PART II

BY C. WILLIAM BEEBE

THE BIRD, ITS FORM AND FUNCTION

With colored Frontispiece and 371 Illustrations, chiefly photographed

from Life by the Author. _American Nature Series._ New York: Henry Holt

and Company. 8vo. $3.50 net.

THE LOG OF THE SUN

A Chronicle of Nature’s Year. With fifty-two full-page illustrations by

Walter King Stone, and numerous Vignettes and photographs from Life. New

York: Henry Holt and Company. 8vo., full gilt. $6.00 net.

TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO

Illustrated with photographs from Life taken by the Author. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company. 8vo. $3.00 net.

OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS

[Illustration: (_Frontispiece_)

IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN WILDERNESS.]

OUR SEARCH FOR A

WILDERNESS

AN ACCOUNT OF TWO ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPEDITIONS

TO VENEZUELA AND TO BRITISH GUIANA

BY

MARY BLAIR BEEBE

AND

C. WILLIAM BEEBE

_Curator of Ornithology in the New York Zoölogical Park; Fellow of the

New York Academy of Sciences; Member of the American

Ornithologists’ Union and Corresponding

Member of the London

Zoölogical Society_

_ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LIFE

TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS_

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910,

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

_Published April, 1910_

Stanhope Press

F. H. GILSON COMPANY

BOSTON, U.S.A.

To

JUDGE AND MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR

With the deepest affection and admiration

of

their Granddaughter

MARY BLAIR BEEBE

and of

C. WILLIAM BEEBE

PREFACE.

In the following pages we have set down the tale of two searches for

a wilderness. These two private expeditions were undertaken for the

purpose of learning something about the birds and other wild creatures

of countries further south than any we had yet visited. Both trips were

successful; for the regions we explored were wilderness wonderlands,—full

of beauty, abounding in the romance which ever enhances wild creatures

and wild men, and they were part of the great zoölogical “dark continent”

which we hope to devote our lives to studying.

On our first search the collecting of live birds was incidental, although

we brought back forty specimens of fourteen species.

On the second search, however, we took with us an assistant, Mr. Lee

S. Crandall. By his assiduity in trapping and in arousing the interest

of native coolie and black boys, he assembled a splendid collection of

almost three hundred living birds of fifty-one species. These we brought

to the New York Zoölogical Park, where no less than thirty-three species

were new to the collection. In addition many small mammals and reptiles

were collected.

PART I.

We left New York on February 22d, 1908, on the Royal Mail Steamship

“Trent,” and after touching at Jamaica, Colon, Savanilla and La Guayra,

we disembarked at Port of Spain, Trinidad, on March 9th. Leaving this

port in a Venezuelan sloop we cruised among the caños north of the

Orinoco Delta, and explored the country about the Venezuelan Pitch

Lake—La Brea.

To Mr. Eugene André of Trinidad, we are deeply indebted for a hundred

kindnesses which did much to make our trip a success. We wish also to

express gratitude to Mr. Mole, Mr. Anduse and especially to the late Mr.

Ellis Grell.

PART II.

On the 15th of February, 1909, we sailed from New York on the Steamship

“Coppename” of the Royal Dutch West Indian Mail, and with only a single

stop—Barbadoes—reached Georgetown, British Guiana, on the 24th of the

same month.

In British Guiana we made three expeditions; two as the guests of Mr. and

Mrs. Gaylord Wilshire, having as our objective points two gold mines in

the midst of the wilderness, the first at Hoorie in the northwest, the

second on the Little Aremu in central Guiana. On these expeditions we

were spared all the usual annoyances of transportation; food and servants

and everything at the mines were put at our service to facilitate our

study of the nature life of the country. The third trip to the savanna

region further south was made at the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Lindley

Vinton, two Americans living in Georgetown, who placed their home at our

disposal while we remained in Georgetown.

During our entire stay in British Guiana we received unfailing courtesy

and kindness,—from the Governor, Sir Frederick Hodgson, down to the great

black hospitable wilderness police. Professor J. B. Harrison allowed us

to use the old aviaries at the Botanical Gardens, and with Mr. James

Rodway of the Georgetown Museum and Mr. B. Howell Jones, extended to us

all the courtesies in his power.

For figures 97, 98, 108, 144, and 158 we are indebted to Dr. Hiram

Bingham, and figures 83, 109, 130, and 131 are from photographs belonging

to the New York Zoölogical Society and were taken by Mr. E. R. Sanborn.

All the others were taken by ourselves with a Graflex Camera and 27-inch

Goerz lens, and a pocket Kodak, both 4 by 5 in size.

The first two chapters appeared in their original form in “Harper’s

Monthly Magazine,” and the third chapter in “Recreation.”

Our thanks are due to Dr. William T. Hornaday, Director of the New York

Zoölogical Park, for the leave of absence which made possible these

expeditions.

* * * * *

Three appendices have been added. The first is a classified list of

the birds, with their scientific names, which are mentioned in the

book; by no means a complete list of those observed. Reference to it is

facilitated by the superior numbers affixed throughout the text to the

names of the birds. The second appendix gives the native Guianan names

of the commoner species of birds. The third is a list of the insects

observed at Hoorie which have been identified up to the present time.

Wherever in this volume it has seemed best for any reason that certain

chapters should be written by one of the authors alone, the writer’s

name has been given at the head of the chapter. In all chapters not thus

designated the authors have collaborated.

MARY BLAIR BEEBE,

C. WILLIAM BEEBE.

_January, 1910._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PART I. OUR FIRST SEARCH.

VENEZUELA.

I. THE LAND OF A SINGLE TREE 3

II. THE LAKE OF PITCH 32

III. A WOMAN’S EXPERIENCES IN VENEZUELA 71

PART II. OUR SECOND SEARCH.

BRITISH GUIANA.

IV. GEORGETOWN 111

V. STEAMER AND LAUNCH TO HOORIE CREEK 134

VI. A GOLD MINE IN THE WILDERNESS 165

VII. THROUGH THE COASTAL WILDERNESS WITH INDIANS AND CANOE 214

VIII. THE WATER TRAIL FROM GEORGETOWN TO AREMU 244

IX. JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU 285

X. JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU (Continued) 316

XI. THE LIFE OF THE ABARY SAVANNAS 350

APPENDICES.

A. CLASSIFIED LIST OF BIRDS MENTIONED IN THIS VOLUME 389

B. NATIVE GUIANAN NAMES OF BIRDS 395

C. ALPHABETICAL LISTS OF BIRDS 397

INDEX 399

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIG. PAGE

In the South American Wilderness. _Frontispiece_

1. Map of our Trip through the Mangrove Wilderness 2

2. Our Sloop entering the Mangroves 5

3. Scarlet Ibises in Flight 7

4. Young Mangrove Plants 11

5. The Crucifix in the Catfish 13

6. Parrot Puff-fish 15

7. Four-eyed Fish 16

8. Our Floating Home at La Ceiba 18

9. Exploring the Caños in a Dug-out 21

10. White Orchids 23

11. Sun-bittern 25

12. Solution of the Mangrove Mystery—an Anaconda 27

13. Hoatzins in the Bamboos on the Guarapiche 28

14. First Glimpse of the Venezuela Mountains 31

15. Colony of 150 Cassiques’ Nests in One Tree 33

16. Nest and Eggs of Yellow-backed Cassique 34

17. Venezuelan Tree Porcupine 36

18. Wild Chachalaca near a Guanoco Hut 38

19. Scorpion and its Young taken from Milady’s Shoe 39

20. Yellow Woodpecker 41

21. Owl Butterfly on Cocoa Bark 42

22. Lizard Alert on Trunk of Tree 44

23. The Same Lizard a Moment Later, Obliterated by Change of

Position 45

24. Nest and Eggs of Great Blue Tinamou 47

25. Woodhewer clinging to the Trunk of a Tree 50

26. Streaked Flycatcher 51

27. The Jungle Railroad 56

28. Spider Lilies near Pitch Lake 57

29. La Brea—The Lake of Pitch 59

30. The fatal “Mother of the Lake” 61

31. White-headed Chimachima Hawk and Eta Palm 62

32. Amazon Parrot Roost, Pitch Lake 63

33. The Home of the Amazon Parrot in the Middle of Pitch Lake 64

34. Amazon Parrot at Entrance of Nest. Fifteen feet away 65

35. Amazon Parrot at Entrance of Nest. Ten feet away 65

36. Amazon Parrot about to take Flight 66

37. Eggs and Young of Amazon Parrot in the Nest 67

38. Fish from the Pools in Pitch Lake. _Aequidens_ sp. 69

39. Fish from the Pools in Pitch Lake. _Hoplias malabaricus_ 69

40. Our Sloop at Guanoco 72

41. Venezuelan Soldiers on the “Pontón” Guard Ship 76

42. Captain Truxillo paddling us up the Guarapiche past Caño

Colorado 78

43. Sunset in the Mangrove Wilderness 80

44. The Silent Savages 81

45. Guarauno Indians coming to trade at Caño Colorado 83

46. Guarauno Squaws and Child with Monkey 85

47. Pitch Lake, showing freshly dug pit filled with water; an

older pit filled with soft pitch, both surrounded by

the hard surface pitch 88

48. Digging out the Black, Waxlike Pitch 90

49. Loading Pitch on the Hand Cars 93

50. Mangrove Wilderness from the High Land at Guanoco 95

51. Inhabitants of Guanoco assembled for a Dance 97

52. A Palm-sheath Rocking Toy 100

53. Sheath in Fig. 52, covering the Flower of a Palm 102

54. Priestless Chapel at Guanoco 105

55. Guarauno Indian Papoose 107

56. Map of our Three Expeditions into British Guiana 110

57. Street in Georgetown 113

58. Kiskadee Tyrant Flycatcher 114

59. Coolie Woman and Negress 117

60. The Georgetown Sea-wall 119

61. Toad 123

62. Arc-light 123

63. Victoria Regia in the Botanical Gardens 124

64. Lotus in Blossom 126

65. Taliput Palm in Blossom 128

66. Canal of the Crocodiles 130

67. Young Elania Flycatchers 132

68. Typical Indian House at Morawhanna 136

69. Three-year Olds at Home in their Wood-skin 138

70. Mount Everard 140

71. Sir Everard im Thurn’s House at Morawhanna 143

72. Palm Tanager 147

73. Frederick, the Carib Indian Boy 152

74. Our Tent-boat on the Barama River 159

75. Indian Boys in Dug-out 162

76. Crossing a Stream on the Hoorie Jungle Road 166

77. The Wilderness Trail 168

78. Engine House and Flume of Hoorie Gold Mine 172

79. The “Little Giant” at Work 175

80. Carib Hunter and His Children at Hoorie 178

81. Three Generations of Carib Indians 180

82. Mr. Wilshire and Crandall with Bushmaster 182

83. The Terrible Bushmaster 183

84. Panning Gold 186

85. Whip Scorpion or Pedipalp Spider 190

86. A Jungle Blossom 193

87. The Drowned Forest 199

88. Nests of Red-backed Cassiques 204

89. Barama River from Farnum’s House 216

90. Scene on the Barrabarra 219

91. Wake of a Manatee swimming up River 221

92. Manatee browsing close to the Bank 222

93. Manatee taking in Air and about to dive 224

94. A Vista of the Biara 226

95. Father Gillett and his Indian Boys 228

96. Tropical Luxuriance 230

97. Capybara on the Bank of a Stream 232

98. South American Thatched House and Nests of Green Cassiques 236

99. Miles of Lilies 239

100. The Road to Suddie 243

101. Gray-breasted Martins nesting on the Steamer 245

102. Coolies and their Wives fishing on the Essequibo 247

103. Falls at Lower Camaria 249

104. A Butterfly Mimicking an Orchid 251

105. Fresh-water Flying Fish 252

106. Salt-water Flying Fish 253

107. Cuyuni River 254

108. A Herd of Eight Capybaras, Six Adult and Two Young 255

109. Great Anteater 257

110. A Tacuba on the Cuyuni 259

111. Rapids on the Cuyuni 260

112. Rushing the Boat into the Rapids 261

113. Warping the Boat Through the Lower Whirlpools 262

114. A Rest midway up the Rapids 264

115. The Final Struggle up to Smooth Water 266

116. Shooting the Rapids at Full Speed 270

117. A Wilderness Passion Flower—Simitú 272

118. Our Camp on the Aremu River 274

119. Poling under Tacubas on the Little Aremu 276

120. Tree-ferns on the Little Aremu 278

121. A Sloth in Action 280

122. A Sloth Asleep 281

123. Where only Otters and Fish can pass 283

124. Aremu Gold Mine, showing Bungalow and Mine Shaft 286

125. Descending the Shaft 289

126. Walking Stick Insect 290

127. Scorpion and Caterpillar after their Battle 292

128. Milady and the Giant Mora Tree 296

129. Aërial Roots of Bush-rope 299

130. Tamandua 306

131. Agouti 312

132. Nest and Eggs of White-throated Robin 323

133. Section of Paddle-wood Tree 325

134. Phonetic Caterpillars 329

135. First Phase of Curassow Strutting, a Slow Walk with Raised

Tail. Rear View. 333

136. The Same. Side View. 333

137. Second Phase of Curassow Strutting 335

138. Third Phase of Curassow Strutting 337

139. Golden-crowned Manakin lifted from Nest 343

140. Young Dusky Parrots 344

141. Early Morning in the Wilderness 346

142. Indian Hunter bringing in a Peccary 347

143. American Egret on the Abary River Savanna 352

144. Nest and Young of Jabiru 354

145. Gray-necked Tree-ducks rising from the Savanna 356

146. Our Bungalow on Abary Island 358

147. Map of Abary Island 361

148. Abary River, showing High Growth on West Bank 362

149. Spider Lily near Abary Island 363

150. Nest of a Hoatzin in the Mucka-mucka on which these Birds feed 366

151. The Author Photographing Hoatzins 367

152. (A) Female Hoatzin flushed from her nest; the Male Bird

approaching 369

153. (B) Female Hoatzin in the same Position, the Male having

flown nearer 370

154. (C) Male Hoatzin alarmed and about to take Flight 372

155. (D) Female Hoatzin crouching to avoid Observation 373

156. (E) Female Hoatzin taking flight, with wings fully spread;

a second pair of birds leaving their nest in the

background 375

157. Flock of Eleven Hoatzins 377

158. Crocodiles on a South American River Bank 380

159. Lagoon between Abary Island and River 382

160. Young Spur-winged Jacana 384

PART I

OUR FIRST SEARCH

VENEZUELA

[Illustration: FIG. 1.

MAP OF NORTHEASTERN VENEZUELA]

CHAPTER I.

THE LAND OF A SINGLE TREE.

One day late in March, just as the tropical sun was sinking from view,

our barefooted Spanish crew pulled up anchor from the muddy bottom of

Port of Spain’s harbor. Slowly the sails filled, and the spray began to

fly from the bow as we steered straight into the crimson path of the

sunset. Behind us the lofty Trinidad ranges glowed softly; great velvety

peaks and ridges, purpled by distance, gilded by the last rays of day.

Then the twilight passed swiftly as if the sun had been quenched by the

waters which covered its face; the mountains became merged into the

darkness of the sky, and the city of busy life behind us melted into a

linear constellation of twinkling lights.

We had chartered a little sloop of twenty-one tons, the “Josefa Jacinta”

(_Ho-say’fah Hah-seen’tah_) manned by a captain, a cook and a crew

of three. At her masthead flew the flag of Venezuela. With a month’s

provisions in the hold and all the varied paraphernalia of a naturalist,

we were headed for the northern part of the Orinoco delta in search of

the primitive wilderness of which we had dreamed.

Jamaica, Colon, Savanilla, La Guayra had passed in quick succession, and

we were surprised to find Trinidad the most modern and wide-awake of

all. The well-appointed hotels, the trolleys, electric lights, museums,

and newspapers of Port of Spain, the wireless station even now flashing

its aërial messages from yonder peak,—all boded ill for our search for

primeval conditions. Was there no spot left on earth, we wondered, which

could truthfully be called an untrodden wilderness!—jungles untouched

by axe or fire, where guns had not replaced bows and arrows; where the

creatures of the wilderness were tame through unfamiliarity with human

beings!

