GRAVE DANGERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20440, 10 June 1936, Page 9

GRAVE DANGERS

MISSIONARY WORK IN BOLIVIA United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received June 9, 9.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 9 Fred Roberts, who with two other missionaries, is reported to have been murdered by Indians in Brazil, was in Leeton, in southern New South Wales, on furlough two years ago. He told friends on that occasion that he realised the grave dangers in the Matto Grosso region, on the Bolivian border, whither he intended to penetrate where Colonel Fawcett and his son had disappeared, and that the Government was planning to send a punitive expedition. A message from London on June 6 stated: The headquarters of unevangelised fields mission has been advised from Brazil that savage Indians ambushed and it is believed murdered three missionaries, including two Australians, Frederick Dawson and Frederick Roberts, in the wild region of the river Xingu. The news has only just been receiver, though they were ambushed a year ago. The third missionary was an Englishman named Frederick Wright. With Roberts, who had been ten years in Brazil, working entirely among the Indians, in charge, they set off from Belem to Visit the jungle tribes, and when they did not return at the anticipated time, two British fellow missionaries began a search. They followed the Xingu and its tributary Zinhu to Novaolinda, the last town of Brazilian civilisation and thence continued into the jungle, where they found the missing men’s canoe smashed, and their unoccupied huts. The searchers fruitlessly questioned numerous Indians, and finally heard a description of the ambush from a remote tribe.