724 STATE TREP:S AND FLOWERS. STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (BALFOUR). 



aded, and lately they have been supplied with 

 firearms by European and Japanese traders. 



Early in 18i)4 a large force of Malays from 

 Mindanao made an attack upon the Spanish 

 garrison on the island of Pantar. They were 

 repelled with a loss of 200 killed. Later the 

 Sultan of Ate attacked the military post of Le- 

 panto and captured it, carrying off 14 persons, 

 2 of whom, Spanish officers, were killed. In 

 a short time the natives of Mindanao and Jolo 

 were in open rebellion, and Gen. Blanco organ- 

 ized at Manilla an expedition of 3,000 men to 

 suppress the uprising. The fortifications erected 

 by the Spanish troops were attacked on May 8, 

 and the assailants were driven off, leaving 8 

 killed. A few weeks later the Malays surprised 

 a detachment of the colonial troops and killed 

 14 of them, including an officer, before they 

 were put to flight with a loss of 27 killed. On 

 July 24 the Spanish troops advanced on one of 

 the Malay positions and routed the Mussulmans, 

 killing 250. 



The troubles originated in a decision of the 

 Spanish authorities to impose a head tax through- 

 out their possessions. Ilaroun-al-Raschid, the 

 former Sultan of the Sulus, refusing to pay the 

 tax, was deposed, and Amir-al-Kirim was made 

 sultan on undertaking to collect the tax. He 

 assembled his people and stated that they must 

 either pay the tax or make war upon the Span- 

 iards. They declared unanimously for war, and 

 Amir-al-Kirim led them down to the coast, 

 whence they crossed over to Jolo, were admitted 

 to the fortress on the pretense of paying their 

 tax, and massacred the garrison and the ad- 

 herents of the Spaniards to the number of 1,000, 

 losing 150 of their own men. 



In Africa, Spain has. besides stations on the 

 coast of Morocco, the island of Fernando Po, 

 with its dependencies of Annobon, San Juan, 

 Corisco, and Elobey, the area being 850 square 

 miles, and the population 30,000. The coast 

 regions south of Morocco, from Cape Juby to 

 Cape Blanco, with Adrar, are acknowledged to 

 be a Spanish sphere of influence. In America, 

 the greatest of the Antilles is a Spanish colony 

 (see CUBA and PUERTO Rico). 



STATE TREES AM) FLOWERS. By a 

 law passed in 1888 the State of New York set 

 apart the Friday following the first day of May 

 in each year to be known as Arbor Day. Sev- 

 eral other States have also designated certain 

 days for the planting of trees in connection with 

 the work of their common schools. In several 

 of the States the observance of Arbor Day has 

 suggested the selection of a certain tree or flower, 

 or both, to be known as the State tree or the 

 State flower, The selection is usually made of 

 a tree or flower that is peculiar to, or a favorite 

 in the State; and the choice, which is usually 

 left to the pupils of the common schools, is often 

 preceded by a long and not always harmonious 

 contest. In the State of New York, for in- 

 stance, the election of 1890 showed a majority 

 for the golden-rod ; but thjre was so much dis- 

 satisfaction that the \ote was taken again in 

 1891, and the rose won by a majority of 88,414 

 in a total vote of 500.000. While the selection 

 of a State tree or flower is not yet general 

 throughout the United States, the custom seems 

 to be growing, and is likely to extend to all the 



States. The State trees and flowers thus far 

 selected are as follow : 



STEYENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (BAL- 

 FOUR), a Scotch novelist, essayist, and poet, 

 born in Edinburgh, Nov. 13, 1850 ; died at 

 Vailima, near Apia, Samoa, Dec. 3, 1894. lie 

 \\as the son of Thomas, and grandson of Robert 

 Stevenson, the celebrated engineers, especially 

 well known for their lighthouse building on the 

 rugged Scottish coast, nearly all the great lights 

 of whose circuit were their work many of them, 

 like that on Bell Rock, remarkable engineering 

 achievements. In this ancestry Stevenson felt a 

 pride often expressed in his writings notably in 

 his poem to his father and in that called " Sker- 

 ry vo re " : 



And bright on the lone isle, the foundered reef, 

 The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands. 

 These are thy works, O father, these thy crown. 



This thou hast done, and I can I be base ? . . . 



Say not of me that weakly I declined 

 The labors of my sires, and fled the sea, 

 The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, 

 To play at home with paper like a child. 

 But rather say : In the afternoon of time 

 A strenuous family dusted from its hands 

 Tke sand of granite, and beholding far 

 Along the' sounding coast its pyramids 

 And tall memorials catch the dying sun, 

 Smiled well content, and to this childish task 

 Around the fire addressed its evening hours. 



The Balfour in Stevenson's full name is the 

 name of his mother's family, also one of honor- 

 able achievement. 



Robert Louis was educated in Edinburgh at 

 private schools and at the university, and was 

 at first intended for his father's profession. " I 

 was educated for a civil engineer on my father's 

 design," he wrote some years ago in a letter to 

 an inquirer, " and was at the building of harbors 

 and lighthouses, and worked in a carpenter's 

 shop and a brass foimdry, and hung about wood- 

 yards and the like. Then it came out that I was 

 earning nothing, and on being tightly cross- 

 questioned during a dreadful evening walk, I 

 owned I cared for nothing but literature. My 

 father said that was no profession, but I might 

 be called to the bar if I chose ; so, at the age of 

 twenty-one, I began to study law." 



He actually qualified as an advocate of the 

 Scots bar, but seems never really to have varied 

 from what he calls in one of his essays " my 

 private determination to be an author." Passages 

 from this and earlier periods of his life may be 

 traced in plenty by his readers in his " Edin- 

 burgh," in the volume of collected papers called 

 " Memories and Portraits," and elsewhere in his 

 works; through them all runs the purpose of 

 authorship, and few men have told more fully 

 the methods by which they prepared themselves 

 for a vocation. He had contributed to a college 



