Arizona republican., 1909-12-19
OUR MODERN
 ACCOMPLISHMENT

It had been a typical pioneer break fast-bacon, and 'spuds." sour dough | bread. coffee and embalmed milk. Come outside and take look at the
 work"
 My Costa Rican host pushed back the
 rough table from which we had been | eating, and led the way out on the porch. "The Shack" a rough affair of unplaned blanks and corrugated iron,
 stood on a ledge a hundred feet above ! the bottom of the gorge.
 "See. That is the center line of the
 tunnel''
 Looking where he pointed. l saw a white post set in the hillside. It show
 ed vividly distinct against the heavy
 green of tropical vegetation. Rushing | towards uS, in a riot of white foam, was | a river Below the shack it struck the solid granite; rebOunding in whiri- | pool of spray, it tore down a narrow
 canyon towards the Pacific Some rocks in the river bed showed gray and red
 and brown: except for the blue over head. they gave the only relief from | the monotonous green of the hothouse | foliage. There were great trees. lignum vitae and bitter cedar. wherever tree could find root; between them dense,
 tangled jungle of giant ferns. A fam ! ilv of monkeys in the trees on the oth- l CT bank put a final touch to the prim- ! evalness of the scene. From time to | time snatchcs of their shrill gibberish came across to us above the constant | roar of the waters I have always felt that monkeys-in their wild state
 marked the utter opposite to civiliZa- | tion.
 The tunnel will be a quarter of a ' mile long. The intake is on the other ; side of that hill. The pipes begin where
 you see the post. and go down through ] the gorge half a mile to the turbines The speaker was a tall. angular man. l but 1.-the: a heavy, broad framework or bone. great knots of muscle and over | all tightly drawn covering of skin | There was a notable lack of superflu- | ous flesh His hands were the only | thing about him which were we'll kept. ! Their sympathetic intimacy with deli : cate instruments was apparent and yet 1 they could be-in need-terrible wea-
 pons. T never carry a machete, he | tod me Fists are better in dealing
 with the peons" The rest of him | at least the parts which were visible i was neglected His hair and beard had ] not been groomed for months. His i flannel shirt was torn, his khaki trou- scrs were frayed and grimy. his. high
 hunting boots so cased in mud that 1t \ was q wonder to me how he found the iaces.
 II T can explain it better with a chart" he .. i'd. And, going into the drafting ha rafu with hiS aSSiStanf- young man just out of Cornell In | appearance he was almost the dupli-
 cate of the older man. only there was
 more flesh on him, his complexion was
 not yet yellowed by fever. he had not
 been long enough in the jungle to so completely slough off the marks of civilization. He smoked an amber
 stemmed pipe instead of a native cigar
 and he st" wore his fraternity pin.
 They unrolled the blueprint on the
 porch of the shack. and, as nearly as
 it is possible with layman. explained
 their work to me. They were install-
 ing a I5.00O horse power electric plant.
 The current would be carried fifteen
 miles to the stamping mills of a great
 gold mine They were laying their
 plans so that at any time in the future
 they could double their horse power. IL would be a magnificent piece of
 work anywhere. But to do it in the
 heart of the Central American jungle
 seemed Io me a stupendous feat. lt had been necessary for them to build
 their own roads-cutting their way
 with machetes. inch by inch. through
 the desperate tangle of the underbrush before they could begin.
 The older man had been doing sim
 liar work for twenty years. all the way from the Straits of Magellan to the Texas border. He mad built bridges.
 laid out water supplies. erected fac
 tories. installed power plants. and had
 "rairoaded some" But he did not like railroading so well. he told me, as the
 smaller. isolated jungle jobs. which l were all his own. He was lineal descendant of our old individualstiC
 frontiersman. who had to be cutting down trees. Today there are few places left in the states where a man can make a clearing" So the men with
 this blood in their veins have had to expatriate themselves. as their fathers did-cross the frontier.
 Mexico is full of such men. so is ev- ..