It did not appear to me that this was such a stupendous feat as to need
commemoration, so I turned down a side-street and walked on. In a few
minutes I met a pump standing in the middle of the road. I saw there
was an inscription on this too, and tried to avoid it, but a fatal
fascination drew me on, and I read:--
“This pump was erected for the benefit of the thirsty wayfarer during
the Governorship of Colonel Luke S. O’Connor, A.D. ----.”
I began to get rather tired of this, and turned towards the country,
where I thought there could not be any more advertisements of this
kind. I passed a dilapidated battery, which bore testimony in letters
of stone to the worth of the departed monarch, Colonel Luke S. O’Connor
the First, and approached the Colonial Hospital. From afar off I
perceived a slab of darker stone let into the masonry of the wall, and
I turned my head the other way. It was no use, I could not pass it, and
I groaned in spirit as I read:--
“This building was enlarged during the Administration of Colonel S.
Luke O’Connor, Governor, A.D. ----.”
I staggered away and wandered into a neglected grave-yard by the side
of the path to Oyster Creek. I was in hopes that I might be able to
sooth my mind by finding the grave of this departed potentate; but,
alas! after a long search I only found a tomb which bore the following
remarkable epitaph:
“Sacred to the memory of the bodies of three sailors, which were washed
on shore on March ----, A.D. ----. This monument was erected during the
Administration of Colonel Luke S. O’Connor, Governor.”
I left hastily. That man was not going to let his fame languish and die
for want of a few monumental inscriptions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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