Diario las Américas Newspaper, February 7, 1954, Page 23

te : days, by municipal order, eon ducting business as usual. That the scene leaves a lasting impression on the traveler may be gathered from the following note received at the Travel Divi- sion: “From the early hours of the morning the farm-people come streaming into the city, bearing bundles of produce on their backs or packing it on don- keys, and driving before them cat- tle, sheep, pigs and horses, all of which are to be put up for sale during the day. The Calle Real, at nine o’clock, presents an amaz- ing and truly startling appear- ance. At either side of the thor- oughfare, which is closed to ail vehicular traffic, are dozens of roughly made stalls and booths, filled with such a diversity of merchandise and wares that even a description is difficult. Fruit and vegetables are found at all points, mingled with live poultry, eggs, milk, cheese, squealing pigs, hand-woven rugs, blankets, pon- chos, curiosly carved and bright- ly painted gourds and _ bric-a- brac, rolls of leather, beautiful filigree handworked silver cigaret- te cases and matchboxes from Ayacucho, spoons and tiny plates of the same material and origin, carpets and mats of positively dazzling hues, food of various varieties, chicha, wines, spirits, etc.” It says, furthermore, that “the wide, long, street is filled with dust, babel, movement, hum- anity and dogs, from the chaos of which it is difficult, once in, / (Continued from Page. 13) Indians gave. them beads, skins, pearls, even a little silver and buffalo hides. The men took part in a great rabbit roundup in which the Indians killed hundreds of jackrabbits, as Pueblo Indians do to this day. They ate: pifion nuts. Later, they passed deserts and came to fields of beans and corn. Hunters brought in ~ black- tailed deer as well as the smaller white-tails. At one village the yom made an offering of six undred deer hearts when the men arrived. They had now travel far to- ward the Pacific, and Indians thou- ght them gods. Then one day one of the men saw a little buck- le from a word-belt and a horse- shoe nail hanging from an Indian’s neck. “Where is this from?” the Spaniards asked. “From heaven”, the Indian re- plied, pointing upward. “But who brought it to you? the Spaniard asked. “Men with beards like yours. They wore swords and rode horses. They killed two of our people.” “Where did they go?” “Into the sea and towards the sunset”, he answered. “Then,” said Cabeza de Vaca, “we gave God many thanks for what we had heard, for we had despaired of ever hearing of Christians again. On the other hand, we were sad for fear the Spaniards had come by sea only to discover and had left again to come no more.” Then, as they pressed on through a fertile land of bounti- ful streams,they found fields a- bandoned, houses burned, and the scattered natives skulking like hunted beasts. The bearded men “from heaven” had been riding them down, capturing everyone they could for slaves. Yet the natives treated Cabeza de Vaca and his companions with so much DE VACA’S ECUADOREAN MUSICIANS. — Left: An Indian is playing Panpines of reeds, which are still made in the South American highlands, Right: A curious form of harp is much in Ecuador by native musicians, to get out”, and that Dante might well have written about the Huan- eayo Fair, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” And the fair goes on until night falls and everybody goes home. But let us get back closer to Lima and a fiesta of relatively new creation. ¥ hae ee ee tee ere es EAT JOURNEY respect and kindness that he wrote to the King of Spain:“Their conduct shows clearly how kind- ness, and nothing else,will bring @ them to Christianity and obedien- ce to our imperial Majesty”. Spurred to new hope by finding the buckle, the men hurried on- ward. They had gone perhaps two hundred miles, when one day they came to where Spaniards had slept the night before. “The next mor- ning”, Cabeza de Vaca said, “I came upon four Christians on horseback. Seeing me in such a strange attire and in company with Indians, they were greatly startled. They stared at me for a long while speechless. I spoke first, and told them to lead me to their captain, and we went together to Diego de Alcaraz, their commander. “After I had addressed him, he said that he was himself jin a plight, as for many days he had been unable to capture Indians, and did not know where to go, also that his men were facing starvation. I told him how to the rear, at a distance of ten leagues, the other two men were with many people who had guided us through the country. He at once dispatched three horsemen, with fifty of his Indians, and the Ne- gro slave went with them as guide. I remained and asked for a statement of the date —the year, month and day— when I had met them and the condition in which I had come.” The time of this meeting with the Spaniards was March 1536. The place was the Sinaloa River, not far from the Gulf of Califor- nia. Cabeza de Vaca was to travel much farther —to South Ameri- ca to be governor of the Terri- tory of La Plata— but the great journey of his life, one of the great journeys of history, was over. a OUR COVER Mrs. Lantaff is one of the most prominent women ‘in our social and civic circles, and is very much interest ican affairs. in Latin Amer- She has been a member of the Miami Beach Woman’s Club for many years, and this is the Club which recently had the wives of the Consular Corps as special guests at a luncheon. DOMINGO 7 DE FEBRERO DE 1954 FESTIVAL OF THE VINTAGE Festivals have been observed from times immemorial in the vineyards of France and