* * * * *

The Southern Cross rose and straightened its arms; the Pole Star hung low

in the north. As the night wore on, an ugly sea arose and half buried our

little craft in foam and spray. A cross-wind disputed our advance and the

strong tide drove us out of our course. But our captain had navigated

these waters for more than half a century, and we had no fears.

The following day was as wild as the night, and no living thing appeared

in sky or sea, save a host of milky jelly-fish (_Stomolophus meleagris_).

They kept below the surface, and seemed to suffer no damage from the

roughness of the water. In an area of a square yard we counted twenty,

and for hour after hour we passed through vast masses of them, extending

to the farthest waves visible on either hand and as deep down as our

eyes could penetrate—myriads upon myriads of these lowly beings, each

vibrating with life, and yet unable to guide its course against the tide,

or to do aught but pulsate slowly along.

Later in the day, although the water grew less rough, the whole company

sank lower in the muddy depths—muddy, because the brown waters of the

great Orinoco hold sway over all this gulf and scatter out at sea the

sediment washed from the banks far inland.

Finally the storm passed and we saw a blue cloud to the north, hinting

of the great mountain ranges of the Spanish Main. Ahead, a low green

mist along the horizon told us we were nearing shore. This became more

and more distinct until we could make out individual trees. By noon we

had left the tumultuous waters of the Gulf of Paria, and were floating

quietly on a broad stream between two majestic walls of green; we had

entered our wilderness, and the silence and beauty of our reception

seemed all the more vivid after the noise and turbulence of the wind and

water behind us.

[Illustration: FIG. 2. OUR SLOOP ENTERING THE MANGROVES.]

Our first impression was of a vast solitude. It was midday, and the tide

was almost at its height. With limp sails we drifted silently onward,

not a sound of life coming from the green depths about us. We skirted

the mangroves along the south bank, moving more and more slowly, until

at last we rested motionless on the water, between the blazing sky

overhead and the muddy depths beneath. The tide had reached its highest,

and, like the living creatures of the jungle, rested in the midday heat.

The captain gave a gruff order in Spanish, and the anchor splashed into

the water, dragging the chain after with a sudden roar and jangle which

echoed from shore to shore—jarring the silence as would a shriek of pain

in a cathedral.

A chatter came from the mangroves near at hand, and high up among the

dense foliage we saw the first life of the continent—a wistful little

human face gazing out at us, a capuchin monkey striving with wrinkled

brows to make out what we were. At his call two others came and looked;

then, as our sail came down with a rattle of halyards, the trio fled

through the branches with all the speed which four hands and a tail could

lend.

We spent the afternoon in getting our floating home ready for use.

No more waves would be encountered, so everything was unlashed.

Stereo-glasses, camera-plates, and ammunition were placed ready to hand;

the galley stove was moved far forward, and a mosquito-proof tent of

netting was erected under the tarpaulin in the stern.

The sun had sunk low in the west when we saw a long, narrow dug-out canoe

coming downstream. An Indian woman and her baby were crouched in the bow,

while in the stern a naked Indian paddled swiftly and silently. His skin

shone like coppery bronze in the sunlight, his long black hair was bound

back from his face by a thong of hide. In front of him rested a bow and

arrows and a long fish-spear. Silently he approached and in silence he

passed—unheeding our salutations.

[Illustration: FIG. 3. SCARLET IBISES IN FLIGHT.]

One more beauty of this wild wonderland was vouchsafed us before night

fell. We had been disappointed in the birds. Where were the myriads

of water-fowl of which we had heard? We had seen nothing—not a single

feather. But now the scene slowly changed. The tide was falling rapidly,

swirling and eddying past the boat, and the roots of the mangroves began

to protrude, their long stems shining black until the water dried from

them. Mud-flats appeared, and suddenly, without warning, a living flame

passed us—and we had seen our first Scarlet Ibis[27].[A]

Past the dark green background of mangrove foliage the magnificent bird

flew swiftly—flaming with a brilliance which shamed any pigment of human

art. Blood red, intensest vermilion, deepest scarlet—all fail to hint of

the living color of the bird. Before we could recover from our delight

a flock of twenty followed, flying close together, with bills and feet

scarlet like the plumage. They swerved from their path and alighted

on the mud close to the mangroves, and began feeding at once. Then a

trio of snowy-white Egrets[32] with trailing plumes floated overhead;

others appeared above the tops of the trees; a host of tiny Sandpipers

skimmed the surface of the water and scurried over the flats. Great Cocoi

Herons[31] swept majestically into view; Curlews and Plover[18] assembled

in myriads, lining the mud-flats at the water’s edge, while here and

there, like jets of flame against the mud, walked the vermilion Ibises.

Terns[14] with great yellow bills flew about the sloop, and Skimmers[17]

ploughed the surface of the tide in endless furrows. Macaws[61] began to

pass, shrieking as they flew, two and two together—and then night closed

quickly over all. From the zenith the sun had looked down upon a stream

as quiet as death; it sank upon a scene full of the animation of a myriad

forms of life.

As dusk settled down and hid the shore from our eyes, another sense was

aroused, and to our ears came the sounds of night in these tropical

jungles—a thousand cries, moans, crashes; all mysterious—unexplainable.

In time we became so accustomed to them that we could distinguish

repetitions and details, but this first night brought only a confused

chorus of delightful mystery, now broken by a moment of silence, now

rising to an awe-inspiring climax. One sound only remained clear in our

memory, often repeated, now uttered in lower, now in higher tones—a

terrible choking sigh. It might have been the last death gasp of some

great monkey, or the pitiful utterance of hopelessness of a madman.

With the turn of the tide we raised anchor and drifted through the

night—mile after mile for six hours, and then anchored again. And thus it

was that we came to our wilderness.

* * * * *

Not until we had been in the mangrove jungle for many days did we begin

to realize its vastness, its mystery, its primeval character. Just four

hundred and ten years ago Christopher Columbus sailed through the gulf we

had left and gazed on the dark forest in the heart of which we now were.

Throughout the whole extent of the mangrove wilderness we found no hint

that conditions were not as they were in 1498.

One of the most astonishing things about the mangrove forest is the

apparent diversity of its plant life. Until one actually comes within

reach of trunk and leaves it is impossible to believe that all this

forest is composed of a single species of plant. The foliage of some of

the trees is light, of others dark; here stands a clump of pale beechlike

trunks, there a dark, rough-barked individual is seen. The manner of

growth of the young and old trees is so different that a confusion of

mingled trees, shrubs, and vines seems to confront one. But everywhere

the mangrove reigns supreme. It is the only vegetable growth which can

gain a footing in this world of salt water. In fact, it makes its own

footing, entangling and holding mud and débris about its stems, and ever

blindly reaching out dangling roots, like the legs of gigantic spiders.

Far out on the tip of a lofty branch a mangrove seed will germinate,

before it falls assuming the appearance of a loaded club from eight to

fifteen inches in length. One day it lets go and drops like a plummet

into the soft mud, where it sticks upright. Soon the tide rises, and if

there is too strong a current the young plant is swept away, to perish

far out at sea; but if it can maintain its hold, roots soon spring out,

and the ideal of the mangrove is realized, the purpose for which all this

interesting phenomena is intended: the forest has gained a few yards, and

mud and leaves will soon choke out the intervening water.

The mangroves have still another method of gaining new territory. Aërial

roots are thrown out from branches high in air, swinging downward and

outward with a curve which sometimes wins three or four yards ahead.

Like hawsers thrown from a vessel to a wharf these roots clutch at the

mud beneath, but where the current runs swiftly they swing and dangle in

vain, until they have grown so heavy that they touch bottom some distance

downstream. We made use of these dangling roots as anchors for our canoe,

bending the elastic unattached end upward and springing it over the

gunwale.

Throughout all this great region there is not a foot of solid ground. In

one place we pushed a tall shoot some eight feet in height straight down

through the mud, and it went out of sight. A man falling on this mud, out

of reach of aid, would vanish as in a quick-sand. So the wild creatures

of the mangroves must either swim, fly, or climb. No terrestrial beings

can exist there. We once selected a favorable place, and for fifty

yards made our way over the roots and branches before exhaustion and an

impassable gap of mud and water stopped all progress. As never before

we realized how safe from man are the denizens of these strange swamps.

Monkeys fled swiftly before us, birds rose and flew overhead, while we

painfully crept and pulled ourselves along over the slippery stems.

[Illustration: FIG. 4. YOUNG MANGROVE PLANTS.]

More wonderful even than the coral polyps are these mangroves, for by

this plant alone all this region has been rescued from the sea and built

up into land. In future years, as the mud banks become higher and are

fertilized by the ever-falling leaves, other growths will appear, and

finally the coast of the continent will be thus extended by many scores

of miles of fertile soil.

A network of narrow channels stretches through this wilderness and

allowed us to explore the far interior in our shallow curiara or dug-out.

Thus we spent days and weeks in search of the creatures which lived

in this land of a single tree, and here we learned how delightful the

climate of such a region can be. Every night we slept under blankets, and

during the day the temperature ranged from 66° at five and six o’clock in

the morning to about 86° at noon, although we were within nine degrees

of the equator.[B] One could paddle all day with more comfort than on a

hot summer day in the north. By day mosquitoes were generally absent, and

only a few biting flies reminded us of the “terrible insect scourges”

of the tropics. Life was delightfully new and strange, with the spice of

danger ever attendant upon the exploration of unknown lands.

[Illustration: FIG. 5. THE CRUCIFIX IN THE CATFISH.]

The fishes attracted our attention from the first. When we came on deck

before sunrise for a plunge, our little vessel would be surrounded by

hosts of catfish (_Pseudaucheniplerus nodosus_) all, like our sloop,

headed upstream against the tide. They would bite indifferently at bait,

a bit of cloth, or a bare hook, and were delicious eating. On the bottom

our hooks would sometimes be taken by great fierce-whiskered cats,

bedecked with long streamers, which gave no end of trouble before they

were quieted. They were pale yellow, and the head and back were encased

in bone; Maestro—the cook—called them the crucifix fish, and later showed

us why. On the under surface of the bony armor is a large cross with a

halo about it just above the arms. The crew never caught one of these

fish without making the sign of the cross in their right palm.

When the tide was half down the funniest of puff-fishes (_Calomesus

psittacus_), or tambourines as the Captain called them, would take our

bait. They were from three to five inches long, white below, and pale

greenish above crossed by seven black bands, the first across the mouth

and the seventh at the tip of the caudal fin. There was also a black

patch at the base of the pectoral fins. The iris was bright lemon yellow.

When gently scratched on the lower parts, or sometimes even when just

lifted from the water they would swell up into a round ball. They were

covered with short, stiff bristles which stood on end when the fish

was inflated, and their comical appearance was increased by the four

rodent-like incisor teeth in the front of the mouth. When thus inflated

with air they were helpless for a time, and if thrown back, floated belly

upward at the mercy of the wind and current, until they were able to

collapse to normal size.

On one of our first excursions among the mangroves in our small canoe

we made a most interesting discovery. Here and there, sprawled out on

the mud-flats, were small crocodiles, and occasionally a large one would

rush off into the water at our approach. Hugging the edge of the tide

where the ripples lapped back and forth on the black ooze were many

other living creatures. For a long time we could not make them out,

but finally, drifting silently upon a whole school, we knew them for

four-eyed fish (_Anableps anableps_)—strange creatures which we had hoped

to see.

[Illustration: FIG. 6. PARROT PUFF-FISH.]

We came to a tiny bayou, shaped like a bottle, from which four Little

Blue Herons[34] flew as we approached. We placed our dug-out corklike

athwart the mouth and anchored with our crossed paddles. The air was

warm, bees hummed about the tiny four-parted flowers of the mangroves,

and a great blue morpho butterfly flapped past, mirrored in the water

beneath. Then came tragedy—never far off in this land of superabundant

life. A small clay-colored crocodile made a sudden rush at a ripple,

and a quartet of four-eyes shot from the water in frantic fear. One was

slower than the rest, and the fierce jaws of the diminutive reptile just

grazed him. Another fell back downward in the ooze, and in a twinkling

was caught and dragged into the depths. No wonder the poor little

four-eyes are ever on the lookout for danger and spend most of their time

where they merge with the ripples along the shore, when such enemies are

on the watch for them!

A whir of wings sounded, and a Kingfisher[69] alighted within arm’s

reach. But such a Kingfisher!—the veriest mite, clad in a robe of

brilliant emerald and orange. So small was he that it seemed as if the

tiniest of minnows must choke him. He seemed to be of the same opinion,

for while we watched him he caught only the insects which passed him in

mid-air or which were floating on the water.

[Illustration: FIG. 7. FOUR-EYED FISH.]

By far the most numerous, and in their way the most interesting of the

mangroves’ inhabitants, were the crabs. There were untold millions of

them, all small, all active and keen of vision. If we sat quietly,

they would appear from everywhere, peeping out like little gnomes from

their perches on the mangroves, forever playing their noiseless little

fiddles. These tiny tree-folk not only played, but danced. Let us picture

a scene constantly enacted, so close to us that we could all but touch

the performers. Two crabs approach each other, now fiddling vigorously,

now waving their diminutive pincers back and forth over their heads as

a ballet-dancer waves her arms. They move never in straight lines, but

sideways, now running back a few steps, now forward, until at last they

meet, and each grasping the other’s claws, raises them aloft, and then

for five minutes they circle about in most ludicrous imitation of a

waltz. All this usually takes place on the _lower_ surface of a mangrove

trunk, the inverted position apparently making no less secure the footing

of the little dancers. We could not decide whether this performance was

in the nature of courtship or just pure play.

What we did discover concerning the lives of these crabs was full of

interest. Hundreds of the smallest-sized ones lived in holes in the mud,

and when the tide went down they came out and ran about—intent on some

all-important business of their little existence. Another class of larger

individuals had their holes near the roots of the mangroves, one (rarely

two) good-sized crab apparently taking possession of each root. Here he

disported himself, running up and down, from the water into the air with

no change in speed, and here, strangest of all, he grew to resemble his

home root. There was as great diversity among the roots as among the

larger trunks—whitish, black, mottled, and all intervening shades. It was

a fact, of which we had hundreds of daily proofs, that the crabs were so

like their particular root that often we could not detect the quiescent

crustacean when within a foot of our faces.

There was one group of five black roots forming a rough circle about a

single mottled root. As we approached, a crab ran down each stalk into

the water, and as we peered down and saw them go into their holes, we

could at a glance tell the mottled crab from the five black ones. Even

the roots which were as yet a foot or more above the bottom mud each had

their occupant, which thus had to swim upward from his hole before he

could grasp his swaying perch.

[Illustration: FIG. 8. OUR FLOATING HOME AT LA CEIBA.]

A third class of crabs lived among the higher trunks and branches of the

mangroves, and, except where there was a highroad of some large trunk

dipping into the water, these less fortunate fellows had to scamper in

frantic haste up the roots of their larger brethren. The indignant owner

would rush at the trespasser with uplifted pincers, sometimes forcing

him to leap for his life. Where an unusually large tree was frequented

by many crabs, their carapaces bore a close resemblance to its pattern

and hue, but among these more aërial and roving crabs the mimicry was, on

the whole, less striking than among the sedentary class. In the latter,

protective coloration was carried to a greater degree of perfection than

I have ever seen it elsewhere. These were loath to leave their roots and

swim, preferring to run swiftly down until they reached the mud. This

habit made it easy to catch them, merely by taking the end of the root

aboard and shaking it, when the unsuspecting crab would rush down in all

haste into a pail or jar held at the bottom.

They have many enemies, not only among fish, reptiles, and birds, but

even some of the mammals, such as opossums and monkeys, catch and devour

them in large numbers. We saw a beautiful Hawk,[54] bright chestnut in

color, with a pale creamy head and black throat, dashing at them and

skilfully catching the unfortunate crabs in one outstretched foot.

Scores of other beings of still more lowly degree swarmed about us, but

as the tide lapped out of our little bayou, the four-eyes again attracted

our attention. They began to get restless, swimming back and forth and

shuffling over the mud, until at last in desperation at the ebbing of

their element, they made a dash to get past us into the open water of

the caño. Some dived, but so buoyant are they that they can scarcely

stay below a second, and soon popped up on the surface again. Others

scrambled, rolled, and squirmed along over the ooze on each side of us,

many making good progress and escaping. We caught several and placed them

in an aquarium for study. When hard pressed in deep water these curious

fish progress by a series of leaps—up on their tail end and down again,

up and down again, describing a series of curves and making very fast

time.

