the National Geographic Society. These not only served us, but we presented copies to officials of the countries we visited.

More detailed information, necessary during local flights, was furnished by U. S. Hydrographic Office charts. These showed coast line and the depths of the water, but little as to features of terrain. So we had to pick up information from miscellaneous sources and write it directly on our maps. Since we generally followed coast lines, the hydrographic charts were usually sufficient. For such trips as that across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec or up the Magdalena River, we had to obtain special maps.

All maps were folded and marked, ready for immediate use. Two of the five airplanes carried complete sets of maps for the entire route; for the other planes, maps for future use were mailed ahead.

Before each day's flight, maps to be used were carefully studied. Harbor charts were also used extensively, especially at those places where landings were scheduled. Each complete set of maps, with its supporting papers, weighed about 50 pounds. Information gathered by advance officers was often noted by them on the maps furnished. This helped us to identify points en route. So much for preparedness.

OFFICE WORK DONE IN
THE AIR

The amount of administrative work on a flight like this is hard to realize. Hundreds of letters and telegrams are received; many must be answered. Besides, there are diaries to keep, reports to make, and naturally one likes at least to remember the home folks with an occasional letter.

We took turns about in flying, as all officers were pilots. When one of us was not piloting, he would have his work spread out before him in the rear cockpit, keeping it up to date. It was not uncommon to write continuously for many hours at a time.

The Andes lifted their heads as we neared the rainy Colombian port of Buenaventura, a small cable station of many ships but no automobiles. Along dreary jungle coast line, we flew for Tumaco, another small Colombian seaport near the

frontier of Ecuador. Here a bad thrustbearing left the San Antonio helpless on the beach. For 19 days Captain McDaniel and Lieutenant Robinson sat and bemoaned their luck, awaiting a new engine from Panama. To keep falling coconuts from pounding holes in their plane's wings where it lay, in the edge of a grove, they climbed the trees and picked the coconuts. A flyer's education is constantly expanded.

Now, through torrential tropic rains, we fairly swam in water and air and jumped safely over the Equator to Guayaquil. In the river there, amid singular floating islands with small trees growing on them, we anchored and went exploring this unique country of quinine, "Panama' hats, and ivory nuts.

The number, horsepower, and speed of the bugs found all down this coast was astonishing. At one small hotel an extra spoon was given us for use in helping crickets from our soup!

Ecuador's thinly peopled coast, first jungle-choked, then rough and rocky, is no paradise for aviators in dark, rainy weather. To avoid possible collisions, we flew close together, like ducks. Nearing Paita, Peru, we rounded a great point.

Here, with amazing abruptness, we seemed to quit the equatorial rain belt. Now we flew into that dry South American west coast section, where, we heard, the last rain fell more than 30 years ago. The only signs of plant life we saw were the far-away strips of green sketched against foothills, where melting snow sent streams down to the sea.

AN AIR CRUISE IN THE SHADE of
THE ANDES

It makes picturesque flying, however. For hours, in the morning, we were in the shade of the mountains, as they rose near the sea to a height of 8,000 or 9,000 feet. Beyond these was a level plateau for a few miles; then the Andes rose to scratch the skies, their peaks along the distant skyline glistening with snow in the bright sunlight. Along here one can fly for hundreds of miles without seeing a sign of habitation or any grass or trees.

Arid and barren, this Peruvian coastal plain is yet rich in oil and copper. Its reddish and purple hills reminded us of Arizona and the Canyon.

Landing on the military flying field at Las Palmas, near Lima, we were met by Peruvian Army flyers. To the President of Peru we delivered the message we carried from President Coolidge.

Along 550 miles of dry, rugged coast we sped, from Lima to Ilo. What looked like floating logs at one of these Peruvian ports frustrated one of our planes in repeated efforts to take off. Just when the ship was getting enough speed to lift itself from the waves, these obstacles would suddenly appear dead ahead and, ing, the plane would have to slow down to avoid puncturing a pontoon and sinkand veer off. Just then one of the "logs" poked its head up right beside the plane. It was a smug-faced sea lion with a mustache like a pair of whisk brooms. In these waters, we learned later, thousands of these creatures are often seen.

From Ilo we wanted to fly to Bolivia; but we couldn't. The altitude of the Bolivian flying field was somewhat higher than we cared to climb our heavy planes. So some of us went to La Paz by train, via beautiful Arequipa, a town of flower gardens framed in snow-capped peaks.*

Probably 15,000 people met us at the station in La Paz. They carried us on their shoulders, crying, Viva Los Estados Unidos! Viva Los Aviadores! On us their president conferred the Order of the Condor.

What interested us very much as aviators was the excellent flying of the Bolivian Army airmen, taking off from a field 13,500 feet above sea level!

Going out to Lake Titicaca for a ride in the odd straw boats and a glimpse of the Inca ruins, we passed many burdenbearing llamas and alpacas. The sillyfaced llama, with its chronic sneeze, they told us, might well be used by the Bolivian Bureau of Standards, for it lies down the instant that an ounce more than 50 pounds is put on its back! On the mountain slopes, running wild, we saw many head of vicuña, that innocent-looking, fur-bearing animal of the Andes.

*See, also, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, by Harriet Chalmers Adams, "Kaleidoscopic La Paz: the City of the Clouds," February, 1909, and "Some Wonderful Sights in the Andean Highlands," September, 1908; and "The Heart of Aymará Land," by Stewart E. McMillin, February, 1927.