The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1895-02-14
THE WoRTf5lN GToN ADVANCE.

skeleton, and loI one mOrning the
glory of the museum had disappeared
The man half of it was left, but the
| head and wings were gone. and from,
that day to this no one has ever seen
them again. .,. sfSS
And which of the two factions was
right? AS q matter of fact, neither;
rs the following fragments 81 mar.
rative will go to prove:
Once upon time, so say the Zaporo
Indians, who inhabited the district
between the Amazon and the Mara
non, there came across to Pampas de
Sacramento company of gold Seek
ers, white men, who drove the natives
from their workings and took posses
sion of them. They We're the first
white men who had ever been sec n
there, and the Indians were afraid of
their guns; but eventually treachery
did the work of courage, for, pretend
ing to be friendly, the natives sent
their women among the strangers,
and they taught them how to make
tucupi of the bread root, but did not
tell them how to distinguish between
the ripe and the unripe. So the
wretched white men made tucupi out
Of the unripe fruit (Which brings on
fits like epilepsy, and when they
We're lying about the camp helpless
the Indians attacked them and killed
them all.
All but three. These three they gave
to the vampire. .%s5@r
But what was the vampire? The "a
poros did not know: Very long ago y
said they, "uhere were many vampires
IN Peru, but they were all swallowed
up in the year of the great earthquake,
when the Andes We're lifted up, end
there was left behind only one, 'Arin-
CHI who lived where the Amazon
joins the Maranoil, and he would net
eat dead bo>lit s--op!y live ones, from
which the l,lood would flow" j.
When sacrifice was made to s.1I,e
VAMPIRE thu victim was bound in Il
canoe and taken down the river t. a
point where there, was a kind Of 5wir,i-
ing bac'7Nater. which tad shalviur
banks If slim; IluG, and at the ca
there YVES q r,cil with acave in it. Al
here the canoe was left \ very slow
current flowed Through the .tortu-
GUS creek. aud anything thrownsii.>
the water ultimately raachc1 the cav.
Some Of the indians had watched lac
canoes drifting along, Il few yards ol'r
in an hour. a:l.! turning round (, .,tt
round as they di'illed, and had Sell
within. Ant, it had been a wonder 10
them, generation after generation.
that the cave was never filed up, for
all day long the current was flown
into it, carrying with it the sluggish
fotsam of the river. So they said, the
cave was the entrance to hell, and bot
tolnlesS.
And one day a white man, a prof.
sor of that same university of Bierur,i-
wurst, and a mighty hunter of beetles
before the lord, who lived with the Ia
dians in friendship, went up the bacl-
water, right up to the entrance, I'd
set aAoat inside the cave a little re- It,
heaped up with touchwood and knots
of the oil tree, which he. set IRE to,
and he saw the raft go creeping along,
all ablaze, for an hour or more, light
ing up the wet wallis OF che cave as it
went on either side. And then it was
put out. - @
It did not ''go'' out suddenly, as if it
had upset or had hoated OVER the edge
of a waterfall, but just as if it had
been beaten out. II.
For the burning fragments were
flung to one side and the other. and
the pieces, still alight, gIowed for
long time on the Lodges and points of
rock where they fell, and the cave was
filed with the sound OF q sudden wind
and the echoes Of the noise of great
wings Tapping.
And at last, one day, the professor
went into the cave himself. 4
II took" he wrote, "a large canoe,
and from the bows built out a brazier
of stout casl1 hoops, and behind it I
set a gold-washing tin dish for are,
Hector, and loaded the canoe with
roots Of the resin tree, and oil wood
and yams and dried meat. And took
spears with me, some tipped with the
woorali poison, that numbs, bpt does
not kill. And lit my fire, and with
my pole guided my canoe very cau-
tiously through the tunnel, and be-
fore long it widened out, and creeping
along one wall l suddenly became
aware of a moving of some thing on
the opposite side.
$50 I turned the light fair upon it,
and there, upon kind of ledge, sat a
beast with u head like large gray
dog. Its eyes were as large as g. cows.
"What it's shape was could not see.
But as looked began gradually to
make out two huge batli1ze wings, and
these were spread out to their utmost,
as if the beast were on tiptoe and
ready to fly. And SO it was. For just
as had realized that I beheld before
me some great bat-reptile of a kind
to science, except as predi-
luvian, and the shock had thrilled
through me at the thought that was
actually in the presence of living
specimen of the so-called extinct Ay-
ing lizards of the food, the thing
launched itself upon the air, and the
next instant it was upon me.
''Clutching on to the canoe, it bent
with ;ts vvipra at the flame so f11riO11s1vi