Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

“fe a ed bic’ eTrail Smellers a rea MacCREAGH! Ne Author of ‘The Inca’s Ransom,” “‘Mamu, the Soothsayer,” etc. ILL I undertake a small freight for W the senhores? Como ndo? Why not? Ww Freighting is my business, and I, Theophilo Da Costa, will under- take to deliver a freight to any place in all Amazonas—provided the price is right; and the price is dependent upon the distance and the danger involved. Up the Rio Ic4 into the Putumayo country? Oho! Into that disputed country of no man where the boundaries are in- definite, claimed by Ecuador and Colombia and Peru and our own Brazil; and where, while international boundary commission- ers haggle interminably at Lima, the law is to him who is strongest. The rubber has been abandoned these six years, since it does not pay. The little balata there is worked out; for the method employed by those foolish collectors kills the trees. Nothing is left but desolation; angry Indians who have been fed full- bellied with promises; and the crumbling sitios of traders who went up when the rub- ber was good and have never had money enough since to get away. You, senhores, who travel up this Amazon River on the comfortable steamers of the Companha Navigazione, do not hear much of these things; but believe me who knows, it is true. To carry your “‘little freight” would mean a special journey for me, which would be long and tedious with many places of bad water and with no other recompense. I would have to charge you for four months at least of time. Danger, I might easily discount; for, those Putumayos have been well beaten to tameness; and, while they sometimes, by reason of that very beating, are goaded to uprising, my men are all Huitotos from the Yapurd, and few of these other tribes care to get into trouble with Huitotos. So there lies the case, senhores. For my time I must charge you one conto of milreis. If your freight is worth it, buom, I am ready to start tomorrow. ‘Tell me but what it is and where it is to be delivered. But I tell you in advance that there is only one freight that is worthwhile carrying in these days up the Rio Ic4, or Putumayo, as men call it after it passes through the borders of Brazil into Peru and through that corner of Peru into Colombia—if ever those borders will be settled. To Concepcion? But, senhores, why not say, “‘to the Amazon River?” There are a hundred Concepcions in this Amazonas of ours. Four I know on the Rio Ica alone. We have Concepcao da Virgem on the Brazilian side, and the Concepcions Imaculada and Maravillosa in the Peru- vian corner, and then just plain Concepcion far up in the foot hills of Colombia. The difference is a journey of a ‘thousand miles. Who, then, in all these Concepcions is to get this freight which is so important? Como? How? A case of Paté de foie gras? Ha ha, it is enough. The senhores do not have to tell me any more. I know exactly where you wish me to carry this 104 CoOMmiclhoo CO 5}