Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Through Perilous Peru ness. These not only wind about the trees for their entire height but also flower and leaf luxuriantly and, as if that were not enough, loop themselves in every conceiv- able manner from the branches and inter- lace with such marvelous complexity as to make the head swim in an effort to follow their courses. Add to this a veritable screen of cabbage-like lichens, orchids and vege- table marvels pendant from every branch, let a second screen of delicate ferns spring up from underfoot, bearing in mind that our maiden-hair fern of the Temperate Zone grows here to a height of three feet, and you will have a faint idea of the almost impenetrable mass of vegetation which stood in our way. The ascent of the first range east of the Huallaga occupied seven days, during which time it rained almost incessantly. As we approached the summit and found ourselves among the clouds at an elevation of seven thousand feet our soaked condi- tion made us feel the cold acutely. In all this jungle travel, it must be remembered, there is great difficulty in procuring fire- wood for the reason that the trees are so full of sap and water that they will hardly burn. But, after all, the discomfort of never being able to dry our clothes turned out to be the least of our troubles. On the afternoon of the tenth we arrived on the banks of a small stream which we afterward—for good reason—named the River Destitution. This river lay only three thousand feet below the point from which we had glimpsed it two and one-half days before, but so circuitous a route had been forced on us by the character of the ground and so dense had been the under- growth that it had taken us all of that time to advance little more than a mile and a half in a straight line. ei to call a halt until the now overdue packers would arrive with fresh supplies and coca-leaves for the natives. Without coca for the cholo any attempt to extract work from the Peruvian mountain In- dian is practically futile. The cholo is a small man and neither strong nor over-ambitious, so that without his accustomed stimulant he is little more than a child in either in- tellect or physical force. Bountifully sup- plied with his drug, however, this same dopey little man will carry a very fair- AT THIS point I found it necessary IO39 sized burden and undergo great hardships, Ks sy nothing of going many days without ood. The cultivation of the coca-leaf, from which the cocaine of commerce is extracted, has been an important indystry in Peru ever since the days of the Infas, so that the art is fairly old. During the colonial period the use of the drug by the natives was wide- spread. I imagine that its peculiar proper- ties bothered those old Spaniards mightily. Spain was turning out some veryfair fight- ing-men about that time, but they were better with their swords than they were at making organic analyses, so when it was up to them to explain whence came this mystc- rious power that enabled men to withstand hunger and exhaustion and lack of sleep their heads began to ache and they finally laid it at the door of the Evil One. But that was a way they had when they couldn’t figure things out; just blamed it all on the poor old Devil and let: it go at that. STARVATION LOOMS AHEAD CTOBER 12th found us still wait- ing for our food-train and practically out of supplies. Such was my confidence in our arrangements, however, that it was not until we were actually on the verge of starvation that I began to feel doubts as to the reliability of our agent in San Juan and apprehension of similar predicaments when we should be farther into the jungle. Our efforts to find game met with little success. There is very little animal life above three thousand feet in tropical.South America and practically no birds at all, except parrots, which fly very high, and although all hands were sent out with orders to shoot at anything that could fly or walk, it was not until by great good luck I killed a deer on the thirteenth that we were afforded any relief. ‘The fifteenth again found us without food and the pack- ers still invisible. Although we redoubled our efforts to find game not even the re- doubtable McClure was able to bag any- thing, although he had regaled us on many a feast that had been the result of his wood- craft—always in other countries. I shall never forget Fleming’s earnest- ness as he described a meal he had once had at the Café Berlin in Lima, while, to stay the pangs of hunger, he strode up and down with his belt drawn up to the last C© MICLOOKS CO