Evening Star Newspaper, March 15, 1925, Page 80

Travelers Make Way Through Jungle Dangers Without Gun or Garb | Two Modern Robinson Crusoes, With Equipment Swallowed Up in Disaster, Undertake Almost HopelessTask. Yorker of Span- ’ 2 ted with a shoulder-strap; Felipe's|found that wo were commencing to|times were held o fsh-American lineage, Mr. Moreno, / 7 machete; my pouch and some ten|climb the foothills, The creek itself | other of us for suppo has followed the trail of adventura ; . pounds of cooked meat and vuca,|had become a turbulent stream which | other occasions they w 8 Rl ofl DEoRpEctor afd! pepIOrer 1) Z A completed our outfit. offered new deflmices to our efforcs:|swamp to serve a to many parts of the world. He N s 0% The river which we now were about | watertalls, sometimes 40 to 50 feet in | one small mound began at 18 by testing a divir 1 f to leave flowed, generally, from east | helght, presented themselves as ap- | another, we v made our painful | not apparatus to a depth of 350 feet o L/ to west, and, since Fagot's place was | parently insurmountable barriers to|advanc To win him away from such a 1% 4 172271 & located at the junction of that tribu- | our advance. But sometimes making| And in w 2 1 world we hazardous career his father sent o Z # 24 tary with the Wanks, we had its|rather long detours aroumd them |found oursclves et o HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, MARCH 15, 1925—PART 5. him on an eight-month nting trip to Costa Rica, after which he remained to take charge of his father's interests in that country Subsequently he prospected in Cos- ta Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Panaima, survey ing ever a million acres of jungle land He b made exp & of Jamaica ome of his highly usual experiences are relate this and two succeeding wrtic BY EORGE MORENO. E were traveling down one of the tributaries of the Wanks River, through an unmapped and but little known area of N ragua My usual good health had suffered a shock due to ptomaine poi son which I had acquired from a stale tin of sardin In pal and abso lutely unable to work with the pad dle, I lay it the bottom of the pit- pan. This is of dugout cano used by the Felipe handled the boat e was Dol d on & small pl orm carved out n the stern which perniits the steers- man to stand and guide t ra through the racing wate The river was torrential. We frequently shot through breath-t B apids which because th: were so unfamiliar te us, offered continuous chances for spills. 8 a precaution agalnst such an ac cident, both Felipe and myself were but scantily clothed. We had strap- ped to our b J most valuable part of our equipment ma- chete,” or long and the pouch which records of tl and credential Felipe's skill as a boatman was, to say the least, remarkable. It was @ sight to have inspired a sculptor to see his lithe brown body. wet and glistening in the sun, standing in the stern of the pit-p: right foot for- ward, left kn lightly bent, while with his 10-foot from the righ safely guided boiling, roaring pas: And in that n through raplds, t gliding quickly through comparatively guiet waters, we descended the river th great speed. We hoped soon to reach the river's jumction with the where there was a store and we hbped to get the relief of which I was 5o badly in need We traveled for two days, and as we advanced the river became safer because the rapids grew less wild and the distance betwesn them longe Our hopes for a safe termination o our journey rose in proportion Wherefore, we entered a rather mi rapid—mild at first glance. But al- most before we knew what was hap- pening to us, this was swirling us around a bend of the river, and the dropped us over an 18-foot cata- ract! The pit-pan was smashed on the rocks below—all equipment and sup- plies were lost. Only with the utmost difficulty and courage did Felipe man- age to drag himself and myself to safety on shore. Thus it was that I ourselves stranded, pra and with 60 miles of jungle between oursel store, the nearest poi tion! JVIT despair can eas Yet greater still was my aston- shment at the philosophical good ature with which clipe accepted our predicament. After he had rolled and pounded out of me the several quarts of water which I had tak in durlng my immersion in the riv he smilingly remarked that I no would be cured of my stomach trouble. My bitter rejoinder was that ther was little use in having perfect di- gestionyif there was no food to put in the stomach. How on earth, T de- manded, were we going to get any, if we did not have clothes and weap- ons with which to dare ve re into the jungle? He replied soberly:—“El hombre que sabe, no muere en la mon- tana."