When examined closely we see that these fish have only two eyes, but

these are divided in such a way that there appear to be double that

number. There are two distinct pupils, one elevated above the head like

the eyes of a frog, the other separated by a band of tissue and below

the water-line. So when the fish floats in its normal position at the

surface the upper pupils, fitted for vision in the air, watch for danger

above, while the lower pair keeps a submarine lookout for insect food and

aquatic enemies.

Monkeys are perfectly at home in this land of branches, the ever-cautious

capuchins and now and then a long-limbed spider monkey swinging through

the trees with as easy a motion as the flight of a bird. Biggest of all

are the great red howlers, who keep to the deeper, more narrow channels,

and in the evening and again at dawn send their voices to the farthest

limits of the mangroves. They do not howl, they roar, and the sound is

perfectly suited to such a wilderness as this. Before the first signs of

day light up the east, a low, soft moaning comes through the forest, like

the forewarning of a storm through pine trees. This gains in volume and

depth until it becomes a roar. It is no wind now, nor like anything one

ever hears in the north; it is a deep, grating, rumbling roar—a voice of

the tropics; a hint of the long-past ages when speech was yet unformed.

We grew to love the rhythm of this wild music, and it will always be for

us the memory-awakening sound of the tropical wilderness.

The wealth of life in this region was evident when we began to explore

a river flowing down from the highlands in the far-distant interior of

Venezuela. One could spend a year here and not begin to exhaust the

wonders on every hand.

With every high tide the Captain would pull up anchor and shift our craft

a little upstream, until at last our keel touched bottom and we could

go no farther. We anchored firmly and buoyed ourselves by ropes to the

nearest trees so as to keep on an even keel. This, our home for a time,

was in a little bight of the Guarapiche (_War-ah-pee’chy_) River, where

two tumbled-down, long deserted Indian huts still retained the name of La

Ceiba. We were so close to the left bank that at low tide we could walk

ashore on oars laid down over the mud. Here the birds came and fed and

bathed, here the howling monkeys roared over our very heads and Macaws

swung and shrieked at us.

[Illustration: FIG. 9. EXPLORING THE CAÑOS IN A DUG-OUT.]

One night, during a heavy downpour of rain, we were suddenly awakened by

a medley of cries, imprecations, shrieks and yells. Flashing the strong

electric bulb we saw through the sheets of rain a very large curiara run

afoul of our shore line; piled high with luggage, with several screaming

women perched high on the bundles and boxes. Four pigs, tied feet upward,

swelled the chorus in their fear of a watery grave and four men told us

what they thought of us in the present and where they hoped we would

spend the future centuries until the world’s end. Our Captain was out of

his hammock in a moment and in tremendous basso profundo he silenced all,

save the pigs, and rapidly gave directions to our crew to row upstream

against the swirling current, clear the curiara and shift it outside the

danger zone. Between breaths, he incidentally described minutely to the

terrified natives what he knew would be the ultimate fate of such fools

as tried to descend a river on the wrong side. It was a miracle that the

whole outfit did not overturn—a narrow dug-out, measuring about twenty

feet in length by two in width, striking full force against a rope in the

blackness of the storm.

Early in the morning the roaring of the monkeys would awaken us, and

after a hasty breakfast we would start out in our little boat. At this

time everything is dripping and fresh with dew, and there is a bite and

tang in the air which reminds us of Canadian dawns. It is still dusk,

and the lines of mangroves on either side show only as black walls. For

some minutes hardly a sound breaks the stillness except the distant

roars and the drip, drip of our paddles. Then a sudden splashing and

breaking of branches shows that we are discovered by a pair or more of

capybaras (_Hydrochoerus capybara_), those enormous rodents which would

pass as guinea pigs in Gulliver’s land of giants. Now an overhanging

branch drenches us as we brush against it, and as it is pushed aside a

whole armful of orchids comes away, the pure white blossoms (_Epidendrum

fragrans_) filling the caño with their sweetness. Now the delicate

foliage of a palm is silhouetted for a moment against the brightening

eastern sky, and a mass of great convolvulus blossoms shines out from

the shore. By this we know that we are not many miles from dry ground,

and other growths are already beginning to dispute the dominance of the

mangroves.

[Illustration: FIG. 10. WHITE ORCHIDS.]

Silence again, to be broken by one of the most remarkable and startling

outbursts of sound which any living creature in the world can utter. A

series of unconnected sighs, shrieks, screams, and metallic trumpet-like

notes suddenly breaking forth apparently within thirty feet, is surely

excuse enough for being startled. The hubbub ceases as abruptly as it

began; then again it breaks out, now seeming to come from all directions,

even from overhead. The author of all this is the Chachalaca[7]—a bird

not larger than a common fowl, but with a longer tail. It spends most of

its time on the ground or among the lower branches of the trees in the

swamps. It was seldom that we caught sight of one, but we shall never

forget the first time we heard their diabolical chorus.

The sun’s rays now light up the narrow path of water ahead of us, and a

thousand creatures seem to awaken and give voice at once. Two splendid

Yellow and Blue Macaws[61] fly high overhead, their screams softened by

the distance; a flock of great white-billed, Red-crested Woodpeckers[88]

drum and call; from the bank comes the rolling cry of the Tinamou and

the sweet, penetrating double note of the Sun-bittern[24]; Hummingbirds

squeak in their flight as they shake the dew-drops from the orchids above

us; squirrels with fur of orange and gray scramble through the branches,

fleeing before the little capuchin monkeys. Then, one after another,

three splendid Swallow-tailed Kites[58] dash past us at full speed,

brushing the surface of the water and floating upward again.

Swallows,[119] emerald and white, catch the flies which hover near us;

a big yellow-breasted Flycatcher alights for a moment on the bow of

our boat—and a tropical day is fairly begun. These and a hundred other

creatures about us bathe, sing, and seek their food during the fresh

hours of early morning. Then, as the sun rises higher and its heat draws

a hush over all, the notes of the birds die away, leaving the insect

vocalists supreme. Butterflies click here and there, a loud humming tells

of huge wasps winging their way on murderous missions, but above all

rises the chant of the cicadas. The commonest of these grinds out harsh,

reverberating tones—whir-r-r-r-r-r! wh-r-r! wh-r-r! wh-r-r! wh-r-r!

rolling the r’s in the first utterance for a minute or more, then ending

in a series of short, abrupt whirs.

Then another cicada, a giant species, sends his call through the jungle;

he has two strings to his bow, one a half-note higher than the other, and

on these he plays for five minutes at a time. It is Chinese music to the

very tone. Sometimes his tune ends in a rising shriek, and we know that

one of the big blue wasps has descended on him and stabbed him in the

midst of his love-song.

[Illustration: FIG. 11. SUN-BITTERN.]

The day wears on, and even the cicadas become quiet. The sun is overhead

and the air full of tropical heat. In the shade it is always comfortable,

and in the full glare of the sun one perspires so freely that the heat is

hardly felt.

As we paddle lazily along, a great Tegu Lizard (_Teius nigropunctatas_)

scrambles slowly along the bank; now crawling over a muddy expanse, now

taking to the water to avoid a bushy tangle, folding back his legs and

swimming with long graceful sweeps of his tail. As we watch him he leaps

at several little crabs and catches them before they can escape into

their holes.

We eat our luncheon in the shade of a clay bank, the first hint of dry

land we have seen along the caño, and here we watch the little crocodiles

basking in the sun and the crabs scuttling over the mud. A bird of

iridescent green and orange swoops down to our very faces, and hangs

swinging in a loop of a tiny liana on the face of the bank. The next

instant it vanishes into the earth, darting into a hole hardly larger

than the crab-holes around it. We have found the home of a Jacamar.[86]

At the end of the short tunnel are four round white eggs laid on the bare

clay.

While examining the nest we hear at our very feet the terrible night

noise—the muffled choking sigh which has come to us every night since we

entered the mangrove wilderness. We are standing in our narrow dug-out,

which the least movement will overturn, and for an instant it is indeed a

question whether we can control ourselves enough to keep it from filling.

Now the mystery solves itself as a large anaconda (_Eunectes murinus_)

nine or ten feet long, slowly winds out from a hole in the bank beneath

the surface of the water and slips into the depths of the muddy current.

Then the tide laps a little lower, and a big bubble of air, caught in the

entrance of the serpent’s lair, frees itself with a sudden gasping sob.

When the tide is rising or falling over these large openings in the mud,

the air escapes from time to time with the terrifying sound which has so

long puzzled us. Our mysterious nocturnal creature is thus explained away

in the prosaic light of day.

[Illustration: FIG. 12. SOLUTION OF THE MANGROVE MYSTERY—AN ANACONDA.]

An hour later as our dug-out rounds a sharp bend in the caño, there comes

to our ears a series of rasping cries—hoarse and creaking as of unoiled

wheels. The glasses show a flock of large, brown, fowl-like birds in

a clump of bushes overhanging the water. Their barred wings and tall,

delicate crests tell us that they are the bird of all others which we had

hoped to see and study. We are floating within a hundred feet of a flock

of Hoatzins[11]—the strange reptile-like, living fossils which are found

only in this part of the world, and which are closely related to no other

living bird.

[Illustration: FIG. 13. HOATZINS IN THE BAMBOOS ON THE GUARAPICHE.]

As we draw near, the birds flutter through the foliage as if their wings

were broken. We find that this is their usual mode of progression, and

for a most interesting reason. Soon after the young Hoatzins are hatched

and while yet unfledged they are able to leave the nest and climb about

the branches, and in this they are greatly aided by the use of the wings

as arms and hands. The three fingers of the wing are each armed with a

reptile-like claw, and at the approach of danger the birds climb actively

about like squirrels or lizards.

It has usually been thought that when they grow up they lose all these

reptilian habits and behave as conventional feathered bipeds should. But

we find that while, of course, the fingers are deeply hidden beneath the

long flight-feathers of the wing, yet these very feathers are often used,

fingerlike, in forcing aside thick vines, the birds thus clambering and

pushing their way along.

It was with the keenest delight of the pioneer and discoverer that we

watched these rare creatures. Although they do not nest until July and

August, yet we found them in the very trees and bushes which held the

remains of last year’s nests, thus revealing their sedentary life during

the rest of the year. And day after day and week after week we learned to

know that they would be found in this or that tree and nowhere else; they

were veritable feathered sloths. They fed chiefly upon leaves, but fish

also entered into the bill of fare of at least one individual.

We shot two, one for the skin and the other for the skeleton, and we

found the plumage in a very worn and ragged condition, the wing feathers

especially so, where the branches and leaves had rubbed and worn away the

barbs. Throughout the noonday heat these birds were always to be found

in the foliage overhanging the water, ready when disturbed to flop and

thrash a few yards through the mangroves and bamboos.

After many days of pure delight, our note-books filled and our

photographic plates more than half gone, we decided to see something of

the Venezuelan dry land. We would go on and on until we had left the

mangroves with all their unpeopled mystery behind us, and see what new

surprises the villages of the Guarauno (_War-ah-oo’no_) Indians and the

jungles of the foot-hills would afford.

At nine o’clock one night, when the stars alone cast a faint weird light

over everything, we sent two of the crew ahead in the rowboat to keep our

bow straight, and then began a long night of noiseless drifting with the

tide. It was a night to remain forever in our memory. The men relieved

their monotonous towing with strange wailing chants; on each side the

mangroves slipped past, black and menacing; invisible creatures snorted

and splashed in sudden terror as we rounded each turn; great fireflies

burned on the trees and were reflected in the water, and to our ears

came the roars of the four-handed folk, the calls and screams of night

birds, the metallic clinks of insects, and ever the gasps and chokings of

the serpents’ burrows—hardly less sinister now that we had solved their

mystery.

Throughout all the night we passed up one caño, down another, past miles

and miles of black foliage, all alike to us, almost indistinguishable

in the starlight, yet early next morning as we rose to rout the cloud

of mosquitoes about our head nets, the captain said in his soft Spanish

tongue, “The mountains of my country should be in sight ahead.” And,

indeed, an hour later, as the day dawned, we could discern the blue haze

in the north which marked the high land out.

Toucans, big Muscovy Ducks[43] and Snakebirds[48] flew past us; great

brown Woodpeckers and flights of Parrakeets swung across the caño;

dolphins played around us, but we heeded them little, all eager to press

on and see the new land.

So we sat far up in the bow and watched the mountains take form and

the palms upon them become ever more distinct. From a land of mystery

untrodden by man, we were soon to come upon a bit of land so prized by

man that nations had almost gone to war over it—La Brea (_Bray’ah_)

the strange lake of pitch hidden in the heart of the forest, with its

strange birds and fish and animals; lying on the borderland between the

foot-hills of the northern Andes and the world of mangroves which for

many days had held us so safely in its heart.

[Illustration: FIG. 14. FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE VENEZUELAN MOUNTAINS.]

CHAPTER II.

THE LAKE OF PITCH.

Heretofore we had sailed and paddled through a land of mangroves and

water, where, with the exception of one or two tiny muddy islets in the

forest, there was no solid ground. One day the last of innumerable turns

of a narrow _caño_ brought our sloop in sight of real earth—the first dry

land of eastern Venezuela. A rough wooden wharf supporting a narrow-gauge

line of rails appeared, and beyond rose a steep hill, dotted here and

there with little thatched huts, each clinging to a niche scooped out of

the clay. We were at the village of Guanoco (_Wah-no’co_), the shipping

point of the pitch lake. A few steps beyond the last hut and one was

in the primeval forest—so limited is man’s influence in this region of

rapidly growing plants.

For five miles the little toy rails zigzagged their uneven way through

the jungle. On one side was swamp, into which one could penetrate but a

short distance before encountering the advance-guard of the mangroves,

the front of the vast host which stretched eastward mile after mile to

the sea. West of the track the land rose ten or twenty feet in many

places, but even where level it soon lost its swampy character. At the

end of the line the strange pitch lake itself appeared as a great plain,

on the borderland between low swamps and the foot-hills of the mountains.

This was our tramping-ground, and we found it a veritable wonderland of

birds and beasts and flowers.

[Illustration: FIG. 15. COLONY OF 150 CASSIQUES’ NESTS IN ONE TREE.]

One of the first things which attracted our attention were the Orioles or

Cassiques[151]—great black and yellow beauties with long whitish beaks

and an infinitely varied vocabulary. In the north our eyes are gladdened

by the sight of a single pair of Orioles flying about their nest in the

elm; here in a single tree there were sometimes over one hundred and

fifty inhabited nests, most of which were two feet or more in length. The

more we watched these birds the more interesting they became. They showed

a real intelligence in the selection of a site for their nests. Monkeys,

tree-snakes, opossums, and other bird-eating creatures were abundant

hereabouts, and for a colony of these conspicuous birds to conceal their

nests successfully would be impossible. So their homes are swung out in

full view of all. But one or two precautions are always taken. Either the

birds choose a solitary tree which fairly overhangs some thatched hut, or

else the colony is clustered close about one of the great wasps’ nests

which are seen here and there high up among the branches of the forest.

[Illustration: FIG. 16. NEST AND EGGS OF YELLOW-BACKED CASSIQUE.

Observe the Extra Shelter Roof. The lower opening was made to show the

egg chamber.]

The Indians and native Venezuelans never trouble the birds, which have

been quick to realize and take advantage of this fact, and weave their

nests and care for their young almost within arm’s reach of the thatched

roofs. No monkey dares venture here, and the mongrel dogs keep off all

the small nocturnal carnivores.

But a colony of Cassiques which chooses to live in the jungle

itself would have short shrift, were it not for the strange communal

guardianship of the wasps. These insects are usually large and venomous,

and one sting would be enough to kill a bird; indeed, a severe fever

often ensues when a man has been stung by half a dozen. So the birds

must in some way be immune to the attacks of the wasps. Perhaps their

wonderfully complete armor of feathers, scales, and horny beak accounts

for this, while their quickness of vision and of action enables them to

save their eyelids—their one unprotected spot. Although the Cassiques

cannot have learned from experience of the terrible wounds which the

wasps can inflict, yet they are keenly alive to the advantages to be

derived from close association with them.

The wasp’s nest is built far out on the tip of the limb of some forest

tree, and the long pendent homes of the Cassiques are placed close to

it, sometimes eight or ten on the same branch, and others on neighboring

limbs, so near that the homes of insects and birds rattle against each

other when the wind blows.

