TWO UNDERGRADUATES TREK THROUGH PERUVIAN JUNGLES

Experiences of a summer spent travelling through the interior of Peru, voyaging by cance and balsa wood rafts as far as the Amazon basin and visiting the ruins of old Inca villages sacked by Pizzaro, were related yesterday afternoon by Berrien Anderson, Jr. '42 and Manuel I. Prado '42, in the lecture room of the Institute of Geographical Exploration.

Anderson and Prado and two Yale friends of their decided last winter to make the trip "just for the fun of it," and last summer journeyed to Peru, bought a cance, hired a dozen native Indian porters of uncertain origin and disposition, built a number of balsa wood rafts for their provisions, and set out into the interior.

Journey into Interior

While paddling along four successive rivers in their difficult trek through the little-known eastern Andes, the party met many increasingly savage Indian tribes. One of the Yale men tried to trade with them using the traditional mirrors and gaudy ribbons as exchange, but when he offered one native a cheap mirror which he had extracted from his pack, the uncivilized Indian matched it with an identical article from his own pocket.

At the completion of the trip after six weeks of battling heat, malaria mosquitoes, and dangerous rapids, the party encounted dolphins more than 3,000 miles inland. Later they were ferried out of the interior by an airplane in less than 10 hours.

Subsequent to this stage of the expedition the party split up, Prado and one friend continuing down the Amazon to the east coast of South America, while Anderson travelled further in Peru exploring the remains of old Inca and pre-Inca villages. The fourth member of the party was incapacitated by a serious foot infection.

"These infections were the most serious danger that we had to face, more than Indians, waterfalls, or anything else," said Prado.

In a series of slides Anderson showed an Inca community which had been overwhelmed and destroyed by the Spanish conquistador, Pizzaro, and in particular the fort called Sachesajuaman which resisted his onslaught bravely. When finally subjected by the cruel Pizzaro, the Inca captain of this fort's garrison leaped to his death from its 40 feet walls.