THE AMAZON JUNGLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 16 (Supplement)

THE AMAZON JUNGLE.

ITS DANGERS AND TERRORS.

CAUGHT IN THE BLACK FLOOD

A NIGHT OF NAMELESS HORROR.

(By ERNST F. LOEHNDORFF.)

We lay in the old hut of the forest clearing trying to sleep. We had reached it at high no.on, Dr. Borden and myself, in a state of exhaustion, our bodied rent with fever and our clothes almost in rags. It had been a. rather unlucky expedition. From the beginning we had not taken the right direction in the forest, and four of our bearers had run off with our stores. The bloodhound we had taken with us had been set upon their tracks, but a snake bit him, and he had died in a quarter of an hour. In spite of all we kept on until the last, but one day our two remaining bearers alpo left us, and we were now all alone.

Our purpose during this forest tour was to find orchidy and convey them to the coast, after drying them. The. mischievous^.native peons had even taken our ' cases' of blooms away, but we were indeed thankful that we had carried our arms ourselves. Had we been without these the Amazon's primeval forests would have swallowed us up, no doubt, as many others, but with our guns we had hopes of being able to slay some tapir. The Voices of the Wild. So we lay now in this miserable hut, after a meal made of a long-nosed tapir, and we wondered who could have lived rin this shelter before us/ in* the heart-of the wilderness, and whose grave it was outside the door surmounted by a rough wooden cross. Our conversation brought us no further. The night was brooding and hateful, and although we were accustomed to the tropics we felt somewhat apprehensive over the future. I did not communicate my fears to Borden, but I knew ho felt the same as I. After some moments of silence, he observed jokingly that the next morning we should have to make a meal off our parrot. We had found him, a large blue and red specimen, one morning when we were fighting through a mosquito infested stream. He had a broken wing, and Borden had carefully tended his, injuries. Now he was parched on a branch that grew across the roof of our hut. Anxiety. I must have gone off to sleep, however, for a hand shook me, and I heard Borden say, "Listen, listen —now! " The sweat was pouring down by limbs, and the damp air felt hot in my lungs as I awoke. In the distance I heard a cry in the forest —a faint cry, but unmistakable, a cry that made my hair rise, and causud my hand to grope instinctively for my gun.

" Good God, these are animal cries, but what horrible anxiety they seem to hold! " stammered Borden. The shrieks started again, drew nearer and grew more frequent. My nerves were on edge. In the dim light of the lire I saw Borden's face, and do not wish to see it again with such an awful expression of instinctive fear. It was strange that we should have been so long together and had never yet experienced such a moment!

The undergrowth in the forest crackled under a wild stampede, and the pandemonium of animal cries, was deafening. We could make out the screech of parrots, the coughing of monkey?, the growls of jaguars, and many other cries. And all seemed to scream at their loudest, and to race through the forest. I thought for a moment of forest fires in Alaska and British Columbia, but this could not bo the same. The djimp Amazon forest could not burn in such a way. The Flight of the Beasts. Through the opening in the hut we saw many shadowy forms pass through the mist. The clearing was trampled and kneaded by thousands of paws and hoofs hastily seeking the light of the clearing and the way to the river. And when we showed ourselves they took not the slightest notice of. us. Deers, stags, tapirs, families of water pigs and hordes of monkeys wended their way as if fleeing a scourge. Then the forest itself began to whine, to_ yell and to cry! How strange these cries of forest. They lasted for long minutes and seemed to grow near.

"See, now," whispered Borden, "what is the matter with our parrot!" at we had resumed our seats near the fire and held our guns ready.

The bird's behaviour was most remarkable. He hopped and sidled on his,perch, flapped his sound wing and began to screech. The anguish in his cry was unmistakable. His hops were growing wilder as his cries resounded louder in the forest; and he started pecking at himself, plucking off his feathers with his beak. Feather after feather fell off, and in his haste the bird plucked even at the skin, spots of blood showing here and there.

"They have all gone mad, for sure," said Borden, as he saw a wliite-heided monkey hurl himself through tho door almost in the fire; then it sat up and looked at us imploringly. I beckoned the little creature and stroked its head; it kept on whining but climbed on my shoulder whm' it sat. The parrot was still plucking itself, and its feathers were strewing the ground; the morkey on my shoulder did not bite, but was howling to dsaih The Parrot's Warning. A light crepitation noise now filled the forest, and the parrot's cries grew louder. I thought this crepitation came from the leaves overhead, as if some wind blew through the trees.

I even wanted to light a pipe so as to do something to forget the strange noise, when all of a Sudden the parrot shrieked frightfully, and jumping off its perch flew terrorised in a corner of the hut, and the monkey on my shoulder got hold of my hair and pulled at it wildly. Borden and I were soon on our feet, and taking a burning stick from the fire walked out.

Through the door, extending as far as the eye could fee, a black mantlfc was spreading all over the undergrowth of the forest, rising knee high. The black mass seemed to recede a little, then suddenly it would rush forward just as the wavelets on a sand beach. Ants! Millions and thousands of millions of black ants of the largest size! They marched iff column formation, each from six to thirty feet wido. And the masses were humming and pressing forward as if nothing could withstand their onslaught, either elements or living beings. Anything that gets in their way is soon reduced to bits or to a skeleton. Even the jaguar flies away from them.

They were now hurrying towards us! The insects were storming through the door-of the hut! Crawling and rustling, they soon .filled the whole place. In an

instant the sides were black with them, and the parrofy shrieked' wildly ; as they reached it and were all over it in an instant. Borden put an end to its misery with a pistol shot, and the bird, all a black mass, fell in the : raidst of the rushing tide. 1 A Wild Flight. "Too late!" muttered Borden. After tramping a few thousand ants under our feet we made for the open as fast as we could. It was like in a nightmare. The mist had lifted from the ground and we could see farther away. It was like a sea of nuniberlosß weakly shining eyes which were viciously beholding us. All ants! Ants which came from the depths of the forest, blotting out the light and surrounding the hut.

We were on the move like lightning. A word of understanding was enough; we ran in great strides through the living mas 3 to the Amazon River. We both thbught we were lost, because numerous ants were already on us, and their bites burned like fire.

Plump! Plump! Our boots stamped ankle deep in the masses of ants. The monkey on my shoulders was chattering his teeth wildly. Forward, forward we rushed through the death-dealing horde. It was unending! Hardly had we staggered out of one army of ants than another wave of them rolled along. We ran as fast as we possibly could and finally gained" a considerable advance on their masses.

We wandered throughout the night. And how we hurried! We had in many places to blaze a trail through the underbush, and our progress was slow, with the ants in dangerous proximity.

The next morning we saw from a reedless beach a jangada, which is a large raft, with dwelling and stalls, plying on the Amazon. We hailed the people and they-naturally took us along. We were then'completely out of danger. By a miracle we had escaped with our lives from the ants—the actual hordes of the Amazon jungle, and we have never since returned to the forest of the black hell. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright).