The Ely miner., 1913-08-01

The savages of this region fight
with bamboo-headed spears and poi.
soned arrows, the latter propelled by
a powerful bow seven feet long. The
arrowheads, of bone, are dipped in
snake venom, and inflict a mortal
wound. The venom is said to be pro-
cured by boiling snakes heads to ex.
tract it from the glands, and evaporat.
ing the solution to almost dryness.
The Indians are, however, afraid Of
anything that will shoot, consequent
ly the constructors of the Madeira and
Manmore line always carried a revol-
ver If you carry a gun," says Mr..
Chester, "the probability is that you
will never have to use it, but il you
don't carry one the Carapunas will
get you sure"
The Carapunas do not show them
selves in the white mems vicinity ex-
cept when they come out on the river
bank to meet the rubber batalaos COM
ing down the river. These batalaos are
wooden craft covered with an avn.
ing of palm branches, and can be
taken all the way from Bolivia down
within 15 miles of Porto Velho, where
are the falls of San Antonio. Here
the Indians have to get out and shove
or pull the boat through the stones
on one side The Indians sell skins,
mostly in exchange for cartridges.
These they string about their necks,
not to have ready for use, because
they don't use firearms, but as orna-
ments.
Snakes and gigantic spiders are the
terror of the jungle railroad man.
When you are working in the jun
gle," said one of them, you always
awake with a feeling of uncertainty in
the morning. OF course, a surveying
party simply has to hew its path as it
goes along, and your camp is usually
in clearing just big enough to con-
tain it. About it Is thick wall of
trees, vines, and underground that a
man cannot pierce without the aid OF
an AK, which, of course, are filled with
every manner of creeping thing.
When you awake in the morning,
for instance, you may see playful
snake wrapped around the pole over
head, giving every appearance of Sc
| lecting the proper point from which
to drop into your month. You may
! feel something soft and clammy rub
up against your ear, and when you
grab at it to fling it away, you find it
is lizard. Or perhaps scorpion
may be playing with your hair.
Then, when you have decided to
get up and reach for your boots, you
are apt to find that a big tarantula
has made up his mind that one of
| them would make comfortable
house, and has put himself and his
legs in there so cozily and nice that
you hate to disturb him. We caught
one of these horrors and killed him
and measured him, and, without
stretching him at all, 1t was eight
inches from the tip of his starboard
leg to those he carried on the port
side. Perhaps your other shoe has
been appropriated by family Of gi-
ant centipedes, which abound in large
quantities.
LAS for snakes, the Garden of Eden
wasn't in it at all. Some of the big
ones, the anacondas, are as big around
As your body, and it was not infre-
quent that some of our men in chop
ping away at what they thought were
giant roots or vines found they had
taken a hack instead of a big snake,
and then there was some scampering.
One of these big fellows killed by
the men of our party measured %
feet You never see the sun when
you are in a Brazilian jungle, but
there is something going on. even If
/ It is only crawling"