STRANGE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3130, 14 August 1922, Page 2

STRANGE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.

There stepped ashore from the Arlanza at Southampton lately a brown-skinned man scarcely . recognisable as an Englishman. He was Mr F. C. Glass, a missionary of the Evangelical Canon of South'_America. Thirty years' work in Brazil is his record, and lie has travelled over 25,000 miles in Llie vast inland forests of that country; most of the time among the 400 tribes of natives about whom little is known. His most recent journey was one of 5000 m.les, a thousand of which wcw covered in a two months' journey down the river Araguaya in a dug-out canoe, only two white men being seen "The whole time. Mr Glass says that the Araguaya is one of the mosj; magnificent rivers. It flows between rich pasture lands and land believed to be rich in mineral wealth. Its fish l ! orrn the staple food of the Carajas. a tribe who do their fishing with bow and arrow. To w-.ng the arrows they keep lame ma aws, egrets and other goregous birds 'about their villages, plucking feathers from them as required. He found the Carajas full of curiosity at*seeing a white man for the first time, alone and unarmed. He found them most kindly disposed. They go' quite naked, and they paint themselves 'with bright vegetable colors. They are totally devoid of any religion or idolatry, and have no intoxicants. Family life is very highly developed among them. It survives even the strain of the removal of their homes to the trees every rainy season. "When T wanted to explain what a locomotive was to them," he said, "] had to describe it- as a horse of iron with a belly of fire'—the only description which had any meaning to them." One custom of the Carajas which Air Glass thinks would prevent their intermixing with whites is the infliction on themselves of frightful facial disfigurements. Physically, they are amazingly line. It is estimated that half a million of thorn have never heard of Christianity. "Nine-tenths of Brazil are untrodden by white men," said Mr Glass, "and it offers the most wonderful opportunities of any country. The English are; the qply people who are developing the immense mineral wealth of Brazil. Most of the railways, flour and cotton mills and banks arc British. An Englishman commands a great deal of re-s-poet. I don't think any young man ivho is prepared to rough it, and keep straight, can help succeeding." Air Glass is a widower. He brought his six children with him. He will stay in England a year before going back to the Amazon.