The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-15
FL GRAN GHAC0.
MORE EXPLORERS LOST IN
 THIS MYSTERIOUS

Italian the Latest Victtm-Fierce savases the Inhabitants-The River Of Death.
 Fl Gran Chaco, the most mysterious region on the South American contin- ent, has been the cause of the death of another band of explorers, again the PiIcomayo River has proved itself de- serving of the title given to it by the natives of Paraguay, Argentina ana Bolivia-River of Death.
 The last victims of the unknown re- zion are the famous Italian explorer Guido Boggiano, and his party. From Asuncfon in Paraguay the news has reached American geographers that the party has been officially pronounced dead.
 With the death of Boggiano, El Gran Chaco triumphantly keeping its secret has successfully defied five nations France. Spain, Germany, Italy and Paraguay. Each of them sent it's best explorers and none returned alive.
 Creyeaux of France, Ibarreta or Spain. Lista of Paraguay, Sirvent or Germany and Boggiano of Italy, all started from the borders, dived into the primeval forest of Fl Gran Chaco' reached the Pilcomayo River and dis appeared forever. No man has gone Ill and emerged alive.
 Look on the map of South America. Between the Tropic of Capricon ana latitude 30 south, and between longitude 5S and 65 west, is a patch that is left almost entirely blank. That patch con- tains more than seventy-five thousand square miles about which man knows nothing.
 Five months ago Guido Boggiano started from Asuncion with an eXpedl- tion of six Indians and peon to follow the path that so many others had taken before him and that had led them to death. Friends had urged him in vain to desist Local officials had added < their warnings without effect
 Men heard from him only once after he had left civilization, as he passed through Puerto Casado. Then came week of silence, broken by the arrival of two of the expedition.
 Even in that one week hardships and terrors had become too much for them and they had fled toward settled coun- try. They reported that the line of march had been through constant dam gers and through constant mystery.
 Unseen enemies had attacked them by day and by night. Unseen animals had prowled on their trail Unseen things had terrified the Indian helpers so that even then Boggiano was finding it almost impossible to force them on.
 That is the last that has been heard of Guido Boggiano and his party. A month ago an expedition under local of ficials started out from Puerto Casado to search for news of the lost men.
 It penetrated only few miles to the unknown land-not far enough to find even a trail, but far enough to learn V that there was no doubt that the en- tile expedition had been destroyed, presumably by the fierce, practically unknown, Tobas Indians. This makes the second expedition to vanish within year.
 First to meet fate in Fl Gran Chaco was pr. Creveaux. He started into the interior in 1886 with a large and we'll armed party, attracted by wonderful stories of strange, tall, savage men, strange wild beasts of huge size and a profusion of new orchids and other fam tastic plants and creatures that were said to be in abundance there.
 He forced his way for several months through the wilderness along the Pilcomayo until he penetrated into the Tobas country, near the Bolivian boun- dary, where the party, worn and thinned out by constant fighting and hardships, fell into the hands of the h. dians, who suddenly appeared from all quarters and massacred ali.
 The fate of the Creveaux expedition only served to increase the eagerness of explorers to tear the veil that hid the unknown land. And that eagerness was next to cost the life of one of the most successful and earnest and daring explorers that ever was in South America.
 He was Ramon Lista, to whom the world to-day owes much of it's knowl- edge of Paraguay, Argentina and Patagonia. For many years he had liv- ed almost constantly in the widest parts of the continent.
 He was the first man to send out from the depths of Patagonia the report of the possible existence there of a monstrous animal, the mylodon, giant sloth as great as an OK, that still sur vived from prehistoric days. He re- ported subsequently, that one evening he had even shot some huge creature that might have been the animal sought $ for. But it's hide turned the bullet. and < the gloom of the forest made pursuit Impossible
 Ramon Lista set his face toward El Gran Chaco. He passed beyond the ut termost frontier of human dwellers, and with canoe and men padded away to reach the Pilcomayo River. And wher he paddled thus away he passed out ot human sight forever For the River of Death has never given him up.
 Fragments of his story have drifteC to the outer world and from the stories told by boastful Indians and the scat. tered rumors brought to Bolivian and Paraguayan and Argentine frontier posts, it is known that he forced his way far up the river, contendine against nature, and wild beasts and wild men alike, until, thoroughly worr out and diminished in numbers, the party found themselves cut off from either retreat or advance by the allied forces of human foes and hunger.
 For the Indians, rarely showing