The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-11
EXPLORER FINDS
 DARIEN RICH IN + WORKABLE GOLD
Savage Natives Always Resent Intrusion Of
 Strangers
By LEMUEL F. PARTON

tCopyr1Eht, 1924, fn United States and
 Canada, by North American Newspaper Alliance for The Age-Herald).
 NEW YORK, July 10.-When Rich ard O. Marsh sent word that he was bringing home white Indians from the Darien, 1t did not seem startling. A etory of Indians with eyes in the mid de of their foreheads would have seemed quite credible, coming from this strange region.
 For the Darien, witkstanding the slow encroachments of civilization, has long been a lingering stronghold of the eerie, the fantastic and the incredible. ! It is the land of the pinto people-the stpiebalds like polka dot necktie it is the land of Fl Tulia Vieja 1.-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." It is the only remain ing country where the Obi man, plucking love charms from live blackbirds, at- tAins dignity which would outshine the president of the American Medical as- sociation. It is the only country where even the most primitive natives have a firm belief in mental telepathy, and an equally firm belief in the existence of Garmantuna man-apes. The Jefe Polit- ico of Chepigana, the last outpost of the Panamanian government at the edge of this forbidding jungle, told me in great detail, and with 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 him had very red eyes, sir
 before God, sir v
 Swore Enmity To Whites
 I went into the Darien early in 1908, 1 with two young explorers-one a natur- dist They did not survive. In fact, almost no one has ever survived who has dared to cross the dead line, first set across the Rio Darien at Fl Real by the San Bias Indians, when they killed boa, entering in 1512, treated the 1n- | dians kindly, and was welcomed.
 The Spanish Governor Pedrarias, who | murdered Balboa, killed and tortured 1 them. The Spaniards sought gold. | When the Indians got the last of them, they achieved a bit of poetic justice | by pouring molten gold down their throats. From then on they were the implacable enemies of the white man. A few of the African slaves, brought in by Balboa, remained and people the villages of Tucuti, Fl Real, Las Lalmas and Camoganti. They have re- mained in savagery, and it is they who have become the spotted people-pos- sibly 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 a ''string of colors" clear around the pan. The natives wash out the gold in a wooden "batea," like a huge old fashioned butter-bowl. Every few years an adventurer-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 in great state with many servants and a black boy to carry the train of his gold embroid- cred Yobe-all from the proceeds of the Darien thirst.
 It is the San Bias Indians, whose poisoned arrows have withstood in- vaders, even friendly visitors, for 400 years. Their country extends from Conception Gays, on the north side of the Isthmus, about 100 miles east to Cape Tiburon, on the border of Colom- bia.
 Vast Resources
 v 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 for. ests of mahogany, bango, cotiva and valuable hardwoods and rubber trees. AL though the gold is a thin water con. eentrate, widely distributed, there is no question that it constitutes vast treasure, if properly sluiced. The soil is deep and rich and gives abundant yields of yams, plantains and rice. In the high cordillera of the Andes chain, the climate is by no means unpleasant.
 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 sueeumbed?