WANDERING IN A MAZE.
"Land ho!"
The idlers on deck sprang to their feet, and the cabins were speedily
emptied of their occupants. All eyes turned southwards. Nothing
visible save the horizon, gray with the heat-haze of noon, and the
gray-blue waters that heaved up to meet it. But the sailor in the
crosstrees could see what was invisible to those on the deck. The
gazers looked at him. He extended his forefinger over their heads.
"Land ho!" he cried again; "leagues of it, stretching east and west!"
The adventurers crowded into the bow of the boat, leaning over the
bulwarks to larboard and starboard. Presently a sinuous line, darker
gray than the rest of the horizon, could be discerned above the surface
of the ocean. It lifted, cleared; the gray deepened to black; the low
coast of the Orinoco delta was revealed. The crew raised a resounding
cheer, and the gentlemen of the company waved their caps in the air.
Yacamo, the guide, stood in the forepeak of the ship, the centre of an
eager group. Yonder was land; for what point of it should they steer?
Master Jeffreys was endeavouring to settle that question. The Indian
was pouring out a torrent of coast Spanish, and gesticulating with
every sentence. The Devonian explained the situation to his comrades.
"From what I can gather," he said, "the arms of the river embrace about
fifty leagues of coastline similar to that which confronts us. In this
stretch there are at least a hundred mouths, connected one with the
other by thousands of cross channels. The whole delta is a bewildering
maze of waterways. Some of these are deep enough to carry our ship
well into the country; others are too shallow to float a ship's boat.
Moreover, the guide says that he has had a free passage up a channel on
one occasion that was impassable on another because of the shifting
sandbanks. One of the main mouths is very deep, but the current is
also of great strength. We take risks whatever we do."
"Is he sure that we are approaching the Orinoco coast?"
"Quite."
"That will do, then. We will skirt it until he recognizes a landmark."
The light breeze held steady, the tide was running in; so fair progress
was made. The land now stood out quite distinct from the water. Dark
masses of woodland could be discerned standing back on the fringe of
the tidal mud, but no opening was visible in the low, dark line.
Without going farther in, the ship's course was altered until it was
parallel with the coast, and all the afternoon they held steadily
along, looking for some landmark familiar to the Indian. But the coast
was so monotonous in its regularity that distinguishing features were
not plentiful. It was nearly sunset when, following an inward curve of
the shore, they discovered that they were in the mouth of a wide
estuary. The banks were miles apart, but, the tide being out, a turbid
current was distinguishable, flowing in great volume seawards. The
wind, for the time, had practically died down, and the current began to
swing the ship round, and bear her back to the Atlantic. Soundings
were taken, and about three fathoms of water discovered, where at least
twenty times that depth had been anticipated. This was disappointing,
for it was evident that they had turned into one of the shallow mouths,
and navigation might come to an end a few miles up. Captain Drake
dropped anchor well away from the shore and its pestilential night
mists, and made all snug against the morning. He recognized that the
navigation of the river was going to be no easy matter, and he decided
to go warily.
The tide ran again about midnight, and on the early morning ebb the
_Golden Boar_ stood out to sea once more, and went in search of a more
promising opening. They found one that Yacamo thought he knew, and,
taking advantage of the afternoon tide, they ran up nearly twenty
miles. The current was almost as strong as the tide, and they had to
anchor against the ebb, or be swept out to sea quicker than they had
come in. The next morning they went on again, and were fifty miles up
the channel by nightfall. Away to right and left were masses of flat,
swampy land, the intersecting waterways reddening and glistening in the
setting sun.
The numerous channels and jutting stretches of land so broke the force
of the tide that hardly any headway was made the next day, and a
council was held to determine methods for further progress.
Captain Drake was of opinion that it was impossible to continue the
passage of the river in the ship. Rigorous questioning and
cross-questioning of Yacamo brought out further ugly reports of the
shifting nature of the river-bed, and of the frequency of shallows. A
stay of a couple of days in the anchorage was resolved upon, and during
that time exploration by means of boats was to be pushed along
vigorously.
