nights, because I watched during the greater part of them, in the hope
of seizing the moment of the passage of some star over the meridian.
That I might have nothing to reproach myself with, I kept the
instruments always ready for an observation. I could not even obtain
double altitudes, to calculate the latitude by the method of Douwes.
What a contrast between two parts of the same zone; between the sky of
Cumana, where the air is constantly pure as in Persia and Arabia, and
the sky of the Rio Negro, veiled like that of the Feroe islands,
without sun, or moon or stars!
On the 10th of May, our canoe being ready before sunrise, we embarked
to go up the Rio Negro as far as the mouth of the Cassiquiare, and to
devote ourselves to researches on the real course of that river, which
unites the Orinoco to the Amazon. The morning was fine; but, in
proportion as the heat augmented, the sky became obscured. The air is
so saturated by water in these forests, that the vesicular vapours
become visible on the least increase of evaporation at the surface of
the earth. The breeze being never felt, the humid strata are not
displaced and renewed by dryer air. We were every day more grieved at
the aspect of the cloudy sky. M. Bonpland was losing by this excessive
humidity the plants he had collected; and I, for my part, was afraid
lest I should again find the fogs of the Rio Negro in the valley of
the Cassiquiare. No one in these missions for half a century past had
doubted the existence of communication between two great systems of
rivers; the important point of our voyage was confined therefore to
fixing by astronomical observations the course of the Cassiquiare, and
particularly the point of its entrance into the Rio Negro, and that of
the bifurcation of the Orinoco. Without a sight of the sun and the
stars this object would be frustrated, and we should have exposed
ourselves in vain to long and painful privations. Our fellow
travellers would have returned by the shortest way, that of the
Pimichin and the small rivers; but M. Bonpland preferred, like me,
persisting in the plan of the voyage, which we had traced for
ourselves in passing the Great Cataracts. We had already travelled one
hundred and eighty leagues in a boat from San Fernando de Apure to San
Carlos, on the Rio Apure, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Temi, the
Tuamini, and the Rio Negro. In again entering the Orinoco by the
Cassiquiare we had to navigate three hundred and twenty leagues, from
San Carlos to Angostura. By this way we had to struggle against the
currents during ten days; the rest was to be performed by going down
the stream of the Orinoco. It would have been blamable to have
suffered ourselves to be discouraged by the fear of a cloudy sky, and
by the mosquitos of the Cassiquiare. Our Indian pilot, who had been
recently at Mandavaca, promised us the sun, and those great stars that
eat the clouds, as soon as we should have left the black waters of the
Guaviare. We therefore carried out our first project of returning to
San Fernando de Atabapo by the Cassiquiare; and, fortunately for our
researches, the prediction of the Indian was verified. The white
waters brought us by degrees a more serene sky, stars, mosquitos, and
crocodiles.
We passed between the islands of Zaruma and Mini, or Mibita, covered
with thick vegetation; and, after having ascended the rapids of the
Piedra de Uinumane, we entered the Rio Cassiquiare at the distance of
eight miles from the small fort of San Carlos. The Piedra, or granitic
rock which forms the little cataract, attracted our attention on
account of the numerous veins of quartz by which it is traversed.
These veins are several inches broad, and their masses proved that
their date and formation are very different. I saw distinctly that,
wherever they crossed each other, the veins containing mica and black
schorl traversed and drove out of their direction those which
contained only white quartz and feldspar. According to the theory of
Werner, the black veins were consequently of a more recent formation
than the white. Being a disciple of the school of Freyberg, I could
not but pause with satisfaction at the rock of Uinumane, to observe
the same phenomena near the equator, which I had so often seen in the
mountains of my own country. I confess that the theory which considers
veins as clefts filled from above with various substances, pleases me
somewhat less now than it did at that period; but these modes of
intersection and driving aside, observed in the stony and metallic
veins, do not the less merit the attention of travellers as being one
of the most general and constant of geological phenomena. On the east
of Javita, all along the Cassiquiare, and particularly in the
mountains of Duida, the number of veins in the granite increases.
These veins are full of holes and druses; and their frequency seems to
indicate that the granite of these countries is not of very ancient
formation.
