Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-04-23

is Iull VI SOlQ, WHOSE VlIle-LdIll
with deadly SerpentS and dead
lier vermin-
Land OF 200 torrential rivers
tumbling downward in spraying
crushing, roaring waterfalls
which are full of rainbows, rivers
which rise and fall five or six feet
in night, night after night
1t is probably the least known
corner of the world. In at least
rs per cent of it no human ever
has stepped. There are no books
about it and only the scantiest
of geographical reports.
Such is the western Choco
northwestern state of the Repub-
lie of Colombia, extending 300
miles up the Pacific coast from
the wild and wicked old port city
of Buenaventura to the Panama
border. 1t is almost uninhabited.
Its people are scattered groups
Of Indians and Negroes huddled
in thatch-roofed huts along its
five or six major rivers where
they have chopped little inches
in the jungle walls.
The land constitutes one of
earth's last frontiers - perhaps
the hardest of all frontiers for
man to cross. 1t offers, in its
way. more formidable difficulties
than Arctic or Antarctic.
Survey With a Purpose
This vast, almost unknown
area now is being surveyed for
the first time by American and
Colombian army engineers of the
Inter American Geodetic Survey.
The present work in the Choco
is part OF the international Or
CARNATIONS extended survey of
the South American continent
and Central America. The Choco
survey is of much more than
theoretical interest. Through
this swamp in the sky" one of
the last two or three missing
links of the projected Pan-Amer-
lean highway must be built
Doubtless in a few years engi-
neers with bulldozers will be
crashing through the jungle, but
the most experienced engineers
of the survey are pessimistic
They don't question eventual
success but, they say, it will be
the hardest bit of road building
ever attempted
"It's the meanest place we
have hit yet--snake bites, ma
laria and all that sort of thing"
says Lieut.. Col. Bartholomew De
Stacio of the United States Army
Engineers, who is directing the
Choco job.
have just spent eight days in
this mysterious Choco, a guest
of the engineers on one of their
army landing craft which go up
and down the major rivers con-
tinually on supply, replacement
and rescue missions. The latter
are probably the most frequent
and difficult.
All a Hopeless Tangle
The place is an inextricable
tangle of mud. jungle, rain and
rock. Once a mile or so away
from its larger rivers-the San
Juan, the Baupo, the Atrapo--
1t is dead land, so far as most
animal life is concerned. There
is marked difference from the
popular picture of tropical jun
gle. Here no birds sing, no mon
keys chatter in treetops. 1t is a
dark. mist-shrouded land where
stars and moon seldom shine,
where a thousand waterfalls are
white torches, seemingly lumi-
nous at night in contrast to
the overwhelming. wet darkness
around them. They actually
gave a little light. says an engi-
neer who was lost for four days
In the dark depths.
This Choco jungle might be
likened to remnant Of the
great tree fern forests of 800 mil
lion years ago-the rankest
growth this planet has known
which became the present-day
coal deposits. Then the dense
vegetation was due, some say. to
more carbon dioxide in the at
mosphere. That Of the Choco is
due to a quite different reason,
but the general picture is much
the same.
am writing about the land
In the rainy scaSon-pou, r1,,r-