Adventures in the Tropics
85
decided to use these for the masts. When we had the aerial assembled with the leading-in wire soldered to it I asked if any one there could climb the palm tree and every man, woman and child said that they could. I gave one of the half-breeds a coil of quarter-inch hemp rope to hoist the aerial with and showed him how I wanted the end of the aerial made fast to the tree top and then told him to go aloft.
I wish you could have seen that fellow climb the tree! I used to think our old time sailors were about as clever as they made ’em when it comes to climbing but there’s no use talking they’re too civilized—too far removed from the monkey family to know how to climb anything but a rope ladder.
The half-breed grasped the back of the tree with the open palms of his hands and placing the bare soles of his feet in front like a jack-knife he just naturally walked up it. These same fellows can travel for miles through the jungle by swinging themselves from vine to vine and going as fast as you or I can walk. So you see there are some things an ignorant Amazonian can do that an educated New Yorker