—("The man who knows, does not perish in the jungle.”) Suiting his words to action. Felipe at once proceeded to gather dry moss and sticks and to prepare them for a fire, choosing for a fireplace one of the large boulders by the water edg With the back of his “machete which was still strapped to his waist, and a piece of flint picked from the river botton he struck spark and very soon had a liv fire und way. Then, us a larg af, folded into a cup-like shape, he scooped water from the river and fille two holes which had been weathered on the P face of the boulder, close to the fire Placing numerous small stones in the fire, and having taught me how t remove them when hot with the ald of two sticks, he instructed me to heat the water by plunging the hot stones into it. After which, he went offt down stream. cutting his way along the bank of the river, r ark- ng that he would return with the ‘almuerzo” (lunch.) After about two hours Felipe re- turned triumphant and heavily laden with provision. He hore a generous bunch of anten” leave which, be- sides providing an agreebly flavored tea, has the medicinal faculty of re lieving intestinal irritation and pain, a three-foot “igua which he had stoned to death while it basked the sun, and a_“palmite” (the h of a small palm tree,) which is deliclous vegetable somewhat simi- liar to asparagu With these spoils of his foraging trip, and with the aid of the “fire-less” cookers, we soon made our meal, to the great benefit of our bodies and the lifting of my depressed spirits. But a satisfying meal could not make me forget the trials which still W 7777777, 5 % 4 were before us. With the setting of the sun we must, in practical naked- ness, face that most relentless of all jungle foes, the mosquito. With hor- ror I remembered the tales I had heard of men who having been ‘caught out” at night without net- tings had later been found dead some cases they had been literally stung to death by the myriads of fiedish insects and In other cases had in desperation been driven | suicide. I knew there was some truth in these harrowing stories because dur- ing one of my earlier trips through Talamanca, the draughtsman of the party, Mariano Zuniga, had perished from ‘mosqultc Disturbed by these thoughts T dis cussed the situation with Felipe who, as usual smiling away my fears, re- marked “La montana nos dara mo- squitoeros,” (“The jungle will provide us with mosquito bars.”). He remind- ed me of the fact that in Zuniga's cale, at the time of the finding of his corpse, evidence had also been di covered which showed that, in his panic, he had drunk himself into insensibility without making any ef- fort to protect himself from the pests. AN M %, fears greatly calmed by the con- fidence which Felipe showed, I then proceeded to assist him in con- structing a shelter of the usual “lean- to” type. This was built from saplin securely tied together with vines and closely thatched on the top and the two end sides with broad palm leaves, all the materials for construction having |been found ready at hand in the jungle. The damp dirt floor of our shelter was thickly covered with leaves of the “platanillo” palm, which leaf, waxy in nature, elliptical in shape, from 6 to 8 feet long and about 2 feet wide, provided a soft and dry bed. 1 roticed that Felipe collected “pla- tanillo” leaves in considerable excess of what was required for our bed. He explained that those leaves would serve us as blankets, and that, if it were true that they give but scant warmth yet they would be “mosquito- proof.” " Particularly would this be true if we took care to cover our heads and shoulders at the same time that we did the rest of our bodie: And so it proved. That night, in’ our “platanillo leaf’ beds, and with a smudge-fire burning at the front of our lean-to, we calmly defied our dead- Iy little enemlips and rested in com- fort, Notwithstanding what the experi- ences of our first day had demonstrat- ed with regard to finding food and some of degres of comfort, I was suf- ficlently anxlous to know how Felipe was going to provide the clothes, shoes and weapons, which were Indispen- dare ventu overland through the jung ¢ should we have to fight our way with the weapons After a breakfast which was made Felipe scouted along the bank of m, usually from ained wood about on is commonly ihe Indians for the making of useful artic ularly bows, arrows and spears. The “maquengue’ having been felled then Felipe carefully to cut |preserved from the tepezquintle, leather belt . and with these, after they had been spliced together, the machete was securely bound in the s taken to allow about to protrude bevond the end Thus an efficient jav about 6 feet in length, wa: of the stick. Felipe made his way down the stream cameuflaged behind a small barrier able patience of the Indien hunter, lay IVE hours later Felipe returned to camp bringing a rodent of the averages from weight, and the