We found some lichens on the rock Uinumane, opposite the island of
Chamanare, at the edge of the rapids; and as the Cassiquiare near its
mouth turns abruptly from east to south-west, we saw for the first
time this majestic branch of the Orinoco in all its breadth. It much
resembles the Rio Negro in the general aspect of the landscape. The
trees of the forest, as in the basin of the latter river, advance as
far as the beach, and there form a thick coppice; but the Cassiquiare
has white waters, and more frequently changes its direction. Its
breadth, near the rapids of Uinumane, almost surpasses that of the Rio
Negro. I found it everywhere from two hundred and fifty to two hundred
and eighty toises, as far as above Vasiva. Before we passed the island
of Garigave, we perceived to the north-east, almost at the horizon, a
little hill with a hemispheric summit; the form which in every zone
characterises mountains of granite. Continually surrounded by vast
plains, the solitary rocks and hills excite the attention of the
traveller. Contiguous mountains are only found more to the east,
towards the sources of the Pacimoni, Siapa, and Mavaca. Having arrived
on the south of the Raudal of Caravine, we perceived that the
Cassiquiare, by the windings of its course, again approached San
Carlos. The distance from this fort to the mission of San Francisco
Solano, where we slept, is only two leagues and a half by land, but it
is reckoned seven or eight by the river. I passed a part of the night
in the open air, waiting vainly for stars. The air was misty,
notwithstanding the aguas blancas, which were to lead us beneath an
ever-starry sky.
The mission of San Francisco Solano, situated on the left bank of the
Cassiquiare, was founded, as were most of the Christian settlements
south of the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco, not by monks, but by
military authority. At the time of the expedition of the boundaries,
villages were built in proportion as a subteniente, or a corporal,
advanced with his troops. Part of the natives, in order to preserve
their independence, retired without a struggle; others, of whom the
most powerful chiefs had been gained, joined the missions. Where there
was no church, they contented themselves with erecting a great cross
of red wood, close to which they constructed a casa fuerte, or
block-house, the walls of which were formed of large beams resting
horizontally upon each other. This house had two stories; in the upper
story two cannon of small calibre were placed; and two soldiers lived
on the ground-floor, and were served by an Indian family. Those of the
natives with whom they were at peace cultivated spots of land round
the casa fuerte. The soldiers called them together by the sound of the
horn, or a botuto of baked earth, whenever any hostile attack was
dreaded. Such were the pretended nineteen Christian settlements
founded by Don Antonio Santos in the way from Esmeralda to the
Erevato. Military posts, which had no influence on the civilization of
the natives, figured on the maps, and in the works of the
missionaries, as villages (pueblos) and reducciones apostolicas.* (*
Signifying apostolic conquests or conversions.) The preponderance of
the military was maintained on the banks of the Orinoco till 1785,
when the system of the monks of San Francisco began. The small number
of missions founded, or rather re-established, since that period, owe
their existence to the Fathers of the Observance; for the soldiers now
distributed among the missions are dependent on the missionaries, or
at least are reputed to be so, according to the pretensions of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy.
The Indians whom we found at San Francisco Solano were of two nations;
Pacimonales and Cheruvichahenas. The latter being descended from a
considerable tribe settled on the Rio Tomo, near the Manivas of the
Upper Guainia, I tried to gather from them some ideas respecting the
upper course and the sources of the Rio Negro; but the interpreter
whom I employed could not make them comprehend my questions. Their
continually-repeated answer was, that the sources of the Rio Negro and
the Inirida were as near to each other as "two fingers of the hand."
In one of the huts of the Pacimonales we purchased two fine large
birds, a toucan (piapoco) and an ana, a species of macaw, seventeen
inches long, having the whole body of a purple colour. We had already
in our canoe seven parrots, two manakins (pipa), a motmot, two guans,
or pavas de monte, two manaviris (cercoleptes or Viverra
caudivolvula), and eight monkeys, namely, two ateles,* (* Marimonda of
the Great Cataracts, Simia belzebuth, Brisson.) two titis,* (* Simia
sciurea, the saimiri of Buffon.) one viudita,* (* Simia lugens.) two
douroucoulis or nocturnal monkeys,* (* Cusiensi, or Simia trivirgata.)