One such community was placed rather near the ground, where we could

watch the inhabitants closely. Frequently when one or two of the big

birds returned to their nests with a rush and a headlong plunge into

the entrance, the whole branch shook violently. Yet the wasps showed no

excitement or alarm; their subdued buzzing did not rise in tone. But when

I reached up and moved the branch gently downward, the angry hum which

came forth sent me into the underbrush in haste. From a safe distance I

could see the wasps circling about in quick spurts which meant trouble

to any intruder, while the excited Cassiques squeaked and screamed their

loudest. Whether the slight motion I gave to the branch was unusual

enough to arouse the insects, or whether they took their cue from the

cries and actions of the alarmed birds, I cannot say.

The nests are beautifully woven, of very tough palm leaf shreds and grass

stems, in shape like tall vases, bulging at the bottom to give room for

the eggs and young birds, and with an entrance at the side near the top.

We found still another instance of the unusual ability of these birds to

adapt themselves to changing conditions. Those nests which were already

deserted or with young ready to fly had simple rounded tops arching

over to protect the entrance from the sun; but in the nests which were

in process of construction, now at the beginning of the rainy season

in early April, there appeared an additional chamber with a dense roof

of thatch, in which one of the parents, the male at least in one case,

passed the nights, safe from the torrents of sudden rain.

[Illustration: FIG. 17. VENEZUELAN TREE PORCUPINE.]

Another larger species of Cassique,[150] dull green in color, built

solitary nests, three feet or more in length, but seldom near the homes

of men or wasps. Here and there in the jungle some lofty tree raised its

huge white bole free of vine and liana, and smooth as a marble column,

towering far above all its fellows; and out on the very tip of one of its

swaying branches the nest was woven—safe from all tree-climbing enemies.

The notes of these birds were like deep resonant cowbells, ringing

through the jungle, clear and metallic.

During our stay in the village of Guanoco we had abundant opportunity to

observe the relations of a tiny hamlet like this to the great world of

primeval nature all around. The jungle pressed close, instantly filling

any neglected corner with a tangle of vines and shrubs, ever ready to

sweep over all and reforest the little clearings about the huts.

Sloths were rare near the village, as it had long been a favorite Sunday

amusement to go out and bring in one or more of these defenceless

creatures for dinner. But tree porcupines (_Sphingurus prehensilis_),

with bare, prehensile tails and faces like little manatees, were

common, as were those gentle little creatures of the night, kinkajous

(_Cercoleptes caudivolvulus_), or “couchi-couchis” as the Indians call

them. Catching porcupines and sloths is about as exciting sport as

picking blackberries; the porcupine being too confident in its battery of

spines to attempt to escape; the sloth relying with pathetic faith on its

wonderful resemblance to a bunch of moss or leaves.

The “English Sparrows” of the village were beautiful olive-green Palm

Tanagers[144] and great sulphur-breasted Flycatchers[102] which shrieked

_Kiss-ka-dee!_ at you as you passed by. The French in Trinidad tell you

that the bird says _Qu’est-ce-qu’il-dit?_ but the Spaniard, true to his

poetic temperament, says, “_No, Señor, el pájaro dice ‘Cristofué!’_”

which seemed especially appropriate at this Easter season.

Every day one or two wild Chachalacas[7] would fly from the jungle to an

open space near one of the huts and feed fearlessly with the chickens for

an hour or longer.

[Illustration: FIG. 18. WILD CHACHALACA NEAR A GUANOCO HUT.]

To our northern minds the most remarkable thing was the innumerable

variety of all forms of life. Seldom did we find many individuals of any

one species, but always there was a constantly changing panorama. We

would make a careful list of birds seen near our house, noting certain

ones for future study, and the following day scarcely one of these would

be visible, but in their place birds of strange form and colors. The

same was true of the insects and the result was as bewildering as it was

fascinating. Our habits of observation had all to be changed. Except when

birds were actually nesting, we could never be sure of seeing the same

species twice, although there was never any doubt that each day would add

many new forms to our lists.

Though we tramped for miles along the narrow Indian trails and spent many

days in swamps and dark jungles, yet we were troubled scarcely at all

with noxious insects. “Jiggers” there were in moderate numbers but one

could “collect” more in one day in Virginia than in a month here at this

season. During our entire stay we saw only about three or four minute

ticks, while mosquitoes were absent, except at night. If we dug in rotten

logs, we were sure to unearth centipedes and scorpions, many of them,—but

otherwise we rarely saw them. Once, indeed, a mother scorpion (_Centrurus

margaritatus_) with half a hundred young ones on her back was discovered

in a shoe, bringing to mind the old nursery rhyme.

[Illustration: FIG. 19. SCORPION AND ITS YOUNG TAKEN FROM MILADY’S SHOE.]

We found that much of the jungle was almost impenetrable, and on one of

our first excursions we were fortunate enough to find a means of making

the birds come to us from the deeper recesses of the forest. As we left

the doorway, a silent little shadow fitted into the pommerosa tree in

front of us, and soon among the glossy leaves came a sound which we had

heard day and night, but the author of which had thus far evaded us. It

is impossible to put into words, but it may be imitated by a monotone

whistle, of about four notes to the second, of A above middle C. The

glasses showed a mite of a Pygmy Owl[60] glaring at us with wide yellow

eyes, and firmly clutching a dead bird, half as large as himself. Later,

when standing at the edge of an impenetrable tangle of thorny vines and

vainly trying to discover what bird was singing in loud, ringing tones

within it, we thought of the fierce little owl, and concealing ourselves,

gave the call of _Glaucidium_. The effect was instantaneous; the song

near us ceased, and with angry cries a pair of beautiful Black-capped

Mocking-thrushes[126] flew almost overhead. Black-tailed Euphonias[139]

and Grassfinches followed, Bananaquits[137] whirred about us, and within

a few minutes thirty or forty birds had testified to the hatred in which

the little Owl is held.

A great surprise to our northern eyes was the Yellow Woodpecker,[90] not

uncommon here, and clad in bright yellow plumage from crest to tail.

It was very conspicuous in flight, but when it alighted, merged with

the lichened bark and spots of sunlight. One bird was very tame and

frequented a tree close by our window.

One of our first walks led us through a narrow valley or gorge to the

westward, shaded by ranks of tall palms and with isolated banana and

cocoa plants, hinting of native Indian clearings long since overwhelmed

by the luxuriant jungle growth. Wasps and other Hymenoptera outnumbered

other insects at this season, and one could have collected scores of

different species in a few hours. A few Heliconia butterflies drifted

across our path, and now and then a giant morpho shot past like a meteor

of iridescent blue. Other great butterflies (_Caligo ilioneus_) were

iridescent blue and brown above, while the under sides of their wings

were mottled and with a great eye-spot on each of the hind wings, which

gives them the name of the owl butterfly. But however much, in an insect

cabinet, the expanded reverse of the wings suggests the face of an owl,

the spot, as we observed it in the forest, seemed rather to render the

insect invisible. These great fellows would shoot up to a lichen-covered

trunk and drop lightly upon it, and unless one’s eyes had followed

closely, the butterfly vanished like magic. Creeping up to one we secured

its picture, the mottlings on its wings merging it with the lichens, and

its owl-eyes becoming the painted facsimiles of darkened knotholes, or of

little atoll-like fungus rings.

[Illustration: FIG. 20. YELLOW WOODPECKER.]

One is constantly impressed by the abundance and variety of these

protective adaptations. Instead of one’s eyes becoming more accustomed

and trained in detecting these deceptions, the puzzles increase, and

one becomes suspicious of everything. Every few minutes we are halted

by a curled leaf which resembles some great caterpillar, or by a partly

decayed fruit which may prove to be a curiously marked beetle. Many of

these are such exact counterparts that we have to touch them to undeceive

ourselves. After seeing some bats hung in the shadows between the

buttressed bases of great trees, we imagine them in every patch of moss

or dried leaves.

[Illustration: FIG. 21. OWL BUTTERFLY ON COCOA BARK.]

The resemblance to inanimate objects is never violated and often

remarkably heightened by the little creatures of fur, feather, scale or

armor of chitin. The bats never alight in a close compact mass, but each

isolated, with its wings partly spread, and often extended _irregularly_,

one webbed hand higher or farther out than the other, thus presenting

a dull, irregular outline, at which we should never have looked twice,

had not the little beasties become frightened and flown. A butterfly

(_Peridromia feronia_), mottled and pearly on the upper side, snaps

clicking to a lichened trunk and alights head downward with wings flat.

Beneath they are white and conspicuous. The inverted position allows the

hinder wings to be pressed flat to the surface of the bark, while the

slight shadow caused by the prominence of the body in front is thus below

and invisible. Another, brilliant red on the upper side and irregularly

marked below, never alights, as far as our experience went, except on

some lichened trunk. In this case however the wings were held tightly

together, and the insect always in a head downward position. The insect

took to wing so quickly that only a hint of the red was visible.

We never could tell what new form of protective resemblance would next

come under our notice. Here and there in the woods we found trees which

had fallen in a clear space and had torn out their roots in the fall,

forming a great bank of earth and mould, held together by the network of

root fibres. Hanging suspended by slender root tendrils were many small

pellets of earth slowly swaying and disintegrating. We found that some of

these were not mere accidents of inorganic forces, but were the nests of

a small mud wasp made in a roughly circular form and moulded to one of

the many rootlets.

Lizards perhaps more than any other group of backboned animals become

part and parcel of their surroundings in form and color. We sometimes

found dull gray and green fellows on the trunks of trees or the ends

of half rotten logs, which almost defied the efforts of the eye to

disentangle them from the lichens and moss amid which they clung.

When one of these did move it was with such celerity that the eye

unconsciously swept onward, impelled by momentum, and overshot the spot

where it stopped. Then another careful search was necessary to rediscover

the reptile.

[Illustration: FIG. 22. LIZARD ALERT ON TRUNK OF TREE.]

This same glade was the favorite haunt of two kinds of small Manakins,

the Gold-headed[108] and the White-breasted.[111] The former was a mite

of a bird, barely four inches in length, jet-black as to body and wings,

but with a cap of gold pulled down over his head and ears. If his eyes

were black and beady like those of his near relatives, the harmony of

his head-dress would be disturbed, so Dame Nature has sifted the gold

over his eyes as well, and the yellow irides are almost invisible among

the feathers. Such coloring renders him part of his beloved gorge. If he

sits in the shade his body vanishes and his head is naught but a spot of

sunshine; if his perch is in sunlight, the tiny, headless body conveys no

hint of a living bird.

His cousin, the White-breasted, is black and white and the four outer

feathers of the wing are very narrow and curved. These are the strings

upon which he plays an æolian song of love, for every time he takes to

flight a loud humming sound is produced. The females are dull olive in

color but easily recognizable by their orange feet and legs. Sometimes

three suitors would buzz and hum together about one of these sombre

little ladies in the gloom of the gorge.

[Illustration: FIG. 23. THE SAME LIZARD A MOMENT LATER, OBLITERATED BY

CHANGE OF POSITION.]

The rotten trees and palm stubs were filled with interesting insects; big

black palm weevils (_Rhyncophorus palmatum_) an inch and a half long,

and huge brown cockroaches three inches from head to wing-tip (_Blaberus

trapezoideus_). With a machete we cut open one log, which was like bread

in consistency, and found two centipedes, three scorpions, one of them

a whip scorpion, a huge beetle larva, a small snake, with a faint band

about its neck (_Homalocranium melanocephalum_) and most interesting of

all, a Peripatus.

Perhaps the reader here wonders to himself what a Peripatus is, and it is

a pity that this most important creature has no common name. We may call

it a worm-like caterpillar or a caterpillar-like worm, for its claim to

fame rests upon its position as a so-called missing link. We know that in

long ages past the ancestor of the butterflies, beetles, wasps, spiders

and crabs was a worm-like creature, primitive in structure and in no way

hinting of the beautiful organisms which were to be evolved in succeeding

epochs. Hiding away from light, in the warm moisture of decaying wood,

the little Peripatus has lived on and on, age after age, with little

apparent change, until we find it to-day combining the simpler characters

of the lowly worms with those of the vastly higher caterpillars.

The Peripatus which we unearthed, or rather unlogged, was of a rich,

dark reddish hue. It was caterpillar-like in general appearance, but not

divided into segments, while the number of its very simple feet and its

method of progression brought to mind the millipedes. The long, slender

antennæ were constantly in motion, changing and extending, feeling about

and retracting.

Glancing at the leaf of a low shrub, we saw what we supposed to be two

bits of dried, rolled-up leaf entangled in a strand of spider web and

being whirled about by the wind. When we saw that this motion continued

after the breeze had died down, we became interested. We discovered

that the two objects were tineid moths of a dark pearl color, waltzing

about with the most graceful and airy motion imaginable. With closed

wings they whirled round and round by means of their legs alone, and,

most remarkably, both going in the same direction, although this was

frequently changed, the reversal being almost instantaneous and without

an instant’s loss of the smoothness of the rhythm. Now and then their

circles overlapped, but at the first danger of collision the tiny

dervishes both retreated without stopping their dance. Presently one flew

away, and the other shifted to another leaf near by, and recommenced his

waltz alone. It was a surprise to find these little winged millers in the

rôle of graceful dancers. The reason of it remained a mystery.

[Illustration: FIG. 24. NEST AND EGGS OF GREAT BLUE TINAMOU.]

These incidents are quoted as some among the myriad interesting doings of

the little folk which we observed in the heart of these great jungles.

As we walked on, virgin forest surrounded us, with great trees centuries

old, chained and netted together by miles upon miles of lianas. Now and

then we entered a clear glade festooned by a maze of ropes and cables,

with here and there a lofty monkey-ladder leading upward by a wavy series

of narrow steps. The cicadas filled the air with the oriental droning of

their song, and a big Red-crested Woodpecker[88] called loudly from a

half-rotted, vine-choked tree. From the undergrowth came a soft rolling

trill, a crescendo of power and sweetness, and when our Indian carrier

whispered, “_Gallina del monte_,” we knew we were listening to the call

of a Great Blue Tinamou[1]—one of those strange birds looking like brown,

tailless fowls, but of so generalized a type that they form in many ways

a link between the ostrich-like forms and the rest of the bird world. The

bird which was calling soon became silent, but creeping slowly along we

were fortunate enough to discover its nest on a bit of sunny turf near

the end of a log in a partially overgrown clearing. All the delights of

bird-nesting seemed consummated the moment we caught sight of the two

wonderful eggs before us. The nest was merely a hollow scratched in the

grass, but the sun was reflected from two shining spheres of metallic

greenish blue, like two huge turquoises polished as by the wheel of a

lapidary. Never were such eggs; they seemed of hard burnished metal, more

akin to the stones lying about them than to the organic world, and yet,

even as we looked, there appeared a tiny fracture, and in a few minutes

the beak of a Tinamou chick had broken through to the outer air. The

glistening cradle of stone would soon fall apart and give to the tropical

world another life—one more mote among the millions upon millions about

us.

Now and then we would come across a huge low mound, clear of undergrowth,

dotted with holes from which well-trodden paths led off in every

direction. Some of these were six inches in width, so that we could

easily walk in them. A twig poked down the holes and twisted about would

come up covered with angry ants, great brownish-black fellows with a

grip like a bulldog. Even this simile fails, for these insects will allow

their heads to be pulled off before they will let go.

Everywhere the ants attracted our attention; huge black giants

(_Neoponera commutata_), which seemed never to have anything to do

but parade slowly up and down the trunks of trees; and the ever-busy

parasol-ants, hustling along in single file, waving their green banners

and clinging faithfully to them while falling down terrific precipices

three or four inches deep. We dug into their nests and found their fungi

gardens, one part of which would be freshly planted with neat black balls

of chewed-up green leaves, while in another part the fungus was well

grown—a meshwork of gray strands whose fruit was ready to be plucked and

eaten.

The hunting-ants (_Eciton_) surpassed all the others in interest. Day

after day we would come across their great armies, and we spent many

hours of keen enjoyment watching their advance. We had read of their

appearance and habits; we had heard them compared to Goths and hordes of

savages, but no description prepares one for the actual sight. We watched

in particular one large army which carried on its operations only a short

distance from our house.

