The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-06
ENRIQUE De leARRerAI

@A&c
last and not yielding until ne was
powerless to move.
stiu New Victims.
And still Ell Gran Chaco was to have
more victims.
While Boggiano's fate was still un-
known, Capt Sirvent, a German in
structor in the CHILEAN army, started
with his son to enter the Chaco coun-
try from the west. He expected to
return in a month. But three passed
and no sign came from the unknown
land.
Now, according to news just re-
ceived in America, Capt. Rojas OF the
Paraguayan army, who started from
the east to search for him, has return
ed to Villa Hayes-named after Pres
ident Hayes to commemorate his set
Element of the Paraguay Argentina
boundary dispute with the almost pos
tive information that this expedi-
ton also has been destroyed. Capt
Rojas found that ii had approached
the vicinity of the scene of IbarretaS
death and there, on the banks or
the Pilcomayo river had persisted, to
prove anew that the River of Death
still defles the worlds efforts to dis
pei its mystery.
awe nOlQS Ine IldIt WIZ thLCAD bhC
brooding silence of FL Gran Chaco's
primeval places. For in the forests,
great with centuries on centuries Of
unchecked growth, there is neither sun
light or freedom Of winds or singing
of birds. The waters roar sullenly. The
air Is heavy with moisture, and neither
in the morning or the afternoon does
daylight find its way through the enor-
nous, Fantastic masses of the eternal
pIO aRaiN--npWRF
less than twilight in the brightest
places and as black as night in the
darkest -shrouds the path of the in
| truder.
A hush so great that 1t burdens the
sense as with physical oppression reigns
hour after hour, day after day, week
after week. Like the terrifying hush
before great storm, it rests on the
land and makes 1t place of fear. The
birds fit through it silently Silently
and like shadows the wild beasts creep.
The Cry.of the Lost Soul.
Only now and again is that hush of
dread broken terrible cry, wall
that rises and falls and floats away
awfully, resounds through the dim
| aisles Then the Indians hastily MUIR
muir incantations-fo this. they be-
Heve, is the cry of lost soul wander
ing, wandering, in torment eternal
through the land of the devils of the
| woods. 1t is vain for explorers to tell
! them that the cry is that of bird fair
| ly well known to science. 1t Is q
| damned soul, utterly damned, so they
! are convinced.
! Souls damned and suffering the pur-
gatory of ice, too are the grotesque,
frightening. shrouded forms of ice that
| stand on the slopes of the Cordilleras
| in that land. Strange figures are these,
| from three to six feet high, being kept
| from melting by the shadow of the
snow-capped mountains in the day and
| by Icy winds that blow down like hur-
| ricanes in the night. 'Nieve Penf-
| tentes," the Indians call them, shud-
dering when they see them from afar.
SO, too, they shudder when once in a
while sudden, tremendous cracking
| and splintering echoes with startling
suddenness through this land of fore
| boding silence. Even white men, ar
mored against superstitious fear, feel
| their nerves start when that silence Of
| the grave is broken thus, though they
| believe 1t to be due only to the sudden
hurting downward of some ancient tree.
| But the Indians know it to be other
wise. at is the devil of the woods
they say with trembling lips. THE
devil of the woods is uprooting a tree
for club to hunt with tonight"
And he is a well-steeled man who,
surrounded by the unknown. surround
ed by the terror Of his living compan-
ions, does not, in spite of himself, feel
the fear of the Land of Mystery steal
over him and claim him for its own.