and a short-tailed cacajao. (* Simia melanocephala, mono feo. These
last three species are new.) Father Zea whispered some complaints at
the daily augmentation of this ambulatory collection. The toucan
resembles the raven in manners and intelligence. It is a courageous
animal, but easily tamed. Its long and stout beak serves to defend it
at a distance. It makes itself master of the house, steals whatever it
can come at, and loves to bathe often and fish on the banks of the
river. The toucan we had bought was very young; yet it took delight,
during the whole voyage, in teasing the cusicusis, or nocturnal
monkeys, which are melancholy and irritable. I did not observe what
has been related in some works of natural history, that the toucan is
forced, from the structure of its beak, to swallow its food by
throwing it up into the air. It raises it indeed with some difficulty
from the ground, but, having once seized it with the point of its
enormous beak, it has only to lift it up by throwing back its head,
and holding it perpendicularly whilst in the act of swallowing. This
bird makes extraordinary gestures when preparing to drink. The monks
say that it makes the sign of the cross upon the water; and this
popular belief has obtained for the toucan, from the creoles, the
singular name of diostede.* (* Dios te de, God gives it thee.)
Most of our animals were confined in small wicker cages; others ran at
full liberty in all parts of the boat. At the approach of rain the
macaws sent forth noisy cries, the toucan wanted to reach the shore to
fish, and the little monkeys (the titis) went in search of Father Zea,
to take shelter in the large sleeves of his Franciscan habit. These
incidents sometimes amused us so much that we forgot the torment of
the mosquitos. At night we placed a leather case (petaca), containing
our provisions, in the centre; then our instruments, and the cages of
our animals; our hammocks were suspended around the cages, and beyond
were those of the Indians. The exterior circle was formed by the fires
which are lighted to keep off the jaguars. Such was the order of our
encampment on the banks of the Cassiquiare. The Indians often spoke to
us of a little nocturnal animal, with a long nose, which surprises the
young parrots in their nests, and in eating makes use of its hands
like the monkeys and the maniveris, or kinkajous. They call it the
guachi; it is, no doubt, a coati, perhaps the Viverra nasua, which I
saw wild in Mexico. The missionaries gravely prohibit the natives from
eating the flesh of the guachi, to which, according to far-spread
superstitious ideas, they attribute the same stimulating qualities
which the people of the East believe to exist in the skink, and the
Americans in the flesh of the alligator.
On the 11th of May, we left the mission of San Francisco Solano at a
late hour, to make but a short day's journey. The uniform stratum of
vapours began to be divided into clouds with distinct outlines: and
there was a light east wind in the upper regions of the air. We
recognized in these signs an approaching change of the weather; and
were unwilling to go far from the mouth of the Cassiquiare, in the
hope of observing during the following night the passage of some star
over the meridian. We descried the Cano Daquiapo to the south, the
Guachaparu to the north, and a few miles further, the rapids of
Cananivacari. The velocity of the current being 6.3 feet in a second,
we had to struggle against the turbulent waves of the Raudal. We went
on shore, and M. Bonpland discovered within a few steps of the beach a
majestic almendron, or Bertholletia excelsa. The Indians assured us,
that the existence of this valuable plant of the banks of the
Cassiquiare was unknown at San Francisco Solano, Vasiva, and
Esmeralda. They did not think that the tree we saw, which was more
than sixty feet high, had been sown by some passing traveller.
Experiments made at San Carlos have shown how rare it is to succeed in
causing the bertholletia to germinate, on account of its ligneous
pericarp, and the oil contained in its nut which so readily becomes
rancid. Perhaps this tree denoted the existence of a forest of
bertholletia in the inland country on the east and north-east. We
know, at least, with certainty, that this fine tree grows wild in the
third degree of latitude, in the Cerro de Guanaya. The plants that
live in society have seldom marked limits, and it happens, that before
we reach a palmar or a pinar,* (* Two Spanish words, which, according
to a Latin form, denote a forest of palm-trees, palmetum, and of
pines, pinetum.) we find solitary palm-trees and pines. They are
somewhat like colonists that have advanced in the midst of a country
peopled with different vegetable productions.