flesh of which is high- throughout tepezquintle,’ vater-rat_type, which esteemed - Felipe's re- rtness and been unable knife the machete but with pa- tience and some trouble, the skinning tepezquintle finally The curing of the skin was undertaken following the usual Indian method. thoroughly complished inside having scraped with the machete, it then was Immersed in the river, large stones being used weigh it down and hold it in plac Forty-elght hours later the skin was taken from the water and rubbed on both sides with wet ashes and smooth sto For the greater part of a day and a,half the skin was rubbed in this manner before it was entirely free from hairs and to the entire satisfaction of Felipe, who then staked it out in the sun to dry. After two days of “sun cure” the skin, stiff and dry, was cut into one long strip, about one-quarter of an inch thiek and about 14 feet long. This was accomplished by starting to cut along the edge and following in 1 spiral to the center of the skin. The long strip was then moistened and one end of it was ti-d to an overhanging bough of a tree, while from the lower end a stone welghing about 10 pounds was hung With two days more of drying and stretching and after a vigorous rub- bing with the grease which had been Felipe declared that he now had a bowstring strong enough to shoot an arrow. It could at least send a shaft with considerable force to a dis- tance of 10 paces, which, he asserted, was all he required in order to be able to get a deer or pig. As T had been placed in charge of the “tannery,” Felipe had been free to hunt and explore, so that our lar- der always was not only kept well sup- plied with meat, but also with “pal- mitoes” and wild “yucas” roots. The later, after boiling, proved to be a excellent substitute for bread and po- tatoes. Fellpe also had discovered a "gourd” tree, and its fruit provided us with admirable vessels for our fireless cooking and for preserving the ani- mal grease which we carefully col- lected. A bees’ hive smoked out in the usual fashfon supplied us with a generous quantity of honey, which, although perhaps a little (nsipid, was gladly enough welcomed under the circumstances. During the heat of the day, when hunting would have been futile because jungle animals do not usually prowl at that time, Felipe busied himself in camp directing and assisting me in tanning. Chiefly, however, he was engaged in sharpening and hardening with fire the ends of several of the ‘“maquengue” | sticks which had been left over from | the making of the javelin, These sticks, | a trifle less than one-half an inch in | diameter, about 3 feet long, sharpened at one end and with a notch on the other, were eventually to serve as ar- rows. When the bowstring was ready, therefore, Felipe's javelin was quickly converted into a bow. He was now prepared to go after “big game.’" 5 > % INE days of patient labor had been spent in preparing for this result, but our patience and Felipe's skill brought positive fruit—on the following morning Felipe brought into camp his first doe! With this important event, our work commenced in earnest. For five weeks we cured skins until our hands were raw and our muscles ached from the constant rubbing. At night we could not rest, becausce the smell attracted course as a guide (o our destination, Striking camp, we proceeded down- stream some 300 yards, over a t which Felipe had previously opened ‘The mouth of a creek which river there real starting For a mile followed the creeck cutting and a dense tangle approximately, were consumed in this w the creek was sufficiently shallow to permit our wading through it updn we splashed in and followed its open course Stumbling slippery rocks, we came swimming. tempted to do without first examination surrounding “largartos” (alligators) sometimes did— we would climb one of the banks and our way through we had left the pool in our rear. bush until t my inslstence Felipe's protests. it was all unnecessary if we took a large and pounded water, the sh and in spite of roduced would leave us free to swim across without 1 had heard that the Indians method and, had with success put it into practice myself, but still T did ation to enter into one occasion, not feel any incll intimacies with alligators, Five or six miles up this channel we STERLING continents, classed first newspapers in aeronautics The baronne was the first woman to was classified 980 miles, a Laroche had no such long trips records for altitude was 11,7 cussion, July But the point is that woman flyers had no say In record ke It remains so toda of feminine classification which takes their records In more than a merely There fs no account of and London flying women r than men, and are important enough, all over the world (Including China and Japan), to have ar book of