Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-06-30
THE DARIEN
DEADLINE
No. 1.-The Land of the Pinto..
ny LEMUEL F.. PARTON.

| No. 1.-The Land of the PintOs.
When Richard o. Marsh sent word
that he was bringing home white In
| dams from the Darien it did not seem
startling. A story of Indians with
eyes in the middle of their foreheads
| would have seemed quite credible,
coming from this strange region.
| For the Darien, withstanding the
slow encroachments of civilization,
! of the eerie. the fantastic and the in
credible. 1t is the land of the pinto
| people-the pie baIds"-spotted like
a polka-dot necktie; it is the land Of
| Ell Tulia Vieja-the "old Tulia," who
murdered her child, and was punished
by having her feet turned backward
/ and her body turned red. She is the
| evil spirit OF the woods, whose spell
| must be broken by an "oration" 1t
Is the only remaining country where
| the Obi man, plucking love charms
from live black birds, attains dignity
| which would outshine the president
Of the American Medical Association
1t is the only country where even the
| most primitive natives have a firm
| belief in mental teIepathy, and an
! equally firm belief in the existence of
4
| litico of Chepigana, the last outpost
| OF the Panamanfan government at the
| edge of this forbidding jungle. told
me in great detail. and with a solemn
avowal of truth, of his encounter with
one of these strange creatures Be
| fore God, sir. him were as tall as two
| men, sir, and had him very red eyes,
sir-before God, sir"
| Swore Enmity to Whites.
] went into the Darfen early in
| 1903 with two young explorers-one
naturalist. They did not survive
In fact, almost no one has ever sur
vived who has dared to cross the
| dead line, first set across the Rio
| Darien at Ell Real by the San Bias
| the Spaniards in 1913. Balboa, en-
| tering in 1872. treated the Indians
kindly and was welcomed.
The Spanish governor. Pedrarias.
| tortured them. The Spaniards sought
gold. When the Indians got the last
of them, they achieved bit of poetic
justice by pouring molten gold down
were the implacable enemies of the
white man. few of the African
| slaves brought in by Balboa re-
manned and people the villages of
Tucuti, FL Real, Las PaImas and
Camoganti They have remained in
savagery. and it is they who have
| become the spotted people-possibly
through consanguinity-no one. not
even the anthropologists, seems to
know.
The gold is still there. On the Rio
Darien. on the Balsa, on the Tuyra,
on the Coassi Rivers, we usually
found string of colors' clear
around the pan. The natives wash
out the gold in a wooden 'batea,"
bowl. Every few years an adven-
| turer-usually Chinese, gets up
near the dead line" with load of
trinkets and "aguadiente''-power-
full and wicked cane whisky. A
bottle of this will buy an ounce of
gold dust On the Avenida Central.
in Panama, there is an old Chinese
who is-or at any rate waS-living
and a black hoy to carry the train
of his gold embroidered robe-all from
the proceeds of the Darien thirst.
1t is the San Bias Indians whose
poisoned arrows have withstood in
vaders, even friendly visitors, for
400 years. This country extends
from Conception Gays. on the north
side of the isthmus. about 100 miles
east to Cape Tiburon, on the border
of Colombia.
Vast Resources.
The interest in Marsh's exploit in
placating these Indians and bringing
back the King of the Darien is by
no means confined to the scientific.
From the time you reach Chepigana,
on the harbor of Darien, you find
rich forests of mahogany, bongo,
cotiva and valuable hardwoods and
rubber trees. Although the gold is a
thin water concentrate, widely dis
tributed. there is no question that
it constitutes vast treasure. if
properly sluiced. The soil is deep
and rich and gives abundant yields
of vans. plantains and rice. In the
high Cordillera of the Andes chain,
the climate is by no means un-
pleasant
And all this has lain almost with
in a hands reach of the greatest
physical achievement of man-the
Panama Canal. Does Marsh's achieve
ment mean that this last stronghold Of
mystery and melodrama has at last
succumbed?
Copyright. 1924 by North American News-
paper Alliance.l