Four miles distant from the rapids of Cunanivacari, rocks of the
strangest form rise in the plains. First appears a narrow wall eighty
feet high, and perpendicular; and at the southern extremity of this
wall are two turrets, the courses of which are of granite, and nearly
horizontal. The grouping of the rocks of Guanari is so symmetrical
that they might be taken for the ruins of an ancient edifice. Are they
the remains of islets in the midst of an inland sea, that covered the
flat ground between the Sierra Parime and the Parecis mountains?* (*
The Sierra de la Parime, or of the Upper Orinoco, and the Sierra (or
Campos) dos Parecis, are part of the mountains of Matto Grosso, and
form the northern back of the Sierra de Chiquitos. I here name the two
chains of mountains running from east to west, and bordering the
plains or basins of the Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon,
between 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and 14 degrees south latitude.) or
have these walls of rock, these turrets of granite, been upheaved by
the elastic forces that still act in the interior of our planet? We
may be permitted to meditate a little on the origin of mountains,
after having seen the position of the Mexican volcanoes, and of
trachyte summits on an elongated crevice; having found in the Andes of
South America primitive and volcanic rocks in a straight line in the
same chain; and when we recollect the island, three miles in
circumference, and of a great height, which in modern times issued
from the depths of the ocean near Oonalaska.
The banks of the Cassiquiare are adorned with the chiriva palm-tree
with pinnate leaves, silvery on the under part. The rest of the forest
furnishes only trees with large, coriaceous, glossy leaves, that have
plain edges. This peculiar physiognomy* of the vegetation of the
Guainia, the Tuamini, and the Cassiquiare, is owing to the
preponderance of the families of the guttiferae, the sapotae, and the
laurineae, in the equatorial regions. (* This physiognomy struck us
forcibly, in the vast forests of Spanish Guiana, only between the
second and third degrees of north latitude.) The serenity of the sky
promising us a fine night, we resolved, at five in the evening, to
rest near the Piedra de Culimacari, a solitary granite rock, like all
those which I have described between the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare.
We found by the bearings of the sinuosities of the river, that this
rock is nearly in the latitude of the mission of San Francisco Solano.
In those desert countries, where man has hitherto left only fugitive
traces of his existence, I constantly endeavoured to make my
observations near the mouth of a river, or at the foot of a rock
distinguishable by its form. Such points only as are immutable by
their nature can serve for the basis of geographical maps. I obtained,
in the night of the 10th of May, a good observation of latitude by
alpha of the Southern Cross; the longitude was determined, but with
less precision, by the chronometer, taking the altitudes of the two
beautiful stars which shine in the feet of the Centaur. This
observation made known to us at the same time, with sufficient
precision for the purposes of geography, the positions of the mouth of
the Pacimoni, of the fortress of San Carlos, and of the junction of
the Cassiquiare with the Rio Negro. The rock of Culimacari is
precisely in latitude 2 degrees 0 minutes 42 seconds, and probably in
longitude 69 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds.
Satisfied with our observations, we left the rock of Culimacari at
half past one on the morning of the 12th. The torment of mosquitos, to
which we were exposed, augmented in proportion as we withdrew from the
Rio Negro. There are no zancudos in the valley of Cassiquiare, but the
simulia, and all the other insects of the tipulary family, are the
more numerous and venomous. Having still eight nights to pass in the
open air in this damp and unhealthy climate, before we could reach the
mission of Esmeralda, our pilot sought to arrange our passage in such
a manner as might enable us to enjoy the hospitality of the missionary
of Mandavaca, and some shelter in the village of Vasiva. We went up
with difficulty against the current, which was nine feet, and in some
places (where I measured it with precision) eleven feet eight inches
in a second, that is, almost eight miles an hour. Our resting-place
was probably not farther than three leagues in a right line from the
mission of Mandavaca; yet, though we had no reason to complain of
inactivity on the part of our rowers, we were fourteen hours in making
this short passage.
