The settlement of San Pedro del Arrastradero—or of Arimena, as it is
also called—lies on the right shore of the River Meta about 150 miles
from its confluence with the Orinoco. Within a very short distance of
the Meta at that point, less than a mile to the south, the _caño_ of
Caracarate branches towards the Muco River, which, flowing to the
south-east, joins the Vichada; the latter, of about the same volume as
the Meta, flows south-east till it strikes the Orinoco above the rapids.
The Meta and the Vichada and the Orinoco form a triangle, of which the
last named is the base. The Vichada enters the main stream some fifty
miles above, and the Meta about 200 miles below, the series of rapids
which divide the river into the Lower and the Upper Orinoco.
Scattered far and wide at long distances apart on the plain which
borders the Meta are numerous cattle-ranches, and on its very shores are
settlements testifying to the effort of civilized man. But the new
region that we were about to enter, irrigated by the Muco, the Vichada,
and their affluents, is absolutely wild, and has seldom been crossed by
white men other than stray missionaries, or adventurous traders in
search of cheap rubber, resinous substances, tonga beans, hammocks, etc.
These the Indians exchange for trifles, or implements which they prize
very highly: to the wild inhabitants an axe, a cutlass, a knife, are
veritable treasures, distinguishing their owner among his fellows.
The tribes along the shores of the Meta River were known to be mostly
hostile and aggressive. Travellers on that river always, if possible,
pitch their camps on islets in mid-stream for fear of night attacks, and
even then they need to keep strict watch and have their arms beside
them. It is dangerous for small expeditions to cross the part of the
river below San Pedro del Arrastradero.
But the tribes along the region that we were about to cross, though no
less primitive than the others, are mild and easily amenable to
civilization. They are numerous, and under good guidance might be
advantageously employed in useful work, might be taught to gather the
natural products abounding in the forests, and cultivate the soil
systematically. Their present notions of agriculture are elementary;
they only practise it on a very small scale, relying principally on what
they can hunt and fish.
At San Pedro we found an individual who for over thirty years had been
in the habit of travelling on the Muco and the Vichada, often going as
far as Ciudad Bolivar, near the mouth of the Orinoco. He had amassed a
little fortune by trading with the Indians. He spoke their dialect, and
practised polygamy in accordance with their unsophisticated rites and
customs. It was said that he had a great number of children along the
shores of the river; he could therefore recommend us to his family, so
to speak. His name was Gondelles. He had often accompanied the
missionaries who had attempted to preach the Gospel among the savages,
and, unless Rumour was a lying jade, he had himself strenuously
endeavoured to observe that Divine precept which refers to increasing
and multiplying the human species!
The Indians of this region are specially expert in weaving beautiful
hammocks from fibres of the various kinds of _maguey_ or _agave_ plants,
or else extracted from the leaves of the _moriche_. The most prized,
however, are those made of fibre of the _cumare_ palm, soft and pliant
as silk. A large and comfortable hammock woven of this fibre will take
up the smallest possible space and last longer than any other. These
Indians are also skilled in canoe-making; with their primitive stone
instruments, aided by fire, they will make admirable canoes of one
piece, hewn from the trunk of a tree. These canoes at times are so large
that they will seat from twenty to twenty-five men comfortably, but most
of them are small craft easily handled, holding six or eight persons at
most.
Some of the men who had accompanied us thus far now refused to continue
the journey. We were informed that it would be comparatively easy to
replace them with Indians who would accompany us for four or five days
at a trifling wage. The tribes being numerous, it would not be difficult
to find new hands at each stage.
The wage of our new canoe men was always paid in kind: a handkerchief, a
pound of salt, an empty bottle, a strip of gaudy silk—we had still some
London cravats—were the most coveted articles. The idea of equity and
work done for value received does not exist amongst the Indians. We soon
found that it was folly to give them the article agreed upon until the
work was done; for once the men had received what they coveted, they
would abandon us, stealthily leaving the camp in the dusk at the first
landing, and sometimes even rushing into the jungle in broad daylight.
So now with a full crew, now crippled, we managed to continue the
journey, first for six days on the Muco, and then on the Vichada, the
navigation of which proved to be much longer than we had expected.
The general aspect of Nature on these two rivers differed very little
from what we had seen on the Meta. The shores of the Muco are generally
covered with mangroves that push far into the current their submerged
network of roots and branches, of which one must steer clear, as they
are hiding-places for snakes, and are apt, if struck unexpectedly, to
capsize the canoes. These beautiful clear waters, so harmless, so
placid, in appearance, are in truth full of danger. Apart from
alligators and water snakes, they abound in a species of small fish
called _caribe_, which attack men and animals, especially if they find a
sore spot in the skin. They swarm in such quantities and are so
voracious that a bull or a horse crossing the river, if attacked by
these fish, may lose a leg, or receive such a deep wound in the body
that death is inevitable. No less perilous is the electric eel, which,
on being touched, gives a shock so strong that the man or animal
receiving it generally falls into the stream. Even tigers are known to
have been struck by these peculiar fish, and it is said that some have
been drowned, being unable to recover themselves in time.
During the month of January the turtles begin to lay their eggs. Our
attention was called to a specially bright star in the horizon, which
the men asserted only appeared in that month of the year. It was called
the star of the _terecayes_. The _terecay_ is a small species of turtle,
and much prized, and with reason, on account of its exquisite flesh. On
more than one occasion, quite unexpectedly, the canoes would be steered
ashore, the men would jump on the sand and run as if guided by some
well-known landmark. After a few yards they would stop, and, digging in
the sand with their hands, would extract a nest full of _terecay_ eggs,
the contents varying from fifty to over a hundred. Their experienced
eyes had seen the tracks of the _terecay_ on the sand. These turtles,
like all others, lay their eggs once a year on the sand, and cover them
up carefully, leaving the cares of motherhood to the forces of Nature.
