We spent ten days in covering the distance from the upper to beyond the
lower rapids, walking whenever it was impossible to use the canoes,
which were drifted by the current or shot over the rapids. The delay was
due chiefly to the loading and unloading of the canoes, and the
necessarily slow transportation of packages, bundles, and sundry
articles along the shore.
The banks of the river on either side along the whole length of the
rapids are high and rocky, sometimes extending for a mile or two in
flat, grass-covered, wavy meadows, and then rising in small hills,
abrupt and ragged on the very edge of the water. This is specially the
case in the narrow part of the gorges. The grass in the small
meadow-like plains is the same as on the shores of the Meta, and the
whole aspect of the region, bare of large forests, is that of a field in
a civilized country.
A few days after leaving Maipures we noticed, to our joy, the absence of
mosquitoes and other such tormentors. They seemed to have been blown
away by the wind, which had freer scope in the more open stretches along
the main river.
We missed the soft couch of the sand beaches to which we had become
accustomed, the thin layer of sand or earth being powerless to soften
the bed-rock on which we now had to stretch ourselves, but the flight of
the mosquitoes and their companions more than made up for this.
Our commissariat had dwindled to utter meagreness; we had neither sugar
nor coffee, and _casabe_ was our only bread. The last drops of
_aguardiente_ had been drained at Santa Catalina. At Maipures we had
obtained a drink which they called white rum—in truth, pure alcohol,
which we had to drown in three times the quantity of water before we
swallowed it. Our cigars, cigarettes and tobacco were all gone; they
were part and parcel of an enchanted past—smoke wafted heavenward like
so many of our hopes and illusions. We had obtained native tobacco, with
which we made cigars or rolled cigarettes out of newspaper clippings.
Thus we consumed many a literary article or political effusion which it
would have been utterly impossible to utilize in any other way. Corn-cob
pipes also came in handily.
Game, furred or feathered, was not to be found on the shores of the
rapids; we had to rely principally on fishing, which was most abundant
in the quieter pools and basins. We ate all sorts of fish, some of
admirable quality, especially the _morrocoto_, far superior to the
French sole or the American shad, blue fish, or Spanish mackerel. If
Marguery could meet with it, his immense renown would increase tenfold,
as with this fish at his disposal he would be certain to evolve what
from a culinary point of view would amount to an epic poem of the most
sublime order. Such, at least, was my opinion when eating that fish,
with my imagination duly fired by a voracious appetite and a lack of
material condiments which gave rise to dreams worthy of Lucullus in
exile.
Rice and salt we had in plenty; butter, oil, and lard were unknown
quantities. Had we been in Lent, necessity would have enabled us very
easily to observe the ordinance of the Roman Church with regard to
abstinence from meat. We thought of this, and although we were not sure
of our dates, we at once decided to offer up our enforced diet in a
truly Catholic spirit in atonement for some of our many sins! May our
offering prove acceptable!
We did not go to sleep as readily on our new hard beds as on the sand.
The clearness of the air and freedom from insects also contributed to
long watches, which we spent in listening to the far-off roar of the
river pealing incessantly through the night air, whilst Gatiño would
tell us about the life of men and beasts in those territories. The voice
of the river seemed like the distant bass of a powerful orchestra, all
the high notes of which had been lost in space.
Gatiño was familiar with the rivers that flow into the Orinoco above its
confluence with the Vichada, and the numerous _caños_ which intersect
that region were so well known to him that on one occasion, when flying
from some Governor on his way to the upper territories who was anxious
to obtain his services as a guide, Gatiño had managed to lose himself in
such an intricate maze of _caños_ and water-ways, and, finally, in a
small lagoon, unknown to all except the wild Indians, that the Governor
had given up the chase in despair. He had travelled on the Casiquiare
and the Rio Negro, and had visited the Upper Amazon. According to him,
the Upper Orinoco and its affluents are as abundant in india-rubber
forests as the Amazon and its tributaries, the Putumayo, the Napo and
the Yarabi. The gum or india-rubber is identical in quality with that of
the best species of Para. In some places the trees grow so closely that
a man may extract from twenty to forty pounds of india-rubber a day.
Besides large virgin areas rich in india-rubber forests, in other parts
_piazaba_ palm forests stretch for hundreds of acres at a time. This
_piazaba_ is used for matting, broom-making, and twisting of ropes and
cables. It is perfectly impervious to moisture, and is even said to
improve instead of rotting in water. Not far from where we were in one
of the _caños_, the _piazaba_ forest followed the water-course for a
distance of, Gatiño said, ‘twenty twists.’ An odd system of measuring,
but the only one at his command. ‘Twenty twists’ might be five or twenty
miles, according to the size of the curves. These forests further
contained infinite abundance of sarsaparilla, tonga bean, _peraman_ and
_caraña_, the resinous substances used for caulking and torch-making.