their own. is credited with their fewer accidents t as drivers of motor cars and pilots in the alr. the touching wife of Sir' Harry Haward of High- vived these claims for women Lady Haward had driven her four- seater car into Uxbridge, returning In the midst urban traffic of rapid sub- she was seen avoid three with skill, into a bank, on the right hand edge of the road, Lady Haward was her hands steering wheel, and a doctor who was called stated that she was dead. In the act of dying,” Li, Chinese aviatrice passing through Paris, “Lady Haward kept faith with approaching motorists! consclousness and drove thing was skilled Jwpanese woman pilot, Shigeno at the wheel while her hydroplane unconsefous, stopped the While losing she slowed her car it to safety. Kin, who fainted bringing down floating undamaged!” HE Chinese flying more to say point is nmow that the case of Lgdy Haward is almost typical to the prefect of the driving attitude of woman mo- further on. (according The perfect had been criticized for granting an unusual number of per- mits to women. “But,” he replied, streets of Paris, capita per “woman drivers, the scavengers of the jungle and we had to be constantly on the alert to defend our property. But those five weeks did eventually pass and we then had as our reward the cured skins of four deer and three pigs. And these, to us, represented the means of getting back to civilization. Three days later we were ready to start on our 60-mile march for Fagot's place. Our equipment con- sisted of sandals; leggings up to the knees securely bound around the legs with thongs; sleeveless tunics reach- ing midway down the thighs. These tunics were each made of two skins, one for the front and the other for the back, laced with thongs on the sides and shoulders, and, with a broad strip of skin, belted closely to the waist. Our costumes, although un- comfortable and {rritating both to our skins and our sense of smell, yet afforded us ample protection against the roughness and wet of the bush. Two bows, fitted with strings made from deer skins; a dozen arrows; two gourds, for carrying water, each fit- MLLE. JEANNE HERVEU (TOP), FRENCH, AND FRANCIE LI, CHINESE, through the bush, other times seramg, bling up to their very faces wih the assistance of the long, stromg vines which hung over them, we managed to overcome them. Finally, in the middle of the afternoon of our first day’s travel, and after about 12 hours of incessant effort, we found ourse some 15 miles from the river and well up in the foothills w * # FOR six days we travelea we through the forest, at times hav- ing to cross deep guliies. Our most serious thought was concerning the food supply. A good part of our pro- visions had spoiled because of the heat, and it required the masterly use of all his woodcraft to enable Felipe, in such sparsely wooded country, to ap- proach his game to that short dis- tance which his primitive and weak weapons required. His skill and patience, however, kept us supplied. With bigger game the forest was rich. Frequently we met with tracks and signs of Jjaguars, pumas and tapirs. At night, sometimes, we heard | the call of some “big cat.” Whenev |we suspected that there was danger such an encounter, even at the ex of time and effort, we detoured out of the way. the seventh day we rapidly de |«cended from the foothills, and at |about midday we found ourselve facing a tropical swamp. Our gourds | were filled with fresh w from a | nearby stream and then we ventured into what we knew would be one c the stiffest trials of our experience | As long as daylight permitted we ploughed and stumbled through the mud, into which, at times, w nearly to our waists. With the aid of two saplings ten feet long, which at SHIGENO KIN, A JAPANESE PILOT, WHO IS ALSO AN A( COMPLISHED AVIATION ME- CHANIC. of monkeys smelling air fought a mortal combat DUTRIEU, BELGIAN PILOT. AND ONE OF THE FIRST WOMAN AVIATOR which T am about to publish. I do not argue why. I state the fact. If male drivers should get down to the feminine average of contraventions, the streets of Paris would be safe.” ‘Woman drivers are a selection from more responsible classes, Francie Li. “So, they are mor ltgent and they take their r criously. Both Shigeno Kin re alrplane mechanicians girl pupils whom I knew in Canton were learning mechanics before try ing for their pilots’ certificates. have got to be a mechanician in China —can't find one, always, ready to| coms on telephone call.” Woman mechanicians, it is said, are to be honored in tha coming year- book of the Women Pilots of the World *ok ISTS of woman pilots, compiled from data of the aero clubs of the various countries and published quasi-officially by the special interest journals, regularly represent the fi 12 flying women of the world as fol- lows 1, Baronne