The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1911-01-31

Paper That Circulates Among Six
Thousand Employees of Company
That Is Building Brazilian Railway
Around Madeira Falls Contains All
the News That Is Called to Para.
Newcomers to the astonishing ANA
zon country are constantly amazed by
the manner In which the white man,
who has set himself to tame this will
derness and wiring fortunes out of it,
has applied the very latest devices Of
civilization to uses which in an older
country are still served by machinery
not quite so up to date.
The modern developer of raw geo
graphical material arrives in Brazil
with all his work to do and, finding
a virgin soil, promptly applies to the
task the very latest labor saving con-
trivances-a thing he could not do at
home, where vast sums are tied up in
earlier types of machinery.
It Is, for instance, perfectly reason
able that what is perhaps the only
newspaper with an exclusively wireless
telegraph service published elsewhere
than on an ocean liner should flourish
In the midst Of a patch Of civilization
hedged In by hundreds OF miles of the
Amazonas jungle through which the
expense Of running and maintaining
line Of poles and wire would be quite
prohibitive, the patch of civilization
being accessible otherwise only by
long voyage by river.
journalism In the Jungle.
a traveller is nevertheless hardly
prepared for the shock of seeing q
casual copy OF the Porto Velho Mar
conigram, actually published in coun-
try infested by cannibal head hunters,
III such a hole In the jungle, as it were,
and relying on wireless entirely for the
part Of its news which deals with the
outside world.
The Porto Velho Marconigram is a
four page weekly, neatly printed on
a single twice folded sheet It is the
one newspaper Of Porto Velho, Bra
lillian town some 1000 miles from the
mouth Of the Amazon, on the Madeira
river, which enters the main stem Of
the greatest of rivers below this port
and is reached by not too frequent
steamers from Manaos.
It is from Manaos that the news
which corses thus far by cable is sent
by wireless to the Porto Velho news
paper, the readers Of which are found
ananng the 1900 inhabitants of that
place. iirof these inhabitants are in
the employ Of the Madeira Mamore
Railway company, a concern actively
managed by Americans which is en-
gagged In building for the Brazilian
government q line around the falls Of
the Madeira river. This line, 800
miles long, Brazil has undertaken to
construct in order to fulfill a treaty
obligation to Bolivia to give that re
public an outlet to the ocean by way
Of the Amazon.
The Madeira above the falls is navi-
gable for 1000 miles. The railway
when completed viii link this upper
stretch with the great channel of the
Amazon which makes Manaos, though
It is LOGO miles from the rivers mouth,
to ali intents an ocean port, since it is
the landing place OF steamships from
New York and European ports.
Circulation Of Six thousand.
The railway around the falls has
been under construction some four
years and Is now about half completed.
The town OF Porto velho was found
ed by the railway company, which
employs some 5000 men and which in
this country has to import not only all
OF its engineers and other responsible
employees, but also ali Of It's manual
labor, the Indians who inhabit the
Anazonas jungle through which the
work Is now pushing its slow and pain
full way being as unwilling as unfit 70
perform the tasks required Of rail-
way builder.
Before Porto YeEho reached its pres
emit size and Importance as a center
OF European population the newspaper
was mereIy typewriter and mimeo-
graphed Then, too, It was merely a
local organ, no wireless having then
been installed. Now, with four pages
printed on modern press, the paper
prides itself on Its telegraph news
from all the world cabled to Para,
thence by cable, again up the Amazon
TO Manaos and finally By wireless
across the jungle to the Office Of the
Porto Velho Marconigranl.