A DARING TRIP.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 14399, 6 January 1911, Page 7

A DARING TRIP.

ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA. 2000 MILES JOURNEY. "You will never make tho journey. If you try you will lie drowned in the rapids. If you escape drowning yon will bo killed by the Indians; and if you escape both the rapids and the Indians you will die of fever.” Such a threefold prophecy of disaster might have scared tho pluckiest of adventurers. lint an Englishman and a Scotsman derided to risk all, and for love of adventure made a 2000 miles journey on tho Ainar.cn and its tributaries. Both of them—Dr. C. Wilson, M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.F. of London, and Mr. J. C. Mac Lean—have been employed in connection with the new Trans-Andcan railway tunnel in South America. They could have come home in the ordinary way to Southampton in about three weeks, but they were told that no one bad ever made the trip across the continent by river, so they decided to try it. With the various delays, it took them about five months. "We started from Antofagasta, in Chili,” said Dr. Wilson, ‘‘running tip to La Pax by train, and then taking to the mules and tho water, on one of the tributaries of the Mamore, I suppose. Thence we got on to the Mamore itself, and so to the Amazon, which wc joined east of Manaus. IN THE LAND OF RUBBER. "From JRiberalta to San Antonio is about two hundred miles. Then it is about eight hundred miles from San Antonio to Mannas, and another nine hundred from there to Para, the great rubber centre. So that, with the preliminary trip from La Par, to liiboralta, we probably did considerably oyer two thousand miles. "There were some dangerous-hits, but we never discovered the killing Indians, and the only difficulty wc had with human beings arose from the disinclination of the white employers of labour, chiefly Gormans and descendants of the Spanish, to assist us with the necessary ‘hoys’ to navigate the craft on which wo had to travel; and the ‘hoys’ themselves are so tied to the employers that they daro not move without permission. "At one point some of them asked us to take thorn down the river with us. They said they could earn a lot more money in the rubber plantations than they wero getting, but were in debt to the employers and could not got permission to leave. Under tho system of signed agreement at so many dollars a month, and obligation to buy all goods and stores owned by their employers, who charge what they like, a debt of 1000 dollars may bo built up easily, and if a ‘boy’ clears out while he is in debt he is brought back by tho police. If another desires his services he pays the first employer what is owing by tho ‘boy’ and then tho debt and the ‘boy’ are transferred. "There is no slavery, but it is very much like it in effect. Tho unfortunate labourer is never out of dobt, and so ho is always a bondsman. Ho is charged 14s or 10s a bottle for whisky or b’rnndv and about the same for a bottle of German beer. At Kiberalta, the whole of the population, with a very few exceptions, make Sunday a day of drinking.” THE SCOURGE OF FEVER. On the subject of rubber cultivation Dr. Wilson said; "There ore thousands of miles of rubber trees, and the supply appears to he almost unlimited. But labour is still so scarce, and the distance so great and difficult, that yon cannot get the stuff into the market except at a big price, and therefore there will ho a good price for years to come.” As soon as they got into the rapids tho, explorers found tho dangers foreshadowed for them. Tho water ran two or three miles in the open, and 15 or 16 miles an hour in tho rapids. To navigate these they had only flimsy rafts, a few inches aboie the water surface. So that, witli tho heat of tho sun and standing in the water, when they had done a few weeks of it their feet wore swollen and their agony almost unbearable.

Of danger irom Indians they saw no truce. Dr. Wilson describes them as all thoroughly civilised, and very willing and obliging. But tho fever was terribly real, and there were grim jests in connection with it that showed how familiar the natives and traders had become with death. It was no rare thing for ono-half of those making a trip in the fovor area to bo stricken and die in the course of a few weeks. In one ease, a party of 40 started and 27 died during the journey. In another case the question of anchorage for the night was being discussed. Some of tho crew wore known to be dving. “No; don’t stop here,’* one trader responded to a suggestion. “There is a good piece of soft ground a bit higher up, and we can plant those fellows (the- dying ‘hoys’) more easily. 1 ’ They did so, and the graves wero marked by a simple little wooden cross, replicas of which can bo found all over the district, which has claimed so many victims. In that area Dr, Wilson found practically everyone suffering from a mild form of ague or fever, but ho and his companion came through without contracting tho sickness.