BUSINESS AND PLEASURE ON THE LLANOS
South America is the land of revolution and civil war, and Venezuela
has not been far behind the other republics in its indulgence in such
pastimes. In 1864, five out of seven provinces that had been enrolled
the previous year seceded, and the Commander-in-Chief, General Paez,
was kept busy between subduing seceders and warding off Colombian
invasion.
It is common enough to find an English gentleman filling any
imaginable capacity, from highest to lowest, in America; but one is
scarcely prepared to meet, on the Llanos, a young Venezuelan speaking
or writing the language of an educated Englishman, and carrying into
his fighting, his hunting and his dealings with the Indians all the
best traditions of manliness and fair play characteristic of our
public schools. Yet such a man "might have been seen" (as Ainsworth or
G. P. R. James would say) riding beside the Republican General as his
secretary and aide-de-camp. This was young Ramon Paez, the General's
nephew, who, on account of his father's exile, was brought up mainly
in England, and educated at Stonyhurst; and who, after taking an Arts
degree at London University, returned to his own country and joined
his uncle in the north-west of Venezuela, in 1866.
Late in the year, while they were quieting the Colombian frontier, he
received a commission which would have made an English aide-de-camp
stare; his uncle sent for him, and told him without preliminary that
he was to ride back to the Orinoco plains, catch three thousand wild
horses, and bring them to the camp for the extra cavalrymen who had
enlisted.
"Take three troopers with you; it is all I can spare; it will probably
be enough." Of course, Ramon Paez did not question his last remark,
but he had his own opinion on the subject. "You can take three extra
horses; two to carry your provisions, and the third you can load up
with presents for the Indians."
So; it was the Indians who were to do the work! Young Paez had almost
left them out of his calculations.
The presents--beads, knives, briar pipes, condemned small arms,
etc.--were soon collected and packed, and the four men rode away in
search of natives and horses. The Indians were not easy to find; at
least not the Indians of the right sort; of the wrong sort--idlers,
camp-followers, and hangers-on, who had quarrelled with hard work the
day they were born and never become reconciled--there were plenty. But
it was not till they reached the Orinoco and had travelled down it for
a couple of days, that they came across any who looked like the men
they wanted. These were fishing, and the workmanlike way in which
they went about their task augured well for the success of the
aide-de-camp's mission.
He entered into conversation with them and learned that, some miles
farther south, horses of a very fine breed were plentiful; and, after
a hint from him as to pecuniary reward and a probable distribution of
presents, they agreed to refer the matter to their cacique, and if he
should raise no objection, to start on the morrow.
The young Venezuelan watched the native sport with keen interest, for,
till lately, he had seen nothing of the kind since his childhood. The
net--a kind of ground-seine--was rectangular, with a square flap at
either end, and the back weighted at right angles to the bottom; in
fact, while it was down, it might be likened in shape to an enormous
box which has had the lid and one of its sides removed. It was shot
from two canoes about fifty yards from the bank, its back and ends
being stiffened and kept in place by canes, or lengths of _palma
morice_ stalks. When it had been down for about half an hour, the two
canoes--strictly keeping pace with one another--moved so slowly
towards the bank, that scarcely a ripple was made; the tow-lines were
thrown ashore, and the net dragged into the shallow.
Considering the marvellous variety of fish which the Orinoco
possesses, the result was a little disappointing to an onlooker; for
the catch, though very large, consisted almost entirely of but two
kinds: the electric eel, and a creature peculiar to tropical South
America--the _payara_--the size of a small salmon; this had its lower
jaw supplied with fangs, which the Indians said cut like razors. As
the net was pulled into the shallows, an Indian waved his hand
warningly to the four soldiers who were standing by.
"Be careful, gentlemen; beware of the _caribe_! Pray stand farther
back; your red sashes will attract them."
As he spoke, some small fish leapt out of the water and into the net.
"Quick; quick with the forks!"
Half a dozen long slender canes, each ending in two metal prongs like
those of a carving-fork, were instantly produced, and it was soon
plain enough why such implements were required. Those few little green
fish, so beautifully barred with red and orange, were like bulls in a
china shop; they leapt, wriggled, or swam about the net, biting first
the fish and then the net as viciously as rats; and Paez stared to see
mesh after mesh snapped through before the Indians could eject them
with their forks.
"If they could have got near you they would have bitten you in the
same manner," said the principal of the fishermen, when he had got rid
of the last of the _caribes_. "Anything red will attract them. We dare
not attempt to swim a spurred horse through here, for he would be
bitten to death, or till he was mad, before he reached the other side.
