Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 239, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1912 — IN TROPICAL COLOMBIA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN TROPICAL COLOMBIA

IT is the only story of hardship, adventure and danger in the search for treasure that Mr. George T. Kenly of Baltimore can tell his friends when they Induce him to talk. Mr. Kenly-, who is a civil and mining engineer, recently returned from an arduous trip in the United States of Colombia, In South America, whither he went prospecting for the International Land Improvement company, which has offices In this city. He expects to leave again within two weeks to prosecute his work further in-the tropical country. ■ ■ The Baltimorean, with Mr. Louis F. de Montmorency, also an engineer, and with Luis, a native guide, and an Indian boy, Patronina, traveled more than 1,000 miles on a round trip into the wilds of Colombia and out of them. •The party found what It went after — gold, as well as other minerals, Including coal, but Mr. Kenly says there is as much wealth above ground as under its surface. He brought a bottle of gold with him; the other things he could not bring, because when wealth Is in the shape of giant mahogany trees six feet in diameter they are a blt z unhandy to carry. "I left. Baltimore last July,” said Mr. Kenly, “and joined Mr. Montgomery in Panama. We started our real exploration from Barranqullla, the heavy work beginning 300 miles from that town. Part of our journey lay on a route that took us up the Magdalena and other rivers, and part of It was over the roughest mountain trails man ever encountered, where the jungle lay on each side of us as an Impenetrable wall. "Boatmen we hired to take us in their native canoes as we needed them, and one such journey was 200 miles long. For land service we hired packmen or porters, and upon one trip of forty miles we had, besides our original party of four, ten packmen and two oxen. To add to our difficulties we traveled in the rainy season when the water at times poured down In sheets for hours at a time. “This forty miles consisted of only a cattle trail, and 200 cattle had gone over it only a few hours before. They go in single file, each planting his feet in thj foot-steps of the one In front and into these deep slippery holes we had to walk, for there is not so much as six inches of foot-way beside the narrow trail.

"The canoes down there are dugouts, made by the natives from the massive trees that fill the wilderness. They run anywhere from ten feet long up to a great boat such jis we used on 200 miles of our journey. This canoe was sixty feet long and four feet wide and had been worked out of a monster mahogany log that was without a blemish. About twenty-five feet of the forward part of this boat was occupied by the four naked natives, who propelled it. They know nothing of rowing or paddling. The boats are poled along, and the skill and strength displayed in ascending a river against a current of five miles an hour is wonderful.

How Craft Are Poled. “One boatman goes to the bow and sticks his twenty-flve-foot pole Into the mud at the river bottom. Then, placing his shoulder to it, he walks back along the footway to its end, pushing the boat along. Each In turn goes forward, for, this poling, and at the end of the footway he pulls his pole from the-mud, holds It aloft and marches to the bow again, letting his companions pass under his arms and pole. “But to pole a boat * the canoeist must keep near shore where it is not too deep and where, unfortunately, the jungle foliage overhangs. This is where the pole often strikes the leaves and dislodges millions of mosquitoes, brings down a shower of vicious ants, frequently a snase and, worst of all, a species of black wasp which is the most dreaded of all. Its sting-is so strange and powerful that< it seems to strike a man as if with a blow from a Jim Jeffries, and the result is the same, the man goes down and out. All of us, including the boatmen, were scared enough when the snakes dropped in on us, but the reptiles seemed equally scared and scrambled out. But when the wasps were seen the natives scarcely breathed for fear of disturbing them. “In canoeing your way on these rivers through a temperature in the sunlight of 140 degrees to 150 degrees there are no stopping places save where a shack can be seen on shore. There you are sure of a clearing and. by the way, a welcome. Always you

put up for the night at such a shack, and most' of them are a day’s journey apart from one another. You cannot stop on the river bank because the jungle comes to the water’s edge. "The canoemen will not run at night if they can avoid it, because snags might overturn the boat and the immense alligators that are in the waters In great numbers like nothing se much as company. They have no choice between dark and light meat “But when you go to the friendly shack you can get some sort of a night’s rest, even though it will be found densely populated, too. We went to one shack, about twelve feet square, that contained twenty-two grown persons, Including eighteen men and four women, ten children, fourteen dogs and a lot of frogs and chickens. These Inhabitants were not hampered by furniture. All the human beings were eating out of one pot. “These, with our party, slept In this place that night. A number of the natives and children scrambled up to a roost that had been made by placing bamboos across from side to side of the house at the eaves. Two of our own party had hammocks. We had also mosquito nets and blankets. “The people in Colombia have no idea of time, distance or haste. At one place they thought I was an impatient man because I kicked at a Uttle steamer being four <|ays late. Once the clnoemen wanted to stop a day’s journey at 3 p. m. because the next shack was too far away. We tried to travel each morning at daybreak, but couldn’t get the boatsmen to going until 7 or 8 o’clock. When we were caught on the river one inkynight with the rain pouring down the wonderful Instinct of the boatmen came out. One fellovir lay in the bow and detected every snag ahead of us. He saw and heard and even smelled his way, Suddenly he exclaimed In Spanish: “I smell smoke! Steer the boat In here!” He.ran the canoe within five feet of a shack and we called out to the people and one appeared with a burning ember. Venomous Snakes Abound.

“On our.land Journeys small venomous snakes gave us most concern. Lying coiled up on the trail, only the sharp eyes of the natives could discern them. We had practically to shoot our path through them as they were pointed out On one occasion two native blacks and the Indian boy passed a snake without seeing it We saw but one boa constrictor, but were often near them, as we know by the peculiar odor they give off. These snakes grow thirty-five feet long and a foot thick. “We saw hundreds of thousands of water fowls, including many food ducks. Birds of the most brilliant plumage about and there are parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and pink, white and black herons. Monkeys, deer, wild turkeys and wild pigs abound, and some of the monkeys are as big as a five-year-old child. These are esteemed as a great delicacy by the natives, and I killed two of them for our packmen. “We saw tiger prints, which, from their great size and the evidences of the animal’s stride, indicated a beast twelve feet long. There was possibly a lively time tn store for somebody, as the tiger had evidently been trailing the prints of a big black man’s bare foot. This was only a mile from a village where the night before the tiger got three hogs. "We found one native whom the tiger had visited tko nights before. The man went around to his house to shoo the beast away. It ran around ahead of him, slipped into the door and the last the man saw of it it was scooting through the gloom with his child in its mouth.. Jt was also the last he saw of the child. “On one part of our overland trip #e had to. make a forced march, because the difficulties had caused us to lighten our load ot provisions. We walked for thirteen hours on a stretch, doing from three to four miles an hour over the rough trail. Night found us with -a river between ns and a shack, and our immediate party caught hold of hands and walked across, with water up to our arm pits. We formed our human chain to steady ourselves, for the current was strong. “Luckily, in this wild land of no roads I did not tall sick of malaria, but at one time while on a river Mr. Montgomery and Luis, the guide, and two boatmen had the breakbone fever; acclimated as they were. The principal objece of our search was, however, found In higher and healthier lands. As explorers, though, we had io go through all the dangers."