Gatiño himself exploited those sources of wealth as far as his own
personal means and limitations would allow him. He stated his
willingness at any time to guide us to the spots where rubber, tonga
bean, and so forth, could be found, adding that he knew we would treat
him well, but that he would never consent to act as a guide to others,
especially to the white men in official positions who now and then
appeared along the river. These he held in special abhorrence, and no
doubt their doings justified his feelings.
Gatiño’s statements as to the wealth of the Orinoco were perfectly
truthful. It seems strange that such vast sources of wealth should
remain practically unexploited. The rapids of the Orinoco act as a
barrier, before which traders and explorers have come to a standstill.
Some sixty or seventy years ago cart-roads existed on the shores along
the rapids; these were built by the missionaries, and parts of them are
still intact. Vegetation being weak on the hard soil of those banks, it
would be easy to re-establish them. The great obstacle, however, is to
be found in the numerous affluents which fall into the Orinoco along the
rapids. The missionaries had large pontoon-like rafts on which they
transported their carts from one side to the other. Were this primitive
service started once more, the flow of natural products extracted from
the forests would soon establish itself from the Upper to the Lower
Orinoco.
One day, having left our canoes behind, we arrived at the shores of the
Cantaniapo, a clear stream flowing into the Orinoco between two
stretches of rapids. No tree shaded us from the fierce glare of the sun.
The waters murmured most invitingly on the pebbles of the beach. On the
other side was a sort of shed, a vestige of former splendour. A small
canoe was moored alongside, tied with a _piazaba_ rope to the trunk of a
neighbouring tree. So near, and yet so far! We should have to wait,
perhaps, broiling in the sun for hours, till our canoes arrived. Whilst
we discussed the arduous architectural problem of building a tent with
such articles as coats, india-rubber waterproof sheets, and so on, a
noise as of a body falling into the water drew our attention to the
river. Leal, holding his _machete_ between his teeth, was swimming
_llanero_ fashion—that is to say, throwing each arm out of the water in
succession, and covering a distance equal to the length of his body at
every stroke. The peril, potentially speaking, was extreme; one never
knows whether the alligators and other inhabitants of those waters may
or may not be at hand. Yet Leal did not seem to care. Fortunately, he
soon landed on the opposite shore, jumped into the canoe, cut the rope
and paddled back. On our remonstrating with him, he argued that the
danger was slight; alligators hate noise, and he had taken care to be as
noisy as possible.
‘Furthermore,’ he added, ‘I had my _machete_ with me.’
We stopped that night under the shed. Gatiño came in due time. We
particularly wished to bathe in the transparent waters of that river,
not as Leal had done, but in our usual prudent way, standing on the
shore far from all possible danger.
The next morning we saw the only living tiger which met our eyes during
that long trip. Early, before striking the camp, the shout went forth—‘A
tiger! A tiger!’ There, at a distance of about 150 feet from us, on a
small protruding ledge which plunged into the river, forming a sort of
natural drinking-place, stood a beautiful specimen of the native tiger.
The wind, which, as Leal told us, blew from the land, carried the scent
in the wrong direction, and this explained the tiger’s visit. On hearing
the shout, Leal sprang up and seized one of the rifles. The tiger looked
towards our group and turned tail, bolting in the direction whence he
had come, behind a clump of bushes. Leal followed him. We soon heard a
shot, and after a few minutes Leal returned, disgusted. He had only
wounded the animal. I argued with him that we were most thankful to the
lord of the forest for his abrupt courtesy in leaving the field entirely
to us, as, had he felt inclined to enter into closer relations, we might
have found it awkward, to say the least.
Valiente had come with Gatiño. Our belongings seemed to him, as they had
previously seemed to Leal, an abnormal accumulation of wealth. We had
kept with us, not knowing whether they might again be required, our
riding-saddles. My own was large, comfortable, and soft, a work of art
in its way. Valiente seemed to admire it. The remarks which he made
deserve to be noted here.
‘This saddle is certainly very fine and comfortable; but how do you
manage when crossing a river? Do you not find it very heavy on your
head?’
I could not understand what he meant, until I remembered that the
_llaneros_, when swimming across a river, generally carry their saddles
on their heads to keep them dry. At first I thought Valiente was
‘pulling my leg.’ A mere glance at my person should suffice to persuade
anyone that not even the furious onslaught of a regiment of Cossacks
would induce me in any circumstances to plunge into a river where there
was a chance of meeting alligators and such-like; I was still less
likely to venture on such feats with the additional burden of a heavy
saddle on my head. However, Valiente was perfectly in earnest, and meant
no harm; so I assured him with perfect calm that I had never noticed on
any occasion, either in or out of the water, that the saddle was a heavy
one.