I have seen a white man killed by them, merely because he happened to
have a red scratch on his leg when he entered the water."
* * * * *
The cacique was interviewed, and not only granted permission for the
whole tribe to go on the hunting expedition, but announced his own
intention of going; and, early the following morning, they all started
southwards with a good supply of lassoes. The Indians--one of the
Cariban tribes--were the finest horsemen Paez had seen; and this was
the more noteworthy, inasmuch as the Caribs as a whole care little for
riding; many of those of the forest regions and of the Central
American mountains have never seen such a thing as a horse; and we
know that the cavalry of the Spanish adventurers terrified the
sixteenth-century Caribs as much as Pyrrhus' elephants disconcerted
the Romans and their horses. Yet these Venezuelan natives rode as if
they had been born on horseback, and made no more ado of eating their
dinner while they were in the saddle than as though it had been an
arm-chair.
The nearer the cavalcade drew to the softer grass of the Llano, the
more wild horses they saw; and Paez, who had never yet used a lasso,
was for making his maiden effort on one of these; till the cacique
warned him that "horses can tell things to each other;" and that these
scouts, if chased, would easily escape and caution the larger herds,
thereby lengthening out the hunt by an extra week or more.
But at length they saw enough of the animals to satisfy the most wary
of caciques; they could only be counted by the herd; it seemed as
though all the horses in America had been turned out to grass on this
particular spot. From the matter-of-fact way in which the three
troopers went to work, the chief saw at once that they had little to
learn from his tribe; but he bade Paez, in fatherly fashion, to keep
close to him and "watch how he did it."
The young officer's riding was perfect; but, after his first one or
two efforts with the lasso, he was tempted to forswear horse-catching.
The thing would not go right; either he ran his noose too small, or
too large, or it fell short, or missed wildly; or, worse still, got in
the way of the other hunters, so that they gave him a wide berth.
However, he persevered, and towards the close of the first day,
actually succeeded in dropping the noose over the head of a fine black
stallion; and in imagination he saw himself bestriding him proudly, to
the envy of all his mess. But the beautiful creature, finding the
thong about him, gave a leap that seemed to tear his captor's saddle
from under him; then another, that almost pulled the ridden horse off
his feet; then sped across the plain as though he moved on wings.
Ramon Paez was certainly as strong as most young men of one-and-twenty
who lead active outdoor lives, and he had distinguished himself in
every variety of English sport from boxing to ferreting; but he could
no more stop or haul in this wild horse, than he could have lassoed
the Flying Dutchman. The line was as taut as a fiddle-string, and his
own mount, unused to such diversions, was being drawn along
irresistibly. How much farther did the outraged beast intend to drag
horse and rider?
"Let him run himself out, Senor," bawled one of his troopers, as the
stallion fled past the outer line of hunters.
The recommendation was superfluous, for this was the very thing the
noble animal seemed to intend doing. He galloped another half-mile,
then changed his mind, as though the strangulation were beginning to
tell on him. He swung straight round as if resigned to the notion of
going back to the rest, hesitated, then caught the slackening thong in
his teeth and bit at it as savagely as a wild ass. Naturally the
beginner at once turned his own horse, meaning to pay his prisoner out
in his own coin; and spurring vigorously, headed towards the central
part of the hunt. But this did not please the irate captive, and,
after useless efforts to stand--first on his dignity and then on his
head, he made a dead weight of himself for an instant, then took
several successive bounds forward, easily outstripping his tormentor
and slackening the pressure of the noose.
"Is the brute going to dance?" Don Paez asked himself wrathfully.
This was just what the brute was going to do; not after the common or
circus fashion, but with the fixed idea of crushing the lad's arm with
his great jaws. The young man's fine horsemanship was the only thing
that could now save him from a bite which would not only mangle a
limb, but would probably lead to blood-poisoning--a disease not
exactly sought after in England, and almost sure to be fatal in the
tropics. He backed, and the line tightened; but the stallion was on
him again in another spring. He backed once more, dodged to the right,
to the left, waved his arm at the infuriated creature, but to no
purpose; and, though he would have bitten his tongue out before he
would own himself beaten, by shouting for help, he felt that he was
playing a losing game. There was just one chance left for him, and
that was to spur his already enfeebled horse to a gallop and race his
antagonist.
