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UN:  II 


II  III!  II 

107581 


POLL  O  WING     THE     CONQ  UISTADOTfES 

UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND 
DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 


BY 
H.   J.   MOZANS,  A.M.,  Ph.D. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NKW      YORK      AND      LONDON 

IX      APPI.  KTON      AND     COMPANY 

1910 


TO 

MY  GKNIAL 

COMI'ACJNON  DR  VOYAGE 
BRAVE  LOYAL 

c. 


Ecu  rtrdw  rcfwslis  nmtdtm  dare;  now  auctontefem;  cWefis,  nttorew; 
/Midi/is,  jjwfiflnt;  rfi/Mis,  )Mfl»;  ownt'6us  «cro  rtfltoram, 
mm.  Itdqw  ctkm  nan,  assccMis,  wluissc  afande  pulo/irum 
majpu/fruHt  tvt.  That  is  to  say:  It  is  a  dyfficulte  thynge  to  gyuc 
ncwcncs  to  owlde  tliyngcs,  autoritie  to  ncwc  thynges,  bevvtie  to  thynges 
o\vt  of  VHP,  fame  to  tlio  obscure,  fauoure  to  the  hatefull,  credite  to  the 
dmihtofull,  nature  to  al!  and  all  to  nature.  To  euch  neuerthclesse  as  can  not 
filayno  to  all  thcso,  it  is  grcatcly  commendable  and  magmficall  to  hane  at- 
tcmptrd  HIP  fami1. 
front  the  preface,  addressed  to  ik  Emperor  VtspM'm,  of  Pliny's  Muni 


FOREWORD 

The  following  pages  contain  the  record  of  a  journey  made  to 
islands  and  lands  that  border  the  Caribbean  and  to  the  less  fre- 
quented parts  of  Venezuela  and  Colombia.  Thanks  to  our  trade 
relations  with  the  Antilles,  and  the  number  of  meritorious  books 
that  have  been  written  about  them  during  the  last  few  decades, 
our  knowledge  of  the  West  Indies  is  fairly  complete  and  satisfac- 
tory. The  same,  however,  cannot  be  said  of  the  two  extensive  re- 
publics just  south  of  us.  Outside  of  their  capitals  and  a  few  of 
their  coast  towns,  they  are  rarely  visited,  and  as  a  consequence,  the 
most  erroneous  ideas  prevail  regarding  them.  Vast  regions  in  both 
republics  are  now  less  known  than  they  were  three  centuries  ago, 
while  there  are  certain  sections  about  which  our  knowledge  is  as 
limited  as  it  is  regarding  the  least  explored  portions  of  darkest 
Africa. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  account  for  the  prevailing  ignorance  re- 
garding the  parts  of  the  New  Hemisphere  that  first  claimed  the 
attention  of  discoverers  and  explorers.  Suffice  it  to  state  that,  par- 
adoxical as  it  may  seem,  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  fact. 

When  we  recollect  that  the  lands  in  question  were  not  only  the 
first  discovered  but  that  they  were  also  witnesses  of  the  marvelous 
achievements  of  some  of  the  most  renowned  of  the  conquistadores, 
our  surprise  becomes  doubly  great  that  our  information  respecting 
them  is  so  meager  and  confined  almost  exclusively  to  those  who 
make  a  special  study  of  things  South  American. 

Never,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  our  race  was  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture so  generally  diffused  as  it  was  at  the  dawn  of  the  sixteenth 
century— just  after  the  epoch-making  discoveries  of  Columbus  and 
his  hardy'followers.  It  was  like  the  spirit  that  animated  the  Cru- 
saders when  they  started  on  their  long  march  to  recover  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  from  the  possession  of  the  Moslem.  It  was,  indeed,  in 
many  of  its  aspects,  a  revival  of  the  age  of  chivalry.  The  Sea  of 
Darkness  had  at  last  been  successfully  crossed.  That  ocean  of 
legend  and  mystery  with  its  enchanted  islands  inhabited  by  witches 
and  gnomes  and  griffins  had  been  explored.  And  that  strange 

ix 


island  of  Satanaxio,  "the  island  of  the  hand  of  Satan/'  where  the 
Evil  One  was  "supposed  once  a  day  to  thrust  forth  a  gigantic 
hand  from  the  ocean  to  grasp  a  number  of  the  inhabitants"  was 
consigned  to  the  limbo  of  mediaeval  superstitions.  A  new  world 
was  revealed  to  the  astonished  Spaniards.  Every  animal,  tree, 
plant  seemed  new  to  them  and  often  entirely  different  from  any- 
thing the  Old  World  could  show.  There  was,  too,  a  new  race  of 
men,  with  strange  manners  and  customs — men  who  told  them  of  a 
Fountain  of  Youth,  of  regions  of  pearls  and  precious  stones,  of 
cities  and  palaces  of  gold  in  the  lofty  plateau  and  in  the  heart  of 
the  wilderness. 

Those  who  first  came  to  the  New  World  acted  as  if  they  were  in 
a  land  of  enchantment  and  were  prepared  to  believe  any  tale,  how- 
ever preposterous,  that  appealed  to  their  lust  of  gold  or  love  of 
adventure.  No  enterprise  was  too  difficult  for  them,  no  hardship 
too  great.  Neither  trackless  forests,  nor  miasmatic  climates,  nor 
ruthless  savages  could  deter  them  from  their  quest  of  treasure,  or 
quench  their  thirst  for  glory  and  emolument.  Hence  those  ex- 
traordinary expeditions  in  search  of  El  Dorado, — that  El  Dorado 
which  Quesada  hoped  to  find  in  Cundinamarca,  his  brother  in  Casa- 
nare,  Orsua  among  the  Omaguas  on  the  Amazon,  Philipp  von  Hut- 
ten  in  the  regions  of  the  Meta  and  the  Guaviarc,  and  Cesar  and 
Belalcazar  in  the  territories  drained  by  the  Cauca  and  the  Mag<la- 
lena, — in  which  were  combined  the  extravagant  performances  of  a 
Don  Quixote  with  the  feats  of  prowess  of  a  Rodrigo  Diaz.  The 
spirit  of  knight-errantry  seemed  to  revive  and  to  bring  with  it  an 
age  of  romance  that  for  hardihood  of  enterprise  and  variety  of  in- 
cident surpassed  any  period  that  had  preceded  it.  The  feats  of 
individual  prowess  were  as  brilliant  as  the  success  of  Spanish  arms 
was  pronounced  and  far-reaching.  It  was  an  age  of  epics,  of  poetry 
in  action. 

Lord  Macaulay,  in  his  essay  on  Lord  Clive,  writes,  "We  have  al- 
ways thought  it  strange  that,  while  the  history  of  the  Spanish  em- 
pire in  America  is  familiarly  known  to  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  the 
great  actions  of  our  countrymen  in  the  East  should,  even  among 
ourselves,  excite  little  interest." 

One  reason  for  the  difference  noted  was  the  absence,  in  the  Eng- 
lish conquest  of  India,  of  those  romantic  and  picturesque  elements 
that  so  distinguished  the  achievements  of  the  conquistadores  in  the 
New  World,  and  which  so  fascinated  Leo  X,  that  he  sat  up  all  night 

x 


FOREWORD 

to  read  the  Decades  of  Peter  Martyr.  "The  picturesque  descrip- 
tions," declares  Theodore  Irving,  in  his  Conquest  of  Florida,  "of 
steel-clad  cavaliers  with  lance  and  helmet  and  prancing  steed,  glit- 
tering through  the  wildernesses  of  Florida,  Georgia,  Alabama  and 
the  prairies  of  the  Far  West,  would  seem  to  us  fictions  of  romance, 
did  they  not  come  to  us  recorded  in  matter-of-fact  nalratives  of 
contemporaries,  and  corroborated  by  "minute  and  daily  memoranda 
of  eye- witnesses. " 

The  same  can  be  said  with  even  more  truth  of  the  conquistadores 
of  the  Spanish  Main  and  of  the  daring  adventurers  who  first  pene- 
trated the  trackless  forests  and  scaled  the  lofty  mountains  of  Vene- 
zuela and  New  Granada.  "Their  minds,"  as  Fiske  well  observes, 
"were  in  a  state  like  that  of  the  heroes  of  the  Arabian  Nights  who, 
if  they  only  wander  far  enough  through  the  dark  forest  or  across 
the  burning  desert,  are  sure  at  length  to  come  upon  some  en- 
chanted palace  whereof  they  may  fairly  hope,  with  the  aid  of  some 
gracious  Jinni,  to  become  masters."  Thus  it  was  that  Cortes,  un- 
aided, however,  by  a  gracious  Jinni,  became  the  master  of  the 
capital  of  the  Aztecs,  as  Quesada  and  Pizarro  became  the  masters 
of  the  lands  and  the  treasures  of  the  Muiscas  and  the  Incas. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  student  of  early  American  history  to 
cruise  along  the  Spanish  Main,  or  sail  on  the  broad  waters  of  the 
Orinoco,  the  Meta  and  the  Magdalena,  without  harking  back  at 
every  turn  to  the  achievements  of  some  of  the  early  discoverers  or 
conquistadores.  Every  island,  every  promontory,  every  river  has 
been  visited  by  them  and,  if  endowed  with  speech,  they  could  tell 
thrilling  stories  of  daring  adventure  and  brilliant  exploit  unsur- 
passed in  the  annals  of  chivalry  and  crusading  valor.  Every  place 
he  goes,  he  will  find  that  he  has  been  preceded  by  the  Spaniard  by 
three  or  four  centuries,  for  everywhere  he  will  find  traces  or  tradi- 
tions of  his  passage. 

It  matters  not  that  the  Spaniards  were  lured  on  by  such  ever- 
receding  chimeras  as  Manoa,  El  Dorado  and  Lake  Parime,  that 
many  other  objects  of  their  quest  were  as  mythical  as  that  of  the 
Argonauts  or  as  unattainable  as  the  golden  apples  of  the  Hesperides. 
Their  expeditions  were  not  for  these  reasons  wholly  fruitless. 
Every  one  of  them,  whether  for  the  purpose  of  exploration  or  con- 
quest or  colonization,  contributed  to  our  knowledge  of  the  lands 
visited  and  of  the  tribes  inhabiting  them,  many  of  whom  have  long 
since  disappeared.  And  everywhere  one  finds  towns  founded  by 


FOREWORD 

them,  or  places,  mountains  and  rivers  that  still  bear  the  names  that 
were  given  them  at  the  time  of  their  discovery. 

It  was  always  our  pleasure,  during  our  wanderings  in  the  tropics, 
to  recall  what  the  first  explorers  thought  of  the  new  lands  visited  by 
them  while  they  were  still  under  the  spell  of  the  novel  and  mar- 
velous things  that  were  ever  claiming  their  rapt  attention  whither- 
soever they  went.  We  loved  to  look  upon  the  countries  we  visited  as 
their  first  explorers  had  looked  upon  them.  This  we  were  able  to 
do,  for  thanks  to  the  old  chroniclers,  the  wonderment  of  the  dis- 
covery of  the  New  World  has  been  preserved,  as  in  amber,  in  all 
its  freshness,  and  that,  too,  for  all  time  to  come. 

Comparatively  few  people  realize  how  extensive  is  the  literature, 
especially  in  Spanish,  that  relates  to  the  period  of  the  conquest 
and  that  immediately  following  it.  And  still  fewer  are  aware  of  its 
intense  interest  and  importance.  In  addition  to  the  well-known 
classic  works  of  Peter  Martyr,  Las  Casas,  Herrera,  Oviedo,  Garcilaso 
de  la  Vega,  Cieza  de  Leon,  Gomara,  Acosta,  and  others  scarcely  less 
valuable,  there  are  scores  of  similar  annals  that  have  for  centuries 
lain  in  the  archives  of  Spain  and  of  the  various  countries  of  Latin- 
America  which  have  but  recently  been  published.  Many  of  these — 
beyond  price  for  the  historian — were  absolutely  unknown  until  a 
few  years  ago,  and  are  still  awaiting  the  artistic  pen  of  a  Prcscott  or 
an  Irving  to  transmute  their  contents  in  masterpieces  of  literature. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  nowhere  else  will  the  man  of  letters  find  a 
more  fertile  and  a  less  cultivated  field  to  engage  his  talent. 

Then  there  are  the  works,  equally  precious,  of  the  early  mission- 
aries. Many  of  them  are  veritable  mines  of  in  format  ion  respecting 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  tropics, 
while  not  a  few  of  them  are  the  only  sources  cxtaut  of  knowledge 
respecting  many  interesting  Indian  tribes  that  have  long  since  be- 
come extinct.  Among  these  deserving  of  special  notice  are  the 
works  of  Simon,  Gilli,  Caulin,  Rivero,  Cassani,  Gumilla  and  Piedra- 
hita — not  to  mention  others  of  lesser  note — that  treat  specially  of 
Venezuela  and  New  Granada,  and  afford  us  the  truest  picture  of  the 
condition  of  these  countries  during  their  existence  under  Spanish 
domination.  Humbolcit  frequently  quotes  them  in  his  instructive 
Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  to  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of  Amer- 
ica, and  usually  with  the  generous  approval  and  commendation 
which  they  so  well  deserve.  To  the  humble  and  intelligent  and 
often  erudite  missionaries  of  the  tropics  the  illustrious  German 

xii 


FOREWORD 

savant  was  indebted  for  much  of  the  success  that  attended  his  ex- 
plorations in  the  basin  of  the  Orinoco  and  along  the  plateau  of  the 
Cordilleras. 

Worthy  of  mention,  too,  in  traversing  countries  where  the  trav- 
eler has  not  the  benefit  of  a  Murray  or  a  Baedeker,  are  the  numer- 
ous works  of  those  explorers — German,  English,  French,  American 
— who  have  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Humboldt  and  his  com- 
pagnon  de  voyage,  Bonpland,  and  who  have  cast  a  flood  of  light 
upon  the  fauna  and  flora  of  the  countries  visited,  and  supplemented 
the  works  of  the  early  historians  and  missionaries  by  describing  the 
condition  of  their  inhabitants  as  it  obtains  to-day. 

In  the  following  pages  the  author  has  endeavored  to  give  not 
only  his  own  impressions  of  the  lands  he  has  visited  but  also,  when 
the  narrative  permitted  or  required  it,  the  impressions  of  others — 
^onquistadores,  missionaries  and  men  of  science — who  have  gone 
over  the  same  grounds  or  discussed  the  same  topics  as  constitute  the 
subject-matter  of  this  volume.  The  rapidly  increasing  interest  of 
our  people  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  South  America,  and  the 
eagerness  now  manifested  to  see  closer  trade-relations  established 
between  the  United  States  and  the  various  republics  of  Latin  Amer- 
ica, seemed  to  justify  this  course.  For  the  student,  as  well  as 
for  the  general  reader,  it  seemed  to  be  desirable,  if  not  necessary, 
to  indicate,  at  least  cursorily,  by  citations  and  footnotes,  the  char- 
acter and  extent  of  that  large  class  of  works,  historical  and  scien- 
tific, that  occupy  so  important  a  position  in  the  annals  of  discovery 
and  of  material  and  intellectual  progress. 

In  the  words  of  Pliny,  quoted  on  the  title  page,  it  has  been  the 
aim  of  the  author  "to  give  ne\gness  to  old  things,  authority  to  new 
things,  beauty  to  things  out  of  use,  fame  to  the  obscure,  favor  to 
the  hateful,  credit  to  the  doubtful,  nature  to  all  and  all  to  nature." 
A  difficult  task  truly ;  how  difficult  no  one  can  more  fully  recognize 
than  the  author  himself.  If  he  has  failed  in  many  of  the  things 
proposed,  he  cherishes  the  hope  that  the  reader's  verdict  will  in- 
cline to  that  contained  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  paragraph  cited : 
"To  such  neverthelesse  as  can  not  attayne  to  all  these,  it  is  greatly 
commendable  and  magnificall  to  have  attempted  the  same," 

The  present  book  will  be  followed  by  a  volume  to  be  entitled: 
"Along  the  Andes  and  Down  the  Amazon." 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     INTRODUCTORY 1 

II.     TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 54 

III.  THE  GREAT  KIVER •    ...  82 

IV.  IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 112 

V.     EL  Rio  META 139 

VI.     APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 165 

VII.     THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 195 

VIII.     THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 228 

IX.     IN  CLOUDLAND 255 

X.     THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 285 

XI.     THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 313 

XII.     THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALENA 346 

XIII.     IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS  AND  BUCCANEERS  .      .  377 

XIV.     THE  RICH  COAST 399 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 429 

INDEX 435 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


A  cavalcade  in  the  Andes Frontispiece 

On  the  Coast  Range,  Venezuela 42 

Scene  on  the  Orinoco 76 

An  Indian  home  on  the  Orinoco 94  , 

In  the  llanos  of  Venezuela 122 

Indians  of  Mid-Orinoquia 122 

Our  crew  ashore  for  fuel 160 

La  Ninita,  our  launch,  on  the  Upper  Meta 176 

A  traveler's  lodge  in  the  llanos  of  Colombia 204 

A  shelter  on  the  banks  of  the  Ocoa 220 

Our  camp  in  the  llanos 220 

Stopping  for  luncheon  in  the  Lower  Cordilleras     ....  240 

Peons  fording  a  river  in  the  Andes 262 

A  valley  in  the  Cordilleras 286 

Road  between  Bogota  and  Honda 332 

Champan  going  up  the  Magdalena 354 

A  palm  forest  in  the  tropics 372 

Method  of  transporting  freight  between  Honda  and  Bogota     .  414 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE 
MAGDALENA 

CHAPTER  I 
INTBODUCTOBY 

EASTEE  LAND 

On  a  dark,  cold  day  toward  the  close  of  January,  1907, 
the  writer  stood  at  a  window  in  New  York,  observing  some 
score  of  a  mittened  army  removing  the  avalanche  of  snow 
that  cumbered  the  streets  after  a  half  week  of  continuous 
storm.  He  was  pondering  a  long  vacation,  musing  where 
rest  and  recreation  might  be  found,  at  once  wholesome 
and  instructive,  amid  scenes  quite  different  from  any 
afforded  by  his  previous  journeys.  He  was  familiar  with 
every  place  of  interest  in  North  America,  from  Canada  to 
the  Gulf,  froin  Alaska  to  Yucatan.  He  had  spent  many 
years  in  Europe,  had  visited  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  far-off 
isles  .of  the  Pacific.  He  cared  not  to  revisit  these,  much 
less  to  go  where  he  must  entertain  or  be  entertained.  He 
sought  rest,  absolute  rest  and  freedom,  untrammeled  by  con- 
ventional life.  For  the  present  he  would  shun  the  society 
of  his  fellows  for  the  serene  solitude  of  the  wilderness,  or 
the  companionship  of  mighty  mountains  and  rivers.  Not 
that  he  was  a  misanthrope  or  that  he  wished  to  become  an 
anchoret.  Far  from  it.  Still  less  did  he  wish  to  spend 
his  time  in  idleness.  This  for  him  would  have  been  almost- 
tantamount  to  solitary  confinement.  He  dreamed  of  a 
land  where  he  could  spend  most  of  the  time  in  the  open 
air  close  to  Nature  and  in  communion  with  her — where 

1 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

both  mind  and  body  could  be  always  active  and  yet  always 
free — free  as  the  bird  that  comes  and  goes  as  it  lists. 

Whilst  thus  absorbed  in  thought,  and  casting  an  occa- 
sional glance  at  the  laborers  in  the  street  battling  against 
the  Frost-King,  whose  work  continued  without  intermis- 
sion, the  writer  was  awakened  from  his  reverie  by  the 
dulcet  notes  evoked  from  a  Steinway  grand  and  the  sweet, 
sympathetic  voice  of  one  who  had  just  intoned  the  opening 
words  of  Goethe's  matchless  song  as  set  to  music  by 
Liszt : — 

"Knowest  thou  the  land  where  the  pale  citron  grows, 
And  the  gold  orange  through  dark  foliage  glows  ? 
A  soft  wind  flutters  through  the  deep  blue  sky, 
The  myrtle  blooms,  and  towers  the  laurel  high, 
Knowest  thou  it  well? 

0  there  with  thee ! 
O  that  I  might,  my  own  beloved  one,  flee." 

It  was  La  Nina — the  pet  name  of  the  young  musician — 
that  came  as  a  special  providence  to  clear  up  a  question 
that  seemed  to  be  growing  more  difficult  the  longer  it  was 
pondered.  The  effect  was  magical,  and  all  doubt  and 
hesitation  disappeared  forthwith.  La  Nina,  as  if  inspired, 
had,  without  in  the  least  suspecting  it,  indicated  the  land 
of  the  heart's  desire.  Yes,  the  writer  would  leave,  and 
leave  at  once,  the  region  of  cloud  and  frost  and  chilling 
blast,  and  seek  the  land  of  flowers  and  sunshine,  the  land  of 
"soft  wind"  and  "blue  sky,"  "the  land  where  the  pale 
citron  grows,"  where  "the  gold  orange  glows."  It  would 
not,  however,  be  the  land  of  which  Mignon  sang  and  which 
she  so  yearned  to  see  again.  Lovely,  charming  Italy,  with 
its  manifold  attractions  of  every  kind,  must  for  once  yield 
to  the  sun-land  of  another  clime  far  away,  and  in  another 
hemisphere. 

A  few  days  afterwards  the  writer,  with  a  few  friends,  had 
taken  his  place  in  a  through  Pullman  car  bound  for  the  Land 
of  Easter — the  laud  of  Ponce  de  Leon.  They  found  every 

2 


INTEODUCTOEY 

berth  in  the  car  occupied  by  people  like  themselves  hasten- 
ing away  from  the  rigors  of  winter  and  betaking  themselves 
to  where 

"  Trees  bloom  throughout  the  year,  soft  breezes  blow, 
And  fragrant  Flora  wears  a  lasting  smile." 

Some  were  going  for  the  rest  and  the  amusement  promised 
at  several  noted  winter  resorts.  Others  were  in  search 
of  health  that  had  been  shattered  by  confinement  or  over- 
work. Some  were  going  away  for  a  few  weeks  only ;  others 
for  the  entire  winter.  Some  were  going  no  farther  south 
than  Florida,  others  purposed  visiting  some  of  the  Antilles, 
and  even,  mayhap,  the  Spanish  Main. 

As  for  the  writer,  he  had  no  fixed  plan,  and  for  this 
reason  he  had  not  even  thought  of  making  out  an  itinerary. 
He  would  go  to  Florida  to  take  up  again  a  line  of  travel 
that  had  been  interrupted  some  decades  before.  He  had 
always  been  interested  in  the  lives  and  achievements  of  the 
early  Spanish  discoverers  and  conquistadores,  and  had,  in 
days  gone  by,  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Narvaez  and  de 
Soto,  of  Cabeza  de  Vaca  and  Ooronado,  Fray  Marcos  de 
Niza,  and  Hernando  Cortes.  And  now  that  he  had  the 
opportunity,  it  occurred  to  him  that  *he  could  do  nothing 
better  or  more  profitable  than  make  a  reality  what  had 
been  a  dream  from  boyhood.  He  would  visit  the  islands 
and  lands  discovered  by  the  immortal  "Admiral  of  the 
ocean  sea"  and  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  con- 
quistadores in  Tierra  Firme.  He  would  explore  the  lands 
first  made  known  by  Balboa,  and  Quesada,  and  Belalcazar 
and  rendered  famous  by  the  prowess  of  the  Almagros  and 
the  Pizarros.  He  would  visit  the  homes  of  the  Musicas, 
the  Incas,  and  the  Ayamaras,  wander  among  the  Cor- 
dilleras from  the  Caribbean  Sea  to  Lake  Titicaca  and  be- 
yond, and  follow  in  the  wake  of  Diego  de  Ordaz  and 
Alonzo  de  Herrera  on  the  broad  waters  of  the  Orinoco  and 
in  that  of  Pedro  de  Orsua  and  Francisco  de  Orellana  in  the 
mighty  flood  of  the  Amazon. 

3 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

A  great  undertaking  apparently,  and,  considered  in  the 
light  of  certain  reports  published  about  tropical  America, 
seemingly  impossible.  To  say  the  least,  such  a  journey, 
it  was  averred,  implied  difficulties  and  privations  and 
dangers  innumerable. 

"Do  you  wish  to  spend  the  rest  of  your  life  in  South 
America?  It  will  require  a  lifetime  to  visit  the  regions 
you  have  mentioned.  I  have  myself  spent  many  years  in 
traveling  in  tropical  America,  and  knowing,  as  I  do,  the 
lack  of  facilities  for  travel,  the  countless  unforeseen  delays 
of  every  kind,  and  the  manana  habit  that  obtains  every- 
where in  the  countries  you  would  visit,  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  stating  that  you  are  attempting  the  impossible,  if  you 
mean  to  accomplish  all  you  have  spoken  of  in  the  limited 
time  you  have  allotted  to  yourself." 

Such  were  the  words  addressed  .to  the  writer  on  the  eve 
of  his  departure  by  a  noted  traveler  and  one  who  is  con- 
sidered an  authority  on  all  things  South  American.  Not 
very  encouraging,  truly,  especially  to  one  who  was  seeking 
rest  and  recreation  and  who  was  anything  but  inclined  to 
court  hardships  and  dangers  in  foreign  lands  and  among 
peoples  that  were  reputed  to  be  only  half -civilized,  where- 
ever  they  chanced  to  be  above  the  aboriginal  savage  that 
still  roams  over  so  much  of  the  territory  on  both  sides  of 
the  equator. 

But,  as  already  stated,  the  writer  had  on  leaving  home 
no  definite  programme  mapped  out.  He  left  that  to  shape 
itself  according  to  events  and  circumstances.  He  departed 
on  his  journey  with  little  more  of  a  plan  than  the  vague 
indications  of  a  life-long  dream.  Still,  confiding  in  Provi- 
dence, he  hoped  that  he  would  be  able  to  realize  this,  as  he 
had,  in  years  gone  by,  realized  other  dreams  that  seemed 
even  less  likely  ever  to  become  actualities. 

LA  FLORIDA 

Twenty-eight  hours  after  leaving  New  York,  with  its 
snow  and  ice  and  arctic  blasts,  our  party  found  itself 


INTRODUCTOBY 

wandering  among  the  orange  groves  and  promenading  be- 
neath the  graceful  palms  of  old,  romantic  St.  Augustine. 
We  could  scarcely  credit  our  senses,  so  complete  was  the 
change  in  our  environment.  A  soft,  balmy  atmosphere, 
gentle  zephyrs,  sweet,  feathered  songsters  without  number, 
all  joining  in  a  chorus  of  welcome  to  the  strangers  from  the 
North,  made  us  think  that  we  had  been  transported  to  the 
Hesperides  or  to  the  delights  of  the  Elysian  Fields.  And 
when,  after  nightfall,  we  walked  about  the  grounds  and 
the  courts  of  the  famous  hostelries  that  have  been  recently 
erected  regardless  of  expense,  and  provided  with  every 
luxury  that  money  and  art  can  command — all  brilliantly 
illuminated  by  thousands  of  electric  lights  of  divers  colors 
— it  seemed  as  if  we  had,  in  very  deed,  suddenly,  we  knew 
not  how,  become  denizens  of  fairyland.  To  find  anything 
similar  to  the  scene  that  here  bursts  upon  the  view  of  the 
delighted  visitor  one  must  go  to  Monte  Carlo  during  the 
season  when  thousands  are  attracted  thither  from  all  parts 
of  the  world,  or  betake  oneself  to  the  Place  de  la  Concorde 
when  the  gay  French  capital  is  en  fete. 

St.  Augustine,  with  all  its  traditions  and  historic  associa- 
tions, is  one  of  the  most  restful  and  interesting  of  places, 
especially  in  winter,  and  a  place,  too,  where  one  might  tarry 
for  months  with  pleasure.  Nothing  can  be  more  delightful 
than  the  drives  in  the  pine-forests  adjacent  to  the  city, 

"Where  west-winds  with  musky  wing 
About  the  cedarn  alleys  fling 
Nard  and  cassias  balmy  smells." 

We  could  now  verify  at  our  leisure  what  we  had  been 
wont  to  consider  as  the  exaggerated  statements  of  the 
early  explorers  of  Florida  regarding  the  beautiful  forests 
— "trellised  with  vines  and  gay  with  blossoms" — and  the 
fragrant  odors  that  were  wafted  from  them  by  the  breeze 
even  out  to  the  ships  passing  along  the  coast,  and  "in  such 
abundance  that  the  entire  orient  could  not  produce  so 
much,"  "We  stretched  forth  our  hands,"  writes 

5 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

bot,  in  his  Historic  de  la  Nouvelle  France,  "as  if  to  grasp 
them,  so  palpable  were  they."  All  carried  away  with  them 
the  same  impression  about  the  "douceur  odoriferante  de 
plusiers  bonnes  choses" — the  odoriferous  sweetness  of 
many  good  things — that  was  everywhere  observable. 

Nor  were  their  accounts  of  this  grateful  feature  of  the 
country  overdrawn.  It  is  the  same  to-day  as  it  was  four 
centuries  ago,  when  the  European  had  just  landed  on  these 
shores  and  found  so  many  things — as  novel  as  they  were 
marvelous — to  excite  his  delight  and  enthusiasm.  It  is 
something  that  is  denied  to  us  whose  homes  are  in  the  North, 
and,  to  enjoy  it  in  all  its  newness  and  freshness,  we  must 
perforce  immigrate  to  tropical  and  subtropical  climes. 

But  the  foregoing  is  only  one  of  the  delectable  features 
of  this  favored  land.  As  we  wander  through  the  groves 
and  gardens  and  sail  on  the  placid  waters  of  the  rivers  and 
lakes  through  the  silent  everglades  or  the  dark  and  mysteri- 
ous forests,  we  find  at  every  turn  something  to  charm  the 
ear  or  delight  the  eyes.  Everywhere  we  meet  with  new 
and  beauteous  form  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  and  realize 
for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  how  diverse  and  multitudinous 
are  the  forms  of  animated  nature. 

If  we  are  to  credit  Herrera,  it  was  on  account  of  its 
beautiful  aspect,  as  well  as  on  the  day  on  which  it  was  dis- 
covered, that  the  locality  received  the  name  it  now  bears. 
The  historian  says  explicitly  that  Ponce  de  Leon  and  his 
companions  "named  it  Florida  because  it  appeared  very  de- 
lightful, having  many  pleasant  groves,  and  it  was  all  level; 
as  also  because  they  discovered  it  at  Easter,  which,  as  has 
been  said,  the  Spaniards  call  Pascua  de  Floras  or  Flor- 
ida." * 

In  view  of  this  clear  and  positive  statement  of  Herrera, 
one  is  surprised  to  see  that  writers  treating  the  subject 
ex  professo  have  fallen  into  error  regarding  the  origin  of 
the  name  Florida.  Thus  Barnard  Shipp  writes:  "The 
Peninsula  of  Florida  was  discovered  by  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon 

1,  Lib.  IX,  Cap.  10. 

6 


INTRODUCTORY 

on  Pascua  Florida,  Palm  Sunday,  in  the  year  1512,1  and 
because  of  the  day  on  which  he  discovered  it,  he  gave  it  the' 
name  Florida.  "2 

All  doubt,  however,  about  the  real  origin  of  the  name, 
about  which  there  has  been  so  much  misunderstanding,  is 
removed  by  the  declaration  of  Peter  Martyr,  the  father  of 
American  history.  In  his  delightfully  refreshing  work,  De 
Orbe  Novo,  which  is  not  so  well  known  as  it  should  be,  he 
asserts  in  language  that  does  not  admit  of  ambiguity,  that 
Juan  Ponce  named  the  newly  discovered  territory  Florida 
because  it  was  discovered  the  day  of  the  Eesurrection,  for 
the  Spaniards  call  the  day  of  the  Eesurrection  Pascua  de 
Flores."3 

When  the  French  Huguenots  some  decades  later  at- 
tempted to  colonize  the  country  they  called  it  "La  Nouvelle 
France'7 — New  France — a  name  they  also  subsequently 
gave  to  Canada* 

More  interesting,  however,  is  the  fact  that  the  Spaniards 
first  thought  the  peninsula  to  be  an  island  and  called  it 
Isla  Florida.  Ponce  de  Leon  in  writing  to  Charles  V  calls 
it  an  island,  and  it  is  figured  as  such  in  the  Turin  map  of 
the  New  World,  circa  1523.  But  after  they  learned  that  it 
was  the  mainland,  Florida  was  made  to  embrace  the  whole 
of  North  America  except  Mexico.  Thus  writes  Herrera 
and  Las  Casas.  The  latter  make  it  extend  from  what  we 
now  know  as  Cape  Sable  to  "the  land  of  Codfish"  (New- 
foundland), "otherwise  known  as  Labrador,  which  is  not 
yery  far  from  the  island  of  England."  The  present 
boundaries  of  Florida,  it  may  be  remarked,  were  not  de- 
termined until  1795,  when  they  were  fixed  by  treaty  with 
Spain. 

11513  is  the  date  given  by  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  and  Peschel,  in  his 
Oeschiohte  dcs  Zeitalters  der  Endeckungen,  p.  521,  has  proved  that  this  is 
the  date  that  should  be  accepted. 

2  The  History  of  Hernando  de  8oto  and  Florida;  or  Record  of  the  Events 
of  Fifty-six  Years,  from  1512  to  1568,  p.  Ill,  78  and  passim,  Philadelphia, 
1831. 

3  "Floridamque  appelaverat  quia  Resurectionis  die  earn  insulam  'repererint; 
yocat  Hispanus  pascha  floridum  resurectionis  diem."    Dec.  IV,  Cap.  5. 

7 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

But  what  is  more  interesting  than  names  and  boundaries, 
and  what  will,  perhaps,  be  more  surprising  to  the  readers 
of  popular  works  on  the  subject,  is  the  fact  that  Ponce  de 
Leon,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  to  the  contrary,  was 
not  the  discoverer  of  Florida,  the  fact  that  it  was  discovered 
nearly  two  decades  before  Ponce  de  Leon  reached  its  shores, 
and  the  further  and  more  unexpected  fact  that  it  was  dis- 
covered by  that  much  misrepresented  and  much  abused 
navigator,  Americus  Vespucius. 

Thanks  to  the  researches  of  Varnhagen,  Harrisse  and 
others,  these  facts  have  been  apparently  demonstrated  be- 
yond doubt.  In  his  work*on  the  voyages  of  the  brothers 
Cortereal,  Harrisse  has  clearly  proven  that,  between  the 
end  of  the  year  1500  and  the  summer  of  1502,  certain 
navigators,  whose  names  and  nationality  are  unknown,  but 
who  were  presumably  Spaniards,  discovered,  explored  and 
named  that  part  of  the  coast-line  of  the  United  States 
which?  extends  from  Pensacola  Bay,  along  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  to  the  Cape  of  Florida,  and,  turning  it,  runs  north- 
ward along  the  Atlantic  coast  to  about  the  mouth  of  the 
Chesapeake  or  the  Hudson.1  The  maps  of  Juan  de  la  Cosa 
— drawn  in  1500 — and  the  one  made  for  Alberto  Cantino 
in  1502 — maps  which  have  only  recently  received  the  at- 
tention due  them — are  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  these  conclusions. 

According  to  M.  Varnhagen,  the  one  who  furnished  the 
data  for  these  maps,  if  indeed,  he  did  not  construct  the 
prototype  from  which  they  were  both  executed,  was  no 
other  than  Americus  Vespucius,  who  from  now  on  must  re- 
ceive different  treatment  from  that  which  has  hitherto  been 
accorded  him.  By  marshaling  a  brilliant  array  of  facts, 
presented  with  masterly  logic,  Varnhagen,  silences  the  de- 
tractors of  the  illustrious  Florentine  navigator,  and  dis- 
arms those  objectors  who  have  been  unwilling  to  accept  as 
true  the  statements  contained  in  the  celebrated  Soderini 
letter  regarding  his  first  voyage  to  the  New  World  in  1497 

Qortereal  et  teur  Voyage  CM  "Nouveau  Monde,  pp.  Ill,  151, 

8 


INTRODUCTORY 

and  1498.  He  leaves  no  doubt  on  the  reader 's  mind,  that 
Vespucius,  after  visiting  Honduras  and  Yucatan,  sailed 
thence  to  and  around  Florida,  and  that,  if  he  did  not  himself 
actually  construct  the  original  of  the  Cantino  map,  it  was 
he  that  supplied  the  data  from  which  both  this  map  and 
that  of  Juan  de  la  Cosa  were  rendered  possible.1  If  some 
fortunate  student  of  early  Americana  should  eventually 
ferret  out  the  Quattro  Giornate — Four  Journeys — of  which 
Vespucius  frequently  makes  mention,  and  in  which  he  gives 
an  account  of  all  his  voyages,  he  would  render  an  incal- 
culable service  to  the  cause  of  truth,  and  would  be  able  to 
demonstrate  to  the  satisfaction  of  even  the  most  exacting 
critic  the  extent  and  importance  of  the  services  rendered  by 
the  pilot  major  of  Spain  to  the  crown  of  Leon  and  Castile 
— services  only  second  to  those  which  distinguish  Columbus 
himself. 

FONS  JUVBNTUTIS 

But  whatever  may  be  said  about  the  discovery  of  the 
country,  Ponce  de  Leon's  name  will  always  remain  so 
closely  linked  with  Florida  that  it  will  never  be  possible  to 
dissociate  the  two.  One  may  forget  all  about  his  enterprise 
as  a  navigator  and  may  ignore  his  claims  as  a  discoverer, 
but  one  can  never  become  oblivious  of  that  strange  episode 
with  which  his  name  is  inseparably  connected — the  ro- 
mantic search  for  the  Fountain  of  Youth. 

For  the  historian,  as  for  the  psychologist,  the  subject 
possesses  an  abiding  interest,  and  even  the  casual  visitor 
to  Florida  finds  himself  unconsciously  dreaming  about  the 
days  long  gone  by  when  Spaniard  and  Indian  were  wander- 
ing through  forest  and  everglade  in  search  of  the  life- 
giving  fountain  about  which  they  had  heard  such  marvelous 
reports-  And  if  his  dreams  do  not  consume  all  his  time, 
he  also  finds  himself  speculating  on  the  origin  of  such  re- 
ports, or  the  basis  of  the  legend  which  started  Ponce  de 

i  Le  Premier  Voyage  de  Amerigo  Vespucci,  par  F.  A.  de  Varnhagan,  Vienne, 
1869,  p.  34. 

9 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Leon  and  others  on  a  search  for  what  proved  to  be  an  ignis 
fatuus  as  extraordinary  as  was  the  mythical  Eldorado  a  few 
years  later. 

The  historian  Gromara,  referring  to  this  episode  in  the 
life  of  Ponce  de  Leon,  writes  as  follows:  "The  gouernour 
of  the  Islande  of  Boriquena,  John  Ponce  de  Leon,  beinge  dis- 
charged of  his  office  and  very  ryche,  furnysshed  and  sente 
foorth  two  carvels  to  seeke  the  Ilandes  of  Boyuca  in  the 
which  the  Indians  affirmed  to  be  a  f ontayne  or  spring  whose 
water  is  of  vertue  to  make  owlde  men  younge." 

"Whyle  he  trauayled  syxe  monethes  with  owtragious  de- 
syre  among  many  Ilandes  to  fynde  that  he  sought,  and 
coulde  fynde  no  token  of  any  such  fountayne,  he  entered 
into  Bimini  and  discouered  the  lande  of  Florida  in  the  yeare 
1512  on  Easter  day  which  the  Spanyardes  caule  the  florissh- 
ing  day  of  Pascha,  wherby  they  named  that  lande  Flor- 
ida."1 

Antonio  de  Herrera  speaks  not  only  of  this  Fountain  of 
Youth  but  also  of  a  river  whose  waters  had  likewise  the 
marvelous  property  of  restoring  youth  to  old  age.  This 
river  was  also  supposed  to  be  in  Florida.  It  was  known 
as  the  Jordan  and  received  quite  as  much  attention  from 
both  Spaniards  and  Indians  as  did  the  Fountain  of  Youth. 

Fonteneda,  who  spent  seventeen  years  in  the  wilds  of 
Florida,  as  a  captive  of  the  Indians,  gives  more  explicit 
information  about  the  subject  than  either  Gomara  or 
Herrera.  "Juan  Ponce  de  Leon,"  he  says,  "believing  the 
reports  of  the  Indians  of  Cuba  and  San  Domingo  to  be  true, 
made  an  expedition  into  Florida  to  discover  the  river 
Jordan.  This  he  did,  either  because  he  wished  to  acquire 
renown,  or,  perhaps,  because  he  hoped  to  become  young 
again  by  bathing  in  its  waters.  Many  years  ago  a  number 
of  Cuban  Indians  went  in  search  of  this  river,  and  entered 

i  Historia  General  de  las  Indias,  Tom.  XXII  de  Autores  Espafioles,  Madrid, 
M.  Rivadeneyra,  Editor,  1877 — I  have  reproduced  the  passage  in  the  quaint 
translation  of  Richard  Eden,  as  given  in  The  first  three  books  on  America, 
f .  345,  edited  by  Edward  Arher,  Westminster,  1895. 

10 


INTRODUCTORY 

the  province  of  Carlos,  but  Sequene,  the  father  of  Carlos, 
took  them  prisoners  and  settled  them  in  a  village,  where 
their  descendants  are  still  living.  The  news  that  these  peo- 
ple had  left  their  own  country  to  bathe  in  the  river  Jordan 
spread  among  all  the  kings  and  chiefs  of  Florida,  and,  as 
they  were  an  ignorant  people,  they  set  out  in  search  of  this 
river,  which  was  supposed  to  possess  the  powers  of  re- 
juvenating old  men  and  women.  So  eager  were  they  in 
their  search,  that  they  did  not  pass  a  river,  a  brook,  a  lake, 
or  even  a  swamp,  without  bathing  in  it,  and  even  to  this  day 
they  have  not  ceased  to  look  for  it,  but  always  without 
success.  The  natives  of  Cuba,  braving  the  dangers  of  the 
sea,  became  the  victims  of  their  faith,  and  thus  it  happened 
that  they  came  to  Carlos,  where  they  built  a  .village.  They 
came  in  such  great  numbers  that,  although  many  have  died, 
there  are  still  many  living  there,  both  old  and  young. 
While  I  was  a  prisoner  in  those  parts  I  bathed  in  a  great 
many  rivers  but  never  found  the  right  one."  1 

The  poet-historian,  Juan  de  Castellanos,  writing  in  mock 
heroic  style,  says  that  so  great  were  the  virtues  of  the  Foun- 
tain of  Youth,  that  by  means  of  its  waters  old  women  were 
able  to  get  rid  of  their  wrinkles  and  gray  hairs.  "A  few 
draughts  of  the  water  and  a  bath  in  the  restoring  fluid 
sufficed  to  restore  strength  to  their  enfeebled  members,  give 
beauty  to  their  features,  and  impart  to  a  faded  complexion 
the  glow  of  youth.  And,  considering  the  vanity  of  our 
times,  I  wonder  how  many  old  women  would  drag  them- 
selves to  this  saving  wave,  if  the  puerilities  of  which  I  speak 
were  certainties.  How  rich  and  puissant  would  not  be  the 
king  who  should  own  such  a  fountain !  What  farms,  jewels, 
and  prized  treasures  would  not  men  sell  in  order  to  become 
young  again!  And  what  cries  of  joy  would  not  proceed 
from  the  women-folk — from  the  fair  as  well  as  from  the 
homely!  In  what  a  variety  of  costumes  and  liveries  would 
not  all  go  to  seek  such  favors !  Certainly  they  would  take 

*  ColecMn  de  doeumentos  ineditoa  del  archive  de  Indias,  Tom.  V,  pp.  536, 
537. 

11 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

greater  pains  than  they  would  in  making  a  visit  to  the  Holy 
Land."1 

What  Castellanos  said  might  be  repeated  to-day.  If  the 
Fountain  of  Youth  or  the  river  Jordan,  such  as  Ponce  de 
Leon,  Ayllon  and  de  Soto  sought,  now  existed,  Florida 
would  be  the  most  frequented  and  most  thickly  populated 
country  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Vichy,  Homburg,  Karls- 
bad and  other  similar  resorts  would  at  once  be  abandoned, 
and  there  would  forthwith  be  a  mad  rush  for  the  Land  of 
Easter.  The  Fountain  of  Youth  would  be  worth  more  to 
its  possessor  than  the  diamond  mines  of  Kimberley,  more 
than  the  combined  interests  of  Standard  Oil,  more  than  all 
the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corpora- 
tion. There  would  be  countless  numbers  who,  like  Faust, 
would  be  ready  to  sell  their  souls  for  a  single  draught  of 
the  life-giving  fountain,  for  a  single  plunge  into  the  health- 
and  strength-restoring  river. 

That  the  simple  and  ignorant  Indians  of  Cuba  and  Haiti 
and  adjacent  islands  should  have  credited  the  stories  in 
circulation  about  the  marvelous  waters  said  to  exist  some- 
where in  Florida  we  can  understand.  The  marvelous  and 
the  supernatural  always  appeal  in  a  special  manner  to  the 
superstitious  and  untutored  savage.  We  are,  however,  dis- 
posed to  smile  at  the  credulity  of  the  enlightened  Spaniard 
who  did  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  fortune  and  life  in  the 
quest  of  what  could  never  be  found  outside  of  Utopia.  But, 
viewing  things  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge,  it  is  easy 
to  judge  them  rashly  and  do  them  a  grave  injustice.  We 
must  transport  ourselves  back  to  the  times  in  which  they 
lived  and  acted,  and  consider  the  strange  and  novel  en- 
vironment in  which  they  suddenly  found  themselves.  A 
now  world  had  just  been  discovered — a  world  in  which 

i-Elegias  de  Vorones  Ilustrea  de  Indias,  in  the  Billioteca  de  Autorea 
Espafioles,  Tom.  IV,  p.  69,  Collection  Rivadeneyra,  Madrid,  1850. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  scepticism  of  Martyr  and  of  the  ridicule  of 
Castellanos  and  the  denunciation  of  Oviedo,  the  quest  for  the  Fountain  of 
Youth  was,  according  to  Herrera,  continued  until  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  probably  longer. 

12 


INTRODUCTORY 

everything — plants,  trees,  animals,  men — seemed  different 
from  what  they  were  familiar  with  in  their  own  land.  And 
for  a  people  who  from  their  youth  had  eagerly  listened 
to  stories  of  knight-errantry,  and  who,  by  long  association 
with  their  Moorish  neighbors,  were  ready  to  accept  as  sober 
facts  the  wildest  statements  of  oriental  fable,  a  special  al- 
lowance must  be  mad^.  They  had  heard  of  the  adventures 
of  Marco  Polo,  and  of  the  wonders  of  Cathay  and  Cipango, 
and  their  minds  were  full  of  the  oft-told  tales  about  the 
Fortunate  Isles,  and  the  Islands  of  the  Blest — located  some- 
where in  the  broad  Atlantic,  and  presumably  in  the  region 
of  the  setting  sun — and  what  more  natural  than  that  they 
should  expect  to  find  themselves  some  bright  morning  in 
a  land  of  enchantment?  The  marvelous  stories  current 
about  the  voyages  of  St.  Brendan  and  his  companions,  about 
the  island  in  the  Western  sea  inhabited  by  Enoch  and 
Elias,  about  the  Garden  of  Eden  moved  from  the  distant 
East  to  the  more  distant  West,  all  contributed  to  prepare 
their  minds  for  a  ready  acceptance  of  the  most  extravagant 
statements.  Had  not  the  great  Admiral,  Columbus,  an- 
nounced that  he  had  located  the  site  of  the  Terrestrial 
Paradise,  when  he  sailed  by  the  rushing  water  of  the 
Orinoco,  and  had  not  his  views  been  accepted  by  thousands 
of  his  wondering  contemporaries? 

Such  being  the  case,  is  it  astonishing  that  the  early  ex- 
plorers should  have  seriously  believed  in  what  we  are  now 
so  ready  to  denounce  as  absurd?  The  romantic  world  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  when  Pliny  and  the  Physiologus  and 
the  Bestiaries,  were  accepted  by  students  of  nature  as  un- 
questioned authorities ;  when  learned  men  spent  their  lives 
in  search  of  the  elixir  of  life  and  the  philosopher's  stone, 
and  believed  in  the  transmutation  of  the  baser  metals  into 
gold,  was  quite  different  from  our  prosaic  twentieth-century 
world,  when  nothing  is  accepted  that  cannot  pass  the  ordeal 
of  exact  science. 

Again,  we  must  not  imagine,  as  is  so  often  done,  that  a 
Fons  Juventutis,  such  as  Ponce  de  Leon  aijd  his  con- 

13 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

temporaries  sought  for,  was  something  unheard  of  in  the 
history  of  our  race.  Stories  of  miraculously  healing  foun- 
tains have  been  current  from  early  times  and  in  divers  parts 
of  the  world — in  India,  in  Ethiopia,  and  in  the  isles  of  the 
Pacific. 

The  reader  will  recall  what  Sir  John  Mandeville  says 
about  a  well  of  youth  he  found  during  his  travels  in  India. 
It  was,  he  declares,  "a  right  faire  and  a  clere  well,  that 
hath  a  full  good  and  sweete  savoure,  and  it  smelleth  of  all 
maner  of  sortes  of  spyces,  and  also  at  eche  houre  of  the 
daye  it  changeth  his  savor  diversely,  and  whoso  drinketh 
thries  on  the  daye  of  that  well,  he  is  made  hole  of  all  maner 
of  sickenesse  that  he  hathe.  I  have  sometime  dronke  of 
that  well  and  me  thinketh  yet  that  I  fare  the  better ;  some 
call  it  the  well  of  youth,  for  they  that  drinke  thereof  seme 
to  be  yong  alway,  and  live  without  great  sicknesse,  and  they 
saye  this,  cometh  from  Paradise  terrestre,  for  it  is  so 
vertuous."1 

So  writes  Mandeville,  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
he  cribbed  this  account  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth  from  a 
medieval  legend  of  Prester  John,  from  which,  on  account  of 
the  interest  that  attaches  to  the  subject,  I  select  the  follow- 
ing paragraph : — 

"Item  aboute  this  passage  is  a  fonteyne  or  a  conduyte  so 
who  of  this  watere  drinked,  ILL  tymes  he  shall  waxe  yonge 
and  also  yf  a  man  haue  had  a  sykenes,  XXX.  yere  and 
drynked  of  thys  same  water  he  shall  therof  be  hole  and 
sonde.  And  also  as  a  man  thereof  drinked  hym  semeth  that 
he  had  occupyed  the  beste  mete  and  drinke  of  the  worlde, 
and  this  same  fonteyne  is  full  of  the  grace  of  the  holy  goost, 
and  who  sowe  in  this  same  water  wasshed  his  body  he  shall 
become  yonge  of  XXX.  yere."  2 

Whether  these  stories  had  their  origin  in  folklore  or  not, 
they  found  their  way  into  Europe  at  least  two  centuries 
before  the  voyage  of  Ponce  de  Leon  to  Florida.  Mande- 

1  The  Voiage  and  TravayU  of  Sir  John  M wndeville  Knight,  chap.  LIL 

2  Richard  Eden,  op,  cit.,  p.  34. 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

ville's  work  appeared  in  French,  Latin,  and  English,  and 
such  was  its  popularity,  that  Halliwell  did  not  hesitate  to 
declare  that '"of  no  book,  with  the  exception  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, can  more  MSS.  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  four- 
teenth and  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century. " 

Such  being  the  case,  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the 
Spaniards  were  not  familiar  with  stories  so  widely  cir- 
culated, and  stranger  still  if,  on  arriving  in  the  New  World, 
and  learning  from  the  Indians  of  the  existence  of  a  foun- 
tain of  youth,  and  at  no  great  distance  away,  they  should 
not  seek  to  locate  it  and  test  its  .virtues.  Given  the  state 
of  knowledge  at  the  time,  and  the  credence  accorded  to 
the  accounts  of  similar  fountains  in  the  Old  World,  the 
much  ridiculed  expedition  of  Ponce  de  Leon  followed  as 
a  natural  consequence.  It  would  have  been  more  surprising 
if  the  expedition  had  not  been  made  than  that  it  was  made. 

The  foregoing  remarks  on  the  Florida  Fountain  of  Youth 
and  river  Jordan  would  be  incomplete  without  a  few  words 
about  the  probable  origin  of  the  traditions  concerning  them. 
To  attribute  their  origin  to  folklore  simply  may  be  true, 
but  it  explains  nothing. 

M.  E.  Beauvois,  in  a  series  of  interesting  articles — very 
plausible  if  not  conclusive — on  the  subject,  contends  that 
all  the  traditions  regarding  the  Fountain,  of  Youth  and  the 
river  Jordan,  which  proved  so  attractive  to  the  Spaniards, 
are  of  Christian  origin.  He  maintains  that  the  Gaels, 
as  early  as  1380,  "had  established  relations  with  the 
aborigines  from  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  to  the  tropical 
zone  of  North  America,  and  that  it  is  very  probable  that 
missionaries  accompanied  the  merchants  in  their  voyages 
to  Florida  and  the  Antilles. "  He  argues  that  these 
missionaries  baptized  the  indigenes  in  some  river  which, 
for  that  reason,  they  called  the  Jordan,  or  fhat  they  spoke 
to  them  of  a  river  in  their  country,  on  which  a  Christian 
mission  had  been  established,  and  that  this  fact  gave  rise 
to  the  formation  of  the  tradition  of  a  Jordan  situated  some- 
where at  the  north  of  the  Antilles. 
8  15 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

It  remains  to  show  how  this  tradition  came  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  story  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth.  This 
confusion  was  the  more  natural  that  the  same  idea  is  at  the 
foundation  of  the  two  parallel  traditions.  The  one  has 
reference  to  the  regeneration  of  the  soul,  the  other  to  the 
rejuvenation  of  the  body,  both  being  effected  by  means  of 
vivifying  water.  In  the  beginning,  but  one  kind  of  water 
was  known,  that  "  which  saved  by  its  own  proper  virtue, 
the  water  of  baptism,  which  is  exclusively  spiritual."  Sub- 
sequently, however,  the  simple  and  superstitious  Indian  at- 
tributed to  the  waters  of  baptism  properties  which  seemed 
to  him  preferable  to  those  spoken  of  by  the  missionary — 
the  properties,  namely,  "of  curing  diseases  of  the  body,  or 
of  restoring  youth  to  the  decrepit  and  of  indefinitely  pro- 
longing life.  From  that  time  the  Fountain  of  Youth  had  a 
proper  existence  and  began  to  play  an  important  role  in 
popular  traditions." 

How  long  the  tradition  of  the  beneficent  waters  of 
Florida  existed — and  Florida,  it  must  be  remembered, 
meant  to  the  Spaniards  of  the  sixteenth  century  all  the 
Atlantic  coast — M.  Beauvois  does  not  determine.  It  may 
have  been  only  a  few  generations,  or  it  may  have  been 
several  centuries.  It  may  even  have  dated  back  to  about 
the  year  1008,  when  Thorfinn  Karlsefni  was  baptized  in 
"Vinland  the  Good" — Massachusetts — the  first  Christian, 
so  far  as  known,  born  on  the  American  continent.  Or  it 
may  have  originated  as  far  north  as  New  Brunswick — 
"Great  Ireland  or  Huitramannaland — which  had  been  oc- 
cupied by  a  Gaelic  colony  from  the  year  1000,  or  from  an 
earlier  date,  until  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and 
where,  about  the  year  1000,  the  Papas,  Columbite  monks, 
the  evangelizers  of  that  region,  had  baptized  the  Icelander, 
Are  Marsson,  who  had  left  his  native  island  before  his  con- 
version to  Christianity." 

At  all  events,  whatever  conclusions  may  be  reached  as 
to  the  time  when  and  the  place  where  the  tradition 
originated,  it  is  manifest  that  "it  could  have  been  propa- 

16 


INTRODUCTORY 

gated  in  the  New  World  only  by  Christians  and  as  it  was 
in  existence  before  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards,  we  must 
attribute  its  propagation  to  other  Europeans,  to  those,  for 
example,  whose  crosses  the  indigenes  of  Tennessee  and 
Georgia  had  exhumed  from  their  ancient  burial  places,  or 
to  those  whom  the  inhabitants  of  Haiti  had  known  either  de 
visu  or  by  hearsay,"  1 

What  is  here  said  of  the  Christian  origin  of  the  Florida 
Fountain  of  Youth  can  likewise  be  predicated  of  the  one 
mentioned  in  the  legend  of  Prester  John — whence,  as  we 
have  seen,  Mandeville  got  his  story,  for  it  is  said,  "this 
same  fonteyne  is  full  of  the  grace  of  the  holy  goost,"  an 
obvious  allusion  to  the  regenerating  waters  of  baptism. 

But  it  is  time  to  resume  the  thread  of  our  narrative, 
interrupted  by  a  discussion  unavoidably  long,  but  pardon- 
able, it  is  hoped,  in  view  of  its  abiding  interest  and  intimate 
connection  with  the  early  history  of  Florida.  Besides,  my 
purpose  is  not  so  much  to  give  descriptions  of  the  countries 
through  which  we  shall  pass — something  which  has  in  most 
instances  been  done  before — as  to  give  the  impressions  of 
their  earliest  explorers  and  to  dwell,  as  briefly  as  may  be, 
on  topics  relating  to  the  various  regions  visited,  that 
possess  even  for  the  most  casual  reader  a  perennial  fas- 
cination and  importance.  In  countries  like  those  we  shall 
visit,  the  impressions  of  the  first  explorers  are  often  more 
interesting  and  instructive  than  those  of  the  latest  tourist 
or  naturalist,  for  such  impressions  have  about  them  a  fresh- 
ness and  an  originality — often  a  quaintness  and  a  simplicity 
— that  are  entirely  absent  from  modern  works  of  travel. 
Another  reason  for  so  doing  is  that  much  of  the  ground, 
over  which  we  shall  travel,  is  practically  the  same  to-day 
as  when  it  first  greeted  the  eyes  of  the  conquistadores,  and 
many  of  the  towns  and  cities  we  shall  visit,  no  less  than 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  people,  differ  but  little 

i  For  an  illuminating  discussion  of  this  subject,  with  citation  of  authorities, 
see  M.  BeauTois'  article,  La  Fontaine  de  Jowoence  et  le  Jourdan  dans  lea 
Traditions  des  Antilles  et  de  la  Floride,  Le  Muston,  Tom.  Ill,  No.  3. 

17 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

from  what  they  were  in  the  time  of  Charles  V  and  Philip  II. 
Thus,  regarding  many  things,  the  statements  of  the  Spanish 
writers  and  missionaries  of  four  centuries  ago  are  still  as 
true  as  if  they  had  been  penned  but  yesterday,  and  that, 
too,  by  the  most  accurate  observer. 

From  St.  Augustine,  the  oldest  city  in  the  United  States, 
the  traveler  has  the  choice  of  two  routes  to  Havana.  One 
is  by  way  of  Tampa  Bay,  called  by  De  Soto  the  Bay  of 
Espiritu  Santo,  and  by  some  of  the  early  geographers 
designated  as  the  Bay  of  Ponce  de  Leon,  What,  however, 
is  now  known  as  Ponce  de  Leon  Bay,  is  farther  south  and 
near  the  southernmost  point  of  the  peninsula.  The  other 
route  is  along  the  east  coast  of  the  state.  At  the  time  of 
our  visit  the  railroad  was  in  operation  only  as  far  as  Miami, 
but  was  being  rapidly  pushed  towards  its  terminus  at  Key 
West. 

We  chose  the  eastern  route  because  we  could  in  fancy 
follow  more  closely  in  the  footsteps  of  the  conquistadores 
and  picture  to  ourselves,  in  the  ocean,  nearly  always  visible, 
that  long  procession  of  barks  and  brigantines  which  four 
centuries  ago  plowed  the  main,  some  moving  northward, 
others  southward — all  manned  by  brawny,  hardy  mariners 
in  search  of  gold  and  glory.  Spaniards,  like  Ponce  de 
Leon  and  Pedro  Menendez;  Italians,  like  Americus  Ves- 
pucius  and  Verrazano;  Englishman,  like  Hawkins  and 
Ealeigh;  Frenchmen,  like  Eibaut  and  Laudonniere,  all 
passed  along  this  coast — all  bent  on  achieving  distinction 
or  extending  the  possessions  of  their  respective  sovereigns. 
Brave  and  gallant  mariners  these,  men  whose  names  are 
writ  large  on  the  pages  of  story  and  who  occupy  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  records  of  the  heroes  of  adventure. 

From  Miami  we  went  by  steamer  to  Key  West,  which 
will  soon  be  accessible  by  rail  from  St.  Augustine*  The 
sea  was  as  placid  as  an  inland  lakelet  and  the  voyage  to 
Havana  was  in  every  way  ideal.  We  skirted  along  the 
Florida  Keys — those  countless  coral  islets  that  are  to 
serve  as  piers  for  the  railroad  under  construction,  which 

18 


INTRODUCTORY 

is  to  form  so  important  a  link  between  Cuba  and  the  United 
States.  When  completed  the  time  consumed  in  going  to 
the  Pearl  of  the  Antilles  will  not  only  be  greatly  lessened, 
but  the  former  discomforts  and  terrors  of  the  journey 
will  be  entirely  eliminated.  No  longer  will  the  traveler 
be  obliged  to  encounter  the  hurricanes  of  the  Bahamas  or 
the  heavy  seas  off  Cape  Hatteras.  He  will  be  able  to 
take  his  seat  in  a  Pullman  car  in  New  York  and  go,  without 
change,  through  to  Key  West  and  thence  to  Havana  and 
Santiago  de  Cuba. 

How  different  was  it  when  the  small  Spanish  craft  of 
four  centuries  ago  navigated  these  waters  on  their  way 
from  Panama  and  Vera  Cruz  to  the  mother  country! 
Then,  as  the  reader  will  observe,  by  reference  to  the  old 
maps  of  Florida,  the  keys  or  coral  reefs  along  the  coast 
were  known  as  Los  Mdrtires — the  Martyrs — so  named  by 
Ponce  de  Leon  on  account  of  the  number  of  shipwrecks 
that  occurred  here,  and  because  of  the  number  of  lives 
that  were  lost  on  these  treacherous  shoals  and  also,  as 
Herrera  informs  us,  because  of  certain  rock-formations 
in  the  vicinity  that  have  the  appearance  of  men  in  distress. 

If  we  may  credit  the  legends  and  traditions  that  have 
obtained  in  those  parts,  many  a  Spanish  treasure-ship  has 
been  lost  in  threading  its  way  through  the  uncharted  shoals 
and  islands  of  Los  Mdrtires  and  the  Bahamas,  and  many 
futile  attempts  have  been  made  to  recover  at  least  a  part 
of  the  treasure  lost,  but  it  was 

"Lost  in  a  way  that  made  search  vain." 

And  of  the  adventurous  divers,  who  braved  the  dangers 
of  current  and  wave,  one  .can  safely  say  in  the  words  of 
Bret  Harte 

"Never  a  sign, 

Bast  or  West,  or  undef  the  line, 

They  saw  of  the  missing  galleon ; 

Never  a  sail  or  plank  or  chip, 

They  found  of  the  long-lost  treasure-ship, 

Or  enough  to  build  a  tale  upon." 
19 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

THE  PEARL  OP  THE  ANTILLES 

Early  the  morning  following  our  departure  from  Miami 
we  were  aroused  from  our  slumbers  by  the  cry  of  a  mari- 
ner, * '  Land  ho  I  all  hands  ahoy  1 ' '  We  were  on  deck  without 
delay,  and  there  before  us,  under  a  sky  of  purest  azure, 
we  beheld  the  hills  of  Cuba,  clad  in  a  mantle  of  undying 
verdure.  Its  resplendent  shores  were  arrayed  in  hues  of 
glowing  beauty  and  unimagined  loveliness.  Fragrant 
groves  of  orange  and  pomegranate,  luxuriant  forests  white 
with  clouds  of  bloom,  formed  a  glorious  setting  to  the 
refulgent  waves  that  reflected  the  crimson  splendors  of 
the  rising  sun.  Delicious  zephyrs,  fanning  their  balmy 
wings,  bathed  our  brows  with  dewy  freshness,  sweet  with 
perfume  from  ambrosial  fruits  and  tropic  flowers.  Yes, 
we  were  in  the  Pearl  of  the  Antilles,  the  "Sweet  Isle  of 
Flowers";  in  Gan  Eden — the  Garden  of  Delight — that  in 
the  legends  of  long  ago  was  reckoned  among  the  Isles  of 
the  Blest. 

The  beautiful  pictures  before  us,  however,  were  but  as 
a  fleeting  panorama.  We  had  but  little  time  to  feast  our 
eyes  on  them  before  we  were  in  front  of  grim,  frown- 
ing Morro  Castle,  that  for  three  centuries  and  more  has 
stood  sentinel  of  the  fair  city  at  its  feet.  Adjoining  the 
Castle  are  the  Cabanas,  a  vast  range  of  fortifications  more 
than  a  mile  in  length,  and  nearly  a  thousand  feet  in  breadth. 
Just  opposite,  on  the  other  side  of  the  harbor's  entrance, 
is  the  Bateria  de  la  Punta,  and  some  distance  farther 
beyond  is  the  star-shaped  Castle  Atares.  From  a  military 
standpoint  Havana  is  well  protected,  and,  with  Morro 
Castle  properly  equipped  with  modern  artillery,  would  be 
practically  impregnable. 

Few  West  Indian  cities  have  greater  historic  interest 
than  Havana.  From  the  time  it  was  first  visited  by 
Ocampo,  four  hundred  years  ago,  until  the  raising  of  the 
flag  of  the  Cuban  Republic  in  1904,  it  has  been  the  witness 
of  many  stirring  events  that  have  effected  the  destinies 

20 


INTRODUCTORY 

of  millions  of  people  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  It 
was  from  Havana 's  port  that  Cortes,  in  1519,  sailed  on  his 
memorable  voyage  to  Mexico.  It  was  from  this  port  that 
Pamphilio  de  Narvaez  and  Hernando  de  Soto  started  on 
their  ill-starred  expeditions  to  Florida.  Time  and  again 
the  city  was  harassed  by  Dutch,  French  and  English 
pirates  and  Buccaneers.  Oftentimes,  too,  the  daring  sea- 
rovers,  who  so  long  infested  West  Indian  waters,  levied 
tribute  on  the  unfortunate  inhabitants  who  were  unable  to 
defend  themselves.  Indeed,  it  was  to  defend  the  city  from 
these  marauders  that  the  kings  of  Spain,  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  began  the  erection  of  those  fortifi- 
cations that,  since  their  completion,  have  excited  the  admi- 
ration of  all  who  have  visited  them. 

Cuba  was  one  of  the  islands  Columbus  discovered  during 
his  first  voyage.  But  he  thought  he  had  discovered  a 
continent — that  he  had  reached  the  eastern  extremity  of 
Asia.  He  had  set  out  from  Spain  to  find  a  western  route 
to  the  Indies,  to  offset  the  discoveries  of  Bartholomew  Diaz 
and  Vasco  de  Gama.  To  him  Cuba  was  the  land  of  the 
Great  Khan,  far-off  Cathay,  and  Espanola,  discovered 
shortly  afterwards,  was  Cipango,  Japan.  Indeed,  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  he  died  in  the  belief  that  Cuba,  far 
from  being  an  island,  was  a  part  of  China,  as  mapped  by 
Toscanelli  and  described  by  Marco  Polo.  We  have  no 
positive  evidence  that  he  was  ever  aware  of  the  circum- 
navigation of  the  island  by  Pinzon  and  Solis  in  1497,  and 
he  was  dead  two  years  before  its  insularity  was  again 
proved  by  Ocampo.  He  never  dreamed  that  he  had  dis- 
covered a  new  world,  nor  did  any  of  his  contemporaries 
or  immediate  successors  have  any  conclusive  reason  to 
infer  that  the  lands  discovered  by  the  great  Admiral  in 
his  third  and  fourth  voyages  were  not  a  par.t  of  the  Asiatic 
continent. 

Balboa's  discovery  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  did  not  supply 
such  reasons,  neither  did  the  rounding  of  South  America 
and  the  circumnavigation  of  the  globe  by  Magellan.  Nor 

21 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

were  the  necessary  proofs  furnished  by  the  explorations 
of  Drake  or  Frobisher,  Davis  or  Hudson  or  Baffin. 

The  final  demonstration  of  the  complete  separation  of 
America  from  Asia  was  a  long  process  and  was  not  given 
until  the  noted  explorations  of  Vitus  Behring  in  1728,  more 
than  two  centuries  after  Balboa  from  the  summit  of  a  peak 
in  Darien  first  descried  the  placid  waters  of  the  great 
South  Sea.1 

We  had  desired,  to  visit  the  northern  and  southern  coasts 
of  Cuba,  and  to  feast  our  eyes  on  the  beautiful  scenes 
that  had  so  captivated  Columbus;  to  view  the  hundred 
harbors  that  indent  its  tortuous  shores;  to  see  the  Queen's 
Gardens — now  known  as  Los  Cayos  de  las  Doce  Leguas 
— which  the  great  navigator  fancied  to  be  the  seven 
thousand  spice  islands  of  Marco  Polo,  but  our  time  was  too 
limited  to  permit  the  long  and  slow  coasting  that  would  be 
required.  Besides,  we  preferred  to  study  the  interior  of 
the  country,  and  pass  through  the  sugar  and  tobacco  plan- 
tations for  which  the  island  is  so  famous. 

Fortunately  for  the  comfort  of  the  traveler,  there  is  now 
a  through  train  from  Havana  to  Santiago,  so  that  one 
can  make  the  entire  five  hundred  and  forty  miles  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  that,  too,  if  one  so  elect,  in  a  Pullman 
car. 

Columbus,  in  writing  of  his  first  voyage  to  Eaf ael  Sanchez 

1  "3?  projecting  our  modern  knowledge  into  the  past,"  to  employ  a  favorite 
phrase  of  John  Fiske,  many,  even  among  recent  writers,  speak  as  if  the 
early  explorers  knew  for  a  certainty  that  the  land  discovered  by  Columbus 
was  actually  distinct  from  Asia.  None  of  them,  however,  go  to  the  extreme 
of  Lope  de  Vega,  who,  in  one  of  his  dramas,  El  Nuevo  Mundo  Descubierto, 
makes  the  Genoese  mariner,  in  a  talk  with  his  brother  Bartholomew,  ask 
why  is  it,  that  I,  "a  poor  pilot,  broken  in  fortune,  yearn  to  add  to  this  world 
another  and  one  so  remote?" — 

"Un  hombre  pobre,  y  aim  roto, 
Que  casi  lo  puedo  decir, 
Y  que  vive  de  piloto 
Quiere  a  gate  mundo  afiadir 
Otro  mundo  tan  remoto." 

22 


INTRODUCTORY 

and  Luis  de  Santangel,  says  that  all  the  countries  he  had 
discovered,  but  particularly  Juana — the  name  he  gave  to 
Cuba — "are  of  surpassing  excellence,"  and  "exceedingly 
fertile."  "All  these  islands "  he  continues,  "are  very 
beautiful  and  distinguished  by  a  diversity  of  scenery;  they 
are  filled  with  a  great  variety  of  trees  of  immense  height, 
and  which  I  believe  retain  their  foliage  in  all  seasons; 
for  when  I  saw  them" — in  November — "they  were  as 
verdant  and  luxuriant  as  they  usually  are  in  Spain  in  the 
month  of  May — some  of  them  were  blossoming,  some  bear- 
ing fruit,  and  all  flourishing  in  the  greatest  perfection, 
according  to  their  respective  stages  of  growth,  and  the 
nature  and  quality  of  each. ' '  Again  he  writes,  *  '  The  night- 
ingale and  a  thousand  other  sorts  of  birds  were  singing 
in  the  month  of  November  wherever  I  went.  There  are 
palm  trees  in  these  countries  of  six  or  eight  sorts,  which 
are  surprising  to  see,  on  account  of  their  diversity  from 
ours,  but,  indeed,  this  is  the  case  with  respect  to  the  other 
trees,  as  well  as  the  fruits  and  weeds.  Here  are  also  honey, 
and  fruits  of  a  thousand  sorts,  and  birds  of  every 
variety."1 

The  Admiral's  delight  and  enthusiasm  at  all  he  saw 
knew  no  bounds,  and  in  his  diary  he  gives  frequent  expres- 
sion to  the  pleasurable  emotions  he  experienced.  All  was 
new  to  him,  and  all  beautiful  beyond  words  to  describe. 
Trees  and  plants  were  as  different  from  those  in  Spain 
as  day  is  from  night,  and  the  verdure  and  bloom  in  Novem- 
ber were  as  fresh  and  brilliant  as  in  the  month  of  May 
in  Andalusia.2  The  great  navigator  had  a  poet's  love  of 
nature,  and  artist's  eye  for  the  beautiful.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  truthfully  said  that  no  one  since  his  time  has  more  cor- 
rectly and  more  succinctly  portrayed  the  salient  features 
of  these  islands,  and  it  may  be  questioned  if  any  one  has 
more  deeply  appreciated  their  beauty  and  splendor. 

1  Writings  of  Cofcrnbtw,  edited  by  P.  L.  Ford,  New  York,  1892. 

2  Relatives  y  Cartas  de  'Cristobal  Colon  in  the  Biblioteoa,  Cldsioa,  Tom. 
CLXIV,  Madrid,  1892. 

23 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

That  which  frequently  arrests  the  attention  of  the 
traveler,  on  the  way  from  Havana  to  Santiago,  is  the 
numerous  sugar  and  tobacco  plantations  everywhere  vis- 
ible. Sugar  cane,  as  is  known,  was  not  found  by  the 
Spaniards  on  their  arrival  in  the  New  World,  but  was 
introduced  there  a  short  time  after,  most  probably  from 
the  Madeira  or  Canary  Islands. 

Tobacco,  however,  is  an  American  plant,  and  one  of  the 
things  that  most  surprised  the  Europeans  on  first  coming 
in  contact  with  the  Indians  of  the  newly  discovered  islands 
was  to  find  them  smoking  the  dried  leaves  of  this  now 
favorite  narcotic. 

The  first  mention  of  tobacco  is  in  Columbus'  diary  under 
date  of  November  6, 1492.  Eef erring  to  two  messengers  he 
had  sent  out  among  the  Indians,  he  writes,  "The  two  Chris- 
tians met  on  the  road  a  great  many  people  going  to  their 
villages,  men  and  women  with  brands  in  their  hands,  made 
of  herbs,  for  taking  their  customary  smoke. 9 ' 1  These,  then, 
were  the  first  cigars  of  which  we  have  any  record.  The  use 
of  tobacco  in  pipes  was  apparently  first  observed  in  Florida 
by  Captain  John  Hawkins  during  his  voyage  to  the  penin- 
sula in  1566.  Among  many  other  interesting  things  he 
tells  us  about  the  inhabitants  is  that  of  their  use  and  love  of 
the  pipe. 

"The  Floridians  when  they  trauel  haue  a  kinde  of  herbe 
dryed,  which  with  a  cane,  and  an  earthen  cup  in  the  end, 
with  fire,  and  the  dried  herbs  put  together  do  sucke  thoro 
the  cane  the  smoke  thereof,  which  smoke  satisfieth  their 
hunger,  and  therewith  they  Hue  foure  or  five  days  without 
meat  or  drinke,  and  this  all  the  Frenchmen  vsed  for  this 
purpose ;  yet  do  they  holde  opinion  withall,  that  it  causeth 
water  and  flame  to  void  from  their  stomachs." 2 

The  early  Italian  traveler,  Girolamo  Benzoni,  evidently 

iRelaciones  y  Cartas,  ut  sup.,  pp.  57,  58. 

2  Hakluyt's  Early  Voyage,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  615,  London,  1810.  The  introduction 
of  tobacco  into  England  is  by  some  attributed  to  Hawkins  rather  than  to 
Lord  Raleigh,  who  is  generally  supposed  to  have  introduced  it. 

24 


INTEODUCTOET 

did  not  share  the  views  of  the  Floridians  and  Frenchmen 
regarding  the  value  of  tobacco.  To  him  it  was  nothing 
less  than  an  invention  of  Satan.  Speaking  of  its  evil  effects, 
he  says,  "See  what  a  pestiferous  and  wicked  poison  from 
the  devil  this  must  be."  * 

But  it  is  the  good  Old  Dominican,  Pere  Labat,  who  has  the 
most  to  say  about  the  introduction  and  use  of  tobacco.  His 
charming,  gossipy  account  of  men  and  things  and  his 
vagabunda  loquacitasj  have  lost  none  of  their  fascination 
for  the  curious  reader  since  they  were  first  written  nearly 
two  centuries  ago. 

Among  other  things  he  does  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that 
the  Indians,  "by  introducing  the  use  of  tobacco  among  their 
pitiless  conquerors,  succeeded,  in  great  measure,  in  aveng- 
ing themselves  for  the  unjust  servitude  to  which  they  had 
been  reduced.  "a  According  to  the  good  father,  tobacco 
proved  to  be  a  veritable  apple  of  discord,  because  it 
gave  rise  to  a  protracted  war  of  words  among  men  of 
science.  In  this  war  a  large  number  of  ignoramuses 
as  well  as  savants  participated.  And  not  the  last  to 
declare  themselves  in  favor  of  or  opposed  to  what  they 
understood  no  better  than  the  serious  affairs  of  the  day, 
in  which  they  had  been  but  too  active,  were  the  woman- 
folk. 

Physicians  discussed  its  properties,  nature  and  virtues, 
as  if  it  had  been  known  all  over  the  habitable  world  from 
the  times  of  Galen,  Hippocrates,  and  j93sculapius,  and  their 
opinions  were  as  diverse,  and  as  opposed  to  one  another 
as  are  to-day  the  opinions  of  allopaths  and  homeopaths, 
osteopaths  and  psychopaths.  They  prescribed  when  and 
how  it  was  to  be  takeui  and  in  what  doses.  They  and  the 
chemists  of  the  time  soon  recognized  in  tobacco  a  valuable 
addition  to  their  pharmacopoea.  Nay,  more,  it  was  not  long 

i"Vedete  che  pestifero  e  maluagio  ueleno  del  diaulo  e  questo."    La  His- 
foria  del  Mondo  Xuovo,  p.  54,  Venezia,  1555. 

2  TVouveau  Voyage  awo  Isles  de  L'Amtrique,  Vol.  II,  p.  120,  par  Jean  Bap- 
tiste  Labat,  a  la  Haye,  1724. 

25 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA    . 

before  it  was  proclaimed  as  a  panacea  for  all  the  ills  that 
poor  suffering  humanity  is  heir  to. 

Its  ashes  cured  glanders;  taken  as  a  powder  it  cured 
rheumatism,  headache,  dropsy,  and  paralysis.  It  was  a 
specific  against  melancholy  and  insanity;  against  the  small- 
pox and  the  plague,  against  fever,  asthma  and  liver  troubles. 
It  strengthened  the  memory  and  excited  the  imagination, 
and  philosophers  and  men  of  science  could  be,  it  was 
averred,  no  better  prepared  to  grapple  with  the  most  dif- 
ficult of  abstract  problems  than  by  having  the  nose  primed 
with  snuff. 

The  effects  induced  by  chewing  tobacco  were  said  to  be 
even  more  marvelous,  for  among  other  things  it  was  claimed 
that  by  thus  using  it  hunger  and  thirst  were  allayed  or 
prevented.  It  removed  bile,  cured  toothache  and  freed 
an  over-charged  brain  from  all  kinds  of  deleterious  humors. 
It  strengthened  and  preserved  the  sight.  Oil,  extracted 
from  tobacco,  cured  deafness,  gout,  sciatica,  improved  the 
circulation,  and  was  a  tonic  for  the  nervous.  In  a  word, 
it  was  the  great  panacea  of  which  physicians  and  alche- 
mists had  so  long  dreamed,  but  had  hitherto  been  unable  to 
find. 

Finally,  however,  a  reaction  came.  Books  were  written 
against  it,  and  kings  and  princes  forbade  its  use.  On  the 
26th  of  March,  1699,  the  question  was  seriously  discussed 
before  L'Ecole  de  Medecine  whether  the  frequent  use  of 
tobacco  shortened  life — An  ex  tdbaci  usu  frequenti  vita 
summa  brevier?  And  the  conclusion  was  a  demonstration 
that  the  frequent  use  of  tobacco  did  shorten  life.  Ergo  ex 
frequenti  tabaci  usu  vita  summa  brevior.1 

lEven  royalty  took  part  in  the  controversy.  In  A  Count  erllaste  to  To- 
bacco King  James  concludes  his  argument  against  the  use  of  the  weed  as 
follows: — 

"A  custome  loathsome  to  the  eye,  hatefull  to  the  nose,  harmfull  to  the 
braine,  dangerous  to  the  lungs,  and  in  the  blacke  stinking  fume  thereof, 
neerest  resembling  the  horrible  Stigian  smoke  of  the  pit  that  is  bottomlesse." 
The  Works  of  the  Most  High  and  Mightie  Prince  James,  by  the  Grace  of  God, 
King  of  Great  Britain*,  France  and  Ireland,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  etc.,  p. 
222,  London,  1616. 

26 


INTRODUCTORY 

But  notwithstanding  the  opinions  of  learned  men  and 
university  faculties  regarding  the  alleged  deleterious  prop- 
erties of  tobacco,  and  the  denunciations  hurled  against  the 
use  of  this  invention  of  the  Evil  One,  the  smoking  of  cigars 
and  pipes  soon  became  a  general  habit  the  world  over,  and, 
it  was  at  times  difficult  for  the  supply  to  meet  the  demand. 
How  little  Las  Casas  dreamed  that  this  "  vicious  habit, " 
as  he  called  it,  was  soon  to  become  universal,  and  that  the 
time  would  come  when  young  and  old  would  regard  the 
"fragrant  weed,"  prepared  in  one  way  or  another,  not 
only  as  an  indispensable  luxury,  but  also  as  a  prime  neces- 
sity— f or  rich  and  poor  alike,  if  life  were  to  be  worth  living. 

And  how  far  was  Columbus  from  imagining,  when  he  saw 
the  Indians  taking  "their  customary  smoke,"  that  the 
leaves  which  they  had  so  carefully  rolled  together  for  this 
purpose,  would  eventually  prove  to  be  one  of  the  great 
staples  of  commerce,  and  one  of  the  world's  most  valued 
sources  of  revenue.  He  crossed  "the  Sea  of  Darkness" 
to  discover  a  direct  route  to  the  lands  of  spice  and  the 
Golden  Chersonese  in  order  to  fill  the  coffers  of  the  land 
of  his  adoption.  He  and  his  companions  explored  every 
island  they  met  in  their  wanderings  in  quest  of  gold  and 
pearls  and  precious  stones  and  here,  in  the  narcotic  plant, 
that  appeared  to  them  as  little  more  than  a  curiosity,  there 
were  treasures  greater  than  those  of  "Ormus  and  Ind." 
In  this  very  island  of  Cuba,  of  whose  charms  he  has  left  us 
so  glowing  a  picture,  was  in  after  years  to  be  developed 
from  the  humble  plant — Nicotiana  Tabacum — one  of 
Spain's  most  important  industries — an  industry  that 
would,  in  the  course  of  time,  contribute  more  to  the  nation's 
exchequer  than  the  combined  output  of  the  mines  of  Pasco 
and  Potosi.  Such  was  evidently  the  thought  of  the  Cuban 
poet,  Zequeira,  when,  in  his  much  praised  Horatian  ode, 
A  La  Pina,  he  sings 

"j  Salve,  suelo  feliz,  donde  prodiga 

Madre  naturaleza  en  abundancia 

27 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

La  ordorifeva  planta  fumigable! 
I  Salve,  felizHabana!"1 

Santiago,  like  Havana,  is  a  historic  city,  and,  from  its 
foundation,  nearly  four  centuries  ago,  until  the  memorable 
siege  of  1898,  it  experienced  many  reverses  at  the  hands  of 
privateers  and  pirates.  We  lingered  just  long  enough  to 
see  its  chief  attractions — there  are  not  many— outside  of 
the  Morro — and  to  get  a  view  of  the  now  famous  El  Caney 
and  San  Juan  Hill. 

The  sun  was  sinking  below  the  horizon  when  we  boarded 
the  steamer  that  was  to  take  us  to  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo. 
As  we  passed  under  El  Morro,  that  has>  so  long  and  faith- 
fully guarded  the  entrance  to  the  placid  harbor,  and  looked 
towards  the  setting  sun  where  Cervera's  proud  fleet  was 
scattered,  we  could  not  but  recall  the  prophetic  words  of  Las 
Casas  penned  in  his  last  will  and  testament.  Speaking  of  the 
Indians,  to  whose  care  and  protection  he  had  devoted  a 
long  and  fruitful  life,  the  holy  bishop  writes:  "As  God 
is  my  witness  that  I  never  had  earthly  interest  in  view, 
I  declare  it  to  be  my  conviction  and  my  faith — I  believe 
it  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  faith  of  the  Holy  Boman- 
Catholic  Church,  which  is  our  rule  and  guide — that  by  all 
the  thefts,  all  the  deaths,  and  all  the  confiscations  of  estates 
and  other  uncalculable  riches,  by  the  dethroning  of  rulers 
with  unspeakable  cruelty,  the  perfect  and  immaculate  law 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  natural  law  itself  have  been  broken, 
the  name  of  our  Lord  and  His  holy  religion  have  been  out- 
raged, the  spreading  of  the  faith  has  been  retarded,  and 
irreparable  harm  done  to  these  innocent  people.  Hence  I 
believe  that,  unless  it  atones  with  much  penance  for  these 
abominable  and  unspeakably  wicked  deeds,  Spain  will  be 
visited  by  the  wrath  of  God,  because  the  whole  nation  has 
shared,  more  or  less,  in  the  bloody  wealth  that  has  been 
acquired  by  the  slaughter  and  extermination  of  those  peo- 

i"Hail,   happy  soil,  whence  Mother  Nature   lavishes  in  abundance  the 
odoriferous,  smokahle  plant!     Hail,  happy  Havana." 

28 


INTRODUCTORY 

pie.  But  I  fear  that  it  will  repent  too  late,  or  never.  For 
God  punishes  with  blindness  the  sins  sometimes  of  the 
lowly,  but  especially  and  more  frequently  the  sins  of  those 
who  think  themselves  wise,  and  who  presume  to  rule  the 
world.  We  ourselves  are  eyewitnesses  of  this  darkening 
of  the  understanding.  It  is  now  seventy  years  since  we 
began  to  scandalize,  to  rob  and  to  murder  those  peoples, 
but  to  this  day  we  have  not  come  to  realize  that  so  many 
scandals,  so  much  injustice,  so  many  thefts,  so  many  mas- 
sacres, so  much  slavery,  and  the  depopulation  of  so  many 
provinces,  which  have  disgraced  our  holy  religion,  are  sins 
or  injustices  at  all."  l 

Were  the  tragic  scenes  enacted  in  these  waters  and  in  the 
harbor  of  Manila  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy?  If  we 
should  be  disposed  to  think  so,  let  us  not  forget,  in  con- 
templating the  humiliation  and  punishment  of  Spain,  that 
we  too  have  sinned  as  Spain  sinned.  And  let  us  pray  that 
the  blood  of  the  millions  of  Indians  that  have  been  extermi- 
nated in  our  own  land  may  not  call  down  the  vengeance  of 
Heaven  on  our  children  and  our  children's  children. 
Nations,  like  individuals,  are  punished  where  they  have 
sinned.2 

HAITI  AND  SAN  DOMINGO 

A  short  sail  eastwards  and  we  found  ourselves  crossing 
the  Windward  Passage.  Not  far  from  our  port  quarter 
was  Cape  Maisi,  which  Columbus,  on  his  first  voyage,  named 
Cape  Alpha  and  Omega,  as  being  the  easternmost  extremity 
of  Asia  ;  Alpha,  therefore,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  and 
Omega  from  that  of  his  Portuguese  rivals.  On  his  second 
voyage  Columbus  came  down  through  this  passage  to  sat- 
isfy himself  that  he  had  actually  reached  Mangi,  the  land 
of  the  Great  Khan,  and  coasted  along  the  island  of  Cuba, 


1  Vida  y  Eftcritos  de  Don  Fray  Bartolomt  de  las  Casaa,  Oliapo  de 
por  Don  Antonio  Maria  Fabi*,  Tom.  I,  pp.  235,  236,  Madrid,  1879. 

2  Fray  Bartolcmt  de  7as  Casas,  8us  Tiempos  y  8u  Apostolado,  por  Carlos 
Gutierres,  pp.  351,  352,  388   369,  Madrid,  1878. 

29 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

as  he  reckoned,  for  a  thousand  miles.  But  as  fate  would 
have  it,  he  stopped  short  in  his  westward  course  within 
a  few  hours'  sail  of  the  present  Cape  San  Antonio,  the 
westernmost  promontory  of  the  island.  If  he  had  only 
journeyed  on  a  few  knots  further,  he  would  have  detected 
the  insularity  of  what  he  considered  a  continent,  and  thus 
have  anticipated  the  discoveries  of  Vespucius  and  Ocampo. 
And  he  would  have  done  more.  He  would  have  reached  the 
shores  of  Yucatan  and  Campeachy  and  had  an  opportunity 
of  exploring  the  famous  ruins  of  Chichen  Itza  and  Uxmal. 
How  different,  too,  it  would  have  been,  if,  after  discovering 
Guanahuani,  he  had  directed  the  prow  of  the  Santa  Maria 
slightly  to  the  northwest,  when  a  short  sail  would  have 
brought  him  to  the  coast  of  Florida !  It  is  interesting  to 
speculate  not  only  how  much  his  own  life,  but  also  how 
greatly  the  entire  course  of  American  history  would  have 
been  affected  by  these  slight  changes  in  his  course  on  these 
momentous  occasions. 

But  during  his  four  voyages  among  these  mysterious 
islands  the  great  navigator  was  as  one  groping  his  way  in 
the  Cretan  labyrinth.  On  his  return  eastward  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope — the  name  he  gave  to  the  westernmost 
point  of  Cuba  attained  by  him — he  found,  almost  before 
he  was  aware  of  it,  that  he  had  actually  circumnavigated 
what  he  had  imagined  to  be  Cipango,  the  great  island  of 
Japan.  This  surprised  and  puzzled  him  beyond  expression. 
Evidently,  either  he  was  mistaken  or  the  authorities  on 
whom  he  had  been  relying  were  mistaken.  If  the  island — 
Espanola — was  not  Cipango,  what  was  it?  He  soon 
learned  that  gold  mines  existed  in  the  interior  of  the  country 
and  that  there  was  evidence  of  excavations  that  had  been 
long  abandoned.1  What  more  natural,  then,  than  his  con- 
clusion that  this  was  the  far-famed  Ophir  whence  King 
Solomon  had  obtained  the  gold  used  in  the  adornment  of  the 
temple  of  Jerusalem! 

ititude  sur  Us  Rapports  de  L'Amfrique  et  de  L'Ancien  Continent  avant 
.Christophe  Colomb,  par  Paul  Gaffarel,  p.  124  et  seq.,  Paris,  1869. 

30 


INTRODUCTORY 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  Admiral's  theory,  one  thing 
is  certain,  and  that  is  that  the  discovery  of  gold  in 
Espanola1  was  directly  or  indirectly  the  cause  of  untold 
misery  to  the  aborigines,  and  eventually  led  up  to  the 
present  unfortunate  condition  of  this  hapless  island.  It 
was,  as  the  reader  knows,  the  work  in  the  mines  that  was 
the  chief  factor  in  the  gradual  decimation  and  the  final  ex- 
tinction of  the  Indians  in  Espanola.  When  there  were 
no  longer  Indians  to  do  the  work,  negroes  were  imported 
from  Africa,  and  thence  dates  that  hideous  period  of  cruel 
traffic  in  human  beings  which,  for  more  than  three  cen- 
turies, was  the  blackest  stain  on  the  vaunted  civilization 
of  the  Caucasian  race.  But  in  this,  as  in  other  similar 
cases,  an  avenging  Nemesis  has  either  already  overtaken 
the  offending  nations  or  is  giving  them  grave  concern 
regarding  the  future.  In  the  black  republics  of  Haiti  and 
Santo  Domingo  the  slave  has  replaced  the  master,  and 
there  are  already  indications  that  the  day  of  reckoning  is 
approaching  for  the  powers  that  are  in  control  of  the  other 
islands  of  the  West  Indies.  We  saw  evidences  of  this  dur- 
ing our  visit  in  Cuba,  and  are  convinced  that,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  strong  arm  of  the  United  States,  it  would  not  be 
long  before  we  should  have  another  black  republic  at  our 
doors.  And  what  is  said  of  Cuba  may  be  said  of  all  the 
islands  of  the  Lesser  Antilles  from  Trinidad  to  Puerto 
Rico.  The  race  question  is  one  that  will  have  to  be  met 
sooner  or  later.  The  whites  are  decreasing  in  numbers 
and  the  blacks  are  rapidly  increasing  and  becoming  more 
insistent  on  what  they  claim  to  be  their  rights,  especially 
to  that  of  a  greater  representation  in  government  affairs, 
and  to  a  larger  share  of  the  emoluments  of  public  office. 

It  was  only  a  few  years  after  the  colonizing  of  Espanola 
when  negro  slavery  was  introduced  into  the  island.  The 

iThe  diminutive  of  Espafia,  and  signifying  little  Spain.    Also  known  by 
the  Latinized  name  Hispaniola,  and  as  Isabella,  in  honor  of  the  illustrious 
patron  of  the  discoverer.    Haiti  is  an  Indian  word  meaning  "craggy  land, 
or  "land  of  mountains." 

4  31 


IIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALEN  A 

motive  was,  in  some  measure,  a  humane  one — namely,  to 
spare  the  Indians  the  arduous  labor  in  the  mines  for  which 
they  were  physically  incapacitated.  The  African  was 
much  stronger  and  had  much  greater  powers  of  endurance 
than  the  native.  According  to  Herrera,  "the  negroes 
flourished  so  well  in  Espanola,  that  it  was  thought  that  if 
a  negro  was  not  hanged  he  would  never  die,  for  no  one 
had  ever  seen  one  die  of  disease.  Thus  the  negroes 
found,  like  the  oranges,  a  soil  in  Espanola  better  suited 
to  them  than  their  own  country,  Guinea."  * 

Monopolies  of  licenses  were  granted  by  the  Spanish 
monarchs  for  the  importation  of  negro  slaves  to  the  West 
Indies,  first  to  their  own  subjects,  and  later  on  to  certain 
Genoese  and  Germans,  and  finally,  by  a  special  asiento,  or 
contract,  the  Spanish  government  conveyed  to  the  English 
the  "exclusive  right  to  carry  on  the  most  nefarious  of  all 
trades  between  Africa  and  Spanish  America. "  The  Brit- 
ish engaged  to  transport  annually  to  the  Spanish  Indies 
during  a  term  of  thirty  years,  four  thousand  and  eight 
hundred  of  what,  in  trade  language,  were  called  "Indian 
pieces/'  that  is  to  say,  negro  slaves,  paying  a  duty  per 
head  of  thirty-three  escudos  and  one-third.2  So  great  was 
the  number  of  negroes  imported  into  America  from  1517, 
when  Charles  V  first  permitted  the  traffic,  until  1807,  when 
the  slave  trade  was  abolished  by  an  act  of  the  English 
Parliament,  that  it  has  been  computed  that  their  total 
number  was  not  less  than  five  or  six  millions.  In  one  single 
year,  1768,  it  is  said  that  the  number  torn  from  their  homes 
and  country  and  transported  to  Spain's  new  colonies  was 
no  less  than  ninety-seven  thousand.8 

But  the  inevitable  soon  came  to  pass — much  sooner 
than  even  the  wisest  statesman  could  have  foreseen.  The 
great  Cardinal  Ximenes,  it  is  true,  realized  from  the  begin- 

i  Historic,  de  las  India*,  Dec.  II,  Lib.  3,  Cap.  14. 

^Southey's  History  of  Brazil,  Vol.  Ill,  Chap.  XXXIII. 

3  Sir  Clements  It  Markham  in  his  introduction  to  Hawkins9  Voyages,  says, 
speaking  of  this  subject,  "It  is  not  therefore  John  Hawkins  alone  who  can 
justly  be  blamed  for  the  slave  trade,  but  the  whole  English  people  during 
250  years,  who  must  all  divide  the  blame  with  him." 

32 


INTRODUCTORY 

ning  the  risk  incurred  by  sending  negroes  to  the  Indies. 
He  contended  that  it  was  wrong  to  send  beyond  the  ocean 
people  so  "apt  in  war"  as  the  blacks,  who  might  at  any 
time  stir  up  a  servile  war  against  Spanish  rule.  He 
insisted  that  "the  negroes,  who  were  as  malicious  as  they 
were  strong,  would  no  sooner  perceive  themselves  to  be 
more  numerous  in  the  New  World  than  the  Spaniards, 
than  they  would  lay  their  heads  together  to  put  on  their 
masters  the  chains  they  now  carried."1 

The  cardinal's  prediction  soon  came  true.  In  all  parts 
of  the  Indies — in  the  islands  of  the  sea  and  on  Tierra 
Firme — there  were  massacres  and  uprisings  and  "servile 
wars,"  without  number,  and  both  the  colonies  and  the 
mother  country  had  often  occasion  to  regret  the  introduc- 
tion within  their  boundaries  of  so  dangerous  and  warlike 
subjects.  But  it  was  too  late  to  rectify  the  mistake.  It 
was  impossible  to  drive  them  out  of  the  country,  or  to 
return  them  to  the  land  whence  they  had  been  brought 
against  their  will.  So  rapidly  had  they  increased  in  num- 
bers that  they  now,  in  many  places,  constituted  d  great 
majority  of  the  population.  Espanola,  to-day  constituting 
the  two  republics  of  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo,  was  the 
first  island  of  which  they  got  supreme  control.  Which 
will  be  the  next?  The  question  is  not  an  idle  one.  It  is 
one  frequently  asked  in  the  West  Indies.  The  unrest  and 
agitation  of  the  blacks  are  much  greater  than  we  in  the 
North  imagine.  Their  ambition  is  greater  and  their  politi- 
cal aspirations  higher  than  those  who  have  not  been  among 
them  are  prepared  to  admit.  The  situation  is  certainly 
not  one  that  justifies  supine  indifference  on  the  part  of 
the  governments  now  in  control,  nor  is  the  difficulty  one 
whose  solution  can  be  indefinitely  postponed.  Every  lover 

i  The  Spanish  Conquest  in  America,  by  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  Vol.  I,  p.  350, 
London  and  New  York,  1900.  See  also  Girolamo  Benzoni,  Historia  del  Mondo 
Kuoro,  p.  65,  Veneria,  1565,  in  which  he  says  many  Spaniards  of  Espaflola 
predicted  that  the  island  would  surely,  within  a  short  time,  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  blacks.  "Vi  sono  molti  Spagnuoli  que  tengono  per  cosa  certa 
que  quest'  Jtaola  in  breue  tempo  sara  posseduta  da  quest!  Mori." 

33 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

of  law  and  order  must  hope  that  some  modus  vivendi  can 
be  arrived  at  whereby,  while  all  the  legitimate  claims  of 
the  negro  are  conceded,  the  world  will  be  spared  another 
"decline  and  fall"  like  that  which  has  been  witnessed  in 
Espanola. 

We  called  at  several  of  the  ports  of  Haiti  and  Santo 
Domingo  but  we  found  little  to  interest  us  outside  of  the 
capital  of  the  latter  republic.  Santo  Domingo  is  not  only 
the  oldest  city  in  the  New  World — the  early  abandoned 
settlement  of  Isabella  never  deserved  the  name  of  city — 
but  is,  in  many  respects,  the  most  interesting.  Founded 
by  Bartholomew  Columbus  in  1496,  and  named  Santo 
Domingo  after  the  patron  saint  of  his  father,  Domenico, 
it  was,  for  a  while,  the  seat  of  the  vice-royalty.  It  was  to 
this  place  that  Don  Diego  Colon,  the  son  of  the  Admiral, 
brought  his  lovely  bride,  Dona  Maria  de  Toledo,  a  daughter 
of  one  of  the  oldest  and  proudest  families  of  Spain.  Here 
he  set  up  a  vice-regal  court  that  excited  the  envy  of  his 
enemies,  and  was  by  them  made  the  basis  of  charges  pre- 
ferred against  him  that  he  meditated  establishing  a  govern- 
ment independent  of  the  mother  country.  Of  the  viceroy's 
palace,  Oviedo  writes  to  Charles  V,  it  "seemeth  unto  me 
so  magnificall  and  princelyke  that  yowr  maiestie  maye  bee 
as  well  lodged  therin  as  in  any  of  the  mooste  exquisite 
builded  houses  of  Spayne."  l 

From  Santo  Domingo  radiated  the  lines  of  discovery 
and  conquest  that  culminated  in  the  achievements  of  Cor- 
tes, Balboa  and  Pizarro,  Here  Columbus  was  loaded  with 
chains  and  imprisoned  by  Bobadilla.  Here  was  established 
the  first  university  of  the  New  World.  Here,  within  the 
walls  of  the  Convent  of  San  Domingo,  prayed  and  labored 
that  noble  "Protector  of  the  Indians,"  Las  Casas,  and 
here  he  planned  and  began  work  on  his  monumental 
Historic,  de  las  Indias.  Until  the  last  assault  by  Drake 
in  1586,  it  was  the  centre  of  commercial  activity  in  the 
Indies,  for  it  was  the  chief  port  of  call  to  and  from  Spain 

i  Eden's  First  Three  English  Books  on  America,  p.  240, 
34 


INTRODUCTOEY 

and  the  place  where  merchants,  miners,  and  planters  dis- 
posed of  their  commodities  and  amassed  fortunes. 

But  Santo  Domingo 's  halcyon  days  were  of  short  dura- 
tion. Before  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  city 
began  to  decline.  The  theatre  of  activity,  that  had  hitherto 
been  confined  to  Espanola,  was  transferred  to  Cuba  and 
Mexico,  Panama  and  Peru,  and  to-day  the  once  gay  and 
prosperous  capital  exhibits  but  a  shadow  of  its  pristine 
glory. 

Homenage  Castle,  the  crumbling  palace  of  Don  Diego  Co- 
lumbus, and  the  few  churches  and  monasteries  that  still, 
even  in  their  neglected  condition,  attest  the  former  im- 
portance of  the  place,  present  a  pathetic  picture,  and  tell, 
in  mute  but  elegant  language,  of  the  reverses  and  evil  days 
that  have  been  the  lot  of  America's  first  city. 

Besides  the  buildings  just  named  we  were  especially 
interested  in  the  Cathedral.  It  is  a  noble  structure  and 
its  interior  decorations  compare  favorably  with  similar 
edifices  in  Spain  and  Mexico.  But  there  was  one  attrac- 
tion there  that  had  for  us,  as  it  must  have  for  all  Ameri- 
cans, a  special  interest,  and  which  alone  would  well  repay 
a  pilgrimage  to  Santo  Domingo — the  last  resting  place  of 
the  one  "who  to  Castile  and  Leon  gave  a  new  world." 

As  the  reader  is  aware,  there  has  been  a  long  and  spirited 
controversy  as  to  the  location  of  los  restos — the  remains — 
of  the  illustrious  discoverer.  We  have  been  shown  his 
sepulchre  in  the  Cathedral  of  Havana,  and  in  that  of 
Seville,  yet  it  has  been  demonstrated  beyond  question  that 
his  ashes  have  never  reposed  in  either  of  these  places. 
Without  entering  into  details,  it  may  now  be  stated,  as  facts 
which  no  longer  admit  of  any  reasonable  doubt,  that  after 
his  death  in  1506,  the  remains  of  Columbus  were  interred 
in  the  Franciscan  monastery  of  Valladolid,  whence,  in  1508, 
they  were  transferred  to  the  monastery  of  Las  Cuevas,  at 
Seville.  In  1541,  at  the  request  of  "Dona  Maria  of  Toledo, 
Vicereine  of  the  Indies,  wife  that  was  of  the  Admiral  Don 
Diego  Columbus,"  Charles  V,  by  a  special  cedula,  granted 

35 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

permission  for  the  transfer  of  the  remains  of  Christopher 
Columbus  to  Espanola,  to  be  interred  in  the  capilla  mayor 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Santo  Domingo.  Here  they  have  since 
reposed,  with  the  exception  of  the  short  time  during  which 
they  were  kept  in  the  adjoining  church,  when  the  Cathedral 
was  undergoing  certain  necessary  repairs  in  1877  and  1878. 
The  supposed  remains  of  the  first  Admiral,  that  were  taken 
to  Havana  in  1795,  and  finally  transferred  to  Seville  in 
1899,  have  been  shown  to  be  those  of  his  son,  Don  Diego, 
who,  together  with  Don  Luis  Columbus,  the  third  Admiral, 
and  the  first  Duke  of  Veragua,  was  also  buried  in  the 
capilla  mayor  of  the  Cathedral,  where  the  remains  of  Don 
Luis  still  lie  near  those  of  his  illustrious  grandfather.1 

As  our  steamer  moved  out  of  the  water  of  Santo  Domingo 
our  eyes  remained  fixed  on  the  Cathedral,  whose  Spanish 
tiled  roof  reflected  the  vermilion  rays  of  the  setting  sun, 
and  afford  shelter  for  one  of  the  world's  greatest  heroes 
and  benefactors. 

"Hie  locus  abscondit  praeclari  membra  Coloni," 

This  place  hides  the  remains  of  the  illustrious  Columbus, 
of  him  who,  in  the  language  of  one  of  the  many  epitaphs 
devoted  to  his  memory, 

"Dio  riquezas  immensas  a  la  tierra, 
Innumerables  almas  al  cielo. ' ' 2 

And  then,  as  the  last  vestiges  of  this  noble  old  temple 
vanished  from  our  vision,  we  thought  of  the  words  of  Huni- 
boldt,  than  whom  no  one  was  better  qualified  to  pronounce 
a  fitting  eulogy  on  one  of  the  world's  immortals. 

1  For  a  complete  discussion  of  this  subject,  see  Christopher  Columbus,  Hi& 
Life,  His  Works,  His  Remains,  pp.  507-013,  by  J.  B.  Thatcher,  New  York, 
1904.    According  to  this  author,  very  small  portions  of  the  precious  ashes  of 
the  great  discoverer  exist  in  the  Vatican,  in  the  University  of  Pavia,  where 
Columbus  was  a  student,  in  The  Municipal  Hall  of  Genoa,  in  the  Lenox 
Library,  New  York,  and  in  the  possession  of  four  different  private  individuals 
whom  he  names. 

2  "To  Earth  he  gave  immense  riches,  to  Heaven  souls  innumerable." 

36 


INTBODUCTOEY 

"The  majesty  of  great  memories/'  he  declares,  "seems 
concentrated  in  the  name  of  Christopher  Columbus.  It 
is  the  originality  of  his  vast  conceptions,  the  compass  and 
fertility  of  his  genius,  and  the  courage  which  bore  out 
against  the  long  series  of  misfortunes,  which  have  exalted 
the  Admiral  high  above  all  his  contemporaries. "  * 

And  we  dreamed — or  was  it  a  telepathic  intimation  of  a 
future  reality? — when  the  precious  remains,  that  have  so 
long  been  guarded  in  this  distant  and  rarely  visited  island, 
should  be  transferred  for  a  third  and  a  last  time,  but  this 
time  where  they  might  be  visited  and  venerated  by  millions 
instead  of  the  few  hundred  that  now  find  their  way  hither, 
and  where  they  might  occupy  a  noble  sarcophagus,  like 
that  which  beneath  the  dome  of  the  Invalides,  holds  all 
that  is  mortal  of  the  great  Corsican,  and  in  a  temple  worthy 
alike  of  the  man  and  of  the  greatest  nation  in  the  world. 
There  is  one  edifice  in  which  all  the  nations  of  the 
hemisphere  discovered  by  Columbus  have  a  common  inter- 
est, the  splendid  structure  now  being  erected  in  "Washing- 
ton, for  the  special  use  and  benefit  of  the  North  and  South 
American  Republics.  Here  in  the  capital  of  the  nation, 
in  the  district  named  after  the  discoverer,  in  sight  of  the 
tomb  of  the  "Father  of  his  Country,"  should  the  remains 
of  "The  Admiral  of  the  Ocean  Sea,"  find  an  abiding  place 
of  sepulture  commensurate  with  the  magnitude  of  his 
achievements.  Alongside  and  in  connection  with  this  Pan- 
American  building,  in  the  heart  of  what  is  to  be  "the  City 
Beautiful,"  and  there  alone,  let  there  be  erected  a 
mausoleum  that,  as  a  monument  of  art,  shall  rank,  as  did 
those  of  Hadrian  and  Mausolus,  amongst  the  world's 
wonders,  and  be  a  fitting  culmination  of  the  architectural 
creations  that  have  been  planned  for  the  great  and  growing 
capital  of  the  New  World,  the  world  of  Columbus. 

i  Histoire  de  la  Geographic  du  Nouveau  Continent,  par  Alexander  de  Hum- 
boldt,  Vol.  V,  pp.  177,  178,  Paris,  1839. 


37 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

PUERTO  RICO  AND  CURACAO 

From  Santo  Domingo  we  went  to  Puerto  Kico.  As  is 
well  known,  this  island  was  discovered  by  Columbus  during 
his  second  voyage  in  1493.  Sixteen  years  later  a  settle- 
ment was  founded  here  by  Ponce  de  Leon.  It  was  from 
here  that  he  set  forth  in  quest  of  the  "Fountain  of  Youth/' 
and  it  is  in  San  Juan,  in  the  Church  of  Santo  Domingo, 
that  he  was  buried  after  a  poisoned  arrow  from  the  bow 
of  an  Indian  brave  had  terminated  his  existence  during 
his  second  expedition  to  Florida.  Over  his  tomb  was  in- 
scribed the  following  epitaph: — 

"Mole  sub  hac  fortis  requiescunt  ossa  Leonis 
Qui  vicit  factis  nomina  magna  suis." 1 

After  sojourning  a  week  in  Puerto  Eico,  we  called  at  the 
little  Dutch  island  Curasao  and  spent  the  greater  part  of 
the  day  in  the  quaint  little  town  of  Willemstad.  The 
harbor  is  perfectly  landlocked  and  was  at  one  time  the 
favorite  rendezvous  for  pirates  and  buccaneers.  In  stroll- 
ing through  its  streets,  we  could  easily  fancy  ourselves  in 
some  quiet  section  of  Eotterdam  or  Amsterdam.  The 
island  is  known  for  its  much  prized  liqueur,  Curasao,  which, 
however,  strange  to  say,  is  not  made  here  but  in  Holland. 
Curasao  supplies  only  the  orange  rind  with  which  the 
liqueur  is  flavored.  Willemstad  is  a  popular  resort  for 
smugglers,  who  do  an  extensive  business  on  the  mainland, 
and  the  temporary  home  of  a  colony  of  exiled  Venezuelan 
generals  and  colonels,  who  here  eke  out  a  precarious  ex- 
istence in  the  hope  that  one  of  their  periodical  revolu- 
tions may  soon  give  them  the  eagerly  desired  opportunity 
of  enjoying  some  of  the  spoils  of  office,  that,  for  the  time 
being,  are  monopolized  by  their  enemies. 

i  "This  narrow  space  is  a  sepulchre  of  the  man  who  was  a  Lion  in  name 
and  much  more  one  in  deed.9' 


38 


INTRODUCTORY 

ON  THE  SPANISH  MAIN 

We  arrived  in  the  roadstead  of  La  Guayra  early  in  the 
morning,  after  our  departure  from  Curagao,  and  our  vessel 
was  soon  moored  alongside  a  splendid  breakwater,  which 
extends  out  from  the  shore  for  more  than  a  half  mile,  and 
gives  this  port  a  fairly  good  harbor,  which  even  the  largest 
ships  may  enter.  We  were  now  on  the  Spanish  Main 
where  we  had  our  first  view  of  the  great  continent  of  South 
America. 

As  the  phrase,  "The  Spanish  Main,"  has  been  given 
many  and  different  significations  since  it  was  first  intro- 
duced, I  shall  employ  it,  in  what  was  long  its  generally 
accepted  meaning,  as  designating  the  southern  part  of  the 
Caribbean  Sea,  and  the  coast  line  of  what,  on  the  early 
maps  of  South  America,  was  known  as  Tierra  Firme — the 
Firm  Land — namely,  that  part  of  the  present  republics 
of  Venezuela  and  Colombia  on  which  the  Spaniards  effected 
their  first  settlements. 

The  first  thing  to  attract  our  attention  and  that  which 
impressed  us  most,  was  the  apparently  stupendous  height 
of  the  mountains  in  the  rear  of  the  town.  Before  us  were 
La  Silla  and  Pico  de  Naiguata,  sheer  and  precipitous,  rising 
almost  from  the  water's  edge  and  piercing  the  clouds  at  an 
altitude  of  more  than  eight  thousand  and  two  hundred  feet. 
They  are  thus  apparently  higher  than  any  of  the  peaks  of 
the  Rocky  Mountain  chain.  The  summits  of  the  latter  are 
attained  only  after  traveling  over  a  long  and  gradual  in- 
cline, that  is  scarcely  perceptible,  and  after  scaling  numer- 
ous foothills  that  conceal  and  dwarf  the  giants  which  tower 
behind  and  above  them.  Thus,  while  the  summit  of  Pike's 
Peak  is  more  then  fourteen  thousand  feet  above  sea  level, 
it  is  less  than  seven  thousand  feet  above  the  charming  town 
of  Manitou,  that  nestles  at  its  feet.  For  this  reason,  and 
because  the  sides  of  the  Colorado  peak  are  not  so  steep 
as  those  behind  La  Guayra,  La  Silla  and  the  Pico  de 
Naiguata  give  an  impression  of  height  and  majesty  that 

39 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

is  not  experienced  even  when  contemplating  the  loftiest 
monarclis  of  the  Alps. 

The  distance  from  La  Guayra  to  Caracas,  in  a  straight 
line,  is  less  than  six  miles;  by  rail  it  is  twenty-three. 
There  has  been  talk  of  connecting  the  capital  and  its  port 
by  a  tunnel  but  under  the  existing  conditions  of  the  country 
it  will  be  a  long  time  before  such  an  undertaking  shall  be 
realized. 

From  sea  level  to  the  summit  of  the  range,  the  railroad 
is  conspicuous  for  its  heavy  grade — about  four  per  cent. — 
its  sharp  curves,  its  cuts  and  tunnels,  but  above  all  for  the 
magnificent  scenery  everywhere  visible.  From  the  car 
window  one  may  look  over  precipitous  cliffs  into  yawning 
abysses  far  below  the  track  on  which  the  train  slowly  and 
carefully  winds  its  way.  On  the  beetling  rocks  above,  in 
the  dark  and  wild  gorge  below — what  a  wealth  of  vegeta- 
tion, what  luxuriance  of  growth,  what  a  gorgeous  display 
of  vari-colored  fruit  and  flower,  of  delicate  fern  and 
majestic  palm! 

As  a  feat  of  engineering  the  road  is  quite  equal  to  any 
of  the  kind  that  may  be  seen  in  Europe  or  the  United 
States ;  but  for  scenic  beauty  and  splendor  it  is  absolutely 
unrivaled.  On  the  lofty  flanks  of  the  Eockies,  and  in  the 
deep  canons  of  the  Fraser  and  Colorado  rivers,  where 
the  shrill  whistle  of  the  locomotive  startles  the  falcon  and 
the  eagle,  one  can  have  fully  gratified  one's  sense  of  the 
grand  and  the  sublime  in  nature;  but  here  it  is  beauty, 
grandeur,  sublimity  all  combined.  And  what  marvelous 
perspectives,  what  delightful  exhibitions  of  color,  what 
superb  and  ever-changing  effects  of  light  and  shade — 
scenes  that  would  be  the  despair  of  Claude  Lorrain  and 
Salvator  Eosa,  and  as  difficult  to  catch  on  canvas  as  the 
glories  of  the  setting  sun. 

No  where  else  in  the  wide  world  can  one  find  such  another 
picture  as  greets  one's  vision  when,  rising  into  eloudland, 
one  gets  one's  last  view  of  the  Caribbean  circling  the 
mountain  thousands  of  feet  beneath  the  silent  and  awe- 

40 


INTRODUC'.'ORY 

stricken  spectator.    It  is  match  .ess,  unique — like  Raphael's 
Madonna  di  San  Xysto,  impossible  to  duplicate. 

As  we  reached  this  point,  the  sea  disclosed  itself  as  a 
vast  mirror  resplendent  under  the  aureate  glow  of  the 
quivering  beams  of  the  departing  lord  of  day.  Fleecy 
clouds  of  every  form  and  hue  flitting  over  sea  and  land, 
by  a  peculiar  optical  illusion,  magnified  both  objects  and 
distances,  and  unfolded  before  the  astonished  beholder  a 
panorama  of  constantly  varying  magnitude  and  of  sur- 
passing loveliness.  On  the  foreground  Nature  shed  her 
brightest  green,  and  imparted  to  flower  and  foliage  the  flush 
of  the  rainbow.  Of  a  truth, 

"Never  did  Ariel's  plume 
At  golden  sunset  hover 
O'er  scenes  so  full  of  bloom." 

Away  and  beyond  was  the  boundless,  glimmering  sea, 
ravishing  in  its  thousand  tints,  and  in  its  harmonious  dance 
of  vanishing  light  and  color. 

So  occupied  were  we  in  observing  the  beauties  of  the 
everchanging  landscape,  that,  before  we  realized  it,  we 
were  in  Caracas.  And  so  momentary  was  the  twilight — 
a  characteristic  of  the  tropics — that  the  transition  from 
daylight  to  darkness  was  almost  startling.  We  found  an 
unexpected  compensation,  however,  in  the  friendly  glow  of 
the  electric  lights  which  illumine  the  street  and  plazas  of 
Venezuela's  capital. 

We  spent  a  month  in  and  about  Caracas,  finding  every 
hour  enjoyable.  It  is,  in  many  respects,  a  beautiful  city 
and  located  near  the  base  of  the  mountains  La  Silla,  the 
saddle — from  its  fancied  resemblance  to  an  army  saddle — 
and  El  Cerro  de  Avila,  in  a  charming  valley  from  one  to 
three  miles  wide  and  about  ten  miles  long.  The  valley 
was  at  one  time,  seemingly,  the  bed  of  a  lake,  and  its  soil 
is,  consequently,  exceedingly  fertile,  and  admirably  adapted 
to  cultivation  of  the  farm  and  garden  produce  of  both 
tropical  and  temperate  climates. 

41 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  A*  D  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

A  friend,  who  had  traveed  much,  once  told  us  that  he 
regarded  Taormina,  in  Sicilyyas  the  best  and  most  beautiful 
winter  resort  in  the  world.  xWe  are  familiar  with  both 
places,  and  can  say,  in  all  candor,  that  we  prefer  Caracas. 
True,  Taormina  is  one  of  the  beauty  spots  of  the  world,  but 
one  expects  to  find  more  than  beauty  in  a  winter  resort. 
Some  years  before  our  visit  to  Caracas  we  were  in  Taor- 
mina, and  during  the  same  time  of  the  winter  as  marked  our 
visit  to  Caracas,  and  we  found  it  so  cold  that,  during  our 
entire  stay,  we  were  obliged  to  have  our  rooms  heated  by 
steam.  In  the  latter  place  we  could  leave  the  doors  and 
windows  of  our  room  open  day  and  night,  and  enjoyed, 
during  all  the  time  we  tarried  there,  the  same  soft,  balmy, 
fragrant  air,  and  the  same  equable  temperature.  The 
mean  temperature  we  found  to  be  about  70°  F.,  the 
thermometer  seldom  rising  above  75°  F.  and  rarely  falling 
below  65°  F.  The  only  place  where  we  ever  had  a  like 
experience  was  on  the  slope  of  a  mountain  in  one  of  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  where  the  temperature  is  so  constant  that 
the  native  language  has  no  word  to  express  the  idea  of 
weather — what  we  call  "  weather "  being  always  the  same. 

Considering  the  many  natural  beauties  of  the  valley  of 
Caracas,  its  rich,  tropical  vegetation,  its  matchless  climate, 
its  soft,  balmy  atmosphere,  the  rippling  brooks  and  purling 
rivulets  that  everywhere  gladden  the  landscape,  we  can 
understand  how  an  early  Spanish  historian,  Oviedo  y 
Banos,1  was  in  his  enthusiasm  led  to  declare  this  location 
of  the  capital  of  Venezuela  to  be  that  of  the  home  of  per- 
petual spring — nay,  more,  that  of  a  terrestrial  paradise. 
If  he  could  revisit  these  scenes  to-day,  he  would  find  but 
little  change  in  their  general  physical  aspect,  but  he  would 
see  at  once  that  the  serpent's  trailing  has  cast  a  blight  over 
its  former  beauty,  and  that  the  people,  as  a  whole,  have 
sadly  degenerated  since  his  time.  Then,  as  he  tells  us, 
the  stranger  that  had  spent  two  months  in  this  Eden  would 

i  Hiatoria  de  la  Conquiata  y  poblaci6n  de  la  Provincia  de  Venezuela,  Tom. 
II,  p.  36,  Madrid,  1885. 

42 


ON  THE  COAST  RANGE,  VENEZUELA. 


INTRODUCTORY 

never  wish  to  leave  it.    Alas,  that  one  cannot  say  this 
now ! 1 

After  a  month's  sojourn  in  Caracas  we  felt  the  Spiritus 
movendi  again  upon  us,  urging  us  onward,  we  knew  not 
whither.  We  were  under  the  spell  of  what  the  Germans  so 
aptly  call  the  Wanderlust  and  it  did  not  make  much  differ- 
ence what  direction  we  took  so  long  as  the  road  we  traveled 
enabled  us  to  enjoy  new  scenes  and  visit  peoples  whose 
manners  and  customs  were  different  from  our  own. 

Having  thoroughly  rested  and  recuperated  the  strength 
we  so  much  needed,  we  felt  that  we  should  like  to  take  a 
trip  to  the  Orinoco,  in  order  that  we  might  have  an  op- 
portunity of  studying  the  fauna  and  flora  of  its  wonderful 
valley  and  of  meeting  some  of  the  many  Indian  tribes  that 
rove  through  its  forests.  In  spite  of  all  our  efforts,  how- 
ever, we  could  find  no  one  who  could  give  us  any  satisfactory 
information  about  the  best  means  of  reaching  the  river  or 
the  time  that  would  be  required  to  make  the  journey.  We 
consulted  government  officials  and  merchants  that  had  busi- 
ness relations  along  the  Orinoco,  but  their  information  was 
vague  and  contradictory. 

We  purposed  going  first  to  San  Fernando  de  Apure,  on 
an  affluent  of  the  Orinoco,  and  thence  by  water  to  Ciudad 
Bolivar  and  the  Port-of -Spain.  We  were  told  that  there 
were  steamers  plying  between  San  Fernando  and  Ciudad 
Bolivar — the  chief  city  on  the  Orinoco — during  the  wet 
season,  our  summer,  but  not  during  the  dry  season,  our 
winter.  That  meant  that  if  we  went  to  San  Fernando  we 
should  be  obliged  to  use  a  canoe  to  reach  Ciudad  Bolivar, 
and  this  implied  a  long,  tiresome,  and  somewhat  dangerous 
voyage  under  a  burning  sun  and  in  what  we  were  assured 
was  a  malarious  region.  The  time  necessary  to  reach  the 
river  on  horseback  varied,  according  to  our  informants, 

iThe  Romans  declare  that  those  who  cast  a  coin  into  the  fountain  of 
Trevi  are  sure  to  return  to  the  Eternal  City.  The  Caraquenians  have  a  sim- 
ilar saying,  viz.,  that  he  who  drinks  of  the  water  of  the  Catuche,  a  stream 
flowing  through  the  city,  will  return  to  Caracas.  El  que  bebe  de  Catuche 
welve  4  Caracas. 

43 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

from  one  to  two  weeks.  One  well-known  general,  it  was 
stated,  had  by  an  extraordinary  tour  de  force  made  the 
trip  the  preceding  year  in  four  days.  Some  assured  us 
we  could  go  by  carriage  the  entire  distance.  Others  were 
equally  positive  that  there  was  nothing  more  than  a  trail 
connecting  the  points  we  wished  to  visit,  and  that  mules 
would  be  better  than  horses  for  such  a  journey.  Outside 
of  one  or  two  small  towns,  there  were  no  hotels  along  the 
route.  But  this  did  not  matter.  We  had  our  camping  out- 
fit with  us,  and  rather  preferred  to  live  in  our  tent  to  risk- 
ing our  night's  rest  in  such  uninviting  posadas — lodging 
houses — as  we  should  meet  with  in  the  way. 

Finding  that  we  could  not  get  in  Caracas  the  informa- 
tion we  desired,  we  resolved  to  go  to  Victoria,  an  interest- 
ing town  southwest  of  the  capital,  and  accessible  by  rail 
in  a  few  hours.  But  our  success  in  Victoria  was  no  better 
than  it  had  been  in  Caracas.  In  spite  of  all  our  efforts  we 
could  elicit  no  information  that  would  warrant  us  in 
starting  on  so  long  a  journey  as  that  to  the  Orinoco,  and 
one  that  might  involve  many  hardships  and  dangers  without 
adequate  compensation. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  our  ill  success  so  far,  we  did  not 
for  a  moment  think  of  abandoning  our  contemplated  trip 
to  the  valley  of  the  Orinoco.  Far  from  it.  The  more  we 
thought  of  it  the  more  fascinating  the  project  became. 
Now  that  we  had  gone  so  far,  we  were  determined  to  see 
the  famous  river  at  all  hazards.  If  we  could  not  reach  it 
by  one  route  we  would  go  by  another.  We  accordingly 
concluded  to  continue  our  journey  by  rail  to  Puerto 
Cabello,  and  thence  go  by  steamer  to  Trinidad.  Once  there, 
we  felt  reasonably  sure  we  should  find  some  means  of 
attaining  our  goal— the  grassy  plains  and  vast  forests  of 
the  Orinoco  basin.  As  proved  by  subsequent  events,  it 
was  for  us  a  most  fortunate  occurrence  that  we  did  not 
adhere  to  our  original  plan  of  reaching  the  Orinoco  by  San 
Fernando  de  Apure,  as  our  change  of  programme  enabled 
us  to  see  far  more  of  South  America  and  under  more 

44 


INTRODUCTORY 

favorable  auspices,  than  we  had  before  deemed  possible. 

Instead  of  going  directly  to  Puerto  Cabello,  we  spent  a 
week  at  the  quiet  old  city  of  Valencia,  Nueva  Valencia  del 
Eey,  as  it  was  originally  called,  and  which,  according  to 
the  Valencianos,  should  be  the  capital  of  the  republic.  It 
was  begun  in  1555,  by  Alonzo  Diaz  Moreno,  twelve  years 
before  Santiago  de  Leon  de  Caracas — the  original  name  of 
the  capital — was  founded  by  Diego  de  Losada.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Valencia  was  designated  as  the  capital  of  Vene- 
zuela at  the  time  of  the  revolt  against  Spain,  and  congress 
was  actually  in  session  there  at  the  time  Caracas  was  de- 
stroyed by  an  earthquake  in  1812.  Five  years  after  its 
foundation,  Valencia  was  captured  by  the  infamous  Lopez 
de  Aguirre  and  his  sanguinary  band,  who  treated  its  in- 
habitants with  the  greatest  atrocity.  Near  by,  on  the  plains 
of  Carabobo,  was  fought  the  decisive  victory  which  re- 
sulted in  Venezuelan  independence. 

As  a  port  of  entry,  Puerto  Cabello  is  incomparably 
superior  to  La  Guayra,  and  has  one  of  the  finest  harbors 
on  the  Caribbean.  The  climate,  however,  is  far  from 
salubrious.  Situated,  as  it  is,  in  low,  marshy  ground,  sur- 
rounded by  countless  pools  of  stagnant  water,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  that  malarial  fevers  are  prevalent  here, 
and  that  El  vomito — yellow  fever — is  a  frequent  visitant. 
The  "nymphs  that  reign  o'er  sewers  and  sinks "  can  here 
count  more  fetid  effluvia  and  putrefactive  ferments  than 
in  any  place  we  had  so  far  seen  in  Venezuela. 

THE  PEARL  COAST 

A  most  delightful  voyage  was  ours  from  Puerto  Cabello 
to  the  Port-of-Spain,  the  capital  of  Trinidad.  The  sea 
was  as  placid  as  an  inland  lake  on  a  windless  day,  and  the 
air  as  balmy  as  in  a  morning  of  June.  The  coast  of  the 
mainland  was  nearly  always  in  sight,  and  at  times  the  peaks 
of  the  Coast  Eange  rose  far  above  the  fleecy  clouds  that 
encircled  their  lofty  flanks.  The  days  were  beautiful  but 

i  Historia  de  las  Indias,  Dec.  II,  Lib.  3,  Cap.  14. 
45 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  nights  were  glorious.  All  our  youthful  dreams  about 
the  delights  of  sailing  on  southern  seas,  amid  emerald  isles, 
and  under  bright  starlit  skies,  where  soft  spice-scented 
zephyrs  blow,  were  here  realized  The  serenity  and  trans- 
parency of  the  azure  vault  of  heaven,  with  its  countless 
shooting  stars,  had  their  counterpart  in  the  smooth,  un- 
ruffled Caribbean,  to  whose  water  millions  of  Noctilueae  im- 
parted a  phosphorescent  glow  which  rivaled  that  of  molten 
gold.  We  were  at  last  in  the  favored  home  of  the  cham- 
bered nautilus,  happily,  dreamily  gliding  along  on  an  even 
keel 

"In  gulfs  enchanted,  where  the  siren  sings, 

And  coral  reefs  lie  bare, 
Where  the  cold  sea-maids  rise  from  crystal  springs 

To  sun  their  streaming  hair." 

Tes,  we  were  skirting  along  the  Pearl  Coast,1  celebrated  in 
legend  and  story — darkened  by  deeds  of  barbarous  cruelty 
and  resplendent  in  records  of  heroic  achievement.  I  shall 
not  tell  of  our  second  visit  to  La  Guayra  and  of  the  day 
we  spent  at  Macuto  or  describe  the  present  conditions  of 
the  historic  old  towns  of  Barcelona,  Cumana  and  Carupano, 
which  lay  on  our  course.  Much  might  be  said  of  all  these 
places,  distinguished,  since  their  foundation,  both  in  peace 
and  war. 

I  cannot,  however,  pass  this  part  of  the  Pearl  Coast  with- 
out recalling  the  fact  that  it  was  near  Cumana  that  the 
earliest  settlements  in  Venezuela  were  effected  and  that 
here  it  was  that  one  of  the  first — if  not  the  first — permanent 
colonies  on  the  mainland  of  the  New  World  was  established. 
Columbus,  during  his  fourth  voyage,  attempted  to  make  a 
settlement  in  Veragua,  that  might  serve  as  a  base  of  future 
operations,  but  the  attempt  resulted  in  complete  failure. 
Similar  efforts  had  been  made  by  Alonso  de  Ojeda  and 
others,  but  without  lasting  results.  Panama  was  not 
founded  until  1516  or  1517.  Nombre  de  Dios,  it  is  true, 

i  The  Pearl  Coast  extends  from  Coro  to  the  Gulf  of  Paria,  a  distance  of 
more  than  five  hundred  miles. 

46 


INTRODUCTORY 

was  founded  somewhat  earlier,  but  in  the  beginning  was 
little  more  than  a  blockhouse.  But  here,  as  early  in  1514, 
on  the  Eio  Manzanares,  then  the  Eiver  Cumana,  only  "a 
cross-bow-shot "  from  the  shore,  the  zealous  Sons  of  St. 
Francis  had  erected  a  monastery,  and  a  short  time  sub- 
sequently the  Dominicans  established  another  monastery, 
not  far  distant,  at  Santa  Fe  de  Chiribichi.  Here  they 
gathered  the  simple  children  of  the  forest  around  them, 
and  soon  had  the  beginnings  of  flourishing  missions.1 
The  trusting  and  unspoiled  Indians  welcomed  these  apostles 
of  the  gospel  of  peace  and  love,  and  soon  learned  to  regard 
them  as  friends  and  fathers.  So  peaceful  did  all  this  land 
become  under  the  influence  of  the  benign  teaching  of  the 
gentle  friars,  that,  according  to  Oviedo  and  Las  Casas,  a 
Christian  trader  could  go  alone  anywhere  without  ever  be- 
ing molested.2 

It  was  to  the  Pearl  Coast  that  Las  Casas  came,  after  he 
found,  by  sad  experience,  that  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  the 
Indians  in  Cuba,  Espanola  and  Puerto  Eico  were  frustrated 
by  influences  he  was  unable  to  control.  It  was  here,  aided 
by  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  who  had  preceded  him 
by  only  a  few  years,  that  he  purposed  laying  the  corner 
stone  of  that  vast  Indian  commonwealth,  for  which  he  had 
secured  letters  patent  from  Charles  V. 

For  this  great  experiment  in  colonization,  the  greatest  the 
world  has  ever  known,  he  had  received  a  grant  of  land 
extending  from  Paria  to  Santa  Marta,  and  from  the 

1  Padre  A.  Caulin,  Historia  coro-grafica,  natural  y  evangelica  de  la  Ntteva 
Andalucia,  Madrid,  1779,  and  Conversion  en  Piritu  de  Indios  Cumanogotos  y 
Palenques,  por  el  P.  Fr.  Matias  Ruiz  Blanco  0.  &  F.  seguido  de  Los  Fran- 
ciscanos  en  las  In&ias,  por  Fr.  Francisco  Alvarez  de  Vilanueva,  O.  S.  F., 
Madrid,  1892. 

2  Even  Captain  John  Hawkins,  "an  atrocious  slave  dealer,"  is  forced  to 
pay  his  tribute  of  praise  to  the  gentle  and  peaceful  character  of  the  Indians 
of  this  part  of  Venezuela,  for  of  them  he  writes:    "The  people  bee  surely 
gentle  and  tractable,  and  such  as  desire  to  Hue  peaceablie,  or  else  had  it 
been  vnpossible  for  the  Spaniards  to  haue  conquered  them  as  they  did,  and 
the  more  to  liue  now  peaceable,  they  being  many  in  number,  and  the  Spaniards 
of  few."    Op.  cit.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  28. 

5  47 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Caribbean  Sea  to  Peru.  In  his  colossal  undertaking  he 
planned  to  have  the  cooperation  of  an  order  of  knights — 
the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Spur — specially  created  to  aid 
him  in  the  work  of  civilizing  and  christianizing  the  Indians. 
It  was  his  dream  to  bring  within  the  fold  of  the  Church  all 
the  Indians  of  Central  and  South  America,  and  to  establish 
for  their  behoof  and  benefit  an  ideal  Christian  state  such 
as  a  century  and  a  half  later  was  realized  in  the  fertile 
basins  of  the  Parana  and  Paraguay.1 

If  the  noble  philanthropist  had  been  properly  supported 
by  the  rich  aiid  the  powerful,  the  entire  course  of  sub- 
sequent events  in  South  America  would  have  been  altered, 
and  the  historian  would  have  been  spared  the  task  of 
penning  those  dark  annals  of  injustice  and  iniquity  which, 
for  long  centuries,  were  such  a  foul  blot  on  humanity. 
But  from  the  time  he  set  foot  on  the  Pearl  Coast,  in  pur- 
suance of  his  noble  plan,  he  found  himself  beset  by  untold 
difficulties,  and  his  designs  thwarted  at  every  turn,  and  that, 
too,  by  his  own  countrymen.  Blinded  by  lust  of  gold  and 
pleasure,  they  left  nothing  undone  to  insure  the  failure  of 
his  project,  and  in  the  end  succeeded  in  their  nefarious 
purpose. 

Abandoned  by  those  on  whose  cooperation  he  fully  relied, 
he  was,  in  its  very  inception,  forced  to  relinquish  his  heroic 
enterprise,  and  return  to  Espanola.  Discomfited  and 
heartsick,  but  not  crushed,  he  sought  an  asylum  in  the 
monastery  of  Santo  Domingo.  There  for  eight  years  he 
devoted  himself  to  prayer  and  study,  and,  true  Christian 
athlete  that  he  was,  he  was  always  preparing  himself  for  a 
final  struggle  in  a  new  arena.  When  his  enemies  least  ex- 
pected it,  he  came  forth  from  his  retirement,  and,  clad  in 
the  habit  of  a  Dominican,  proclaimed  himself  again  the 
champion  of  the  downtrodden  Indian.  And  from  that  mo- 
ment until  the  day  of  his  death,  at  the  advanced  age  of 
ninety-two,  whether  as  a  simple  monk  or  as  the  bishop  of 

i  F.  A.  MacNutt's  Bartholomew  de  las  Casas,  His  Life,  His  Apostolate  <wd 
His  Writings,  Chaps.  VIII,  XI,  XII,  New  York,  1909. 

48 


INTRODUCTORY 

Chiapa,1  his  voice  was  always  raised  in  behalf  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  forest,  and  against  their  enslavement  by  cruel, 
soulless  seekers  after  fortune.2 

He  was,  if  not  the  first,  the  world's  greatest  abolitionist, 
and  if  there  are  still  many  millions  of  red  men  in  the  New 
World  to-day  who  have  escaped  the  bond  of  servitude,  it 
is  mainly  due  to  their  illustrious  protector,  Bartolome  de 
Las  Casas.3 

THE  PEARL  ISLANDS 

Within  sight  of  the  land  where  Las  Casas  went  to  lay 
the  first  foundation-stone  of  his  ideal  commonwealth  is  a 
group  of  islands  which  had  a  special  claim  on  our  attention 
— islands  -which,  during  four  centuries,  have  been  the  scene 
of  many  a  romance  and  have  been  stained,  no  one  can  tell 
how  often,  by  the  blood  of  tragedy. 

These  islands  are  Coche,  Cubagua  and  Margarita.  They 
were  discovered  by  Columbus  during  his  third  voyage,  and 
the  larger  of  the  two  was  called  Margarita — pearl — from 
the  number  and  beauty  of  the  pearls  found  in  the  waters 

1  Antonio  de  Remesal,  Historia  de  la  Provincia  de  San  Vicente  de  Ohyapa, 
1619. 

2  In  his  lost  will  he  writes  "Inasmuch  as  the  goodness  and  the  mercy  of 
God,  whose  unworthy  minister  I  am,  called  me  to  be  the  protector  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  .countries,  which  we  call  the  Indies,  who  were  once  the 
lords  of  those  lands  and  kingdoms,    ...    I  have  labored  in  the  court  of 
the  Kings  of  Castile,  going  and  coming  from  the  Indies  to  Castile  and  from 
Castile  to  the  Indies  many  times  for  about  fifty  years — i.  e.,  from  the  year 
1540,  for  the  love  of  God  alone  and  through  compassion  seeing  those  great 
multitudes  of  rational  men  perish,  who  originally  were  approachable,  humble, 
meek  and  simple,  and  well  fitted  to  receive  the  Catholic  faith  and  practice  aU 
manner  of  Christian  virtues."    Fabie*,  op.  tit.,  Tom.  I,  pp.  234,  235. 