But it was easier to decide this matter than to carry the decisions
into practice. Three boats were sent out the next day just after
sunrise. All pursued a more or less southerly course through the
channels, and by noon all three crews had lost themselves in the maze.
The waterways were all alike, muddy, tree-bordered, steamy,
oppressively malodorous, and swarming with reptiles. Moreover, they
laced and interlaced so frequently, crossing like the threads in a
woven fabric, that any idea of direction was impossible. The giant
trees shut in the channels from one another, and no boat's crew could
see many yards ahead. In the afternoon, gun-fire from the ship gave
the voyagers a cue to their whereabouts, and a guide back to safety.
The scheme of exploration in order to find a safe passage for the ship
had failed.
An anxious day followed. Would the mighty river never yield up its
golden secret? Were the adventurers to be baffled and foiled after
their thousands of leagues of journeying? The guide declared that the
Spaniards had got hundreds of miles farther up the river, but by means
of galleys of forty to sixty oars apiece. The _Golden Boar_ had no
such craft aboard. Three good ships' boats she had, the largest
capable of holding about a score of men with arms and provisions, the
others with capacity for about half that number. The largest boat was
fitted with a mast, and a gun might be mounted in the bow.
No man was in the mind to turn back, and progress by boat was resolved
upon. What should be done with the ship? She must not be wholly
abandoned, for she was wanted for the voyage home. Some counselled
that she should be taken back to Trinidad and harboured there for three
months, coming back to the river again at the end of that period.
Others were for hiding her, as Oxenham had hidden his ship; but Nick
and Ned Johnson were loud against any such proceeding. A plan
suggested by Trelawny was to the effect that half the company should go
buccaneering amongst the islands in the _Golden Boar_, whilst the other
half should try for "El Dorado's" land, the spoils of each expedition
to be put into the common fund, and then shared according to the terms
of the cruise. A few reckless spirits agreed to this, but Captain
Drake would make no such division of his forces. To do so, he argued,
would be to weaken both parties to the verge of powerlessnesa.
Matters were at a deadlock. Then Dan Pengelly went hunting, and caught
a native canoe and two natives. He brought them to the ship. Yacamo
could make himself understood. He persuaded the Indians that his
masters were not Spaniards, but tender-hearted white men, who loved the
brown man like a brother. Generosity in the matter of presents helped
the faith of the two men. They declared their willingness to help the
white strangers. Their own village was near at hand, hidden in the
wooded recesses of an island, and they had intercourse with other
villages along the delta, and could guide the adventurers through the
network of channels to the main stream.
But the problem what to do with the ship remained unsolved. The two
natives declared that it was impossible to get her into the main river;
and even if that could be done, her voyage up-stream would be short, as
waterfalls blocked the passage.
Captain Drake and a small retinue proceeded to the Indian village, and
talked with the chief. He proved friendly enough, and quite willing to
help, when he found that the newcomers were foes to his oppressors, the
Spaniards. He paid a return visit to the ship, and, learning the
difficulty concerning her, offered to hide her in a deep pool on the
eastern side of his own island. She could there be effectively
screened. A survey of the spot and the channels leading to it showed
that the plan was feasible; and, with ship's boats and native canoes,
the _Golden Boar_ was towed to her anchorage, and preparations for the
boat journey were at once begun. The vessel was dismasted, her guns
buried, and the ammunition safely stowed in an empty hut. Masts and
sails were fitted to the two smaller boats, and the chief furnished a
large canoe and rowers for the carriage of stores. Two other canoes of
stronger make were constructed, and at the end of twelve days Captain
Drake had a flotilla of five boats under his command. Sixty men were
to form the expeditionary force; one gentleman adventurer, one ship's
officer, two soldiers, and two seamen--all chosen by lot--being left
behind in the native village in charge of ship and stores.