de Laroche (French) 2, Mme. Franck (French); 3, Mile Helene Dutrieu (Belgian); 4, Mrs Denisa Moore (American), sister of Wilbur and Orville Wright; 5, Mile Jeanne Herveu (French); 6., Mme. Keil (French); 7. Mlle. Marwingt (French); §. Mme. Driancourt (French) Mrs. Beatrix de Ryk (English); 10, Miss, Henrietta Quimby (American); 11, Miss Matilde Moisant (English); 12, Fraul. Boose (German) They appeared in this order, first in the Paris Aerophile for December, 1911. Helene Dutrieu, who had her Lcertificate only a few weeks later than the Baronne de Laroche, was al- | ready a skilled hydroplane as well as | airplane pilot. Also, she did the first feminine “looping,” and merits the | title “Aunt of Aviation These earliest ones are all aunties | of aviation. The Paris I'Illustration asked the feminine air speciali Mme. Louise Fauwre-Favier, to con tinue the delicate task of setting them down in order. Mme. Faure- Favier is the well known author of the “Air Voyvage Guides" and strong with the Aero Club de France. She nd, in 1914, the following new woman pilots: 13, Queen Elizabeth of the Bel- | glans. During she war she flew over the enemy iines and may go down in history as ‘‘the Queen of Aviation. 14, Miss Ruth Law (American); 15, Mme. Pelletier (French); 16, Senorita Carmen Dalmedoz (Spanish); 17, Mlle. Jane Palller (French); 18, Miss | Bessie Colman (American); 19, Mile. Suzanne Bernard (French). The war stopped feminine pilot certification in France and England, and Mme. Faure-Favier says that “while It interrupted feminine air ex- ploits in France, American woman pilots multiplied in America. Obviously, the “aunties of aviation" will have & job before them, to carry the list of flying women down to date in order of precedence. As for the records, there are matters unsettled among themselves sti?l in France! Thus, it can be claimed for Jane Pallier that she dates not from 1914, but from June 15, 1912, when she did | Villacoublay-Chartres and ,return— { which would make her No. 13 among the “aunties,” instead of No. 17. So, Mlle. Bolland, certified French pilot in 1920, won Parisian celebrity last year for “turning” or ‘“rolling" in the air 212 times in one season—-| almost as much upside down as right- side up; but what Mille, Bolland should have adequately recognized is her au- dacious fiying over the Andes three years ago. So, Andreo Peyre, French pllot, only. acrobat be the old pagodas s of a comr jerable par he aviation of the 1 She tock a co organizing 11 as of planes hinese military aviation, she now is. too, joined former Cabinet g the civil permit for three busy > Marie Coupeau owns and raphic pilot photographers above views and own up a pilot Several times a week the manufacturer of F: has continually from childhood. her father, man biplanes the family BARONNE DE LAROCHE (TOP) AND MISS HENRIETTE QUIM- BY, AMERICAN PILOT. Woman Flyers in Fewer Accidents Per Capita Than Airmen of World' § T'he Creeping Man. (Continued f nd P ur poor & more to be said, Mr. Benr The vart inc dents will now ne dog, of ¢ the change far m | His smell w the monkey | Roy attacked | key who tea: chance, I take him to There 1 Canada by Sir Miners’ Gas Masks. ANGER of mine deaths throu smothering by poisonous gases being reduced the T rescuers,” tested and Bureau Sine to give the weare [more after the gas [ pinch clamp for the nostr | belt and is inclosed in a sc | that may be ripped open by hand ratus is quickly adjust haling and exhaling t into the can, the n er is from the polson for at least hour and has a chance to seek S tific Sherlock. HE Post Office Department wa faced with mystery in the con tinual rifling of registered letters in the Southwe The theft was nar rowed down to o ¢ =ix post offi but the questio as to whic one was hard to solve. A few weeks later an inspector took one of the Istters that had been rificd and resealed, held it to his nose and calmly announced that the thief would be taken within a week. He was. The inspector had prepared six lots of mucilage, each having a different perfume. This was distributed among the six offices un- der suspicion. The thief used the perfumed mucllage to reseal the let- ter and gave away the location of the office. The rest was eas: SHS AR Sugar From Artichoke. B @ process discovered by experts of the Bureau of Standards, ar one and a half tim, the cane and beet varieties be extracted from artichokes refining treatment necessary | simple that, it d. the cost of manufacturing the product can be greatly reduced. Because of the lutv expense in cultivating the vegetabie and its heavy yield when compared to other sugar-bearing plants, it is believed the artichoke may be exten- sively employed to provide a great part of the future crops. Lack of means of crystallizing the extymct has been a bar heretofore,