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Show 48 BY PATH AND TRAIL. formance with those of civilized man in ancient and mod ern times, the Yaqui, all things considered, wins the lau rel crown. Pliny records that Anystrs, of Sparta, and Philonedes, the herald of Alexander the Great, divid ing the distance between them, covered 160 miles in twenty- four hours. Herodotus tells us that Phieddip-pides, the pan- Hellenic champion, traversed 135 miles over very rocky territory, and in gruelling weather, in less than two days, carried to Sparta the news of the advancing Persians. He almost attained an apotheosis in reward for his endurance; showing that, even among the athletic Greeks the feat was deemed an extraordi nary performance. History also credits Areus with win ning the Dolichos, of two and a half miles, in a fraction less than twelve minutes, at the Olympic game, s, and straightway starting on a homeward run of sixty miles, to be the first to bear the joyous news to his native vil lage. In recent times, Bowell, of England, in 1882, trav eled 150 miles in twenty- two hours and thirty minutes, and Fitzgerald, in Madison Square Garden, went, in 1886, on a quarter- mile circular track, ninety miles in twelve hours. Longboat, the Oneida Indian from the Brantford reservation, Canada, won the Boston Mara thon, twenty- six miles, in two hours and twenty- four minutes. These modern feats, however, were per formed over carefully prepared courses and ought not to take rank with the rough mountain and desert races of the Yaquis and Tarahumaris. The race of six years ago was run over the same course as the former, and was the same distance, that is, ninety miles. Piles of blankets, bridles and saddles, bunches of cows, sheep, goats and burros were bet on the result, and, when the race was over, the Yaqui braves |