office to national park headquarters, where he reported the grisly episode to Arthur E. Demaray, the Associate Director, whose special facility was handling Ickes. 'Don't worry,' Demaray directed. 'Go back to your park. We'll take care of it.' Not another word was heard from Ickes." (228) --Michael Frome, Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains 

Exterminating Indians in the Christian Way

"Yonaguska, or Ya'nu-gun'ski, Drowning Bear, is a key figure in the Smoky Mountains story. Others in Georgia played much larger roles in the history of the [Cherokee] Nation, but none meant more to the isolated mountain Cherokee. He is described as a handsome, tall man of six foot three, a powerful orator, and a prophet... he swore off whiskey and led his people in taking the pledge. Thus, during Yonaguska's lifetime the Smoky Mountain Cherokee were free of the historic cursed plague inflicted upon them from without. Since early days, traders had found it profitable to haul in liquor, legally or otherwise. Sometimes treaty commissioners weakened Indian opposition with doses of firewater. Its dangers were of grave concern to Cherokee leaders, who enacted strict laws regulating the sale of whiskey, which the whites persistently and successfully evaded...

Drowning Bear's principal influence, however, was in holding his people to the mountains and to the old religion of the mountains. He did not succomb to Christian missionaries, but after listening to one or two chapters of the Bible, remarked, 'It seems to be a good book--strange that the white people are not better, after having had it so long." (86) --Michael Frome, Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains

Drowning Bear died in 1839 at the age of sixty. His lifetime spanned a period of time in which the federal government made a series of forced treaties with the Cherokees that gradually took away their ancestral lands, culminating with the Trail of Tears in October 1838. 14,000 Cherokees were rounded up by the U.S. Army into concentration camps, then forced at gunpoint to march to Oklahoma. Several thousand died from starvation and weather exposure along the way. However, a small number of Cherokees managed to avoid the Trail of Tears by hiding out in the mountains. They are the ancestors of those Cherokees who today live in North Carolina. Drowning Bear was the leader of these fugitives.