Long before we came within sight of the ants themselves their presence

would be heralded by the flock of birds which kept just in advance,

feeding upon the insects which flew up from the van of the ant legions.

In one such assemblage most of the birds were Woodhewers, big,

cinnamon-colored, creeper-like birds which hitched up the tree trunks

and now and then swooped down to the ground, snatched an insect and

swung back to the trunk. This flock of birds showed other methods of

feeding; Hummingbirds appeared from nowhere, dashed down to a tiny insect

and vanished into space; Anis[80] blundered along, looking as if their

wings and tails were too loosely attached for use; Ant-birds crept low

through the bushes and carried their prey to a twig to eat; two American

Redstarts[128b] and several Tyrant Flycatchers caught their prey by

a sudden dart and a snap of the beak. One species in particular, the

Streaked Flycatcher,[105] was always attendant on the ants and always

fearless, watching us and yet never missing a chance to snap up a passing

insect.

[Illustration: FIG. 25. WOODHEWER CLINGING TO THE TRUNK OF A TREE.]

As we drew nearer, a strange rustling sound reached our ears, like the

regular pattering of raindrops, and before we knew it we were standing in

the midst of thousands of active ants, whose rushing and scrambling about

over the dead leaves caused the loud rustling. In a few seconds twenty

or thirty ants had climbed upon and above our shoes, and their sharp,

nipping bites sent us in haste to the flanks of the army, where we freed

ourselves from the fierce creatures. These ants are not large, varying

from a fifth to a third of an inch in length, dark in color, with lighter

red abdomens.

Until one becomes accustomed to these scenes of carnage the sight

is really terrible, especially when one lies down flat and takes an

ant’s-eye view of the field of battle. Yet such is the fierceness and

savage fury on one side and hopeless terror or frantic efforts to escape

on the part of the victims that it needs but little imagination to stir

deeply one’s sympathies.

[Illustration: FIG. 26. STREAKED FLYCATCHER.]

In place of the steady advance of a well-drilled army, presenting a solid

front of serried ranks, the formation of the hunting-ants may be compared

to an innumerable host of cavalry scouts who quarter the ground in every

direction, the whole army slowly advancing and including new territory in

the scene of operations. Frequent flurries or louder rustlings follow the

discovery and the subsequent terrible struggle of some quarry of noble

size—a huge beetle or mighty lizard.

One fact impressed us from the first: every creature aroused by the ants

seemed to know instinctively of the awful danger. Whether through odor or

sight or sound, the alarm always carried its full meaning. Insects which

ordinarily would escape the collecting net by a single quick motion, here

dashed away with such terror that they often flew against our clothes or

a tree, and were hurled to the ground. Lizards took shelter under our

shoes or shot off like streaks of light for many yards. Our presence and

that of the predatory birds was disregarded in the efforts to avoid the

danger which generations of inherited experience had made the most vivid

in life.

Insects which usually feigned death as a means of escape, when disturbed

by these ants used all the motor organs given them by nature to flee from

the dreaded foe. Escape seemed to be the result of accident with all

wingless creatures, even with those possessing good eyesight, for the

first blind terrified rush as often carried them to certain death in the

thickest of the host as it did to safety in the van or on one side of the

ant army. Even wings were not a surety of escape. Twice I saw moths arise

heavily from their hiding-places with a half-dozen of the little fiends

clinging to their legs and wings. One was snapped up, ants and all, by

a big Flycatcher, and the other fell among the quartermaster’s brigade

in the rear, where every ant within reach dropped his load and hurled

himself upon the newcomer.

Here and there one might observe good-sized balls of ants rolling about,

and in the centre would be some hard-cased beetle or other insect, who

gave up only after killing and maiming a score of his assailants.

We dropped five big black ants into the midst of the marauders, and

witnessed a combat as thrilling as the contest between the Greeks and

Persians. Four of the insects alighted on a small rounded stone over

which three hunting-ants were scurrying. Without hesitation the black

giants fell upon the brown warriors and tore them limb from limb, with

the loss of only half a leg. This is not a very serious handicap, when

one has five and a half robust limbs left! The fifth big fellow dropped

upon a mass of ants piled like football-players upon a struggling

scorpion, whose sting was lashing the air in vain. The big ant started

another ripple upon this pool of death, which soon smoothed away, leaving

no recognizable trace of him. But the quartet of big-jawed fellows on

their rock citadel fought successfully and well. No ant which crept to

the top ever lived to return for help. The four flew at him like wolves

and bit him to death. Soon a ring of hunting-ants formed around the

stone, all motionless except for a frantic twiddling of antennæ. They

were apparently excited by the smell of the blood of their dead fellows,

and only rarely did one venture now and then to scale the summit. When we

left, two hours afterward, the army had passed, and left the stone and

its four doughty defenders, who showed no immediate intention of leaving

their fortress.

The ground over which the hunting-ants passed was absolutely bare of

life, and, contrary to the rule in human armies, it was among the

camp-followers and foragers that the most perfect discipline reigned. In

the rear of the main army were lines upon lines of ants laden with the

spoils: legs, bodies, and heads of insects and spiders, bits of scaly

skin of lizard or turtle, joints of centipedes and scorpions, and here

and there a piece of ragged but gaudy butterfly-wing borne aloft like the

captured standard of some opposing force.

We followed three lines of supply-carriers and found that they converged

on some sheltered hollow in a tree or under a boulder or root. Here were

massed countless hordes of ants clinging together like a swarm of bees.

In the centre were the queen, eggs, and young of these nomadic savages,

resting thus temporarily until the far-distant scouts should report

another shelter, when the whole community would shift to the new home,

farther along on the line of march.

The army in which we were especially interested seemed to be carrying on

their hunting in a rough circle about the temporary home, and perhaps

this is a common habit. Certain ants apparently serve some function of

direction or means of communication, for they keep to one place for

a half hour at a time and twiddle their antennæ with every ant which

approaches.

It was when the hunting-ants discovered the nests of other species of

ants that warfare, true to its name, was waged. One could watch as from a

balloon, mimic Waterloos and Gettysburgs, and sad to relate, in the case

of inoffensive species, plunder, murder, and abduction by the wholesale.

After studying the ways of these merciless creatures, we could seldom

walk through the quiet, sunlit jungle, with blossoming orchids everywhere

overhead and the songs of birds and pleasant hum of insects in our ears,

without thinking of the tragedies without number ever going on around us.

Used as we were only to the small lightning bugs of our northern summer

nights, the big luminous elater beetles (_Pyrophorus_ sp.) were ever of

interest. The two thoracic lights are placed on the outer posterior edges

and give out a pale greenish glow of great intensity. We could easily see

to read and write by their light, and by placing a half dozen of these

insects in a glass we could use them instead of our electric flash.

When we examined them carefully we were surprised to find that there was

another area of illumination on the abdomen, below and just behind the

insertion of the third pair of legs. When fully illuminated this area

was brilliant and of a figure ∞ shape. The light however was radically

different from that of the thorax, being yellowish, and candle-like,

giving an illusory impression of an opening from the incandescent

interior of the insect. When the insect settles to rest the only visible

illumination is from the pair of thoracic lights, but in flight the

abdominal searchlight comes into play, burning brightly with a strong

yellowish glare quite different from the green thoracic lights.

As we lay at night half asleep we would sometimes be awakened by the

droning of one or two big elaters, whose intermittent flashes would

illumine the whole room. More than once we had to capture the intruders

with the butterfly net and banish them before we could get any sleep.

We chloroformed two of these luminous beetles and pinned them in an

insect box. Two evenings afterward when we had occasion to add more

insects, the box was opened and to our surprise the little lanterns were

still aglow and hardly less brilliant than when the insects were alive.

They had been dead forty-eight hours and yet their light still shone

ghostly white, lighting up the other insects in the box.

One evening we found a tiny wire worm, the larva of some small species of

elater, which was highly phosphorescent. Although only about one-half of

an inch in length, the whole head, the posterior segment and a spot on

the side of each of the others was bright. Watched as it moved smoothly

and rapidly along, it reminded us of a ship passing at a distance at

night with the lights streaming from the port-holes.

Our trips to the pitch lake on the early morning engine will never be

forgotten. A warning toot from the diminutive whistle hurries us through

our breakfast, and we hasten to the track and see our cameras and guns

loaded on one of the little square wooden “empties.” We mount the

wood-filled tender of the engine, which with many complaining creaks and

jolts get under way, backing slowly around the curve which hides the last

sign of civilization and buries us in the jungle.

For nearly twenty years these little toy engines have bustled and elbowed

their way over the snaky rails, until the jungle and its people have come

to look upon this narrow winding steel path as part of the general order

of things. The underbrush creeps close, and only the constant whipping of

the engines and cars beats down the growth between the rails.

[Illustration: FIG. 27. THE JUNGLE RAILROAD.]

As we start, the last bats of night dash into the dark jungle, and their

diurnal prototypes, a flock of graceful Palm Swifts,[71] swoop about

overhead. To our ears there comes the _finalé_ of the morning chorus

of distant red howlers and the first deep-toned boilings of the giant

Cassiques.

All along the line, beasts and birds show their lack of fear of the

rumbling cars. A party of chattering little monkeys sit and gibber at

us and rub their dew-drenched fur. Their parents and great-grandparents

had found nothing to fear in this strange thing which, five times each

day, crawls back and forth on its narrow trail, and why should they do

more than look and wonder? As we come in sight of the muddy banks of the

little river, a great Parrot shrieks in derision at us from the top of

a dead stub by the track, executing slow somersaults for our benefit.

Instinctively we look for a chain on its leg and a food cup near by!

A splash draws our eyes downward, and from a maelstrom of muddy water

shoots a villainous sting ray. A school of little staring four-eyes skips

over the water, and near the swampy, farther bank, a sprawling half-grown

crocodile watches us—as quiet as a stranded log.

[Illustration: FIG. 28. SPIDER LILIES NEAR PITCH LAKE.]

The air blows cool and damp on our faces, and we long for the keen power

of scent of a dog. Even to our dull nostrils every turn of the road is

full of interest. A swamp, thickly starred with dainty spider-lilies,

comes into view, and we inhale draughts of sweetest incense; Easter

Sunday is at hand, and the very wilderness reminds us of it.

With every breath of air the great palm leaves flick myriads of drops to

the underbrush below, with a sound as of heavy rain. The trunks are black

and soaked, and there is not a dry frond for miles. A sudden curve brings

another loop of the river into view, with a foreground of scuttling crabs

and mangrove seedlings. Here a wave of coarse, salty, marsh smell fills

our lungs—not stagnant, but redolent of the distant sea; the smell that

makes one’s blood leap. The next quarter-mile is covered with lilies

again. From their perfume we enter a zone of recently cut grass—and the

incense brings to mind northern hay-fields and the sweet-grass baskets of

the Indians. What new pains and pleasures would be ours could we possess

the power of scent of some of the “lower” animals!

Temperate succeed tropical vistas; we see what at first appears to be a

grove of young chestnuts rising from rhododendrons and guinea-grass. A

Spotted Sandpiper[22] heightens the illusion, and the picture is complete

when a familiar milk-weed butterfly floats by and alights on a red and

yellow tansy. But just then a Macaw shrieks from a near-by tree—the

road-bed turns and reveals a tangle of palms and scarlet heliconias—a

monkey climbs up a leaf large enough to shelter half a hundred of his

kind. Strange palm fruits come into view, some like enormous clusters

or bunches of grapes—each fruit as large as an orange; or again a huge

feathery, dependent frond of dust-brown blossom and fruit protected by an

overhanging spathe like a huge umbrella.

[Illustration: FIG. 29. LA BREA—THE LAKE OF PITCH.]

The jungle never gives up the struggle against the invading rails.

Beneath the cars the constant friction only dwarfs the growth, and we

find here miniature plants blooming, fruiting, and scattering seed;

plants which elsewhere reach a height of five or six feet. It is an

interesting case of quick adaptation to unfavorable conditions.

The vegetation presses on every inch of the track, striving ever to close

up the long scar through the heart of the forest, and only by systematic

cutting is the way kept open. The advance of the jungle host is most

interesting. Thirty feet from the rails the growth is primeval, a dense

mass of entangled and interlaced vines, shrubs, palms, and giant trees,

the boles of the latter shooting up and up through the mass and bursting

into bloom high overhead. Nearer the track we find a phalanx of green

banners and the wonderfully brilliant red and yellow flower stalks of

the quick-growing heliconias. In front are the rough scouts, the real

advance-guard of strong, thorny vines growing in close entanglement—a

living _chevaux-de-frise_, inconspicuous and yet offering the greatest

resistance. Under this shelter the larger but slower-growing components

of the jungle take root and gather vigor, until, if not cut out with the

hardest labor, they soon rear their heads from their nursery of vines and

brambles, and the shining rails vanish from view.

All the creatures of the forest cross and recross the track freely,

even in front of an approaching train. Water-fowl, Sun-bitterns[24]

and the weird-voiced Trumpeters[25] walk up and down, and flocks of

Seedeaters[132] drift here and there, gleaning seed from between the

rails. The Trumpeters were a great surprise to us, as this is the first

instance of their being found north of the Orinoco River. One day we see

the leaves part, and a long, low-shouldered reddish form slouches across

before us, without even a glance at us, and we know it for the first

South American puma (_Felis concolor_) which we have seen. Another “red

lion,” as the natives called it, with two cubs, was seen not long before.

Only the sloth is barred. He comes close to the endless swath; he wanders

from tree to tree up and down, peering dully out across the track, but he

cannot cross. The twenty-foot treeless embankment is as impregnable to

him as a sheer wall of rock. With a weird cry he turns back and starts in

another direction through the branches.

[Illustration: FIG. 30. THE FATAL “MOTHER OF THE LAKE.”]

We reach the lake long before the dew is dried and before the freshness

of the dawn is dissipated. Hurrying over the planks and the temporary

rails laid for the workman’s hand-cars, we push on a half-mile or more

to the southward, where nothing hints of man’s proximity. To the north

and west are irregular peaks running off into a blue and misty range—the

foot-hills of the Spanish Main. To the south the high woods are close

to us and tower high overhead, but even with the eye of yonder lofty,

soaring Vulture we could see no mountains in that direction—nothing

but flat, green miles of mangroves, stretching to the horizon over the

immense delta of the Orinoco. The pitch lake itself is surrounded on

all sides by dense forests, the front ranks of which are made up of the

marvellously tall and graceful moriche palms. There is one oasis in this

pitchy expanse—Parrot Island it may be called. To this shelter, guarded

on all sides by soft, quaking pitch, Amazon Parrots come at dusk by

hundreds, roosting there until the next morning.

[Illustration: FIG. 31. WHITE-HEADED CHIMACHIMA HAWK AND ETA PALM.]

Near the northern edge is the “mother of the lake,” just above the

deep-hidden source of supply, where the pitch is always soft, and where

no vegetation grows. It is a veritable pool of death, and nothing can

enter it and live. The lizards and heavy-bodied insects which scamper

over the rim are often clogged and drawn down to death. A jaguar, leaping

after a Jacana, slipped in shortly before we came and made a terrible

fight for life. Half blinded, its struggles carried it only farther

outward, but fortunately the end came mercifully soon.

[Illustration: FIG. 32. AMAZON PARROT ROOST, PITCH LAKE.]

All the rest of the lake is a varied expanse of black pitch bubbles,

short grass, clumps of fern and sedge, with occasional isolated palms.

Flowers of many kinds and colors spring from the heart of the raw pitch

itself. Jacanas[23] rise before us with loud cries and flashing wings of

gold. One may walk over the lake at will, morning and evening, but in the

heat of midday, in many places, one’s shoes sink quickly unless one keeps

constantly on the move.

White is not a very common color in nature, and yet here, in striking

contrast with the inky blackness of the pitch, most of the birds show

large patches of this color. In the distance are always to be seen Snowy

Egrets[33] and immature Blue Herons[34]—spots of purest white, while near

at hand, absurdly tame, a big hawk forever soars slowly about or perches

on some great frond of a tall palm. It is a White-headed Chimachima

Hawk[56] with plumage of white, save for back, wings, and tail.

[Illustration: FIG. 33. THE HOME OF THE AMAZON PARROT IN THE MIDDLE OF

PITCH LAKE.]