3  "In  contemplating  such  a  life,"  writes  Fiske,  "as  that  of  Las  Casas, 
all  words  of  eulogy  seem  weak  and  frivolous.    The  historian  can  only  bow 
in  reverent  awe  before  a  figure  which  is  in  some  respects  the  most  beautiful 
and  sublime  in  the  annals  of  Christianity  since  the  Apostolic  age.    When 
now  and  then  in  the  course  of  the  centuries  God's  providence  brings  such  a 
life  into  this  world,  the  memory  of  it  must  be  cherished  by  mankind  as  one 
of  its  most  precious  and  sacred  possessions.    For  the  thoughts,  the  words, 
the  deeds  of  such  a  man,  there  is  no  death.    The  sphere  of  their  influence  goes 
on  widening  forever.    They  bud,  they  blossom,  they  bear  fruit,  from  age  to 
age." — The  Discovery  of  America,  Vol.  II,  p. -482. 

49 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

that  wash  its  shore.  Even  before  he  had  left  the  Gulf  of 
Paria,  between  Trinidad  and  the  mainland,  he  had  observed 
that  the  aborigines  of  Tierra  Firme  were  decked  with 
bracelets  and  necklaces  of  pearl,  and  soon  discovered,  to  his 
great  satisfaction,  that  these  much-prized  gems  could  be  ob- 
tained in  great  abundance,  and  that  many  of  them  were  of 
extraordinary  size  and  beauty.  Peter  Martyr,  as  trans- 
lated by  Eden,  tells  us,  "Many  of  these  pearls  were  as 
bygge  as  hasellnuttes,  and  oriente  (as  we  caule  it),  that 
is  lyke  unto  them  of  the  Easte  partes."  l  During  the  first 
third  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  value  of  the  pearls  sent 
to  Europe  was  equal  to  nearly  one-half  of  the  output  of 
all  the  mines  in  America.2  In  one  year — 1587 — after  the 
pearl  fisheries  of  the  Gulf  of  Panama  had  been  discovered, 
nearly  seven  hundred  pounds  weight  of  pearls  was  sent  to 
the  markets  of  Europe,  some  of  them  rivaling  in  beauty  of 
sheen  and  perfection  of  form  the  rarest  gems  ever  found 
in  the  waters  of  Persia  or  Ceylon.  It  was  from  these 
fisheries  of  the  New  World  that  Philip  II  obtained  the 
famous  pearl,  weighing  two  hundred  and  fifty  carats,  of  the 
size  and  shape  of  a  pigeon's  egg,  mentioned  by  the  early 
chroniclers. 

So  great  was  the  commercial  activity  among  these  little 
islands,  especially  in  Cubagua,  that  the  Spaniards  built  a 
town  there,  which  they  called  New  Cadiz,  although  the  site 
chosen  was  without  water,  and  so  sterile  that  the  Indians 
had  never  lived  on  it.  Toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  pearl  fishery  in  these  parts  diminished  rapidly, 
and  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  following,  the  industry, 

iDec.  1,  Book  8.  The  same  writer  informs  us  that  the  sailors  of  Pedro 
Alonzo  Nifio,  on  leaving  Curiana  to  return  to  Spain,  "had  three  score  and 
XVI  poundes  weight  (after  VIII  vnces  to  the  pownde)  of  perles,  which  thwy 
bought  for  exchange  of  owre  thynges,  amountinge  to  the  value  of  fyve  fihvl- 
linges." 

2  Of  these  gems  of  the  ocean,  "tears  hy  Naiads  wept,"  one  could  then  re- 
peat, as  well  as  now,  the  words  of  Pliny,  "The  richest  merchandise  of  all, 
and  the  most  soveraigne  comoditie  throughout  the  whole  world,  are  these 
perles.5*— Naturalis  Historia,  Lib.  IX,  Cap.  35. 

50 


INTRODUCTOET 

according  to  Laet,  had  died  out  altogether,  and  the  islands 
of  Coche  and  Cubagua  fell  into  oblivion.  But  while  it 
lasted,  sad  to  say,  it  meant  untold  misery  for  the  thousands 
of  Indian  and  Negro  slaves  who  were  forced,  at  the  sacrifice 
of  their  health  and  often  of  their  lives,  to  enrich  their  cruel 
masters  by  work  that  was  almost  as  fatal  as  that  in  the 
mines  of  Espanola. 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  pearl  fisheries  in 
the  waters  around  these  islands  were  practically  abandoned. 
Even  during  the  latst  century  comparatively  little  work 
was  done  to  develop  an  industry  that,  during  the  sixteenth 
century,  contributed  so  much  to  the  coffers  of  Spain. 
About  the  year  1900,  however,  a  French  company  secured  a 
concession  from  Venezuela  to  fish  in  the  neighborhood  of 
these  islands.  According  to  agreement,  it  is  to  pay  the 
government  ten  per  cent  royalty,  and  to  employ  divers  and 
diving  apparatus  so  as  to  select  only  the  larger  oysters 
and  avoid  the  destruction  of  those  that  are  immature. 

From  the  estimates  available,  about  $600,000  worth  of 
pearls  are  annually  sent  to  the  Paris  market  from  Mar- 
garita. While  a  large  proportion  of  them  are  cracked  and 
of  poor  color,  there  are,  nevertheless,  many  of  the  finest 
orient,  and  these  find  ready  purchasers.  As  for  ourselves, 
we  saw  few  of  large  size,  and  none  of  great  value.  Even 
in  Caracas,  where  we  made  diligent  inquiry  about  them, 
we  did  not  find  a  single  one  from  these  waters  that  would 
attract  attention  for  either  size  or  lustre.1 

The  weather  could  not  have  been  more  delightful  than  it 

iThe  Venezuelan  pearl-oyster— Margaritifera  Radiata—te  related  to  the 
Ceylon  species,  Margaritifera  vulgaris,  and  ranges  in  color  from  white  to 
bronze  and,  sometimes,  black.  It  is  slightly  larger  than  the  Ceylonese  gem, 
and  is  occasionally  of  excellent  quality. 

About  three  hundred  and  fifty  boats,  each  manned  by  five  or  six  men,  are 
now  engaged  in  the  pearl  fishery  of  Venezuela.  Most  of  them  are  from  the 
ports  of  Cumana,  Juan  Griego  and  Carupano. 

The  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  pearls  of  Margarita  and  of  the  Pearl 
Coast,  may  consult  with  profit  the  very  elaborate  work,  The  Booh  of  the 
Pearl,  by  George  F.  Kunz  and  Chas.  H.  Stevenson,  New  York,  1908,  and 
The  Pearl,  by  W.  R.  Castelle,  Philadelphia  and  London,  1907. 

51 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

was  during  our  all  too  brief  cruise  among  these  islands, 
around  which  at  one  time,  as  has  been  truly  remarked,  "all 
the  wonder,  all  the  pity  and  all  the  greed  of  the  age  had 
concentrated  itself. "  They  are  now  shorn  of  all  ^  their 
former  glory,  and  there  is  little  to  indicate  their  pristine 
importance.  They  are  practically  deserted,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Margarita,  which,  on  account  of  the  arid  and 
unproductive  soil,  is  but  sparsely  inhabited.  And  yet,  as 
they  lay  clustered  there  on  the  calm  bosom  of  the  Caribbean, 
without  a  ripple  to  disturb  its  mirror-like  surface,  they 
possessed  a  certain  undefinable  beauty  that  defied  analysis. 
Besides,  there  was  still  hovering  over  and  around  them  the 
glamour  of  days  long  past,  when  they  were  visited  for  the 
first  time  by  the  great  Admiral  of  the  Ocean  Sea,  and  later 
on,  by  Cristobal  Guerra  and  Alonzo  Nino,  and  by  Fran- 
cisco Orellana,  after  his  memorable  voyage  down  the 
Amazon. 

The  sun  was  sloping  down  to  his  ocean  bed — the  air  was 
glimmering  with  a  mellow  light,  as  we  drifted  from  these 
waters  over  which  Merlin  seemed  to  wave  his  enchanting 
wand.  As  the  orb  of  day  touched  the  distant  horizon,  and 
sank  into  the  crimson  mist  that  floated  above  the  placid  sea, 
it  assumed  strange  oval  and  pear-shaped  figures  that  grew 
larger  in  their  waning  splendor.  The  rainbow  hues  that 
steeped  in  molten  lustre  the  receding  shores  seemed  to  float 
on  clouds  from  spirit-land. 

A  scene  it  was  to  swell  the  tamest  bosom,  a  fairy  realm 
where  Fancy  would 

"Bid  the  blue  Tritons  sound  their  twisted  shells, 
And  call  the  Nereids  from  their  pearly  cells." 

Below  us,  beneath  the  dark  depths  of  the  crystal  sea, 
illumined  by  the  lamps  of  the  sea-nymphs,  were  living 
flower  beds  of  coral,  the  blooms  and  the  palms  of  the  ocean 
recesses,  where  the  pearl  lies  hid,  and  caves  where  the  gem 
is  sleeping,  the  gardens,  fair  and  bewildering  in  their  rich- 
ness and  beauty,  of  Nereus  and  Amphitrite.  It  was  indeed 

52 


INTRODUCTORY 

such  a  scene  as  the  poet  has  painted  for  us  in  these  charm- 
ing verses : — 

"Wherever  you  wander  the  sea  is  in  sight, 
With  its  changeable  turquoise  green  and  hlue, 
And  its  strange  transparence  of  limpid  light. 
You  can  watch  the  work  that  the  Nereids  do 
Down,  down,  where  their  purple  fans  unfurl, 
Planting  their  coral  and  sowing  their  pearl." 


CHAPTER  II 
TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

''The  battle's  rage 

Was  like  the  strife  which  currents  wage, 
Where  Orinoco,  in  his  pride, 
Bolls  to  the  main  no  tribute  tide, 
But  'gainst  broad  ocean  urges  far 
A  rival  sea  of  roaring  war  ; 
While  in  ten  thousand  eddies  driven, 
The  billows  fling  their  foam  to  heaven, 
And  the  pilot  seeks  in  vain, 
Where  rolls  the  river,  where  the  main."  * 

—  SCOTT. 

THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  BLESSED  TRINITY 

The  morning  following  our  departure  from  the  Pearl 
Islands  we  were  delighted  to  find  our  good  ship  anchored 
in  the  beautiful  Gulf  of  Paria.  Thus,  almost  before  we 
were  aware  of  it,  we  found  ourselves  reposing  on  the  waters 
of  the  famed  Orinoco  which  we  had  made  such  futile  efforts 
to  reach  from  Caracas  and  Victoria.  The  Gulf  of  Paria, 
as  is  known,  is  just  north  of  several  of  the  largest  estuaries 
of  the  Orinoco  and  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  salt 
water  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  fresh  water  of  Venezuela's 
great  river  is  usually  quite  marked.  As  we  entered  the 
gulf,  through  the  Dragon's  Mouth,  we  had  the  mainland  on 
our  starboard  and  the  island  of  Trinidad  on  our  port 
quarter.  A]f,fofmgTi  f.Tip  waters  of 


wp.^channel&—  the  Boca  del  Draco 
and  the  Boca  de  la  Sierpe  —  there  is  no  doubt  that  TrmlclacT 

was  in  recent  geological  times  a  part  of  the  mainland  of 

• 

i  Rokeby,  Canto  I,  13. 
54 


TEINIDAD  AND.  THE  OEINOCO 

South  America  and  that  the  Orinoco,  instead  of  reaching 
the  ocean,  as  it  now  does,  flowed  almost  directly  across 
the  island  through  a  depression  which  is  still  quite  con- 
spicuous. It  will  thus  be  seen  that  during  long  geologic 
ages  there  has  been  an  intimate  physical  connection  be- 
tween Trinidad  and  the  Orinoco  as  there  has  been  a  close 
commercial  connection  between  the  two  ever  since  the 
Spanish  conquest. 

Owing  to  the  shallow  waters  of  the  harbor  of  the  Port-of- 
•  Spain,  the  capital  of  Trinidad,  our  steamer  had  to  anchor 
about  a  mile  from  the  quay.  When  we  were  prepared  to  go 
ashore — and  we  lost  no  time  in  getting  ready — we  were 
surrounded  by  a  motley  crowd  of  sable,  shouting,  importu- 
nate boatmen,  all  clamoring  and  gesticulating  and  sounding 
the  praises  of  their  canoes,  and  calling  attention  to  their 
fantastic  names,  as  if  this  were  a  guarantee  of  their  safety 
and  comfort.  In  a  few  moments  we  were  seated  in  one  of 
these  gayly  decked  craft,  with  our  baggage  beside  us,  on 
our  way  to  the  customhouse.  Here  we  were  delayed  only 
a  few  minutes,  for  the  English  in  their  colonies,  as  in  the 
mother  country,  rarely  subject  the  traveler  to  those  delays 
and  annoyances  that  constitute  so  disagreeable  a  feature 
in  certain  other  countries.  "What  a  contrast, "  we  said  to 
ourselves,  "between  the  conduct  of  the  officials  here  and 
that  of  the  officious  inquisitors  at  La  Guayra!" 

After  we  had  been  comfortably  located  in  our  hotel — 
there  are  several  good  hotels  in  the  city — our  first  thought 
was  about  our  journey  up  the  Orinoco.  To  our  great  de- 
light we  learned  that  there  would  be  a  steamer  going  to 
Ciudad  Bolivar  in  about  a  week.  This  accorded  with  our 
plans  perfectly,  as  we  thus  had  ample  time  to  visit  the  chief 
points  of  interest — and  there  are  many — of  the  island, 
and  enjoy  at  least  a  passing  view  of  the  wonderful  and 
varied  floral  display  for  which  Trinidad  is  so  famous. 

Trinidad,  as  the  reader  will  recollect,  was  discovered  by 
Columbus  during  his  third  voyage,  and  given  the  name  it 
still  bears  in  honor  of  the  Blessed  Trinity.  In  his  letter 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  describing  this  voyage,  lie  says 
he  started  from  San  Lucar  in  the  name  of  the  most  Holy 
Trinity,  and  after  two  months  at  sea,  during  a  portion  of 
which  time  all  aboard  suffered  intensely  from  the  heat,1 
they  saw  to  the  westward  three  mountain  peaks,  united  at 
the  base,  rising  up  before  them.  Here,  then,  was  to  them 
the  symbol  of  the  Triune  God — the  Three  in  One — in  whose 
name  all  had  left  their  native  land,  and  what  more  natural 
than  that  it  should  be  named  Trinidad — the  Trinity? 
"Upon  this,"  writes  the  pious  admiral,  "we  repeated  the 
'  Salve  Kegina, '  and  other  prayers,  and  all  of  us  gave  thanks 
to  our  Lord." 

What  a  grateful  change  it  was  from  the  extreme  heat 
which  they  had  endured,  to  the  delightful  climate  of  the 
newly  discovered  island.  "When  I  reached  the  island  of 
Trinidad,"  I  again  quote  from  the  Admiral's  letter,  "I 
found  the  temperature  exceedingly  mild;  the  fields  and  the 
foliage  were  remarkably  fresh  and  green;  and  as  beautiful 
as  the  gardens  of  Valencia  in  April."  2 

What  so  deeply  impressed  Columbus  on  his  arrival  at 
Trinidad  was  what  likewise  most  impresses  the  visitor  to- 
day— its  mild  climate  and  the  beauty  and  luxuriance  of  its 
vegetation.  Although  the  island  is  but  little  more  than  10° 
from  the  Equator  the  mean  annual  temperature  is  not  more 
than  77°  F.  In  the  mornings  and  evenings  of  the  cooler 
season  the  thermometer  is  about  10°  lower.  During  our 
sojourn  of  some  weeks  in  Trinidad  we  never  suffered  from 
the  heat  On  the  contrary,  during  our  morning  and  even- 

i  "The  wind  then  failed  me,  and  I  entered  a  climate  where  the  intensity  of 
the  heat  was  such  that  I  thought  both  ships  and  men  would  have  been  burned 
up,  and  everything  suddenly  got  into  such  a  state  of  confusion  that  no  man 
dared  go  below  deck  to  attend  to  the  securing  of  the  water-cask  and  the 
provisions.  This  heat  lasted  eight  days;  on  the  first  day  the  weather  was 
fine,  but  on  the  seven  other  days  it  rained  and  was  cloudy,  yet  we  found  no 
alleviation  of  our  distress;  so  that  I  certainly  believe  that  if  the  sun  had 
shone,  as  on  the  first  day,  we  should  not  have  been  able  to  escape  in  anv- 
way."— Writings  of  Christopher  Columbus,  ut  sup.,  pp.  113,  114,  and  Irving's 
Life  and  Voyages  of  Christopher  Columbus,  Chap.  XXIX. 

a  Op.  cit,  p.  136. 

56 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

ing  drives,  especially  in  the  mountains,  we  found  the  ocean 
breeze  delightfully  refreshing. 

Columbus  was  also  much  impressed  by  the  natives  of  the 
island.  They  had  a  whiter  skin — he  had  expected  to  find 
them  very  black — than  any  he  had  hitherto  seen  in  the 
Indies  and  were  very  graceful  in  form,  tall  and  elegant  in 
their  movements. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  scattered  families,  of  more 
or  less  mixed  descent,  the  visitor  will  find  no  evidence  of 
the  former  existence  here  of  that  splendid  type  of  Indian 
of  whom  the  great  navigator  speaks  so  highly,  and  of  whose 
race  there  were  then  on  the  island  many  thousands  of  souls. 
Here,  as  on  the  other  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  the 
aborigines  have  disappeared,  never  to  return. 

In  their  place  we  find  the  most  cosmopolitan  agglomera- 
tion of  people  under  the  sun — English,  Germans,  Span- 
iards, French,  Chinese,  Hindoos,  and  Negroes  from  the 
darkest  Senegambian  to  the  fairest  Octaroon.  About  one- 
half  of  the  population  is  composed  of  Negroes,  one-third 
of  Coolies,  and  one-sixth  of  whites  of  various  nationalities 
and  shades  of  color.  As  we  contemplated  the  motley 
crowds  which  always  throng  the  streets  of  the  Port-of- 
Spain  we  could  not  but  recall  Lopez  de  Gomara's  curious 
reflections  on  the  divers  colors  of  the  different  races  of 
men.  We  give  his  remarks  in  Richard  Eden's  translation: 

"One  of  the  marueylous  thynges  that  god  .  .  .  vseth 
in  the  composition  of  man,  is  coloure;  whiche  doubtlesse 
can  not  bee  consydered  withowte  great  admiration  in  be- 
holding one  to  be  white  and  an  other  blacke,  beinge  coloures 
vtterlye  contrary.  Sum  lykewyse  to  be  yelowe  whiche  is 
betwene  blacke  and  white;  and  other  of  other  colours  as 
it  were  of  dyuers  liueres.  And  as  these  colours  are  to 
be  marueyled  at,  euen  so  is  it  to  be  considered  howe  they 
dyifer  one  from  an  other  as  it  were  by  degrees,  f orasmuche 
as  sum  mrai  are  whyte  after  dyuers  sortes  of  whytnesse: 
yelowe  af tor  dyuers  maners  of  yelowe :  blacke  after  dyuers 
sortes  of  Uacknesse :  and  howe  from  whyte  they  go  to 

57 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

yelowe  by  ...  discolourygne  to  browne  and  redde: 
and  to  blacke  by  asshe  colour,  and  murrey  sumwhat  lyghter 
then  blacke:  and  tawnye  lyke  vnto  the  west  Indian  which 
are  all  togyther  in  general  eyther  purple,  or  tawny  lyke 
vnto  sodde  quynses,  or  of  the  colour  of  chestnuttes  or 
olyues:  which  colour  is  to  them  natural  and  not  by  theyr 
goynge  naked  as  many  haue  thought:  albeit  theyr  naked- 
nesse  haue  sumwhat  helped  thereunto.  Therfore  in  lyke 
rnaner  and  with  suche  diuersitie  as  men  are  commonly 
whyte  in  Europe  and  blacke  in  Affrike,  euen  with  like 
varietie  are  they  tawny  in  these  Indies,  with  diuers  degrees 
diuersly  inclynynge  more  or  lesse  to  blacke  or  whyte. " l 

The  Coolies  interested  us  immensely,  in  whatever  part 
of  the  island  we  met  them — and  they  are  to  be  seen  every- 
where— and  were  for  us  the  subject-matter  of  constant 
study.  They  occupy  an  entire  suburb  of  the  Port-of-Spain, 
and,  for  those  who  are  interested  in  sociological  and 
economic  questions,  no  place  is  more  worthy  of  a  visit. 
Day  after  day,  when  the  delicious  evening  breezes  began 
to  sweep  in  from  the  ocean,  we  found  ourselves  directing 
our  course  towards  the  "Indian  Quarter, "  as  it  is  called, 
and  we  always  found  something  new  to  arrest  our  attention 
or  excite  our  admiration.  It  required  no  effort  whatever 
of  the  imagination  to  fancy  ourselves  in  the  crowded  streets 
and  markets  of  Benares  or  Madras. 

Port-of-Spain,  whose  population  is  about  50,000,  rejoices 
in  quite  a  number  of  large  and  handsome  public  buildings 
and  churches.  Among  the  latter  the  Roman  Catholic 
Cathedral  is  conspicuous.  The  homes  of  the  people  in  the 
better  quarters  of  the  city — surrounded  by  a  rich  profusion 
of  tropical  flowers,  and  shrubs  and  trees  covered  with 
blooming  climbers — are  frequently  models  of  architectural 
excellence,  and  betoken  refinement,  comfort  and  even 
affluence. 

To  us  the  most  attractive  part  of  the  city  was  the 
Botanical  Garden,  adjoining  the  residence  of  ttoa  governor. 

i  Eden's  First  Three  English  Books  on  America,  p.  833, 
58 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

This  spot  is  justly  famous  not  only  in  the  West  Indies, 
but  the  world  over.  Here  have  been  collected  from  every 
tropical  clime  all  the  plants  and  shrubs  and  trees  that  are 
admired,  for  beauty  of  bloom,  richness  of  fragrance,  or 
grace  and  majesty  of  form. 

Here  we  see  the  hibiscus  shrub,  with  large,  flaming, 
crimson  flowers;  the  poinciana,  aglow  with  a  bloom  of 
yellow  and  orange,  scarlet  flowered  balisiers,  and  the  poui 
tree  decked  with  a  rich  robe  of  saffron.  Alongside  them 
are  oranges  and  lemons,  pineapples,  guavas,  mongosteens, 
nutmegs,  tamarinds,  and  scores  of  other  kinds  of  tropical 
fruits.  A  little  further  on  we  meet  with  tea  shrubs,  the 
clove  and  the  cinnamon  tree,  the  rubber  tree,  and  the 
Bertolettia  excelsa,  laden  with  nuts,  each  of  which  contains 
from  ten  to  twenty  seeds.  Then  there  are  the  curious 
cannon-ball  tree,  stately  samans,  the  leopardwood  tree, 
the  trumpet  tree  and  others  equally  attractive.  Besides  all 
these  there  are  those  princes  of  the  forest — the  palms — 
from  every  quarter  of  the  tropics,  with  every  variety  of 
trunk  and  leaf — date,  fern,  talipot,  Palmyra,  and  groo- 
groo  palms,  the  tall  traveler  's-tree  with  its  graceful  plan- 
tain-like leaves,  and  the  Oreodoxa  speciosa,  "the  glory  of 
the  mountains."  On  and  among  them  are  rare  orchids,  and 
parasites  of  countless  species,  climbing  ferns,  and  con- 
volvuluses of  every  hue. 

And  to  complete  this  scene  of  beauty,  we  behold  at  almost 
every  step,  fluttering  across  our  path,  brilliant  heliconias 
and  other  butterflies  that  contribute  such  life  and  charm 
to  the  forest  glories  of  tropical  lands.  And  then  the 
humming  birds — those  lovely  animated  gems  that  flit  from 
bush  to  bush,  and  flower  to  flower — flashing  all  the  fire  of 
the  opal,  and  emitting  in  rapid  succession  all  the  brilliant 
hues  of  the  topaz  and  the  sapphire,  the  ruby  and  the 
emerald.  They  are  not  as  numerous  now — more  is  the  pity 
— as  they  were  formerly,  when  the  aborigines  gave  the 
name  lere — humming  bird — to  this  island  on  account  of 
their  great  numbers  and  when  they  protected  and  venerated 

59 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

them  as  the  souls  of  departed  Indians.  But  one  still  meets 
them  in  one's  strolls  through  the  gardens  and  the  forest, 
and  always  with  a  new  sense  of  wonder  and  delight. 

Here,  of  a  truth,  were  realized,  nay,  eclipsed,  all  the 
marvels  of  the  garden  of  Alcinous,  for  here 

"There  was  still 

Fruit  in  his  proper  season  all  the  year. 
Sweet  Zephyr  breath  'd  upon  them  blasts  that  were 
Of  varied  tempers.    These  he  made  to  bear 
Ripe  fruits,  these  blossoms.    Time  made  never  rape 
Of  any  dainty  there." 1 

It  is,  indeed,  worth  a  visit  from  afar  to  see  and  study 
these  marvels  of  plant  and  vine,  and  bush  and  tree  of 
the  Botanic  Garden.  But  the  whole  island  is,  at  least  for 
the  stranger  from  the  North,  one  vast  botanic  garden.  Go 
where  we  will,  we  are  astonished  and  bewildered  by  the 
novelty  and  the  exuberance  of  the  vegetation  that  sur- 
rounds us. 

If  we  drive  over  the  broad  and  well-kept  roads  along 
the  western  coast,  we  pass  under  shady  avenues  of  cocoa 
palms  bending  under  their  burden  of  fruit.  If  we  go  to  the 
cacao  groves — and  they  are  large  and  numerous  here — 
our  eyes  are  gladdened  by  the  vermilion  bloom  that  covers 
the  protecting  Erythrina  umbrosa?  In  a  glen  hard  by  is 
a  giant  ceiba,  transformed,  by  the  countless  number  of 
creepers  and  epiphytes  to  which  it  has  given  hospitality, 
into  a  vast  air-garden.  Along  the  streams  and  mountain 
torrents  are  lovely  canopies  formed  by  the  plume-like  foli- 
age of  bamboos — seventy  to  eighty  feet  high — affording  re- 
treats of  rarest  sylvan  beauty.  Again  it  is  in  the  Rosa  dd 
Monte,  with  its  crimson  bloom,  the  purple  dracona,  the 
yellow  croton,  the  night-blooming  cereus,  the  angel  im, 
covered  with  purple  tassels,  the  carmine  pornsettia,  the 

1  Chapman's  Odyssey,  Bk.  VII. 

2  Called  Bois  immortelle  by  the  French,  and  in  Spanish  bearing  the  appro- 
priate name  of  madre  de  cacao,  mother  of  cacao. 

60 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

sweet-scented  vanilla,  festoons  of  purple  flowered  lianas, 
and  gray  candelabra  of  a  giant  cereus.  Beyond  it  all,  ay 
a  felicitous  background  to  this  gorgeous  display  and  at 
the  same  time  an  adequate  enclosure  for  Flora's  fairy 
palace,  there  is  such  a  profusion  of  vegetable  tracery  and 
arabesques  "as  would  have  stricken  dumb  with  awe  and 
delight  him  who  ornamented  the  Loggie  of  the  Vatican/' 

Further  on  we  have  the  comely  bread-fruit  tree,  with  its 
deeply-lobed  leaves  and  its  massive  fruit,  the  many-rooted 
and  many-branched  mangrove,1  and  not  far  distant  is  a 
clump  of  royal  palms,  with  their  smooth  pearl-gray  columns 
and  coronals  of  verdure.  Or  there  is  a  group  of  kindred 
growth — jagua  palms — whose  crown  of  pinnated  leaves, 
each  full  twenty-five  feet  long,  caused  Humboldt  to  declare* 
that  on  this  truly  magnificent  tree  "Nature  had  lavished 
every  beauty  of  form."  While  standing  by  one  of  the 
pillar-stems  of  the  jagua  palm,  beneath  its  emerald  ostrich 
plumes,  we  were  quite  prepared  to  share  Kingsley's  enthu- 
siasm for  palm  trees  in  general.  "Like  a  Greek  statue  in  a 
luxurious  drawing-room,"  he  writes,  "sharp-cut,  cold,  vir- 
ginal ;  shaming  by  the  grandeur  of  mere  form  the  voluptu- 
ousness of  mere  color,  however  rich  and  harmonious;  so 
stands  the  palm  of  the  forest;  to  be  worshipped  rather  than 
to  beloved."2 

It  would  tire  the  reader  to  attempt  a  description  of  the 
many  pictures  of  interest  of  this  charming  island,  of  its 
delightful  drives  in  every  direction,  of  its  beauteous  cas- 
cades and  waterfalls,  one  of  which,  Maracas  Falls,  three 
hundred  feet  in  height,  is  a  reproduction  of  Bridal  Falls  in 
the  Yosemite,  with  the  added  setting  of  tropical  verdure. 
No  pen  can  picture  the  exquisite  charm  of  the  Caura  or 
Maraval  valleys,  of  Blue  Basin  and  Macaripe  Bay,  or  of 

1  It  was  upon  the  "boughs  and  spraies"  of  these  trees  that  Raleigh  found 
"great  store  of  oisters,  very  salt  and  wel  tasted."    A  species  of  edible  oyster 
is  still  found  on  this  tree — the  Rhigophora  Mangle  of  Linnaeus — but,  although 
served  on  the  table  in  the  West  Indies,  it  is  far  from  being  as  luscious  as  our 
"Blue  Points"  or  as  large  as  our  "Lynn  Havens." 

2  At  Last,  p.  79,  London,  1905. 

61 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  Five  Islands — real  gems  of  the  ocean — with  their  cozy 
and  inviting  cottages.  When  in  Egypt  years  ago  we 
fancied  that  we  should  like  to  spend  the  rest  of  our  days 
on  the  island  of  Philae,  ever  in  the  presence  of  its  match- 
less ruins.  When  we  spent  a  happy  day — how  fleeting  it 
was — on  one  of  these  five  islands — it  was  the  largest  and 
fairest — we  felt  that  we  had  at  length  found  that  island 
home — far  away  from  noise  and  strife,  from 

"Fever  and  fret  and  aimless  stir" 

of  which  we  had  so  often  dreamed,  and  in  which  we  had  so 
often  longed  to  dwell. 

The  people  of  Trinidad  think  their  island  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  all  the  West  Indian  group.  Having  visited,  at  one 
time  or  other,  all  the  chief  islands  comprising  the  Greater 
and  Lesser  Antilles,  we  should  hesitate  to  dispute  their 
claim.  It  is  certainly  very  beautiful,  and  possesses  many 
attractions  that  are  either  entirely  absent  from  the  other 
islands  or  are  found  only  in  a  lesser  degree.  Puerto  Bi<*o 
and  Jamaica  equal  it  in  many  respects,  and  in  others  sur- 
pass it,  but  in  some  important  features  the  American 
possession  is  inferior  to  those  of  the  British. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  La  Brea,  the  wonderful  pitch  lake 
for  which  Trinidad  has  been  celebrated  since  the  time  of 
Ealeigh,1  and  which  for  some  decades  past  has  supplied 
us  with  much  of  the  asphalt  used  in  the  United  States. 
This  curious  phenomenon  has  been  described  so  often  that 
there  is  no  call  for  further  comment.  Suffice  to  say  that  it, 
together  with  the  sugar  plantations  and  the  cacao  groves, 
constitutes  the  chief  source  of  the  revenue  of  the  island. 
Like  Curagao,  Trinidad  is  a  favorite  resort  of  Venezuelan 

i  "At  this  point  called  Tierra  de  Brea  or  Piche,"  writes  Raleigh,  "then*  jfo 
that  abondanee  of  stone  pitch,  that  all  the  ships  of  the  world  may  there- 
with loden  from  thence,  and  wee  made  triall  of  it  in  trimming  our  ships  to 
be  most  excellent*  good,  and  melteth  not  with  the  sunne,  as  the  pitch  of  Nor- 
way, and  therefore  for  ships  trading  in  the  south  partes  very  profitable/'— 
The  Discovery  of  Quiana,  pp.  3  and  4,  published  for  the  Hakluyt  Society, 
London,  1848. 

62 


TBINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

revolutionists,  expatriated  generals  and  colonels  and  their 
sympathizers.  As  a  rule,  they  are  an  impecunious  set,  and 
rarely  interesting.  Crespo  and  Guzman  Blanco  both 
started  from  here  on  their  way  to  the  presidential  chair  in 
Caracas.  So  did  the  unfortunate  Paredes,  shortly  before 
our  arrival  in  Venezuela,  but  he  had  scarcely  set  foot  on  the 
soil  of  his  native  country,  which  he  had  promised  to  liberate 
from  the  evils  of  Castroism,  before  he,  with  his  followers, 
was  shot  down  in  cold  blood. 

On  account  of  its  proximity  to  the  mainland  and  com- 
manding, as  it  does,  the  entire  Orinoco  basin,  Trinidad 
should  enjoy  an  extensive  trade  with  Venezuela.  And  this 
she  would  undoubtedly  have  were  it  not  that  Venezuela 
imposes  an  extra  ad  valorem  duty  of  thirty  per  cent,  on  all 
merchandise  that  comes  from  or  by  way  of  Trinidad.  This 
is  in  retaliation  for  the  island's  harboring  smugglers  and 
revolutionists.  One  of  the  results  of  this  policy  is  smug- 
gling on  a  most  extensive  scale,  at  which  many  of  the  cus- 
toms officials  connive.  This  means  a  great  loss  to  the 
Venezuelan  government,  for  it  is  estimated  that  it  thus 
loses  a  greater  part  of  the  duties  that  should  go  to  the 
national  treasury. 

Another  temptation  to  smuggle  arises  from  the  exces- 
sively high  tariff  on  certain  necessary  articles  of  consump- 
tion. Thus  salt,  which  is  a  government  monopoly,  costs 
sixteen  times  as  much  in  Ciudad  Bolivar  as  it  does  in  Trini- 
dad. The  natural  consequence  is  that  there  is  a  large 
contraband  traffic  in  this  important  commodity.  In  some 
cases  the  smugglers  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  government 
officials  and  pay  nothing  whatever  in  the  way  of  duties. 
In  others  they  have  an  understanding  with  the  officials,  and 
'pay*>#or  composition — that  is,  only  a  portion  of -the  tax — 
the  other  portion  being  divided  between  the  official  and  the 
smuggler. 

Contraband  trade,  however,  is  nothing  new  in  this  part 
of  the  world.  It  dates  back  to  the  sixteenth  century  when, 
according  to  Fray  Padre  Simon,  the  learned  author  of 

63 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Noticias  Historiales  de  las  Conquistas  de  Tierra  Firme, 
religion  and  policy  prohibited  all  commercial  relations  be- 
tween Spaniards  and  foreigners,  especially  the  Dutch  and 
the  English. 

As  an  obiter  dictum,  however,  it  may  be  remarked  that 
it  was  this  restricted  and  short-sighted  trade  policy  that, 
more  than  anything  else,  led  to  the  enormous  losses  that 
Spain  suffered  during  so  many  decades  from  corsairs  and 
buccaneers,  and  that  eventually  resulted  in  the  wars  of 

independence  in  the  Spanish  colonies  of  the  New  World. 

> 

THE  DELTA  OF  THE  ORINOCO 

We  were  still  reveling  in  the  countless  beauties  of  forest 
and  field — quite  oblivious  of  the  passage  of  time — when  we 
were  informed  that  our  steamer  would,  in  a  few  hours,  start 
for  Ciudad  Bolivar,  the  chief  city  on  the  Orinoco,  and  dis- 
tant about  two  days'  sail  from  the  Port-of-Spain. 

Eager  as  we  were  to  explore  the  wonders  of  the  famed 
and  mysterious  Orinoco,  it  was  with  great  reluctance  that 
we  tore  ourselves  away  from  the  cherished  home  of  flowers 
and  humming  birds — sweet  lere.  In  Trinidad,  thanks  to 
the  kind  and  considerate  hospitality  of  its  people,  we  had 
enjoyed  all  the  comforts  of  home  and  the  same  freedom  of 
movement  as  if  we  had  been  given  the  keys  of  the  city. 

Our  steamer  was  scheduled  to  leave  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  did  not  weigh  anchor 
until  some  hours  later.  This,  however,  we  did  not  regret, 
as  it  gave  us  an  opportunity  to  have  "one  last  lingering 
look"  at  the  island  beautiful  from  the  upper  deck  of  the 
vessel.  Besides  this,  we  could  by  means  of  our  field  glasses 
take  a  survey  of  the  Gulf  of  Paria — for  it  is  famous  in 
history,  this  Gulf  of  Paria — and  has  been  visited  by  men 
whose  names  are  writ  large  in  the  annals  of  the  world's 
heroes. 

Its  waters  were  visited  in  1805  by  England's  one-eyed, 
one-armed  sailor-man,  while  in. pursuit  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  warships  which  he  had  chased  from  Gibraltar  to  the 

64 


TEINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

Caribbean  $ea  and  thence  back  to  Trafalgar,  where  Spain 
lost  its  navy  and  England  her  greatest  admiral.  '  *  Had  Nel- 
son found  the  hostile  squadron  under  the  lee  of  Trinidad, 
the  delta  6f  the  Orinoco  would  now  be  as  famous  in 
naval  history  as  the  delta  of  the  Nile." 

It  is,  however,  the  imposing  figure  of  Spain's  great  ad- 
miral, Cristobal  Colon,  that  looms  highest  in  these  parts. 
He  it  was  that  gave  the  chief  promontories  of  island  and 
mainland,  and  the  channels  that  separate  the  one  from  the 
other,  many  of  the  names  they  still  bear. 

Far  down  to  the  south  is  La  Boca  de  la  Sierpe — the 
Serpent's  Mouth — the  channel  that  separates  the  south- 
westernmost  point  of  Trinidad  from  Venezuela.  It  was 
through  this  channel  that  Columbus  passed  when  he  entered 
the  gulf  in  which  we  now  are,  and  from  which  he  got  his 
first  view  of  the  mainland  of  the  New  World.  But  he  did 
not  realize  at  first  the  magnitude  of  his  discovery.  Think- 
ing the  land  he  saw  on  his  port  quarter  was  an  island — for 
during  his  two  preceding  voyages  he  had  seen  nothing  but 
islands,  outside  of  Cuba,  which  he  fancied  to  be  the  eastern 
part  of  Asia — he  named  it  Isla  Santa,  or  Holy  Island.  A 
short  distance  to  the  northwest  of  us  is  La  Boca  del  Draco, 
the  Dragon's  Mouth,  through  which  the  great  navigator 

"Push'd  his  prows  into  the  setting  sun, 
"  And  made  West  East." 

The  names  Serpent's  Mouth  and  Dragon's  Mouth  were 
given  to  the  two  straits  mentioned  on  account  of  the  strong 
currents  found  there  and  on  account  of  the  danger  Columbus 
experienced  in  taking  his  ships  through  them.  His  letter 
to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  contains  a  graphic  description  of 
the  dangers  he  encountered  while  passing  through  the  Ser- 
pent's Mouth.  "In  the  dead  of  night,"  he  writes,  "while 
I  was  on  deck,  I  heard  an  awful  roaring,  that  came  from 
the  south,  toward  the  ship;  on  the  top  of  this  rolling  sea 
came  a  mighty  wave  roaring  with  a  frightful  noise,  and 
with  all  this  terrific  uproar  were  other  conflicting  currents, 

65 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

producing,  as  I  have  already  said,  a  sound  as  of  breakers 
upon  rocks.  To  this  day  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  the 
dread  I  then  felt  lest  the  ship  might  flounder  under  the  force 
of  that  tremendous  sea ;  but  it  passed  by,  and  reached  the 
mouth  of  the  before-mentioned  passage,  where  the  uproar 
lasted  for  a  considerable  time."  l  He  had  similar  difficulty 
in  making  his  exit  through  the  Dragon's  Mouth. 

No  wonder  that  the  frightened  sailors  of  Columbus 
imagined  that  they  were  the  sport  of  the  Evil  One.  *  *  Being 
in  the  region  of  Paria,"  writes  Navarrete,  "the  Admiral 
asked  the  pilots  what  they  made  their  position  to  be ;  some 
said  that  they  were  in  the  sea  of  Spain,  others  that  they  were 
in  the  sea  of  Scotland,  and  that  all  the  seamen  were  in 
despair,  and  said  the  Devil  had  brought  them  there/'2 

Columbus,  as  has  been  stated,  at  first  considered  the  land 
on  his  port  side  to  be  insular  in  character,  but  before  he 
left  the  Gulf  of  Paria  he  was  evidently  convinced  by  the 
raging  surges  of  fresh  water  that  had  nearly  swamped  his 
ships,  that  he  had  discovered  a  land  of  continental  dimen- 
sions. In  his  letter  to  the  Spanish  sovereigns  he 
"This  land,  which  your  highnesses  have  sent  me  to  explore, 
is  very  extensive,  and  I  think  there  are  many  other 
countries  in  the  south  of  which  the  world  has  never  had 
any  knowledge." 

He  had  observed  that  a  very  large  river  debouched  from 
the  land  of  Gracia  and  he  at  once  "rightly  conjectured 
that  the  currents  and  the  overwhelming  mountains  of  water 
which  rushed  into  these  straits  with  such  an  awful  roaring, 
arose  from  the  contest  between  the  fresh  water  and  the  sea. 
The  fresh  water  struggled  with  the  salt  to  oppose  its 
entrance  and  the  salt  water  contended  against  the  fresh  in 
its  efforts  to  gain  a  passage  outward.  And  I  formed  the 
conjecture,  that  at  one  time  there  was  a  continuous  neck 
of  land  from  the  island  of  Trinidad  and  the  land  of  Gracia, 

i  Writings  of  Oolumlus,  op.  cit.,  pp.  120,  121. 

de  loa  Viojes  y  desculrunientos  que  hiaeron  por  mar  los  Es- 
desde  fines  dil  siglo  XV.    TOTO.  Ill,  p.  583. 

66 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

where  the  two  straits  now  are."  All  these  conclusions  have 
been  confirmed  by  the  observations  of  subsequent  explorers. 

What,  however,  will  most  interest  the  curious  reader  are 
the  speculations  into  which  Columbus  was  led  by  the  various 
phenomena  observed  in  the  Gulf  of  Paria.  The  most  fan- 
tastic, from  our  modern  point  of  view,  were  his  theories 
regarding  the  form  of  the  earth  and  the  location  of  the 
Terrestrial  Paradise. 

Before  his  arrival  in  the  Gulf  of  Paria,  he  had  been  a 
firm  believer  in  the  sphericity  of  the  earth,  but  in  this  part 
of  the  world  he  had  observed  so  many  new  and  unexpected 
features — "so  much  irregularity,"  as  he  phrased  it — that 
he  came  "to  another  conclusion  respecting  the  shape  of  the 
earth,  namely:  that  it  is  not  round,  as  they  describe,  but 
of  the  form  of  a  pear,  which  is  very  round  except  where 
the  stalk  grows,  at  which  part  it  is  most  prominent." 

It  is  very  easy  for  us,  in  the  light  of  all  the  advance  in 
scientific  knowledge  since  his  time,  to  smile  at  his  hypoth- 
eses, and  the  reasonings  by  which  he  arrived  at  his 
conclusions.  What  seemed  plausible  then  appears  prepos- 
terous now.  But  we  must  remember  that  the  proofs  of 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth  before  his  time  were  quite 
empirical,  and  were  far  from  having  the  demonstrative 
force  of  those  that  are  now  adduced.  All  the  epoch-making 
work  in  physics  and  astronomy  by  such  men  as  Galileo  and 
Kepler,  Newton  and  Laplace,  Huyghens  and  Foucault,  and 
the  French  academicians,  bearing  on  the  form  of  our  globe, 
has  been  accomplished  since  his  time.  If  we  now  know  that 
the  earth  has  the  form  of  an  oblate  spheriod  and  not  that 
of  a  pear,  it  is  in  consequence  of  the  progress  of  physical 
astronomy  during  the  four  centuries  that  have  elapsed  since 
Columbus  sailed  the  western  seas. 

Before  his  time  the  learned  had  located  the  earthly  para- 
dise in  various  parts  of  the  eastern  hemisphere.  Some  con- 
tended that  it  was  in  Mesopotamia,  others  that  it  was  in 
Ethiopia  near  the  head  waters  of  the  Nile,  but  all  agreed 
that  it  was  somewhere  in  the  East.  Now  Columbus,  who  im- 

67 


\JJL        J.JJLJU     VJJLbJ.1    \J\J\S 


agined  he  had  reached  the  eastern  part  of  Asia,  by  sailing 
westwards  from  Spain,  thought  he  had  incontrovertible 
evidence  for  locating  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the  newly  dis- 
covered land  of  Gracia. 

"I  do  not  suppose,"  he  writes,  "that  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise is  in  the  form  of  a  rugged  mountain,  as  the  descriptions 
of  it  have  made  it  appear,  but  that  it  is  on  the  summit  of 
the  spot  which  I  have  described  as  being  in  the  form  of  the 
stalk  of  a  pear;  the  approach  of  it  from  a  distance  must  be 
by  a  constant  and  gradual  ascent;  but  I  believe  that,  as  I 
have  already  said,  no  one  could  ever  reach  the  top"—  ex- 
cept "by  God's  permission,"  as  he  asserts  elsewhere.  "I 
think  also  that  the  water  I  have  described  may  proceed 
from  it,  though  it  be  far  off,  and  that,  stopping  at  the  place 
which  I  have  just  left,  it  forms  this  lake.  There  are  great 
indications  of  this  being  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  for  its 
site  coincides  with  the  opinions  of  the  holy  and  wise 
theologians  whom  I  have  mentioned;  and  moreover,  the 
other  evidences  agree  with  the  supposition,  for  I  have  never 
either  read  or  heard  of  fresh  water  coming  in  so  largest* 
quantity,  in  closer  conjunction  with  the  sea.  The  idea  is 
also  corroborated  by  the  blandness  of  the  temperature,  and 
if  the  water  of  which  I  speak  does  not  proceed  from  the 
Earthly  Paradise,  it  appears  to  be  still  more  marvelous, 
for  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  river  in  the  world  so  large 
or  so  deep."1 

i  See  the  aforementioned  letter  of  Columbus  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for 
the  quotations  above  given.  The  whole  letter  will  well  repay  perusal.  See 
also  Relations  y  Cartaa  de  Cristobal  Colon,  Tom.  CL,  XIV,  de  la  Biblioteca 
Clasica,  Madrid,  1892,  p.  268  et  seq. 

Americus  Vespucius  shared  with  Columbus  the  belief  in  the  existence  of 
the  Terrestrial  Paradise  in  the  newly-discovered  lands  near  the  equator. 
Writing  to  his  friend,  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  giving  him  an  account  of  his  sec- 
ond voyage,  he  declares  "In  the  fields  flourish  so  many  sweet  flowers  and 
herbs,  and  the  fruits  are  so  delicious  in  their  fragrance,  that  I  fancied  my- 
self near  the  terrestrial  paradise,"  and  again,  "If  there  is  a  terrestrial 
paradise  in  the  world  it  cannot  be  far  from  this  region."—  The  Life  and  Voy- 
age* of  Americus  Vespucius,  pp.  197  and  214,  by  C.  Edwards  Lester  and 
Andrew  Foster,  New  York,  1846. 

68  ' 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

Besides  Nelson  and  Columbus,  a  third  celebrated  seaman 
visited  this  part  of  the  world.  This  was  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  of  whom  we  shall  have  more  to  say  as  we  pro- 
ceed.1 

Our  parting  view  of  the  forest-clad  mountains  of  Trini- 
dad we  shall  never  forget.  The  sun  was  setting  on  the 
mainland — the  land  of  Gracia  of  Columbus — but  before 
disappearing  below  the  horizon  he  tinged  lere's  mountains 
with  a  parting  smile  and  enveloped  them  in  a 

" — soft  and  purple  mist 
Like  a  vaporous  amethyst;" 

reminding  one  of  the  azure  haze  that  veils  Hymettus  as  the 
sun  sinks  behind  Parnassus  in  an  evening  in  June — some- 
thing that  only  the  gifted  Greek  poet  has  ever  been  able 
adequately  to  describe. 

The  shades  of  night  had  fallen  long  before  we  reached 
the  Serpent's  Mouth,  which  we  were  obliged  to  pass  before 
entering  the  Macareo,  one  of  the  numerous  channels  of  the 
Orinoco  delta.  We  were  thus  deprived  of  the  opportunity 
of  getting  a  good  view  of  the  huge  billows  that  are  produced 
by  the  meeting  of  river  and  sea,  of  which  Columbus 
has  given  us  so  graphic  a  description. 

Those  of  the  passengers  that  were  disposed  to  become 
seasick  retired  to  their  staterooms  before  we  arrived  at 
the  Macareo  bar,  where  the  sea  is  roughest,  and  where 
the  ground-swells  are  most  unpleasant.  For  half  an 
hour  or  more  the  steamer  tossed  considerably,  reminding 
one  of  the  English  Channel  in  stormy  weather.  But  the 
impact  of  surge  against  surge,  of  which  Columbus  speaks, 
was  much  less  than  we  had  been  led  to  anticipate,  and 
there  was  little  indication  of  the  forcible  eddies  of  the 

i  The  curious  reader  will  be  interested  in  learning  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
as  well  as  Columbus  and  Vespucius,  speculated  about  the  probable  site  of 
Paradise.  In  his  History  of  the  World  he  devotes  a  long  chapter  to  the  sub- 
ject, and  several  pages  to  the  discussion  "Of  their  Opinion  which  make 
paradise  as  high  as  the  moon;  and  of  others  which  make  it  higher  than  the 
middle  region  of  the  air/'  Chap.  Ill,  Oxford,  1829. 

69 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

"violentlie  swift  Orinoco, "  which  caused  Ealeigh  so  much 
embarrassment. 

This  was  easily  accounted  for,  as  the  rainy  season  had 
not  yet  set  in,  and  the  waters  at  the  various  estuaries  were, 
therefore,  comparatively  little  agitated.  Columbus,  how- 
ever, arrived  here  towards  the  end  of  the  rainy  season, 
when  the  floods  of  the  Orinoco  were  at  their  height,  while 
Ealeigh  came  after  the  rainy  season  was  quite  well  ad- 
vanced. Again,  ours  was  a  fairly  good-sized  steamer  and 
better  adapted  to  stem  wave  and  current  than  were  the 
fragile  barks  of  Columbus,  or  the  frail  wherries  and  cock- 
boats of  Raleigh.  When  the  floods  of  the  Orinoco  were  at 
high-water  mark,  we  can  well  understand  that  the  early 
navigators  had  reason  to  be  deeply  impressed  by  the 
dangers  that  confronted  them  in  these  seething  and. roaring 
waters,  and  that,  to  their  exalted  imaginations,  the  realities 
of  their  surroundings  were  in  nowise  short  of  the  fancies 
of  the  poet  as  indicated  in  the  verses  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter.  Indeed,  so  great  were  the  supposed  difficulties, 
and  so  dangerous  the  climate  in  these  parts,  that  sailors 
were  wont  to  say, 

"Quien  se  va  al  Orinoco, 
Si  no  se  muere,  se  vuelve  loco." 1 

When  it  comes  to  navigating  the  less  known  rivers  and 
canos— channels — which,  like  a  network,  intersect  the  delta 
in  every  direction,  the  difficulty  and  danger  are  even  now  so 
great  that  the  most  skilled  Indian  pilots  often  become  be- 
wildered. When  this  occurs  nothing  remains  but  to  follow 
the  current  until  one  reaches  the  gulf,  and  then  enter  a 
branch  with  which  one  is  familiar.  Sir  Walter  gives 
such  a  graphic  account  of  the  difficulties  he  experienced  in 
reaching  "the  great  riuer  Orenoque,"  that  I  reproduce  in 
his  own  words  a  part  of  a  paragraph  bearing  on  the  sub- 
ject. 

After  telling  us  how  his  Indian  pilot  had  gotten  lost  in  the 

i  He  who  goes  to  the  Orinoco  dies  or  becomes  crazy. 

70 


TEINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

maze  of  canos  through  which  he  was  trying  to  grope  his 
way,  he  says:  "If  God  had  not  sent  vs  another  helpe  we 
might  haue  wandred  a  whole  yeere  in  that  laborinth  of 
riuersj  ere  we  had  found  any  way,  either  out  or  in, 
especiallie  after  we  were  past  the  ebbing  and  flowing,  which 
was  in  f ower  daies :  for  I  know  all  the  earth  doth  not  yeeld 
the  like  confluence  of  streames  and  branches,  the  one 
crossing  the  other  as  many  times,  and  all  as  f  aire  and  large 
and  so  like  one  to  another,  as  no  man  can  tell  which  to  take : 
and  if  we  went  by  the  Sun  or  compasse  hoping  thereby  to 
go  directly  one  way  or  other,  yet  that  waie  we  were  also 
carried  in  a  circle  amongst  multitudes  of  Islands,  and  euery 
Island  so  bordered  with  high  trees  as  no  man  could  see  any 
further  than  the  bredth  of  the  riuer,  or  length  of  the 
breach."1 

Exaggerated  as  this  account  seems,  it  does  scant  justice 
to  the  reality.  Ealeigh  had  no  opportunity  to  explore  the 
delta,  and  to  acquire  definite  notions  of  its  immensity,  or 
he  would  have  had  much  more  to  add  to  the  foregoing  de- 
scription of  its  extent  and  marvels.  Even  to-day  we  have 
no  map  of  this  region,  which  is,  in  many  respects,  as  un- 
known as  the  least  explored  part  of  Central  Africa.  As 
yet  our  knowledge  of  land  and  river  is  limited  only  to  its 
most  salient  features,  but  this  is  quite  sufficient  to  excite 
our  wonder.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  area  of  the  delta  is 
greater  than  that  of  Sicily;  that  its  base,  from  its  main 
branch  at  the  Boca  de  Navios  to  the  embouchure  of  the 
Manamo,  is  nearly  two  hundred  miles  in  length;  that  the 
Orinoco,  at  the  bifurcation  of  its  two  principal  branches, 
is  twelves  miles  in  width;  that  there  are  no  fewer  than 
fifty  branches  conveying  the  waters  of  the  mighty  river 
into  the  Atlantic;  that  the  lowlands  of  the  delta  are  divided 
into  thousands  of  islands,  and  islets,  by  a  network  of  rivers 
diverging  in  fan-shape  towards  the  sea,  and  by  innumerable 

i  The  Discovery  of  the  Large,  Rich  and  Beautiful  Empire  of  Guiana,  p.  46, 
edited  by  Sir  Robert  Schomburgk,  printed  for  the  Hakluyt  Society,  London, 
1848. 

71 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

canos  and  bayous,  some  with  stagnant  water,  others  with 
strong  currents,  ramifying  in  every  direction  in  straight 
lines  and  in  curves,  so  that  escape  from  their  intricacies 
by  any  one,  except  an  experienced  pilot,  would  be  as  im- 
possible as  would  have  been  an  exit  from  the  Cretan 
labyrinth  without  the  clew  of  Ariadne. 

When  we  arose  the  morning  after  leaving  Trinidad,  our 
steamer  had  already  advanced  quite  a  distance  on  its  way 
through  the  Macareo.  This  brazo,  or  branch,  is  chosen  not 
because  it  is  the  largest  or  the  deepest,  but  because  it  affords 
the  shortest  and  most  direct  route  between  the  Port-of- 
Spain  and  Ciudad  Bolivar.  Although  the  distance  to  this 
latter  place  from  the  mouth  of  the  Macareo  is  only  two 
hundred  and  sixty  miles,  it  usually  required  nearly  two 
days,  counting  the  stops  on  the  way,  for  the  trip  up  the 
river,  so  strong  is  the  current  The  return  trip,  however, 
can  be  made  in  much  less  time. 

We  shall  never  forget  our  first  view  of  the  Orinoco  and 
of  the  impressions  we  then  received.  Was  it  that  we  were 
at  last  sailing  in  the  placid  waters  of  the  one  river  of  all 
the  world  that  we  had  from  our  youth  most  yearned  to 
behold,  or  was  it  that  we  had  been  dreaming  of  the  site 
and  beauties  of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  as  fancied  by 
Columbus  to  exist  in  these  parts,  or  was  it  because  of  both 
these  elements  combined!  We  know  not,  but  one  thing  is 
certain,  and  that  is  that  our  first  view  of  the  Orinoco  and 
its  forest-shaded  banks,  festooned  with  vines  and  flowers, 
recalled  at  once  those  musical  words  of  Dante, 

"Sweet  hue  of  eastern  sapphire,  that  was  spread 
O'er  the  serene  aspect  of  the  pure  air, 
High  up  as  the  first  circle,  to  mine  eyes 
Unwonted  joy  renewed."  * 

and  brought  vividly  back  to  memory  his  inimitable  descrip- 
tion of  his  entrance  into  the  Garden  of  Eden,  where  he  was 
to  meet  again  his  long-lost  Beatrice. 

i  Purgatorio,  Canto  1,  w.  13-16. 

72 


TEINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

To  emphasize  the  illusion,  there  suddenly  appeared  under 
a  noble  moriche  palm  on  the  flower-enameled  bank  of  the 
river  and  only  a  few  rods  from  where  we  were  standing, 
two  children  of  the  forest — a  young  man  and  a  young 
woman — bride  and  groom,  we  loved  to  think — who  were 
as  Columbus  found  the  American,  as  Adam  and  Eve  were 
after  the  fall,  when,  in  the  words  of  Milton, 

''Those  leaves 

They  gathered,  broad  as  Amazonian  targe, 
And  with  what  skill  they  had,  together  sewed 
To  gird  their  waist " 

Handsome  was  the  youth  and  beautiful  was  the  maiden, 
strong  as  Hiawatha,  fair  as  Minnehaha — both  fit  models 
for  sculptor  and  painter,  and  such  as  the  poet  dreams  of 
when  depicting  his  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  forest 
primeval. 

Were  they  the  king  and  queen  of  their  tribe!  Fancy 
said,  "Yes."  But  whether  they  were  or  not,  one  could 
say  with  truth  that  the  tan-colored  maid  was  like  the  one 
Ealeigh  met  along  this  very  same  river  and  who,  in  his  own 
words,  "was  as  well  fauored  and  as  well  shaped  as  euer 
I  saw  anie  in  England."  1 

Near  this  interesting  young  couple,  both  in  the  heyday  of 
youth,  lay  a  cluster  of  plantains,  which  was  doubtless  to 
contribute  to  their  morning  repast.  But  what  a  coincidence 
that,  even  in  this  trifling  circumstance,  we  should  find  an 

iSir  Robert  Schomburgk  is  no  less  enthusiastic  in  his  praise  of  the 
tawny  beauties  of  this  part  of  South  America.  Commenting  on  Raleigh's 
opinion,  just  quoted,  he  writes  as  follows: — 

'"During  our  eight  years'  wandering  among  the  tribes  of  Guiana,  who 
inhabit  the  vast  regions  from  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  interior,  be- 
tween the  Cassiquiare  and  the  upper  Trombetas,  we  have  met  with  many  an 
Indian  female  who  in  figure  and  comeliness  might  have  vied  with  some  of 
our  European  beauties.  Although  they  are  rather  small  in  size,  their  feet 
and  hands  are  generally  exquisite,  their  ankles  well  turned,  and  their 
waists,  left  to  nature  and  not  forced  into  artificial  shape  by  modern  inven- 
tions, resemble  the  beau  ideal  of  classical  sculpture."— The  Disoowrie  of 
Guiana,  ut  sup.,  p.  41. 

73 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

additional  reminder  of  the  Earthly  Paradise!  Have  not 
men  of  science  named  the  plantain  Musa  Paradisaica,  in 
allusion  to  the  tradition,  which  has  long  obtained,  that  it 
was  the  plantain,  and  not  the  apple,  that  was  the  forbidden 
fruit  in  Eden  I l  It  was  there  to  fill  out  the  picture  as  an 
artist  in  the  tropics  would  wish  to  see  it  painted. 

But  there  was  still  something  wanting.  While  we  were 
yet  under  the  spell  of  ,our  environment,  and  lost  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  Edenic  beauties  around  us,  we  were 
awakened  from  our  reverie  by  a  plunge  and  a  splash  be- 
fore the  prow  of  our  vessel — and  there,  greatest  surprise 
of  all  in  our  series  of  coincidences,  was  a  giant  anaconda, 
full  thirty  feet  long,  vigorously  plowing  its  way  to  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  river.  It  was  like  the  water-snakes 
in  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner. 

"Blue,  glossy,  green  and  velvet  black, 
It  coiled  and  swam, 
And  when  it  reared,  the  elfish  light 
Fell  off  in  hoary  flakes." 

So  startling  was  this  strange  apparition  that  we  could 
scarcely  credit  our  senses,  and,  had  it  not  been  for  exclama- 
tions of  surprise  by  several  of  the  passengers  near  by,  we 
should  have  thought,  for  a  while,  that  it  was  all  a  dream. 
The  picture  was  now  complete.  There  was  the  serpent 
in  this  paradise  of  delights,  as  in  the  paradise  of  our  first 

iThe  reader,  I  am  sure,  will  be  interested  in  the  following  paragraph 
from  Peter  Martyr  on  the  plantain. 

Speaking  of  the  fruit  of  the  Cassia  tree  (as  he  calls  the  plantain),  he,  in 
Michael  Lok's  translation,  says, — 

"The  Egyptian  common  people  babble  that  this  is  the  apple  of  our  first 
created  Father  Adam,  whereby  hee  ouerthrewe  all  mankinde.  The  straunge 
and  farraine  Marchantes  of  vnprofitable  Spices,  perfumes,  Arabian  Ysemi- 
nating  odours,  and  woorthlesse  precious  stones  trading  those  Countries  for 
gainej  call  those  fruites  the  Muses.  For  mine  owne  part  I  cannot  call 
to  minde,  by  what  name  I  might  call  that  tree  or  stalke  in  Latine,"  p.  273. 
De  Novo  Orbe,  the  Historic  of  the  West  Indies,  comprised  in  eight  Decades 
whereof  three  haue  beene  formerly  translated  into  English  by  R.  Eden, 
whereunto  the  other  fiue  are  newly  added  by  the  Industrie  and  painfull 
Trauaile  of  M.  Lok,  Gent.,  London,  1612. 

74 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  OEINOCO 

parents.  And  what  added  to  the  strangeness— the  un- 
canniness — of  the  appearance  of  the  serpent  at  this  par- 
ticular juncture  was  the  extraordinary  rarity  of  such  an 
occurrence.  One  of  the  officers  of  the  steamer  told  us  that 
he  had  been  sailing  up  and  down  the  Orinoco  for  twenty 
years  and  had  never  seen  one  of  these  boas  before.  And 
more  wonderful  still,  it  was  the  first  and  last  we  ourselves 
saw,  although  we  subsequently  traveled  many  thousands 
of  miles  on  tropical  rivers  along  which  such  serpents  have 
their  habitat1 

All  in  all,  our  first  view  of  the  Orinoco  fully' met  our 
fondest  expectations  so  far  as  they  related  to  variety  and 
exuberance  of  vegetation  and  beauty  of  scenery.  The  entire 
delta  of  the  Orinoco  may  aptly  be  described  as  one  of 
Nature's  choicest  conservatories,  in  which  Flora  has 
collected  together  the  fairest  growths  of  garden  and  forest, 
and  where  the  charm  of  foliage  and  flower  is  enhanced  by 
the  presence  of  countless  species  of  the  feathered  tribe  of 
richest  plumage  and  of  dazzling  hue. 

A  distinguished  German  traveler,  Friedrich  Gerstacher, 
writing  of  his  impressions  of  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco, 
does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  "  there  is  not  in  the  world 
anything  more  glorious  in  vegetation  than  is  to  be  seen  on 
the  banks  of  the  Orinoco, "  and  that  there  is  no  place  more 
attractive  to  the  tourist.2 

iThe  Anaconda  is  called  by  the  inhabitants  of  Guiana,  La  Culebra  de 
Agua,  or  Water  Serpent.  It  is  also  named  El  Traga  Venado— Deer  Swal- 
lower— while  in  British  Guiana  it  is  known  as  the  Camoudi.  Mr.  Water- 
ton,  speaking  of  it,  says,  "The  Camoudi  snake  has  been  killed  from  thirty 
to  forty  feet  long;  though  not  venomous,  his  size  renders  him  destructive  to 
the  passing  animals.  The  Spaniards  in  the  Oroonoque  positively  affirm  that 
he  grows  to  the  length  of  seventy  or  eighty  feet,  and  that  he  will  destroy 
the  strongest  and  largest  bull.  His  name  seems  to  confirm  this;  there  he 
is  called  'matatoro,'  which  literally  means  Trail-killer.'  Thus  he  may  be 
ranked  among  the  deadly  snakes;  for  it  comes  nearly  to  the  same  thing  in 
the  end,  whether  the  victim  dies  by  poison  from  the  fangs,  which  corrupts 
his  blood,  and  makes  it  stink  horribly,  or  whether  his  body  be  crushed  to 
mummy,  and  swallowed  by  this  hideous  beast." — Wanderings  in  South 
America,  First  Journey. 

2  Neue  Reteen,  p.  698,  Berlin.    Cf.  Wandertage  eine*  Deutachen  Touriaten 

75 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

To  form  some  conception  of  the  wonderful  variety  of 
vegetable  life  to  be  seen  in  the  delta,  it  will  suffice  to  observe 
that  a  third  of  a  century  ago  botanists  had  counted  in  the 
forests  of  Guiana  no  fewer  than  132  families  of  plants, 
772  genera  and  2,450  distinct  species.  Of  the  genera  more 
than  sixty  were  indigenous. 

Although  we  saw  many  things  in  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco 
that  possessed  intense  interest  for  us,  we  saw  none  of  the 
natives  living  in  houses  built  on  the  summits  of  trees,  about 
which  some  recent  writers,  following  Ealeigh,  Humboldt 
and  others,  still  entertain  their  readers.  To  tell  the  truth, 
we  did  not  expect  to  find  such  dwellings,  as  it  has  been 
demonstrated  beyond  question  that  they  do  not  now  exist, 
and  probably  never  did  exist  in  these  parts  outside  of  the 
fertile  imaginations  of  Ealeigh  and  Ghimilla.  Humboldt 
never  visited  the  delta,  and  hence,  what  he  says  on  the 
subject  in  Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  to  the  Equinoctial 
Regions,  is  based  on  reports  received  from  others.1 

Cardinal  Bembo,  writing  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  speaks  of  them,  and  Benzoni,  his  contemporary, 
who  spent  fifteen  years  in  traveling  in  the  New  World, 
illustrates  by  an  engraving  what  he  has  to  say  about  the 
Indian  houses  built  on  the  tops  of  trees.2 

Ferdinand  Columbus,  who,  although  a  mere  youth,  had 
accompanied  his  father  on  his  fourth  voyage,  writes,  that 

tw  Strom  und  Kustengebiet  des  Orinoko,  Chap.  XXXIII-XXXV,  von  Erber- 
hard  Graf  zu  Broach,  Leipzig,  1892. 

i"The  navigator/'  writes  the  illustrious  savant,  "in  proceeding  along 
the  channels  of  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco  at  night,  sees  with  surprise  the 
summit  of  the  palm  trees  illumined  by  large  fires.  These  are  the  habitations 
of  the  Guarons  ( Tit i vitas  and  Waraweties  of  Raleigh),  which  are  sus- 
pended from  the  trunks  of  trees.  These  tribes  hang  up  mats  in  the  air, 
which  they  fill  with  earth,  and  kindle,  on  a  layer  of  moist  clay,  the  fire 
necessary  for  their  household  wants.  They  had  owed  their  liberty  and  their 
political  independence  for  ages  to  the  quaking  and  swampy  soil,  which  they 
pass  over  in  the  time  of  drought,  and  on  which  they  alone  know  how  to 
walk  in  security  to  their  solitude  in  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco;  to-  their 
abode  on  the  trees,  where  religious  enthusiasm  will  probably  never  lead 
any  American  stylites.  Vol.  Ill,  Chap.  XXV. 

2  History  of  the  New  World,  printed  for  the  Hakluyt  Society,  pp.  237,  238 

76 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

when  in  the  Gulf  of  Uraba,  "We  saw  people  living  like 
birds  in  the  tops  of  trees,  laying  sticks  across  from  bough 
to  bough,  and  building  their  huts  upon  them;  and  though 
we  knew  not  the  reason  of  the  custom,  we  guessed  that  it 
was  done  for  fear  of  their  enemies,  or  of  the  griffins  that 
are  in  this  island,"  * 

Peter  Martyr,  who  most  likely  got  his  information  about 
these  strange  dwellings  from  Ferdinand  Columbus,  tells  us 
that  the  trees  on  which  they  were  built  were  of  "suche 
heighth,  that  the  strength  of  no  mane's  arme  is  able  to  hurle 
a  stone  to  the  houses  buylded  therein."  He  adds,  however, 
that  the  owners  of  the  houses  have  "theyr  wyne  cellers  in 
the  grounde  and  well  replenysshed."  And  he  vouchsafes 
the  reason  for  not  keeping  the  wine,  with  "all  other  neces- 
sayre  thinges  they  haue,  with  theym  in  the  trees.  For 
albeit  that  the  vehemencie  of  the  wynde,  is  not  of  poure  to 
caste  downe  those  houses,  or  to  breeke  the  branches  of  the 
trees,,  yet  are  they  tossed  therwith,  and  swaye  sumwhat 
from  syde  to  syde,  by  reason  therof,  the  wyne  shulde  be 
muche  troubeled  with  moouinge.  .  .  .  When  the  Kynge 
or  any  of  the  other  noblemen,  dyne  or  suppe  in  these  trees, 
theyr  wynes  are  brought  theym  from  the  celleres  by  theyr 
seruantes,  whyche  by  meanes  of  exercise  are  accustomed 
with  noo  lesse  celeritie  to  runne  vppe  and  downe  the  steares 
adherete  to  the  tree,  then  doo  owre  waytynge  boyes  vppon 
the  playne  grounde,  f etche  vs  what  wee  caule  for  from  the 
cobbarde  by  syde  owr  dynynge  table." 

As  to  the  size  of  the  trees  the  same  writer  avers,  "Owr 
men  measuringe  manye  of  these  trees,  founde  them  to  bee 
of  suche  biggnes,  that  seuen  men,  ye  sumetymes  eight, 
holdinge  hande  in  hande  with  theyr  armes  streached  f urthe, 
were  scarcely  able  to  fathame  them  aboute."  2 

Raleigh  had  evidently  read  some  of  these  accounts  about 
people  living  on  tree  tops,  but  not  satisfied  with  the  Mun- 

1  Historia  del  Almirante  de  las  Indias,  Don  Cristobal  Colon,  Escrita  por 
Don  Fernando  Colto,  p.  178,  Madrid,  1892. 

2  Dec.  II,  Bk.  IV,  Eden's  translation. 

77 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

chausen  tales  of  his  predecessors,  he  proceeds  to  entertain 
his  readers  with  stories  as  marvelous  as  those  of  Sindbad 
the  Sailor. 

Writing  of  the  Indians  of  the  delta,  he  says:  "In  the 
winter  they  dwell  vpon  the  trees,  where  they  build  very 
artificiall  towns,  and  villages,  .  .  .  for  between  May 
and  September,  the  riuer  Orenoke  riseth  thirtie  foote 
vpright,  and  then  are  those  Hands  ouerflowen  twentie  foote 
high  aboue  the  leuell  of  the  ground,  sauing  some  few  raised 
grounds  in  the  middle  of  them.  .  .  .  They  neuer  eate 
of  anie  thing  that  is  set  or  sowen,  and  as  at  home  they  vse 
neither  planting  nor  other  manurance,  so  when  they  com 
abroad  the  refuse  to  feede  of  ought  but  of  that  which 
nature  without  labor  bringeth  foorth."  l 

Of  the  Waraus,  the  Indians  who  inhabit  the  delta,  the 
missionary,  Padre  Gumilla,  writes  that  when  their  islands 
are  periodically  inundated  by  the  rise  of  the  Orinoco,  they 
erect  their  huts  on  piles — not  on  trees,  as  Raleigh  states — 
above  the  water.  Furthermore,  he  tells  us  that  these  huts 
are  made  of  the  moriche  palm,  which  grows  abundantly 
in  these  islands,  and  are  covered  with  the  leaves  of  it. 
From  the  fibres  of  the  leaf,  they  make  their  hammocks  and 
their  cords  for  fishing  and  for  bowstrings. 

Around  the  pulpy  shoot  that  ascends  from  the  trunks 
is  a  web-like  integument  that  serves  them  for  the  slight 
covering  they  wear.  On  the  productions  of  this  tree,  also, 
they  entirely  subsist.  The  pulpy  shoot  is  eaten  as  cabbage, 
and  the  tree  bears  a  fruit  like  the  date,  but  somewhat  larger. 
When  the  inundation  ceases,  the  tree  is  cut  down,  and  being 
perforated,  a  palatable  juice  exudes,  from  which  they  make 
a  drink.  The  interior  substance  of  it  is  then  taken  out 
and  thrown  into  vessels  of  water  and  well  washed  and  the 
ligneous  fibres  being  removed,  a  white  sediment  is  de- 
posited, which,  dried  in  the  sun,  is  made  into  a  very  whole- 
some bread.2 

iOp.  tit.,  pp.  50,  51. 

a  With  reason  does  the  pious  missionary  call  the  moriche  palm— Mauritia 

78 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

Accepting  the  foregoing  statements  as  true,  Humboldt 
philosophizes  as  follows:  "It  is  curious  to  observe  in  the 
lowest  degree  of  civilization  the  existence  of  a  whole  tribe 
depending  on  a  single  species  of  palm  tree,  similar  to  those 
insects  which  feed  on  one  and  the  same  flower,  or  on  one 
and  the  same  part  of  a  plant.  "  1 

Yet,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  written  about  the 
Indians  of  the  Orinoco  delta  living  on  the  tops  of  trees, 
and  depending  on  only  the  moriche  palm  for  food  and 
raiment,  it  is  certain  that  they  do  not  do  so  now,  and  it  is 
almost  equally  certain  that  they  have  never  done  so  in  the 
past.  Truth  to  tell,  these  stories  seem  to  repose  on  little 
better  foundation  than  those  so  long  circulated  and  credited 
regarding  Lake  Parime,  and  the  great  city  of  Manoa  —  the 
home  of  El  Dorado. 

Ealeigh  had  no  time  or  opportunity  to  explore  the  delta, 
and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  in  this,  as  in  other 
matters,  he  gave  free  reign  to  his  fancy  to  satisfy  his 
reader's  desire  for  the  marvelous.  Gundlla,  apparently, 
got  his  information  regarding  these  particular  subjects  at 
secondhand.  He  spent  many  years  on  the  middle  Orinoco 
and  some  of  its  affluents,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he 
was  ever  in  a  position  to  verify  the  stories  so  long  current 
regarding  the  manner  of  living  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
delta. 

The  fact  is,  no  one,  so  far  as  known,  ever  made  any 
attempt  to  explore  the  interior  of  the  delta  until  more  than 
two  centuries  after  Ealeigh  's  time  and  until  nearly  a  half 


nuevo  arbol  de  la  vida,  y  milagro  del  Supremo  Autor  de  la 
naturaleza"  —  a  new  tree  of  life,  and  a  miracle  of  the  Author  of  Nature  — 
for  this  tree  alone  furnishes  the  Indian  with  viotum  et  amictwn  —  food  and 
raiment.  —  Historia  Natural  Civil  y  Qeografica  de  las  naoiones  siMadas  en 
las  Riberas  del  Rio  Orinoco,  Vol.  I,  Cap.  IX,  Barcelona,  1882.  Compare  the 
following  lines  of  Thomson's  Seasons:  — 

"Wide  o'er  his  isles,  the  brandling  Oronoque 
Rolls  a  brown  deluge,  and  the  native  drives 
To  dwell  aloft  on  life-sufficing  trees, 
At  once  his  home,  his  robe,  his  food,  his  arms." 
iQp.  cit.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  9. 

7  79 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

century  after  Humboldt's  visit  to  the  valley  of  the  Orinoco. 
As  a  consequence,  all  that  had  been  reported  by  earlier 
writers  was  exaggeration  and  guesswork,  if  not  pure  in- 
vention. 

Sir  Eobert  Schomburgk,  who,  as  Her  Majesty's  commis- 
sioner to  survey  the  boundaries  of  British  Guiana,  explored 
the  delta  in  1841 — and  some  months  of  his  sojourn  there 
was  during  the  rainy  season — states  explicitly,  that  not  in 
a  single  instance  did  he  find  Indians  dwelling  on  trees, 
"We  can  well  suppose  that  the  numerous  fires  which  were 
made  in  each  hut,  and  the  reflection  of  which  was  the 
stronger  in  consequence  of  the  stream  of  vapor  around  the 
summit  of  trees  in  those  moist  regions,  illuminated  at  night 
the  adjacent  trees;  but  the  fire  itself  was  scarcely  ever 
made  on  the  top  of  a  tree.  The  inundation  rises  at  the 
delta  seldom  higher  than  three  or  four  feet  above  the  banks 
of  the  rivers;" — not  twenty  or  thirty  feet,  as  Ealeigh 
asserts — "and  if  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  sea 
and  the  level  nature  of  the  land  be  considered,  this  is  an 
enormous  rise."  l 

Herr  Appun,  who  visited  the  delta  some  years  subse- 
quently to  Schomburgk 's  sojourn  there,  declares,  "I  have 
lived  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  among  the  Waraus  of 
the  Orinoco  delta,  and  those  of  the  east  coast  of  South 
America,  from  Cape  Sabinetta  to  Cape  Nassau,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Pomeroon  river  in  British  Guiana,  both  during  the 
dry  and  the  rainy  season,  and  never  have  I  beheld  any  of  the 
aerial  dwellings  that  have  been  described."2 

The  one,  however,  who  has  most  thoroughly  explored  the 
interior  of  the  delta  is  Sr.  Andres  E.  Level,  who  spent 
several  years  among  the  Waraus,  or  Guaraunos,  as  they 
are  called  by  the  Spaniards.  His  investigations  have  com- 
pletely exploded  the  false  notions  so  long  entertained  re- 
garding the  delta  and  its  inhabitants.  The  land  is  not  all 
an  impassable  swamp.  Much  of  it  is  so  elevated  above 

i  Discoverie  of  Gviana,  p.  60. 
2  Unter  den  Trvpen,  Erster  Band,  p.  521,  Jena,  1871. 

80 


TRINIDAD  AND  THE  ORINOCO 

the  river  that  it  is  never  reached  by  the  high  floods  of  the 
Orinoco. 

Its  soil  is  even  more  fertile  than  that  of  the  Nile  valley 
and  produces  every  tropical  fruit  and  tree  in  the  greatest 
profusion.  Game  is  abundant,  and  the  Indians  have  ex- 
tensive rancherias  —  plantations  —  which  supply  them  grain, 
fruits  and  vegetables  of  all  kinds.  In  the  rivers  near  by 
they  have  the  greatest  variety  of  fish,  besides  turtle  that 
would  be  the  delight  of  the  epicure. 

As  the  Waraus  of  the  interior  are  a  timid  people  and 
have  long  since  learned  to  distrust  the  white  man,  they 
remain,  as  a  rule,  concealed  in  the  depths  of  forests  that 
are  impassable.  They  are,  however,  a  quiet,  industrious, 
home-loving  people,  and  are  famous  among  the  tribes  in 
this  section  of  Guiana  for  their  beautiful  curiaras,  or 
canoes  —  made  from  a  single  log  of  the  cedar,  or  of  a  tree 
called  Bioci.  Some  of  these  dugouts  —  the  monoxyla  of  the 
Greeks  —  are  full  fifty  feet  long  and  from  five  to  six  feet 
broad  and  find  a  ready  sale  as  far  south  as  Demerara. 

Far  from  being  a  dismal  swamp,  inhabited  only  by  poor, 
starving  savages,  condemned  to  live  on  tree  tops,  and  to 
find  food  and  clothing  in  a  single  palm,  Sr.  Level  1  shows 
us  that  the  delta  is  a  garden  of  exceeding  richness  and  that 
the  Indians,  if  the  government  did  its  duty  towards  them 
by  developing  the  marvelous  resources  of  their  land  and 
by  giving  its  inhabitants,  so  long  neglected,  some  measure 
of  attention  and  assistance,  would  eventually  make  efficient 
contributors  to  the  national  revenue,  and  become  desirable 
citizens  of  the  republic. 


Delta  del  Orinoco  tornado  de  la  esploracion  al  alto  lajo  Orinoco  y 
central  en  1&50,  por  Andres  E.  Level,  Vol.  Ill,  de  la  Memoria  de  la  Dire* 
don  General  de  Estradistica  al  Presidente  de  los  Estados  Unidos  de  Vene- 
vuela,  en  1873. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  GEEAT  EIVEE 

"What  a  wide  river!"  was  the  exclamation  of  a  fellow- 
passenger  as  our  steamer  passed  out  of  the  Macareo  and 
turned  the  apex  of  the  delta.  It  was,  indeed,  very  wide, 
and  the  bank  of  the  Orinoco  on  our  port-quarter  was  almost 
invisible.  Here,  even  during  the  dry  season,  this  mighty 
water  course  is  no  less  than  four  leagues  in  width.  We 
now,  for  the  first  time,  fully  realized  that  we  were  sailing 
on  the  broad  waters  of  one  of  the  world's  master  rivers. 
After  the  Parana  and  the  Amazon,  it  is  the  largest  water- 
way in  South  America,  and,  for  the  volume  of  water  it 
carries  into  the  ocean,  it  ranks  with  the  Mississippi,  the 
Congo,  Yang-tse-Kiang,  and  the  Brahmaputra.  Well  have 
the  natives  of  the  lands  through  which  it  flows  named  it  the 
Great  Eiver — f or  it  is  great  in  every  way — great  in  the  im- 
mense basin  it  drains ;  great  in  the  tribute  it  carries  to  the 
ocean,  and  great  in  the  number  and  magnitude  of  the  rivers 
it  counts  among  its  affluents,  from  the  distant  Cordilleras. 

As  along  the  Macareo,  so  here  along  the  Orinoco,  one 
never  tires  of  gazing  at  the  magnificent  forest  trees  and 
the  dense  shrubbery  with  which  the  banks  are  fringed.  At 
one  time  it  is  the  wide-branched  ceiba,  covered  with  bright- 
blooming  epiphytes ;  at  another  a  clump  of  graceful  moriche 
palms,  whose  tremulous  plumes  are  given  an  added  beauty 
by  the  presence  of  a  bevy  of  multicolored  parrots  and 
macaws.  The  foliage  of  tree  and  shrub  is  here  ever  fresh 
and  luxuriant  and  retains  always  that  delicate  hue  so 
characteristic  of  the  leafage  of  our  northern  woodlands  in 
the  early  days  of  spring. 

Most  of  the  trees,  large  and'  small,  are  literally  weighed 

82 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

down  with  parasites  and  epiphytes.  Among  the  latter 
growths  are  orchids  of  countless  variety  and  rarest  beauty, 
such  as  are  seldom  seen  in  our  northern  floral  conserva- 
tories. And  the  way  in  which  the  trees  are  held  together 
by  those  strange  forms  of  vegetable  life — so  abundant  in 
the  tropics — the  bejucos  or  bush  ropes!  Sometimes  they 
are  as  thick  as  a  man's  arm,  sometimes  they  are  like  a 
ship's  cable,  sometimes  they  may  be  mistaken  for  telegraph 
wires — so  long  and  fine  are  they.  They  extend  from  the 
ground  to  the  tops  of  the  highest  trees,  or  drop  from  the 
summits  of  the  loftiest  monarchs  of  the  forest  to  the  earth 
beneath,  sometimes  singly,  sometimes  by  scores.  Then 
again  they  cross  one  another  from  tree  to  tree  and  form  a 
trelliswork  that  at  times  is  next  to  impassable.  And  these 
bejucos,  or  lianas,  as  they  are  also  called,  are,  like  the  trees, 
burdened  with  air-plants  of  various  species,  at  one  time 
large  masses  of  leaves,  at  another  long  spikes  of  the  richest 
blossoms, 

At  almost  every  turn  the  vision  is  delighted  by  lovely 
arboreal  groups  and  charming  natural  bowers,  all  graced 
with  the  most  gorgeous  combinations  of  emerald  foliage 
a3ad  ruby  bloom — interspersed  with  delicate  tufts  of  lilac, 
pink  and  canary — and  illumined  by  gleams  of  flitting  sun- 
shine which  bring  out  a  glorious  play  of  color  effects  with 
which  the  eye  is  never  tired.  "A  dryad's  home,"  we  heard 
an  enthusiastic  senorita  exclaim,  as  we  passed  one  of  these 
flower-decked  bowers,  on  which  glittered  the  checkered 
sunlight  And  so  well  it  might  be,  it  was  so  rare  a  gem 
of  sylvan  loveliness. 

While  passing  up  this  majestic  river  and  admiring  the 
ever-varying  panorama  of  rarest  floral  beauty,  we  re- 
called a  couple  of  paragraphs  in  Darwin's  Journal  of  Re- 
searches, in  which  he  refers  to  the  futility  of  attempting 
to  describe,  for  one  who  has  never  visited  the  tropics,  the 
wonders  of  the  scenery  there  and  above  all  the  marvels  of 
the  vegetable  world.  He  expresses  himself  as  follows: 

"Such  are  the  elements  of  the  scenery,  but  it  is  a  hopeless 

83 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

attempt  to  paint  the  general  effect.  Learned  naturalists 
describe  these  scenes  of  the  tropics  by  naming  a  multitude 
of  objects,  and  mentioning  some  characteristic  feature  of 
each.  To  a  learned  traveler  this  possibly  may  com- 
municate some  definite  ideas;  but  who  else  from  seeing  a 
plant  in  an  herbarium  can  imagine  its  appearance  when 
growing  in  its  native  soil!  Who  from  seeing  choice  plants 
in  a  hothouse,  can  magnify  some  into  the  dimensions  of 
forest  trees,  and  crowd  others  into  an  entangled  jungle? 
"Who,  when  examining  in  the  cabinet  of  the  entomologist 
the  gay  exotic  butterflies,  and  singular  cicadas,  will 
associate  with  these  lifeless  objects,  the  ceaseless  harsh 
music  of  the  latter,  and  the  lazy  flight  of  the  former — the 
sure  accompaniments  of  the  still,  glowing  noonday  of  the 
tropics?  It  is  when  the  sun  has  attained  its  greatest  height, 
that  such  scenes  should  be  viewed;  then  the  dense,  splendid 
foliage  of  the  mango  hides  the  ground  with  its  darkest 
shade,  whilst  the  upper  branches  are  rendered,  from  the 
profusion  of  light,  of  the  most  brilliant  green.  In  the 
temperate  zones  the  case  is  different — the  vegetation  there 
is  not  so  dark  or  so  rich,  and  hence  the  rays  of  the  declining 
sun,  tinged  of  a  red,  purple,  or  bright  yellow  color,  add 
most  to  the  beauties  of  those  climes. 

"When  quietly  walking  along  the  shady  pathways,  and 
admiring  each  successive  view,  I  wished  to  find  language 
to  express  my  ideas.  Epithet  after  epithet  was  found  too 
weak  to  convey  to  those  who  have  not  visited  the  inter- 
tropical  regions,  the  sensation  of  delight  which  the  mind 
experiences.  I  have  said  that  the  plants  in  a  hothouse  fail 
to  communicate  a  just  idea  of  the  vegetation,  yet  I  must 
recur  to  it.  The  land  is  one  great  wild,  untidy,  luxuriant 
hothouse,  made  by  Nature  for  herself,  but  taken  possession 
of  by  man,  who  has  studded  it  with  gay  houses  and  formal 
gardens.  How  great  would  be  the  desire  in  every  admirer 
of  Nature  to  behold,  if  such  were  possible,  the  scenery  of 
another  planet!  yet  to  every  person  in  Europe,  it  may  be 
truly  said,  that  at  the  distance  of  only  a  few  degrees  from 

84 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

his  native  soil,  the  glories  of  another  world  are  opened  to 
him.  In  my  last  walk  I  stopped  again  and  again  to  gaze 
on  these  beauties,  and  endeavored  to  fix  in  my  mind  for 
ever,  an  impression  which  at  the  time  I  knew  sooner  or 
later  must  fail.  The  form  of  the  orange  tree,  the  cocoa- 
nut,  the  palm,  the  mango,  the  tree-fern,  the  banana,  will 
remain  clear  and  separate;  but  the  thousand  beauties  which 
unite  these  into  one  perfect  scene  must  fade  away;  yet 
they  will  leave,  like  a  tale  heard  in  childhood,  a  picture  full 
of  indistinct,  but  most  beautiful  figures. "  l 

While  the  flora  of  the  Orinoco,  near  the  apex  of  the  delta, 
is  so  varied  and  exuberant,  but  little  is  seen  of  its  fauna, 
notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  and  written  to  the 
contrary.  In  a  recent  work,  for  instance,  written  by  one 
who  pretends  to  have  made  the  trip  from  Trinidad,  is  a 
sentence  that  will  equal  any  of  the  extravagances  of  Jules 
Verne's  Le  Superbe  Orenoque. 

"The  jaguar, "  says  the  author,  "will  stop  drinking,  or 
the  tapir  look  up  from  browsing  on  the  grass,  and  the 
monkey  pause  in  swinging  from  tree  to  tree,  as  the  boats 
hurry  noisily  by,  while  the  drowsy  alligator  or  manatee 
floats  lazily  on,  his  head  half  out  of  the  water,  until  perhaps 
a  conical  bullet  from  a  Winchester  rifle  or  from  a  revolver, 
which  everyone  carries,  rouses  hi™  to  a  knowledge  that  it 
is  not  good  to  trust  too  much  to  mankind." 

It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  neither  the  author  of  the  work 
quoted  nor  any  one  else  has  ever  seen  a  jaguar,  or  a  tapir 
or  a  manatee  under  the  circumstances  mentioned.  They 
are  all  timid  animals  and  are  never  seen  from  the  deck 
of  noisy  steamers. 

Although  we  saw  no  quadrupeds  like  those  just  men- 
tioned, there  were  countless  birds,  large  and  small.  Those 
that  were  most  conspicuous  were  ibises,  flamingoes  and 
herons  of  various  species.  So  numerous  at  times  were  the 
flamingoes  that,  to  borrow  an  idea  from  Trowbridge,  the 
sunrise  flame  of  their  reflected  forms  actually  crimsoned 

i  Chapter  XXXI. 

85 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

"the  glassy  wave  and  glistening  sands. "  Of  the  herons, 
the  largest  species  is  named  by  the  natives  soldado — a 
soldier — so  called  both  from  its  size  and  the  stately  attitude 
it  assumes,  which,  at  a  distance,  gives  it  th6  appearance  of 
a  sentry  on  duty. 

A  flock  of  these  tall,  white  birds,  seen  feeding  in  an  ever- 
glade in  Cuba  was,  during  the  second  voyage  of  Columbus, 
taken  for  a  party  of  men  clad  in  white  tunics,  and  led  the 
Admiral  to  believe  that  they  were  inhabitants  of  Mangon, 
a  province  just  south  of  Cathay.  Indeed,  so  striking  is 
their  resemblance  to  men  posted  as  sentinels  that,  accord- 
ing to  Humboldt,  "the  inhabitants  of  Angostura,  soon  after 
the  foundation  of  their  city,  were  one  day  alarmed  by  the 
sudden  appearance  of  soldados  and  garzas,  on  a  mountain 
towards  the  south.  They  believed  they  were  menaced  with 
an  attack  of  Indios  monteros,  wild  Indians,  called  moun- 
taineers; and  the  people  were  not  perfectly  tranquilized 
till  they  saw  the  birds  soaring  in  the  air  and  continuing 
their  migration  towards  the  mouths  of  the  Orinoco. "  * 

Our  first  stopping  place  was  Barrancas,  a  small  and 
squalid  village  of  mud,  palm-thatched  huts.  It  is  situated 
in  the  centre  of  one  of  the  finest  grazing  regions  of 
Venezuela  and  under  a  wise  and  progressive  government, 
would  soon  become  a  place  of  considerable  importance. 

In  the  time  of  the  Franciscan  Missions  here,  suppressed 
nearly  a  century  ago,  the  herds  that  roamed  the  beautiful 
undulating  prairies  on  both  sides  of  the  Orinoco  counted 
no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  cattle,  and 
with  the  markets  that  could  easily  be  had  for  beef  and  hides, 
this  number  could,  under  favorable  conditions,  be  greatly 
increased.  As  it  is,  however,  it  is  known  rather  as  a 
favorite  rendezvous  for  that  numerous  class  of  revolution- 
ists for  whom  the  country  is  so  noted,  that  have  been  born 
insolvent,  but  who,  by  grandiloquent  pronunciamientos,  and 
through  the  cooperation  of  hungry  spoil-seekers  like  them- 
selves, hope  one  day  to  improve  their  financial  condition. 

iOp.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  255,  256. 

86 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

Near  Barrancas  we  were  shown  the  spot  where  General 
Antonio  Paredes  and  his  confiding  followers  were  shot  in 
cold  blood,  a  few  days  before  our  arrival,  in  pursuance  of 
an  order,  we  were  told,  that  President  Castro  had  issued 
from  his  sick  bed  in  Macuto.  This  speedy,  albeit  uncon- 
stitutional, disposition  of  the  leaders  of  what  was  heralded 
as  a  great  popular  reform  movement  was  designed  to  put 
a  quietus  on  other  revolutionists  who  were  making  or 
preparing  to  make  pronunciamientos  in  various  parts  of 
the  republic.  It  did  not,  however,  seem  to  have  the  desired 
effect,  as  during  our  sojourn  in  the  country  two  other 
revolutions  cropped  out  when  least  expected.  For  a  while 
one  of  these  gave  the  government  very  grave  concern 
but  was  finally  suppressed;  not,  however,  until  the  country 
had  suffered  by  anticipation  many  of  the  miseries  of  in- 
ternecine strife. 

Before  our  departure  from  Caracas,  we  tried  in  vain  to 
get  some  information  not  only  about  the  dates  of  sailing  of 
the  Orinoco  steamers  but  also  about  their  character.  After 
leaving  the  capital,  some  of  our  friends  tried  to  dissuade 
us  from  our  projected  trip  to  Ciudad  Bolivar,  assuring  us 
that  the  only  craft  plying  up  and  down  the  river  were  filthy 
cattle  boats  unfit  for  a  white  man  to  enter.  Imagine  our 
surprise,  then,  when  we  found  that  our  vessel,  far  from 
being  the  unclean,  poorly-provisioned  boat  that  had  been 
pictured  to  us,  was  in  every  way  fairly  comfortable,  and 
with  a  cuisine  and  service  that  were  far  from  bad.  In  con- 
struction and  general  arrangement,  it  was  not  unlike  the 
smaller  double-decked  steamers  on  the  Hudson  river  or  on 
our  northern  lakes.  Our  cabins  were  spacious,  with  broad 
berths,  and  clean  bedding  and  furniture.  Indeed,  we  have 
often  had  cabins  in  our  large  transatlantic  steamers  in 
which  there  was  less  of  comfort  and  convenience  than  were 
afforded  by  our  cabin  in  this  unpretending  boat  on  the 
Orinoco. 

As  to  the  passengers,  they  were  quite  a  cosmopolitan 
crowd.  Among  them  were  some  Europeans  and  several 

87 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Americans,  but  the  greater  number  were  Venezuelans — 
most  of  them  bound  for  Ciudad  Bolivar.  Of  the  Americans 
there  were  two  men  in  quest  of  fortune  in  the  celebrated 
Yuruari  mining  district  in  southern  G-uiana. 

The  upper  deck  of  the  boat  was  reserved  for  the  first- 
class  passengers,  while  the  lower  one  was  occupied  by  those 
of  the  second-class,  and  by  such  freight  as  was  carried  up 
and  down  the  river.  On  returning  to  the  Port-of-Spain, 
the  steamer  usually  carried  about  two  hundred  head  of 
cattle  for  the  Trinidad  market.  When  these  were  taken  on 
board  at  night,  as  sometimes  happened,  sleep  was  impos- 
sible. What  with  the  tramping  and  bellowing  of  the 
affrighted  brutes  below  us  and  the  shouting  of  the  cattle- 
men and  crew,  there  was  a  veritable  pandemonium  which 
continued  the  greater  part  of  the  night. 

Frequently  there  are  not  enough  cabins  for  the  pas- 
sengers. But  this  makes  very  little  difference  to  the  Vene- 
zuelan. He  simply  swings  his  chinchorro — hammock — 
between  two  stanchions  of  the  vessel  and  is  soon  calmly 
reposing  in  slumberland.  Indeed,  many  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  tropics  prefer  a  hammock  to  a  bed,  and  do  not  apply 
for  a  stateroom  when  traveling  on  the  rivers  of  equatorial 
America. 

The  second-class  passengers  sleep  in  their  hammocks  if 
they  happen  to  have  them;  if  not,  they  lie  down  anywhere 
they  can  find  room  and  are  soon  fast  asleep.  Many  of 
them  have  no  beds  at  home,  except  a  mat,  a  rawhide,  or  the 
lap  of  Mother  Earth,  and  the  absence  of  a  bed  or  hammock 
is  no  appreciable  privation  to  them. 

There  is  no  more  curious  sight  than  is  presented  at  night 
on  a  crowded  river  steamer  in  the  tropics.  One  sees  scores 
of  hammocks  swung  in  every  conceivable  place.  All  davits 
and  stanchions,  all  uprights  and  crosspieces  are  provided 
with  hooks  and  rings,  so  that  hammocks,  when  necessary, 
may  be  attached  to  them.  In  saloons  and  passageways, 
on  forward-deck  and  after-deck,  wherever  there  is  any 
available  space,  there  is  stretched  on  the  floor,  or  snugly 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

ensconced  in  his  chinchorro,  some  quietly  sleeping  or  loudly 
snoring  specimen  of  humanity.  Sometimes  one  will  see 
several  persons  stowed  away  in  a  single  hammock.  It  is 
not  an  unusual  thing  to  see  two  persons  in  the  same 
chinchorro,  and  one  may  now  and  then  see  a  mother  and 
three  children  serenely  reposing  in  one  of  these  aerial  cots. 
How  they  do  it,  it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  the  fact  is  that 
they  do  it,  and  there  is  apparently  not  a  budge  in  the 
hammock's  occupants  until  they  are  awakened  in  the  morn- 
ing by  the  call  of  the  birds — Nature's  alarm  clocks  in  the 
tropics. 

A  place  of  more  than  passing  interest  between  Barrancas 
and  Oiudad  Bolivar  is  Los  Castillos,  formerly  Guayana  la 
Vieja,  founded  by  Antonio  de  Berrio  in  1591.  It  was  here, 
in  1618,  that  young  Walter  Ealeigh,  the  son  of  the  Admiral, 
lost  his  life  in  an  encounter  with  the  Spaniards  who  had 
possession  of  this  stronghold.  It  was  near  here,  also,  that 
Bolivar,  at  a  critical  hour  during  the  War  of  Independence, 
saved  his  life  by  hiding  in  a  swamp  near  the  village. 

About  ten  leagues  further  up  the  river,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Caroni,  and  opposite  the  island  of  Fajardo,  Diego  de 
Ordaz — the  officer  under  Cortes  who  got  sulphur  out  of 
the  crater  of  Popocatepetl — found  in  1531  a  settlement 
called  Carao  during  his  exploration  of  the  Orinoco.  This 
was  afterwards  named  Santo  Tome  de  Guayana,  and  was 
for  a  short  time  a  missionary  centre — the  first  on  the 
Orinoco.  It  was,  however,  destroyed  in  1579  by  the  Dutch 
under  Jansen.  There  is  little  now  at  this  point  to  interest 
the  traveler  except  the  beautiful  Sdlto — cataract — of  the 
Caroni  river,  so  celebrated  for  its  picturesque  scenery,  and 
the  wealth  of  orchideous  plants  with  which  the  adjacent 
trees  are  clothed.  Ealeigh  in  describing  these  falls  says 
that  so  great  was  the  mass  of  vapor  due  to  the  fury  and 
rebound  of  the  waters  that  "we  tooke  it  at  the  first  for  a 
smoke  that  had  risen  ouer  some  great  towne,"  and  Padre 
Caulin,  in  his  description  of  it,  says  the  roar  of  the  cataract 
is  so  great  that  it  can  be  heard  at  a  distance  of  several 

89 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

leagues.  Both  these  accounts  are  quite  exaggerated.  The 
falls  are  very  beautiful  and  romantic,  but  by  no  means  so 
grand  or  so  imposing  as  they  have  been  depicted. 

Near  the  confluence  of  the  Caroni  and  the  Orinoco  is 
the  straggling  little  town  of  San  Felix.  At  this  point  our 
mining  party  left  us  for  their  long  journey  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  on  mule-back  to  Callao.  They  gave  us  a 
cordial  invitation  to  accompany  them,  but  we  had  other 
plans,  and,  although  we  should  have  enjoyed  exploring 
this  famous  mining  district  of  southern  Guiana,  we  felt 
constrained  to  continue  our  course  westwards. 

For  a  number  of  years  the  Yuruari  mining  district 
promised  to  equal,  if  not  surpass,  the  most  famous  gold 
fields  of  Nevada  and  California.  One  of  the  mines,  the 
Callao,  rivaled  the  great  Comstock  mines  of  Virginia  City, 
and  for  "a  considerable  period,"  we  are  assured,  "orig- 
inal shares  of  1,000  pesos  produced  dividends  of  72,000  pesos 
yearly."  In  1895,  however,  the  main  lode  was  lost,  and 
since  that  time,  owing  to  lack  of  funds,  little  has  been  done 
in  any  of  the  mines  in  the  district.  The  owners  of  the 
Callao  mine  still  hope  to  find  the  lost  lode,  and  it  was  to 
investigate  the  condition  of  this  mine,  and  of  certain  others 
in  the  neighborhood,  that  our  American  friends  undertook 
their  long  trip  southwards.  If  the  outlook  justifies  it,  they 
purpose  improving  the  present  wretched  cart-road,  which 
connects  the  mines  with  San  Felix,  and  putting  on  suitable 
traction  engines  for  the  transportation  of  freight,  which 
has  hitherto  been  carried  on  the  backs  of  burros  and  in 
carts  of  the  most  primitive  type. 

During  the  halcyon  days  of  the  Callao  mine,  when  all 
eyes  were  directed  towards  this  quarter  of  the  world,  a 
certain  syndicate  tried  to  secure  from  the  government  a 
concession  for  building  a  railroad  from  the  Orinoco  to  the 
Yuruari  gold  fields.  The  then  president  of  Venezuela  was 
quite  willing  to  grant  the  concession,  but  insisted,  it  is 
said,  on  having  by  anticipation  a  much  larger  share  of  the 
prospective  profits  of  the  road  than  the  company  was  will- 

'  90 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

ing  to  give.  Had  the  railway  been  constructed,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  many  other  valuable  mines  would  have  been 
developed,  and  that  southeastern  Guiana  would  soon  have 
become  one  of  the  most  productive  regions  of  the  republic. 
The  road  would  have  benefited  not  only  the  mining  inter- 
ests but  would  have  led  to  a  rapid  development  of  the 
grazing  and  agricultural  industries,  which,  in  this  part  of 
Venezuela,  could,  under  favorable  conditions,  be  second 
only  to  those  of  the  llanos  of  the  Apure,  and  of  the  fertile 
plains  of  the  states  of  Bermudez  and  Bolivar. 

Aside  from  the  interest  that  attaches  to  this  part  of 
South  America,  on  account  of  its  many  scenic  attractions 
and  its  varied  natural  resources  of  forest  and  field  and 
mine,  it  will  always  possess  an  added  interest  by  reason 
of  its  connection  with  Baleigh's  ill-fated  search  for  El 
Dorado.  When  his  purse  became  depleted,  and  he  had 
fallen  from  the  favor  of  Queen  Elizabeth — who  for  a  while 
was  so  "much  taken  with  his  elocution"  that  she  "took  him 
for  a  kind  of  oracle" — he  bethought  him  of  retrieving  for- 
tune and  favor  by  the  discovery  and  conquest  of  a  second 
Incaic  empire,  and,  with  this  end  in  view,  he  projected  his 
famous  voyage  to 

"Yet  unspoil'd 

Guiana,  whose  great  city  Geryon's  sons 

Call  El  Dorado." 

It  is  beside  my  purpose  to  comment  on  the  "cruell  and 
blood-thirsty  Amazones,"  and  the  race  of  people  who  "haue 
their  eyes  in  their  shoulders,  and  their  mouths  in  the  middle 
of  their  breasts,"1  about  whom  Ealeigh  writes  in  Ms 

i  The  Ewaipanomas,  to  whom  Othello,  in  his  address  to  the  fair  Desdemona, 
refers  in  the  following  passage: — 

".    .    .    the  cannibals  that  each  other  eat, 
The  anthropophagi,  and  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders." 

Captain  Keymis,  who  served  under  Raleigh,  tells  us,  as  we  read  in  Hakluyt, 
of  people  "who  have  eminent  heads  like  dogs,  and  live  all  the  day-time  in  the 
sea,  and  they  speak  the  Carib  language." 

91 


TIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

remarkable  book,  so  often  quoted,  The  Discoverie  of  Gviana, 
and  which  caused  Hume  to  brand  the  work  as  being  a  tissue 
of  "the  grossest  and  most  palpable  lies."  We  are  here 
interested  only  in  what  he  says  about  the  finding  of  gold 
in  the  region  bordering  the  Caroni  and  in  his  fantastic 
tales  regarding  El  Dorado.1 

Whether  Raleigh  himself  really  believed  in  the  existence 
of  El  Dorado,  such  as  he  has  described  it,  or  whether  he 
wished  to  work  on  the  imaginations  of  his  countrymen,  who 
were  as  credulous  and  as  great  lovers  of  the  marvelous  as 
were  their  contemporaries  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  can- 
not be  affirmed  with  certainty.  It  is  probable  that  he  pos- 
sessed a  full  share  of  the  credulity  of  his  age,  and  that, 
if  he  embellished  his  accounts  of  what  he  saw  or  exaggerated 
the  reports  which  he  received  from  the  aborigines,  he  really 
gave  credence  to  the  leading  features  of  the  extraordinary 
stories  that  were  then  current  regarding  the  fabulous 
riches  of  the  great  city  of  Manoa.1 

And  he  was  most  likely  in  earnest  when  he  declared  that 
"whatsoeuer  Prince  shall  possess  it" — Guiana — "that 
Prince  shal  be  Lorde  of  more  gold,  and  of  a  more  beautif ull 
Empire,  and  of  more  Cities  and  people,  then  eyther  the 
King  of  Spayne,  or  the  great  Turke,"  and  was  probably 
honest  in  the  belief  that  he  who  should  "conquer ere  the 
same,"  would  "performe  more  than  euer  was  done  in  Mex- 
ico by  Cortez,  or  in  Peru  by  Pacaro." 

The  New  World  was,  for  the  people  of  the  Old,  still  a 
land  of  mystery  and  enchantment,  and  the  great  majority 

i  John  Hagthorpe,  a  contemporary  of  Raleigh,  writes  about  the  matter  as 
follows:  "Sir  Walter  Rawley  knewe  very  well  when  he  attempted  his 
Guayana  businesse,  who  err'd  in  nothing  so  much,— if  a  free  man  may  speak 
freely, — as  in  too  much  confidence  in  the  relations  of  the  countrie:  For 
who  knowes  not  the  policy  and  cunning  of  the  fat  Fryers,  which  is  to  stirre 
up  and  animate  the  Souldiers  and  Laytie  to  the  search  and  inquisition  of 
new  Countries,  by  devising  tales  and  coments  in  their  Cloysters  where  they 
live  at  ease,  that  when  others  have  taken  payne  to  bringe  in  the  harvest, 
they  may  feed  upon  the  best  and  fattest  of  the  croppe  ?"— England's  Ex- 
chequer,  or  A  Discourse  of  the  Sea  and  Navigation  with  Some  Things  There- 
unto  Coincident  Concerning  Plantations,  London,  1625. 

92 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

of  the  adventurers  in  the  newly  discovered  lands  were 
quite  ready  to  credit  the  wildest  tales,  and  follow  the  most 
elusive  phantoms,  provided  they  gave  indications,  however 
slight,  of  the  possibility  of  satisfying  that  auri  sacra  fames 
which  consumed  the  poor  and  rich  alike. 

The  remarkable  thing  about  Ealeigh  is  that  he  actually 
found  gold  and  gold-bearing  quartz  in  the  land  watered  by 
the  Caroni,  and  located  the  capital  of  El  Dorado  near  where 
the  great  Callao  mine  was  discovered  nearly  three  centu- 
ries later.  And  not  only  did  he  discover  gold-bearing  quartz, 
but  he  found  a  variety  of  gold  quartz  essentially  the  same 
as  that  which  occurs  in  the  Yuruari  districts.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  speculate  what  effect  the  actual  discovery  by  him 
of  the  Callao  mine  would  have  had  on  his  subsequent  career 
and  on  England's  schemes  of  expansion  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere.  One  thing  is  certain.  He  would  have  re- 
couped his  lost  fortunes,  and  his  head,  in  all  probability, 
would  never  have  fallen  on  the  block  in  Old  Palace  Yard.1 

The  following  is  Raleigh's  resume  of  the  riches  and  mar- 
vels of  Guiana  and  the  Orinoco  valley,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  sample  of  the  stories  then  current  regarding  the 
land  of  El  Dorado— stories  which  those  to  whom  the  writer 
appealed,  found  little  difficulty  in  accepting  as  unquestioned 
expressions  of  unvarnished  truth: 

"For  the  rest,  which  my  selfe  haue  seene  I  will  promise 
these  things  that  follow  and  knowe  to  be  true.  Those  that 
are  desirous  to  discouer  and  to  see  many  nations,  may  be 
satisfied  within  this  riuer,  which  bringeth  forth  so  many 
armes  and  branches  leading  to  seuerall  countries,  and 
prouinces,  aboue  2000  miles  east  and  west,  and  800  miles 
south  and  north:  and  of  these,  the  most  eyther  rich  in  Gold, 
or  in  other  merchandizes.  The  common  soldier  shal  here 
fight  for  gold,  and  pay  himself e,  in  steede  of  pence,  with 

iKingsley  in  Westward  Ho!  speaks  of  Columbus  and  Raleigh  as  "the  two 
most  gifted  men,  perhaps,  with  the  exception  of  Humboldt,  who  ever  set  foot 
in  tropical  America."  Spanish  writers,  it  is  safe  to  say,  would  strongly  de- 
mur to  this  statement  so  far  as  Raleigh  is  concerned. 

93 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

plates  of  halfe  a  f oote  brode,  wheras  he  breaketh  his  bones 
in  other  warres  for  prouant  and  penury.  Those  com- 
manders and  Chieftaines,  that  shoote  at  honour,  and 
abundance,  shal  find  there  more  rich  and  bewtifull  cities, 
more  temples  adorned  with  golden  Images,  more  sepulchers 
filled  with  treasure,  than  either  Cortes  found  in  Mexico,  or 
Pazarro  in  Peru,  and  the  shining  glorie  of  this  conquest 
will  eclipse  all  those  so  farre  extended  beames  of  the  Span- 
ish nation.  There  is  no  countrey  which  yeeldeth  more 
pleasure  to  the  inhabitants,  either  for  these  common  delights 
of  hunting,  hawking,  fishing,  fowling,  and  the  rest,  then 
Guiana  doth.  It  hath  so  many  plaints,  cleare  riuers,  abun- 
dance of  Phesants,  Partridges,  Quailes,  Eayles,  Cranes, 
Herons,  and  all  other  fowls :  Deare  of  all  sortes,  Porkes, 
Hares,  Lyons,  Tygers,  Leopards,  and  diuers  other  sortes 
of  beastes,  eyther  for  chace,  or  foode."  1 

Although  we  were  intensely  interested  in  the  fauna  and 
flora  of  the  Orinoco,  and  never  tired  of  the  magnificent 
prospects,  which,  like  an  ever-changing  panorama,  were 
constantly  presented  to  our  view,  we  found  time  to  observe 
the  native  population,  especially  the  Indians,  who  are  seen 
in  considerable  numbers  along  the  entire  course  of  the  river. 
In  the  Delta  and  in  its  immediate  neighborhood,'  they  are 
represented  chiefly  by  the  Waraus,  Aruacs,  and  Caribs. 

The  Waraus  have  a  slightly  darker  complexion  than 
either  the  Aruacs  or  Caribs.  Owing  to  their  lack  of  per- 
sonal cleanliness,  and  the  amount  of  oil  with  which  they 
besmear  their  bodies,  their  hue  becomes  so  dark,  that,  were 

i  Elsewhere  he  tells  us  of  the  thousands  of  "vglie  serpents,"  which  he  calls 
Lagartos,  the  Spanish  word  for  lizards,  that  he  saw  everywhere  along  the 
Orinoco.  They  were  what  are  now  known  as  crocodiles  and  caymans,  the 
former  of  which,  according  to  Schomburgk,  are  seldom  more  than  six  to 
eight  feet  long,  while  the  latter  are  said  sometimes  to  attain  a  length  of 
twenty-five  feet.  We  saw  several  of  them  every  day  but  their  number  was 
far  from  being  as  great  as  is  usually  represented. 

Of  the  armadillo,  which  is  prized  as  a  delicacy  in  Guiana,  Raleigh  says 
"it  seemeth  to  be  barred  ouer  with  small  plates  like  to  a  Renocero  with  a 
white  home  growing  in  his  hinder  parts,  as  big  as  a  great  hunting  home 
which  they  vse  to  winde  in  steed  of  a  trumpet."  Op.  cit.,  p.  74. 

94 


AN  INDIAN  HOME  ON  THE  ORINOCO. 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

it  not  for  their  straight  hair,  it  would  at  times  be  difficult 
to  distinguish  them  from  negroes.  In  consequence  of  their 
careless  habits  regarding  their  persons  and  places  of  abode, 
and  the  way  in  which  they  neglect  their  children,  they  are 
despised  by  the  neighboring  tribes.  Their  rude  huts,  often 
no  more  than  a  little  palm  thatch  supported  by  a  few 
uprights,  afford  them  but  little  protection  from  sun  and 
rain.  With  these,  however,  they  seem' to  be  quite  satisfied. 

The  Aruacs  found  here  belong  to  that  great  group  of 
Indians  that,  at  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards 
in  the  New  World,  inhabited  all  the  large  islands  of  the 
Antilles.  According  to  ethnologists,  their  original  home 
was  probably  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Bolivian 
Cordilleras.  Thence  they  migrated  towards  the  north  and 
east  and  constituted  for  a  time  one  of  the  most  powerful 
races  in  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

They  are  also  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  great  South  Ameri- 
can tribes.  They  were  the  first  Indians  with  whom  the 
Spaniards  came  in  contact  and  are  to-day,  as  they  were 
in  the  time  of  Columbus,  a  friendly,  good-natured,  peace- 
loving  people,  in  spite  of  all  the  harsh  treatment  their  fore- 
fathers received  from  their  cruel  conquerors.  They  are 
fairer  than  either  the  Waraus  or  the  Caribs,  and  their 
women  are  reputed  the  most  beautiful  of  all  the  native 
Guianians.1  Their  hair  is  occasionally  so  long  that  it 
reaches  the  ground,  and,  although  they  sometimes  do  it  up 
and  in  the  most  tasteful  manner,  they  usually  allow  it  to 
fall  over  their  shoulders.  They  anoint  it  daily  with  Carapa 
nut  oil,  and  seem  to  realize  as  fully  as  do  their  white  sisters 
in  the  north,  that  "a  woman's  glory  is  in  her  hair."  2 

1  According  to  Sr.  F.  Michelenena  y  Rojas,  Exploration  OficM,  p.  54,  the 
palm  for  physical  superiority  and  intelligence  is  to  be  awarded  to  the  Caribs. 
He  says  the  Carib  race  is  without  doubt    ...    the  most  beautiful,  the  most 
robust  and  the  most  intelligent  of  all  those  in  Venezuela.    Not  only  this; 
he  seems  inclined  to  consider  them  the  superiors  of  all  the  Indians  in  South 
America.    Vespucci  speaks,  too,  of  them  as  "magnae  sapientiae  wrt"— men 
of  superior  intelligence— as  well  as  men  of  superior  strength  and  valor. 

2  Raleigh  gives  the1  following  graphic  description  of  the  wife  of  an  Indian 
chief  whom  he  met  during  his  voyage  to  this  region:— 

8  95 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

The  Caribs  here  referred  to  belong  to  that  dread  race 
of  whom  Columbus  heard  such  blood-curdling  stories  from 
the  peaceful  inhabitants  of  Cuba  and  Espanola.  They  are, 
too,  among  the  youngest  of  the  great  migratory  races  of 
South  America,  and  their  original  abode  seems  to  have  been 
in  the  upper  basins  of  the  Xingu  and  Tapajos,  two  of  the 
great  affluents  of  the  Amazon. 

Descending  these  rivers,  they  took  possession  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  continent  bordering  the  Atlantic  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Amazon  to  the  Caribbean  sea,  which  is 
named  from  them.  Subsequently,  in  large  fleets  of  canoes, 
in  making  which  they  excelled,  they  pushed  their  way  up 
the  Orinoco  and  its  principal  tributaries,  spreading  death 
and  destruction  wherever  they  went.  And  not  satisfied 
with  their  conquests  on  land,  they  eventually  extended  their 
dominion  over  the  islands  of  the  Lesser  Antilles  as  far  as 
St.  Thomas.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  timely  arrival  of  the 
Spaniards,  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  would  have  driven 
the  peaceful  Waraus  out  of  the  Greater  Antilles,  as  they 
had  forced  them  from  their  other  homes  in  the  islands  to 
the  southeast  and  on  the  mainland  of  South  America. 

They  were  the  terror  of  all  the  tribes  with  whom  they 
came  in  contact.  They  enslaved  the  women,  and  celebrated 
their  victories  by  devouring  the  men.  They  were  the  canni- 
bals who  so  strenuously  opposed  the  Spaniards  on  many 
a  bloody  field,  and  who,  it  is  alleged,  celebrated  their  vic- 
tory over  the  white  invader  by  serving  up,  at  their  savage 
banquets,  the  captives  taken  in  ambush  or  in  battle.  Indeed, 
the  word  cannibal  is  but  a  corruption  of  the  word  Carib.1 

"In  all  my  life  I  haue  seldome  scene  a  better  fauored  woman:  She  was 
of  good  stature,  with  blacke  eies,  fat  of  body,  of  an  excellent  countenance, 
hir  haire  almost  as  long  as  Mr  selfe,  tied  vp  againe  in  pretie  knots,  and 
it  seemed  she  stood  not  in  that  aw  of  hir  husband,  as  the  rest,  for  she 
spake  and  diseourst,  and  dranke  among  the  gentlemen  and  captaines,  and 
was  very  pleasant,  knowing  hir  owne  comelines,  and  taking  great  pride  therein. 
I  haue  seene  a  Lady  in  England  so  like  hir,  as  but  for  the  difference  of  colour 
I  would  haue  sworne  might  haue  beene  the  same."  Op.  oil.,  p.  6C. 

i Peter  Martyr  says  of  them: — "Edaces  humanarum  carnium  novi  helluonea 
anthropophagi,  Caribes  alias  Canibales  appellati." 

96 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

For  many  generations  they  preyed  on  the  peaceful  Indians 
of  the  missions  of  the  Orinoco  basin  and  elsewhere,  and 
time  and  again  the  zealous  missionary  saw  the  work  of 
years  undone  in  a  few  moments  by  the  sudden  onslaught 
of  these  dread  and  ruthless  visitants. 
Thanks  to  the  tireless  efforts  of  the  Spanish  Franciscans, 

Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  subject  since  the  discovery 
of  America,  it  is  still  a  moot  question  with  many  serious  investigators 
whether  the  Caribs  of  Tierra  Finne  were  ever  cannibals,  as  is  so  generally 
believed.  That  the  Caribs  of  certain  of  the  West  Indian  islands  were  ad- 
dicted to  anthropophagy  there  can,  it  seems,  be  little  doubt.  The  concurrent 
testimony  of  the  earlier  writers,  including  Peter  Martyr  and  Cardinal  Bembo 
and  others,  have  apparently  placed  the  matter  beyond  controversy.  It  was 
the  cruelties  and  anthropophagous  habits  of  the  Caribs,  as  reported  to  Spain, 
that  provoked  the  law  which  was  promulgated  in  1504  in  virtue  of  which 
every  Indian,  who  could  be  proved  to  be  of  Carib  origin,  might  be  enslaved 
by  the  Spaniards.  This  law,  however,  although  designed  by  its  framers  to 
eliminate  a  practice  that  was  a  disgrace  to  humanity,  opened  the  door  to 
evils  almost  as  great—If  not  greater  in  some  instances — as  those  it  was 
expected  to  suppress.  Selfish,  soulless  colonists  had  but  to  circulate  the  re- 
port that  certain  Indians,  whom  they  coveted  for  slaves,  were  cannibals,  in 
order  to  justify  themselves  before  the  law  for  tearing  them  from  their  homes 
and  keeping  them  in  servitude.  Thus  it  happened  that,  shortly  after  the 
promulgation  of  the  law  aforesaid,  the  Caribs  of  the  Mainland,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  West  Indies,  were  classed  as  cannibals.  They  were  accordingly  hunted 
like  wild  beasts,  and  countless  thousands  of  them — the  same  innocent,  gen- 
tle, inoffensive  creatures  that  so  strongly  appealed  to  Columbus — were  sold 
into  slavery  and  met  with  a  cruel  death  in  the  mines  of  Espafiola.  So  suc- 
cessful were  the  atrocious  slave-dealers  of  the  time  in  fixing  the  'stigma  of 
cannibal  on  the  Indians  of  the  Mainland  that  Herrera  felt  authorized  to 
declare  that  there  was  in  every  pueblo  of  Venezuela  a  slaughter  house  in 
which  human  flesh  could  be  obtained — en  cada  Pueblo  havia  Carneceria  pub- 
lica  de  came  humana  (Dec.  VIII,  Lib.  II,  Cap.  XIX). 

Direct  and  specific  as  is  this  charge,  it  is  quite  safe  to  assert  that  it  is 
utterly  devoid  of  foundation  in  fact.  The  most  charitable  construction  we 
can  put  on  Herrera's  statements  is  that  he  was  misled  by  the  false  reports 
of  those  whose  interest  it  was  to  have  it  believed  that  the  Caribs  of  Vene- 
zuela, as  well  as  those  of  the  West  Indies,  indulged  in  the  horrid  practice  of 
devouring  their  enemies.  Humboldt  was  among  the  first  to  raise  his  voice  in 
defense  of  the  Indians  of  the  Mainland  and  to  assert  that  it  was  only  the 
Caribs  of  the  West  Indies  that  had  "rendered  the  names  cannibals,  Caribbees 
and  anthropophagi,  synonymous."  (Personal  Narrative,  Vol.  II,  p.  414.) 

A  recent  Venezuelan  writer,  Tavera-Acosta,  declares  that  it  is  "an  in- 
controvertible fact  that  so  far  the  anthropophagy  of  which  they  have  been 
accused  by  their  ferocious  and  ignorant  executioners  has  never  been  proved" 
against  the  Caribs.  Their  sole  crime  was  that  they  took  arms  against  their 

97 


DP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  Oaribs  who  inhabit  the  eastern  part  of  Venezuela  were 
eventually  civilized  and  Christianized,  and  converted  from 
wild  nomads  into  peaceful  and  useful  citizens,  having  their 
own  towns  and  villages.  They  were  chiefly  engaged  in  the 
breeding  of  cattle  and  in  agriculture. 

A  century  ago  there  were  in  the  territory  bounded  by 
the  Caroni,  the  Cuyuni  and  the  Orinoco  no  fewer  than  thirty- 
eight  missions,  with  sixteen  thousand  civilized  Indians.  But 
by  decrees  promulgated  by  the  Eepublic  of  Colombia  in  the 
years  1819  and  1821  these  missions  were  suppressed  and 
to-day  one  sees  scarcely  a  vestige  of  their  former  existence. 
The  Indians  are  not  only  much  less  numerous  than  formerly, 
but  most  of  them  have  returned  to  the  mode  of  life  they 
led  before  the  advent  of  the  missionary. 

ruthless  invaders  in  defense  of  their  homes,  and  relying  on  their  numbers  and 
conscious  superiority  over  other  tribes  endeavored  by  all  possible  means  to 
preserve  their  independence.  (Anales  de  Quayana,  p.  320,  Ciudad  Bolivar, 
1905.) 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Indians,  during  the  period  of  the  conquest 
and  subsequently,  were  the  victims  of  gross  misrepresentations  and  had  in 
consequence  to  endure  untold  hardships  and  miseries.  Not  content  with  de- 
nouncing them  as  cannibals,  their  relentless  persecutors — Dutch,  Germans, 
English,  French  and  Portuguese,  as  well  as  Spaniards — insisted  on  regard- 
ing them  as  mere  animals — like  a  species  of  chimpanzee  or  orang-outang — 
that  had  no  souls  and  no  rights  any  one  was  bound  to  respect.  It  required 
the  bull — Sublimis  Deus — of  Pope  Paul  III  to  define  the  status  of  the  hap- 
less Indians,  to  make  it  clear  that  they  are  not  "dumb  brutes  created  for  our 
service,'*  but  that  they  "are  truly  men";  that  "they  are  by  no  means  to  be 
deprived  of  their  liberty  or  the  possession  of  their  property";  that  they  are 
not  "to  be  in  any  way  enslaved";  and  that  "should  the  contrary  happen,  it 
shall  be  null  and  of  no  effect." 

What  has  been  said  of  the  cannibalism  of  the  South  American  Indian  in 
times  past  may  with  even  greater  truth  be  iterated  of  it  to-day.  In 
spite  of  what  has  been  written  to  the  contrary,  even  by  so  distinguished  an 
explorer  as  Rafael  Reyes — ex-president  of  Colombia — it  may  well  be  doubted 
if  there  is  a  single  tribe  in  South  America  that  can  justly  be  accused  of 
cannibalism.  Some  of  them,  owing  to  their  miserable  social  condition,  or  be- 
cause they  have  for  generations  past  been  the  victims  of  the  injustice  and 
cruelty  of  the  whites,  may  be  ferocious  and  vindictive,  but,  that  even  the 
worst  of  them  are  cannibals,  is  yet  to  be  proved.  Compare  Omedo  y  Bafios, 
op.  cit.,  II,  p.  377  et  seq.,  and  Across  the  South  American  Continent,  Explo- 
ration of  the  Brothers  Reyes,  Paper  Read  at  the  Pan-American  Conference, 
by  General  Rafael  Reyes,  the  Delegate  for  Colombia,  Dec.  80th,  1901,  Mexico 
and  Barcelona,  1902. 

98 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

They  are,  as  a  rule,  peaceful  and  harmless,  but  as  they 
have  been  so  long  neglected  by  the  government,  their  social 
status  is  but  little  above  that  of  their  savage  ancestors. 
More  is  the  pity.  The  suppression  of  the  missions  here 
was  followed  by  the  same  consequences  as  resulted  from  the 
suppression  of  the  missions  in  Paraguay  and  elsewhere — 
the  relapse  of  the  Indians  into  savagery  and  the  loss  to 
the  state  of  thousands  of  useful  and  worthy  citizens.  It1 
is  difficult  to  see  the  wisdom  of  thus  eliminating  from  the 
body  politic  elements  so  prolific  of  good  and  so  essential  to 
the  public  weal. 

Pere  Labat,  referring  to  the  language  of  the  Caribs, 
writes  as  follows: — "The  Caribs  have  three  kinds  of 
language.  The  first,  the  most  ordinary,  and  that  which 
every  one  speaks,  is  the  one  affected  by  the  men. 

"The  second  is  so  proper  to  the  women,  that,  although 
the  men  understand  it,  they  would  consider  themselves 
dishonored  if  they  spoke  it,  or  if  they  answered  their 
women  in  case  they  had  the  temerity  to  address  them  in  this 
language.  They — the  women — know  the  language  of  their 
husbands,  and  must  make  use  of  it  when  they  speak  to 
them,  but  they  never  use  it  when  they  talk  among  them- 
selves, nor  do  they  employ  any  language  but  the  one  pecul- 
iar to  themselves,  which  is  entirely  different  from  that  of 
the  men. 

"There  is  a  third  language,  which  is  known  only  by  the 
men  who  have  been  in  war,  and  particularly  by  the  old 
men.  It  is  rather  a  jargon  than  a  language.  They  use  it 
in  important  assemblies  of  which  they  desire  to  keep  the 
resolutions  secret.  The  women  and  young  men  are  igno- 
rant of  it"1 

This  statement  was  for  a  long  time  discredited,  and 
classed  among  those  fables  regarding  the  New  World  that 
were  unworthy  of  the  attention  of  serious  men.  Later  on  it 
was  discovered  that  the  victoriosa  loguacitas  of  the  chann- 

i  tfotttjeewi  Voyage  vw  Isles  de  VAmerique,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  127,  128,  Paris, 
1743. 

99 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ing  monk  was  based  on  fact.  But  the  next  thing  was  to 
explain  the  fact.  On  investigation  it  was  found  that  some- 
thing similar  exists  among  other  Indian  tribes  of  South 
America,  as,  for  instance,  among  the  Guaranis,  the  Chiqui- 
tos,  the  Omaguas  and  the  Quichuas. 

In  explanation  of  this  strange  phenomenon,  it  was  then 
suggested  "that  women,  from  their  separate  way  of  life, 
frame  particular  terms  which  men  do  not  adopt. "  Cicero 
observes  that  old  forms  of  language  are  best  preserved  by 
women,  because,  by  their  position  in  society,  they  are  less 
exposed  to  those  vicissitudes  of  life,  changes  of  place  and 
occupation,  which  tend  to  corrupt  the  primitive  purity  of 
language  among  men.1 

This  suggestion,  ingenious  though  it  be,  was  far  from 
satisfactory  to  philologists  and  ethnologists.  The  quest, 
therefore,  for  a  solution  of  the  strange  problem,  was  con- 
tinued with  renewed  interest,  and  with  the  result  that  the 
mystery  was  at  length  completely  solved.  As  has  been 
stated,  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Caribs  in  their  wars  with 
other  Indian  tribes  to  massacre  the  men  and  reduce  the 
women  to  servitude.  In  some  instances  many  of  the  women 
and  not  infrequently  the  majority  of  them  became  the  wives 
of  their  conquerors.  But  even  after  this  enforced  alliance, 
the  women  retained  their  own  language.  The  consequence 
was  that,  in  families  thus  constituted,  there  were  two 
languages  spoken — that  of  the  conqueror  and  that  of  the 
conquered. 

While,  however,  the  general  accuracy  of  Pere  Labat's 
statements  were  thus  put  beyond  further  doubt,  it  was  dis- 
covered, by  a  comparative  study  of  the  languages  of  the 
Caribs  and  those  of  the  tribes  which  they  had  subjugated, 
that  it  was  not  strictly  true  to  assert  that  the  language  of 
the  women  was  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  men — 
totalement  different  de  celui  des  hommes — as  the  good 

i"Facilius  enim  mulieres  incorruptam  antiquitatem  conservant,  quod  mul- 
torum  sennonis  expertes  ea  tenent  semper,  qiue  prima  didicerunt."-— De  Orat., 
Lib.  Ill,  Cap.  XII,  45. 

100 


THE  GBEAT  RIVER 

Dominican  had  affirmed.  They  were  entirely  different  in 
the  words  of  daily  use  and  of  most  frequent  occurrence,  but 
the  difference  extended  in  reality  only  to  the  minor  part 
of  the  vocabulary  actually  employed.  But  the  difference 
was  quite  sufficient  to  justify  the  interest  it  had  so  long 
excited  among  men  of  science,  and  to  stimulate  the  re- 
searches which  have  only  in  recent  years  been  crowned  with 
success.1 

The  night  before  arriving  at  Ciudad  Bolivar,  while 
dreamily  reclining  in  a  steamer  chair,  I  was  awakened  from 
my  musings  by  a  vivacious  senorita,  of  pronounced  Cas- 
tiUan  type,  rushing  up  to  her  father,  near  by,  and  exclaim- 
ing in  an  excited  manner,  "Mira,  padre,  mira,  la  Cruz  del 
Sur!"  Look,  father,  look — the  Southern  Cross!  And  sure 
enough,  there,  in  the  constellation  Centauri,  was  the  "Croce 
Maravigliosa," — the  marvelous  cross— of  the  early  navi- 
gators, the  "Crucero"  of  incomparable  beauty  and  bright- 
ness, the  celestial  clock  of  the  early  missionaries  in  the 
tropical  lands  of  the  New  World.  The  cloud-veiled  skies 
of  the  preceding  nights  had  prevented  us  from  getting  a 
view  o£  these  "luci  sante" — holy  lights — but  now  we  were 
privileged  to  behold  them  in  all  their  heavenly  splendor. 
At  once  we  recalled  that  well-known  passage  of  Dante, 
which  the  lovers  of  the  great  Florentine  have  applied  to 
this  constellation: — 

"To  the  right  hand  I  turned,  and  fixed  my  mind, 
On  the  other  pole  attentive,  where  I  saw 
Four  stars  ne'er  seen  before  save  by  the  ken 
Of  our  first  parents.    Heaven  of  their  rays 

iSee,  among  other  works  on  the  subject,  Du  Pearler  des  Homines  et  du 
Farter  des  Femmes  dans  la  Langue  Caraibe,  par  Lucien  Adam,  Paris,  1879,  in 
which  the  author  makes  the  following  statement: — 

"Le  double  langage  se  reduit,  au  point  de  vue  de  la  lexicologie,  a  cette 
singularity  que,  pour  exprimer  environ  400  id&s  aur,  2,000  a  3,000,  les  homines 
invariablement,  et  les  femmes  seulment  entre  elles,  se  servaient  de  mots  dif- 
ferents." 

See  also  Introduction  a  la  grammaire  Corat&e,  du  P.  R.  Breton,  and  the 
Diotionaire  Caratbe,  of  the  same  author. 

101 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Seemed  joyous.    O,  thou  northern  site !  bereft 
Indeed,  and  widened,  since  of  these  deprived  1"  1 

We  never  suspected  it  at  the  time,  but  as  subsequent 
events  proved,  the  senorita's  Cruz  del  Sur  was  to  be  our 
timepiece  for  many  subsequent  months.  During  long  wan- 
derings over  mountain  and  plain  and  in  many  changing 
climes,  it  was  the  Southern  Cross  that  served  as  our  guide, 
and  marked  the  hours  of  night,  in  lieu  of  Polaris  and  Ursa 
Major,  which  had  disappeared  below  the  horizon. 

Toward  noon,  the  second  day  after  leaving  the  Port-of- 
Spain,  we  got  our  first  view  of  Ciudad  Bolivar,  founded  in 
1764  by  Joaquin  Moreno  de  Mendoza,  and  since  that  time 
the  capital  of  Guiana,  now  the  great  State  of  Bolivar. 
Situated  upon  an  eminence,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river, 
it  presents  a  very  imposing  appearance  and  seems  much 
larger  than  it  is  in  reality.  The  white  stone  walls  of  the 
houses,  and  the  brownish-red  tiles  of  the  roofs,  together 

i  The  Purgatorio,  Canto  I,  w.  22-27. 

The  poet  is  not  to  be  taken  too  literally  in  this  last  verse.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  the  constellations  are  ever  chang- 
ing their  position  with  reference  to  any  given  point  on  the  earth's  surface. 
There  was  a  time,  in  the  distant  past,  when  the  Southern  Cross  was  visible  in 
the  very  land  in  which  Dante  penned  his  immortal  poem.  "At  the  time  of 
Claudius  PtolemsBUs,"  says  Humboldt,  "the  beautiful  star  at  the  base  of  the 
Southern  Cross  had  still  an  altitude  of  6°  10'  at  its  meridian  passage  at 
Alexandria,  while  at  the  present  day  it  culminates  there  several  degrees  below 
the  horizon. 

"In  the  fourth  century,  the  Christian  anchorites  in  the  Thebaid  desert  might 
have  seen  the  Cross  at  an  altitude  of  ten  degrees."  And  again,  "The  South- 
ern Cross  began  to  become  invisible  in  52°  30'  north  latitude  2900  years  before 
our  era,  since,  according  to  Galle,  this  constellation  might  previously  have 
reached  an  altitude  of  more  than  10°.  When  it  disappeared  from  the  horizon 
of  the  countries  on  the  Baltic,  the  great  pyramid  of  Cheops  had  already  been 
erected  more  than  five  hundred  years.  The  pastoral  tribe  of  tne  Hyksos 
made  their  incursion  seven  hundred  years  earlier.  The  past  seems  to  be  vis- 
ibly nearer  to  us  when  we  connect  its  measurement  with  great  and  memorable 
events."— Cosmos,  Vol.  II,  pp.  288-291,  New  York,  1850. 

For  an  interesting  discussion  of  Dante's  "quattro  stelle,"  four  stars,  with 
references,  see  Vemon's  Readings  on  the  Purgatorio,  Vol.  I,  pp.  10,  11,  third 
edition.  Compare  also  Hamusio,  Delle  Navigazioni  e  Viaggi,  Vol.  I,  pp.  127 
and  193,  Venetia,  1550,  and  Oviedo,  Historic,  General  y  "Natural  de  la$  India*. 
Lib.  II,  Cap.  11,  pp.  45  and  46,  Madrid,  1851. 

102 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

with  the  delicate  green  crowns  of  lofty  palms  that  dot  every 
part  of  the  city,  enhance  in  a  marked  degree  the  beauty  of 
the  picture  as  seen  under  the  brilliant  light  of  the  noonday 
sun.  The  cathedral,  and  the  government  buildings  around 
the  plaza  in  the  higher  part  of  the  town,  loom  np  with 
splendid  effect.  Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more 
beautiful  picture  of  a  city,  when  seen  at  a  distance,  than 
is  that  of  Ciudad  Bolivar. 

As  one  approaches  this  metropolis  of  the  Orinoco  basin, 
the  details  of  the  city  come  gradually  into  view.  Parallel 
with  the  river  bank  is  the  principal  business  street — La 
Calle  del  Coco — which  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  delight- 
ful promenade  in  the  place.  Here  is  the  custom-house,  the 
American  and  other  consulates,  and  a  number  of  large  mer- 
cantile establishments,  controlled  chiefly  by  Germans,  Amer- 
icans and  Corsicans. 

From  a  broad  waterway,  from  two  to  three  miles  in 
width,  the  river  here  contracts  to  a  narrow  channel  which, 
at  low  water,  is  not  more  than  a  half  mile  in  width.  Accord- 
ing to  Codazzi,1  the  mean  depth  of  the  river  at  this  point 
is  sixty  feet.  Towards  the  end  of  the  rainy  season,  how- 
ever, the  water  rises  from  forty,  to  fifty  feet  above  low- 
water  mark.  Sometimes  it*  rises  considerably  higher.  In 
1891  the  flood  was  so  high  that  the  stores  and  dwellings  of 
the  part  of  the  city  fronting  the  river  were  inundated  to 
a  height  of  several  feet.  Then  the  inhabitants  were  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  canoes  in  passing  from  house  to  house. 
Then,  too,  stray  alligators  were  seen  in  the  streets  and  it 
was  possible  to  catch  enough  fish  for  a  meal  in  the  patio 
—court-yard — of  one's  residence. 

