The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-10-17
SOUTH AMERICAN wILDs.
Vast Regions Unpenetrated by White
Men.
CNew York SUM-

(New York Sum-
When Sir Henry NJ. Stanley, the Al
rican explorer last visited America. a
Harvard undergraduate is said to have
asked him at reception;
How can | become great traveller
like you? l want to be one, but don
know where to begin.
TRY the MOON said Stanley, with a
laugh. That's about the only place lett
to explore nowadays.
But Stanley exaggerated. Several tracts
of the worlds surface are still uneH-
plored.
undoubtedly offers the. greatest field to
the adventurous traveller. Explorers
have gone UP the rivers and come down
again, a writer on the subject says, but
they have not penetrated any distance
sheds ~
Never a month passes without an eX-
petition leaving the confines of civil1za-
ton and plunging into the heart OF some
pnexplored region in South America. Lit
tie or nothing is heard of these expedi-
material for thrilling bo0s, if the adj
venturers cared to write about theiI eX-
periences. Usually they do not:
: They have other fish to fry. They are
orchid hunters, gold prospectors, diamond
seekers or government officials engaged
in delimiting boundaries between the va
riouS republics and colonies of South
America
Three months. six months. year per-
haps three years after they left the last
settlement on the fringe Of the unknown
half Of them returned, tanned, haggard,
half-starved, fever stricken. The rest
have been lost in the Jungle. to perish
of hunger and thirst, or drowned in the
rapids of some mighty river. or killed by
hostile Indians, jaguars or sting rays.
The survivors always tell the same
story:
we have seen some wonderful things,
but they were not even the thousandth
part of that which lies beyond. We
climbed such and such mountain as
cended such and such river, dwelt
among such and such tribe; but we
heard of other mountains, other rivers
other tribes far stranger and more in
teresting in the remoter regions to which
we could not penetrate
Take, for example, the immense range
of unknown mountains which runs along
the hinterland of the three Guianas.
Inc best known of these So-called in
accessible mountains is undoubtedly Ro-
raima; said Eugene Andre of Trinidad. a
well known explorer of Venezuela, CO.
lombia and the Guianas. "Since the Spec
tator, in April, 1871, wrote, Will no one
explore Rora1ma and bring us back the
tidlngs which it has been waiting these
thousands of years to give us?' the noun
tain has been ascended and the secrets
OF Its summit laid bare. To the Quelch-
Mcdonnell expedition is due the honor of
having performed the most valuable sci
entlIlc work in the exploration of this in
tereSt1ng mountain.
considering that Roraima is only one
ol a Whole series of such masses, the eX-
lstence of some of which may rot even
suspected. we can form some idea of what
remains TO be done in the exploration OF
this little known part of South America.
w hen we consider, moreover, that the
SUBMITS of these mountains are plateaus
Isolated from the surrounding country
lncc l.. L.
thinking that each of them must be
field of absorbing interest to the natural
list and botanist"
Andre himself in 1901, tried in vain to
Ameha on the River Merevari. in Vene-
zuela. This mountain has never been
cnmoed. nor have It's companions, Mount
Arichi and Mount Arawa
ne country all around them is I'M
known, and so are the more distant Pari-
ma mountains, which are said to be the
nome Of tribes of Indians utterly unlike
any of those already known in South
America
Speaking from his own experiences,
andre explained why this vast region is
still an unsolved riddle
Ihree centuries have passed away"
ne sald, since the first adventures tried
to reach the golden land supposed to
exist somewhere near the sources of the
Garonf and the Cauca, and yet our
knowledge of the far interior of the
duidHdS remains Snadowy and indefinite.
was not until the beginning of the
signteenth century that Humboldt finally
1lspelled the mythical beliefs which chung
e, 10 the Eldorado of the Conquistadores.
me yeii of the enchantment which
shrouds the UNEMPLOYED interior of
Guiana has, it is true. been torn aside
In place of the fairy city cleaning
WIN gold and precious stones, we now
know that there is an immense stretch
ot lmpenetrable forest. interspersed here
and there with open savannas, with
mountains OF fantastic shape and sur
passing in grandeur rising abruptly from
The surrounding country-a region of
abundant rains and rapid rivers, thinly
peopled by small tribes of Indians, who
lcr, centuries have carried on a series
of cruel blood feuds with their neighbors
"a region rich in bird. insect and vege-
table life, but difficult of access and
deadly in climate.
Beyond this our knowledge is vague
ana uncertain, and 1t is likely to remain
SO LOT some time to come. The difficulty
p navigating rivers which consist of a
series OF rapids and falls. the utter alb
sehce OF population for considerable dis
lances along their banks, the almost i'm
posslpie TASK or transporting a sufficien-
" OF PROVISIONS, where only boats of no
great size can be employed on account
IF frequent portages. make the explora-
non of these regions an undertaking re-
9lete with danger and hardships
Added to these natural difficulties
mere is rooted disinclination on the
part OF the natives to undertake long
and arduonS Journeys outside of the inn
nsesdlate district with which they are ia