A Bull Fight In Peru

New York, 1895

American gentlemen with British tastes, who, in default of a fox, know how to amuse themselves by chasing an aniseed bag, ought to enjoy a French traveler's account of a bull fight as witnessed in Peru.

It is impossible to describe the poverty of the country, he says, speaking of the shores of Lake Titicaca. The people lank everything, including honesty. At Ancoraimes I saw a bull fight of a new sort. The unhappy people have no large cattle, and so, of course, a bull is never seen in the town, but in South America bull fights are a necessity, and the Ancoraimes Indians find a way out of the difficulty.

At Puno they buy some heads of oxen or cows, with the skins and horns, and dry them in the sun. Then on fete days some of the men attach those heads to their belts and rig themselves out in the most fantastic manner possible. They represent the bulls. Other Indians get themselves up as matadors, and than there is a grand bull fight on the plaza.

The matadors strike with their swords, the bulls butt with their horns, the crowd laughs and applauds, and in the evening there is a feast at the expense of the vanquished party. — Youth's Companion.

Wireless Music Entertains Men on Ships at Sea

Like all well-regulated ships, the transport "George Washington" has a phonograph. It also has wireless-telephone equipment of the latest design. On a recent occasion the phonograph horn and the telephone transmitter were brought face to face, and the music started. A hundred miles away, soldiers and sailors on the transport "President Grant" gathered eagerly around a loud-speaking receiver, from which issued the merry strains of song and fox trot, as the concert ship threw its melodious vibrations into space. Within the hundred-mile radius were several other radio-equipped ships, and when the concert was over the "George Washington's" operator was kept busy receiving encores.

After more than four years' service as an important military wireless station, during which no civilians were allowed to visit it, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, has been reopened to the public.

Iceland's traditional isolation has vanished with the erection of a wireless station which now receives daily press bulletins from Scandinavia, England, France, and Germany.

Airplane to Unite Isolated Towns of Interior Peru
The Peruvian government has decided to bind more closely together the scattered communities on the eastern slopes of the Andes by means of regular airplane service, handling mail, passengers, and freight. It is possible that the first route will extend from the city of Huanuco, high in the Andes, northward along a branch of the upper Amazon, then eastward over passes in the high mountain ranges, to Iquitos, 500 miles away. Iquitos is 2,653 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River, yet is touched by many foreign ocean-going vessels, making it the center of the Peruvian river-transportation system.

--Popular Mechanics, August 1919