at official receptions. But the end of the third day found us at Natal, with 1,200 miles to go the next day!

And what a country! An infinity of oozy, sluggish flats, apparently as empty now of human life as when giant things, half beast and half lizard, wallowed in oceans of mud while the world was young.

"This coast is little known" was the warning written on our maps, which vaguely showed the shore with a few uncertain dotted lines.

Till we got there and saw this dreary, empty expanse, we could not understand why a country as rich and old as Brazil had not properly mapped its coast lines. But, actually, no honest cartographer could do that job intelligently. For hundreds and hundreds of miles that wild region is a flat, watery waste, with mangroves growing far out to sea at high tide and far inland at low tide, for here the tide is 21 feet. When it rises, the coast line moves back into the jungles; when it falls, the coast line moves out to sea.

The only living things we saw, besides an occasional crocodile, were flocks of red flamingoes flying over the jungle. For hundreds of miles we saw not a single hut, not even a native canoe; nor did we see any signs of sails out at sea. It was an empty, forgotten world.

Twelve hours of flying put us over the Amazon Valley, where dense forests crowd up against the city of Pará. This is the entrepôt of the great valley. Thence river boats ply as far upstream as the Peruvian frontier. We wanted to explore this great river, but our schedule. drove us on (see page 484).*

In a 500-mile hop across the many jungle mouths of the muddy Amazon, we jumped to Cayenne, French Guiana. A hospitable night there, and then away early for Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Guiana. Here at least 3,000 people, on bicycles, followed us down the quaint streets of this bit of Old Holland. Then up and off for Georgetown, in British Guiana.

*See, also, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for April, 1926, "The Amazon, Father of Waters," by W. L. Schurz; and "Exploring the Valley of the Amazon in a Hydroplane," by Capt. Albert W. Stevens.

Trees hid flat, low-lying Georgetown a bit, as we neared it. Protecting it from high seas is a large stone wall, the favorite promenade in the cool of the evening. Here our British friends introduced to us the "swizzle stick," an implement of fancy design used with some violence in making mixed drinks. One they swizzled for us was called “pepper punch"; it was nonintoxicating, but after one scorching swallow we decided that temperance is not without its terrors. FROM CONTINENT TO CONTINENT, OVER A BRIDGE OF ISLANDS

Uninhabited jungle fringed the mouth of the Orinoco, as we saw it next day on our way to Trinidad. With the exception of Jamaica, this is the largest of

the British West Indian islands. Prob

ably it was once attached to the mainland

of Venezuela.

Much of the asphalt in the streets of American cities comes from the singular Pitch Lake on Trinidad.

A side flight to Caracas, capital of Venezuela, was planned when we hopped from Trinidad; but, because of heavy clouds and bad landing facilities, we flew to Puerto Cabello. Here Weddington and Whitehead, who had left us at Buenos Aires to get a new plane in Panama, came down the coast and met us. We all went by motor car to call on the President of Venezuela at Caracas.

Rough weather made it impossible to rise from the sea, as we sought to leave; so we ran the planes out on the beach, hired natives to chop down a clear runway through the woods, and took off by land. Returning via Trinidad, we jumped like frogs from island to island across the Leeward and Windward groups, visiting Granada, St. Vincent, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and the Virgins. Some of these flights were, for a hundred miles or so, out of sight of land.

From the Virgins we jumped to Porto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Thence to Cuba, over Havana and Morro Castlehomeward bound.

Nearing Key West my partner scribbled a note: "We have jumped the last hurdle in the Pan American flight."

ARTICLES and photographs are desired. For material which the Magazine can use, generous remuneration is made. Contributions should be accompanied by an addressed return envelope and postage.

IMMEDIATELY after the terrific eruption of the world's largest crater, Mt. Katmai, in Alaska, a National Geographic Society expedition was sent to make observations of this remarkable phenomenon. Four expeditions have followed and the extraordinary scientific data resulting given to the world. In this vicinity an eighth wonder of the world was discovered and explored-"The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes," a vast area of steaming, spouting fissures. As a result of The Society's discoveries this area has been created a National Monument by proclamation of the President of the United States.

AT an expense of over $50,000 The Society sent a notable series of expeditions into Peru to investigate the traces of the Inca race. Their

discoveries form a large share of our knowledge of a civilization waning when Pizarro first set foot in Peru. THE Society also had the honor of subscribing a substantial sum to the expedition of Admiral Peary, who discovered the North Pole. NOT long ago The Society granted $25,000, and in addition $75,000 was given by individual members to the Government when the congressional appropriation for the purpose was insufficient, and the finest of the giant sequoia trees of California were thereby saved for the American people.

THE Society is conducting extensive explorations and excavations in northwestern New Mexico, which was one of the most densely populated areas in North America before Columbus came, a region where prehistoric peoples lived in vast communal dwellings and whose customs, ceremonies, and name have been engulfed in an oblivion.

TO further the important study of solar radiation in relation to long-range weather forecastings, The Society has appropriated $60,000 to enable the Smithsonian Institution to establish a station for four years on Mt. Brukkaros, in Southwest Africa.

C

OLUMBUS had failed!

True, he found land, but the land did not yield ginger or cloves, nutmegs or cinnamon. Natives with naked, coppery bodies painted in fantastic colors, who were overjoyed with glass beads, hawks' bells, and tinsel trinkets, did not promise a rich overseas market.

"After all, King John was right," murmured the big business men of Lisbon, who had many anxious weeks after their monarch had let the persistent Christopher Columbus slip through his fingers and Spain had sponsored his voyage.

"Now," they sagely surmised, "it is time to resume our explorations on the sane lines laid out by Prince Henry the Navigator."

That great seer, with the garb of a monk and the soul of a sailor, dreaming among his charts and instruments in a bleak, lofty room at Sagres, where the salty winds blew from unknown seas through the paneless windows of intricate Moorish design, had dreamed aright. Overland travelers kept coming in with reports of the fabled Prester John, who had vast resources to help crush Islam, and other reports, not fabulous enough, it

later was shown, of the wealth of the Indies.

So the brisk young King Manoel did not wait for importunate explorers to besiege him with proposals. He planned a trade quest along the route that Bartholomew Diaz had blazed, and engaged a likely young man to command the expedition.

Vasco da Gama was his name.

The first Portuguese from Gama's fleet to set foot on the soil of India summed up his king's purpose and unwittingly formulated one of the greatest slogans in maritime history..

"The devil take you! What has brought you here?" exclaimed an Arab.

"Christians and spices," retorted the Portuguese.

DAZZLED BY SPLENDORS OF A "SAVAGE"

COURT

And Vasco da Gama's reception at the court of the Zamorin of Calicut confirmed the wisdom, to his own generation, of his king. What a contrast to Columbus's meeting with the primitive, ingenuous American Indians!

The Portuguese admiral and thirteen. picked men marched into Calicut, elbowed