Towards sunrise we passed the mouth of the Rio Pacimoni, a river which
I mentioned when speaking of the trade in sarsaparilla, and which (by
means of the Baria) intertwines in so remarkable a way with the
Cababuri. The Pacimoni rises in a hilly ground, from the confluence of
three small rivers,* not marked on the maps of the missionaries. (*
The Rios Guajavaca, Moreje, and Cachevaynery.) Its waters are black,
but less so than those of the lake of Vasiva, which also communicates
with the Cassiquiare. Between those two tributary streams coming from
the east, lies the mouth of the Rio Idapa, the waters of which are
white. I shall not recur again to the difficulty of explaining this
coexistence of rivers differently coloured, within a small extent of
territory, but shall merely observe, that at the mouth of the
Pacimoni, and on the borders of the lake Vasiva, we were again struck
with the purity and extreme transparency of the brown waters. Ancient
Arabian travellers have observed, that the Alpine branch of the Nile,
which joins the Bahr el Abiad near Halfaja, has green waters, which
are so transparent, that the fish may be seen at the bottom of the
river.
We passed some turbulent rapids before we reached the mission of
Mandavaca. The village, which bears also the name of Quirabuena,
contains only sixty natives. The state of the Christian settlements is
in general so miserable that, in the whole course of the Cassiquiare,
on a length of fifty leagues, not two hundred inhabitants are found.
The banks of this river were indeed more peopled before the arrival of
the missionaries; the Indians have withdrawn into the woods, toward
the east; for the western plains are almost deserted. The natives
subsist during a part of the year on those large ants of which I have
spoken above. These insects are much esteemed here, as spiders are in
the southern hemisphere, where the savages of Australia deem them
delicious. We found at Mandavaca the good old missionary, who had
already spent twenty years of mosquitos in the bosques del
Cassiquiare, and whose legs were so spotted by the stings of insects,
that the colour of the skin could scarcely be perceived. He talked to
us of his solitude, and of the sad necessity which often compelled him
to leave the most atrocious crimes unpunished in the two missions of
Mandavaca and Vasiva. In the latter place, an Indian alcalde had, a
few years before, eaten one of his wives, after having taken her to
his conuco,* (* A hut surrounded with cultivated ground; a sort of
country-house, which the natives prefer to residing in the missions.)
and fattened her by good feeding. The cannibalism of the nations of
Guiana is never caused by the want of subsistence, or by the
superstitions of their religion, as in the islands of the South Sea;
but is generally the effect of the vengeance of a conqueror, and (as
the missionaries say) "of a vitiated appetite." Victory over a hostile
tribe is celebrated by a repast, in which some parts of the body of a
prisoner are devoured. Sometimes a defenceless family is surprised in
the night; or an enemy, who is met with by chance in the woods, is
killed by a poisoned arrow. The body is cut to pieces, and carried as
a trophy to the hut. It is civilization only, that has made man feel
the unity of the human race; which has revealed to him, as we may say,
the ties of consanguinity, by which he is linked to beings to whose
language and manners he is a stranger. Savages know only their own
family; and a tribe appears to them but a more numerous assemblage of
relations. When those who inhabit the missions see Indians of the
forest, who are unknown to them, arrive, they make use of an
expression, which has struck us by its simple candour: they are, no
doubt, my relations; I understand them when they speak to me. But
these very savages detest all who are not of their family, or their
tribe; and hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who live at war
with their own, as we hunt game. They know the duties of family ties
and of relationship, but not those of humanity, which require the
feeling of a common tie with beings framed like ourselves. No emotion
of pity prompts them to spare the wives or children of a hostile race;
and the latter are devoured in preference, at the repast given at the
conclusion of a battle or warlike incursion.
The hatred which savages for the most part feel for men who speak
another idiom, and appear to them to be of an inferior race, is
sometimes rekindled in the missions, after having long slumbered. A
short time before our arrival at Esmeralda, an Indian, born in the
forest* behind the Duida, travelled alone with another Indian, who,
after having been made prisoner by the Spaniards on the banks of the
Ventuario, lived peaceably in the village, or, as it is expressed
here, within the sound of the bell (debaxo de la campana.) (* En el
monte. The Indians born in the missions are distinguished from those
born in the woods. The word monte signifies more frequently, in the
colonies, a forest (bosque) than a mountain, and this circumstance has
led to great errors in our maps, on which chains of mountains
(sierras) are figured, where there are only thick forests, (monte
espeso.)) The latter could only walk slowly, because he was suffering
from one of those fevers to which the natives are subject, when they
arrive in the missions, and abruptly change their diet. Wearied by his
delay, his fellow-traveller killed him, and hid the body behind a
copse of thick trees, near Esmeralda. This crime, like many others
among the Indians, would have remained unknown, if the murderer had
not made preparations for a feast on the following day. He tried to
induce his children, born in the mission and become Christians, to go
with him for some parts of the dead body. They had much difficulty in
persuading him to desist from his purpose; and the soldier who was
posted at Esmeralda, learned from the domestic squabble caused by this
event, what the Indians would have concealed from his knowledge.
