OVER BRAZIL

Hokitika Guardian, 24 November 1930, Page 7

OVER BRAZIL

LONESOME FLYING TRIP. AMAZON’S JUNGLE. For a lonesome aeroplane trip one need not seek out the North or South Poles. A flight across the equator, from Cayenne, in French Guiana, to Para, in Brazil, was almost as devoid of any sight of human habitation according to a dispatch from Frederick Simpich, in charge of U.S.A. National Geographic Society’s aerial survey of seaplane paths from New York to Buenos Ayres.

“We zoomed across the equator one afternoon at 2.15 o’clock,” Mr Simpich writes. “On an 8-hour flight from Cayenne to Para we hit the Big Mark in the Amazon delta, just east of the north end of Mexiana Island, on our 169-mile hop across the mouth of the world’s mightiest river. , .

NO HABITATION FOR TWO HOURS.

“For more than an hour we were out of sight of land. Even before that m the huge north-east shoulder of Brazil, what an empty land! For more than two hours, after flying over the Oyapock, near the Guiana border, we saw no human habitation. “Flying thus 'into Brazil from the north, one wonders 'Where its 38,000,000 people kpep themselves. It was not till after we ‘‘turned inland, halfway flown the inside coast of Mavnca Island, in. search of - a lonely gas .station on Lake Montenegro, that we again caught sight of human beings. Now far separated, straw-roofed huts.appeared, and finally a tiny settlement. - Then little-known Lake Montenegro, a mere puddle of fresh water in an infinite waste of salt marshes.

“I flew around for two hours hunting it; the first time. I brought a plane down this way,’ said Pilot- Hawkins. ‘To get petrol here from Para we have to> use first a steam launch, then canoes, and on the last lap the .Indians carry the,cases on their backs.

LANDING IN A “JUNGLE PUDDLE'.”

“This jungle puddle from high above seemed - too small to land in- But after many turns and- careful- calculations, Hawkins set. the. big -/Argentina’ safely down ; although at the last minute he had to jump a floating log which Would have sma shed our hull had he . not seen it' in the nick of time. Indian helpers, with bows, • arrows and spears and .some fish and turtles they .had killed ivere waiting to man the petrol pump. A storm blew up while we worked ruffling .the-little lake and aiding us with its. strong , wind to get our heavy craft off the water.

.'“Heading into the blinding rain, using all our 1500 horse-power, Hawkins raced the big boat the full length f the pond and jumped into the air. With only seconds to spare we cleured the tree tops and headed south. A purgatory, indeed,, a watery wilderness of empty islands dismal swamps and dead trees stretches for weary miles till you reach the River Araguary. Crossing it, we came soon to the muddy banks of the incomparable Amazon itself—a vast, yellow, sinister sea, before which puny man can only marvel at the majesty of Nature. You sense the colossal power and magnitude of its mighty moving bulk when you fly its far-flung delta banks and see its mudflats covered with countless thousands. o'f giant forest trees, wrenched by the roots and scattered like matches-.

SNAKES, CROCODILES, CATTLE “Bearing .south-east we skirted the channel islands of Caviana and Mexiana, split by the equator, crossed the east end of the great wooded isle of Marajo with reed fish traps in its estuaries, countless herds of cattle, g'Unt snakes,, crocodiles,' jaguars and wild river pigs, and turned south for Para, or Belem, as it is also called. I crawled up into the pilot house to get a full view of the city from high above. Wheeling over its busy clocks coal barges and many visiting steamers, we landed, completing the first great lap of the long aerial survey of seaplane paths to Argentina.”