Once hatched in this fashion, the young turtles must shift for
themselves, and their instinct tells them that their numerous enemies
lie in watch for their awakening to active life. The moment they break
the shell they make as quickly as they can for the neighbouring waters,
where they are comparatively safe.
If the inhabitants of those regions lack book-learning and knowledge of
things in which their more civilized fellow-creatures are versed, Nature
and the life which they lead have given them a keenness of sight, of
hearing, and of touch far beyond the average citizen of town and
village. I often noticed of an evening, as the canoes were being tied
and hoisted halfway out of the water, that the men walking along the
beach would mutter to themselves, or call the attention of their fellows
to the sand, which to me seemed smooth and uniform. Pointing to the
ground, they would say, duck, turtle, tapir, alligator, wild-boar, deer,
tiger, and so forth. The tracks which they saw were, so to speak, the
visiting-cards of animals which had spent the day on the beach where our
camp was pitched at night.
When we first came in contact with a real wild Indian I experienced a
feeling very difficult to describe.
Here was a being whose appearance was identical with our own, save for
details of colour of skin and other trivial distinctions which could not
affect the essential organic elements; yet he awakened within us a
curiosity akin to that with which we gaze at a wild animal in some
zoological garden. What a deep gulf yawned between that forlorn brother
and ourselves! The work of generations, the treasures heaped up by man
for man during centuries of struggle and endeavour, hopes and fears,
disappointments, traditions, ideals, conventionalities, all that
constitutes civilization; the higher belief in a Supreme Being, the
evolution of habits, the respect for established laws and regulations,
the reverence for sacred things—all that world essential to us was as
naught, absolutely non-existent, for that naked fellow-creature who
stood before us, unprotected, lost amid the forest in a climate
unfavourable to man. There was no one to help him, or make any effort to
improve the natural forces within him, none to lift his soul into a
higher and better world. Curiosity gave way to pity. The labour of the
missionary—of the ideal missionary—became holier and greater in my eyes.
Here was a field of promising harvest for a real worker.
One clear and fragrant night, when all the camp slept, the bonfires half
out, the river a few feet off, as I lay awake thinking of the world to
which we belonged, so different from our present surroundings, so
distant that it seemed a far-off cloud in the sky, something that had
gone by, and which could never be reached again, I suddenly remembered
the words uttered by one of our men when we landed that afternoon upon
the beach. He had clearly enumerated a long list of animals whose tracks
were upon the very sand covered by my body. Logic took possession of my
brain with overpowering rapidity. The alligator, the tiger, and their
numerous companions have visited this beach; they may again visit it
during the night. What is to hinder them from doing so; and in that
case, what is to protect me from their attack? Little did I care for the
wild-boar, the tapir, or the deer—I knew they would be as scared of me
as I was of the other animals; and so, after this attack of fright, my
imagination worked till the sweat began to run clammy on my forehead. It
seemed to me that from the neighbouring forest a veritable Noah’s-ark of
living, rushing, roaring, famished beasts, multiplied by my fancy, and
numerous as the progeny of Gondelles, came upon us. I almost felt the
hot breath and saw the glistening eyes of the tiger outside the thin
partition of cotton of my mosquito-bar, heard the awkward shamble of the
alligator’s body, and felt the unpleasant, musky odour of the huge
lizard an instant before it crushed my bones between its jaws. Unable to
master myself, I sat upright, and would have yelled from dread but for
the spectacle that met my eyes in the moonlight, flooding the
surrounding scene. There to right and left of me snored all my
companions; the river shone brilliantly, the breeze blew softly, no one
stirred. This absence of fear on the part of those who were perfectly
familiar with all the dangers of the region reassured me completely. Oh
blessed snores and valiant snorers! My peace of mind returned, and,
lying back upon my sandy couch, I lustily joined the tuneful choir.
Community of danger constitutes the most acceptable guarantee; no man
ever thinks of ascertaining who drives the locomotive that is to whirl
him and hundreds of his fellow-creatures at lightning speed through
glade and forest, over bridge and under tunnel; no man questions the
capability of the captain responsible for the steamship and for the
lives of thousands of his fellow-men; the most distrustful of us never
gives a thought to these points. Why? Because we know that the driver or
the captain, as the case may be, stakes his own life. Each humble
boatman who listened to Cæsar’s proud assurance that the skiff could not
sink because it carried him and all his fortunes equalled Cæsar in
self-esteem, for the lives of those poor mariners were as dear to them
as Cæsar’s life could be to him. The truth of my assertion that
community of danger constitutes the acceptability of a given guarantee
is demonstrated when, for instance, a traveller entrusting his life on a
railway or a ship to the agent of a company advances or lends money to
the same company. Then comes the hour of discrimination. All the
appliances invented by that most wonderful engine of human ingenuity,
the law of commerce, which in its numerous forms rules the world
paramount and supreme, are brought to bear. No one’s word is accepted as
sufficient; documents, signatures, seals, formalities, numerous and
complicated, are employed as a delicate proof of the trust that the man
of the world ever places in the good faith of his brother before God.
This suspicion is responsible for an enormous amount of expense and
trouble which, were good faith more abundant or were belief in its
existence general, might be applied to relieve misery and sorrow. If the
action of humanity all the world over in this dreary endeavour to
protect man from the rascality of man be justified, we are, indeed, not
very far removed in truth and in essence from the savages of the forest,
who seize what they need and prey upon each other according to the
dictates of nature. If beauty be but skin-deep, civilization is not more
profoundly ingrained, and the smallest rub reveals the primitive
ravening beast. Yet I may be mistaken; perhaps it is not distrust which
begets all those precautions, but something so noble that I dare not
presume to divine, much less to understand, it.