Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-23

channel, having never been well cleared, Is
full OF snags sandbars and floating logs,
making the pilots position by no means a
| sinecure.
LIKE OUR OWN BOATS.
The boats are mostly built like those in
use on the Ohio river, with q paddle-Wheel
in the rear, and draw only foot or two
of water even when laden 10 their utmost
capacity, or otherwise they could never get
over the sandbars. During the rainy sea-
| son the swollen current is so swift and strong
that progress is necessarily very slow; but
| when the moon is bright the boats are kept
in motion both night and day. At other
times they can run only by daylight and
must 'tie up" every night. They generally
run aground few times during every trip
and then it requires from two days to
week before they can be pulled off and set in
motion again, thus rendering the date of
ones arrival at the journeys end one of the
most uncertain things III this uncertain
world
If you wish to murder your worst enemy
by the most diabolieal form of torture that
the Imagination can conceive, Just persuade
him to make trip up the Magdalena river
at the height of the mosquito season sans
netting, veil, or other protectionl The
locality is infested with the biggest that
ever buzzed. All the officers and deck
hands wear thin wells and long buckskin
gloves both night and day; and yet, some
how, the enemy seems to come of more or
less victorious. The mosquitoes come in
clouds that literally obscure the sky, and
the sound of their humming is like the noise
Of a sawmill. 1t is an actual fact that cat
tie and horses are frequently tormented to
death by them. l am told that, not long
ago, herd of valuable cattle, which were
being imported from the United States to a
rancho up the river, becoming perfectly
frantic after week of untold agony, broke
from their fastenings, dashed overheard, and
all were drowned.
A CHANCE FOR THE EMIGRANT.
The great valley of the Magdaleua, ex-
tending from the Caribbean coast to the
equator, varies in width from 100 to $50
miles, narrowing to point as it nears the
confines of Ecuador. 1t embraces a region
OF inexhaustible resources. much of it over
grown with primeVal forests, among whose
gigantic growths may be found a great
diversity of building timber, besides the
choicest cabinet and dye woods, and tropi-
cal profusion of gum-producing and medici-
nal plants. The rivers lower valley is one vast
alluvial plain, which, like the Nile region,
is subject to periodical overflow. For 300
miles the most magnificent grazing lands
stretch away on either side, which are COW
cred with cattle during most of the year,
until Just before the floods that follow the
rainy season, when they are driven DIP into
the mountains. Wherever the land has
been cultivated it shows surprising fertility,
and the overflow might easily be controlled
and turned into blessing, by a system Of
dykes similar to those in use on the lower
Mississippi. Those inclined to emigrate
need not wrestle for standing room at
Okolomoma among a multitude of crazy
souatters when here are vast tracts of the
richest land in the world, to be had for the
asking.
Years ago there were profitable planta-
tions, worked by negroes, all up and down
the middle valley; but alter the emancipa-
ton of slavery, in 1858, the estates were
abandoned. 1t seems that the Spaniards
and Indians cannot endure hard labor in
this climate, and neither love nor lucre
could induce the ex-slaVes to do stroke of
it. To-day the once rich plantations show
no traces of former cultivation, being COM
pletely oVergroWn with the riotous Yegeta-
ton of the tropics; while the negroes them
selves have relapsed into a state of semi
barbarism. 1t is the same old story true of
every part Of the world where
THE BANANA AND THE BLACK MAN
flourish spontaneously side BY side. The
negroes of this section are becoming consid-
erably mixed with Indian, Latin and even
Anglo-Saxon blood, 80 that blue eyes, fair
skins and even red wool is not uncommon
among them. They lead . most happy-go-
lucky existence. subsisting upon the fruits
that grow wild in wonderful profuslon and
such accommodating fish as will nibble at a
bit of bacon on a hook, suspended from the
branch of tree, at whose other end lies
sleepy negro, fat on his face in the sun.
Alligators in some places literally line the
banks. The boats are always followed by
school of them, probably in hope of a meal,
each seeming to say in the language of the
nursery tale monster:
Fee, fl. foo. fuml
Ismell the blood of an Englishman,
And, dead or alive, will have some.
What rare field is this for the alligator
hunterl Considering the value of the skins
and the enormous demand tor them in the
manufacture of shoes, satchels, etc., the
wonder grows why some thrifty Yankee
has not bethought himself that fortunes lie
in the exhaustless crop.
No tongue or pen can describe the beauty
of sunrise and sunset in this latitude, when
seen from the river boats. There are tall,
gray and white storks, standing silent and
motionIess, IN the traditional one-leg atti-
tude, on bits of floating log, watching for
fish. There are the big gray-blue herons,
and sometimes white ones, and clumsy
pelicans which, by the way, invariably fly
from south to north in the morning, never
by any chance or circumstance turning
toward another point of the compass. And
then about 5 o'clock P. NJ. home they go
again, every mothers son of them, flying in
a straight line from north to south, one be-
hind another.
SCENES ALONG THE SHORE.
There are miles of banana groves-now
mostly stripped of leaves by the locusts,
that have been doing great damage through
out the country; and there is the papaw, the
guayacon, the tamarihd, the papaya, the
mango, whose Iucious fruit perfumes the air,
enormous gourd trees and the ''holy tree"
which grows to tremendous height and
has single cluster OF flowers growing away
at the top, in which live great numbers of
ants. Brown and black monkeys swing
from their branches. and splendidly dressed
macaws, with ruddy- brown and black feath-
ers and long scarlet tails, fly screaming at
our approach.
Two or three times day we stop at some
little village for freight and fuel, where half
naked negroes come on board, selling |
strangely carved spoons and bottles made Of |
long-necked gourds. flowers, fruits, chick |
ems, eggs, etc. The women seem to do all the |
business in these places, and to carry all the |
burdens, the men being simply ornamental. |
The universal dress of the latter consists of |
nothing but pair of breeehes striped red |
and white, reaching to the knees, leaving |
the wearer bare above and below; while the |
women perambulate in nlow-necked, sleeveless,
short and scanty gowns of purple calico.