The captain and crew slowly lowered scientist and author William Beebe by ropes down along the bow of the fast moving passenger liner to just above the water line. Below him, the Caribbean waters glistened and began to change into a grassy carpet filled with crawling animal life.
It was the Sargasso Sea – and Beebe, ever the scientist, began collecting specimens on his way to a new adventure- exploring British Guiana. It was a world he wrote about in his fascinating book “Jungle Peace”.
A former World War 1 biplane fighter pilot, the peace Beebe was searching for in the jungle was the absence of bombs dropping, machine guns firing and cannon shells exploding.
And yet the Jungle was not really all peaceful. There was the silent fang, the sudden claw, the bite of killer ants. In the “peace,” danger was all around you.
William Beebe explored Guiana in 1918 when it was known as British Guiana on the South American Atlantic coast, just south of Venezuela.
Sugar was the main industry of British Guiana, with plantations originally operated by slave labor.
When slavery was outlawed by Britain in 1834, contract laborers from India were brought in, creating a substantial Indian culture.
Beebe writes about how these poor contract laborers from India were now ruled by British law, bringing English tradition, law, Magistrates and courts from civilized London into the dark jungle.
Because he was a world famous ornithologist, Beebe observed a bird found no where else in the world, because it never wants to leave home.
If you enjoy learning about strange lands from the past, you will enjoy listening to “Jungle Peace” by William Beebe. It is so well written that former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt wrote an extensive foreword of praise. “Jungle Peace” will transport you to another world you will not forget.
I have recorded “Jungle Peace” as an audiobook for Listen 2 Read audiobooks, available wherever audiobooks are downloaded and also here.
Andre Stojka
Publisher
Listen2Read audiobooks
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