The two most abundant small birds are chiefly white in color. Both

are Flycatchers, one with white head and neck—White-headed Marsh

Flycatcher[98]—perching in the reeds and making fierce sallies after

passing insects, while even more beautiful and conspicuous are the little

terrestrial Flycatchers—White-shouldered Ground Flycatchers[97] or

“Cotton Birds”—which scurry along the ground over pitch and fallen logs.

Their tails continually wag from side to side, and they come within a few

feet of us, uttering low inquiring notes: _pit! pit!_ They too are clad

in white, except for back, nape, wings, and tail.

[Illustration: AMAZON PARROT AT ENTRANCE OF NEST.

FIG. 34. FIFTEEN FEET AWAY.

FIG. 35. TEN FEET AWAY.]

We follow one about, watching it through the ground-glass of the

camera, when we blunder into a thicket of dry, crackling twigs. A

sudden rustling sound draws our attention, and we look up and find

ourselves within a few feet of a dry palm stub. Around the roughened

stringy bark peers a green head with wide, yellow eyes, and we stiffen

into immobility. The position is anything but comfortable; thorns are

scratching us, flies are tickling our faces, but we dare not move. After

five minutes, which seem hours, the big Yellow-fronted Amazon Parrot[64]

withdraws, and we hear a scuttling within the stub. Silently and with the

greatest caution we step backward, and after a rest we arrange our plan

of attack.

[Illustration: FIG. 36. AMAZON PARROT ABOUT TO TAKE FLIGHT.]

These birds usually nest in hollows in the tops of the tallest,

most inaccessible trees, and this is a golden opportunity—one in a

lifetime—for a photograph of a Parrot at home.

[Illustration: FIG. 37. EGGS AND YOUNG OF AMAZON PARROT IN THE NEST.]

The entrance is rectangular, about three by six inches, and some five

feet above the ground. Painfully I pick my way to the side of the stub,

and bracing myself, focus on that spot of black on the trunk. Then Milady

rustles the weeds in the rear of the stub. Again a rustling, and on the

ground-glass of my Graflex flashes the green head. Snap! I have her! and

with the slowest of motions I change plates. While she is engrossed with

the disturber in the rear I advance a step and get another picture. Then

screwing up my speed-button, I push slowly forward, and just as she is

about to hurl herself from the stub I secure a third photograph. Off

she goes to the nearest palms, shrieking at the top of her lungs, and is

joined by her mate.

We cut a hole in the trunk near the ground, and there find the nest of

the parrot. Three white eggs, one of which is pipped, and a young bird

just hatched reward us, all resting on a bed of chips. The diminutive

polly is scantily clothed with white down, and while in the shade lies

motionless. When a ray of warm sunlight strikes it the little fellow

becomes uneasy and crawls and tumbles about until it escapes from the

unwelcome heat. During its activity it keeps up a continuous, low,

raucous cry like the mew of a catbird. Far out on the expanse of black

pitch—six feet in the depth of this dark cavity!—this little squawking

mite surely had a strange babyhood to fit it for its future life in the

sunlight among the palms.

It was the Yellow-fronted Amazon Parrot,[64] a common species with

dealers everywhere, but we shall never see one in a cage, uttering inane

requests for crackers, without thinking of the interesting family we

discovered at the pitch lake.

We found strange fish in the pools of water scattered over the lake.

Some must have wriggled their way over dry land for some distance to get

there. There were round, sunfish-like fellows (_Aequidens_) and others,

long and slender, with wicked-looking teeth (_Hoplias malabaricus_). Most

curious of all were the Loricates or armored catfish, with a double row

of large overlapping scales enclosing their body from head to tail. Like

the Hoatzins among the birds, these fish are strange relics of the past,

preserved almost unchanged from the ancient fossil Devonian forms.

[Illustration: FISH FROM THE POOLS IN PITCH LAKE.

FIG. 38. _Aequidens_ Sp.

FIG. 39. _Hoplias Malabaricus._]

Days passed like hours in this wonderland, and the time for returning to

civilization came all too soon. The strange living beings which filled

jungle and air and water, made us long for the leisure of months instead

of weeks, in which to study all the infinite variety of life which

surrounded us.

Our last view of Venezuela was like the first—a panorama of silent,

majestic green walls, guarding a stream of brilliant copper; every one of

the untold myriads of beating hearts beyond the walls resting silent in

the noonday heat, waiting for the coolness of evening to awaken them to

activity. To some it would bring song and happiness with nest and mate,

to some combat, to others death.

CHAPTER III.

A WOMAN’S EXPERIENCES IN VENEZUELA.

(_By Mary Blair Beebe._)

The doings of the creatures in fur, feathers and scales kept us keenly

interested from morning to night, yet in our wilderness search there

were many unnatural history experiences—some disagreeable, others

thrilling—but all so wholly delightful in their charm of strangeness

to the woman who enjoyed them that the picture of our wilderness seems

incomplete without them.

Life on board a Venezuelan sloop is quite unlike any other experience in

the world. Neither the woman who sits under the awning of a luxurious

yacht nor her more adventurous sister who sails her own catboat over

turbulent waters can form any idea of the daily life aboard such a craft.

The night we set forth in our tiny sloop from the Island of Trinidad,

headed for an unexplored part of the Orinoco delta, it was hard to

realize that we were at last bound for South America, the land of our

dreams. As you know we were, for the present, owners of a sloop flying

the Venezuelan flag and manned by five men, of whom only the Captain knew

a word of English. The charm of exploration and adventure laid a spell

upon us both—El Señor Naturalista and me—and we watched in silence the

sunset sky and the dim receding shores of Trinidad.

But there was a certain stern reality about that first night aboard the

“Josefa Jacinta” that soon broke in upon our reveries. When we descended

to the tiny cabin to unpack, the sloop had begun to pitch heavily and

we set ourselves to solve the problems of unstable equilibrium, which

constantly shifting angles of 30° to 40° presented in both floor and

walls. By courtesy we called our domicile a cabin, and we found that it

would hold two people—at a pinch!

[Illustration: FIG. 40. OUR SLOOP AT GUANOCO.]

We unearthed our unused pneumatic mattresses and rigged up our gilded

foot pump. For fifteen minutes W—— worked, then the mate was called and

took a hand. Were we on a sinking ship and manning the pumps for our

lives, greater exertions could not have been made, and the reward was a

thin film of air within the rubber bed. Then we unscrewed the decorative

but useless contrivance, and W—— began to blow. This proved effective,

and in a few minutes we had placed the soft, air-filled cushions in our

respective bunks. We dubbed these bunks catacombs at once, for the tiny

niches into which we later crept were more like the vaults of a tomb than

aught else.

I doubt if either of us will ever forget that first night. Beneath the

flooring and behind the planked sides of the vessel was a mysterious

underworld, densely populated by rats of most sportive disposition. How

they managed to live there we never discovered, for we neither caught

sight of one throughout the voyage, nor were we ever troubled by raids on

biscuits or other edibles.

There seemed to be some kind of a running track extending around the

hidden depths of the sloop. A race would start near the stern, the

contestants tearing around W——’s bunk; then the footfalls would die out

toward the bow to become audible almost at once on my side—a medley of

sound indicating a mob of invisible rushing creatures, galloping down

a mysterious homestretch. For some time we expected the goal of each

race to be some part of ourselves or our luggage, but the “heat” would

invariably end on the under side of the partition within a few inches

of my ear, and then would follow a general mêlée and fight, punctuated

with shrill squeaks and squeals and vicious blows and sounds of tumbling,

rolling bodies. Were we in the mood we might have learned much of rat

vocabulary. But we did not then know that these strenuous rodents never

penetrated to the upper portions of the sloop and this uncertainty kept

alive our interest in their manœuvers throughout the night.

Silence was unknown during this first night, and while the rats were

resting, other things occupied our minds and kept away _ennui_—and sleep.

The gurgle and splash of bilge water was a steady accompaniment of the

pitch and toss of the sloop, while now and then a sinister trickling

came to our ears. We called up to the captain and inquired about it, and

were assured that it was “only a leak!” He had looked for it many times,

but could not locate it. This gave us food for thought, besides adding

decidedly to the slowness of the ticking of the watch marking the passage

of the hours of darkness. I lay in my berth as long as I could endure it;

dreaming now and then of being buried alive, then rising with a start

and striking my head against the coffin lid of my catacomb. At last I

abandoned it for the floor of the cabin, sloping and under five feet in

total length though it was. I found it was better to be huddled in a

forlorn little bundle on the floor than in that hole which by no stretch

of the imagination could be called a berth.

Overhead the crew worked fitfully all night long. I could move the hatch

curtain, look up and see the sturdy old Captain with his hand on the

rudder—a picture which was to become familiar to us through many nights.

What a picturesque old figure he was—rugged and stern, yet as gentle and

courteous as any gentleman of the old school—and bearing his three-score

and eight years with wonderful vigor. Now and then his deep voice would

rise above the roar of wind and waves in hoarse commands in Spanish to

the crew. Then he would push the rudder hard up, the boom would swing

over with a jerk which made the whole sloop tremble and a wave would

wash over the deck and send a trickle of cold drops down upon my face.

Smothered exclamations from the crew and the sound of their bare feet

splashing along the deck would end the audible part of the manœuvre. Then

I would shift to meet the new angle of the floor and wait for the next

race of the rats.

Now and then the Captain would reach behind the hatch curtain for his

watch and examine its dripping face by the light of the candle in the

compass box. “_Faltan las cinco á la una_,” he would mutter, and I knew

that midnight had passed and that somewhere in our wake, morning was on

its way to end this night of nights. The tempest increased and tossed

our sloop like a flying leaf. Sometimes it seemed as if we never would

right ourselves after heeling far over into the depths. But the calm face

of our helmsman dispelled all uneasiness, and I lay staring into the

darkness, feeling myself the veriest atom amid this fierce tumult.

To this moment I cannot tell how long it took us to get from Trinidad to

Venezuela across that awful Gulf of Paria. To me it seemed an endless

space of time—day succeeding night—with choppy seas, ominous noises in

the pitching cabin, hot sleepy hours on deck in the shade of the sail,

with the great green waves forever rolling after and breaking partly over

us. By the Captain’s reckoning, however, it was the noon of only the

second day which revealed the distant shore, and soon we forgot all the

discomforts of the past hours in the wonderful beauty of the scene before

us—the still, brassy waters and the rich green mangroves.

Entering the wide Caño San Juan we dropped anchor in the lee of a

solitary guard ship, a poor derelict, a rusty and worn-out freighter,

whose last days were to be spent here in the calm waters at the edge

of the mangrove forest. Our little sloop was soon over-run with young

custom-house officials from the guard ship, curious but courteous, and

far more appreciative of the stiff rounds of rum which our Captain

willingly served to them under our direction, than of our gilt-sealed

letters of introduction.

If we would but take their photographs on board the “Pontón,” they would

row us close along the shore while we waited for the “fulling tide,”

as the Captain called it. Of course we agreed. Shouldering their rusty

muskets they stood in a row to be photographed,—young inexperienced

boys, whose idle days on the derelict were spent in drinking, smoking

cigarettes and lying in hammocks playing the mandolin, watching for the

rare sloop or schooner which might enter Venezuela by this desolate and

unfrequented caño.

We promised to send them the pictures; but Captain Truxillo said

afterwards with a sad shake of his head that they would have lost their

positions long before the pictures could reach them. No one ever stayed

long; there was always someone to carry reports to Castro of treachery

and plotting, and there would be new faces on the “Pontón,” to stay a

little while and then to disappear like their predecessors.

[Illustration: FIG. 41. VENEZUELAN SOLDIERS ON THE “PONTÓN” GUARD SHIP.]

Now for many days the sloop was our home, and the innumerable gleaming

_caños_ of the delta our highways. By day we explored the mangroves in

our _curiara_ or dug-out, and by night we slept the dreamless sleep

of healthful outdoor life, safe from the persecution of the humming

_Anopheles_ outside our netting on the after deck. When midday heat or

sudden rain drove the wild creatures from our view I studied our motley

crew and found them a never-failing source of entertainment.

The tally of the crew must begin with Filo, the mate, a huge black

creole, speaking Spanish besides his own strange vernacular; then

there were two sailors from the Island of Margarita, and Antonio, cook

by profession, admitting some Dutch blood, but of unknown extraction

and decidedly uncertain disposition. The cook on board a Venezuelan

craft is always given the respectful title of Maestro (_Mai’stro_), so

Maestro he always was to us. Maestro as an individual was an interesting

psychological study. Although he probably never heard of such a thing as

a labor union, yet he was the embodied spirit of one. He declared, in

terms that left no possibility of misunderstanding, that he was cook, not

sailor, and that he would do nothing _but_ cook. He would cook cheerfully

over a stove that smoked like Dante’s Inferno, but when called upon in an

emergency to help hoist a sail, he would fly into a violent torrent of

angry Spanish. Later when the temper had spent itself he would often go

and do what was asked of him. I have seen many high tempers, but never

one that quite equalled Maestro’s. There were times when he would draw

his huge cutlass or machete on the Captain. For a long time these were

all false alarms, but at last Maestro threatened once too often and so

seriously that he was discharged on the spot, and left marooned in a

little Indian village with no means of returning to Trinidad. But this

was at the end of our voyage.

Maestro in his patched and faded shirt, with sleeves rolled to the

elbow, still more patched trousers rolled to the knee, bare as to feet,

a crownless hat on one side of his head, an ancient and odoriferous

pipe hanging from his mouth, a big machete at his side, in the capacity

of cook would make the most shiftless housekeeper gasp with horror.

I often wondered why he so persistently declared himself _cocinero_,

not _marinero_, for he could hardly have been a greater failure in

any calling than he was in that of chef. Among the most valued of my

memories are some mental pictures of Maestro, which, while I live, I can

never manage to forget.

[Illustration: FIG. 42. CAPTAIN TRUXILLO PADDLING US UP THE GUARAPICHE

PAST CAÑO COLORADO.]

I often shut my eyes and see him with streaming eyes stirring some

fearful concoction over the little stove; or again on his knees mixing

dough for the leaden dumplings to be boiled in the pig-tail stew which

appeared at every meal. We so often wished we had brought graham flour.

White flour does show the dirt so! Still another picture is Maestro

washing the table-cloth. This was a piece of oilcloth, originally white,

and Maestro’s method of washing it was to spread it on the deck, pour

water over it, dance upon it in his bare feet, to the accompaniment

of some weird chant, and finally hang it on the rail to dry! No doubt

after this proceeding he felt as self satisfied as the most pompous and

well-trained English butler.

In justice, I must say that Maestro did make one or two edible dishes;

he could boil the native vegetables, yam, tania and kuch-kuch and he made

very good cornmeal mush. Then after a long, happy day on the caños we

were always hungry, and happiness and honest hunger overlook a multitude

of sins. Besides, whatever was lacking in Maestro’s bill of fare was

compensated by the dried soups, cocoa, crackers and preserves from our

own stores. So we managed one way or another to keep the wolf from the

door, or perhaps more appropriately I should say, the crocodile from the

companionway.

As in two weeks the crew had consumed provisions planned by the Captain

to last a month, the Captain purchased a hundred pounds of beef from

a dug-out full of Indians which passed us one day on the river. This

Maestro salted plentifully and then hung up in the sun to cure. Long

strips of it were suspended from the rigging, from the boom, and over the

railing, and whole entomological collections buzzed noisily about them.

For a few days we felt as though we were living in a butcher’s shop;

and a butcher’s shop in a tropical climate is a thing to be avoided. At

first we were inclined to resent this impromptu meat market. It was not

only disagreeable but it was in the way. Then came the thought—suppose it

were fish; and we were so grateful to be spared that, that we cheerfully

submitted to a sloop draped with strips of meat, as a house is festooned

with smilax at Christmas. As long as the larder was low the Captain had

known no peace of mind for fear his crew would desert us and the sloop.

So the purchase of such a delicacy as meat was a successful piece of

strategy.

With all their faults, there is among the Venezuelans, as among the

Mexicans, a certain chivalry toward women; and so I never felt the least

alarm at being left alone on the sloop with the crew, while the Captain

and my husband went off up the river. The great dusky Creole mate would

put my stool in a shady spot, and, figuratively, lay himself at my feet

to serve me, and Maestro—even pugnacious Maestro—would weave wonderful

baskets for me of the roots of the mangrove; baskets in nests of twelve,

each fitting snugly within the other and all gayly dyed with the

Venezuelan colors, the pigments being extracted from the leaves or stems

of unknown wild plants.

