AMONG DWARF INDIANS

Evening Star, Issue 18288, 30 May 1923, Page 9

AMONG DWARF INDIANS

THRILLING ADVENTURES. Dramatic stories of his adventures, many of them more thrilling than the wildest imaginings of Jules Verne, were told by Mr if. A. Mitchell Hedges when he returned to England on the steamer Kinderdyk from Central America after a two years’ voyage of exploration and research. His hardships _ were shared by an English-woman of title. Mr Mitchell’s companion throughout the cruise was Lady Richmond Brown. Together they claim to have sot up several world’s records for deep-sea fishing, and to have penetrated into the territory of the Chucunaquo Indians, from which, it is said, no white person has ever before escaped alive. . , „ . Lady Brown left Mr Mitchell on thenreturn to Colon, in Panama, and came on to England by passenger boat. She was at the quayside when Mr Mitchell arrived, bringing home with him the twenty ton motor launch Kara, in which they journeyed many thousands of miles, and the West Indian nigger, Henry Robinson, who accompanied thorn'on the trip. Mr Mitchell and Lady Brown gave a detailed account of their experiences, and told mo that, among other exploits, they had:—

Caught a monster saw-fish, weighing 5,7001 b, which was 31ft long and 21ft in circumference. It_ put up a terrific fight, and towed their boat about for five hours. Explored tho islands occupied by the San Bias Indians, after erasing 11,000 miles in tho Caribbean Sea on deep sea research work. Penetrated into the country of tho Chucuuaquo Indians, and found that tho natives were being exterminated by terrible skin diseases. Among the relics that Mr Hedges brought back with him arc: — A liundred native gods and mummies. Nino hundred necklaces made from the teeth of extinct animals. Bundles of bows and arrows, spears; war chibs, and other weapons. Eight hundred pieces of picture uniting on cloth. “ Our visit to tho territory _ of the Chucunaquo Indians was a life-and-death stunt,” said Lady Brown. “ Wo left our boat and tramped twenty miles inland through dense undergrowth. Tho Indians had never seen white people before, and they looked upon us as gods. “ Several times wo were near death, and the horrors we saw and the hardships we endured are indescribable. People never would believe us ,if wo could not produce our proofs ” Mr Hedges said that he was perfectly sure that no woman had ever before been through such an experience as had Lady Brown. “One curious thing about the Chucunaquo Indians,” bo stated, “ is that women are the dominant sex. They direct the labor of the men. They are all dwarfs, tho average height being about 4ft 3in. Life among them_ is entirely primitive. They know nothing about stone or .metal. Disease is killing them off in hundreds.”