The  original  name  of  the  city  was  Santo  Tome  de  la 
Nueva  Ghiayana — the  third  place  on  the  river  to  bear  this 
name.  The  first,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  situated  at 
the  confluence  of  the  Caroni  and  the  Orinoco  and  was  de- 
stroyed by  the  Dutch  in  1579.  The  second,  now  known 
as  Los  Castillos— formerly  Ghiayana  la  Vieja— was 

i  Geografia  Statistica  de  Venezuela,  p.  461,  Firenze,  1864. 
103 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAQDALENA 

founded  by  Antonio  de  Berrio  in  1591,  and  is  famous  in  tlto 
history  of  this  part  of  Venezuela  for  its  vigorous  resist- 
ance to  Sir  Walter  Baleigh,  whom  Spanish  writers  desig- 
nate as  the  "  great  pirate  Gualtero  Eeali."  As  the  in- 
habitants found  the  first  name  of  their  city  inconveniently 
long  they  called  it  Angostura — the  Narrows — from  the 
contraction  of  the  river  at  this  point.  The  name  was  so 
appropriate  that  it  is  a  pity  it  could  not  have  been  retained. 
In  1819,  however,  Congress  gave  it  the  name  of  Ciudad 
Bolivar,  in  honor  of  Simon  Bolivar,  the  Liberator  of  South 
America. 

As  our  steamer  neared  the  steep  bank  in  front  of  the  city 
our  attention  was  arrested  by  a  large,  dark,  granitic  mass 
— La  Piedra  del  Media — looming  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
river.  Like  the  celebrated  Nileometer  at  Cairo,  this  rock, 
which  may  appropriately  be  called  an  Orinocometer,  serves 
as  a  gauge  of  the  annual  rise  of  the  flood.  As  we  passed 
it,  we  could  see  distinctly  the  height  to  which  the  waters 
had  risen  the  preceding  year. 

If  ever  the  long-talked-of  railroad  from  Caracas  to 
Ciudad  Bolivar  shall  be  constructed,  this  rock,  almost  mid- 
way between  the  latter  city  and  Soledad,  a  small  town  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  will  serve  as  an  invaluable 
pier  for  the  bridge  that  is  planned  to  span  the  Orinoco  at 
this  point.  Until,  however,  the  country  shall  have  a  more 
stable  government  than  it  has  now,  and  until  foreign  capital 
shall  have  more  confidence  in  the  future  of  the  republic 
than  it  has  at  present,  it  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  there 
will  be  neither  bridge  nor  railroad,  although  both  are  very 
much  needed  to  develop  the  vast  resources  of  this  section 
.of  Venezuela. 

In  its  location  and  surroundings,  Ciudad  Bolivar  pos- 
sesses all  the  essential  elements  of  a  beautiful  and  pros- 
perous metropolis.  It  controls  the  trade  of  the  immense 
Orinoco  basin,  and  the  amount  of  business  transacted  here 
should,  under  favorable  conditions,  be  many  times  what  it 
is  at  present  But,  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  everything 

104 


THE  GEEAT  EIVEE 

was  in  a  state  of  abandonment  that  was  sad  to  behold.  The 
streets,  parks  and  public  buildings,  which  could  easily  be 
made  the  most  attractive  features  of  the  city,  were  in  a 
neglected  condition,  and  the  number  of  vacant  houses  in 
certain  sections,  some  crumbling  into  ruins,  showed  the  in- 
evitable effects  of  protracted  misrule  and  periodic  tur- 
moil. 

When  I  asked  one  of  the  prominent  merchants  of  the 
city  the  reason  for  the  deplorable  state  referred  to,  he  re- 
plied:— "No  hay  diner o.  Hay  tantas  revoluciones." 
("There  is  no  money.  There  are  so  many  revolutions. ") 
And  when  I  sought  a  reason  for  the  business  lethargy 
everywhere  manifested,  a  similar  reply  was  forthcoming. 
"Somos  pobres,  estamos  arruinados.  Hay  tantas  guerras 
y  el  gobierno  es  malisimo." — ("We  are  poor,  ruined. 
There  have  been  so  many  wars  and  the  government  is  very 
bad.")  Merchants,  tradesmen,  day-laborers,  professional 
men — all,  except  government  employees,  who  were  inter- 
ested in  retaining  their  positions  as  long  as  possible,  had 
the  same  pitiful  story  to  relate.  ( 

Oppressive  taxes,  exorbitant  prices  for  many  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life,  intolerable  monopolies,  controlled  by  leading 
government  officials  or  their  favorites,  had  reduced  the  ma- 
jority of  the  population  to  a  condition  bordering  on  despair. 
No  encouragement  was  given  to  foreign  capital  for  the  ex- 
ploitation and  development  of  the  immense  natural  re- 
sources of  the  country.  On  the  contrary,  foreigners  were 
looked  upon  with  suspicion,  while  Castro  and  his  henchmen 
were  openly  antagonistic  to  them.  Nor  was  it  only  in  Ciu- 
dad  Bolivar  and  in  other  parts  of  the  Orinoco  valley  that 
this  lamentable  condition  of  things  obtained.  We  found 
the  same  business  depression,  the  same  hopeless  outlook 
in  Caracas,  Valencia,  Puerto  Cabello,  and  other  commer- 
cial centres  of  the  republic.  Small  wonder,  then,  was  it 
that  the  discouraged,  downtrodden  people  were  longing 
and  praying  for  a  change  in  the  administration. 

The  long  desired  change  cajne  at  last,  and  in  a  way  that 

105 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

no  one  could  have  foreseen.  The  dramatic  downfall  of 
Castro  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  opened  the  way  to  an 
amelioration  of  conditions  that  had  become  intolerable, 
while  the  accession  of  Gomez  to  power  has  inspired  all 
patriotic  and  peace-loving  Venezuelans  with  the  hope  that 
their  long  distracted  country  is  about  to  enter  upon  a  new 
era — an  era  of  social  progress  and  business  prosperity — 
an  era  of  amity  with  other  nations  accompanied  by  a  spirit 
of  comity  which  was  so  long  conspicuous  by  its  absence. 

Notwithstanding  the  comparatively  large  number  of 
vessels  that  come  to  this  place,  there  is  no  wharf,  and  people 
here  say  that  the  great  rise  and  fall  of  the  river  make  it 
impossible  to  construct  one.  Fortunately,  it  is  not  a  prime 
necessity,  as  the  water,  even  in  the  dry  season,  is  so  deep 
that  the  largest  vessels  can  approach  so  near  the  bank  that 
both  freight  and  passengers  can  be  discharged  by  an 
ordinary  gangplank. 

Our  steamer,  like  all  the  others  there,  was  moored  head 
and  stern  by  cables  leading  to  the  venerable  Ceiba  trees 
that  lined  la  Calle  del  Coco  high  above  us.  The  inclination 
of  the  bank,  where  merchandise  is  landed,  amounts  in  places 
to  almost  45°,  and  yet  no  machinery  of  any  kind  is  used  for 
transferring  even  the  heaviest  kinds  of  freight  from  the 
vessel  to  the  top  of  the  acclivity.  All  is  carried  on  the 
shoulders  of  men,  usually  mestizos  and  negroes. 

We  spent  a  week  in  and  around  Ciudad  Bolivar,  and, 
during  this  time,  we  had  ample  opportunities  to  study  the 
manners  and  customs  of  its  people.  The  population  of  the 
city  is  not  more  than  twelve  or  thirteen  thousand — a  small 
number  for  the  entrepot  of  the  immense  Orinoco  basin. 
Under  less  untoward  conditions  it  would  be  many  times  as 
great.1 

i  It  was  here  that  the  well-known  brand  of  Angostura  bitters  was  first  pre- 
pared by  Dr.  Siegert.  The  women  of  the  city,  however,  maintain  that  its  dis- 
covery was  due  to  a  Venezolana,  who  was  the  wife  of  the  German  doctor. 
Owing  to  the  exactions  of  the  Venezuelan  government,  the  manufacture  of  this 
widely  used  infusion  was  long  ago  transferred  to  the  Port-of-Spain,  where  it 
now  constitutes  one  of  the  city's  chief  industries. 

106 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

To  this  place  are  brought  the  products  of  the  forests  and 
plains  of  the  upper  Orinoco  and  its  numerous  tributaries. 
Among  the  most  important  articles  of  export  are  hides, 
rubber — especially  the  coarser  variety  known  as  balata — 
cacao,  coffee,  and  tobacco  from  Zamora,  pelts  of  the 
jaguar  and  other  wild  animals,  tonka  beans,  copaiba  and 
feathers. 

The  last  item  is  amazing,  when  one  considers  what  a 
slaughter  of  the  feathered  tribe  it  implies.  We  met  a 
Frenchman  here  who  was  just  packing  for  shipment  to 
Paris  several  hundred  thousand  egrets,  the  result  of  a  three- 
years  '  hunt  in  the  forests  and  plains  of  the  Orinoco  basin. 
But  he  was  not  the  only  one  engaged  in  this  wholesale 
slaughter  of  birds.  There  were  many  others,  and  their 
work  of  despoiling  the  tropics  of  their  most  attractive  orna- 
ments extends  to  all  the  vast  regions  on  both  sides  of  the 
equator. 

The  small  egret — Ardea  candidissima — which  supplies 
the  most  valuable  plumes,  and  the  large  egret — Ardea 
garzetta — which  produces  a  coarser  feather,  are  the  princi- 
pal victims.  As  only  a  few  drooping  plumes  from  the  backs 
of  the  birds  are  taken,  one  can  readily  see  what  a  terrific 
slaughter  is  required  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  markets 
of  the  world/ 

The  worst  feature  about  the  business  is  that  the  birds 
are  killed  during  the  mating  and  breeding  season.  Already 
the  result  is  manifest  in  the  rapidly  diminishing  numbers 
of  egrets  that  frequent  the  garceros — the  name  given  to  the 
places  where  they  nest  and  rear  their  young. 

"The  beauty  of  a  few  feathers  on  their  backs, "  writes 
one  who,  if  not  a  misogynist,  is  evidently  in  sympathy  with 
the  aims  and  purposes  of  our  Audubon  society,  "will  be 
the  cause  of  their  extinction.  The  love  of  adornment  com- 
mon to  most  animals  is  the  source  of  their  troubles.  The 
graceful  plumes  which  they  doubtless  admire  in  each  other 
have  appealed  to  the  vanity  of  the  most  destructive  of  all 
animals.  They  are  doomed,  because  the  women  of  civilized 

107 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

countries  continue  to  have  the  same  fondness  for  feathers 
and  ornaments  characteristic  of  savage  tribes."1 

The  houses  of  Ciudad  Bolivar,  built  on  a  hill  of  dark, 
almost  bare  hornblende-schist,  are  in  marked  contrast  with 
those  of  the  Port-of-Spain.  In  Trinidad's  capital  each 
residence — usually  frame — is  provided  with  numerous 
doors,  and  jalousied  windows,  and  surrounded  by  gardens, 
with  a  profusion  of  the  most  beautiful  tropical  flowers  and 
trees.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  the  houses,  generally  only 
one  story  high,  have  but  one  door,  with  all  the  external 
windows  crossed  by  heavy  iron  bars,  not  unlike  those  of  our 
jails.2 

This,  however,  is  not  peculiar  to  Ciudad  Bolivar,  but  ob- 
tains throughout  Latin  America,  as  it  obtains  in  all  the 
parts  of  Spain  formerly  occupied  by  the  Moors.  Yet 
these  windows,  which  are  in  themselves  so  forbidding,  are 
in  the  cool  of  the  evening  the  most  attractive  parts  of  the 
house.  Here  bevies  of  bright,  well-dressed  senoritas,  who, 
during  the  heat  of  the  day  remain  secluded  in  their  rooms 
or  some  shady  corner  of  the  patio,  congregate  to  enjoy 
the  fresh  air  that  is  wafted  to  them  on  the  wings  of  the 
trade-winds,  to  listen  to  the  daily  gossip  and  to  exchange 
confidences  with  those  of  their  companions  who  may  have 
called  to  spend  the  evening.  Here  and  there  one  will  ob- 
serve some  philandering  caballero,  dressed  as  faultlessly 
as  Beau  Brummel,  exchanging  vows  with  some  languishing 
Dulcinea  behind  the  bars.  So  absorbed  are  they  in  each 
other  that  they  are  totally  oblivious  of  all  else  in  the  world, 
and  utterly  unconscious  of  the  attention  they  attract  from 
the  passers-by.  For  the  time  being  they  themselves  are  the 
world  and  for  them  everything  else  is  nonexistent. 

i  A.  Naturalist  in  the  Guianas,  p.  65,  by  Eugene  Andre*,  New  York,  1904. 
,  2  In  the  quasi-suburb,  known  as  morichales,  from  the  number  of  moriche 
palms  found  there,  the  homes  of  the  well-to-do  people  are  not  unlike  those 
we  so  much  admired  in  Trinidad.  Some  of  them  are  delightful  arbors,  sur- 
rounded by  gardens  filled  with  the  rarest  shrubs  and  blooms.  Here  truly,  in 
the  language  of  Pliny,  flowers  are  the  joy  of  trees,  and  they  vie  with  one  an- 
other in  the  brilliance  of  their  colors,  and  in  the  exuberance  of  their  growth. 

108 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

We  were  sitting  one  evening  in  the  beautiful  plaza  of 
Ciudad  Bolivar,  listening  to  the  music  of  the  military  band 
which  plays  here  several  times  a  week.  The  elite  of  the 
city  were  there.  Beautiful,  dark-eyed  senoritas,  adorned 
with  their  graceful  mantillas,  were  promenading  with  their 
fathers  and  mothers,  and  gay  young  cavaliers  were  follow- 
ing at  a  discreet  distance,  d  la  Espanola.  The  tropical 
trees  and  flowers,  which  gave  to  the  plaza  the  aspect  of  a 
botanical  garden,  were  beautifully  illuminated,  and,  without 
any  effort  of  the  imagination,  one  could  easily  imagine 
one's  self  in  fairyland.  Hard  by,  a  young  lady  from 
Trinidad,  on  whose  finger  was  a  sparkling  solitaire,  was 
recounting,  in  a  more  audible  tone  than  she  imagined,  the 
pleasures  of  her  voyage  up  the  Orinoco.  In  the  glow  of 
her  enthusiasm  she  declared  to  her  confidant,  "I  am  going 
td  come  to  the  Orinoco  during  my  honeymoon.  Don, 
Esteban"— evidently  her  fiance — "will  just  have  to  bring 
me  here.  I  cannot  imagine  a  more  delightful  trip  any- 
where/' 

This  young  lady,  who  had  traveled  extensively,  in  this 
inadvertent  publication  of  her  secret  but  expresses  the  im- 
pression that  would  be  reiterated,  I  fancy,  by  the  majority 
of  her  sex  under  the  same  circumstances.  The  Orinoco  is, 
indeed,  beautiful,  and  a  sail  on  its  placid  waters,  if  not  "the 
most,  delightful  excursion  one  could  take,"  as  Miss  Trini- 
dad declared,  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  delightful. 

The  day  before  we  were  to  return  to  the  Port-of-Spain, 
while  chatting  with  a  friend  on  the  upper  deck  of  our 
steamer — which  we  had  made  our  hotel,  because  the  lodg- 
ing houses  of  the  city  were  so  poor — we  saw  a  small  vessel 
coming  down  stream  under  a  full  head  of  steam.  On  in- 
quiry we  found  it  to  be  a  boat  from  Orocue,  a  small  town  in 
Colombia,  on  the  river  Meta.  We  immediately  called  upon 
the  captain  of  the  craft,  and,  as  a  result  of  our  interview, 
determined  to  accompany  him  on  his  return  trip  to  this 
distant  point. 

When  we  left  Trinidad,  we  had  no  intention  of  going 

109 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

further  up  the  river  than  Ciudad  Bolivar,  but  we  had  en- 
joyed everything  so  much,  that  now  that  an  occasion  thus 
so  unexpectedly  presented  itself,  we  rejoiced  that  we  should 
have  an  opportunity  of  seeing  more  of  the  great  Orinoco, 
and  of  sailing  on  the  waters  of  its  great  tributary,  the 
historic  Meta. 

Dreams  of  the  past  began  at  once  to  flit  before  us  as 
possible  realities  in  the  near  future.  If  we  once  got 
to  Orocue,  what  was  to  prevent  us  from  going  further  up 
the  river — as  far  as  its  waters  were  navigable?  Then  by 
crossing  the  llanos  of  eastern  Colombia,  and  the  Cordil- 
leras of  the  Andes  we  would  be  in  far-famed  Bogota,  the 
Athens  of  South  America. 

We  had  had,  it  is  true,  visions  of  this  trip,  but  rather  as 
something  greatly  to  be  desired  than  as  even  a  remote  pos- 
sibility. And  now,  in  a  few  moments — after  a  brief  con- 
versation with  the  captain  of  the  boat  that  had  just  moored 
alongside  our  own,  the  journey  was  decided  on,  and  noth- 
ing remained  but  to  make  the  necessary  preparations. 

As,  however,  the  steamer  would  not  be  ready  to  go  to 
Orocue  for  about  two  weeks,  we  concluded  to  return  to  the 
Port-of-Spain  and  come  back  the  following  week.  Thi& 
would  give  us  an  opportunity  of  studying  more  in  detail 
several  interesting  features  of  the  lower  Orinoco  that  we 
had  only  gotten  a  glimpse  of  during  the  upward  trip,  and 
of  seeing  by  daylight  parts  of  the  river  that  we  had  before 
passed  during  the  night.  We  would  also  be  able  to  spend  a 
few  more  days  in  the  beautiful  island  of  Trinidad,  and  feast 
our  eyes  on  its  thousand  beauties  which  greet  one  at  every 
turn. 

It  was,  indeed,  providential  for  us  that  we  returned  fo 
Trinidad  as  we  did,  for  while  there — was  it  chance  or  was 
it  our  usual  good  fortune? — we  found,  what  above  all  else 
we  needed  in  this  juncture — a  good,  brave,  enthusiastic 
companion  for  the  long  and  arduous  trip  before  us.  Our 
compagnon  de  voyage,  who  would  fondly  affect  the  ways 
and  dress  of  a  dapper  young  caballero,  and  whom,  there- 

110 


THE  GREAT  RIVER 

fore,  we  shall  call  C. — caballero — was  a  professor  of 
languages.  He  had  traveled  extensively,  was  interested  in 
the  Spanish  language  and  literature  and  the  peoples  we 
were  about  to  visit.  He  was,  like  ourselves,  fond  of  ad- 
venture, and  was  not  averse  to  its  being  accompanied  by 
an  element  of  danger.  This  only  gave  additional  zest  to 
what  were  else  rather  tame  and  prosaic.  Our  plans  were 
soon  made,  and,  before  the  steamer  was  ready  to  return 
to  Ciudad  Bolivar,  we  were  fully  equipped  with  everything 
necessary  for  our  long  trip  across  the  continent. 


CHAPTEE  IV 
IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

At  last  we  were  ready  to  start  on  our  long  journey  up 
the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta,  and  then  across  the  ll'anos  of 
Eastern  Colombia,  and  the  Cordilleras  to  far-off  Bogota. 
For  several  days  the  swarthy  stevedores  of  Ciudad  Bolivar 
had  been  busy  in  transferring  to  our  little  steamer  the 
freight  that  had  here  been  accumulating  for  her  during 
the  preceding  six  months. 

For  several  days,  too,  our  friends  and  acquaintances  had 
been  endeavoring  to  dissuade  us  from  what  one  and  all 
pronounced  a  rash  and  dangerous  undertaking.  All  meant 
well,  but  all  were  prophets  of  ill.  No  one,  we  were  assured, 
had  ever  gone  to  Bogota  by  the  route  we  purposed  taking,1 

i  Sr.  PSrez  Triana,  the  son  of  a  former  president  of  Colombia,  was  in  1893 
obliged  to  flee  from  his  country,  and  as  the  seaports  were  watched  he  and 
his  companions  were  forced  to  escape  by  way  of  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco. 
He  tells  us  in  his  charming  book,  De  Bogotd  al  Atlantico,  p.  3,  of  the  dread 
inspired  by  the  thought  of  "lo  incierto  del  viaje,  qu6  emprendiamos  "haofa^e- 
giones  desconocidas,  acaso  nunca  holladas  por  la  planta  del  hombre  civi- 
Iteado,"  "the  uncertainty  of  the  journey  we  were  undertaking  to  unknown  re- 
gions, probably  never  trod  by  the  foot  of  civilized  man."— Begunda  Ediei6n, 
Madrid,  1905. 

Mr.  Cunninghame  Graham,  in  his  introduction  to  this  book,  remarks  that 
"The  voyage  in  itself  was  memorable  because,  since  the  first  conquerors  went 
down  the  river  with  the  faith  that  in  their  case,  if  rightly  used,  might  have 
smoothed  out  all  the  mountain  ranges  in  the  world,  no  one,  except  a  stray 
adventurer,  or  india-rubber  trader,  has  followed  in  their  footsteps/'  p.  13, 
English  edition,  London,  1902. 

Another  Colombian,  Sr.  Modesto  Garces,  had  made  the  same  journey  eight 
years  before,  a  record  of  which  he  has  given  us  in  his  little  work,  Un  viaje  6 
Venezuela,  Bogotd,  1890.  But  neither  he  nor  Sir  Pe*rez  Triana  saw  the  lower 
Meta,  for  they  left  thia  river  a  short  distance  above  Orocue",  and  voyaged  to 
the  Orinoco  by  way  of  the  Vichada. 

Three  years  subsequently  to  Perez  Triana's  trip  the  same  journey,  with 

112 


IN  MID-OBINOQUIA 

and  we  were  solemnly  warned  time  and  again  that  we  were 
surely  risking  our  health  if  not  exposing  our  lives.  Every- 
thing, it  was  averred,  was  against  the  successful  termina- 
tion of  our  journey,  and  it  would  be  a  miracle  if  we  ever 
reached  Bogota  alive. 

First  of  all,  there  were  the  steaming,  miasmatic  exhala- 
tions in  the  Orinoco  and  Meta  valleys,  from  which  they 
were  never  free,  and  the  ever  present  danger  of  yellow 
fever  and  other  malignant  diseases.  Even  people  who 
were  thoroughly  acclimated  incurred  the  greatest  risk  in 
traveling  through  this  pestiferous,  germ-laden  atmosphere. 
How  much  more  then  should  we,  who  had  so  recently  come 
from  the  chilly  north,  be  exposed,  if  we  still  persisted  in 
our  foolhardy  venture?  And  then,  if  we  fell  sick,  as  we 
surely  must,  we  should  be  in  a  trackless  wilderness,  among 
savages,  and  far  away  from  medical  aid  of  any  kind. 

Then  there  was  the  torrid  climate  to  take  into  account 
By  reason  of  the  intense  heat,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
travel  by  day.  We  should  then  perforce  be  obliged  to 
travel  by  night.  And  this  implied  new  dangers — dangers 
of  straying  from  a  poorly  defined  trail,  or  of  falling  into 
ravines,  or  quagmires,  and  dangers  from  wild  animals  of 
all  kinds,  with  which  the  forests  and  plains  were  always 
infested.  There  was  the  jaguar,  always  prowling  about, 
seeking  whom  he  might  devour;  the  labairi  and  boaquira, 
serpents  whose  envenomed  fangs  bring  certain  death  to 
their  victims,  and  the  dread  boa  that  was  pictured  as  hang- 
ing in  untold  numbers  from  the  branches  of  the  trees  in 
the  forests  through  which  we  should  pass. 

A  torrid  climate,  a  reeky,  malarial  atmosphere,  a  region 
infested  with  venomous  serpents — all  this  was  bad  enough, 

slight  modifications,  was  made  by  a  German  naturalist,  Dr.  Otto  Blirger. 
He  has  given  us  a  record  of  it  in  his  Reisen  ernes  Naturforsohera  im  Tropischen 
America,  Leipzig,  1900. 

So  far  as  I  .am  aware,  no  writer  has  made  the  journey  up  the  river  from 
Ciudad  Bolivar  to  Bogotfi.  In  a  certain  limited  sense  it  was,  therefore,  prob- 
ably true  that  we  were  the  first  to  undertake  the  journey  described  in  the 
following  pages, 

113 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

but  this  was  far  from  being  the  sum  total  of  the  pests  and 
plagues  we  should  encounter. 

There  was  that  ever-present  pest — whose  name  is  not 
legion,  but  billion — on  which  travelers  in  South  America 
have  exhausted  their  supply  of  adjectives  in  the  vain  at- 
tempt adequately  to  express  their  sentiments.  I  refer  to 
what  the  Spaniard  has  so  aptly  called  the  plaga — the  plague 
— the  cloud  of  mosquitoes  of  many  species  that  constantly 
torment  the  traveler,  and  give  him  no  rest  night  or  day. 
We  had  read  what  various  writers  on  the  equinoctial 
regions  had  to  say  of  the  murderous  onslaughts  of  the 
mosquito  from  the  time  of  the  early  missionaries  down  to 
our  own,  and  such  reading  was  far  from  calculated  to  re- 
assure one  who  was  about  to  form  a  more  intimate  acquaint- 
ance of  the  plaga  in  question.1 

i  The  plaga,  as  understood  by  the  natives,  has  special  reference  to  the  in- 
sects known  to  them  as  mosquitoes,  eancudos  and  jejenes.  What  they  call 
mosquitoes  we  call  gnats.  The  zancudo  is  our  mosquito.  The  jejen  is  a  small 
fly  whose  bite  is  quite  as  painful  as  that  of  the  zancudo.  Sometimes  the  term 
zancudo  is  applied  to  all  these  pests  indiscriminately. 

Besides  these  insects,  that  are  often  the  cause  of  much  suffering  to  the 
traveler  in  low  woodlands,  there  are  others  that  are  sometimes  included 
under  the  general  designation  of  the  plaga.  These  are  a  very  small  red  insect 
known  as  the  coloradito,  and  the  nigua,  or  jigger— -pulex  penetrans— which, 
on  account  of  the  misery  they  occasion,  are  often  more  dreaded  than  serpents 
or  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest.  They  usually  bury  themselves  under  the 
toe  nails,  where  they  lay  their  eggs.  If  not  immediately  removed  they  cause 
painful  and  often  dangerous  sores.  It  is  related  of  Sir  Robert  Schomburgk 
that  a  negress  once  extracted  from  his  feet  no  fewer  than  eighty-three  jiggers 
at  one  sitting. 

The  coloradito,  called  by  the  French  l£te-rouge,  and  in  some  places  known 
as  the  red  tick,  is  almost  invisible  to  the  naked  eye.  It  is  found  every- 
where in  the  equatorial  lowlands,  especially  during  the  rainy  season.  Its 
bite  causes  an  intolerable  itching,  and  when  one  has  been  exposed  to  the 
combined  attacks  of  many  of  these  microscopic  insects,  the  result  is  as  pain- 
ful as  the  burning  produced  by  the  poisoned  tunic  of  Nessus.  Schomburgk, 
in  describing  his  personal  experience,  declares  that  "the  bite  of  this  insect 
drives  by  day  the  perspiration  of  anguish  from  every  pore,  and  at  night 
makes  one's  hammock  resemble  the  gridiron  on  which  St.  Lawrence  was 
roasted.95  Simson  informs  us  that  the  intense  irritation  produced  by  the  bites 
of  the  bgte-rouge  at  times  drove  him  almost  to  the  verge  of  madness.  "Not- 
withstanding every  effort  of  self-control,"  he  writes,  "to  bear  the  itching  sen- 
sation, I  have  many  times  awoke  in  the  night  to  find  myself  sitting  up  in 

114 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

In  a  work  written  on  the  Orinoco  in  1822,  Mr.  J.  H. 
Eobertson,  referring  to  this  matter,  declares  that  "the  bit- 
ing, blistering,  and  intolerable  itching"  which  is  produced 
by  clouds  of  mosquitoes  is  "indeed  enough  to  make  a  man 
mad."  He  says  that  they  made  the  passengers — blacks  as 
well  as  others,  that  were  on  the  boat  with  In'm,  "almost 
roar  with  agony,"  and  that  in  the  morning  the  "whole  body 
exhibited  one  mass  of  small  blisters  from  millions  of  bites 
we  had  received  during  the  night."  * 

In  a  more  recent  book,  by  another  Englishman,  it  is 
stated  that  the  Orinoco  is  the  "paradise  of  mosquitoes,  and 
the  hell  of  travelers.  There,  insects  of  unusual  size,  and 
speckled  in  an  ominous  and  snake-like  manner,  issued  from 
the  bush  in  millions  and  assailed  every  square  inch  of  the 
exposed  skin.  .  .  .  Moreover,  they  stung  through  the 
boots,  coat  and  waistcoat,  and  drew  blood  wherever  they 
penetrated."2 

the  bed,  and  literally  tearing  the  skin  off  my  legs,  where  most  of  the  insects 
collect,  with  my  nails."  Mosquitoes  and  the  zancudos  are  bad  enough,  but,  as 
a  pest,  the  coloradito  is  far  worse.  Truth  to  tell,  our  greatest  suffering  in 
the  tropics  came  from  the  coloradito,  but  it  was  in  great  measure  due  to  our 
lack  of  precaution.  Had  we  exercised  more  care  we  should  have  avoided 
many  painful  hours.  The  best  way  to  allay  the  pain  is  to  rub  the  part  af- 
fected with  rum  or  lemon  juice. 

Padre  Gumilla  assures  us  that  leaving  the  Gulf  of  Paria  and  entering  the 
Orinoco,  or  any  of  the  tropical  rivers,  is  tantamount  to  engaging  in  a  fierce 
and  continued  warfare,  day  and  night,  with  countless  insects  of  all  kinds. 
Of  certain  mosquitoes,  he  tells  us,  their  sharp,  uninterrupted  noise  is  more  to 
be  dreaded  than  their  piercing  proboscis. 

So  trying  and  difficult  did  Raleigh  consider  a  voyage  up  the  Orinoco  that 
he  declared  it  a  task  "fitter  for  boies,"  than  for  men  of  mature  years,  al- 
though, when  he  visited  Guiana,  he  was  nearly  three  lustra  younger  than 
was  the  author  of  the  present  work  when  he  made  the  journey  herein  de- 
scribed. 

*  Journal  of  an  Expedition  1400  miles  up  the  Orinoco  and  SOO  up  the 
Arauca,  pp.  62  and  66,  London,  1822. 

2  Adventures  Amidst  the  Equatorial  Forests  and  Rivers  of  South  America, 
p.  63,  by  VUliers  Stuart,  London,  1891. 

Accepting  as  true  these  and  similar  exaggerated  statements  made  by  trav- 
elers from  the  time  of  Gumilla  to  our  own  regarding  the  insect  pests  of  tropi- 
cal America,  the  reader  will  no  doubt  be  inclined  to  agree  with  Sydney  Smith 
that  it  is  better  for  one  to  become  reconciled  to  the  trials  of  our  northern  cli- 
mate than  to  expose  oneself  to  the  still  greater  trials  in  the  lands  bordering 

115 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

On  looking  over  these  works  again,  we  found  that  the 
miseries  referred  to  were  endured  chiefly  in  the  delta  of 
the  Orinoco,  and  not  so  much  in  the  river  above.  Yet, 
strange  to  say,  our  experience,  so  far  at  least,  was  the  very 
contrary  of  all  this,  although  we  had  passed  through  the 
delta  three  times.  On  none  of  these  occasions  had  we  ever 
been  molested  by  a  single  mosquito  or  had  we  ever  thought 
of  using  a  mosquito  net.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  nobody  ever 
used  such  a  protection  against  insects,  as  there  was  no  call 
for  it.  Our  natural  inference  was  that  the  reports  about 
this  plaga  of  the  Orinoco  were  much  exaggerated,  and  we 
had  reason  to  suspect  that  the  same  was  true  about  the 
terrific  heat  against  which  we  had  so  repeatedly  been 
warned. 

We  had  been  twice  in  La  Guaira,  which  Humboldt  de- 
clared to  be  one  of  the  hottest  places  on  earth,  and  had 
not  suffered  so  much  from  the  elevated  temperature  there 
as  we  had  frequently  suffered  from  the  sweltering  heat 
that  so  often  oppresses  one  in  New  York  and  Washington. 
We  remembered,  too,  that  another  German  writer  had 
characterized  Ciudad  Bolivar,  on  account  of  the  intensity 

the  equator.    In  a  characteristic  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  on  Water- 
ton's  Wanderings,  the  genial  humorist  has  the  following  paragraph : — 

"Insects  are  the  curse  of  tropical  climates.  The  b£te-rouge  lays  the  founda- 
tion of  a  tremendous  ulcer.  In  a  moment  you  are  covered  with  ticks*  Chigoes 
bury  themselves  in  your  flesh,  and  hatch  a  large  colony  of  young  chigoes  in 
a  few  hours.  They  will  not  live  together,  but  every  chigoe  sets  up  a  separate 
ulcer,  and  has  his  own  private  portion  of  pus.  Flies  get  entry  into  your 
mouth,  into  your  eyes,  into  your  nose;  you  eat  flies,  drink  flies,  and  breathe 
flies.  Lizards,  cockroaches,  and  snakes,  get  into  the  bed;  ants  eat  up  the 
bodes;  scorpions  sting  you  on  the  foot.  Everything  bites,  stings,  or  bruises; 
every  second  of  your  existence  you  are  wounded  by  some  piece  of  animal 
life  that  nobody  has  ever  seen  before,  except  Swammerdam  and  Meriam.  An 
insect  with  eleven  legs  is  swimming  in  your  teacup,  a  nondescript  with  nine 
wings  is  struggling  in  the  small  beer,  or  a  caterpillar  with  several  dozen  eyes 
in  his  belly  is  hastening  over  your  bread  and  butter!  All  nature  is  alive, 
and  seems  to  be  gathering  all  her  entomological  hosts  to  eat  you  up,  as  you 
are  standing,  out  of  your  coat,  waistcoat,  and  breeches.  Such  are  the  tropics. 
All  this  reconciles  us  to  our  dews,  fogs,  vapours,  and  drizzle — to  our  apothe- 
caries rushing  about  with  gargles  and  tinctures— to  our  old,  British,  constitu- 
tional coughs,  sore  throats,  and  swelled  faces." 

116 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

of  the  heat  prevailing  there,  as  "the  exit  of  hell,  as  La 
Guaira  is  its  entrance."  And  yet  during  our  sojourn 
of  nearly  two  weeks  in  the  Orinoco  city,  we  never  expe- 
rienced the  slightest  discomfort  from  the  temperature, 
nor  did  the  thermometer  ever  rise  within  ten  degrees  of 
the  temperature  often  registered  in  some  of  our  North 
Atlantic  coast  cities  during  the  months  of  July  and 
August. 

The  truth  was,  we  were  beginning  to  grow  quite  sceptical 
about  the  much  vaunted  dangers  of  equatorial  travel. 
From  our  experience  in  traveling  in  other  lands,  we  had 
learned  how  prone  the  majority  of  those  who  do  not  travel 
are  to  exaggerate — unconsciously,  perhaps — dangers  with 
which  they  have  no  personal  acquaintance,  and  how  inclined 
certain  travelers  are  to  magnify  slight  discomforts  and 
trifling  occurrences  into  dangerous  and  trying  adventures, 
especially  when  their  imaginary  deeds  of  prowess  are  per- 
formed in  countries  rarely  visited,  and,  therefore,  beyond 
the  control  of  a  truthful  recorder.1 

The  little  heed  we  gave  to  all  the  dire  predictions  that 
had  been  so  freely  volunteered  and  our  persistence  in  going 
forward  on  our  journey,  as  we  had  planned  it,  evidently 
led  one  of  our  friends  to  suspect  our  scepticism,  and  he 
accordingly  resorted  to  what  he  honestly  believed  to  be  con- 
clusive evidence  of  the  futility  of  our  purpose  and  the 
danger  of  our  undertaking.  This  was  an  article  that  had 
recently  been  published  in  an  English  magazine  which  had 
just  reached  Ciudad  Bolivar.  The  article  was  entitled, 
Adventures  on  the  Orinoco,  and  contained  the  following 
paragraph :— 

"For  many  reasons  the  Orinoco  is  one  of  the  most  danger- 
ous -rivers  in  the  world.  Not  only  are  there  countless 
physical  dangers  in  the  shape  of  sunken  rocks,  wrecks  and 
tree  trunks,  huge  sand  banks,  ever-changing  channels  and 

i  "In  a  region,"  says  Humboldt,  "where  travelling  is  so  uncommon,  people 
seem  to  feel  a  pleasure  in  exaggerating  to  strangers  the  difficulties  arising 
from  the  climate,  the  wild  animals  and  the  Indians."  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  361. 

117 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

bewildering  currents,  but  also  many  living,  though  often 
hidden,  perils  in  the  form  of  man,  beast  or  reptile.  The 
higher  one  ascends,  and  the  farther  one  penetrates  beyond 
the  Maipures  rapids  into  the  heart  of  the  Alto  Orinoco, 
the  wilder  the  scene,  and  the  more  perilous  the  river. 
Sparsely  populated  as  is  the  vast  region  above  and  im- 
mediately below  the  rapids,  it  is  often  the  home  of  anarchy 
and  misrule,  and  always  a  domain  where  the  passions  of 
men  know  not  the  restraints  of  law,  and  civilization  is  still 
a  dream. " 

To  clinch  his  argument,  our  friend  assured  us  that  the 
Meta  region — whither  we  were  bound — was  far  worse  than 
that  of  the  Upper  Orinoco.  The  banks  of  the  Meta  were 
always  infested  by  hordes  of  savage  Guahibos,  the  terror 
of  eastern  Colombia.  Hiding  in  the  dense  underbrush  that 
skirts  the  river,  the  first  indication  of  their  presence  would 
be  a  shower  of  well-directed,  poisoned  arrows  against  the 
daring  intruder  into  their  jealously  guarded  domains. 
Only  a  few  months  before,  a  steamer  like  ours  had  been 
attacked  near  the  mouth  of  the  Meta  by  several  hundred 
Indians  and  outlaws.,  and  we  were  exposed  to  a  similar 
assault  from  the  same  quarter,  unless  we  would  listen  to 
reason,  and  desist  from  our  hazardous  and  reckless  enter- 
prise. "Besides,"  he  added  finally,  "it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  your  boat  will  be  permitted  to  reach  its  destina- 
tion. As  you  know,  the  government  is  now  engaged  in 
quelling  the  revolution  led  by  one  Penalosa.  Only  a  few 
days  ago  a  large  steamer  was  dispatched  to  San  Fernando, 
laden  with  arms  and  ammunition,  and  orders  have  been  is- 
sued for  your  boat  to  call  at  Caicara  and  Urbana  and  be 
subject  to  the  orders  of  the  army  officers  there  awaiting 
instructions  from  the  scene  of  war.  If  the  steamer  shall 
be  needed  by  the  government,  as  now  seems  more  than 
probable,  you  will  be  left  wherever  the  boat  happens  to  be 
commandeered,  and  then  you  will  have  no  means  of  return- 
ing hither  except  in  a  dugout,  if  you  are  fortunate  enough 
to  find  one.  To  continue  your  course  up  the  river  in  an 

118 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

Indian  canoe,  at  this  season  of  the  year,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  rainy  season,  is,  of  course,  impossible. " 

We  were  not  frightened  by  the  thought  of  meeting  the 
Indians.  We  had  met  them  before  in  many  places,  and  had 
never  found  them  so  dangerous  as  depicted.  The  thought, 
however,  of  being  put  ashore,  in  case  the  government  should 
need  our  boat,  and  of  being  compelled  to  make  our  way 
back  to  Ciudad  Bolivar  in  an  Indian  dugout  was  something 
that  caused  us  to  ponder,  but  not  to  hesitate.  We  had  been 
in  similar  quandaries  before,  and,  relying  on  our  good  luck, 
which  has  never  failed  us  in  our  wanderings,  we  determined 
to  take  our  chances.  We  had  faith  in  our  star,  and  we 
instinctively  felt,  in  spite  of  the  untoward  outlook,  that  we 
should  in  due  course  arrive  safe  and  sound  at  Orocue.  We 
recalled  and  were  encouraged  by  Minerva's  words  to 
Ulysses : — 

Qapo-aXeos  yap  avrjp  cv  iracnv  d/ieivaiv 
Ipyotcrtv  TvAcfla,  et  *at  voBev  aAAolcv  lAlot.1 

Finally,  long  after  the  hour  scheduled  for  our  departure 
from  Ciudad  Bolivar,  our  boat  slipped  her  moorings,  and 
she  was  soon  out  in  mid-river  with  her  prow  directed  toward 
the  setting  sun.  It  was  the  last  week  in  April  and  the  rainy 
season  had  already  set  in — much  earlier  than  usuaL  The 
river  had  been  rising  rapidly  for  several  days,  and  we, 
therefore,  had  no  reason  to  apprehend  danger  on  the  score 
of  shallow  water.  The  usual  time  for  the  opening  of 
navigation  to  the  Upper  Meta  was  anticipated  by  more  than 
a  month.  This  was  a  favorable  omen  to  begin  with.  By 
starting  thus  in  advance  of  the  usual  time  we  should  be 
able  to  reach  the  river  Magdalena  before  its  high  waters 
would  begin  to  subside.  This  was  of  prime  importance  to 
us,  as  it  would  enable  us  to  escape  those  long  and  em- 
barrassing delays  that  are  so  frequently  occasioned  in  this 
river  during  the  dry  season. 

i  "More  bold  a  man  is,  he  prevails  the  more, 
Though  man  nor  place  he  ever  saw  before/' 

— The  Ocfywey,  Book  VII,  w.  50,  51. 

119 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

The  word  season  has  been  frequently  used  in  these  pages, 
but,  strictly  speaking,  there  are  in  the  tropics  no  such 
things  as  seasons  as  we  know  them  in  higher  latitudes.  In 
the  equatorial  regions  it  is  always  summer  and  verdure  and 
bloom  are  perennial.  For  the  sake  of  convenience  the 
natives  speak  of  two  seasons,  the  rainy  season,  known  as 
winter,  and  the  dry  season  which  is  called  summer.  The 
winter  season  in  the  valleys  of  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta 
begins  about  the  first  of  May  and  lasts  until  October.  The 
remaining  months,  constituting  the  winter  and  a  part  of 
the  spring  of  regions  farther  north,  is  known  as  summer. 

Sir  Walter  Baleigh's  account  of  the  seasons  in  these 
parts  is  so  pertinent  and  so  accurate  in  the  main  that  I 
give  it  in  his  own  words.  "The  winter  and  the  summer," 
he  writes,  "as  touching  cold  and  heate  differ  not,  neither 
do  the  trees  euer,  senciblie  lose  the  leaues,  but  haue  alwaies 
fruite  either  ripe  or  green  at  one  time:  But  their  winter 
onelie  consisteth  of  terrible  raynes,  and  ouerflowings  of  the 
riuers,  with  many  great  storms  and  gusts,  thunder,  and 
lightnings,  of  which  we  had  our  fill,  ere  we  returned."  l 

Our  boat  was  a  double-deck  stern-wheeler  of  very  light 
draft — about  two  feet — and  capable  of  carrying  about  fifty 
tons.  Her  chief  cargo  was  salt,  groceries  and  dry-goods, 
most  of  which  was  destined  for  Orocue. 

Outside  of  the  crew  there  were  but  few  passengers — not 
more  than  eight  or  ten  all  told.  Among  the  most  congenial 
were  a  Colombian  from  Bogota,  and  a  young  German,  who 
was  traveling  in  the  interest  of  a  large  commercial  house 
in  Oiudad  Bolivar.  The  crew  was  a  motley  one.  The 
majority  of  them  were  Venezuelan  mestizos.  Besides  these, 
there  were  three  or  four  West  Indian  negroes,  and  six  or 
seven  full-blooded  Indians  from  the  Upper  Meta.  The 
latter  had  come  down  the  river  only  a  few  days  previously 
and  were  now  returning  with  us  to  their  homes.  They  had 
been  engaged  to  perform  some  menial  services  aboard,  for 
which  they  received  a  trifling  compensation.  They  all  be- 

i  Op.  cit.,  p.  87. 

120 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

longed  to  the  ferocious  tribe  of  Guahibos,  about  whom  we 
had  heard  such  frightful  stories,  but  these  particular  mem- 
bers of  the  tribe  we  found  to  be  very  quiet  and  harmless. 
One  of  them  spoke  Spanish  fairly  well,  and  through  him 
we  were  able  to  learn  much  about  the  manners  and  customs 
of  his  tribe.  He  was  quite  intelligent  and  took  pleasure  in 
telling  us  about  the  mode  of  life  and  occupations  of  his 
people.  Later  on,  especially  in  Orocue,  where  we  spent  ten 
days,  we  were  able  to  verify  his  statements.  All  his  com- 
panions aboard,  although  below  the  average  height,  were 
broad-shouldered,  well-formed,  and  possessed  of  extraordi- 
nary strength  and  endurance.  Judging  from  the  work  we 
saw  them  do,  we  were  not  surprised  to  learn  that  they  are 
considered  among  the  best  warriors  among  the  savage 
tribes  in  this  part  of  South  America. 

The  first  place  of  any  special  interest  on  the  Orinoco 
above  Ciudad  Bolivar  is  what  is  known  as  La  Puerto,  del 
Infierno — The  Gate  of  Hell.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a 
contraction  of  the  river  where  the  current  is  unusually 
strong,  and  where,  on  account  of  the  large  rocks  in  the 
river  bed,  there  are  numerous  eddies  and  whirlpools. 
From  what  ^e  had  been  told,  the  passage  at  this  point  was 
more  difficult  and  dangerous  than  shooting  the  rapids  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  and  the  scenery  was  represented  as 
grand  beyond  description.  The  scenery  was  wild  and  in- 
teresting, but  far  from  sublime  or  awe-inspiring.  The 
current,  it  is  true,  was  quite  rapid,  and  our  little  craft 
made  but  slow  progress  through  the  surging,  seething 
waters,  but  there  was  never  any  danger.  For  small  sloops 
or  schooners,  and  especially  for  curiaras,  or  dugouts,  the 
passage  would  doubtless  be  difficult  and  somewhat  perilous. 
It  is,  however,  important  that  the  pilot  and  helmsman 
should  exercise  considerable  care  so  as  to  avoid  striking 
the  massive  rocks  with  which  the  bed  of  the  river  is  so 
thickly  studded. 

Considering  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  the  splendid 
grazing  lands  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Orinoco,  one  is  sur- 

121 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

prised  at  the  sparseness  of  the  population.  It  is  only  at 
long  intervals  that  one  sees  any  signs  of  human  habitations, 
and  then  they  are  of  the  most  primitive  character.  Mapire 
and  Las  Bonitas  are  two  straggling  villages  whose  inhab- 
itants are  chiefly  engaged  in  stock-raising.  The  latter  place 
was  also  at  one  time  the  centre  of  the  tonka  bean  industry, 
but  most  of  this  trade  has  been  transferred  to  Oiudad 
Bolivar. 

Of  the  people  of  Las  Bonitas,  the  noted  explorer  Crevaux 
writes  as  follows:  " Every  man  here  has  a  cabin,  a  man- 
dolin, a  hammock,  a  gun,  a  wife  and  the  fever.  These  con- 
stitute all  his  wants. "  l 

Near  the  confluence  of  the  Apure  with  the  Orinoco  is 
the  town  of  Caicara,  with  a  population  of  six  or  seven  hun- 
dred souls.  It  is  something  of  a  distributing  centre  for 
this  section  of  the  country.  Besides  stock-raising  and 
agriculture,  which  receive  considerable  attention  here, 
there  is  quite  a  trade  carried  on  with  the  Indians  of  the 
interior,  who  bring  into  the  town  certain  much  valued 
articles  of  commerce.  Among  these  are  hammocks,  made 
from  the  leaf  of  the  moriche  palm,  and  ropes  made  from 
the  fibres  of  a  palm  called  by  the  natives  chichigue— 
attalea  funifera — which  are  highly  prized  for  their 
strength,  durability,  and  above  all,  on  account  of  their  being 
less  affected  by  water  and  moisture  than  ropes  made  from 
other  materials.  Large  quantities  of  sarrapia  or  tonka 
beans  are  brought  here  from  the  neighboring  forests. 
They  are  much  esteemed  as  an  ingredient  of  certain  per- 
fumes and  for  flavoring  tobacco. 

i  Voyages  dans  I'Amerique,  du  8ud,  p.  578,  Paris,  1883. 

Major  Stanley  Patterson,  writing  in  the  Royal  Geographical  Journal,  Vol. 
XIII,  No.  1,  p.  40,  1899,  of  the  Venezuelans  living  on  the  Orinoco,  declares  that 
"All  are  avaricious,  thriftless,  independent,  faithless,  untruthful,  lazy,  cap- 
able of  hard  work,  quick-tempered,  vindictive,  changeful  and  .full  of  laughter. 
If  there  are  clouds  these  children  of  the  sun  see  them  not;  nothing  is  really 
serious  to  them."  Certain  of  his  adjectives  may  apply  to  some  of  the  in- 
habitants but  they  surely  cannot  truthfully  be  applied  to  all  of  them.  We 
found  many  good  people  among  them  and  retain  the  pleasantest  recollections 
of  their  kindness  and  hospitality. 

122 


IN  THE  LLANOS  OP  VENEZUELA. 


INDIANS  OP  MID-ORINOQUIA. 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

The  town  has  a  splendid  location,  and  under  a  stable 
and  enterprising  government  would  be  the  centre  of  a  large 
inland  trade.  Towering  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
above  the  town  is  a  hill  of  gneissic  granite,  on  the  summit 
of  which  are  the  ruins  of  a  Capuchin  monastery,  which  has 
been  abandoned  since  the  War  of  Independence. 

Our  party  was  here  augmented  by  a  Venezuelan  hide 
and  cattle  merchant.  He  was  a  sociable  fellow,  and  re- 
minded us  very  much  of  a  Colorado  or  New  Mexican 
cowboy.  He  left  us  at  Urbana,  the  last  town  of  any  im- 
portance, between  Caicara  and  Orocue. 

We  arrived  at  Urbana,  a  town  of  about  the  same  size  and 
importance  as  Caicara,  shortly  after  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  and  were  surprised  that  there  was  no  one  at  the 
landing  place  to  meet  us.  At  every  other  place  at  which 
we  had  stopped,  every  man,  woman  and  child  was  out  to 
see  us.  It  is  only  five  or  six  times  a  year  that  a  steamer 
calls  at  this  place,  and  then  only  during  the  rainy  season, 
when  the  river  is  high.  The  place  was  as  silent  as  the 
grave,  and  seemed  absolutely  deserted.  There  was  not 
even  a  dog  bark  to  break  the  oppressive  stillness,  and  not 
a  single  light  was  to  be  seen  in  house  or  street.  On  enquiry 
we  were  informed  that  everybody  had  retired  for  the  night. 
The  sun  had  just  set  only  a  few  minutes  before,  but  like 
the  domestic  fowl  in  the  back  yard,  all  the  denizens  of  the 
town  had  sought  rest  with  the  approach  of  darkness,  and, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  would  not  have  been  seen 
before  dawn  the  next  day.  This  custom  impressed  us  at 
first .  as  being  very  extraordinary,  but  we  afterwards 
learned  that  it  is  not  unusual  in  small  interior  South  Amer- 
ican towns.  In  fact,  we  soon  found  ourselves  imitating  the 
example  of  the  natives.  Shortly  after  sunset — there  is 
scarcely  any  twilight  in  this  latitude — we  sought  our  berth 
or  our  hammock,  and  rarely  awoke  before  the  caroling  of 
the  birds  announced  the  break  of  another  day.  Of  course, 
we  often  had  a  special  reason  for  retiring  as  early  as  we 
did.  A  lighted  lamp,  especially  on  the  Orinoco  and  the 

123 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Meta,  became  at  once  the  centre  of  attraction  for  a  cloud 
of  insects  of  all  kinds — some  of  which  emitted  a  most 
offensive  odor.  But  aside  from  this  we  soon  became  quite 
accustomed  to  early  slumbers.  The  ever  warm  climate 
seems  to  predispose  to  sleep,  and,  even  after  a  good 
night's  rest,  one  would  welcome  an  hour's  siesta  after 
luncheon. 

After  the  steamer  whistle  had  blown  several  times,  and 
set  all  the  dogs  in  town  to  barking,  the  male  population  was 
aroused  and  came  straggling  one  by  one  to  where  we  were 
moored.  We  were  in  need  of  a  new  supply  of  provisions, 
as  what  we  had  brought  from  Ciudad  Bolivar  was  almost 
exhausted.  After  making  the  round  of  the  town,  our 
steward  was  able,  but  not  without  difficulty,  to  get  some 
eggs,  chickens,  and  a  novilla — heifer.  This  would  last  us 
a  few  days,  at  the  expiration  of  which  we  hoped  to  find 
a  new  supply  further  up  the  river. 

Much,  however,  as  we  were  concerned  about  our  com- 
missariat, our  interest  was  just  then  centered  in  the  result 
of  a  confidential  interview  in  progress  between  the  cap- 
tain and  an  army  officer,  who  was  to  decide  whether  we 
should  be  permitted  to  proceed  on  our  journey,  or  whether 
our  boat  should  be  appropriated  for  use  in  the  campaign 
against  the  revolutionists,  who  were  said  to  be  heading 
towards  the  llanos  of  the  Apure.  This  contingency  had, 
like  the  sword  of  Damocles,  been  hanging  over  us  ever 
since  we  left  Ciudad  Bolivar.  Only  a  few  days  before, 
we  had  met  a  steamer  returning  from  San  Fernando 
de  Apure,  whither  it  had  been  dispatched  with  arms  and 
ammunition,  and  there  were  grave  reasons,  so  we  were 
informed,  for  believing  that  we  should  be  obliged  to  dis- 
embark at  TJrbana.  If  we  could  only  reach  Orocue,  we  had 
every  reasonable  hope  of  making  the  remainder  of  our 
transcontinental  journey  without  any  special  difficulty  or 
danger.  If,  however,  the  steamer  were  now  required  for 
military  service,  we  should  be  obliged  to  remain  in  Urbana 
for  an  indefinite  period,  and  perhaps — the  thought  was 

124 


IN  MID-OEINOQUIA 

almost  maddening — be  forced  to  abandon  entirely  an  enter- 
prise on  which  we  had  so  set  our  hearts. 

The  suspense,  which  did  not  last  more  than  a  half -hour 
— although  it  seemed  a  whole  day — was  finally  relieved  by 
the  joyful  announcement  that  we  should  be  permitted  to 
continue  our  journey  to  Orocue.  No  one  who  lives  in  a 
country  like  ours  can  realize  what  good  news  this  was  to 
all  of  us.  In  the  United  States,  if  we  miss  a  train,  we  can 
get  another  a  few  hours  later.  There,  on  the  contrary, 
far  off  in  the  wilderness,  where  the  means  of  communica- 
tion are  so  rare,  the  permission  to  proceed  was  like  the 
commutation  of  a  sentence  for  a  long  term  of  imprisonment 
into  the  granting  of  immediate  liberty. 

After  this  happy  decision  had  been  conveyed  to  us,  we 
wished  to  start  without  a  moment's  delay.  Hitherto, 
thanks  to  the  bright  moonlight  with  which  we  had  been 
favored,  we  had  been  able  to  travel  night  and  day.  Now, 
for  the  first  time,  the  sky  became  clouded,  and  we  were 
obliged,  as  a  precautionary  measure,  to  remain  where  we 
were,  until  the  clouds  disappeared.  To  attempt  to  navi- 
gate the  river  in  these  parts,  where  the  channel  is  ever 
changing,  where  there  are  so  many  sand  bars,  and  so  many 
floating  trees  and  obstructions  of  all  kinds,  would  be  ex- 
tremely dangerous,  and  might  mean  the  wrecking  of  our 
vessel  when  we  least  expected  it.  Fortunately,  the  clouds 
soon  passed  by,  and  we  were  again  on  our  way  rejoicing,  and 
rejoicing  as  only  those  can  realize  who  have  been  placed  in 
circumstances  similar  to  ours  at  that  critical  juncture. 

The  scenery  along  the  Orinoco  between  Ciudad  Bolivar 
and  Urbana  is  quite  different  from  that  of  the  delta. 
There  we  have  one  of  Nature's  hothouses  on  an  immense 
scale,  with  a  luxuriance  of  vegetation  that  is  not  surpassed 
in  any  part  of  the  known  world.  Further  tip  the  river 
there  is  less  variety  and  richness,  and  the  trees  are  smaller 
and  fewer  in  number.  One  soon  observes,  also,  a  marked 
contrast  between  the  vegetation  on  the  right  as  compared 
with  that  on  the  left  bank.  On  the  right  bank  the  forest 

125 


DP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

land  still  continues,  while  on  the  left  bank,  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  distance,  we  have  the  llanos  or  plains — for 
many  reasons  so  celebrated  in  Venezuelan  annals.  On  both 
sides  the  land  is  comparatively  low  and  flat,  although  here 
and  there,  especially  on  the  right  bank,  there  are  highlands, 
and  occasionally,  when  the  forest  fringing  the  river  per- 
mits it,  one  can  see  hills  and  mountains  towards  the  south. 

The  part  of  Venezuela  south  of  the  Orinoco — known. as 
Venezuelan  Guiana — is.  still  practically  an  unknown  land. 
Humboldt,  Michelena  y  Eojas,  Schomburgk,  and  others,  it 
is  true,  have  explored  portions  of  the  upper  Orinoco  and 
some  of  the  tributaries,  but  the  impenetrable  forest  lands 
through  which  these  rivers  pass'  are  still  quite  unknown.1 
As  to  the  territory,  north  of  the  Orinoco  and  the  Arauca 
it  has  been  quite  well  known  since  the  times  of  the  early 
mission  period  of  Venezuela.  Much  of  it,  indeed,  was 
explored  by  the  conquistadores. 

The  llanos  extend  southward  from  the  mountain  range 
bordering  the  Caribbean  to  the  Orinoco  and  its  great  tribu- 
tary, the  Meta.  They  have  an  area  more  than  four  times 
as  great  as  that  of  the  state  of  New  York  and  are,  in  many 
respects,  the  most  valuable  lands  of  this  part  of  tropical 
America.  And  strange  as  it  may  appear,  they  are  the  most 
neglected  and  most  undeveloped.  Their  population  and 
products  are  less  than  they  were  in  the  days  of  the  early 

*As  to  the  flora  of  the  forests  of  Venezuelan  Guiana  one  can  truthfully 
say  what  Richard  Schomburgk  affirms  of  the  flora  of  British  Guiana.  In 
his  Reisen  in  British  Guiana,  Vol.  II,  p.  216,  speaking  of  the  plants  in  the 
country  around  Roraima,  he  writes  as  follows:  "Not  only  the  orchids,  hut 
the  shrubs  and  low  trees  were  unknown  to  me.  Every  shrub,  herb  and  tree 
was  new  to  me,  if  not  as  to  the  family,  yet  as  to  the  species.  I  stood  on  the 
border  of  an  unknown  plant-zone,  full  of  wondrous  forms  which  lay  as  if  by 
magic  before  me.  .  .  .  Every  step  revealed  something  new." 

As  an  evidence  of  the  variety  of  plant  life  in  this  part  of  the  world,  it 
suffices  to  state  that  Bonpiand,  the  companion  of  Humboldt  in  his  memorable 
journey  to  South  America,  discovered  no  fewer  than  six  hundred  species  of 
new  plants  on  his  way  to  the  Cassiquiare,  and  that,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  his  investigations  were  necessarily  confined  entirely  to  the  banks  of  the 
river  along  which  he  passed.  There  are  still  many  large  tracts  in  Venezuela 
and  Colombia  that  have  never  been  visited  by  the  botanist. 

126 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

missionaries,  and,  from  present  indications,  there  is  little 
probability  that  there  shall  soon  be  any  change  for  the 
better.  Everywhere  are  immense  savannas,  in  which  are 
numerous  clumps  of  trees  and  groves,  swamps  and  lagoons, 
all  teeming  with  multitudinous  forms  of  animal  life.  Here 
—especially  along  the  Apure — bird:life  is  particularly  con- 
spicuous. It  is  here 'that  occur  the  most  extensive  garceros 
in  Venezuela,  if  not  in  South  America,  and  it  is  here  that 
the  annual  slaughter  of  the  egret  is  greatest. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  square  miles  of  the  llanos  are 
inundated  during  the  rainy  season.  Then  certain  parts 
of  the  country  present  the  appearance  of  immense  inland 
seas.  The  rivers  overflow  their  banks,  and  the  floods  rise 
almost  to  the  tree  tops  of  the  nearly  submerged  forest. 
The  landscape  then  is  not  unlike  what  if  must  have  been 
during  the  Carboniferous  Period — immense  stretches  of 
dense,  luxuriant  woodlands  in  a  vast  fresh-water  sea.  It 
is  then  that  it  seems  "an  unfinished  country,  the  mountains 
not  yet  having  lent  enough  material  to  the  llanos  to  keep 
them  out  of  water  during  the  entire  year." 

For  centuries  past  the  llanos  have  been  famous  for  their 
immense  herds  of  cattle  and  horses.  It  is  said  that  Gen. 
Crespo,  one  of  the  presidents  of  Venezuela,  had  no  fewer 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  cattle 1  on  his  hatos 
— ranches — and  we  were  told  of  an  old  bachelor  who  now 
has  a  hato  that  counts  a  hundred  thousand  head  of  cattle, 
not  to  speak  of  an  immense  number  of  horses. 

During  the  War  of  Independence  the  wild  horses  and 
cattle  were  in  some  parts  "so  numerous  as  literally  to 
render  it  necessary  for  a  party  of  cavalry  to  precede  an 
army  on  the  march,  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  the  way 
for  the  infantry  and  guns."2  And  only  a  few  decades 
ago,  we  were  assured,  the  number  of  cattle  was  so  great 
that  they  were  slaughtered  for  their  hides  alone.  During 

iS.  Pgrez  Triana,  op.  cit.,  p.  309. 

2  Campaigns  and  Cruises  in  Venezuela  and  New  Granada  from  1817-1830, 
Vol.  I,  p.  119,  London. 

10  127 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

recent  years,  however,  owing  to  the  number  of  revolutions, 
and  the  little  encouragement  afforded  by  the  government 
to  stock  raisers,  the  herds  on  the  llanos  have  greatly 
dwindled  in  size  and  number.1 

Under  favorable  conditions  they  could  with  ease  greatly 
be  multiplied,  and  be  made  to  contribute  materially  to  the 
world's  beef  supply.  The  unlimited  pampas,  with  their 
rich,  succulent  grasses,  ten  to  twelve  feet  high,  are  capable 
of  supporting  millions  of  cattle,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  not  be  made  available  for  the  European  and 
North  American  markets  at  much  lower  prices  than  the 
beef  that  is  shipped  from  Argentina  and  Australia. 
Specially  constructed  cattle  boats,  of  light  draft,  could  be 
made  to  ply  the  Orinoco,  the  Apure,  the  Arauca  and  the 
Meta  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  Under  a  settled  and  pro- 
gressive government  the  grazing  industry  should  be  the 
chief  source  of  revenue  of  the  Venezuelan  republic.  But, 
as  conditions  now  are,  cattle  raising  is  in  a  most  deplorable 
state.  When  we  asked  the  Llaneros — people  of  the  plains 
— along  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  why  they  did  not  have 
larger  herds  on  their  magnificent  savannas,  they  invariably 
replied:  "What  is  the  use?  We  get  a  large  herd,  and 
then  there  is  a  revolution.  The  army  comes  along  and 
appropriates  our  cattle,  and  we  never  get  a  penny  for 
them/' 

During  our  trip  up  the  Orinoco  we  tried  at  a  conuco — 
small  farm — to  purchase  some  chickens,  but  were  told  by 
the  proprietor  that,  .although  he  usually  had  large  numbers 

i  La  his  Travels  and  Adventures  in  South  and  Central  America,  Don  Ramon 
Faez,  the  son  of  the  first  president  of  Venezuela,  writes  as  follows  of  a 
certain  cattle  farm  in  the  llanos:  "Its  area  would  measure  at  least  eighty 
square  leagues,  or  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  acres  of  the  richest 
land,  but  which  under  the  present  backward  and  revolutionary  state  of  the 
country  is  comparatively  valueless  to  the  owner.  The  number  of  cattle 
dispersed  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this  wide  extent  of  prairie 
land  was  computed  to  be  about  a  hundred  thousand  head,  and  at  one  time, 
ten  thousand  horses;  but  what  with  the  peste,  revolutionary  exactions,  and 
skin  hunters,  comparatively  very  few  of  the  former  and  none  of  the  latter  have 
been  left."  Pp.  202,  203,  New  York,  1864. 

128 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

for  sale,  he  did  not  then  have  a  single  one  left.  "I  heard 
yesterday  that  the  revolutionists  were  coming  this  way" — 
he  had  heard  of  the  Penalosa  outbreak — "and  I  at  once 
killed  all  my  chickens  and  gave  my  family  and  friends  a 
great  chicken  feast.  If  the  soldiers  had  come  they  would 
have  taken  all  and  would  not  have  given  me  anything  for 
them." 

There  are  no  better  horsemen  in  the  world  than  the 
Llaneros  of  Venezuela  and  Colombia.  They  have  often 
been  called  the  Cossacks  of  South  America,  and  the  name 
is  not  undeserved.  In  daring  feats  of  horsemanship  their 
only  rivals  are  the  cowboys  of  our  western  plains,  and  the 
intrepid  Gauchos  of  the  pampas  of  Argentina. 

And  no  one  has  a  greater  love  for  horses  than  has  the 
Llanero.  Like  the  Arab,  he  would  rather  part  with  his 
most  cherished  possessions  than  dispose  of  a  favorite  steed. 
For  one  who  has  met  this  modern  Centaur,  or  who  is 
familiar  with  his  mode  of  life,  the  reason  is  evident.  As 
the  Llanero  spends  the  greater  part  of  his  life  on  horse- 
bads,  his  faithful  charger  is  to  him,  as  to  the  Arab,  not  only 
a  companion,  but  his  dearest  and  most  reliable  friend. 
Hence  one  need  not  be  surprised  to  hear  him  exclaim  in 
the  words  of  a  llano  bard : — 

' '  Mi  mujer  y  mi  caballo 
Se  murieron  a  un  tiempo ; 
Que  mujer,  ni  que  demonio, 
Mi  caballo  es  lo  que  siento."  * 

"All  his  actions  and  exertions,"  declares  Paez,  "must  be 
assisted  by  his  horse;  for  him  the  noblest  effort  of  man 
is  when,  gliding  swiftly  over  the  boundless  plains  and  bend- 
ing over  his  spirited  charger,  he  overturns  an  enemy  or 
masters  a  wild  bull." 

i  "My  wife  and  my  valued  horse 
Died  both  at  the  same  time. 
To  the  devil  with  my  wife, 
For  my  horse  do  I  repine." 

129 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALEJSTA 

Like  the  character  described  by  Victor  Hugo,  "He  would 
not  fight  except  on  horseback.  He  forms  but  one  person 
with  his  horse.  He  lives  on  horseback;  trades,  buys  and 
sells  on  horseback;  eats,  drinks,  sleeps  and  dreams  on  horse- 
back." 

Give  the  Llanero  a  horse,  and  the  equipment  of  a  lance 
and  a  gun,  a  poncho  and  a  hammock,  and  he  is  independent. 
With  these  he  is  at  home  wherever  the  setting  sun  may 
happen  to  find  him.  The  hammock  serves  him  for  a  bed, 
and  the  poncho  for  a  protection  against  sun  and  rain,  while 
with  his  lance  and  gun  he  can  easily  secure  the  food  he 
may  require.  Having  these  things^  he  is  happy,  and  al- 
though he  may  be  poor  in  all  other  worldly  goods,  he  is 
ever  ready  merrily  to  sing 

"Con  mi  lanza  y  mi  caballo 
No  me  importa  la  f  ortuna, 
Alumbre  o  no  alumbre  el  sol 
Brille  o  no  brille  la  luna."  * 

It  was  the  Llaneros  who  during  the  war  with  Spain 
contributed  so  much  towards  achieving  the  independence 
of  both  Venezuela  and  New  Granada.  Under  their  leader, 
Paez,  they  allowed  the  Spanish  army  no  peace  day  or  night. 
Armed  with  their  long  lances,  they  seemed  to  be  ubiquitous 
and  pursued  their  enemies  with  unrelenting  fury.  And  the 
novelty  of  their  methods  of  warfare — an  anticipation  of 
those  so  successfully  employed  by  the  Boers  in  their  recent 
war  with  England — were  such  as  quite  to  disconcert  those 
who  rigidly  adhered  to  the  tactics  in  vogue  in  Europe.  On 
one  occasion  Paez  dislodged  a  large  detachment  of  Span- 
iards by  driving  wild  cattle  against  them,  and  then,  burn- 
ing the  grass  by  which  they  were  surrounded,  utterly 
destroyed  all  of  them.  How  like  De  Wett's  methods  in 
the  Transvaal!2 

i"With  my  lance  and  horse,  I  care  not  lor  fortune,  and  it  matters  not 
whether  the  sun  shines  or  the  moon  gives  light." 

2  For  valuable  information  regarding  the  llanos  and  their  inhabitants,  the 
Llaneros,  the  reader  may  consult,  besides  Paez,  already  quoted,  A.US  den  Lfonoa, 

130 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

On  another  occasion  it  was  necessary  for  Bolivar's  army 
to  cross  the  Apure,  near  San  Fernando,  in  order  to  engage 
Morillo,  whose  headquarters  were  then  at  Calabozo.  But 
Bolivar  had  no  boats,  and  the  Apure  at  this  point  was 
wide  and  deep.  Besides,  the  Spanish  flotilla  was  guarding 
the  river  at  the  point  opposite  to  which  the  patriot  forces 
were  inarching.  Bolivar  was  in  despair.  Turning  to  Paez, 
he  said,  "I  would  give  the  world  to  have  possession  of  the 
Spanish  flotilla,  for  without  it  I  can  never  cross  the  river, 
and  the  troops  are  unable  to  march."  "It  shall  be  yours 
in  an  hour,"  replied  Paez.  Selecting  three  hundred  of  his 
Llanero  lancers,  all  distinguished  for  strength  and  bravery, 
he  said,  pointing  to  the  gun-boats,  "We  must  have  these 
flecker  as  or  die.  Let  those  follow  Tio1  who  please." 
And  at  the  same  moment,  spurring  his  horse,  he  dashed  into 
the  river  and  swam  towards  the  flotilla.  The  guard  fol- 
lowed him  with  their  lances  in  their  hands,  now  encourag- 
ing their  horses  to  bear  up  against  the  current  by  swimming 
by  their  sides  and  patting  their  necks,  and  shouting  to  scare 
away  the  crocodiles,  of  which  there  were  hundreds  in  the 
river,  till  they  reached  the  boats,  when  mounting  their 
horses,  they  sprang  from  their  backs  on  board  them,  headed 
by  their  leader,  and  to  the  astonishment  of  those  who  beheld 
them  from  the  shore,  captured  every  one  of  them.  To 
English  officers  it  may  appear  inconceivable  that  a  body  of 
cavalry  with  no  other  arms  than  their  lances,  and  no  other 
mode  of  conveyance  across  a  rapid  river  than  their  horses, 
should  attack  and  take  a  fleet  of  gun-boats  amidst  shoals  of 
alligators;  but  strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  was  actually 
accomplished,  and  there  are  many  officers  now  in  England 
who  can  testify  to  the  truth  of  it."  2 

The  islands  between  Urbana  and  the  cataracts  of  Atures 
have  long  been  famous  for  the  number  of  turtles  that  an- 

von  Carl  Sachs,  Leipzig,  1879,  and  Vom  Tropischen  Tieflande  sum  Ewigen 
Schnee,  von  Anton 'Goer  ing,  Leipzig. 

1  Uncle,  a  name  by  which  Paez  was  frequently  addressed  by  the  Llaneros. 

2  Recollections  of  a  Service  of  Three  Years  during  the  War  of  Eartermwui- 
tion  in  the  Republics  of  Venezuela  and  Colombia,  pp.  176,  178,  London,  1728, 

131 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

nually  congregate  on  them.  During  the  dry  season  they 
come  to  these  islands  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  and 
deposit  their  eggs  in  the  playas,  or  sand  banks,  which  are 
here  quite  extensive.  So  great  is  their  number,  says  Padre 
Gumilla,  that  "It  would  be  as  difficult  to  count  the  grains 
of  sand  on  the  shores  of  the  Orinoco  as  to  count  the  im- 
mense numbers  of  turtles  that  inhabit  its  margins  and 
waters.  Were  it  not  for  the  vast  consumption  of  turtles 
and  their  eggs,  the  river  Orinoco,  despite  its  great  magni- 
tude, would  be  unnavigable,  for  vessels  would  be  impeded 
by  the  enormous  multitude  of  the  turtles. " l 

Humboldt  estimated  the  number  which,  in  his  time,  an- 
nually deposited  their  eggs  on  the  banks  of  the  middle 
Orinoco  to  be  nearly  a  million.  Owing  to  the  abandonment 
of  the  system  of  collecting  the  eggs,  that  prevailed  in  the 
time  of  the  missionaries,  the  number  of  turtles  is  not  now  so 
great  as  formerly.  The  amount  of  oil,  however,  that  is 
still  prepared  from  turtle  eggs,  is  sufficient  to  constitute 
quite  an  important  article  of  commerce.  The  time  of  the 
Cosecha — egg  harvest — always  brings  together  a  large 
crowd  of  Indians  of  various  tribes,  besides  a  number  of 
pulperos — small  traders — from  Urbana  and  Ciudad  Boli- 
var. 

To  our  great  disappointment,  we  arrived  a  few  days  too 
late  for  the  harvest.  We  were  able  to  see  no  more  than  a 
few  belated  turtles  here  and  there  and  the  abandoned  palm- 
leaf  huts  that  served  to  protect  the  Indians  from  the  sun 
during  their  temporary  residence  on  these  sand  banks  which 
have  been  the  favorite  resorts  of  countless  turtles  from? 
time  immemorial.  Our  steward  was  fortunate  enough  to 
get  a  large  fine  turtle,  weighing  fully  fifty  pounds,  and  we 
had  turtle  steak  and  turtle  soup  that  would  delight  the 
most  confirmed  epicure.  Our  chef,  we  may  add  in  this 
connection,  took  pride  in  his  work,  and  his  skill  and  atten- 
tion contributed  not  a  little  to  the  pleasure  of  our  fort- 
night's voyage  on  the  little  steamer  which  he  served  so  well 

Orinoco  Ilustrado,  Cap.  XXIL 

132 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

A  matter  of  ever-increasing  astonishment  to  us  was  the 
continued  great  width  of  the  Orinoco,  after  we  had  passed 
such  immense  tributaries  as  the  Caroni,  the  Caura,  the 
Apure,  and  the  Arauca.  Near  Urbana,  six  hundred  miles 
from  its  mouth,  it  has  a  breadth  of  more  than  three  miles. 
This  peculiar  feature  of  the  great  river  has  attracted  the 
attention  of  travelers  from  the  earliest  times. 

Padre  Gilli,  a  learned  missionary,  who  spent  more  than 
eighteen  years  in  the  Orinoco  region,  thus  writes  of  the 
great  river  in  his  informing  Saggio  de  Storia  Americana,  - 
"One  cannot  understand  how  the  external  appearance  of  the 
Orinoco  remains  practically  uniform,  except  near  its  source, 
whether  the  waters  of  other  rivers  are  or  are  not  added 
to  it."  l  Depons  tells  us  that  the  inhabitants  attribute  to 
the  waters  of  the  Orinoco  "many  medical  virtues,  and  affirm 
that  they  possess  the  power  of  dispelling  wens  and  such  like 
tumor s."2  As  for  ourselves,  we  made  no  experiments  in 
this  direction.  We  found  the  water  so  muddy  from  the 
delta  to  the  Meta,  that  if  a  tumbler  full  of  it  were  set  aside 
for  a  while,  the  bottom  of  the  glass  became  covered  with 
quite  a  thick  layer  of  yellow  sediment.  We  did  not  find 
it  to  possess  the  offensive,  disgusting  odor,  due  to  dead 
crocodiles,  turtles  and  manatees  of  which  many  travelers 
have  complained,  but  we  did  take  good  care  never  to 
drink  any  of  it  without  having  it  carefully  filtered. 

On  leaving  Oiudad  Bolivar  we  had  a  limited  supply  of 
ice  in  a  small  refrigerator.  This  was  a  real  luxury  while 
it  lasted.  At  first  we  thought  it  would  be  difficult  to 
become  accustomed  to  drinking  the  warm  water  of  the 

river it  had  a  temperature  of  82°  F.— but  we  soon  became 

quite  used  to  it,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  thought  of  the  absence 

of  ice. 

We  had  spent  nearly  two  months  in  Venezuela  and  were 
about  to  enter  the  neighboring  republic  of  Colombia* 
During  that  period  we  had  visited  most  of  the  chief  cities 

1  Op.  cit.,  Cap.  VIII. 

2  Tom.  I,  p.  2. 

133 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

of  the  coast  and  of  the  interior,  and  had  come  into  contact 
with  all  classes  of  people.  We  had  talked  with  them  about 
matters  religions,  educational,  social,  economic,  political, 
and  only  rarely  did  they  manifest  any  disinclination  to 
express  their  honest  opinions  about  men  and  things. 
Apart  from  a  certain  class  of  professional  revolutionists 
— who  have  everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  from 
internecine  strife — we  found  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  population  is,  in  spite  of  what  has  been  said  to  the 
contrary,  peace-loving  and  thoroughly  sick  of  the  turmoil 
of  which  they  have  so  long  been  the  helpless  victims.  The 
better  element — old  Venezuelan  families  of  Spanish  descent 
— which  should  be  the  ruling  element,  but  which  is  too  often 
kept  in  the  background  by  ambitious  adventurers  and  un- 
scrupulous spoilsmen,  have  lofty  ideals  for  their  country, 
and  long  to  see  it  become  the  home  of  peace  and  industry, 
of  progress  and  culture. 

For  few,  if  for  any  of  the  countries  of  South  America, 
has  Nature  done  more  than  for  Venezuela. 

She  has  in  the  first  place  the  dominating  advantage  of 
location.  She  is  nearer  to  Europe  and  the  United  States 
than  any  of  the  other  South  American  republics,  and  should, 
under  a  strong  and  stable  government,  enjoy  corresponding 
trade  advantages.  From  her  numerous  ports  on  the 
Caribbean  sea,  as  well  as  from  points  on  the  Orinoco  and 
its  affluents,  freight  can  be  transferred  in  a  few  days  to 
our  ports  on  the  Gulf  and  Atlantic  coast,  while  from  La 
Guaira  to  Cadiz  the  distance  is  but  little  greater  than  it  is 
from  New  York  to  London. 

And  what  a  great  commercial  future  there  is  for  this 
at  present  hapless  and  neglected  country  when  it  shall  be 
blessed  by  wise  and  progressive  rulers  I  It  has  soil  of  mar- 
velous fertility  and  possesses  mineral  deposits  of  all  kinds 
and  of  untold  value.  It  has  tens  of  thousands  of  square 
miles  of  the  best  grazing  land  in  the  world,  capable  of 
supporting  millions  of  cattle.  In  the  lowlands  all  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  tropics  are  found  and  their  annual  yield 

134 


IN  MID-ORINOQUIA 

could  be  enormously  increased.  In  the  plateaus  of  the 
mountain  chains  are  produced  the  fruits  and  cereals  of 
the  temperate  zone — of  the  best  quality  and  in  surprising 
abundance.  Then  there  are  the  rare  and  beautiful  woods 
of  its  interminable  virgin  forests;  sources  of  wealth  yet 
untouched  and  all  but  unknown,  except  to  the  few  who  have 
explored  this  land  of  marvelous  natural  resources. 

Such  are  some  of  Nature's  gifts  to  Venezuela.  But  the 
extent  of  her  bounty  is  as  astonishing  as  its  variety.  How 
few  are  there  who  have  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
extent  of  this  country?  It  is  a  land  that  is  scarcely  known 
to  the  general  reader  except  in  connection  with  one  of  its 
periodic  revolutions.  And  yet  it  has  an  area  almost  seven 
times  as  great  as  that  of  Great  Britain  and  nearly  ten  times 
as  great  as  that  of  the  whole  of  New  England.  In  extent 
of  territory  it  equals  France,  Germany  and  Italy,  Belgium 
and  the  Netherlands,  Ireland  and  Switzerland  all  combined. 

And  yet,  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  its  total  popula- 
tion, including  Indians — savage  as  well  as  civilized — is 
less  than  that  of  New  York  City.  If  the  population  of 
Venezuela  were  as  dense  as  that  of  Belgium  the  country 
would  count  three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  million  inhab- 
itants. 

Sparse  as  is  the  population,  it  is  rather  a  matter  of  sur- 
prise that  the  number  of  inhabitants  is  so  great  rather 
than  that  it  is  so  small.  During  a  period  of  seventy  years 
there  have  been  no  fewer  than  seventy-six  revolutions. 
During  sixty  of  these  years  the  country  has  seen  two 
armies  almost  continually  in  the  field.  The  poor  soldiers, 
mere  puppets  of  soulless  adventurers,  rarely  knew  what 
they  were  fighting  for.  Against  their  will,  they  were  torn 
from  their  homes  and  families  to  enable  ambitious  leaders 
to  get  control  of  the  government.  The  death-rate  has  been 
appalling — at  times  greater  by  far  than  the  birth-rate. 
Some  of  the  revolutions,  it  is  estimated,  have  caused  the 
loss  of  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  lives.  For  this 
reason,  there  has  been  a  decrease  in  the  population  during 

135 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  last  fifty  years  instead  of  an  increase.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  there  are  as  many  inhabitants  in  the 
country  to-day  as  there  were  before  the  war  with  Spain, 
or  even  at  the  time  it  was  first  visited  by  Europeans. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  name  another  country,  except 
possibly  Haiti,  where,  in  proportion  to  the  population,  war 
has  wrought  greater  ravages  and  counted  more  victims. 
A  country  that  should  be  a  land  of  peace  and  plenty  has 
for  generations  been  an  armed  camp  of  contending  fac- 
tions, in  which  the  worst  elements  have  come  to  the  front 
and  in  which  justice  and  innocence  and  respectability  have 
been  trampled  under  foot.  With  all  this  were  the  usual 
concomitants  of  such  a  condition  of  affairs — atrocities 
that  the  pen  would  fail  to  describe,  deaths  from  famine  and 
pestilence,  deaths  from  the  machete  and  from  imprison- 
ment in  dark  and  foul  dungeons. 

Like  northern  Italy,  after  the  death  of  Frederick  n, 
Venezuela,  in  the  words  of  Dante,  has  been  for  nearly  a 
century 

"Full 

Of  tyrants,  and  the  veriest  peasant  lad 
Becomes  Marcellus  in  the  strife  of  parties." 1 

And  there  was  the  consequent  stagnation  of  business 
and  paralysis  of  industry  of  every  kind,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  property  on  a  scale  that  seems  incredible.  Such 
has  been  the  fate  of  Venezuela  since  the  time  of  Bolivar, 
whom  its  people  hail  as  the  Liberator,  as  the  Washington 
of  South  America. 

But  pitiful  as  has  been  the  country's  lot,  unfortunate  as 
it  is  to-day,  the  future  is  not  without  hope.  Only  one  thing 
is  necessary  to  change  the  present  lamentable  condition 
of  affairs,  and  convert  Venezuela  into  a  great  and  happy 
country.  That  one  thing  is  a  man — a  ruler  of  strong  arm 
and  stout  heart,  who  is  a  patriot  in  deed  as  well  as  in  name ; 
a  president  who,  forgetful  of  self,  will  devote  himself 

iPurgatorio,  VI,  124-126. 

136 


IN  MID-OBINOQUIA 

entirely  to  the  development  of  the  country's  resources  and 
to  the  happiness  of  his  people;  a  statesman,  who  will  be 
intelligent  enough  and  forceful  enough  to  bring  order  out 
of  chaos,  and  give  to  a  long-suffering  people  those  bless- 
ings of  civilization  which,  for  generations  past,  they  have 
known  only  by  name.1 

The  task  is  difficult,  very  difficult,  but  it  is  not  impossible. 
It  is  only  a  few  decades  ago  since  Mexico  was  as  turbulent 
a  country  and  as  noted  for  pronunciamentos  and  revolu- 
tions as  Venezuela  is  to-day.  Lawlessness  was  rampant, 
credit  was  gone,  commerce  languished  and  the  only  rail- 
road was  a  short  one  extending  from  Vera  Cruz  to  the 
national  capital.  Within  a  single  generation  this  has  been 
all  changed,  and  through  the  efforts  of  one  man — Porfirio 
Diaz.  Under  his  wise  and  beneficent  guidance,  Mexico  has 
emerged  from  that  state  of  confusion  and  anarchy  from 

i  The  unstable  and  turbulent  condition  from  which  the  country  has  so  long 
suffered  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  defective  constitution  or  to  impracticable 
laws.  The  constitution  of  Venezuela  is  modeled  after  that  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  laws  are  largely  based  on  the  best  legislation  of  other  coun- 
tries. But  this  is  not  sufficient.  Of  this  unhappy  country,  and  especially  of 
its  rulers,  one  may  exclaim  in  the  words  of  the  great  Florentine  poet: — 

"Laws  indeed  there  are, 
But  who  is  he  observes  them?    None." 

During  our  wanderings  through  this  country,  which  Nature  has  so  highly 
favored,  we  often  thought  that  the  interests  of  the  people  and  of  humanity 
would  be  subserved  by  adopting  4  method  of  government  that,  for  a  while, 
was  deemed  necessary  in  Florence.  To  quell  sedition  and  dissension  and 
break  up  the  factions  that  had  so  long  made  law  and  order  impossible, 
rulers  were  brought  in  from  outside— men  who  had  no  affiliations  with 
either  the  Bianchi  or  the  Neri,  Guelphs  or  Ghibellines,  and  who  could,  there- 
fore, be  counted  upon  to  execute  the  laws  with  strict  impartiality,  regardless 
of  family  or  party. 

Unless  those  responsible  for  the  government  of  the  country  shall  soon, 
give  evidence  of  being  able  to  guarantee  peace  and  tranquillity  and  give  the 
people  an  opportunity  of  developing  the  resources  of  the  country— something 
in  which  the  whole  civilized  world  is  becoming  daily  more  interested — the 
time  may  come  when  the  great  powers  will  find  it  necessary,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  international  expediency,  to  appoint  some  one  who  may  be  counted 
upon  to  keep  the  peace,  and  foster 'the  commercial  and  social  development 
that  is  so  greatly  needed  and  is  so  essential  to  national  progress  and  pros- 
perity. 

137 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

which  she  had  so  long  suffered,  and  now  occupies  an 
honored  position  among  the  nations  of  the  world.  Give 
Venezuela  a  statesman  and  a  patriot  of  the  stamp 
of  Garcia  Moreno  or  of  Diaz,  or  of  our  own  Eoosevelt,  and 
she,  too,  from  being  a  comparative  waste,  will  be  made  to 
bloom  as  the  rose,  and,  from  being  a  byword  among  the 
peoples  of  the  earth,  will  be  enabled  to  attain  to  that  com- 
mercial and  economic  eminence  which  is  hers  by  nature 
and  manifest  destiny. 


CHAPTER  V 
EL  EIO  META 

"Yendo  de  la  manera  que  refiero 
Habiendo  muchos  dias  navegado, 
Dieron  en  la  gran  boca  del  estero 
De  Meta  sumamente  deseado: 
Alegrose  cualquiera  companero, 
Pensando  ser  coneluso  su  euidado, 
Pues  aunque  de  poblado  no  ven  coaa, 
La  tierra  se  muestra  mas  lustrosa." 

— JUAN  DB  CASTELLANOS.1 

"Having  traveled  many  days  in  the  manner  above 
described,  we  finally  reached  the  month  of  the  mnch  desired 
Meta.  Every  one  rejoiced,  thinking  their  gravest  solici- 
tudes were  at  an  end.  And  although  no  human  habitations 
were  visible,  nevertheless  the  land  was  of  a  bright  and 
cheerful  aspect." 

Thus,  in  sonorous  octava  rima,  does  the  illustrious  his- 
toriographer of  Tunja2  give  expression  to  the  joy  which 

iJuan  de  Castellanos,  Varones  Ilustres  de  Indiaa,  Primera  Parte,  Elegia, 
XI,  Canto  II. 

sCastellanos  was  for  a  while  a  soldier  and  afterwards  an  ecclesiastic,  en- 
joying a  benefice  in  the  town  of  Tunja,  New  Granada.  Like  Pope,  he  had 
an  extraordinary  faculty  for  versification,  and,  like  him,  "He  spoke  in  num- 
bers for  the  numbers  came."  This  does  not,  however,  detract  from  his  au- 
thority as  a  historian.  Having  taken  an  active  part  in  many  of  the  cam- 
paigns, which  he  describes,  and,  knowing  intimately  many  of  the  earlier 
conquerors  of  that  vast  territory  now  known  as  the  Republic  of  Colombia, 
few  writers  were  better  qualified  than  he  to  record  the  events  so  graphically 
depicted  in  his  Elegias,  or  to  portray  the  characters  of  those  conquistadores 
who  figure  so  prominently  among  his  Varones  Ilustres  de  Indias.  The  first 
part  of  his  work  was  published  in  1589.  The  second  and  third  parts  were 
published  in  1850  by  Rivadeneyra-  in  the  Biblioteca  de  Autorea  Eapafiolea. 
The  fourth  part,  discovered  only  a  few  years  ago,  was  issued  by  D.  Antonio 

139 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Alonso  de  Herrera  and  his  companions  experienced  on 
their  arrival  at  what  they  fondly  hoped  was  the  goal  of  their 
long  and  daring  expedition.  It  was  now  more  than  a  year 
since  they  had  left  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco.  Before 
starting  on  their  adventurous  journey,  they  had  to  con- 
struct flat-bottomed  boats  and  make  other  preparations 
indispensable  for  a  voyage  so  replete  with  danger  and  of 
such  uncertain  duration. 

Herrera  was  the  second  of  the  conquistadores  to  reach 
the  Meta  by  the  Orinoco.  He  was  drawn  thither  by  the 
reports  of  vast  amounts  of  gold  existing  in  the  province 
of  the  Meta.  But  the  reports  proved  to  be  as  misleading 
in  his  case  as  they  had  been  in  that  of  so  many  other  valiant 
leaders  of  expeditions  in  search  of  another  Mexico  or  Peru. 
He  had  scarcely  reached  what  he  was  led  to  believe  was 
the  land  of  gold  and  precious  stones  when,  in  a  fight  with 
Indians,  his  life  was  cut  short  by  a  poisoned  arrow. 

Unlike  Herrera,  we  were  glad  of  our  arrival  at  the  Meta, 
not  because  we  were  in  hopes  of  finding  treasure  in  its 
neighborhood,  but  because  we  were  at  last  sure  that  our 
boat  would  not  be  commandeered  for  military  purposes. 
True,  we  had  been  told  at  Urbana  that  there  was  nothing 
to  apprehend  on  this  score,  but  we  were  not  entirely  satis- 
fied with  the  assurances  given.  When,  however,  we  had 
entered  the  Meta,  we  were  in  Colombian  territory  and  away 
from  Venezuelan  telegraphs  and  dispatch  boats.  After  this 
we  had  no  further  anxiety,  for  we  had  every  reason  to 
believe  that  we  should  arrive  in  due  course  at  our  destina- 
tion— Orocue. 

Although  Herrera  >s  voyage  to  the  Meta  took  place  as 
early  as  1535,  he  was  not  the  first  Spaniard  to  explore  this 
part  of  South  America.  Diego  de  Ordaz,  a  captain  under 

Paz  y  Melia  in  1887  under  the  title  of  Historic,  del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada. 
In  his  introduction  to  this  work,  Sr.  Melia  gives  an  able  resum£  of  all  that  is 
known  or  conjectured  regarding  Castellanos.  For  a  critical  estimate  of  the 
author  of  Las  Elegias  de  Varones  Iluatrea,  consult  Jimenez  de  la  Espada,  in 
hts  study,  Juan  de  CasteTtonos  y  au  Historia  del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada, 
in  the  Rivista  Contemporanea,  Madrid,  1889, 

140 


EL  RIO  META 

Cortes  in  Mexico,  had  preceded  him  to  this  region  by  four 
years.  Instead  of  continuing  his  journey  up  the  Meta,  as 
he  had  been  advised  by  his  Indian  guides,  who  assured  him 
that  toward  the  west  he  would  find  an  abundance  of  gold, 
he  endeavored  to  go  towards  the  south  on  the  Orinoco.  He 
found  his  plans  thwarted  by  the  great  rapids  he  encoun- 
tered— probably  those  of  Atures  or  Maipures — and  was 
compelled  to  return  without  having  accomplished  anything 
more  than  making  a  general  reconnoissance  of  the  country 
through  which  he  had  passed. 

I  refer  especially  to  the  expedition  of  Diego  de  Ordaz 
because  it  was  the  first  of  those  famous  expeditions  made 
on  the  great  rivers  of  the  New  World  by  the  conquistadores. 
He  anticipated  Orellana's  marvelous  voyage  down  the 
Amazon  by  nearly  ten  years. 

I  have  also  another  reason — &  personal  one — for  allud- 
ing to  it.  Twenty-five  years  before  my  arrival  at  the  junc- 
ture of  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  I  had  made  the  ascent  of 
Popocatepetl  and  explored  the  same  crater  from  which, 
more  than  three  and  a  half  centuries  before,  Diego  de 
Ordaz,  to  the  great  amazement  of  the  Indians,  had  taken 
out  sulphur  for  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder.  When 
scaling  this  lofty  volcano,  I  had  frequently  thought  of  the 
courage  and  endurance  of  this  dauntless  Spaniard  in 
accomplishing  a  task  which  was  then  far  more  difficult  than 
it  is  now.  According  to  Herrera  it  was  then  in  action,  and 
the  smoke  and  flames  rendered  the  ascent  next  to  im- 
possible. To  the  Indians  the  crater  was  the  mouth  of  hell 
in  which  tyrants  had  to  be  purified  before  they  could  enter 
the  abode  of  the  blest. 

But  difficult  and  hazardous  as  was  the  ascent  of  Popo- 
catepetl, the  voyage  up  the  Orinoco  was,  in  the  days  of 
Ordaz,  far  more  .so.  Not  so  to-day,  when  the  trip  can  be 
made  in  a  steamer  with  comparative  ease  and  comfort. 
But  it  did  seem  strange — passing  strange — that  we  two 
should  have  visited  two  such  unlikely  places  and  so  widely 
separated  from  each  other  in  time  and  space.  It  was 

141 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

almost  like  having  a  rendezvous  with  an  old  friend. 
I  confess  that  I  not  only  thought  of  Ordaz,  but  imagined 
that  I  felt  his  presence. 

The  great  conquistador  should  have  been  permitted  not 
only  to  wear  a  burning  volcano  on  his  armorial  bearings 
— as  was  allowed  him  by  Charles  V — but  he  should  also 
have  been  granted  the  privilege  of  having  depicted  on  his 
coat  of  arms  one  of  the  great  rapids  of  the  Orinoco — La 
Puerta  del  Infierno — for  instance,  which  he  had  so  success- 
fully passed.  His  achievements  have  been  eclipsed  by 
many  of  his  contemporaries,  but  in  enterprise  and  daring 
he  is  second  to  none. 

As  I  have  said,  we  were  glad — very  glad — to  reach  the 
Meta,  but  I  personally  felt  a  pang  of  regret  on  leaving  the 
Orinoco.  Nothing  would  have  pleased  me  more  than  to 
have  continued  on  the  waters  of  this  great  river  until  we 
should  have  reached  the  wonderful  Cassiquiare,  which 
connects  the  Orinoco  with  the  great  Eio  Negro  and  with  the 
still  greater  Amazon.  I  consoled  myself  with  the  thought 
that  possibly  I  might  be  able  to  make  this  journey  later  on, 
and  then  probably  extend  it  through  the  Madeira,  Mamore, 
Pilcomayo  and  Parana  to  Buenos  Ayres.  This  had  long 
been  a  fond  dream  of  mine.  Will  it  ever  be  realized?  In 
the  language  of  one  of  my  Spanish  companions,  Dios  verd 
— God  will  see — for  it  is  not  impossible. 

I  say  it  is  not  impossible,  because  a  part  of  the  journey 
— from  the  Orinoco  to  the  Amazon — has  often  been  made 
and  is  still  frequently  made  every  year  by  traders, 
missionaries  and  others.  And  contrary  to  what  is  often 
asserted,  it  is  not  an  undertaking  of  any  particular  difficulty 
or  danger.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  journey  from  the 
Amazon  to  the  Parana. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  first  to  make  the 
journey  between  the  Amazon  and  the  Orinoco,  by  way  of 
the  Cassiquiare,  were  Lope  de  Aguirre,  the  traitor,  and 
his  companions,  who  went  from  Peru  to  the  northern 
coast  of  Venezuela  in  1561.  The  first  white  man  to  pass 

142 


EL  BIO  META 

from  the  Orinoco  to  the  Bio  Negro  by  the  Cassiqniare  was 
the  missionary,  Padre  Roman.  He  made  the  round  trip 
from  his  mission  near  the  mouth  of  the  Meta  to  the  Eio 
Negro  in  about  eight  months,  and  at  a  time  when  some  of 
his  associates — Padre  Gumilla  among  the  number — were 
endeavoring  to  prove  that  there  was  no  connection  between 
the  Orinoco  and  the  Amazon,  and  that,  consequently,  a 
journey  from  one  to  the  other  by  boat  was  impossible.1 

After  Padre  Boman's  time  the  journey  between  the 
Amazon,  the  Orinoco  and  vice  versa  was  a  very  ordinary 
occurrence  for  missionaries  and  traders.  It  was  made 
in  1756  by  the  Spanish  commission  sent  to  settle  the 
boundary  line  between  Brazil  and  Venezuela,  by  Humboldt 
and  Bonpland,  Michelena  y  Bojas  and  numerous  other  ex- 
plorers who  have  left  us  accounts  of  their  travels. 

Since  the  missions  have  been  suppressed  the  Indian 
population  between  Urbana  and  San  Fernando  de  Atabapo 
has  greatly  diminished  and,  as  a  result,  the  traveler  at 
times  finds  great  difficulty  in  securing  boats  and  rowers. 
In  Humboldt 's  time  the  trip  was  comparatively  easy. 
There  were  flourishing  missions  along  the  entire  course 
of  his  travels — through  New  Andalusia  and  Barcelona, 
through  the  llanos  of  Venezuela,  along  the  Orinoco  from 
Angostura  to  Urbana  and  from  Urbana  to  the  Brazilian 
frontier  on  the  Bio  Negro. 

Now  all  this  is  changed.  If  he  could  return  to  the  scene 
of  his  famous  explorations  he  would  not  be  able  to  locate 
even  the  site  of  many  of  the  missions  where  he  was  so 
kindly  entertained  and  of  whose  hospitality  he  writes  in 
terms  of  such  unstinted  praise.  From  Ciudad  Bolivar  to 
San  Carlos  on  the  Bio  Negro — a  distance  of  nearly  a 
thousand  miles — he  would  not  find  more  than  one  or  two 
at  most.  Even  San  Fernando  de  Atabapo,  that  in  Hum- 
boldt 's  time  was  the  capital  of  a  province  and  an  important 
missionary  centre,  is  to-day  without  a  pastor.  A  priest 

i  Padre  Caulin,  Historia  Coro-Qrafica,  Natural  y  Evangelica,  lib.  I,  Cap. 
X,  p.  79,  1779. 

11  143 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

from  Ciudad  Bolivar  goes  to  this  distant  place — more  than 
seven  hundred  miles  away— once  a  year  to  look  after  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  the  few  inhabitants  that  still  remain 
there.  The  other  missions,  of  which  the  illustrious  savant 
gives  us  such  interesting  accounts,  have  long  since  disap- 
peared, and  the  places  they  occupied  are  now  covered  with 
a  dark,  impenetrable  forest  growth.  Most  of  these  were 
suppressed  at  the  time  of  the  War  of  Independence,  or  died 
out  during  the  countless  revolutions  that  have  since 
desolated  the  country. 

In  the  kindly  and  hospitable  padres  in  charge  of  these 
missions,  Humboldt  always  found  counselors  and  friends, 
and  in  some  of  his  longest  and  most  difficult  journeys  they 
also  proved  to  be  his  best  and  most  intelligent  guides.  It 
was  through  them,  too,  that  he  was  able  always  to  obtain 
food,  boats  and  boatmen — three  essentials  that  the  traveler 
of  to-day  often  finds  it  extremely  difficult  to  procure. 

Shortly  before  entering  the  Meta  we  passed  through  the. 
Eaudal  de  Cariben,  a  swift  and  foaming  cataract,  which 
rushes  between  immense  masses  of  black  granite  that  stand 
like  sentinels  on  both  sides  of  the  river  to  warn  the 
navigator  against  the  perils  of  further  advance. 

The  forms  of  the  rocks  are  bizarre  in  the  extreme.  Some 
of  them  are  columnar  in  structure  and  resemble  the  sombre 
pillars  of  a  Hindoo  temple.  Others  are  more  fantastic  in 
shape  and  would  easily  pass  for  a  Sardinian  noraghe  in 
ruins.  From  one  point  of  view  the  rocks  present  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  dismantled  fortress  with  its  bastions, 
parapets  and  embrasures;  its  glacis,  scarps  and  counter- 
scarps. 

But  the  most  singular  spectacle  of  all  is  a  formation  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  river  that  seemed,  for  all  the  world, 
to  be  a  petrified  battleship— just  such  a  man  of  war  as 
might  have  been  fashioned  by  the  hammer  of  Thor  and 
used  by  a  race  of  Titans.  The  celebrated  Garden  of  the 
Gods  in  Colorado  does  not  exhibit  more  grotesque  or 
diversified  rock  formations  than  does  the  Baudal  of 

144 


EL  BIO  META 

Cariben  and  it  is  entirely  devoid  of  that  wonderful  setting 
given  the  Orinoco  by  the  luxuriant  tropical  forest  and  a 
cataract  that  resembles  in  many  respects  the  rapids  above 
the  Falls  of  Niagara. 

One  is  not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  Indians  have  woven 
many  legends  about  this  cataract,  which  is  almost  as 
picturesque  as  are  those  of  Atures  and  Maipures  further 
up  the  river.  And  still  less  is  one  surprised  to  read  of 
the  accounts  given  by  the  early  missionaries  of  the 
difficulties  and  perils  attending  the  passage  of  these  rapids. 
For  small  craft,  especially  canoes,  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
them  near  the  shore  and  punt  them,  or  pull  them  along 
by  ropes.  With  our  stern-wheeler  we  never  felt  that  there 
was  any  danger,  but  our  progress  was  exceedingly  slow. 
At  times  we  were  actually  at  a  stand  still  and  once  or  twice 
it  looked  as  if  we  were  going  to  be  carried  down  stream, 
so  great  was  the  force  of  the  current.  But  finally,  after 
a  long  and  determined  struggle,  we  passed  the  cataract 
in  safety.  To  be  frank,  we  all  experienced  a  feeling  of 
relief  when  we  saw  that  all  the  reefs  and  remolinos — whirl- 
pools— were  behind  us,  and  that  we  were  again  once  more 
in  placid  and  safe  water. 

"Este  raudal  es  muy  maluco," l — this  cataract  is  very 
bad — said  our  pilot  to  us  after  the  strain  was  over.  "It 
is  much  more  difficult  to  steer  a  boat  through  it  than 
through  La  Puerto,  del  Infierno,  near  Ciudad  Bolivar. " 
Fortunately  for  all  concerned,  he  knew  his  business  well 
and  was  as  conscientious  as  he  was  skillful.  He  had  been 
navigating  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  for  nearly  twenty 
years  and  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  every  feature  and 
peculiarity  of  both  of  them.  He  had  never  had  an  accident 
and  was  justly  proud  of  his  record.  He  had  the  eye  of 
a  hawk  and  could  judge  of  the  relative  depths  of  the  water 
by  differences  of  color  that  were  quite  imperceptible  to 
the  ordinary  observer.  Only  once,  during  our  entire 
journey,  did  we  graze  a  sandbar,  and  that  was  only  for 

i  Maluco,  a  word  frequently  used  in  Venezuela  for  malo,  bad. 

145 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

a  moment.  But  it  was  quite  sufficient  to  make  a  young 
Ethiopian  among  our  crew  think  that  his  last  day  had  ar- 
rived, and  that  we  were  surely  going  to  the  bottom. 
Greatly  frightened,  he  turned  to  us  and  remarked,  "It 
am  very  unwholesome  to  travel  in  dis  ribber.  Dat  am 
certain." 

It  was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Meta,  according  to  certain 
alarmists  whom  we  had  met  in  Ciudad  Bolivar,  that  we 
should  be  exposed  to  grave  danger  from  savages.  A  band 
of  murderous  Guahibos,  led  by  a  certain  sambo l — a 
refugee  from  the  llanos  of  Venezuela — had  for  some  time, 
we  were  assured,  been  stationed  at  this  point,  where  they 
attacked  every  vessel  that  passed  by,  and  where  they  had 
already  robbed  and  killed  a  large  number  of  people  who 
had  ventured  too  near  the  outlaw's  lair.  The  first  intima- 
tion of  their  presence,  we  were  told,  would  be  a  shower  of 
poisoned  arrows  from  the  dense  underbrush  where  the 
enemy  would  be  concealed.  But  this  report,  like  so  many 
others  regarding  the  dangers  of  our  journey,  proved  to  be 
unfounded.  There  was  not  a  Guahibo,  much  less  a  sambo 
leader  to  be  seen  anywhere.  Everything  was  as  quiet  as 
on  the  proverbial  Potomac. 

Speaking  of  the  Meta,  Padre  Gilli  says:  "Its  width  is 
greater  than  that  of  a  dozen  Tibers,  and  in  the  summer 
season,  when  the  wind  is  high,  the  waves  become  very 
large."8  Far  from  being  an  exaggeration,  as  might  ap- 
pear to  the  reader,  this  statement  is  rather  an  under- 
estimate of  the  reality,  at  least  as  regards  its  breadth.  In 
places  it  is  fully  two  miles  wide — almost  as  broad  as  the 

i«A  sambo,"  writes  Depons,  "is  the  offspring  of  a  negress  with  an  In- 
dian, or  of  a  negro  with  an  Indian  woman.  In  color  he  nearly  resembles 
the  child  of  a  mulatto  by  a  negress.  The  sambo  is  well  formed,  muscular,  < 
and  capable  of  supporting  great  fatigue;  but  unfortunately,  his  mind  has  a 
strong  bias  to  vice  of  every  kind.  The  word  sambo  signifies,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  everything  despicable  and  worthless,  a  knave, 'a  drone, 
a  drunkard,  a  cheat,  a  robber,  and  even  an  assassin.  Of  ten  crimes  com- 
mitted in  this  district,  eight  are  chargeable  on  this  villainous  and  'accursed 
xace."— Travels  in  South  America,  p.  127,  London,  1806. 

a  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  43. 

146 


EL  RIO  META 

Orinoco  near  the  delta.  And  this  is  not  because  of  the 
shallowness  of  the  river.  According  to  Humboldt,  its  mean 
depth  near  its  mouth  is  thirty-six  feet,  and  it  sometimes 
attains  to  more  than  twice  this  depth. 

One  of  the  chief  affluents  of  the  Meta  from  the  north  is 
the  river  Casanare.  We  were  much  interested  in  this  on 
account  of  its  historical  associations.  It  was  down  this 
river  that  Don  Antonio  Berrio,  the  son-in-law  of  the  famous 
adelantado,  Gonzalo  Jimenez  de  Quesada,  came  on  his 
celebrated  expedition  from  Bogota  to  Trinidad.  He  was 
the  first  white  man  to  undertake  this  long  journey,  and, 
considering  the  difficulties  of  travel  at  that  time,  through 
an  unknown  land,  and  often  through  the  territory  of  hostile 
savages,  his  finally  attaining  his  destination  was,  indeed,  a 
wonderful  achievement,  comparable,  in  some  respects,  with 
that  of  Orellana  down  the  Amazon  a  few  decades  before. 

For  a  long  time  the  Casanare  river  was  the  favorite 
route  of  the  missionaries  who  went  from  Bogota  to 
evangelize  the  various  tribes  who  dwelt  in  the  valley  of 
the  Meta  and  in  the  valleys  of  many  of  its  chief  tributaries. 
Indeed,  for  a  long  time  some  of  the  most  flourishing  mis- 
sions in  New  Granada  were  in  the  country  through  which 
we  are  now  passing.  But  after  the  religious  orders  in 
charge  of  the  missions  were  withdrawn  or  suppressed,  the 
Indians  returned  to  their  native  wilds,  and  gradually  re- 
yerted  to  their  original  savage  condition. 

Much  as  we  tried,  we  could  not  discover  even  a  vestige 
of  any  of  the  former  missions  on  the  Meta.  And  not  only 
have  the  former  villages  and  towns  disappeared,  but  even 
the  Indian  tribes  who,  at  one  time,  were  so  numerous  on 
both  sides  of  the  river,  seem  to  have  vanished  also.  We 
sailed  an  entire  week  on  the  Meta  without  seeing  or  hear- 
ing a  single  human  being.  In  some  cases  the  Indians  have, 
for  greater  security,  retired  into  the  depths  of  the  forest. 
In  others,  war  and  disease  have  done  their  work  and  whole 
tribes,  as  in  other  parts  of  South  America,  have  been  ex- 
terminated. The  names  of  the  mission  villages  and  towns 

147 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

along  the  Meta  still  figure  on  the  maps,  but  the  traveler 
is  unable  to  find  the  slightest  trace  of  even  the  sites  on 
which  they  were  located. 

About  the  least  favorable  place  in  the  world  for  cultivat- 
ing literature  would,  one  would  think,  be  in  a  rude  hut  in 
an  Indian  village  on  the  Meta.  And  yet,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  works 
that  have  ever  been  written  on  the  missions  of  South 
America,  on  the  manners,  customs,  and  languages  of  the 
various  Indian  tribes  of  the  plains  and  forests  of  Colombia, 
was  produced  on  the  banks  of  the  Meta. 

Its  author  was  the  zealous  and  scholarly  Padre  Juan 
Eivero,  who  spent  sixteen  years  as  a  missionary  in  this 
part  of  the  New  World.  He  wrote  many  works  on  doc- 
trinal subjects  in  their  own  language  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Indians.  Besides  this  he  gave  to  the  world  what  are 
probably  the  most  useful  grammars  in  existence  of  several 
of  the  more  important  languages  and  dialects  spoken  by  the 
various  tribes  among  whom  he  labored  with  such  marked 
success. 

The  work,  however,  to  which  I  specially  refer,  is  his 
Historia  de  las  Misiones  de  los  Llanos  de  Casanare  y  los 
Bios  Orinoco  y  Meta.1  It  has  been  the  basis  of  many  other 
works  on  the  same  subject — Grumilla's  El  Orinoco  Ilustrado 
— for  example — but,  notwithstanding  the  numerous  books 
that  have  been  written  since  then  on  the  Indians  of  the 
Orinoco  and  its  tributaries,  Eivero 's  is  still  facile  princeps, 
and  must  always  be  consulted  by  one  who  desires  accurate 
knowledge  regarding  the  condition,  character,  rivalries  and 
wars  of  the  divers  savage  tribes  to  whom  he  preached  the 
gospel  of  peace  and  brotherly  love.  Besides  this,  he  gives 
us  exact  information  concerning  the  geography  of  the 
country  through  which  he  passed  and  affords  us  entertain- 

i  Compare  Cassani,  J.,  Historia  de  la  provincia  de  la  compania  des  Jesus 
del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada  en  la  America,  description  y  relaMn  exacta 
de  sus  gloriosas  missiones  en  el  reino,  llano,  meta,  y  rio  Orinoco,  etc.  Con 
1  mapa.  Folio,  Madrid,  1741. 

148 


EL  BIO  META 

ing  accounts  of  its  fauna  and  flora.  He  supplies  us,  too, 
with  rare  and  curious  data  of  great  scientific  value  to  the 
historian  and  ethnologist,  and  gives  us  the  benefit  of  his 
unique  experience  as  to  the  best  means  of  civilizing  and 
Christianizing  the  savage  hordes  that  in  his  day — 1720  to 
1736 — wandered  over  the  plains  and  through  the  wood- 
lands of  northern  South  America. 

It  was  indeed  in  consequence  of  the  recognized  impor- 
tance of  his  work,  as  a  contribution  to  the  solution  of 
certain  social  and  economical  difficulties,  that  confronted 
the  Colombian  government  some  decades  ago,  that  it  was 
finally  published  in  1883,  after  lying  in  the  dust  in  manu- 
script for  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

For  several  years  some  of  the  Indians  of  eastern 
Colombia  had  given  great  trouble  to  the  whites  in  the  more 
distant  settlements.  Bobberies  and  massacres  and  atroci- 
ties were  becoming  daily  more  frequent  and  the  numerous 
savage  hordes  threatened  to  extend  their  incursions  toward 
the  villages  and  towns  of  the  interior.  The  inhabitants 
were  in  consternation  and  called  upon  the  government  to 
devise  immediate  means  for  their  safety  and  protection. 
The  authorities  were  willing  to  do  anything  in  their  power 
but  did  not  know  what  steps  to  take.  They  had  to  deal 
with  a  foe  about  whose  character,  numbers  and  home  they 
were  almost  entirely  ignorant. 

It  was  then  that  someone,  by  a  happy  inspiration,  sug- 
gested calling  in  as  adviser  one  who  knew  more  about  the 
Indians  than  any  of  the  officials  of  the  government,  one 
who  had  long  lived  among  them  and  had  won  their  con- 
fidence and  affection,  one,  consequently,  who  would  be  better 
able  to  counsel  in  the  emergency  that  confronted  the 
government  than  any  one  else  that  could  be  named. 

The  adviser  and  expert  was  one  who  had  been  dead 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half — the  sainted  missionary  Padre 
Juan  Eivero.  He  could  not  testify  orally,  but  his  great 
manuscript  work  on  the  Indians  was  in  the  archives  of 
Bogota,  and  it  was  decided  to  print  it  at  once,  and  in  this 

149 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

wise  give  the  public  the  benefit  of  the  great  missionary's 
advice  and  utilize  his  knowledge  of  a  wild  and  untractable 
race  that  had  already  become  a  serious  menace  to  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  country. 

When  published,  the  book  was  found  to  be  so  modern 
in  many  of  the  views  expressed,  so  well  adapted  to  supply 
information  then  sorely  needed,  that  it  appeared  to  be 
written  expressly  to  meet  recent  difficulties  and  throw  light 
on  questions  that  modern  legislators  and  political  econo- 
mists had  been  discussing,  but  without  sufficient  knowledge 
or  the  necessary  data.  Both  the  data  and  the  knowledge 
were  furnished  by  Padre  Eivero  of  happy  memory. 

In  the  preface  to  his  work  the  author  tells  us  of  the 
difficulties  under  which  he  labored  in  its  production.  "The 
banks  of  the  Meta,"  he  writes,  "have  been  the  workshop  in 
which  this  work  has  been  forged.  Here  the  inconvenience 
of  the  house  in  which  I  live,  the  concourse  of  Indians  with 
their  importunate  demands,  the  visits  of  the  heathen 
Chiricoas,  who  are  the  most  noisy  chatterers  conceivable, 
and  various  other  disturbances,  which  would  require  time 
to  recount,  have  been  the  retirement  which  I  have  enjoyed, 
and  the  quiet  which  has  been  allowed  me  for  such  an  under- 
taking." * 

Speaking  of  the  Indians  who  inhabited  the  llanos  and 
the  banks  of  such  rivers  as  the  Casanare  and  the  Meta, 
he  declares-  they  were  as  numerous  as  the  sands  of  the 
seashore  and  the  stars  of  heaven.  During  more  than  three 

i  P.  14.  How  like  the  labors  and  cares  of  the  bishops  of  the  early  Church 
were  those  of  the  missionaries  among  the  children  of  the  forest!  Both  were 
continually  called  upon  to  act  as  causarum  eaxtminatores — arbitrators — and 
to  settle  difficulties  that  were  ever  arising  among  the  flocks  entrusted 
to  their  care.  St.  Augustine,  the  great  bishop  of  Hippo,  refers  frequently 
to  "the  burdensome  character  of  this  kind  of  work,  and  the  distraction  from 
higher  activities  which  it  involved" — "Quantum  attinet  ad  meum  commodum," 
he  writes  in  his  De  Opere  Monachorum,  XX TX,  37,  "multo  mallem  per  sin- 
gulos  dies  certis  horis,  quantum  in  bene  moderatis  monasteriis  constitutum 
est,  aliquid  manibus  operari,  et  ceteras  horas  habere  ad  legendum  et  orandum, 
aut  aliquid  de  divinis  litteris  agendum  liberas,  quam  tumultuosissimas 
perplezitates  caussarum  alienarum  pati  de  negotiis  secularibus  vel  jndicando 
dinmendie  vel  interveniendo  precidendis." 

150 


EL  RIO  META 

weeks  spent  in  the  valley  of  the  Meta,  we  saw  but  one  small 
encampment  of  wild  Indians — Indies  bravos — about  mid- 
way between  Cariben  and  Orocue.  They  greeted  us  in  a 
friendly  manner  and  seemed  to  be  a  very  harmless  people. 
They  were  Guahibos,  those  merciless  savages  who,  we  were 
assured,  would  be  lying  in  ambush  awaiting  our  arrival, 
prepared  to  assail  us  with  a  shower  of  poisoned  arrows, 
preparatory  to  serving  us  up  at  one  of  their  cannibalistic 
feasts. 

As  to  the  monkeys,  skipping  from  tree  to  tree  along  the 
Meta,  and  exciting  the  admiration  of  the  traveler  by  their 
antics  and  grimaces,  he  avers  that  their  number  is  an  em- 
barrassment to  the  arrows  directed  against  them.  Yet,  al- 
though we  were  daily  on  the  lookout  for  these  interesting 
animals,  as  well  as  for  others  popularly  supposed  to  exist 
in  countless  numbers  along  the  rivers  and  in  the  forests 
of  Venezuela  and  Colombia,  we  never  got  a  glimpse  of  even 
a  single  specimen  of  any  of  the  quadrumanous  tribes.1 

i  Every  reader  is  familiar  with  the  story  that  has  long  been  in  circulation 
regarding  monkey  bridges,  and,  in  his  youth,  was,  no  doubt,  entertained  by 
pictures  of  such  imaginary  bridges.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  no  one  ever 
saw  such  bridges  in  any  part  of  South  America  or  elsewhere.  And  yet  the 
tale  regarding  their  existence  has  had  currency  since  the  time  of  Acosta,  who 
visited  the  New  World  in  1570.  '.'Going  from  Nombre  de  Dios  to  Panama," 
he  writes,  "I  did  see  in  Gapira  one  of  these  monkies  leape  from  one  tree  to 
an  other,  which  was  on  the  other  side  of  a  river,  making  me  much  to  wonder* 
They  leape  where  they  list,  winding  their  tailes  about  a  braunch  to  shake  it; 
and  when  they  will  leape  further  than  they  can  at  once,  they  use  a  pretty 
devise,  tying  themselves  by  the  tailes  one  of  another,  and  by  this  means  make 
as  it  were  a  chaine  of  many;  then  doe  they  launch  themselves  foorth,  and  the 
first  holpen  by  the  force  of  the  rest  takes  holde  where  bee  list,  and  so  hangs 
to  a  bough  and  helps  all  the  rest,  till  they  be  gotten  up."  H istoria  Natural 
y  Moral  de  las  Indicts,  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  39,  Grimston's  Translation,  London, 
1604.' 

The  fable  about  the  monkey  bridge  belongs  to  the  same  class  as  those  that 
obtain  in  certain  parts  of  South  America  regarding  the  "great  devil,"  or  "man 
of  the  woods,"  a  near  relative  of  Waterton's  "Nondescript." 

Kingsley,  in  the  following  passage  from  Westward  Hot,  referring  to  some 
of  the  things  seen  and  heard  by  Amyas  Leigh  and  his  companions  during  their 
voyage  up  the  Meta,  paints  a  picture  that  is  doubtless  before  the  mind's 
eye  of  most  people  when  they  think  of  the  forest-fringed  banks  of  this  river, 
but  which  is  about  as  far  from  the  reality  as  could  well  be  imagined,  "The 

151 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Padre  Bivero  was  probably  the  first  to  give  an  account 
of  that  curious  custom — the  Couvade — which  prevailed 
among  the  Indian  tribes  with  whom  he  was  acquainted.  As 
is  known,  this  extraordinary  custom  has,  at  one  time  or 
another,  obtained  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe — in  Asia, 
Africa,  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  North  and  South  America. 
Marco  Polo  found  evidence  of  it  during  his  travels  in  the 
Orient.  It  is,  however,  in  South  America  that  it  is  most 
prevalent  and  where  the  prescriptions  connected  with  it  are 
most  scrupulously  observed.  And  it  was  the  early  mis- 
sionaries who  have  furnished  us  with  the  most  interesting 
data  regarding  this  widespread  custom,  and  which,  accord- 
ing to  recent  travelers,  is  still  as  prevalent  in  certain  parts 
of  South  America  as  it  was  generations  ago. 

"It  is  a  ridiculous  thing,"  says  Eivero,  "of  which  I  am 
about  to  speak,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  reality.  It  is  this. 
When  a  woman  gives  birth  to  a  child,  it  is  the  husband  that 
is  to  receive  the  care  and  attention  given  on  such  occasions 
and  not  the  miserable  woman.  Scarcely  is  the  child  born, 
when  the  husband,  with  the  behavior  of  one  who  has  es^ 
caped  from  a  grave  mischance,  goes  to  bed  complaining 
as  if  he  were  ill.  The  wife  then  bestows  on  him  the  most 
tender  care,  as  if  on  this  the  welfare  of  the  home  depended. 
As  a  reason  for  these  superstitious  practices  and  ridiculous 
ceremonies,  they  assert  that,  if  during  this  time  they  should 
go  walking,  they  would  trample  on  the  head  of  the  infant; 
if  they  should  chop  wood,  they  would  cleave  the  child's 
head ;  if  they  should  shoot  birds  in  the  mountain,  they  would 
infallibly  shoot  the  newly  born.  And  so  is  it  with  other 
foolish  things  of  a  similar  character  which  they  firmly  be- 
lieve."1 

The  time  during  which  the  father  must  keep  to  his  bed, 

long  processions  of  monkeys,"  he  writes,  "who  kept  pace  with  them  along  the 
tree  tops  and  proclaimed  their  wonder  in  every  imaginable  whistle,  and  grunt 
and  howl,  had  ceased  to  move  their  laughter,  as  much  as  the  roar  of  the 
jaguar  and  the  rustle  of  the  boa  had  ceased  to  move  their  fear."  Chap. 
XXIIL 
i  Op.  cit.,  p.  347. 

152 


EL  BIO  MBTA 

or  hammock,  varies  from  a  few  days  to  several  weeks.  In 
some  tribes  it  is  longer  than  in  others.  During  this  season 
and  even  for  months  afterwards  some  articles  of  food  are 
quite  tabooed.  He  must  then  abstain  from  certain  kinds  of 
birds  or  fish,  "firmly  believing  that  this  would  injure  the 
child's  stomach,  and  that  it  would  participate  in  the  natural 
faults  of  the  animals  on  which  the  father  had  fed.  If,  for 
example,  the  father  ate  turtle,  the  child  would  be  deaf  and 
have  no  brains,  like  this  animal;  if  he  ate  manatee,  the 
child  would  have  little  round  eyes  like  this  creature. " 
Again,  if  he  eats  the  flesh  of  a  waterhaas — Capybara — a 
large  rodent  with  very  protruding  teeth — the  teeth  of  the 
child  will  grow  like  those  of  this  animal;  or  if  he  eats  the 
flesh  of  the  spotted  labba,  the  child's  skin  will  become 
spotted.  Among  some  tribes  the  father  is  forbidden  to 
bathe,  to  smoke,  or  to  use  snuff,  or  even  to  scratch  himself 
with  his  finger  nails.  In  their  place  he  must  employ  "for 
this  purpose  a  splinter,  specially  provided,  from  the  mid- 
rib of  a  cokerite  palm." 

Dobrizhoffer,  a  noted  missionary  in  Paraguay,  in  his  very 
interesting  History  of  the  Abipones,  is  even  more  explicit 
about  this  superstitious  practice.  "No  sooner,"  he  says, 
"do  you  hear  that  the  wife  has  borne  a  child,  than  you  will 
see  the  Abipone  husband  lying  in  bed,  huddled  up  with  mats 
and  skins,  lest  some  rude  breath  of  air  should  touch  him, 
fasting,  kept  in  private,  and  for  a  number  of  days  abstain- 
ing religiously  f ronv  certain  viands.  You  would  swear  it 
was  he  who  had  had  the  child.  .  .  .  They  are  fully 
persuaded  that  the  sobriety  and  quiet  of  the  father  is 
effectual  for  the  well-being  of  the  new-born  offspring  and 
even  necessary.  .  .  .  And  they  believe,  too,  that  the 
father's  carelessness  influences  the  new-born  offspring, 
from  a  natural  bond  and  sympathy  between  both.  Hence  if 
the  child  comes  to  a  premature  end,  its  death  is  attributed 
by  the  women  to  the  father's  intemperance,  this  or  that 
cause  being  assigned.  Among  these  would  be  that  he  did 
not  abstain  from  meat,  that  he  had  loaded  Ms  stomach  with 

153 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

waterhog,  that  lie  had  swum  across  the  river  when  the  air 
was  chilly,  that  he  had  neglected  to  shave  off  his  long  eye- 
brows, that  he  had  devoured  underground  honey,  stamping 
on  the  bees  with  his  feet,  that  he  had  ridden  till  he  was  tired 
and  sweated.  With  ravings  like  this  the  crowd  of  women 
accuse  the  father  with  impunity  of  causing  the  child's  death 
and  are  accustomed  to  pour  curses  on  the  unoffending  hus- 
band."1 

The  whole  subject  of  the  couvade  opens  up  many  inter- 
esting questions  for  the  ethnologist,  and  its  careful  study 
may  be  productive  of  much  valuable  information  regarding 
the  early  races  of  mankind.  For  the  student  of  linguistics 
and  folklore,  there  is  still  among  the  little  known  tribes  of 
Eastern  Colombia  a  broad  and  rich  field  for  research  con- 
cerning the  languages,  customs  and  traditions  of  these 
people,  and  the  works  of  the  early  missionaries  are  replete 
with  the  most  precious  data  respecting  them.4 

iHistoria  de  Aoiponibus,  Vol.  II,  p.  231  et  seq.,  Vienna,  1784.  "Atten- 
tion has  recently  been  called  to  a  group  of  peasant  superstitions  that  have 
made  their  appearance  in  Germany,  which  are  closely  analogous  in  principle 
to  the  couvade,  though  relating  not  to  the  actual  parents  of  the  child  but  to 
the  god-parents.  It  is  believed  that  the  habits  and  proceedings  of  the  god- 
father and  god-mother  affect  the  child's  life  and  character.  Particularly, 
the  god-father  at  the  christening  must  not  think  of  disease  or  madness  lest 
this  come  upon  the  child;  he  must  not  look  round  on  the  way  to  the  church 
lest  the  child  should  grow  up  an  idle  stare-about;  nor  must  he  carry  a  knife 
about  him  for  fear  of  making  the  child  a  suicide;  the  god-mother  must  put 
on  a  clean  shift  to  go  to  the  baptism  or  the  baby  will  grow  up  untidy,"  etc.,  etc. 
See  E.  B.  Tyler's  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Mankind  and  the 
Development  of  Civilteation,  p.  304,  Boston,  1878. 

For  further  information  on  La  Couvade,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Brett's 
Indian  Tribes  of  Guiana,  p.  355;  Max  Mutter's  Chips  from  a  German  Work- 
shop, Vol.  II,  p.  281;  Spix  and  Martius's  Travels  in  Brazil,  Vol.  II,  p.  247; 
Du  Tertre's  Historic  Oenerale  dee  Antilles  hdbitees  par  les  Franoais,  VoL 
II,  p.  371;  Gilli's  Saggio  di  8toria  Americana,  Vol.  II,  p.  133;  Tschudi's 
Peru,  Vol.  II,  p.  235;  Tylor's  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Man- 
kind  and  the  Development  of  Civilization,  p.  293,  et  seq;  and  Lafitau's 
Moeurs  des  Salvages  Amerioains,  Vol.  I,  p.  259. 

2  One  of  the  peculiarities  of  some  savages  is  the  decided  objection  they 
manifest  to  having  their  photographs  or  portraits  taken.  They  imagine 
that  they  lose  somewhat  of  their  own  life  by  having  their  likeness  trans- 
ferred to  paper  or  other  material.  And  the  more  perfect  their  likeness  the 

154 


EL  RIO  META 

As  we  'quietly  sailed  up  the  broad  forest-clad  Meta,  we 
could  not  help  harking  back  to  the  distant  past,  when,  ever 
and  anon,  along  its  banks  were  to  be  seen  the  smiling  homes 
and  villages  of  happy  Indians  under  the  watchful  eye  and 
protecting  arm  of  their  "father  priest, "  and  comparing  it 
with  the  present  desolate  and  deserted  land  that  for  days 
at  a  time  does  not  exhibit  the  slightest  trace  of  a  human 
habitation. 

Then,  in  the  beautiful  language  of  Colombia's  great  lyric 
poet,  D.  Jose  Joaquin  Ortiz,  "One  clime  and  one  region 
was  not  sufficient  for  the  ardor  that  inflamed  the  breasts 
of  the  holy  disciples  of  Christ.  They  will  go  to  enkindle 
the  pure  flame  of  love  in  the  breast  of  the  savage,  at  the 
same  time  teaching  him  the  arts  of  peace  in  the  immense 
solitudes  which  are  fertilized  by  the  Arauca,  and  the  Meta 
and  the  Casanare  and  the  torrential  Upia.  They  will  scale 
the  ever-precipitous  throne  of  the  deafening  storm,  and  will 
finally  hear  the  canticle  sounding  in  praise  of  the  redeem- 
ing cross,  in  as  many  tongues  and  by  as  many  tribes  as 
people  my  native  land  from  the  West  to  the  East" 

And  then,  too,  was  to  be  seen  one  of  those  charming 
gatherings  so  beautifully  pictured  by  our  own  Longfellow 
in  "The  Children  of  the  Lord's  Supper"— "Thus  all  the 
children  of  the  Mission  hasten,  at  the  sound  of  the  bell, 
to  gather  about  the  cross,  which  is  raised  on  high,  and  to 
approach  near  the  venerable  man  who  with  his  silver  locks 
towers  above  so  many  infantile  heads.  Oh,  neither  Plato 
nor  Socrates,  famous  in  the  annals  of  knowledge,  after  long 
years  of  continuous  vigils,  ever  knew  what  these  poor,  in- 
greater,  they  fancy,  is  the  loss  which  they  personally  sustain.  Having  had 
some  experience  with  the  Indians  of  North  America  regarding  this  matter, 
I  was  not  surprised  to  find  that  there  are  in  South  America  certain  In- 
dians who  entertain  similar  notions  regarding  the  danger  of  having  their 
pictures  taken.  Some,  to  avoid  having  their  photographs  taken,  will  at 
once  avert  their  faces;  others  will  run  away  to  escape  the  impending  dan- 
ger. Of.  On  the  Origin  of  Civilization  and  the  Primitive  Condition  of  Man, 
by  Lord  Avebury,  London,  1902,  and  The  Indians  of  Worth  America,  Letter 
16,  by  George  Catlin,  Edinburgh,  1903. 

155 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

genuous  children  learnt  from  the  tremulous  lips  of  the 
old  man  at  the  foot  of  a  tree-trunk  in  the  forest."  1 

Much,  however,  as  we  were  disposed  to  linger  on  the 
glories  of  the  past,  and  to  regret  the  absence  of  what,  in 
days  gone  by,  possessed  such  an  intense  human  interest,  we 
were  not  insensible  to  the  marvelous  natural  beauties  of 
river  and  forest  that  defiled  before  our  admiring  gaze  from 
morning  until  night. 

At  one  time  it  is  a  colossal  Bombax  ceiba 2  that  claims 
our  attention.  This  tree  is  remarkable  alike  for  the  height 
it  often  attains  and  for  the  wonderful  expanse  of  its 
branches.  To  support  such  a  giant  of  the  forest,  Nature 
has  made  a  special  provision.  It  is  supplied  by  large 
buttresses,  from  six  to  twelve  inches  thick  and  from  ten  to 
twenty  feet  above  the  ground,  which  project  like  rays  from 
all  sides  of  its  lofty  trunk.  Were  it  not  for  these  peculiar 
stays  the  tree  would  be  uprooted  by  the  first  violent  wind 
to  which  it  might  be  exposed. 

At  another  time  it  is  a  huge  fig  tree  that  we  admire,  or 
a  tall  and  graceful  Candelero,  so  named  from  its  resem- 
blance to  an  ornate  candlestick.  In  both  cases  we  observe 

1  For  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  familiar  with  Spanish  I  give  this  touch- 
ing quotation  in  the  original.    It  is  quite  impossible  to  reproduce  in  a  trans- 
lation the  verse  and  rhythm  of  the  sonorous  Castilian  of  the  poet. 

"Asl  de  la  Mision  todos  los  nifios 
Corren  en  tomo  de  la  cruz  que  arranca 
Enhiesta  al  aire  y  cercan  al  anciano, 
Que  entre  tantas  cabezas  infantiles 
Descuella  all*  con  su  cabeza  blanca. 
Oh!  ni  Platon,  ni  Socrates,  famosos 
En  los  anales  del  saber,  supieron 
Tras  largos  afios  de  velar  continue 
Lo  que  estos  pobres  nifios,  candorosos, 
De  los  tremulos  labios  del  anciano, 
Al  pig  del  lefio  rOstico  aprendieron." 

— From  his  ode  LOB  Golonos. 

2  Known  in  the  West  Indies  as  the  god-tree  and  greatly  venerated  by  the 
native  negroes.    The  ceiba  is  one  of  the  few  tropical  trees  that  ever  shed 
their  foliage.    The  erythrina,  when  it  exchanges  its  leaves  for  flowers,  is 
another. 

156 


EL  RIO  META 

the  same  peculiar,  buttressed  roots  that  are  so  character- 
istic of  the  ceiba  and  some  other  giants  of  the  forest. 

But  more  wonderful  far  than  the  ceiba  is  a  tree  called 
by  the  natives  by  the  expressive  name  of  Matapalo — Tree- 
Killer.  It  is  a  species  of  fig  tree,  known  to  naturalists  as 
the  Ficus  dendroica.  It  is  at  first  but  a  feeble,  climbing 
shrub,  sometimes  resembling  a  vine,  but  it  soon  spreads 
itself  over  the  tree  on  which  it  has  fastened  itself  and 
eventually  encloses  it  in  a  tubular  mass.  It  is  a  veritable 
boa  constrictor  of  the  vegetable  world,  for  it  sooner  or  later 
crushes  the  life  out  of  its  victim. 

"  After  the  incarcerated  trunk  has  been  stifled  and 
destroyed,  the  grotesque  form  of  the  parasite,  tubular, 
corkscrew-like,  or  otherwise  fantastically  contorted,  and 
frequently  admitting  the  light  through  interstices  like  loop- 
holes in  a  turrent,  continues  to  maintain  an  independent 
existence  among  the  straight-stemmed  trees  of  the  forest — 
the  image  of  an  eccentric  genius  in  the  midst  of  a  group 
of  sedate  citizens. "  l 

Another  remarkable  tree  seen  in  the  tropics  is  the  cow 
tree,  the  palo  de  vaca,  or  arbol  de  leche — the  milk  tree  of 
the  natives.  Its  sap  resembles  milk  in  taste  and  appear- 
ance, and  is  extensively  used  as  an  aliment,  especially  by 
the  negroes  and  mestizos.  In  referring  to  this  strange 
specimen  of  plant  life,  Humboldt  remarks:  "Amidst  the 
great  number  of  curious  phenomena  which  I  have  observed 
in  the  course  of  my  travels,  I  confess  there  are  few  that 
have  made  so  powerful  an  impression  on  me  as  the  aspect 
of  the  cow  tree.  ...  It  is  not  here  the  solemn  shades 
of  forests,  the  majestic  course  of  rivers,  the  mountain 
wrapped  in  eternal  snow,  that  excite  our  emotion.  A  few 
drops  of  vegetable  juice  recall  to  our  minds  all  the  power- 
fulness  and  the  fecundity  of  nature.  On  the  barren  flank 
of  a  rock  grows  a  tree  with  coriaceous  and  dry  leaves.  Its 
large  woody  roots  can  scarcely  penetrate  into  the  stone. 
For  several  months  of  the  year  not  a  single  shower  moistens 

i  G.  Hartiwig,  The  Tropical  World,  p.  137,  London,  1892. 
157 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

its  foliage.  Its  branches  appear  dead  and  dried;  but  when 
the  trunk  is  pierced  there  flows  from  it  a  sweet  and 
nourishing  milk.  It  is  at  the  rising  of  the  sun  that  this 
vegetable  fountain  is  most  abundant.  The  negroes  and 
natives  are  then  seen  hastening  from  all  quarters,  furnished 
with  large  bowls  to  receive  the  milk,  which  grows  yellow 
and  thickens  at  the  surface.  Some  empty  the  bowls  under 
the  tree  itself,  others  carry  the  juice  home  to  their  chil- 
dren."1 

After  leaving  the  Orinoco  we  made  no  attempt  to  travel 
at  night.  The  ever-changing  bed  of  the  river,  the  sand 
banks,  the  large  trunks  of  trees  that  were  hurried  along 
by  the  current,  eddies  and  rapids  and  rocks  and  islands 
unnumerable,  made  sailing  at  night  quite  impossible.  For 
this  reason,  at  nightfall  we  sometimes  moored  at  the  river's 
bank,  attaching  our  boat  by  a  rope  to  the  nearest  tree,  but, 
more  frequently,  in  order  to  escape  mosquitoes  and  other 
insects,  we  dropped  anchor  in  mid-river. 

The  night  was  always  tranquil,  and  we  were  never  dis- 
turbed by  any  of  those  noises — the  howling  of  monkeys  and 
the  cries  of  jaguars — which,  in  tropical  forests,  are  usually 
supposed  to  be  so  pronounced  a  feature.  Nor  were  we 
ever  troubled  by  mosquitoes  during  our  entire  trip  of  two 
weeks  from  Ciudad  Bolivar.  And  never  did  we  deem  it 
necessary  to  take  the  precaution  of  putting  up  our  mos- 
guiteros — mosquito  nets — to  protect  ourselves  from  the 
plaga — plague — which  we  had  been  assured  would  be  a 
nightly  visitant  during  our  entire  journey. 

