Evening star., 1923-05-06

there without flying. We used it.
Several of the natives had brought
along their machetes, broac-bladed
knives like those that their piratical
ancestors had designed. With these
they cut down two slender palms that
grew by the way. The branches were
trimmed and there remained slender
poles each about ,seventy-five feet in
length. Others cut some long pieces
of slender cepo, a rope-Iike vine of
considerable strength-yes, happily
for me. considerable strength
! Down the side of that bare wall of
rock were shallow and narrow
grooves worn in the course of many
| seasons by tiny trickles of water
| running down from above. They
| were about a foot in width and six
| inches in depth. We laid one of the
| slender palm-poles up against the
rock, resting the top in the channel.
| Vasco shinnied up 1T with several
| vine ropes trailing from his belt. We
| showed the other pole up to him and
[ he pulled It up until the lower end
was in his hand and the upper end
was even with the top of the bare
rock and rested in some overhansing
| foliage.
With pieces of vine he lashed the
two ends near him together and then
/ began climbing the higher pole. After
a few minutes he seized a branch of
a tough tree and pulled himself nim-
bly, over the edge to the ledge above
like some midget who had seized hold
of hairs and pulled himself over a
giants forehead. Was there ever such
| climbing. No wonder the river peo-
pie had said of Vasco: He can GO
where no other man can follow"
He fastened the ends of two cepo
vines to the scrubby tree on the upper
ledge. threw the remainder down be-
side the upright poles, and took hold
of the upper end himself as if to
| make the anchorage more secure.
Come on. SENIOR" he said.
7 STARTED shinnying up as he had
done. / reached the top of the
first pole safely, and wedged my
knees into the groove in the wall sc
that could rest for a moment before
going g-hfgher-Fhen I started to clint
on, but I could not bulge. / couldn't
move and my knees panied me vic.
lently. In wedging myself into the
groove my trousers had caught over
a sharp protruding crystal of field
spar. and another crystal dug into
my knee when I tried to move. My
arms began to get numb from grip
ping the cepo. I looked up and ther
I oI Aot
seemed to recede from me-leavine
me stranded in a great space stuck
to that granite wall. 1 felt like let.
/ ting go my hold upon the cepo an6
seeing If 1 should fall. That would
be one way of freeing myself
but the edges of the sharp rock sew.
enty feet below me did not invite
such an experiment. / tried agair
to pull myself up. and failed. Ther,
was one more thing to do.
"Vasco." I called.
"Si, SENIOR" I heard him answe,
above my head, but I could not Sc,
him.
Have you got hold Of the rope
|. Is it secure? Will i
hold meo
| Si, SellHOE. IL lS very SlEOHS, IL
answered.
"very we'll, then" ], shouted, her
goes" and holding on to the tw'
slender vines with my hands, 1 CAV
myself a violent shove out from th
cliff. There was a ripping, sharl
PAIN and then / tore away from tfa
groove and swung sidewise like tn
pendulum of clock righ
out over the western side of th
mountain. and looked fearfully down
miles it seemed, into the tops o
jungle trees. I scraped against th
i rough surface of the mountain, ant
then I stopped swinging and hun,
straight down. dangling like a weigh
on a plumb line.
Then bean pulling myself up han
over hand, very slowly and cautiously
: feeling that at any moment my mum
l hands would relax their dreadful gri
and 1 would go plunging down. dow
into that swaying green mass below
1 But my grip held; I went slowly, u
Y hand over hand, gripping the win
between my knees and ankles.
' hand appeared from above an
grabbed my shirt. Not a word wa
spoken. Vasco had hold of what re
mained of that garment and helpe
t me over the edge. I lay sprawling o
= my back In the soft moss.