Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 193, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1913 — BUILDING RAIL ROAD THROUCH BRAZIL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BUILDING RAIL ROAD THROUCH BRAZIL

BUILDING a railroad through the jungles of western Brazil a strenuous and often highly dangerous task, calling for nerves and muscles of steel, the patience of Job, and the best engineering skill, as the constructors of the Madeira and Mamore line will tell you. This railroad will link up the series of cataracts and rapids on the Madeira and Mamore rivers, the most important affluents of the mighty amazon and Madeira rivers below the Madeira falls with the 2,500 miles of navigation in Bolivia above these falls, thereby providing a quicker and cheaper rqute, via Para, for the transport to Europe of valuable exports. A. W. Chester, an American civilengineer who has had considerable experience in railroad work in tropical countries, returned from the Madeira region recently, after working almost a year with the survey corps of t%e M. & M. He was ordered home by the doctor in charge of the hospital after a severe attack Of black water fever, and was told that to return would mean death. “Surveying down there is a pretty hard job,” says Mr. Chester. “The line follows the river bank, never going more than 10 to 15 miles away from it. '

Monkeys Good Food. “In a party are usually 10 to 12 Americans, two men for each job, so that the work is not likely to be held up by sickness, and about 50 natives. It is not possible to use more than that number of natives, for their business in cutting away jungle, and any more would be superfluous. Sometimes the supplies are not forthcoming. I have been up there for a month at a time with no supplies coming up, and we had to live on beans and crushed mahioca root, which looks something like a radish and dried makes a sort of meal. Then you can shoot monkeys, which make good food, especially the little fellows a trifle smaller than rabbits. If they are not cooked whole you can eat them, otherwise you get the feeling that you are a sort of cannibal. Monkey meat tastes something like squirrel. “They you have wild pig and deer, and there is the tapir, or anteater, which Is edible. They also have a beast about the size of a cow, but which swims in the water, and which they call the anter down there. Its meat is like beef. Then there is a wild turkey that is absolutely black, with red comb, which has an excellent flavor. There is another bird that they call the jachoo, which is about the size of a hen, is the color of a partridge and has a big bill, but is rather tough. “Well, when the trail is cut the next thing is to make, a camp and then you cut trails around in different directions. Exploring the country down there is like feeling in the dark. You cannot get on a hilltop and look around. The heat is intense in the Jungle. There is no sun and the fellows come out of the woods after a few weeks as white as a sheet The long walks are the' worst feature ibout'the work. “One great annoyance in the jungle is that you, are apt to run out of tobacco. You can drink a little liquor, In fact, the doctors tell*you it Is beneficial if not indulged in to excess, but if you drink much it is far worse than in this country, in these surveying parties you have to wear a heavy flannel shirt all the time; if you don’t you will catch a very hard cold. None of the carries is ever attacked by Indians, though there have been cases in which one or two men have gone out from camp and never been heard off. Sometimes their bones are found long afterward with an arrow beside them.” Afraid of Guns. Tire savages of this region fight with bamboo-headed spears and poisoned arrows, the latter propelled by a powerful bow seven feet long. The arrowheads, of bone, are dipped in snake venom, and inflict a mortal wound. The venom is said to be procured by boiling snakes’ beads to extract it from the glands, and evaporating the solution to almost dryness. The Indians are, however, afraid of anything that will shoot, consequently the constructors of the Madeira and Mammore line always carried a revol-

ver. “If you carry a' gun,” says Mr. Chester, “the probability is that you will neyer have to use it, but if you don’t carry one the Carapunas will get you sure.” The Carapunas do not show themselves in the white men’s vicinity except when they come out on the river bank to meet the rubber batalaos coming down the river. These batalaos are wooden craft covered with an awning of palm branches, and can be taken all the way from Bolivia down within 15 miles of Porto Velho, where are the falls of San Antonio. Here the Indians have to get out and shove or pull the boat through the stones on one side. The. Indians sell skins, mostly in exchange for cartridges. These they string about their necks, not to have ready for üße, because they don’t use firearms, but as ornaments. Snakes and gigantic spiders are the terror of the jungle railroad man. “When you are working in the jungle,” said one of them, “you always awake with a feeling of uncertainty in the morning. Of course, a surveying party simply has to hew its path as it goes along, and your camp is usually in a clearing just big enough to contain it. About it is a thick wall of trees, vines, and undergrowth that a man cannot pierce without the aid of an ax, which, of course, are filled with every manner of creeping thing. “When you awake in the morning, for instance, you may see a playful snake wrapped around the pole overhead, giving every appearance of selecting the proper point from which to drop into your month. You may feel something soft and clammy rub up against your ear, and when you grab at it to fling it away, you find it is a lizard. Or perhaps a scorpion may be playing with your hair. “Then, when you have decided to get up and reach for your boots, you are apt to find that a big tarantula has made up his mind that one of them would make a comfortable house, and has put himself and his legs in there so cozily and nice that you hate to disturb him. We caught one of these horrors and killed him and measured him, and, without stretching him at all, It was eight inches from the' tip of his starboard leg to those he carried on the port side. Perhaps your other shoe has been appropriated by a family of giant centipedes, which abound in large quantities. “As for snakes, the Garden of Eden wasn’t in it at all. Some of the big ones, the anacondas, are as big around as your body, and it was not infrequent that some of our men in chopping away at what they thought were giant roots or vines found they had taken a hack Instead of a big snake, and then there was some scampering. One of these big fellows killed by the men of our party measured 28 feet. You never see the sun when you are in a Brazilian jungle, but there is something going on, even if it is only crawling.”

Preparing Roadbed