It is known that cannibalism and the practice of human sacrifices,
with which it is often connected, are found to exist in all parts of
the globe, and among people of very different races;* but what strikes
us more in the study of history is to see human sacrifices retained in
a state of civilization somewhat advanced; and that the nations who
hold it a point of honour to devour their prisoners are not always the
rudest and most ferocious. (* Some casual instances of children
carried off by the negroes in the island of Cuba have led to the
belief, in the Spanish colonies, that there are tribes of cannibals in
Africa. This opinion, though supported by some travellers, is not
borne out by the researches of Mr. Barrow on the interior of that
country. Superstitious practices may have given rise to imputations
perhaps as unjust as those of which Jewish families were the victims
in the ages of intolerance and persecution.) The painful facts have
not escaped the observation of those missionaries who are sufficiently
enlightened to reflect on the manners of the surrounding tribes. The
Cabres, the Guipunaves, and the Caribs, have always been more powerful
and more civilized than the other hordes of the Orinoco; and yet the
two former are as much addicted to anthropophagy as the latter are
repugnant to it. We must carefully distinguish the different branches
into which the great family of the Caribbee nations is divided. These
branches are as numerous as those of the Mongols, and the western
Tartars, or Turcomans. The Caribs of the continent, those who inhabit
the plains between the Lower Orinoco, the Rio Branco, the Essequibo,
and the sources of the Oyapoc, hold in horror the practice of
devouring their enemies. This barbarous custom,* at the first
discovery of America, existed only among the Caribs of the West
Indies. (* See Geraldini Itinerarium page 186 and the eloquent tract
of cardinal Bembo on the discoveries of Columbus. "Insularum partem
homines incolebant feri trucesque, qui puerorum et virorum carnibus,
quos aliis in insulus bello aut latrociniis cepissent, vescebantur; a
feminis abstinebant; Canibales appellati." "Some of the islands are
inhabited by a cruel and savage race, called cannibals, who eat the
flesh of men and boys, and captives and slaves of the male sex,
abstaining from that of females." Hist. Venet. 1551. The custom of
sparing the lives of female prisoners confirms what I have previously
said of the language of the women. Does the word cannibal, applied to
the Caribs of the West India Islands, belong to the language of this
archipelago (that of Haiti)? or must we seek for it in an idiom of
Florida, which some traditions indicate as the first country of the
Caribs?) It is they who have rendered the names of cannibals,
Caribbees, and anthropophagi, synonymous; it was their cruelties that
prompted the law promulgated in 1504, by which the Spaniards were
permitted to make a slave of every individual of an American nation
which could be proved to be of Caribbee origin. I believe, however,
that the anthropophagy of the inhabitants of the West India Islands
was much exaggerated by early travellers, whose stories Herrera, a
grave and judicious historian, has not disdained to repeat in his
Decades historicas. He has even credited that extraordinary event
which led the Caribs to renounce this barbarous custom. The natives of
a little island devoured a Dominican monk whom they had carried off
from the coast of Porto Rico; they all fell sick, and would never
again eat monk or layman.
