Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-03
PLANE OVER BRAZIL
SHOWS ODD SIGHTS
Flight Reveals Many Hidden
and Picturesque Features of
Worlds Longest Orchard

almost clipping th-e nuts of coconut
trees with our wing tip, we circled low
over this undulating pail belt, which
stretches hundreds of miles down the
Brazilian coast. to let our cameramen
record its odd sights" writes Frederick
Simpich. National Geographic Society
staff correspondent with the seaplane
party surveying air routes between
washington and Buenos Aires.
"Thatched-hut jewellers in this
worlds longest orchard broken only
now and then by barren spots, towns or
river mouths seem to live largely on
coconuts and fish.
Sliding swiftly ashore in the surf,
their days fishing done. is fleet of
'iangadas, or the queer sailing RATS of
spliced logs seen here by the hundreds.
The first saw, miles from shore, with
its deck awash and two men standing
ankledeep in water on it, gave me quite
q start: / thought the men adrift from
o shipwreck!
AT low tide the hard, sandy beachs
makes the local highway between viii
lagos. A thin trafic stream trickles
over 1t. We see many OK teams, six and
eight yokes to a team, hauling the big
country carts. their clumsy wheels one
solid piece of wood. One day, ashore,
! heard the hideous scream of such a
cart. as its dry axle squeaked under its
heavy load why don't you grease it?'
I asked: The oxen like the racket.
They pull better when the cart squeaks'
Many Hidden Sights.
"As auto tourists roam the States
getting gas hers and there. and lodging
where night falls, so We are touring by
seaplane. Across the West Indian Is
land Bridge, around the Orinoco Delta
into Amazonia, poking into odd hooks
and coastal crannies and roaming free
ly over shallow waters behind the reefs,
We visit many strange spots.
Landing at little towns, flying up
occasional rivers where no planes are
seen, or visiting big plantations, we get
a fresh. intimate closeup of country
life in parts of Brazil where Americans
are seldom seen. Stevens and Gayer
falls Of Paulo Alfonso, which occur in
the ,950-mile-long San Francisco
River at a point about 40 miles up
stream from its mouth. No plane ever
new there before Here an estimated
horsepower of / 100000 makes a great
roar. The gorges and canyons, through
which the great river drops $50 or ITS
feet in a series of falls, are comparable
in grandeur and vivid rock coloration
to sections of the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado. No landings anywhere; no
place for a motor to 'konk'l
Life on Brazilian sugar estates re-
calls ante-bellum tales of our own old
South. The owners, usually with French
culture, live an easy, baronial existence.
Servants fairly swarm; cooks, nurses
and houSemaids must go barefoot. for
silence. Grooms, gardeners, chauf1eurs.
wood cutters. body to sweep the yard
every one to- his allotted task-form a
social unit on each plantation. Men
and women in the cane fields at SUM-
rise: the tonic smell of fresh-plowed
earth; whitehead overseers on sweating,
fretting ponies one excited group about
O new Yankee tractor. Though in
Brazil most farm work is still done with
hand tools, the day of the machine is
come. From little towns like Maceio
new roads split the jungles-as yet mud
or dust roads-but beginning. In the
last two years, on these new roads the
Yankee-built motor bus has appeared.
Out on one such new road. at Leao
Utinga, I met a young American from
Louisiana, the only one in that region
He was installing more new machines
In what is already one of the worlds
model sugar mills.
But the old persists. AS when
slaves built Babel, or moved giant
stones into pyramids, saw 26 men use