Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/105

 of Portuguese and Indian but none the less a gentleman for that. A motley crew of negroes, men, women and children with very little clothing on and Indians who hadn’t the remotest idea why any one should wear clothes at all, and mixtures of these races, were also at hand to see the newcomers.

Señor Castro was right glad to see us and after shaking hands with us half-a-dozen times he led the way back through a path in the jungle to his fezenda. We dined in his home as I had never dined before nor have since, drank coffee that threw the surpassing beverage of the same name which is brewed in Child’s and the Waldorf-Astoria in the shade and smoked his long tobacco wrapped cigarettes.

Then we talked wireless. The apparatus, as Señor Benoit had said, was there and Señor Castro assured us that we should have all the help we needed to set it up. He told us that there was an electric generator and a crude-oil engine to furnish the power to run it with—and yet there were hundreds of thousands of horse power to be had from the Amazon—but which had never been tapped. Fortunately I happened to know all about the history, theory