The Nome daily nugget., 1935-09-28

ward along the eastern shore of
 Jaguar island, round its point into
 the vast expanse of the Bahia de
 MarajO, and lose yourself In mo- notony. Upstream and down, only
 the indlstinct blending of sky and
 water mark the horizon; to right
 and left, level blue line of tree tops indicates the position of the dis
 tant shores, all details are obliter-
 ated by haze of water vapor that
 make binoculars useless for study
 ing even the nearer islands. Little left to look at besides the
 brown river itself, its surface
 whipped by the trades into short,
 choppy waves, you follow the lead | of the native passengers and turn I in for a siesta.
 Many Stops for Fuel. Just before sunset you enter
 Breves strait, one of the numerous
 deep, narrow, winding channels through which the tide ebbs and flows between the Para estuary and the Amazon proper. and which dissect the terrain into a maze of | jungle islands. Here you tie up at small place to take wood for the boilers.
 So unsuitable are these iron maws
 that wood stations have become typ lcal institutions of the low country and account for most of the steam CTS stops during the first two days. For hour after hour, sometimes far into the night, men and boys with coppery torsos gleaming with sweat
 run across the plank In endless line to dump ten-stick loads with
 resounding thumps on the steel deck.
 Mid-morning of the third day you pass the little whitewashed town of Gurupa, atop the high right bank,
 from which steps descend to small piers. At one side are brown walls of an ancient fortress, and a mill dewed church on green, close cropped lawn. You are now in the Amazon proper, though this part Is only a channel around the south east side of Gurupa island. Above Gurupa, the Xingu dis
 charges waters collected on the plateau of central Matto Crosse, hun dreds of miles to the south. Some where near its sources the gallant British explorer, Col. P. H. Fawcett, disappeared in 1925.
 No matter how many travel books he may read, the newcomer to the Amazon Is never prepared for the
 reality. He is impressed according to mood. He may turn his gaze ahead to a distant horizon with no | thin hay line of shore intervening between blue and brown, and let his imagin ltion wander the width of the continent. to where the river takes It's source in Andean snows within sight of the Pacific; or he may look into its depths and see only mud. !: Plenty of Life In the River.
 Actually, the river teens with life, unseen though 1t may be. Its drain age claims 74S different kinds of fish-nearly a third more than its closest competitor, the Congo-in- cluding familiar little guppies, cleo tric eels, four-eyed fish, murderous piranhas, and the gigantic pirarucu, whose dried flesh in bales befouls the air of every ships hold in Ama- zonia. This monster, with maxi
 mum length of 15 feet and weight of 40 pounds, is easily the largest
 strictly fresh water fish extant; yet | It is only a flyweight compared with it's mammalian neighbor, the man.
 atee, which may exceed ton. Thus, | among all South American animals,
 the palm for sheer bulk goes to the | gentle river COW.
 | After eight days the steamer turns from the Amazon against the
 cOffee-colored tide of the Rio Negro.
 The change from brown to black Is
 sudden and startling. No more so.
 however, than the arrival, eight
 miles farther on, at modern city
 of 42,000 set in the midst of a
 jungle.
 Manaos lies 45O miles from the
 nearest railroad, and that Is but
 a morlbund line around the rapids
 of the upper Madeira; yet one finds
 well-paved streets, electric lights,
 tramways, automobiles, and the best
 Ice cream ever tasted. There Is even
 magnificent opera house. though
 1t stands empty, sad monument
 to the heyday of rubber. when for a moment manioc and pirarucu
 yielded to champagne and pate de
 foie gras. But the biggest and tafl-
 est structure of all is the brewery, a vertable skyscraper as buildings go in Amazonia.