Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1913 — Orchid Hunt in Brazil [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Orchid Hunt in Brazil

VOYAGING up the Amazon on an ocean going steamer, one is always far above the surface of the -water, one is always bur=s===; rylng rather noisily on, and so necessarily but very little of the life of the great river is seen. Passing through the narrows above Para, the forests can almost be touched on either side of the steamer, but after that one shore is always very distant There is something mysterious about the river; canoes laden with forest produce, a brightly plumaged mac caw perched on their prow, come smoothly to the town; river steamers with their burden of evil smelling rubber, a few brilliant orchids tied to the wheelhouse, make fast to the wharves, and always there is that sense of the unknown, the bright, the elusive. A' desire to overcome this feeling of remoteness, writes a correspondent of the London Times, determined me to embark In a canoe and journey out on the yellow waters of the Amazon and through dim forest hung channels to the black war tors and white sand strewn beaches of the Rie Negro. The difficulties I encountered were Immense. All my Brazilian friends warned me of the dangers and hardships of such a voyage, and I found that prohibitive prices were asked for the hire of even the most unsuitable craft. Eventually I secured a boat, and built a tolda or hood over one end, took my provisions on board, hoisted a sail and set off. My crew consisted of a Portuguese boatman and a Japanese. Pests of the River Amazon. Sailing slowly down the river, the boat kept very close to the bank and slid along noiselessly. As the day wore on the wind died down and the heat became Intense. A black fly called motuca appeared in great numbers and Inflicted painful bites. We landed to light a fire and cook lunch. Small, dry sponges hung in the branches of the shrubs that had been long submerged, yellow butterflies wqre drinking in companies of 50, or more at little pools left on the sloping shore. Huge yellow and black nornets came around us and at first frightened us, but we soon learned to look on them as friends when we found it was the motuca files that they were hunting, not us. Ofter hardly had a motuca settled when it was pounced upon and borne off. All insect pests were said to be far worse on white water rlverß than on black water ones, bo we hastened to leave the Amazon, so as If possible to sleep that night on the shores of one of the lakes lying between that river and the Rio Negro. A breeze sprung up and took us up the river slowly enough, as the current coming down was very strong, but when we turned up a stream leading to the Rio Negro our progress ceased, the sail was lowered and we took out the oars.

It proved to be very hot work. Shut in by the immense forest trees, no breath of wind came to us, and we were very happy to come to a small lake with a place on its shores free from brushwood on which we could camp. My companions slung their hammocks from branches of trees, carefully arranging their mosquito nets to protect them at night A lit tie way from them, a yard from the water's edge, I placed my mattress and cased it in with a mosquito net on poles cut from the forest We then strolled off in search of the unknown. There is a curious atmosphere of suspense or hush, in the Amazon forest; the light only reaches one after being filtered through greenery. The wide leaves of the wild banana and the frequent palms give a very tropical air to the scenery. Noises are few; occasionally a large bird will utter its call, an iguana will rush through the rustling leaves, or some monkeys will chatter as they ' swing through the creepers overhead. Brilliant metallic blue Morpho butterflies flit silently through the more open aisles, and the tracks of night wandering animals can be seen on the ground.

The little footprints of cutias and pecas are present on the firmer the curious serrated linea made by the plates of both crocodiles’ and turtles’ armor occur nearer the water’s edge. Ants swarm on tha trees, and nearly all Inflict painful bites, and there are several kinds of wasps and bees, which either suspend their nests from twigs or else build In rolled up leaves; all would seem to be the guardians of orchids and to do< their utmost to repel the deßpoiler.l Ants as Guardians. Some orchids always have their roots in ants’ nests, and one kind, which I subsequently obtained at the> cost of an aching hand, had a little hole at the base of each pseudo bulb In which a large black ant had tta habitation and of which it proved a most faithful guardian. The orchid turned out to be an oncldinm, with delicate sprays of yellow flowers thickly spotted with chocolate brown. My companions had been searching; for turtle eggs, but without success, and we cooked a supply of curry and rice, and had as dessert a plentiful, supply of passion fruit. It was six o’clock and darkness was falling. 1 made haste to bathe at the> brink of the river and then to get under my mosquito curtains. And not & moment too soon. As the light faded with a soft suddenness of the equatorial regions. Insect life emerged for its nocturnal loves and feastings, ita dances, music, flights and battles. And for many of these revels blobd, and especially human blood, is a longed for prize. If an incautious hand of a restless foot were pressed against tha curtain for a moment, a cloud of mosquitoes immediately settled on it and drove their relentless trunks Into the> veins. No European who has not himself seen them could credit the myriads of mosquitoes which haunt these forest streams, and as the few Inhabitants of these regions are all suffering from malaria, great care has to be taken. The noises that all these insects made> seemed to rise and fall In waveß of sound, now becoming intensely shrill, now dying away to comarative stillness. My companions had fallen asleep in their hammocks; from tha river were heard only faint rippling Bounds, and I composed myßelf for sleep. Never was there a greater delusion. It was indeed a nult blanche. Mysterious sc&mperlngs came from the edge of the forest above me; a great splash came from the river and close at hand something rose, sighed, moaned and sank. Bats Bqueaked and blundered against my nets, creeping things left the river and scuttled over the sand. It was too dark to see anything; the sound of all this unknown activity had a curious effect on the nerves and vivid stories of great snakes, of jaguars and crocodiles came to the mind.

A BSRAZILAN FOREST