Evening Star Newspaper, July 8, 1937, Page 24

Noted Devils Island Fugitive Turns Upin U. S. to Tell Story Canfiibalism, Long Days of Hiding, Fighting Jungle, Stowing Away Lie Behind—But He’s Not Safe Yet. Rene Belbenoit, famous fugitive from Devils Islond, walked into the New York offices of the North American Newspaper Alliance yes- terday and revealed that he had made his way undetected into this country through jungles and across boundary lines. Last August, in a dispatch printed by The Star, Bel- benoit, then in Panama, told the thrilling story of his five daring escapes from Devils Island, the French penal colony off the coast of Guiana. Here he tells the story of his subsequent adventures. BY RENE BELBENOIT. NEW YORK, JULY 8.—1I have been & long time coming here—almost a year from Panama—but then it has been a long way. There is a fathom- less distance separating a fugitive from Devils Island and a man walking the city streets. How many miles, would you say, lie between a man sitting in a Panama jungle with paint on his face and an Indian wife who calls him “Nicatchi- pou” and a man sitting writing in an easy chair in a New York hotel with ice water on tap and a radio at his elbow and Times Square in his ear? Most of those miles I walked and some I rode on horseback. The rest I sat out as a stowaway on a freighter. So that is the distance I have come. From the point of view of time, it is even longer. Was it in the year 1936 that I sat in the moist darkness under the green roof before the corpse of one who had escaped from the penal colony with us? There were three of us left, of five, and we had not had food for five days. i Cannibalism Is Last Resort. I plead with you to understand. A man must have food to hack his way through the brush of the jungle. That is not a task for a baby, for one who is weak as a slug and cannot stand erect, but crawls panting on his belly. Besides, desperation itself is a pure madness. You are no longer a man, but flesh willing itself to live. So we ate our companion—his left leg and Entire Store Air Cooled MANHATTAN SHIRTS Clothing for Summer and Year 'Round Wear Now Reduced! Here are REAL SAVINGS in these timely MARK DOWNS . . . AUGUST PRICES IN JULY. The Suits are Tropical Worsteds, Gabardines, Imported Mohairs, etc., with plenty of Sport Backs and a wide choice of patterns. Buy NOW—for Vaca- his liver—and when I came into Pan- ama, July 22, 1936, I was no longer Rene Belbenoit. I was a cannibal, ragged, with matted hair covering my face. People are kind to fugitives from Devil's Island, and, although it was not safe in Panama City, I found time to rest, and restore myself to human- ity, back country in Darien. Mr. Jan- son allowed me to stay at the Elliott Co.'s banana plantation there and I made a little money going out into the jungle and catching butterflies, whose beautiful; iridescent wings or- namented ash trays and souvenirs in Jungle Jim Price’s Panama City can- teen. I met Kuna Indians in the jungle, occasionally, and they were fascinated that a white man should spend his time with a net running after butterflies. I talked to them. They told me of their jungle city— Paya—a huddle of 16 houses five days upstream. There Is Refuge There. At a neighboring native plantation | I found two Indians who were willing to take me in their cayuco to Paya, and, five days later, we were there, with naked primitives running helter- skelter from the trees to see their first white man. One among them spoke Spanish and he translated for me to the chief: “I am good,” I told him. “I come from a country 12 moons’ paddle away. I wani to live with you. I will sell your cocoa and I will give you tobacco to chew.” For seven months I stayed with the Kunas, going three times to the Elliot plantation with cocoa and pigs, bringing back gunpowder and rice. I might have lived out my life there with my pleasantly silent wife, in my leaf-thatched hut, hunting—I killed 12 jaguars, innumerable wild pigs— idling, being the great man. And my life would have passed like a dream, the days running into one another and the seasons merging. would have been & dream tormented with ihdigestion. No matter how far removed I had become from a parisian boulevardier, Only it | THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1937. I could not exist tranquilly without bread, without vegetables, always bananas, always pigs, always duck, sometimes rice, washed down with a flery native liquor whose name I have forgotten. Bo I came down river and became once again the rabbit for the hounds of the law. A banana ship took me to Panama City. I took the train from David to Puerto Armyelle. There I walked into a water front saloon and, sizing up the man behind the bar, asked him if he knew a ship that would take me, quietly and without fuss, to Costa Rica. “See that one” he said. He pointed to & fat bald man sitting moodily over ah empty glass. “That one” was & ‘smuggler of Japanese silk,.and for $10 he took me along with his cargo to a point near Punta Arenas. There I rented & horse for $1 a day and rode to Guanagasti, five days away. Hope Rises at Last. Crossing the Nicaraguan border was child’s play, but I had to leave the horse behind. No animal save man and a goat could scramble over the mountain pass I traveled. There was money in my pocket and a spare shirt in my hand, and freedom lay ahead. For the first time in more than 15 years, since first the arm of the law