We  had  been  told,  too,  that  the  intense  heat  of  the 
atmosphere  would  be  another  cause  of  continual  suffering 

i  Op.  cit,  Vol.  H,  pp.  47  et  seq. 

As  early  as  1640  the  Dutch  writer  Laet  refers  to  a  milk  tree  which  was 
evidently  the  same  as  the  one  that  so  impressed  Hnmboldt.  He  says:  "Inter 
arbores  quae  sponte  hie  passim  nascuntur,  memorantur  a  scriptoribus  His- 
panis  quaedam  quae  lacteum  quemdam  liquorem  f undunt,  qui  durus  admodum 
evadit  instar  gummi,  et  suavem  odorem  de  se  fundit;  aliae  quae  liquorem 
quemdam  edunt,  instar  lactis  coagulati,  qui  in  cibis  ah  ipsis  usurpatur 
sine  noxa."— Detnriptio  Indiarum  Ocoidentalwm,  Lih.  XVIII. 

158 


EL  EIO  META 

— day  and  night.  But  we  did  not  find  it  so.  At  no  time 
did  the  thermometer  rise  higher  than  86°  F.,  and  it  fre- 
quently sank  as  low  as  66°  F.,  when  we  were  glad  to  put 
on  wraps  of  some  kind.  We  observed  that  a  variation  of 
a  few  degrees  was  more  appreciable  than  the  same  varia- 
tion in  our  northern  latitudes.  A  drop  of  two  or  three 
degrees  below  70°  F.  produced  a  greater  sensation  of  cold 
than  a  fall  to  50°  would  produce  in  New  York. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  need  not  remain  long  in  the 
tropics  before  he  becomes  aff ected  by  very  slight  changes  of 
temperature.  And  another  fact  is  soon  impressed  on  the 
observer,  which  is  that  the  heat  in  the  tropics  is  not  so  much 
greater  than  that  in  more  northern  latitudes,  as  measured 
by  the  thermometer.  It  is  the  almost  uniform  tempera- 
ture, day  and  night,  the  whole  year  through,  that  eventually 
becomes  so  depressing  and  so  difficult  to  endure. 

At  no  time,  either  on  the  Orinoco  or  the  Meta,  did  we 
ever  see  the  thermometer  rise  within  fifteen  degrees  of  the 
intense  heat  one  frequently  experiences  during  the  summer 
in  New  York  and  Washington.  The  nights,  although 
usually  warm,  were  never  unpleasant.  A  sheet  was  gen- 
erally sufficient  covering,  but  we  sometimes  found  it 
necessary  to  use  a  blanket.  Only  once  were  we  aipioyed — 
and  that  for  but  a  short  time — by  insects,  and  that  was  be- 
cause we  moored  near  the  bank  under  large,  overhanging 
trees,  which  seemed  to  be  alive  with  certain  bugs  of  a  very 
noxious  odor. 

Once  or  twice  during  each  day  it  was  necessary  to  stop 
to  take  on  wood,  which  was  usually  ready  and  piled  lip  on 
the  bank.  Sometimes,  however,  the  owner  would  demand 
more  than  the  captain  was  willing  to  give,  and  that  meant 
that  the  crew  was  then  obliged  to  go  into  the  forest  and 
cut  fuel  sufficient  to  take  us  to  the  next  wood-pile  further 
up  the  river.  Fortunately,  we  were  not  often  obliged  to 
cut  the  wood  ourselves.  Each  time  we  did  so  meant  an 
extra  delay  of  three  or  four  hours. 

Besides  stopping  for  wood,  it  was  at  times  necessary  to 
ia  159 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

call  for  provisions,  fruits,  chickens,  eggs,  and  a  certain 
queso  d  mano — hand-made  cheese — of  which  the  Llaneros 
are  very  fond  and  which  we  found  very  palatable. 

On  one  occasion  onr  supply  of  beef  became  exhausted, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  stop — about  noon — at  a  hato  along 
the  river  to  get  a  heifer  for  .our  next  meal.  Unfortunately, 
the  owner  of  the  ranch  was  not  at  home.  He  was  out  among 
his  herds  several  miles  distant.  Our  steward,  nothing 
disconcerted,  started  in  search  of  him,  but  before  he  had 
found  the  proprietor  of  the  herd,  and  had  gotten  the  de- 
sired novilla — heifer — on  board,  it  was  dark.  There  was 
then  nothing  to  do  but  tie  our  boat  up  near  the  house  in 
which  we  had  spent  most  of  the  afternoon,  and  wait  until 
the  following  morning  before  continuing  our  journey. 

At  first,  it  would  appear  that  such  delays  would  prove 
very  annoying,  but  this  was  very  far  from  being  the  case. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  most  interesting,  as  it  gave  us  an 
opportunity  of  getting  acquainted  with  the  people,  and  of 
familiarizing  ourselves  with  their  mode  of  life  and  occupa- 
tions, and  enjoying  many  interesting  conversations  with 
them  about  matters  in  which  they  were  most  concerned. 
We  always  found  them  very  hospitable  and  very  entertain- 
ing. They  always  gave  us  a  cordial  welcome  to  their 
humble  home,  and  rarely  allowed  us  to  depart  without 
giving  us  something  from  their  simple  store.  Sometimes 
it  was  a  brace  of  chickens,  at  other  times  a  basket  of  fruit, 
a  calabash  of  eggs,  or  generous  piece  of  queso  a  mano — 
which  was  made  by  the  mistress  of  the  house  herself. 

Here  we  were  among  people  who  lived  the  simple  life, 
and  appeared  all  the  happier  for  it.  We  saw  no  evidences 
of  suffering  anywhere.  The  only  thing  that  seemed  to 
concern  them  was  the  instability  of  the  government. 
True,  Colombia  had  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  peace  for 
several  years  past,  but  every  now  and  then  some  gossip- 
monger  would  circulate  reports  about  another  uprising  in 
some  part  of  the  country,  and  about  the  imminent  danger 
to  which  the  men  were  exposed  of  being  drafted  into  the 

160 


a 


O 


EL  RIO  META 

army,  and  of  being  torn  away  from  their  families,  to  whom 
they  are  devotedly  attached. 

Occasionally,  .while  the  crew  was  cutting  wood,  we  were 
able  to  make  a  collection  of  orchids,  of  which  there  are 
along  the  Meta  many  wonderfully  beautiful  species.  At 
one  time  our  deck  was  a  veritable  bower  of  all  kinds  of 
orchids  of  the  most  brilliant  colors  and  of  the  strangest 
imaginable  forms.  Some  of  them  possessed  a  most  delicate 
fragrance,  while  others  emitted  a  delightful  perfume  that 
spread  over  the  greater  part  of  our  deck. 

Linnaeus  knew  only  about  a  dozen  exotic  orchids,  and 
expressed  it  as  his  opinion  that  when  the  world  was  fully 
explored  by  botanists,  it  might  probably  yield  a  hundred 
species  all  told.  How  surprised  he  would  be  if  he  could 
now  return  to  the  world  and  find  that  the  species  of  this 
curious  plant  are  actually  counted  by  thousands!  To 
English  horticulturists  alone  some  thousands  of  species  are 
known.  Even  some  of  the  many  genera  of  this  extensive 
order  contain  hundreds  of  species.  Of  odontoglossums 
there  are  more  than  a  hundred  species  catalogued.  Of 
oncidiums  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  species  have 
been  described.  Of  dendrobiums  between  three  and  four 
hundred  species  are  known,  while  the  genus  Habenaria 
counts  more  than  four  hundred  species.  Then  there  are 
the  countless  hybrids — and  their  number  is  rapidly  in- 
creasing— that,  during  the  last  few  years,  have  been  pro- 
duced in  the  conservatories  of  Europe  and  America. 

Orchids  are  found  in  all  parts  of  the  world;  in  the 
marshes  and  groves  of  the  lowlands  and  in  the  lofty 
plateaus  of  mountain  ranges.  But  it  is  in  the  warm  and 
humid  regions  of  the  equator  that  they  occur  in  the  greatest 
variety  and  profusion.  Twenty  years  ago  the  number  of 
species  known  in  Venezuela  alone  exceeded  six  hundred. 
In  Colombia  the  number  is  probably  greater.  It  is  here, 
too,  that  some  of  the  choicest  specimens  have  their  habitat. 
From  this  country  tens  of  thousands  of  plants  are  shipped 
annually  to  the  florists  of  Europe  and  the  United  States. 

161 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

As  an  illustration  of  the  extent  of  this  industry  it  suffices 
to  state  that  a  single  firm  has  under  cultivation  no  fewer 
than  one  hundred  thousand  Odontoglossums,  for  of  this 
species  alone  hundreds  of  thousands  of  plants  are  marketed 
annually.  Other  species  are  scarcely  less  popular.  To 
supply  the  ever-increasing  demand  for  them,  there  is  now 
a  small  army  of  men  continually  engaged  in  the  tropical 
forests  in  the  work  of  collecting  and  preparing  them  for 
shipment.  We  met  several  of  them  in  both  Venezuela  and 
Colombia. 

In  the  forests  along  the  Meta  we  could  within  a  small 
area  easily  have  collected  more  orchids  than  were  known 
to  Linnaeus.  They  were  everywhere  —  in  the  forks  of  trees, 
on  their  branches,  on  decaying  trunks,  on  the  lianas  stretch- 
ing from  one  tree  to  another,  and,  forming  with  the  flower- 
ing epiphytes  *  with  which  they  were  laden,  the  most 
beautiful  tapestry,  beside  which  the  most  exquisite  Gobelin 
masterpiece  would  pale  into  insignificance.  In  other 
places  they  grew  on  bare,  precipitous  rocks,  where  they 
were  quite  inaccessible,  on  prickly  cactus  plants,  near 
beautiful  cascades,  or  clumps  of  arborescent  ferns.  We 
found  them  flourishing  near  the  ocean  shore  and  near  the 
limits  of  perpetual  snow  on  the  crests  of  the  Cordilleras. 

Everywhere  they  were  attractive  and  worthy  of  study  — 
some  on  account  of  their  bizarre  forms,  mimicking  insects 
and  butterflies,  others  on  account  of  their  delicate  fra- 


Venezuela  and  Colombia  the  word  parasita  —  parasite  —  is  usually  em- 
ployed to  designate  all  orchids,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  species  or 
genus.  This  is  a  mistake.  Orchids  are  not  parasites  which,  like  the  dodder 
or  mistletoe,  obtain  their  nourishment  from  the  plant  or  tree  on  which 
they  grow.  They  are  epiphytes,  that  get  their  nourishment  from  the  sur- 
rounding atmosphere,  and  use  the  branches  and  trunks  of  trees  merely  as 
supports  or  resting-places.  The  Old  World  genus  ASrides  is  especially  re- 
markable in  this  respect.  One  of  the  species,  ASrides  odoratum,  "has  this 
wonderful  property,  that,  when  brought  from  the  woods,  where  it  grows, 
into  a  house,  and  suspended  in  the  air,  it  will  grow,  flourish  and  flower 
for  many  years  without  any  nourishment,  either  from  the  earth  or  from 
water."  For  this  reason  the  orchid  is  appropriately  called  Flos  aero,  or 
Air  Flower. 

162 


EL  RIO  META 

grance,  and  others  still  on  account  of  their  gorgeous  colors, 
which  fairly  rival  those  of  the  rainbow. 

The  odors  of  orchids  are  almost  as  diverse  as  their  colors 
and  forms.  While  most  of  them  have  an  agreeable  scent, 
there  are  some  that  have  an  unbearably  fetid  odor.  Some 
emit  a  faint  and  delicate  perfume;  others  possess  a  fra- 
grance which,  although  delicious,  is  almost  overpowering. 
In  some  the  fragrance  is  perceptible  only  in  the  morning, 
in  others  solely  in  the  evening.  Some  have  a  scent  like 
that  of  violets,  others  like  that  of  musk  or  noyeau,  and 
others  again  like  that  of  angelica  or  cinnamon.  More 
wonderful  still,  "some  species, "  we  are  told,  "give  out 
different  scents  at  different  times,  such  as  Dendrobium 
nobile,  which  smells  like  grass  in  the  evening,  like  honey 
at  noon,  and  has  in  the  morning  a  faint  odor  of  prim- 
roses. " l 

It  was  a  fortnight,  almost  to  the  hour,  since  we  had  left 
Ciudad  Bolivar,  when,  one  bright  day,  as  the  sun  was  ap- 
proaching the  zenith,  our  captain,  pointing  to  a  tongue  of 
land  in  the  river  ahead  of  us,  said,  in  a  cheerful  tone  of 
voice,  "A  la  vueltd  esta  Orocue"  Orocue  is  beyond  that 
point. 

And  so  it  was.  In  a  few  minutes  more  we  had  the  town 
in  full  view.  We  had  finished  another  stage  of  our  journey 
and  that,  too,  without  an  untoward  incident  of  any  kind 
whatsoever.  The  entire  voyage  had  been  made  with  com- 
fort and  pleasure,  and  we  actually  regretted  to  leave  the 

i  Orchids:  Their  Culture  and  Management,  p.  20,  by  W.  Watson  and  H.  J. 
Chapman,  London,  1903. 

Peter  Martyr  must  have  had  some  of  these  orchids  in  mind  when  he  wrote 
the  following  sentence  as  translated  by  Michael  Lok: — "Smooth  and  pleas- 
singe  words  might  be  spoken  of  the  sweete  odors  and  perfumes  of  these 
countries,  which  we  purposely  omit  because  they  make  rather  for  the 
effeminatinge  of  mens  minds  than  for  the  maintanance  of  good  behavior." 
Dec.  IV,  Cap.  4,  p.  161. 

For  colored  figures  and  descriptions  of  the  rare  and  beautiful  orchidaceous 
plants  found  in  Venezuela  and  Colombia,  the  reader  is  referred  to  The  Orchid 
Album,  12  vols.,  conducted  by  Messrs.  Warner,  Williams,  Moore  and  Fitch, 
London. 

163 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

boat  on  which  we  had  spent  so  many  delightful  and  happy 
hours.  It  was  indeed  an  experience  of  a  lifetime,  one  of 
enchanting  panoramas,  such  as  can  be  witnessed  only  along 
the  great  water  courses  of  the  equator.  The  flora,  the 
fauna,  the  people,  the  lands,  so  rich  in  romance  and  so  cele- 
brated for  the  achievements  of  the  conquistadores — those  of 
the  cross  as  well  as  those  of  the  world — all  fascinated  us 
and  enchained  our  interest  during  every  moment  of  our 
wakeful  hours.  Yes,  it  was  a  memorable,  never-to-be-for- 
gotten experience,  one  of  those  experiences  that  necessarily 
exalt  the  lover  of  Nature  and  bring  him  near  to  Nature's 
God. 

All  the  inhabitants  in  Orocue — men,  women  and  children 
« — were  gathered  on  the  bank  to  witness  the  arrival  of  our 
little  steamer.  So  rarely  does  anything  larger  than  a  small 
sailboat  come  here  that  the  arrival  of  a  steamboat  is 
regarded  as  an  event  of  paramount  interest  and  importance. 
Most  grateful  to  us,  for  it  was  so  9  unexpected,  was  the 
welcome  accorded  us  by  a  number  of  the  leading  citizens 
of  the  town.  They  had  been  advised  by  telegraph  of  our 
coming,  and  had  prepared  most  comfortable  quarters  for 
our  reception  and  entertainment.  Escorting  us  to  our. 
temporary  home — which  was  not  only  well  furnished  but 
a  model  of  neatness — we  were  told,  with  true  Castilian 
politeness,  accompanied  by  an  air  of  simplicity  and  sin- 
cerity that  made  us  feel  at  home  from  the  first  moment, 
"Aqui,  estdn  Uds.  en  su  casa.  Estamos  todos  a  sus  or- 
denes.  "Here  you  are  in  your  own  home  and  we  are  all  at 
your  disposition. ' '  The  keys  of  the  house  were  then  handed 
us,  and  with  them  we  were  accorded  the  freedom  and 
hospitality  of  generous,  never-to-be  forgotten  Orocue. 


CHAPTER  VI 
APPBOACEINa  THE  ANDES 

"Aqui  la  selva  secular,  ornada 
De  f  estones  de  variada  enredadera 
De  bellos  y  vivisimos  colores, 
Y  la  extensa  pradera 
De  fraganciosas  flores  alfombrada, 
Forman  el  templo  augusto  que  levanta 
La  creacion  a  Dios,  a  quien  ofreee 
Deliciosos  perfumes  por  incienso, 
Y  por  ofrenda  el  f ruto  delicado 
Que  el  estival  calor  ha  sazonado." 

"Here  the  forest  secular,  decked  with  festoons  of  divers 
climbers,  of  beautiful  and  brilliant  colors,  and  the  broad 
meads  carpeted  with  fragrant  flowers,  form  an  august 
temple,  which  creation  raises  to  God,  to  whom  it  offers 
delicious  perfumes  for  incense,  and,  as  an  oblation,  brings 
the  delicate  fruit  matured  by  the  summer's  sun." 

In  these  words  of  the  Bolivian  poet,  D.  Manuel  Jose 
Cortes,  might  aptly  be  described  the  extensive  forests  and 
plains  of  which  Orocue  is  the  centre.  Everywhere  is  that 
same  exuberance  of  vegetation  and  profusion  of  vari- 
colored bloom  that  are  so  characteristic  of  the  basin  of 
the  Meta.  While  lost  in  silent  admiration  of  the  countless 
floral  beauties  that  on  every  side  met  our  delightful  gaze, 
we  could  but  compare  the  scene  to  a  ruined  Eden, 

"Where  the  first  sinful  pair 
For  consolation  might  have  weeping  trod, 
When  banished  from  the  garden  of  their  God." 

Tn  the  garden  adjoining  our  house  were  citrus  trees 

165 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

laden  with  golden  fruit,  bananas  of  many  varieties  and  a 
large  mango  tree,  whose  branches  were  bending  under  the 
weight  of  its  richly  tinted,  luscious  drupes.  Near  by  was 
a  noble  old  ceiba,  while  but  a  short  distance  away  was  a 
tall  Jacaranda — of  the  trumpet-flower  family — literally 
enveloped  in  a  reddish-violet  mantle  of  papilionaceous 
flowers,  and  filling  the  air  round  about  with  perfume  not 
unlike  that  of  the  orange  blossom  or  the  jasmine.  Every- 
where we  went  some  new  floral  display  was  awaiting  us. 
All  along  our  path  we  found  an  unending  variety  of  laurels 
and  myrtles;  trees  and  shrubs  and  herbs  of  the  Rubiacia 
family.  There  were  splendid  representatives  of  the  genera 
Cassia  and  M imosa,  and  clumps  of  the  ever-present  moriche, 
together  with  other  species  of  palm  equally  attractive  and 
majestic.  Frequently  these  were  joined  by  delicate  fes- 
toons of  liana,  many  of  which  were  weighted  down  with 
orchids  and  epiphytes  of  the  rarest  beauty  and  fragrance. 
Orocue  is  the  capital  of  the  district  of  that  name  in  the 
National  Territory  of  the  Meta,  and  the  seat  of  a  pre- 
fecture. It  is  located  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Meta,  on  an 
eminence  about  thirty  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  river, 
and  sufficiently  high  to  guarantee  it  against  inundations 
during  the  rainy  season.  Being  less  than  five  degrees 
from  the  equator,  the  climate  is  warm  but,  during  our  stay, 
it  was  never  uncomfortable,  and  at  no  time  did  the 
thermometer  ever  rise  above  82°  F.  The  population  is 
about  six  hundred.  The  place  is  healthful,  and  malignant 
fevers  are  rare.  The  streets  are  wide,  and  some  of  the 
houses  are  well-built  and  comfortable.  Most  of  them  are 
constructed  of  bamboo  plastered  over  with  clay.  The  roof 
is  thatched  with  the  broad  leaves  of  the  moriche  palm  or 
preferably  with  those  of  the  palma  de  cobija,  also  known 
as  the  palma  de  sombrero — hat  palm.  This  is  what  sci- 
entists call  Copernicia l  tectorum,  and  is  preferred  to  any 
other  leaf  because  it  is  not  readily  inflammable.  Such  a 
roof  lasts  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  is  impervious  to  water. 

*  Named  after  the  astronomer  Copernicus, 

166 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

During  our  sojourn  in  Orocue  it  rained  regularly  for 
several  hours  every  day  and,  although  the  downpour  at 
times  was  very  heavy,  never  once  did  we  observe  a  single 
drop  of  water  to  pass  through  the  roof.  Everything  in  our 
rooms  remained  as  dry  as  if  the  roofs  had  been  made  of 
tile  or  slate. 

Many  of  these  bamboo-palm  houses  are  constructed  with- 
out the  use  of  a  single  nail.  Studs  and  cross  beams,  laths 
and  rafters,  are  tied  together  and  held  firmly  in  place  by 
bejucos,  those  wonderful  natural  cords  and  cables  which  are 
found  in  such  profusion  in  every  tropical  forest,  and  which, 
in  the  hands  of  the  natives,  serves  such  an  endless  variety 
of  purposes. 

Some  years  ago  the  town  possessed  what  the  inhabitants 
considered  a  large  and  beautiful  church.  It  was  con- 
structed of  the  same  materials  as  the  other  buildings  of  the 
town  and  occupied  a  conspicuous  position  on  the  plaza. 
In  consequence  of  recent  revolutions  and  other  disturb- 
ances, it  had  been  greatly  neglected,  and,  at  the  time  of  our 
visit,  was  rapidly  falling  into  ruins.  The  people  had  not 
had  a  pastor  for  some  years,  but  were  hoping  to  have  one 
soon.  They,  however,  received  every  few  months  the 
ministrations  of  a  priest  from  a  neighboring  mission,  and 
longed  for  the  time  when  they  could  have  a  resident  pastor 
and  see  their  church  restored  to  its  pristine  condition. 

There  was  a  small  school  for  boys,  attended  by  about 
twenty  young  mestizos,  but  none  for  girls.  There  was  a 
movement  on  foot  to  secure  the  services  of  some  nuns  to 
teach  the  girls,  and  the  mothers  of  the  children  awaited 
their  arrival  with  the  greatest  impatience.  The  monjas — 
nuns—have  a  wonderful  influence  over  the  children,  and 
young  and  old  are  thoroughly  devoted  to  them. 

Orocue  has  an  aduana,  or  customhouse,  and  is  the  centre 
of  a  flourishing  grazing  district,  in  which  there  are  numer- 
.ous  hatos  and  fundaciones,1  containing  from  two  to  twenty 

iln  eastern  Colombia,  if  a  cattle  farm  contains  more  than  a  thousand 
head  of  cattle  it  is  called  a  hrto;  if  it  counts  less  than  this  number  it  is 

167 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

thousand  head  of  cattle.  Cattle,  hides  and  rubber,  together 
with  the  coffee,  which  is  brought  from  the  foothills  of  the 
Andes,  constitute  the  principal  articles  of  export.1 

The  neighboring  Indians  manufacture  large  and  beauti- 
ful hammocks  from  the  leaves  of  the  Cumare  and  other 
palms  and  bring  them  here  and  exchange  them  for  any- 
thing that  may  strike  their  fancy.  Although  I  had  brought 
a  German  hammock  with  me,  I  procured  one  of  these  Indian 
chinchorros,  and  found  it  during  the  remainder  of  my 
journey  in  South  America  the  best  investment  I  could  have 
made.  Nothing  contributed  more  to  my  comfort  when  I 
desired  a  siesta,  and  when  I  wished  to  escape  the  filth  and 
insect  pests  to  which,  in  my  wanderings,  I  was  so  fre- 
quently exposed. 

Of  the  many  objects  brought  to  Orocue  for  barter  by 
the  Indians  few  had  greater'  interest  for  us  than  the 
weapons  employed  by  them  in  the  chase  and  in  war. 
Among  these  the  chief  ones  were  their  poisoned  arrows 
and  blowguns.  A  friend  made  us  a  present  of  some  of 
them,  but  owing  to  the  inconvenience  of  transporting  them, 
we  were  unable,  much  to  our  regret,  to  take  them  with  us. 

For  a  long  time  the  mystery  connected  with  the  virulent 
poison,  known  as  curare,  urari  woorali,  etc.,  with  which 
the  Indians  poison  their  arrows,  remained  unsolved,  not- 
known  as  fundacion.  A  plantation  in  the  hilly  country  is  called  a  hacienda, 
in  the  plains  a  conuco,  and  if  it  have  a  sugar-mill,  it  is  named  a  trapiche. 

iThe  steamer  on  which  we  had  come  to  Orocue1,  took,  on  her  return  to 
Ciudad  Bolivar,  among  other  articles  of  freight,  nearly  three  tons  of  orchids, 
of  many  species,  collected  from  divers  parts  of  Colombia.  They  were  in- 
tended for  certain  New  York  florists,  and  were  shipped  directly  to  their 
greenhouses  in  New  Jersey.  They  were  gathered  by  one  of  the  many  orchid 
collectors  that  are  constantly  engaged  in  tropical  America  in  making  collec- 
tions for  florists  in  the  United  States  and  Europe. 

Sometimes  they  come  across  new  species  of  rarest  beauty.  This  means 
a  treasure-trove  for  the  lucky  finder.  Not  long  before  our  visit  to  Colombia 
a  truly  magnificent  specimen  had  been  discovered  by  one  of  these  collectors. 
It  was  sold  in  London  for  a  thousand  pounds  sterling.  And  we  heard  of 
others  that  fetched  prices  quite  as  extravagant  as  any  that  were  ever  paid 
for  tulip-bulbs  during  the  period  of  the  tulipomania  in  Holland  in  the  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

168 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

withstanding  the  efforts  of  men  of  science  to  determine  its 
source  and  composition.  Early  travelers  gave  the  most 
fantastic  accounts  of  its  composition  and  manufacture. 
According  to  them  it  was  a  concoction  more  uncanny  than 
that  prepared  from 

"Eye  of  newt  and  toe  of  frog, 
"Wool  of  bat  and  tongue  of  dog, 
Adder's  fork  and  blind  worm's  sting, 
Lizard's  leg  and  owlet's  wing." 

Indeed,  so  carefully  did  the  Indians  engaged  in  its  manu- 
facture guard  the  secret  of  its  preparation  that  it  was 
not  until  a  few  decades  ago  that  the  true  character  of  this 
deadly  compound  was  first  understood.  Boussingault  sus- 
pected but  did  not  prove  the  existence  of  strychnine  in 
curare.1  Humboldt  was  probably  the  first  to  suspect  its 
true  nature.2  It  is  now  known  that  neither  snake's  teeth 
nor  stinging  ants  form  its  active  principle,  as  was  for- 
merly supposed,  but  that  its  venomous  properties  are  due 
to  the  presence  of  curarine,  a  bitter  crystalline  alkaloid 
obtained  from  the  plant  Strychnos  toxifera,  or  other  plants 
of  this  genus,  found  throughout  equatorial  America.  Its 
virulence  is  manifested  only  when  it  is  administered 
through  the  skin.  It  then  paralyzes  the  motor  nerves,  and, 
if  the  poison  be  sufficiently  strong,  it  produces  death  by 
suffocation. 

The  Indians  in  Orocue,  as  everywhere  else  along  the 
Otfeta  and  Orinoco,  were  a  subject  of  never-ending  study 
for  us.  Most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Orocue  are  Indians  or 
mestizos,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  a  gentler 
or  more  peaceful  people.  The  town  was  founded  by  the 
Salivas  Indians,  whose  nasal  language  the  early  mission- 
aries found  so  difficult  to  master,  but  whose  gentle  nature 
and  amiable  disposition  were  ever  the  subject  of  the  high- 
est eulogies.  Eemnants  of  this  tribe  are  still  found  in  this 

1  Viajes  Cientifioos  &  los  Andes  Eouatoriales,  p.  29,  Paris,  1849. 

2  Personal  Narrative,  up.  sup.,  Vol.  II,  p.  438  et  seq. 

169 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDAL^NA 

territory,  as  are  also  representatives  of  the  Piapocas, 
Tunebos,  Yaruros,  Cuivas,  and  the  once  powerful  yet 
friendly  Achaguas. 

The  tribe,  however,  that  counts  the  greatest  numbers, 
is  the  Guahibos,  whom  certain  imaginative  travelers  would 
have  us  believe  are  as  fierce  as  pumas  or  jaguars.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that,  although  some  of  them  are  more 
or  less  nomadic  in  their  habits,  and  decline  to  live  with 
the  rationales — whites — they  are,  as  a  rule,  peaceful  and 
industrious.  Sr.  Jorge  Brisson,  an  engineer  for  the 
Colombian  government,  who  a  few  years  ago  thoroughly 
explored  this  country — the  Oasanare — speaks  of  them  as 
being  muy  agricultores  y  muy  trabajadores — hard-working 
tillers  of  the  soil. 

That  they  are  peaceful  and  harmless  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  the  owners  of  the  scattered  conucos  along  the 
Meta  are  rarely,  if  ever,  disturbed  by  these  much  maligned 
Indians.  In  many  of  the  isolated  habitations,  which  we 
visited  on  our  way  up  the  river,  we  found  only  women 
and  children.  The  men  were  occupied  elsewhere,  and  were 
sometimes  absent  for  weeks  at  a  time.  This,  certainly,  would 
not  be  the  case  if  the  Guahibos  were  the  cruel,  relentless 
savages  they  are  so  often  represented  to  be.  Not  once  in 
our  journeyings  up  the  Meta  and  its  affluents  did  we  hear 
of  any  atrocities  committed  by  these  Indians,  or  even  of 
any  complaints  against  them,  although  we  took  particular 
pains  to  inform  ourselves  about  the  matter.  All  the 
reports  about  their  robberies  and  murders  were  confined 
to  those  we  had  heard  a  thousand  miles  down  the  river 
and  from  people  who  probably  never  saw  a  Guahibo  in 
their  lives,  and  who  would  not  recognize  one  if  they  were 
to  see  one. 

It  is  true  that  now  and  then  a  cow  or  a  calf  may  dis- 
appear from  some  of  the  Conucos  and  fundaciones  and  that 
their  disappearance  is  always  credited  to  the  Indians. 
Even  if  this  suspicion  were  verified,  an  occasional  theft  of 
this  kind— all  the  circumstances  considered — should  not 

170 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

be  so  surprising.  We  do  not  need  to  go  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  our  own  country  to  find  cases  of  cattle  steal- 
ing. And  the  poor  Indian,  often  cheated  and  wronged, 
may,  without  being  a  casuist,  easily  persuade  himself  that 
he  is  justified  in  seeking  occult  compensation.  This  is 
often  his  only  safe  method  of  making  reprisals  for  damage 
done  him  in  person  and  property,  and  he  would  be  more 
than  human,  if  he  did  not  occasionally  resort  to  it  if  he 
thought  he  could  do  so  with  impunity. 

"The  fact  is,"  says  Brisson,  "the  poor  creatures  have 
heretofore  been  very  badly  treated  by  those  who  claim 
to  be  civilized,  and  flee  in  terror  when  they  see  a  white  man. 
The  question  now  is  not  to  civilize  them  but  to  win  their 
confidence.  The  problem  would  easily  be  solved  if  this 
delicate  task  were  confided  to  the  missionary  priests.  They 
would  bring  it  to  a  successful  issue  much  sooner  than 
could  government  officialdom." l 

Contrary  to  what  is  often  imagined,  the  Indians  who  visit 
the  settlements  along  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco  are  always 
decently  if  but  scantily  clad.  In  their  forest  homes,  how- 
ever, their  raiment  usually  consists  of  a  simple  lap-cloth. 
On  occasions  of  feasting  or  public  rejoicing  they  make  an 
addition  to  their  toilet.  This  consists  in  painting  their 
bodies  with  various  dyes,  but  chiefly  with  the  yellowish- 
red  annatto,  which  is  obtained  from  the  pulp  of  the  fruit 
of  the  arnotto  tree,  Bixa  Orellana.  They  frequently  cover 
their  persons  with  the  most  fantastic  designs.  Indeed,  it 
is  only  when  thus  decorated  that  the  true  children  of  the 
forest  consider  themselves  properly  dressed.  They  would 
be  ashamed  to  appear  before  strangers  otherwise.2 

i  Coaoware,  p.  11,  Bogota,  1896. 

a  Writing  of  the  juice  of  the  arnotto  berries,  "that  die  a  most  perfect 
crimson  and  carnation,"  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  declares,  "And  for  painting, 
al  Prance,  Italy  or  the  east  Indies  yield  none  such.  For  the  more  the  skyn 
is  washed,  the  fayer  the  cullour  appeareth,  and  with  which  euen  those 
brown  and  tawnie  women  spot  themselues  and  cullour  their  cheekes."  Op. 
cit.,  p.  113. 

Peter  Martyr,  referring  to  certain  painted  Indian  warriors,  encountered 

171 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

"Tigers  and  serpents, "  observes  Mr.  Brisson,  "are  bug- 
bears of  the  same  family  as  Indios  bravos" — savages. 
It  is  certain  that  the  tiger — jaguar — is  fond  of  heifers 
and  calves.  But  herdsmen  will  tell  you,  that  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  one,  it  is  at  times  necessary  to  follow  him  for  a  fort- 
night before  being  able  to  find  and  kill  him.  This  is 
sufficient  to  prove  that  the  tiger  is  never  the  first  to  at- 
tack a  man  in  the  llanos  of  Casanare,  where  it  has 
food  in  abundance.  "Serpents  are  met  with  only  cas- 
ually/71 

I  was  glad  to  find  one  writer,  who  is  so  familiar  with 
the  country  as  is  Sr.  Brisson,  to  speak  thus  of  the  wild 
beasts  most  dreaded  and  of  the  still  more  dreaded  Indios 
bravos,  for  it  harmonized  perfectly  with  my  own  experi- 
ence. 

We  were  one  day  talking  with  our  host  in  Orocue  about 
the  stories  told  by  travelers  and  writers  regarding  the 
jaguars  of  the  South  American  forests.  He  smiled,  and 
said,  "I  have  lived  in  this  country  thirty-five  years.  I 
have  several  hatos  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  which 
I  visit  frequently.  In  doing  this  I  am  obliged  to  travel 
much  through  the  forests  and  plains.  I  have  often  jour- 
neyed up  and  down  the  Orinoco,  and  the  Meta  from  Trini- 
dad to  Bogota,  and,  believe  me,  during  all  these  years, 
I  have  never  seen  but  one  jaguar  and  that  was  in  passing. " 
How  different  his  experience  from  that  of  those  who,  after 
a  short  excursion  into  the  interior  of  South  America, 
where  they  rarely  leave  the  beaten  track  used  for  centu- 
ries, have,  nevertheless,  such  wonderful  adventures  to 
relate;  such  miraculous  escapes  from  savage  beasts  and 
more  savage  Indians ! 

Our  host  was  a  Venezuelan  of  Spanish  descent,  and  a 
splendid  type  of  the  old  Spanish  school.  He  had  spent 

by  the  Spaniards  in  the  West  Indies,  declares,  "A  man  wold  thinke  them  to 
bee  deuylles  incarnate  newly  broke  owte  of  hell,  they  are  soo  lyke  vnto  hell- 
houndes."    Op.  cit.,  p.  91. 
ilbid. 

172 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

a  part  of  his  youth  in  Germany,  and  was  a  man  of  educa- 
tion and  refinement.  He  was  untiring  in  his  delicate 
attentions  to  us  during  our  sojourn  in  Orocue,  and  made 
us  quite  forget  that  we  were  so  far  from  home  and  what 
we  so  often  fancy  are  the  indispensable  necessities  of  civili- 
zation. He  had  been  eminently  successful  in  business. 
Besides  owning  the  largest  business  house  in  Orocue — 
which  is  a  distributing  point  for  the  great  Casanare  terri- 
tory— he  is  the  proprietor  of  several  of  the  largest  Jiatos 
in  the  country  and  counted  his  cattle  by  tens  of  thousands. 
In  addition  to  all  this,  he  has  various  other  interests  that 
yield  him  a  handsome  income.  He  enjoys  the  reputation 
of  being  a  millionaire,  and  the  reputation  is  apparently 
justified. 

How  he  could  content  himself  to  live  in  this  isolated 
quarter  of  the  world — "six  months  from  everywhere,'7  as 
one  of  his  clerks  expressed  it — when  he  could  enjoy  all 
that  money  could  command  in  the  capitals  of  the  Old  or 
the  New  World,  was  a  mystery  to  us,  and  yet  he  seemed 
to  be  perfectly  happy  here,  and  to  have  no  desire  to  live 
elsewhere.  Was  it  the  ever  dominant  feeling  that  "  There 
is  no  place  like  home/'  that  made  him  prefer  Orocue  to 
Paris  or  London?  Quien  sabe? 

The  only  Europeans  living  here  were  three  Germans. 
Two  of  them  had  arrived  but  a  few  months  before  our 
visit,  while  the  third  had  been  here  for  nearly  twenty  years. 
This  latter  was  also  as  much  attached  to  Orocue  as  was 
our  host.  The  year  before  he  had  visited  his  family  and 
friends  in  Hamburg  and  Berlin.  "But,"  he  said,  "I  had 
heimweh — got  homesick — for  Orocue,  and  came  back  much 
sooner  than  I  intended.  The  noise  and  bustle  and  hurry 
and  high-pressure  of  Europe  were  quite  unendurable,  and 
I  was  more  than  delighted  when  I  got  back  to  dear  old 
Orocue."  He,  too,  had  realized  that  there  is  no  place  like 
home.  And  he,  also,  like  our  host,  was  educated  and  cul- 
tured; was  interested  in  science  and  literature  and  pas- 
sionately fond  of  music.  He  had  several  musical  instru- 

173 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ments  in  his  house — among  others  a  piano — on  all  of  which 
he  was  a  skillful  performer. 

"What  wonderful  men  these  Germans  are!"  I  said  to 
myself,  when  I  saw  these  three  men  in  the  prime  of  life 
burying  themselves  away  off  here  in  the  wilderness,  so 
far  away  from  friends  and  country.  But  this  is  not  an 
unique  instance  of  young  Germans  going  to  distant  lands 
to  engage  in  business  and  to  contribute  thereby  towards 
that  wonderful  development  of  trade  and  influence  for 
which  the  Vat  erland  is  becoming  so  famous.  In  every  part 
of  Venezuela  which  we  visited,  we  found  it  the  same.  The 
greatest  and  most  successful  business  houses  are  in  the 
hands  of  Germans. 

In  all  parts  of  South  America  you  will  find  Germans,  and 
find  them,  too,  successful  in  their  enterprises,  and  often 
getting  more  than  their  share  of  the  trade  of  this  vast 
continent.  But  they  deserve  success,  for  they  have  earned 
it,  and  know  how  to  make  sacrifices  when  they  are  neces- 
sary to  attain  it,  or  to  reach  the  goal  for  which  they  are 
striving — to  become  the  dominating  commercial  power  of 
.South  America.  If  the  United  States  would  display  but 
a  tithe  of  the  energy  and  enterprise  exhibited  by  Germany, 
it  would  not  now  occupy  in  the  southern  continent  the 
humiliating  position  it  does  among  the  great  mercantile 
nations  of  the  world,  and  among  our  friends  of  the  great 
Latin  American  republics.  It  is  not  too  late  to  retrieve 
our  loss,  but,  to  do  so,  we  must  change  our  policy  and 
our  methods  of  doing  business,  and  conduct  them  along  the 
lines  recommended  by  such  alert  and  far-seeing  statesmen 
as  Elaine,  Boot  and  Eoosevelt. 

After  a  delightful  week  spent  in  Orocue  we  were  ready 
to  start  for  Barrigon  or  Puerto  Nuevo  on  the  Eio  Humea, 
an  affluent  of  the  Meta.  To  go  there  by  a  bongo  *  during 

*  Bongo,  falca,  and  ouriara  are  names  given  in  Colombia  and  Venezuela 
to  the  dugouts  or  canoes  fashioned  from  a  single  tree-trunk.  They  are  some- 
times large  enough  to  hold  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  persons.  Usually, 
however,  their  capacity  is  limited  to  five  or  six  persons.  The  curiara  is 

174 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

the  rapidly  rising  water,  would  require  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  days.  It  would  be  necessary  to  pole  it — or  pull 
it  along  by  ropes  in  certain  places — the  entire  distance. 
Besides  this,  owing  to  its  limited  quarters,  such  a  boat 
would  be  extremely  uncomfortable.  Fortunately  for  us, 
and  thanks  to  the  kind  offices  of  our  host,  we  were  able 
to  have  the  use  of  a  fine  and  commodious  petroleum  launch, 
which  would  convey  us  to  our  destination  in  a  week. 

It  was  with  genuine  regret  that  we  said  Adios  to  the  good 
people  of  Orocue  and  to  the  kind  friends  who  had  made 
our  sojourn  there  so  pleasant  and  profitable.  They  were 
all  at  the  landing  to  see  us  off,  and  speed  the  parting  guests 
with  the  touching  words,  Vayan  Uds.  Con  Dios — May  you 
go  with  God.  To  these  fervent  words  of  farewell  came 
from  our  little  crew  the  cordial  response,  Y  con  la  Virgen, 
and  with  the  Virgin  Mother. 

Our  captain  was  a  bright  and  courteous  and  most  oblig- 
ing young  Colombian  from  Bogota.  The  pilot  was  a 
Venezuelan  half-breed  from  the  town  of  Barcelona.  This 
"son  of  Barcelona, "  as  he  described  himself,  had  fled  from 
Ms  native  country,  on  account  of  the  continued  revolutions, 
to  seek  peace  in  Orocue.  The  cook  was  also  a  mestizo,  while 
his  assistant  was  a  strong,  broad-shouldered  Guahibo,  who, 

smaller  than  the  bongo  or  falca.  The  bongo  is  generally  provided  with  a 
covering  in  the  centre  called  a  toldo  or  carroza.  This  is  made  of  lattice- 
work with  palm  leaves  to  shelter  the  traveler  from  the  sun  and  rain.  It 
is  steered  and  urged  backwards  and  forwards  by  a  man  standing  at  the 
stern,  who  uses  a  kind  of  oar — canalete — very  much  as  a  Venetian  gondolier 
handles  his  oar  for  steering  and  propelling  his  gondola.  When  the  current 
does  not  permit  the  use  of  oars  those  standing  near  the  prow  urge  the 
boat  forward  by  poles  called  palancas.  The  boatmen  are  called  logos  and  the 
ropes  with  which  they  sometimes  pull  their  canoes  forward  are  called  sogas. 
The  bongo,  especially  when  the  river  is  high,  is  a  very  slow  means  of  loco- 
motion. And  owing  to  the  very  limited  space  of  the  toldo,  even  in  the 
largest  canoes,  traveling  in  a  bongo  is,  at  best,  very  confining  and  uncom- 
fortable. A  journey  any  distance  in  one  of  these  long,  narrow,  crank  dug- 
outs— more  unstable  than  a  shell — is  a  trying  experience,  and  one  that 
all  travelers  in  equatorial  America  avoid  whenever  possible.  The  treacherous 
craft  is  liable  to  capsize  when  one  least  expects  it.  Even  a  skilled  Oxford 
or  Harvard  sculler  would  at  times  have  great  difficulty  in  keeping  his  balance 
in  one  of  them. 

13  175 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

far  from  being  an  unfeeling  savage,  was  one  of  the  kindest 
and  most  thoughtful  persons  one  could  meet.  He  was  ever 
ready  to  serve  us  and  was  never  more  happy  than  when 
he  observed  that  his  delicate  attentions  were  fully  appre- 
ciated. 

The  launch's  commissariat  consisted  of  a  liberal  supply 
of  tasajo — salt,  dried  beef— cassava  bread,  coffee,  panela l 
and  various  kinds  of  fruit.  Anticipating  our  needs  at  this 
part  of  our  journey  we  had,  before  leaving  the  Port-of- 
Spain,  laid  in  a  supply  of  claret  and  canned  goods  of  va- 
rious kinds.  Aside  from  the  butter  and  condensed  cream 
and  some  of  the  fruit  preserves,  the  canned  goods  were  a 
disappointment  Although  they  were  guaranteed  to  be 
fresh  from  the  factory,  they  were  unfit  for  use.  What  we 
really  enjoyed  more  than  anything  else,  and  always  found 
fresh  and  wholesome,  was  our  supply  of  coffee,  sugar  and 
crackers.  For  our  cafe  in  the  morning  nothing  more  was 
desired. 

Coffee  was  always  served  on  the  launch,  when  we  were 
ready  to  start  on  the  day's  journey,  which  was  usually  at 
sunrise.  Desayuno — breakfast — we  took  at  about  ten 
o'clock.  For  this  we  always  landed,  as  it  was  more  con- 
venient and  more  agreeable  to  do  our  cooking  on  shore  than 
aboard.  It  was,  indeed,  quite  romantic  to  have  one's  break- 
fast served  under  a  broad-spreading  ceiba,  or  in  the  midst 
of  a  clump  of  stately  palms,  or  in  the  shade  of  a  group  of 
graceful  bamboos.  And  not  the  least  picturesque  feature 
about  it  was  Antonio— our  ever-active  and  obliging 
Guahibo. 

Whenever  possible,  we  stopped  for  desayuno  and  comida 
— dinner — at  a  hut  or  cottage  on  the  river's  bank.  We 
ordinarily  passed  several  of  them  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
for  the  banks  of  the  upper  Meta  count  many  more  inhab- 
itants than  does  the  lower  part  of  the  river.  Usually  there 
was  only  a  single  cottage,  but  occasionally  we  passed 

i  Also  called  papeZonr— cane-syrup  boiled  down,  without  being  clarified,  and 
cast  into  molds.  The  only  kind  of  sugar  obtainable  here! 

176 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

a  caserio  consisting  of  five  or  six  cottages.  But  whatever 
the  number  they  were  always  of  the  simplest  construction 
possible.  Sometimes  the  house  was  nothing  more  than  a 
palm-thatched  shed,  composed  solely  of  a  roof,  with  eaves 
extending  almost  to  the  ground,  resting  on  short  supports. 
Sometimes  the  owners  of  these  humble  habitations  were 
Indians,  sometimes  mestizos.  But  whether  Indians  or 
mestizos,  we  were  cordially  received  and  invited  to  make 
ourselves  comfortable  in  the  best  hammock  in  their  posses- 
sion. With  them  the  hamaca  is  the  one  indispensable 
article  of  furniture  in  every  dwelling,  even  the  poorest. 
It  takes  the  place  of  our  rocking-chair,  sofa  and  bed. 
According  to  the  Colombian  poet,  Madrid,  the  hammock 
was  invented  by  the  Indians — 

"Gente 
Dulce,  benigna  y  mansa," 

— a  race  suave,  gentle  and  benign — and  even  when  all  else 
fails  them  they  have  their  hammock  to  comfort  them  in 
misfortune,  banishing  their  trouble  in  its  oblivious  em- 
brace. The  poet,  like  many  others,  evidently  shares  the 
Indian's  fondness  for  the  hammock,  as  the  best  verses  he 
ever  wrote  was  his  poem  La  Hamaca.1 

i  A  stanza  from  this  poem  will  show  what  value  the  author  placed  on  the 
hammock.  It  expresses,  at  the  same  time,  the  opinion  of  it  entertained  by 
all  travelers  in  tropical  countries. 

"Mi  hamaca  es  un  tesoro, 
Es  mi  mejor  alhaja; 
A  la  ciudad,  al  campo, 
Siempre  ella  me  acompana. 
Oh  prodigio  de  industrial 
Cuando  no  encuentro  casa, 
La  cuelgo  de  los  troncos, 
Y  all!  esta  mi  posada. 
'Salud,  salud  dos  veces 
Al  que  invento  la  hamaca!'99 

Mention  is  made  of  hammocks  by  Vespucci  and  Alonso  de  Ojeda  as  early 
as  1498.  They  are  made  on  hand-looms  from  the  fibres  of  various  species 
of  palm  and  bromelia  or  from  cotton  thread.  In  their  manufacture  the 

177 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

There  were  several  reasons  for  stopping  at  one  of  these 
native  huts  when  we  could  conveniently  do  so.  We  were 
thus  enabled  to  get  fresh  fruit,  eggs  and  chickens,  and  have 
them  cooked  as  well.  We  had  no  complaint  to  make  of  our 
own  cooks,  but  we  soon  discovered  that  the  Indian  and 
mestizo  women  were  far  better.  I  shall  never  forget  our 
surprise  and  pleasure  at  the  manner  in  which  a  young 
Indian  woman  prepared  for  us  roast  chicken,  and  that,  too, 
in  a  remarkably  short  time.  I  never  tasted  a  more  tender 
or  better  flavored  fowl  in  the  best  restaurants  of  New  York 
or  Paris.  And  she  had  no  stove  or  oven  in  which  to  roast 
it.  Her  sole  utensil  was  a  wooden  spit  over  a  few  coals 
surrounded  by  three  stones  about  seven  or  eight  inches  in 
diameter.  And  all  was  as  clean  as  it  was  enjoyable. 

All  the  furniture  of  the  house  is  as  primitive  as  the  fire- 
place on  which  the  meals  are  cooked.  Often  the  only 
utensils  of  metal  are  a  pot,  or  kettle,  and  a  machete,  which 
takes  the  place  of  a  knife  in  cutting.  When  the  hammock 
is  not  used  one  sits  on  the  ground  or  on  a  log  that  serves 
as  a  bench.  Occasionally  we  were  offered  the  carapace  of 
a  large  turtle  in  lieu  of  a  chair.  When  the  hammock  is 
not  used,  an  ox  hide,  or  a  rush  mat,  or  a  large  palm  leaf 
serves  as  a  bed.  Often  the  poor  people  sleep  on  the  bare 
ground. 

Aside  from  the  single  metal  kettle  above  mentioned,  all 
other  culinary  utensils  are  made  from  the  fruit  of  the 

Indian  women  often  display  considerable  skill  and  taste.  This  is  particularly 
true  of  the  hammocks  made  in  the  regions  of  the  upper  Rio  Negro,  which 
are  beautifully  decorated  with  the  feathers  of  parrots,  toucans  and  other 
birds  of  brilliant  plumage. 

"The  hammock/'  as  Schomburgk  well  observes,  "is  the  most  indispensable 
article  in  the  Indian's  house,  or  for  an  Indian's  journey.  On  his  travels 
it  is  carried  folded  up  and  slung  round  his  neck;  the  greatest  precaution 
is  used  to  prevent  its  getting  wet.  Where  a  halt  is  made,  be  it  of  ever 
so  short  a  duration,  the  first  object  sought  for  is  a  convenient  tree  from 
which  he  can  suspend  it.  It  is  a  compliment  paid  to  the  stranger,  if  the 
host  takes  the  hammock  from  him  on  entering  the  house  and  slings  it  for  his 
guest,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  wife  to  do  this  service  for  her  husband. 
The  common  hammocks  of  the  Indians  are  generally  open,  that  is,  not  closely 
woven,  and  colored  red  with  roucou  or  arnotto."  Op.  cit.,  p.  66. 

178 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

calabash  tree.  It  is  the  species  known  to  botanists  as 
Crescentia  Cujete  and  is  called  by  the  natives  totumo. 
The  fruit  is  used  at  various  stages  of  its  growth  according 
as  it  is  employed  for  making  small  or  large  utensils.  The 
younger  and  smaller  fruits  are  fashioned  into  spoons,  those 
of  medium  size  serve  for  drinking  vessels,  while  the 
largest  full-grown  fruits — often  eight  inches  in  diameter — 
are  used  for  dishes  and  platters.1  They  also  furnish  a 
kind  of  musical  instrument  resembling  the  Castanet.  But 
marvelous  to  relate,  they  are  also  employed  for  lanterns 
of  a  most  original  kind.  After  the  shell  is  pierced  with  a 
large  number  of  small  holes  it  is  filled  with  those  wonderful 
Cocuios — fireflies — that  are  found  in  such  numbers  in  the 
tropics.  Such  a  lantern  seen  at  a  distance  is  not  unlike  the 
familiar  Chinese  lantern,  and,  considering  the  nature  of 
the  illuminant,  gives  a  surprising  amount  of  light. 

A  house,  such  as  the  one  just  described,  is  the  lodging 
place  of  the  dogs,  and  poultry,  and  not  infrequently  of  the 
pigs  also.  The  poultry  roost  upon  the  crosspieces  im- 
mediately under  the  roof.  The  other  animals  occupy  their 
own  corner,  and  no  one  seems  to  be  molested  by  their 
presence.  Benzoni,  in  speaking  of  the  habits  of  the  Indians 
he  saw,  remarks  in  his  quaint  fashion:  "They  all  sleep  to- 
gether like  fowls,  some  on  the  ground  and  some  suspended 
in  the  air."2 

Every  house  is  surrounded  by  a  number  of  fruit  trees. 
Among  these  the  platcmo  and  the  banana  are  the  most  con- 
spicuous, and  are  never  wanting,  for  they  supply  a  large 
part  of  the  food  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  tropics.  Equally 
important  are  maize  and  yuca.3  The  latter  is  used  for 

1  Peter  Martyr,  writing  of  the  West  Indies,  informs  us  that  "In  all  these 
Ilandes  is  a  certeyne  kynde  of  trees  as  bygge  as  elmes,  whiche  beare  gourdes 
in  the  steade  of  fruites.    These  they  vse  only  for  drinkynge  pottes,  and 
to  fetch  water  in,  but  not  for  meate,  for  the  inner  substance  of  them  is  sowrer 
then  gaule,  and  the  barke  as  harde  as  any  shelle."    Eden,  op.  cit.,  p.  76. 

2  "Tutti  donnono  insieme  come  i  polli,  chi  in  terra,  chi  in  aria  sospeso." — 
Eistoria  del  Mondo  Novo,  In  Venetia,  1565. 

s  Often  misspelled  yucca,  which  is  the  name  of  a  genus  of  plants  belong- 

179 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

making  bread.  In  certain  parts  of  the  tropics  no  other  kind 
of  bread  is  obtainable.  To  me  it  has  a  very  insipid  taste, 
somewhat  like  that  of  bran  or  cellulose.  Schombnrgk  con- 
sidered that  it  had  a  deleterious  effect  on  the  stomach,  but 
there  are  few,  I  think,  that  share  his  view.  Certain  it  is, 
that  its  use  as  food  is  universal  in  the  tropics,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  three  plants — yuca,  maize  and  the  platano — 
that  one  is  always  sure  to  find  in  every  conuco— even  that 
of  the  poorest  Indian.  These  three  articles  are  his  staff 
of  life.  The  natives  also  eat  fish  and  flesh  of  various  kinds, 
it  is  true,  but  as  the  three  plant  products  named  are  quite 
sufficient  to  sustain  life,  and  as  they  require  little  care  after 
they  are  once  planted,  many  people  make  little  or  no  effort 
to  secure  other  kinds  of  food.  They  are  content  with  little 
and  seem  to  enjoy  the  living  of  the  simple  life  fully  as 
much  as  some  of  our  friends  in  the  North  enjoy  talking  and 
writing  about  it. 

Often,  too,  where  one  would  least  expect  it,  one  will  find 
beautiful  flower  gardens  around  the  most  unpretentious 
habitations.  Of  the  flowers  that  we  in  the  North  are  most 
familiar  with — not  to  mention  countless  peculiarly  tropical 
species — those  we  most  frequently  observed  were  roses, 
jasmines,  dahlias,  pinks,  violets,  dracenas,  gladioli  and 
gardenias.  The  large  rose  bushes,  or  rather  rose  trees — 
they  are  so  huge— one  sometimes  sees  in  the  hot,  dry 
climate  of  the  tropics  are  truly  remarkable.  They  some- 
times attain  a  height  of  twenty  feet,  and  one  may  count  on 
a  single  bush  as  many  as  a  thousand  buds.  From  such  a 
bush  one  may  pluck  a  hundred  beautiful  roses  every  day 
in  the  year  without  any  apparent  diminution  in  the  number 
on  the  parent  stem. 

While  journeying  up  the  Orinoco  and  Meta,  we  several 
times  tried  our  luck  at  fishing,  but  our  efforts  were  always 
attended  with  the  most  ignominious  failures.  -Outside  of 
a  few  minnows  we  caught  absolutely  nothing.  One  of  our 

ing  to  the  lily  family.  The  Spanish  bayonet— Yucca  alWfoKa— is  a  familiar 
example. 

180 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

crew  once  caught  a  fish  about  two  feet  long  resembling 
a  pickerel  and  this  was  the  only  time  that  we  ever  tasted 
fresh  fish  all  the  time  we  were  on  the  river. 

No  sooner  had  the  hook  sunk  into  the  water  than  the  bait 
was  taken.  There  was  a  momentary  nibble,  and  presto! 
the  bait  had  disappeared.  On  investigation  we  found  that 
we  had  to  deal  with  the  terrible  Oaribe — that  voracious 
little  fish  about  which  so  many  extraordinary  stories  are 
related.  In  crossing  rivers  the  natives  dread  the  attacks 
of  this  serrasalmonine  marauder  more  than  they  do  the 
gymnotus,  the  stingray  or  the  cayman.  They  have  very 
sharp,  trenchant  teeth,  usually  swim  in  schools,  and,  when 
attracted  by  blood,  will  attack  men  and  the  larger  animals 
without  hesitation.  And  so  fierce  and  rapid  is  their  com- 
bined action  that  their  attack  usually  means  death  to  the 
victim. 

We  had  often  heard  and  read  of  their  snapping  fishhooks 
in  twain  but  had  classed  this  statement  among  the  stories 
of  the  monkey-bridge  class — stories  that  entertained  us 
during  our  early  school  days,  and  which,  I  doubt  not,  still 
perform  the  same  function  for  the  rising  generation  in 
certain  parts  of  the  world. 

But,  while  pondering  our  ill  success  with  rod  and  line, 
we  discovered  one  evening,  after  vainly  trying  for  an  hour 
to  get  at  least  one  specimen  of  the  finny  tribe — and  exhaust- 
ing all  our  bait  in  the  attempt — that  our  hook — a  good- 
sized  one,  too — was  snapped  in  two  as  neatly  as  if  it  had 
been  cut  by  a  pair  of  pliers.  We  examined  the  part  of 
the  hook  that  remained  attached  to  the  line  and  we  found 
that  it  was  actually  cut,  not  broken  on  account  of  defective 
material. 

On  further  inquiry,  I  found  that  several  men  of  science 
who  had  visited  these  parts,  and  had,  presumably,  investi- 
gated the  matter,  had  positively  stated  that  the  Caribe  was 
capable  of  severing  fishhooks  with  the  greatest  ease. 
Thus  Mr.  H.  M.  Myers  does  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the 
Oaribe  is  "able  to  sever  ordinary  hooks  as  if  they  were 

181 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

but  slender  threads," l  and  Dr.  Carl  Sachs  declares 
that  "even  thick  steel  fishhooks  do  not  withstand  their 
teeth.  "2 

Both  in  the  Orinoco  and  in  the  Meta  we  saw  quite  a 
number  of  porpoises — toninas,  the  Spaniards  call  them — 
quite  as  large  and  as  playful  as  any  we  ever  saw  in  the 
ocean.  The  natives  say  they  are  the  friends  of  man,  and 
defend  him  from  caymans  when  he  happens  to  be  in  the 
river.3  One  thing  is  certain  and  that  is  that  caymans  and 
crocodiles  both  quickly  make  their  escape  when  the  por- 
poise appears.  It  is  probably,  because  the  sluggish  and  in- 
dolent caymans,  ferocious  as  they  are  by  nature,  have  an 
instinctive  dread  of  the  noisy  and  impetuous  evolutions  of 
these  delphinine  cetaceans,  especially  when  they  move  in 
schools. 

We  were  often  surprised  by  the  large  flocks  of  ducks, 
of  many  different  species,  which  we  saw  along  the  Meta. 
They  seemed  to  be  most  numerous  near  sunset  when, 
occasionally,  they  flew  across  the  river  by  thousands.  So 
great,  indeed,  was  their  number  at  times  that  we  could  com- 
pare them  only  with  the  immense  flocks  of  pigeons  that, 
during  our  boyhood  days,  used  to  darken  the  sky  during 
their  season  of  migration.  Many  of  these  ducks,  as 
articles  of  food,  compare  favorably  with  our  mallard  and 
eanvasback.  Truth  to  tell,  the  only  time  we  regretted  not 
having  a  shotgun  with  us  was  when  we  saw  these  clouds  of 
edible  birds  passing  over  our  heads  within  easy  reach. 
This  was  particularly  the  case  when  our  food  supply  was 
running  short,  or  when  we  desired  a  change  of  diet,  or 

i  Life  and  "Nature  in  the  Tropics,  p.  98,  by  H.  M.  and  P.  V.  M.  Myers,  New 
York,  1871. 

2Au0  den  Llanos,  p.  147,  Leipzig,  1840. 

3  Of  the  tonina,  as  of  the  dolphin  that  befriended  Arion,  one  could  say 
in  the  words  of  an  ancient  writer:  "Of  man,  he  is  nothing  afraid,  neither 
avoideth  from  hi™  as  a  stranger;  but  of  himself e  meeteth  their  ships, 
plaieth  and  disporteth  himselfe,  and  fetcheth  a  thousand  friskes,  and  gam- 
bols before  them.  He  will  swimme  along  by  the  mariners,  as  it  were  for  a 
wager,  who  should  make  way  most  speedily,  and  alwaies  outgoeth  'them,  saile 
they  with  never  so  good  a  forewind." 

182 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

something  different  from  carne  frita — fried  beef  that  has 
been  salted  and  dried — and  sancocho.1 

Among  the  singing  birds  peculiar  to  the  tropics  are  two 
that  deserve  special  mention.  There  are  the  campanero  or 
bellbird,  and  the  flautero  or  flute  bird. 

Of  the  bellbird,  Waterson  writes  as  follows:  "He  is 
about  the  size  of  a  jay.  His  plumage  is  white  as  snow. 
On  his  forehead  rises  a  spiral  tube  nearly  three  inches 
long.  It  is  jet  black,  dotted  all  over  with  small  white 
feathers.  It  has  a  communication 'with  the  palate,  and 
when  filled  with  air,  looks  like  a  spire;  when  empty  it  be- 
comes pendulous.  His  note  is  loud  and  clear,  like  the  sound 
of  a  bell. 

•        •••*•»»•* 

"With  many  of  the  feathered  race,  he  pays  the  common 
tribute  of  a  morning  and  an  evening  song;  and  even  when 
the  meridian  sun  has  shut  in  silence  the  mouths  of  the 
whole  of  animated  nature,  the  campanero  still  cheers  the 
forest.  You  hear  his  toll,  and  then  a  pause  for  a  minute, 
then  another  toll,  and  then  a  pause  again,  and  then  a  toll, 
and  again  a  pause.  Then  he  is  silent  for  six  or  eight 
minutes  and  then  another  toll,  and  so  on.  Acteon  would 
stop  in  mid-chase,  Maria  would  defer  her  evening  song 
and  Orpheus  himself  would  drop  his  lute  and  listen  to 
him;  so  sweet,  so  novel,  and  romantic  is  the  toll  of  the 
pretty  snow-white  campanero.  "2 

iThe  national  dish  of  Venezuela,  also  much  esteemed  in  Colombia.  It  is 
a  kind  of  ragout  composed  of  meat  and  vegetables,  or  fish  and  vegetables, 
highly  seasoned  with  aj\9  or  red  pepper. 

a  Wanderings  in  South  America,  Second  Journey. 

Referring  to  Waterton's  account  of  the  bellbird  and  the  distance  at 
which  it  can  be  heard,  Sydney  Smith  expresses  his  scepticism  in  the  follow- 
ing fashion: — 

"The  description  of  the  birds  is  very  animated  and  interesting;  but  how- 
far  does  the  gentle  reader  imagine  the  campanero  may  be  heard,  whose 
size  is  that  of  a  jay?  Perhaps  300  yards.  Poor  innocent,  ignorant  reader! 
unconscious  of  what  Nature  has  done  in  the  forests  of  Cayenne,  and  measur- 
ing the  force  of  tropical  intonation  by  the  sounds  of  a  Scotch  duck!  The 
eampanero  may  be  heard  three  miles!— this  single  little  bird  being  more 

183 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

So  closely  indeed  does  the  note  of  the  campanero  re- 
semble the  sound  of  a  bell  that  the  traveler  can  easily 
fancy  that  there  is  a  chapel  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  and 
that  the  faithful  are  being  called  to  prayer.  The  bellbird 
has  a  near  relative  in  the  herrero,  or  blacksmith  bird, 
whose  note  is  like  that  produced  when  an  anvil  is  struck 
by  a  hammer. 

The  flautero,  or  flute  bird,  is  quite  small  and  of  a 
grayish  color.  Its  notes  are  surprisingly  sweet  and 
mellow,  and  closely  resemble  those  of  a  sweet-toned  flute, 
whence  its  name.  One  who  hears  this  feathered  songster 
for  the  first  time  would  easily  believe  that  he  is  listening 
to  a  skillful  flute  player,  and  not  to  the  song  of  a  tiny  bird. 
The  refrain  of  its  song  is  fairly  well  expressed  in  the  fol- 
lowing notes : 


r  •  n*V  r^if  E 


^ 


Unfortunately  for  us,  we  were  often  obliged  to  listen  to 
sounds  that  were  not  so  agreeable  as  those  of  the  flautero 
or  campanero.  These  were  the  raucous,  discordant,  never- 
ending  noises  produced  by  frogs  and  toads.  In  Orocue 
they  always  began  their  cacophonous  serenade  at  nightfall, 
and  kept  it  up  uninterruptedly  until  the  following  morning. 
I  could  then  realize  that  Padre  Eivero  had  good  cause  for 
regarding  them  as  among  the  greatest  nuisances  with  which 
he  had  to  contend.  Their  confused,  strident  notes — base, 
tenor,  contralto,  soprano — kept  up  the  entire  night  were, 
he  assures  us,  enough  to  split  one's  head.  Some  of  these 
amphibians  we  heard  at  Orocue  were  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  river  from  us,  more  than  half  a  mile  distant.  They 

powerful  than  the  belfry  of  a  cathedral,  ringing  for  a  new  dean — just  ap- 
pointed on  account  of  shabby  politics,  small  understanding,  and  good  family  1 
"It  is  impossible  to  contradict  a  gentleman  who  has  been  in  the  forests 
of  Cayenne;  but  we  are  determined,  as  soon  as  a  campanero  is  brought  to 
England,  to  make  him  toll  in  a  public  place,  and  have  the  distance  meas- 
ured," 

184 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 
were  in  very  truth  what  Lowell  has  so  well  characterized  as 

"Old  croakers,  deacons  of  the  mire, 
That  led  the  deep  batrachian  choir." 

The  wonderful  depth  and  fertility  of  the  dark,  loamy 
soil  in  the  valley  of  the  Meta  was  ever  a  source  of  wonder 
to  us.  Along  the  river  banks  it  usually  formed  a  layer 
of  four  or  five  feet,  and  not  infrequently  seven  or  eight 
feet.  And  the  vegetation  was  everywhere  an  evidence  of 
this  fertility.  At  Platanales,  a  conuco  at  which  we  spent 
a  night,  we  saw  a  grove  of  several  acres  of  the  largest  and 
most  prolific  bananas  and  plantains  we  had  ever  en- 
countered anywhere.  At  another  conuco,  farther  up  the 
river,  where  we  stopped  for  breakfast,  we  saw  several  acres 
of  corn  that  was  rapidly  maturing.  And  what  corn! 
Never  did  I  in  Kansas  or  Nebraska  see  such  ample  stalks 
or  so  large  ears  and  grains.  It  was  a  revelation  to  us, 
and  exhibited  in  a  most  striking  manner  the  wonderful, 
future  possibilities  of  this  marvelously  fertile,  yet  unknown 
land. 

Near  every  dwelling,  however  humble,  along  the  Meta, 
we  observed  a  large  cross  made  of  tastefully  and  often 
artistically  plaited  palm  leaves.  The  material  was  yet 
quite  fresh  and  the  crosses  had  evidently  been  erected  only 
a  few  days  before  we  passed  by.  In  design  and  work- 
manship they  reminded  us  of  those  seen  in  parts  of  Italy 
on  Palm  Sunday.  On  inquiry,  we  found  that  they  had  been 
erected  on  the  third  of  May,  the  feast  of  the  Invention  of 
the  Holy  Cross. 

"Why  is  this  cross  placed  here?"  I  asked  of  an  Indian 
woman,  while  she  was  preparing  our  desayuno.  "Para 
gue  no  nos  pegue  el  chubasco," — in  order  that  the  chu- 
basco — wind  squall — may  not  strike  us,  she  replied  with- 
out hesitation.  I  asked  many  others  at  divers  places  the 
same  question  and  invariably  received  a  similar  reply. 

These  poor  people  were  not  able  to  erect  the  beautiful 
shrines  one  so  frequently  sees  in  the  Catholic  countries  of 

185 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Europe,  and  so  their  simple  faith  found  expression  in  these 
palm-leaf  crosses,  on  which  they  had  evidently  put  their 
best  and  most  careful  work,  of  which  they  often  seemed 
justly  proud. 

On  passing  by  a  particularly  large  and  beautiful  cross 
of  this  kind  my  mind  reverted  to  a  shrine  near  the  light- 
house of  Savona,  an  ancient  town  near  Genoa.  Here  there 
is  a  statue  of  the  Madonna,  twelve  feet  high,  under  which 
are  inscribed  two  Sapphic  verses,  expressing  in  rhythmic 
numbers  the  same  idea  that  was  uppermost  in  the  mind  of 
the  good  Indian  woman  when  she  braided  and  placed  in 
position  this  symbol  of  redemption.  The  verses  were  com- 
posed by  Gabriello  Chiabrera,  "the  prince  of  Italian  lyric 
poets,"  who  was  a  native  of  Savona.  They  are  remark- 
able in  that  they  are  both  "good  Latin  and  choice  Italian," 
and  have  the  same  meaning  in  both  languages.  They  read 
as  follows: 

"In  mare  irato,  in  subita  procella, 
Invoco  te,  nostra  benigna  stella." * 

The  only  place  of  any  importance  between  Orocue  and 
Barrigon  is  Cabuyaro,  a  small  town  of  about  two  hundred 
inhabitants.  It  cherishes  the  hope  of  becoming  the  eastern 
terminus  of  the  long-projected  railroad  from  Bogota  to  the 
Meta.  This  would  no  doubt  be  a  good  terminal  point,  as 
the  town  is  favorably  located,  and  the  river  is  sufficiently 
deep  to  permit  the  passage  of  good-sized  vessels.  As  at 
the  other  towns  we  passed,  the  steamer  may  moor  within 
a  few  feet  of  the  river's  bank. 

Cabuyaro,  however,  is  not  the  only  place  ambitious  to 
become  the  terminus  of  the  Bogota  Eastern  railroad.  It 
has  several  rivals,  some  of  which  are  little  more  at  present 
than  rude  huts  in  the  wilderness.  Among  these  is  Ba- 
rigon,  which  also  rejoices  in  the  high-sounding  name  of 
Puerto  Nuevo.  It  has,  certainly,  an  advantage  over 

i"In  angry  sea,  in  sudden  storm, 
I  thee  invoke,  our  star  benign," 

186 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

Cabuyaro  in  that  it  is  much  nearer  the  capital.  When 
this  railway,  which  has  been  in  contemplation  for  many 
years,  shall  have  been  completed,  it  will  be  possible  to  go 
from  Bogota  to  the  Meta  in  ten  hours.  At  present  it  takes 
six  days  to  make  the  trip,  and  a  very  trying  and  tiresome 
one  it  is. 

While  our  cooks  were  preparing  comida — dinner — we 
visited  the  town.  As  we  were  passing  a  neat-looking  house 
on  the  plaza,  next  to  the  church,  a  woman  standing  at  the 
door,  surrounded  by  her  family,  observing  that  we  were 
strangers,  insisted  on  our  partaking  of  the  hospitality  of 
her  home.  She  gave  orders  at  once  to  have  dinner  pre- 
pared for  us,  and  was  deeply  disappointed  when  she 
learned  that  our  captain  had  made  arrangements  for  us 
to  dine  elsewhere.  She  then  said:  "You  must  do  us  the 
honor  of  taking  at  least  a  cup  of  coffee  in  our  humble 
home.  We  cannot  let  you  depart  without  something. " 
Before  she  had  finished  speaking,  one  of  her  daughters,  a 
bright,  modest  girl  of  about  sixteen,  had  started  to  boil 
the  water,  and  in  a  short  time  we  were  served  with  as  good 
coffee  as  we  had  ever  tasted  anywhere  during  our  journey. 

The  kindness  and  simplicity  of  these  good  people  were 
admirable.  They  were  much  interested  in  our  journey, 
and  could  not  understand  what  could  induce  us  to  under- 
take such  a  long  trip.  They  were  most  eager  to  hear 
about  our  own  country,  and  showed  an  intelligent  interest 
in  persons  and  things  that  quite  surprised  us.  Soon  a 
number  of  their  neighbors  called  and  each  one  was  duly 
presented  to  the  viajeros — travelers — and  served  also  with 
a  cup  of  the  aromatic  beverage  which  our  hostess  knew  so 
well  how  to  prepare.  Although  we  had  become  accustomed 
to  the  generous  hospitality  of  the  good  people  we  had 
everywhere  met  along  the  Meta,  the  cordial  reception  given 
us  by  the  people  of  Cabuyaro  during  our  short  stay  among 
them  impressed  us  in  a  special  manner,  and  made  us  feel 
that  it  is  particularly  among  primitive  peoples,  among 
those  in  the  depth  of  the  forest,  or  in  the  solitude  of  the 

187 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

desert,  that  hospitality  is  not  only  regarded  as  a  duty  hut  is 
also  esteemed  a  pleasure. 

How  often,  when  partaking  of  the  simple  fare  of  our 
kindly  hosts  in  tropical  America,  were  we  forced  to  com- 
pare their  never-failing  hospitality  with  that  of  the  Greeks 
of  Homeric  times!  Then  nothing  was  too  good  for  the 
honored  guest,  for  he  might  be  a  god  in  disguise,  or,  if  not 
a  god,  he  was  at  least  a  friend  of  the  gods.  Like  the  early 
Christians,  who  treated  their  guests  as  if  they  might  he 
angels  who  had  come  upon  them  unawares,  our  Meta  hosts 
always  gave  us  the  best  at  their  disposition,  and  expressed 
their  regret  that  they  were  unable  to  do  more.  Their 
home  was  ours  as  long  as  we  chose  to  remain,  and  their 
every  act  showed  that  they  were  pleased  to  be  honored — 
as  they  expressed  it — by  the  strangers*  visit.1 

Before  leaving  Orocue,  we  had  telegraphed  to  Vil- 
lavicencio  to  have  saddle  and  pack  mules  ready  for  us  on 
our  arrival  in  Barrigon,  which,  as  planned,  was  to  be  the 
morning  after  our  arrival  at  Cabuyaro.  As,  however,  we 
had  been  delayed  a  day  by  trouble  with  the  engine,  and 
loss  of  our  anchor,  we  could  not  hope  to  reach  our  destina- 
tion without  traveling  all  night.  Fortunately,  there  was 
a  full  moon  and  a  cloudless  night.  And  our  crew,  the 
captain  notably,  were  ready  and  willing,  regardless  of  their 
own  comfort,  to  do  anything  in  their  power  to  enable  us 
to  reach  Barrigon  at  the  appointed  time. 

i  Compare  the  reception  of  Ulysses  by  Eumseus,  in  the  fourteenth  book  of 
the  Odyssey,  where  the  old  servant  of  the  wandering  hero  is  made  to  say  to 
his  unknown  master: — 

"Guest!    If  one  much  worse 

Arrived  here  than  thyself,  it  were  a  curse 

To  my  poor  means,  to  let  a  stranger  taste 

Contempt  for  fit  food.    Poor  men,  and  unplac'd 

In  free  seats  of  their  own,  are  all  from  Jove 

Commended  to  our  entertaining  love, 

But  poor  is  th'  entertainment  I  can  give, 

Yet  free  and  loving." 

Crevaux,  op.  cit.,  p.  556,  remarks  anent  this  subject:  "On  pratique  large- 
ment  rhospitalite"  dans  les  grandes  solitudes." 

188 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

Never  shall  I  forget  our  last  night  on  the  Meta.  C.  and 
I  were  sitting  on  the  prow  of  our  launch,  which  was  mov- 
ing merrily  along  the  broad  river — as  broad  as  ever,  ap- 
parently— which,  under  the  bright  rays  of  the  moon,  shone 
like  molten  silver.  There  was  no  murky  vapor  to  obscure 
the  fair  face  of  the  queen  of  night,  or  dim  her  glowing 
form.  Surrounded  by  the  myriad  stars  of  heaven,  she 
reigned  supreme.  Then,  more  truly  than  ever  before  in 
our  lives,  could  we  say  with  Saint  Augustine,  that  we  saw 
"the  moon  and  stars  solace  the  night."  l 

The  air  was  balmy  and  impregnated  with  sweetest  per- 
fumes and  rarest  balsamic  odors,  wafted  from  the  dark, 
impervious  forest  walls  that  rose  in  silent  majesty  on 
either  shore.  The  sleeping  mimosas  that  had  folded  their 
leaves  for  the  night,  the  ethereal  jambos,  figs,  and  laur- 
els, the  dark  crowns  of  the  jaca  and  the  manga,  the 
slender  shafts  of  bamboo  tufts,  the  dim  crests  of  the 
palm,  trellised  vines  and  liana  festoons,  defiled  before 
us  in  rapid  succession,  and,  in  the  shades  of  night,  as- 
sumed the  most  fantastic  shapes  and  magic  combina- 
tions. 

As  we  glided  along  the  glassy  stretches  of  the  river 
there  was  nothing  to  mar  the  perfect  stillness  that  per- 
vaded the  scene,  except  the  muffled  pulsations  of  our  engine, 
too  feeble  to  wake  an  echo  from  the  neighboring  banks. 
The  time,  the  place,  the  freshness  of  earth  and  the 
splendor  of  heaven  lent  themselves  to  reverie,  and  stirred 
the  fancy  to  unwonted  activity.  Frequently  on  the  Ori- 
noco we  had  amused  ourselves  by  watching  the  odd  and 
whimsical  shapes  assumed  by  the  clouds,  epecially  before 
or  after  a  chubasco,  or  at  the  time  the  sun  was  dropping 
below  the  horizon.  Then  the  imagination,  quickened  to 
action,  would  discover,  in  the  rapidly  changing  clouds, 
animal  forms  varying  from  the  bear  and  the  eagle  to  the 
griffin  and  the  dragon. 

iVidemus  lunam  et  stellas  consolari  noctem." — Confessionum,  Lib.  XIII, 
Cap.  XXXIL 

189 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

And  so  it  was  now.  At  one  time  we  could  see,  in  a 
curiously  arranged  clump  of  trees  and  vines,  the  ruins  of 
a  Khenish  castle,  at  another  the  shattered  towers  and 
merloned  walls  of  an  enchanted  palace.  Now  it  was  a 
rustic  chapel  by  the  wayside,  and  a  moment  later,  as  we 
peered  into  the  darkness  of  the  inner  wold,  and  noted  the 
huge  dark  tree  trunks,  it  was  the  massive  pillars  of  a 
Hindoo  shrine.  Here  it  was  a  Druid  trysting-place,  there 
a  mermaid's  grot  and  there  again  a  dryad's  bower  or  the 
home  of  a  fairy  queen.  That  Titania  was  not  far  distant 
was  evidenced  by  the  swarms  of  fairies — matter-of-fact 
scientific  men  would  doubtless  call  them  Pyropheri — fire- 
flies— that,  like  a  thousand  stars,  flitted  through  the  bloom 
and  the  foliage,  illuming  with  their  soft  radiance  the 
favorite  haunt  of  fairyland. 

How  we  enjoyed  the  mystery  of  these  vast  solitudes  1 
How  exquisite  the  ever-changing  chiaroscuro;  the  won- 
drous play  of  light  and  shade ;  the  warmth,  depth  and  soft- 
ness of  the  noble  pictures  that,  at  every  turn,  ravished 
our  delighted  gaze!  How  it  all  elevated  the  soul  and 
enjoined  recollection  of  spirit !  The  impression  was  in  an 
eminent  degree  like  that  experienced  beneath  the  sombre 
arches  of  a  Gothic  cathedral.  And  why  not?  Were  we 
not  beneath  the  starry  vault  of  heaven,  in  the  depth  of  the 
dark,  majestic  tropical  forest,  in  the  most  inspiring  temple 
of  the  Most  High? 

When  in  Orocue,  we  were  told  that,  on  a  bright,  clear 
day,  the  Andes  were  visible  from  that  place.  But  owing 
to  title  clouds  and  the  mists  and  the  forests  that  had  con- 
stantly obstructed  our  view,  we  had  not  yet  gotten  even 
a  glimpse  of  this  world-famed  chain  of  mountains.  Of 
course,  we  had  seen  one  of  its  spurs  in  the  coast  range  of 
Venezuela.  But  this  range  was  not  the  Cordillera  of  our 
boyhood  dreams.  We  longed  to  see  that  massive  chain  that 
extends  in  unbroken  continuity  from  Panama  to  Pata- 
gonia. And  day  by  day,  as  we  moved  westward,  our  wist- 
ful eyes  were  ever  peering  through  broken  forest  or  over 

190 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

grass-covered  glade,  to  catch  the  first  view  of  La  Cordillera 
de  los  Andes. 

While  silently  sitting  on  the  prow  of  our  launch  admir- 
ing the  countless,  ever-changing  beauties  of  that  marvelous 
moonlight  night — our  last  on  the  Meta, — giving  free  rein  to 
our  fancy,  and  shifting  our  course  as  the  meandering  river 
demanded,  behold !  Suddenly  like  a  vision,  the  Andes  stood 
before  us  in  all  their  majesty  and  glory,  looming  up  to  the 
very  heavens.  So  instant  was  the  apparition  that,  for  a 
while,  we  were  quite  speechless  from  admiration  and  awe. 
"The  Andes !"  one  of  us  ejaculated,  and  we  were  then  com- 
pletely under  their  magic  spell.  So  agreeable  was  our 
surprise  and  so  great  our  emotion  that  for  a  time  it  was 
impossible  to  find  words  to  express  our  feelings  of  delight 
and  wonder.  We  realized,  as  probably  never  before,  what 
a  feeble  instrument  language  is  for  conveying  one's  inner- 
most thoughts,  and  how  inadequate  to  express  what  deeply 
stirs  the  soul. 

Our  adjectives  and  exclamations  were  little  more  than 
the  Indian's  grunt,  and  less  devotional  than  the  Moslem's 
phrase,  '  '  Allah  is  great ! ' '  Coming  from  the  cold  and  tame 
nature  of  the  North  to  that  of  the  glorious  and  marvelous 
equator,  we  were  like  Plato's  men,  bred  in  cavern  twilight, 
and  then  suddenly  exposed  to  the  bright  effulgence  of  the 
noonday  sun.  We  saw  things  wonderful  and  unspeakable, 
but  all  our  superlatives  were  inarticulate  and  feeble, 
matched  with  the  scene  before  us. 

"But  what  are  those  lights  on  the  mountain  summit,  a 
little  to  the  left!"  inquired  C.,  finally  breaking  the  long- 
sustained  silence.  On  the  very  crest  of  the  Cordilleras  and 
extending  for  a  considerable  distance,  was  a  large  number 
of  brilliant  lights,  like  so  many  electric  arcs.  It  was  as 
if  the  long  rows  of  arc  lamps  that  illumine  the  Bay  of 
Naples,  as  one  sees  them  from  an  incoming  steamer,  were 
raised  skyward  far  above  the  cone  of  Vesuvius;  or  as  if 
the  resplendent  "White  Way"  of  New  York  were  lifted  into 
cloudland. 

u  191 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

At  first  we  thought  it  was  a  forest  fire,  bnt  it  was  so 
different  from  the  unsteady,  yellowish-red  flame  of  burning 
trees  and  vegetation.  We  had  seen  such  fires  along  the 
Orinoco  and  Meta — as  well  as  elsewhere — and  were  quite 
familiar  with  their  appearance.  It  could  not  be  due  to 
volcanic  action,  for  there  were  no  volcanoes  in  that  direc- 
tion, unless  of  extremely  recent  origin.  Besides,  the  lights 
before  us  were  quite  different  from  the  fitful  reflections 
that  molten  lava  produces  from  swirling  masses  of  vapor. 
Might  they  not  actually  be  the  electric  lights  of  Bogotfi  or 
of  some  other  city  of  the  Sierras!  No,  for  Bogota  was 
on  the  west  slope  of  the  mountain  range,  and  there  was 
no  town  of  any  size  on  the  eastern  declivity.  Still  less 
could  the  lights  be  due  to  reflection  from  the  sun,  for  it  had 
set  hours  before. 

What  then  was  this  "midnight  gloom  still  blossoming 
into  fire"?  Our  curiosity  was  excited  to  a  high  degree, 
but  the  apparition  seemed  to  defy  all  attempts  at  explana- 
tion. We  thought  of  the  gleaming  light  seen  by  Eobert 
Bruce  from  the  turrets  of  Brodick  Castle,  in  the  isle  of 
Arran,  before  his  landing  in  Carrick. 

We  recalled  a  similar  phenomenon,  observed  by  Hum- 
boldt  on  the  Cerro  del  Cuchivano  in  Venezuela,  in  which  he 
thought  the  luminous  display  observed  might  be  due  to  the 
burning  of  hydrogen  and  other  inflammable  gases.1 

The  Indians  who  live  among  or  near  the  mountains,  re- 
late many  wonderful  stories  about  strange  lights  that  are 
occasionally  seen  on  or  in  the  vicinity  of  the  loftier  peaks. 
"It  is. a  curious  thing,"  writes  Im  Thurn,  regarding  a 
phenomenon  of  this  kind,  seen  in  the  mountains  of  British 
Guiana,  "that,  as  I  have  seen,  there  actually  is  an  appear- 
ance, as  of  fire,  to  be  seen  sometimes  up  in  these  mountains, 
nor  was  I  ever  able  to  form  any  theory  as  to  its  cause." 2 

Sir  Martin  Oonway  records  a  more  remarkable  case  of 

1  Codazzi  also  refers  to  this  and  other  similar  phenomena  in  his  Qeografia 
Statistica  di  Venezuela,  pp.  29  and  30,  Firenze,  1864. 

2  Among  tte  Indiana  of  Gitiona,  p.  384,. by  Everard  T.  Im  Thuro. 

192 


APPROACHING  THE  ANDES 

this  character.  "Long  after  the  sun  had  set  and  darkness 
had  come  on,  Ulampu  glowed  red  like  fire,  and  all  the  people 
in  town  saw  it.  Such  a  sight  none  had  ever  beheld.  In 
great  terror  they  ran  to  the  church  and  the  bells  were  rung. 
They  thought  the  end  of  the  world  had  come." * 

My  own  conclusion  regarding  the  luminous  phenomena, 
that  occupied  our  attention  for  at  least  an  hour,  during  the 
night  to  which  I  refer,  is  that  they  were  of  electric  origin. 
The  mountain  in  front  of  us  seemed  to  be  a  vast  condenser 
from  which  the  electricity  was  escaping  by  a  silent  glow  or 
brush-discharge  on  an  immense  scale.  The  color  and  the 
steadiness  of  the  lights,  as  well  as  their  durability,  were 
evidence  of  this.  They  were  probably  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  corposant  of  St.  Elmo's  fire,  sometimes  seen  on 
the  spars  or  yards  of  a  ship.2 

We  slept  little  that  last  night  on  the  Meta.  Earth  and 
sky  were  so  beautiful,  and  there  was  so  much  to  engage 
our  attention  that  it  was  a  late  hour  before  we  sought  re- 
pose. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  left  the  Meta  and  entered  the 
Humea,  passing  the  Eio  Negro  on  our  left.  In  Europe  or 
America  these  two  affluents  of  the  Meta  would  be  consid- 
ered good-sized  rivers.  Both  of  them  are  navigable  for 
some  distance,  but  like  hundreds  of  other  rivers  in  South 
America,  are  practically  unknown,  except  to  those  who 
live  in  their  immediate  vicinity. 

About  nine  o'clock  our  pilot  blew  a  loud,  prolonged  blast 
on  his  conch  which  served  M™  for  a  horn  or  call-instru- 
ment, and,  looking  ahead  of  us,  we  saw  gathered  on  the 
banks  the  entire  population  of  Barrig6n — a  negro  woman, 

1  The  Bolivian  Andes,  p.  201,  London  and  New  York,  1901. 

Padre  Figueroa,  in  his  Relaciones  de  las  Misiones  en  el  Pais  de  Io8  Maynas, 
writes  of  similar  phenomena  observed  among  the  Andes  near  the  Amazon. 

2  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  discovered  that  both  Antonio  Raimondi 
of  Lima,  Peru,  and  Col.  Geo.  E.  Church  had  arrived  independently  at  * 
similar  conclusion  to  my  own.    "The  Andes/'  writes  Col.  Church,  "at  least 
within  the  tropics,  are  at  times  a  gigantic  electric  battery,  and  so  highly 
charged  that  they  are  very  dangerous  to  cross."— The  Geographical  Journal, 
pp.  341,  342,  April,  1901. 

193 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

her  three  daughters  and  a  young  man,  likewise  a  negro. 
We  expected,  of  course,  to  see  also  our  mules  and  our 
arrieros — muleteers — but  they  were  nowhere  visible.  They 
evidently  had  not  arrived.  To  describe  our  disappoint- 
ment and  dismay  would  be  impossible.  We  felt  as  if  we 
were  about  to  be  marooned,  or  left  in  a  penal  colony. 
What  did  it  all  mean? 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

No  sooner  had  our  launch  reached  the  landing  place,  than 
we  bounded  ashore,  eager  for  information  about  our  mules 
and  their  drivers.  We  asked  the  sable  matron  who,  with 
her  equally  sable  daughters,  waited  at  the  brink  to  greet 
us,  if  the  mules  had  come.  She  replied  laconically,  "No, 
Senor . "  "  Have  you  heard  anything  about  them  V9  "  No, 
Seiior."  "Is  there  anyone  here,5*  and  I  glanced  at  the 
swarthy  youth  hard  by,  "that  would  be  willing,  if  well  re- 
warded, to  go  forward  and  hasten  the  arrival  of  men  and 
mules?"  "No,  Senor." 

What  was  to  be  done?  We  could  not  continue  our 
journey  alone  and  afoot,  even  if  we  were  disposed  to  leave 
our  baggage  behind  us.  And  it  soon  became  evident  that 
it  would  not  be  safe  to  remain  long  at  Barrigon.  There 
was  but  one  rude  hut  there,  and  that  was  surrounded  by 
mud  and  pools  of  water  covered  by  "Spawn,  weeds  and 
fifth  and  leprous-scum"— certainly  not  a  very  inviting 
place  to  abide  any  length  of  time. 

Besides,  the  family  had  nothing  to  eat,  at  least  they  said 
they  had  not,  except  a  few  platanos,  and  these  they  required 
for  their  own  use.  We  had  almost  exhausted  the  supply 
we  had  brought  from  Trinidad,  and  the  little  that  was  still 
left,  we  intended  for  our  three-days  trip  to  Villavicencio. 
We  were  not  sure  that  we  could  get  anything  on  the  way, 
and  we  did  not  wish  to  run  any  risk  of  being  without  food 
where  it  might  be  most  needed. 

Something  had  to  be  done,  and  that  quickly,  if  we  did 
not  wish  to  expose  ourselves  to  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  the 
danger  of  fever  in  that  filthy,  miasmatic  hole.  In  the  dry 

195 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

season,  we  might  return  to  Cabuyaro,  where  we  could  se- 
cure horses  or  mules,  and  go  thence  to  our  next  objective 
point,  Villavicencio.  During  the  rainy  season,  however, 
this  was  impossible.  We  had  been  told  the  night  before^ 
that  several  of  the  canos  and  rivers  between  Cabuyaro  and 
Villavicencio  were  quite  impassable,  as  there  were  neither 
bridges  nor  ferries,  and  that  the  currents  were  so  swift  that 
it  was  quite  out  of  the  question  for  man  or  beast  to  cross 
them  by  swimming. 

We  were  certainly  in  a  quandary,  if  not  in  a  very  serious 
predicament.  It  was  useless  to  go  backwards,  unless  we 
wished  to  return  to  Orocue,  and  thence  to  Trinidad.  Even 
of  we  returned  to  Orocue,  we  could  not  get  a  steamer  down 
the  river  for  several  months,  and  to  make  the  long  trip  to 
Ciudad  Bolivar  in  a  bongo  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  We 
were  confronted  by  the  first  really  grave  difficulty  of  our 
journey,  and  when  we  considered  all  the  circumstances,  it 
was  enough  to  depress  the  stoutest  heart. 

"But  why  had  not  our  men  and  mules  arrived,  we  asked 
ourselves  time  and  again! "  Our  telegram  ordering  them 
had  been  received  and  satisfactorily  answered.  Just 
before  leaving  Orocue  we  had  sent  a  second  telegram 
advising  our  vaqueano — guide — when  he  should  meet  us 
but  we  had  not  awaited  a  reply,  taking  it  for  granted  that 
there  would  be  no  hitch  in  our  plans.  It  now  occurred  that 
we  had  acted  unwisely  in  not  waiting  for  a  response  to  our 
second  telegram,  so  as  to  be  sure  that  it  had,been  received 
and  was  properly  understood. 

The  telegraph  line  to  Orocue  had  only  recently  been  put 
up — just  a  few  weeks  before  our  arrival  there — and  had 
never  been  in  satisfactory  working  order.  In  fact,  owing 
to  a  break  in  the  wire,  which  lasted  a  fortnight,  we  had 
not  been  able  to  get  into  communication  with  Villavicencio 
— the  place  whence  our  mules  were  to  come — until  a  few 
days  before  we  started  for  Barrig6n.  Might  there  not 
have  been  another  interruption  in  the  line  after  we  sent 
our  second  message?  And  did  this  message  ever  reach 

196 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

its  destination?  It  is  true  that  a  week  had  elapsed  since 
our  departure  from  Orocue,  and,  if  the  line  had  been 
severed,  it  might  have  been  repaired. 

But  then  again  this  was  far  from  certain.  The  wire 
passed  through  dense  and  interminable  forests — where 
there  were  no  roads  of  any  kind — and  it  might  require 
several  days  to  reach  the  break  after  it  was  located.  And 
then  after  our  vaqueano  got  our  telegram  it  would  require 
three  days  for  him  to  go  from  Villavicencio  to  Barrigon, 
supposing  that  he  had  the  mules  and  saddles  in  readiness. 
If  they  were  not  ready  there  would  be  another  delay  in 
starting.  Altogether  the  outlook  was  far  from  reassuring. 
Our  animals  and  men  might  arrive  at  any  hour,  and  then 
again  we  might  be  obliged  to  wait  for  them  for  weeks. 

While  occupied  in  these  far  from  comforting  reflections, 
we  remembered  that  the  mail  from  Bogota  to  Orocue  was 
due.  The  men  who  would  bring  it  would  also  bring  a 
certain  amount  of  freight  for  various  points  on  the  Meta. 
Here,  then,  was  a  ray  of  hope.  If  our  own  men  and  animals 
should  fail  us,  we  might  be  able  to  prevail  on  the  mail 
carriers  to  give  us  the  necessary  means  of  transportation 
for  ourselves  and  baggage.  This  consideration  tended  to 
relieve  somewhat  the  suspense  which  was  the  most  un- 
pleasant feature  of  our  hapless  situation.  We  resolved, 
accordingly,  to  take  a  more  optimistic  view  of  things,  and 
to  trust  to  our  star  which,  so  far,  had  ever  been  in  the 
ascendant. 

What  had  greatly  contributed  to  the  gloominess  of  the 
outlook  on  our  arrival  at  Barrigon  was  the  thought  that 
we  should  be  obliged  to  leave  our  launch — where  we  were 
so  comfortable — for  the  dismal,  steaming  pest-hole  on  the 
river's  bank.  We  did  not  for  a  moment  think  of  asking 
for  shelter  in  the  filthy  shack  occupied  by  the  negro  family. 
That  would  be  tantamount  to  courting  pdludismo — mala- 
rial fever— in  its  worst  form.  Fortunately,  we  had  a  good 
tent  with  us,  and  in  this  we  could  be  shielded  from  sun 
and  rain,  and,  at  the  same  time,  escape  some  of  the  unsan- 

197 


U?  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

itary  features  that  rendered  this  spot  so  forbidding  and 
dangerous.  It  was  really  the  first  place  that  we  had  yet 
visited  from  which  we  instinctively  shrank  and  from  which 
we  wished  to  depart  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 

While  thus  preoccupied  and  devising  ways  and  means 
for  rendering  our  enforced  detention  at  this  spot  as  endur- 
able as  circumstances  would  permit,  our  captain,  God  bless 
him !  observing  our  distress,  came  to  us,  and  with  a  kind- 
ness and  courtesy  we  can  never  forget,  said,  "No  se  pre- 
cupen,  Senores,  la  lancha  quedard  aqm  hasta  que  vengan 
las  bestias."  Do  not  worry,  gentlemen,  the  launch  will 
remain  here  until  the  arrival  of  your  animals. 

What  a  relief  this  kind  and  considerate  act  was — per- 
formed when  and  where  it  counted  for  so  much  to  us — 
only  those  can  realize  who  have  been  placed  in  similar 
situations.  Everything  was  now  as  well  provided  for  as 
might  be,  except  food.  Where  that  was  to  come  from  was 
a  mystery,  as  we  did  not  wish  to  draw  on  the  very  limited 
supply  we  had  brought  with  us. 

Our  first  meal  consisted  of  platanos — some  boiled  and 
some  fried — with  a  cup  of  black  coffee.  I  had  never  eaten 
a  dozen  bananas  in  any  form  before  coming  to  South  Amer- 
ica, but  I  gradually  became  accustomed  to  them,  although 
I  never  relished  them.  Here,  however,  there  was  noth- 
ing else  in  sight,  except  two  or  three  ducks  that  were  quack- 
ing about  the  green,  miasmatic  pools  that  surrounded  the 
negro  shanty.  We  endeavored  to  purchase  these,  but, 
although  we  offered  the  old  dame  several  times  what  they 
were  worth,  she  would  not  part  with  them.  No  African 
ever  held  on  more  tenaciously  to  his  fetish  or  rabbit-foot 
than  did  this  swart  Ethiopian  hag  of  Puerto  Nuevo  to  her 
prized  webf eet. 

For  our  dinner  we  fared  better.  Fortunately  and  quite 
unexpectedly,  someone  succeeded  in  landing  a  large  and 
delicious  fish,  which  was  quite  sufficient  to  furnish  a  meal 
for  ourselves  and  crew.  A  new  source  of  food-supply  was 
now  indicated,  but  try  as  we  would,  it  was  impossible  to 

198 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

catch  another  fish — large  or  small.  The  impetuous  cur- 
rent of  the  muddy  river  was  decidedly  adverse  to  our 
rising  piscatorial  hopes.  But  we  determined  not  to  worry 
on  account  of  our  lack  of  success  as  anglers.  "Sufficient 
for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  Providence,  we  were  sure, 
would  provide  for  the  morrow.  Probably  our  men  and 
mules  would  arrive.  If  not,  the  mail  carriers  would  un- 
doubtedly come,  and  then  no  Deus  ex  machina  would  be 
necessary  to  extricate  us  from  our  embarrassing  situation. 

A  dreary  day  passed  and  a  more  dreary  night.  What 
with  the  suspense  and  the  lack  of  proper  food,  and  the 
confinement  to  a  disagreeable  spot  in  the  impenetrable  for- 
est, our  position  was  such  as  not  to  encourage  slumber  by 
night  or  rapturous  admiration  of  tropical  flora  during  the 
day.  Nevertheless,  we  still  instinctively  felt  that  relief 
would  not  be  long  in  coming. 

The  second  morning  we  had  our  usual  desayuno  of  black 
coffee  and  platanos.  And  to  our  amazement,  there  was 
added  to  this  simple  fare  a  fine  roast  chicken.  Where  did 
it  come  from?  We  had  seen  no  chickens  anywhere  about 
the  premises,  and  could  not  have  been  more  surprised  if  it 
had  dropped  from  the  blue  sky.  I  asked  the  captain,  and  he 
quietly  replied  with  a  smile, ' '  Un  poco  de  diplomacia.  Nada 
mas."  A  little  diplomacy.  Nothing  more.  Ever  consid- 
erate about  our  comfort  and  needs,  he  had  instituted  a 
search  for  provisions,  and  learned  that  the  la  vieja — the  old 
woman,  as  he  called  her — had  some  chickens  concealed 
not  far  from  the  house,  and,  whether  by  persuasion  or 
threats,  he  would  not  say,  he  induced  her  to  part  with  one 
of  them,  and  intimated  that  the  same  diplomacy  he  had 
employed  in  getting  the  first,  would,  if  necessary,  avail  in 
securing  others.  The  outlook  was  still  brightening,  and 
we  now  felt  more  than  ever  that  our  deliverance  was  near. 

Shortly  after  midday,  while  we  were  taking  our  usual 
siesta  in  the  launch,  we  were  suddenly  startled  by  an 
unearthly  noise.  All  the  dogs  and  whelps  of  the  place  and 
all  the  "curs  of  low  degree " — and  there  were  many  of 

199 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

them — began  to  bark  at  once.  And  then  in  the  forest  near 
by  there  was  such  shouting  and  screaming  on  the  part  of 
men  and  boys,  accompanied  by  the  neighing  of  horses  and 
the  braying  of  mules,  that  it  seemed  that  a  troop  of  guer- 
rillas was  bearing  down  upon  us.  Never  before  had  we 
heard  anything  like  it,  except  possibly  a  Sioux  or  Navajo 
war  whoop.  They  seemed  to  desire  to  frighten  us  to 
death  before  attacking  us  m  et  armis.  But  no  music  could 
have  been  more  grateful  to  our  ears  than  were  those  dis- 
cordant notes  emitted  by  man  and  beast.  We  knew  at  once 
what  it  all  meant,  and,  almost  before  we  could  reach  the 
top  of  the  bank,  our  animals  and  men  were  all  gathered 
in  the  small  free  space  in  front  of  the  cabin,  and  with  them 
were  the  bearers  of  the  Bogota  mail.  There  were  about 
thirty  mules  and  horses,  and  more  than  a  dozen  men. 

We  had  telegraphed  for  mules  only,  as  we  did  not  think 
we  should  be  able  to  get  horses,  but  to  our  delight  we  found 
that  we  were  to  have  two  good  saddle  horses  for  our  per- 
sonal use,  besides  the  mules  destined  for  our  baggage. 
As,  however,  both  men  and  animals  needed  rest,  after  their 
long  tiresome  trip  from  Villavicencio,  it  was  deemed  best  to 
defer  our  departure  until  the  following  morning.  The 
animals  were  then  turned  loose  to  browse  on  whatever 
they  could  find  to  appease  hunger,  and  their  masters  were 
soon  ensconced  in  their  hammocks,  slung  wherever  they 
could  find  a  suitable  placfe  for  them. 

It  was  arranged  with  our  vaqueano  that  we  should  all 
be  ready  for  our  journey  across  the  llanos  de  madrugada 
— at  early  dawn — the  following  morning.  We  had  a  long 
day's  ride  before  us,  as  the  nearest  stopping  place,  where 
we  could  hope  to  find  food  and  shelter,  was  at  a  place  called 
Barrancas,  where  was  the  house  of  the  owner  of  a  large 
hato — cattle  farm. 

Bright  and  early,  then,  the  next  morning,  our  peons  and 
vaqueano  were  busy  saddling  our  horses  and  packing  our 
baggage  on  the  backs  of  the  mules.  The  mail  bongo  from 
OroeuS — which  had  left  that  place  ten  days  before  we  did 

200 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

— arrived  a  few  hours  before  our  departure,  and  all  mail 
matter  was  hurriedly  put  on  the  backs  of  other  mules  by 
those  in  charge  of  the  mail  destined  for  Bogota  and  inter- 
vening points. 

It  was  not  without  a  pang  that  we  bade  farewell  to  our 
devoted  crew,  who  had  done  so  much  to  render  our  voyage 
on  the  Meta  and  Humea  as  pleasant  as  it  was  memorable. 
From  the  ever-courteous  and  thoughtful  captain  to  our 
good-natured  and  obliging  Guahibo,  we  were  always  the 
recipients  of  delicate  attentions  of  every  kind.  We  might 
travel  far  before  again  meeting  with  men  so  kind  and  so 
sympathetic  as  were  those  four  whom  it  was  our  good  for- 
tune to  meet  in  an  isolated  village  of  far-off  Colombia. 
"God  bless  you  alll"  we  said  in  parting.  "Nothing  is  too 
good  for  you." 

During  the  first  hour  after  starting  we  had  to  struggle 
through  what  the  natives  call  the  montana.  It  had  noth- 
ing mountainous  about  it,  as  the  name  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate, but  was  a  dark,  nearly  impervious  wood  almost  on  a 
level  with  the  waters  of  the  Humea.  In  the  dry  season, 
I  doubt  not,  the  path  through  this  forest  would  present  no 
difficulty,  but  during  the  rainy  season  it  was  next  to  im- 
passable. Everywhere  there  was  deep,  sticky  mud  and 
deeper  pools  and  dirty  stagnant  water.  Often  our  horses 
sank  to  the  saddle-girths  in  the  tenacious  slime,  and  it  was 
only  by  the  greatest  effort  that  they  were  able  to  extricate 
themselves*  At  times,  where  the  mud  and  water  were  un- 
usually deep,  we  were  forced,  for  short  stretches,  to  make 
our  way  through  the  pathless  forest.  Then  every  step 
was  impeded  by  branches  and  lianas  and  progress  was  next 
to  impossible.  Finally,  with  great  difficulty  for  the  animals 
and  not  a  little  danger  to  ourselves,  we  succeeded  in  effect- 
ing our  exit  from  this  terrible  montana,  and,  before  we 
were  aware  of  it,  we  found  ourselves  on  high  and  dry 
ground  on  the  edge  of  a  beautiful,  smiling  prairie  of  appar- 
ently limitless  extent. 

What  a  relief  it  was  to  get  once  more  into  the  open-— 

201 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

into  the  broad  llanos  of  Colombia — where  we  could  have 
an  unimpeded  view  for  miles  in  every  direction.  We  had 
been  in  the  depths  of  the  forest  so  long,  getting  only  occa- 
sional glimpses  of  the  llanos  on  our  way  up  the  river,  that 
we  felt  jike  a  prisoner  given  his  liberty  after  a  long  term 
of  confinement.  Not  that  we  had  not  enjoyed  the  forests 
while  we  were  in  them.  Far  from  it.  We  had  enjoyed 
every  moment  of  the  time  spent  in  studying  their  richness 
and  beauty.  But  now  that  we  had  reached  the  llanos,  to 
which  we  had  so  long  looked  forward,  and  were  no  longer 
confined  to  the  limited  quarters  of  our  launch;  now  that  we 
were  on  our  willing  steeds  and  could  move  as  we  chose 
in  any  direction  and  as  far  afield  as  fancy  might  suggest, 
we  experienced  a  sense  of  freedom  and  agility  that  sur- 
prised ourselves.  We  felt  as  if  we  had  suddenly  been 
transferred  to  another  world,  so  different  was  our  new 
environment  from  that  in  which  we  had  spent  so  many 
weeks. 

Never  did  the  earth  seem  so  green  or  the  sky  so  blue, 
or  the  sun  so  bright;  never  did  the  face  of  nature  appear 
so  ravishingly  beautiful  as  on  that  glorious  May  morning 
near  the  picturesque  Humea.  And  away  to  the  west,  partly 
veiled  by  haze  and  cloud,  loomed  up  higher  than  ever  those 
vast  mountains  of  majesty  and  mystery  that  seemed  to 
overhang  the  world.  Yes,  we  were  slowly  but  surely 
approaching  the  Andes,  and  in  a  few  days  more,  Deo 
volente,  we  should  be  scaling  its  dizzy  heights  and  exulting 
in  the  splendid  panoramas  that  would  be  presented  to  our 
enchanted  gaze. 

The  landscape  before  us  was  indeed  beautiful,  entranc- 
ing as  a  vision,  fair  as  the  Happy  Valley  of  Easselas. 
Exulting  in  a  new  sense  of  freedom,  and  stirred  by  many 
overmastering  emotions,  we  could  but  exclaim  with  Byron, 

"Beautiful! 

How  beautiful  is  all  this  beautiful  world! 
How  glorious  in  its  action  and  itself!" 
202 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

I  have  called  the  part  of  the  llanos  we  were  then  enter- 
ing a  prairie,  but  it  was  far  more  beautiful  than  any  of 
our  plains  known  by  that  name.  It  was  more  like  the  palm- 
besprent  delta  of  the  Nile  than  the  tame  and  almost  treeless 
reaches  of  land  which  characterize  so  much  of  our^  western 
prairies.  Here  and  there  were  coppices  of  graceful  shrubs 
made  melodious  by  feathered  songsters  whose  notes  were 
new  to  us,  but  everywhere,  at  no  greater  distance  from  one 
another,  were  our  old  friends  that  had  accompanied  us  all 
the  way  from  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco— the  ever-attrac- 
tive moriche  palms. 

We  saw  also  several  other  species  of  palm  that  excited 
our  interest,  but  none  more  so  than  the  strange  corneto 
palm.  Like  various  species  of  the  Oenocarpus  and 
Iriartea,  it  is  remarkable  for  its  adventitious  or  secondary 
roots,  which,  springing  from  the  trunk  in  large  numbers,  lift 
it  above  the  ground,  and  give  it  the  appearance  of  a  large 
column  supported  on  a  cone  of  smaller  columns  inclined  to 
it  obliquely.  These  roots  vary  from  a  fraction  of  an 
inch  to  several  inches  in  diameter.  They  have  at  times 
a  length  of  from  six  to  ten  feet  and  embrace  a  space 
of  ground  from  five  to  eight  feet  in  diameter.  They 
are  frequently  covered  by  vines  and  parasites  so  as 
to  form  a  natural  bower  which  is  used  as  a  retreat 
by  wild  animals.  Even  the  Indians  have  recourse  to 
these  fantastic  arbors  as  a  place  of  refuge  during  rain 
storms. 

Here,  as  in  the  land  of  the  Aruacs,  the  moriche  palm 
is  not  only  a  thing  of  beauty,  but,  for  the  Indians,  a  source 
of  comfort  and  joy.  This  and  other  palms,  notably  a  kind 
of  date  palm,  and  the  Cumana,  which  bears  a  fruit  similar 
to  the  wild  olive,  supply  the  Indians,  during  certain  months 
of  the  year,  with  all  the  food  they  consume.  Speaking  of 
the  palm,  Padre  Eivero  declares  it  to  be  "the  earthly 
paradise  of  the  Guahibos  and  Chiricoas.  It  is  their  delight, 
their  general  larder,  their  all.  It  is  the  subject  matter  of 
their  thoughts  and  conversations.  About  it  they  dream, 

203 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  ANfD  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

and  without  it  life  would  possess  no  joy  for  them."1 
Like  the  cocoa  palm,  "By  the  Indian  Sea,  on  the  isles  of 
balm,"  of  which  Whittier  so  sweetly  sings,  the  palm  on 
the  Meta  and  its  affluents,  as  well  as  on  the  lower  Orinoco, 
is  for  the  child  of  the  forest 

"A  gift  divine, 

Wherein  all  uses  of  man  combine, — 
House  and  raiment  and  food  and  wine." 

When  contemplating  the  bountiful  provisions  of  Nature 
in  favor  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  tropics,  as  evinced  in 
various  species  of  food-producing  palms,  we  are  forcibly 
reminded  of  the  statement  of  Linnaeus  that  the  first  home 
of  our  race  was  somewhere  in  the  tropics.  "Man,"  says 
this  illustrious  botanist,  "dwells  naturally  within  the 
tropics,  and  lives  on  food  furnished  by  the  palm  tree;  he 
exists  in  other  parts  of  the  world  and  subsists  on  flesh 
and  cereals."  2 

The  llanos  in  places  are  quite  level,  and  intersected  by 
numerous  canos  and  streams.  Some  of  them  are  so  large 
that  they  could  easily  be  converted  into  navigable  canals 
for  small  craft.  In  other  places  the  plains  are  undulating 
and  are  ideal  grazing  lands  during  the  rainy  season. 
There  is  always  an  abundance  of  water,  even  in  the  dryest 
summer,  and  the  numerous  groves  and  clumps  of  trees 
suffice  to  furnish  shade  at  all  times  for  the  largest  herds. 

We  had  not  proceeded  far  when  we  met  a  large  herd 
of  cattle  in  care  of  herdsmen  quietly  reposing  beneath  some 
umbrageous  moriche  palm  or  singing  some  favorite  Llanero 

1  Op.  cit,  p.  4. 

2  "Homo  habitat  inter  tropicos,  vescitur  palmis,  lotophagus;  hospitatur 
extra  tropicos  sub  novercante  Cerere  carnivorus." — System*  Natures,  Vol. 
I,  p.  24. 

Besides  the  fruit-yielding  palms  there  are  others,  like  the  palmetto  or 
cabbage  Palm,  that  also  afford  nutritious  food.  'The  head  of  the  Palmito 
tree,"  says  Hakluyt,  "is  very  good  meate,  either  raw  or  sodden;  it  yeeldeth 
a  head  •which  waigheth  about  twenty  pound,  and  is  far  better  than  any  cab* 
bage.'*— Early  Voyages,  VoL  V,  p.  557.  Schomburgk  informs  us  that  during 
his  exploration  of  Guiana  it  was  for  weeks  his  chief  sustenance. 

204 


A  TRAVELEB'S  LODGE  is  THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA. 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

song.  Contrary  to  what  we  expected,  the  cattle  were  not 
so  wild  as  those  we  had  seen  in  Venezuela  and,  although 
we  passed  within  a  few  yards  of  them,  they  barely  noticed 
us.  They  were  quite  as  tame  as  any  one  would  find  in 
the  pasture  lands  of  an  Illinois  farm. 

But  what  a  fine  breed  of  cattle  they  were  and  in  what 
splendid  condition!  They  were  as  fat,  sleek  and  large 
as  any  we  had  ever  seen  on  the  plains  of  Texas  or  Nebraska, 
and  would,  I  am  sure,  command  as  high  prices  in  the  stock- 
yards of  Chicago. 

We  were  deeply  impressed  with  the  future  possibilities 
of  the  Venezuelan  grazing  lands,  but  we  are  now  convinced 
that  even  a  greater  future  awaits  the  llanos  of  Colombia 
when  properly  exploited.  To  extend  the  Cucuta  railway 
so  as  to  place  Casanare  and  Villavicencio  in  connection 
with  Lake  Maracaibo  would  be  a  far  less  difficult  and 
costly  undertaking  than  many  other  railroad  enterprises 
in  South  America  that  have  been  carried  to  a  successful 
issue,  and  that,  too,  when  the  traffic  hoped  for  was  far  less 
than  it  would  be  in  this  instance.  Such  an  extension,  which 
would  not  need  to  be  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  miles 
in  length,  would  put  the  Colombian  llanos  in  direct  com- 
munication with  the  chief  ports  of  the  United  States  and 
Europe.  By  using  fast  steamers,  freight  could  then  be 
carried  from  the  heart  of  the  llanos  to  Mobile  or  New  York 
in  a  week.  What  an  Immense  development  of  the  cattle 
industry  this  would  at  once  effect  is  beyond  calculation. 
It  would  be  a  greater  source  of  revenue  to  the  Eepublic  of 
Colombia  than  all  its  mines  combined. 

At  the  first  blush  this  project  may  appear  Utopian  to 
those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  country  or  who  have 
never  given  thought  to  the  feasibility  of  the  enterprise. 
Colombia,  to  most  people  in  the  United  States,  is  little 
better  known  than  the  territory  of  the  Congo.  Even  to 
the  Colombians  themselves,  the  llanos — la  parts  oriental, 
as  they  call  it — is  a  terra  incognita.  Outside  of  the 
Llaneros — cattle  men — who  have  interests  there,  it  is  rarely 

205 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

visited  by  any  one  connected  with  the  administration  of 
the  government.  To  reach  the  llanos  from  Bogota  means 
a  long  and  tiresome  journey  across  the  eastern  Cordilleras, 
and  few  are  willing  to  undertake  such  a  trip  out  of  curios- 
ity or  for  the  purpose  of  informing  themselves  ahout  the 
resources  of  this  distant  and  neglected  part  of  their 
country. 

And  yet,  far  away  as  they  may  seem,  the  llanos  are  not 
half  so  distant  from  the  United  States  as  England  is,  and, 
with  the  steamship  and  railway  facilities  above  indicated, 
they  could  be  brought  as  near  to  New  York  in  time  as  is 
London  at  the  present. 

Probably  a  more  economical  way  of  reaching  the  llanos 
would  be  by  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta.  During  the  rainy 
season,  as  we  have  seen,  boats  of  light  draft,  but  of  con- 
siderable tonnage,  can  safely  traverse  these  rivers  as  far 
as  Cabuyaro  or  Barrigon.  A  few  hundred  tons  of  dyna- 
mite judiciously  applied  would  effect  a  wonderful  change 
for  the  better  in  the  beds  of  the  two  rivers  named,  and 
would  render  navigation  quite  safe  for  the  whole,  or  at 
least  a  greater  part  of  the  year. 

When  we  note  the  magnitude  of  the  beef  trade  between 
Australia  and  the  Argentine  and  the  different  ports  of 
Europe,  we  are  amazed  to  observe  that  so  little  has  been 
attempted  towards  developing  a  similar  but  a  more  profit- 
able trade  with  regions  that  are  comparatively  at  our 
doors.  If  these  fertile  and  favored  lands,  instead  of 
belonging  to  a  country  long  known,  and  looked  at  askance 
by  capitalists  and  business  men,  were  a  new  discov- 
ery, there  would  be  as  great  a  rush  towards  them  on 
the  part  of  colonists  as  there  has  frequently  been  to 
those  Indian  lands  that  have,  from  time  to  time,  been 
opened  to  white  settlers  in  Oklahoma  and  elsewhere  in 
the  West. 

Now  that  our  people  are  beginning  to  realize  that  the 
cattle  in  the  United  States  are  not  increasing  in  proportion 
to  the  demands  of  its  rapidly-growing  population,  they 

206 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

may  be  induced  to  turn  their  eyes  towards  the  vast  plains 
of  our  two  sister  republics  of  Colombia  and  Venezuela, 
where  there  is,  all  the  year  round,  abundant  pasturage 
of  the  richest  kind  for  millions  of  cattle.  There  are  vast 
fortunes  awaiting  those  who  are  willing  to  venture  into 
these  long-neglected  fields. 

According  to  the  reports  of  our  Bureau  of  Animal  Indus- 
try, the  United  States  has  been  for  some  years  past  suffer- 
ing from  fever  ticks  and  other  plagues  an  annual  loss  of 
more  than  sixty  million  dollars.  This  fact,  coupled  with 
the  increasing  demand  for  beef,  renders  it  imperative  to 
seek  for  an  adequate  supply  elsewhere.  The  cheapest  and 
best  place  in  which  to  secure  this  extra  supply  is,  me 
judice,  in  the  marvelous  llanos  so  near  our  own  country, 
which  should,  in  the  manner  indicated  above,  be  brought 
much  nearer  than  they  are  at  present. 

I  know  that  people  will  hesitate  about  investing  in 
countries  whose  governments  are  as  unstable  as  those  of 
the  two  nations  mentioned,  and  where  foreign  investors 
have  found  so  little  encouragement  and  sympathy.  There 
is,  however,  reason  to  believe  that  the  age  of  revolutions 
is  coming  to  an  end,  and  that  it  will,  in  the  near  future, 
be  succeeded  by  the  reign  of  law.  Peace  congresses, 
arbitration  agreements,  the  spread  of  education,  and  the 
construction  of  railroads  have  produced  splendid  results 
in  other  parts  of  the  world,  where  progress  had  long  been 
unsatisfactory,  and  who  will  say  that  we  may  not  hope  to 
see  the  same  beneficent  results  realized  in  Venezuela  and 
Colombia?  If  all  else  fail,  it  is  quite  certain  that  our 
government  will  know  how  to  safeguard  the  rights  of  those 
of  its  citizens  who  may  have  interests  in  these  countries 
about  whose  validity  there  can  be  no  question.  Now  that 
all  are  so  desirous  of  seeing  improved  commercial  rela- 
tions established  between  the  United  States  and  the  va- 
rious countries  of  Latin  America,  it  would  seem  to  be  a 
matter  of  prime  importance  not  any  longer  to  ignore  the 
golden  opportunities  that  in  the  regions  bordering  the 
w  207 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Caribbean  have  so  long  eluded  American  energy  and  enter- 
prise. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  we 
arrived  at  Barrancas.  We  found  here  a  good-sized  house 
with  an  open  shed — enramada — near  by.  This  latter 
structure  is  used  as  a  shelter  for  farming  implements, 
harness,  saddles,  etc*,  and  as  a  place  where  peons  and 
herdsmen  may  swing  their  hammocks  and  sleep  during  the 
night.  The  house,  to  our  surprise,  had  .a  tile  roof,  the  first 
we  had  seen  since  leaving  Ciudad  Bolivar. 

The  proprietor  of  the  hato,  whose  home  and  family  were 
in  Bogota,  received  us  cordially  and  did  everything  in  his 
power  to  make  us  comfortable.  He  also  gave  us  his  own 
room,  which  had  a  board  floor,  another  novelty  to  us.  We 
were  soon  provided  with  a  frugal  repast,  after  which  we 
were  entertained  by  our  host's  experiences  on  the  llanos. 
He  was  one  of  eighteen  children  of  the  same  mother.  He 
and  his  eleven  brothers  own  a  number  of  ranches  and  have 
many  thousand  cattle  in  different  parts  of  the  republic. 

"During  the  last  war,"  he  said,  "the  soldiers  appro- 
priated a  thousand  of  our  steers. "  "  Did  you  put  in  a  claim 
to  the  government  for  damages  I "  I  asked.  "Yes,"  he 
replied,  "but  it  did  no  good.  I  never  got  a  centavo  and 
never  expect  to.  If  I  had  been  a  foreigner,  especially  if 
I  had  been  an  American,  I  should  have  received  compensa- 
tion for  my  loss.  The  government  always  pays  foreign 
claims  when  just,  but  the  citizens  of  the  country  must  be 
satisfied  with  promises.  It  always  promises  to  reimburse 
us  for  any  losses  sustained  during  revolutions  but  the  fact 
is  that  we  never  get  anything  more  substantial  than  prom- 
ises." 

The  labor  problem  was  as  serious  with  him  as  with  a 
Kansas  farmer  during  harvest  time.  "Es  muy  dificil 
conseguir  Brazos  agui," — it  is  very  difficult  to  secure 
laborers  here — he  told  me  in  a  tone  of  sadness.  "So 
many  men  lost  their  lives  during  the  last  war,  that  the 
country  is  now  suffering  for  a  lack  of  working  men." 

208 


THE  LLAXOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  his  losses  and  his  troubles,  our 
host  was  a  thoroughly  loyal  Colombian.  He  loved  to  talk 
about  his  country,  its  marvelous  resources,  and  the  great 
future  in  store  for  it.  He  spent  most  of  the  year  in  the 
capital,  coming  to  Barrancas  only  for  a  few  weeks  at  a 
time,  and  that  only  when  business  demanded  his  personal 
supervision. 

I  was  curious  to  learn  from  him,  a  Llanero,  and  therefore 
an  expert  horseman,  the  shortest  possible  time  in  which 
the  trip  could  be  made  to  Bogota  from  Barrigon.  Some 
books  I  had  read  stated  that  the  distance  from  the  head  of 
navigation  on  the  Meta — and  we  had  reached  that  point 
— to  Bogota  was  only  twenty  miles,  while  certain  Vene- 
zuelans I  had  met  had  assured  me  that  the  trip  could  be 
made  in  two  days.  His  answer  was  conclusive.  "The 
shortest  possible  time  without  a  relay  of  horses,"  he  said, 
"is  four  days.  To  attempt  to  cover  the  distance  in  less 
time  would  be  fatal  to  the  horse.  I  never  try  to  reach 
Bogota  from  here  in  less  than  four  days,  and  .even  this 
means  hard  riding/'1 

"But  what  brings  you  up  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  at 
this  season  of  the  year,"  he  enquired.  "You  are  certainly 

i  It  is  surprising  what  erroneous  notions  have  been  and  are  still  entertained 
regarding  the  distance  of  Bogota  from  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  east- 
ern side  of  the  Andes.  Many  recent  writers  place  the  distance  at  twenty 
miles.  Michelena  y  Rojas,  in  his  Exploracidn  Oficial,  p.  293,  makes  it  but 
four  leagues.  Schomburgk,  in  an  article  in  the  Journal  of  the  Geographical 
Society,  Vol.  X,  p.  278,  assures  us  that  by  way  of  the  Meta  there  is  unin- 
terrupted navigation  to  within  eight  miles  of  Sante  Fe  de  Bogota!  The 
fact  is  that  the  nearest  point  to  Bogota  to  which  vessels  of  even  light 
draught  may  ascend  by  the  Meta  is  Barrig&n,  more  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  from  Colombia's  capital.  Small  flat  boats  and  canoes  may, 
through  some  of  the  affluents  of  the  Meta,  approach  considerably  nearer. 
During  the  rainy  season  they  may  even  reach  the  foothills  of  the  Andes  at 
the  base  of  which  Villavicencio  stands.  But  from  here,  the  nearest  point  to 
the  capital  which  even  the  smallest  craft  can  reach  to  Bogota,  the  distance 
is  still  ninety-three  miles  at"  the  lowest  estimate.  To  navigate  the  Rio  Negro, 
as  Rojas  and  others  imagine  can  be  done,  from  the  llanos  to  Caquesa— 
thirty-seven  hundred  feet  higher  than  the  plains — would  be  no  more  possible 
than  it  would  be  to  row  or  sail  up  an  Alpine  torrent.  From  Caquesa  to 
Bogota  is  not  four  leagues,  as  Michelena  estimates,  but  full  twenty-five  mile*, 

209 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  first  Americans  to  come  here — rio  arriba — up  the  river. 
Others  may  have  come  to  the  llanos  from  the  capital,  but, 
if  they  did,  I  am  not  aware  of  it.  And  why  did  you  select  the 
rainy  season  for  your  journey?  Why  did  you  not  wait 
until  summer,  when  it  is  dry,  and  when  the  roads  are  in 
better  condition?"  We  then  explained  to  him  that  no 
boats  ascended  the  Meta  during  the  summer  season  and 
that  we  were  thus  forced  to  come  during  the  winter. 
Strange  as  it  may  appear,  this  had  never  occurred  to  him. 
And  yet  he  was  an  intelligent  man  and  well  informed  about 
his  country  and  presumably  about  the  means  of  communi- 
cation with  the  countries  adjacent. 

The  Colombian  Llanero  is  a  most  interesting  character. 
He  is  absolutely  unique  among  his  countrymen.  The  only 
people  with  whom  he  can  be  compared  are  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Apure  plains  and  the  Gauchos  of  the  Argentine 
pampas.  Like  these  he  regards  as  "fortunate  the  man  who 
has  received  from  heaven  the  means  of  safeguarding  life 
and  property — a  good  horse  and  a  good  lance. " l  Having 
these  two  essentials  of  defense  and  offense,  he  is  happy 
and  independent. 

This  is  readily  understood  from  his  manner  of  life,  which 
is  quite  akin  to  that  of  the  Arabian  nomad.  The  desert 
in  which  he  lives  and  his  eternal  struggle  against  a  physical 
environment  that  is  as  savage  as  it  is  grandiose;  his  occu- 
pation as  a  herdsman  and  his  roving  life  in  the  boundless 
plain,  have  given  the  Llanero  a  character  that  is  as  original 
as  it  is  interesting. 

As  a  son  of  the  desert,  he  is  a  lover  of  music  and  poetry, 
and  will  spend  an  entire  night  or  several  consecutive  nights 
dancing,  playing  his  rude  guitar,  scarcely  larger  than  the 
hand  that  twangs  it,  or  a  huge  banjo,  and  singing  verses 
either  of  his  own  composition,  or  those  of  some  other  poet 

i"Dichoso  aquel  que  alcanza 
Coma  rico  don  del  Cielo, 
Para  defender  su  suelo 
Buen  caballo  y  buena  lanza." 

210 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

of  the  plains.  For  strange  as  it  may  appear,  poets  abound 
in  the  llanos  as  scarcely  anywhere  else.  They  may  be 
unable  to  read  or  write  but  they  are  nevertheless  able  to 
produce  songs — tones  or  trovas  llaneras — that  are  fre- 
quently marked  by  rare  beauty  and  depth  of  feeling. 
Considering  their  limitations,  their  faculty  for  versifica- 
tion is  often  really  remarkable,  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  find 
among  them  a  singer  that  will  improvise  with  as  much 
facility  as  an  Italian  improvisatore. 

The  Llaneros  have  a  poetry  of  their  own  which  they  never 
abandon.  They  compose  what  they  sing  and  sing  what 
they  compose.  And,  although  they  cannot  as  yet  point 
to  one  of  their  poets  who  has  had  the  advantages  of  educa- 
tion and  culture,  they  can,  nevertheless,  point  with  pride 
to  many  of  their  number  who  have  produced  metrical  com- 
positions of  marked  excellence  and  power  of  expression. 
The  pity  is  that  so  far  we  have  no  anthology  of  these  poets 
of  the  plains.  There  is  certainly  a  rich  field  here  for 
research  awaiting  some  lover  of  the  fresh  and  the 
novel  in  literature  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  one 
may  soon  explore  a  domain  that  is  so  promising  in 
results. 

Their  favorite  compositions  are  ballads  or  rhymed 
romances,  called  galerones,  which  are  sung  as  recitatives. 
They  closely  resemble  the  popular  rhymed  romances  of 
Spain,  and  refer  generally  to  deeds  of  prowess  performed 
by  their  own  heroes  in  their  constant  struggles  with  the 
wild  and  unsubdued  nature  in  which  their  life  is  cast.  In 
these  galerones  valor  and  not  love  is  the  protagonist. 
Love,  in  the  metrical  compositions  of  the  plains,  is  always 
a  secondary  character. 

Two  stanzas  from  a  poem  entitled  En  Los  Llanos — On 
the  Plains — will  exhibit  the  character  of  these  poems,  and 
show,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  Llanero  has  a  keen  eye  for 
the  beautiful  and  sublime  in  nature  and  that  his  heart  is 
open  to  the  sweetest  sentiment  and  the  deepest  piety  and 
reverence. 

211 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

"Lejos,  muy  lejos  del  hogar  querido 
Pareceme  que  estoy  en  un  desierto," 

"Far,  far  away  from  my  hearth,"  he  laments,  "meseems 
I  am  in  a  desert.  "    And  he  gives  his  reason. 

"Cuando  entre  vivo  rosicler  la  aurora 
Muestra  la  fresca  f  az  en  el  Oriente 
En  vano  busco  a  mi  gentil  senora, 
En  vano  a  la  hija  que  mi  alma  adora, 
Para  besarlas  ambas  en  la  f  rente."  * 

For  the  Llanero  a  view  of  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of 
his  surroundings  is  a  call  to  prayer,  as  is  evinced  by  the 
following  lines  : 

"0  que  prodigies!  que  beldad!  El  hombre 
Debil  se  siente  y  pobre  en  su  preseneia. 
No  hay  nada  aqui  que  el  corazon  no  asombre, 
En  todo  escrito  esta  de  Dios  el  nombre, 
Todo  pregona  aqui  su  Omnipoteneia."2 

Before  daylight  next  morning,  the  vaqueano  knocked  at 
our  door,  announcing  that  it  was  time  to  rise,  as  we  had 
another  long  ride  before  us  and  must  start  early.  Coffee 
was  soon  ready  for  us  and  also  a  roast  chicken.  The 
latter,  however,  was  prepared  in  such  a  way  that  we  did 
not  relish  it.  Then  it  was,  indeed,  that  we  missed  our  In- 
dian cooks  of  the  Meta.  We  asked  for  some  milk  for  our 
coffee,  but  although  surrounded  by  large  herds  of  cattle, 
there  was  not  a  drop  of  milk  in  the  house.  "When  we  ex- 
pressed surprise  at  this,  the  cook  replied:  "We  never  milk 
the  cows  here.  We  leave  the  milk  for  the  calves." 

I  had  often  had  a  similar  experience  in  the  large  ranches 


roseate  Aurora  shows  her  fresh  face  in  the  East,  in  vain  I  seek  my 
gentle  spouse,  in  vain  I  look  for  the  daughter  my  soul  adores,  to  imprint  a 
kiss  on  their  brows." 

2"0  what  prodigies!  What  beauty  1  Man  feels  weak  and  poor  in  their 
presence.  There  is  nothing  here  that  does  not  amaze  the  heart.  In  every- 
thing is  inscribed  the  name  of  God.  Everything  proclaims  His  omnipo- 
tence." 

212 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

of  the  trans-Missouri  region  and  was  not,  therefore,  spe- 
cially surprised  at  the  answer.  However,  a  little  per- 
suasion induced  one  of  the  peons  to  secure  us  a  calabash 
of  milk,  although  his  task  was  not  an  easy  one.  The  cows, 
unaccustomed  to  being  milked,  refuse  to  stand  still,  and 
in  this  instance,  the  peon  had  to  tie  one  of  them  to  a  tree. 
Even  then,  he  was  obliged  to  call  in  the  aid  of  an  assistant 
before  he  could  get  the  milk  we  craved. 

On  the  cattle  farms  of  Venezuela,  where  the  cows  are 
quite  wild,  it  is  necessary  to  throw  a  noose  around  the 
horns  of  the  animal  to  be  milked,  and  for  one  of  the  dairy- 
men to  hold  it  secure  by  a  long  pole,  while  another  does  the 
milking  in  the  usual  way.  Our  peon,  fortunately,  was 
not  obliged  to  resort  to  such  a  drastic,  time-consuming 
method. 

Although  it  had  rained  heavily  the  greater  part  of  the 
night,  there  was  no  indication  that  the  downpour  would  soon 
cease.  On  the  contrary,  it  looked  as  if  it  were  to  continue 
raining  all  day.  Fortunately,  we  were  provided  with  good 
waterproof  ponchos,  and  were  prepared  for  any  aguacero 
— heavy  shower — that  Jupiter  Pluvius  might  choose  to 
send  from  the  heavy,  lowering  clouds  that,  pall-like,  over- 
cast the  sky. 

Before  we  left  Orocue,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  prefect 
of  the  place,  we  had  telegraphed  to  Villavicencio  for  a 
couple  of  bayetones — a  special  kind  of  poncho — and  these 
our  vaqueano  had  delivered  to  us  at  Barrigon. 

To  the  inhabitants,  especially  the  Indians  of  South 
America,  and  more  particularly  those  living  in  the  Cordi- 
lleras, the  poncho  is  what  a  mantle  was  to  an  Irishman  in 
the  days  of  the  poet  Spenser.  "When  it  rayneth  it  is  his 
pent  howse;  when  it  blowes  it  is  his  tent;  when  it  freezeth, 
it  is  his  tabernacle.  In  sommer  he  can  weare  it  loose,  in 
winter  he  can  weare  it  close;  at  all  times  he  can  use  it, 
never  heavy,  never  cumbersome. "  In  a  word,  this  "weede 
is  theyr  howse,  theyr  bedd,  and  theyr  garment. " l 

i JL  View  of  the  Present  State  of  Ireland, 

213 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

The  poncho  or  bayeton,1  usually  made  of  wool,  is  fully 
six  feet  square  with  a  hole  in  the  centre  to  admit  the  head. 
Our  bayetones— called  "nabby-tonys"  by  C. — were  really 
double  ponchos,  made  by  sewing  together  two  blankets,  one 
red,  the  other  blue.  When  the  weather  is  damp  and  cloudy, 
the  blue  side  is  exposed,  whereas  it  is  the  red  that  is  kept 
outside  when  the  sun  is  shining.  The  wearers  of  this  use- 
ful garment  have  learned  by  experience  that  these  two 
colors  are  differently  acted  upon  by  heat  and  light  and 
they  accordingly  adjust  it  so  as  to  secure  the  maximum  of 
comfort.  The  mania  is  a  lighter  covering  made  of  white 
linen  and  is  sometimes  highly  embroidered.  It  is  used 
when  the  sun's  rays  are  more  intense,  because  it  reflects 
the  solar  rays  better  than  the  red  woolen  garment.  It  is, 
however,  rather  an  ornament  than  a  necessity,  and  its  use 
is  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  better  classes. 

Provided  with  a  poncho,  a  hammock  and  a  many- 
pocketed  saddle — which  are  almost  as  indispensable  as  his 
horse — the  Llanero  is  always  at  home.  The  two  former, 
he  carries  in  a  bundle  behind  his  saddle,  where  they  are 
always  ready  for  him  at  a  moment's  notice.  In  camping 
out  he  slings  his  hammock  in  any  convenient  place,  and,  if 
it  be  in  the  open,  the  poncho  is,  by  means  of  a  rope,  held 
over  it  in  such  wise  that  he  can  defy  the  most  violent  storm 
of  the  tropics,  and  sleep  as  soundly  and  be  as  well  protected 
from  the  rain  as  if  he  were  under  his  own  roof-tree. 

Our  trail  was  one  of  the  numerous  cattle  paths  that  in- 
tersect the  llanos  in  every  direction.  The  one  we  fol- 
lowed was  a  narrow  ditch  filled  with  from  one  to  two  feet 
of  water.  Our  vaqueano,  who  was  in  the  lead,  trotted 
along  as  if  we  were  following  a  dry  path,  and  we  had  to 
keep  up  with  Trim  or  be  lost.  It  was  then  that  we  realized 
the  impossibility  of  traveling  over  these  extensive  plains 
without  a  guide,  especially  on  a  cloudy  day  during  the 
rainy  season.  As  well  might  one  try  to  cross  the  ocean 
without  a  compass  as  attempt  to  make  one's  way  over  the 

i  Also  called  cobija  and  rttona. 

214 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

llanos  without  a  vaqueano.  There  was  so  many  canos — 
those  natural  channels,  like  deep  ditches,  connecting 
streams  and  rivers — and  morasses  to  cross  that  were  quite 
impassable  except  in  certain  places  known  only  to  the 
Llaneros,  who  are  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  country, 
that  a  stranger  traveling  alone  would  soon  fold  progress 
quite  impeded. 

