The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1945-12-20

are pulled WIN TWO SndNeS Win !
curved bamboo yoke in between
that Just sits on the caribou's neck. /,
They are about the slowest things
imaginable. You never see them
hitched in pairs such as the oxen in
the early American days.
II guess ! started to tell you about
little trip that we took to the
mountains. These mountains are of
volcanic origin and there is one
place down there that they get these
volcanic cinders for use on the
roads. There is cone-shaped hill
right beside pretty good sized
mountain and they have cut away
section of it with bulldozer. They
Just push the cinders down the hill
with the dozer and then run it into
big bins that the truck just back
under and let it run into the truck
box. These cinders are about like
ordinary cinders along the railroad
tracks except that they are as red
as iron ore. Right where they get
the cinders is where the mountains
start in We drove on by there into
the mountains. Right about where
the mountains started the road was
! lined with banana trees. There
were no ripe bananas on the trees
I SO we thought that we would get
some green ones and let them ripen.
All the bananas that the native had
picked were green so we went to
/ get some. Banana trees are about
/ Is feet high and it is impossible to
climb the things. The stalk is made
I out of layers Of stuff about like
/ leaves. When you put your feet
against the tree to climb it just
slips down taking the outside layer
of the tree with it. This exposes
the wet interior and it is too slippery
to get foot hold in The natives
cut the bananas off with pole with
knife on the end We didn't have
have anything like that SO ! just
proceeded to push the tree over
They are very shallow rooted and
come right over. The first one that
pushed over was about eight inches
through and it came out roots and
all The next one was only about
six inches through and it broke off.
After we had gone to all this trou-
BILE of pushing over the trees to get
the bananas, when we got them
home we found that they were not
the kind Of bananas that you eat.
They were the kind that the natives
use to cook and were no good at all
to eat raw even if they did get ripe.
After getting the bananas we
drove On up the road which got
worse as we went along. Pretty
soon the bananas ended quite
abruptly and coconuts started in.
4 Coconut palms are the tall ones
with the bare stalk and the bunch Of
leaves at the top. Most Of them
had coconuts on them which is more
than you can say about the bananas
going more UP into the mountains
on the banana trees. We started
after we hit the cronut palms
The road got lot narrower but
was in much better condition than
that we had just come over. We
{ stopped one place and | climbed q
coconut tree and got some coconuts
, GOWN Inc one tIldl C1lllipGu was
only about thirty feet high but
some Of themTare a good deal high
! er up to about seventy feet | would
Judge. We went on up the roac
, and came to several little villages
, Up there instead Of saying, Hello
joel as we drove by, like they Dc
most places, the kids all yelled
! Victory Joe, and held up two fin
gers in v. They must have still
thought there was war on o.
/ something, The coconut trees con
{ tinued to line the road and hills al
J the way to the other side. On thu
I other side Of this bunch Of noun
| tains there was pretty good sizee
! town and we took different roat
4 back most Of the way to Manila o.
/ the way back we got into some kint
: of a convoy with an MP jeep lead
, ing it so we were not bothered b,
! MP check points or stop streets. Al
.~x .~V -