clapped itself upon my shoulder, a thin surge of happiness mounted in me. I saw a fire burning in the moun- tains ancl five men sitting around it. I made for it, hungry for human companionship. They sat watching me, grinning as I came. Then the bandits sprang up and leveled their guns at me, Tbe Younygens Yoqp 1319-21 F Street N.W. STETSON HATS MARK Y JOWNS tion needs—and for three months of warm weather to come. %345° gnd $29-5° One and Two Pants SUITS BOSTONIAN SHOES WARM WEATHER CLOTHING CLEARANCE —Like Handing Yo_u‘eExtrq: Dollars! “Friends,” I said, my voice quaver- ing, “I, to6, am a: bandit.” For- tunately, I had clippings from Panama newspapers to .prove that I was a fugitive, and fortunately one of the thieves could read. But by that time they had ransacked all my pockets save one. In that one I had $7. Long -Walk After That. After that I walked and walked and walked—Granada, Managua— where Mr. Smithson, to whom I bore & letter of introduction from Jungle Jim Price, gave me some money— Corinto, villages, cities, mountains, plains, roads whose rocks stabbed like thorns, beautiful, curving express highways, ox-rutted paths. I walked through all of Honduras and San Sal- vador and, finally, at La Libertad, I could not drag my scarecrow of a body a step *further, Guatemala lay ahead and Mexico, stretching like a lifetime between me and the United States. . But I slipped aboard a freighter bound for Vancouver and hid behind cables in a well under the cervo- motor that powers the helm at the stern. For seven days I stayed there, stealing out twice at night to take bread and scraps of meat from the leftovers in the galley. Finally the ship came to rest and T heard the anchor drop. Well, we were at a port. But at what port? At the foot of the gangplank stood two customs officers, pockets of each man who left. For two hours I leaned over the rail| struggling with myself. No one thought to ask me any questions. No doubt every one believed some- Store Hours 9 to 3 P.M. Saturdays July-August body else knew me. At last I took my courage in my own two hands and simply walked down the gang- plank. In the United States! The officers said nothing, and I said nothing. They slapped my pock- ets and let me pass. Outside, I saw a street car marked “Long Beach,” and I jumped aboard it, expecting any moment to hear a shout from the police. As the trolley banged drearily on its way, I crouched back in my seat, watching with eyes filled with tears of joy the fretful, hot faces of the passengers around me. “You fools!” I wanted to cry It's Serve refreshing, cool meats. to them. “Bing! Bhout! You are in America. Civilization is your daily A friend sent money for a bus trip to New York and now I am here. ‘What is past is past and what is to be, I shall, at last, for the first time since I was a boy of 32, have a hand in deciding. I am no longer a prob- lem without papers. I am Rene Bel- benoit, 38 years old, fllled with the pious hope of becoming a man of substance, He's Still in Danger Here. If Rene Beibenoit should be appre- hended in New York, State Departe to menus! Listed time vary your slapping the || here are just a few of the low-priced, warm-weather specials that we offer this week-end at your convenient ASQ Stores— Where Quality Counts and Your Money Goes Furthest Enjoy the Best, When It Really Costs Less America’s Finest SWEET CREAM BUTTE C Derrydale Creamery BUTTER PURE VEGETABLE SHORTENING » 35¢ R wrapped quarters PICK Pea A4S0 Finest Quality Calif. ICED TEA KEEPS YOU cooOL but remember, it's the TEA that counts. Try these famous brands at real savings this week. A4SC0' Mixed or Black Pride of Killarney Orange Vo Ib. 4 Pekoe Tea's™ 1 5 Reg. 65¢ 1 55¢ FAME CONCENTRATED A Can Makes a Quart TEA Reg. 19¢ V2 Ib. A&SC0 Orange Pekoe and India Ceylon Tea Reg. 29¢ ' Ib. pkg. pkg., 15¢ C Y Ib. pkg. pkg., 25¢ T Mai Ib. tin 12¢ can i Tomato Juice 10c cans 32 25° Cocomalt 1 Ib. § JELL-O,.5.™ 5¢ FARMDALE EVAP. MILK 3 tallcans 20¢ E-ZEE-FREEZ Ice Cream Mix HERSHEY'S Chocolate Syrup =17 cans Reg. 29¢ Red Star BROOMS - 25¢ Crisp lceberg LETTUCE EINZ BAKED BEANS Reg. 14c large 18-0x. cans HEINZ KETCHUP 2 5 oz bots. 25¢ 1ze. 19¢ hot. 16¢ HEINZ CUCUMBER Delicious California Farmdale Shoepeg CORN Fresh Green CORN ment officials said, the case would be handled by the Department of Labor. Belbenoit would be given a hearing before the New York district director of immigration. Should that offictal find he entered this country illegally— 1. e., without a passport or in violation of the laws of the United States or of France—he would hold him sub- ject to deportation and apply for a warrant of arrest from the Bureau of Immigration, Department of Labor, at Washington. Belbenoit again would be given a hearing on deportation and, if the Washington officials found him sub- Ject to it, he would be deported to France, this Government paying all expenses. The procedure is to turn him over to the master of a vessel” bound for & port in France. He would not be sent directly back to Devils Island, but, of course, the French officials would be advised that he was being sent to France. (Copyright, 1937, by the North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.) $4,000,000 for Steel Rails. In relaying the entire Nanking. Shanghai and Shanghai-Soochow Railways in China the rails alone will cost over $4,000,000. Best Granulated SUGAR XY h cotton sack In Md. 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