To  attempt  to  reach  one's  destination  by  relying  on  the 
oral  directions  of  a  Llanero  would  be  quite  hopeless.  They 
would,  probably,  be  worded  somewhat  as  follows: 

"Continue  your  course  over  the  savanna — arriba,  arriba 
— up,  up,  until  you  reach  that  bunch  of  cattle  you  see 
yonder.  You  see  them,  don't  you?"  queries  the  Llanero. 
They  are  some  cows  and  young  bullocks,  lost  in  the  distance. 
Not  having  an  Indian's  keenness  of  vision  you  discern  abso- 
lutely nothing,  and  yet,  unwilling  to  admit  the  fact,  you 
declare  that  you  distinguish  them  perfectly.  Tour  in- 
formant then  vouchsafes  further  information  which,  if  you 
carefully  heed  and  are  able  to  follow,  will  without  fail, 
conduct  you  to  your  desired  goal.  "Then,"  he  -continues, 
"go  to  a  clump  of  algarroba  trees,  but  leave  that  aside  and 
veer  towards  a  group  of  palms  which  you  will  see  from 
there.  When  you  reach  the  palm  'group,  coast  along  the 
foothills,  across  the  Cano  del  Cayman,  for  that  is  the  name 
of  the  cano,  until  you  come  to  the  Cano  del  Tigre.  Next, 
you  come  to  a  copse  of  bamboos,  and  then  after  that  to 
the  Cano  de  Chaparro  Negro.  Near  it  you  will  find  the 
Paso  del  Cano.  Cross  it  and  you  will  come  to  a  morichal 
at  your  left,  but  leave  it  behind,  and  continue  a  little  to  the 
right  for  half  an  hour,  and  you  will  see  the  place  you  are 
looking  for." 

Years  ago  I  had  received  similar  directions  from  an  old 
woman  in  the  mountains  of  Conamara,  but  there,  all  I  had 
to  do  was  to  keep  on  the  road,  and  stop  at 'the  place  I  was 
seeking  when  I  reached  it.  In  the  llanos,  where  there  are 
no  roads,  outside  the  hundreds  of  cattle  paths  extending 
in  every  direction,  it  would  be  natural  for  the  traveler, 

215 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

depending  on  directions  like  the  above,  promptly  to  lose 
himself. 

Fortunately,  we  had  a  good  vaqueano,  one  who  knew 
every  cowpath  and  cano  and  clump  of  trees  between  Bar- 
rigon  and  Villavicencio,  and  we  felt  thoroughly  at  ease 
under  his  guidance.  At  times,  it  is  true,  we  found  it 
somewhat  difficult  to  keep  up  with  him.  He  seemed  to 
have  reserved  the  speediest  animal  for  himself,  or  he  knew 
better  how  to  keep  up  a  sustained  trot  than  we  did.  But, 
be  that  as  it  may,  we  managed  never  to  permit  him  to 
vanish  from  sight. 

As  we  were  riding  over  the  plains  we  observed  a  large 
number  of  vultures — Gallinazos — on  a  tree  near  our  path. 
Hard  by  was  the  carcass  of  an  ox,  that  had  just  died,  on 
which  a  single  king  vulture — Sarcoramphus  Papa — like  the 
one  we  fancied  that  preyed  on  the  liver  of  Tityus — was 
making  his  morning  repast.  The  Gallinazos  appear  to 
stand  in  awe  of  the  king  vulture,  and  were  patiently  wait- 
ing till  he  was  satiated  before  making  any  attempt  to  ap- 
pease their  own  voracious  appetites.  The  two  species  are 
never  seen  to  feed  on  the  same  carcass  together.  We  saw 
several  other  such  vulture  banquets  on  our  way,  but  never 
did  we  see  so  many  of  these  scavengers  congregated  around 
the  same  carrion. 

After  six  hours  of  hard  riding,  most  of  the  time  in  a 
heavy  rain,  we  reached  Los  Pavitos.  It  consisted  of  a 
small  bamboo  hut  and  a  number  of  sheds.  Here  we  dis- 
mounted for  our  midday  meal,  which  consisted  of  a  few 
boiled  eggs,  and  a  cup  of  cafe  a  la  llanera — that  is,  coffee 
without  milk  or  sweetening  of  any  kind — sin  dulce — as  the 
natives  phrase  it — and  some  crackers  that  we  had  in  an 
improvised  haversack. 

The  family  living  in  the  hut  consisted  of  three  persons 
— man,  wife  and  their  little  daughter,  a  sweet  child  of 
about  four  years  of  age.  Both  mother  and  child  were 
neatly  dressed,  and  had  a  genteel  appearance  that  was  in 
marked  contrast  with  their  surroundings.  The  child  wore 

216 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

a  tidy  pink 'dress,  tastefully  ornamented,  and  seemed  as  if 
she  had  just  come  from  the  class-room  of  a  convent  school. 
The  family  impressed  us  as  having  seen  better  days,  and 
had  evidently  not  lived  always  so  far  away  from  their 
fellows. 

Near  the  house  stood  a  large  calabash  tree,  bearing  the 
largest  fruit  of  the  kind  we  had  yet  observed.  Some  of 
the  specimens  of  this  tree  looked  not  unlike  green  pump- 
kins, and  were  fully  from  ten  to  twelve  inches  in  diameter. 
It  is  well  named  the  crockery  tree,  because,  in  the  tropics, 
it  supplies  to  a  great  extent  the  kitchen  utensils  which  are 
elsewhere  made  from  clay. 

Within  a  few  steps  of  the  tree  mentioned  was  a  broad, 
murmuring  stream — shaded  on  both  sides  by  large,  over- 
hanging trees — of  pure  crystal  water.  It  was  the  first 
time  in  many  weeks  that  we  had  seen  clear,  flowing  water, 
and  then  was  brought  home  to  us,  as  never  before,  the 
truth  of  old  Captain  John  Hawkins  *  expressive  words  that 
there  is  nothing  "so  toothsome  as  running  water/'  While 
on  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta,  we  always  had  with  us  large 
earthenware  filters,  for  it  was  not  safe  to  drink  the  muddy 
waters  of  these  rivers,  often  containing  more  or  less  decay- 
ing animal  matter. 

The  last  thing  we  did  before  leaving  our  launch  was  to 
fill  our  canteen  with  filtered  water.  But  more  than  a  day 
had  elapsed  since  then,  and  our  supply  was  exhausted. 
We  accordingly  proceeded  to  replenish  our  canteen  with 
water  from  the  neighboring  stream,  but,  as  soon  as  the 
lady  of  the  house  saw  what  we  were  about,  she  begged  us 
to  permit  her  to  render  us  this  little  service.  "I  know 
where  the  water  is  best,'*  said  she,  and,  taking  the  canteen, 
she  waded  out  almost  to  the  middle  of  the  stream  and  in 
a  few  moments  returned  with  a  new  supply  of  water  fresh 
from  the  Andes. 

As  we  prepared  to  leave,  mother  and  child — the  father 
was  sick  abed  with  malaria — both  expressed  their  regret 
that  we  could  not  remain  longer.  "We  feel  greatly  hon- 

217 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ored,"  the  good  woman  said,  "by  your  visit,  and,  if  you 
ever  come  this  way  again,  you  must  be  sure  to  come  to 
Los  Pavitos.  Dios  guarde  d  VV.  y  feliz  viaje."  May  God 
protect  you  and  may  you  have  a  happy  journey. 

Such  were  the  parting  words  of  this  gentle  soul  in  the 
wilderness,  words  of  tenderest  charity  and  sweetest  bene- 
diction. For  hours  afterwards  her  touching  accents 
seemed  like  music  in  our  ears,  and  the  image  of  her  lovely 
child,  her  darling  ninita,  nestling  by  her  side,  with  her  little 
hands  waving  us  a  fond  adieu,  was  before  our  eyes  long 
after  we  had  left  the  llanos  far  behind  us. 

What  was  it  in  these  gentle  creatures,  whom  we  saw  for 
only  a  few  moments,  that  appealed  to  us  so  strongly! 
Was  it  that  secret  bond  of  sympathy — highly  intensified 
by  circumstances  and  environment — that  makes  all  the 
world  akin?  *  Was  it  the  same  sentiment  that  touched  the 
artistic  soul  of  Baphael,  when,  on  passing  through  an 
Italian  village,  he  saw  the  mother  and  child  whom  he  has 
immortalized  in  his  Madonna  della  Sedia.  Or  were  we  just 
then  in  the  mood  that  impelled  Goethe  to  indite  his  soul- 
subduing  ballad  Der  Wanderer?  Perhaps.  Let  the 
reader  judge  from  the  following  stanza : — 

"Farewell! 

O  Nature,  guide  me  on  my  way! 
The  wandering  stranger  guide, 

•  ••••• 
"  To  a  sheltering  place, 

From  north  winds  safe  I 

•  ••••• 
"And  when  I  come 

Home  to  my  cot 

At  evening, 

Illumined  by  the  setting  sun, 

Let  me  a  woman  see  like  this, 

Her  infant  in  her  arms ! '  * 

After  leaving  Los  Pavitos,  we  still  had  a  three-hours 
ride  ahead  of  us  before  reaching  Las  Palmas,  where  we 

218 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

purposed  stopping  for  the  night.  Fortunately,  it  had 
ceased  raining  and  our  trail  was  now  in  a  much  better  con- 
dition than  it  had  been  since  leaving  Barrancas. 

It  contributed  much  to  our  comfort,  too,  that  we  were 
able  to  complete  our  day's  journey  under  sun-proof 
clouds.  So  far  we  had  not  suffered  the  slightest  incon- 
venience from  the  exaggerated  heat  of  the  plains.  Some 
of  our  Ciudad  Bolivar  friends  had  told  us  that  the  heat 
of  the  llanos  was  so  intense  that  it  would  be  necessary,  if 
we  would  avoid  sunstroke,  to  travel  by  night.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  temperature  was  never  above  80°  P.  During 
the  greater  part  of  the  time  it  was  several  degrees  below 
this  figure.  Besides,  to  attempt  to  cross  the  llanos  in  the 
rainy  season,  during  the  pitch-dark  nights  that  usually 
prevail,  would  be  like  trying  to  find  one's  way  through  a 
Cimmerian  bog.  Not  even  the  most  experienced  vaqueano 
would  venture  on  such  a  foolhardy  journey. 

We  arrived  at  Las  Palmas  just  as  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  were  beginning  to  throw  a  veil  of  crimson  and  purple 
over  the  distant  summits  of  the  Cordilleras.  Here  we  met 
with  the  same  cordial  reception  as  elsewhere  on  the  llanos. 
As,  however,  there  was  not  room  enough  in  the  small  choza 
and  enramada  for  our  entire  party,  we  had  recourse  to  our 
portable  tent,  which  we  always  had  with  us  for  such 
emergencies.  When  we  enquired  of  our  host  what  he  could 
offer  us  for  comida,  he  sadly  replied  he  had  nothing  but 
bananas,  which  were  at  our  disposition.  There  were  no 
eggs  or  chickens,  and,  although  there  were  herds  of  cattle 
all  around  us,  it  was  quite  impossible  to  get  a  draught 
of  milk.  The  cows  would  not  permit  anyone  to  milk  them. 

We  then  remembered  that  we  yet  had  in  our  haversack 
a  small  tin  box,  still  unopened,  of  sliced  Chicago  bacon. 
This,  with  some  crackers,  was  all  that  was  left  of  the  little 
store  of  provisions  that  we  had  brought  with  us.  It  was 
not  without  grave  misgivings  that  we  proceeded  to  open 
this  remnant  of  our  food-supply.  We  had,  on  several 
former  occasions,  found  that  our  canned  goods  were  unfit 

219 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

for  use,  and  what  if  the  contents  of  this  last  box  should  be 
spoiled?  It  meant  that  we  should  be  reduced  to  extremely 
short  rations  until  we  should  reach  Villavicencio,  and  there 
was  no  certainty  when  that  would  be.  We  had  still  an- 
other Montana  to  pass,  many  rivers  and  canos  to  cross, 
and,  above  all,  the  terrible  Ocoa,  which,  on  account  of  the 
floods  that  had  been  overflowing  its  banks  during  the  past 
week,  our  vaqueano  said,  might  delay  us  for  several  days. 

But  the  good  God,  who  takes  care  of  the  birds  of  the 
air  and  clothes  the  lily  of  the  field,  had  not  forgotten  us. 
We  found  the  contents  of  the  box  as  fresh  and  wholesome 
as  when  first  enclosed  in  the  far-off  metropolis  on  Lake 
Michigan,  and  very  pleasant  was  it,  as  the  reader  can  im- 
agine, for  us,  who  had  so  long  fared  .on  chicken,  eggs  and 
bananas,  to  have  a  change  in  our  aliment,  in  the  form  of 
sweet,  nutty,  breakfast  bacon  and  that,  too,  from  the  glori- 
ous land  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  were  again  in  the  saddle. 
Before  bidding  us  adieu  our  kindly  host  expressed  his  re- 
gret that  he  was  unable  to  give  us  better  entertainment. 
He  wished  us  to  understand  that  it  was  through  lack  of 
means  and  not  of  good  will.  "Dispense  la  mala  posada," 
excuse  our  poor  lodging  house,  he  said — and  his  wife  and 
daughter,  a  fair  young  girl  just  entering  her  teens,  re- 
echoed his  apologies  and  in  accents  that  left  no  doubt  as 
to  their  sincerity. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  night  at  Las  Palmas,  there 
was  a  genuine  tropical  aguacero — the  heaviest  downpour 
that  we  had  yet  witnessed.  When  we  started  from  there 
the  next  morning  it  was  still  raining  heavily,  and  with  no 
indication  that  there  was  to  be  a  change  until  late  in  the 
day,  if  then.  Now,  more  than  ever,  we  congratulated  our- 
selves on  having  secured  our  bayetones  just  when  they 
were  so  much  needed.  They  were  all  they  had  been  repre- 
sented to  be  and  more.  Although  we  had  already  spent 
many  hours  in  continuous  rainfalls,  not  a  drop  of  moisture 
had  yet  reached  our  persons,  and  we  had  remained  as  dry  as 

220 


A  SHELTER  os  THE  BAXKS  OF  THE  OCOA. 


OUR  CAMP  IN  THE  LLANOS. 


THE  LLAN?OS  OP  COLOMBIA 

if  we  had  traveled  under  a  cloudless  sky.  The  raincoats 
we  had  brought  with  us,  although  guaranteed  to  be  the 
best  waterproofs  made,  would  never  have  served  the  pur- 
pose that  our  bayetones  answered  so  admirably. 

After  about  an  hour's  ride,  we  entered  a  montana 
similar  to  the  one  near  Barrigon,  but  greater  in  extent. 
The  mud  was  not  so  deep,  but  there  were  more  canos  and 
streams  to  cross.  Some  of  them  were  quite  deep,  and  in 
a  few  instances,  the  current  was  so  strong  that  our  horses 
bad  difficulty  in  keeping  themselves  on  their  feet.  Several 
times  we  turned  to  our  vaqueano  to  enquire  if  a  particu- 
larly large  stream  was  the  much-dreaded  Ocoa.  "No, 
Senores,"  he  always  replied;  "El  Ocoa  es  mas  grande" — 
the  Ocoa  is  larger. 

We  noticed  that  he  was  quite  pensive  and  apparently  as 
much  preoccupied  about  the  Ocoa  as  we  were  ourselves. 
He  then  informed  us  that  he  had  learned  at  Las  Palmas 
that  the  Ocoa  had  been  impassable  for  several  days  past, 
and  he  feared  we  should  be  detained  there  for  some  time. 
Just  then  we  came  to  the  largest  and  widest  torrent  that 
we  had  yet  met.  We  effected  the  passage  of  this  with  the 
greatest  difficulty,  and  not  without  considerable  risk  to 
both  mount  and  rider.  After  we  had  safely  gotten  across 
I  turned  again  to  our  guide  and  said:  "That  is  surely  the 
Ocoa,  is  it  not?"  "No,  Senor,  el  Ocoa  es  todavia  mas 
grande  y  mas  bravo/9  No,  Sir,  the  Ocoa  is  still  larger 
and  more  turbulent. 

Finally,  after  we  had  been  about  three  hours  in  the 
montana,  the  rain  continuing  all  the  while  without  cessa- 
tion; after  we  had  narrowly  escaped  being  mired  several 
times,  or  being  carried  away  by  several  of  the  impetuous 
water  courses  that  obstructed  our  path — there  were  by 
actual  count  more  than  thirty  of  them ;  after  a  long  struggle 
against  the  dread  that  was  so  greatly  depressing  our 
vaqueano,  and  trying  to  take  an  optimistic  view  of  our  situa- 
tion, we  had  our  attention  directed  to  a  loud  roaring  noise 
immediately  in  front  of  us.  We  knew  at  once  what  that 

221 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

meant,  and  did  not  need  the  information  then  volunteered 
by  our  guide,  "He  agui  el  Ocoa,  Senores."  That  is  the 
Ocoa,  Sir. 

A  few  minutes  more  and  we  were  on  its  banks.  Swollen 
to  an  unusual  height  by  the  recent  heavy  rainfalls  in  the 
Andes,  it  was  now  a  raging,  roaring  mountain  torrent  that 
had  attained  the  magnitude  of  a  tumultuous  river  which 
swept  everything  before  it  It  must  have  been  such  a  tor- 
rent that  the  poet  Schiller  had  before  his  mind's  eye  when 
he  wrote  The  Diver,  of  which  the  following  stanza  is  a 
part: — 

"And  it  seethes  and  roars,  it  welters  and  boils, 
As  when  water  is  showered  upon  fire ; 
And  skyward  the  spray  agonizingly  toils 
And  flood  over  flood  sweeps  higher  and  higher, 
Upheaving,  downrolling,  tumultuously, 
As  though  the  abyss  would  bring  forth  a  young  sea." 

0.,  who  had  never  witnessed  in  Trinidad  such  exhibitions 
of  storm  and  flood,  was  in  despair.  Our  peons,  finding 
their  worst  forebodings  an  actuality,  were  distressed  and 
disconsolate.  If  they  could  bui  reach  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  they  would  be  almost  in  sight  of  their  homes  from 
which  they  had  been  absent  for  more  than  a  week. 

"How  long  shall  we  be  obliged  to  wait  before  we  can 
cross V*  someone  timorously  inquired.  "If  it  does  not  rain 
any  more,"  the  reply  came,  "we  may  get  over  to-morrow 
evening.  If  there  is  another  aguacero  in  the  mountains, 
Dios  sdbe," — God  knows — "how  long  we  may  be  detained 
here."  Just  then,  one  of  the  peons  who  claimed  superior 
knowledge  about  the  behavior  of  such  rios  braves  as  the 
one  before  us,  gave  it  as  his  candid  opinion,  that,  even  if 
there  were  no  further  rain,  it  would  be  quite  impossible 
to  effect  a  passage  inside  of  three  days. 

To  one  unfamiliar  with  the  suddenness  with  which 
mountain  streams  become  raging  torrents,1  and  the  quick- 

iThe  Chagres  river,  it  is  said,  occasionally  rises  twenty-five  feet  in  a  few 
hours. 

222 


THE  LLANOS  OP  COLOMBIA 

ness  with  which  they  subside,  these  declarations  of  opinion 
were  depressing  enough.  I  had,  however,  spent  many 
years  among  the  Eocky  and  Sierra  Madre  mountains,  and 
had  often  had  occasion  to  study  the  modus  operandi  of  the 
cloud-bursts  that  are  there  of  so  frequent  occurrence.  Be- 
sides this,  while  our  peons  were  disputing  among  them- 
selves as  to  what  was  best  to  be  done  in  our  embarrassing 
situation,  I  had  been  carefully  observing  the  height  of  the 
water  line  and  found,  to  my  great  delight,  that  it  was 
gradually  becoming  lower.  After  making  a  few  measure- 
ments, I  found  that,  if  there  were  no  further  rainfall,  we 
should  be  able  to  cross  to  the  other  side  before  sundown. 

As  it  was  now  long  past  noon,  and  we  had  had  nothing  to 
eat  since  early  morning,  it  was  suggested  that  we  take  a 
little  luncheon,  while  waiting  for  the  river  to  become  ford- 
able.  Suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  a  fire  was  started, 
our  kit  of  kitchen  utensils  was  drawn  from  its  sack,  and 
in  a.  short  time  we  had  a  large  cup  of  fragrant,  black  coffee, 
and  the  remnant  of  our  breakfast  bacon  fried  in  a  manner 
to  do  credit  to  a  New  York  chef.  We  still  had  a  few  soda 
crackers,  and  these,  together  with  the  coffee  and  bacon, 
furnished  us  with  a  repast  that  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 

Having  no  doubt  about  our  ability  to  reach  Villavicencio 
before  nightfall,  we  gave  all  the  remaining  eatables  to  our 
vaqueano  and  peons.  They  thankfully  partook  of  the  coffee 
and  crackers,  but  a  mere  taste  of  the  bacon  quite  satisfied 
them.  They  had  evidently  never  eaten  any  before  and,  far 
from  relishing  it,  found  it  positively  distasteful.  They  had 
yet  to  acquire  a  taste  for  bacon  as  others  acquire  a  taste 
for  snails  and  frogs'  legs.  They  still  had  with  them  a  few 
platanos — their  staff  of  life — which  they  roasted,  and  with 
these  and  the  crackers  and  coffee  we  gave  them  they  fared 
even  better  than  usual 

After  luncheon  was  finished,  it  was  found  that  the  river 

had  fallen  enough  to  justify  an  attempt  to  cross  it.    Great 

caution,  however,  was  necessary  to  prevent  any  possible 

mishap.    First,  the  largest  and  strongest  mule  in  the  drove 

"  .       223 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

was  relieved  of  his  burden  and  forced  to  cross  the  river 
alone.  He  examined  it  very  suspiciously  and  at  first 
hesitated  about  entering  the  water.  But  he  was  so  be- 
labored with  sticks  and  clubs  that  the  poor  beast  had  no 
alternative.  After  he  had  started  towards  the  other  side 
the  peons  all  kept  up  such  an  unearthly  yell  that  he  was 
afraid  to  venture  back.  After  a  terrific  struggle  he  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  the  opposite  bank. 

The  current  was  evidently  still  too  strong  to  warrant 
another  experiment  of  this  kind.  So  we  waited  about  a 
half  an  hour,  when  a  second  mule — a  smaller  one — was 
driven  into  the  water.  He  had  barely  reached  the  middle 
of  the  river  when  he  was  lifted  off  his  feet,  and  carried 
some  distance  down  stream.  It  looked,  for  a  few  moments, 
as  if  he  was  going  to  be  lost,  but,  by  vigorous  exertion,  he 
got  on  his  feet  again,  and  stood  in  mid-river  breasting  the 
full  force  of  the  current  and  looking  piteously  towards  his 
masters  for  assistance.  But  they  merely  jeered  at  him 
vociferously  and  asked  him  if  he  wished  to  return  to  Bar- 
rigon. 

Seeing  no  help  forthcoming,  the  terrified  brute  made  a 
supreme  effort  and  succeeded  in  getting  back  to  the  bank 
from  which  he  had  started.  There  he  stood  for  a  while 
panting  heavily,  after  the  strenuous  efforts  he  had  made, 
but  all  the  while  looking  wistfully  at  his  companion  on  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  Ocoa.  After  he  was  somewhat  rested, 
and  before  any  one  realized  what  he  was  about  to  do,  the 
mule  was  again  in  the  water,  making,  of  his  own  accord,  a 
second  attempt  to  reach  the  other  side  of  the  river,  where 
his  companion  was  awaiting  him.  After  battling  with  the 
current  for  some  minutes,  he  was  successful  in  his  venture, 
for  which  he  received  the  unstinted  applause  of  his  masters. 
No  sooner  had  he  emerged  from  the  water  than  he  gave  a 
long,  loud  bray  of  victory  which  awoke  the  echoes  in  the 
woods  for  miles  around.  The  whole  performance  was  so 
comical  that  it  provoked  roars  of  laughter  from  our  entire 
party.  As  an  illustration  of  nmle-headedness  in  a  good 

224 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

cause,  in  face  of  apparently  insuperable  difficulties,  it  was 
superb. 

Having  proved  the  fordableness  of  the  river  by  mules, 
the  peons  determined  to  match  their  own  strength  against 
the  still-impetuous  current*  Accordingly,  one  of  their 
number,  a  giant  in  strength,  taking  the  end  of  a  hundred- 
foot  lariat  between  his  teeth,  carefully  entered  the  water, 
and,  after  successfully  buffeting  the  angry  billows,  landed 
on  the  opposite  bank,  whence  the  two  mules  had  watched 
his  struggles  with  apparent  interest  and  sympathy. 

Now  that  the  lariat  was  firmly  stretched  between  the  two 
banks,  and  that  the  river  was  still  falling,  it  was  a  matter 
of  only  a  short  time  to  transfer  the  remaining  mules  and 
the  baggage  to  the  other  side. 

The  jurungos 1 — a  Llanero  epithet  for  strangers — were 
the  last  to  cross.  Elevating  our  feet  as  much  as  possible, 
to  avoid  getting  wet,  we  were  soon  in  mid-stream.  The 
motion  of  the  water  in  one  direction  while  our  horses  were 
struggling  in  the  other,  had  a  tendency  to  induce  vertigo, 
but  as  we  had  to  be  on  the  alert  every  instant,  in  order  to 
preclude  all  danger  of  miscarriage,  we  soon  found  our- 
selves happily  landed,  with  the  dread  Ocoa  at  last  in  our 
rear. 

It  was  now  only  a  short  ride  to  Villavicencio,  over  com- 
paratively dry  and  slightly  rising  ground.  Ere  the  sun 
had  dropped  behind  the  Andes  we  had  alighted  before  our 
lodging  house  near  the  plaza  on  the  main  street  of  the 
town.  Our  host,  who  was  awaiting  us  at  the  door,  gave 
us  a  most  cordial  greeting,  but  seemed  to  be  much  sur- 
prised and  embarrassed  He  then  explained  that  he  had 
misunderstood  the  telegram  that  he  had  received  from 

iThe  term  Jurungo  has  much  the  same  signification  among  the  Llaneros  as 
has-  "tenderfoot"  in  Australia  and  the  western  part  of  the  United  States. 
Quate,  another  word  of  similar  import,  frequently  heard  in  the  Llanos,  is 
employed  to  designate  a  Serrano— a  highlander  or  mountaineer— while  jurungo 
refers  more  specifically  to  a  stranger  from  Europe  or  the  United  States. 
Like  the  word  tenderfoot,  these  two  epithets  are  used  in  a  certain  depreciative 
sense. 

225 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOAYN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Orocue  announcing  our  arrival  and  requesting  Mm  to  have 
piezas — rooms — reserved  for  us.  "I  inferred  from  the 
telegram, "  he  said,  "that  you  were  Colombians  and  never, 
for  an  instant,  dreamed  that  I  should  have  the  honor  of 
entertaining  foreigners.  Had  I  known  whom  I  was  to  have 
as  my  guests,  I  should  have  made  more  elaborate  prepara- 
tions for  your  reception.  As  it  is,  I  can  offer  you  only  an 
unfurnished  room.  It  is  the  best  I  have,  and  I  trust  you 
will  excuse  my  not  making  better  provisions  for  your 
comfort  during  your  sojourn  in  our  midst.  We  have  no 
hotels  here,  and  our  people,  when  traveling,  are  accus- 
tomed to  lodge  with  their  friends,  or  take  an  apartment 
like  the  one  reserved  for  you." 

The  good  man's  explanation  was  quite  unnecessary,  as 
we  were  more  than  satisfied  with  our  room.  It  was  large 
and  airy,  and,  although  devoid  of  furniture  of  every  kind, 
it  had  a  clean  board  floor,  and  that  was  a  great  deal  for 
travelers,  who,  like  ourselves,  had  been  roughing  it  on  the 
Meta  and  the  llanos. 

He  was  much  relieved  when  he  saw  how  easy  it  was  to 
satisfy  his  guests,  and  without  more  ado,  he  proceeded  to 
order  dinner  for  us  without  delay.  While  dinner  was  pre- 
paring we  had  our  dufflebags  brought  into  our  apartment, 
and,  in  a  very  short  time,  our  camp  chairs  were  un- 
folded and  our  cots  and  bedding  arranged  for  the  night. 
A  table  was  next  brought  in  from  an  adjoining  house,  and 
soon  a  young  Indian  maid  arrived  to  make  the  necessary 
preparations  for  our  evening  repast.  Our  meals,  it  had 
been  arranged,  were  to  be  served  from  a  restaurant  a  few 
doors  away.  The  senbra  in  charge,  and  her  daughter, 
who  belonged  to  an  old  Colombian  family,  now  in  reduced 
circumstances,  left  nothing  undone  to  insure  the  most  satis- 
factory service  possible. 

A  bountiful  dinner,  such  as  we  had  not  had  since  leav- 
ing Orocu6,  was  soon  on  the  table.  There  were  meats, 
vegetables  and  various  kinds  of  fruits  and,  what  we  found 
specially  agreeable,  good  wheatep.  bread.  Besides  all  these 

226 


THE  LLANOS  OF  COLOMBIA 

viands,  there  was  an  additional  and  unexpected  luxury  in 
the  form  of  a  quart  bottle  of  generous  old  Bordeaux.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  we  showed  due  appreciation  of 
the  senora's  culinary  skill.  Never  did  the  dishes  of  a 
Parisian  restaurateur  seem  more  inviting.  Now  came  to 
us  with  special  force  the  old  saying  that  "appetite  is  the 
best  sauce, "  and  that  for  travelers  like  ourselves,  "II  vaut 
mieux  decouvrir  un  nouveau  plat  gu'  un  nouveau  planete," 
it  is  better  to  discover  a  new  dish  than  a  new  planet. 

As  we  had  resolved  to  remain  a  few  days  in  Villavicencio 
before  essaying  the  trip  across  the  Cordilleras,  we  felt  a 
sense  of  relief,  by  anticipation,  in  the  thought  that  we 
should  not,  before  daybreak  the  following  morning,  be 
obliged  to  hearken,  as  hitherto,  to  the  usual  announcement 
of  our  vaqueano, "  Vamonos,  Senores — Gentlemen,  it  is  time 
to  start/' 

As  we  were  both  quite  fatigued,  we  did  not  delay  long 
in  seeking  repose  on  our  ever-restful  cots.  And  it  was 
but  a  very  short  time  before  at  least  one  of  the  travelers 
was  in  the  land  of  dreams.  And  one  of  the  visions  that 
appeared  to  hi™  was  that  of  a  little  child  in  a  pink  frock, 
standing  beside  her  mother  under  a  totuma  tree,  near  a 
crystal  stream  in  the  llanos,  waving  her  tiny  hand  and 
lisping  a  sweet  Adiosito  to  two  strangers  from  beyond  the 
sea,  whose  course  was  towards  the  western  sky,  where 
the  giant  Andes  stood  to  salute  the  approaching  lord  of 
day. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

"To  sit  on  rocks,  to  muse  o'er  flood  and  fall, 
To  slowly  trace  the  forest's  shady  scene, 
Where  things  that  own  not  man's  dominion  dwell, 
And  mortal  feet  hath  ne'er,  or  rarely  been; 
To  climb  the  trackless  mountain  all  unseen. 
•         ••••••• 

"This  is  not  solitude;  'tis  but  to  hold 
Converse  with  Nature's  charms,  and  see  her 
stores  unrolled." 

— BYBON. 

Villavicencio,  the  capital  of  the  National  Territory  of 
the  Meta,  is  situated  at  the  very  foot  of  the  Andes,  and 
is  an  attractive  town  of  about  three  thousand  inhabitants, 
many  of  whom  are  Indians.  Its  altitude  above  sea  level, 
according  to  our  barometer,  is  slightly  less  than  fifteen 
hundred  feet.  It  is  a  little  more  than  ninety-three  miles 
from  Bogota  and  has  an  average  annual  temperature  of 
83°  F.  During  our  sojourn  in  the  place  the  thermometer 
never  rose  above  76°  F.  in  the  shade,  and  it  was  occa- 
sionally several  degrees  below  this  point.  And,  although 
little  more  than  seventy-five  miles  north  of  the  equator,  it 
was  so  cool  at  night  that  we  always  used  our  blankets. 

A  handsome  church  is  located  on  one  side  of  the  spacious 
green  plaza.  Not  far  distant  is  a  well-conducted  convent 
school  in  charge  of  nuns  recently  expatriated  from  France, 
in  consequence  of  the  laws  enacted  against  religious 
orders.  The  people  are  never  tired  sounding  the  praises 
of  these  good  sisters  and  telling  the  visitor  of  the  wonders 

228 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

they  have  accomplished  in  behalf  of  their  children.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  "The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected;  the 
same  shall  become  the  head  of  the  corner." 

Villavicencio,  like  Cabuyaro,  and  other  places  in  the 
llanos,  is  eagerly  looking  forward  to  the  day  when  it  shall 
be  connected  by  rail  with  the  national  capital  and  the  Meta. 
For  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  a  commercial  route  con- 
necting Bogota  with  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco  has  been 
talked  of  but  nothing  has  been  done  to  make  it  a  reality. 

In  1783  the  archbishop  of  Sante  Fe,  Monsignor  Cabellero 
y  Gongora,  then  viceroy  of  New  Granada,  caused  a  map  to 
be  made  of  the  course  of  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco  to  the 
Atlantic,  with  a  view  of  developing  commerce  by  that  route, 
but  the  all-powerful  opposition  of  Santa  Marta  and  Car- 
tagena nullified  his  efforts.  Several  times  since  that  date 
the  project  has  been  resumed  but  each  time  it  had  to  be 
abandoned  in  favor  of  the  Magdalena,  owing  to  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  on  the  government  by  the  merchants  of 
Cartagena  and  Santa  Marta.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
route  via  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco  would,  in  some  respects, 
possess  many  advantages  over  that  of  the  Magdalena,  aside 
from  developing  much  country  now  practically  neglected. 

Unlike  Venezuela,  Colombia  favors  free  navigation  of 
her  rivers  by  all  nations,  and  would  welcome  foreign  craft 
on  the  Meta  as  she  does  on  the  Magdalena.  Venezuela, 
however,  favors  monopolies,  and,  claiming  absolute  control 
of  the  Orinoco,  has  closed  the  Meta  and  the  other  affluents 
of  the  Orinoco  to  all  steamers  except  those  belonging  to 
the  one  company  which  has  a  monopoly  of  the  trade  of  the 
Orinoco  and  all  its  tributaries.  How  detrimental  such  a 
monopoly  is,  not  only  to  Colombia  but  to  Venezuela  as 
well,  can  be  seen  at  a  glance.  Some  of  the  greatest  re- 
sources of  both  countries  are  left  undeveloped  and  prog- 
ress in  any  direction  is  quite  impossible. 

This  matter  was  taken  up  at  the  International  Congress 
of  Mexico  in  1901,  in  connection  with  a  plan  to  render 
navigation  possible  through  the  interior  of  the  continent 

229 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

of  South  America  from  the  Orinoco  to  the  Eiver  Plate, 
but  so  far  nothing  has  been  accomplished. 

The  greater  part  of  the  eastern  portion  of  Colombia  is 
still  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  will  remain 
so  until  Venezuela  shall  recognize  the  fatuity  of  its  short- 
sighted policy,  or  until  the  great  commercial  nations  shall 
demand  that  the  navigation  of  the  Orinoco  and  its  tribu- 
taries, like  that  of  the  Amazon  and  its  affluents,  be  free 
to  all  vessels,  no  matter  under  what  flag  they  may  sail. 
And  as  soon  as  commerce  shall  awaken  to  the  fact  that  an 
immense  field  of  untold  riches  is  closed  to  her  activities 
in  the  forests  and  plains  of  the  Orinoco  basin — and  that 
must  be  ere  long — a  demand  will  be  made  not  only  in  the 
interests  of  South  America  but  also  in  that  of  the  entire 
civilized  world. 

As  an  illustration  of  how  Colombia  has  been  made  to 
suffer  by  the  arbitrary  policy  of  Venezuela  regarding 
waterways,  of  which  both  the  sister  republics  should  be 
beneficiaries,  a  single  instance  will  suffice. 

Shortly  before  our  arrival  in  Villavicencio,  a  company 
was  formed  to  supply  electricity  to  the  city.  As  there  are 
no  roads  between  Bogota  and  Villavicencio,  which  would 
permit  the  transportation  of  the  necessary  machinery,  the 
only  way  available  for  the  introduction  of  such  heavy 
freight  was  by  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta.  It  was  accord- 
ingly planned  to  have  the  dynamos  and  other  requisites 
brought  by  this  route,  but,  when  all  was  ready  for  ship- 
ment, the  projectors  of  the  enterprise  learned  that  the 
Venezuelan  government — that  is,  President  Castro — would 
refuse  to  grant  the  necessary  permission  for  the  transpor- 
tation of  the  merchandise  in  question.  The  idea,  then,  of 
lighting  the  city  by  electricity  had  to  be  abandoned,  and 
the  capital  of  the  Meta  territory  is,  as  a  consequence,  forced 
to  remain  content  with  tallow  candles  and  kerosene  lamps. 

The  people  of  Villavicencio,  as  elsewhere  in  Colombia, 
we  found  to  be  extremely  courteous  and  hospitable.  They 
were  eager  to  hear  about  America,  and  in  turn  were  quite 

230 


THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

willing  to  afford  all  possible  information  about  their  own 
country,  and  especially  about  the  llanos  and  Llaneros.  We 
soon  became  acquainted  with  all  the  leading  officials  and 
business  men,  and  recall  with  pleasure  the  many  delicate 
attentions  they  showed  us  while  in  their  midst.  We  were 
invited  to  visit  their  country  estates  and  to  examine  some 
new  industries — yet  in  their  infancy — which  gave  promise 
of  a  bright  future. 

One  of  these  was  the  rubber  industry.  Not  content  with 
the  trees  that  grow  spontaneously  in  the  forests  in  this  part 
of  the  country,  a  certain  general — one  of  many  we  met  here 
— conceived  the  idea  of  cultivating  the  rubber  tree  and 
had,  accordingly,  during  the  preceding  year,  set  out  no 
fewer  than  a  half  million  small  trees,  and  had  it  in  purpose 
to  plant  many  times  this  number  in  the  near  future.  He 
said  all  that  he  had  already  planted  were  doing  well,  and 
he  had  no  doubt  about  the  success  of  the  enterprise.  He 
was  most  sanguine  about  the  future  of  eastern  Colombia, 
and  expressed  it  as  his  belief  that  in  a  few  years  Colombia 
would  be  as  favorably  known  for  her  rubber  as  she  is  now 
for  her  cacao,  coffee  and  tobacco. 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  scientific  cultivation  of  the 
rubber  tree  should  not  be  attended  with  as  good  results  in 
Colombia  as  have  so  signalized  its  culture  in  Ceylon  and 
the  Malay  Peninsula.  In  view  of  the  destructive  system 
of  treating  the  rubber  trees  in  Brazil  and  other  parts  of 
South  America  in  collecting  the  latex,  and  the  increasing 
demand  for  rubber  in  our  various  rapidly  expanding  indus- 
tries, it  would  seem  that  the  rubber  plantations,  like  the 
one  above  mentioned,  are  sure  to  yield  their  owners  a  hand- 
some profit. 

Nothing  better  illustrates  what  may  be  expected  in  this 
direction  than  the  experiment  made  a  few  decades  ago  in 
India  with  the  cinchona  tree.  Previously  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  this  tree  into  India,  where  there  are  now  many 
extensive  plantations  under  cultivation,  the  sole  source  of 
supply  of  Peruvian  bark  was  from  the  tropical  slopes  of 

231 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  Andes.  Now,  in  consequence  of  the  vigorous  competi- 
tion with  India,  the  cinchona  industry  in  the  Andean 
regions  is  only  a  fraction  of  what  it  formerly  was,  and, 
unless  something  can  be  done  to  arrest  its  rapid  decline, 
it  will  soon  have  lost  its  importance  as  an  article  of  export 
from  the  Cordilleras. 

We  spent  three  days  in  Villavicencio  and  enjoyed  every 
hour  of  the  stay  among  its  kindly  people.  We  had  thus 
an  opportunity  of  securing  much  needed  repose,  and  of  pre- 
paring ourselves  for  our  arduous  trip  across  the  cloud- 
reaching  Andes.  We  might  have  continued,  without 
interruption,  our  journey  from  the  plains  to  Bogota,  hut 
it  would  have  been  highly  imprudent  to  make  the  attempt. 
A  sudden  change  from  the  lowlands  to  Andean  heights, 
and  from  the  heat  of  the  llanos  to  the  frigid  blasts  of  the 
paramos,  is  something  of  which  the  native  has  an  instinc- 
tive dread.  He  accordingly  makes  his  journey  by  slow 
stages,  so  as  to  become  acclimated  on  the  way.  In  driving 
cattle  from  the  llanos  to  Bogota  several  weeks  are 
deemed  necessary,  as  otherwise  many  of  them  would  ex- 
pire on  the  road.  They  appear  to  be  much  more  affected 
than  man  by  rapid  changes  of  altitude  and  temperature. 

We  had  been  warned  time  and  again  by  well-meaning 
persons  about  the  risk  we  incurred  by  so  soon  attempting 
to  cross  the  Cordilleras,  after  spending  so  much  time  in 
the  lowlands  of  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta.  "You  should, " 
we  were  told,  "spend  several  weeks  on  the  road,  stopping 
a  few  days  at  each  posada  on  the  way.  Only  in  this  wise 
can  you  become  acclimated,  and  render  your  system  proof 
against  the  certain  dangers  of  violent  changes  of  tem- 
perature and  altitude.  As  you  approach  the  summit  of 
the  Andes  you  will  see  the  sides  of  the  trail  strewn  with 
the  bleached  bones  of  cattle  and  horses  that  have  succumbed 
to  the  cold  and  the  rare  atmosphere  of  this  elevated  region. 
More  than  this,  you  will  see  hundreds  of  crosses  by  the 
wayside  marking  the  spots  where  over-venturesome  travel- 
ers were  emparamados — frozen — by  the  arctic  cold  of  the 

232 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

paramos,  and  where  they  found  their  last  resting  place. 
And  so  strong  is  the  wind  on  the  cumbre — the  summit — 
of  the  mountain  range  that  people  are  sometimes  blown 
into  the  yawning  chasm  that  adjoins  the  dreadful  pass." 

To  confirm  their  statements  they  reminded  us  of  the 
fearful  losses  in  men  and  animals  sustained  by  Bolivar 
when  he  led  his  army  from  the  plains  of  Varinas  to 
the  lofty  plateau  of  Cundinamarca ;  how  hundreds  of  men 
and  horses  perished  from  the  intense  cold  on  the  elevated 
pass  through  which  they  vainly  tried  to  force  their  way, 
and  how  the  entire  army  was  exposed  to  extermination  by 
the  combined  action  of  arctic  cold  and  hurricane  blasts. 

We  made  no  reply  to  these  well-meant  warnings,  but  we 
could  not  help  recalling  similar  words  of  caution  before  we 
started  on  our  journey  up  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta.  Then 
the  dangers  to  be  apprehended  were  from  the  climate — 
from  intense  heat  and  a  pestiferous  atmosphere;  from  wild 
animals  and  wilder  men.  Now  it  was  danger  of  an  oppo- 
site kind— danger  from  cold,  of  being  frozen,  or  of  con- 
tracting pneumonia,  which  in  those  great  altitudes  is 
certain  death. 

Aside  from  a  few  uncomfortable  nights — which,  with  a 
little  care,  might  have  been  obviated — caused  by  the  active 
zancudo  and  the  coloradito — we  had  escaped  all  the  pre- 
dicted dangers  of  the  lowlands,  and  we  now  felt  reasonably 
sure  that  we  should  be  equally  fortunate  in  eluding  those 
that  were  said  to  await  us  in  the  regions  of  everlasting 
snow.  We  were  better  equipped  for  making  the  trip  than 
the  poor,  ill-clad  natives  from  the  llanos,  and  we  could 
regulate  our  vesture  to  suit  the  temperature.  Snow  and 
frost  had  then  no  terrors  for  us,  and  as  we  had  been 
accustomed  to  sudden  changes  of  altitude,  without  expe- 
riencing any  evil  effects,  we  felt  we  had  nothing  whatever 
to  apprehend. 

On  the  third  morning  after  our  arrival  in  Villavicencio 
we  were  ready  to  start  for  Bogota,  and  expected  to  make 
the  journey  of  ninety-three  miles  in  three  days.  We  had 

233 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

secured  mules  that  were  used  to  mountain  travel.  Those 
that  we  had  in  crossing  the  llanos  would  never  have 
answered  our  purpose.  Our  vaqueano  and  peons  were 
serranos — mountaineers — thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
route  we  were  to  take.  They  all  seemed  to  be  good,  reliable 
young  men,  and  we  felt  that  the  last  stage  of  our  journey, 
before  reaching  Bogota,  would  be  quite  as  enjoyable  as 
any  that  we  had  already  completed. 

After  many  cordial  expressions  of  good  wishes  on  the 
part  of  the  crowd  assembled  to  witness  our  departure,  and 
repeated  exclamations  on  all  sides  of  "Feliz  viajel" — a 
happy  journey — and  "Dios  les  guarde  a  VV!" — God  pro- 
tect you — we  said  our  last  adios  to  all  and  turned  toward 
the  Andes.  "Vamos  con  Dios/9  ejaculated  our  vaqueano, 
"7  con  la  Virgen"  was  the  response  of  the  peons  and  the 
bystanders. 

From  the  moment  we  left  the  door  of  our  temporary 
lodging,  our  road  was  up  grade.  As  we  passed  along  the 
street  that  terminates  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  it 
seemed  that  all  the  women  and  children  of  the  place  were 
at  the  doors  to  get  a  last  view  of  the  jurungos — foreigners 
— whose  arrival  from  the  eastern  sea  by  the  great  river 
had  been  commented  on  as  a  more  than  ordinary  event. 

As  soon  as  we  had  passed  the  last  house  of  the  city, 
there  was  a  sudden  marked  increase  in  the  grade  of  our 
trail,  and  we  then  felt,  for  the  first  time,  that  we  were  in 
sober  earnest  beginning  the  actual  ascent  of  the  Andes. 
In  two  hours  we  had  reached  Buena  Vista,  a  lovely  spot, 
eleven  hundred  and  forty  feet  above  Villavicencio. 

We  had  frequently  been  told  in  Orocue  and  elsewhere 
that  we  should  have  a  beautiful  view  of  the  llanos  from 
Buena  Vista,  and  that  we  would  do  well  to  tarry  there 
for  a  while  to  enjoy  the  panorama  that  would  be  visible 
from  this  elevated  spur  of  the  mountain. 

When  a  South  American — especially  one  familiar  with 
the  mountains — speaks  in  terms  of  praise  of  any  particular 
bit  of  scenery,  one  may  be  sure  that  he  does  not  exaggerate. 

234 


THE  COBDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

He  is  so  accustomed  to  splendid  exhibitions  of  tropical 
beauty  and  mountain  grandeur  that  he  passes  unnoticed 
what  we  of  the  North  should  describe  as  superb,  magnifi- 
cent, glorious.  Such  scenes  are  to  him  as  common  as  the 
gorgeousness  of  the  setting  sun  and  the  sublimity  of 
the  starlit  heavens  are  to  us  and  fail  to  move  him  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  splendors  of  sun  and  sky  rarely 
affect  us  as  they  would  if  but  occasionally  visible.  They 
are  every-day  objects  and  the  pleasure  they  should  afford 
palls  accordingly. 

We  were  not  disappointed  in  our  anticipations  regard- 
ing the  view  from  Buena  Vista.  On  the  contrary,  it  far 
exceeded  anything  we  had  imagined.  The  sky,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  fleecy  clouds  flitting  athwart  it,  was 
clear  and  the  sun  was  almost  in  the  zenith.  Far  below 
us,  and  extending  away — north,  east,  south — towards  the 
dim  and  distant  horizon,  were  the  llanos,  every  feature  of 
which  was  brought  out  in  bright  relief  by  the  brilliant  noon- 
day sun. 

In  the  foreground  was  the  montana  through  which  we 
had  passed  just  before  reaching  Villavicencio.  Farther 
afield  was  a  limitless  sea  of  verdure,  interspersed  with 
groups  of  trees,  which  offered  their  grateful  shade  to  the 
countless  herds  that  reposed  beneath  their  wide-spreading 
branches.  In  every  direction  the  green  savannas  were 
intersected  by  canos  and  rivers  which  looked  like  streams 
of  molten  silver.  It  was,  indeed,  a  panorama  of  surpass- 
ing beauty  and  loveliness — of  its  kind  unique  in  the  wide 
world.  It  was  the  boundless  plain  in  eternal  converse  with 
the  heavens  above.  It  was  the  abode  of  liberty,  and  the 
trysting-place  of  life — life  palpitating  in  the  sunshine  and 
beneath  the  emerald  borders  of  the  sliver-like  water 
courses  that  were  all  hastening  with  their  tribute  from 
the  Andes  to  the  Meta,  which,  far  off  in  the  southeast, 
seemed  like  a  line  of  union  between  earth  and  sky. 

We  have  nothing  in  our  country  that  can  bear  compari- 
son with  the  matchless  picture  seen  from  Buena  Vista. 

235 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AXD  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

The  view  of  the  delta  of  the  Nile — just  before  harvest 
time,  with  its  numberless  canals  and  water  courses — from 
the  summit  of  Cheops,  contains  some  of  the  elements  of 
soft  tropical  beauty  so  conspicuous  in  the  Buena  Vista 
landscape;  but  it  lacks  the  variety,  the  sweep,  the  coloring, 
the  harmonious  effects  of  light  and  shade,  the  immensity, 
and  above  all  the  wondrous  setting  afforded  the  latter  pros- 
pect by  the  Titanic  Cordilleras. 

But  the  measureless  expanse  of  grassy  plain  that  lies  be- 
fore us  is  but  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the  llanos.  They 
extend  from  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Coast  Eange  of 
Venezuela  to  the  base  of  the  Parime  uplands  and  the  Eio 
Guaviare;  from  the  Andes  to  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco. 
They  are  thus  almost  conterminous  with  the  Orinoco  basin. 
They,  indeed,  constitute  one  of  the  three  immense  dis- 
tricts into  which  the  whole  of  South  America  is  divided. 
The  other  two  are  the  Selvas  of  Brazil  and  the  Pampas 
of  Argentina,  separated  from  each  other  and  from  the 
llanos  of  the  north,  by  low  transverse  ridges  running  east 
and  west  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Cordilleras. 

To  geologists  these  vast  lowlands  have  a  special  interest, 
as  they  were  at  one  time  the  bed  of  an  inland  sea  more 
extensive  far  than  the  present  Mediterranean.  Even  now, 
during  the  rainy  season,  certain  parts  of  this  immense 
expanse  are  covered  by  fresh  water  lakes  thousands  of 
square  miles  in  extent.  A  subsidence  of  a  few  hundred 
feet  would  again  bring  the  whole  of  this  illimitable  territory 
down  below  sea  level  and  cause  again  the  formation  of  the 
great  tropical  sea  that  existed  in  prehistoric  times. 

To  the  student  of  history  a  special  interest  attaches  to 
the  llanos  of  western  Venezuela  and  eastern  Colombia.  It 
was  across  these  plains  and  swamps,  under  the  most  trying 
difficulties,  that  Bolivar  led  his  half-clad,  half-famished 
army,  during  his  memorable  march  across  the  Cordilleras, 
before  achieving  the  independence  of  New  Granada  in  the 
famous  battle  of  Boyaca. 

But  great  as  was  the  feat  accomplished  by  Bolivar  in 

236 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

traversing  the  llanos,  great  as  were  the  difficulties  he  had 
to  contend  with,  they  pale  into  insignificance  when  com- 
pared with  the  hardships  and  achievements  of  the  early 
descubridores — explorers — of  these  then  unknown  wilds. 
Bolivar  and  his  men  traveled  through  a  country  that  had 
been  long  settled,  and  were  among  friends  and  compatriots. 
The  early  explorers  and  conquistadores  were,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  an  unknown  land,  among  murderous,  relentless 
savages  armed  with  poisoned  arrows.  They  were  in  a 
region  where  it  was  often  impossible  to  procure  food,  and 
where  several  times  starvation  was  imminent.  For  months 
at  a  time  they  wandered  through  dark,  tangled  forests, 
cutting  a  road  as  they  went,  lured  on  by  the  hope  of  fame 
and  fortune.  Then  they  had  to  feel  their  way  through 
deep  and  treacherous  morasses,  in  which  they  had  to  con- 
front even  greater  dangers  than  in  the  obscure  woodlands. 
But  notwithstanding  dangers  and  difficulties  of  every  kind, 
they  kept  moving  forward  through  woods  and  swamps, 
across  rivers  and  mountains,  ever  in  pursuit  of  gold  and 
precious  stones,  and  of  the  fabulous  riches  of  the  Meta  and 
the  treasure  city  of  Manoa. 

Among  these  famous  descubridores  was  the  German, 
George  Hohermuth,  whom  the  Spaniards  called  Jorge  de 
Spira.  Starting  from  Coro,  on  the  Caribbean,  with  three 
hundred  and  sixty-one  men  and  eighty  horses,  he  directed 
his  course  southwards,  where,  he  was  assured,  were 
inexhaustible  treasures  of  every  kind.  Crossing  the  llanos 
of  Venezuela  and  New  Granada,  he  must  have  passed  near 
the  present  site  of  Buena  Vista. 

During  our  journey  we  certainly  crossed  his  line  of 
march,  which  in  this  latitude  was  probably  near  the  base 
of  the  Cordilleras.  Spurred  on  by  an  ever-receding  ignis 
fatuus,  he  continued  his  march  until  he  reached  the  Japura, 
an  affluent  of  the  Amazon,  and  but  a  short  distance  from 
the  equator.  During  this  frightful  journey  he  crossed  the 
Arauca,  the  Apure,  the  Meta,  the  Guaviare  and  other  broad 
and  deep  rivers.  Of  the  countless  difficulties  lie  eneoun- 

237 


DP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

tered  in  his  long  and  painful  march,  no  one  who  is  un- 
familiar with  the  character  of  forest  and  plain  in  the 
tropics,  particularly  during  the  rainy  season,  can  have  the 
faintest  conception.  They  far  transcend  anything  experi- 
enced by  Stanley,  or  Mungo  Park,  or  any  other  African 
explorer.  After  more  than  three  years  of  unheard-of  suf- 
ferings, he  finally  returned  to  Coro  with  but  a  small  fraction 
of  the  brave  men  that  had  originally  formed  part  of  hia 
expedition. 

Hohermuth  was  followed  by  Philip  von  Hutten,  in  1541, 
on  a  similar  expedition,  who  traveled  over  almost  the  same 
ground  as  his  predecessor.  He,  too,  must  have  passed  near 
where  Buena  Vista  now  stands.  His  undertaking  was  quite 
as  fruitless  as  that  of  Hohermuth  and  his  losses  were 
greater.  He  spent  more  than  four  years  in  the  llanos  and 
Cordilleras  and,  before  he  could  return  to  his  starting  point, 
he  died  at  the  hands  of  an  assassin. 

More  remarkable  still,  in  some  respects,  was  the  expedi- 
tion of  Nicholas  Federmann,  who,  like  Hohermuth  and  Von 
Hutten,  was  in  the  service  of  the  Welsers,  concessionaires 
of  a  large  German  colony  near  Lake  Maracaibo.  Crossing 
the  llanos,  and  the  numerous  rivers  that  flow  through  them, 
he  eventually  found  himself  on  the  banks  of  the  Meta. 
Thence  he  proceeded  west  and  crossed  the  Cordilleras,  not, 
however,  without  numerous  victims — both  men  and  horses 
— from  the  intense  cold  on  the  mountain  summits.  He 
finally  reached  the  fertile  plain  of  Bogota,  where  occurred 
that  famous  and  unexpected  meeting  of  Belalcazar,  who 
had  come  with  another  expedition  from  Quito,  and  Gonzalo 
Jimenez  de  Quesada  who,  a  short  time  previously,  had 
arrived  with  a  third  expedition  from  Santa  Marta. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  was  Federmann 's 
itinerary  after  leaving  the  banks  of  the  Meta,  and  the  exact 
spot  where  he  crossed  the  Cordilleras.  This  we  can  only 
conjecture,  as  there  is  no  record  of  it,  but  we  loved  to  think, 
while  crossing  the  Andes  on  our  way  to  Bogota,  that  we 
were  still  following  the  conquistadores,  and  that  ours  was 

238 


THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

the  same  route  that  had  been  taken  by  Federmann  and  his 
brave  men  more  than  three  and  a  half  centuries  before.1 

After  leaving  Buena  Vista,  we  were  exposed  to  a  heavy 
tropical  downpour  that  lasted  the  greater  part  of  the  day. 
Fortunately  the  rain  did  not  affect  us  in  the  slightest. 
Our  bayetones  and  waterproof  boots  kept  us  perfectly  dry 
and,  as  the  rain  was  not  chilly,  we  rather  enjoyed  the 
experience. 

Our  path  during  the  greater  part  of  the  day  lay  through 
forests  and  along  rivers  and  over  mountain  torrents.  At 
times  it  was  high  up  on  the  mountain  side,  thousands  of 
feet  above  the  water  courses  surging  and  foaming  at  its 
base.  Again  it  was  along  the  edge  of  a  dizzy  precipice, 
where  a  single  false  step  of  our  mule  would  have  meant 
instant  death  to  its  rider. 

What  gave  us  grave  concern  at  first  was  the  fact  that  our 
mules  always  persisted  in  keeping  on  the  side  of  the  track 
next  to  the  ravine,  no  matter  how  deep  or  threatening  it 
might  be.  We  tried,  until  we  were  exhausted,  to  keep  them 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  trail,  but  it  was  useless.  They 
seemed  bent  on  courting  danger,  and  on  seeing  how  near 

iThe  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  famous  expeditions  of  Hohermuth, 
von  Hutten  and  Federmann,  about  which  there  is  little  in  English  that  is 
satisfactory,  is  referred  to  Castellanos,  Varones  Ilustres  de  India*,  Partes 
II  and  III;  Herrera,  Historia  de  las  Indias,  Dec.  VI;  Oviedo  y  BafLos, 
Conquista  y  Foliation  de  Venezuela,  Lib  I  and  III;  Oviedo  y  Valdfe.  His- 
toria General  y  "Natural  de  las  Indias,  Tom.  II,  Lib.  XXV;  Ternaux— Compans, 
Voyages,  Relations  et  Memoires  Originauas  pour  seroir  a  Vhistoire  de  la 
decouvarte  de  I'Amerique,  Tom.  II,  Paris,  1840;  Klunzinger,  Antheil  der  Deut- 
schen  an  der  Andeckung  von  8ud-Amerika,  Kap.  VI,  IX  and  XII,  Stuttgart, 
1857;  Schumacher,  Die  Untemehmungen  der  Augslwrger  Welser  in  Venezuela, 
Kap.  IV,  IX  and  XII,  in  Tom.  II,  of  a  work  published  in  Hamburg,  1892,  Zur 
Errinnerung  an  die  Endeckung  Amerikas;  Topf,  Deutsche  Statthalter  und 
Konquistadoren  in  Venezuela,  pp.  18,  19,  33-42,  48-55;  Tom.  VI,  of  the 
Sammlung  gemeinverstandlieJier  icissenschaftlicher  Vortr&ge,  Hamburg,  1893; 
Humbert,  ^Occupation  Allemande  du  Venezuela  au  XVI  Siecle,  Periode  dite 
des  Welser,  1528-1556,  Bordeaux,  1905.  The  last-named  work  is  illustrated 
by  a  valuable  map.  The  subject  possesses  an  added  interest  from  the  fact  that 
it  refers  to  the  only  attempt  at  colonial  occupation  ever  made  by  Germans 
in  South  America.  How  different  would  now  be  the  condition  of  Venezuela 
and  Colombia  if  the  Welser  colony  had  been  permanent  and  successful! 

17  239 


TIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

they  could  keep  to  the  verge  of  the  chasm  without  plunging 
into  its  abysmal  depths. 

Unfortunately  for  our  peace  of  mind,  we  did  not  then 
know  the  Andean  mule  as  well  as  we  do  now.  Had  we 
understood  him  as  well  at  the  beginning  of  our  journey  as 
we  did  at  the  end,  we  should  have  given  him  a  free  rein, 
and  thereby  spared  ourselves  many  nerve-racking  moments 
and  many  futile  efforts  to  correct  his  persistent  aberrations. 
Why  a  mule  prefers  to  walk  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice, 
whenever  it  has  an  opportunity  of  doing  so,  rather  than 
keep  to  what  we  humans  should  consider  the  safer  side  of 
the  path,  is  a  mystery  I  do  not  profess  to  fathom.  I  simply 
state  the  fact.  I  leave  its  explanation  to  experts  in  mule 
psychology. 

The  country  through  which  we  passed  was  fairly  well 
populated,  and  we  were  never  long  put  of  sight  of  a  habita- 
tion of  some  kind.  Sometimes  the  dwellings  were  of  stone, 
but  more  frequently  they  were  of  bamboo  daubed  with 
clay  and  thatched  with  palm  leaf.  The  people,  usually 
Indians  or  half-breeds,  were  in  humble  circumstances  but 
we  never  saw  any  evidences  of  actual  want  or  suffering. 
"Nunca  se  wiuere  de  hambre  aqui" — No  one  ever  dies  of 
hunger  here — an  Indian  woman  once  informed  us,  when  we 
made  inquiry  about  the  subject.  If  one  should  happen  to 
have  nothing  to  eat,  his  friends  and  neighbors  supply  him 
with  food.  They  are  ever  willing  to  assist  one  another, 
and  we  were  often  surprised  to  see  how  ready  they  were  to 
share  their  limited  store  with  others,  whether  in  want  or 
not. 

A  more  friendly  people  we  never  met  than  the  good 
people  who  dwell  on  the  eastern  slopes-  of  the  Colombian 
Cordilleras.  They  always  have  a  kindly  greeting  for  every 
one  they  meet.  No  one,  not  even  the  youngest  child,  will 
pass  you  on  the  road  without  a  cordial  "Buenos  dias" 
"Buenas  tardes"  or  "Buenas  noches" — Good  day,  Good 
evening,  or  Good  night — as  the  case  may  be.  These  cheer- 
ing salutations,  that  were  always  forthcoming,  whether  we 

240 


STOPPING  FOB  LUNCHEON  IN  THE  LOWER  CORDILLERAS. 


THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

met  one  or  a  score,  young  or  old,  made  us  forget  that  we 
were  in  a  foreign  land,  far  from  home  and  friends,  and 
quite  reconciled  us  to  any  little  discomforts  we  might  expe- 
rience along  our  steep  and  rugged  path.  Here  among 
these  simple,  unspoiled  people  the  brotherhood  of  man  is 
not  an  empty  rhetorical  phrase,  or  a  vain  poetical  figment, 
but  a  living,  every-day  reality. 

How  often  during  our  journeyings  in  the  savannas  and 
highlands  of  Colombia  did  we  not  recall  the  beautiful 
couplet  of  Castellanos  regarding  the  primitive  inhabitants 
of  New  Granada ! — 

"Gente  liana,  fiel,  modesta,  clara, 
Leal,  humilde,  sana  y  obediente." 1 

They  are  the  same  to-day,  especially  when  removed  from 
the  baleful  influence  of  those  who,  instead  of  aiding  them, 
would  drag  them  down  to  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation 
and  servitude. 

But  obliging  and  honest  as  we  always  found  these  people 
to  be,  they,  nevertheless,  invariably  failed  us  in  one  particu- 
lar. We  could  never,  except  occasionally  by  accident,  get 
from  them  a  correct  or  satisfactory  answer  about  the  dis- 
tance from  one  place  to  another. 

Never  shall  we  forget  our  experience  during  our  first 
day's  journey  in  the  Cordilleras.  Our  objective  point  was 
San  Miguel,  where  we  were  told  we  should  find  a  good 
lodging  house — one  of  the  best  on  the  road,  we  were  assured 
— and,  as  the  distance  was  great,  it  was  necessary  to  make 
extra  good  time  in  order  to  arrive  there  before  nightfall. 
The  heavy,  long-continued  rains  had  made  our  trail  ex- 

i  "Plain  folk  and  faithful,  modest  and  frank, 

Loyal,  humble,  sane  and  obedient.99 

This  is  particularly  true  of  Indian  children.  Writing  of  them,  a  Do- 
minican missionary,  who  had  lived  among  them,  and  knew  them  well,  ex- 
presses himself  as  follows: — 

"Je  ne  sal  rien  d'aimable,  de  gracieux,  de  docile  et  d'intelligeni  comma 
le  jeune  Indien" — "I  know  nothing  so  amiable,  so  kindly,  so  docile  and  so 
intelligent  as  the  young  Indian." — Voyage  d' Exploration  d*  un  Miasionaire 
Dominicain  chess  les  Tribua  Sauvages  de  I9  Equateur,  p.  310,  Paris,  1889. 

241 


IIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

tremely  heavy,  and  in  places  almost  impassable.  The 
hours  passed  and  we  found  ourselves  advancing  much  more 
slowly  than  was  desirable.  The  lowering  clouds  were 
massing  on  the  mountain  slopes,  and  the  rain  began  to  fall 
in  torrents.  It  then  began  to  dawn  upon  us  that  we  might 
not  be  able  to  reach  our  destination  in  the  limited  time 
yet  remaining  of  the  f astTdeparting  day. 

Further  progress  along  our  dangerous  path  in  the  im- 
penetrable gloom,  that  would  immediately  follow  sunset, 
we  knew  to  be  impossible.  We  knew  or  thought  we  knew, 
about  how  far  we  were  still  from  San  Miguel,  but  we  wished 
to  be  certain  about  the  distance. 

It  was  now  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  it  was 
imperative  for  us  to  reach  our  posada  by  six  o'clock,  if  we 
were  to  arrive  there  at  all  that  day.  We  accordingly 
inquired  of  one  of  the  many  peons  we  met,  who  were  return- 
ing to  their  homes  from  their  day's  labor  in  the  fields, 
how  far  it  was  to  San  Miguel.  "Tres  leguas,  Senores99 — 
three  leagues,  Sirs — was  the  answer  to  our  question. 

This  was  disheartening.  Our  mules  were  now  exhausted, 
and  could  not  possibly  make  three  leagues  in  two  hours 
over  the  terrific  track  we  were  traveling.  But  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  push  on.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  we  asked 
the  same  question  of  another  peon.  "Quatro  leguas, 
Senores" — four  leagues,  Sirs,  was  the  reply.  This  answer 
was  confirmed  by  several  other  peons,  whom  we  also  ques- 
tioned. Matters  were  becoming  serious,  but  we  continued 
on  in  silence,  hoping  against  hope. 

About  a  half  hour  later  we  again  renewed  our  query. 
"Una  legua,  Senores99 — one  league,  Sirs — said  a  bright 
boy,  who  was  driving  a  heavily-laden  donkey.  It  was  now 
dusk,  and  as  dusk  in  the  tropics  lasts  but  a  few  minutes, 
we  knew  that  we  should  soon  be  enveloped  in  total  darkness. 

A  little  further  on,  a  woman,  with  a  child  in  her  arms, 
informed  us  that  San  Miguel  was  "cerca" — near.  This 
was  too  ambiguous  for  us,  as  it  might  mean  one  league  or 
several  leagues.  Asking  her  how  near  it  was,  she  replied 

242 


THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

muy  cerca — very  near.  This  was  still  unsatisfactory.  She 
then  assured  us  that  it  was  "cerquita,"  "cerquitita" — 
diminutives  of  cerca — *  meaning  that  the  place  was  ex- 
tremely near,  only  a  few  steps  farther.  "Dando  la  vuelta 
de  la  esquina" — around  the  corner  there — she  said,  "is 
San  Miguel,  the  second  house  you  come  to."  Peering  into 
the  darkness  before  us,  we  could  barely  discern  what  ap- 
peared a  projection  from  the  mountain  side.  We  had 
to  be  satisfied  with  this  answer  as,  try  as  we  would,  we 
could  elicit  nothing  more  definite  from  our  informant. 

The  darkness  was  now  so  dense  that  we  were  unable 
to  see  even  as  far  as  our  mules 9  ears.  There  was  then 
nothing  to  be  done  but  to  give  our  animals  the  rein  and 
trust  them  to  carry  us  to  our  destination.  As  if  guided 
by  a  peculiar  instinct,  they  carefully  picked  their  way 
through  the  mud,  but  we  thought  they  should  never  get 
around  that  corner  towards  which  we  had  been  directed. 

We  were  now  quite  exhausted,  as  we  had  eaten  nothing 
since  morning,  and  longed  for  a  place  of  shelter,  where 
we  could  find  repose.  Only  once  before,  in  all  my  travels, 
did  it  seem  to  take  so  long  to  get  around  a  mountain  spur. 
Years  ago,  in  the  mountains  of  the  Peloponnesus,  I  had  a 
similar  experience,  but  then  the  road  was  good  and  the 
moon  was  shining.  Here  there  was  only  a  wretched,  dan- 
gerous trail,  and  it  was  pitch  dark. 

At  the  long  last,  we  saw  a  light  glimmering  in  a  hut  by 
the  roadside.  This  was  something.  The  next  house,  which 

i  The  people  of  Venezuela  and  Colombia  are  very  fond  of  using  diminutives, 
and  one  must  confess  that  it  often  gives  to  their  conversation  a  peculiar 
charm  and  expressiveness.  Thus  from  todo,  all  or  every,  they  form  todito, 
toditico;  from  cerca,  near,  they  derive  cerquita,  cerquitita  or  cerquitica. 
Instead  of  Adios  they  will  say  Adiosito,  and  instead  of  Yo  voy  passando  bien, 
one  hears  To  voy  passandito  bien. 

I  once  gave  a  young  mother  a  medal  for  a  child  she  was  holding  on  her 
lap,  and  she  at  once  said,  "Mutchisimas  gracias,  Jiijito,  yo  pondre  la-  medallita 
lueguito  al  cuellito  de  la  queridita  que  va  andandito  asi,  no  mas."  "Many 
thanks,  little  son"— I  was  old  enough  to  be  her  grandfather— -"I  shall  imme- 
diately put  the  little  medal  on  the  little  neck  of  the  little  darling,  which  is 
in  rather  delicate  health." 

243 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

was  said  to  be  hard  by,  should  be  the  long-desired  San 
Miguel. 

To  reassure  ourselves,  we  asked  a  woman  who  was  stand- 
ing at  the  door  of  the  cot,  where  was  San  Miguel.  She 
did  not  know.  She  had  never  heard  of  such  a  place.  It 
might  be  at  the  other  side  of  the  mountain,  or  we  might 
already  have  passed  it;  she  could  not  tell. 

"But  is  there  not  a  posada  near  here,"  I  queried,  "or 
a  place  where  we  can  remain  over  night?"  "Oh!  yes," 
the  woman  replied,  "there  is  a  very  good  posada  just  across 
the  road — that  large  building  right  in  front  of  you.  You' 
are  looking  for  la  Senora  Filomena's  house.  That  is  what 
we  call  it  here."  And  so  it  was.  A  few  rods  away  was 
San  Miguel,  at  last.  Only  the  tired,  famished  traveler  in 
a  strange  land  can  realize  how  glad  we  were  that  the  day's 
journey  was  finally  at  an  end. 

We  spent  a  very  uncomfortable  night  at  San  Miguel,  and 
were  glad  when  we  found  ourselves,  early  the  following 
morning,  again  in  the  saddle,  bound  for  Caqueza,  the  capital 
of  a  district  near  the  summit  of  the  Cordilleras.  "We 
must  make  better  time  than  yesterday,"  I  said,  on  starting, 
to  our  vaqueano.  "Si,  Senor."  "We  shall  arrive  at 
Caqueza  by  four  o'clock,  shall  we  not!"  "Es  imposible, 
Senor.  It  is  impossible,  Sir."  "Well,  then,  we  shall  arrive 
by  five,  shall  we  notf  "  "No  sepuede,  Senor.  It  cannot  be 
done,  Sir."  "At  all  events,  we  must  reach  Caqueza  before 
dark."  "Tal  vez,  no — Probably  not,"  was  his  final  reply, 
and  we  had  to  let  it  go  at  that. 

The  scenery  along  our  route  between  San  Miguel  and 
Caqueza  was  much  like  that  which  we  had  so  much  admired 
during  the  preceding  day.  The  country  was,  however, 
much  more  thickly  populated  and  we  met  many  more  people 
on  the  way.  There  was  always  that  same  cordial  greeting, 
that  had  before  touched  us  so  deeply,  and  the  same  dis- 
position to  oblige  us  in  any  way  possible. 

At  one  place  on  the  roadside,  we  saw  a  young  couple, 
neither  more  than  eighteen  years  of  age,  erecting  a  little 

244 


THE  COEDILLEEA  OP  THE  ANDES 

bamboo  cot.  They  were  evidently  just  entering  upon  house- 
keeping, and  seemed  to  be  very  happy.  The  labor  involved 
in  the  construction  of  their  future  home  was  little  and 
the  expense  was  nothing.  All  would  be  in  readiness  for 
occupancy  in  a  day  or  two  after  work  begun.  Then 
their  little  plot  of  ground,  planted  with  maize,  yuca,  plan- 
tains and  bananas,  together  with  a  few  domestic  animals, 
would  supply  them  with  all  the  food  required  and  enable 
them  to  enjoy  an  idyllic  existence  far  away  from  the  mad- 
dening crowd,  and  quite  removed  from 

"The  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret 
Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan." 

It  was  evidently  some  such  Arcadian  scene  that  was 
before  Tennyson's  vision  when  he,  in  Locksley  Hall,  penned 
the  beautiful  lines, 

"Ah,  for  some  retreat," 
where 

"Slides  the  bird  o'er  lustrous  woodland,  swings  the  trailer  from 

the  crag — " 

"Droops  the  heavy-blossomed   bower,   hangs  the   heavy-fruited 

tree—" 

and  where  are 

"Breaths  of  tropic  shade  and  palms  in  cluster,  knots  of  Paradise." 

Further  on  we  met  another  young  couple,  radiant  with 
the  glow  of  youth  and  present  happiness,  carrying  all  their 
household  gods  with  them.  These  were  few  and  simple. 
The  man  carried  a  machete,  and  a  few  rush  mats;  the 
woman  a  few  simple  culinary  utensils  consisting  mainly  of  a 
metal  pot  and  a  few  calabash  cups  and  dishes.  They  were 
evidently  looking  for  a  site  for  a  home,  and  probably,  a  few 
hours  later  had,  like  the  first  couple  we  saw,  their  simple 
habitation  well  under  way. 

Of  these  good  people  one  can  repeat  what  Peter  Martyr 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

said  of  the  aborigines   shortly   after   the   discovery   of 
America : 

"A  fewe  thinges  contente  them,  hauinge  no  delite  in 
suche  superfluites,  for  the  which  in  other  places  men  take 
infinite  paynes  and  commit  manie  vnlawfull  actes,  yet  are 
neuer  satisfied,  whereas  many  haue  to  muche,  and  none 
inowgh.  But  emonge  these  simple  sowles,  a  fewe  clothes 
seme  the  naked;  weightes  and  measures  are  not  needefull 
to  such  as  cannot  kyll  of  crafte  and  deceyte  and  haue  not 
the  vse  of  pestiferous  monye,  the  seede  of  unnumerable 
myscheues.  So  that  if  we  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  conf esse 
the  truthe,  they  seeme  to  lyue  in  that  goulden  worlde  of 
the  whiche  owlde  wryters  speak  so  much ;  wherin  men  lyued 
simplye  and  innocentlye  without  inf orcement  of  lawes,  with- 
out quarrellinge.  Judges  and  libelles,  contente  onely  to 
satisfie  nature,  without  further  vexation  for  knowledge  of 
thinges  to  come-" l 

Later  on  in  the  day  we  came  across  more  home-builders, 
but  of  quite  a  different  kind  from  those  above  mentioned. 
Toward  noon,  we  noticed  some  distance  ahead  of  us,  what 
appeared  to  be  a  greenish  black  ribbon,  extended  along 
our  path.  It  was  about  a  foot  wide  and  several  hundred 
feet  long.  We  could  not  imagine  what  it  could  be  until 
we  were  within  a  few  yards  of  it.  It  proved  to  be  an  army 
of  ants  on  a  foraging  expedition.  There  were  millions,  if 
not  billions  of  them.  Those  on  one  side  were  carrying 
pieces  of  leaves  about  the  size  of  a  sixpence.  They  formed 
the  green  part  of  the  ribbon  that  we  had  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance. Those  on  the  other  side,  moving  in  an  opposite 
direction,  constituted  the  black  part.  They  were  all 
engaged  in  getting  material  for  thatching  their  curious 
dome-like  homes,  which  are  often  of  extraordinary  dimen- 
sions. Sometimes  they  are  fully  thirty  or  forty  feet  in 
diameter. 

We  regretted  that  time  did  not  permit  us  to  examine  the 
length  of  their  line  of  march,  from  their  marvelous  dwell- 

i  Richard  Eden,  op.  tit.,  p.  71. 

246 


THE  CORDILLERA  OF  THE  ANDES 

ings  to  the  trees  they  were  stripping  for  roofing  material. 
They  have  been  known  to  go  a  mile  or  more  for  material 
suited  to  their  purpose  and  to  deprive  scores  of  trees  of 
all  their  leaves  in  a  single  day. 

To  one  unfamiliar  with  the  tropics,  the  depredations  com- 
mitted by  these  destructive  insects  appear  incredible.  Of 
an  unknown  number  of  species,  they  are  among  the  greatest 
enemies  of  man  in  the  equatorial  regions.  They  spare 
nothing.  Gardens  and  orchards,  coffee  and  sugar,  cassava 
and  banana  plantations  disappear  as  quickly  before  them 
as  before  blight  or  frost. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  according  to 
Herrera,1  their  numbers  in  Espanola  and  Puerto  Eico  were 
so  great  and  their  devastations  so  extensive  and  irresistible, 
that  they  threatened  to  depopulate  the  islands.  Various 
parts  of  South  America  have  also  at  different  times  suf- 
fered from  the  same  plague — rivaling  the  seven  plagues 
of  Egypt  in  the  distress  and  destruction  which  marked 
their  path.  Had  we  not  had  here,  and  elsewhere  in  the 
tropics,  ocular  evidence  of  their  prodigious  numbers,  and 
been  witnesses  of  the  magnitude  of  the  works  due  to  their 
united  efforts,  we  should  have  classed  the  accounts  left  us 
by  the  early  chroniclers  of  the  extent  of  the  ravages  of 
the  ant  plague  among  works  of  fiction  rather  than  records 
of  authentic  history.2 

The  scenery  along  the  mountain  ascent  was  an  ever- 
changing  panorama  of  rarest  beauty  and  sublimity,  such 
as  no  pen  could  describe  or  brush  portray.  It  exhibited  all 
the  tropical  luxuriance  of  the  llanos  together  with  the  wild 
picturesqueness  characteristic  of  Alpine  heights. 

At  times  we  wended  our  way  along  the  banks  of  a  noise- 
less river,  which,  in  solitary  grandeur,  was  sweeping 
through  verdant  meads  and  beneath  arcades  of  sylvan 

1  Historic,  de  las  Indias  Occidentals,  Dec.  II,  Lib.  Ill,  Gap.  14. 

2  The  town  of  Santa  Rosa,  in  Ecuador,  had  to  be  abandoned  because  of 
the  swarms  of  ants  that  invaded  the  place.    It  is  now  known  as  Anagollacta— 
place  of  ants. 

247 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

green,  carrying  its  vivifying  waves  to  the  broad,  expectant 
plains  below.  The  placid  scene,  dotted  with  human  habita- 
tions, and  variegated  by  bright  pastures,  the  home  of  con- 
tented flocks  and  herds,  offered  to  the  enchanted  gaze,  in 
a  single  picture,  all  the  fabled  beauties  of  the  glens  of 
Tempe  and  the  dales  of  Arcady. 

As  we  mounted  higher  up  on  our  way,  our  route  was 
along  the  verge  of  deep,  headlong  torrents  mantled  in  the 
shade  of  overhanging  bamboos,  or  obscured  by  the  jutting 
crags  and  huge  beetling  rocks  of  the  earthquake-rift 
mountain.  Ever  and  anon,  our  ears  caught  the  muffled  but 
incessant  roar  of  thunderous  waterfalls,  which  plunged 
from  dizzy  precipices  high  above  our  heads,  both  to  the 
right  and  to  the  left  of  our  upward  path. 

Scarcely  had  the  deafening  notes  of  these  tumultuous 
floods,  which  awakened  a  thousand  echoes  in  the  sombre 
caves  and  yawning  gulfs  of  the  countless  windings  and 
abrupt  breaks  of  the  mountain  ravines,  died  away,  before 
we  found  ourselves  in  presence  of  some  murmuring  cas- 
cade that  might  well  have  adorned  the  grove  around  the 
grotto  of  Calypso.  In  the  gleaming  crystal  basin  at  its 
foot,  embowered  in  vernal  bloom  and  eternal  verdure,  which 
diffused  an  aromatic  breath  over  the  passer-by,  was 
tremulously  reflected  the  plumed  crown  of  the  palm  tree 
under  which  the  weary  traveler  sought  a  moment's  rest 
for  his  weary  frame.  At  every  turn  in  our  steep  and 
devious  path,  our  eyes  were  delighted  by  some  wild, 
struggling  brook,  that  fretted  its  way  through  a  labyrin- 
thine gorge,  pranked  with  verdurous  gloom,  or  charmed  by 
some  wanton  rivulet  leaping  over  rocks  or  forming  limped 
pools,  canopied  with  foliage  and  flowers  of  rarest  fra- 
grance and  brightest  hue,  that 

"Forever  gaze  on  their  own  drooping  eyes, 
Eeflected  in  the  crystal  calm/' 

It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say,  that  in  our  journey 
from  the  foot  to  the  summit  of  the  Andes,  we  passed  in 

248 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

rapid  review  some  of  earth's  grandest  and  most  entrancing 
prospects.  Sometimes  I  was  reminded  of  the  mountains 
and  valleys  of  the  Alps,  at  others  of  the  peaks  and  canones 
of  the  Eocky  Mountains.  Some  cataracts  recalled  the 
waterfalls  seen  leaping  from  the  lofty  precipices  of  Alaska; 
others,  those  that  add  such  a  charm  to  the  manifold  won- 
ders of  the  Yosemite  and  the  Yellowstone. 

But  the  Andean  views  can  always  claim  a  superiority 
over  all  northern  scenes  of  a  similar  character,  in  the 
marvelous  setting  afforded  by  the  ever-verdant  and  ex- 
uberant vegetation  of  the  tropics.  How  often  did  we  not 
wish,  during  this  memorable  trip,  that  we  could  command 
the  brush  of  a  Turner  or  a  Poussin  or  a  Claude  Lorrain, 
in  order  to  bring  home  with  us  copies  of  some  of  those 
wonderful  pictures  that  Nature  exhibited  to  our  admiring 
gaze  in  her  great  art  gallery  of  the  Oriental  Cordilleras ! 

The  higher  we  ascended  above  the  lowlands  the  less 
dense  became  the  forests  and  the  less  luxuriant  the  vegeta- 
tion. At  times  there  were  extended  reaches  of  land  that 
were  quite  treeless;  at  others  the  surface  of  the  soil  was 
covered  with  scrubby  growths  that  were  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  splendid  sylvan  exhibitions  to  which  we  had 
been  so  long  accustomed.  But  although  the  giants  of  the 
forest  were  no  longer  visible,  there  was  little  diminution  of 
the  splendor  of  the  floral  display  along  our  path.  In  one 
place,  particularly,  we  were  surprised  beyond  measure  to 
find  the  whole  side  of  a  mountain  spur  covered  with  a 
glorious  mantle  of  immaculately  white  lilies.  The  scene 
was  not  unlike  one  of  the  large  lily  fields  of  Bermuda,  that 
supply  our  Easter  altars  with  their  choicest  decorations* 

We  were  greatly  delighted  to  find  in  the  tropics  repre- 
sentatives of  the  feathered  tribe  that  we  were  familiar  with 
in  the  far  North.  Large  flocks  of  them  annually  leave 
North  America  and  Europe  to  spend  the  winter  season  in 
South  America  and  as  regularly  return  to  their  northern 
homes  the  following  summer.  Some  of  them  come  from 
far-off  Alaska  and  extend  their  flight  as  far  south  as 

249 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Tierra  del  Fuego.  Others  spend  the  summer  in  southeast 
Siberia  and  then,  on  the  approach  of  winter,  migrate  by 
way  of  North  America  to  South  Brazil.  Among  the  most 
numerous  of  these  marvelous  birds  of  passage  are  certain 
species  of  sandpipers,  plovers  and  lapwings.  The  bobo- 
link, known  along  the  Chesapeake  as  the  reedbird,  and 
dreaded  as  the  ricebird  in  the  rice  fields  of  the  South,  ex- 
tends its  migrations  as  far  into  South  America  as  south- 
eastern Brazil.  Many  of  our  familiar  warblers  and  spar- 
rows are  to  be  seen  during  the  winter  months  in  Venezuela 
and  Colombia,  while  certain  cliff  and  barn  swallows  pene- 
trate as  far  south  as  Paraguay.  On  the  Orinoco  and  the 
Meta,  we  recognized  many  species  of  ducks  that  were 
familiar  to  us  in  the  United  States,  among  which  were  the 
pin-tail,  bald-pate,  golden-eye  and  blue-winged  teal. 

"The  plovers,  sandpipers  and  kindred  species,"  writes 
Knowlton,  "take  migratory  journeys  often  of  extraordi- 
nary length.  Thus  the  American  golden  plover,  Charadrius 
dominicusy  breeds  in  arctic  America,  some  venturing  a 
thousand  miles  north  of  the  Arctic  Circle,  and  migrates 
through  the  entire  length  of  North  and  South  America  to 
its  winter  home  in  Patagonia,  and,  curiously,  its  spring  and 
fall  routes  are  different.  After  feasting  on  the  crowberry, 
in  Labrador,  they  seek  the  coast  of  Nova  Scotia,  where 
they  strike  out  to  sea,  taking  a  direct  course  for  the  eastern- 
most islands  of  the  West  Indies,  and  thence  to  the  north- 
eastern coast  of  South  America.  In  spring  not  one 
returns  by  this  route,  but  in  March  they  appear  in 
Guatemala  and  Texas.  April  finds  their  long  lines  trailing 
the  prairies  of  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  the  first  of  May  sees 
them  crossing  our  northern  boundary,  and  by  the  first  week 
in  June  they  appear  in  their  breeding  grounds  in  the 
frozen  north.  The  little  sanderling,  just  mentioned,  is  al- 
most cosmopolitan  in  distribution,  breeding  in  the  arctic 
and  sub-arctic  regions  and  migrating  in  the  New  World 
to  Chile  and  Patagonia,  a  distance  of  eight  thousand  miles, 
and  in  the  Old  World  along  the  shore  of  Europe,  Asia  and 

250 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

Africa.  The  Bartramian  sandpiper,  Bartramia  longi- 
cauda,  nests  from  eastern  North  America  to  Nova  Scotia 
and  Alaska,  and  goes  south  in  winter  to  southern  South 
America.  The  solitary  sandpiper,  Totanus  solitarius, 
breeds  mainly  to  the  north  of  the  United  States,  and  winters 
as  far  south  as  Brazil  and  Peru.  The  buff-breasted  sand- 
piper, Tryngites  subruficollis,  rears  its  young  in  the  Yukon 
district  of  Alaska  and  from  the  interior  of  British 
Colombia  to  the  Arctic  coast,  and  journeys  in  winter  well 
into  South  America.  The  turnstone,  Arenaria  interpres,  a 
little  shore  bird,  about  the  size  of  the  song  thrush  of 
Europe,  is  also  cosmopolitan,  breeding  in  high  northern 
latitudes  and  at  other  times  of  the  year  found  along  the 
coasts  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  North  America,  South 
America  to  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  Australia  and  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  islands.  It  is  one  of  the  species  men- 
tioned as  making  the  wonderful  flight  from  the  islands  in 
Bering  Sea  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands. "  l 

By  what  miraculous  instinct  are  they  guided  in  these 
semi-annual  migrations  across  half  the  globe!  Who  bids 
them,  asks  Pope, 

"Columbus-like,  explore 

Heavens  not  their  own,  and  worlds  unknown  before? 
Who  calls  the  council,  states  the  certain  day. 
Who  forms  the  phalanx,  and  who  points  the  way?" 

Have  they  a  special  "sense  of  direction/'  or  is  their  "hom- 
ing" faculty  or  power  of  orientation,  something  that  is 
tantamount  to  a  sixth  sense? 

We  now  know  far  more  about  the  migrations  of  birds  than 
was  known  only  a  few  decades  ago.  We  are  able  to  locate 
many  of  them  during  the  various  seasons  of  the  year,  and 
are  quite  certain  that  they  never,  as  an  ingenious  writer 
of  the  early  seventeenth  century  maintained,  spend  the 
winter  in  the  moon,  where  they  have  no  occasion  for  food; 
but  we  have  yet  much  to  learn  regarding  the  causes  of 

i  Birds  of  the  World,  Chap.  IV,  New  York,  1909. 
251 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

their  periodic  migrations,  and  the  nature  of  that  instinct 
that  enables  them  to  pass,  with  unerring  precision,  from 
the  arctic  to  the  antarctic  regions,  and  from  the  Old 
World  to  the  New.  We  are  accumulating  daily  new  facts 
regarding  the  distant  flights  of  the  birds  of  passage,  but, 
notwithstanding  the  many  theories,  some  of  them  more 
fantastic  than  scientific,  that  have  been  advanced  to  ex- 
plain the  cause  of  the  migrations  of  birds ;  why  such  migra- 
tions were  undertaken  in  the  beginning,  why  they  are 
still  continued,  and  how  birds  are  able  to  find  their  way, 
during  their  marvelous  flights  from  the  arctic  to  the  ant- 
arctic— we  are  still  in  the  dark  about  many  questions  con- 
nected with  those  mysterious  migrations,  which  have 
excited  the  interest  of  even  the  most  casual  observer  since 
the  prophet  Jeremiah  wrote:  "The  stork  in  the  heaven 
knoweth  her  appointed  time;  and  the  turtle  and  the  crane, 
and  the  swallows  observe  the  time  of  their  coming."  1 

Almost  before  we  were  aware  of  it,  the  sun  had  begun  to 
paint  the  crest  of  the  Andes  with  bright  vermeil  and  soft 
purple,  and  we  were  still  far  from  Caqueza — the  goal  of 
our  day's  journey.  With  the  exception  of  the  half-hour 
we  had  tarried  for  luncheon  at  an  attractive  posada,  called 
Media  Luna,  we  had  been  in  the  saddle  all  day,  and  had 
pushed  forwards  as  rapidly  as  the  strength  of  our  animals 
would  permit.  We  had  left  our  vaqueano  and  peons  in  the 
rear  early  in  the  day,  and  it  was  not  at  all  likely  that  they 
would  be  able  to  reach  Caqueza  before  the  following  fore- 
noon. 

After  a  delightful,  sunshiny  day,  the  sky,  towards  sun- 
set, suddenly  became  overcast  with  dark,  threatening  clouds, 

i  So  fixed  are  the  periods  of  migration,  and  so  punctual  is  the  feathered 
tribe  in  starting  on  its  semiannual  flights,  that  "The  Arabs  are  said  to  have 
been  helped  in  the  compilation  of  their  calendars,  by  noting  the  times  of 
the  arrival  and  departure  of  migratory  birds;  and  the  Redskin  in  the  far 
Northwest  has  received  much  the  same  aid  from  the  birds  of  another  conti- 
nent." 

All  things  considered,  Professor  Newton  was  probably  right  when  he  de- 
clared that  the  migration  of  birds  is  "perhaps  the  greatest  mystery  which 
the  whole  animal  kingdom  presents." 

252 


THE  CORDILLERA  OP  THE  ANDES 

and  presently  it  began  to  rain.  One  thing,  however,  was 
in  our  favor,  and  that  was  the  trail.  It  was  in  a  far  better 
condition  than  that  of  the  preceding  day,  but  it  lay  along 
the  breast  of  a  precipitous  mountain  slope,  at  the  foot  of 
which,  within  ear-shot,  coursed  an  impetuous  mountain 
torrent  The  greater  part  of  the  way  was  quite  safe,  and 
we  could  trust  our  mules,  even  in  the  dark,  to  keep  to  the 
path.  But  here  and  there  were  treacherous  places — loose 
ground,  and  landslides  caused  by  recent  rains — which 
rendered  traveling,  even  in  the  daytime,  sufficiently 
difficult.  In  the  darkness,  that  was  every  moment  becom- 
ing more  dense,  locomotion  was  positively  dangerous. 
There  was  no  house  on  the  way  in  which  we  could  find 
shelter  for  the  night.  Our  tent,  with  our  other  baggage, 
was  in  the  hands  of  our  dilatory  peons*  The  only  alter- 
natives, then,  were  pressing  on  to  Caqueza,  despite  dark- 
ness and  danger,  or  standing  still  in  our  trail,  where  there 
was  not  even  a  shrub  to  temper  the  ever-increasing  down- 
pour. We  elected  to  trust  our  lives  again  to  our  mules, 
as  we  had  done  the  previous  night.  This  seemed  to  be  the 
lesser  of  the  two  evils  that  confronted  us. 

'  We  then  recalled  the  hesitating  answer  that  our  vaqueano 
had,  in  the  morning,  given  to  our  query  about  reaching 
Caqueza  before  nightfull.  His  "Tal  vez,  no" — perhaps 
not,  was  a  gentle  prognostic  that  it  was  impossible,  at  least 
for  the  baggage  mules.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  did  not 
arrive  until  towards  noon  the  next  day.  Their  mules  had 
given  out,  and  the  vaqueano  and  peons  had  to  make  shift 
to  spend  the  night  as  best  they  could  under  an  inclement 
sky. 

The  last  objects  of  interest  that  we  descried  in  the 
deepening  gloom  were  a  number  of  peasant  cots  perched 
high  upon  the  mountain  sides — much  like  so  many  cottages 
in  the  higher  Alps — and  the  junction  of  two  rivers — the 
Eio  Blanco  and  the  Bio  Negro.  The  rivers  specially  at- 
tracted our  attention,  as  the  color  of  the  waters  of  the  one, 
the  Blanco— white — was  in  such  marked  contrast  with  the 

253 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

waters  of  the  other,  the  Negro  or  black  river.  The  one 
owed  its  color  to  the  white  clay  soil  through  which  it  passed. 
The  other  was  rendered  black — like  the  well-known  bog- 
tinctured,  " black  waters"  of  Ireland — by  the  presence  of 
organic  material.  Even  long  after  the  waters  of  the  two 
tributaries  had  entered  their  common  channel,  they  kept 
quite  separate — the  black  flowing  along  one  bank  and  the 
white  along  the  bank  opposite. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  enumerate  the  many  difficulties 
we  encountered,  during  our  long  ride  in  the  darkness,  be- 
fore we  finally  arrived  at  Caqueza.  Suffice  to  say  that 
it  was  several  long  hours  after  nightfall,  and  that  we 
were  both  quite  exhausted,  both  by  hunger  and  fatigue. 
We  never  felt  time  to  pass  so  slowly,  as  during  the  last 
hour  of  the  day's  journey,  when  there  was  danger  in  every 
step  forward  from  the  ever-threatening  ravine,  along  the 
edge  of  which  our  path  lay,  and  we  were  quite  ready  to  ex- 
claim with  Shelley, 

"How  like  death-worms  the  wingless  moments  crawl/' 

In  the  posada  where  we  purposed  spending  the  night, 
which  was  recommended  as  the  best  in  town,  we  found 
sufficient  to  appease  the  pangs  of  hunger,  but  we  were  soon 
made  to  realize  that  we  had  another  sleepless  night  before 
us.  In  San  Miguel  our  quarters  were  damp  and  our 
blankets  wet,  owing  to  some  carelessness  on  the  part  of 
our  peons.  In  Caqueza  the  rooms  assigned  us — and  par- 
ticularly the  beds — could  best  be  described  by  a  single 
word — insectiferous.  They  were  a  veritable  insectarium 
that  served  no  scientific  or  economic  purpose.  It  is  but 
just,  however,  to  record  that  this  was  our  first  experience 
of  the  kind  during  our  journey  thus  far  in  the  tropics. 
Under  the  circumstances,  there  was  nothing  left  for  us  to 
do  except  resignedly  to  exclaim  with  the  pious  native — 
Sea  por  Dios — may  it  be  received  by  God  in  atonement 
for  sin. 


CHAPTER  IX 
IN  CLOUDLAND 

"Knowest  thou  the  track  that  o'er  the  mountain  goes, 
Where  the  mule  threads  its  way  through  mist  and  snows, 
Where  dwell  in  caves  the  dragon's  ancient  brood, 
Topples  the  crag,  and  o'er  it  roars  the  flood, 
Knowest  thou  it  well  ? 

O  come  with  me ! 
There  lies  our  road — oh,  father,  let  us  flee." 

— Mignan. 

Our  plan,  on  leaving  Villavicencio,  was  to  reach  Bogota 
in  three  days.  This  we  could  easily  have  accomplished, 
had  there  not  been  a  mistake  in  the  telegram  ordering 
horses  to  be  in  readiness  for  us  on  our  arrival  at  Caqueza. 
The  morning  after  arriving  there,  when  we  inquired  for 
our  mounts,  we  were  surprised  to  learn  that  we  were  not 
expected  until  a  day  later,  and  that  it  would  not  be  pos- 
sible for  us  to  get  animals  until  the  following  morning. 

"Travelers  usually  take  three  days  to  make  the  trip 
from  Villavicencio  to  Caqueza, "  said  Sr.  N.,  who  was  to 
furnish  the  horses,  "and  I  did  not  think  you  would  attempt 
to  make  such  an  arduous  journey  in  two  days.  However, 
everything  will  be  ready  early  to-morrow  morning.  Be- 
sides a  day's  rest  here,  preparatory  to  crossing  the  pa- 
ramo, will  do  you  no  harm.  Most  people  coming  up  from 
the  llanos  consider  it  necessary. " 

Not  desiring  to  remain  longer  in  the  insectarium,  in 
which  we  had  spent  so  wretched  a  night,  we  removed  to  an 
asistencia — boarding  house — in  another  part  of  the  town. 
Here  we  found  clean  and  comfortable  quarters  and  had 
reason  to  congratulate  ourselves  on  our  involuntary  deten- 
is  255 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

tion  in  this  interesting  town.  We  were  both  quite  jaded 
from  the  long  ride  of  the  previous  day,  and  really  needed 
some  repose  more  than  we  at  first  realized. 

"But  why  did  we  not,"  it  may  be  asked,  "continue  bur 
journey  through  to  Bogota  on  our  mules!  Are  they  not 
the  best  and  surest-footed  animals  in  the  steep  mountain 
trails?" 

The  reply  is  best  given  in  the  words  of  our  host  at 
Villavicencio,  Sr.  N.:  "It  would  never  do  for  such  dis- 
tinguished travelers  as  you  are — personas  tan  amdbles  y 
tan  Tfionordbles — to  enter  the  national  capital  on  such 
lowly  animals  as  mules.  Only  common  people  do  this. 
Custom  here  makes  it  de  rigueur  for  people  of  the  better 
classes  to  travel  on  horseback.  More  than  this.  Our 
people  usually  send  word  ahead  to  have  a  carriage  meet 
them  in  the  suburbs  of  Bogota,  as  they  do  not  care  to  enter 
the  city  even  on  horseback.  Permit  me  to  order  a  car- 
riage to  meet  you  at  Santa  Cruz,  some  distance  this  side 
of  the  capital. " 

We  thanked  him  for  his  kind  offer,  but  replied  that, 
while  we  should  be  glad  to  defer  to  the  custom  of  the 
country,  by  exchanging  our  mules  for  horses,  we  should 
forego  the  usual  formality  of  entering  the  city  in  a  car- 
riage. We  were  simple,  plain  travelers  and  wished  to  re- 
main such  till  the  end  of  our  journey. 

Caqueza,  fully  twenty-five  miles  from  Bogota,  is  the 
capital  of  a  district  of  the  same  name  and,  in  location,  is 
not  unlike  that  of  many  of  the  higher  mountain  towns  of 
Colombia  or  Switzerland.  It  is  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  beautiful  mountain  ridges  and  is  about  five  thousand 
and  six  hundred  feet  above  sea  level.  The  temperature  at 
seven  o'clock  p.  m.,  the  day  before  our  departure,  was  72° 
F.,  but  at  no  time  during  the  day  was  it  much  higher.  In 
temperature,  elevation  and  the  beauty  of  the  surrounding 
mountains  it  is  much  like  Caracas,  and  when  the  long-pro- 
jected railroad  from  Bogota  to  the  llanos  shall  have  been 
completed,  it  will  become  a  commercial  centre  of  consider- 

256 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

able  importance.  The  climate  is  salubrious  and  as  equable 
as  that  of  Bermuda,  and  the  town,  counting  about  two 
thousand  inhabitants,  is  just  such  a  place  as  the  traveler 
from  the  lowlands  would  delight  to  tarry  in,  if  he  were 
always  master  of  his  own  time. 

Early  the  second  morning  after  our  arrival  in  Caqueza, 
we  had  bidden  adieu  to  this  interesting  town  and  its  hos- 
pitable people  and  were  on  our  way  to  the  crest  of  the 
Andes.  Just  outside  of  the  town  we  crossed  the  Bio 
Caqueza,  over  what  looked  like  the  Devil's  Bridge  in  ruins. 
Fortunately,  we  had  grown  quite  accustomed  to  such  shaky 
structures,  although,  in  the  beginning,  we  approached 
them  with  the  greatest  misgivings.  Near  San  Miguel,  for 
instance,  we  had  to  cross  a  raging  torrent,  in  a  dark,  deep 
ravine,  over  what  was  but  the  semblance  of  a  bridge,  that 
threatened  every  moment  to  collapse.  It  was  in  reality 
nothing  more  than  three  logs  laid  side  by  side  and  covered 
with  loose  twigs  and  earth.  It  had  no  railings  or  balus- 
trades at  the  sides,  and  the  abutments  at  the  two  ends  had 
become  so  loosened  by  the  heavy  rains  that  it  seemed  every 
moment  on  the  verge  of  tottering  into  the  abyss  below. 
Even  our  mules  balked  at  the  treacherous  structure.  How- 
ever, after  taking  a  good  look  at  the  tumultuous  Eio  Negro, 
that  was  coursing  through  the  wild  gorge  beneath,  and 
stretching  their  long  ears  toward  the  opposite  bank,  as  if 
to  determine  thereby  what  chance  there  was  of  a  successful 
passage,  they  finally  ventured  on  the  bridge,  but  it  was 
with  fear  and  trembling.  And  how  light  was  their  step 
and  how  they  actually  felt  their  way  until  they  reached 
terra  firmal  From  that  moment  the  much-abused  mule 
rose  high  in  our  estimation.  He  may  be  obstinate,  but  he 
instinctively  avoids  danger.  And  when  he  concludes  to  go 
forward,  you  may  be  sure  that  the  danger  is  more  apparent 
then  real.  Subsequent  experience  only  confirmed  us  in 
the  impression  that  we  then  formed  of  him. 

From  the  time  we  crossed  the  Eio  Caqueza,  our  path 
was  ever  upward  towards  cloudland.  La  cumbre — the 

257 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

summit — of  the  Andes,  where  we  were  to  cross  it,  is  about 
midway  between  Caqueza  and  Bogota,  and  is  nearly  a  mile 
higher  than  the  makeshift  of  a  bridge  over  the  Eio 
Caqueza. 

We  had  left  Caqueza  only  a  few  miles  behind  us  when 
we  found  a  large  number  of  market  women — young  and  old 
— on  the  road.  They  were  mostly  Indians,  all  carrying 
heavy  burdens  from  seventy-five  to  a  hundred  pounds,  and, 
to  our  surprise,  they  were  all  en  route  to  Bogota.  I  do 
not  think  we  met  one  going  to  Caqueza.  They  were  loaded 
down  with  chickens,  eggs,  fruits  and  all  kinds  of  garden 
produce  for  the  Bogota  market. 

But  think  of  carrying  such  burdens  more  than  twenty 
miles,  and  that,  too,  over  the  lofty  Cordilleras !  And  think, 
too,  of  the  slight  pittance  that  was  often  to  reward  the 
expenditure  of  such  energy!  Nevertheless,  all  of  these 
poor  people  seemed  to  be  quite  happy.  They  were  con- 
stantly chatting  and  singing,  as  they  trudged  along  the 
rough,  stony  path,  and  rarely  stopped  to  rest.  They  were 
clad  in  a  rough,  dark-colored  tunic,  something  like  the  pep- 
lum  or  chiton  of  the  ancient  Greeks.  Most  of  them  were 
barefooted,  although  we  saw  some  who  wore  alpargatas,  a 
kind  of  sandal  "made  from  the  fibres  of  the  aloe,  which 
flourishes  everywhere  in  the  uplands  of  Colombia.  As  in 
Mexico,  so  also  here,  this  plant  has  from  time  immemorial 
furnished  the  natives  many  articles  of  daily  use. 

What  specially  attracted  our  attention  was  the  number 
of  chickens  and  eggs  these  humble  folks  carried  with  them 
to  the  market.  When  we  observed  this  and  noted  the 
number  of  cattle,  horses  and  other  domestic  animals  we 
had  seen  along  our  route,  and  the  variety  of  fruits  and 
vegetables  that  were  under  cultivation,  we  could  not  but  re- 
call what  Herrera  has  to  say  about  the  absence  of  these 
and  other  things  in  pre-Colombian  times. 

"In  the  other  hemisphere"  (America),  he  writes, 
"there  were  no  dogs,  asses,  sheep,  goats,  swine,  cats, 
horses,  mules,  camels,  nor  elephants.  They  had  no 

258 


IN  CLOUDLAXD 

oranges,  lemons,  pomegranates,  figs,  quinces,  melons,  vines, 
nor  olives,  nor  sugar,  wheat  nor  rice.  They  knew  not  the 
use  of  iron,  knew  nothing  of  firearms,  printing  or  learning. 
Their  navigation  extended  not  beyond  their  sight;  their 
government  and  politics  were  barbarous.  Their  mountains 
and  vast  woods  were  not  habitable.  An  Indian  of  good 
natural  parts  being  asked  what  was  the  best  they  had  got 
by  the  Spaniards,  answered:  The  hen's  eggs,  as  being 
laid  new  every  day;  the  hen  herself  must  be  either  boiled 
or  roasted,  and  does  not  always  prove  tender,  while  the  egg 
is  good  every  way.  Then  he  added:  The  horse  and  arti- 
ficial light,  because  the  first  carries  men  with  ease  and 
bears  his  burdens,  and  by  means  of  the  latter  (the  Indians 
having  learned  to  make  wax  and  tallow  candles  and  oil), 
they  lived  some  part  of  the  night!  and  this  he  thought  to 
be  the  most  valuable  acquisition  from  the  white  people.  "* 

At  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards  in  South 
America,  there  were  no  domestic  animals  except  the  llama, 
the  alpaca,  the  guinea  pig  and  the  alco,  and  these  were 
found  only  within  the  limits  of  the  empire  of  the  Incas. 

There  was  a  time,  however,  long  anterior  to  the  advent 
of  Europeans — during  the  Pleistocene  epoch — when 
horses  2  and  the  larger  members  of  the  camel  tribe  roamed 
over  the  vast  plains  of  South  America,  notably  in  the  parts 
now  known  as  Argentina  and  Southern  Brazil.  It  was  at 
this  period,  too,  that  flourished  in  the  same  regions  those 
gigantic  creatures,  now  extinct,  known  as  the  mylodon,  the 
ground  sloth,  the  glyptodont,  the  mastodon,  the  toxodont 
and  peculiar  sabre-toothed  tigers,  vast  quantities  of  whose 
remains  have  been  found  and  carefully  stored  away  in  our 
museums.  Not  far  toward  the  west  of  us,  at  the  Campo 

1  Historia  de  las  Indias,  Dec.  I,  Cap.  V. 

2  "Certainly  it  is  a  marvelous  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Mammalia,"  says 
Charles  Darwin,  "that  in  South  America  a  native  horse  should  have  lived  and 
disappeared,  to  be  succeeded  in  after  ages  by  the  countless  herds  descended 
from  the  few  introduced  with  the  Spanish  colonists  I"— Journal  of  Researches 
into  the  Natural  History  and  Geology  of  the  Countries  Visited  during  the 
Voyage  of  H.  M.  8.  "Beagle"  round  the  World,  Chap.  VTL 

259 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

de  los  Gigantes  l  in  the  Savanna  of  Bogota — not  to  speak 
of  those  found  in  the  bluffs  along  the  valley  of  the  Zulia — 
abundant  fossil  remains  have  been  discovered  of  horses, 
taxodonts,  glyptodons,  and  megatheriums.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
remarkable  fact  that  the  South  American  continent,  which 
has  enriched  the  Old  World  with  so  many  valuable 
medicinal  and  economic  plants,  has  not  given  to  it  a  single 
useful  animal. 

After  traveling  some  hours  we  reached  Chipaque,  an  in- 
teresting mountain  town  fully  half  a  mile  higher  above 
sea  level  than  Caqueza.  Our  attention  was  attracted  by 
an  unusually  large  and  beautiful  stone  church,  which  was 
then  undergoing  repairs.  A  great  bell,  imported  from 
Europe,  had  just  been  put  in  one  of  the  towers.  It  was 
the  gift  of  Gen.  Eeyes,  then  president  of  the  republic,  and 
the  good  people  were  not  only  proud  of  their  bell  but  were 
loud  in  their  praises  of  the  generous  donor. 

But  where  did  the  money  come  from  for  the  erection  of 
such  a  noble  structure!  The  people  all  seemed  very  poor, 
and  quite  unable  to  keep  such  an  edifice  in  repair  after  its 
completion,  not  to  speak  of  supplying  the  means  for  build- 
ing it.  We  frequently  found  ourselves  asking  this  same 
question  in  other  parts  of  South  America,  when  con- 
templating the  large  and  beautiful  ecclesiastical  structures 
that  are  often  met  with  where  one  should  least  expect  to 
find  them.  The  builders  of  them  evidently  belonged  to 
those  ages  of  faith  that  have  bequeathed  to  us  those 
marvels  of  architecture — the  great  cathedrals  of  Europe. 

i  According  to  the  Chibchas,  the  fossil  remains  found  here  were  the  bones 
of  a  race  of  giants,  hence  the  name  given  the  locality.  Humboldt  and 
Cuvier,  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  showed  that  the  larger  bones 
found  were  the  remains  of  the  Mastodon  angustidens.  Similar  fossils  found 
in  other  parts  of  South  America  have  given  rise  to  like  fables.  Gieza  de 
Leon  devotes  an  interesting  chapter  to  a  race  of  giants  whose  remains  were 
found  at  Point  Santa  Helena,  near  Guayaquil.  And  on  the  tradition  of  a 
race  of  giants,  that  at  one  time  landed  at  this  place,  a  certain  Mr. 
Ranking,  in  1827,  published  a  fantastic  book  entitled  Researches  on  the  Con- 
quest  of  Peru  and  Mexico  by  the  Mongols,  accompanied  with  Elephants.  See 
La  Cronioa  del  Pent,  Cap.  UI,  of  Cieza  de  Leon. 

260 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

Something  that  always  afforded  us  great  comfort,  and 
that  was  rarely  far  away,  after  we  left  Villavicencio,  was 
the  telegraph  line.  For  weeks  we  had  been  far  away  from 
it,  and,  in  case  of  need,  it  could  not  have  been  reached.  It 
was  then  that  we  really  felt  that  we  were  indeed  a  long 
way  off  from  home  and  friends.  To  communicate  with 
them  by  letter  would  then  have  required  the  best  part  of 
a  year,  for  there  was  no  regular  postal  service  to  which  we 
could  have  had  recourse.  With  the  friendly  and  willing 
telegraph  ever  near,  it  was  quite  different.  By  its  means 
we  could,  in  a  few  hours  at  most,  convey  a  message  to  the 
most  distant  parts  of  the  world. 

When  leaving  any  given  place  in  the  morning  our  whole 
party — peons  with  baggage,  mules  included — would  be  to- 
gether. But  it  was  not  long  until  we  were  far  in  advance 
of  the  vaqueano  and  peons,  whom  we  would  not  again  see 
until  evening  or,  as  it  sometimes  happened,  until  the  fol- 
lowing morning.  There  was  rarely  any  danger  of  losing 
our  path,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  was,  as  a  rule, 
only  a  single  path  from  one  place  to  another.  We  had, 
therefore,  nothing  to  do  but  to  keep  to  the  trail.  Occa- 
sionally, however,  we  would  come  to  a  point  where  it  was 
necessary  to  choose  between  two  diverging  trails.  Then 
it  was  that  the  telegraph  line  was  an  invaluable  guide. 
We  followed  the  trail  which  it  paralleled,  and  in  so  doing 
we  never  went  astray. 

It  was  now  several  months  since  we  had  received  a  letter 
from  home.  We  had  not  even  seen  a  newspaper  of  any 
kind,  and  were,  consequently,  in  utter  ignorance  of  what 
was  occurring  in  the  great  and  busy  world  we  had  left  be- 
hind us.  But  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  traveler  in 
Nature's  wilds  seems  soon  to  grow  indifferent  to  the  world's 
doings.  Even  those  who  at  home  consider  the  morning 
and  evening  papers  indispensable  necessities,  seem  to  for- 
get that  there  are  such  things.  Nay,  they  even  experience 
a  sense  of  relief  that  they  have  gotten  beyond  the  reach 
of  post  and  telegraph,  and  that,  for  once  in  their  lives,  they 

261 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALBNA 

can  call  their  time  their  own.  Indeed,  the  absence  of  the 
daily  paper,  with  its  countless  dispatches,  far  from  being  a 
privation,  soon  impressed  us  as  a  positive  blessing^ 

We  enjoyed  a  sense  of  freedom— the  freedom  of  the  child 
of  the  forest — we  had  never  known  before.  We  were  be- 
ginning to  see  how  easy  it  was  to  dispense  with  many  things 
that  are  so  often  regarded  as  essentials  to  pleasure  and 
comfort.  If  we  had  been  unavoidably  detained  at  some 
Indian  encampment  for  a  few  months  or  found  it  necessary 
to  tarry  a  year  or  so  in  one  of  the  little  bamboo  cottages 
on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Andes,  we  should  not  have  re- 
garded it  as  an  unmixed  evil.  Even  as  I  pen  these  lines, 
I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  a  score  of  tiny  cots  along  the 
Eio  Negro  and  the  Eio  Caqueza,  near  a  purling  brook  or 
a  musical  cascade,  shaded  by  palms  and  surrounded  by 
smiling  citrus  trees,  where  it  would  be  a  delight  to  live  and 
commune  with  Nature  at  her  best. 

I  can  fully  sympathize  with  Waterton's  longing  for  the 
wild  and  his  love  of  tropical  life.  Every  lover  of  nature,* 
who  has  spent  some  time  in  the  heart  of  the  equatorial 
forests,  is  affected  in  the  same  way.  The  wanderlust  and 
dbenteuergeist — the  love  of  travel  and  adventure — grows 
on  one,  it  seems,  in  the  wilds  of  South  America  more  than 
elsewhere.  Is  it  because  the  conquistadores  and  other 
early  explorers  have  impregnated  the  atmosphere  with 
their  spirit,  or  because  the  environment  of  itself  has  the 
power  of  inoculating  the  visitor  from  the  north  with  the 
microbe  of  a  life-long  wanderleben?  Dicant  PaduanL 

Becording  Ms  impressions  of  travel  in  Andean  highlands 
a  writer  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century  says:  "A 
sense  of  extreme  loneliness  and  remoteness  from  the  world 
seizes  on  his,"  the  traveler's  mind,  "and  is  heightened  by 
the  dead  silence  that  prevails;  not  a  sound  being  heard  but 
the  scream  of  the  condor,  and  the  monotonous  murmur  of 
the  distant  waterfalls." l 

i  Campaigns  and  Cruises  in  Venezuela  and  New  Granada  from  1817-1880, 

262 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

This,  undoubtedly,  like  many  similar  impressions,  is  a 
question  of  temperament.  As  for  ourselves  we  never,  for 
a  single  moment,  experienced  anything  even  approaching 
a  feeling  of  loneliness  or  remoteness  from  the  world. 
Probably,  like  Scipio  Africanus,  we  are  among  those  who 
never  felt  less  alone  than  when  alone.  Far  from  feeling 
lonely  while  crossing  the  Cordilleras,  we  congratulated 
ourselves  that  we  were  far  away  from  the  beaten  track  of 
personally  conducted  tourists. 

We  could  not  help  comparing  the  splendid  panoramas 
around  us  with  the  noted  show  places  of  Switzerland.  In 
the  Andes  it  was  the  forest  primeval,  or  the  humble  cot,  or 
the  picturesque  village  of  the  unspoiled  and  simple  people 
of  eastern  Colombia,  where  a  foreigner  is  rarely  seen,  but 
where  he  is  always  sure  of  a  cordial  welcome.  There 
were  here  no  tourist  resorts,  no  palatial  hotels  or  restau- 
rants, no  sumptuous  chalets  or  villas — seats  of  opulence 
and  luxury — but  Nature  alone  in  all  hfcr  beauty  and  sub- 
limity, as  she  came  forth  from  the  hands  of  her  Creator. 
We  were  far  away  from  the  land  of  inclined  railroads,  lead- 
ing to  every  peak,  and  from  macadamized  thoroughfares, 
along  which  reckless  drivers  and  wild  chauffeurs  are  con- 
stantly claiming  the  right  of  way,  regardless  of  the  safety 
or  convenience  of  the  ordinary  wayfarer. 

The  uplands  of  the  Andes  should  be  the  last  places  in 
the  world  where  the  thoughtful  mind  should  experience  a 
sense  of  loneliness,  or  be  oppressed  with  tedium  or  listless- 
ness.  There,  if  anywhere,  such  a  thing  as  ennui  should  be 
impossible.  There  is  so  much  to  excite  the  imagination, 
and  so  much  to  gratify  every  sense,  so  much  to  exhilarate 
the  weary  spirits  and  to  elevate  the  mind,  that  one  feels 
oneself  in  a  kind  of  mountain  elysium,  where  every  moment 
spent  is  one  of  unalloyed  delight. 

Never  shall  we  forget  the  morning  preceding  our  first 
crossing  of  the  Cordilleras.  The  weather  was  ideal — 
neither  hot  nor  cold— and  the  scenery  at  every  turn  was 
magnificent  beyond  compare.  While  the  vegetation  was 

263 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

quite  different  in  character  from  that  of  the  lowlands,  it 
was,  nevertheless,  equally  attractive  and  fragrant.  Our 
route  at  times  lay  through  a  narrow  defile  with  wild 
beetling  steeps  on  both  sides  of  us.  Ever  and  anon  we 
passed  by  natural  bowers,  sculptured  in  the  solid  rock 
and  entwined  with  odorous  plants  and  flowers,  that  might 
well  serve  as  trysting  places  of  fays  and  elves,  or  be  the 
favorite  resorts  of  Titania  and  Oberon.  Farther  on  our 
way  we  descried  a  dark  and  romantic  chasm  which  we  could 
fancy  might,  under  a  waning  moon,  be  haunted  "by  a 
woman  waiting  for  her  demon  lover."  And  higher  up  on 
a  lofty  peak,  tinged  with  the  roseate  hues  of  quivering 
sunlight,  C.'s  fancy  told  us  was  the  home  of  that  race  of 
Oreads 

"That  haunt  the  hill-tops  nearest  the  sun." 

"Small  wonder,"  said  C.,  "that  the  lively  fancy  of  the 
Indian  should  have  peopled  these  romantic  spots  with  the 
creatures  of  his  imagination,  and  that  he  should  have 
woven  legends  about  objects  and  phenomena  that  had  spe- 
cially attracted  his  notice.  Even  we,  who  see  these  things 
for  the  first  time,  find  ourselves  tinder  the  spell  of  the 
genius  loci.  Considering  the  beautiful  arbors  here  formed 
by  tree  and  vine  and  flower,  the  fantastic  shapes  assumed 
by  rock  and  mountain  spur,  the  mysterious  natural  phe- 
nomena that  frequently  obtrude  themselves  on  his  atten- 
tion, and  his  proneness  to  refer  to  supernatural  agency 
everything  that  his  untutored  mind  is  unable  to  explain, 
it  would  be  a  greater  wonder  if  such  legends  did  not  exist, 
and  if  the  numerous  physical  features,  that  have  so  often 
excited  our  interest,  were  left  unpeopled  by  creatures  of  the 
Indian's  fancy." 

The  Indian  of  Colombia  may  know  nothing  of  our  elves 
and  fairies;  sylphs,  undines  and  salamanders;  gnomes, 
kobolds  and  hobgoblins,  but  his  fertile  imagination  has, 
nevertheless,  found  similar  beings  to  people  plain  and 

264 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

forest  and  mountain  peak.  Xow,  as  in  the  days  of  their 
pre-Colombian  ancestors,  the  Indian  loves  to  regard  stones 
and  rocks  and  trees  of  peculiar  form  or  extraordinary  size 
as  the  abode  of  certain  spirits,  or  as  being  in  some  way 
identified  with  them.  Like  the  Scandinavians  of  old,  they 
see  their  deceased  ancestors  in  the  dense  clouds  that  veil 
the  neighboring  hill  tops.  And  like  the  peasant  in  the 
Hartz  mountains,  who  has  a  superstitious  dread  of  the 
spectre  of  the  Brocken,  they  quail  before  a  similar  appari- 
tion frequently  seen  in  the  summits  of  the  Cordilleras. 
They  venerate  the  rainbow,  and  see  in  volcanoes  the  abode 
of  beings  of  power  and  destruction. 

To  them,  as  to  peoples  of  other  parts  of  the  world,  the 
owl  is  a  bird  of  ill  omen.  One  of  them,  called  from  its  cry 
ya  acabo,  ya  acabo — it  is  finished,  it  is  finished — is,  when 
heard  fluttering  around  the  house,  regarded  as  a  har- 
binger of  death.  Another,  the  pavita,  is  considered  as  the 
spirit  of  some  departed  relative  who,  like  the  Irish  banshee, 
would  warn  his  kindred  against  death  or  some  imminent 
calamity. 

The  Llaneros,  fearless  as  they  are  in  most  respects,  en- 
tertain the  greatest  dread  of  espantos,  ghosts  or  appari- 
tions. The  bola  de  fuego,  or  the  light  of  Aguirre,  the 
Tyrant,  is  one  of  these  ghosts.  It  is  in*  reality  nothing 
more  than  a  kind  of  ignis  fatuus,  produced  by  the  decom- 
position of  organic  matter,  but  to  their  minds,  ignorant  of 
the  true  nature  of  such  gaseous  exhalations,  it  is  the  soul 
of  the  infamous  traitor,  Lope  de  Aguirre,  who,  in  punish- 
ment for  his  atrocities,  has  been  condemned  to  wander 
through  the  broad  forests  and  savannas  that  were  the  wit- 
nesses of  his  blood-stained  crimes. 

In  their  duendes,  if  they  have  not  the  analogues  of  pucks 
and  brownies,  they  certainly  possess  a  shrewd  and  knavish 
sprite,  somewhat  like  the  English  Eobin  Good-Fellow. 
Among  the  Llaneros  he  is  noted  for  the  mischievous  pranks 
he  plays  in  the  corrals,  when  occupied  by  horses  and 
cattle,  and,  if  one  is  to  credit  the  stories  of  those  who  live 

265 


DP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

on  the  plains,  these  particular  duendes  give  the  owners  of 
live  stock  a  world  of  trouble. 

The  Serranos — mountaineers — have  even  more  wonder- 
ful stories  to  tell  than  the  inhabitants  of  the  llanos.  The 
most  remarkable  of  them  are  connected  with  certain  caves, 
which  are  so  numerous  in  the  Eastern  Andes,  and  certain 
lakes  in  which,  the  Serrano  assures  one,  are  occasionally 
observed  phenomena  of  an  extraordinary  character. 

They  are  firmly  convinced,  for  instance,  of  a  certain 
witch  or  malignant  sorceress,  called  Mancarita,  who  carries 
away  lonely  travelers,  or  those  who  may  have  lost  their 
way  in  the  mountains.  And  they  rehearse  the  tale  of  an 
Indian  who  concealed  a  bag  of  silver  under  a  certain  water 
fall  near  a  well-known  lake.  This  is  guarded  by  a  serpent 
or  a  dragon,  but  if  one  will,  on  St.  John's  day,  travel  in  a 
state  of  complete  nudity,  the  paramo  of  Novagote  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  he  will  be  able  to  get  possession  of  the 
hidden  treasure.  In  all  these  legends,  and  there  are 
many  of  them,  the  Indian  has  as  much  faith  as  have  the 
children  of  the  North  in  the  fairy  stories  they  hear  in  the 
nursery. 

Then  there  is  that  "strange,  harrowing,  long-drawn  cry, 
human  in  its  tones,"  alleged  sometimes  to  be  audible  in  the 
depths  of  the  tropical  forests,  for  which  no  satisfactory 
explanation  has  as  yet  been  given.  The  Indians  say  it  is 
"The  Cry  of  a  Lost  Soul."  The  poet  Whittier  refers  to 
it  in  the  following  verses : — 

"In  that  black  forest  where,  when  day  is  done, 
•        ••••••* 

A  cry  as  of  the  pained  heart  of  the  wood. 
The  long,  despairing  moan  of  solitude 
And  darkness  and  the  absence  of  all  good, 
Startles  the  traveller  with  a  sound  so  drear, 
So  full  of  hopeless  agony  and  fear. 
His  heart  stands  still,  and  listens  with  his  ear. 
The  guide,  as  if  he  heard  a  death-bell  toll, 
Crosses  himself,  and  whispers,  'A  Lost  Soul/  " 
266 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

Some  of  their  stories,  however,  seem  to  have  some  foun- 
dation in  fact.  Almost  every  paramero — inhabitant  of  the 
paramo — has  a  story  to  tell  about  seeing  lightning  or 
hearing  thunder  issue  from  certain  lakes  or  wells  as  he 
was  passing  by  on  a  clear  night  when  there  was  not  the 
slightest  indication  of  rain  or  storm.  At  such  times  the 
waters  of  the  lake  may  become  violently  agitated  without 
any  apparent  cause.  One's  vaqueano,  on  being  asked  the 
reason  of  such  a  phenomenon,  simply  replies,  "Estd  brava 
la  laguna,"  or  "Truena  la  laguna — the  lake  is  disturbed,  or 
thunders." 

The  Indian's  answer  explains  nothing,  but  the  phe- 
nomenon seems  to  lend  itself  to  an  explanation  which  is 
as  simple  as  it  is  natural.  If  we  suppose  these  lakes,  as 
we  well  may,  to  be  in  the  craters  of  extinct  volcanoes,  in 
the  bottoms  of  which,  owing  to  slight  earth  tremors,  rents 
are  made  in  the  rocks  that  permit  the  escape  of  imprisoned 
gases,  the  mystery  is  at  least  partially  solved.  The  es- 
cape of  gas,  in  large  quantity  under  great  pressure,  would 
account  for  the  violent  agitation  of  the  water.  If  these 
gases  should  become  ignited  by  the  action  of  the  electricity 
with  which,  as  we  have  learned,  the  summits  of  the 
mountains  are  often  very  highly  charged,  we  should  have 
in  the  flash  of  the  ignited  gas  what  the  Indian  takes  to  be 
lightning,  and  in  the  resulting  explosion  what  he  thinks  is 
thunder. 

I  suggest  this  view  merely  as  a  tentative  one,  and  hope 
that  the  phenomena  in  question,  like  those  referred  to  in 
chapter  nine  regarding  the  luminous  displays  in  the  moun- 
tain summits,  may  eventually  receive  an  explanation  that 
men  of  science  will  accept  as  conclusive.  But  while  await- 
ing the  final  word  of  empirical  science  regarding  these,  and 
similar  mysterious  manifestations  of  nature,  we  may,  with 
the  simple  Indian,  give  free  rein  to  our  fancy  and  people 
the  cascades  and  lakes,  caverns,  forests  and  colossal  rock 
masses  with  all  kinds  of  preternatural  beings  and  invest 
them  with  the  most  extraordinary  powers. 

267 


TIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

To  be  frank,  we  were  not  sorry  to  get  away  from  the 
atmosphere  of  science,  and  find  a  land  where  the  legends 
and  traditions  of  the  people  were  akin  to  those  that  were 
the  delight  of  our  childhood.  For,  much  as  we  love 
science,  we  have  never  been  willing  to  renounce  the  pleasure 
of  indulging  our  imagination,  as  we  did  in  years  long  gone 
by,  when  the  fairy  tale  and  the  myth  so  captivated  our 
youthful  mind.  We  confess  it  freely,  we  were  glad  to  be 
among  the  simple,  primitive  people  of  the  Andes,  and  were 
deeply  interested  in  their  peculiar  folklore.  It  afforded  us, 
in  another  form,  the  pleasure  we  derived  from  our  first 
acquaintance  with  the  creations  of  Homer,  Hesiod  and 
Ovid;  and  with  such  productions  as  the  Niebelungen  Lied, 
Sakuntala,  the  Knights  of  the  Bound  Table  and  Cid 
Campeador.  All  the  science,  history  and  philosophy  in  the 
world  could  not  diminish  the  pleasure  we  still  find  in  these 
creations  of  fancy.  We  cherish  them  as  much,  if  not  more, 
to-day,  as  we  did  when  they  first  became  a  part  of  our  in- 
tellectual life.  For  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  the  reader 
will  conceive  our  unalloyed  delight  in  being  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  reports  of  physical  and  psychological  labora- 
tories, wherein  nothing  is  admitted  that  has  not  the  im- 
primatur of  Baconian  science  or  Comtian  philosophy,  both 
of  which  lay  an  absolute  interdict  on  all  the  most  charm- 
ing creations  of  poetry  and  romance. 

The  vista  towards  the  east,  as  we  finally  drew  near  the 
cumbre — the  long  desired  summit  of  the  Andes — was 
beautiful  in  the  extreme.  Below  us,  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left,  were  a  succession  of  mountain  ridges,  some  still 
forest-covered,  while  others  exhibited  the  smiling  gardens, 
verdant  pastures  and  humble  dwellings  of  the  inhabitants. 
Here  and  there  was  a  picturesque  little  village  of  white- 
washed stone  houses  in  place  of  the  bamboo  dwellings  of 
the  llanos  and  foothills.  On  all  sides  were  multitudinous 
streams  and  torrents,  that  had  their  birth  in  the  snow 
fields  and  ice  pinnacles  of  the  highest  points  of  Sumapaz, 
and  which  were  vying  with  one  another  in  their  long  race 

268 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

for  the  broad  emerald  plains  of  Casanare  and  San  Martin. 

Above  was  the  clear  sapphire-blue  sky,  save  where  it 
was  flecked  by  fantastic  fleeces  of  glimmering  clouds  that 
floated  voluptuously  among  the  lofty  peaks  of  the  Cordil- 
leras, and  mantled  them,  in  passing,  with  their  quivering 
vapors.  Then,  as  if  by  enchantment,  all  was  changed  with 
a  suddenness  that  was  positively  startling.  We  had 
reached  the  limit  of  the  alisios — trade  winds — for  the 
Andes  form  a  rampart  which  they  never  pass.  Here  they 
are  forced  to  part  with  the  last  drop  of  the  moisture  that 
they  have  brought  from  the  distant  Atlantic.  But,  on  the 
occasion  of  our  passage,  they  seemed  determined  to  make 
one  last  desperate  effort  to  cross  the  rock-ribbed  barrier. 
As  if  marshaled  by  j3Bolus  himself,  the  bright,  white, 
cumulous  clouds,  those  fair  flocks  of  the  west  wind,  were 
in  a  moment  transformed  into  dark,  ominous  nimbi. 

"Terrible,  strange,  sublime  and  beauteous  shapes, " 
which,  gathering  their  forces,  dashed  with  the  fury  of  the 
hurricane  against  the  adamantine  crest  of  the  Cordilleras. 
The  tempest  lasted  but  a  few  minutes,  and  then  all  was 
as  bright  and  serene  as  before,  and,  if  anything,  more 
radiantly  beautiful. 

Here,  in  a  region  empyreal,  far  away  from  the  noise  and 
turmoil  of  our  marts  of  commerce,  we  breathed  an  air  of 
purity,  and  experienced  "a  sense  of  freedom  that  are 
unknown  in  the  dank,  foul  and  malarial  atmosphere  in 
which  so  many  struggling  millions  pass  the  greater  part 
of  their  wretched  lives.  But  above  all,  what  most  im- 
presses one  in  these  ethereal  heights  is  the  sense  of  the 
proximity  of  God.  We  could  almost  fancy  some  one 
breathing  into  our  ear  the  words  of  Tennyson: — 

"Speak  to  Him  then,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  can  meet- 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet." 

Traveling  from  the  foothills  to  the  summit  of  the  Cor- 
dilleras is  like  going  from  the  equator  to  the  arctic  circle. 
One  has  every  variety  of  climate  peculiar  to  the  torrid, 

269 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

temperate  and  frigid  zones,  and  the  fauna  and  flora  vary 
with  the  altitude  as  they  change  with  the  climate. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  Andean  regions  have  long 
recognized  three  distinct  climates,  known  as  those  of  the 
tierra  caliente — hot  land;  the  tierra  fria — cold  land;  and 
the  paramo.  Men  of  science  have,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience, added  a  third  climate,  that  of  the  tierra  templada, 
or  temperate  land.  The  altitudes  at  which  these  climates 
are  found  vary  with  the  latitude  and  with  certain  meteoro- 
logical conditions,  but  in  Colombia  and  near  the  equator 
they  are  quite  fixed  and  accepted  as  fair  approximations 
to  the  truth. 

Tierra  caliente  embraces  a  zone  extending  from  sea 
level  to  a  line  one  thousand  meters  higher  up.  It  is  pre- 
eminently the  land  of  palms,  ceibas  and  milk  trees;  of 
totumos  and  tamarinds,  of  the  vanilla  and  ipecacuanha; 
the  algarroba  and  white  cedar;  the  sarrapia — Dipteryx 
odorata — and  the  poisonous  curare —  strychnos  toxifera — 
from  which  the  Indians  make  the  deadly  compound  that 
renders  their  arrows  such  certain  messengers  of  death.  It 
is  also  the  favorite  zone  for  many  tropical  fruits  such  as 
plantains,  bananas,  mameys,  nisperos,  mangos,  zapotes, 
oranges,  lemons,  pineapples,  and  scores  of  others  found 
only  in  the  lowlands  of  the  equinoctial  regions. 

The  upper  limits  of  the  tierra  caliente  are  indicated  by 
the  disappearance  of  the  cacao  tree  and  certain  plants  that 
do  not  flourish  at  an  altitude  beyond  one  thousand  meters 
above  sea  level.  The  tierra  caliente  and  the  tierra 
templada  are  connected  by  such  well-known  plants  and  trees 
as  sensitive  mimosas,  bamboos,  cinchonas  and  tree  ferns, 
although  these  representatives  of  the  vegetable  world  do 
not  attain  their  full  importance  until  higher  altitudes  are 
reached. 

The  tierra  templada  comprises  a  zone  extending  from 
one  thousand  to  twenty-four  hundred  meters  above  sea 
level.  It  is  in  the  lower  part  of  this  zone  that  the  bamboo, 
the  most  delicate  and  graceful  of  tropical  plants,  attains 

270 


IN  CLOUDLAXD 

its  greatest  development  and  gives  its  greatest  charm  to 
the  landscape. 

The  numerous  plants,  shrubs  and  trees  of  the  bean  and 
myrtle  families  are  seen  at  their  best  in  the  lower  half  of 
the  tierra  templada.  It  is  here,  too,  that  one  meets  with  the 
largest  and  most  beautiful  specimens  of  tree  ferns.  So 
gigantic,  indeed,  are  they  that  at  a  distance  they  are  easily 
mistaken  for  a  moriche  palm.  Only  in  the  islands  of  the 
Pacific  have  I  ever  seen  anything  to  compare  with  them 
in  size  and  luxuriant  loveliness. 

In  this  zone  the  cultivation  of  coffee  replaces  that  of 
cacao  in  the  zone  below.  I  have  never  seen  larger  or  finer 
berries  anywhere  than  we  found  on  the  shrubs  grown  on 
the  eastern  declivity  of  the  Cordilleras  near  San  Miguel. 
And  yet,  strange  to  relate,  only  a  short  distance  from  this 
spot,  we  found  it  impossible  to  get  a  cup  of  coffee,  although 
we  asked  for  it  at  several  places.  There  was  chocolate 
and  chicha  in  abundance,  but  no  coffee,  where  it  would  be, 
one  would  think,  the  most  common  beverage.  Its  absence 
here  reminded  us  of  the  difficulty  we  found  in  getting 
a  calabash  of  milk  on  the  great  cattle  farms  of  the  llanos. 

At  twelve  hundred  meters  above  sea  level  the  palm  family 
begins  to  lose  its  importance,  although  graceful  representa- 
tives continue  to  charm  the  traveler  until  he  reaches  much 
higher  altitudes.  But  one  is,  in  a  measure,  reconciled  to 
the  disappearance  of  palms,  that  so  delighted  one  in  the 
lowlands,  by  the  marvelous  display  made  on  all  sides  by 
countless  species  of  the  convolvulus  and  gesnerwort  fam- 
ilies. Nothing  can  exceed  their  exuberance,  or  their  gay 
and  brilliant  flowers,  as  they  mantle  the  shrubbery  by  the 
wayside  or  peep  out  from  under  the  forest  trees  along 
one's  path. 

The  flora  comprehended  in  the  zone  extending  from 
eighteen  to  twenty-four  hundred  meters  above  the  sea  is 
in  reality  transitional  in  its  nature,  and  partakes  of  the 
character  of  both  that  of  the  tierra  templada  and  the  tierra 
frfa.  The  various  species  of  cinchona  render  this  zone 
w  271 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

notable,  for  it  is  here  and  in  the  tierra  fria  that  was 
formerly  obtained  most  of  the  quinine  of  commerce. 

Tierra  fria  extends  from  twenty-four  hundred  to  three 
thousand  meters  above  sea  level.  Its  vegetation,  as  would 
be  expected,  is  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  hot  plains 
and  temperate  valleys  of  the  lowlands.  One  no  longer 
sees  the  elegant  forms  of  the  plantain  and  the  bamboo,  nor 
the  majestic  palm  and  ceiba,  nor  the  graceful  and  flexible 
bejucos  and  creepers  of  hotter  climes.  But,  notwithstand- 
ing the  absence  of  all  these  charming  representatives  of 
Flora,  it  cannot  be  said  of  the  vegetation  of  tierra  fria 
that  it  is  either  poor  or  devoid  of  importance.  Its  dark 
hardy  foliage,  may,  if  you  will,  give  it  the  impress  of 
solemnity  and  melancholy,  but  the  herbs,  shrubs  and  trees 
are  remarkable,  not  only  for  the  number  of  their  species, 
but  also  for  the  beauty  of  their  inflorescence  and  the  variety 
and  importance  of  their  products.  Here  flourish  the  noble 
red  cedar  and  the  white  caoutchouc  tree  that  supplies  to 
commerce  the  highly  valued  rubber  known  as  the  Virgen 
del  Para. 

The  products  of  our  northern  lands,  such  as  wheat,  barley 
and  potatoes,  and  such  fruits — all  of  foreign  origin — as 
the  peach,  pear,  cherry  and  apple,  together  with  a  number 
of  valuable  garden  vegetables,  are  cultivated  in  this  zone, 
and  with  marked  success. 