the Rhineland to celebrate the in- gathering of the grape harvest. But, as The West Coast Leader points out, though grapes have THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY, IN been grown in Peru for nearly four hundred years and the wine industry is almost as old, it was not until 12 years ago that a Fiesta de la Vendimia (Festival of the Vintage) was celebrated for the first time in the neighbor- hood of Lima. The Surco valley, to the east of Barranco, widely eee Portuguese tiles. TOMORROW A BOOK REVIEW Philip Wylie 372 pages—$3.50 Rinehart and Company. Tomorrow is a novel about the people who live in Green Prairie and River City some place in the Mid-West., It is a story of Henry Conner, Beth, his wife, Charles, their son, a Lieutenant in the Air Force; Nora, their daughter, not yet in her teen, and Ted, their young- est son who is about sixteen years old. It is the story too of Leonore Bailey, child-hood sweetheart of Chuck Conner, her ambitious and fear-driven mother and weak and submissive father. Of Minerva Sloan, the local tyrant and owner of the newspaper and her egoti- stical son; of Coley Borden the hounded editor of Transcript, Minerva’s paper. While the rest of America was comfortable in its complacency and attempting to talk peace with the Russians, Green Prairie who desired peace as much as the rest of the United States, also practiced drills or what to do if they were bombed. They met at regular in- tervals to be sure their first aid technique was kept up to date and at top speed, learned what to do with geiger counters and how to put out fires that could be started from a bombing raid, Henry Conner was a leader in this prepardness program and had the support of Coley Borden, the newspaper editor. Many of the townpeople disagreed with these “shenanigans” and complained like the true isolationists that they were. In spite of the few who argued that this was not necessary, a large number of volunteers showed up for each drill, showed up until one evening Minerva Sloan was delayed by a traffie snarl which was a result of the meetings, Minerva was not to be annoyed. She told her editor that he must slant all accidents of that day to look as if they might have been a result of the meeting. The volunteers dropped in number from about a thousand to many less than a hundred. Henry pleaded and begged for the truth to be printed. Coley Borden finally gave in and was im- mediately fired for doing so. Shortly thereafter on the day before Christmas, Condition Red was announced. River City, the city across the river from Green Prairie was vaporized, they had not had time for any sort of fool- ishness like air-raid drills. Los Angeles,-San Francisco and Phi- ladelphia were hit and demolished. “People in the winter-locked square felt the heat of the bomb first. Their clothes smoldered, flamed. They screamed and fell. They wallowed and writhed. Yet a worse thing had be-fallen them in that chip of time: from the fire- ball which towered and expanded BRAZIL.—The cloister, decorated at the order of John V with known for the quality of grapes and wines produced t was selected as the ideal ] for the celebration, the hap idea of Don Pedro Ventura,wh family name has been famous the wine industry for many ge rations. 1 With the cooperation of t lessees of other vineyards in t! same valley, he organized “Grape and Wine Week” (Sem na de la Uva y el Vino), cente ed around San José de Sure The main objects were to i prove the quality of grapes grow in the valley, reduce the cost o} ’ production, and raise funds foy improvement of the roads link ing Surco with the vineyards ip the valley and with Lima. March is generally selected ag the month of the festival. On thé opening day, the ringing of the Harvest Bell summons the faiths ful to attend Thanksgiving ser» vices in the parish church. This ig followed by the coronation of the “Queen of the Vintage” in the main square, a ceremony perform» ed by the Mayor of Surco, whd receives from Her Majesty the first fruits of the grape harvest, Following the ceremony, the Queen and her court are enter tained as befits their royal statug, At night fireworks flash through the sky while music fills the air, The entire week is given to joy ous celebration, ending with @ parade of floats in the town park, By ROSALIE BOSWELL hideously in the near distance, they soaked up neutrons and gam ma rays and were dead although to themselves alive-seeming still, The rays pierced every truck, every. car, the thick wood, the thin steel, and the men and the wome and the children inside, though they should live a while, wer doomed. Many perished then pt there of the blast and concussion and bashing; the rest, who thought they had escaped, were left with only a little while to live.” This then {s a plea for more civi] defense prepardness for the tragedy that could befall us. It ig not a pretty book, it wasn’t meant to be. It is frightening and wag obviously meant to be. It ie certainly thought-provoking and should be action-provoking. It will teach those of us who did not know, because we have instinctly turned away from published a@ counts, of what CAN happen to by sticking our heads in the sa ostrich-like, and only coming long enough to say it can’t happ here. It is not a happy thought that we have created a monstruos night mare that can destroy us but it 1@ a fact that we can no longer den This is Mr. Wylie’s twenty fifth book. He is not liable to gain mang Communist friends with it and the Russians, no doubt, secretly hope that he will go for a long and lost walk in the Everglades and write no more. It is not likely to be his last.