‘Possibly,’ I added, ‘it is a question of habit.’
‘May be,’ he said, ‘but it would be a long time before I got used to it.
Look at my saddle!’ he went on to say; ‘it only weighs a fourth of
yours. Still, I should like to try yours, not for real hard
work—branding, lassoing, or rounding up cattle—but just to prance round
the town on a good horse and charm the girls. That’s about what it’s fit
for!’
That day, marked in the calendar of our memory as the ‘tiger day,’ our
supper consisted of boiled rice and _casabe_. Somehow or other there had
been no fishing. Yet we did not grumble; custom had taught us to be
easily satisfied. We learned from Gatiño that within twelve miles from
us the Atures ruins were to be found. Behind the thick forest which
separates it from the river stands a short range of high cliffs. They
are the last spur of the chain through which the Orinoco has drilled its
way. At a height of 600 to 700 metres on the vertical wall, so straight
and smooth that it seems to have been polished all over by the hand of
man, there appear, carved in the very substance of the rock, a huge
alligator and two human figures, standing near its head and tail
respectively. All are of colossal dimensions. According to the
measurements of other travellers provided with the required instruments,
the length of the alligator exceeds 500 feet, and the human figures are
of proportionate size. It is difficult to understand what sort of
scaffolding was used to carry out this work at such a height, no support
or traces of support of any kind in the rock being apparent; what
instruments were used for the carving, and what purpose the whole work
served: all this is very perplexing.
Footprints of human endeavour, thoughts of past generations entirely
lost to our minds, left there in the midst of the forest, marking the
passage of men who must have been powerful at a period so remote that
only these traces remain. What more eloquent proof of the nothingness,
the vanity, of our own ephemeral individual life!
The mere magnitude of the work carried out demonstrates that in those
regions, totally deserted to-day, where Nature has reasserted her
absolute sway, and where the wanderer has to fight for every inch of
ground in the jungle and the thicket, there must once have been
multitudes of men educated in certain arts—arts which in their turn must
have been links in a chain of sequence indispensable to their own
existence, as isolated effort in one direction would be
incomprehensible. Nothing of those myriads of men survives beyond this
dumb expression of their thoughts and aspirations.
Were those figures carved on that huge wall, on the virgin rock of the
mountains, hundreds or thousands of years ago? Who knows? Who can tell?
With the rapidity inherent to human thought, my mind sped to the
pyramids of Egypt, the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, the buried cities
of Ceylon, the excavated temples and palaces in Yucatan and elsewhere,
wherever vestiges of vanished generations are found.
That sculpture on the rock on the shores of the Orinoco brought to my
mind the dying lion cut into the granite on the banks of the Lake of
Lucerne, as a symbol of respect and admiration to the loyalty and
steadfastness of the compatriots of William Tell, who died for a cause
upon which judgment has been passed in the minds of men and in the pages
of history. I could not help thinking that perhaps when Macaulay’s
famous New Zealander shall stand upon the broken arches of London Bridge
to gaze at the ruins of St. Paul’s, when England and London shall have
crumbled into potsherds, so in years to come some native of these
Orinoco regions, then populous and civilized, may sail on the cool
waters of Lucerne and interrogate the mute rock, anxious to know the
allegory embodied in that dying lion holding in its claws the shield
which bears the three secular lilies of old France. Even as the rock was
mute to us, so shall the rock again be mute to him who thousands of
years hence may question Thorwaldsen’s sculpture. The efforts of man are
powerless against time and oblivion, even though they choose the
largest, the most lasting manifestations of Nature for their pedestal.
Time passes grimly on. The endeavours of pride, of flattery, of
gratitude, the emblems of glory, all become dumb and meaningless.
Egyptian hieroglyphics, figures and signs carved in monoliths or
pyramids or in the rock of the mountains, after the lapse of what, to
the world, is but an instant, all become confused, vague, and
undefinable. The seeker and the student find all those attempts to
perpetuate the memory or the aspirations of men, now on the burning
sands of the desert, now decked in the foliage and wealth of Nature,
aggressively reasserting her empire, now in the naked summits of the
uplifted mountains—yea, the seeker finds them all; but he knows not
whether they be expressions of human pride anxious to survive the life
of the body, or whether they be witnesses of servile flattery paying
tribute to the mighty, or the grateful offering of nations to their
heroes and their benefactors, or the emblem of some dim forgotten
religion, whose very rites are as unintelligible to living men as is the
mystic power which once gave them force.