The  most  important,  and  in  some  respects  the  most 
remarkable  plant  of  the  tropics  is  Indian  corn — zea  mais. 
It  is  cultivated  in  all  the  zones  from  the  hot  plains  of  tierra 
caliente  to  the  upper  regions  of  tierra  fria  and  constitutes, 
in  one  form  or  another,  the  chief  food-supply  of  the  inhab- 
itants. There  is,  however,  a  striking  difference  in  the  time 
required  for  the  plant  to  reach  maturity  at  the  different 
altitudes.  In  the  hot  climates  it  is  often  ready  for  the. 
harvest  in  two  months  after  planting — when  several  crops 
a  year  are  obtainable — whereas  in  the  cold  uplands  it 
requires  nearly  a  year  to  mature. 

All  the  land  between  the  tierra  fria  and  the  region  of 

272 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

perpetual  snow  is  called  the  paramo.  It  corresponds  to 
the  puna  of  Peru,  Bolivia  and  Northern  Chili.  In  some 
parts  of  Colombia  the  paramos  are  bleak,  treeless  plains, 
often  enveloped  in  dark,  cold  fogs,  or  swept  by  keen  blasts 
of  almost  arctic  severity.  In  other  parts,  they  are  covered 
by  a  hardy  Alpine  vegetation,  together  with  grasses  and 
mosses  of  different  species.  The  most  interesting  growths 
are  strange-looking  ferns  and  the  woolly  Frailejon — 
Espeletia  grandiflora — which  Sievers  well  designates  as 
the  character-plant  of  the  paramos.  The  name,  Fraile- 
jon, signifies  a  big  monk,  and  was  given  the  plant  by  the 
inhabitants  on  account  of  the  fancied  resemblance  of  its 
felt-like  covering  to  a  monk's  hood.  It  is  usually  from 
six  to  eight  feet  high,  but  it  frequently  attains  a  much 
greater  altitude.  It  is  one  of  those  odd  forms  of  vegeta- 
tion that  once  seen  are  never  forgotten. 

No  mere  account,  however,  of  the  wonderful  changes 
witnessed  in  passing  from  lower  to  higher  altitudes  can 
give  any  idea  of  the  effect  produced  on  the  traveler.  Every 
holir — yea,  every  minute — on  his  upward  journey,  he  is 
greeted  by  new  forms  of  vegetable  life  and  must  needs  at 
the  same  time  bid  farewell  to  others  that  may  not  accom- 
pany him  beyond  their  own  proper  zones.  But,  although 
Flora's  children  are  ever  changing,  they  are  always  beauti- 
ful and  it  would  be  difficult  for  the  botanist  to  say  where 
they  challenge  the  most  admiration — in  the  hot  plains  of 
the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  or  high  up  on  the  cheerless  and 
inhospitable  paramo. 

What  we  found  most  astonishing  in  our  three-days 
journey  from  the  llanos  to  the  crest  of  the  Cordilleras  was 
the  extraordinary  number  and  diversity  of  forms  of  plant 
life.  While  we,  in  our  northern  woodlands,  do  well  if  we 
can  find  a  score  of  different  species  of  trees  in  the  space 
of  a  square  mile,  we  may,  within  the  same  limits  .in  a 
tropical  forest,  count  species  by  the  hundred.  Every  few 
rods,  on  our  way  from  Villavicencio  to  the  cumbre  of  the 
Andes,  we  noted  the  appearance  of  some  new  species  of 

273 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DCWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

plant,  shrub  or  tree ;  some  strange  vine  or  epiphyte ;  some 
fruit  or  blossom  which  we  had  not  observed  before. 

Great  as  were  the  physical  and  meteorological  changes 
observable  between  the  tierra  caliente  and  the  paramo, 
those- of  the  vegetable  world  were  still  greater.  At  times, 
during  our  rapid  ascent  from  lower  to  higher  altitudes, 
from  llanos  to  paramo,  the  changes  in  species  were  so 
rapid  and  kaleidoscopic,  the  transitions  so  sudden  and  un- 
expected, that  our  brains  were  in  a  whirl  and  we  had  to 
give  up  in  despair  the  attempt  to  keep  anything  approaching 
a  record  of  the  order  of  sequence  of  the  countless  vegetable 
forms  encountered  along  our  path.  Considering  solely  the 
successive  changes  in  flora  and  temperature,  our  experience 
in  climbing  the  Cordilleras  was  like  that  which  would  result 
from  a  three-days  journey  overland  from  the  sultry  valley 
of  the  Amazon  to  the  gold-bearing  strands  of  the  Yukon 
or  to  the  distant  shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean. 

It  was  a  little  after  midday  when  we  finally  reached  the 
paramo  of  Chipaque — that  dread  paramo  of  which  we  had 
so  frequently  heard  so  many  and  so  extraordinary  tales. 
It  was,  we  had  been  told,  a  place  of  eternal  frost  and  snow, 
and  of  blasts  so  tempestuous  that  both  men  and  animals 
were  sometimes  picked  up  bodily  and  hurled  into  a  yawn- 
ing gorge  near  the  dizzy  height  which  we  were  obliged  to 
pass.  We  soon  discovered,  however,  that  most  of  the 
stories  we  had  heard  of  this  and  similar  paramos,  had  but 
little  foundation  in  fact,  or  were  greatly  exaggerated.1 

i  "According  to  what  the  inhabitants  told  me,"  wrote  Mollien,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century,  "when  the  paramo  se  pone  "bravo  is  out  of 
humor,  then  the  greatest  dangers  threaten  the  traveler;  a  wind  laden 
with  icy  vapors  blows  with  tremendous  violence;  thick  darkness  covers  the 
earth  and  conceals  every  trace  of  a  road.  The  birds  which,  on  the  appear- 
ance of  a  fine  day,  had  attempted  the  passage,  fall  motionless.  The  trav- 
eler seeks  to  shelter  himself  under  the  stunted  shrubs  which  here  and  there 
grow  in  these  deserts;  but  their  wet  foliage  obliges  him  to  find  another 
covert.  Worn  out  with  fatigue  and  hunger,  in  vain  urging  on  his  mules,  be- 
numbed with  cold,  he  sits  down  to  recover  his  exhausted  strength.  Fatal 
repose!  His  stomach  soon  becomes  affected  as  when  at  sea,  his  blood  freezes 
In  his  veins;  his  muscles  grow  stiff,  his  lips  open  as  if  to  smile,  and  he 

274 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

To  begin  with,  we  found  neither  frost  nor  snow.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  snow  rarely  falls  in  this  paramo.  All  about 
us  there  was  an  abundance  of  vegetation  that  little  com- 
ported with  the  region  of  arctic  temperature.  We  found 
there  a  number  of  peasants'  huts  and  a  large  drove  of 
cattle,  that  were  on  their  way  from  the  llanos  to  the  Bogata 
market.  It  took  them  more  than  two  weeks  to  make  a 
journey  that  we  had  made  in  three  days.  But  both  the 
cattle  and  their  drivers — vaqiieros — were  more  sensitive 
to  cold  than  we  were.  For  this  reason,  they  had  to  proceed 
slowly  to  accustom  themselves  to  the  lower  temperature 
and  the  higher  altitude.  The  peasants  living  on  the 
paramo,  although  lightly  clad,  did  not  seem  to  be  affected 
by  the  cold.  The  vaqueros,  however,  who  had  come  from 
the  lowlands,  seemed  to  suffer  greatly.  But  no  wonder. 
They  made  no  provision  for  so  great  a  change  of  climate. 
They  wore  the  same  light  garments — probably  they  had 
nothing  else — in  crossing  the  Cordilleras,  that  they  had 
used  in  the  ever-heated  llanos.  It  was  not  strange,  then, 
that  they  should  give  exaggerated  accounts  of  the  cold  of 
the  paramo  or  of  the  suffering  it  induces.  It  would  be 
surprising  if  it  were  otherwise. 

It  requires  less  than  half  an  hour  to  cross  the  paramo 
— so  limited  is  it  in  area — and  reach  the  Boqueron 1 — the 
name  given  the  short  artificial  cut,  only  a  few  rods  in 
length — through  the  crest  of  the  Andes.  At  this  highest 
point  our  thermometer  registered  48°  F.,  and  the  aneroid, 
a  fine  compensated  instrument,  indicated  an  altitude  of  ten 
thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty  feet.  This  is  but  little 
higher  than  Leadville,  Colo.,  and  considerably  lower  than 
some  of  the  railway  passes  over  the  Eocky  Mountains. 
The  temperature,  owing  to  the  light  atmosphere,  was  so 
mild,  that  we  did  not  even  ttrinlr  of  throwing  our  ponchos 

expires  with  the  expression  of  joy  upon  his  features.    The  mules,  no  longer 
hearing  their  master's  voice,  remain  standing,  till  at  length  tired,  they  li« 
down  to  die."— Travels  in  the  Republic  of  Colombia,  pp.  96,  97,  London, 
1824. 
i  Signifying  a  large  hole,  or  a  wide  opening. 

275 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

over  our  shoulders,  as  a  protection  from  the  cold  that  the 
poor  Llanero  felt  so  keenly. 

As  we  were  passing  through  the  Boqueron  we  were 
joined  by  a  young  hacendado  who  had  a  cattle  farm  in  the 
neighborhood.  After  a  friendly  greeting  he  remarked, 
"Estd  sumamente  fria" — It  is  extremely  cold.  And  then, 
thinking  we  were  too  lightly  clad,  he  said  almost  pleadingly, 
"Cubranse  con  sus  bayetones,  otramente  se  saca  una 
pulmonia."  Put  on  your  bayetones,  otherwise  you  will  get 
pneumonia.  Then  he  related  how,  the  preceding  year,  he 
had  crossed  this  pass  in  a  snow  storm,  contracted  pneu- 
monia, was  confined  to  his  bed  for  months,  and  barely 
escaped  a  premature  death. 

While  he  was  thus  addressing  us,  a  number  of  Llaneros 
passed  by  on  their  way  from  Bogota  to  their  homes  in  the 
warm  plains  near  Villavicencio.  In  addition  to  the  usual 
covering  for  the  head  they  had  their  ears  and  face  pro- 
tected by  a  kind  of  kerchief  and  seemed  to  suffer  more 
from  the  cold  than  our  hardy  northerners  would  in  a 
Dakota  blizzard.  Poor  fellows!  "We  pitied  them.  They 
were  shivering,  their  teeth  were  chattering  and  they  were 
evidently  in  great  distress.  But  the  reason  was  manifest 
at  a  glance.  Aside  from  their  head  gear,  they  had  nothing 
on  except  a  pair  of  short  trousers  of  flimsy  material  and 
a  light  poncho.  They  were  barefooted,  and,  to  judge  from 
their  wan  and  pinched  features,  they  were  suffering  from 
hunger  as  well  as  from  cold. 

We  had  now  discovered  the  origin  of  the  reports  so 
generally  accepted  as  true  in  the  llanos,  regarding  the 
intense  cold  of  the  paramos  and  of  the  various  Andean 
passes.  Those  poor,  shivering,  ill-clad,  half-famished 
peons  explained  all.  The  same  causes  evidently  operated 
in  occasioning  the  great  mortality  suffered  by  Bolivar's 
army  when  it  passed,  in  1819,  from  the  llanos  of  the  Apure 
to  the  altiplanides — high  tablelands — of  New  Granada.1 

i  The  author  of  Campaigns  and  Caruises,  already  quoted,  writing  of  the  pass 
Where  Bolivar's  army  crossed  the  Cordillera  describes  it  as  "strewed  with  the 

276 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

The  paramo  of  Pisva,  through  which  the  Eepublican 
army  invaded  the  enemy's  country,  is  less  than  thirteen 
thousand 1  feet  above  sea  level,  and  the  passage,  therefore, 
of  the  Cordilleras,  at  this  point,  was  not  in  itself  the  diffi- 
cult undertaking  it  is  so  often  represented  to  have  been. 
The  frightful  loss  of  life,  usually  attributed  to  the  intense 
cold  of  Pisva  Pass,  was,  in  reality,  due  to  the  fact  that 
Bolivar's  followers  were  not  properly  prepared  for  the 
campaign  in  which  they  were  engaged.  They  were  half- 
naked  and  half-starved  and  the  wonder  is  that  the  hapless 
army  did  not  suffer  far  greater  losses  than  those  actually 
recorded. 

"The  army  endured  many  sufferings  in  the  passage  of 
the  paramo, "  writes  Vergara  y  Velasco,  "but  it  is  a  grave 
error  to  compare  them  with  those  incurred  in  the  passage 
of  the  Alps  by  Hannibal  and  Napoleon  or  in  the  passage 
of  the  Chilean  Andes  by  San  Martin,  for  in  Pisva  there 
is  no  snow,  neither  is  the  altitude  so  great  as  that  of  many 
frequented  places  in  our  Cordilleras.  The  expedition,  with- 
out having  the  romance  of  the  others,  nevertheless  equals 
them  in  results  and  for  the  same  reason — the  ineptitude 
of  the  enemy.' '2 

The  first  thing  that  attracted  our  attention,  on  reaching 
the  western  end  of  the  Boqueron,  was  the  large  number  of 
flowers,  of  divers  species,  that  bedecked  both  sides  of  our 
path.  They  constituted  a  carpet  of  the  most  brilliant  hues 
that,  with  a  lovely  green  boscage,  extended  to  the  very 
summit  of  the  mountain  crest  In  form  and  beauty  they 
were  not  unlike  the  charming  blooms  that  gladden  our  for- 

bones  of  men  and  animals,  that  have  perished  in  attempting  to  cross  the 
paramo  in  unfavorable  weather.  Multitudes  of  small  crosses  are  fixed  in 
the  rocks  by  pious  hands,  in  memory  of  former  travelers,  who  have  died  here; 
and  along  the  path  are  strewed  fragments  of  saddlery,  trunks  and  various 
articles  that  have  been  abandoned,  and  resemble  the  traces  of  a  routed  army." 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  165. 

iThe  Quia  de  la  Repullica  de  Colombia,  p.  301,  por  M.  Zamora,  Bogota, 
1907,  places  the  altitude  at  three,  thousand  and  nine  hundred  metres. 

2  Nueva*  Geografia  de  Colombia,  Tom.  I,  p.  985. 

277 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ests  and  meadows  in  May  and  June.  There  was  this  dif- 
ference, however,  that  the  number  of  species  in  a  given 
space  was  far  greater  than  is  ever  found  in  the  same,  space 
in  our  northern  climes.  Does  this  close  juxtaposition  of 
so  many  species  in  the  tropics  contribute  to  the  more 
rapid  formation  of  varieties  and  new  species  than  is  pos- 
sible in  higher  latitudes,  where  species  are  fewer  and 
more  widely  separated  from  one  another?  It  would 
seem  so. 

We  shall  never  forget  the  panorama  that  burst  upon  our 
vision  as  we  made  our  exit  from  the  Boqueron.  It  was 
in  such  marked  contrast  with  -the  view  which  we  had  so 
much  admired  on  the  eastern  side.  On  the  east  side  all 
was  verdure,  bloom,  and  grateful  shrubbery,  with  occasional 
clumps  of  trees.  On  the  western  declivity,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  narrow  reach,  already  mentioned,  near  the  moun- 
tain crest,  all  was  as  treeless  and  as  bare  and  arid  as  the 
sandy  plains  of  Nevada  or  Arizona. 

But  the  entire  western  slope  and  distant  plateau  was 
bathed  in  bright  sunshine.  Not  a  single  cloud  flecked  the 
azure  canopy  above  us,  and  not  a  single  sound,  except  the 
muffled  footsteps  of  our  horses,  disturbed  the  quiet  and 
serenity  of  our  exalted  outlook.  We  were  standing  on  the 
crest  of  the  Eastern  Cordillera — the  range  to  which  the 
people  of  the  country  have  long  given  the  poetical  name  of 
Suma  Paz — Supreme  Peace.1  Owing  to  its  proximity  to 
the  capital,  where  it  is  always  in  view,  it  doubtless  im- 
pressed the  popular  fancy  more  than  did  the  more  distant, 
although  loftier  and  more  imposing,  snow-capped  masses 
of  Buiz  and  Tolima.  Seen  from  Bogota,  this  beautiful 
range,  when  tinged  with  the  golden  crimson  rays  of  the 
setting  sun,  might  well  appear  as  an  Olympus,  the  abode 
of  the  gods  in  the  enjoyment  of  eternal  peace. 

i  According  to  Vergara  y  Velasco,  the  name  Suma  Paz  is  of  Indian,  and 
not  of  Spanish  origin.  If  this  be  true,  the  name  should  be  written  &s  one 
word — Sumapaz,  Personally,  I  prefer  to  think  the  name  is  Spanish.  For 
this  particular  range  it  is  a  most  appropriate  epithet. 

278 


IN  CLOUDLAXD 

There  are  some  geographers  who  contend  that  the  Cor- 
dillera of  Suma  Paz  is  the  continuation  of  the  principal 
chain  of  the  Andes,  but,  as  it  terminates  in  the  adjoining 
Eepublic  of  Venezuela,  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  main- 
tain that  the  "Western  Cordillera  is  entitled  to  this  distinc- 
tion. It  is  the  western  range,  which,  after  passing  through 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  reappears  as  the  Sierra  Madre 
of  Mexico  and  as  the  Bocky  Mountains  of  North  America, 
and  continues  its  course,  almost  without  interruption,  to 
Bering's  Strait 

It  is,  however,  the  Sierra  de  Suma  Paz  which  separates 
the  two  great  hydrographic  basins  of  the  Orinoco  and  the 
Magdalena.  We  saw  tiny  rivulets,  almost  at  the  instant 
of  their  birth,  and  only  a  few  spans  from  one  another, 
beginning  simultaneously  their  long  journey  to  the  broad 
Magdalena  to  the  west  and  to  the  mighty  Orinoco  in  the 
distant  east.  Some  were  to  visit  the  lands  which  we  had 
already  traversed,  others  were  to  pass  through  a  country 
that  still  lay  before  us,  but  which  we  hoped  to  explore  in 
the  very  near  future. 

Although  Suma  Paz  had  long  been  one  of  the  objective 
points  of  our  peregrinations,  we  could  not  leave  it  without 
mingled  feelings  of  regret  and  sadness.  It  stood  between 
us  and  many  delightful  scenes  and  marked  the  passing  of 
many  delightful  days  that  could  never  return.  There  was 
also,  of  course,  a  feeling  of  relief  experienced,  for  we  had 
happily  completed  the  most  arduous  part  of  our  journey 
and  that,  too,  without  encountering  a  single  one  of  the 
many  difficulties  and  dangers  that  had  been  predicted  when 
in  Trinidad  and  Ciudad  Bolivar  we  announced  our  inten- 
tion of  going  to  Bogota  over  the  route  whose  last  lap  we 
were  completing. 

From  the  spot  where  we  halted  to  pluck  a  few  flowers  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Boqueron,  as  a  souvenir  of  our  first 
passage  of  the  Andes,  we  could  almost  catch  a  glimpse 
towards  the  northwest,  of  the  churches  and  public  edifices 
of  Colombia's  capital.  There  was  one  of  the  celebrated 

279 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

camping-grounds  of  some  of  thyeTtiiost  noted  of  the  Con- 
qnistadores  and  thither  we  \rould  hasten  with  the  minimum 
of  delay.  We  loved  to  think  that  Federmann  had  crossed 
the  Cordilleras  just  where  ^we  did.  It  is  certain  that,  if 
he  did  not  cross  them  at  this  point,  it  was  not  far  distant 
from  it.1  All  the  way  from  Villavicencio  we  felt  that  we 
were  following  in  his  footsteps,  as  we  had  been  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  other  conquistadores  from  the  time  we 
had  trod  the  romantic  soil  of  Tierra  Florida.  We  had,  near 
the  foothills  of  the  Cordilleras,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Buena  Vista,  crossed  the  path  of  Hernan  Perez  de  Quesada, 
who  almost  made  the  circuit  of  New  Granada  in  his  memo- 
rable quest  of  ElDorado,and  we  were  likely  to  cross  it  again 
before  reaching  Bogota,  for  on  his  return  from  his  expedi- 
tion, he,  as  well  as  Federrnann,  must  have  entered  the  city 
near  where  we  did  ourselves. 

Before  leaving  our  posada  at  Caqueza  we  asked  a  certain 
Colombian  general  how  long  it  took  to  make  the  trip  to 
Bogota.  His  reply  was,  "Ciwco  hora&  sin  mujeres" — Five 
hours  without  women.  To  our  surprise  the  women  present 
made  no  protest  against  this  unchivalrous  reflection  on 
their  horsemanship.  Probably,  not  being  accustomed  to 
riding,  they  felt  that  his  statement  was  true,  and  that  it 
was  unwise  to  call  it  in  question.  Had  some  of  our  dash- 
ing American  horsewomen  been  present,  it  is  most  likely 

i  Padre  Simon  says  that  Federrnann,  after  crossing  the  Cordillera,  tarried 
for  a  while  in  the  province  of  Pasca,  Oastellanos  declares  it  was  in  th» 
pueblo  of  Pasca,  a  small  town  a  short  distance  south  of  our  route.  Accord- 
ing to  Vergara  y  Velasco,  the  adventurous  German  conquistador  entered  "the 
Sabana  of  Bogata  by  way  of  Pasca  and  Usme."  Usme  is  a  village  that  is 
on  the  road  along  which  we  passed.  Col.  Joaquin  Acosta  tells  us  the  Cordil- 
lera was  crossed  in  the  -broadest  and  most  rugged  part,  "where  even  to-day  the 
most  daring  hunters  scarcely  ever  venture.  Neither  before  nor  since  Feder- 
mann have  horses  scaled  the  craggy  crests  of  Pascote  and  crossed  the  heights  of 
Suma  Paz  and  descended  thence  to  Pasca  in  the  valley  of  Fusagasuga." 
Oviedo  informs  us  that  it  required  -twenty-two  days  to  cross  the  paramos, 
which  was  so  extremely  cold  that  sixteen  horses  were  frozen  to  death.  But 
whether  Federmann  crossed  Suma  Paz  where  we  did  or,  as  some  think,  at  a 
point  farther  south,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  his  route  from  Villa- 
vicencio to  Bogata  was  practically  the  same  as  our  own. 

280 


IN  CLOUDLAND 

that  the  implied  challenge  would  have  provoked  a  spirited 
retort 

But  whatever  the  women  present  may  have  thought,  we 
subsequently  had  reason  to  believe  that  the  man  was  wrong, 
but  for  a  reason  different  from  the  one  he  had  given.  After 
leaving  Caqueza  we  had  pushed  forward  towards  the 
Boqueron  as  rapidly  as  our  horses — and  they  were  good 
animals — could  make  their  way  over  the  terrible  path  up 
the  mountain,  and  it  took  us  more  than  five  hours  to  reach 
that  point.  Judging  from  our  experience  it  would  have 
required  an  extraordinary  strong  and  spirited  horse  to 
carry  a  man,  over  such  a  road  as  we  had  to  traverse,  to 
Bogata  in  five  hours  even  sin  mujeres. 

Our  path,  during  the  first  few  miles  down  the  western 
declivity  of  the  Suma  Paz,  was  quite  as  bad  as  it  had  been 
anywhere  on  the  eastern  slope.  After,  however,  we  had 
reached  the  plateau,  about  fifteen  hundred  feet  below  the 
Boqueron,  the  road  became  much  better  and  our  mounts 
could  make  far  better  time  than  was  before  possible.  Not- 
withstanding the  energy  expended  in  crossing  the  crest  of 
the  Andes,  they  were  still  in  fine  fettle,  and  it  was  only 
necessary  to  give  them  a  loose  rein  to  have  them  break 
into  a  lively  gallop,  which  they  seemed  to  'be  able  to  keep 
up  indefinitely  with  but  little  effort. 

There  was  not  much  of  interest  to  note  on  this  part  of 
the  way  except,  perhaps,  some  remarkable  effects  of  erosion 
near  the  road  a  short  distance  from  the  capital.  The  hard, 
compact  earth  was  here  carved  by  the  action  of  rain  and 
running  water  into  the  same  fantastic  forms,  often  resem- 
bling dolmens  and  cromlechs,  that  characterize  the  Bad- 
lands of  South  Dakota.  We  regretted  that  we  were  unable 
to  take  some  photographs  of  them,  as  a  number  of  the 
formations  were  of  special  geological  importance. 

The  first  indication  of  our  near  approach  to  Bogata  was  a 
two-wheeled  cart,  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen,  which  we  passed 
near  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  It  was  the  first  wheeled 
vehicle  we  had  seen  since  leaving  Ciudad  Bolivar.  Further 

281 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

on  we  were  startled — and,  I  may  add,  delighted — by  the 
piercing  sound  of  a  locomotive  whistle.  It  came  from  an 
engine  on  one  of  the  short  railroads  that  centre  in  Bogota. 

At  last  we  were  getting  back — I  will  not  say  to  civiliza- 
tion— but  to  where  the  material  evidences  of  civilization 
were  more  numerous  than  they  had  been  anywhere  on  our 
journey  since  we  had  taken  our  departure  from  the  Port- 
of-Spain.  As  we  got  still  nearer  the  city,  we  met  a  cavalcade 
of  horsemen  who  were  out  for  their  evening  ride.  It  was 
here  that  we  saw,  for  the  first  time  in  Colombia,  a  thorough- 
fare worthy  of  the  name.  Our  bonny  steeds,  trusty  and 
true,  seemed  to  appreciate  the  improvement  in  the  road  as 
much  as  we  did  ourselves.  And,  as  if  put  on  their  mettle 
by  the  curveting  steeds  we  had  just  passed,  they,  like  the 
fleet  mules  of  Nausicaa,  "gathered  up  their  nimble  feet," 
and  almost  before  we  realized  it  we  were  in  the  streets  of 
Bogota. 

It  was  then  a  matter  of  only  a  few  minutes  to  our  hotel, 
where  we  found  comforts  and  conveniences  to  which  we 
had  long  been  strangers.  It  was  just  eight  hours  since  we 
had  left  our  modest  posada  in  Caqueza,  with  its  simple 
fare  and  hard  board  cot,  and  now  we  suddenly  found  our- 
selves installed  in  richly  furnished  apartments,  with  bril- 
liant electric  lights  and  an  excellent  cuisine.  The  sudden 
change  in  our  environment  seemed  like  an  incident  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  rather  than  a  reality  in  which  we  were 
personally  concerned. 

"How  were  you  ever  able  to  make  such  a  trip?"  queried 
a  German  traveler,  shortly  after  our  arrival.  I  had  made 
all  arrangements  to  go  with  a  friend  from  Bogota  to  Ciudad 
Bolivar,  but  after  all  was  ready,  I  was  dissuaded  by  my 
friends  from  undertaking  a  journey  on  which  I  had  so  long 
set  my  heart.  They  assured  me  that  the  trip  would  be  so 
difficult  and  beset  with  so  many  dangers  of  all  kinds  that 
I  would  run  the  risk  of  losing  health,  and  even  life,  if  I 
persisted  in  my  purpose.  Only  at  the  last  moment,  when 
they  told  me  that  the  roads  were  absolutely  impassable  at 

282 


IN  CLOUDLAXD 

this  season  of  the  year,  did  I  give  up  a  project  that  I  had 
so  long  cherished.  How  I  envy  you.  But  it  is  too  late  now 
for  me  to  reconsider  my  plans,  as  I  must  return  to  Ger- 
many in  a  few  days,  and  with  the  knowledge  that,  against 
my  better  judgment,  I  was  forced  to  forego  the  most  inter- 
esting part  of  my  itinerary/' 

Yes,  we  had  indeed  been  fortunate  in  our  wanderings. 
In  the  expressive  language  of  a  West  Indian  negro  servant, 
whom  we  had  for  a  while  in  Venezuela,  we  had  always  been 
"good-lucky,  never  bad-lucky."  We  had  no  adventures  to 
record  and  never  once  felt  that  we  were  in  presence  of 
danger.  We  never  carried  weapons  of  any  kind  and  at  no 
time  was  there  any  need  for  them.  During  our  entire 
journey,  through  plains  and  among  mountains,  we  felt  quite 
as  safe  as  if  we  had  been  taking  a  promenade  down  Broad- 
way or  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York.  Eoughing  it  agreed  with 
us  perfectly  and,  far  from  suffering  from  exposure  or 
fatigue,  we  found  ourselves  in  the  enjoyment  of  better 
health  at  the  completion  of  our  journey  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. Despite  all  predictions  to  the  contrary,  we  had 
escaped  all 

"The  ministers  of  pain,  and  fear, 
And  disappointment,  and  mistrust  and  hate, 
And  clinging  crime." 

and  had  reached  Colombia's  capital,  ready,  after  a  few 
days'  rest,  to  enter  upon  even  a  longer  and  a  more  arduous 
journey  than  the  one  that  we  had  just  so  happily  ter- 
minated. 

"But  did  yon  not  fear  sickness  on  your  way!"  asked 
another  German,  who  had  gone  over  some  of  the  ground 
we  had  just  traversed,  and  who  seemed  to  entertain  any- 
thing but  pleasant  recollections  of  his  experience.  "When 
I  traveled  in  the  interior,  far  away  from  doctors  and  med- 
ical assistance  of  every  kind,  I  was  continually  haunted  by 
the  thought  of  contracting  fever  or  some  other  dread  trop- 
ical ^disease.  What  would  you  have  done  if  you  had  been 

283 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALBNA 

stricken  with  the  vomito  or  berriberri  or  the  bubonic 
plague  I"  Modesty  forbade  ns  replying  to  this  question  by 
saying  that  "The  Lord  takes  care  of  his  own,"  so  we 
answered  in  the  words  of  Lucan, 

"Capit  omnia  tellus 
Quae  genuit;  coelo  tegitur  qui  non  habet  urnam."1 

i  "Earth  receives  againe, 
Whatever  she  brought  forth,  and  they  ohtaine 
Heaven's  couverture,  that  have  no  urnea  at  all." 

— Lucan's  PAarsoKa,  Lib.  VII,  w.  319  et  seq. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

In  the  beginning  of  August,  1538,  Gonzalo  Jimenez  de 
Quesada,  the  conqueror  of  Cundinmarca,  and  his  followers, 
after  one  of  the  most  remarkable  campaigns  ever  conducted 
in  the  New  World,  assembled  on  the  present  site  of  Bogata. 
Here  Quesada  dismounted  from  his  charger,  and  plucking 
up  some  grass  by  the  roots,  he  announced  that  he  took 
possession  of  that  land  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.  Having  remounted  his  steed,  he  drew  his  sword,  and 
challenged  any  one  to  oppose  this  formal  declaration,  which, 
he  declared,  he  was  prepared  to  defend  at  all  hazards.  As 
no  one  appeared  to  contest  his  action,  he  sheathed  his 
sword,  and  directed  the  army  notary  to  make  an  official 
record  of  what  had  just  been  accomplished. 

Bogota  was  then  but  a  rude  village,  or,  rather,  a  camp, 
of  a  dozen  hastily  constructed  huts  which  barely  sufficed 
to  shelter  the  intrepid  sons  of  Spain.  Besides  these  twelve 
huts — erected  in  memory  of  the  twelve  apostles — there  had 
also  been  constructed  a  small  wooden,  thatch-covered 
church,  on  the  very  site  occupied  by  the  present  imposing 
cathedral  of  Colombia's  fair  capital.  The  first  mass  was 
said  in  this  church  the  sixth  day  of  August,  a  few  days 
after  the  ceremony  of  occupation  just  mentioned — and  this 
is  regarded  as  the  legal  date  of  the  foundation  of  Bogota. 
It  was  then  that  the  work  of  the  conquest  was  technically 
considered  as  finished.  The  work  of  colonization  was  to 
follow  without  delay. 

It  was  then  that  Quesada  gave  to  the  future  city  the  name 
of  Santa  Fe.1  Being  from  Granada,  he  named  the  country 

i  It  was  made  a  city  by  Charles  V  in  1540  with  the  title  of  "muy  noble  y 
vnuy  leal,"  very  noble  and  very  loyal. 

285 


DP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Tie  had  discovered  and  conquered  Nuevo  Eeino  de  Granada 
— the  New  Kingdom  of  Granada — an  appellation  it  re- 
tained until  after  the  War  of  Independence,  when  it 
received  the  name  it  now  bears. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  striking  similarity  between  the 
elevated  plateau,  watered  by  the  Funza,  and  the  charming 
vega  of  Granada,  fertilized  by  the  romantic  Genii.  To  one 
looking  towards  the  west,  from  a  spur  of  the  mountain 
at  the  foot  of  which  Bogota  is  situated,  as  Granada  is 
located  at  the  foot  of  its  hills,  the  ridge  of  Suba  is  seen 
towards  the  northwest,  just  as  the  sierra  of  Elvira  is 
seen  with  respect  to  the  old  Moorish  capital.  And  so  it 
is  with  the  relative  positions  of  Santa  Fe  en  la  Vega  and  the 
pueblo  of  Fontibon.  The  illusion  is  complete,  and  the  sim- 
ilarity between  these  two  famous  places  in  Spain  and  Co- 
lombia must  have  impressed  themselves  on  the  receptive 
mind  of  the  illustrious  conquistador  with  peculiar  force. 
Even  the  heights  of  Suacha,  in  aspect  and  position,  recall 
the  famous  hill  which  is  known  as  the  Suspiro  del  Moro  from 
the  lament  of  Boabdil,  the  last  king  of  Granada,  whose 
tears  evoked  from  his  mother,  the  intrepid  Sultana,  Ayxa 
la  Horra,  the  caustic  words,  "Bien  Tiace  en  llorar  como 
mujer  lo  que  como  hombre  no  supo  defender.'9 1 

Santa  Fe,  also  known  as  Santa  Fe  de  Bogota,  was  for 
a  long  period  the  capital  of  the  Viceroyalty  of  New 
Granada.  After  the  War  of  Independence  the  name  was 
changed  to  Bogota — from  Bacata — the  name  of  the  old 
Chibcha  capital,  where  the  zipa,  the  most  powerful  of  the 
Indian  caciques,  at  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards,  had  his 
•official  residence.  The  city  is  nearly  two  miles  in  length 
and  of  varying  breadth.  Its  present  population  is  nearly 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand.  It  is  situated  on  a 
western  spur  of  the  great  Cordillera  of  Suma  Paz  at  an 
elevation,  according  to  Eeiss  and  Stiibel,  of  eight  thousand 
six  hundred  and  sixteen  feet  above  sea  level — more  than 

i  "You  do  well  to  weep  like  a  woman  for  what  you  failed  to  defend  like  a 
man."— Irving^  A  Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada,  Chap.  LIV. 

286 


A  VALLEY  IN  THE  CORDILLERAS. 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

half  a  mile  higher  than  the  summit  of  ift.  Washington,  the 
highest  point  in  New  England. 

The  mean  annual  temperature  is  60°  F.,  but,  owing  to 
the  rarity  of  the  atmosphere,  and  to  its  being  shielded  from 
the  wind  by  the  mountains  at  whose  base  it  is  situated, 
it  seems  to  be  higher  than  this.  During  certain  seasons  of 
the  year  one  may  experience  a  penetrating  cold,  as  long 
as  one  remains  in  the  shade,  but  when  one  passes  into  the 
sunshine  it  becomes  almost  uncomfortably  warm.  .During 
the  rainy  season,  the  newcomer  feels  the  cold  very  keenly, 
but,  after  a  short  residence  in  the  city,  one  becomes  accli- 
mated and  then  fancies  that  he  is  in  the  enjoyment  of 
perpetual  spring. 

We  were  in  Bogota  in  the  early  part  of  June,  during 
which  time  it  rained  every  day.  Coming  directly  from 
the  tierra  caliente,  we  suffered  considerably,  especially  at 
night,  from  the  low  temperature  and  the  dampness  that 
prevailed.  We  were,  however,  informed  by  the  natives  that 
the  season  was  unusually  severe,  and  that  such  bad  weather 
as  we  encountered  was  quite  unusual:  Velasco  y  Vergara 
— SL  Colombian — tells  that  it  rains  the  greater  part  of  the 
year,  and  that  the  sky  is  almost  always  covered  by  clouds.1 
For  this  reason,  the  houses  suffer  from  humidity,  and 
rheumatism  and  kindred  complaints  are  very  prevalent. 
Otherwise  the  climate  is  considered  salubrious. 

Bogota — called  by  the  aborigines  Bacata — is  a  city  in  a 
.state  of  transition.  It  has  lost,  almost  entirely,  the 
mediaeval,  monastic,  mozarabic  aspect  that  characterized 
it  while  it  was  the  tranquil  court  of  the  viceroys.  But, 
great  as  has  been  the  change  that  it  has  undergone  during 
the  last  few  decades,  it  preserves  much  of  the  quaintness 
of  colonial  times.  Indeed,  it  is  not  difficult,  in  certain  parts 
of  the  city,  to  fancy  oneself  carried  back  to  a  typical  Span- 
ish town  of  the  time  of  Charles  V  or  Philip  II.  As  a  whole, 
however,  the  Bogota  of  to-day  does  not  differ  materially 
in  appearance  from  a  city  of  the  same  size  in  Spain  or 

i  Op.  cit.,  Appendice  B.,  p.  10. 

20  287 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Mexico.  All  Latin-American  cities  are  similar  in  their 
leading  features,  and  when  you  have  seen  one  you  have 
seen  all. 

The  city  is  adorned  by  a  number  of  broad  and  beautiful 
streets  and  several  plazas  and  parks.  Aside  from  a  few 
government  buildings,  the  edifices  that  attract  most  atten- 
tion are  the  monasteries  and  churches.  The  cathedral  is 
a  noble  building  and  compares  favorably  with  any  similar 
structure  in  South  America.  The  interior  had  just  been 
artistically  painted  and  gilded,  at  the  time  of  our  visit, 
and  it  reminded  us  somewhat  of  the  exquisite  finish  of  St. 
John  Lateran,  in  Eome.  An  object  of  interest  to  the 
traveler,  within  these  sacred  precincts,  is  the  tomb  of  the 
illustrious  conquistador,  Gonzalo  Jimenez  de  Quesada. 

The  residences  of  the  people  are  usually  two  stories  high, 
with  a  balcony  on  the  second  story  facing  the  street.  All 
of  the  older  houses,  as  well  as  many  of  the  modern  ones, 
are  of  the  well-known  Moorish  style  of  architecture,  with 
a  single  large  entrance — porton — and  a  patio — courtyard 
— or  two,  on  which  the  rooms  open.  This  style  of  building 
is  well  adapted  to  tropical  climates.  It  is  comfortable  and 
secures  the  maximum  of  privacy.  It  is  in  reality,  as  well 
as  in  fiction,  the  owner's  castle. 

We  were  surprised  to  see  the  number  of  foreign  flowers 
grown  in  these  patios.  One  would  naturally  expect  to  find 
representatives  of  the  rich  and  beautiful  Colombian  flora, 
but  the  ladies  of  Bogota  seem  to  prefer  the  exotic  blooms 
of  the  temperate  zone.  We  found  roses,  camellias,  pinks 
and  geraniums  in  abundance,  but  rarely  any  of  those  floral 
beauties  that  had  so  frequently  excited  our  admiration  on 
the  way  from  the  llanos  to  the  capital.  Our  hotel,  however, 
was  a  notable  exception  to  this  rule.  Here  we  were  de- 
lighted with  a  veritable  exhibition  of  orchids  of  many 
species  and  of  the  most  wonderful  forms  and  colors. 
Among  them  were  some  truly  splendid  specimens  of 
oncidiums,  cattleyas  and  odontoglossums.  It  was  then  we 
thought  of  some  of  our  orchid-loving  friends  of  New  York, 

288 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

who  would  have  fairly  reveled  in  such  marvels  of  Flora's 
kingdom. 

As  nearly  all  the  streets  are  paved  with  cobblestones, 
driving  is  anything  but  a  pleasure.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
only  passable  drive  in  the  city  is  the  one  that  leads  to  the 
charming  little  suburb  of  Chapinero.  This  is  one  of 
the  show  places  of  Bogota,  and  its  houses  are  in  marked 
contrast  with  those  found  in  the  older  part  of  the  city* 
Most  of  them  are  entirely  different  in  style  from  the  en- 
closed Moorish  structures  of  which  mention  has  been  made. 
Here  one  is  introduced  to  cozy  Swiss  chalets  in  the  midst 
of  delightful  flower  gardens  and  picturesque  French 
chateaux,  that  carry  one  back  to  the  Seine  and  the  Loire. 

Aside  from  the  churches  and  monasteries,  many  of  which 
have  been  converted  into  government  offices,  there  were 
two  buildings  that  possessed  a  special  interest  for  us. 
One  of  these  was  the  old  Colegio  del  Eosario — now  known 
as  the  School  of  Philosophy  and  Letters — founded  in  1553, 
nearly  a  hundred  years  before  the  University  of  Harvard. 
This  institution  has  long  been  fondly  spoken  of  by  the 
people  of  Bogota  as  the  country's  special  glory — la  gloria 
de  la  patria.  The  other  building  was  the  astronomical  ob- 
servatory— the  first  intertropical  structure  of  the  kind — 
erected  in  1803.  After  the  observatory  of  Quito,  it  is  said 
to  be  the  highest  in  the  world. 

Some  of  the  streets  and  houses  have  been  recently  lighted 
by  electricity,  but  as  yet  horses  or  mules  are  used  as  the 
motive  power  for  the  few  street  cars  that  traverse  the 
principal  thoroughfares.  It  were  easy  to  count  the  number 
of  private  carriages  in  the  city.  The  only  ones  we  saw 
were  those  of  the  archbishop  and  the  president  of  the 
republic.  Indeed,  so  rough  are  the  streets  that  most 
people  prefer  walking  to  using  cabs,  except  in  cases  of 
necessity. 

The  first  two  objects  to  arrest  our  attention,  as  we  ap- 
proached Bogota  from  the  south,  were  the  chapels  of 
Guadalupe  and  Monserrate,  the  former  nearly  twenty-two 

289 


UP  THE  OBIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

hundred  feet  above  the  city,  and  the  latter  about  two  hun- 
dred feet  lower.  Perched  high  upon  the  flanks  of  two 
picturesque  mountain  peaks,  they  are  conspicuous  objects 
from  all  parts  of  the  Savanna.  Both  of  these  sanctuaries 
are  reached  by  a  foot  path,  but,  as  yet,  no  attempt  has  been 
made  to  connect  them  with  the  city  by  a  carriage  road. 
Owing  to  the  altitude  above  sea  level  of  these  places,  a 
pilgrimage  to  them  is  quite  a  task — especially  to  the  new- 
comer, who  is  unaccustomed  to  the  rare  atmosphere  of  the 
locality.  But  the  magnificent  view  afforded  one  from  either 
of  these  elevated  shrines  well  repays  all  the  effort  required 
to  reach  them.  It  is,  in  some  respects,  the  most  beautiful 
to  be  found  in  the  whole  of  Colombia.  And  then,  there 
are  besides  certain  historical  features  connected  with  the 
panorama  spread  out  before  one  that  make  it  doubly  inter- 
esting. 

Standing  in  front  of  the  church  of  Guadalupe,  we  have 
before  us  the  beautiful  Savanna  of  Bogota1 — a  fertile 
plain,  nine  hundred  square  kilometers  in  area.  Humboldt, 
whose  opinion  has  been  adopted  by  many  subsequent 
writers,  regarded  this  level  stretch  of  land  as  the  bottom 
of  a  lake  that  formerly  existed  here,  but  recent  investiga- 
tors have  called  this  view  in  question.  Strangely  enough, 
the  Chibcha  Indians,  at  the  time  of  the  conquest,  had  a 
tradition  that  the  Savanna  was  at  one  time  occupied  by 
a  lake,  but  that  Bochica,  child  of  the  sun,  drained  its  waters 
by  giving  them  an  exit  through  the  celebrated  falls  of 
Tequendama.2  The  general  appearance  of  the  plain,  as 

1  Called  by  Colombians  la  Sabana,  or  la  Sabana  de  Bogata. 

2  "In  the  remotest  times,"  writes  Humboldt,  following  Quesada  and  Piedra- 
hita,  "before  the  moon  accompanied  the  earth,  according  to  the  mythology 
of  the  Muysca  or  Mozca  Indians,  the  inhabitants  of  the  plain  of  Bogata 
lived  like  barbarians,  naked,  without  agriculture,   without  any   form   of 
laws  or  worship.    Suddenly  there  appeared  among  them  an  old  man,  who 
came  from  the  plains  situate  on  the  east  of  the  Cordillera  of  Chingasa; 
and  who  appeared  to  be  of  a  race  unlike  that  of  the  natives,  having  a  long 
and  bushy  beard.    He  was  known  by  three  distinct  appellations,  Bochica, 
Nemquetheba,  and  Zuhe.    This  old  man,  like  Manco-Capac,  instructed  men 
how  to  clothe  themselves,  build  huts,  till  the  ground,  and  form  themselves 

290 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

well  as  certain  geological  features,  seemed  to  confirm  this 
tradition,  and  it  was  not  until  quite  recently  that  any  one 
ventured  to  express  a  doubt  about  the  tradition,  or  the  long- 
accepted  opinion  of  the  great  German  savant. 

In  the  morning,  when  the  Savanna  is  covered  by  a  mist, 
as  often  happens,  the  observer  from  Monserrate  or  Guada- 
lupe  does  indeed  seem  to  be  looking  down  upon  a  vast  lake. 
The  hills,  which  here  and  there  rise  above  the  fog,  look 
like  islands  and  strengthen  the  illusion.  But  this  effect  is 
all  dissipated  as  soon  as  the  sun  makes  his  appearance 
above  the  crest  of  Suma  Paz.  One  then  has  before  him  one 
of  the  most  lovely  panoramas  in  the  world.  The  wide 
verdant  expanse  is  intersected  with  rivers  and  streams,  all 
tributaries  of  the  Funza,  and  dotted  with  towns  and  ham- 
lets and  haciendas,  lakes  and  lakelets,  large  herds  of  cattle, 
flocks  of  sheep,  troops  of  horses,  mules  and  burros.  All 
this  is  enclosed  by  lofty  ramparts  of  gneiss  and  granite, 
which  shield  the  inhabitants  of  city  and  plain  from  the 
tempestuous  moisture-laden  winds  that  would  otherwise 

into  communities.  He  brought  with  him  a  woman,  to  whom  also  tradition 
gives  three  names,  Chia,  Yubecayguaya,  and  Huythaca.  This  woman,  ex- 
tremely beautiful,  and  no  less  malignant,  thwarted  every  enterprise  of  her 
husband  for  the  happiness  of  mankind.  By  her  skill  in  magic,  she  swelled 
the  river  of  Funza,  and  inundated  the  valley  of  Bogat&.  The  greater  part 
of  the  inhabitants  perished  in  this  deluge;  a  few  only  found  refuge  on  the 
summits  of  the  neighbouring  mountains.  The  old  man,  in  anger  drove  the 
beautiful  Huythaca  far  from  the  Earth,  and  she  became  the  Moon,  which 
began  from  that  epoch  to  enlighten  our  planet  during  the  night.  Bochica, 
moved  with  compassion  for  those  who  were  dispersed  over  the  mountains, 
broke  with  his  powerful  arm  the  rocks  that  enclosed  the  valley,  on  the 
side  of  Canoas  and  Tequendama.  By  this  outlet  he  drained  the  waters  of 
the  lake  of  Bogota;  he  built  towns,  introduced  the  worship  of  the  Sun,  named 
two  chiefs,  between  whom  he  divided  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority, 
and  then  withdrew  himself,  under  the  name  of  Idacanzas,  into  the  holy 
valley  of  Iraca,  near  Tunja,  where  he  lived  in  the  exercise  of  the  most 
austere  penitence  for  the  space  of  two  thousand  years." — Vues  de  CordUleres 
et  Monuments  des  Peuples  Indigenes  de  rAmerique,  par  Al.  de  Humboldt, 
Paris,  1810.  -Compare  Fiedrahita's  Historic,  General  de  las  Conquistas  del 
Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada,  Gap.  Ill,  Bogota,  1881.  Piedrahita,  following 
other  authors,  was  of  the  opinion  that  Bochica  was  no  other  than  the  Apostle 
Bartholomew,  who,  according  to  a  widespread  legend,  preached  the  gospel  in 
this  part  of  the  world. 

291 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

often  sweep  over  the  Savanna  with  the  fury  of  a  Kansas 
cyclone. 

Aside  from  the  Eucalyptus  and  Humboldt  oak — Quercus 
Humboldtii — there  are  no  large  trees  in  the  Savanna  of 
Bogota.  The  Eucalyptus,  however,  is  everywhere  visible, 
in  the  streets  and  in  the  gardens  of  the  capital,  along  the 
thoroughfares  of  the  country  and  around  every  house,  how- 
ever humble,  and  quinta,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach. 
These  trees  were  introduced  from  Australia  only  a  few  dec- 
ades ago,  and  now  one  finds  them  in  all  parts  of  the  re- 
public. "We  saw  them  all  along  our  route  from  the  llanos 
to  Bogata.  The  people,  especially  those  living  on  the 
eastern  slopes  of  the  Oriental  Andes,  are  firmly  convinced 
that  their  presence  wards  off  paludismo — malaria — and,  as 
a  consequence,  they  are  considered  as  indispensable  around 
the  house  as  the  plantain  or  calabash  tree.1 

There  is  nothing  more  delightful  than  a  stroll  along  the 
Bio  San  Francisco,  which  flows  between  Monserrate  and 
Guadalupe  and  thence  through  the  city  of  Bogota.  The 
scenery  is  thoroughly  Alpine  in  character  and,  at  times, 
picturesque  beyond  description.  As  one  follows  the  narrow 
path,  always  near  the  musical,  crystal  waters  of  the  im- 
petuous stream,  one  is  delighted  at  every  step  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  some  new  flower  of  brightest  hue,  or  some 
strange  shrub  of  richest  foliage.  The  ground  is  fairly 
carpeted  with  anemones,  hepaticae,  gentians,  valerians, 
geraniums,  campanulas,  lupines  and  buttercups.  Like  simi- 
lar plants  on  the  Alps,  and  on  the  heights  of  our  Eockies, 
their  stems  are  very  short  and  they  seem  like  so  many 
rosettes  attached  to  the  earth,  or  the  rocks  that  rise  up  on 
both  sides  of  our  narrow  path. 

One  sees  well  illustrated  here  the  dividing  line  between 

i"Why  do  you  plant  these  eucalyptus  trees  around  your  houses?"  I 
asked  of  a  peon  one  day.  "Parct  evitar  to  fiebre,  Sumerced"  to  prevent 
fever,  your  honor.  The  "Sumerced,"  in  this  reply,  is  only  one  of  many  in- 
dications of  deference  on  the  part  of  the  common  people  in  their  intercourse 
with  strangers,  or  with  those  whom  they  regard  as  their  superiors.  It  is  an 
echo  of  the  courtly  language  employed  in  the  days  of  the  viceroyalty. 

292 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

the  flora  of  the  paramo  and  that  of  the  tierra  fria.  The 
plants  of  the  latter  creep  up  timidly  from  the  Savanna 
until  a  certain  point,  and  then,  as  if  afraid  to  venture 
further  into  the  region  of  frost,  halt  on  the  lower  edge  of 
the -paramo.  In  a  similar  manner  the  plants  of  the  higher 
altitudes  cautiously  descend  to  the  upper  belt  of  the  tierra 
fria  and  there  come  to  a  standstill  They  meet  on  a  com- 
mon zone  in  limited  numbers,  but  this  zone  is  often  ex- 
tremely narrow.  One  of  the  agreeable  surprises  to  the 
traveler  in  the  Andes  is  to  note  the  sudden  and  extraordi- 
nary changes  in  the  character  of  the  vegetation  as  he  as- 
cends or  descends  the  mountain  near  the  line  of  demarcation 
between  two  zones. 

The  plateau  of  Guadalupe  is  the  home  of  two  remarkable 
tree  ferns.  One  of  these  is  the  Cyathea  patens,  from  ten  to 
twelve  feet  high,  with  a  beautiful,  umbrella-shaped  crown. 
The  other  is  the  Dicksonia  gigantea,  which,  according  to 
the  naturalist,  Karsten,  is  probably  the  most  vigorous  and 
luxuriant  tree  fern  in  South  America.  Its  massive,  colum- 
nar trunk  bears  forty  and  more  dark-green  fronds,  from 
three  to  four  feet  wide  and  from  six  to  seven  in  length.  To 
get  a  close  view  of  even  one  of  these  noble  cryptogams 
fully  repays  one  for  the  arduous  climb  up  to  its  favorite 
habitat. 

Any  city  in  the  United  States  or  Europe,  having  in  its 
immediate  vicinity  such  attractions  as  has  Bogota,  would 
immediately  put  them  within  easy  reach  of  the  public. 
Thus  both  Monserrate  and  Guadalupe  would,  without  de- 
lay, be  connected  with  the  city  by  a  funicular  railway,  and 
near  by  would  be  a  number  of  restaurants  and  pleasure  re- 
sorts. 

An  electric  railway  would  also  be  constructed  to  the  great 
water  falls  of  Tequendama — the  largest  in  Colombia  and 
among  the  most  celebrated  in  South  America.  Although 
only  thirty-six  feet  wide,  the  main  fall  is  three  times  the 
height  of  Niagara  Falls.1  But  the  volume  of  water  carried 

iThe  height  of  the  falls,  according  to  Humboldt's  measurements,  is  one 

293 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

over  the  precipice  of  Tequendama  is  incomparably  less  than 
that  which  plunges  into  the  colossal  whirlpool  of  Niagara. 
In  appearance  it  somewhat  resembles  Vernal  Falls  in  the 
Yosemite  Valley,  or  the  lower  fall  of  the  Yellowstone. 
What,  however,  gives  to  the  Colombian  cataract  a  beauty 
all  its  own  is  its  setting  of  luxuriant  tropical  vegetation. 
In  this  respect  our  northern  waterfalls,  however  attractive 
they  may  be  in  other  respects,  cannot  be  compared  with 
Tequendama. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  but  few  Colombians  have  ever 
seen  the  falls  of  Tequendama.  Although  the  people  of 
Bogota  love  to  talk  about  them,  as  among  the  greatest  won- 
ders of  their  country,  it  is  rarely  that  one  is  found  who  has 
actually  visited  them.  And  yet  they  are  not  more  than 
twelve  miles  from  the  capital.  Even  the  peons  living  on  the 
plains  only  a  few  miles  from  the  cataract  can  give  the 
traveler  little  or  no  information  as  to  the  best  way  to  reach 
them.  How  different  this  would  all  be  if  the  place  were 
easy  of  access,  and  if  the  visitor,  on  arriving  there,  could 
find  the  creature  comforts  to  be  obtained  in  similar  places 
in  the  United  States  and  Europe! 

I  have  alluded  to  the  interesting  historical  associations 
connected  with  the  city  and  plateau  of  Bogota.  It  will 
suffice  to  speak  of  but  one  of  them;  but  this  one  is  so  re- 
markable that  it  is  like  a  chapter  taken  from  the  Arabian 
Nights.  I  refer  to  the  meeting  of  the  three  distinguished 
conquistadores,  Gonzalo  Jimenez  de  Quesada,  Nicholas 
Federmann  and  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar. 

Quesada  had  left  Santa  Marta  in  1536,  having  under  his 
command,  according  to  Oviedo,  eight  hundred  men  and  one 

hundred  and  seventy  metres.  Before  his  visit  they  were  supposed  to  be 
much  higher.  Piedrahita  calls  them  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  and 
declares  that  their  height  is  half  a  league.  Around  the  top  of  the  falls 
are  seen  oak,  elm  and  cinchona  trees;  at  the  bottom  are  found  palms, 
bananas  and  sugar-cane.  Colombans  always  refer  to  these  facts  when  they 
wish  to  impress  the  stranger  with  the  extraordinary  height  of  Tequendama, 
as  compared  with  that  of  other  great  falls.  By  a  single  plunge,  they  proudly 
tell  us,  its  waters  pass  from  tierra  fria  to  tierra  caliente. 

294 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

hundred  horses.  He  went  part  of  the  way  by  land  and  part 
by  the  Eio  Grande,  now  known  as  the  Magdalena.  After 
reaching  the  Opon,  he  followed  that  river  as  far  as  it  was 
navigable,  and  eventually  made  his  way  to  the  plateau  of 
Bogota — the  land  of  the  Chibchas. 

His  march  was,  in  some  respects,  the  most  difficult  and 
remarkable  in  the  annals  of  the  conquest.  He  had  to  con- 
tend against  relentless  savages,  dismal  swamps  and  almost 
impenetrable  forests,  where  he  had  to  cut  his  way  through 
the  tangled  vines  and  bushes,  and  where  it  was  often  im- 
possible to  make  more  than  a  league  a  day.  His  men  were 
decimated  by  disease  and  starvation.  When  he  at  last 
arrived  at  the  Valle  de  Alcazares,  near  the  present  site  of 
Bogota,  he  could  count  but  one  hundred  infantry  and  sixty 
cavalry.  But  with  this  handful  of  men  he  had  conquered 
the  Chibcha  nation,  numbering,  according  to  the  old 
chroniclers,  one  million  people  and  having  twenty  thousand 
soldiers  in  the  field. 

Scarcely,  however,  was  his  campaign  against  the  aborig- 
ines successfully  terminated,  when  information  was  con- 
veyed him  of  a  new  danger  in  the  person  of  a  German  com- 
petitor, who  had  just  arrived  from  the  llanos. 

Five  years  previously,  Fedennann,  in  the  service  of  the 
Welsers,  had  left  Coro  in  Venezuela,  with  four  hundred 
well-armed  and  well-provisioned  men.  After  wandering 
over  trackless  plains  and  through  dark  and  almost  im- 
penetrable forests,  enduring  frightful  hardships  of  all 
kinds,  he  finally  got  word  of  the  Chibchas  and  of  their 
treasures  of  gold  and  precious  stones.  He  forthwith 
changed  his  route  and  crossed  the  Eastern  Cordilleras, 
where  the  traveler  Andre  assures  us  it  is  now  absolutely 
impossible  to  pass.1 

Thus,  almost  before  Quesada  was  aware  that  Federmann 
was  in  the  country,  he  was  constrained  by  policy  to  receive 
him  and  his  one  hundred  ragged  and  famished  followers — 
these  were  all  that  remained  of  his  gallant  band— as  Ms 

Tour  du  Monde,  Vol.  XXXV,  p.  194. 

295 


UP  THE  OEINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

guests.  The  Spanish  conquistador  knew  that  the  German 
leader  would  put  in  a  claim  for  a  part  of  the  territory  that 
they  had  both  been  exploring,  and  which,  until  then,  each 
of  them  had  regarded  as  Ms  own  by  right  of  conquest.  He 
was  then  naturally  eager  to  effect  a  settlement  with  his 
competitor  on  the  best  terms  possible,  and  get  him  out  of 
the  country  with  the  least  possible  delay.  Federmann 
agreed  to  renounce  all  his  claims  in  consideration  of  his 
receiving  himself  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  pesos,  and  of 
having  his  soldiers  enjoy  all  the  rights  of  discoverers  and 
conquistadores  accorded  to  those  of  Quesada. 

Scarcely,  however,  had  these  negotiations  been  happily 
terminated,  when  another  and  a  more  formidable  rival  ap- 
peared on  the  scene,  on  his  way  from  the  distant  South. 
This  was  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar,1  the  famous  lieutenant 
of  Francisco  Pizarro.  He  was  then  governor  of  Quito  and 
the  conqueror  of  much  of  the  territory  now  included  in 
Ecuador  and  Southern  Colombia.  Hearing  casually  of  El 
Dorado  and  of  the  marvelous  riches  this  ruler  was  reputed 
to  possess,  the  Spanish  chieftain  lost  no  time  in  organizing 
an  expedition  to  the  country  of  gold  and  emeralds,  of  fertile 
plains  and  delightful  valleys.  Setting  out  with  the  as- 
surance of  an  early  and  easy  victory,  and  of  soon  becoming 
the  possessors  of  untold  wealth  and  all  the  enjoyment  that 
wealth  could  command,  the  soldiers,  in  quest  of  El  Dorado, 
exclaimed  with  unrestrained  enthusiasm: 

"Nuestros  sean  su  oro  y  BUS  placeres, 
Gocemos  de  ese  campo  y  ese  sol."2 

But  anticipation  is  not  fruition.  This  the  Spaniards  soon 
learned  to  their  sorrow.  Like  Quesada  and  Federmann  and 
their  followers,  Belalcazar  and  his  men  had  to  endure 
frightful  hardships  during  the  long  and  painful  march  of 

i  Not  Benalcazar,  as  is  so  often  written.    He  took  Ms  name  from  his  native 
town,  Belalcazar,  on  the  confines  of  Andalusia  and  Estremadura. 
a  "Ours  be  his  gold  and  his  pleasures, 
Let  us  enjoy  that  land,  that  sun." 

296 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AilEEICA 

many  months  from  Quito  to  the  plateau  of  Bogota.  Ac- 
cording to  Castellanos,  who  wrote  while  many  of  these  ad- 
venturers were  still  living,  and  who  had  received  from  them 
directly  an  account  of  their  privations  and  sufferings  and 
the  countless  obstacles  that  at  times  rendered  progress  al- 
most impossible,  their  journey  was  made  through  moun- 
tains and  districts  that  were  inaccessible  and  uninhabitable, 
through  gloomy  forests  and  dense,  tangled  underbrush; 
through  inhospitable  lands  and  dismal  swamps,  where  there 
was  neither  food  nor  shelter  for  man  or  beast.1 

This  extraordinary  and  accidental  meeting  of  the  three 
conquistadores,  coming  from  so  great  distances,  from  three 
different  points  of  the  compass,  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing episodes  in  the  history  of  the  conquest.  It  was  a 
critical  moment  for  the  Europeans.  If  they  had  failed  to 
agree,  and  had  turned  their  arms  against  one  another,  those 
who  would  have  escaped  alive  would  have  been  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Indians,  who  would  at  once  have  rallied  their  forces 
to  repel  the  invaders.  But,  fortunately,  wise  councils  pre- 
vailed and  a  clash  was  averted. 

"While  the  clergy  and  the  religious,"  writes  Acosta, 
"were  going  to  and  from  the  different  camps  endeavoring 
to  prevent  a  rupture,  the  three  parties  of  Spaniards,  com- 
ing from  points  so  distant,  and  now  occupying  the  three 
apices  of  a  triangle,  whose  sides  measured  three  or  four 
leagues,  presented  a  singular  spectacle.  Those  from  Peru 
were  clad  in  scarlet  cloth  and  silk,  and  wore  steel  helmets 
and  costly  plumes.  Those  from  Santa  Marta  had  cloaks, 
linens  and  caps  made  by  the  Indians.  Those,  however, 
from  Venezuela,  like  refugees  from  Eobinson  Crusoe 's 
island,  were  covered  with  the  skins  of  bears,  leopards,  tigers 
and  deer.  Having  journeyed  more  than  thirteen  hundred 
leagues  through  uninhabited  lands,  they  had  experienced 
the  most  cruel  hardships.  They  arrived  poor,  naked,  and 
reduced  to  one-fourth  of  their  original  number. 

"The  three  chiefs,"  continues  Acosta,  "were  among  the 

iQp.  eit.,  Parte  III,  Canto  4. 

297 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

most  distinguished  men  who  ever  came  to  America.  Bel- 
alcazar,  son  of  a  woodman  of  Extremadura,  attained  by 
his  talents  and  valor  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  conquistadores  of  South  America  and  was 
endowed  in  a  degree  far  above  the  other  two  with  political 
tact  and  observing  genius.  As  soon  as  he  became  aware 
of  the  agreement  entered  into  between  Quesada  and  Feder- 
mann,  he  nobly  waived  his  rights,  and  declined  to  accept 
the  sum  which  Quesada  offered  him.  He  stipulated  only 
that  his  soldiers  should  not  be  prevented  from  returning 
to  Peru,  when  they  might  desire  to  do  so,  or  when  Pizarro 
should  demand  them,  and  that  Captain  Juan  Cabrera 
should  return  to  found  a  town  in  Neiva,  a  territory  which, 
along  with  Timana,  was  to  be  under  the  government  of 
Popayan,  which  it  was  his  intention  to  solicit  from  the  Em- 
peror. In  the  meantime  he  agreed  to  accompany  Quesada 
to  Spain."  * 

The  three  went  to  Spain  together,  as  had  been  arranged, 
each  of  them  confident  of  receiving  from'  the  Spanish 
monarch  a  reward  commensurate  with  his  labors  and  serv- 
ices to  the  crown.  Each  one  aspired  to  the  governorship 
of  New  Granada  and  used  all  his  influence  to  secure  the 
coveted  prize. 

The  net  result  of  their  efforts  was  a  sad  experience  of 
the  vanity  of  human  wishes.  All  were  disappointed  in  their 
expectations.  The  guerdon  all  so  eagerly  strove  for  was 
awarded  to  another,  who  had  taken  no  part  in  the  conquest 
that  had  rendered  the  three  aspirants  to  royal  favor  so 
famous. 

Only  Belalcazar  received  any  recognition  whatever.  He 
was  made  adelantado  of  Popayan  and  the  surrounding 
territory.  As  for  Quesada  and  Federmann,  they  fell  into 
disfavor.  The  latter  soon  disappeared  from  public  view 
entirely,  but  long  afterwards,  Quesada  was  able  to  return 
to  the  land  where  he  had  won  so  many  laurels.  And  it  was 

*  Compendia   Eistorico  del  Desoulrimiento  y  Golonimcion  de  la 
Granada,  p.  168,  Bogota,  1901. 

298 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

fitting  that,  after  his  death,  his  remains  should  repose  in  the 
noble  cathedral  that  adorns  the  capital  of  which  ho  was 
the  founder.1 

In  adventure  and  achievement,  the  three  conquistadores 
above  mentioned  take  rank  with  Cortes,  Pizarro  and  Orel- 
lana.  Given  a  Homer,  their  wanderings  and  deeds  would 
afford  themes  for  three  Odysseys  of  intense  and  abiding  in- 
terest. Given  even  an  Ercilla,  we  should  have  a  literary 
monument,  which,  in  romantic  episode  and  dramatic  effect, 
would  eclipse  the  Araucana,  the  nearest  approach  to  an 
epic  that  South  America  has  yet  produced. 

The  Bogotanos  have  long  claimed  for  their  city  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  Athens  of  South  America.  And  con- 
sidering its  past  and  present  culture,  and  the  attention 
which  the  arts,  the  sciences  and  literature  have  always  re- 
ceived there  since  the  foundation  of  the  capital,  few,  I  think, 
will  be  disposed  to  impugn  the  justness  of  this  claim. 

Bogota's  first  man  of  letters  was  none  other  than  the 
licentiate  Gonzalo  Jimenez  de  Quesada  himself — a  man 
who  could  wield  the  pen  with  as  much  skill  as  the  sword. 
Indeed,  the  detailed  knowledge  that  we  have  of  many 
features  of  his  memorable  campaigns  we  owe  to  his  fertile 
pen.  He  is  really  the  first  and,  in  some  respects,  the  most 
important  chronicler  of  the  events  in  which  he  took  so 
conspicuous  a  part.  How  unlike,  in  this  respect,  is  he  not, 
to  Pizarro  and  Almagro,  who  were  unable  to  sign  their  own 
names? 

Among  the  other  early  writers  of  New  Granada  was 
Padre  Juan  de  Castellanos,  the  poet-historiographer,  who 
has  been  so  frequently  quoted  in  the  preceding  chapters. 
The  extent  of  his  work  may  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  it 
contains  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  hendecasyllabic 
verses — more  than  ten  times  as  many  as  are  in  the  Divina 
Commedia — and  more  than  are  found  in  any  other  metrical 

iPiedrahita,  op.  cit.,  Lib.  VII,  Cap.  4,  Bogota,  1881.  See  also  Xoticias 
Historiales  de  las  Conquistas  de  Tierra  Firme  en  las  India*  Occidentals,  por 
Fr.  Pedro  Simon,  Tom.  IV,  p.  195,  Bogota,  1892. 

299 


UP  THE  OHIXOCO  AXD  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

work,  except  the  Hindu  epic  known  as  the  Mahabharata, 
which  contains  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  ten  thou- 
sand couplets. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  Colombia,  as  in  Spain, 
Portugal  and  Mexico,  the  nun  in  the  cloister  has  found  time 
to  devote  to  literature  as  well  as  to  contemplation  and 
works  of  charity.  Among  these  successful  imitators  of  St. 
Theresa,  whose  works,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  have  long 
been  the  admiration  of  the  literary  world,  may  be  men- 
tioned Sor  Francisca  Josefa  de  la  Concepcion,  of  Tunga. 
Although  she  wrote  in  prose,  she,  by  her  purity  of  language 
and  delicacy  of  sentiment,  is  entitled  to  rank  with  such 
distinguished  ornaments  of  the  cloister  as  Sor  Junana  Ines 
de  la  Cruz,  of  Mexico;  Sor  Maria  de  Ceo,  of  Portugal;  Sor 
Gregoria  de  Santa  Teresa,  of  Seville;  and  Sor  Ana  de  San 
Jeroniino,  of  Granada,  Spain.1 

The  names  of  the  poets  and  prose  writers  of  Colombia, 
that  have  achieved  distinction,  make  a  long  list.  Many  of 
them  enjoy  an  international  reputation,  and  their  produc- 
tions compare  favorably  with  the  best  efforts  of  the  writers 
of  the  mother  country— Spain.2 

i  Antologia  de  Poetas  Eispano-Americanos,  publicada  por  la  Real  Academia 
Espafiola,  Tom.  Ill,  Introduction,  Madrid,  1894. 

a  A  peculiar  phenomenon,  which  has  been  frequently  commented  on,  is  that 
the  early  prose  writers  of  Latin  America  exhibited  more  true  poetic  feel- 
ing and  enthusiasm  in  their  productions  than  did  those  who  expressed  them- 
selves in  verse.  La  Araucana,  the  so-called  epic  poem  of  Ercilla,  pronounced 
an  Iliad  by  Voltaire  and  considered  by  Sismondi  a  mere  newspaper  in  rhyme, 
is  a  case  in  point.  Nowhere,  in  this  long  work  of  forty-two  thousand  verses, 
"has  the  aspect  of  volcanoes  covered  with  eternal  snow,  of  torrid  sylvan  val- 
leys, and  of  arms  of  the  sea  extending  far  into  the  land,  been  productive 
of  any  descriptions  that  may  be  regarded  as  graphical."  It  exhibits,  it  is 
true,  a  certain  animation  in  describing  the  heroic  struggle  of  the  brave 
Araucanians  for  their  homes  and  liberty,  but,  aside  from  this,  the  higher  ele- 
ments of  poetry — especially  of  epic  poetry — are  entirely  lacking. 

The  same  observation  can  be  made  with  still  greater  truth  of  the  Arwca 
Domado,  of  Padre  Ofia;  of  the  Argentina,  of  Barco  Centenera;  the  Cortes 
Valeroso,  and  the  Afejicana,  of  Laso  de  la  Vega;  and  the  oft-quoted  Elegias 
de  Varones  Ilustres  &e  Indias,  of  Juan  de  Castellanos.  All  of  these,  with 
the  exception  of  the  last-mentioned  work,  have  long  since  been  buried  in  al- 
most complete  oblivion. 

300 


THE  ATHENS  OP  SOUTH  AMERICA 

In  science,  too,  Colombia  counts  many  sons  who  have 
contributed  greatly  to  our  knowledge  of  nature.  It  suffices 
to  recall  the  names  of  such  savants  as  Francisco  Antonio 
Zea,  Francisco  Jose  de  Caldas  and  the  illustrious  Muti?, 
whom  Humboldt  called  "the  patriarch  of  the  botanists  of 
the  New  World, "  and  whose  name  Linnseus  declared  to  be 
immortal — "women  immortals  quod  wiitta  aetas  wiquam 
delebit." 

There  were  at  one  time  no  fewer  than  twenty-three 
colleges  in  New  Granada.  The  first  of  these  was  founded 
in  1554,  for  the  education  of  the  Indians.  The  following 
year  another  one  was  established  for  the  benefit  of  Spanish 
orphans  and  mestizos.  In  one  of  the  colleges  was  a  special 
chair  for  the  study  of  the  Muisca  language.  The  Eoyal 
and  Pontifical  University  began  its  existence  in  1627, 
thirteen  years  before  the  foundation  of  Harvard  College. 
In  1653  the  Archbishop  D.  Fr.  Cristobal  de  Torres  founded 
the  celebrated  College  del  Eosario,  which,  by  reason  of  its 
munificent  endowment,  was  able  to  render  such  splendid 
service  to  the  cause  of  education,  and  was  long  recognized 
as  the  leading  institution  of  learning  in  New  Granada. 

Although  the  Vieeroyalty  of  Santa  Fe  was  behind  Mex- 
ico l  and  Lima  in  the  introduction  of  the  printing  press,  it 
claims  the  honor  of  establishing  the  first  astronomical  ob- 
servatory in  America,  as  Mexico  was  the  first  to  have  a 
botanical  garden,  a  school  of  mines,  and  a  school  of  med- 

The  influence  of  the  Italian  school  is  everywhere  manifest  in  these  produc- 
tions— an  influence  which,  while  it  may  have  contributed  to  purity,  cor- 
rectness and  elegance  of  expression,  was  quite  destructive  of  the  vigor, 
freshness  and  originality  so  characteristic  of  the  great  masters  of  Spanish 
verse.  Compare  Humholdt's  Cosmos,  Vol.  II,  Part  I;  and  Eistorias  Primitives 
de  India*,  por  Don  Enrique  de  Vedia,  Tom.  I,  p.  10,  Madrid,  1377,  in  the 
Biblioteoa  de  Autores  Espanoles  desde  la  Formation  del  Lenguaje  hasta 
Nuestros  Dios. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  the  literature  of  Colombia  will  find  the  sub- 
ject ably  discussed  in  Historia  de  la  Literatvra  en  tfueva  Granada,  by  Don 
Jose*  Maria  Vergara  y  Vergara  Bogota,  1867. 

i  The  first  printing  press  seen  in  the  New  World  was  brought  to  the  city 
of  Mexico  by  its  first  bishop,  the  learned  Franciscan,  Fray  Juan  de  Zumar- 
raga,  shortly  after  the  conquest  by  Cortes. 

301 


DP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

icine.    It  was  also  among  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  of 
the  capitals  of  the  New  World  to  open  a  public  library. 

The  number  of  public  and  private  libraries  now  existing 
in  the  city  of  Bogota  contribute  greatly  towards  justifying 
its  claim  to  being  the  chief  centre  of  South  American  cul- 
ture. Another  evidence  of  the  intellectual  atmosphere  that 
obtains  there  is  the  number  of  secondhand  book  stores.  In 
browsing  among  these  storehouses  of  old  and  precious 
tomes  I  quite  forgot,  for  the  time  being,  that  I  was  so  far 
from  the  busy  world  of  action,  and  could  easily  fancy  myself 
among  the  book  shops  of  Florence,  Leipsic  or  Paris.  In- 
deed, some  of  the  most  prized  volumes  in  my  Latin- Ameri- 
can library  I  picked  up  on  the  book  stalls  of  Bogota. 

Mr.  E.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham,  in  his  preface  to  Sr. 
Triana's  work,  Down  the  Orinoco  in  a  Canoe,  says 
the  capital  of  Colombia  "is  in  a  way  a  kind  of  Chibcha 
Athens.  There  all  men  write,  and  poets  rave  and  madden 
through  the  land,  and  only  wholesome  necessary  revolu- 
tions keep  their  number  down."  Again,  he  declares: 
"Bogota  to-day  is,  without  doubt,  the  greatest  literary 
centre  south  of  Panama.  Putting  aside  the  flood  of  titubat- 
ing verse  which,  like  a  mental  dysentery,  afflicts  all  mem- 
bers of  the  Spanish-speaking  race,  in  Bogota  more  serious 
literary  work  is  done  during  a  month  than  in  the  rest  of 
the  republics  in  a  year." l 

Mr.  W.  Lu  Scruggs,  sometime  American  minister  to 
Bogotd,  writes  in  the  same  sense.  "Most  of  the  educated 
classes,"  he  says,  "have,  or  think  they  have,  the  literary 
faculty.  They  are  particularly  fond  of  writing  what  they 
call  poetry,  and  of  making  post-prandial  speeches.  The 
average  collegian  will  write  poetry 2  by  the  yard  or  speak 
impromptu  by  the  hour.  He  never  shows  the  least  em- 
barrassment before  an  audience,  and  is  rarely  at  a  loss  for 

i The, people  of  some  of  the  other  South  American  capitals  would,  I  am 
eure,  take  exception  to  the  claims  here  made  in  favor  of  Bogota.  I  myself 
think  them  greatly  exaggerated. 

*The  Colombian  and  Venezuela  Republics,  p.  101,  Boston,  1905, 

302 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

a  word.  The  adjectives  and  adverbs  flow  in  sluices  of  un- 
broken rhythm,  and  the  supply  of  euphonious  words  and 
hyperbolic  phrases  seems  inexhaustible.  He  always  gestic- 
ulates vehemently,  and  somehow  it  seems  to  become  him 
well ;  for  no  matter  how  little  there  may  be  in  what  he  says, 
somebody  is  sure  to  applaud  and  encourage  him/' 

In  Colombia  there  seem  to  be  as  many  "doctors,"  that  is, 
men  who  have  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  as  there  are 
generals  in  Venezuela.  Most  of  them  are  politicians,  or. 
contributors  to  the  various  newspapers  of  the  country,  or 
"professors" — there  are  no  pedagogues — in  the  numerous 
educational  institutions  of  the  Bepublic. 

The  number  of  newspapers  published  in  Bogota  is  sur- 
prising— more  than  there  are  in  Boston  or  Philadelphia. 
Of  course,  there  circulation  is  extremely  limited.  They  are 
mostly  partisan  organs — an  independent  paper  being  un- 
known— or  literary  journals  remarkable,  the  majority  of 
them,  for  long  poems,  verbose  editorials  and  translations 
of  the  latest  French  novels. 

On  the  way  down  from  the  chapel  of  Guadalupe,  near  the 
opening  of  the  gorge  between  the  peaks  of  Monserrate  and 
Guadalupe,  one  passes  what  was  once  the  Quinta  Bolivar,  a 
gift  to  the  Liberator  by  one  of  his  wealthy  admirers.  It 
is  now  the  property  of  a  thrifty  Antioquenian,  who  has 
converted  it  into  a  tannery.  As  we  pass  along  the  north 
side  of  San  Carlos'  palace,  which  contains  the  office  of  the 
ministry  of  foreign  affairs,  we  observe  the  historic  window 
from  which,  as  a  memorial  tablet  informs  us,  Bolivar  es- 
caped assassination,  Sept.  25th,  1828.  In  the  centre  of  the 
principal  plaza,  called  the  Plaza  Bolivar,  is  a  bronze  statue 
of  the  Liberator  by  Tenerani,  a  pupil  of  Canova. 

Everywhere  in  Colombia,  as  in  Venezuela,  we  are  re- 
minded of  Bolivar  and  find  monuments  to  his  memory.  In 
Ciudad  Bolivar  and  in  Valencia  and  elsewhere  there  are 
statues  of  him.  In  Caracas  there  are  several,  among  them 
a  large  equestrian  statue  which  is  a  replica  of  one  in 

«  303 


UP  THE  OBINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

But  the  people,  in  their  desire  to  honor  their  hero,  have 
not  been  satisfied  with  statues  alone.  Coins  bear  his  name 
and  image,  towns  and  states  are  named  after  him.  More 
than  this,  his  name  has  been  given  to  one  of  the  South 
American  republics — Bolivia — a  republic,  formerly  a  part 
of  Peru — Upper  Peru — which  owes  its  very  existence  to 
him. 

But  who  was  Simon  Bolivar,  one  will  ask,  and  what  has 
he  done  to  achieve  such  distinction  and  to  command 
recognition  in  such  diverse  ways  and  in  regions  so  widely 
separated? 

His  admirers  say  that  he  was  the  Washington  of  South 
America — the  one  who  secured  the  independence  of  the 
Spanish  colonies,  after  three  centuries  of  misrule  and  op- 
pression. According  to  them,  he  was  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  geniuses  in  military  science,  a  genius  in  state- 
craft, a  genius  in  everything  required  to  make  a  great  and 
successful  leader  of  men. 

Sr.  Miguel  Tejera  does  not  hesitate  to  characterize  him 
as  one  who  was  "Bold  and  fortunate  as  Alexander,  a 
patriot  like  Hannibal,  brave  and  clement  like  Caesar,  a 
great  captain  and  a  profound  statesman  like  Napoleon, 
honorable  as  Washington,  a  sublime  poet  and  a  versatile 
orator,  such  was  Bolivar,  who  united  in  his  own  mind  all 
the  vast  multiplicity  of  the  elements  of  genius.  His  glory 
will  shine  in  the  heaven  of  history,  not  as  a  meteor  that 
passes,  and  is  lost  in  the  bosom  of  space,  but  as  a  heavenly 
body,  whose  radiance  is  ever-increasing."  l 

Even  more  extravagant  are  the  claims  made  for  his  hero 
by  Don  Felipe  Larazabel  in  his  bulky  two-tome  Vida  de 
Bolivar. 

"A  noble  and  sublime  spirit,  humane,  just,  liberal, 
Bolivar  was  one  of  the  most  gifted  men  the  world  has  ever 
known ;  so  perfect  and  unique  that  in  goodness  he  was  like 
Titus,  in  his  fortune  and  achievements  like  Trapan,  in 

i  Compendia  de  la  Historia  de  Venezuela  desde  el  Desculrimiento  de  Amer- 
ica hasta  Nuestros  Diets,  p.  213,  Paris,  1875. 

304 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

urbanity  like  Marcus  Aureiiu?,  in  valor  like  Caesar,  in  learn- 
ing and  eloquence  like  Augustus.  .  .  . 

"He  was  a  poet  like  Homer,  a  legislator  like  Plato,  a 
soldier  like  Bonaparte.  ...  He  taught  Soublett  and 
Heres  diplomacy,  Santander  administration,  Gual  politics, 
Marshal  Sucre  military  art. 

"Like  Charlemagne,  but  in  a  higher  degree,  he  possessed 
the  art  of  doing  great  things  with  ease  and  difficult  things 
with  promptness.  Whoever  conceived  plans  so  vast  I 
Whoever  carried  them  to  a  more  successful  issue  \  A  quick 
and  unerring  glance;  a  rapid  intuition  of  things  and  times; 
a  prodigious  spontaneity  in  improvising  gigantic  plans; 
the  science  of  war  reduced  to  the  calculation  of  minutes, 
an  extraordinary  vigor  of  conception,  and  a  creative  spirit, 
fertile  and  inexhaustible,  .  .  .  such  was  Bolivar. 

"  'Deus  ille  fuit,  Deus,  inclyte  Memmi.'  He  was  a  god, 
illustrious  Memmius,  he  was  a  god."  * 

Col.  G.  Hippisley,  who  served  under  Bolivar  in  the 
War  of  Independence,  does  not  give  such  a  flattering 
estimate  of  the  Liberator.  " Bolivar, "  he  writes,  "would 
willingly  ape  the  great  man.  He  aspires  to  be  a  second 
Bonaparte  in  South  America,  without  possessing  a  single 
talent  for  the  duties  of  the  "field  or  the  cabinet.  *  .  . 
He  has  neither  talents  nor  abilities  for  a  general,  and 
especially  for  a  commander-in-chief.  .  .  .  Tactics, 
movements  and  manoeuvre  are  as  unknown  to  him  as  to  the 
lowest  of  his  troops.  All  idea  of  regularity,  system  or  the 
common  routine  of  an  army,  or  even  a  regiment,  he  is 
totally  unacquainted  with.  Hence  arise  all  the  disasters 
he  meets,  the  defeats  he  suffers  and  his  constant  obligations 
to  retreat  whenever  opposed  to  the  foe.  The  victory, 
which  he  gains  to-day,  however  dearly  purchased  .  .  . 
is  lost  to-morrow  by  some  failure  or  palpable  neglect  on 
his  part.  Thus  it  is  that  Paez  was  heard  to  tell  Bolivar, 
after  the  action  at  Villa  del  Cura,  that  he  would  move  off 

iSee  especially  introduction  and  Cap.  I,  Vol.  I,  Qninta  Edicion,  New 
York,  1901. 

305 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

his  own  troops,  and  act  no  more  with  him  in  command; 
adding,  'I  have  never  lost  a  battle  wherein  I  acted  by 
myself,  or  in  a  separate  command ;  and  I  have  always  been 
defeated  when  acting  in  connection  with  you  or  under  your 
orders.7"1 

Gen.  Holstein,  who  was  the  Liberator's  chief -of-staff 
and  who  was,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  have  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  man,  is  even  more  pronounced  in  his 
strictures  on  the  character  and  capacity  of  the  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  patriot  forces. 

"The  dominant  traits  in  the  character  of  General  Bolivar 
are  ambition,  vanity,  thirst  for  absolute,  undivided  power 
and  profound  dissimulation.  .  .  .  Many  of  his  generals 
have  done  far  more  than  he  has  to  free  the  country  from 
the  Spaniards.  .  .  .  The  brightest  deeds  of  all  these 
generals  were  performed  in  the  absence  of  Bolivar. 
Abroad  they  were  attributed  to  his  military  skill  and 
heroism,  while,  in  fact,  he  was  a  fugitive  a  thousand  miles 
from  the  scenes  of  their  bravery,  and  never  dreaming  of 
their  success.  .  .  .  General  Bolivar,  moreover,  has 
never  made  a  charge  of  cavalry  nor  with  the  bayonet;  on 
the  contrary,  he  has  ever  been  careful  to  keep  himself  out 
of  danger."2 

Elsewhere  in  his  work,  Holstein  claims  to  "  prove  that 
Bolivar,  the  Republic  of  Colombia  and  its  chieftains,  are 
indebted  to  strangers  and  their  powerful  support  for  their 
existence,  if  not  as  a  free,  at  least  as  an  independent 
people."  There  were,  according  to  some  estimates,  fully 
ten  thousand  European  soldiers  in  the  republican  army,  and 
among  the  officers  were  Englishmen,  Germans,  Irishmen, 
Poles  and  Frenchmen.  It  was,  according  to  Holstein,  the 
Irish  legion  that  gained  the  great  battle  of  Oarabobo,  which 
secured  the  independence  of  Venezuela.8  It  was  the 

i  A  Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  the  Rivers  Orinoco  and  Apure,  pp.  462- 
464,  London,  1819. 

a  Memoirs  of  Simon  Bolivar,  Vol.  II,  pp.  3,  236,  257  and  258. 

a  After  the  battle  was  over  the  survivors  of  this  decisive  conflict  were  sa- 
inted by  Bolivar  as  Salvatores  de  mi  f  atria — Saviors  of  my  country. 

306 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

British  legion,  declares  the  same  writer,  that  won  the  de- 
cisive victory  of  Boyaca,  which  broke  the  power  of  the 
Spaniards  in  New  Granada.  Sucre,  the  victorious  general 
in  the  battle  of  Pichincha,  which  liberated  Ecuador,  was 
also  the  victor  in  the  battles  of  Junin  and  Ayacucho — the 
Waterloo  of  colonial  rule  in  South  America — which  gave 
freedom  to  Peru.  Bolivar  had  the  honor  of  gaining  both 
victories,  although  he  was  ill  during  the  battle  of  Aya- 
cucho, and  a  hundred  miles  from  the  field  of  action  during 
the  struggle  on  the  plateau  of  Junin. 

In  view  of  all  this,  Holstein  does  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  Bolivar  rules  "with  more  power  and  absoluteness  than 
does  the  autocrat  of  Eussia  or  the  Sultan  of  Constan- 
tinople/7 and  that,  compared  with  George  Washington, 
Simon  Bolivar  was  but  a  Liliputian.  Sr.  Biva  Aguero, 
the  first  president  of  Peru,  goes  farther  and  assures  us 
that  the  terrible  characterization,  given  by  Apollocorus,  of 
Philip  of  Macedon,  father  of  Alexander  the  Great,  is  but 
a  true  portrait  of  the  Liberator  Bolivar. 

These  estimates  of  Bolivar,  so  different  from  those  of 
Tejera  and  Larrazabel  and  many  of  Bolivar  *s  other 
biographers — remind  one  of  what  Montesquieu  says  about 
the  contradictory  accounts  which  partisan  writers  have 
given  us  regarding  certain  potentates  of  antiquity.  As  in- 
stances he  cites  Alexander,  who  is  described  as  the  veriest 
poltroon  by  Herodian,  and  extolled  as  a  paragon  of  valor 
by  Lampridius ;  and  Gratian,  who  by  his  admirers  is  lauded 
to  the  skies  and  by  Philostorgus  compared  to  Nero. 

"But,  how  is  it  possible,  the  question  naturally  arises, 
that  General  Bolivar  should  have  liberated  his  country,  and 
preserved  to  himself  the  supreme  power,  without  superior 
talent?" 

"If  by  liberating  his  country,"  replies  Gen.  Holstein, 
in  answer  to  his  own  question,  "it  be  meant  that  he  has 
given  his  country  a  free  government,  I  answer  that  he  has 
not  done  so.  If  it  be  meant  that  he  has  driven  out  the 
Spaniards,  I  answer  that  he  has  done  little  towards  this; 

307 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

far  less  certainly  than  the  meanest  of  his  subordinate 
chieftains.  To  the  question,  How  can  he  have  retained  his 
power  without  superior  talent?  I  answer,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  reputation  of  superior  talent  goes  a  great  way. 
.  .  .  The  stupid  management  of  the  Spanish  authorities 
has  facilitated  all  the  operations  of  the  patriots.  The 
grievous  faults  of  Bolivar  and  some  of  his  generals  have 
been  exceeded  by  those  of  his  adversaries.  It  is  not 
strange,  therefore,  that  Bolivar  should  have  been  able  to 
do  all  he  has  done  with  very  limited  talents."  l 

Such  a  marked  divergence  of  views  respecting  the  char- 
acter of  Bolivar  and  the  position  he  should  occupy  among 
the  great  chieftains  of  history  admits  of  an  explanation, 
but  such  an  explanation  would  of  itself  require  a  volume. 
It  is  safe  to  say,  however,  that  no  reliable  biography  of 
the  Liberator  has  yet  appeared,  and  that,  when  it  does  ap- 
pear, it  is  most  likely  that  Bolivar  will  occupy  a  position 
much  below  that  claimed  for  him  by  some  of  his  over- 
enthusiastic  eulogists  and  above  that  assigned  to  him  by 
those  who  have  manifested  less  admiration  for  his  policy 
and  achievements. 

To  write  a  definitive  biography  of  Bolivar  will  not  be 
an  easy  task.  It  will  require  a  man  of  broad  sympathies ; 
one  entirely  free  from  all  national  antipathy  and  religious 
bias;  one  with  a  judicial  mind,  who  can  sift  and  weigh 
evidence  without  prejudice,  and  render  a  verdict  strictly 
in  accordance  with  the  facts  in  the  case.  Most,  if  not  all, 
who  have  hitherto  written  about  Bolivar,  have  exhibited 
a  partisan  spirit  and  allowed  themselves  to  be  swayed  by 
political  and  other  considerations,  which  have  so  greatly 
detracted  from  the  value  of  their  work  that  it  cannot  be 
accepted  as  authentic  history. 

To  do  full  justice  to  the  subject  in  all  its  bearings  will 
require  impartial  judgment,  ripe  and  varied  scholarship, 
and  above  all,  a  keen  and  comprehensive  historic  sense. 
The  writer  will  have  to  discuss  the  relation  of  Spain  to 

iOp.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  249,  250. 

308 


THE  ATHENS  OP  SOUTH  AMERICA 

her  colonies,  and  consider  various  social,  political,  racial, 
economical  and  religious  questions  that  are  as  difficult  as 
they  are  complicated  and  conflicting.  He  must  have  an 
intimate  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the  character  and 
aspirations  of  the  different  peoples  with  whom  Bolivar 
and  his  lieutenants  had  to  deal.  He  must  be  familiar  with 
the  history  and  traditions  of  the  various  South  American 
presidencies  and  viceroyalties  and  captaincies-general,  and 
take  note  of  the  passions  and  prejudices  and  jealousies 
that  have  been  the  cause  of  so  many  sanguinary  revolu- 
tions and  have  contributed  so  much  to  retard  intellectual 
progress  and  material  advancement.  Only  when  such  an 
one  appears,  and  completes  the  colossal  task,  shall  we  have 
a  definitive  life  of  Simon  Bolivar,  and  an  authentic  record 
-of  the  War  of  Independence. 

Before  closing  this  chapter  some  reference  seems  neces- 
sary to  what  cannot  escape  even  the  most  casual  student  of 
South  American  history,  but  what,  to  the  observant 
traveler,  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  special  moment.  I  refer 
to  Bolivar's  policy  of  dividing  and  weakening  Peru,  and  to 
his  uniting  under  one  flag  the  three  northern  countries  of 
the  continent.  The  separation  of  Upper  Peru — Bolivia — 
from  Lower  Peru  seems,  in  the  light  of  events  since  the 
change,  to  have  been  a  fatal  mistake  and  detrimental  to 
the  best  interests  of  Bolivia  as  well  as  to  those  of  Peru. 

I  think,  however,  he  exhibited  unusual  wisdom  and  fore- 
sight in  combining  in  one  republic — Gran  Colombia — the 
provinces  of  Quito,  New  Granada  and  Venezuela.  I  know 
Gen.  Mitre  has  denounced  the  idea  as  an  absurdity — como 
un  absurdo — 1  but,  if  this  distinguished  writer  had  had 

i  "Colombia  had  been  an  efficient  war  machine  in  the  hands  of  Bolivar 
by  which  the  independence  of  South  America  was  secured,  but  was  an 
anachronism  as  a  nation.  The  interests  of  the  different  sections  were 
antagonistic,  and  the  military  organization  given  to  the  country  only  strength- 
ened the  germs  of  disorder.  Venezuela  and  New  Granada  were  geographically 
marked  out  as  independent  nations.  Quito,  from  historical  antecedents,  as- 
pired to  autonomy.  Had  Bolivar  abstained  from  his  dreams  of  conquest,  and 
devoted  his  energies  to  the  consolidation  of  his  own  country,  he  might,  per- 
haps, have  organized  it  into  one  nation  under  a  federal  form  of  government, 

309 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

an  opportunity  to  study  actual  conditions,  as  they  present 
themselves  to  the  traveler  to-day,  and  to  consult  the  wishes 
and  welfare  of  the  large  mass  of  the  people  at  present 
dwelling  within  the  confines  of  Greater  Colombia,  I  think 
he  would  have  been  disposed  to  accept  Bolivar's  plan  for 
a  great  nation,  extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific, 
as  the  best  for  all  concerned. 

Had  the  destiny  of  Colombia,  after  the  union,  been  en- 
trusted to  the  direction  of  wise  and  unselfish  patriots,  as 
was  the  infant  Republic  of  the  United  States  of  North 
America,  one  may  well  believe  that  the  history  of  this  part 
of  South  America,  during  the  last  three-quarters  of  a 
century,  would  have  been  quite  different  from  what  it  has 
been,  and  that  it  would  have  been  spared  those  countless 
internecine  wars  that  have  deluged  the  country  in  blood 
and  rendered  civilization,  in  its  higher  sense,  impossible. 

The  geographical  features  of  the  country,  and  the 
diverse  interests  of  its  different  sections,  were,  pace  Mitre, 
no  more  opposed  to  the  formation  of  a  great  and  stable 
republic  on  the  Caribbean  than  they  were  in  that  vast 
commonwealth  to  the  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  where 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  have  so  long  been  the  symbol  of 
peace,  prosperity  and  national  greatness.  The  people  in 
the  southern  continent,  were  not,  it  is  true,  so  well  prepared 
for  a  democratic  form  of  government  as  were  their  brethren 
in  the  north,  but  if,  instead  of  being  cursed  with  selfish 
and  destructive  militarism,  they  could  have  enjoyed  the 
blessings  of  competent  and  far-seeing  statemanship,  it  is 
safe  to  affirm  that  the  Great  Colombia,  as  Bolivar  con- 
ceived it,  would,  ere  this,  have  developed  into  a  flourishing 
and  powerful  republic — worthy  of  taking  a  place  among 
the  great  nations  of  the  world.1 

but  that  was  not  suited  to  his  genius.  When  his  own  bayonets  turned  against 
him,  he  went  so  far  as  to  despair  of  the  republican  system  altogether  and 
sought  the  protection  of  a  foreign  king  for  the  last  fragment  of  his  shattered 
monocracy/'— History  of  Son  Martin,  p.  467,  by  General  Don  Bartolome 
Mitre,  translated  by  W.  Pilling,  London,  1893. 
i  After  writing  the  above  paragraphs,  I  was  glad  to  learn  from  Mr.  W. 

310 


THE  ATHENS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA 

But,  sad  to  relate,  Bolivar's  creation  was  short-lived. 
After  a  precarious  existence  of  only  eleven  years,  dis- 
integration took  place,  and  the  Liberator,  fallen  into  dis- 
favor and  condemned  to  exile,  was  forced  to  be  a  witness 
of  the  collapse  of  the  structure  that  had  cost  him  so  much 
labor,  and  which  he  had  fondly  hoped  would  be  his  great- 
est and  most  enduring  monument. 

Shortly  before  his  death  at  the  hacienda  of  San  Pedro, 
near  Santa  Marta,  where  he  perished  alone, 

"Maligned  and  doubted  and  denied,  a  broken-hearted 
man,"  he  wrote  to  General  Flores,  of  Ecuador,  a  letter  in 
which  occur  the  following  remarkable  statements : — 

"I  have  been  in  power — yo  lie  mandado — for  nearly 
twenty  years,  from  which  I  have  gathered  only  a  few 
definite  results: — 

"1.  America  for  us  is  ungovernable. 

"2.  He  who  dedicates  his  services  to  a  revolution  plows 
the  sea. 

"3.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  done  in  America  is  to 
emigrate. 

"4.  This  country  will  inevitably  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  unbridled  rabble,  and  little  by  little  become  a  prey  to 
petty  tyrants  of  all  colors  and  races. 

"5.  Devoured  as  we  shall  be  by  all  possible  crimes  and 
ruined  by  our  own  ferociousness,  Europeans  will  not  deem 
it  worth  while  to  conquer  us. 

"6.  If  it  were  possible  for  any  part  of  the  world  to  return 

H.  Fox,  the  American  Minister  to  Ecuador,  that  General  Alfaro,  the  present 
chief  executive  of  that  republic,  is,  like  many  distinguished  patriots  and 
statesmen  of  Colombia  and  Venezuela,  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  restoration 
of  Bolivar's  great  Republic  of  Colombia.  "I  would,'*  said  he  to  Mr.  Fox, 
who  has  given  me  permission  to  publish  this  statement,  "rather  be  governor 
of  Ecuador,  as  one  of  the  states  of  such  a  great  republic,  than  be  its  presi- 
dent, as  I  am  now.9' 

All  friends  of  Greater  Colombia,  and  their  number  among  enlightened  and 
far-seeing  statesmen  is  rapidly  increasing,  hope  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when 
Bolivar's  plan  can  once  more  be  put  into  effect,  but  this  time  on  so  endur- 
ing a  basis  that  it  cannot  again  be  affected  by  the  machinations  of  the  jealous 
military  rivals  and  self-seeking  politicians,  by  whom  so  many  hapless  coun- 
tries in  Latin  America  have  so  long  been  cursed. 

311 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

to  a  state-  of  primitive  chaos,  that  would  be  the  last  stage 
of  Spanish  America. "  * 

Was  the  Liberator  gifted  with  a  seer's  vision  when  he 
penned  these  prophetic  words?  It  would  seem  so,  for  even 
if  he  had  open  before  him  the  scroll  in  which  has  been 
recorded  the  chief  events  of  the  history  of  South  America 
during  the  past  three-quarters  of  a  century,  he  could 
scarcely  have  spoken  with  greater  truth  and  precision. 
Certain  it  is,  as  Mitre  well  observes,  that  none  of  his 
designs  qr  ideals  have  survived  him.  His  political  work 
died  with  him  and  all  his  fond  dreams  of  a  vast  Andean 
Empire  vanished  like  mist  before  the  rising  sun. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  account  for  the  turmoil  and 
anarchy. which  have  so  long  devastated  one  of  the  most 
fertile  quarters  of  the  globe.  Considering  its  immense 
natural  resources  and  its  many  advantages  of  climate  and 
geographical  position,  it  should  be  one  of  the  most  pros- 
perous regions  of  the  earth,  and  its  inhabitants  among 
the  happiest  and  most  advanced  in  culture  and  the  arts  of 
peace.  Let  it  suffice  to  reproduce  the  following  paragraph 
from  the  work,  already  cited,  of  Sr.  Perez  Triana : — 

"As  to  the  topsy-turviness  of  things  Spanish  and  Span- 
ish-American, the  story  is  told  that  Santiago,  the  patron 
saint  of  Spain,  being  admitted  into  the  presence  of  God, 
asked  and  obtained  for  the  land  of  Spain  and  for  its  peo- 
ple all  sorts  of  blessings;  marvelous  fertility  for  the  soil, 
natural  wealth  of  all  kinds  in  the  mountains  and  the  for- 
ests, abundance  of  fish  in  the  rivers  and  of  birds  in  the 
air;  courage,  sobriety,  and  all  the  manly  virtues  for  men; 
beauty,  grace  and  loveliness  for  the  women.  All  this  was 
granted,  but  on  the  point  of  leaving,  the  saint,  it  is  said, 
asked  from  God  that  he  would  also  grant  Spain  a  good 
government.  The  request  was  denied,  as  then,  it  is  said, 
the  Lord  remarked,  the  angels  would  abandon  heaven  and 
flock  to  Spain.  The  story  has  lost  none  of  its  point. " 

i  Quoted  by  F.  Hassaurek,  formerly  United  States  Minister  to  Ecuador,  in 
Ms  Four  Tears  Among  Spanish  Americans,  p.  209,  New  York,  1868. 

312 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 

Our  sojourn  in  Bogota  was  much  briefer  than  we  could 
have  wished  it  to  be.  Its  intellectual  atmosphere  im- 
pressed us  deeply,  and  the  culture  and  refinement  of  its 
people  charmed  us  beyond  expression.  During  our  jour- 
ney, we  had  visited  many  places  in  which  we  would  have 
desired  to  tarry  longer,  had  it  been  possible,  but  so  far  no 
place  had  so  completely  captivated  us  as  Colombia's 
famous  metropolis — no  place  from  which  we  were  so  loath 
to  depart. 

"What  a  pity,"  we  said,  "that  Colombia  and  Colombians 
are  not  better  known  in  our  own  country!  It  would  be 
better  for  them  and  better  for  us."  "With  special  truth 
can  one  reiterate  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  little-known 
republic  what  Senator  Boot  has  said  of  the  people  of  South 
America  in  general: — 

"Two-thirds  of  the  suspicion,  the  dislike,  the  distrust, 
with  which  our  country  was  regarded  by  the  people  of 
South  America,,  was  the  result  of  the  arrogant  and  con- 
temptuous bearing  of  Americans,  of  people  of  the -United 
States,  for  those  gentle,  polite,  sensitive,  imaginative, 
delightful  people." 

The  Senator,  as  President  Eoosevelt's  representative, 
did  much,  during  his  visit  to  our  sister  continent,  to  remove 
misunderstandings  and  establish  more  cordial  relations 
between  the  United  States  and  Latin  America.  And  the 
Bureau  of  American  Eepublics  is  contributing  much 
towards  completing  and  extending  his  work.  It  is,  there- 
fore, to  be  hoped,  that  soon  "the  suspicion,  the  dislike,  the 
distrust"  will  be  eliminated  forever  and  succeeded  by  an 
era  of  mutual  respect  and  indissoluble  friendship. 

313 


UP  THE  OEIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Our  luggage — small  in  amount,  be  it  said — was  con- 
veyed from  our  hotel  to  the  depot,  a  few  blocks  distant,  by 
a  good-natured  Chibcha  Indian.  He  asked  for  his  service 
the  sum  of  forty  dollars,  which,  to  his  great  delight,  was 
paid  promptly  and  without  question.  "Muchisimas  gra- 
cias,  mi  amo.  Que  Vd  vaya  bien!"  Many  thanks,  my  mas- 
ter. Farewell !  were  his  parting  words,  as  he  passed  out 
of  the  station  with  his  hat  in  his  hand  and  a  smile  lighting 
up  his  face. 

"  Forty  dollars  for  carrying  a  little  luggage  a  few 
squares!  Why,  that,"  one  would  say,  "was  down-right 
robbery."  Not  at  all,  when  you  are  accustomed  to  pay- 
ing such  prices,  and  we  had  become  quite  accustomed 
to  them,  ever  since  we  had  entered  Colombian  territory. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  found  the  peon's  bill  very  mod- 
erate. 

In  the  beginning,  however,  it  must  be  confessed  that  we 
were  surprised  at  some  of  the  bills  presented  us  for  pay- 
ment. The  first  one  was  for  the  washing  of  some  linen  in  a 
town  on  the  Meta.  The  work  was  done  by  an  Indian  woman, 
for  which  a  charge  was  made  of  two  hundred  and  forty- 
five  dollars.  This  bill,  large  as  it  was,  did  not  frighten 
us  as  much  as  one  that  Mark  Twain  tells  of  in  his  Inno- 
cents Abroad,  when  during  his  visit  to  the  Azores,  one  of 
his  traveling  companions  was  charged  some  thousands  of 
milreis  for  a  modest  repast.  We  should  have  paid  it  with- 
out comment,  but  found  that  the  articles  in  question  had 
been  washed  only  and  not  ironed.  When  we  remarked 
upon  this  apparent  forgetfulness  or  neglect,  the  tawny 
laundress  informed  us  that  it  was  not  the  custom  there 
for  the  same  person  to  do  both  washing  and  ironing,  and 
referred  us  to  a  neighbor  of  hers  as  one  quite  competent 
to  complete  the  work  she  had  begun.  Unfortunately,  as 
it  had  been  raining  continuously  for  several  days,  and 
our  laundress  had  no  way  of  drying  the  things  she  had 
washed,  except  in  the  sun — which  had  obstinately  refused 
to  appear — and  as  we  were  obliged  to  take  our  de- 


'THE  IHJISCA  TRAIL 

parture  without   delay,   the   rearing   apparel   aforesaid 
was  neither  ironed  nor  dried. 

But  the  washer- woman's  bill,  which  seems  exorbitant,, 
requires  an  explanation.  It  was  all  a  mere  matter  of  the 
rate  of  exchange,  which,  in  Colombia,  during  the  time  of 
our  visit,  was  ten  thousand.  That  means  that  the  peso 
—dollar — had  a  value  of  just  one  centavo — one  cent. 
Some  years  ago  the  rate  of  exchange  was  much  higher. 
Now,  however,  there  is  a  well-founded  hope,  that  the  finan- 
cial condition  of  the  country  will  soon  be  on  a  more  satis- 
factory basis,  and  that  before  many  years  elapse,  it  can  be 
put  on  a  gold  basis.  The  present  legal  tender  of  the 
country  is  paper  currency  and  gold  coin.  Outside  of  the 
large  cities  one  never  sees  anything  but  paper  money.  I 
have  known  the  peons  in  several  cases  to  refuse  coin 
because  they  thought  it  was  counterfeit — so  long  is  it 
since  gold  coin  has  been  in  circulation. 

The  present  financial  condition  of  the  republic  is  a  strik- 
ing commentary  on  the  havoc  wrought  by  the  numerous 
revolutions  that  have  devastated  the  country  and  ruined 
its  credit.  One  of  the  most  difficult  of  the  many  difficult 
tasks  that  confront  the  administration  is  that  of  restor- 
ing the  nation's  credit,  and  of  getting  the  rate  of  exchange 
back -to  par.  It  is,  however,  making  a  noble  effort,  and 
all  well-wishers  of  Colombia  trust  its  endeavors  will  be 
crowned  with  success. 

As  one  may  imagine,  it  is  necessary  for  the  traveler  to 
carry  with  him  quite  a  bulky  package  of  bills  in  order  to 
live  in  even  the  most  modest  fashion.  A  mule  or  a  cart 
was  not,  however,  required  to  transport  our  funds,  as 
Hazard,  in  his  work  on  Haiti,  says  was  indispensable  in 
that  ill-fated  land,  where  a  hundred  dollars  in  gold  was 
exchanged  for  several  sacks  of  bills — huge  bags — not  un- 
like bundles  of  rags  or  waste  paper. 

To  ns  it  was  always  interesting  to  hear  the  peons  talk 
of  their  fortune  of  hundreds  or  thousands  of  dollars.  It 
seemed  to  give  the  poor  fellows  special  satisfaction  to  deal 

315 


UP  THE  OKIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

in  large  figures  and  to  speak  of  large  sums,  as  if  they  were 
all  rising  millionaires.  The  monetary  crisis  had  this  re- 
deeming feature,  if  no  other,  that  it  afforded  the  beggar 
in  the  street  the  pleasure  of  seeing  dollars  in  his  alms 
where,  before  the  revolution,  he  would  have  found  only 
so  many  cents.  The  sturdy  market  women  we  saw  on  the 
way  from  Caqueza  to  Bogota  talked  in  a  most  happy  way 
of  their  prospects  of  realizing  forty  dollars  a  piece  for 
their  chickens  and  fifteen  dollars  a  dozen  for  their  eggs, 
while  their  husbands  were  rejoicing  in  the  thought  that 
they  would  receive  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  heifer  and 
two  thousand  or  more  for  a  milch-cow.  They  never  used 
the  words  " cents";  it  was  always  "pesos" — dollars. 
Happy  people,  who  find  such  delight  in  names  and  ap- 
pearances ! 

There  are  but  few  railroads  in  Colombia,  and  their  total 
mileage  at  the  time  of  our  visit  was  less  than  five  hundred 
miles.  Many  roads  are  projected  and  have  been  for 
decades  past,  but  the  numerous  revolutions  have  prevented 
their  construction.  The  one  from  Bogota  to  Facatativa, 
our  first  objective  point  on  the  way  to  the  Magdalena,  is 
only  twenty-five  miles  in  length.  There  is,  however,  a  well- 
grounded  hope  that  this  can  at  an  early  day  be  connected 
with  the  line  that  is  building  from  Girardot.1  When  this 
shall  have  been  accomplished  it  will  be  possible  to  reach 
Bogota  without  the  long  overland  ride  on  horse-  or  mule- 
back  that  has  been  necessary  since  the  time  of  Quesada. 

But  far  from  regretting  the  lack  of  a  through  train  to 
the  Magclalena,  we  were  rather  glad  that  we  were  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  a  less  expeditious  mode  of  locomotion. 
It  required  more  time,  it  is  true,  to  make  the  trip,  and 
was  more  fatiguing,  but  it  gave  us  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  the  country  to  greater  advantage  and  of  getting 
better  acquainted  with  its  people.  Indeed,  the  journey 
down  the  Cordillera  from  Bogota  to  Honda  was  but  the 
proper  complement  of  that  from 'the  llanos  up  to  the 

i  Since  writing  the  above  the  connection  has  been  made. 

316 


THE  MCISCA  TRAIL 

Sabana  that  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  nation's  capital.  It 
gave  us  an  opportunity  of  comparing  conditions  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Oriental  Andes  with  those  prevailing 
on  the  western,  and  we  have  always  considered  ourselves 
fortunate  in  having  been  able  to  explore  from  the  saddle 
the  interesting  country  that  lies  between  the  Meta  and  the 
Magdalena.  As  I  now  think,  it  was,  in  many  respects, 
the  most  delightful  and  instructive  part  of  our  wanderings 
in  South  America. 

The  track  and  rolling-stock  of  the  Sabana  railway  are, 
as  might  be  expected,  of  the  most  primitive  kind.  The 
roadbed  has  received  little  attention,  and  the  cars  and 
engine  are  scarcely  fit  for  service.  But  all  this  can  be 
condoned  when  one  is  familiar  with  the  untoward  condi- 
tions that,  for  so  many  years,  have  militated  against  im- 
provements of  all  kinds.  The  transportation  of  the  rails, 
cars  and  locomotives  from  Cambao,  on  the  Magdalena,  to 
the  plateau,  when  the  cart  road  between  the  two  points  was 
little  better  than  a  bridle-path,  was  in  itself  a  Herculean 
task,  and  as  we  journeyed  to  Honda,  it  never  ceased  to 
excite  our  wonder.  Great  improvements,  however,  are 
promised  as  soon  as  connection  shall  be  made  with  the 
branch,  now  approaching  completion,  from  Girardot.  Then 
the  transportation  of  heavy  freight  will  be  a  trifling  task 
in  comparison  with  what  it  has  been  hitherto. 

The  Sabana  of  Bogota  resembles  somewhat  the  plain 
of  Caracas  except  that  it  is  far  more  extensive  than  the 
Venezuelan  plateau.  Both  have  been  regarded  as  the  beds 
of  lakes  that  have  long  since  disappeared.  Whatever  may 
be  said  about  the  existence  of  a  lake  in  the  vale  of  Caracas, 
it  seems  now  quite  certain  that  there  never  was  any  great 
body  of  water,  such  as  has  so  long  been  imagined,  occupy- 
ing the  region  now  known  as  the  Sabana  de  Bogota.1 
Recent  investigations  appear  to  have  decided  this  much- 
debated  question  against  Humboldt  and  those  who  accepted 
his  views  regarding  this  matter. 

i  Vergara  y  Velasco,  Nueca  Oeografia  de  Colombia,  p.  253. 

317 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

We  were  much  interested  in  the  haciendas  through 
which  the  train  passed,  as  well  as  in  the  homes  of  their 
owners  and  in  the  picturesque  villages  along  the  road. 
There  were  broad  acres  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  wheat, 
barley,  maize  and  potatoes,  and  extensive  pastures,  over 
which  roamed  large  flocks  of  sheep  and  herds  of  cattle. 
These  cattle,  so  we  fancied,  were  the  lineal  descendants 
of  those  brought  to  Espanola  by  Columbus  at  the  time  of 
his  second  voyage.  And  the  swine  we  saw — there  could 
be  little  doubt  about  it — could  claim,  as  their  ancestors, 
those  which  Belalcazar  had  brought  with  him  from  Quito, 
as  the  hens,  that  cackled  and  clucked  as  we  sped  by,  were 
the  offspring  of  those  carefully  guarded  by  Federmann 
during  his  famous  expedition  from  Coro  to  Santa  Fe  de 
Bogota.1 

Aside  from  the  Humboldt  oak,  with  its  majestic  crown 
of  ever-green  foliage,  and  the  ubiquitous  Eucalyptus,  there 
are  no  trees  of  any  magnitude  in  the  Sabana.  Its  flora, 
however,  is  particularly  rich  in  shrubs  and  plants.  Among 
them  were  the  beautiful  passion  flower,  Passiflora  Antio- 
quensis,  blossoming  the  year  round,  and  a  peculiar  species 
of  blackberry — Eubus  Bogotensis — ever  clothed  with  a 
vari-colored  mantle  of  snow-white  bloom  and  ripening 
fruit,  realizing  Shelley's  idea  of  the  millennium,  where 

"Fruits  are  ever  ripe,  and  flowers  ever  fair." 

lOtstellanos,  in  his  Historic  del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Qnmada,  Tom.  II,  pp. 
61,  62,  in  referring  to  the  delicacies  Don  Alonso  Luis  de  Lugo  and  his  half- 
famished  companions  found  on  their  reaching  the  Sabana  de  Bogota,  after 
their  dreadful  journey  through  the  "pluvious,  swampy,  impassable,  dismal" 
sierras  of  the  Opon,  makes  mention,  among  other  things,  of  well-cured  hams 
and  capons  that  were  provided  for  their  entertainment. 

"Cuantidad  de  jamones  bien  curados, 
Porque  tertian  ya  buenas  manadas 
De  puercoa  desque  vino  Benalcazar 
Que  trajo  los  primeros  de  la  tierra. 
Hubo  tambien  capones  y  gallinas, 
Que  se  multiplicaron  desque  vino 
Kicolao  Fedriman  de  Venezuela, 
Que  al  Nuevo  reino  trajo  las  primeraa." 
318 


THE  MUISCA  TBAIL 

The  meadows  are  carpeted  with  various  species  of  clover 
and  succulent  grasses,  and,  along  the  hedges  and  walls, 
one  finds  an  endless  variety  of  fuchsias,  verbenas,  mallows, 
asters,  buttercups,  lupines,  lilies,  lobelias,  irises,  morn- 
ing-glories and  passion  flowers.  The  last  two  plants 
and  certain  varieties  of  roses  are  great  favorites  in  the 
garden  and  around  the  house,  as  are  also  violets,  pinks, 
jasmines  and  heliotropes.  "We  observed  several  habita- 
tions, some  of  them  the  humble  cots  of  poor  Chibchas,  that 
were  almost  concealed  in  magnificent  bowers  of  climbing 
clematis,  passion  flowers  and  morning-glories. 

On  the  eastern  slope  of  Suma  Paz,  we  frequently  had 
occasion  to  admire  the  wealth  and  brilliancy  of  bloom 
around  some  of  the  homes  which  we  passed,  or  when  we 
enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  their  courteous  inmates,  but 
nowhere  did  wfe  see  more  beautiful  floral  exhibits  than 
greeted  us  on  the  Sabana  de  Bogota. 

Much,  however,  as  we  were  interested  in  the  fauna  and 
flora  of  this  region,  and  the  people  who  now  inhabit  it,  we 
found  our  minds  constantly  reverting  to  pre-Colombian 
times,  and  picturing  to  ourselves  the  condition  of  this 
plain  and  its  inhabitants  at  the  period  of  the  arrival  of 
the  conquistadores. 

When  Quesada  and  his  intrepid  followers  reached  this 
beautiful  plateau,  they  found  it  inhabited  by  a  tribe  of 
Indians  to  whom  they  gave  the  name  Muiscas,  because 
they  frequently  heard  them  pronounce  this  word,  or 
Moscas,  a  Spanish  word,  similar  in  sound,  signifying 
flies,  because  they  said  these  Indians  were  as  numerous 
as  flies.1 

They  occupied  the  tablelands  in  the  central  part  of  New 
Granada.  The  territory  under  the  jurisdiction  of  their 
zipas — chiefs — was  elliptical  in  form  and  equaled  in  area 

iFray  Bernardo  Lugo,  in  his  Qramatica  de  la  lengua  Mosca,  published 
in  1619,  and  Padre  Simon,  in  his  Noticias  Historiales,  written  shortly  after, 
were  the  first  to  state  that  the  language  spoken  was  the  Chibcha.  Muisca  ia 
a  Chibcha  word  signifying  person. 

23  319 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  kingdom  of  the  Netherlands.  They  numbered  about 
one  million  inhabitants,  and,  according  to  the  early  chron- 
iclers, they  counted  no  fewer  than  a  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  warriors.  The  number  of  fighting  men  was 
doubtless  far  below  this  figure.  It  seems  certain,  however, 
that  at  the  date  of  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards  they  were 
in  the  apogee  of  their  power,  and  were  making  progress 
towards  a  condition  of  culture  approaching  that  of  the 
Aztecs  and  Incas. 

The  dominions  of  the  last  zipas  of  Bacata  extended  from 
Simijaca  to  Pasca  and  from  Zipacon  to  the  llanos.  Al- 
though united  by  ties  of  language  and  beliefs,  customs  and 
laws,  similar  in  character  and  revealing  a  common  origin, 
they  formed  an  aggregation  of  small  states,  generally 
independent,  rather  than  a  compact  and  well-organized 
commonwealth. 

The  Chibchas,  or  Muiscas,  were  preeminently  an  agri- 
cultural people.  They  had  no  domestic  animals,  except 
the  dog — not  even  the  llama.  Their  chief  articles  of  food 
were  maize,  potatoes 1  and  quinoa,  which  the  natives  of 

iThe  Chibchas,  like  many  people  living  on  the  Andean  plateaus  to-day, 
derived  their  chief  sustenance  from  potatoes  and  maize,  both  of  which  are 
indigenous  to  South  America.  Oviedo  speaks  of  the  potato  as  their  principal 
aliment,  as  it  was  always  served  with  whatever  else  they  ate.  According  to 
Castellanos,  it  was  a  favorite  article  of  diet  with  the  conquistadores,  as  well 
as  with  the  Indians. 

Maize  afforded  them  meat  and  drink,  for  out  of  it  they  made  bread  and 
their  highly-prized  beverage,  chicha,  which  is  still  so  popular  among  their 
descendants.  Of  the  paramount  importance  of  this  article  of  food  among 
the  aborigines  of  the  New  World,  John  Fiske,  in  his  valuable  work,  The  Dis- 
covery of  America,  writes  as  follows: — 

"Maize  or  Indian  corn  has  played  a  most  important  part  in  the  history  of 
the  New  World,  as  regards  both  the  red  men  and  the  white  men.  It  could 
be  planted  without  clearing  or  ploughing  the  soiL  It  was  only  necessary 
to  girdle  the  trees  with  a  stone  hatchet,  so  as  to  destroy  their  leaves,  and 
let  in  the  sunshine.  A  few  scratches  and  digs  were  made  in  the  ground 
with  a  stone  digger,  and  the  seed  once  dropped  in  took  care  of  itself.  The 
ears  could  hang  for  weeks  after  ripening,  and  could  be  picked  off  without 
meddling  with  the  stalk;  there  was  no  need  of  threshing  or  winnowing. 
None  of  the  Old  World  cereals  can  be  cultivated  without  much  more  indus- 
try and  intelligence/*  Vol.  1,  pp.  27,  28. 

320 


THE  amSCA  TRAIL 

Colombia  have  long  since  discarded  for  rice.  Besides 
these  staples  they  had  many  other  vegetables  peculiar  to  the 
country  and  a  great  variety  of  luscious  and  wholesome 
fruits.  They  also  had  game  in  abundance. 

They  cultivated  cotton,  from  which  they  made  their 
clothing,  the  material  of  which  often  exhibited  various 
colored  designs.  In  this  respect  they  were  far  in  advance 
of  the  surrounding  tribes,  who  had  no  more  to  cover  them 
than  have  the  wildest  children  of  the  tropical  forest  to-day. 

Their  houses  were  of  wood,  with  thatched  roofs  not  unlike 
many  of  those  we  saw  along  our  route  from  the  llanos 
to  the  Magdalena  valley.  When  the  Spaniards  arrived 
they  had  just  begun  to  use  stone  in  the  erection  of  a  few 
of  their  buildings,  presumably  temples,  which  apparently 
were  never  completed. 

As  might  be  surmised,  their  commerce  was  limited. 
They  bartered  to  some  extent  with  the  neighboring  tribes, 
especially  those  west  of  the  Magdalena.  From  these  they 
obtained  gold  in  exchange  for  salt,  emeralds  and  textile 
fabrics.  With  the  Chimus  of  Peru,  they  were  the  first  to 
use  gold  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  Their  currency  con- 
sisted not  of  stamped  coins,  but  of  disks  of  the  precious 
metal  without  any  kind  of  marking.  They  had  a  limited 
intercourse  with  the  people  of  Quito  and  had  some  slight 
knowledge  of  the  great  Inca  kingdom  farther  south. 

Eegarding  the  culture  of  the  Chibchas,  we  can  say  what 
the  Marquis  de  Nadaillac  says  of  the  people  in  general — 
"We  know  very  little."1  But  we  know  enough  to  be 
warranted  in  affirming  that  many  erroneous  notions  have 
long  prevailed  concerning  them,  and  that  the  claims  that 
have  been  made  for  them  as  a  civilized  people  have  been 
greatly  exaggerated. 

According  to  Duquesne — to  whose  fanciful  theories  the 

M.  Alphonse  de  Candolle,  in  his  learned  work,  Origin  of  Cultivated  Plants, 
seems  to  regard  Colombia  as  the  original  home  of  maize,  while  he  inclines 
to  the  opinion  that  Chile  was  the  point  of  departure  of  the  potato — Solanum 
tuberosum. 

i  Prehistoric  America,  p.  460,  London,  1885. 

321 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

great  Humboldt  unfortunately  gave  his  support — and  to 
the  school  that  for  a  century  made  Duquesne's  views  their 
own,  the  Chibchas  were  acquainted  with  the  use  of  the 
quipus,  and  had  a  system  of  numbers  and  hieroglyphics 
and  a  complicated  calendar.  Their  priests  were  repre- 
sented as  the  depositaries  of  astrological  and  chronological 
science,  and  as  experts  in  astronomical  and  meteorological 
observations.  The  people  were  lauded  for  their  advanced 
knowledge  of  architecture  and  praised  for  their  courts 
of  justice.  In  the  temple  of  Sogamuxi,  they  would  have 
us  believe,  were  preserved  the  national  annals  and  the 
chronicles  of  their  civilization.  Their  general  material 
progress  and  intellectual  status  was  commented  on  as 
something  quite  comparable  with  the  best  that  obtained 
in  Mexico  or  Cuzco. 

We  have  but  two  sources  of  information  respecting  the 
much-debated  question  of  Chibcha  culture.  These  are  a 
comparative  study  of  the  early  chronicles — no  one  or  two 
of  them  will  suffice — and  an  examination  of  the  few  stone 
monuments  the  Chibchas  have  left  us,  together  with 
their  pictographs,  ceramic  ware  and  objects  of  gold  and 
copper  found  in  their  places  of  sepulture.  The  chronicles 
that  we  must  rely  on  are  those  left  us  by  Quesada,  Cas- 
tellanos,  Padre  Simon  and  Piedrahita,  all  of  which  have 
already  been  quoted,  together  with  those  left  us  by  Padre 
Bernardo  Lugo,  Juan  Bodriguez  Fresle,  a  son  of  one 
of  the  conquistadores,  and  Fray  Alonso  de  Zamora, 
of  Bogota. 

As  a  result  of  a  critical  study  of  these  chronicles  and 
monuments,  the  distinguished  Colombian  writer,  Don 
Vicente  Eestrepo,  has  demonstrated  that  most  of  the 
claims  that  have  been  made  for  Chibcha  culture  are  utterly 
devoid  of  foundation  in  fact.  His  conclusions,  which  can 
be  given  in  a  few  words,  are: — 

"The  Chibchas  had  no  stone  buildings  and  their  knowl- 
edge of  architecture  was  therefore  limited  to  the  erection 
of  the  simplest  structures  of  wood, 

322 


THE  milSCA  TRAIL 

"They  had  no  quipus,  like  that  of  the  Incas,  no  alphabet, 
and  no  writing  of  any  kind,  either  figurative,  symbolic  or 
ideographic.  Neither  had  they  any  chronology  or  ar- 
chives. 

"The  petroglyphs  and  pictographs  found  in  limited1 
numbers  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  far  from  record- 
ing the  migrations  and  hunts  of  the  aborigines  and  the 
cataclysms  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  witnessed, 
are  nothing  more  than  rude  geometrical  designs  and  fan- 
tastic figures  which  are  repeated  in  the  most  confused 
manner,  according  to  the  infantile  caprice  of  the  one  who 
carved  or  painted  them." 

Concluding  his  discussion  of  these  meaningless  figures, 
which  certain  writers  have  so  long  insisted  were  true 
hieroglyphics,  awaiting  some  Champollion  or  Eawlinson  to 
decipher,  Sr.  Eestrepo  does  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  the 
rude  "attempts  at  drawing  these  ill-formed  figures  of 
animals,  and  these  pothooks,  similar  to  those  traced  by  an 
inexperienced  child,  can  reveal  nothing  to  historic  science. 
They  never  exhibit  that  order  and  sequence  which  are  the 
certain  index  of  genuine  writing.  They  never  repro- 
duce even  the  simplest  scenes  of  Indian  life,  such  for 
example  as  a  religious  ceremony,  the  chase,  or  warriors 
fighting. 

"Mute  by  reason  of  their  origin,  and  condemned  to 
eternal  silence  by  the  unconscious  hand  that  traced  them, 
the  magic  wand  of  science  will  never  be  able  to  make  them 
speak."2 

If  we  accept  the  classification  and  definitions  of  the 
various  grades  of  culture,  as  given  by  Morgan  in  his  great 

1  It  is  saying  more  than  the  facts  will  warrant  to  assert,  as  does  Ameghino, 
that  "En  Nueva  Granada  las  inscripciones  geroglificas  se  encuentran  a  cada 
paso"— that  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  are  found  everywhere.    Of.  his  La  An- 
tiguedad  del  Hombre,  Vol.  I,  p.  92. 

2  Los  Ghibchas  antes  de  la  Conquista  Espaftoto,  p.  176,  Bogota,  1895.    Cf. 
also  El  Dorado,  Estudio  Historico,  Etnografico  y  arqueologico  de  los  Chibohas, 
Habitantes  de  la  Antigua  Cundinamarca  y  de  Algunas  Otras  Tribus,  por  el 
Doctor  Liborio  Zerda,  Bogota,  1883,  and  Nouvelle  Geographic  GTnfoeraeKe,  par 
EUsee  Rectos,  Tom.  XVHI,  pp.  292  et  seq.,  Paris,  1893. 

323 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

work  on  Ancient  Society,1  as  many  profound  thinkers  do, 
we  shall  be  forced  to  conclude  not  only  that  the  Chibchas 
were  not  civilized,  but  that  they  had  not  even  reached  the 
upper  status  of  barbarism. 

Civilization  implies  the  existence  of  a  phonetic  alphabet 
or,  at  least,  of  hieroglyphics  akin  to  those  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  use  of  these  in  the  production-  of  written  records. 
The  Chibchas,  as  we  have  seen,  had  neither  an  alphabet 
nor  written  records  of  any  kind. 

Neither  had  they  any  knowledge  of  the  process  of  smelt- 
ing iron  ore.  As  the  use  of  iron  is  the  chief  character- 
istic of  the  third,  or  upper,  period  of  barbarism,  the 
Chibchas,  according  to  Morgan,  should  be  considered  as 
representatives  of  the  middle  status  of  barbarism,  like  the 
Zunis  and  the  Mayas,  or  like  the  lake-dwellers  of  ancient 
Switzerland,  or  the  early  Britons  before  they  learned  the 
use  of  iron  from  their  more  advanced  neighbors  in  Gaul.2 

It  took  us  two  hours  to  make  the  run  from  Bogota  to 
Facatativa,  the  western  terminus  of  the  Sabana  railway. 
Here  we  took  luncheon.  For  a  place  that  has  so  long 
been  the  centre  of  traffic  between  the  capital  and  the  Mag- 
dalena,  the  town  has  no  reason  to  boast  of  its  restaurants 
or  hotels.  They  are  about  as  poor  in  every  way  as  could 
well  be  imagined.  A  town  in  Italy  or  Switzerland,  fre- 
quented by  so  many  travelers  as  Facatativa,  would  have 
not  one  but  several  hostelries  where  its  patrons  would  have 
every  convenience  and  comfort.  Let  us  hope  that  Colom- 
bia will  soon  witness  an  improvement  in  this  respect,  not 
only  in  this  place  but  all  along  the  chief  lines  of  travel. 
It  is  much  needed,  and  along  no  route  more  than  that  con- 
necting Bogota  with  Honda. 

At  the  time  of  the  conquest,  Facatativa  was  a  Muisca 
stronghold,  and  what  are  said  to  be  the  ruins  of  an  old  In- 
dian fortress  are  still  shown  to  the  curious  visitor.  One 
may  also  see  some  rocks  on  which  are  carved  certain  figures 

1  Chap.  I,  New  York,  1877. 

2  Compare  Hake,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  Chap.  L 

324 


THE  arUISCA  TRAIL 

long  supposed  to  be  Chibcha  hieroglyphics.  We  have 
already  learned  what  value  is  to  be  ascribed  to  these  and 
similar  inscriptions  in  other  parts  of  the  country. 

After  luncheon  we  prepared  to  start  for  Chimbe,  where 
we  intended  to  pass  the  night.  TVe  had  telegraphed  the 
day  before  to  our  arriero  to  have  in  readiness  the  necessary 
saddle  and  sumpter  mules.  They  were  waiting  for  us 
on  our  arrival  and  we  were  much  gratified  to  find  that 
both  animals  and  peons  were  all  that  could  be  desired. 
Those  who  have  traveled  in  the  Andes  know  how  impor- 
tant it  is  to  have  good  mules  and  servants,  and  how  much 
it  adds  to  the  comfort  and  pleasure  of  one's  journey. 

From  the  time  we  had  left  our  launch  on  the  Meta,  we 
had  been  singularly  fortunate  in  always  having  good  ani- 
mals and  honest,  reliable  men  to  take  care  of  them  and 
attend  to  our  wants  on  the  way.  To  our  devoted  and 
watchful  muleteers  and  their  assistants  we  owed  much  of 
the  enjoyment  that  was  ours  during  our  wanderings  over 
mountain  and  plain,  and  we  shall  always  hold  their  oblig- 
ing disposition  and  prompt  service  in  grateful  remem- 
brance. 

It  affords  me  special  pleasure  to  render  them  this  trib- 
ute, as  they  are  often,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  much  mis- 
understood, especially  by  people  who  are  not  familiar  with 
their  language,  and  frequently  held  responsible  for  delays 
and  contretemps  of  which  they  are  in  no  wise  responsible. 
Judging  by  our  own  experience,  the  arieros  and  peons  of 
South  America  are,  as  a  class,  far  better  than  they  are 
usually  represented  and  are  deserving  of  more  recognition 
and  better  treatment  than  is  usually  accorded  them  by 
those  who  require  their  humble  but  often  too  poorly  recom- 
pensed services. 

The  saddle  generally  used  in  the  mountains  closely  re- 
sembles the  McClellan  saddle  and  is  called  a  galdpago.  For 
obvious  reasons  an  English  hunting  saddle — sitta — could 
not  be  used  where  the  roads  are  constantly  leading  up  and 
down  steep  mountains — bergauf,  bergob,  as  a  German 

325 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

traveler  phrases  it — and  where  even  on  a  cavalry  saddle 
it  is  at  times  extremely  difficult  for  one  to  retain  one's 
position.1 

The  saddle  is  usually  covered  by  a  pellon  or  shabrack, 
made  either  of  sheepskin,  or  horsehair  dyed  black  and 
neatly  braided  at  the  ends.  Attached  to  the  saddle  are 
several  bags  or  pockets — bolsas.  These  are  of  the  great- 
est convenience  for  carrying  many  things  necessary  on 
long  journeys.  In  them  the  natives  stow  away  cheese, 
cakes  of  maize,  papelon,  and  the  never-forgotten  supply 


Cross  section  of  the  Oriental  Andes  from  the  Meta  to  the  Magdalena,  from 

Karsten. 

of  aguardiente,  without  which  a  journey  of  any  length  is 
considered  impossible. 

The  stirrups  are  curiosities.  They  are  usually  of  brass 
or  bronze  in  the  shape  of  a  shoe,  but  frequently  they  are 
in  the  form  of  the  basket  hilt  of  a  claymore.  The  stirrups 
of  one  of  the  saddles  I  used  were  curiously  embossed,  and 
as  large  as  a  good-sized  belL  But  whatever  their  design, 

i  Crossing  a  mountain  range  like  the  Oriental  Cordilleras,  is  not,  as  is  so 
frequently  imagined,  a  gradual  and  uninterrupted  ascent  to  the  summit,  and 
then  a  similar  continuous  descent  to  its  base.  Far  from  it.  It  is  literally 
an  ever-recurring  journey  "up  the  hill  and  down  the  dale,"  from  the  foot- 
hills on  one  side  of  the  range  to  the  foothills  on  the  other.  The  accom- 
panying diagram  from  Karsten's  Gtologie  de  VAncienne  Oolomlie  BoU- 
vartenne,  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  eastern  range  of  the  Andes  along  our 
route  from  the  Meta  to  the  Magdalena. 

326 


THE  JIUISCA  TRAIL 

they  are  admirably  adapted  for  service  in  the  mountains 
where  the  paths  are  so  narrow  that  one  is  frequently 
exposed,  without  such  protection,  to  having  one's  feet 
crushed  when  his  mule  approaches  too  near  the  rocky  wall 
that  flanks  one  side  of  the  road.  The  danger  is  especially 
great  when  one  meets  a  herd  of  cattle  or  a  caravan  of  pack- 
mules.  Then  the  rider  suddenly  finds  his  mule  crushing 
him  against  the  steep  rocks  on  one  side  of  the  path,  to  avoid 
being  thrown  over  a  precipice  which  is  yawning  beneath 
him  on  the  other  side  along  which  the  approaching  animals 
pick  their  way  with  a  skill  that  is  marvelous.  "We  often 
had  reason  to  be  thankful  that  our  feet  were  protected  by 
these  fantastic  and  cumbersome  estribos — stirrups — as 
otherwise  we  should  have  suffered  serious  bodily  injury. 
Like  the  leather  hoods  of  wooden  stirrups,  such  estribos 
also  keep  the  feet  dry. 

The  riding  equipment,  however,  of  a  Colombian  horse- 
man is  not  complete  without  huge  brass  or  bronze  rowel- 
spurs — espuelas — and  a  pair  of  zamoros — bag-trousers — 
often  made  of  leather  or  goatskin.  They  are  not  unlike 
the  chaparejos 1  of  a  New  Mexican  cowboy,  and  serve  as 
a  protection  against  rain  and  mud,  and  the  thorns  of  the 
shrubs  and  brush  along  the  wayside. 

From  Facatativa  to  El  Alto  del  Eoble,  some  miles  to 
the  west,  the  road  slightly  rises.  At  the  latter  point, 
nearly  five  hundred  feet  above  Bogota,  one  has  a  glorious 
view  of  the  Sabana,  of  the  chain  of  Suma  Paz,  and  of  the 
Central  Cordillera  away  beyond  the  Magdalena. 

From  El  Eoble — the  oak — so  named  from  the  number  of 
ever-green  oaks  seen  there,  the  descent  towards  Chimbe 
is  marked  by  quite  a  steep  grade.  A  good  carretera,  or 
carriage  road,  extends  from  Factativa  to  Agua  Larga,  and 
this  much-needed  highway  is  to  be  prolonged  as  far  as 
the  Magdalena.  The  present  plan  is  to  construct  the  road 
in  such  wise  that  traction  cars  can  be  used  on  it  for  the 
transportation  of  both  freight  and  passengers,  and  at  the 

i  Commonly  called  "chaps." 

327 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

time  of  our  passage  the  road,  under  the  direction  of  Eng- 
lish engineers,  was  being  pushed  forward  towards  com- 
pletion with  a  display  of  energy  that  augured  well  for  ulti- 
mate success. 

Only  a  few  minutes  after  we  began  our  descent  on  the 
western  declivity  of  El  Eoble  we  observed  a  change  in  the 
temperature.  We  were  passing  from  the  tierra  fria  to 
the  tierra  templada,  and  a  thermometer  was  scarcely  nec- 
essary to  indicate  our  rate  of  progress  towards  lower  alti- 
tudes. Aside  from  the  marked  change  in  the  atmosphere, 
there  was  a  corresponding  one  in  the  flora. 