Never did Derby competitor work a horse more recklessly; Don Paez
spurred and smote, smote and spurred, and only to lose at one minute
the start he had gained the minute before; only just now he had been
endeavouring might and main to slacken the lasso; now he would have
given a five-pound note to feel it taut. Suddenly his horse seemed to
turn round like a wheel, he had a confused vision of the sky falling
on him, then of the earth coming up to meet him, and he and the horse
lay on the ground together. He had obeyed his instinct to kick himself
free from the stirrups, and so fell clear of the horse and escaped
with only a severe shaking.
Then he looked up and saw the cause of his fall; an old Carib, who had
watched his struggle from a distance, had pegged down his own capture,
galloped across and neatly dropped a second lasso over the head of the
rebellious wild horse.
The next few nights, all camped out on the Llano, and by the end of
the week, were ready to start for the camp with fully three thousand
horses. South American ways with animals are not our ways, and Indian
methods of taming and transporting horses are not such as English
readers love to hear of;[5] it will be sufficient to say that, for
transport, the captives were yoked up in long teams, each horse being
thong-hobbled on his fore-legs.
[5] A full account of wild horse-taming will be found in the writer's
"Adventures among the Wild Beasts."
Horse-hunting was not the only species of sport which Don Paez
witnessed among the Caribs. On the journey to the camp, it became
necessary to replenish the food-supply, and he accompanied six of the
Indians on one of their curious deer-hunts. As a preliminary, the
hunters made a call at a native village and each returned with a small
bundle in his hand.
"They are our masks," said the cacique, who was of the party. "Some of
our people hunt with an ox, but you will see that the mask is as
effective. I have brought one for you, Senor Commandante. Will you put
it on?"
[Illustration: CRANE STALKING-MASKS
On the llanos the Indians use masks made of the head and feathers of the
crane, then, imitating the actions of the bird searching for snakes and
other reptiles among the reeds and grasses of the river bank, wait until
the unsuspecting deer come down to drink, when they form an easy target
for their arrows.]
Paez had already humoured the Indians by leaving his gun at the camp
and bringing a bow and arrows, about which he knew as little as they
of gunpowder. But when the cacique produced a not too sweet-smelling
head-dress of brown and white feathers, adorned with the bill of a
_cariama_ (a species of crane), he thought the good man was rather
overstraining his willingness to become a savage. However, he put it
on, and took up his bow and arrows, but so awkwardly that the cacique
hinted that, on this occasion, he might like to be a mere spectator.
The masks, as worn by men who knew the workings thereof, were very
satisfactory disguises; when the Indians had fallen on their knees
with their heads bent, they might easily be mistaken in the distance
for cranes feeding; and in this guise they crawled down towards the
edge of the river just before the deer came down to drink. Paez,
concealed in the long grass, had an excellent view of the proceedings,
and could well understand, at that distance, how the unsuspecting
game might fall into the snare. The "cranes," with their backs to the
water and their heads bobbing so as to make the pendent bill move as
if in search of the small snakes or other reptiles beloved of such
birds, waited till a good-sized herd came within range; then the six
bow-strings twanged, and six deer lay dead or helpless, while their
startled brethren fled across the plain; and six more of these were
brought down by a second volley before they could get out of reach.
THE END.
* * * * *
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
* * * * *
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* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is mostly
preserved.
Author's punctuation style is preserved.
Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs,
but the original page numbers are preserved in the List of
Illustrations.
Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
Typographical problems have been changed, and are listed below.
Transcriber's Changes:
Page 91: Added closing quote mark (soon to be moving; it will be bad
going for the =horses."=)
Page 208: Was 'off' (the beautiful Yo-Semite Valley ceased,
from that day, to be the stronghold =of= Shoshonee
mountain-brigands.)
Page 249: Was 'rattle-snakes' (the alarming prevalence of
=rattlesnakes=, the journey was not unpleasant.)
Page 332: Was 'fire-arms' ("I saw your gun and I was frightened. We
do not like =firearms=, Senor;)
Page 333: Was 'fire-arms' (and even so far overcame his fear of
=firearms= as to offer to carry the gun a little way;)
Page 339: Was 'deerskin' (while at his belt hung a knife and a
=deer-skin= pouch, the latter containing flint and steel)
Variably hyphenated words:
fore-legs and forelegs
bow-strings and bowstrings
sun-rays and sunrays
women-folk and womenfolk
up-hill and uphill
well-nigh and wellnigh
bird-shot and birdshot
snow-shoes and snowshoes
hind-quarters and hindquarters
pen-knife and penknife
gun-shot and gunshot
skid-pan and skidpan
mid-stream and midstream
fire-light and firelight
End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures Among the Red Indians, by H. W. G. Hyrst