FISH FALL FROM SKY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10313, 24 January 1927, Page 2

FISH FALL FROM SKY

A CRIMSON STREAK. MYSTERIES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. Mr. F. A. Mitchell Hedges, the explorer, who is now on a tour of the Ceneral Amtrian Republics, writes to the ‘.Daily Mail” from Managua, Nicaragua. The Republic of Honduras is in many ways remarkable. There are thousands* of square miles of jungle, swamp, and mountain where no white ntan has ever set loot. There aie primitive Indian tribes whose cultute has not yet reached that of>the tone and Iron Ages. Their tribal customs and grotesque religious ceremonies are only vague]y suspected irom the tales silica reach outlying villages through other Indian tribes. In a remote part ol this strange land a crimson stream gushes Irom the bowels of the earth. The Indians cannot be induced to approach, the place. They allege that millions of bats live in gigantic underground caverns and that the blood comes from their bodies as perpetually they fight and tear one another to pieces bv thousands. 'The . Indians believe that at deatn all people who have lived an evil life on earth turn into bats. This is their conception of hell; hence the place is regarded with dread. ,1 suggest that this phenomenon is caused by a spring of water passing through mineralised soil. There are many mysteries m tins country. In Yoro nearly every June during the wot season swarms of fish three"to seven inches in length fall from the sky. The natives eagerly collcct thorn, and they are considered a great delicacy. The Indians call this feast of the fishes. Leaving Tegucigalpa, the capital oi the Republic of Honduras, on our 100-mile journey to the Pacific, we passed through wonder!ul counti\ before reaching San Lorenzo, where the Government launch awaited us. In this we crossed the Gulf of Fonseca which- is much finer than the Bay’ of Naples, and arrived at the little town of Ampala. nestling at the foot of a big, extinct volcano, which rises out of the gulf and forms an island. , , , O-ii the day of our departure a terrific chubasc-o (an electric storm preceded bv violent wind) broke. The placid waters of the gult were turned into a seething maelstrom, and so great was the velocity of i-o wind that the water ripped irom the waves cut one’s face like a whiplash. It became black as night. The storm redoubled in fury, several natives’ dug-outs were blown up on the beach, and in the midst of this inferno there came a blinding glaie. You coul feel the heat and hear the rip of the flame, and the earth rocivcd under the shock of the explosion. The enveloping black pall was rent asunder and a roar of water fell in solid mass, flattening out the waves on the gulf. Five minutes later there was no sign of storm and the sun blazed down from a clear sky.

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