Near  the  summit  of  El  Eoble  we  were  gratified  in  finding 
large  patches  of  strawberries.  They  were  sweet  reminders 
of  home,  as  they  were  of  the  same  species  as  our  own 
fragrant  Fragaria.  These  slender  mountain  runners  did 
not,  however,  bear  the  large  fruits  afforded  by  our  Illinois 
or  Florida  plants,  but  rather  the  small  scarlet,  but  richly 
flavored,  berries  one  meets  in  an  uncultivated  state  in  Italy 
and  Bussia. 

Further  on  our  way  we  came  across  another  reminder 
of  our  own  country.  This  time  it  appeared  in  the  form 
of  long,  dark-gray  tufts  and  festoons  of  that  curious 
epiphyte — Tillandsia  usneoides — popularly  known  in  the 
Gulf  States  as  Spanish  moss  and  in  Jamaica  as  old  man's 
beard.  The  natives  in  Colombia  call  it  barba  de  palo — 
tree-beard — a  much  more  picturesque  epithet  than  any  of 
those  mentioned,  and  another  one  of  countless  instances 
of  the  wonderful  faculty  the  Indian  has  of  giving  expres- 
sive names  to  the  objects  that  specially  strike  his  fancy. 

As  we  reached  a  still  lower  level,  our  attention  was 
arrested  by  the  beauty  and  luxuriance  of  the  palms  and 
tree  ferns  that  graced  our  path.  The  fern  trees  were  as 
remarkable  for  their  size  as  for  the  delicacy  of  their  plume- 
like  fronds.  The  trunks  of  some  of  them  were  twelve  to 
fifteen  feet  high  and  the  leaves  of  their  wondrous  crowns 
— like  veritable  leaves  of  emerald  gauze — were  at  times 
as  long  as  the  trunk  was  high.  Gazing  at  these  bizarre 

328 


THE  aiUISCA  TRAIL 

forms  of  vegetable  life,  with  their  dark,  rough,  leaf- 
scarred  trunks,  so  unlike  those  of  surrounding  trees,  we 
could  easily  imagine  ourselves  in  a  forest  of  those  giant 
paleozoic  Sigillarise  and  Lepidodendrons  that  contributed 
so  largely  towards  the  formation  of  the  lower  coal  meas- 
ures. 

We  never  made  any  attempt  to  enumerate  the  divers 
species  of  palms  that  were  ever  in  view  from  the  paramo  to 
the  ocean.  But  wherever  we  saw  them,  whether  on  the 
elevated  Andean  plateau  or  in  the  humid  valleys  of  the 
Orinoco  and  the  Magdalena,  they  were  for  us,  as  they  were 
for  Linnaeus, ' '  the  princes  of  the  vegetable  world. ' '  Decked 
with  a  mantle  of  eternal  youth,  with  smooth,  straight 
trunks  like  the  marble  shafts  of  Athens  or  Palmyra, 
they  were  not  only  the  glory  of  forest  and  savanna,  but 
they  were  also  for  us,  as  for  Martius,  a  symbol  of  im- 
mortality. 

At  Agua  Larga  our  road  bifurcated,  the  new  and  better 
branch  veering  off  to  the  right  at  a  slight  angle,  and  the 
old  one  continuing  with  a  similar  turn  to  the  left.  Al- 
though a  bright  young  senorita,  who  happened  to  be  near 
the  parting  of  the  ways,  declared  that  the  old  road 
was  the  one  that  led  to  Chimbe,  our  objective  point,  we 
chose  the  new  one,  and  for  the  first  time  since  we  had  left 
the  Meta,  we  went  astray.  We  did  not  discover  our  error 
until  we  had  gone  several  miles,  when  an  old  man,  who  was 
repairing  his  humble  cot  by  the  wayside,  corroborated  the 
senorita  Js  information. 

There  was  then  nothing  left  for  us  but  to  retrace  our 
steps.  The  mistake  was  quite  a  blow  to  the  topographical 
instinct  of  one  of  our  party,  who  had,  during  our  long  trip, 
particularly  prided  himself  on  the  unerring  indications  of 
his  organ  of  locality,  which  rendered,  he  said,  the  assist- 
ance of  a  guide  superfluous.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
quite  trying  to  the  patience  of  all  of  us,  as  we  were  tired, 
hungry,  and  wished  to  arrive  at  Chimbe  before  sundown. 
It  was  now  quite  evident  that  we  could  not  possibly  reach 

329 


UP  THE  ORIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

our  destination  before  nightfall.  We  then  realized  to  our 
sorrow  the  truth  of  Balboa's  words,  when  writing  to  the 
King  of  Spain — "Llega  el  hombre  Jiasta  donde  puede  y  no 
hasta  donde  quiere"—Que  goes  as  far  as  one  can  and  not 
as  far  as  one  wishes  to  go.  And,  recalling  what  the 
senorita  had  told  us,  we  had  likewise  a  forcible  reminder 
of  the  verity  of  Sancho  Panza's  saying:  "Though  a 
woman's  counsel  isn't  worth  much,  he  that  despises  it  is 
no  wiser  than  he  should  be." 

After  getting  back  to  the  bifurcation  of  the  road,  we 
found  that  the  older  branch,  which  we  should  have  taken, 
was  little  better  than  a  rough,  rocky  stairway,  the  steps 
of  which  had  been  rendered  extremely  slippery  by  a  heavy 
rainfall  a  few  hours  before.  C.,  our  dashing  and  debonair 
cavalier,  was  still  suffering  from  the  effects  of  this  down- 
pour, for  having  lost  his  waterproof  sombrero,  specially 
designed  for  travel  in  the  tropics,  he  had  nothing  left  but  a 
light  straw  hat,  which  afforded  the  head  no  more  protec- 
tion than  a  sieve. 

Truth  to  tell,  he  was  suspected  of  intentionally  discard- 
ing his  waterproof  headgear,  as,  in  his  estimation,  it  did 
not  comport  with  the  dignity  of  a  caballero  who  would 
trace  his  lineage  back  to  one  of  the  noblest  grandees  of 
Spain,  and  who,  during  his  journey  from  Trinidad,  had 
been  the  recipient  of  special  attention  from  young  and  old 
as  well.  He  seemed  to  be  the  special  favorite  of  well-to- 
do  matrons,  particularly  in  the  towns  and  cities, in  which 
our  sojourn  was  somewhat  protracted.  Was  it  that  they 
would  fain  have  seen  in  the  handsome  young  traveler  a 
prospective  son-in-law!  Not  being  a  mind  reader,  I  must 
leave  the  question  unanswered.  As  a  veracious  narrator 
of  occurrences  by  the  way  I  can  only  state  facts  and  let  the 
reader  draw  his  own  conclusions. 

But  what  a  road  it  was,  that  now  lay  between  ns  and 
Chimbe!  To  us,  in  the  declining  rays  of  the  setting  sun, 
it  appeared  like  a  cobblestone  track  after  it  had  passed 
through  a  dozen  earthquakes  and  had  then  been  set  at  an 

330 


THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 

angle  of  forty-five  degrees  with  the  horizon.1  Even  our 
mules,  which  were  usually  prepared  for  any  kind  of  a 
path  where  they  could  find  a  foothold,  frequently  balked 
at  the  more  difficult  sections  of  this  much-neglected  high- 
way. Comparing  the  part  we  were  now  traversing  with 
the  more  improved  road  we  had  left  at  Agua  Larga,  we 
could  not  but  recall  the  words  of  an  Irish  engineer,  regard- 
ing certain  highland  roads,  as  recorded  in  Scott's  A 
Legend  of  Montr ose: — 

"Had  you  but  seen  those  roads  before  they  were  made, 
You  would  have  held  up  your  hands  and  blessed  General  Wade." 

And  yet  this  was  the  camino  real,  the  royal  highway  from 
the  Magdalena  to  the  national  capital.  President  Eeyes 
was  doubtless  right  when  he  publicly  stated,  some  years 
ago,  that  it  was  now  in  a  worse  condition  than  it  was  be- 
fore the  War  of  Independence. 

But  it  was  also,  and  this  afforded  us  some  compensation 
for  our  discomfort,  the  Muisca  trail — the  same  that  the 
subjects  of  the  Zipa  of  Bacata  and  those  of  the  Caciques 
of  Hunsa  and  Sugamuxi  made  use  of  during  their  barter- 
ing expeditions  to  the  tribes  beyond  the  Magdalena.  Along 
this  trail  they,  for  generations,  carried  their  stores  of  salt, 
textile  fabrics  and  emeralds,  and  brought  back,  in  exchange 
for  them,  from  the  placers  of  what  is  now  known  as 
Antioquia,  those  treasures  of  gold  that  so  excited  the 
cupidity  of  the  conquistadores,  and  which,  by  many  of  them, 
were  considered  as  an  adequate  reward  for  all  the  hard- 
ships they  had  endured  to  secure  their  possession. 

Finally,  after  a  long,  tiresome  breakneck  ride  over  that 
4  '  royal "  but  infinitely  rugged  road— - 

"Arduus,  obliquus,  caligine  densus  opaca, — "2 

i  Notwithstanding  the  statements,  frequently  made  by  travelers,  about 
their  mules  climbing  roads  inclined  at  angles  varying  from  30°  to  45°,  it 
can  safely  be  affirmed  that  the  maximum  angle  is  but  little,  if  any  more  than 
20°,  as  actual  measurement  will  show.  When  the  inclination  becomes  greater 
than  this  the  mule  ^  will  always  take  a  zigzag  course,  so  as  to  reduce  the  grade 
as  much  as  possible. 

a  "Heavy,  tortuous  and  dark."— Ovid. 

331 


UP  THE  OKIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

we  arrived  at  Chimbe  where,  fortunately,  we  found  an  ap- 
petizing repast,  and  what  we  were  then  willing  to  consider 
clean  and  comfortable  beds,  awaiting,  us. 

Early  the  next  mornijig,  after  a  refreshing  sleep,  we  were 
again  in  the  saddle  and  on  our  way  to  Guaduas,  where  we 
purposed  spending  the  night*  After  a  brisk  ride  of  a  few 
hours  through  a  picturesque  country,  we  reached  the  town 
of  Villeta,  situated  in  a  charming  and  fertile  valley. 
Here  we  had  a  hasty  breakfast  and  were  then  on  our  way 
up  the  prolonged  and  precipitous  slopes  of  Cune  and 
Petaquero. 

The  Muisca  trail,  like  the  path  we  followed  from  the 
llanos  to  the  Sabana  de  Bogota,  was  to  us  an  interesting 
example  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Indians  traced  out 
their  roads.  Having  neither  blasting  powder  nor  dyna- 
mite, they  were  perforce  obliged  to  go  around  the  rocks 
that  were  in  their  way.  But  in  spite  of  this,  owing  to  their 
thorough  familiarity  with  the  country,  they  always  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  the  shortest  routes  from  one  point  to 
another.  They  made  it  a  rule,  however,  never  to  get  far 
away  from  a  water  supply,  and,  for  this  reason,  their 
roads  nearly  always  kept  close  to  the  water  courses  of  the 
regions  through  which  they  passed.  The  conquistadores, 
who  had  to  be  always  on  the  alert  against  the  Indians,  and 
who  took  every  precaution  against  surprise  and  ambuscade, 
avoided  swamps  and  lowlands,  and  kept  rather  to  the  com- 
manding ridges  of  the  country  on  their  line  of  march.  As 
a  consequence,  the  best  roads  in  Colombia  to-day  are  those 
traced  out  by  the  old  Muisca  traders  and  by  Quesada  in 
the  north  and  Bobledo,  Almaguer  and  Belalcazar  in  the 
west  and  south. 

On  our  way  to  Guaduas  from  Chimbe,  we  observed  a 
number  of  small  plantations  of  sugar  cane,  and  near  by 
there  was  usually  a  trapiche,  a  primitive  contrivance  for 
extracting  the  juice  from  the  cane.  It  consisted  of  a 
thatched  shed  under  which  was  a  cumbersome,  creaking 
machine  consisting  essentially  of  three  vertical  cylinders 

332 


ROAD  BETWEEN-  BOGOTA  AND  HONDA. 


THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 

of  wood  which  were  kept  in  motion  by  a  span  of  mules  or 
a  yoke  of  oxen  driven  by  a  boy.  The  cane  was  fed  into  the 
machine  by  a  couple  of  women,  and  the  juice  was  received 
into  a  wooden  trough.  From  this  it  was  transferred  into 
a  boiler,  if  panela — crude  sugar — was  desired.  More  fre- 
quently, however,  it  was  conveyed  to  a  still,  in  order  to  be 
converted 'into  aguardiente,  a  crude  distillate,  rich  in  al- 
cohol, of  which  the  natives,  the  country  over,  consume  large 
quantities. 

But  fond  as  the  inhabitants  are  of  aguardiente,  and 
guarapo,  the  fermented  juice  of  the  sugar  cane,  or  a  mix- 
ture of  sugar  and  water  which  has  undergone  fermenta- 
tion, the  most  popular  drink,  especially  among  the  poorer 
classes,  is  chicha.  This  is  to  the  greater  part  of  South 
America  what  pulque  is  to  Mexico  and  beer  to  Germany — 
the  national  beverage.  It  has  been  so  from  time  imme- 
morial. Chicha  was  as  much  esteemed  by  the  Muiscas,  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards,  as  it  is  to-day;  for  then, 
as  now,  no  festivity  or  celebration  was  considered  complete 
without  a  liberal  supply  of  this  enlivening  potation. 

Padre  Eivero,  referring  to  the  love  of  drink,  especially 
of  chicha,  among  the  Indians,  says,  "  Drink  is  their  life, 
their  glory,  and  the  acme  of  their  happiness.''  The  earlier 
historians  have  much  to  say  of  the  frightful  orgies,  as  the 
result  of  over-indulgence  in  chicha,  that  obtained  among 
all  classes  on  the  occasions  of  national  festivals,  or  the 
celebration  of  a  victory  over  an  enemy.  It  is  said  to  be 
used  to  excess  to-day,  as  much  as  in  former  times,  but  of 
this  I  cannot  speak  from  personal  observation.  All  the 
way  from  Villavicencio  to  Honda,  we  saw  countless  estancos 
and  estanguitos — licensed  bars — of  the  type  of  our  low- 
est dram  shops,  where  chicha  is  the  principal  drink  sold; 
but,  although  we  saw  many  people,  men  and  women,  con- 
gregated about  these  places,  we  never  saw  a  single  case 
of  drunkenness  or  any  serious  disturbance  of  any  kind. 
This  was  not  because  no  one  had  been  drinking  while  we 
were  present.  All  had  been  imbibing  more  or  less  freely, 

333 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

but  they  seemed  so  accustomed  to  the  use  of  their  favorite 
beverages  that  they  were  no  more  affected  by  them  than 
are  the  people  of  France  and  Italy  by  the  drinking  of  the 
wines  of  their  respective  countries.1 

From  what,  the  reader  will  ask,  and  how,  is  chicha  pre- 
pared? It  is  made  from  Indian  corn  and  by  an  extremely 
simple  process.  It  is,  indeed,  the  same  method  as  was  em- 
ployed before  the  conquest. 

First  of  all,  the  grains  of  maize  are  moistened  by  water 
and  allowed  to  sprout,  just  as  barley  is  treated  in  the  man- 
ufacture of  beer.  After  this  the  product  is  dried  and 
roasted  in  a  large  earthen  jar.  Then  by  means  of  a  piedra 
de  moler — a  kind  of  crude  mortar — like  the  metate,  which 
the  Mexican  uses  for  reducing  maize  to  meal,  the  grains 
are  ground,  and  then  put  into  hot  water  and  allowed  to 
ferment.  As  a  result  of  germination  and  the  action  of  hot 
water,  the  starch  of  the  maize  is  converted  into  sugar. 
This,  by  fermentation,  is  next  changed  into  alcohol,  which 
gives  to  chicha  its  intoxicating  property.  This  is  less 
noxious  than  that  which  is  produced  by  boiling  the  maize 

*I  do  not  pretend  to  deny  that  drunkenness  exists  in  Colombia.  Even 
Colombian  writers  would  be  the  last  to  do  this,  for  they  are  fully  aware 
of  the  extent  of  the  ravages  of  the  drink  evil.  They  will  tell  you  frankly 
that  the  inhabitants  of  certain  parts  of  the  country  are  addicted  to  intoxica- 
tion, or,  as  one  of  them  expresses  it,  that  they  are  "muy  amigos  de  em- 
briagarse**—  fond  of  getting  drunk.  And  no  one,  I  think,  will  deny  that  the 
prevalence  of  the  drink  habit  is  one  of  the  country's  greatest  curses.  A 
good  old  padre,  learned  and  patriotic,  wrote  a  book  some  decades  ago,  in 
which  he  contended  that  Colombia,  by  reason  of  its  favored  geographical 
position  and  its  wonderful  natural  resources,  should  rank  among  the  rich- 
est and  most  prosperous  countries  of  the  New  World.  And  it  would  be, 
he  insisted,  were  it  not  for  three  drawbacks.  These,  in  his  estimation,  were 
borracfieria,  holgotsaneria  and  politiqueria,  to-wit,  drunkenness,  indolence,  and 
the  habit,  so  universally  prevalent,  of  its  people  dabbling  in  questionable 
politics.  We  have  no  equivalent  in  English  for  the  expressive  word,  poW- 
tiqueria,  although  we  should  have  frequent  use  for  it  if  it  existed.  It  means, 
literally,  the  methods  and  occupation  of  a  politicaster— an  individual  who  is 
as  much  of  a  drawback  to  the  best  interests  of  our  own  country  as  is  the 
politicastro  to  Colombia. 

To  the  great  amount  of  chicha  sold  in  these  estancos,  usually  kept  by 
women,  is  undoubtedly  traceable  the  origin  of  the  saying,  Toda  chichera 
muere  rico— Every  chicha  vender  dies  rich. 

334 


THE  MDISCA  TRAIL 

and  adding  to  the  chicha  thus  obtained  a  certain  amonnt 
of  panela,  or  molasses.1 

When  properly  prepared,  it  is  an  agreeable  and  whole- 
some drink,  not  unlike  cider  or  light  beer.  I  have  fre- 
quently seen  it  used  at  meals  by  the  best  families — people 
who  would  never  think  of  serving  at  their  table  a  harmful 
or  intoxicating  beverage.  Burger,  I  know,  condemns  it, 
because  he  asserts  it  is  rich  in  fusel  oil,  and  because,  he 
maintains,  it  has  a  brutalizing  effect  on  those  who  use  it  as 
a  beverage.  Not  having  seen  a  reliable  chemical  analysis 
of  chicha,  I  am  not  prepared  to  accept  his  view  of  the  sub- 

i  According  to  Franz  Keller  and  other  travelers  in  South  America,  the 
Indian  women  in  certain  parts  of  the  continent  prepare  chicha  by  masticat- 
ing the  maize,  just  as  some  of  the  Polynesians  prepare  kava  and  certain 
other  of  their  favorite  beverages  by  mastication.  They  claim  that  when 
thus  prepared  it  has  a  far  more  agreeable  flavor  than  when  prepared  arti- 
ficialmente,  that  is,  by  the  method  above  described.  See  The  Amazon  and 
Madeira  Rivers,  p.  164  et  seq.,  London,  1874. 

Spix  and  Martiu's  Travels  in  Brazil,  Vol.  II,  p.  232,  London,  1824,  say, 
"It  is  remarkable  that  this  mode  of  preparing  a  fermented  liquor  out  of 
maize,  mandioca  flour  or  bananas,  is  found  among  the  various  Indian  tribes  of 
America,  and  seems  peculiar  to  this  race." 

Sir  Robert  Schomburgk,  referring  to  the  intoxicating  drink,  paiwori,  made 
from  cassava  bread,  writes  as  follows: — 

"The  women,  who  prepare  the  beverage,  assemble  around  a  large  jar  or 
other  earthen  vessel,  and  having  moistened  their  mouths  with  fresh  water, 
they  commence  chewing  the  bread,  collecting  in  the  vessel  the  moisture  which 
accumulates  in  the  mouth.  This  is  afterwards  put  into  a  trough,  called 
canaua,  or  in  large  jars,  in  which  a  quantity  of  the  charred  bread  has 
been  broken  up,  over  which  boiling  water  is  poured;  and  it  is  then  kneaded, 
and  portions  which  are  not  of  an  even  consistency  are  again  carried  to  the 
mouth,  ground  with  the  teeth,  and  returned  into  the  earthen  pot.  The 
process  is  repeated  several  times,  from  the  idea  that  it  conduces  to  the 
strength  of  the  beverage.  The  second  day  fermentation  begins,  and  on 
the  third  the  liquor  is  considered  fit  for  use.  We  have  seen  a  whole  vil- 
lage, young  and  old,  men  and  women,  occupied  in  this  disgusting  process 
when  it  was  contemplated  to  celebrate  our  unexpected  arrival  among  them; 
otherwise,  for  common  use,  the  females  alone  employ  themselves  ex  officio 
with  the  preparation.  Their  teeth  suffer  so  much  from  this  occupation  that 
a  female  has  seldom  a  good  tooth  after  she  is  thirty  years  old.  .  .  .  The 
taste  of  the  paiwori  is  very  refreshing  after  great  fatigue,  and  not  unpleas- 
ant to  the  taste;  if  offered  as  the  cup  of  welcome  by  the  Indian,  it  would 
be  a  great  offense  to  refuse  it." — The  Discovery  of  Guiana,  ut  sup.,  pp. 
64,  65. 

23  335 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ject.  The  same  writer,  it  may  be  remarked,  decries  cas- 
sava bread,  because,  he  will  have  it,  it  is  composed  for  the 
most  part  of  cellulose. 

On  our  way  from  Villeta  to  Guaduas,  we  were  obliged  to 
pass  two  lofty  mountain  crests,  El  Alto  del  Trigo  and  El 
Alto  del  Eaizal.  It  was  then  again  for  the  hundredth  time 
that  we  admired  the  sagacity  of  the  mule,  and  the  impor- 
tance of  having  one  that  is  familiar  with  service  in  the 
mountains.  If  the  camel  deserves  the  epithet — "ship  of 
the  desert, "  the  mule  is  entitled  to  being  considered  the 
aeroplane  of  the  mountains.  For  the  way  he  scales  the 
highest  peaks,  almost  rivaling  the  condor  in  the  altitudes 
he  is  capable  of  attaining,  and  the  manner  in  which  he,  with 
perfect  security,  glides  along  the  narrow,  dizzy  paths  of  the 
precipitous  mountain  slopes,  is  a  matter  of  ever-increas- 
ing wonder.  We  never,  I  confess,  became  quite  reconciled 
to  the  habit  all  mules  have  of  keeping  on  the  side  of  the  path 
next  to  the  precipice — except  when  they  meet  animals  com- 
ing from  the  opposite  direction,  when  they  instinctively 
crowd  closely  to  the  over-hanging  mountain — but  we  soon 
learned  that  the  mule  had  as  much  care  for  his  safety  as 
we  had  for  our  own,  and  then  the  danger,  we  at  first  so 
much  dreaded,  became  more  apparent  than  real.  It  is 
curious,  but  a  fact,  that  a  mule  left  to  himself  will  almost 
always  follow  in  the  footsteps  made  by  his  predecessor,  and 
no  persuasion  can  induce  him  to  deviate  from  the  beaten 
path.  So  regular  and  so  constant  is  his  pace  that  one  could 
almost  determine  in  advance  the  number  of  steps  he  will 
make  from  one  point  to  another. 

He  rarely  stumbles  and  still  more  rarely  does  he  fall. 
'And  no  matter  how  deep  may  be  the  chasm  along  whose 
brink  he  carefully  feels  his  way,  he  never  suffers  from 
vertigo  nor  makes  a  false  step.  Certain  travelers  tell  us 
blood-curdling  stories  about  their  mules  losing  their  balance 
and  plunging  headlong  into  dark,  deep  ravines,  but  during 
all  my  travels  among  the  Andes,  I  never  heard  of  such  a 
thing  and,  from  what  I  know  of  the  supreme  carefulness 

336 


THE  1ITISCA  TRAIL 

of  the  mule  when  in  dangerous  places,  such  an  accident 
seems  most  unlikely.  If  he  is  overloaded,  he  files  a  pro- 
test by  lying  down  and  refusing  to  rise  until  relieved 
of  a  part  of  his  burden.  Occasionally,  too,  when  he 
reaches  a  suitable  level  spot,  he  may  take  it  into  his 
head  to  have  a  roll,  and  he  incontinently  proceeds  to 
gratify  this  inclination  before  his  rider  is  aware  of  his 
intention. 

I  recall  particularly  how  disconcerted  and  disgusted  C. 
was  on  one  occasion,  when  his  mule,  on  arriving  at  a  spe- 
cially dusty  place  in  the  road,  lay  down  without  giving  the 
slightest  notice  of  his  purpose  and  proceeded  to  take  a  roll, 
before  his  rider  was  able  to  extricate  himself  from  his  un- 
comfortable position.  For  a  proud  caballero  who,  when  he 
happened  to  be  the  cynosure  of  a  group  of  admiring 
senoritas  and  faded  dames  of  quality,  would  fain  pose  as  a 
scion  of  Castilian  nobility,  this  was  an  indignity  that 
merited  condign  punishment.  The  consequence  was  that 
whenever,  thereafter,  0.  noticed  a  suspicious  movement  in 
his  mount,  he  forthwith  proceeded  to  ply  him  with  a  tough, 
pliable  rod  from  a  coffee  bush,  which  had  the  effect  of  dis- 
tracting, at  least  temporarily,  the  mule's  attention  to 
matters  of  greater  moment. 

Among  the  many  objects  that  were  to  us  a  source  of  con- 
stant wonder  and  delight  in  the  tropics  were  the  butter- 
flies. We  met  them  in  countless  species  in  the  most  unex- 
pected places,  especially  during  our  journeyings  in  the 
lower  altitudes.  Here  we  found  them  of  the  most  brilliant 
hues  and  of  every  color  of  the  spectrum.  In  some  dis- 
tricts, as  for  instance  between  the  Nevada  de  Santa  Marta 
and  the  sea,  there  are  at  times  clouds  of  them,  and  their 
number  is  then  comparable  only  with  the  millions  of 
medusae  that  people  certain  parts  of  the  ocean.  At  times 
owing  to  their  prodigious  numbers  and  their  gorgeous 
colors,  one  could,  without  a  great  stretch  of  the  imagina- 
tion, fancy  one's  self  gazing  at  fluttering  bits  of  a  shattered 
rainbow.  The  largest  and  most  beautiful  is  the  Morpho 

337 


UP  THE  OEIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Cypris,  having  an  expanse  of  wing  of  fully  six  inches,  a 
bright  cobalt-blue  above,  and  ocellated  underneath. 

According  to  Hettner,1  the  people  around  Huso,  where 
the  celebrated  emerald  mines  are  located,  will  have  it  that 
there"  is  a  mysterious  relationship  between  the  mineral 
emeralds  buried  in  the  earth  and  "animal  emeralds"  that 
flit  through  the  air.  How  like  the  fancy  of  the  aborigines 
of  Trinidad — that  the  glittering  colibris  formerly  occurring 
in  such  numbers  in  that  island  were  the  souls  of  departed 
Indians! 

Quite  rivaling  the  butterflies  in  splendor  and  adorn- 
ment are  the  beauteous  humming  birds  that  are  met  with 
from  ocean  level  to  mountain  summit.  Poets  and  natural- 
ists have  essayed  in  vain  to  portray  their  marvelous  rich- 
ness of  coloring  and  their  magic  evolutions  as  they  dart 
from  flower  to  flower,  or  balance  themselves  above  some 
bright  fragrant  corolla  while  drawing  from  it  its  precious 
nectar.  As  well  might  the  painter  try  to  transfer  to  canvas 
the  glories  of  the  setting  sun  as  to  copy  the  iridescent  hues 
of  such  glowing  mites  of  the  feathered  tribe  as  the  Ruby 
Throat  or  the  Fiery  Topaz.  Truly,  they  as  well  as  the 
noted  paradiseines  of  New  Guinea  should  come  under  the 
expressive  designation  of  birds  of  Paradise.2 

After  a  hard  day's  ride  we  reached  Guaduas  just  as  the 
sun  had  dropped  behind  the  mountain  to  the  west.  Guad- 
uas in  Spanish  signifies  bamboos,  and  the  town  was  given 

1  Reisen  in  den  Columbianischen  Anden,  Leipzig,  1888. 

2  The  usual  name  given  the  humming  bird  by  the  people  of  Venezuela  and 
Colombia  is  colibri.    It  is  also  known  as  the  pajarito-mosca — little  bird  fly — 
or  pic&flor*— flower-nibbler.    But  the  most  beautiful  and  most  picturesque 
names  are  those  in  use  by  the  Indians,  who  seem  to  have  a  particular 
faculty  for  inventing  appropriate  epithets  for  whatever  specially  strikes  their 
fancy.    By  them  humming  birds  are  called  "The  rays  of  the  sun,"  "The 
tresses  of  the  day-star"  and  '"Living  sunbeams."    The  poet  Bailey  has  in- 
corporated the  last  of  these  names  in  the  couplet, 

"Bright  Humming-bird  of  gem-like  plumeletage, 
By  western  Indians  Living  Sunbeam  named/' 

Audubon  was  but  imitating  the  children  of  the  forest  when  he  called  hum- 
ming birds  "Glittering  fragments  of  the  rainbow." 

338 


THE  JIUISCA  TRAIL 

this  name  on  account  of  the  large  number  of  these  giant, 
tree-like  grasses  that  formerly  grew  in  and  about  the  place. 
Even  now  numerous  clumps  of  bamboo  may  be  seen  here, 
especially  along  the  many  water  courses  which  intersect 
the  delightful  valley  in  which  the  town  is  located. 

It  is  really  remarkable  for  how  many  purposes  the 
bamboo  is  used  in  the  equatorial  regions.  It  is  employed 
in  building  houses,  bridges,  rafts,  fences,  for  making  planks, 
beams,  rafters,  bedsteads,  benches,  tables,  buckets  and  small 
vessels  for  holding  molasses,  aguardiente  and  other  fluids, 
and  for  various  other  domestic  utensils  too  numerous  to 
mention.  Indeed,  to  the  poorer  classes  of  the  Colombian 
Andes,  it  is  almost  as  useful  as  is  the  banana  plant  to  the 
native  of  Uganda,  who  contrives  to  get  from  it  everything 
he  uses  except  meat  and  iron. 

In  the  plaza  of  the  town  there  is  a  monument  erected  to 
the  patriotic  heroine,  Policarpa  Salavarrieta,  who  was  shot 
in  Bogota  during  the  "War  of  Independence,  by  order  of  the 
viceroy,  for  the  part  she  took  in  assisting  those  who  were 
fighting  against  the  mother  country.  Throughout  Colombia 
her  memory  is  held  in  benediction,  and  the  story  of  her 
tragic  death  has  been  a  favorite  theme  for  poet  and  histo- 
rian as  well. 

Our  first  view  of  Guaduas,  in  its  charming  setting  of 
perennial  verdure,  illumined  by  the  crimson  glow  of  the 
setting  sun,  was  a  picture  of  surpassing  charm.  It  bodied 
forth  all  the  tranquillity,  verdancy  and  loveliness  which 
Humboldt  found  in  Ibague  than  which 

"Nil  quietius,  nil  muscosius,  nil  amoenius." 

The  spell  was  broken,  however,  when  we  entered  the  town. 
We  then  found  to  our  regret  that  it  was  another  of  so  many 
instances  where 

"Distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view." 

So  favorably  situated  and  with  so  agreeable  a  climate,  it 
could  easily  be  made  one  of  the  most  delightful  places  of 

339 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

residence  in  the  republic.  Let  us  hope  that  this  is  what  it 
shall  be  in  the  approaching  dawn  of  a  new  era. 

Before  leaving  Bogota,  we  had  been  told  by  a  noted 
English  traveler  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  a  remarkable 
view  towards  the  west,  from  the  summit  of  El  Alto  del 
Sargento.  "Be  sure  not  to  miss  it,"  he  said,  "for  from 
that  point  you  will  behold  one  of  the  most  magnifi- 
cent panoramas  in  the  world."  "We  were  at  first  in- 
clined to  regard  this  statement  as  the  usual  exaggera- 
tion of  the  tourist,  but  were,  nevertheless,  eager  to 
contemplate  a  prospect  so  famed  for  beauty  and  sub- 
limity.1 

In  order  to  reach  the  crest  of  the  mountain,  before  the 
clouds  gathered  about  El  Sargento,  which  usually  occurs 
about  midday,  we  made  an  early  start  from  our  posada, 
Where  we  had  found  commodious  and  fairly  comfortable 
quarters,  and  were  soon  on  our  way  up  the  last  of  the 
Serranias — mountain  ridges — that  separated  us  from  the 
Magdalena  valley. 

It  was  about  eleven  o'clock  when  we  arrived  at  the  sum- 
mit of  El  Sargento.  We  had  just  rounded  a  tree-covered 
eminence,  that  concealed  the  view  towards  the  west,  when 
all  of  a  sudden,  there  burst  upon  our  vision,  what  was,  to 
me  at  least,  the  most  superb  spectacle  I  had  ever  con- 
templated. C.  and  I  instinctively  stood  still  in  silent 
rapture.  As  the  picture  appeared  to  us,  it  surpassed  by 
far  all  that  had  been  said  in  its  praise.  Not  even  half  the 
truth  had  been  told.  Our  emotion  was  too  great  for 
words,  and,  as  we  paused  in  mute  admiration,  one  of 
us  at  least  recalled  a  similar  experience  enjoyed  by 
three  other  travelers  in  the  Guadarrama  mountains  of 
Spain.  It  is  thus  recorded  in  Longfellow's  The  Spanish 
Student:* 

lEven  the  Colombian  writer,  Vergara  y  Velasco,  who,  like  South  Amer- 
icans generally,  is  slow  to  grow  enthusiastic  over  natural  scenery,  refers  to 
the  view  from  El  Sargento  as  a  "Sitio  pintoresco  si  los  hay"— -a  picturesque 
place  if  there  be  any. 

*  Act  III,  Scene  VL 

340 


THE  IfUISCA  TRAIL 

"  Victorian.    This  is  the  highest  point. 

Here  let  us  rest. 

See,  Preciosa,  see  how  alLabout  us, 
Kneeling,  like  hooded  friars,  the  misty  mountains 
Receive  the  benediction  of  the  sun. 
0  glorious  sight ! 

Preciosa.    Most  beautiful  indeed! 

Hypolito.    Most  wonderful ! ' ' 

In  the  foreground  beneath  our  feet,  was  the  wooded 
slope  of  El  Sargento.  In  the  distance,  near  the  mountain's 
base,  were  the  picturesque  towns  of  San  Juan  and  Amba- 
lema.  Further  on,  like  an  immense  opalescent  band,  was 
the  meandering  Magdalena.  Beyond  it  were  the  broad 
plains  of  Mariquita,  which  extended  as  far  as  the  foothills 
of  the  Central  Cordillera.  Over  and  above  these,  veiled 
in  an  azure  haze,  and  piercing  the  clouds,  were  the 
snow-crowned  mass  of  Euiz  and  the  Mesa  de  Herveo, 
and  slightly  to  the  left,  but  towering  above  all  the 
neighboring  peaks,  was  Tolima,  the  giant  of  the  Colom- 
bian Andes.1 

But  it  was  not  merely  the  physical  features  just  men- 
tioned, that  produced  the  admirable  picture  that  held  us 
spellbound.  It  was  the  marvelous  combination  of  light 
and  shade,  the  position  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens,  and  the 
strange  optical  illusions  caused  by  the  bright  and  fleecy 
clouds  that  constantly  swept  over  the  landscape.  These 
factors  gave  rise  to  an  ever-changing  perspective,  and  at 
times,  exaggerated  distances  and  magnitudes  in  the  most 
extraordinary  manner.  Each  change  developed  a  new 
picture  and  each  one  was,  if  possible,  more  beautiful  than 
that  which  it  replaced.  It  seemed  as  if  the  genius  of  the 
Andes  wished  to  give  us,  as  we  were  leaving  his  domain,  a 
series  of  dissolving  views  on  a  stupendous  scale.  View 
succeeded  view  with  kaleidoscopic  rapidity,  all  distin- 
guished by  color-schemes  of  supreme  delicacy  and  splendor. 

i  According  to  Karl  Fauehaber,  the  explorer  of  the  Quindio  Cordillera, 
Tolima  has  an  altitude  of  20,995  feet. 

341 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

At  one  time  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  cloud-grouping  that 
recalled  EaphaePs  Disputa.  Perhaps  in  his  Umbrian 
home  Nature  had  gladdened  the  great  artist's  soul  with  a 
similar  view.  Perhaps  he  had  caught  it  from  some  lofty 
peak  of  the  Apennines  while  gazing  at  the  apparition  of 
the  morning  sun  from  beneath  the  bine  waters  of  the 
Adriatic. 

Who  can  tell?  What  we  do  know  is  that  he  has  repro- 
duced in  the  exquisite  creations  of  his  transcendent  genius 
just  such  cloud-effects  as  rejoiced  our  vision  on  that 
memorable  day  when  we  bade  adieu  to  the  Eastern  Cor- 
dilleras. Never  before  had  mountain  scenery  occasioned 
us  keener  delight.  Only  once  before  had  it  been  my 
privilege  to  contemplate  a  vista  at  all  approaching  the  one 
that  unfolded  itself  before  us  in  the  picturesque  valley  of 
the  Magdalena.  That  was  long  years  ago,  as  I  stood  on 
the  summit  of  Mt.  Parnassus.  It  was  a  balmy  morning  in 
summer.  "Bosy-fingered  dawn"  was  just  making  her  ap- 
pearance beyond  the  plain  where  Troy  once  stood,  and  was 
hastening  to  gladden  by  her  smile  the  islands  of  thej3Egean 
and  the  one-time  famous  land  of  Hellas.  Then  I  beheld, 
spread  out  before  me,  the  greater  part  of  Greece,  together 
with  the  countless  islands  that  engirdle  it.  It  was  a 
panorama  which  I  then  thought  was  unequaled  in  the 
wide  world.  But  beautiful,  sublime,  glorious  as  it  un- 
doubtedly was,  it  has  since  yielded  the  palm  to  the 
unrivaled  vista  that  greeted  us  from  the  summit  of  El 
Sargento. 

"How  Turner  and  Buskin,"  we  exclaimed,  "would  have 
reveled  in  such  scenic  splendor!  How  it  would  have 
delighted  the  heart  of  Claude  Lorrain,  the  painter  of 
idyllic  scenes  and  the  master  of  aerial  perspective !  What 
ecstatic  joy  would  not  <Jaspard  and  Nicholas  Poussin, 
Buysdael  and  Corot,  have  experienced  in  the  presence  of 
such  exuberant  vegetation,  such  sparkling  streams  and 
fleece-like  clouds,  such  grandiose  mountains  with  their  spot- 
less mantles  of  eternal  snow ! ' ' 

342 


THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 

And  how  such  a  spot  as  El  Sargento  would  have  appealed 
to  the  esthetic  soul  of  St.  Benedict  or  to  such  lovers  of 
wild  nature  as  St.  Bruno,  or  St.  Francis,  the  poverello  of 
Assisi !  Had  they  found  such  a  place,  it  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  chosen  as  a  site  for  a  temple,  like  our  Lady  of 
the  Angels,  or  a  monastic  retreat  like  that  of  Monte  Ca- 
sino or  the  Grande  Chartreuse.1 

We  were  still  under  the  spell  of  the  matchless  pictures 
engraved  on  our  memories  long  after  we  had  started  on  our 
way  down  the  mountain.  Before  we  had  realized  it,  we 
had  passed  from  the  tierra  teinplada  to  the  tierra  caliente. 
We  were  again  in  the  dense  and  luxuriant  forests  of  the 
lowlands — in  a  region  of  perpetual  summer,  like  unto  that 
which  we  had  left  behind  us  in  the  valleys  of  the  Meta 
and  the  Orinoco.  We  had  left  the  habitat  of  the  coffee 
plant  and  the.  oak  and  were  now  in  the  territory  of  the 
cacao  and  the  tolu  tree,  the  vanilla  vine  and  the  moriche 
palm.  Far  above  and  behind  us,  on  lofty  mountain  peaks 
where  sunbeams  "glide  apace  with  shadows  in  their  train/' 
were  the  favorite  haunts  of  the  fleet  and  sporting  Oreades. 
Our  path  was  now  through  a  dense,  gloomy  forest  where 
Silence  and  Twilight, 

* c  Twin  sisters  keep 

Their  noonday  watch,  and  sail  among  the  shades, ' 

Like  vaporous  shapes  half  seen."2 

It  was  in  such  a  sombre  forest  as  this,  we  fancied,  where, 
under  the  influence  of  a  fertile  soil,  perpetual  warmth  and 
humidity,  the  teeming  earth,  in  later  geologic  time,  fed  the 
countless  monsters  that  depended  on  her  bounty.  It  was 
amid  such  surroundings  that  they  were  wont  to  hold  high 

1  "With  Francis  of  Assisi  and  his  Hymn  to  the  Sun,"  we  are  informed  by 
a  recent  writer,  "the  love  of  wild  nature  became  more  articulate.'*    As  an 
illustration  of  the  effect  of  Nature-love  on  sensitive  souls,  we  are  told  that 
the  poet    Gay,  after  visiting  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  declared  that    if  he 
had  lived  in  St.  Bruno's   day,  he  would  have  been  one  of  his  disciples. 
"It  was,"  he  said,  "one  of  the  most  solemn,  the  most  romantic  and  the  most 
astonishing  scenes  I  ever  beheld." 

2  Shelley's  Alastor,  or  The  Spirit  of  Solitude. 

343 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

carnival,  or  engage  in  that  struggle  for  existence  which 
resulted  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  until  finally  all  were 
swept  away  by  some  fatal  agency  of  which  we  know  so 
little.  Had  we  seen  a  megatherium  or  a  mylodon  or 
a  megalonyx  crossing  our  path,  or  observed  a  mastodon 
pushing  his  bulky  form  through  the  dense  underbrush ;  had 
we  seen  a  screaming  pterodactyl  passing  over  our  heads, 
or  beheld  a  giant  iguanodon  floundering  in  the  morass  by 
the  wayside,  or  browsing  on  the  succulent  crowns  of  the 
Mauritia  flexuosa,  we  should  have  regarded  it  all  as  in 
perfect  keeping  with  our  environment. 

Our  reveries  were  suddenly  disturbed  by  the  soft,  dulcet 
notes  of  the  tiple.  Only  a  short  distance  ahead  of  us, 
reclining  against  a  mango  tree,  was  an  amorous  young 
mestizo,  who  was  fondly  gazing  on  his  dusky  querida,  while 
thrumming  his  instrument.  She,  during  the  serenade 1  of 
her  ardent  suitor,  sat  on  the  door-sill  of  a  bamboo  dwell- 
ing with  a  palm-thatched  roof,  having  seemingly  no  thought 
beyond  satisfying  the  cravings  of  two  little  nude,  paunchy, 
bananniverous  urchins,  apparently  her  brother  and  sister 
i — Pablo  and  Julia  by  name — who,  like  ebony  statuettes, 
were  standing  at  her  knee  and  clamoring  for  another 
banana  from  a  bunch  suspended  from  a  rafter  above  the 
cabin  door. 

Farther  on  was  another  cabin,  from  which  issued  coarser 
notes  of  shouts  and  laughter.  It  was  a  chicheria,  and  the 
chicha  there  served  was  evidently  the  cause  of  the  good 
nature  and  general  merriment  that  prevailed.  We  then 
discovered  that  we  were  on  the  outskirts  of  a  small  pueblo, 

*The  negroes  of  Colombia  are  often  of  a  highly  poetical  nature,  and,  like 
those  of  our  Southern  States,  are  passionately  fond  of  music,  singing  and 
dancing.  Their  voices  are  often  marvelously  elastic,  expansive  and  har- 
monious. Their  favorite  air  and  dance  is  the  bamluco,  of  African  origin,  to 
.which  Jorge  Isaacs  refers  in  his  charming  Caucan  novel,  Maria,  and  of 
which  Vergara  y  Vergara  in  his  valuable  Historic*  de  la  Literature,  en  Nueva 
Granada  (Parte  primera,  p.  513,  Bogota,  1867)  gives  us  so  glowing  an  ac- 
count. It  is  the  latter  writer  that  assures  us  that  if  a  negro  were  to  play  a 
marimba  in  the  forests  of  the  South  Coast,  he  could  be  certain  that  wild 
beasts  and  serpents  would  listen  to  him  in  silent  ecstasy, 

344 


THE  MUISCA  TRAIL 

just  across  the  river  from  the  goal  of  our  day's  journey. 
Our  long,  yet  delightful  ride  across  the  oriental  Andes 
was  at  an  end.  Crossing  a  steel  suspension  bridge,  the 
noblest  structure  of  the  kind  in  the  republic — which  here 
spans  Colombia's  great  waterway — we  were  in  Honda, 
the  head  of  navigation  for  the  lower  Magdalena. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

"Salud,  salud,  majestuoso  rio! 
Al  contemplar  tu  frente  coronada 
De  los  hijos  mas  viejos  de  la  tierra, 
Lleno  solo  de  ti,  siento  mi  alma 
Arrastrada  en  la  espuma  de  tus  olas, 
Que  entre  profundos  remolinos  braman, 
De  aquel  gran  ser  que  el  infinite  abraza."1 

— MANUEL  M.  MADIBDO. 

While  in  Guaduas  we  met  a  Scotch  engineer,  who  was 
superintendent  of  a  gold  mine  in  the  mountains  west  of 
Honda.  Desiring  to  know  the  truth  about  the  excessive 
temperature  of  this  place,  about'  which  we  had  heard  so 
many  reports,  we  asked  him  if  it  was  really  true  that  the 
heat  in  Honda  was  as  intense  as  represented. 

"You  will,"  he  said,  "find  it  the  hottest  place  you  have 
ever  visited.  It  is  certainly  the  most  torrid  place  I  know, 
and  I  have  been  something  of  a  globe-trotter  in  my  time. 
Hades,  if  I  have  caught  the  meaning  of  the  word,  as  used 
in  the  Revised  Version,  is  quite  temperate  in  comparison 
with  it.  Business  frequently  calls  me  to  Bogota,  and,  on 
my  way  thither,  I  must  necessarily  pass  through  Honda, 
but  I  never  stop  there  longer  than  is  absolutely  necessary, 
and  I  always  try  to  avoid  being  there  in  the  daytime.  If 
I  must  stop  there  for  a  few  hours,  I  time  my  journey  so  as 
to  arrive  there  at  night,  and  make  it  a  point  to  leave  before 
morning.  Hot!  I  think  it  is  the  hottest  and  most  stiff o- 

i<eHail,  hail,  majestic  river!  .  .  .  Contemplating  thee,  adorned  by  the 
eldest  of  Earth's  sons;  full  only  of  thee,  I  feel  my  soul  carried  on  by  the  foam 
of  thy  waves,  which  in  deep  whirlpools  roar,  absorbed  in  the  giant  works  of 
that  Being  which  embraces  the  infinite." 

346 


THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALEXA 

eating  spot  on  earth.  It  lias  always  been  a  mystery  to  me 
how  people  can  live  there  at  all.  I  know  of  nothing  to 
compare  it  with  except  one  of  the  burning  pits  of  Dante's 
Inferno.'* 

Had  we  not  learned  by  long  experience  how  to  discount 
such  statements,  the  prospect  of  spending  some  days  in  a 
town  with  such  a  reputation  for  grilling  the  stranger  within 
its  gates,  would  have  been  anything  but  inviting.  But  we 
had  heard  similar  reports  about  the  llanos  and  the  valley 
of  the  Orinoco,  and  had  found,  on  arriving  in  these  regions, 
that  the  temperature  said  to  prevail  there  had  been  greatly 
exaggerated.  The  same  we  found  to  be  true  of  Honda. 
During  our  sojourn  there,  our  thermometer  never  regis- 
tered more  than  86°  F.  in  the  shade.  Of  course,  around 
midday  it  was  uncomfortable  in  the  sun,  but  I  have  been 
in  many  places  in  the  United  States  where  I  suffered  more 
from  the  heat  than  I  did  in  Honda. 

The  town  is  about  seven  hundred  feet  above  sea  level 
and  counts  nearly  four  thousand  inhabitants.  Jt  is  sepa- 
rated into  two  parts  by  the  river  Guali,  which  here  enters 
the  Magdalena.  Being  the  centre  of  traffic  for  Bogota,  the 
upper  Magdalena,  and  the  mining  district  round  about 
Mariquita,  it  is  a  place  of  considerable  importance.  As 
soon,  however,  as  the  Colombian  National  Railway,  now 
nearing  completion,  shall  have  connected  Girardot  with 
Bogota,  Honda  will  lose  the  commercial  supremacy  it  has 
maintained  for,  nearly  three  centuries.  There  will  then  be 
little  reason  for  a  town  in  this  place,  and  it  will  lapse  into 
a  straggling  village  similar  to  many  others  along  the  river. 

And  the  Muisca  Trail,  over  which  we  had  so  delightful 
a  ride,  will  be  no  longer  needed,  and  will  soon  disappear 
in  the  dense  and  rank  vegetation  through  which  it  passes. 
Then,  too,  will  disappear  those  long  and  picturesque  mule- 
trains,  that  so  often  crowded  us  to  the  roadside  on  our  way 
from  Bogota,  and  which  have  been  almost  the  sole  means 
employed  for  the  transportation  of  freight  and  passengers 
since  the  capital  was  founded  by  Quesada  nearly  four  cen- 

347 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

•  times  ago.  We  shall  always  congratulate  ourselves  that 
we  were  able  to  make  the  trip  on  mule-back  rather  than 
by  a  railway  train.  We  can  thus  feel  that  we  have,  to 
a  great  extent,  seen  the  country  as  it  was  in  colonial  times 
— before  its  character  was  modified  by  the  innovations  of 
modern  progress  and  the  introduction  of  modern  inven- 
tions. 

In  1805  Honda  was  visited  by  a  terrific  earthquake,  from 
the  effects  of  which  it  has  never  recovered.  Everywhere 
are  evidences  of  the  frightful  cataclysm.  Some  of  the 
largest  and  most  important  structures  are  still  in  ruins. 
Nor  has  any  attempt  ever  been  made  to  restore  certain 
quarters  of  the  town  to  their  prior  condition. 

After  a  few  days'  halt  at  Honda,  we  were  ready  to  con- 
tinue our  journey  towards  the  Caribbean.  The  rapids  of 
the  Magdalena  make  it  impracticable  for  steamers  to 
ascend  the  river  as  far  as  the  town.  For  this  reason,  it 
is  necessary  to  go  by  rail  to  La  Dorada,  eighteen  miles 
northwards.  But,  although  the  distance  is  so  short,  it 
takes  two  hours  for  the  train  to  make  the  run.  The  road, 
however,  passes  through  a  picturesque  country  and  time 
passes  pleasantly  and  quickly.  Before  one  realizes  it,  one 
is  at  La  Dorada,  where  the  transfer  is  made  to  the  steamer 
bound  for  Barranquilla. 

There  are  several  lines  of  steamboats  plying  between 
La  Dorada  and  Barranquilla  and  intermediate  points.  But 
all  the  boats,  which  are  stern-wheelers,  are  quite  small. 
The  largest  of  them  will  not  carry  more  than  four  hundred 
tons.  Usually  the  tonnage  is  much  less — not  more  than 
one  or  two  hundred  tons.1  Our  boat,  which  was  recom- 
mended as  the  best  and  the  most  comfortable  on  the  river, 
was  one  of  the  largest  and  newest,  but,  if  it  was  the  best, 
it  is  difficult  to  conceive  what  the  others  must  have  been. 

iThe  reader  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  the  aggregate  capacity  of  all 
the  boats— champans  included — at  present  plying  on  the  Magdalena — proudly 
named  by  the  people  the  Danube  of  Colombia — is  not  more  than  eleven  thou- 
sand tons,  about  half  the  tonnage  of  one  of  our  great  transatlantic  steam- 
ers. 

348 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

A  glance  was  sufficient  to  convince  us  that  the  craft  on 
the  Magdalena  are  in  every  way  inferior  to  those  on  the 
Orinoco  and  its  affluents.  The  Venezuelan  boats  are 
larger,  and  with  incomparably  better  equipment  and  ap- 
pointments. They  are  clean,  well  kept,  and  the  service  is 
good.  Their  cabins  are  commodious  and  well  ventilated. 
They  are,  besides,  provided  with  all  necessary  furniture 
and  the  berths  are  as  comfortable  as  could  be  desired. 

But  how  different  is  it  on  the  Magdalena  boats !  In  the 
cabins,  in  place  of  berths  with  neat  bedding,  there  is  a  bare 
cot,  usually  of  questionable  cleanliness.  Each  passenger 
is  supposed  to  supply  his  own  bedding.  As  to  lavatories 
and  bathrooms,  those  that  we  saw  were  filthy  beyond 
description.  Our  stewards  were  half-dressed,  barefooted, 
slovenly,  unwashed  negro  boys,  who  seemed  to  have  been 
picked  up  on  the  streets  at  random,  just  before  the  boat 
left  its  moorings.  The  cuisine  and  service  were  in  keep- 
ing with  everything  else,  and  left  very  much  room  for 
improvement.  The  natives,  having  nothing  better,  seemed 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  conditions  that  obtained.  The 
foreigners,  however,  and  there  were  representatives  of 
several  nationalities  aboard,  could  never  become  recon- 
ciled to  the  lack  of  so  many  things  essential  to  comfortable 
traveling,  and  were  always  glad  when  their  river  experi- 
ences were  at  an  end. 

For  ourselves,  who  had  been  roughing  it  so  long,  the 
trip  down  the  river  was  not  so  trying  as  it  was  for  many 
others.  We  were,  besides,  better  prepared  for  such  a 
journey  than  the  other  passengers.  We  had  our  camping 
outfits  with  us,  together  with  clean  bedding,  which  had 
received  the  attention  of  the  laundress  before  we  left 
Bogota.  We  had,  besides,  good  cumare  hammocks,  and 
mosquito  nets,  so  that  we  had  nothing  to  apprehend  from 
filth,  vermin  or  insects.  Thus  equipped,  we  really  en- 
joyed our  voyage  on  the  Magdalena,  but  we  were  probably 
the  only  ones  who  did. 

After  we  had  gotten  fairly  started  down  stream,  and 

349 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

could  contemplate  at  our  leisure  the  rich  tropical  vegeta- 
tion that  fringed  both  banks,  our  minds  reverted  to  the 
first  trip  made  down  this  river  by  Europeans.  The 
travelers  were  the  celebrated  conquistadores,  of  whom 
mention  has  already  been  made,  viz.,  Quesada,  Belalcazar 
and  Pedermann.  They  embarked  with  a  number  of 
soldiers  at  Guataqui,  a  short  distance  above  Honda.  But 
they  had  scarcely  started  on  their  downward  course,  before 
they  encountered  the  rapids  at  the  mouth  of  the  Guali. 
They  were  then  obliged  to  unload  their  two  brigantines 
and  canoes  and  transport  their  contents  to  the  lower 
part  of  the  cataract,  whence,  after  reloading,  they  were 
able  to  proceed  again  on  their  long  journey  to  Car- 
tagena. 

It  was  while  passing  this  point  that  Quesada  learned 
from  his  Indian  boatmen  of  the  existence  of  gold  in  the 
valley  of  the  Guali.  In  consequence  of  this  information, 
the  town  of  Marquita  was  founded  without  delay,  and  has 
ever  since  been  a  mining  centre  of  considerable  importance. 
It  was  in  this  place  that  Quesada  died  after  his  return 
from  Spain.  Prom  here  his  remains  were  transferred  to 
the  Cathedral  of  Bogota,  where  they  still  repose. 

According  to  Padre  Simon,  Quesada  and  his  companions 
were  frequently,  during  their  journey  down  the  river, 
attacked  by  Indians,  "who  came  out  to  salute  them  and 
speed  their  way  with  a  shower  of  poisoned  arrows. " 
"With  the  help  of  God,"  he  continues,  "joined  to  eternal 
vigilance,  their  own  valor  and  a  liberal  supply  of  powder 
and  firearms  with  which  the  soldiers  of  Belalcazar  were 
provided,  they  were  able  finally  to  arrive  at  Cartagena, 
and  give  the  first  information  regarding  the  great  cam- 
paign in  which  Quesada  and  his  followers  had  achieved 
such  signal  success." * 

The  Magdalena,  like  many  other  water  courses  in  South 
America,  was  at  first  known  as  the  Eio  Grande — the  great 
river.  It  was  subsequently  given  the  name  it  now  bears 

*  Op.  cit.,  3a  Noticia,  Gap.  IX. 
350 


THE*  VALLEY  OF  THE  1IAGDALENA 

in  honor  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene.1  At  times  it  is  com- 
paratively narrow  and  deep.  Then  navigation  is  easy  and 
without  danger.  At  other  times, 

"Shallow,  disreputable,  vast 
It  spreads  across  the  western  plains." 

Then  progress  is  difficult,  and  the  boat  may  run  into  a 
sand  bar  at  any  moment.  And  if  the  river  should  then  be 
falling,  it  may  be  impossible  to  get  the  craft  free  until 
the  water  rises.  Only  a  short  time  before  our  trip  one 
of  the  steamers  had  been  held  in  a  sand  bank  for  forty 
days.  As  it  was  not  near  any  place  where  provisions  could 
be  obtained,  the  passengers  suffered  greatly  from  hunger, 
not  to  speak  of  the  suspense  and  enforced  detention  on  an 
uncomfortable  boat. 

Owing  to  the  shallowness  of  the  river,  the  boat  was, 
during  the  first  part  of  the  voyage,  always  tied  up  for  the 
night  at  the  first  tree  or  stump  that  might  be  found  on 
the  bank  at  sunset.  The  following  morning  we  were  sup- 
posed to  resume  our  journey  at  daybreak,  but,  as  the  fire- 
men did  not  begin  to  get  up  steam  before  that  time,  it 
was  usually  an  hour  after  sunrise  before  we  were  under 
way.  We  stopped  at  every  village  and  warehouse  along 
the  river,  sometimes  to  deliver  the  mail,  often  consisting 
of  only  a  single  letter  or  package,  or  to  take  on  a  passenger. 
Two  or  three  times  a  day,  also,  we  halted  to  take  on  wood 
to  supply  the  furnace  with  fuel,  for  here,  as  on  the  Meta, 
coal  is  not  used.  Fortunately,  we  were  never  obliged,  as 
on  the  Meta,  to  delay  until  the  wood  could  be  cut.  Large 
wood  piles  are  found  every  few  miles  all  along  the  river. 
They  usually  belong  to  a  negro,  who  has  a  hut  or  shed 
near  by,  together  with  a  small  garden  and  a  few  domestic 
animals  which  supply  Trim  ^fl  Ms  family  with  food  in  their 
sequestered  home. 
We  stopped  at  several  large  warehouses,  many  of  them 

iThe  first  mention,  apparently,  of  the  Magdalena,  as  distinguished  from 
the  Rio  Grande,  occurs  in  Benzoni's  work,  already  cited. 

*4  351 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

constructed  of  corrugated  iron  from  the  United  States. 
This  seems  strange  in  a  land  where  timber  is  so  abundant. 
But  there  are  no  sawmills  in  the  Magdalena  valley.  South 
of  Barranquilla — where  but  little  lumber  is  produced — im- 
ported lumber  would  be  more  expensive  and  less  durable 
than  iron.  At  these  places  the  chief  articles  of  merchan- 
dise are  coffee,  cacao,  hides  and  vegetable  ivory.  This 
last  product,  also  called  ivory  nuts,  is  the  fruit  of  a  species 
of  palm  known  as  Phytelephas  macrocarpa,*  and  consti- 
tutes, in  this  part  of  Colombia,  an  important  article  of 
commerce.  For  many  things  it  is  a  good  substitute  for 
elephant  ivory,  which  it  rivals  in  whiteness,  beauty  and 
solidity,  and  collecting  it  for  shipment  gives  occupation 
to  quite  a  number  of  the  poor  inhabitants  of  the  Magdalena 
valley. 

We  usually  went  ashore  at  the  different  landing  places 
to  see  the  people  and  familiarize  ourselves  with  their  mode 
of  life.  It  was  generally  as  simple  and  primitive  as 
possible — almost  as  primitive,  in  some  instances,  as  we 
conceive  it  to  have  been  in  the  Quaternary  period  or  in 
the  days  of  the  Troglodytes.  Often  their  dwellings  were 
little  more  than  palm-thatched  sheds — barely  sufficient  to 
shield  their  occupants  from  sun  and  rain.  A  tulpa,  con- 
sisting of  three  stones,  served  them  in  lieu  of  a  stove, 
and  on  this  they  broiled  the  fish  caught  in  the  river, 
or  prepared  their  arepas — corn  cakes — or  their  sancocho, 
a  kind  of  ragout,  as  popular  in  some  parts  of  Colombia  as 
it  is  in  Venezuela. 

We  were  surprised  to  see  in  the  houses  and  shops  along 
the  Magdalena  valley — what  we  had  often  observed  in 
various  parts  of  Colombia  and  Venezuela — the  large  num- 
ber of  illustrated  circulars  of  Spanish,  English  and  French 
proprietary  medicines.  The  insides  of  certain  houses  were 
sometimes  quite  plastered  over  with  them.  But  what  was 
more  surprising  was  the  number  of  lithographs  we  saw  of 

i  Called  by  the  natives  Caleza  de  Negro— Negro-head— from  the  globular 
form  of  the  epathe  enclosing  tfrft  nuts. 

352 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALEXA 

the  German  Emperor.  Sometimes  he  was  represented  alone, 
at  others  he  was  depicted  as  surrounded  by  the  members 
of  his  family.  In  several  places  we  saw  pictures  not  only 
of  the  emperor  and  his  family,  but  also  those  of  his  father 
and  grandfather  and  Bismarck.  And  the  remarkable 
thing  about  it  was  that,  in  some  cases,  there  were  no  Ger- 
mans living  within  hundreds  of  miles  of  where  we  came 
across  these  pictures.  Had  some  enthusiastic  Teuton  tried 
to  start  a  propaganda  in  favor  of  the  Vaterland  by  dis- 
tributing broadcast  these  engravings  of  the  imperial  fam- 
ily! I  know  not,  but,  judging  solely  from  the  number  of 
their  pictures  we  came  across  in  Venezuela  and  Colombia, 
one  would  be  led  to  suppose  that  the  Hohenzollern  rulers 
are  the  most  popular  of  potentates,  at  least  in  this  part  of 
South  America. 

While  stopping  to  take  on  some  rubber  at  a  certain  small 
village,  we  had  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  bed  of  the  river  is  sometimes  changed,  even 
when  the  water  is  comparatively  low.  "We  had  scarcely 
reached  the  landing  place  when  there  was  a  terrific  crash, 
occasioned  by  the  falling  in  of  a  large  section  of  the  bank 
on  which  the  village  was  built.  Soon  afterwards  another 
section  gave  way,  and  then  a  third  and  a  fourth.  The 
whole  bank  seemed  to  be  undermined  by  the  river,  and, 
although  the  warehouse  was  fully  fifty  feet  away  from  the 
water  when  we  arrived,  so  much  of  the  bank  had  been 
carried  away  in  less  than  half  an  hour,  that  not  only  the 
contents  of  the  building,  but  also  the  building  itself  had 
to  be  hurriedly  removed  in  order  that  it  and  the  merchan- 
dise stored  within  might  not  be  borne  away  by  the  resist- 
less current.  As  the  structure  was  of  light  bamboo,  and 
put  together  with  a  view  to  such  an  emergency,  the  trans- 
fer was  not  a  difficult  task.  When  we  started  to  continue 
our  course,  it  looked  as  if  the  eroding  action  of  the  river 
would  necessitate  the  changing  of  the  site  of  the  entire 
village  before  nightfall. 

Such  changes  in  the  course  of  the  river  are  not  micom- 

353 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALBNA 

mon.  They  are  going  on  all  the  time  in  some  part  or  other 
of  the  valley.  One  may  frequently  see  immense  masses 
of  earth  suddenly  detached,  which  are  a  serious  menace  to 
the  champans  * — large  covered  flat-boats — and  other  small 
craft  that  happen  to  pass  by  at  the  time.  Sometimes  the 
giants  of  the  forest  are  thus  wrested  from  their  footholds, 
and  may  be  seen  drifting  down  stream  together  with  masses 
of  vegetation  attached  to  them.  At  times,  too,  masses  of 
earth,  like  floating  islets,  are  visible,  and  may  travel  a  long 
distance  down  stream  before  their  course  is  arrested  by 
an  island  or  a  sand  bar. 

Ordinarily  the  changes  in  the  river  bed  are  gradual  and 
occasion  little  danger  to  life  or  property.  Sometimes, 
however,  during  the  rainy  season,  and  when  the  flood  is 
unusually  high,  widespread  devastation  is  the  result. 
Whole  villages  are  swept  away  by  the  deluge ;  and  towns, 
that  were  before  important  commercial  centres,  are  sud- 
denly isolated  and  left  far  from  the  navigable  part  of  the 
river.  Places  that  before  were  favorably  situated  are, 
after  the  flood,  found  to  be  in  the  midst  of  pestiferous 
morasses.  Such  has  been  the  fate  of  many  places  along 
the  waterways  of  Colombia,  but  more  notably  in  the  great 
island  of  Mompos,  near  the  confluence  of  the  Cauca  and 
the  Magdalena.  Here  several  places  that  were  at  one 

iThe  introduction  of  the  steamboat  on  the  Magdalena  will  soon  suppress 
the  rude  yet  picturesque  craft  known  as  the  champan.  With  it  will  dis- 
appear that  interesting  type  of  negro  known  as  the  logo*  The  boga  is  tall 
and  robust,  with  the  habits  of  a  savage.  He  spends  the  greater  part  of 
his  tune  in  the  champan,  and  his  life  as  a  punter  is  a  strenuous  one  and 
full  of  danger.  He  speaks  a  barbarous  jargon — currulao — composed  of  Span- 
ish and  of  certain  African  and  Indian  dialects.  His  ideas  of  honor  and 
honesty  are  not  unlike  those  of  similar  people  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 
One  can  safely  trust  him.  with  money  and  clothing,  but,  if  the  traveler  have 
liquor  of  any  kind  with  him,  the  boga  will  be  sure  to  purloin  it  at  the  first 
opportunity.  He  is  simple,  frank,  and  brave.  He  sings  during  good  weather, 
even  while  struggling  against  the  current  or  fighting  caymans,  but  he  swears 
like  a  trooper  during  rain  and  thunder  storms,  especially  when  the  lightning 
strikes  near  him.  For  him  death  is  a  very  simple  matter.  A  dead  man  to 
him  is  like  a  champan  damaged  beyond  repair:— something  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  all-devouring  river. 

354 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

time  centres  of  industrial  and  agricultural  activity,  have 
long  since  either  ceased  to  exist  or  lost  entirely  their  pris- 
tine importance. 

The  town  of  Mompos  is  probably  the  most  remarkable 
example  of  this  kind.  Founded  in  1539  by  Alonso  de 
Heredia,  it  is  one  of  the  oldest  towns  in  the  republic,  and 
was  for  generations  the  most  important  commercial  centre 
between  Cartagena  and  Honda.  But  owing  to  a  displace- 
ment of  the  main  channel  of  the  river,  and  the  filling  in  of 
the  branch  of  the  river  on  which  the  town  was  built,  it  is 
now  practically  deprived  of  its  former  means  of  com- 
munication with  the  rest  of  the  country,  and  is  rapidly 
verging  towards  extinction. 

The  Magdalena,  as  a  commercial  highway,  has  been 
much  neglected.  As  a  consequence,  no  one  can  calculate 
when  leaving  Honda,  how  long  it  will  take  him  to  reach 
Barranquilla.  It  may  require  five  or  six  days,  or  it  may 
demand  twice  that  much  time.  All  depends  on  the  shift- 
ing bed  of  the  river,  or  the  blocking  of  the  channel  by  sand 
bars  and  accumulations  of  floating  timber.  By  reason 
of  these  obstructions  and  the  ever-varying  depth  of 
the  main  channel,  navigation  is  usually  impossible  at 
night,  except  below  the  island  of  Mompos,  where  the 
volume  of  water  is  swelled  by  the  tribute  of  the  mighty 
Cauca. 

If  the  Magdalena  were  under  the  supervision  of  a  corps 
of  competent  engineers,  having  at  their  disposal  the  neces- 
sary dredges  and  other  appliances  for  keeping  the  main 
channel  in  prime  condition,  a  properly  constructed  boat 
would  easily  make  the  trip  from  Honda  to  the  mouth  of 
the  river  in  two  days,  and  traverse  the  same  course  up 
stream  in  three  days  at  most.  It  is  really  a  pity  to  see  such 
a  splendid  water  course  so  neglected.  If  cared  for  as  it 
should  be,  it  could  easily  be  rendered  an  artery  for  inland 
commerce  of  the  first  importance.  As  it  is,  transportation, 
as  now  carried  on,  is  always  slow  and  uncertain,  and  never 
free  from  danger  and  disaster. 

355 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

As  a  serviceable  means  of  communication  with  the  out- 
side world  we  were  constantly  contrasting  the  Magdalena 
with  the  Meta.  From  our  observations,  we  should  con- 
sider the  Meta,  from  its  junction  with  the  Orinoco  to 
Cabuyaro  or  even  to  the  mouth  of  the  Humea,  as  a  safer 
waterway  than  the  Magdalena.  Only  twice  did  our  boat 
graze  a  sand  bank  in  the  Meta,  but  it  continued  its  course 
without  a  moment's  stoppage.  In  the  Magdalena,  however, 
we  frequently  ran  into  sand  bars,  or  shallow  water,  and, 
on  several  occasions,  had  difficulty  in  extricating  and  float- 
ing our  craft.  Once  we  were  delayed  for  some  time,  and 
began  to  fear  that,  owing  to  the  falling  water,  we  should 
be  stranded  for  weeks,  as  other  boats  had  been  not  long 
before. 

When  peace  shall  have  been  firmly  established  in  Colom- 
bia, and  its  finances  shall  have  been  placed  on  a  satisfactory 
basis,  the  patriotic  and  far-seeing  statesmen  of  the  re- 
public, will,  I  am  convinced,  see  the  necessity  of  carrying 
out  the  plan  of  the  former  Archbishop  and  Viceroy  of  New 
Granada — Don  Antonio  Caballero  y  Gongora — and  con- 
necting Bogota  with  Europe  by  means  of  the  Meta  and 
the  Orinoco.  It  will  not  be  a  difficult  feat  of  engineering 
to  build  a  railroad  from  the  capital  to  a  suitable  point  on 
the  Meta,  and  the  length  of  such  a  road  need  not  exceed 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  at  most.  This  will  bring 
Bogata  within  eight  or  ten  hours  of  the  head  waters  of 
navigation,  and  develop  the  most  valuable  and  most  pro- 
ductive grazing  section  of  the  country. 

The  highest  point  the  road  need  reach  in  crossing  the 
Eastern  Cordilleras  will  be  less  than  that  of  several  passes 
in  Colorado,  where  the  Rocky  Mountains  are  scaled  by  the 
iron-horse  with  a  long  train  of  cargo  behind  him.  The 
pass  of  Chipaque,  by  which  we  entered  the  altiplanicies  of 
Bogota,  is  several  thousand  feet  lower  than  the  heights 
crossed  by  the  railways  leading  from  the  waters  of  the 
Pacific  to  Lake  Titicaca,  and  to  Argentina  by  way  of 
Cnmbre  Pass,  and  is  nearly  a  mile  lower  than  the  point 

356 


THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALENA 

where  the  Galera  tunnel  pierces  the  Cordillera  on  the  way 
from  Lima  to  Oroya.1 

What  Colombia  really  needs  is  the  betterment  of  both  its 
great  waterways — the  Meta  for  the  eastern  and  the  Mag- 
dalena  for  the  western  part  of  the  republic.  Until  they 
shall  both  have  been  put  in  such  condition  as  to  be  navigable 
during  the  entire  year,  it  will  be  impossible  fully  to  develop 
the  marvelous  resources  of  this  extensive  country.  Eiver 
traffic  will  always  remain  cheaper  than  traffic  by  rail,  and, 
on  account  of  many  physical  difficulties,  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  certain  valuable  sections  of  territory  will 
ever  be  tapped  by  railroads.  When,  however,  these  two 
main  arteries  of  commerce  shall  have  received  the  atten- 
tion they  deserve  and  shall  have  been  put  in  communication 
with  the  rich  grazing,  mining  and  agricultural  regions  by 
the  various  lines  of  railway  that  are  contemplated  or  in 
course  of  construction,  Colombia  will  at  once  take  a  posi- 
tion among  the  richest  and  most  flourishing  republics  of 
South  America.  Only  those  who  have  traveled  through  it 
can  fully  realize  its  wonderful  natural  riches,  or  form  an 
adequate  conception  of  its  vast  extent.  Sufficient  to  state 
that  its  area  is  more  than  ten  times  as  great  as  the  state 
of  New  York,  or  as  great  as  that  of  France,  Germany  and 
the  British  Isles  combined. 

As  to  the  great  Pan-American  line  which  has  been  pro- 
jected to  connect  New  York  with  Buenos  Ayres,  that  is 
talked  of  in  Colombia  as  well  as  in  the  United  States.  But 
when  one  contemplates  the  enormous  engineering  diffi- 
culties to  be  encountered  in  the  construction  of  the  section 
extending  from  Costa  Bica  to  the  frontier  of  Ecuador,  one 
is  compelled  to  regard  the  project  as  a  much  more  arduous 
undertaking  than  some  of  its  enthusiastic  promoters  would 
have  us  believe.  Eailway  communication  will  soon  be  com- 

*The  exact  altitudes  of  the  points  named  are  as  follows: — Cumbre  Pass, 
between  Chile  and  Argentina,  12,505  feet;  Crucero  Alto,  between  Arequipa 
and  Lake  Titicaca,  14,666  feet;  Gatera  Tunnel,  15,665  feet.  At  Urbina,  on  the 
recently-completed  railroad  between  Guayaquil  and  Quito,  the  height  above 
sea  level  is  11,841  feet. 

357 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DO\YN  THE  MAGDALENA 

plete  from  Buenos  Ayres  to  Central  Peru,  and,  judging  by 
work  now  being  accomplished  in  Ecuador,  steel  rails  will 
soon  span  the  country  from  the  northern  to  the  southern 
boundaries  of  this  republic.  But  with  all  this  work  com- 
pleted, the  most  difficult  part  of  the  colossal  enterprise  will 
still  remain  untouched.  Even  should  the  road  eventually 
be  completed,  as  is  possible,  it  is  still  doubtful  whether 
long  stretches  of  it  would  ever  pay  even  a  nominal  interest 
on  the  investment. 

The  part  of  the  Magdalena  valley  between  Honda  and 
the  island  of  Mompos  is  but  sparsely  inhabited.  Most  of 
the  inhabitants  are  Indians,  mestizos,  or  negroes,  the  de- 
scendants of  former  slaves.1  On  account  of  the  heat  and 
malaria  that  always  prevail  in  the  lowlands,  but  few  white 
men  are  found  here,  and  their  sojourn,  as  a  rule,  is  only 
temporary.  But  near  the  confluence  of  the  Cauca  and  the; 
Magdalena,  and  thence  to  the  Caribbean,  there  are  rich  and 
extensive  esteros — grazing  lands — covered  with  succulent 
Para  and  Guinea  grasses,  several  feet  high.  In  these 
broad  plains,  there  are  no  fewer  than  half 'a  million  cattle, 
not  to  speak  of  large  numbers  of  horses,  mules  and  other 
domestic  animals.  Some  of  the  cattle  we  saw  reminded  us 
of  the  fat,  sleek  animals  we  had  seen  on  the  llanos  watered 
by  the  Eio  Negro  and  the  Humea.  Under  more  favorable 
conditions  the  number  could  greatly  be  increased. 

The  scenery  along  the  Magdalena  is  much  like  that 
along  the  Meta  and  the  Orinoco,  except  that  along  the 
western  river  one  sees  more  of  the  mountains,  especially 
in  the  southern  part.  The  vegetation  is  similar  in  char- 
acter and  quite  as  varied  and  exuberant.  On  both  sides  of 
the  river  trees  and  bushes  are  so  massed  together  as  to 

iln  Colombia*  the  white  race,  composed  of  the  descendants  of  the  con- 
quistadores,  most  of  whom  have  intermarried  with  the  indigenous  tribes, 
constitutes  fifty  per  cent  of  the  population.  The  negroes  compose  thirty-five 
and  the  Indians  fifteen  per  cent.  In  Venezuela  the  descendants  of  Europeans 
are  in  the  minority,  while  in  Ecuador,  Peru  and  Bolivia  the  indigenes  make 
up  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants.  La  Republtque  de  Colombie,  p.  44, 
par  Eicardo  Nunez  et  Henry  Jalahay,  BruxelleB,  1898. 

358 


THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALENA 

form  an  impenetrable  wall.  Everywhere  there  is  a  ver- 
itable maze  of  creeping  plants,  of  bromelias,  bignonias, 
passifloras.  And  everywhere,  too,  are  lianas — aptly  named 
monkey-ladders — which  bind  tree  to  tree  and  branch  to 
branch.  Usually  they  are  single,  like  ropes — whence  their 
name  bush  ropes — but  often  they  are  twined  together  like 
strands  in  a  cable.  Frequently  they  are  seen  descending 
from  the  topmost  part  of  a  tree  to  the  ground,  where  they 
forthwith  strike  root  and  present  the  appearance  of  the 
stays  and  shrouds  of  a  ship's  main  mast.  And  where  there 
is  air  and  sunshine,  these  lianas,  which  often  form  bights 
like  ropes,  are  loaded  with  epiphytes  of  all  kinds,  and 
decorated  with  the  rarest  and  most  beautiful  orchids.  In- 
deed, the  regions  on  both  sides  of  the  Magdalena  have  long 
been  favorite  resorts  for  the  orchid  hunters  in  the  employ 
of  the  florists  and  merchant  princes  of  the  United  States 
and  Europe.  From  here  these  bizarre  vegetable  forms  are 
shipped  by  thousands.  One  enthusiastic  English  collector 
tells  us  how  he  secured,  as  the  result  of  two  months'  work 
about  ten  thousand  plants  of  the  highly  prized  Odontoglos- 
sum.  But  to  obtain  these  orchids  he  was  obliged  to  fell 
some  four  thousand  trees. 

"The  most  magnificent  sight,"  he  writes,  "for  even  the 
most  stoical  observer,  is  the  immense  clumps  of  Cattleya 
Mendelii,  each  new  bulb  bearing  four  or  five  of  its  gor- 
geous rose-colored  flowers,  many  of  them  growing  in  the  full 
sun,  or  with  very  little  shade,  and  possessing  a  glowing 
color  which  is  very  difficult  to  get  in  the  stuffy  hothouses 
where  the  plants  are  cultivated.  Some  of  these  plants,  con- 
sidering their  size  and  the  slowness  of  growth,  must  have 
taken  many  years  to  develop,  for  I  have  taken  plants  from 
the  trees  with  five  hundred  bulbs,  and  as  many  as  one  hun- 
dred spikes  of  flowers,  which,  to  a  lover  of  orchids,  is  a 
sight  worth  traveling  from  Europe  to  see."  l 

It  is  when  contemplating  the  marvelous  variety  and 

i  Albert  Millican,  Travels  and  Adventures  of  an  Orchid  Hunter,  p.  118, 
London,  1891. 

359 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

luxuriance  of  intertropical  flora— of  which  one  in  our 
northern  climes  can  have  no  adequate  conception — that  one 
is  tempted  to  exclaim  with  Wordsworth: — 

"It  is  my  faith,  that  every  flower 
Enjoys  the  air  it  breathes."  * 

And  if  the  extraordinary  claims  which  Professors  Wag- 
ner, Prance  and  Gr.  H.  Darwin  make  for  plants  be  true, 
viz.,  that  they  have  minds  and  are  conscious  of  their  ex- 
istence, that  they  feel  pain  aftd  have  memories,  then,  in- 
deed, should  we  be  disposed  to  regard  the  exuberant  and 
wondrously  developed  plants  of  the  equatorial  world  as 
occupying  the  highest  plane  in  the  evolutionary  process  of 
vegetable  life. 

Passing  the  embouchure  of  the  Opon,  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Magdalena,  evoked,  in  a  special  manner,  memories 
of  Quesada  and  his  valiant  band.  It  was  here  they  left 
the  Magdalena  during  that  memorable  expedition  that  made 
them  the  undisputed  masters  of  the  country  now  known  as 
Colombia.  More  than  eight  months  had  passed  since  they 
had  started  from  Santa  Marta  on  their  career  of  discovery 
and  conquest.  The  difficulties  they  had  to  encounter  and 
the  sufferings  they  had  to  endure  were  extreme.  Mosqui- 
toes, wasps,  ants  and  other  insects;  reptiles  and  jaguars 
gave  them  no  rest,  day  or  night.  Certain  kinds  of  worms, 
the  old  chroniclers  tell  us,  buried  themselves  in  the  flesh  of 
the  exhausted  and  half -famished  men  and  caused  them  un- 
told agony.  Indians  everywhere  laid  ambush  for  them,  and 
assailed  them  with  poisoned  arrows  from  every  point  of 
vantage.  Even  the  elements  seemed  to  conspire  against 
them*  There  was  a  continual  downpour  of  rain,  so  that  it 
was  impossible  to  light  a  fire  for  any  purpose.  Their  arms 
were  almost  destroyed  by  rust,  and  they  were  left  without 

iThe  noted  English  botanist,  Spruce,  expresses  a  similar  idea  when  he 
writes,  "I  like  to  look  on  plants  as  sentient  beings,  which  live  and  enjoy 
their  lives — which  beautify  the  earth  during  life,  and  after  death  may  adorn 
my  herbarium." — Notes  of  a  Botanist,  and  the  Amazon  and  Andes,  Chap, 
by  Richard  Spruce,  London,  1908. 

360 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

a  single  dry  charge  of  powder.  Their  provisions  became 
exhausted  and  starvation  stared  them  in  the  face.  To 
preserve  life  they  devoured  their  sword  scabbards  and 
every  article  of  leather  they  had  with  them.  There  was 
incessant  thunder,  unchanging  gloom,  eternal  horror,  and 
other  features  of  the  pit  infernal.  Their  course  was 
through  dense  underbrush  and  pestiferous  swamps  and  up 
precipitous  acclivities,  whither  they  had  to  drag  their 
weakened  horses  by  long  lianas  that  served  the  purpose  of 
ropes.1 

Finally,  after  the  most  heroic  efforts,  they  came  to  a 
place  where  they  found  provisions — a  veritable  land  of 
promise  for  the  suffering  but  intrepid  Spaniards.  They 
had  left  behind  them  the  inhospitable  sierras  of  the  Opon, 
and  were  on  the  verge  of  the  fertile  plateau  of  Cundina- 
marca,  that  constituted  the  home  of  the  Muiscas.  Here 
they  found  maize,  potatoes,2  yucas,  beans,  tomatoes  and,  as 
Padre  Simon  phrases  it,  "a  thousand  other  chucherias — 
titbits— of  the  aborigines. "  Well  could  they,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Castellanos,  exclaim,  with  thanksgiving: 

"A  good  land!  A  good  land!  A  land  which  puts  an 
end  to  our  suffering,  a  land  of  gold,  a  land  of  plenty.  A 
land  for  a  home,  a  land  of  benediction,  bright  and  serene.'9 

It  was  then  that  the  enthusiastic  soldiers,  whose  courage 
would  often  have  faltered,  had  it  not  been  for  the  determina- 
tion and  perseverance  of  their  invincible  leader,  gathered 
around  Quesada  to  congratulate  him  on  the  successful  is- 

iThe  route  followed  by  Quesada  from  the  Magdalena  to  the  plateau  of 
Bogota  has  remained  impassable  for  horses  since  the  time  of  the  conquest. 
To  one  familiar  with  the  difficulties  of  the  way,  it  seems  impossible  that  so 
small  a  body  of  soldiers  should  ever  have  been  able  to  take  sixty  horses  with 
them  and  bring  them  all,  with  a  single  exception,  in  safety  to  the  plains 
above.  It  may  be  safely  doubted  if  such  a  feat  could  be  accomplished  now. 
But  "there  were  giants  in  those  days/9 

2  The  fact  that  the  Spaniards  found  potatoes  here  on  their  arrival,  and 
the  further  fact  that  there  was  never  any  communication,  so  far  as  known, 
between  New  Granada  and  Chile  before  the  conquest,  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  Solanum  tuberosum  may  have  been,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  Hum- 
boldt  and  Be  Candolle,  indigenous  to  Colombia. 

361 


UP  THE  OEIXOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAODALENA 

sue  of  his  great  undertaking,  and  to  assure  him  of  their 
undying  loyalty  in  any  future  enterprise  in  which  he  might 
require  their  services. 

And  well  they  might  render  the  noble  licentiate  the  meed 
of  praise  he  so  well  deserved,  for  had  it  not  been  for  him, 
the  expedition  would  have  been  a  failure,  and  they  would 
undoubtedly  have  perished  before  they  could  have  returned 
to  Santa  Marta,  as  had  so  many  of  their  companions,  who 
had  turned  back  before  the  ascent  of  the  Cordillera  was 
begun.  To  some  of  his  officers  who,  in  view  of  the  unheard- 
of  difficulties  they  had  to  encounter,  recommended  that  the 
expedition  be  abandoned,  he  replied  that  he  would  regard 
as  a  personal  enemy  any  one  who,  in  future,  would  make 
such  a  pusillanimous  proposal  and  one  so  foreign  to 
Spanish  valor. 

All  in  all,  he  was  one  of  the  bravest  and  most  humane  of 
the  conquistadores,  and  successfully  performed  a  task  be- 
fore which  a  less  valorous  commander  would  have  given  up 
in  despair.  His  achievements  obscure  by  their  brilliancy 
and  daring  those  of  Amadis  and  Eoldan  and  are  in  no  wise 
inferior  to  those  of  any  of  the  conquistadores.  They  may 
truthfully,  in  the  words  of  Bacon,  written  anent  a  perform- 
ance of  Sir  Richard  Grenville,  be  styled  as  "memorable 
beyond  credit,  and  to  the  height  of  some  heroical  fable." 

Quesada  has  taken  his  place  in  Valhalla  among  the 
greatest  of  the  world  *s  heroes,  and  his  memory  will  endure 
as  long  as  splendid  deeds  of  prowess  shall  stir  the  souls 
of  men.  Of  him  and  his  gallant  companions  one  can  say 
what  Peter  Martyr  wrote  of  their  countrymen  in  general : — 

"Wherefore,  the  Spanyardes  in  these  owre  dayes  and 
theyr  noble  enterpryses,  doo  not  gyue  place  eyther  to  the 
factes  of  Saturnus,  or  Hercules,  or  any  other  of  the  an- 
cient princes  of  famous  memorie,  which  were  cononized 
$monge  the  goddes  cauled  Heroes  for  theyr  searchinge  of 
newe  landes,  and  regions,  and  bringinge  the  same  to  better 
culture  and  ciuilitie."  * 

iOp.  cit.,  Dec.  I,  Book  X. 

362 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALEXA 

Lower  down  the  Magdalena,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river, 
we  approached  the  scene  of  the  exploits  of  another  of  the 
distinguished  conquistadores — Pedro  de  Heredia,  the 
founder  of  Cartagena.  After  he  had  reduced  to  submis- 
sion the  Indians  who  had  been  victorious  over  Ojeda,  he 
started  towards  the  Magdalena,  where  he  collected  such 
immense  treasures  of  gold  that  when  it  was  divided,  each 
soldier  received  no  less  than  6,000  ducats.  This  was  the 
equivalent  of  $48,000  in  gold  at  the  present  valuation  of  this 
metal,  and  was  the  largest  apportionment  of  spoil,  at  least, 
so  far  as  private  soldiers  were  concerned,  made  during  the 
conquest.1  He  afterwards  made  a  similar  expedition  to  the 
territories  drained  by  the  San  Jorge  and  the  Nechi,  afflu- 
ents of  the  Cauca,  in  search  of  the  rich  veins  whence  the 
Indians  extracted  their  gold.  He  did  not  find  the  objects 
of  his  quest,  but  came  across  several  rich  cemeteries,  in 
which  the  dead  had  been  interred  with  their  jewels,  and  a 
sanctuary  with  idols  adorned  with  plates  of  gold.  From 
these  he  secured  treasures  to  the  amount  of  more  than 
$3,000,000  of  our  money.2 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  method  Heredia  resorted 
to  of  securing  gold,  the  rifling  of  the  huacas — burial  places 
— of  the  aborigines,  has  been  continued  until  the  present 
day.  There  are  still  men  in  Colombia,  notably  in  Antio- 
quia — Tiuaqueros,  they  are  called — who  gain  a  livelihood  by 
searching  for  huacas  and  extracting  from  them  the  gold 
and  emeralds  they  frequently  contain. 

The  year  before  our  trip  there  appeared  in  an  English 
magazine,  the  following  paragraph  in  an  article  purport- 
ing to  give  a  picture  of  the  Magdalena  valley  and  its  life : — 

"Anchored  in  the  forest  at  midnight,  the  traveler  hears 

iQuesada's  infantry  received  as  their  share  of  the  spoil,  which  had  been 
secured,  the  equivalent  of  about  $1,000.  The  cavalry  received  twice  this 
amount. 

2  In  the  province  of  Sinu  the  amount  of  treasure  in  gold  and  jewels  se- 
cured in  one  day  amounted  to  $300,000.  Not  without  reason,  then,  was  this 
part  of  the  New  World  designated  by  the  early  geographers,  Castilla  del  Oro — 
Golden  Castile. 

363 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  deep  growl  of  the  jaguar,  the  sharp  squeal  of  the  wild 
cat,  the  howl  of  the  howler  monkey,  the  long  moan  of  the 
sloth,  and  the  last  scream  of  the  wild  pig,  pierced  by  the 
claws  of  some  patient  but  ferocious  animal  ambushed  dur- 
ing the  past  hour,  with  many  other  sounds  of  life,  terror 
and  conflict  that  fall  strangely  on  the  European  ear,  and,  if 
he  waits  and  watches  until  the  dawn,  he  may  see  the 
alligator  dragging  his  ugly  bulk  out  of  the  water,  crowds 
of  turtles  trailing  on  the  sands,  the  deer  and  the  tapir  com- 
ing down  to  drink,  thousands  of  white  cranes  on  the 
branches  nearest  to  their  prey,  thousands  of  gray  ones 
already  wading  leg-deep,  and  many  more  thousands  of 
other  birds  clouding  the  dim  horizon,  all  waiting  for  the 
light  ere  they  begin  their  work  of  life  and  slaughter. 
.  .  .  "With  the  alligators  in  shoals  at  the  bottom  of  the 
river,  and  the  millions  of  birds  above  its  surface,  one  won- 
ders how  any  fish  are  left,  yet  the  river  is  always  literally 
teeming  with  fish,  as  though  conscious  of  the  demands  it 
has  to  meet/5 

Although  we  were  always  on  the  alert,  so  as  to  miss  noth- 
ing of  interest,  especially  anything  that  concerned  the 
animal  life  of  the  tropics,  we  must  confess  that  in  all  our 
experience  we  never  heard  growls,  squeals,  howls,  moans, 
screams,  or  other  sounds  of  terror  and  conflict,  either 
along  the  Magdalena  or  anywhere  else  in  South  America. 
And  we  spent  nearly  a  year  in  the  country,  and  often 
traveled  weeks  at  a  time  in  the  wild  virgin  forest,  far  away 
from  human  habitations  of  every  kind.  Nor  did  we  ever 
perceive  any  of  the  animals  that  certain  tourists  would  lead 
one  to  believe  can  be  seen  in  such  numbers  everywhere,  even 
from  the  deck  of  a  passing  steamer.  Nowhere  along  the 
Orinoco,  the  Meta,  the  Magdalena,  or  elsewhere,  did  we 
ever  catch  even  a  glimpse  of  a  jaguar  or  a  puma,  a  manati 
or  a  sloth,  a  wild  cat  or  a  wild  pig.  More  than  this,  not 
once,  during  our  entire  trip  through  Venezuela  and 
Colombia,  through  forests  and  plains,  did  we  ever  see  a 
angle  monkey,  except  two  or  three  that  were  kept  as  pets 

364 


THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALEXA 

by  the  natives.  This  may  seem  an  incredible  statement. 
I  would  have  believed  such  an  experience  as  ours  to  be  ab- 
solutely impossible,  especially  in  view  of  what  writers  and 
travelers  in  South  America  have  told  us  regarding  the  im- 
mense number  of  wild  animals  of  all  kinds  everywhere 
visible  in  equatorial  wilds.  But  I  am  stating  a  fact  that 
I  am  quite  unable  to  reconcile  with  the  contrary  experiences 
of  others  who,  according  to  their  own  admission,  have  seen 
but  little,  compared  with  what  we  saw,  of  the  lands  through 
which  we  passed.  I  have  seen  more  large  game  on  the 
plains  of  New  Mexico  and  Wyoming,  from  the  window  of 
a  Pullman  car,  in  a  single  trip  to  and  from  the  Pacific  coast, 
than  I  ever  saw  in  the  wilds  of  South  America  during 
nearly  a  twelvemonth. 

Nor  did  we  ever  see  along  the  Magdalena,  or  anywhere 
else,  the  "thousands  of  white  cranes  on  branches/*  nor  the 
"thousands  of  gray  ones  wading  leg-deep,"  nor  the  "many 
more  thousands  clouding  the  dim  horizon, "  of  which  the 
writer  of  the  above-mentioned  article  professes  to  have  been 
the  fortunate  spectator.  We  rarely  saw  more  than  a  few 
dozen  cranes  at  a  time — never  a  hundred,  and  I  have  reason 
to  believe  we  enjoyed  very  favorable  opportunities,  at  least 
during  a  portion  of  our  long  journey,  for  seeing  what  was 
to  be  seen.  At  no  time  did  we  ever  observe  as  many  bir4s 
in  the  air  at  one  time  as  I  have  frequently  seen  in  the 
United  States.  I  feel  safe  in  asserting  positively  that  the 
number  of  wild  pigeons  I  have  frequently  noted  in  a  single 
flock  in  the  United  States,  would  more  than  equal  that  of 
all  the  birds  combined  that  we  saw  while  in  the  tropics. 

Mr.  F.  Lorraine  Petre  evidently  had  an  experience  some- 
what similar  to  ours.  In  his  recent  work  on  Colombia,  he 
tells  us  frankly  that  one  sees  little  of  animal  life  on  the 
Magdalena,  that  "of  the  mammalia  one  sees  and  hears 
little.  ...  Of  the  jaguars,  the  pumas,  the  sloths, 
the  peccaries,  the  deer,  the  tapirs,  and  other  animals,  dan- 
gerous or  harmless,  we  saw  or  heard  as  little  as  we  did  of 
the  bears  which  inhabit  the  hills  beyond.  It  is  surprising 

365 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

that,  tied  up,  as  we  often  were,  right  against  the  forest,  we 
should  not  have  heard  the  night  call  of  the  carnivora,  or  the 
sharp  bark  of  the  frightened  deer,  but  truth  compels  us  to 
admit  that  we  did  not,  and,  moreover,  that  the  cry  of  .even 
the  howling  monkey  did  not  salute  us."  * 

The  number  of  birds  observed  along  the  Magdalena  was 
not  greater  than  I  have  frequently  seen  in  the  valleys  of 
the  Missouri  or  the  Columbia.  Most  of  these  were  parrots 
and  macaws.  Always  noisy  and  restless,  always  flying 
and  climbing  about,  except  when  eating  fruit  or  cracking 
nuts,  one  is  at  times  tempted  to  describe  them  as  feathered 
relatives  of  the  monkey.  The  parrots  are  sometimes  seen 
in  flocks,  and  their  piercing  cries  are  at  times  almost 
deafening.  They  are  a  sociable  bird  and  are  usually  seen 
in  considerable  numbers.  The  macaws  are  remarkable 
for  always  flying  in  pairs,  and  for  their  brilliant  colors. 
Their  body  is  flaming  scarlet,  their  wings  are  tinged  with 
various  shades  of  red,  yellow,  green  and  blue,  while  their 
tail  is  bright  blue  and  scarlet.  They,  too,  like  parrots,  are 
very  vociferous,  and,  although  they  may  occasionally  be 
found  in  large  numbers,  they  always  fly  two  and  two. 

The  large  animals  most  frequently  seen  along  the  Mag- 
dalena, as  along  other  tropical  rivers,  are  those  horrid 
monsters,  "ambiguous  between  sea  and  land,"  the  cayman 
and  "the  scaly  crocodile."  But  even  they  are  not  so 
numerous  as  certain  travelers  would  have  us  believe.  The 
largest  number  we  ever  saw  at  one  time  was  fifteen.  They 
were  sunning  themselves  on  a  playa — sand  bank — below 
the  island  of  Mompos.  On  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  we 
never  beheld  more  than  eight  at  any  one  time — unless  we 

*  The  Republic  of  Colombia,  p.  59,  London,  1906. 

Nothing  is  farther  from  my  mind  than  to  call  in  question  the  veracity 
of  distinguished  naturalists  and  travelers  regarding  any  statements  they  may 
have  made  concerning  the  vast  numbers  of  ft-mitrals  and  birds  seen  by  them  in 
the  equinoctial  regions  of  South  America.  But  my  experience  proves  at  least 
one  thing  and  that  is  that  one  may  travel  a  long  time  in  the  very  heart  ot 
the  tropics,  and  see  very  little  of  its  fauna,  even  in  those  parts  in  which  it  is 
generally  supposed  that  there  are  always  representatives  of  many  kinds  and 
that,  too,  in  great  numbers. 

366 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  ilAGDALEXA 

were  to  count  a  number  of  little  ones,  just  hatched,  which 
Luisito,  our  colored  boy,  caught  one  day  while  we  were 
taking  on  wood  on  the  lower  Meta.1 

The  early  Spaniards  called  all  these  saurians  by  the  gen- 
eral name  of  lagartos — lizards.  The  English  afterwards 
spoke  of  a  single  animal  as  a  lagarto,  whence  the  present 
name  alligator.  Modern  writers  speak  of  them  indis- 
criminately as  alligators  or  crocodiles.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  several  species  of  both  alligators  and  crocodiles  are 
found  in  the  equatorial  regions.  But,  notwithstanding  all 
that  has  hitherto  been  written  about  them,  their  distinction 
and  definition,  their  classification  still  remains  a  matter  of 
difficulty.  Some  specimens  have  been  found  whose  classifi- 
cation is  so  perplexing  that  naturalists  are  still  undecided 
whether  to  regard  them  as  crocodiles  or  alligators.  In 
this  respect  they  are  much  like  Shakespeare's  two  lovers, 
"Two  distincts,  division  none." 

The  name  cayman  is  employed  in  Venezuela  and  Colom- 
bia to  designate  any  of  these  saurians.  Following  the 
classification  adopted  in  the  British  Museum  the  cayman 
is  distinct  from  both  alligator  and  crocodile.  More  than 
this.  According  to  the  British  system  of  classification, 
there  are  no  alligators  at  all  in  South  America,  while,  in  the 
waters  of  Colombia  and  Venezuela,  there  are  two  species  of 
crocodile  and  three  species  of  cayman. 

Probably  more  fabulous  accounts  have  obtained  about 
crocodiles  than  about  any  other  animal.  In  spite  of  the  old 
saying  to  the  contrary,  they  never  shed  tears.  And  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  the  ancient  Egyptians  gave  the 
crocodile  divine  honors,  because,  being  tongueless,  it  was 

iThe  following  sentence  affords  an  interesting  commentary  on  the  occa- 
sional rarity  of  certain  animals  which  are  usually  supposed  to  be  always  vis- 
ible in  large  numbers,  especially  in  the  Magdalena. 

"I  have  read  much  of  the  number  of  alligators  on  the  Magdalena,  but 
have  not  seen  one/' — The  Journal  of  an  Expedition  Across  Venezuela  and 
Colombia^  p.  264,  1906-7,  by  Hiram  Bingham,  New  Haven,  1909. 

Raleigh  says  he  saw  in  Guiana  thousands  of  these  "vglie  serpants"  called 
Lagartos. 

25  -367 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

made  in  hieroglyphical  writing,  a  symbol  of  the  Divinity,  it 
is  now  known  that  the  tongue  of  this  erstwhile  god  is  quite 
large,  except  at  the  tip.  Similarly,  all  the  stories  that 
have  so  long  been  current  about  the  impenetrability  of  the 
animal's  hide,  are  quite  without  foundation.  How  often 
have  we  not  been  told  that  it  is  impossible  to  kill  a  croco- 
dile, with  even  the  best  Winchester,  unless  the  ball  enter 
the  eye  or  strike  under  the  soft,  fleshy  parts  of  the  front 
legs?  Their  plated  skin  is  easily  pierced  by  an  ordinary 
rifle  or  revolver,  and  a  mortal  wound  ensues  whenever  a 
vital  part  is  penetrated. 

Not  less  erroneous  are  the  ideas  that  so  widely  prevail 
regarding  the  ferocity  of  the  crocodile  and  the  cayman.  On 
the  contrary,  they  are,  in  their  native  state,  very  timid 
animals,  and  rarely  exhibit  hostility  towards  man,  except 
when  cornered.  Then,  like  most  other  animals,  they  will 
fight  with  great  fierceness*  They  make  for  the  water  as 
soon  as  they  see  one  approach  them,  and  it  is  often  far 
from  easy  to  get  near  them.  We  often  saw  the  natives 
enter  rivers  frequented  by  crocodiles  and  caymans,  some- 
thing they  surely  would  not  have  done  if  the  danger  were 
as  great  as  ordinarily  imagined.  In  Venezuela  the  Indian 
or  mestizo  has  a  much  greater  dread  of  the  ray  or  carib 
fish  than  of  the  cayman.1  . 

Some  attempts  have  been  made,  both  on  the  Orinoco  and 
the  Magdalena,  to  secure  the  hides  of  crocodiles  and  cay- 
mans for  commercial  purposes,  but  the  expense  of  prepar- 
ing them  for  the  market  proved  to  be  so  great  that  the  work 
had  to  be  abandoned.2 

iMr.  R.  L.  Ditmars,  Curator  of  Reptiles  in  the  New  York  Zoological 
'Park,  in  his  interesting  work,  The  Reptile  Book,  writes  as  follows  of  the 
crocodile:  *The  sight  of  a  child  will  send  a  twelve-foot  specimen  rushing 
from  its  basking  place  for  the  water,  and  a  man  may  even  bathe  in  safety 
in  rivers  frequented  by  the  species.  The  dangerous  'man-eating*  crocodiles 
inhabit  India  and  Africa."  P.  91.  Compare  Schomburgk,  in  Raleigh's  Dis- 
covery of  Ghtiana,  p.  57. 

*  If  the  slaughter  of  the  alligator  in  the  Gulf  States  continues  for  a  few 
years  longer,  at  the  rate  which  has  prevailed  during  the  past  few  decades, 
the  reptile  will  be  exterminated.  According  to  the  Bulletin  of  the  U.  8.  Fish 

368 


THE  VALLEY  OP  THE  MAGDALEXA 

The  early  explorers  of  the  New  World  had  many  stories 
to  tell  about  the  cayman  and  the  crocodile,  and  many  of 
them  have  apparently  survived  among  the  natives  until  the 
present  day.  But  there  were  many  other  animals  that 
made  even  a  greater  impression  on  them.  It  will  suffice 
to  reproduce  Peter  Martyr's  quaint  account  of  two  of  these 
representatives  of  the  American  fauna.  The  first  is  the 
tapir,  of  which  he  writes  as  follows : — 

"But  there  is  especially  one  beast  engendered  here,  in 
which  nature  hath  endeuoured  to  shew  her  cunnyng.  This 
beaste  is  as  bygge  as  an  oxe,  armed  with  a  longe  snoute 
lyke  an  elephant,  and  yet  no  elephant.  Of  the  colour  of 
an  oxe  and  yet  noo  oxe.  With  the  houfe  of  a  horse,  and 
yet  noo  horse.  With  eares  also  much  lyke  vnto  an  elephant, 
but  not  soo  open  nor  soo  much  hangying  downe :  yet  much 
wyder  then  the  eares  of  any  other  beaste.' 91 

The  other  animal  that  excited  the  wonder  of  Martyr  and 
his  contemporaries  was  the  sloth,  of  which  he  says: — 

"Emonge  these  trees  is  fownde  that  monstrous  beaste 
with  a  snowte  lyke  a  f  oxe,  a  tayle  lyke  a  marmasette,  eares 
lyke  a  batte,  handes  lyke  a  man,  and  feete  lyke  an  ape, 
bearing  her  whelpes  abowte  with  her  in  an  owtwarde  bellye 
much  lyke  vnto  a  greate  bagge  or  purse.  The  dead  carkas 
of  this  beaste,  you  sawe  with  me,  and  turned  it  ouer  and 
ouer  with  yowre  owne  handes,  marueylynge  at  that  newe 
belly  and  wonderful  prouision  of  nature.  They  say  it  is 
knownen  by  experience,  that  shee  neuer  letteth  her  whelpes 
goo  owte  of  that  purse,  except  it  be  eyther  to  play,  or  to 
sucke,  vntyl  suche  tyme  that  they  bee  able  to  gette  theyr 
lyuing  by  them  selues." 2 

The  part  of  the  valley  below  the  confluence  of  the  Cauca 
and  the  Magdalena  was  quite  different  from  that  above. 
The  country  contained  more  inhabitants,  and  the  dense 

Commission,  XI,  1891,  p.  343,  it  is  estimated  that  2,500,000  were  killed  in 
Florida  between  1880  and  1894. 

1  Dec.*  II,  Book  9. 

2  Dec.  I,  Book  9. 

369 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AXD  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

forests  that  had  hitherto  bordered  the  river  gave  place  to 
broad  savannas,  on  which  grazed  thousands  of  cattle,  so 
buried  in  the  Para  and  Guinea  grasses,  that  frequently  we 
could  discern  only  their  horns.  Along  the  river  banks  were 
the  estates  of  well-to-do  haciendados — some  of  them  for- 
eigners— and  the  villages,  that  before  were  extremely  rare, 
became  more  numerous.  The  aspect  of  the  country  was 
less  wild  than  that  through  which  we  had  just  passed,  and 
betokened  a  certain  measure  of  prosperity,  at  least  so  far 
as  the  grazing  interests  were  concerned. 

We  could  now  travel  day  and  night,  for  the  river  was  so 
deep  that  sand  bars  were  no  longer  to  be  apprehended. 
And  then  we  had  the  most  delightful  moonlight  nights. 
The  air  was  balmy  and  laden  with  an  exquisite  fragrance, 

"Mild  as  when  Zephyms  on  Flora  breathes," 

a  constant  invitation  to  repose  and  dolce  far  niente.  The 
surpassing  loveliness  of  the  scene,  the  magic  stillness  of  the 
vast  solitude  through  which  we  were  so  peacefully  gliding, 
the  broad  expanse  of  one  of  the  world's  great  rivers,  the 
weird  silhouettes  cast  by  the  passing  palms  on  the  moonlit 
waters — all  these  things  contributed  towards  rendering  our 
last  night  on  the  river  a  fitting  finale  to  the  others — all  of 
which  were  in  the  highest  degree  enjoyable.  Seated  on  the 
forward  deck  of  our  steamer,  we  could  exclaim  in  the  words 
of  the  choric  song  of  Tennyson's  Lotos-Eaters: — 

"How  sweet  it  were,  hearing  the  downward  stream, 
With  half -shut  eyes  ever  to  seem 
Falling  asleep  in  a  half -dream ! 

•         •••••••• 

Resting  weary  limbs  at  last  on  beds  of  asphodel/* 

The  following  morning— our  last  day  on  the  Magdalena 
— found  us  at  Calamar.  Here  some  of  our  fellow-pas- 
sengers disembarked  to  take  the  train  to  Cartagena, 
sixty-five  miles  to  the  westward.  From  Calamar  to  Bar- 

370 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

ranquilla,  the  chief  northern  terminus  of  river  navigation,  is 
sixty-six  miles.  This  distance  we  expected  to  make  in  a 
few  hours,  but  for  reasons  presently  to  be  given,  we  were 
unexpectedly  delayed  within  sight  of  Barranquilla,  the  goal 
that  marked  the  completion  of  another  important  stage  in 
our  journey. 

Our  last  day  on  the  Magdalena  was  a  bright  balmy  one 
in  June.  We  spent  the  entire  time  on  the  forward  part  of 
the  upper  deck,  fanned  by  the  delightful  breezes  that  were 
wafted  from  the  Caribbean.  The  river  here  has  about  the 
same  width  as  has  the  Mississippi  at  New  Orleans,  but  the 
scenery  is  far  more  attractive.  It  flows  through  a  broad, 
level,  grass-covered  savanna,  which  extends  beyond  the 
limits  of  vision,  and  which  is  dotted  here  and  there  with 
small  villages  and  flourishing  haciendas.  Some  of  the 
houses  near  the  river  banks  have  a  most  cozy  appear- 
ance. They  are  almost  embowered  in  a  mass  of  flow- 
ers of  every  hue,  and  surrounded  by  lofty  palms  whose 
lovely  emerald  coronals  were  each  a  picture  of  rarest 
beauty. 

"  These  princes  of  the  vegetable  world "  always  had  a 
peculiar  fascination  for  us,  no  matter  where  we  saw  them. 
And  during  our  long  journey  from  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco 
they  were  never  absent  from  view  even  for  a  single  hour. 
"When  one  species  disappeared  it  was  replaced  by  another, 
and  thus  they  followed  us  from  the  Atlantic  wave  to  the 
lofty  crest  of  Suma  Paz.  The  ocean-loving  cocoa  gave 
place  to  the  moriche,  and  this  was  in  turn  succeeded 
by  the  corneto  of  the  llanos  and  the  wax  palm  of  the 
Sierras.1 

It  is  quite  impossible  for  the  inhabitants  of  our  northern 
climes  to  have  anything  approaching  an  adequate  concep- 
tion of  the  grace  and  beauty  and  surpassing  loveliness  of 
the  omnipresent  palms  of  the  equatorial  world.  Away 

iThe  Ceroxylon  andicola  and  the  Kunthia  montana  grow  at  altitudes  of 
from  6,000  to  9,000  feet,  and,  according  to  Humboldt,  palms  are  found  in  the 
<te  Quanucos,  13,000  feet  above  sea  level, 

371 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

from  heat  and  sunshine,  they  are  quite  devoid  of  the 
luxuriance  and  stateliness  that  characterize  them  in  the 
tropics.  In  Europe,  for  instance,  there  is  but  a  single  palm 
that  is  indigenous — the  Chamcerops  humilis.  The  date 
palm  was  introduced  from  the  East.  In  the  tropics,  how- 
ever, about  eleven  hundred  species  of  palms  are  known, 
and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  when  this  part  of  the 
world  shall  have  been  thoroughly  explored,  many  new 
species  shall  be  discovered 

The  habits  as  well  as  the  habitats  of  palms  were  a  source 
of  unfailing  interest  to  us.  Some  are  solitary  and  are 
rarely  found  forming  groups  with  other  trees  of  their 
species.  Others,  like  the  date  palm,  are  quite  gregarious 
and  often  form  extensive  clumps.  Others  still  are  said  to 
be  "social/*  because  they  occupy  extensive  tracts  almost 
to  the  entire  exclusion  of  other  kinds  of  trees.  Various 
species  of  Mauritia,  Attalea,  Cocoa  and  Copernicia  are 
social  palms,  and  the  palmares — palm  groves — formed  by 
them  constitute  the  most  attractive  features  of  tropical 
landscapes. 

We  once  saw  near  the  river's  bank  a  grove  of  this  kind 
composed  of  palms  of  unusual  height  and  beauty.  It  had 
been  selected  as  the  last  resting  place  of  the  denizens  of  a 
neighboring  village,  and  was,  to  our  mind,  the  most  beauti- 
ful cemetery  in  the  world.  Could  we  have  our  choice,  we 
should  prefer,  by  far,  to  repose  under  one  of  those  noble 
frond-bearing  shafts  to  being  shelved  away  in  the  costliest 
marble  vault  of  Pere  Lachaise. 

Certain  palms  affect  the  open  savanna,  others  seek  the 
solitudes  of  the  forest,  while  still  others  are  most  frequently 
found  midway  between  these  two — that  is,  on  the  belt  of 
land  that  separates  forest  from  plain.  Some  palms,  like 
the  cocoa,  seem  to  require  an  atmosphere  that  is  slightly 
saline,  and  thrive  best  near  the  ocean's  shore.  Others  ap- 
parently attain  their  greatest  development  in  marshes  and 
lowlands,  while  others  again  demand  the  arid  plain  or  the 
lofty  mountain  plateau. 

372 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

In  spite  of  their  noble  appearance  and  their  aspect  of 
perennial  youth,  palms,  as  a  rule,  are  short-lived.  None 
of  them  ever  attain  the  age  of  the  venerable  patriarchs 
of  our  northern  forests.  According  to  Martius,  the  span  of 
a  palm's  life  never  exceeds  that  of  a  few  generations  of 
men.  The  areca  catechu  runs  its  course  in  forty  or  fifty 
years,  the  cocoa  attains  an  age  of  one  hundred  or  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  years  at  most,  while  the  date  palm,  which 
probably  lives  the  longest,  usually  rounds  out  its  existence 
within  the  period  of  two  centuries. 

Some  palms,  like  the  Metroxylon,  for  instance,  never  sur- 
vive fructification.  It  fruits  but  once,  and  then,  as  Martius 
so  graphically  expresses  it,  "nobilis  arbor  mox  riget,  peril 
et  cadit" — the  noble  tree  presently  withers,  perishes  and 
falls.  But,  continues  the  same  writer,  "there  is  pleasure 
and  solace  in  the  thought  that  palms  never  die  without 
yielding  fruit,  thereby  insuring  the  continuance  of  the 
species."  And  then,  as  is  his  wont  when  opportunity 
offers,  he  takes  occasion  from  this  circumstance  to  moralize 
as  follows:  "To  labor,  to  flourish,  to  fructify  is  granted 
not  only  to  the  palm  but  to  man  also."  1 

In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  mentioned  some  of  the 
countless  uses  made  of  palms,  especially  by  the  inhabitants 
of  the  tropics.  It  would,  however,  require  a  large  volume 
to  enumerate  all  the  purposes  for  which  they  are  employed. 
It  can,  however,  safely  be  asserted  that  no  family  in  the 
great  vegetable  kingdom  more  completely  meets  the  neces- 
sities of  millions  of  people  than  does  that  of  the  noble  and 
ever-beautiful  Palmaceae. 

Like  Martins,  we  always  found  in  the  contemplation  of 
the  palm  a  source  of  special  joy  and  peace.  To  him  the 
palm  was  what  literature  was  to  Cicero,  a  consolation  in 
trial  and  affliction,  and  the  delight  and  inspiration  of 
maturer  years.  In  the  palm  we  always  found  something  to 
elevate  the  mind,  something  that  fascinated  us  and  stirred 
our  emotions  in  a  mariner  that  often  surprised  us.  For  us, 

'Natural  Patmarum,  Tom.  I,  p.  156,  Lipsias,  1850. 

373 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

as  for  myriads  of  others  who  have  lived  and  struggled  and 
attained  the  goal  of  the  heart's  desire,  the  palm  was  the 
emblem  of  victory,  of  a  higher  and  better  life  beyond  the 
tomb,  of  a  happy,  glorious  immortality. 

As  we  gazed  in  silent  delight  at  the  broad  expanse  of 
the  green-carpeted  savanna,  adorned  with  the  graceful, 
columnar  shafts  and  feathery  fronds  of  the  ever-beautiful, 
ever-majestic  palm,  we  could  easily  fancy  ourselves  in  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates  or  in  the  plains  of  Babylon,  as 
described  by  Herodotus  and  Xenophon.  And,  without  any 
effort  of  the  imagination,  we  could  descry,  in  a  palm-shaded 
village  in  the  vista  before  us,  Jericho,  as  Moses  saw  it, 
when  the  Land  of  Promise  was  a  land  of  palms,  as  well  as 
a  land  of  milk  and  honey,  and  when  Judea  was  so  prolific 
in  palms  that  one  of  its  representatives  was  chosen  as 
the  symbol  of  the  country.1  We  dreamed  of  Zenobia's 
fair  capital,  Palmyra — the  city  of  Palms — of  the  land  of 
the  Nile,  where  Isis  and  Osiris  carried  palms  as  the  symbol 
of  their  fecund  power.  We  recalled  the  enthusiastic  words 
of  the  ancient  poets — Hebrew  and  Greek — in  praise  of  the 
gracefulness  and  magnificence  of  the  palm,  and  the  plain- 
tive elegy  of  Abdul  Ehaman,  first  calif  of  Cordoba,  who, 
exiled  from  Damascus,  his  home,  thus  addresses  the  date 
palm,  that  reminds  him  of  the  land  of  his  birth:  "Thou, 
also,  beautiful  palm,  art  here  a  stranger.  The  sweet 
zephyr  of  Algaraba  descends  and  caresses  thy  beauty. 
Thou  growest  in  this  fertile  soil  and  raisest  thy  crown  to 
the  skies.  What  bitter  tears  thou  would'st  shed,  if,  like 
me,  thou  hadst  feeling  V9  a 

While  thus  musing  on  the  glories  of  the  past  and  con- 
templating the  splendors  of  the  present,  which  were  pass- 
ing in  rapid  succession  before  our  enchanted  vision,  we 
instinctively  repeated  the  words  of  the  reverent  poet- 

*  The  countries  here  mentioned,  especially  Palestine,  are  now  comparatively 
bare  of  palms. 

2  According  to  a  legend,  this  was  the  first  date-palm  seen  in  Spain,  and 
was  planted  by  the  calif  himself,  in  front  of  his  palace,  as  a  souvenir  of  his 
early  home. 

374 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MAGDALENA 

naturalist,  Martins,  who,  contemplating  the  marvels  of  the 
tropical  palm-world,  expressed  the  depth  of  his  emotion 
by  the  two  words,  Sursum  corda — hearts  heavenward  I 

Just  then  our  reveries  were  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
interrupted. 

We  had,  early  in  the  day,  been  congratulating  ourselves 
on  making  our  voyage  down  the  river  without  delay  and 
without  accident.  We  were  now  within  sight  of  Barran- 
quilla  and  expected  to  land  in  less  than  an  hour.  We  were 
in  the  full  enjoyment  of  one  of  those  delightful  day-dreams 
that  we  always  loved  to  indulge  in,  whenever  Flora  dis- 
played before  us,  as  she  did  then,  her  choicest  treasures, 
when  suddenly,  without  premonition  of  any  kind,  there 
was  a  violent  lurch  of  the  boat,  a  creaking  and  a  crushing 
noise  abaft,  a  quick  stoppage  of  the  engine,  all  of  which 
indicated  that  something  unusual,  if  not  serious,  had  be- 
fallen our  ill-fated  craft.  A  hasty  examination  showed 
that  the  steamer  had  collided  with  a  sunken  tree,  and  that 
several  of  the  float-boards  of  the  stern-wheel  had  been 
loosened,  or  partially  wrenched  from  their  places.  After 
considerable  delay  the  boatmen  were  able  so  to  repair  the 
damage  that  we  were  able  to  continue  on  our  journey, 
although  at  a  reduced  speed. 

Very  shortly  afterwards  there  was  a  second  and  a  much 
severer  crash.  We  had  encountered  another  hidden  tree. 
This  time  several  of  the  float-boards  were  carried  away 
from  the  wheel  entirely,  and  the  wheel  itself  was  so  racked 
that  repair,  while  on  the  river,  was  quite  impossible. 
Fortunately,  as  we  were  going  down  stream,  we  were  able 
to  float  to  the  entrance  of  the  canal  that  leads  to  the  docks 
of  Barranquilla.  Here  a  crowd  of  stevedores  from  the 
town  soon  congregated  These  men,  mostly  negroes, 
agreed,  after  some  parleying,  to  haul  the  boat  to  the  land- 
ing place.  They,  accordingly,  took  hold  of  a  long  rope, 
which  was  thrown  ashore,  and  soon  the  disabled  steamer 
was  being  conveyed  to  her  moorings  in  the  same  fashion 
as  a  canal  boat  is  drawn  along  by  mules  in  tandem*  We 

375 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

reached  the  wharf  the  fifth  day  *  after  leaving  Honda,  just 
as  the  sun  was  setting,  and  when  the  customs  officers  were 
about  to  close  their  office  for  the  night-  They,  however, 
kindly  allowed  us  to  disembark  and  we  were  soon  on  our 
way  to  a  hotel. 

"How  fortunate,"  C.  exclaimed,  "that  this  accident  did 
not  occur  midway  up  the  river!'*  Such  a  mishap  would 
have  entailed  much  suffering  and  might  have  delayed  our 
arrival  at  Barranquilla,  for  days,  if  not  for  weeks.  And 
considering  our  happy  escape  from  the  detentions  and  dis- 
asters from  which  so  many  others  had  suffered,  and  the 
peculiar  episode  that  characterized  our  last  hours  on  the 
Magdalena,  we  were  forcibly  reminded  of  the  words  of 
Dante : — 

"Let  not  the  people  be  too  swift  to  judge. 
•         •••»•••         • 

For  I  have  seen 

A  bark,  that  all  her  way  across  the  sea 
Ran  straight  and  speedy,  perish  at  the  last 
E'en  in  the  haven's  mouth. "  2 

i  Quesada  and  his  companions  made  their  celebrated  voyage  from  Guatiqui 
to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  a  distance  of  nearly  seven  hundred  miles,  in  twelve 
days.  Considering  that  they  had  only  rudely-constructed  hrigantines  and 
dugouts,  their  trip,  compared  with  ours  made  in  a  steamboat  under  the  most 
favorable  conditions  in  but  little  less  than  half  the  time,  was  truly  remark- 
able. 

*  Paradise,  Canto  XIII,  130  et  136-138. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS  AND 
BUCCANEEES 

'O'er  the  glad  waters  of  the  dark  blue  sea, 
Our  thoughts  are  boundless  and  our  souls  as  free, 
Par  as  the  breeze  can  bear,  the  billows  foam, 
Survey  our  empire  and  behold  our  home ! 
These  are  our  realms,  no  limits  to  their  sway, 
Our  flag  the  sceptre  all  who  meet  obey. 
Ours  the  wild  life  in  tumult  still  to  range 
From  toil  to  rest,  and  joy  in  every  change." 

—BYRON,  The  Corsaar. 

Barranquilla,  a  city  of  abont  sixty-five  thousand  inhab- 
itants, is  notable  for  being  the  chief  port  of  entry  of 
Colombia.  It  is  estimated  that  two-thirds  of  the  commerce 
of  the  republic  converges  at  this  point.  To  us,  coining 
from  the  interior  of  the  country,  where  comparatively  little 
business  is  transacted,  the  place  seemed  to  be  a  marvel 
of  activity  and  business  enterprise.  It  counts  a  large 
number  of  important  business  houses,  the  chief  of  which 
are  controlled  by  foreigners.  It  is  provided  with  tram- 
ways, electric  lights,  telephones,  a  good  water  supply  and, 
in  many  respects,  reminds  one  of  our  progressive  cities 
on  the  Gulf  Coast.  Many  of  the  private  residences, 
especially  in  the  more  elevated  quarters  of  the  city,  are 
models  of  comfort  and  good  taste.  The  average  annual 
temperature  is  80°  F.,  but  the  refreshing  breezes  from  the 
Caribbean  make  it  seem  less.  At  no  time  during  our 
sojourn  of  more  than  a  week  in  the  city,  had  we  reason 
to  complain  of  the  excessive  heat  of  which  so  much  has 
been  said  and  written. 

377 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

Although  Barranquilla  was  founded  in  1629,  it  is  only 
within  the  last  third  of  a  century  that  it  has  come  to  the 
front  as  the  leading  entrepot  of  the  republic.  Before  this 
time,  Cartagena  and  Santa  Marta  were  Colombia's  prin- 
cipal ports  and  busiest  marts.  This  change  in  the  relative 
importance  of  these  three  ports  was  effected  by  the  con- 
struction of  a  great  pier  at  Savanilla  and  connecting  it 
with  Barranquilla  by  rail.  After  this  both  Cartagena  and 
Santa  Marta  rapidly  dwindled  in  importance  as  distribut- 
ing centres,  while  the  growth  of  Barranquilla  was  cor- 
respondingly rapid.  Were  it  not  for  the  banana  industry, 
controlled  by  the  United  Fruit  Company,  an  American 
corporation,  Santa  Marta 's  trade  would  now  be  little  more 
than  nominal. 

But  why,  it  will  be  asked,  do  not  ocean  vessels  dock  at 
Barranquilla  instead  of  unloading  so  far  away  from  the 
city?  The  usual  answer  given,  and  in  a  way  the  correct 
one,  is  that  the  Magdalena  is  not  deep  enough  to  permit 
the  passage  of  so  large  vessels.  We  saw  one  venturesome 
ocean  liner  stranded  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  on  a  sand 
bar,  where  it  had  been  washed  and  pounded  for  nearly  two 
years.  Many  attempts  had  been  made  to  float  her  but 
without  success,  and  it  seemed  as  if  she  was  destined  to 
remain  a  captive  of  the  treacherous  shoal  that  had  so  long 
held  her  in  its  unyielding  grasp.  The  real  reason,  how- 
ever, for  not  having  the  landing  place  where  it  should  be 
— in -the  city  itself — is  the  lack  of  the  capital  that  would  be 
required  to  dredge  the  river,  and  enlarge  the  canal,  and 
keep  them  both  in  a  condition  that  would  insure  the  safe 
passage  of  vessels  of  heavy  draft.  Given  an  engineer 
like  James  B.  Eades,  of  Mississippi  jetties  fame,  and  the 
necessary  capital,  the  improvement  would  soon  be  effected. 

Before  leaving  Bogota  we  had  planned  to  reach  Barran- 
qnilla  in  time  to  take  an  English  steamer  from  Savanilla 
— Puerto  Colombia — to  Colon.  We  then  flattered  onr- 
selves  that,  after  reaching  the  mouth  of  the  Magdalena, 
we  should  have  no  difficulty  in  making  connection  for 

378 


IN  THE  TRACK  OP  PLATE-FLEETS 

part  of  the  world,  and  that  delay  in  continuing  our  journey 
was  the  last  thing  to  be  apprehended. 

But  alas  and  alack!  Where  we  least  expected  it,  we 
were  doomed  to  disappointment.  We  had  crossed  the  con- 
tinent without  a  single  failure  to  connect,  as  we  had  antic- 
ipated, except  at  Barrigon,  where  we  were  detained  a  day, 
and  had  not  experienced  a  single  disagreeable  delay,  and 
now,  when  we  had  reached  the  world  lines  of  travel,  we 
were  informed  that  the  steamer  we  had  intended  to  take 
had  been  laid  up  for  repairs,  and  that  we  should  be  obliged 
to  wait  a  week  before  another  would  arrive. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  resign  ourselves  to  the 
inevitable.  Barranquilla  is  not  a  place  where  a  traveler 
would  care  to  remain  long  as  a  matter  of  choice,  but  we 
managed  to  make  ourselves  comfortable.  The  time  passed 
more  quickly  and  pleasantly  than  we  anticipated,  but,  just 
as  we  began  to  make  preparations  for  our  departure,  we 
found  ourselves  the  victims  of  a  new  disappointment. 
The  steamer  that  we  were  to  take  was  forbidden  to  land 
at  Savanilla,  in  consequence  of  having  stopped  at  Trinidad, 
which  was  then  reported  to  be  infected  by  the  bubonic 
plague. 

"Truly,"  we  said,  "we  are  getting  into  the  region  of 
manana— delay  and  disappointment — just  at  the  moment 
when  we  thought  we  were  leaving  it." 

We  had  been  so  fortunate  thus  far,  and  that  too  in 
lands  where,  we  had  been  assured,  everything  would  be 
against  us  and  where  the  best-laid  plans  would  be  frus- 
trated, that  we  were  ill  prepared  for  delay  where  it  was 
least  expected.  Happily  for  us,  however,  a  steamer,  hav- 
ing a  clean  bill  of  health,  but  belonging  to  another  line, 
was  due  in  a  few  days,  and  this  we  determined  to  take, 
for  we  did  not  know  when  we  should  be  able  to  get  another 
one.  When  once  the  plague  appears  in  the  West  Indies, 
or  on  the  mainland  bordering  the  Caribbean,  quarantine 
regulations  are  strictly  enforced,  and  the  luckless  traveler 
may  find  himself  a  prisoner  for  weeks,  and  even  months, 

379 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

in  a  place  that  is  practically  destitute  of  the  commonest 
comforts  and  conveniences  of  life.  Then,  indeed,  his  lot 
— especially  if  he  is  not  familiar  with  the  language  of  the 
country — is  far  from  enviable.  I  have  met  with  many 
people  who,  under  such  untoward  conditions,  had  to  endure 
the  greatest  privations  and  sufferings. 

By  the  greatest  good  fortune,  it  seemed  to  us,  we  finally 
got  aboard  a  good,  comfortable  vessel.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, bound  for  our  objective  point — Colon — but  for 
Puerto  Limon,  in  Costa  Eica.  This,  although  we  did  not 
know  it  at  the  time,  was  a  blessing  in  disguise.  Had  we 
gone  directly  to  Colon,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to 
spend  some  time  in  quarantine.  By  going  to  Costa  Eica, 
we  escaped  this  and  were  able,  during  a  week,  to  combine 
utile  dulci — study  with  pleasure — under  the  most  favor- 
able and  delightful  circumstances. 

From  Puerto  Colombia  we  went  directly  to  Cartagena — 
a  city  that,  in  some  respects,  possessed  a  greater  interest 
for  us  than  any  we  had  hitherto  visited  in  South  America. 
We  entered  this  famous  harbor,  large  enough  to  hold  all 
the  navies  of  the  world,  early  in  the  morning,  just  as  the 
sun  was  beginning  to  impart  a  subdued  roseate  glow  to  the 
tiled  roofs  of  the  loftier  buildings  of  the  once  flourishing 
metropolis  of  New  Granada. 

The  picture  of  Cartagena,  as  it  first  presented  itself  to 
our  view,  was  one  of  rarest  loveliness.  As  we  then  saw  it, 
it  was  not  unlike  Venice  as  seen  from  H  Lido  or  from  the 
deck  of  a  steamer  arriving  from  Trieste.  From  another 
point  as  we  advanced  into'  the  placid  bay,  we  discerned  in 
it  a  resemblance  to  Alexandria,  as  viewed  from  the  Medi- 
terranean. As  Venice  has  been  called  the  Queen  of  the 
Adriatic,  so  also,  and  justly,  did  the  beauteous  city  of 
Pedro  de  Heredia  long  bear  the  proud  title  of  Rema  de 
las  Indias  y  Rema  de  los  Mares,  Queen  of  the  Indies  and 
Queen  of  the  Seas. 

One  of  the  first  cities  built  on  Tierra  Firme,  it  was  also, 
for  a  long  period,  one  of  the  most  important  places  in 

380 


IN  THE  TRACK  OP  PLATE-FLEETS 

the  New  "World.  Its  fortifications  and  the  massive  walls 
that  girdle  it  have  long  been  celebrated.  Even  now  these 
are  the  features  that  have  the  greatest  attraction  for  the 
visitor.  Stupendous  is  the  only  word  that  adequately 
characterizes  them.  Their  immensity  impresses  one  like 
the  pyramids  of  Ghizeh,  and  this  impression  is  fully  con- 
firmed when  one  learns  their  cost  and  the  number  of  men 
engaged  in  their  construction.  It  is  said  that  from  thirty 
to  one  hundred  thousand  men  were  employed  on  this  titanic 
undertaking,  and  that  it  cost  no  less  than  fifty-nine  million 
dollars — a  fabulous  sum  for  that  period.  This  reminds 
one  of  what  historians  relate  regarding  the  building  of 
the  pyramid  of  Cheops,  the  greatest  and  most  enduring 
of  human  monuments,  as  the  walls  of  Cartagena  are  the 
grandest  and  most  imposing  evidence  of  Spanish  power 
in  the  western  hemisphere.  So  great  was  the  draft  made 
on  the  royal  exchequer  by  the  construction  of  these  massive 
walls  that  Philip  II,  so  the  story  runs,  one  day  seized  a 
field  glass  and  looking  in  the  direction  of  Cartagena,  mur- 
mured with  disenchanted  irony:  "Can  one  see  those 
walls?  They  must  be  very  high,  for  the  price  paid?" 

No  wonder  that  Charles  V  was  always  in  need  of  money, 
and  that,  to  secure  it,  he  was  forced  to  mortgage  a  large 
tract  of  land  in  Venezuela  to  the  Welsers,  the  German 
bankers  of  Augsburg.  No  wonder  that  Philip  II,  despite 
the  stream  of  gold  and  silver  that  flowed  into  his  coffers 
from  his  vast  possessions  beyond  the  sea,  was,  during  the 
second  half  of  his  reign,  forced  to  see  his  royal  signature 
dishonored  by  bankers  who  refused  him  further  credit! 

Cartagena  in  Colombia  was  named  after  Cartagena  in 
Spain,  as  the  Spanish  city,  founded  by  Hasdrubal  as  an 
outpost  to  serve  in  future  Punic  campaigns,  was  named 
from  the  celebrated  Tyrian  emporium  that  was  so  long 
the  rival  of  Borne.  And  when  the  sons  of  the  Caribbean 
Carthage  sailed  up  the  Cauca  to  establish  new  colonies 
and  extend  the  sphere  of  Spanish  influence  and  enterprise, 
they  commemorated  their  triumph,  and  exhibited  their 

381 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

loyalty  to  the  land  of  their  birth,  by  founding  still  another 
Carthage — the  Cartago  of  the  Upper  Cauca. 

And  what  an  eventful  story  is  that  of  the  Caribbean 
Cartagena!  What  changes  has  she  not  witnessed!  What 
fortunes  of  war  has  she  not  experienced !  What  disasters 
has  she  not  suffered  1  Like  her  African  prototype,  whose 
very  strength  caused  her  rival  on  the  Tiber  to  decree  her 
downfall,  Cartagena  seemed  to  be  singled  out  for  attack 
by  all  the  enemies  of  Spain  for  long  generations.  Her 
cyclopean  walls,  that  seemed  to  render  her  impregnable, 
did  not  save  her.  Time  and  again  she  was  assaulted  by 
pirates  and  buccaneers,  who  levied  heavy  tributes  and 
carried  off  booty  of  inestimable  value.  Drake,  Morgan, 
Pointis1  and  Vernon  attacked  and  ravaged  her  in 
turn,  but  unlike  the  Carthage  of  the  hapless  Dido,  she 
still  survives.  And  notwithstanding  the  four  long  sieges 
she  sustained  and  the  vicissitudes  through  which  she 
passed  during  the  protracted  War  of  Independence,  when 
she  was  hailed  as  La  Ciudad  Heroica — The  heroic  city — 
her  walls,  after  three  and  a  half  centuries,  are  still  in  a 
marvelous  state  of  preservation  and  evoke  the  admiration 
of  all  who  behold  them. 

Everywhere  within  the  city,  which  during  colonial  times 
enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  commerce  with  Spain,  are  ev- 
idences of  departed  grandeur.  Churches,  and  palaces  and 
monastic  institutions,  beautiful  and  grandiose,  still  retain 
much  of  the  glamour  of  days  long  past.  In  the  charming 
plazas,  shaded  by  graceful  palms  and  adorned  with  rich- 
est tropical  verdure  and  bloom;  along. the  narrow  streets 
flanked  by  spacious  edifices  and  ornamented  with  multi- 
colored balconies  and  curiously  grated  windows,  one  feels 
always  under  the  spell  of  a  proud  and  romantic  past,  of 
an  age  of  chivalry  of  which  only  the  memory  remains. 
The  architecture  of  many  of  the  buildings,  erstwhile  homes 

i  The  amount  of  loot  and  tribute  obtained  by  de  Pointis  was,  according  to 
some  estimates,  no  less  than  forty  million  livres — an  enormous  sum  for  that 
period. 

382 


IN  THE  TRACK-  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

of  wealth  and  culture  and  refinement,  is  Moorish  in  charac- 
ter and  carried  us  back  to  many  happy  days  spent  in  fair 
Andalusia  in  its  once  noble  capitals,  Granada  and  Seville. 
Strolling  along  the  grass-grown  pavements  of  Cartagena, 
we  note  in  the  former  flourishing  metropolis  what  Words- 
worth observed  in  Bruge's  town, 

"Many  a  street 
Whence  busy  life  has  fled.1' 

But  we  also  discern  unmistakable  signs  of  an  awakening 
to  a  new  life,  and  of  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  of  prosperity 
and  mercantile  greatness.  Notwithstanding  the  venerable 
years  in  which  she  is  at  present  arrayed,  we  can,  without 
being  horoscopists,  safely  presage  that  the  benignant  stars 
are  sure  to  bring 

"What  fate  denies  to  man, — a  second  spring." 

To  enjoy  the  best  view  of  Cartagena,  one  must  ascend 
an  eminence  to  the  east  of  the  city  called  La  Popa,  from 
its  fancied  resemblance  to  the  lofty  stern  of  a  fifteenth  cen- 
tury ship.  There,  seated  under  an  umbrageous  cocoa  palm, 
fully  five  hundred  feet  above  the  beautiful  iris-blue  bay 
that  washes  the  walls  that  encircle  the  city,  one  has  before 
him  one  of  the  most  charming  panoramas  in  the  world; 
one  which  during  more  than  three  centuries,  was  the  wit- 
ness of  some  of  the  most  stirring  events  in  history.  In 
the  broad,  steep  harbor,  protected  on  all  sides  by  frown- 
ing fortresses,  the  Spanish  plate-fleets  long  found  refuge 
from  corsairs  and  sea  rovers.  It  was  here,  when  pirates 
and  buccaneers  made  it  unsafe  to  transport  treasure  by  the 
Pacific,  that  gold  and  silver  were  brought  from  Bolivia  to 
Peru,  Ecuador  and  New  Granada  by  way  of  the  Andean 
plateau  and  the  Cauca  and  Magdalena  rivers. 

One  is  stupefied  when  one  considers  what  an  expenditure 

of  energy  this  implied.    Think  of  transporting  gold  and 

silver  ingots  a  distance  of  more  than  two  thousand  miles, 

over  the  arid  deserts  of  Bolivia  and  Peru,  and  across  the 

26  383 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

chilly  punas  and  paramos  of  the  lofty  Cordilleras;  of  secur- 
ing it  against  loss  in  passing  along  dizzy  ravines,  across 
furious  torrents,  through  the  almost  impenetrable  forests 
of  New  Granada,  often  infested  by  hostile  Indians.  And 
remember,  that,  for  a  part  of  this  long  distance,  these  heavy 
burdens  had  to  be  carried  by  human  beings,  for  no  other 
means  of  transportation  were  available. 