[Illustration: FIG. 43. SUNSET IN THE MANGROVE WILDERNESS.]

The time passed all too quickly with each day spent on the Guarapiche

river—a gleaming stage, with a setting of green trees, brilliant flowers

and fragrant orchids, and an ever-changing plot with ever-changing

actors. Of them all, man was the least important. There were populous

villages of Hoatzins and great wandering tribes of Scarlet Ibises and

Plovers; Herons, much occupied with their unsocial and taciturn calling

as fishermen, stood silent and solitary in secluded pools. With all this

wild life the river teemed. It was only with the rising and falling of

the tide that man entered upon the scene; and so quietly, so much a part

of nature, that one hardly felt any difference between him and the forest

folk. In a silently, swiftly moving _curiara_ he would glide under the

shadows of the overhanging mangroves. Sometimes the _curiara_ would be

a merchant vessel, laden with ollas, fruit, etc., with its destination

Maturin, many miles away in the interior. Again its only occupant was

a fisherman, as silent as the Herons themselves. Like a Heron also he

would station himself near a shady pool, and sit all day, motionless save

for the changing of bait or the pulling in of a fish. With the turning

of the tide the line would be drawn up, the fish covered with cool green

leaves and the _curiara_ would move away, the bronze figure of its owner

skilfully guiding it up the winding river.

[Illustration: FIG. 44. THE SILENT SAVAGES.]

Occasionally the fisherman was accompanied by his squaw, hardly to be

distinguished from him, and in the bow there was often the little naked

figure of a child playing with a mite of a tame monkey, or both sound

asleep with their arms wrapped about each other. All that these simple

folk ask of life is one fish to eat, another with which to buy cassava

and a yard of cotton cloth.

In the brief tropical twilight we would hastily make preparations for

the night, spreading our air-beds on deck, hanging over them a white

mosquito canopy and putting our electric flashlight and revolver at hand.

After the first two nights we had abandoned the cabin, which had added to

its other discomforts the fact that all the mosquitoes of the caño had

selected it as their abode. Never were nights more beautiful than those

which we spent on the deck of that little sloop, and never was sleep more

dreamless and peaceful.

In the darkness of early evening, before the moon rose, we would sit on

deck munching sugar-cane while the Captain told us many a tale of his

young days, when he was the prosperous owner of a schooner twice the size

of the “Josefa Jacinta” and when smuggling brought adventure and yellow

gold in abundance. He was full of legend and superstition. He told us

of aged men and women, both among the Indians and the Spaniards, who he

declared can by a peculiar whistle call together all the snakes in the

vicinity and then by incantations so hypnotize them that they can be

handled with impunity. The owner of a hacienda will sometimes employ one

of these charmers to call together the snakes, which can then be killed.

The performers themselves, however, will never harm a snake. He told many

a story of black magic arts, in which he firmly believed, of sending to

one’s enemies scourges of rats or deadly diseases or departed spirits to

make life unendurable.

[Illustration: FIG. 45. GUARAUNO INDIANS COMING TO TRADE AT CAÑO

COLORADO.]

Finally the crew would roll up in their blankets in the bow, the Captain

would disappear beneath his _mosquitaro_, which would tremble and quake

in the moonlight until he lay quiet in his hammock. We would creep

beneath our tent of netting to write up the last notes of the day or to

listen to the sounds of the night. From the bow would come a low murmur

of voices in some weird chanting song until the Captain roared out for

all hands to go to sleep. But he would not practice what he preached for

he always talked himself to sleep, sometimes in English, or in Spanish or

again in Creole, while now and then he would mingle all three.

By day one would not have suspected Filo, the mate, of being a person of

romance; but under the spell of the tropical moonlight he would often

tell stories to the crew; stories in which the heroine was always “_Muy

preciosa, muy joven, muy linda_,”—very charming, very young and very

beautiful. She would set difficult tasks for her many lovers, and her

favored suitor would be the one who most bravely bore himself under

the tests. I remember one tale to which the crew listened with awe; in

which one of the lovers was to lie all night in the cathedral, stiff and

still like a corpse; another was to go to the same cathedral on the same

night dressed in winding sheets like a ghost; another was to represent

the angel of death, while a fourth impersonated the devil; and a fifth

was sent as an ordinary man. Of course none of them were to know of the

others having been sent by the fair heroine of the story; and of course

the fortunate lover was the one who showed no terror and passed the night

quietly in the church, returning in the morning to claim his bride.

The story had its dramatic situations and Filo made the most of them.

Even Maestro was moved to utter a low “_Dios mio!_” at the description

of the entrance of the ghost, the angel of death and finally the devil;

at which the poor corpse, who had been shaking with fear through it all,

started up and fled in terror.

Filo’s story lost nothing in his telling and the superstitious crew went

very soberly to rest that night. W—— and I lay, as we so often did,

staring wonderingly out into the night,—the marvellous tropical night.

It was all like a dream; the shining water of the _caño_, the deep,

mysterious forest growing down to the water’s edge, the cries of unknown

birds and beasts, the impressive southern cross and the extraordinary

brilliancy of the moonlight shining down upon the tiny deck of the

“Josefa Jacinta,” and upon us and the sleeping forms of its dusky crew.

We were sometimes awakened in the night by a sudden bright light in our

faces. It was Maestro making a fire, in which operation he used alarming

quantities of kerosene, to prepare the midnight repast for the crew, who

whenever they woke in the night would call loudly “_Maestro—café!_”

[Illustration: FIG. 46. GUARAUNO SQUAWS AND CHILD WITH MONKEY.]

Again the sound of an unusually heavy downpour of tropical rain on the

tarpaulin overhead would waken us, and I would occasionally discover that

my feet were in a puddle of water. A shifting of beds to prevent our

being drowned while we slept would invariably result in our feet being

higher than our heads, and because of the horde of mosquitoes which found

their way in while the beds were being moved, the rest of that night

would be sleepless.

With the dawn came the roar of the howling monkeys; a dainty _Tigana_[24]

picked its way among the mud-flats; a flock of _Hervidores_[80]—which

being translated means “boilers,” an appellation perhaps suggested by the

notes of these black Cuckoos—bubbled away as cheerily as a bright kettle

on a breakfast table. And with these sounds of the dawn all our troubles

of the night were forgotten.

After weeks of solitude in the mangrove jungles our prow was headed

inland and a long night of silent drifting with the tide brought us to

the mouth of the Guanoco River. Here the Captain and the unruly crew at

dawn had their usual heated argument as to the management of the boat,

with the result that they nearly ran her aground—one of the many narrow

escapes which had happened so often as to create but little interest on

our part.

Guanoco was a river of bends, around each one of which the Captain

assured us we would see the village. But it was twilight before we turned

the final bend and saw picturesque Guanoco at the hour of _vespertino_—a

hill rising steep and blue, with the silvery river at its foot and a

cluster of little thatched huts perched one above another on the hillside.

It was delightful to feel solid ground under one’s feet again and we

could hardly get over our accustomed walk of “three steps and over-board.”

Here in our wilderness we found an unexpected home. Through the kindness

of our cordial friends in Trinidad—Mr. Eugene André and Mr. Ellis

Grell—we had letters to the men in charge of the pitch lake at Guanoco

and it was to this great lake that the tiny settlement of Guanoco owed

its being.

As soon as we reached the wharf, a young Venezuelan came on board,

introducing himself as Señor Bernardo Lugo y Escobar,—one of the

officials of the Pitch Lake Company, and explaining that Mr. Grell had

written him that we might possibly come to Guanoco and that we were to

be entertained at the headquarters for as long as we chose to stay.

Mr. Lugo was most urgent in his hospitality and I knew well of what

the sloop dinner would consist. Maestro and I would hold a perfectly

futile consultation in which we would decide upon the only possible

menu—_funche_ (which is the Venezuelan name for cornmeal mush), dried pea

soup and cocoa. I must explain that the lack of variety in our larder was

due to the fact that we had expected to be able to supplement our canned

goods with fresh fish and game, both of which proved difficult to obtain,

the latter because of the impossibility in this vast swamp of ever

finding the game after it was shot. The experience taught us the useful

lesson which every camper and explorer learns sooner or later, sometimes

alas! _too_ late—never to depend upon the game of the country, but always

to plan your provisions as if game did not exist. Then when one gets it,

it comes as an unexpected luxury.

But to return to my visions of a good dinner in the preparation of

which I had no part or responsibility. Perhaps there would also be the

luxury of a real bath. I was roused from these attractive reflections

by the voice of the Captain politely refusing Mr. Lugo’s invitation for

the night, and saying that we would not go ashore until the next day.

Whereupon I diplomatically remarked in English,—that Mr. Lugo might

not understand,—that I thought Mr. Lugo’s feelings would be hurt if we

refused, and as long as we were to go the next day and there was nothing

to be gained by spending the night on the sloop, why not gratify him by

going at once.

And so it came about that in a few minutes more we were at

“Headquarters.” As the house was quite invisible from the water, we had

imagined that we were to go to one of the thatched huts which we had seen

from the river.

To our surprise, around the base of the hill we found ourselves going

up a pretty palm bordered walk which led to a low, massive, fort-like

building.

[Illustration: FIG. 47. PITCH LAKE, SHOWING FRESHLY DUG PIT FILLED WITH

WATER; AN OLDER PIT FILLED WITH SOFT PITCH, BOTH SURROUNDED BY THE HARD

SURFACE PITCH.]

In the broad open hall were comfortable rocking chairs, in striking

contrast to the sloop on which we had taken turns sitting on the one

stool which the little craft possessed. In the _patio_ was a table laid

for dinner—with a big black Trinidad negro bringing in steaming dishes.

There is no hospitality anywhere quite equal to that of the wilderness.

Your host does not arrange your visit from the Saturday to the Monday,

fitting you in between a multitude of other engagements. A wilderness

welcome is as genial and inevitable as the tropical sunshine. Your

visit is an event—a mile-stone in the long road of lonely months of

exile—months which sometimes lengthen into years. Our very interesting

friend Mr. Eugene André of Trinidad told us that on one of his many

orchid-hunting expeditions he had chanced to land at a certain

God-forsaken little port on the west coast of Colombia. Mr. André had

wondered why the fare to this port from Panama should be $30—while the

return passage was $100. The problem was solved after he had seen the

port—desolate, barren, inaccessible and fever and insect ridden—one might

be induced to pay $30 to get there provided one knew not what manner of

place it was. But to get away—one would pay any sum and gladly. So it is

that the little coastwise steamboat company calmly demands $100 to return

the unfortunate traveller to Panama—and _gets_ it.

At this forlorn spot there were stationed two young men, I forget now

in what capacity, who for many months had not seen an intelligent human

being. Into the empty monotony of their lives, Mr. André appeared. It

mattered not to those lonely young men who he was, nor where he came

from. His welcome was—“Stay with us. Stay a year—or ten years. We know

all about each other. We’ve talked about everything until there is

nothing left to say—we even know how much sugar we each like in our tea

and who our great grandmothers were, and who we think wrote Shakespeare’s

plays;—and we are so bored and so glad to see a new face.”

Thus it is that everywhere in the South American wilderness the

English-speaking stranger is made welcome by his kind, and we found

Guanoco no exception to this rule.

The pretty Spanish greeting is—“The house is yours” and during our stay

at the Pitch Lake, the headquarters became really ours. We were given

the best room; the servants were put at our disposal: and best of all

we were perfectly free to come and go as we pleased; and with everything

done to facilitate our work. All this we owed also to the instructions of

Mr. Ellis Grell, who was then financing the Pitch Lake Company and to the

kindness of Mr. Lynch and Mr. Stoute, two young West Indians employed by

the company.

[Illustration: FIG. 48. DIGGING OUT THE BLACK, WAXLIKE PITCH.]

We were tired that first night at Guanoco. The night before had been a

hard one—sailing all night long, with the boom swinging back and forth

and making impossible the hanging of our mosquito nets. All through

the night the Captain and his crew worked. Down the narrow river the

Captain skilfully guided the sloop in the darkness of a moonless night,

following the line of the trees against the sky to mark the channel.

His commanding old voice rang from stern to bow, the orders being there

repeated by the mate to the sailors who were towing us, and who paused

in the wild melody which they chanted through that wonderful night, to

listen and obey. It was a difficult and dangerous task—the guiding of

that sloop down so narrow and winding a river: and even the unruly crew

were obedient that night, rendering the homage which in time of danger

the ignorant unconsciously yield to a superior intelligence.

When we wondered at the Captain’s confidence, he replied in his deep

voice, “Ah yes!—but I am old here and I know these caños as I do my

house.” And indeed here the curtain had risen upon his life and here it

was likely to fall at the end of the last act.

When finally quite exhausted we had laid down upon the deck to sleep,

it was to fall into so profound a slumber that the mosquitoes devoured

us unmolested, in spite of our head nets which proved insufficient

protection.

So it was that on that first night at Guanoco we were very tired. I sat

lazily rocking in the cool evening breeze, anointing my irritating bites

with Tango, a preparation dependent upon faith cure for its healing

properties—and listening to the desultory talk of the young men. The

conversation was desultory, however, only so long as the Venezuelan

element of the household was present. On this occasion that element was

represented by the young Mr. Lugo who had met us at the wharf. After

he had gone out on some errand the story of Pitch Lake was poured into

our interested ears. It was a story of intrigue and revolution and

treason quite worthy of some mediæval court. First there was the passive

Venezuelan possession; then the active, enterprising, money-making

reign of the North American; having as its natural result the jealousy

of Castro, his oppression and injustice to the American Company; their

rebellion, in which they aided a great revolution against Castro; his

revenge being to seize the property and put it in charge of Venezuelans.

Then came the departure of the American Company, which had done so much

to develop the Pitch Lake, followed by the arrival of the Venezuelans

appointed by the Government—men who knew just about as much about

managing a great Pitch Lake as they did about guiding an aëroplane. We

were told of the time long before the advent of the Lugo family—when for

weeks it was necessary to live always on the alert, with revolver ever

ready for defence; when the very men with whom one sat down at table were

capable of attempting to poison the food, in order to free themselves

of English-speaking men, who might perhaps witness some ugly deed of

treachery or defalcation.

This is the very long story in a nutshell. We began then to understand

why the house was so fort-like in structure. It had been built to

withstand assault. Only a few months before our visit it had been

attacked by a party of Revolutionists who hoped to find money in the

company safe; and five men had been killed and several injured.

This thrilling tale was told in the emotionless matter-of-fact way in

which one might describe the moves in a game of chess.

From the moment our sloop sailed out of the harbor of Port of Spain the

memory of the old familiar every-day world had seemed to grow dimmer and

dimmer. Was it possible that there really was such a place as New York

City, with its clanging street-cars, its trains and subways and elevated

roads thronged with people, _en masse_ all as much alike as an army of

ants? At that very hour the New York Theatres were pouring their gay

crowds into the brilliantly lighted streets. How far away it all seemed,

down there in the great primeval forest of another continent! We walked

out under the stars to the edge of the forest, black and mysterious,

teeming with the hidden life, which we were so eager to study. Our world,

for the present, was this forest wilderness, stretching unbroken for mile

upon mile, with only the twinkling lights of Guanoco to remind us of

human habitations. I dreamed that night of being stabbed in the back by a

howling monkey, while the safe of the Pitch Lake Company was broken into

by a band of shrieking Macaws!

On the morning after our arrival at Guanoco we sorrowfully said good-by

to the “Josefa Jacinta.” As we watched her sail away we consoled

ourselves by planning another and a longer trip on her—a trip which never

took place. Looking back after almost two years I realize that life can

bring me few experiences more full of interest and charm than those

days on a little Venezuelan sloop exploring the mysterious untrodden

mangroves! “How _could_ you enjoy it?” I am often asked: but the trifling

discomforts were all in the day’s work and more than compensated by the

beauty and freedom and wonder of it all. They served to make us know that

it was not all a dream.

[Illustration: FIG. 49. LOADING PITCH ON THE HAND CARS.]

Our days at Guanoco began early and were full to overflowing of interest

and of work. In the heat of midday we pressed flowers, skinned birds and

wrote up our journals, but in spite of being so busy, we found time to

get a little into the atmosphere of the human life.

