Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1914 — RIVER OF WONDERS [ARTICLE]

RIVER OF WONDERS

Ship Captains Tell of Strange Experiences on Amazon. Pests Assail Travelers on 2,150-Mlle Journey to Iquitos—Ravages of Vulture Bat and Fish That Are Dangerous. Chicago.—The emergence of Colonel Roosevelt from the interior of Brazil directed public attention more than ever to a journey probably the most weird and picturesque in the world, says the New York World. It is 2,150 miles from the mouth of the Amazon to Iquitos, where the government of Peru maintains a large dockyard, barracks, iron works, machine shops, etc., and an inland navy consisting of twq gunboats. ~ If one wishes to travel from the Pacific side, of Peru to Iquitos, only five hundred miles apart, he ascends the west coast in a steamer, crosses the Isthmus of Panama/embarks at Colon for New York and transship here for Iquitos up the Amazon. Few have any idea of the tremendous volume and coloring of the Amazon current, its influence upon the Atlantic, the immense distance it carries nearly fresh water into the brine of the ocean, its serpentine windings, its overhanging vegetation, its rapids, its wild life, its pests, perils, pleasures and all Sorts of strange sights. Some of the tributaries of the Amazon are mightier than the Mississippi. Two Booth line skippers, Capt O. L. Beck and Capt. J. W. Couch (the Booths relieve their master mariners by sending them on leave to England after a certain number of trips into the South American inferior), gave a sort of duet in the narration of the wonders of the Amazon on board of their ships, their peculiar cargoes, their eligibility to fly"the American flag if they chose, and their adventures on the river of rivers. They characterized Alexander P. Rogers’ description of the country as faithful and sincere. While they were talking In the cabin of the Denis longshoremen were shoveling out of the holds 1,600 tons of Brazil nuts at the old Robert pier in Brooklyn. Only 2,600 tons of the nuts were imported during the year 1913. Captain Beck, who was just packing

up to catch the Cunarder for Liverpool, denied that the mosquito was a pest or peril on the Amazon. He said that for about three days in the navigation of the river it was necessary to shut up the passengers and use the mosquito ports, but this was the only stretch in the long journey out and back for nine weeks in which there was any mosquito fighting. “There 1? something worse (han the mosquito,’’ said Capt. ,Couch. “I refer to the vulture bat, which always attacks either your bald head or the soles of your feet. It always bites you in the tenderest spots and draws blood.’’ k Capt. Couch did not say how the vulture bat was circumvented. “Yes,’’ said Capt. Beck, continuing the dialogue, “there’s another pleasant little habitue of the Amazon, the ‘smell bug.' If you smell him once you never forget him. He’s brown, less than an inch long and half dead when he comes aboard on feeble wing. I’ve seen them cover the deck seven inches deep, and we had to shovel them overboard.” Everybody took a fresh swallow of claret after this story and Capt. Couch turned to again. “It’s against the rules of the company for any man to go overboard for a swim in the Amazon. One of our

men disobeyed , this rule once, ant was never seen after he dropped ovei the side. We lay at anchor at th? time.” _____ - . “It was probably a small fish that got him,” remarked Capt. Beck. “A small fish in the Amazon, about six or seven inches long, attends school In thousands. They dart at a man un der the surface and bite him in hun dreds of places and he never rises.” “A ’bacu’ got him, I think,” rejoined Capt. Couch. “A bacu is a' b’.ack fish, about six or seven feet long, with no teeth, but with rows of suckers In each long jaw. The bacu scoffs men alive." The talk turned to natural phenOur ena, and Capt. Beck said the differ ence between high and low water at Manaos was about 42 feet. There Is an old story about a crew that was dying of thirst when its ship anchored in the mouth of the Amazon and the skipper didn’t know It, and another captain, anchored near by, bellowed through his trumpet, “Let down your buckets; you’re in the mouth of the Amazon.” “Is that story true?” Capt. Couch was asked. - “It is,” he replied. "I learned at school that the Amazon carried fresh water seaward, and I put it to the test once. I was 167 miles from the mouth of the Amazon. I noticed that the water was discolored around the ship. I dipped some tip and tested it in the hydrometer. That water dipped from the ocean was three-fourths fresh.”