And  when  one  considers  the  amount  of  the  treasure  thus 
transported  from  points  as  distant  as  the  flanks  of  Potosi 
and  the  auriferous  deposits  of  the  distant  Pilcomayo,  the 
wonder  grows  apace.  According  to  the  estimates  of  reli- 
able historians,  the  amount  of  gold  and  silver  imported 
into  Spain  from  her  American  possessions  from  1502  to 
1775  was  no  less  .  than  the  colossal  sum  of  ten  billion 
dollars.1  Nearly  two  billions  of  this  treasure  were  taken 
from  the  famous  silver  mines  of  Potosi  alone.  The  greater 
part  of  the  bullion  from  Peru  was  shipped  by  the  South 
Sea  to  Panama  and  Nombre  de  Dios  and  thence  carried 
to  Spain  in  carefully  guarded  plate-fleets.  But  after  the 
pirates  and  buccaneers  became  active  along  the  western 
coast  of  South  America,  the  ingots  of  the  precious  metals, 
yielded  by  the  mines  between  Chile  and  the  Caribbean  were 
transported  overland  and  deposited  in  carefully  guarded 
galleons  awaiting  them  in  the  harbor  of  the  Queen  of  the 
Indies. 

But  even  then  the  treasure  was  not  safe.  It  was,  indeed, 
much  more  exposed  on  the  way  from  Cartagena  to  Palos 
and  Cadiz  than  it  had  been  from  the  time  it  had  been  dis- 
patched from  the  smelter  until  its  arrival  at  the  great 
stronghold  on  the  Caribbean.  For  then,  suddenly  and 
without  warning,  like  a  flock  of  vultures  that  had  scented 
carrion  from  afar,  there  gathered  from  all  points  of  the 
compass  English  buccaneers,  French  filibusters,  and  Dutch 
freebooters  and  harassed  the  galleons  until  they  succumbed. 
So  successful  did  these  daring  sea  robbers  eventually  be- 

iW.  Robertson,  The  History  of  America,  Vol.  II,  p.  514,  Philadelphia, 
1812. 

384 


IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

come  that  no  galleon  dared  to  venture  alone  on  the  waters 
of  the  Indian  seas,  and  only  strongly  guarded  plate-fleets 
could  hope  to  escape  capture  by  their  alert  and  venturesome 
enemies,  who  swarmed  over  the  Caribbean  from  the  Lesser 
Antilles  to  Yucatan,  and  terrorized  the  coast  of  the  Spanish 
Main  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

One  loves  to  conjecture  what  might  have  been  if  Charles 
V  or  Philip  II  had  been  endowed  with  the  genius  of  a 
Napoleon  or  a  Caesar.  Masters  of  the  greater  part  of 
Europe,  and  undisputed  sovereigns  of  the  major  portion 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere,  with  untold  wealth  continually 
pouring  into  their  treasury,  then  was  the  time — the  only 
time,  probably,  in  the  history  of  the  modern  world — to 
realize  Dante's  fond  dream  of  a  universal  monarchy.  But 
neither  Charles  nor  Philip  had  the  genius  required,  and 
the  one  opportunity,  that  ever  presented  itself,  of  making 
Spanish  possessions  coextensive  with  the  world's  surface, 
was  lost  and  lost  forever. 

The  sun  was  rapidly  approaching  the  western  horizon 
when  we  took  our  departure  from  the  beautiful  and  pic- 
turesque harbor  of  the  Queen  of  the  Seas.  In  a  short 
time  the  coast  of  what  was  once  known  as  Castilla  del 
Oro — Golden  Castile — had  disappeared  from  our  view 
and  the  prow  of  our  vessel  was  directed  towards  the  his- 
toric land  of  Costa  Eica — the  Eich  Coast— discovered  by 
Columbus  during  his  fourth  voyage. 

The  night  following  our  visit  to  Cartagena  was  an  ideal 
one,  a  night  for  wakeful  dreams  and  the  sweet  delights 
of  reverie.  There  was  scarcely  a  ripple  on  the  waters, 
and  the  stars  of  the  firmament  seemed  to  shine  with  an 
unwonted  effulgence.  All  was  peace  and  tranquillity,  and 
everything  seemed  to  proclaim  the  joy  of  living. 

How  different  was  old  Benzoni's  experience  in  these  same 
waters  and  during  the  same  season  of  the  year!  "In  con- 
sequence of  contrary  winds, "  he  tells  us,  "we  remained 
there  seventy-two  days,  and  in  all  this  time  we  did  not  see 
four  hours  of  sunshine.  Almost  constantly  and  especially 

385 


TIP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

at  night,  there  was  so  much  heavy  rain,  and  thunder  and 
lightning,  that  it  seemed  as  if  both  heaven  and  earth  would 
be  destroyed/'1 

The  experience  of  Columbus  was  even  more  terrifying. 
In  a  letter  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  giving  an  account 
of  his  fourth  voyage,  the  great  navigator  informs  them 
that,  so  great  was  the  force  of  wind  and  current,  he  was 
able  to  advance  only  seventy  leagues  in  sixty  days.  Dur- 
ing this  time,  there  was  no  "  cessation  of  the  tempest,  which 
was  one  continuation  of  rain,  thunder  and  lightning;  in- 
deed, it  seemed  as  if  it  were  the  end  of  the  world.  .  .  . 
Eighty-eight  days  did  this  fearful  tempest  continue,  dur- 
ing which  I  was  at  sea,  and  saw  neither  sun  nor  stars/' a 
The  name  Cape  Gracias  d  Dies — Thanks  be  to  God — which 
he  gave  to  the  easternmost  point  of  Nicaragua  and  Hon- 
duras, still  remains  to  attest  his  gratitude  for  his  miracu- 
lous escape  from  what  for  many  long  weeks  seemed  certain 
destruction. 

It  was  our  good  fortune,  during  all  our  cruising  in  the 
Caribbean,  to  enjoy  the  most  delightful  weather,  but  we 
never  appreciated  it  so  much  as  we  did  during  our  voyage 
from  Cartagena  to  Puerto  Limon,  and  more  especially  du- 
ing  the  first  night  after  our  departure  from  the  Colombian 
coast.  We  were  then  sailing  in  waters  that  had  been 
rendered  famous  by  the  achievements  of  some  of  the  most 
remarkable  men  named  in  the  annals  of  early  American 
discovery  and  conquest,  where  every  green  island  and  silent 
bay,  every  barren  rock  and  sandy  key,  has  its  legend,  and 
where,  at  every  turn,  one  breathes  an  atmosphere  of 
romance  and  wonderland. 

At  one  time  we  were  following  in  the  wake  of  the 
illustrious  Admiral  of  the  Ocean;  at  another  we  were  in  the 
track  of  Amerigo  Vespucci  and  Juan  de  la  Cosa,  that  brave 

i  History  of  the  New  World,  pp.  124,  125,  printed  for  the  HaJduyt  Society, 
London,  1857. 

*  Writings  of  ChristopJier  Colwmbus,  p.  202,  edited  by  P.  L.  Ford,  New 
York,  1892. 

386 


IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

Biscayan  pilot  who  was  regarded  by  his  companions  as 
an  oracle  of  the  sea.  Eodrigo  de  Bastidas,  Alonso  de 
Ojeda  and  Diego  de  Nieuesa  passed  this  way,  as  did  Vasco 
Nunez  de  Balboa,  the  discoverer  of  the  Great  South  Sea, 
who,  his  countrymen  declared,  never  knew  when  he  was 
beaten,  and  who,  according  to  Fiske,  was  "by  far  the  most 
attractive  figure  among  the  Spanish  adventurers  of  that 
time."1  The  Pizarros  and  Almagro  sailed  these  waters, 
before  embarking  at  Panama  on  that  marvelous  expedition 
which  resulted  in  the  conquest  of  Peru.  And  so  did  Orel- 
lana,  the  discoverer  of  the  Amazon,  and  Belalcazar,  the 
noted  conquistador  and  rival  of  Quesada  and  Federmann. 
And  then,  too,  there  was  Gonzalez  Davila,  the  explorer  of 
Nicaragua,  and  Hernando  Cortes,  the  conquerer  of  Mexico. 
And  last,  but  the  best  and  noblest  of  them  all,  was  the 
gentle  and  indefatigable  Las  Casas,  the  protector  of  the 
aborigines  and  the  Apostle  of  the  Indies,  whose  memory 
is  still  held  in  benediction  in  all  Latin  America.  His 
voluminous  writings,  making  more  than  ten  thousand 
pages  octavo,  much  of  which  is  devoted  to  the  defense  of 
the  Indians,  constitute  a  monument  which  will  endure  as 
long  as  men  shall  love  truth  and  justice.  But  his  greatest 
monument — one  that  is  absolutely  unique  in  the  history 
of  civilization — is  his  former  diocese  of  Chiapa,  which  is 
just  northwest  of  the  land  towards  which  we  are  sailing. 
When  he  went  to  take  possession  of  it,  it  was  occupied  by 
savage  warriors  who  had  successfully  resisted  all  attempts 
made  by  the  Spaniards  to  subdue  them.  It  was  considered 
tantamount  to  certain  death  to  enter  their  jealously- 
guarded  territory.  But  Las  Casas,  armed  only  with  the 
image  of  the  Crucified  and  the  gospel  of  peace,  soon  had 
these  wild  children  of  the  forest  prostrate  at  his  feet, 
begging  him  to  remain  with  them  as  their  father  and 
friend.  So  successful  was  his  work  among  them  that  the 
land  which,  before  his  arrival,  had  been  known  as  La 
Provincia  de  Guerra — The  Province  of  War — was  there- 

*  The  Discovery  of  America,  Vol.  II,  p.  370* 

387 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

after  called  La  Provincia  de  Vera  Paz — The  Province  of 
True  Peace — a  name  it  bears  to  the  present  day.  And 
more  remarkable  still,  this  particular  part  of  Guatemala 
is  said  to  have  a  denser  Indian  population,  in  proportion 
to  its  area,  than  any  other  part  of  Latin  America.  Truly, 
this  is  a  monument  worthy  of  the  name,  and  one  that  would 
have  appealed  most  strongly  to  the  loving  heart  of  the 
courageous  protector  of  the  Indians.1 

But  discoverers  and  explorers,  conquistadores  and  apos- 
tles, were  not  the  only  men  who  have  rendered  this  part 
of  the  world  forever  memorable.  There  were  others,  but 
many  of  them  were  of  a  vastly  different  type.  I  refer  to 
the  pirates  and  Buccaneers,  who  so  long  spread  terror 
in  these  parts  and  ultimately  destroyed  the  commercial 
supremacy  of  Spain  in  the  New  World,  and  contributed  so 
materially  to  the  final  extinction  of  her  sovereign  power. 
Many  of  them  have  written  their  names  large  on  the  scroll 
of  history  and  often  in  characters  of  blood.  Many  of  them 
were  pirates  of  the  worst  type,  who  flew  at  every  flag  they 
saw,  who  recognized  no  right  but  might,  and  whose  sole 
object  was  indiscriminate  robbery  on  both  sea  and  land. 
These  outlaws,  however,  have  no  interest  for  us  now. 

Besides  these  unscrupulous  and  sanguinary  pirates,  there 
was  another  class  of  men  whom  their  friends  and  country- 
men insist  on  grouping  in  a  class  by  themselves.  The 
majority  of  these  were  Englishmen,  of  whom  the  most  dis- 
tinguished representatives,  along  the  Spanish  Main,  were 
Ealeigh,  Hawkins  and  Drake.  When  these  men  did  not  act 

*John  Boyd  Thacher  declares  that  Las  Casas  was  "the  grandest  figure, 
next  to  Columbus,  appearing  in  the  Drama  of  the  New  World.  Against  the 
purity  of  his  life,  no  voice  among  all  his  enemies  ever  whispered  a.  sugges- 
tion. If  the  Apostle  Peter  was  a  much  better  man,  the  story  is  told  else- 
where than  in  his  acts.  If  the  Apostle  Paul  was  braver,  more  zealous,  more 
consecrated  to  the  cause  of  humanity,  which  alone  can  ask  for  Apostleship, 
Las  Casas  was  a  consistent  imitator.  The  Church  has  never  passed  a  saint 
through  the  degree  of  canonization  more  worthy  of  this  signal  and  everlast- 
ing honor  than  Bartolomg  de  las  Casas,  the  Apostle  of  the  Indies."— Christo- 
pher Oolwnlus,  His  Life,  His  Work,  Sis  Remains,  VoL  I,  pp.  158  and  159, 
New  York,  1903. 

388 


IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

under  secret  commissions  from  their  government,  they  re- 
lied on  its  tacit  connivance  in  all  the  depredations  for  which 
they  are  so  notorious.  In  the  light  of  international  law,  as 
we  now  understand  it,  they  were  as  much  pirates  as  those 
who  attacked  the  ships  of  all  nations,  and  as  such  they  have 
always  been  regarded  by  Spanish  writers.  All  three  of  the 
men  just  mentioned  made  their  raids  on  Spanish  posses- 
sions while  England  was  at  peace  with  Spain.  Thus  the 
two  nations  were  at  peace  when  Drake  sacked  Panama  in 
1586,  as  they  were  at  peace  when  Raleigh  attacked  Trini- 
dad in  1595.  These  sea  rovers  lived  up  to  the  old  fore- 
castle phrase,  "No  peace  beyond  the  line"  l  and  recognized, 
at  least  in  the  Spanish  territory  in  the  New  World,  no  law 
of  nations  except  that 

"They  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 

"The  case,"  as  old  Fuller  quaintly  puts  it  in  his  Holy  and 
Profane  State,  "was  clear  in  sea-divinity;  and  few  are  such 
infidels  as  not  to  believe  doctrines  which  make  for  their 
own  profit." 

So  far  as  England  acquiesced  in,  or  connived  at  what 
the  Spaniards  always  denounced  as  downright  piracy,  it 
was  doubtless  ever  with  the  view  of  weakening  the  menac- 
ing power  of  the  dominant  Spanish  empire.  She  was  also 
actuated  by  "an  aggressive  determination  to  break  down 
the  barriers  with  which  Spanish  policy  sought  to  enclose 
the  New  World  and  to  shut  out  the  way  to  the  Indies."  In 
this  determination  England  had  the  sympathy  of  France 
and  often  its  active  cooperation.  For  a  similar  reason 
Dutch  sea  rovers  swarmed  over  the  Caribbean  Sea.  All 
were  aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  struggle  in  which  they 
were  engaged,  and  realized  that  their  existence  as  nations 
depended  on  their  crippling  their  common  enemy  by  strik- 

i  The  line  here  referred  to  is  not  the  equator,  but  the  tropical  line.  The 
phrase  practically  signified  that  European  treaties  did  not  bind  within  the 
tropics;  that,  although  Spain  might  be  at  peace  in  the  Old  World,  there 
could  be  no  peace  for  her  in  the  New. 

389 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

ing  at  the  sources  of  his  power  in  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

Much  might  be  said  of  the  reckless  audacity,  brilliant 
achievements  and  skillful  seamanship  of  these  privateers 
or  pirates — whatever  one  chooses  to  call  them — that  read 
more  like  fable  or  romance  than  sober  chronicles  of 
authentic  fact,  but  space  does  not  permit.  Besides,  we 
are  more  interested  in  another  class  of  sea  rovers  of  a  later 
date,  whose  names  and  exploits  are  inseparably  connected 
with  the  West  Indies  and  the  great  South  Sea.  I  refer  to 
the  Buccaneers,  or,  as  they  called  themselves,  the  Brethren 
of  the  Coast. 

Our  knowledge  of  these  extraordinary  adventurers  is  de- 
rived mainly  from  themselves.  Of  English  Buccaneers  the 
most  interesting  narratives  have  been  left  us  by  Sharp, 
Cowley,  Bingrose  and  Dampier.  The  Frenchman,  Bavenau 
de  Lussan,  has  also  left  us  a  record  of  value.  The  most 
popular  work,  however,  and  the  one  that  gives  us  the  truest 
insight  into  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  Brethren  of 
the  Coast,  and' recounts  with  the  greatest  detail  their  deeds 
of  daring  and  cruelty,  is  that  given  to  the  world  by  the 
Dutchman  Esquemeling.  It  was  entitled  De  Americaensche 
Zee  Rovers  and  was,  on  its  appearance,  immediately  trans- 
lated into  the  principal  languages  of  Europe.  The  fact 
that  Esquemeling  was  with  the  Buccaneers  for  five  years, 
and  was  with  them,  too,  on  many  of  their  most  important 
expeditions,  gave,  him  unusual  opportunities  for  collecting 
facts  at  first  hand  and  studying  the  methods  of  procedure 
of  his  reckless  and  often  brutal  associates. 

By  the  Spaniards,  the  Brethren  of  the  Coast  have  always 
been  regarded  as  pirates — for  the  same  reason  as  Ealeigh, 
Drake  and  Hawkins  and  their  associates  were  regarded  as 
pirates — because  they  conducted  their  lawless  operations 
when  England  and  Spain  were  at  peace.  But  there  was 
the  same  difference  between  Buccaneers  and  ordinary 
pirates  as  there  was  between  the  corsairs  just  mentioned 
and  ordinary  pirates.  The  latter  attacked  vessels  of  every 
nation,  while  the  Buccaneers,  like  Drake  and  his  compa- 

390 


IN  THE  TRACK  OP  PLATE-FLEETS 

triots,  confined  themselves  to  preying  on  Spanish  shipping 
and  sacking  Spanish  towns  and  strongholds. 

Some  became  Buccaneers  because  they  had  a  grievance, 
real  or  imaginary,  against  the  Spaniards,  others  because 
they  chafed  under  the  monopolizing  policy  of  the  Spanish 
government,  and  wished  to  secure  a  part  of  the  ever-increas- 
ing trade  with  the  New  World,  while  others  still  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  Brethren  because  they  relished  the  life  of  ex- 
citement and  adventure  it  held  forth,  or  because  they  found 
it  the  easiest  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood. 

Esquemeling  was  among  the  last  of  these  classes.  After 
being  twice  sold  as  a  slave,  he  finally  obtained  his  liberty 
when,  to  use  his  own  words,  "Though  like  Adam  when  he 
was  first  created,  that  is,  naked  and  destitute  of  all  human 
necessaries,  not  knowing  how  to  get  my  living,  I  determined 
to  enter  into  the  Order  of  the  Pyrates  or  Bobbers  at  Sea."  * 

The  cradle  of  the  extraordinary  " Order  of  Pyrates,"  of 
which  Esquemeling  was  to  be  the  most  distinguished 
chronicler,  was  Tortuga,  a  small,  rocky  island  off  the  north- 
west corner  of  Haiti.  It  was  visited  by  Columbus  during 
his  first  voyage,  and,  from  the  number  of  turtles  found 
there,  was  called  Tortuga — the  Spanish  for  turtle — the 
name  it  still  retains.  But  small  as  it  was,  it  was  destined 
to  become  "the  common  refuge  of  all  sorts  of  wickedness, 

i  The  History  of  the  Buccaneers  of  America,  Vol.  I,  p.  22,  fourth  edition, 
London,  1741. 

Esquemeling,  as  the  reader  will  observe,  does  not  apply  to  his  associates 
the  euphemious  term  Buccaneers,  but  calls  them  'the  Pyrates  of  America, 
which  sort  of  men  are  not  authorized  by  any  sovereign  prince.  For  the 
Kings  of  Spain  having  on  several  occasions  sent  their  ambassadors  to  the 
Kings  of  England  and  France  to  complain  of  the  molestations  and  troubles 
those  pyrates  often  caused  on  the  coasts  of  America,  even  in  the  calm  of 
peace,  it  hath  always  been  answered  that  such  men  did  not  commit  those  acts 
of  hostility  and  pyracy  as  subjects  to  their  Majesties,  and  therefore  his 
Catholick  Majesty  might  proceed  against  them  as  he  should  think  fit.  The 
King  of  France  added  that  he  had  no  fortress  nor  castle  upon  Hispaniola, 
neither  did  he  receive  a  farthing  of  tribute  from  thence.  And  the  King  of 
England  adjoined  that  he  had  never  given  any  commission  to  those  of  Jamaica 
to  commit  hostilities  against  the  subjects  of  his  Catholick  Majesty."  Op.  cit., 
p.  58,  VoL  L 

391 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

and  the  seminary,  as  it  were  of  pyrates  and  thieves."1 
The  name  Buccaneer  is  derived  from  "bucan,"  a  Carib 
word  signifying  a  wooden  gridiron  on  which  meat  is 
smoked.  Originally,  the  term  Buccaneer  was  applied  to 
the  French  settlers  of  Espanola,  whose  chief  occupation 
was  to  hunt  wild  cattle  and  hogs,  which  roamed  over  the 
island  in  large  numbers,  and  cure  their  flesh  by  bucaning 
it,  that  is  smoking  it  on  a  bucan.2  When  they  were  driven 
from  their  business  of  bucaning  by  the  Spaniards,  they 
took  refuge  in  Tortuga,  where  they  were  soon  joined  by 
many  English  adventurers.  Here  they  combined  to  make 
war  on  Spain  in  her  American  colonies,  and  for  more  than 
a  half  century  they  carried  terror  and  destruction  to  every 
part  of  the  Caribbean  archipelago. 

But,  notwithstanding  their  change  of  occupation,  their 
old  name  of  Buccaneer  clung  to  them,  and,  as  such,  they 
are  still  known  in  history.  Like  the  bold  Vikings  of  the 

1  Here,  says  Sir  Frederick  Treves,  in  Ms  charming  work,  The  Cradle  of  the 
Deep,  "In  defiance  of  the  ban  of  Spain,  a  strange  company  began  to  col- 
lect.   .    .    .    They  came  across  the  seas  in  obedience  to  no  call;  in  ones 
and  twos  they  came.    Frenchmen,  British,  and  Dutch,  and,  led  by  some  herd- 
ing instinct,  they  foregathered  at  this  wild  trysting-place.    Some  were  mere 
dare-devil  adventurers,  others  were  wily  seekers  after  fortune;  the  few  were 
in  flight  from  the  grip  of  justice,  the  many  had  roamed  away  from  the  old 
sober  world  in  search  of  freedom. 

''There  was  a  common  tie  that  banded  them  together,  the  call  of  the  wild 
and  the  hate  of  Spain.  They  formed  no  colony,  nor  settlement,  but  simply 
joined  themselves  together  13  a  kind  of  jungle  brotherhood.  They  found  a 
leader  as  a  pack  of  wolves  finds  theirs,  not  by  choosing  one  to  lead  but  by 
following  the  one  who  led."  P.  250,  London,  1908. 

2  For  awhile  the  term  Buccaneer  was  applied  to  the  English,  who  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  bucan,  as  well  as  to  the  French  adventurers.    Subse- 
quently the  French  sea-rovers  became  known  as  fiibustiers,  the  French  sail- 
ors' pronunciation  of  the  word  freebooter,  while  the  English  corsairs  ap- 
propriated the  name  Buccaneers.    As  their  occupations   were  the  same- 
making  war  on  the  Spaniard—the  two  terms  came  eventually  to  be  regarded 
as  synonymous.    All  the  freebooters,  whether  English,  French,  or  Butch,  as 
an  indication  of  their  being  banded  against  a  common  enemy,  the  Spaniards, 
assumed  the  name  Brethren  of  the  Coast.    The  members  of  this  brotherhood 
must  not  be  confounded  with  such  cutthroats  as  Kidd,  Bonnet,  Avery  and 
Thatch,  who  was  known  as  Blackbeard  and,  for  a  while,  terrorized  the  At- 
lantic Coast  from  the  West  Indies  to  New  England. 

392 


IN  THE  TRACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

North,  who  were  so  long  the  scourge  of  western  and 
southern  Europe,  the  Buccaneers  were  the  scourge  of 
Spanish  America  from  Tortuga  to  Panama  and  from 
California  to  Patagonia.  They  warred  against  but  one 
enemy — the  one  that  had  harassed  and  driven  them  from 
their  peaceful  avocation  of  bucaning,  or  had  persecuted 
and  oppressed  their  brethren  in  the  peaceful  pursuit  of 
commerce,  when  the  lands  of  their  birth,  or  the  countries 
to  which  they  owed  allegiance,  were  unable  or  unwilling 
to  protect  them. 

Like  the  archpirate  Drake,  as  the  Spaniards  called  him, 
"They  swept  the  sea  of  every  passing  victualler,  and 
added  the  captured  cargoes  to  the  stores  of  game  and  fish 
it  was  their  delight  to  catch.  At  intervals  along  the  coast 
and  amongst  the  wilderness  of  islands,  magazines  were 
hidden,  and  into  these  were  poured  the  stores  that  had 
been  destined  for  the  great  plate-fleets.  The  shark-like 
pinnaces  would  suddenly  appear  in  the  midst  of  the  trade- 
route  no  one  knew  whence,  and  laden  with  food,  as  sud- 
denly disappear  no  one  knew  whither/' 

Compared  with  the  Spaniards,  they  were  usually  in  a 
small  minority.  But  in  their  case,  as  in  so  many  similar 
ones,  it  was  not  numbers,  but  their  skill  and  courage,  that 
gave  them  possession  of  rich  galleons  and  placed  the  well- 
guarded  plate-fleets  at  their  mercy.  At  times  the  Buc- 
caneers had  only  simple  canoes — mere  dugouts — but  these, 
according  to  Esquemeling,  were  so  fleet  that  they  might 
well  be  called  '  '  Neptune 's  post-horses. 9 '  In  these  they  went 
out  to  sea  for  a  distance  of  eighty  leagues  and  attacked 
heavily-armed  men  of  war,  and,  before  the  Spanish  crew 
had  time  to  realize  what  the  daring  sea  rovers  were  after, 
their  vessel  was  in  the  possession  of  their  irresistible  foe.1 

They  were  strangers  to  fear,  and  no  undertaking  was  too 

i  Thus,  the  French  Flibustier,  Pierre  le  Grand,  with  only  a  small  boat  and 
a  crew  of  but  twenty-eight  men,  surprised  and  captured  the  ship  of  the  vice- 
admiral  of  the  Spanish  galleons  as  she  was  homeward  bound  with  a  rich 
cargo. 

393 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

arduous,  if  the  booty  promised  was  sufficiently  great. 
Danger  and  difficulty  seemed  only  to  whet  their  appetite 
for  gold  and  fan  their  passions  to  a  blaze.  Their  endur- 
ance of  hunger  and  thirst  and  fatigue  was  as  remarkable 
as  their  hardihood  was  phenomenal.  They  were  loyal  to 
one  another  and  divided  the  spoils  they  secured  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  agreement  they  had  entered  into  be- 
forehand. "Locks  and  bolts  were  prohibited,  as  such 
things  were  regarded  as  impeaching  the  honor  of  their 
vocation. " 

They  were  religious  after  their  own  fashion.  Thus  it 
was  forbidden  to  hunt  or  cure  meat  on  Sunday.  Before 
going  on  a  cruise,  they  went  to  church  to  ask  a  blessing  on 
their  undertaking,  and,  after  a  successful  raid,  they  re- 
turned to  the  house  of  God  to  sing  a  hymn  of  thanksgiv- 
ing. "We  are  told  of  a  French  captain  who  shot  a  filibuster 
for  irreverence  in  church  during  divine  service,  and  we 
also  read  of  Captain  Hawkins  once  throwing  dice  over- 
board when  he  found  them  being  used  on  the  Lord's  day.1 

How  all  this  reminds  one  of  the  conduct  of  that  pitiless 
old  slaver,  John  Hawkins,  who  frequently  enjoined  on  his 
crew  to  "serve  God  daily, Jf  and  who,  after  escaping  a 
heavy  gale  on  his  way  from  Africa  to  the  West  Indies, 
whither  he  was  bound  with  a  shipload  of  kidnapped 
negroes,  sanctimoniously  writes,  "The  Almighty  God,  who 
never  suffereth  His  elect  to  perish,  sent  us  the  ordinary 
breeze." 

Although  the  Buccaneers  frequently  came  into  posses- 
sion of  immense  sums  of  money,  they  would  forthwith 

i  When  John  Watling,  the  successor  of  the  deposed  Captain  Edmund  Cook, 
began  his  captaincy,  he  ordered  all  his  crew  to  keep  holy  the  Sabbath  day. 
"With  Edmund  Cook  down  on  the  ballust  in  irons/9  writes  Masefield,  and 
William  Cook  talking  of  salvation  in  the  galley,  and  old  John  Watling  ex- 
pounding the  Gospel  in  the  cabin,  the  galleon,  'The  most  Holy  Trinity,'  must 
have  seemed  a  foretaste  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  The  fiddler  ceased  such 
prophane  strophes  as  'Abel  Brown,'  'The  Red-haired  Man's  Wife/  and 
<Valentinian.'  He  tuned  his  devout  strings  to  songs  of  Zion.  Nay,  the  very 
boatswain  could  not  pipe  the  cutter  up  but  to  a  phrase  of  the  Psalms."  (On 
the  Spanish  Main,  p.  263,  London,  1906.) 

394 


IN  THE  TBACK  OF  PLATE-FLEETS 

proceed  to  squander  it  in  all  kinds  of  dissipation  and  de- 
bauchery. "Suck  of  these  pyrates,"  writes  Esquemeling, 
"will  spend  two  or  three  thousand  pieces  of  eight  in  a 
night,  not  leaving  themselves  a  good  shirt  to  wear  in  the 
morning. " 

At  first,  the  Buccaneers  confined  themselves  to  depreda- 
tions on  sea,  but  their  unexpected  successes  on  water  soon 
emboldened  them  to  attack  the  largest  and  richest  towns 
on  the  Spanish  Main.  When  these  were  once  in  their 
power,  they  exacted  from  their  inhabitants  a  heavy  tribute, 
and  if  it  was  not  paid  without  delay,  the  hapless  people, 
regardless  of  age  or  sex,  were  subjected  to  the  most  cruel 
and  unheard-of  tortures.  Puerto  Principe,  Maracaibo, 
Porto  Bello,  Panama  and  other  places  were  captured  in 
turn,  and  some  of  them,  when  sufficient  ransom  was  not 
obtained,  were  burned  to  the  ground.  And  so  great  and 
so  hideous  were  the  atrocities  committed  in  some  of  these 
places  that  even  Esquemeling  has  not  the  heart  to  do  more 
than  allude  to  them.  They  equaled,  if  they  did  not  sur- 
pass, anything  recorded  of  the  pirates  .of  Barbary  or 
Malabar,  and  showed  what  fiends  incarnate  men  can  be- 
come when  carried  away  by  insatiate  greed  or  the  spirit 
of  rapine  and  carnage* 

The  two  Buccaneer  leaders  who  most  distinguished  them- 
selves for  their  diabolical  ferocity  and  viciousness  were 
I/  Olonnois  and  Morgan.  "I/  Olonnois,"  says  Burney, 
"was  possessed  with  an  ambition  to  make  himself  renowned 
for  being  terrible.  At  one  time,  it  is  said,  he  put  the  whole 
crew  of  a  Spanish  ship,  ninety  men,  to  death,  performing 
himself  the  office  of  executioner,  by  beheading  them.  He 
caused  the  crews  of  four  others  vessels  to  be  thrown  into 
the  sea;  and  more  than  once,  in  his  frenzies,  he  tore  out 
the  hearts  of  his  victims  and  devoured  them." 1 

This  "infernal  wretch, "  as  Esquemeling  calls  him,  "full 
of  horrid,  execrable  and  enormous  deeds,  and  debtor  to  so 
much  innocent  blood,  died  by  cruel  and  butcherly  hands, " 

i  History  of  the  Buccaneers  of  America,  Chap.  V* 

395 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

for  the  Indians  of  Darien,  having  taken  him  prisoner,  "tore 
him  in  pieces  alive,  throwing  his  body,  limb  by  limb,  into 
the  fire,  and  his  ashes  into  the  air,  that  no  trace  or  memory 
might  remain  of  such  an  infamous,  inhuman  creature."1 

Of  Henry  Morgan,  who  sacked  Maracaibo  and  pillaged 
and  burnt  Panama,  the  same  authority  declares  he  "may 
deservedly  be  called  the  second  L'  Olonnois,  not  being  un- 
like or  inferior  to  him,  either  in  achievements  against  the 
Spaniards  or  robberies  of  many  innocent  people."2 

He  did  not,  however,  share  the  fate  of  L'  Olonnois.  Hav- 
ing found  favor  with  King  Charles  II,  he  was  knighted 
and  made  deputy  governor  of  Jamaica,  when  he  turned 
against  his  former  associates,  many  of  whom  he  hanged, 
while  he  delivered  others  up  to  their  enemies,  the  Span- 
iards. 

From  the  time  the  Buccaneers  made  Tortuga  a  base  of 
operations  until  the  Peace  of  Byswick,  in  1697,  when  they 
were  finally  suppressed,  was  more  than  half  a  century. 
Prom  this  little  island  they  spread  over  the  entire  Carib- 
bean sea  and  had  places  of  rendezvous  in  Jamaica,  Santa 
Catalina,  the  sequestered  coves  of  the  Gulf  of  Darien  and 
in  many  secret  places  along  the  Spanish  Main.  Their 
distinctive  mark  during  all  this  time,  from  which  they  never 
deviated,  as  it  had  been  the  distinctive  mark  of  pirates 
and  privateers  of  England,  France  and  Holland  during 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half  before,  was  their  incessant 
and  relentless  war  against  Spain;  their  determination  to 
break  her  power  and  destroy  that  trade  monopoly  which 
she  was  so  determined  to  retain. 

So  numerous  and  powerful  did  they  eventually  become 
that  some  of  their  leaders,  notably  Mansvelt  and  Morgan, 
dreamed  of  establishing  an  independent  state.  They  had 
selected  the  small  island  of  Santa  Catalina — now  known  as 
Old  Providence — just  a  short  distance  north  of  the  course 
along  which  we  are  now  sailing — as  a  starting  point  and, 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  115. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  117. 

396 


IN  THE  TRACK  OP  PLATE-FLEETS 

had  they  undertaken  this  project  while  the  French  and 
English  Buccaneers  were  still  united,  they  might  have  been 
successful.1 

To  us  of  the  twentieth  century,  with  our  ideas  of  law  and 
order,  it  seems  strange  that  the  pirates  and  Buccaneers  of 
the  West  India  islands  and  the  Main  should  have  been  able 
to  continue  their  nefarious  operations  for  so  long  a  period, 
and  that  they  were  so  numerous.  But,  when  we  remember 
how  they  were  countenanced  and  abetted  by  their  respec- 
tive governments,  how  they  were  provided  with  letters  of 
marque  and  reprisal,  how  they  were  openly  assisted  by  the 
English2  and  French  governors  of  the  West  Indies,  how 
they  were  assisted  even  by  their  own  sovereigns,3  the  won- 
der ceases.  Considering  the  love  of  adventure  that  dis- 
tinguished this  period  of  the  world's  history,  and  the 
princely  fortunes  that  rewarded  the  successful  raids  of 

i  Referring  to  this  matter,  George  W.  Thornsburg  writes : — 

"Anomalous  beings,  hunters  by  land  and  sea,  scaring  whole  fleets  with  a 
few  canoes,  sacking  cities  with  a  few  grenadiers,  devastating  every  coast 
from  California  to  Cape  Horn,  they  needed  only  a  common  principle  of  union 
to  have  founded  an  aggressive  republic  as  wealthy  as  Venice  and  as  war- 
like as  Carthage.  One  great  mind  and  the  New  World  had  been  their  own." 
— The  Monarch*  of  the  Main,  or  Adventures  of  the  Buccaneers,  preface,  p. 
10,  London,  1835. 

a  Thus  Esquemeling  tells  us  that  Morgan's  fleet,  before  his  raid  on  Mara- 
caibo,  was,  by  order  of  the  governor  of  Jamaica,  strengthened  by  the  addi- 
tion of  an  English  vessel  of  thirty-six  guns.  This  was  done  to  give  the 
ruthless  Buccaneer  "greater  courage  to  attempt  mighty  things."  Op.  cit.,  p. 
147. 

a  The  Spaniards  accused  Queen  Elizabeth  of  aiding  Drake,  and  it  is  known 
that  she  lent  John  Hawkins  one  of  her  ships.  "The  great  Queen,"  as  Mow- 
bray  Morris  observes,  "had  a  most  convenient  way  of  publically  deprecating 
the  riotous  acts  of  her  subjects,  when  she  found  it  expedient  to  do  so,  and 
roundly  encouraging  them  in  private.  She  was  fond  of  money,  too,  and 
.  .  .  had  found  a  share  in  these  ventures  uncommonly  remunerative.  Un- 
queenly  tricks,  as  they  seem  to  us,  and  apt  to  confuse  the  law  of  nations, 
they  were,  as  things  went  then,  extremely  useful  to  England." — Tales  of  the 
Spanish  Main,  p.  131,  London,  1001. 

Pdre  Labat  cleverly  hits  off  the  policy  of  France  and  England  towards 
the  Buccaneers  in  a  single  sentence,  "On  laissoit  faire  des  Avanturiers, 
qu  on  pouvoit  toujours  desavouer,  mais  dont  les  succes  pouvoient  etre  utiles" 
— they  connived  at  the  actions  of  the  Adventurers,  which  could  always  be  dis- 
avowed, but  whose  successes  might  be  of  service. 

397 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  daring  sea  rovers,  it  is  surprising  that  the  number  was 
not  greater.  If  the  same  conditions  now  obtained,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  the  seas  would  swarm  with  similar  adventurers, 
It  is  interesting  to  surmise  what  would  now  be  the  condi- 
tion of  the  Western  Hemisphere  if  the  Buccaneers,  instead 
of  confining  themselves  to  capturing  treasure  ships  and 
sacking  towns,  had,  like  the  bold  Vikings,  their  antitypes, 
set  out  to  conquer  and  colonize. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  the  Buccaneers,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  is  to  them  that  England  owes  her  proud 
title  of  Mistress  of  the  Seas.  They  gave  birth  to  her  great 
navy,  and  developed  that  great  merchant  marine  whose 
flags  are  to-day  seen  in  every  port  of  the  world.  They 
distinguished  themselves  in  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
Armada,  and  closely  followed  Magellan  in  circumnavigat- 
ing the  globe.  They  had  a  hand  in  the  formation  of  the 
East  India  Company  and  were  "Britain's  sword  and  shield 
for  the  defence  of  her  nascent  colonies. " 

Of  the  occupation  of  the  Buccaneers  one  can  assert  what 
James  Jeffrey  Roche  writes  of  that  of  the  filibusters  of  the 
middle  of  the  last  century — that  it  "is  no  longer  open  to 
private  individuals.  The  great  powers  have  monopolized 
the  business,  conducting  it  as  such  and  stripping  it  of  its 
last  poor  remnant  of  romance,  without  investing  it  with  a 
scrap  of  improved  morality." * 

And  one  can  also  say  of  them,  what  Byron  writes  of  his 
Corsair,  that  they  left  a 

"Name  to  other  climes 
Linked  with  one  virtue  and  a  thousand  crimes." 

^By-Ways  of  War,  The  Story  of  the  Filibusters,  p.  251,  Boston,  1901. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  EICH  COAST 

"But  oh!  the  free  and  wild  magnificence 

Of  Nature  in  her  lavish  hours  doth  steal. 
In  admiration  silent  and  intense, 

The  soul  of  him  who  hath  a  soul  to  feel. 

"The  river  moving  on  its  ceaseless  way, 

The  verdant  reach  of  meadows  fair  and  green, 
And  the  blue  hills  that  bound  the  sylvan  scene, — 
These  speak  of  grandeur,  that  defies  decay, — 
Proclaim  the  eternal  architect  on  high, 
Who  stamps  on  all  his  works  his  own  eternity." 

— LONGFELLOW. 

The  afternoon  preceding  our  arrival  at  Puerto  Limon, 
the  captain  of  our  steamer  called  our  attention  to  a  won- 
derful mirage  due  south  of  us.  High  above  the  water — 
apparently  midway  between  the  sea  and  the  sky — was 
suspended  one  of  the  islands  of  the  Caribbean  that  stand 
off  from  the  Panama  coast.  So  far  away  was  it  from  our 
course  that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  peculiar  atmospheric 
conditions  then  prevailing,  it  would  have  been  quite  in- 
visible, even  with  the  aid  of  the  most  powerful  glass.  A 
beautiful,  fantastic  shape  it  exhibited  as,  seen  through  the 
trembling  and  shimmering  air,  it  seemed  to  float  in  the  hazy 
atmosphere.  At  first  it  was  of  a  pearly-gray  tint,  then  of 
a  fustian-brown,  and  finally,  as  it  became  more  distinct  in 
outline,  it  shaded  into  a  dark  olive  green.  The  apparition 
lasted  for  nearly  an  hour,  when  it  gradually  disappeared. 

"The  Vanishing  Island  of  St.  Brendan,"  exclaimed  a 
young  Celt  who  had  been  admiring  the  scene.  And  then 
37  399 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

he  read  for  us  what  John  Sparke,  a  companion  of  Hawkins 
in  the  voyage  of  1564,  writes : 

"Certaine  flitting  Hands,  which  haue  beene  oftentimes 
seene,  and  when  men  approched  neere  them  they  vanished, 
.  and  therefore  it  should  seeme  hee  is  not  yet  borne 
to  whom  God  hath  appoynted  the  finding  of  them."  l 

The  flitting  islands  that  Sparke  refers  to  were,  it  is  true, 
supposed  by  him  to  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Azores. 
But  their  location  was  uncertain,  at  least  the  one  named 
after  the  seafaring  Irish  monk,  for  divers  positions  have 
been  assigned  it  by  cosmographers  and  mediaeval  writers. 
Among  other  peculiarities  possessed  by  this  island  was 
that  it  had  an  apparent  motion  towards  the  west — a  motion 
that  was  quite  sufficient  to  have  carried  it  at  the  beginning 
of  the  twentieth  century  to  the  westernmost  part  of  the 
Caribbean. 

"In  this  motion  westward,"  said  C. — as  our  representa- 
tive of  classical  lore — "the  Island  of  St.  Brendan  would 
have  but  followed  the  example  set  by  the  Elysian  Fields 
and  the  Isles  of  the  Blessed.  Pindar  and  Hesiod  placed 
them  in  the  Western  Ocean,  but  much  farther  west  than 
Homer  had  located  his  Elysium.  As  the  years  rolled  by, 
the  Fortunate  Islands  and  the  Gardens  of  the  Hesperides, 
for  these  were  but  synonyms  of  the  Isles  of  the  Blessed, 
were  also  found,  like  St.  Brendan's,  to  have  moved  towards 
the  region  of  the  setting  sun.  Subsequently,  birth  was 
given  to  legends  respecting  a  Transatlantic  Eden  and  a 
Mexican  Elysium  somewhere  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  or 
among  the  beauteous  isles  of  the  Caribbean  Archipelago." 

"Very  true,  very  true,"  said  one  of  our  party,  a  good- 
natured  German  privat-docent,  who  was  perched  hard  by 
on  what  seemed  to  be  the  first  reclining  chair  ever  devised. 
It  was  a  cumbersome  structure  about  four  feet  high,  ap- 
parently modeled  after  one  of  those  lofty  bedsteads  once 
the  vogue  in  certain  parts  of  the  Vaterland,  and  vastly 
different  from  the  modern  reclining  chair  so  popular  with 

iHakluyt's  Early  Voyages,  Vol.  HI,  p.  594,  London,  1810. 
400 


THE  RICH  COAST 

ocean  travelers,  and  so  rickety  that  it  threatened  every 
moment  to  collapse  and  deposit  its  portly  occupant — for 
he  was  a  man  of  weight,  physically  as  well  as  intellectually 
—on  the  hard  floor  of  the  hurricane  deck.  "You  are  quite 
right,  Sr.  C.  The  Isles  of  the  Blessed,  like  the  Island  of 
St.  Brendan,  are  quite  as  ubiquitous  and  elusory  as  is  the 
Terrestrial  Paradise  described  in  Genesis.  For  learned 
men  who  have  written  about  it  have  located  it,  at  one  time 
or  another,  in  almost  every  part  of  the  earth's  surface. 
Some  maintain  it  was  somewhere  in  the  valley  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, others  that  it  was  east  of  the  Ganges,  or  near  the 
head  waters  of  the  Nile.  Columbus  imagined  it  was  nigh 
the  source  of  the  Orinoco,  while  an  American  author — a 
Bostonian,  I  believe — some  decades  ago  published  a  work 
in  which  he  endeavoured  to  prove  that  the  seat  of  Paradise 
was  the  North  Pole.  As  for  myself,  I  have  never  ventured 
to  formulate  a  theory  on  any  of  these  interesting  subjects. 
They  are  out  of  my  line.  Davus  sum  non  (Edipus." 

Just  then  there  was  a  crash.  Like  the  "wonderful  one- 
hoss  shay,"  the  tottering  old  chair  had  collapsed  and  the 
docent  lay  sprawling  under  the  ruins. 

"Caramba,  donnerwetter!"  These  two  exclamations,  so 
dear  to  the  Spaniard  and  the  German,  when  they  wish  to 
express  surprise  and  disgust,  were  emitted  with  an  explo- 
sive violence  that  left  no  one  present  in  doubt  as  to  what 
thoughts  were  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  our  friend  as  he 
was  endeavoring  to  extricate  himself  from  the  entangling 
frame.  With  the  aid  of  some  of  the  bystanders  he  finally 
regained  his  feet,  but  he  manifested  no  desire  to  continue 
the  conversation  so  suddenly  interrupted. 

"Carajo,  donnerllitzl" — two  expressions  even  more 
vigorous  than  the  preceding— constituted  the  finale  to  the 
performance  that  afforded  amusement  to  all  except  the  lead- 
ing character,  who  disliked  exceedingly  the  undignified 
position  in  which  he  had  momentarily  been  placed.  Fortu- 
nately, the  last  call  for  dinner  had  been  given  just  a  few- 
moments  previously,  and  we  accordingly  adjourned  to  the 

401 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

dining  saloon,  where  other  matters  absorbed  the  attention 
of  the  unlucky  docent  as  well  as  the  spectators  of  his  un- 
gainly tumble. 

The  morning  following  the  little  episode  just  referred  to, 
we  were  in  sight  of  Costa  Eica 1 — that  rich  coast — dis- 
covered by  Columbus  during  his  eventful  fourth  voyage. 
The  wooded  lowlands,  bordering  the  sea,  are  clothed  in  a 
mantle  of  rich  tropical  verdure.  A  short  distance  behind, 
them  arise  the  escarpments  of  the  Central  American  Cor- 
dillera, that  is  the  scene  of  the  activity  of  such  noted 
volcanoes  as  Poas,  Irazu  and  Turialba.  Owing  to  the 
proximity  of  the  Sierra  to  the  sea,  it  appears  much  higher 
than  it  really  is,  and,  when  the  weather  is  clear,  it  presents 
a  picture  of  rare  magnificence.  This  is  particularly  the 
case  when  it  is  seen  at  sunrise,  the  time  it  first  met  our 
view*  Then  we  had  before  us  the  violet  expanse  of  the 
summer  sea  canopied  by  the  splendid  azure  vault  of  heaven, 
while  before  us  stood  up  in  all  its  majesty  the  gentian 
blue  peak  of  the  Cordillera  that  gradually  melted  into 
crimson  and  then  into  gold. 

Owing  to  the  reports  that  had  been  received  at  Limon 
regarding  the  plague  at  Trinidad,  and  the  fear  that  it  might 
already  have  reached  the  Spanish  Main,  none  of  the  pas- 
sengers were  allowed  to  land  until  they  had  passed,  on  the 
part  of  the  health  officers,  an  examination  of  more  than 
usual  strictness.  Fortunately,  we  had  provided  ourselves 
with  a  health  certificate  before  leaving  Barranquilla  and 
were  permitted  to  land  after  but  little  delay.  Those,  how- 

*  The  origin  of  the  name  Costa  Rica  is  uncertain.  It  appears  for  the  first 
time  in  an  account  of  an  expedition  made  by  Martin  Estete  to  the  river 
San  Juan  in  1529,  twenty-seven  years  after  the  discovery  of  the  country  by 
Columbus.  It  occurs  subsequently  in  a  document  signed  by  the  King  of 
Spain,  dated  May  14,  1541.  It  is  probable  that  the  name  was  given  in 
consequence  of  the  rich  mines  that  had  been  discovered  near  the  town  of 
Estrella,  in  Talamanca— from  which  it  was  inferred  that  aU  the  interior  of 
the  country  was  equally  rich  in  the  precious  metals— and  not  on  account 
of  the  luxuriant  vegetation  that  abounds,  as  is  sometimes  supposed.  Cf. 
jDtccwmorto  Oeografco  de  Costa  Rica,  p.  47,  por  Felix  F.  Noriega,  San  Jos€, 
Costa  Rica,  1904. 

402 


THE  RICH  COAST 

ever,  who  could  not  exhibit  such  a  document  were  at  once 
ordered  off  to  quarantine.  Everyone,  however,  had  to  be 
vaccinated,  unless  one  could  produce  evidence  that  he  had 
been  vaccinated  only  a  short  time  before.  As  very  few 
could  present  such  evidence,  the  great  majority  had  to  sub- 
mit— many  of  them  much  against  their  will — to  being  in- 
oculated with  the  virus  that  is  supposed  to  render  one 
immune  against  smallpox. 

While  these  operations  were  going  on,  we  had  an  op- 
portunity of  getting  a  good  view  of  the  coast  in  front  of  us. 
It  had  a  special  interest  for  us,  for  it  was  the  favored  land 
along  which  Columbus  sailed  in  his  last  voyage  in  1502. 
Here,  before  us,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  the  land  of 
Cariari,  and,  just  a  stone's  throw  from  our  steamer  was 
the  charming  island  of  Quiribri,  which,  on  account  of  its 
beauty  and  the  lovely  trees  with  which  it  was  adorned — 
palms  and  bananas  and  platanos — the  Admiral  called  El 
Huerto — the  orchard.  To-day  it  is  known  as  the  island  of 
TTvita,  and  is  used  for  quarantine.  As  we  gazed  on  this 
exquisite  spot,  provided  with  cozy  cottages  nestling  among 
clumps  of  stately  palms,  and  decked  with  beauteous  flowers 
of  every  hue,  we  almost  regretted  that  we  could  not  spend 
a  few  days  there.  Had  we  been  sent  there  with  the  others 
we  should  certainly  not  have  complained. 

So  fascinating  was  this  place  that  Columbus  anchored 
here  between  the  island  and  the  mainland  to  give  his  crew 
an  opportunity  to  refresh  themselves  after  their  arduous 
voyage.  And  so  fragrant  were  the  groves  on  the  mainland 
that  their  perfumes  were  wafted  out  to  the  ships.  This, 
we  have  noted,  was  also  the  experience  of  the  early  ex- 
plorers of  Florida. 

While  here,  Columbus  held  frequent  converse  with  the 
Indians,  whom  he  found  intelligent  and  well  disposed. 
They  brought  h™  gifts  of  cotton,  cloth  and  gold  and 
evidently  were  inclined  to  enter  into  friendly  relations  with 
their  strange  visitors.  In  his  letter  to  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  referring  to  this  land,  he  writes:  "There  I  saw 

403 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

a  tomb  in  the  mountain  side  as  large  as  a  house,  and 
sculptured.1  This  is  remarkable  as  being  the  only  passage 
in  all  the  Admiral's  writings  which  could  warrant  us  in 
concluding  that  he  ever  set  foot  on  the  mainland  of  the 
New  World. 

Until  the  middle  of  the  last  century  Port  Limon  was  but 
a  small  rancJieria — it  did  not  deserve  the  name  of  village 
— of  poor  fishermen.  Now  it  is  the  chief  port  of  the  re- 
public and  a  flourishing  town  of  6,000  inhabitants.  Its 
present  importance  and  prosperity  are  due  to  the  com- 
pletion of  the  railroad  from  this  point  to  the  capital,  San 
Jose,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  principal  centre  of  the 
rapidly-increasing  banana  industry  controlled  by  the  United 
Fruit  Company. 

The  place  is  quite  modern  in  appearance,  and  were  it 
not  for  its  exuberant  tropical  vegetation,  might  easily  pass 
for  one  of  our  enterprising  Gulf  Coast  towns.  It  boasts 
of  all  modern  improvements,  has  good  sanitation,  broad 
streets,  comfortable  homes  and  a  delightful  park  that,  for 
wealth  and  variety  of  tree  and  shrub  and  flower,  looks 
like  a  well-kept  botanic  garden.  While  the  white  race  is 
well  represented,  the  majority  of  the  population  is  made 
up  of  West  Indian  negroes. 

During  our  travels  among  the  Antilles  and  on  the  Span- 
ish Main,  we  frequently  had  occasion  to  note  the  importance 
of  the  banana  and  the  platano  as  articles  of  food,  but  it 
was  not  until  our  arrival  in  Limon  that  we  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  observing  the  extent  to  which  the  cultivation  and 
shipment  of  these  fruits  have  been  carried.  Here  are  two 
long  iron  piers  at  which  one  will  occasionally  find  as  many 
as  six  or  eight  large  steamers  being  freighted  at  the  same 
time  with  the  golden  fruit  of  Costa  Rica,  preparatory  to 
distribution  among  the  leading  ports  along  the  Gulf  and 
Atlantic  coasts. 

The  culture  of  the  banana  in  Costa  Rica  on  an  extensive 

*  "Alii  vide  una  sepultara  en  el  monte,  grande  como  tma  casa  y  labrada."— 
Betoewnes  y  Oartaa  dc  Colon,  p.  375,  Madrid,  1892. 

404 


THE  RICH  COAST 

scale  is  of  recent  date.  In  1880  but  three  hundred  and 
sixty  bunches  were  sent  to  the  United  States.  Now  the 
amount  shipped  from  Limon  alone  averages  more  than  a 
million  bunches  a  month.  During  the  year  1908  the  num- 
ber of  bunches  that  left  Port  Limon  aggregated  more  than 
thirteen  million,  and  the  amount  shipped  is  rapidly  increas- 
ing. In  addition  to  the  daily  shipments  made  to  the  United 
States  weekly  cargoes  are  forwarded  to  France  and  Eng- 
land. 

But  great  as  are  the  proportions  which  the  banana  trade 
has  already  assumed,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  is  as  yet  but 
in  its  infancy.  What  in  most  parts  of  our  country  and 
Europe  has  hitherto  been  practically  unknown,  or  been 
regarded  as  a  luxury  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor,  is  now 
rapidly  finding  its  way  among  all  classes  and  at  such  prices 
that  even  those  of  the  most  limited  means  can  have  it  on 
their  tables. 

That  which  first  impresses  the  visitor  from  the  North 
is  the  large  number  of  species  of  the  Musa  and  the  ex- 
traordinary number  of  uses  made  of  them.  Already  fully 
forty  species  have  been  described  and  nearly  a  hundred 
varieties.  Most  of  these  bear  fruit  which  is  as  agreeable 
as  it  is  nutritious,  and  which  is  often  of  a  flavor  of  the 
utmost  delicacy. 

Eef erence  has  already  been  made  in  a  previous  chapter 
to  the  extensive  and  varied  use  made  of  bananas  and 
platanos  by  the  peoples  of  tropical  climes,  but  even  they 
have  still  much  to  learn  regarding  the  food  value  of  their 
great  staple.  Recent  investigations  have  revealed  the  fact 
that  the  fruit  of  the  Musa  is  henceforth  to  be  regarded 
not  only  as  one  of  the  most  wholesome  and  nutritious  of 
foods,  but  also  as  one  of  the  most  important  means  of  sub- 
sistence for  the  world's  rapidly  increasing  population. 
Even  now  it  is  felt  that  the  supply  of  flesh  meat  and  cereals 
is  rapidly  becoming  less  than  the  demand,  and  too  expen- 
sive for  the  poor,  and  thoughtful  men  have  already  set  to 
work  to  devise  ways  and  means  to  meet  the  emergency. 

405 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

And  one  of  the  means  suggested  is  a  more  extensive  cul- 
tivation of  platanos  and  bananas,  as  well  as  a  more  general 
use  of  their  manifold  products. 

Humboldt  long  ago  pointed  out  the  great  economic  value 
of  the  banana  and  the  platano  as  sources  of  food  supply.1 
But  he  did  not  have  the  data  we  now  possess  for  arriving 
at  just  conclusions.  As  the  result  of  numerous  experi- 
ments it  is  now  known  that  bananas  afford  per  acre  one 
and  a  third  times  as  much  food  as  maize  produces,  two 
and  a  third  times  as  much  as  oats,  three  times  as  much 
as  buckwheat,  potatoes  and  wheat ;  and  four  times  as  much 
as  rye.  Then  the  labor  involved  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
banana  is  far  less  than  that  demanded  for  our  northern 
crops.  No  skill  is  required,  and  unlike  many  of  our 
northern  fruit-bearing  trees,  the  banana  and  the  platano 
are  entirely  exempt  from  insect  pests  and  diseases. 

Chemical  analysis  discloses  the  curious  fact  that  bananas 
and  potatoes  are  practically  identical  in  composition.  As 
compared  with  the  principal  vegetables  and  fruits  consumed 
in  the  United  States  and  Europe,  the  food  value  of  the 
banana  and  the  platano  stands  in  the  ratio  of  five  to  four 
in  favor  of  the  latter.  Comparing  "banana  flour,  a  new 
product  of  this  remarkable  fruit,  with  the  flour  made  from 
sago,  wheat  and  maize,  it  is  found  that  the  nutritive  value 
of  all  four  is  about  equal — the  banana  product  being 
slightly  in  the  lead. 

As  a  consequence  of  recent  researches  the  commercial 
products  obtained  from  the  banana  and  platano  have  been 
greatly  increased,  while  some  of  them  are  vastly  different 
from  anything  that  people  who  have  been  living  on  them 

i  In  his  Political  Essay  on  the  Kingdom  of  New  Spain,  Book  TV,  Chap. 
IX,  he  asserts  that  for  a  given  area  of  land  "The  produce  of  bananas  is  to 
that  of  wheat  as  133:1,  and  to  that  of  potatoes  as  44:1."  These  propor- 
tions, however,  refer  to  the  weights  and  not  to  the  nutritive  values  of  the 
products  compared.  The  ratio  of  the  nutritive  value  of  bananas  and  wheat 
is,  according  to  Humboldt,  twenty-five  to  one  in  favor  of  bananas.  Hence, 
he  writes,  "a  European,  newly  arrived  in  the  torrid  zone  is  struck  with  noth- 
ing so  much  as  the  extreme  smallness  of  the  spots  under  cultivation  round  a 
cabin  which  contains  a  numerous  family  of  Indians." 

406 


THE  RICH  COAST 

for  thousands  of  years  have  ever  dreamed.  Among  these 
are  meal  in  the  starchy  state  for  making  superior  kinds 
of  bread  and  porridge,  flakes  and  meal  in  a  dextrinous 
condition  for  the  preparation  of  nourishing  soups  and 
puddings,  sauces  and  fritters.1  In  dried  slices  it  is  used 
in  the  manufacture  of  beer  and  alcohol.  Bananas  are  also 
employed  in  making  marmalades,  for  the  manufacture  of 
glucose  and  syrups  for  confectionery,  and,  dried  entire 
without  the  peel,  they  are  put  up  in  boxes  like  figs.  Dried 
and  roasted  they  afford  a  nutritious  beverage  that  is  said 
to  be  a  valuable  substitute  for  coffee  and  chocolate.  Even 
the  stems  and  leaves  of  the  banana  are  put  to  use,  for 
from  them  are  manufactured  paper  and  cordage. 

These  facts  open  up  a  splendid  vista  as  to  the  future 
food  possibilities  of  the  tropics.  They  demonstrate  also 
the  wisdom  of  giving  more  thought  to  this  neglected  part 
of  the  world,  for  it  is  to  tropical  America  that  the  teeming 
millions  of  coming  generations  will  be  obliged  to  look  for 
much  of  their  sustenance.  Our  northern  climes  will  be 
unable  to  meet  the  demands  that  will  eventually  be  made 
on  them. 

Before  we  boarded  the  train  at  Limon  for  San  Jose, 
the  capital  of  the  little  republic,  a  young  German,  who  had 
visited  the  lowlands  through  which  the  railway  passes,  said 
that  we  would  there  see  the  most  remarkable  exhibition  of 
vegetable  growth  in  the  world.  "It  is,"  he  declared,  "the 
TJrwelt" — the  primeval  forest — "in  all  its  luxuriance  and 
glory." 

As  he  had  never  seen  any  tropical  scenery  outside  of 
Costa  Eica,  and  very  little  of  that,  we,  who  had  just  come 
from  the  exuberant  forest  regions  of  the  Magdalena  and 

i  Stanley,  in  In  Darkest  Africa,  writes:  "If  only  the  virtues  of  banana 
flour  were  publicly  known,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  but  it  would  be  largely 
consumed  in  Europe.  Por  infants,  persons  of  delicate  digestion,  dyspeptics, 
and  those  suffering  from  temporary  derangement  of  the  stomach,  the  flour 
properly  prepared  would  be  of  universal  demand.  During  my  two  attacks 
of  gastritis  a  light  gruel  of  this,  mixed  with  milk,  was  the  only  matter  that 
could  be  digested."  VoL  H,  pp.  261,  262,  New  York,  1890. 

407 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

the  Orinoco,  were  disposed  to  give  little  heed  to  his  state- 
ment. Compared  with  Germany,  the  floral  display  of  Costa 
Bica  was  doubtless  something  really  marvelous  in  the 
estimation  of  our  untraveled  Teutonic  friend,  but  it  could 
not  compare,  we  said  to  ourselves,  with  the  wonders  of 
plant  life  on  which  we  had  been  feasting  our  eyes  during 
our  journey  among  the  Antilles  and  through  the  Northern 
part  of  South  America. 

Our  conclusion,  however,  as  we  very  soon  discovered, 
was  quite  unwarranted.  The  vegetation  of  the  lowlands 
and  of  the  foothills  of  the  Costa  Eican  Cordillera,  as  we 
noted  on  our  way  to  San  Jose,  was  really  something  won- 
derful. It  was  the  Urwelt  in  very  truth,  and  exhibited 
a  wealth  of  plant  and  tree,  foliage  and  bloom  such  as 
must  have  characterized  the  foreworld  during  its  richest 
period.  For  miles  upon  miles  along  this  picturesque  rail- 
way, we  reveled  in  the  glories  of  the  virgin  forest  at  its 
best — a  dense,  complicated  mass  of  verdure,  a  tousled, 
world-old  jungle,  surmounted  by  giants  of  the  forest,  loaded 
down  with  festoons  of  countless  creepers  and  bound  to- 
gether by  innumerable  cable-like  lianas,  each  of  the  richest 
hues.  At  one  time  we  were  passing  through  valleys  of 
enchantment,  valleys  pervaded  by  a  languorous  haze  of 
lilac  and  indigo,  like  the  smoke  of  incense,  valleys  ren- 
dered musical  by  scores  of  hidden  streams  and  tumultuous 
torrents  bridged  over  by  an  entanglement  of  green  fathoms 
in  depth.  At  another  we  were  winding  around  rugged 
crags  and  inaccessible  peaks,  not  bald  and  barren,  as  in 
our  temperate  climes,  but  covered  to  their  very  summits 
with  a  tapestry  of  leaf  and  flower  of  the  most  vivid  tropical 
tints,  that  at  times  resembled  a  cascade  of  palpitating 
color,  of  emerald  foliage  and  glowing  bloom.  Here  it  was 
the  crimson  bouganvilla,  there  lovely  aroides  with  spathes 
of  delicate  purple  or  immaculate  white,  while  hard  by, 
fanned  into  motion  by  the  trickery  of  the  shifting  breeze, 
were  the  slender  tufts  of  the  bamboo  or  the  tenuous  fronds 
of  the  ever-graceful  fern  tree.  On  all  sides  was  a  parade 

408 


THE  RICH  COAST 

of  foliage  and  blossom,  a  bravery  of  color  to  be  found 
only  in  the  tropics  and  then  only  in  its  most  favored 
regions. 

The  astonishing  variety  and  richness  of  the  flora  of  Costa 
Eica  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  connecting  link  between 
the  floras  of  the  two  great  continents  of  the  North  and 
the  South.  Besides  exhibiting  species  peculiar  to  itself,  it 
presents  an  infinitude  of  others  found  in  North  and  South 
America.  Those,  however,  of  South  America  predominate, 
the  reason  being  that  Costa  Eica  was  connected  with  the 
southern  continent  long  before  it  was  united  with  that  to 
the  north. 

It  is  a  hundred  and  three  miles  from  Limon  to  San  Jose 
by  rail.  The  road,  a  narrow-gauge  one,  was  constructed 
by  an  American,  Mr.  Minor  C.  Keith,  and  compares  favor- 
ably with  our  narrow-gauge  roads  in  the  Eocky  Mountains. 
Many  difficulties  were  encountered  in  laying  the  track, 
some  of  which,  especially  those  caused  by  landslides  and 
the  overflowing  rivers,  seemed  at  times  insuperable.  The 
most  serious  impediments,  however,  were  due  to  the  steam- 
ing, sweltering,  putrid,  fever-laden  swamps  between  the 
coast  and  the  foothills  of  the  Cordillera.  So  great  was 
the  mortality  among  the  workmen  on  account  of  pernicious 
fevers  that  it  is  stated  that  this  section  of  the  line  cost 
a  human  life  for  every  tie  that  was  laid.  Like  the  valley 
of  the  lower  Magdalena,  this  part  of  Costa  Eica  is 
habitable  only  by  negroes.  The  white  men  who  are  called 
there  by  business  make  their  sojourn  as  brief  as  possible. 

It  is  along  this  route  that  are  found  the  best  and  most 
extensive  platanales — banana  plantations — of  the  country 
and,  as  a  consequence,  there  are  many  settlements  and 
villages  all  along  the  railroad.  And  what  banana  plants  are 
seen  here !  In  height  they  resemble  trees  rather  than  plants. 
We  saw  some  that  were  thirty-five  feet  high,  bending  under 
golden  clusters  of  fruit  weighing  at  times  nearly  a  hundred 
pounds.  While  sailing  along  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta 
we  thought  that  the  platanales  we  saw  on  their  banks  were 

409 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALBNA 

unrivaled  for  magnitude  of  plants  and  wealth  of  fruitage, 
but  they  were  fully  equaled  if  not  surpassed  by  those  of 
Costa  Kica. 

Most  of  the  labor  connected  with  the  cultivation  and 
shipment  of  bananas  is  performed  by  negroes  from 
Jamaica  and  other  "West  Indian  islands.  One  sees  their 
little  frame  houses,  or  shacks,  scattered  all  along  the  road 
in  the  banana  region,  and  their  occupants  have  the  same 
jovial,  happy-go-lucky  disposition  that  characterizes  the 
negro  the  world  over.  Crowds  of  them,  old  and  young, 
are  always  assembled  at  the  station  on  the  arrival  of  every 
train — attracted  thither  by  apparently  the  same  reason 
that  causes  their  brethren  of  the  North  in  the  cotton  belt 
to  flock  to  the  depot  when  they  hear  the  whistle  of  the 
locomotive — childlike  curiosity  and  a  desire  to  get  the  lat- 
est news  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 

Quite  a  number  of  the  female  portion  had  sliced  pinas — 
pineapples — for  sale,  but  they  asked  as  much  for  a  single 
slice  as  a  whole  pina  would  cost  in  our  markets,  while  for 
an  entire  pineapple  they  expected  four  or  five  times  the 
price  of  this  fruit  in  New  York,  and  that  in  the  land  of 
the  pina.  They  demanded  extravagant  prices  because,  I 
suppose,  they  took  it  for  granted  that  those  who  were  able 
to  travel  in  a  Pullman  car,  as  our  party  did,  would  not,  if 
the  fruit  was  really  wanted,  begrudge  paying  the  amount 
asked,  however  exorbitant.  But  high  as  the  price  was,  the 
fruit  was  worth  it  and  far  more.  It  was  the  most  luscious 
and  fragrant  fruit  we  had  ever  tasted,  and  incomparably 
excelled  the  best  that  ever  reaches  our  markets.  It  was 
so  soft  and  juicy  that  it  could  be  eaten  with  a  spoon,  and 
contained  all  the  fabled  virtues  of  nectar  and  ambrosia 
combined. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  where  there  were  train  loads 
of  bananas  at  every  siding,  we  were  unable  to  get  even  a 
sample  of  edible  fruit  anywhere  between  Limon  and  San 
Jose,  although  we  asked  for  it  at  every  stopping  place.  All 
that  was  destined  for  shipment  was  unripe,  and,  while 

410 


THE  RICH  COAST 

there  were  several  other  kinds  of  fruits  for  sale,  there  was 
not  a  single  ripe  banana. 

The  negroes  we  saw  along  the  railroad,  as  well  as  those 
observed  in  Limon,  were  a  constant  study  for  us,  especially 
when  congregated  in  large  numbers  in  halls  or  churches. 
Like  the  negroes  of  Martinique  they  are,  in  the  words  of 
Lafcadio  Hearn,  "A  population  fantastic,  astonishing — 
a  population  of  the  Arabian  Nights." l  They  exhibit  the 
whole  gamut  of  skin  tints  from  the  milk-white  of  the  albino 
to  the  coal-black  of  the  Nubian. 

Some  of  the  women  are  remarkable  for  beauty  of  form 
and  delicacy  of  features.  Lissome,  statuesque,  and  of 
graceful  bearing,  they  are  Juliets  in  ebony,  who  exhibit  the 
classic  proportions  of  "ox-eyed"  Juno  or  of  the  Venus  of 
Milo.  As  simple  as  children,  they,  like  their  sisters  in  the 
Antilles,  are  as  talkative  as  parrots  and  their  laugh  is  as 
hearty  as  it  is  spontaneous. 

But  it  is  the  dress  of  the  Costa  Eican  negress  that  arrests 
attention,  especially  when  she  is  seen  in  public  gatherings 
of  any  kind.  Then  the  design  and  color  of  her  attire  is 
bizarre  in  the  extreme.  She  selects  by  preference  the  most 
flaunting  and  garish  colors,  and,  when  she  appears  in  her 
Sunday  costume,  one  would  declare  that  she  had  tried  to 
combine  the  hues  of  tropical  birds,  and  to  mimic  the 
gorgeousness  of  the  blue-red-yellow  macaw. 

The  description  given  by  Sir  F.  Treves  of  the  dress  of 
the  negress  of  Martinique,  sums  up  in  a  few  words  the 
salient  features  of  the  Sunday  costume  of  her  sister  in 
Costa  Rica.  "The  headdress,"  he  writes,  "is  very  pic- 
turesque. It  consists  of  a  'madras,'  an  ample  handker- 
chief wound  about  the  head  turban  fashion,  and  finished 
by  a  projecting  end,  which  stands  up  like  the  eagle's  feather 
in  an  Indian's  hair.  The  color  of  the  madras  will  be 
usually  a  canary  yellow  striped  with  black.  The  hues  of 
the  dress  are  bewildering.  Here  are  a  skirt  of  roses  and 
a  foulard  of  sky-blue,  a  gown  of  scarlet  and  yellow  with 

Tears  in  the  French  West  Indies,  p.  38,  New  York,  1890. 
411 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

a  terra-cotta  scarf  across  the  breast,  a  dress  of  white 
striped  with  orange  below  a  foulard  of  green,  a  frock  of 
primrose  spotted  with  red  and  completed  by  a  scarf  of 
mazarine  blue.  Add  to  this  the  necklace  of  gold  beads, 
the  heavy  bracelets,  the  great  earrings,  and  the  *  trembling 
pins'  that  fix  the  madras,  and  then  realize  over  all,  the 
white  light  of  a  tropical  moon." l 

The  two  places  along  our  route  in  which  we  were  spe- 
cially interested  were  the  village  of  Matina,  in  the  fertile 
valley  watered  by  the  river  of  that  name,  and  Cartago, 
which  was  founded  by  the  Spaniards  in  1563,  and  was, 
during  colonial  times,  the  capital  of  the  country. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  Matina  was 
a  port  of  some  importance  and  the  centre  of  the  largest  and 
best  cacaotales — cacao  haciendas — in  Costa  Rica,  but  owing 
to  the  frequent  incursions  of  pirates  and  Mosquito  Indians, 
this  fertile  territory  had  to  be  evacuated.  There  was  also 
another  reason  for  abandoning  it  and  that  was  the  hot, 
enervating,  pernicious  atmosphere,  and  the  torrential 
rains,  which  were  the  causes  of  malaria  and  malignant 
fevers  from  which  the  district  was  never  exempt.  So  bad 
was  the  reputation  of  the  Matina  valley  in  this  respect 
that  people,  as  the  Costa  Rican  writer,  Don  Ricardo  F. 
Guardia,  informs  us  in  his  Cuentos  Ticos,  "used  to  confess 
and  make  their  wills  when  they  went  to  Matina,  to  the 
famous  Matina  which  inspires  fear  in  men  and  madness  in 
mules,2  as  they  used  to  say  in  those  days  when  men  were 
braver  and  mules  better." — 

Cartago — how  often  this  Carthaginian  name  recurs  in 
this  part  of  the  world! — is  a  delightful  place  nearly  a  mile 
above  sea  level,  with  a  population  of  about  seven  thousand 
souls.  It  was  founded  in  1562  by  Juan  Vazquez  de 
Coronado,  the  real  conqueror  of  Costa  .Rica.  It  has  a 

i  Op.  cit.,  pp.  140,  141. 

2"A1  famoso  Matina 
que  a  los  hombres  acoquina, 
Y  a  las  mulaa  desatina." 

412 


THE  RICH  COAST 

very  salubrious  climate  with  a  mean  annual  temperature 
of  66°  F.  In  1841  it  was  almost  entirely  destroyed  by  an 
earthquake  caused  by  a  violent  eruption  of  the  volcano  of 
Irazu,  at  the  foot  of  which  the  town  is  situated.  It  is 
noted  as  the  seat  of  the  Central  American  Court  of  Justice, 
which  was  inaugurated  here  as  one  of  the  results  of  the 
Peace  Congress  held  in  Washington  in  1907.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  establishment  of  this  tribunal  here,  the  town 
has  been  called  the  " Hague  of  the  New  World."  Mr. 
Andrew  Carnegie  has  contributed  $100,000  for  the  erection 
of  a  suitable  edifice  in  which  to  hold  the  sessions  of  the 
court.  The  site  selected  for  it  is  the  most  beautiful  in 
the  city,  and  the  structure,  on  which  work  was  begun  with- 
out delay,  promises  to  be  the  most  attractive  feature  of 
Cartago. 

Costa  Eica  is  justly  celebrated  for  its  coffee.  In  the 
London  market  it  has  long  been  a  favorite  brand  and 
always  commands  a  high  price.  It  has  a  delicious  aroma 
scarcely  inferior  to  that  of  the  best  Java  or  Mocha  berries. 
We  preferred  it  to  any  we  had  found  elsewhere  in  our 
tropical  wanderings.  The  haciendas  devoted  to  the  culti- 
vation of  coffee — especially  those  in  the  vicinity  of  Cartago 
and  San  Jose — are  kept  in  splendid  condition,  and  the  trees 
are  of  exceptional  vigor  and  productiveness. 

Next  to  bananas,  coffee  constitutes  the  most  important 
export  of  the  republic.  It  was  introduced  from  Havana 
about  a  century  ago,  and  one  may  yet  see  in  Cartago  the 
centenarian  trees  that  supplied  the  seeds  for  the  planta- 
tions of  Costa  Eica  and  other  parts  of  Central  America. 
The  value  of  the  coffee  and  bananas  annually  exported 
from  the  republic  is  much  greater  than  that  of  all  the  other 
commodities  combined.  Indeed,  these  two  staples  are  to 
the  commerce  of  Costa  Eica  what  tobacco  and  sugar  are 
to  Cuba.  Columbus  and  his  followers  searched  these 
countries  for  gold  and  spices,  but  they  found  but  little  of 
either.  If  they  could  return  now  to  these  favored  lands 
they  would  discover  that  their  real  treasures,  more  precious 

413 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

far  than  gold  mines  and  groves  of  spice  trees,  lay  in  the 
indigenous  banana  and  tobacco  plants,  and  in  the  two 
exotic  growths,  coffee  and  sugar  cane. 

The  schedule  time  of  the  train  from  Limon  to  San 
Jose,  although  only  one  hundred  and  three  miles,  is 
about  seven  hours.  This  is  due  to  the  numerous  stops 
made  and  to  the  heavy  grades  up  the  flanks  of  the  Cor- 
dillera. 

Our  arrival  at  the  capital  was  signalized  by  a  genuine 
tropical  downpour,  such  as  we  had  not  seen  elsewhere  dur- 
ing our  journey.  For  a  while  it  seemed  to  justify  the 
Spanish  expression — Hover  a  cdntaros — to  rain  bucket- 
fuls.  But  the  aguacero — the  name  given  these  short, 
heavy  rainfalls — was  of  short  duration.  It  was  but  one  of 
those  daily  afternoon  showers  that  characterize  the  plateau 
during  the  winter  season — invierno,  our  summer — which 
extends  from  the  month  of  May  until  the  end  of  November. 
The  dry  or  summer  season — verano — lasts  from  December 
until  May  and  is  distinguished  by  absence  of  rain.  The 
verano  is  the  season  of  the  northeast  trade  winds,  which 
lose  their  humidity  in  crossing  the  Atlantic  Cordillera. 
The  monsoon,  which  comes  from  the  southwest  during  the 
winter,  does  not  encounter  on  the  Pacific  side  mountains  of 
sufficient  height  to  condense  the  vapor  with  which  it  is 
charged.  Thus  it  still  contains,  on  its  arrival  at  the  cen- 
tral plateau,  enough  moisture  to  produce  the  heavy  precipi- 
tation just  noted.1 

But  notwithstanding  these  daily  aguaceros,  one  can 
always  count  on  sunshiny  mornings,  except  during  October, 
which  is  the  wettest  month  of  the  year.  It  scarcely  ever 
rains  before  two  o'clock  P.M.,  and  rarely  after  five  o'clock 
in  the  evening. 

We  were  quite  charmed  with  San  Jose  and  its  hospitable 
and  cultured  people.  In  many  respects  we  thought  it  the 
most  delightful  city  we  had  seen  in  Latin  America — espe- 

i  According  to  observations  made  with  the  pluviometer,  the  amount  of  pre- 
cipitation sometimes  reaches  nearly  two  and  a  half  inches  an  hour. 

414 


THE  RICH  COAST 

cially  for  a  protracted  sojourn.  Situated  in  the  smiling 
valley  of  the  Abra,  it  is  reputed  to  be  the  most  beautiful 
city  in  Central  America,  while  it  is  the  second  in  extent 
and  the  third  in  population,  having  about  thirty  thou- 
sand souls*  Its  altitude  is  nearly  four  thousand  and 
seven  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  it 
has  a  mean  annual  temperature  of  70°  F.  Foreign  resi- 
dents declare  that  the  climate  during  the  dry  season  is 
ideal. 

The  city  counts  a  number  of  beautiful  churches  and  pub- 
lic buildings,  but  the  greatest  surprise  for  us  was  its  superb 
Teatro  National.  In  some  of  its  leading  features  it  is 
modeled  after  the  Grand  Opera  House  in  Paris,  and  is 
really  a  gem  of  architecture.  It  cost  nearly  $1,000,000  in 
gold,  and  was  paid  for  by  an  extra  tax  on  coffee.  We  have 
nothing  in  the  United  States  to  compare  with  it  in  beauty 
and  artistic  finish,  especially  in  the  decoration  of  its 
sumptuous  foyer.  In  the  New  World  it  is  surpassed  only 
by  the  Teatro  Municipal  of  Eio  de  Janeiro  and  the  Teatro 
Colon  of  Buenos  Aires. 

There  are  many  attractive  parks  adorned  with  tastefully 
arranged  flowers  and  trees  and  monuments  that  would 
be  a  credit  to  any  capital.  The  monument  that  appealed 
most  strongly  to  us  was  located  in  the  P argue  National, 
and  commemorates  the  campaign  of  1856  against  the 
Filibusters  led  by  that  daring  adventurer  from  the  United 
States,  William  Walker.  It  is  also  dedicated  to  the 
fraternity  of  the  five  Central  American  republics  made  one 
in  defense  of  their  independence.  Let  us  hope  that  this 
is  a  symbol  of  the  birth  in  the  near  future  of  a  new  federa- 
tion of  the  Central  American  republics,  similar  to  the  one 
that  was  established  shortly  after  they  had  achieved  their 
independence  under  the  name  of  the  Republic  of  Central 
America.  Such  a  republic  would  have  fifty  per  cent 
more  territory  than  the  whole  of  Great  Britain,  and, 
considering  all  the  natural  resources  it  possesses,  it 
would,  under  a  stable  and  progressive  government, 
as  415 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

soon  take  an  honorable  place  among  the  nations  of  the 
world. 

We  visited  a  number  of  coffee  plantations,  as  well  as 
orchards  and  gardens,  in  the  vicinity  of  San  Jose,  and  were 
surprised  at  the  variety  and  luxuriance  of  every  species 
of  vegetable  growth. 

But  it  is  to  the  city  market  that  one  must  go— especially 
on  Sundays  and  dies  de  fiesta — holidays — if  one  would 
have  an  adequate  conception  of  the  floral  and  pomonic 
riches  of  this  favored  land. 

Here  we  could  easily  imagine  that  we  had  before  us 
every  blossom  that  blows.  Exposed  for  sale  at  a  nominal 
price  are  the  most  gorgeous  of  flowers  still  fresh  with  the 
morning  dew;  roses  of  every  size  and  color;  orchids  of 
the  most  fantastic  forms  and  of  dazzling  beauty,  to  possess 
which  a  New  York  belle,  would,  if  necessary,  pawn  a 
favorite  jewel. 

And  here  one  beholds  in  lavish  abundance  citrous  fruits 
of  every  species,  bananas  of  untold  varieties,  and  scores 
of  other  fruits  equally  common  here  but  scarcely  known 
except  by  name  in  our  northern  latitudes.  At  every  turn 
we  see  booths  filled  with  guavas,  mameys  and  mangoes; 
zapotes,  avocados  and  chirimoyas;  papayas,  pomegranates 
and  sapodillas;  anonas,  bread-fruit,  mangosteens,  and 
others  too  numerous  to  mention,  that  are  prized  by  the 
natives  for  the  preparation  of  dulces — sweets — and  pre- 
serves. 

The  avocado,  also  called  avocado  pear,  on  account  of  its 
shape,  is  the  fruit  of  the  beautiful  tree  called  by  botanists 
Persea  gratissima,  after  Perseus,  the  son  of  Jupiter  and 
Danae*  The  English  in  the  Caribbean  Islands  name  this 
delicious  fruit  alligator  pear,  or  midshipman's  butter.  It, 
indeed,  somewhat  resembles  butter  in  appearance,  and,  to 
a  certain  extent,  replaces  butter  on  the  table  in  the  tropics, 
where  real  butter  is  difficult  to  procure  and  more  difficult 
to  keep.  Of  late  years  it  has  been  introduced  into  the  North 
as  a  salad,  and  promises,  as  soon  as  it  becomes  gen- 

416 


THE  RICH  COAST 

erally  known,  to  be  one  of  the  most  popular  of  tropical 
fruits. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  prefer  it  to  any  other,  except 
possibly  the  pina — pineapple.  But  one  must  taste  the 
fresh,  ripe  pineapple  of  the  tropics  to  know  its  full 
lusciousness.  It  is  incomparably  more  juicy  and  fragrant 
than  anything  our  Northern  markets  offer.  Old  Benzoni 
says  of  it,  "It  smells  well  and  tastes  better,"  and  declares 
it  to  be  "one  of  the  most  relishing  fruits  in  the  world. " 
Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  was  right  when  he  called  it  "the  prince 
of  fruits."  King  James  thought  so  highly  of  it  that  he 
remarked  that  "it  was  a  fruit  too  delicious  for  a  subject 
to  taste  of."  The  poet  Thomson  doubtless  entertained 
a  similar  view  when  he  penned  the  following  lines: 

"Witness,  thou  best  Anana!  thou  the  pride 
Of  vegetable  life,  beyond  whatever 
The  poets  imagined  in  the  golden  age: 
Quick  let  me  strip  thee  of  thy  tufty  coat, 
Spread  thy  ambrosial  stores  and  feast  with  Jove." 

But  delicious  as  is  the  pineapple  it  is,  in  the  estimation 
of  many,  surpassed  by  the  chirimoya.  This  fruit  is  likened 
by  Paez  to  "lumps  of  flavored  cream  ready  to  be  frozen, 
suspended  from  the  branches  of  some  fairy  tree  amidst 
the  most  overpowering  perfume  of  its  flowers."  Clements 
B.  Markham  was  so  enthusiastic  about  it  that  he  declared 
that  "He  who  has  not  tasted  the  chirimoya  fruit  has  yet 
to  learn  what  fruit  is."  "The  pineapple,  the  mangosteen, 
and  the  chirimoya,"  Dr.  Seeman  writes,  "are  considered 
the  finest  fruits  in  the  world.  I  have  tasted  them  in  those 
localities  in  which  they  are  supposed  to  attain  their  highest 
perfection — the  pineapple  in  Guayaquil,  the  mangosteen 
in  the  Indian  Archipelago,  and  the  chirimoya  on  the  slope 
of  the  Andes,  and  if  I  were  called  upon  to  act  the  part 
of  Paris,  I  would,  without  hesitation,  assign  the  apple  to 
the  chirimoya.  Its  taste,  indeed,  surpasses  that  of  every 

417 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

other  fruit,  and  Haenke  was  quite  right  when  he  called  it 
the  masterpiece  of  nature/7 

A  fruit  that  always  appealed  to  us  was  the  papaya,  or 
pawpaw.  It  grows  in  clusters  on  a  tree  about  twenty  feet 
high.  In  taste  and  appearance  it  closely  resembles  a  good- 
sized  muskmelon.  It  is  surprising  to  see  such  large  fruits 
growing  on  so  small  a  tree.  It  flowers  and  fruits  at  the 
same  time. 

The  fruits,  however,  that  are  the  mainstay  for  the  great- 
est number  of  people  in  the  tropics,  are,  as  has  already 
been  stated,  the  banana  and  the  plantain.  The  former  is 
known  to  botanists  as  Husa  sapientum,  becauses  sages  have 
reposed  beneath  its  shade  and  eaten  its  fruit.  The  latter 
is  called  Musa  paradisiaca,  on  account  of  a  certain  tradition 
that  it  was  the  forbidden  fruit  in  Paradise.1  Both  the 
banana  and  the  plantain  number  almost  as  many  varieties 
as  the  apple.  The  bananas  are  smaller  than  the  plantains. 
The  former  range  from  one  to  six  inches  in  length,  while 
some  varieties  of  the  latter  attain  a  length  of  fifteen  inches. 
They  are  eaten  raw,  boiled  and  roasted  and  as  preserves. 
A  few  trees  will  supply  a  whole  family  with  the  means  of 
subsistence  during  the  entire  year. 

The  banana  and  plantain  are  just  the  kinds  of  plants 
that  specially  appeal  to  the  natives  of  the  equatorial 
regions,  for  they  give  at  all  seasons  a  never-failing 
abundance  of  nutritious  food,  and  that,  too,  without  any 
more  labor  and  care  than  are  entailed  by  clearing  the 

i"La  Banane,"  says  Pere  Labat,  "que  les  Eapagnols  appelent  Plantain 
.  .  .  renferme  une  substance  jaunatre  de  la  consistance  d'un  fromage  bien 
gras,  sans  aucune  graines,  mais  seulment  quelques  fibres  assez  grosses  qui 
flemblent  representer  une  espece  de  crucifix  xnal  forme"  quand  le  fruit  est  coupe* 
par  son  transvers.  Les  Espagnols  du  moins  ceux  a  qui  j'ai  parle*,  pretendent 
que  c'est  la  le  fruit  defendu  et  que  le  premier  homme  vit  en  le  mangeant  le 
mystere  de  sa  reparation  par  la  croix.  H  n^  a  rien  d'impossible  la  dedans; 
Adam  pouvoit  avoir  meilleure  vue  que  nous,  ou  la  croix  de  ces  bananes  etoit 
mieux  formed:  quoiqu'il  en  soit  il  est  certain  que  ce  fruit  ne  se  trouve  seule- 
ment  dans  1'Amerique,  mais  encore  dans  1' Afrique,  dans  1'Asie,  et  sur  tout  aux 
environs  de  PEufrate  ou  on  did  qu'etoit  le  Paradis  terrestre."  Op.  cit.,  Tom 
I,  Part  II,  p.  219. 

418 


THE  EICH  COAST 

ground  and  placing  them  in  the  ever-productive  soil.1  Sir 
Charles  Dilke,  however,  regards  these  food  producers  in 
quite  a  different  light.  In  his  estimation,  the  banana  is 
the  curse  of  the  tropics.  Their  very  abundance,  and  the 
little  care  they  require,  constitute,  according  to  him,  a  bar 
to  progress  and  to  civilization  of  the  highest  kind  in  the 
tropics,  for  the  reason  that  all  true  civilization  necessarily 
presupposes  labor  and  effort.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
the  highest  faculties  of  man  are  most  conspicuous  in  the 
temporate  zone,  where  there  is  a  constant  struggle  for 
existence. 

Before  leaving  Barranquilla  we  met  a  gentleman  who 
had  just  completed  a  tour  of  all  Latin  America  and  he 
declared  that  San  Jose  was  the  most  beautiful  city  he  had 
seen  in  all  his  travels. 

At  the  time  we  gave  little  credence  to  what  seemed  a 
very  exaggerated  impression,  but  after  we  were  able  to 
judge  for  ourselves,  we  were  forced  to  admit  that  Costa 
Eica's  fair  capital  is,  indeed,  a  most  delightful  place. 

In  a  charming,  secluded  vale  near  the  city,  where  stood 
the  country  seat  of  a  wealthy  merchant  of  the  capital,  was 
a  particularly  romantic  spot.  The  only  places  I  could  recall 
that  could  fairly  compare  with  it  were  certain  upland  valleys 

i  Andres  Bello,  the  Venezuelan  poet,  beautifully  expresses  these  facts  in  the 
following  verses: — 

"Y  para  ti  el  banano, 
Desmaya  el  peso  de  su  dulce  carga. 
£1  banano,  primero 
De  cuantos  concedio  bellos  presentes 
Providencia  a  las  gentes 
Del  Ecuador  feliz  con  mano  larga; 
No  ya  de  humanas  artes  obligado 
El  premio  rinde  opimo; 
No  es  a  la  podera,  no  al  arado, 
Deudor  de  su  racemo. 
Escasa  industria  bastale  cual  puede 
Robar  a  sus  fatigas  mano  esclara; 
Crece  veloz,  y  cuando  exhausta  acaba, 
Adulta  prole  en  torno  le  sucede. 
8ilva  a  la  Agriculture  en  la  Zona  Torrida." 

419 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

in  the  larger  islands  of  the  equatorial  Pacific.  Hidden 
away  in  the  luxuriant  tropical  forest,  alongside  a  broad 
mountain  torrent,  where  fruit  and  flower  and  foliage  vied 
with  one  another  in  delicacy  of  fragrance  and  richness  of 
hue,  it  required  but  little  strain  of  fancy  to  imagine  that 
we  were  gazing  upon  the  wonders  of  the  enchanted  isle 
of  Armida  and  Einaldo;  for  here, 

"  Mild  was  the  air,  the  skies  were  clear  as  glass, 
The  trees  no  whirlwind  felt  nor  tempest's  smart, 
But  ere  the  fruit  drop  off,  the  blossom  comes ; 
This  springs  that  falls,  that  ripeneth  and  thus  blooms."1 

Whilst  gazing  in  silent  rapture  at  the  incomparable 
beauty  of  the  scene  before  us,  and  carried  away  by  the 
matchless  exhibitions  of  Flora  and  Pomona,  we  were  sud- 
denly transported  on  the  wings  of  memory  back  to  the 
beautiful  plaza  of  Ciudad  Bolivar,  where,  some  months 
before,  we  had  heard  a  happy,  enthusiastic  fiancee  declare 
that  she  considered  the  lower  Orinoco,  aboard  a  yacht  or 
a  steamer,  an  ideal  place  to  spend  one's  honeymoon.  With 
no  claim  to  the  power  of  mind-reading,  or  to  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  we  assert,  without  fear  of  erring,  that  if  she 
had  the  opportunity  of  choosing  between  the  Orinoco  val- 
ley and  this  beauty  spot  near  San  Jose,  as  a  place  to  spend 
her  honeymoon — her  luna  de  miel,  as  the  Spaniards  phrase 
it — it  would  not  be  to  the  Orinoco  that  Don  Esteban  would 
take  his  bride,  but  to  this  Edenic  spot  on  the  charming 
Costa  Bican  plateau* 

Costa  Bica,  despite  what  has  often  been  said  to  the  con- 
trary, has,  for  the  past  half  century,  been  practically  free 
from  those  fratricidal  revolutions  that  have  so  character- 
ized the  other  Central  American  republics.  There  have, 
it  is  true,  been  occasional  pronunciamientos  and  periods 
of  excitement  about  the  time  of  some  of  the  presidential 
elections,  but  none  of  those  devastating  insurrections  that 
have  so  long  been  the  curse  of  her  less-fortunate  neighbors. 

i  Jerusalem  Delivered,  Canto  XVI. 
420 


THE  RICH  COAST 

Costa  Eica  points  with  pride,  and  well  she  may,  to  the 
fact  that  she  has  more  school  teachers  than  soldiers. 
Everywhere  one  finds  schools  for  both  sexes,  admirably 
appointed  and  conducted,  and  constant  efforts  are  being 
made  to  have  them  compare  favorably  with  similar  insti- 
tutions in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

The  original  Spanish  inhabitants  of  the  central  plateau 
were  of  sturdy  Galician  stock,  and  their  descendants  still 
exhibit  the  thrift,  industry  and  enterprise  of  their  ances- 
tors. One  meets  many  families  of  pure  Spanish  blood, 
but  the  majority  are  evidently  mestizos — the  result  of  the 
intermarriage  of  Spaniards  with  the  aborigines.  The  num- 
ber of  pure-blooded  Indians  is  comparatively  small — only 
about  three  thousand  out  of  a  total  population  of  a  third 
of  a  million.  There  are  few  negroes  seen  outside  of  the 
low  coast  lands,  where  they  constitute  the  majority  of  the 
inhabitants.  We  were,  indeed,  greatly  impressed  to  note 
the  sudden  transition  from  the  black  to  the  white  race  as 
we  ascended  the  Cordillera.  In  San  Jose  the  number  of 
negroes  is  astonishingly  small,  while  the  complexions  of 
the  whites,  compared  with  that  of  the  majority  of  the 
people  living  in  the  Andean  lands  we  had  recently  visited, 
is  unusually  clear  and  ruddy. 

"How  fair  and  delicate  are  the  features  of  the  Jose- 
finas!"  l  exclaimed  C.,  as  we  took  our  first  promenade  in 
the  broad  and  well-kept  streets  of  San  Jose.  And  with 
the  eye  of  a  connoisseur,  he  continued,  "How  tastefully 
dressed  they  are  I7' 

He  was  right.  The  number  of  beautiful,  Madonna-like 
types  one  meets  with  is  surprising.  This  impression  is 
probably  enhanced  in  some  degree  by  the  beautifully  em- 
broidered panolones — large  Chinese  silk  shawls — which 
they  know  so  well  how  to  display  to  the  best  advantage. 

iJosefino*— feminine  Josefinas—is  the  name  given  the  denizens  of  San 
Jos6.  In  Central  America,  Costaricans  generally  are  known  as  Ticos,  while 
the  people  of  Nicaragua  are  called  Nicos  or  Pinolios,  and  those  of  Guatemala 
and  Honduras  CHopines  and  Guanacos  respectively. 

421 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

When  to  the  tasteful  costume  and  delicate  features  one 
adds  the  culture  and  refinement  that  often  distinguish  the 
Josefina,  one  can  easily  realize  that  she  but  continues  the 
best  traditions  for  beauty  and  grace  of  mind  and  heart  that 
have  so  long  distinguished  her  sisters  in  the  land  of  Isabella 
of  Castile. 

After  a  delightful  week  spent  in  San  Jose  we  prepared 
to  return  to  Limon.  "We  then  experienced,  probably  more 
than  at  any  other  place  in  our  long  journey, — what  all  trav- 
elers more  or  less  dread  in  their  peregrinations — the  pang 
of  leaving  places  that  have  especially  appealed  to  one  and 
of  saying  farewell  to  newly-formed  friends  almost  as  soon 
as  one  has  learned  to  know  their  goodness  of  heart  and 
nobility  of  character.  To  me,  I  confess,  this  has  always 
been  the  greatest  drawback  of  traveling  and  is  something 
I  have  never  been  able  to  outgrow. 

Armed  with  a  certificate  from  our  consul  stating  that  we 
had  spent  in  San  Jose  the  time  required  of  passengers 
coming  from  quarantined  ports,  by  the  health  regulations 
of  Panama,  we  took  our  place  in  a  comfortable  parlor  car, 
and  were  soon  on  our  way  towards  the  Caribbean  coast, 
but  not  before  we  had  taken  "a  last,  long,  lingering  look," 
at  beautiful,  hospitable,  fascinating  San  Jose. 

As  the  train  slowly  moved  eastwards  towards  Cartago, 
our  attention  was  directed  for  the  hundredth  time  to  the 
rich  cafetales — coffee  plantations — that  covered  the  fertile 
acres  on  both  sides  of  the  road.  Here  and  there  we  noted 
one  of  those  cumbersome  ox-carts  with  solid  wooden  wheels 
drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen  in  charge  of  an  odd-looking  boyero. 
These  are  rapidly  giving  way  to  more  modern  means  of 
transportation,  but  the  lover  of  the  bizarre  and  the  pic- 
turesque will  regret  their  disappearance. 

"  Observe, "  said  a  Josefino,  having  some  pretensions  to 
physiognomy,  "the  peculiar  features  of  that  boyero  on  his 
way  to  the  market  I  will  wager  anything  that  that  man  is 
a  firm  believer  in  ceguas  and  cadejos  and  lloronas;  that 
he  dreams  of  botijas,  even  in  the  daytime,  and  that  he 

422 


THE  RICH-  COAST 

has  greater  fear  of  hermanos  than  any  of  your  country- 
men have  of  ghosts. "  He  then  proceeded  to  explain  the 
meaning  of  these  terms. 

"A.  cegua,"  he  continued,  "is  a  monster  somewhat  like 
the  sirens  of  old,  that  assumes  the  form  of  a  beautiful 
woman  and  leads  men  astray.  A  cadejos  is  a  fantastic 
animal,  black  and  hairy,  resembling  an  enormous  dog  which 
has  resounding  hoofs  instead  of  paws.  A  llorona  is  a 
frightful  phantom  that  is  sometimes  heard  moaning  in  the 
mountains  in  such  wise  as  to  strike  terror  into  the 
passer-by.1  Botija — the  Spanish  for  a  large  earthen  jar 
— is  the  name  given  in  Costa  Eica  to  a  buried  treasure. 
The  country  people  believe  that,  if  one  having  buried  money 
dies  in  debt,  his  ghost — hennano — will  haunt  the  place  in 
great  distress  until  the  treasure  is  found  and  the  debt  is 
paid." 

"I  wish  I  could  have  the  assistance  of  a  few  such 
hermanos,"  interposed  C.  laughingly.  "If  I  had,  I  should 
have  several  thousand  dollars  more  to  my  credit  than  I 
have  now.  Unfortunately,  in  my  country  we  have  not  such 
aids  in  bringing  our  debtors  to  book." 

On  our  way  down  the  Cordillera,  while  crossing  one  of 
the  numerous  iron  bridges  that  span  the  Eeventazon  and 
other  mountain  rivers  and  torrents,  our  Josefino  friend 
pointed  to  a  pier  of  masonry  standing  alone  about  forty  feet 
to  one  side  of  the  bridge.  "That  pier,"  he  said,  "was 
formerly  under  the  bridge,  but  in  consequence  of  a  pecul- 
iar landslide  or  earthquake,  it  was  transported,  together 
with  a  part  of  the  bed  of  the  stream,  to  the  spot  where 
it  now  stands." 

And  then  he  told  us  of  the  opposition  of  the  boyeros 
to  the  construction  of  the  railroad.  They,  like  ill-advised 
people  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  feared  that  it  would 
ruin  their  occupation  and  reduce  them  and  their  families 
to  starvation.  The  government  and  railway  company 

i  Compare  this  with  the  peculiar  belief  of  the  South  American  Indians,  al- 
luded to  in  Chap*  IX,  regarding  the  cry  of  a  lost  souL 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AXD  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

cleverly  overcame  this  opposition  by  employing  the  boyeros 
to  haul  the  material  used  in  the  construction  of  the  road. 

Then,  too,  there  were  wiseacres  in  Costa  Bica,  as  there 
were  in  our  Eocky  Mountain  region  when  there  was  ques- 
tion of  undertaking  some  of  the  remarkable  engineering 
feats  that  characterize  several  of  our  transcontinental 
railroads,  who  declared  that  the  projectors  of  the  road 
from  Limon  to  San  Jose  were  essaying  the  impossible. 
"General  Guardia" — the  dictator  under  whose  rule  the  road 
was  begun — they  declared  "is  trying  to  build  a  railroad 
to  Port  Limon,  where  the  birds  themselves  can  scarcely 
go  with  wings. " 

And  yet,  aside  from  the  landslides  which  occur  in  all 
mountainous  countries,  and  the  miasmatic  climate,  there 
were  but  few  great  difficulties  encountered.  From  an  engi- 
neering standpoint  the  construction  of  the  road  offered  far 
less  difficult  problems  than  many  of  the  railroads  in  Colo- 
rado, Peru  and  Ecuador.  The  curves  are  not  so  sharp  and 
the  grades  are  less,  while  the  altitude  attained  is  less  than 
half  of  that  reached  by  several  Eocky  Mountain  roads  and 
less  than  one-third  of  the  height  of  the  celebrated  Andean 
railway  which  connects  Oroya  with  Lima. 

Our  first  care  on  arriving  at  Limon  was  to  have  the 
health  officer  of  that  place  countersign  the  certificate  we 
had  received  from  our  consul  in  San  Jose.  We  then 
boarded  our  steamer  and  were  ready  to  start  for  Panama. 

The  weather  was  again  in  our  favor,  and  we  had  a  most 
delightful  sail  to  Colon,  and  needless  to  say,  we  enjoyed 
every  moment  of  it  We  enjoyed  it  particularly  on  ac- 
count of  its  interesting  historical  associations,  and  the 
romantic  legends  that  have  been  woven  about  every  isle 
and  inlet  and  headland  along  the  coast. 

That,  however,  which  appealed  most  strongly  to  us  was 
the  land  of  Veragua,  near  the  dividing  line  between  Costa 
Eica  and  Panama.  It  was  here  that  Columbus  imagined 
he  had  found  the  Golden  Chersonese,  the  land  whence 
came  the  gold  used  in  the  construction  of  Solomon's  tem- 

424 


THE  RICH  COAST 

pie.  In  the  letter  to  his  sovereigns,  dispatched  from 
Jamaica,  he  contends  "that  these  mines  of  the  Aurea  are 
identical  with  those  of  Veragua."  1 

It  was  here,  too,  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Belen, 
that  the  first  settlement  on  the  continent  of  the  New 
World  was  located.  Although  it  had  soon  to  be  aban- 
doned, it  was  begun  with  a  view  of  permanent  occupancy, 
and  as  such  is  deserving  of  special  notice.  A  suitable 
memorial  should  indicate  this  spot,  as  one  should  also  mark 
the  site  of  Isabella,  the  first  settlement  in  the  New  World. 

It  was  while  on  the  coast  of  Veragua  that  Columbus 
heard  of  the  great  ocean  now  known  as  the  Pacific.2  He 
was  not,  however,  permitted  to  add  its  discovery  to  the 
long  list  of  his  marvelous  achievements.  That  honor  was 
reserved  for  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa. 

About  nine  o'clock  the  morning  following  our  departure 
from  Liinon  we  dropped  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Colon. 
The  sea  was  so  tranquil  that  there  was  scarcely  a  ripple 
on  its  placid  waters.  It  was  certainly  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  condition  in  which  Columbus  once  found 
it  in  these  parts;  for  he  assures  us,  in  the  oft-quoted 
letter  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  that  "never  was  sea  so 
high,  so  terrific,  and  so  covered  with  foam."  It  seemed 

1  Veragua  has  a  special  interest  for  Americans,  as  "the  only  thread  of 
glory  still  held  in  the  hands  of  the  family  of  Columbus"  leads  back  to  this 
narrow  strip  of  territory  on  the  western  shores  of  the  Caribbean.    The  pres- 
ent representative  of  this  name  in  Spain  is  Don  Cristobal  Colon,  Duke  of 
Veragua.    His  full  title  is  Duke  of  Veragua  and  Vega,  Marquis  of  Jamaica, 
Admiral  and  High  Steward  of  the  Indies.    The  grandson  of  the  discoverer  of 
America,  Don  Luis  Colon,  was  the  third  Admiral  and  Viceroy  of  the  Indies, 
the  last  of  which  titles  he  relinquished  for  that  of  first  Duke  of  Veragua  and 
Vega. 

2  "Whatever  he  may  have  thought,  or  said  he  thought,  when  he  was  at 
Cuba,  on  the  second  voyage;  whatever  he  thought,  or  said  he  thought,  when  in 
a  half-crazed  condition  in  the  island  of  Jamaica,  he  now  knew  he  really  had 
discovered  continental  land,  and  that  it  was  separated  from  Catigara,  or  the 
land  of  the  east,  by  a  goodly  stretch  of  another  sea." 

"And  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  such  a  view  is  consistent  with  the  nau- 
tical, geographical  and  astronomical  knowledge  of  the  great  Discoverer."— 
Thatcher,  Christopher  Columbus,  Vol.  II,  pp.  593  and  621. 

425 


UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MAGDALENA 

like  a  "sea  of  blood,  seething  like  a  cauldron  on 'a 
mighty  fire/'  So  continual,  indeed,  were  the  shifting 
winds,  and  so  terrific  were  the  storms,  that  the  coast  from 
Veragua  to  Colon  which  we  had  found  washed  by  so  calm 
a  sea  was  by  Columbus  and  his  companions  named  La 
Costa  de  los  Contrastes. 

Immediately  on  our  arrival  our  vessel  was  boarded  by 
the  health  officers  of  the  port.  Those  who  could  not  pro- 
duce a  satisfactory  health  certificate — and  many  could  not 
* — were  sent  to  quarantine.  Many  of  our  party,  however, 
did  not  require  any,  as  they  did  not  purpose  landing  at 
Colon.  Some  of  them  were  bound  for  Jamaica  and  for 
points  more  distant.  Among  them  was  C.,  my  brave  and 
resolute  companion  across  the  Andes,  the  loyal  and  gen- 
erous young  cavalier  who,  if  he  had  not  been  of  superior 
mold,  would  more  than  once  have  lost  his  heart  during 
the  course  of  our  long  journey.  I  would  fain  have  en- 
joyed his  companionship  longer  while  following  the  con- 
quistadores  in  lands  farther  south;  but  it  was  not  to  be. 
To  him,  and  to  other  friends,  I  had  regretfully  to  pro- 
nounce the  words  of  parting  that  had  so  frequently  been 
addressed  to  us  by  the  kindly  and  hospitable  people  we 
had  met  all  along  our  route — Que  Uds.  vayan  Uen,  y  con 
la  Virgenl — A  happy  journey  and  with  the  Virgin  Mother! 

As  I  left  our  good  ship  and  the  friends  it  bore  to  divers 
destinations  and  stepped  ashore  alone,  a  stranger  in  a 
strange  land,  I  felt,  I  must  confess,  not  unlike  Dante  when 
he  suddenly  found  himself  deprived  of  the  companionship 
of  Virgil,  who  had  been  his  friend  and  guide  during  his 
arduous  journey  down  through  the  fearsome  pits  of  Hell 
and  up  the  precipitous  ledges  of  the  mountain  of  Purga- 
tory. But  this  impression,  strong  though  it  was,  could 
not  long  remain  dominant.  What  had  in  the  beginning 
of  my  journey  been  but  "a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished, "  had  during  our  wanderings  in  tropical  lands 
crystallized  into  a  determination  to  make  the  desire  a 
reality.  The  happy  termination  of  our  voyage  up  the 

426 


THE  EICH  COAST 

Orinoco  and  down  the  Magdalena  was  conclusive  evidence 
that  travel,  even  through  the  least  frequented  parts  of 
South  America,  was  far  from  being  as  difficult  as  it  has 
long  been  depicted.  The  moment,  then,  that  I  stepped 
from  the  gang  plank  that  connected  our  steamer  with 
Panaman  soil,  the  Eubicon  was  crossed,  and  I  had  re- 
solved, coute  que  coute, — alone,  if  necessary, — to  realize 
the  long-cherished  dream  of  my  youth, — to  visit  the 
famed  lands  of  the  Incas  and  explore  the  fertile  valleys 
under  the  equator.  If  my  experience  in  the  llanos  and 
among  the  Cordilleras  had  not  made  me  "fit  to  mount  up 
to  the  stars,"  as  Dante  was  when  he  left  the  Terrestrial 
Paradise,  it  had  at  least  renewed  me  "even  as  new  trees 
with  new  foliage,"  and  I  was  ready  to  undertake  a  longer 
and  more  difficult  journey  than  the  one  just  completed 
and  eager  to  follow  the  conquistadores  along  the  Andes 
and  down  the  Amazon. 


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INDEX 


Anaconda,  Waterton's  description 
of,  75 

Animals,  domestic,  in  South  Amer- 
ica, 259 ;  introduced  by  the  Span- 
iards, 258,  259;  extinct,  259,  260 

Ant-hills,  246 

Ants  in  the  tropics,  depredations 
of,  247 

Aruac  Indians,  95 

Augustine,  St.,  Fla.,  5 


6 


Bamboo,  many  uses  of,  339 

Bananas,  varieties  and  uses  of, 
179;  industry  in,  extent  of,  405 
et  seq.;  as  a  food,  value  of,  406, 
407;  legends  concerning,  418 

Barranquilla,  importance  of,  377, 
378 

Barrig6n,  description  of,  195  et  seq. 

Beauvois,  E.,  on  traditions  regard- 
ing Fountain  of  Youth  and  River 
Jordan,  15  et  seq. 

Belalcazar,  Sebastian  de,  meets 
Quesada  and  Federmann  on 
plain  of  Bogotd,  294r-298,  332 

Bell-bird,  Waterton  and  Sydney 
Smith  on,  183 

Birds,  migratory,  in  the  tropics, 
24^-252 

Boats  on  the  Orinoco,  87,  88;  on 
the  Magdalena,  349 

Bogotd,  foundation  of,  285;  loca- 
tion of,  286;  description  and 

435 


population  of,  286  et  seq.;  schools 
and  scholars  of,  300  et  seq. 

Bolivar,  Simon,  liberator  of  South 
America,  303  et  seq.;  estimates 
of,  by  Tejera  and  Larazabel,  304, 
305;  opinions  of  Hippisley  and 
General  Holstein  concerning,  305- 
308;  ante-mortem  statements  of, 
311 

Brendan,  St.,  in  the  New  World, 
13;  vanishing  island  of,  399,  400 

Buccaneers,  origin  of,  390-392; 
skill  and  courage  of,  393,  394; 
religion  of,  394;  depredations 
and  ferocity  of,  395,  396;  secret- 
ly encouraged  by  various  govern- 
ments, 397 

Buena  Vista,  Colombia,  view  from, 
235,  236 

Butterflies,  tropical,  337,  338 


Cabuyaro,  village  on  the  Heta,  186 
Calabash  tree,  utility  of,  179 
Callao,  Venezuela,  mines  of,  90,  91 
Canoes  used  by  the  Indians,  174, 

175 
Caqueza,  experience  in,  254;  climate 

of,  256,  257 
Caracas,   41,    42;    compared   with 

Taormina,  42 

Carib  Indians,  95,  98;  misrepre- 
sentations of,  97,  98;  language 
of,  99-101 


INDEX 


Carib  fish,  remarkable  teeth  of, 
181 

Cariben,  Baudal  de,  scenery  about, 
144 

Cartagena,  location  and  past  his* 
tory  of,  380-385 

Cassiquiare  river,  first  explorer  of, 
142,  143 

Castellanos,  Juan  de,  on  the  Foun- 
tain of  Youth,  11,  12;  his  work 
as  poet  and  historian,  139,  299, 
318 

Castle,  Morro,  in  Havana,  20;  in 
Santiago,  28 

Cayman,  numbers  of,  366-369 

Chibchas.    See  Muiscas 

Chicha,  how  made  and  general  use 
of,  333-535 

Chinehona  trees  in  Colombia,  231, 
232 

Churches,  large  and  beautiful,  in 
South  America,  260 

Ciudad  Bolivar,  102;  foundation 
and  description  of,  102-107 

Colombians  of  the  eastern  Cordil- 
leras, characteristics  of,  240-244; 
of  Bogota,  313 

Columbus,  Christopher,  regards 
Cuba  as  Cathay  and  Espanola  as 
Japan,  21;  on  scenery  of  Cuba., 
23;  notions  of,  about  Espanola, 
29,  30;  remains  of,  in  Cathedral 
of  Santo  Domingo,  35-37;  Hum- 
boldfs  estimate  of,  37;  monument 
for,  37;  view  of,  regarding  the 
shape  of  the  earth,  67;  view  of, 
regarding  the  location  of  the  Gar- 
den of  Paradise,  68;  experience 
of,  with  storms,  386;  visits  Costa 
Rica,  402-404;  at  Teragua,  425 

Cordillera,  eastern,  temperature  on 
summit  of,  275;  hardships  en- 
dured by  Bolivar's  army  while 
crossing,  276,  277 


436 


Costa  Eica,  origin  of  name,  402; 
scenery  in,  408,  409;  railways  of, 
409,  423,  424;  fruits  of,  410, 
416-419;  negroes  of,  411,  412; 
coffee  of,  413;  curious  beliefs  in, 
422,433 

Couvade,  the,  among  the  Indians  of 
South  America,  152  et  seq. 

Crocodile.    See  Cayman 

Cross,  Southern,  101, 102 

Cross  section  of  oriental  Andes,  326 

Crosses,  before  houses  along  the 
Meta,  185,  186 

Cuba,  regarded  as  Cathay  by  Co- 
lumbus, 21 

Curasao,  island  of,  38 

Curare  poison,  composition  and 
manufacture  of,  169 

Currency,  Colombian,  depreciation 
of,  314-316 


Darwin,  Charles,  on  tropical  scen- 
ery, 83-86;  on  extinct  mammals 
in  South  America,  259 

Dobrizhoffer,  Padre,  on  the  Couvade 
among  the  Indians  of  South 
America,  153 

Domingo,  Santo,  city  of,  34-37; 
cathedral  of,  35 

E 

Egret  hunting  in  South  America, 
107 

Espanola,  introduction  of  slavery 
into,  31-34 

Esquemeling,  historian  of  the  Buc- 
caneers, 391 

F 

Federmann,  Nicholas,  expedition  of, 
238,  239;  place  where  he  crossed 
the  Cordillera,  280;  meets  Que- 


INDEX 


sada  and  Belalcazar  on  plain  of 
Bogotd,  294-298 
Fireflies,  brilliancy  of,  179, 190 
Florida,  as  described  by  early  ex- 
plorers, 5,  6;  origin  of  name,  6, 
7;    when    discovered,    and    by 
whom,  7,  8,  9 
Flowers,  beauty  and  abundance  of, 

in  the  tropics,  180 
Flute  bird,  musical  notes  of,  184 
Fountain  of  Youth  and  Juan  Ponce 
de   Leon,   9    et   seq.;    Gomara, 
Fontenada  and  Juan  de  Castel- 
lanos  on,  10-12;  Sir  John  Mande- 
ville  regarding,  14 

G 

Germans  in  South  America,  enter- 
prise of,  173,  174,  353;  early  at- 
tempt of,  at  colonization,  239 
Guaduas,  beautiful  location  of,  339 
Guahibos  Indians,  greatly  misrep- 
resented, 170 

Guayra,  La,  port  of,  39,  40 
Gumilla,    Padre,    on    Indians    of 
Orinoco  delta,  78;  account  of  the 
moriche  palm  by,  78,  79 


Haiti,  29  et  seq. 

Hammock,  general  use  of,  in  the 
tropics,  177 

Havana,  20  et  seq. 

Hohermuth,  George  —  Jorge  de 
Spira— expedition  of,  237,  238 

Home-builders,  in  the  eastern  Cor- 
dilleras of  Colombia,  244r-246 

Honda,  description  of,  346-348 

Hospitality  of  the  people  in  the 
equatorial  regions,  187, 188,  220 

Humming-birds,  338 

Hutten,  Philip  von,  wanderings  of, 


Indians,  of  Cumana,  gentleness  of, 
47;  former  missions  among,  along 
the  Meta  and  in  Casanare,  155, 
156;  simplicity  of  homes  of,  178, 
179,  246;  legends  and  supersti- 
tions of,  264-267 


Jose,  San,  capital  of  Costa  Rica, 
attractions  of,  414-416;  people 
of,  421,  422 


Keys,  Florida,  18, 19 


Labat,  P&re,  on  introduction  and 
use  of  tobacco,  25;  on  language 
of  Caribs,  99-101 

Las  Casas,  Bishop,  on  cruelty  to 
Indians,  28,  29;  projected  com- 
monwealth of,  47, 48;  words  from 
will  of,  49;  Fiske's  eulogy  on, 
49;  diocese  of,  387;  Thacher's 
eulogy  on,  388 

Leon,  Juan  Ponce  de,  9  et  seq.;  re* 
mains  of,  in  Puerto  Rico,  38 

Lights,  mysterious,  on  the  Andes, 
191  et  seq. 

Llanos  of  Colombia,  202  et  seq.; 
herds  on,  204,  205;  value  of  pas- 
tures of,  205;  accessibility  of, 
205;  as  a  region  for  investment 
and  exploitation,  207;  inhabit- 
ants of,  210  et  seq.;  poets  of, 
211,  212;  trails  in,  214,  215 

Llanos  of  Venezuela,  126-129;  in- 
habitants of,  129,  131;  remark- 
able capture  of  Spanish  gun- 
boats by  Llaneros  under  Paez, 
131 

Loneliness  in  the  mountains,  263 


437 


INDEX 


M 


Magdalena  river,  description  of, 
350,  351;  navigation  on,  351, 
352;  frequent  changes  in  bed  of, 
353,  355;  as  commercial  high- 
way, 355,  356,  357;  inhabitants 
in  valley  of,  358;  scenery  along, 
358,  359;  fauna  in  the  valley  of, 
364  e  t  seq. 

Slain,  Spanish,  meaning  of,  39 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  on  Fountain 
of  Youth,  14 

Margarita,  island  of,  and  its  pearl 
fisheries,  49-53 

Martyr,  Peter,  father  of  American 
history,  7;  about  Indian  dwell- 
ings on  tree  tops,  77 

Meta  river,  size  of,  146;  traveling 
on,  159;  inhabitants  along,  160; 
beauty  of  scenery  along,  190, 
191;  navigability  of,  206;  should 
be  open  to  all  vessels,  230 

Milk  tree,  157 

Missions,  Indian,  86 

Monkey  bridges,  stories  about,  151 

Montana,  traveling  in,  201,  221 

Muiscas,  319  et  seq.;  an  agricul- 
tural people,  320;  commerce  of, 
321;  civilization  and  culture  of, 
322-324;  trails  of,  332 

Mule,  Andean,  idiosyncrasies  of, 
239,  240,  336-337 


Ocoa  river,  difficulty  in   crossing, 

222-225 
Orchids,  beauty  and  number  of 

species  of,  in  the  tropics,  161- 

163,  359 
Ordaz,  Diego  de,  an  officer  under 

Cortez,    explores    the    Orinoco, 

140-142 
Orinoco,  delta  of,  described  by  Sir 


Walter  Raleigh,  70,  71;  exuber- 
ant vegetation  of,  75;  stories 
about  Indians  having  houses  on 
tops  of  trees  in,  76,  78;  explora- 
tion of,  by  A.  E.  Level,  80,  81  j 
inhabitants  of,  81 

Orinoco  river,  first  view  of,  72; 
magnitude  of,  82;  scenery  along, 
83;  fauna  in  valley  of,  85,  86; 
steamers  on,  87;  travelers  on, 
88,  89;  erroneous  notions  about, 
114-119;  insects  along,  114;  tem- 
perature in  valley  of,  116,  117; 
temperature  and  turbidity  of 
water  of,  133 

Orocue,  capital  of  a  prefecture,  de- 
scribed, 166 


Palms,  number  of  species  and  uses 

of,  78,  79,  203,  204>  371-374 
Paradise,  Terrestrial,  68,  69,  400, 

401 
Paramo,  defined,  272;  flora  of,  273; 

dangers  in,  274 
Park,  gulf  of,  64  et  seq. 
Pearl  Coast,  46  et  seq. 
Pirates,  388,  389 
Pitch  Lake,  62 
Platanos,  as  food  in  the  tropics, 

179,  198 
Poncho,  description  and  use  of,  213, 

214 

Porpoises,  fresh  water,  182 
Port-of-Spain,  botanical  garden  of, 

58-60 

Puerto  Cabello,  45 
Puerto  Limon,  importance  of,  404, 

405 
Puerto  Eico,  38 


438 


Quesada,  Oonzalo,  Jimenez  de,  285, 
294;  buried  in  cathedral  of  Bo- 


INDEX 


gota,  299;  first  man  of  letters  of 
Bogota,  299,  332;  voyage  of, 
down  the  Magdalena,  340;  expe- 
dition of,  to  Cundinamarea,  diffi- 
culty of,  360-362 

B 

Railways,  Colombian,  316,  317,  357, 
358 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  on  the  delta  of 
the  Orinoco,  71;  account  by,  of 
the  treasures  of  Guiana,  93,  94; 
remarks  of,  on  winter  and  sum- 
mer in  the  tropics,  120 

Rivero,  Padre,  work  of,  among  the 
Indians  along  the  Meta,  14S  et 
seq.;  on  the  couvade  among  the 
Indians  along  the  Meta,  152 

Rubber  plantations  in  Colombia, 
231 


Sabana  de  Bogota,  290,  317-319 

Saddle  used  in  Cordilleras,  325 

Santiago  de  Cuba,  28 

Sargento,  El,  magnificent  view  from 
summit  of,  340-343 

Scenery  along  trail  over  the  eastern 
Cordilleras,  247-249 

Serpent's  Mouth,  strait  of,  de- 
scribed by  Columbus,  65 

Silla,  La,  mountain  of,  39 

Slavery,  negro,  first  introduction  of, 
into  America,  31-34 

Soto,  Hernando  de,  in  Florida,  12 

Suma  Paz,  range  of,  278,  279 


Telegraph,  in  the  tropics,  261 
Tequendama,   Falls   of,    290,   293, 

294 
Tierra  f  ria,  tierra  templada,  tierra 


ealiente,  characteristics  of,  270- 

274 
Tobacco,  discovery  of,  24;  use  of, 

by  aborigines  of  America,  24,  25; 

Benzoni,  P&re  Labat,  and  King. 

James  on,  24-26;  value  of,  as 

source  of  revenue  to  Spain,  27 
Trapiche,  described,  332 
Treasures   found  by  the  conquis- 

tadores,  363 
Trees,  remarkable,  in  the  tropics, 

156,  157 
Trinidad,   island    of,   54   et   seq.; 

scenery  of,  61,  62;  smugglers  in, 

63 
Turtles,  immense  numbers  of,  on 

the  sand  banks  of  the  Orinoco, 

132 


Valencia,  45 

Yarnhagen,  M.,  on  the  discoveries 
of  Americus  Vespucius,  8,  9 

Venezuela,  reflections  on,  134-138; 
advantages  and  natural  resources 
of,  134;  area  of,  135;  revolutions 
in,  135;  future  of,  136-139 

Vespucius,  Americus,  discoverer  of 
Florida,  8 

Villavicencio,  town  of,  visit  to,  225 
et  seq. 

W 

Waraus  Indians,  94,  95 
Welser  colony  in  Venezuela,  239 
Wild,  call  of  the,  261,  262 
Winds,   trade,   at  summit   of   the 

Cordilleras,  269 
Women,  market,  in  the  Cordilleras, 

258 


Tuca,  as  source  of  food,  180 


439 


AN  AMERICAN  ADMIRAL. 

Forty-five  Years  Under  the  Flag. 

By  WINFIELD  SCOTT  SCHLEY,  Rear-Admiral,  U.  S.  N. 
Illustrated.  8vo.  Cloth,  uncut  edges,  and  gilt  top,  $3.00  net. 

About  one-third  of  Admiral  Schley's  volume  is  devoted  to  the 
Spanish  War,  in  which  he  became  so  great  a  figure.  He  tells  his  own 
story  in  simple  and  effective  words.  His  recollections  are  constantly 
reinforced  by  references  to  dispatches  and  other  documents. 

Readers  will  be  surprised  at  the  extent  of  Admiral  Schley's  experi- 
ences. He  left  the  Naval  Academy  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  and  saw  service  with  Farragut  in  the  Gulf.  Three  chapters 
are  devoted  to  Civil  War  events.  His  next  important  service  was  ren- 
dered during  the  opening  of  Corea  to  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and 
the  chapter  in  which  he  describes  the  storming  of  the  forts  is  one  of 
thrilling  interest  Another  important  expedition  in  his  life  was  the 
rescue  of  Greely,  to  which  three  chapters  are  devoted.  Two  other 
chapters  pertain  to  the  Revolution  in  Chili,  and  the  troubles  growing 
out  of  the  attack  upon  some  of  Admiral  Schley's  men  in  the  streets 
of  Valparaiso. 

Altogether  the  book  contains  thirty-eight  chapters.  It  has  been 
illustrated  from  material  furnished  by  Admiral  Schley  and  through  his 
suggestions,  and  makes  an  octavo  volume  of  large  size.  It  will  appeal 
to  every  true-hearted  American. 

The  author  says  in  his  preface  :  "  In  times  of  danger  and  duty  the  writer  endeav- 
ored to  do  the  work  set  before  him  without  fear  of  consequences.  With  this  thought 
in  mind,  he  has  felt  moved,  as  a  duty  to  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his  name,  to  leave 
a  record  of  his  long  professional  life,  which  has  not  been  without  some  prestige,  at 
least  for  the  flag  he  has  loved  and  under  which  he  has  served  the  best  years  of  his  life." 

"  Rear-Admiral  W.  S.  Schley's  'Forty-five  Years  Under  the  Flag*  is  the  most 
valuable  contribution  to  the  history  of  the  American  Navy  that  has  been  written  in 
many  a  year."—  JV«*  York  Times, 


"  The  author's  career  is  well  worthy  of  a  book,  and  he  has  every  reason  for  pride 
in  telling  of  his  forty-five  active  years  in  all  parts  of  the  world." 

—  Edwin  L.  Shuman  in  the  Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  It  is  a  stirring  story,  told  with  the  simple  directness  of  a  sailor.  Its  reading 
carries  the  conviction  of  its  truthfulness.  The  Admiral  could  not  have  hoped  to 
accomplish  more."—  Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  He  has  told  his  own  story  in  his  own  way,  from  his  own  viewpoint,  and  goes 
after  his  detractors,  open  and  above  board,  with  his  big  guns."  —  Washington  Post. 

"  It  is  a  work  that  will  interest  every  one,  from  the  sixteen-year-old  school-boy 
who  is  studying  history  and  loves  tales  of  stirring  adventure  to  the  grandsire  whose 
blood  still  pulses  hotlv  with  patriotic  pride  at  the  recounting  of  valiant  deeds  of  arms 
under  our  starry  flag.  '  —  Boston  American. 

"  The  Admiral  tells  the  story  well  His  is  a  manly  and  straightforward  style. 
He  leaves  nothing  to  doubt,  nothing  open  to  controversy.  '  —  Baltimore  Sun. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW    YORK. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY. 


The  Journal  of  Latrobe. 

Being  the  Notes  and  Sketches  of  an  Architect,  Natu- 
ralist, and  Traveller  in  the  United  States  from  1796  to 
1820,  By  BENJAMIN  HENRY  LATROBE,  Architect  of  the 
Capitol  at  Washington.  Copiously  illustrated  with  repro- 
ductions from  the  original  drawings  by  the  author.  8vo. 
Ornamental  cloth,  $3.50  net. 

These  are  the  memoirs  of  a  personal  friend  of  the  first 
President  of  the  United  States.  He  was  a  man  of  refinement 
and  great  intellectual  attainments,  a  soldier,  civil  engineer, 
philosopher,  artist,  humorist,  poet,  and  naturalist.  The  book 
is  bright  with  story  and  anecdote,  criticism  and  comment. 

"  Benjamin  Latrobe  was  a  man  of  the  world  and  a  clever  commen- 
tator on  what  he  saw  going  on  around  him.  One  of  the  best  pen 
pictures  of  Washington  is  Latrobe's  account  of  a  visit  to  the  Father 
of  his  Country  at  Mt.  Vernon  in  i*i<fi"— Review  of  Reviews. 

"  Mr.  Latrobe  was  a  keen  observer,  and  his  notes  of  travel  in  the 
South  are  valuable  in  an  attempt  to  picture  the  life  of  a  century  ago." 

— Chicago  Tribune. 

"Benjamin  Latrobe  visited  Washington  at  Mt.  Vernon  and  recorded 
what  he  saw  very  fully.  Then,  late  in  life,  he  went  to  New  Orleans 
by  sea  and  wrote  full  notes  of  his  voyage  and  his  impressions.  Both 
diaries  are  full  of  interest.  Between  them  are  placed  in  this  volume 
papers  relating  to  the  building  of  the  Capitol.  Prefixed  to  the  volume 
is  a  biographical  introduction  written  by  his  son  thirty  years  ago. 
The  illustrations  are  curious  and  interesting." — New  York  Sun. 

"With  what  has  been  said  of  the  volume  it  should  be  evident  that 
it  is  curious,  interesting,  and  instructive  to  an  unusual  degree.  To 
speak  of  *  The  Journal  of  Latrobe  *  without  mention  of  its  illustrations 
would  be  an  unpardonable  oversight." — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW    YORK. 


VIVID,  MOVING,  SYMPATHETIC;  HUMOROUS. 

A  Diary  from  Dixie. 

By  MARY  BOYKIN  CHESNUT.  Being  her  Diary  from 
November,  1861,  to  August,  1865.  Edited  by  Isabella  D. 
Martin  and  Myrta  Lockett  Avary.  Illustrated  8vo. 
Ornamental  Cloth,  $2.50  net;  postage  additional 

Mrs.  Chesnut  was  the  most  brilliant  woman  that  the  South 
has  ever  produced,  and  the  charm  of  her  writing  is  such  as  to 
make  all  Southerners  proud  and  all  Northerners  envious.  She 
was  the  wife  of  James  Chesnut;  Jr.,  who  was  United  States 
Senator  from  South  Carolina  from  1859 to  X86i,  and  acted  as 
an  aid  to  President  Jefferson  Davis,  and  was  subsequently  a 
Brigadier-General  in  the  Confederate  Army.  Thus  it  was 
that  she  was  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  foremost 
men  in  the  Southern  cause. 

*  In  this  diary  is  preserved  the  most  moving  and  vivid  record  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge.  It  is  a  piece  of  social 
history  of  inestimable  value.  It  interprets  to  posterity  the  spirit  in  which 
the  Southerners  entered  upon  and  struggled  through  the  war  that  ruined 
them.  It  paints  poignantly  but  with  simplicity  the  wreck  of  that  old  world 
which  had  so  much  about  it  that  was  beautiful  and  noble  as  well  as  evil. 
Students  of  American  life  have  often  smiled,  and  with  reason,  at  the  stilted 
and  extravagant  fashion  in  which  the  Southern  woman  had  been  described 
south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line — the  unconscious  relf-revelations  of  Mary 
Chesnut'  explain,  if  they  do  not  justify,  such  extravagance.  For  here,  we 
cannot  but  believe,  is  a  creature  of  a  fine  type,  a  'very  woman,'  a  very  Beatrice, 
frank,  impetuous,  loving,  full  of  sympathy,  full  of  humor.  Like  her  prototype, 
she  had  prejudices,  and  she  knew  little  of  the  Northern  people  she  criticised 
so  severely ;  but  there  is  less  bitterness  in  these  pages  than  we  might  have 
expected.  Perhaps  the  editors  have  seen  to  that  However  this  may  be 
they  have  done  nothing  to  injure  the  writer's  own  nervous,  unconventional 
style— a  style  breathing  character  and  temperament  as  the  flower  breathes 
fragrance.1 — New  York  Tribune. 

"  It  is  written  straight  from  the  heart,  and  with  a  natural  grace  of  style 
that  no  amount  of  polishing  could  have  imparted." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  The  editors  are  to  be  congratulated ;  it  is  not  every  day  that  one  comes  on 
such  material  as  this  long-hidden  diary.''— Z^ww7&  Evening-  Post. 

"It  is  a  book  that  would  have  delighted  Charles  Lamb." 

—Houston  Chronicle. 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK. 


ALL  ABOUT  EARTHQUAKES. 

Earthquakes. 

By  Prof.  WILLIAM  HERBERT*  HOBBS,  Ph.D.,  for- 
merly of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  now  head 
of  the  Department  of  Geology  ia  the  University  of 
Michigan.  Illustrated.  121110.  Ornamental  cloth, 
$1.50  net;  postage  additional. 

Any  book  on  earthquakes  prepared  by  a  great  authority 
and  adapted  for  popular  reading  would  be  interesting.  Pro- 
fessor Hobbs  has  been  for  years  a  special  student  of  the  noted 
geological  tract  in  southwestern  New  England,  which  is  the 
focus  of  much  controversy  and  in  which  he  prepared  himself 
for  the  especial  study  of  earthquakes,  faults,  dikes,  and  asso- 
ciated phenomena.  From  his  experience  in  America,  in  Spain, 
and. in  Italy,  he  has  been  fortunately  enabled  to  discover  what 
promises  to  be  a  new  law  of  .earthquake  faults,  which  law  is 
so  simple  and  appropriate  that  it  was  at  once  adopted  by 
the  world's  greatest  authority  on  earthquakes,  the  Count  de 
Montessus  de  Ballore. 

While  the  book  contains  allusions  to  the  new  theory  of 
earthquake  faults,  it  also  fairly  presents  the  whole  subject  of 
earthquakes  in  its  proper  proportion  and  perspective,  giving 
complete  lists  of  all  the  great  seismological  disturbances  and 
detailed  descriptions  of  all  the  more  important  and  typical 
earthquakes.  The  book  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
great  scientist,  but  in  language  which  an  ordinary  reader  can 
easily  understand. 

"Mr.  Hobbs'  study  of  the  subject  is  exhaustive  and  very  clear, 
sensible  and  of  practical  benefit."— Seattle  Post-Intelligencer. 

**  Professor  Hobbs  furnishes  valuable  observations  made  of  recent 
earthquakes.  The  book  is  scholarly  and  well  written;  a  good  book 
that  even  the  casual  reader  can  peruse  with  pleasure." 

— New  York  World. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW    YORK. 


BOOKS  BY  PROFESSOR  GROOS. 

The  Play  of  Man 

By  KARL  GROOS,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Basel.  Translated,  with  the  author's  co- 
Operation,  by  Elizabeth  L*  Baldwin,  and  edited,  with  a 
Preface  and  Appendix,  by  Pro£  J.  Mark  Baldwin,  of 
Princeton  University.  12  mo.  Cloth,  $1.50  net ;  postage, 
12  cents  additional 

"A  book  for  parents  to  read  and  ponder  over  with  care  and  mental 
diligence." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"  Not  alone  does  the  work  make  an  appeal  to  the  strictly  scientific. 
The  general  reader  will  find  in  it  absorbingly  interesting  facts,  presented 
in  a  way  which  may  prove  of  practical  use." — Boston  Advertiser. 

"  A  very  valuable  book.  The  results  of  Professor  Groos's  original  and 
acute  investigations  will  be  especially  appreciated  by  those  who  are 
interested  in  psychology  and  sociology,  and  they  are  of  great  impor- 
tance to  educators." — Brooklyn  Standard  Union. 

The  Play  of  Animals. 

By  KARL  GROOS.  Translated,  with  the  author's  co- 
Cperation,  by  Elizabeth  L.  Baldwin,  and  edited,  with  a 
Preface  and  Appendix,  by  Prof.  J.  Mark  Baldwin,  of 
Princeton  University.  i2mo.  .Cloth,  $1.75. 

"A  work  of  exceptional  interest  to  the  student  "—San  Francisco 
Argonaut. 

"  His  work  is  intensely  interesting.  Both  nature  and  books  have 
been  ransacked  for  materials,  and  the  selection  shows  a  trained  intelli- 
gence of  the  highest  order  in  observation  and  acumen." —  The  Independent. 

"A  treasure-house  of  the  most  amusing  and  interesting  stories 
about  the  entire  brute  creation,  from  elephants  to  ants,  all  adduced  as 
illustrating  some  mental  process.  We  feel  that  we  are  brought  into 
closer  contact  with,  and  a  better  understanding  of,  those  faithful  friends 
from  whom  we  learn  so  much/' — Boston  Beacon. 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW    YORK. 


TWENTIETH  CENTURY  TEXT-BOOKS. 


TEXT-BOOKS  OF  ZOOLOGY. 

By  DAYID  STARR  JORDAN,  President  of  Leland  Stan- 
ford Jr.  University ;  VERNON  LYMAN  KELLOGG,  Professor 
of  Entomology ;  HAROLD  HEATH,  Assistant  Professor  of 
Invertebrate  Zoology. 

Evolution  and  Animal  Life. 

This  is  a  popular  discussion  of  the  facts,  processes,  laws,  and  theo- 
ries relating  to  the  life  and  evolution  of  animals,.  The  reader  of  it  will 
have  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  all-important  theory  of  evolution  as  it  has 
been  developed  and  as  it  is  held  to-day  by  scientists.  Svo.  Cloth,  with 
about  300  illustrations,  $2*50  net;  postage  20  cents  additional. 

Animal  Studies. 

A  compact  but  complete  treatment  of  elementary  zoology,  espe- 
cially prepared  for  institutions  of  learning  that  prefer  to  find  in  a  single 
book  an  ecological  as  well  as  morphological  survey  of  the  animal  world. 
Z2mo.  Cloth,  $1.25  net 

Animal  Life. 

An  elementary  account  of  animal  ecology — that  is,  of  the  relations 
of  animals  to  their  surroundings.  It  treats  of  animals  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  observer,  and  shows  why  the  present  conditions  and  habits 
of  animal  life  are  as  we  find  them.  i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.20  net 

Animal  Forms. 

This  book  deals  in  an  elementary  way  with  animal  morphology.  It 
describes  the  structure  and  life  processes  of  animals,  from  the  lowest 
creations  to  the  highest  and  most  complex.  i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.10  net. 

Animals. 

This  consists  of  "Animal  Life"  and  "Animal  Forms"  bound  in 
one  volume,  ismo.  Cloth,  $1.80. 

Animal  Structures. 

A  laboratory  guide  in  the  teaching  of  elementary  zoology.  i2mo. 
Cloth,  50  cents  net 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

NEW  YORK.  BOSTON.  CHICAGO.  LONDON.