Here is the daily program at the lake of pitch,—this little outpost of

humanity, deep hidden in the tropical jungle. At daybreak the group of

sheds and thatched huts gives up a horde of Trinidadian negroes; great

black fellows, giants in strength, children in mind. Amid a perfect

medley of excitement and uproar, breakfast is prepared. We hear sounds

which _must_ mean at least the violent death of several, and as one

listens to the shrieks and groans, the imagination easily supplies the

terrible blows and struggles. But a closer look only shows one of these

great children down on his knees, calling on everything which occurs to

him or enters his vision to witness that he did _not_ steal the sixpence

from _Napoleon_, of which some one has accused him, perhaps in jest.

Yet all this is calmness compared to the later rush for the best cars to

use in the day’s work. It would delight a Sophomore’s heart to see the

mêlée. But somehow all is straightened out and off go the hand trucks,

crawling along the rickety rails out over the lake, like beads sliding

along a string. Here a car has reached the end of the line. The negro

selects a place fairly clear of vegetation, takes his broad adze, and

shears away the upper few inches of roots and mould. Then with deep swift

strokes he outlines a big chunk of the shiny black gum, cuts it loose,

and carries it on his head to his car. So malleable is the pitch that by

the time he has half filled the little iron truck the pitch has settled

down and filled all interstices. He trundles back the car and dumps it

into one of the larger wooden trucks which will take it to Guanoco.

He now receives a check which is redeemable for fifteen cents and the

first link in the commercialization of the pitch is finished. Along the

wavering line of temporary rails over which the hand-cars are pushed back

and forth, are dozens of grave-like holes. Those nearer the railroad end

are smooth-edged and filled with soft pitch on which as yet no vegetation

has taken root. Farther along they are filled with water, and still

farther we find them in the process of being excavated.

[Illustration: FIG. 50. MANGROVE WILDERNESS FROM THE HIGH LAND AT

GUANOCO.]

The men dig down until they have reached a depth of five or six feet,

and then start in a new place. The hole is filled by the first rain;

water-bugs fly to the little pool, frogs lay their eggs in it, queer fish

wriggle their way to it and for a brief space it supports a considerable

aquatic life. Then new soft pitch begins to ooze up and in a few more

weeks the plug of viscid black gum has reached the level of the ground

and the scar is soon healed over by a thin growth of grass.

In the rainy season the holes fill at once with water, and indeed the

whole plain is immersed to the depth of a foot or more; then the men

have to work up to their waists in water, chopping beneath the surface,

prying the pieces loose with their toes and tearing the chunks off by

taking long breaths and reaching far down for a few seconds at a time.

When we cross our asphalt streets and smell the tarry odor and feel its

softness under a mid-summer’s sun, let us think of the strange lake in

the tropical wilderness.

The table talk at “Headquarters,” was often most amusing. Torrents of

Spanish eloquence and gesticulations kept our English ears ever on the

alert to follow the meaning, and our sense of humor ever under strict

control to preserve well-bred gravity when such statements were made as

“Venezuela leads not only all the South American countries, but all those

of North America as well, in literature, art, science and commerce. When

our General Blank went to New York the greatest ovation ever paid any

general in the world was given him. New York remained amazed!”

Once only did I look amused and I have never quite recovered from my

mortification at thus disgracing myself. Whatever the faults of the

Spaniard may be, he never smiles when he is not intended to; not even

at the laughable mistakes which we foreigners make when we are learning

his beautiful language. I try to say in extenuation of my unseemly mirth

that the Spaniard has no sense of humor and that we should very much

prefer having him laugh at our mistakes and letting us correct them. But

all to no purpose. I know that I did not behave like a well conducted

_Venezolana_, and nothing can alter that fact.

The three Venezuelans had been put in charge of the Pitch Lake,—because

their “Sister’s husband’s niece” had power in the court of Castro. Among

their regular duties they included singing airs from the operas, reading

Don Quixote and the Caracas newspapers and playing dominos.

[Illustration: FIG. 51. INHABITANTS OF GUANOCO ASSEMBLED FOR A DANCE.]

They had provided themselves with elaborate costumes for the rôle; they

carried big revolvers and wore huge green and white cork helmets, khaki

riding clothes, puttees, spurs, and carried riding whips. There was not

a horse within fifty miles! No horse, even had there been one, could

penetrate the tiny forest trails about Guanoco.

In the dancing sunlight and shadows and the orchid-fragrant air it was

hard to picture spilt blood and intrigue and treachery, and harder still

to prophesy the sad times that were to come upon Guanoco. Yet while we

were there the air teemed with revolutionary rumors. The _Jefe civil_,

as the chief magistrate was called, was off day after day investigating

first one suspicion and then another, returning utterly spent with the

exhaustion of unresting days and nights upon the trail. Revolutionists

had attempted to land guns on the near-by coast. There had been a

skirmish and several men had been killed.

All the available guns and ammunition were gotten together and every

night the doors were barred securely; for what the revolutionists chiefly

needed was money, and should there be an uprising in northeastern

Venezuela, the Pitch Lake headquarters would be the first point of

attack. It was in charge of Castro sympathizers, there might be large

sums of money in the Company’s safe and it was practically unprotected.

In the meantime diplomatic relations between our United States and

Venezuela had been severed and one morning a United States battleship

was discovered lying quietly in the harbor of La Guayra. The numbers of

_la Constitucional_—a month old when they reached us—were beginning to

talk of war and to boast of the ease with which Venezuela would erase the

United States of America from the face of the globe. Bitter things were

said about the sister republic in the north. And there we were living on

the bone of contention itself.

It was about this time that I began to see the advisability of being more

than ordinarily civil; and so it happened that I was led into playing

cards for the first and only time for money and that on a Sunday! We had

been working almost incessantly and I had begun to feel that, even if

it was to Mr. Grell that we were indebted for the hospitality, it was

not quite nice for us to appear only at “feeding time,” particularly

as our long days out of doors gave us such appalling appetites. So on

this occasion when I was asked to make a fourth at cards, I saw no way

out of it. Moreover, the battleship lay in the harbor of La Guayra, and

my countrymen were in sad disfavor in Venezuela. W—— had ignominiously

deserted and gone to bed, so there was only one sleepy little woman left

to uphold the honor of a great nation!

The game was “_Siete y media_,”—“seven and a half.” I forget the rules

now. I only remember that they seemed very intricate as explained to

me in Spanish. Fortunately for me, the stakes were low, for I steadily

lost all the time. “_Grano por grano la gallina come_,” quoted Mr.

Lugo,—“grain by grain the hen eats.”

Later he remarked how he hated to win from the señorita—but the señorita

observed that he hated it much as the famous walrus wept for the oysters

while—

“... he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

Before his streaming eyes.”

I was wofully tired and sleepy. I did not at all know the etiquette of

gambling! And I thought the loser must not be a “quitter”—even if the

extent of her losses was only “_dos reales_,” or twenty-five cents. So I

played on until at midnight the game was declared over.

It is well that virtue is its own reward, as it has no other, for I was

told the next morning by a husband who had had a perfectly good night’s

sleep—that I was a very foolish person indeed to sit up playing cards

with those men, and that the loser could always stop: it was the winner

who must not propose it.

[Illustration: FIG. 52. A PALM-SHEATH ROCKING TOY.]

The negroes from the Pitch Lake always came down on Saturday nights and

serenaded us with wild Creole airs, and at the sound of the quaterns and

violins huge hairy tarantulas would come forth from their hiding-places

in our rooms and creep briskly here and there over walls and floor. We

were greatly interested in this effect of the vibrations of sound, but

we never bothered the great creatures in their strange “tarentelles,”

and they paid no attention to us. The venomous effect of the bites of all

these eight or hundred-legged beings is greatly exaggerated, and there is

absolutely no serious danger to a healthy person with good red blood in

his veins; in some of the half-starved, rum-drinking natives the scratch

of a pin would induce blood-poisoning.

Labor was easily secured in Guanoco. The morning after our arrival we

expressed a wish to employ a boy to act as attendant, carrying camera,

gun, butterfly net, etc., when we went on our long tramps. One of the

young men at headquarters went to the door and called “_muchacho_,” and

at once a small boy appeared. I should have judged his age to be between

eleven and twelve; but he himself did not know. He said his grandmother

was “keeping his age.” A charming idea is that Venezuelan custom of

having some responsible member of the family keep all the ages. Think of

being able to say truthfully that you really do not know how old you are!

But then a Venezuelan woman never confesses to more than twenty-seven, no

matter what may have been the flight of time.

Our small servant’s name proved to be Maximiliano Romero, and with

supreme self possession, boldly spitting to the right and left, he

professed himself willing to enter our service. Like a true Venezuelan

he used expectoration to punctuate all his remarks. What a quaint little

figure he was, topped by a huge straw hat with a high peaked crown; the

hat the work of the little brown hands of Max himself, for he was a

hat-maker by profession. His face was alert but very grave. He rarely

smiled, but when he did it was in no half-hearted way, but with an

abandon of childish glee. I found myself devoting a good deal of valuable

time to trying to bring into being that charming smile of Maximiliano’s.

One never knew just what would touch the right chord. Once he went off

into gales of merriment at the escape of a lizard which we were trying

to photograph. He always saw the funny side of our mishaps.

[Illustration: FIG. 53. SHEATH IN FIG. 52, COVERING THE FLOWER OF A PALM.]

Max showed plainly in what esteem he held naturalists. The first day

he went out with us he was neatly dressed in dark blue jeans. When

he appeared on the second morning we did not recognize him. A small

ragamuffin stood before us, stamping like a pony to drive away the flies,

which hovered about his ankles. His clothes were a mass of rags—it was

impossible to say what had been the original color or material. Max had

taken our measure and decided that people who tramped through the “bush”

as we did were not worthy of anything better than rags.

Sometimes in the jungle we would meet Indian women who, living far in the

interior, were on their way to Guanoco to buy machetes, fish-hooks and

other articles of civilization. They would always stop and make friends

with us, with child-like curiosity asking where we came from, and why we

wanted birds and lizards and butterflies, and murmuring the words dear

to every woman’s heart in all lands, “_Que jovencita!_” which literally

translated is “What a young little thing!” Very simple-hearted are these

poor Indian women and so hard are their lives that at a very early age do

they cease to be _jovencita_.

We would often meet the wandering tribes of Guarauno Indians, who live

nearly always upon the march, carrying all their worldly possessions

upon their backs and sleeping wherever night happens to find them. They

very rarely knew even a word of Spanish and shunned any intercourse with

strangers, scorning the inventions of civilization and using the poisoned

arrows of their ancestors.

One Sunday morning one of the laborers at the near-by Pitch Lake, bearing

the pious name of José de Jesus Zamoro, came into headquarters to invite

us to a dance that afternoon at his house. The house of Zamoro had

nothing particularly to recommend it as a ballroom; for the floor was

of dirt, the ceiling low and the walls windowless. But it was crowded;

the air stifling and the dancers dripping with perspiration. The music

was wild and strange, the man who shook the _maracas_—an instrument

consisting of two gourds filled with dried seeds which is shaken in time

to the music—often breaking into a weird song, making up the words as

he went along, with some joke about each dancer. As the songster’s zeal

waxed high he described himself as being so great that “where he stood

the earth trembled.”

Between dances the ladies’ last partners were supposed to take them

into the next room where drinks were for sale. This was the explanation

of Zamoro’s zeal for dances: music and dance hall were free, but a

substantial profit came from the drinks.

The ball gowns had but one beauty—that of originality. There was always

an unfortunate hiatus between bodices and skirts, which was partly

concealed by the long straight black hair which hung down the backs of

the women. The shoes were in a piteous condition, never the right size,

very seldom mates and not infrequently both were for the same foot. But

all the skirts had trains and all ears bore ear-rings. We were told

that these women often danced all day and all night, until they became

perfectly dazed, their feet moving mechanically in time to the music of

the national dance—the _joropa_, which is a cross between a clog dance

and a waltz.

We saw dancing the women whose _curiara_ had so narrowly escaped a fatal

collision with our sloop in the Guarapiche. The Captain had said they

were leaving Maturin “to operate some speculation in Guanoco—perhaps even

to find husbands.” And here among so many men, for the population of

Guanoco was chiefly composed of men employed at the lake, surely there

was hope, even for adventuresses so black and uncouth as these. Here also

we met one of Guanoco’s most amusing characters, a big black Trinidad

negro. He was full of the superiority of one who had seen the world;

for he had once been to England as stateroom steward on one of the big

steamers. He now dropped his h’s, called his wife “Lady Mackáy” and on

Sundays wore a monocle.

It was twilight as we walked home through the little settlement. At one

of the huts two little naked babies were playing “rock-a-by” in the great

curved sheaths which protect the blossom of the moriche, or eta palm. At

another a child came out and sang a little Spanish song for us—all about

her sins and the confession she must make to the priest, the refrain

being “_Mi penetencia! mi penetencia!_” and she sang it with her small

hands clasped and her head devoutly bowed. A few coins made the wee

penitent superlatively happy. Her mother must have taught her the song,

for in Guanoco there was no priest, no school, no doctor. The two young

West Indians at headquarters (neither much more than twenty years old)

officiated at all funerals, being Catholic or Protestant, in Spanish or

English, as the case demanded. They prescribed for all diseases, from the

prevalent fever to the woman who was suffering greatly but could give no

more definite description of her trouble than that she had a “pain that

walked.”

[Illustration: FIG. 54. PRIESTLESS CHAPEL AT GUANOCO.]

I could never understand the fever so common at Guanoco: for I never knew

a place more free from mosquitoes and from insects of every description.

We were continually in the sun and often in the rain, yet we both kept in

perfect health.

The women of the village had converted a small open shed into a chapel,

with an altar, on which were all the offerings they could make, a few

candles, some bits of gilt paper and tinsel, a rude wooden cross and a

wretched little chromo of the Virgin. Here, as we passed, we saw the

women kneeling, for where else could they take their troubles!

At last our Venezuelan experiences were a thing of the past, and

we were homeward bound, leaving behind us the dear delightful

never-know-what’s-going-to-happen life; and realizing, as our ship

cut her way through the countless “knots” of dashing waves, that as

Maximiliano had said with a shake of his head, when we laughingly asked

him if he did not want to go with us, “_esta tan léjos_”—it is so far!

* * * * *

Much has happened at Guanoco since the days of our visit.

Very soon after our departure, Castro fearing the smouldering

revolutionary plots in Trinidad, ordered all the ports of eastern

Venezuela closed. Later came the deadly bubonic plague sealing for

many months all the ports of the unfortunate country. Then indeed

trouble descended upon poor little Guanoco. It was an essentially

non-agricultural part of the country. The one industry had been the

digging of pitch, the company’s boat plying between Guanoco and Trinidad

having brought all necessary supplies. Now with all communication cut off

the people were in a piteous condition.

[Illustration: FIG. 55. GUARAUNO INDIAN PAPOOSE.]

In the revolution of the Wheel of Fate—which whirls so rapidly in

Venezuela,—the Lugo family had been deposed and a new Venezuelan

administrator appointed in their place. Having known the Lugos, I like to

think that they would have been less heartless than their successor, who,

so the report goes, sold what supplies there were to the starving people

at cruelly exorbitant prices.

No matter how much one may love Nature, one cannot help feeling how

unmoved she is in the face of suffering. Human beings might starve and

sicken and die at Guanoco, but the sunshine would be just as warm and

glowing and the wind in the palm trees just as musical as ever.

With the cutting off of communication between Venezuela and Trinidad,

Captain Truxillo’s occupation was gone. The “Josefa Jacinta” no longer

plied busily back and forth between Port of Spain and Maturin, driving a

brisk trade in hammocks, groceries and hides; and so at last she passed

from the possession of Captain Truxillo to that of some more prosperous

trader who could afford to wait for the reopening of commerce.

For a year our old Captain watched his little vessel guided out of the

harbor of Port of Spain, with a strange hand at the helm, and a strange

voice in command. Then one day she sailed away never to return—but to

be run aground and lost on a desolate and lonely part of the Venezuelan

coast.

What became of her new Captain and crew we never heard. We knew only that

the “Josefa Jacinta” was lost, and that we could never sail her again,

except on dream caños in a phantom wilderness.

PART II

OUR SECOND SEARCH

BRITISH GUIANA

[Illustration: FIG. 56. MAP OF OUR THREE EXPEDITIONS INTO BRITISH

GUIANA.]