If the Caribs of the Orinoco, since the commencement of the sixteenth
century, have differed in their manners from those of the West India
Islands; if they are unjustly accused of anthropophagy; it is
difficult to attribute this difference to any superiority of their
social state. The strangest contrasts are found blended in this
mixture of nations, some of whom live only upon fish, monkeys, and
ants; while others are more or less cultivators of the ground, more or
less occupied in making and painting pottery, or weaving hammocks or
cotton cloth. Several of the latter tribes have preserved inhuman
customs altogether unknown to the former. "You cannot imagine," said
the old missionary of Mandavaca, "the perversity of this Indian race
(familia de Indios). You receive men of a new tribe into the village;
they appear to be mild, good, and laborious; but suffer them to take
part in an incursion (entrada) to bring in the natives, and you can
scarcely prevent them from murdering all they meet, and hiding some
portions of the dead bodies." In reflecting on the manners of these
Indians, we are almost horrified at that combination of sentiments
which seem to exclude each other; that faculty of nations to become
but partially humanized; that preponderance of customs, prejudices,
and traditions, over the natural affections of the heart. We had a
fugitive Indian from the Guaisia in our canoe, who had become
sufficiently civilized in a few weeks to be useful to us in placing
the instruments necessary for our observations at night. He was no
less mild than intelligent, and we had some desire of taking him into
our service. What was our horror when, talking to him by means of an
interpreter, we learned, that the flesh of the marimonde monkeys,
though blacker, appeared to him to have the taste of human flesh. He
told us that his relations (that is, the people of his tribe)
preferred the inside of the hands in man, as in bears. This assertion
was accompanied with gestures of savage gratification. We inquired of
this young man, so calm and so affectionate in the little services
which he rendered us, whether he still felt sometimes a desire to eat
of a Cheruvichahena. He answered, without discomposure, that, living
in the mission, he would only eat what he saw was eaten by the Padres.
Reproaches addressed to the natives on the abominable practice which
we here discuss, produce no effect; it is as if a Brahmin, travelling
in Europe, were to reproach us with the habit of feeding on the flesh
of animals. In the eyes of the Indian of the Guaisia, the
Cheruvichahena was a being entirely different from himself; and one
whom he thought it was no more unjust to kill than the jaguars of the
forest. It was merely from a sense of propriety that, whilst he
remained in the mission, he would only eat the same food as the
Fathers. The natives, if they return to their tribe (al monte), or
find themselves pressed by hunger, soon resume their old habits of
anthropophagy. And why should we be so much astonished at this
inconstancy in the tribes of the Orinoco, when we are reminded, by
terrible and well-ascertained examples, of what has passed among
civilized nations in times of great scarcity? In Egypt, in the
thirteenth century, the habit of eating human flesh pervaded all
classes of society; extraordinary snares were spread for physicians in
particular. They were called to attend persons who pretended to be
sick, but who were only hungry; and it was not in order to be
consulted, but devoured. An historian of great veracity, Abd-allatif,
has related how a practice, which at first inspired dread and horror,
soon occasioned not even the slightest surprise.* (* "When the poor
began to eat human flesh, the horror and astonishment caused by
repasts so dreadful were such that these crimes furnished the
never-ceasing subject of every conversation. But at length the people
became so accustomed to it, and conceived such a taste for this
detestable food, that people of wealth and respectability were found
to use it as their ordinary food, to eat it by way of a treat, and
even to lay in a stock of it. This flesh was prepared in different
ways, and the practice being once introduced, spread into the
provinces, so that instances of it were found in every part of Egypt.
It then no longer caused any surprise; the horror it had at first
inspired vanished; and it was mentioned as an indifferent and ordinary
thing. This mania of devouring one another became so common among the
poor, that the greater part perished in this manner. These wretches
employed all sorts of artifices, to seize men by surprise, or decoy
them into their houses under false pretences. This happened to three
physicians among those who visited me; and a bookseller who sold me
books, an old and very corpulent man, fell into their snares, and
escaped with great difficulty. All the facts which we relate as
eye-witnesses fell under our observation accidentally, for we
generally avoided witnessing spectacles which inspired us with so much
horror." Account of Egypt by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad,
translated into French by De Sacy pages 360 to 374.)
Although the Indians of the Cassiquiare readily return to their
barbarous habits, they evince, whilst in the missions, intelligence,
some love of labour, and, in particular, a great facility in learning
the Spanish language. The villages being, for the most part, inhabited
by three or four tribes, who do not understand each other, a foreign
idiom, which is at the same time that of the civil power, the language
of the missionary, affords the advantage of more general means of
communication. I heard a Poinave Indian conversing in Spanish with a
Guahibo, though both had come from their forests within three months.
They uttered a phrase every quarter of an hour, prepared with
difficulty, and in which the gerund of the verb, no doubt according to
the grammatical turn of their own languages, was constantly employed.
"When I seeing Padre, Padre to me saying;"* (* "Quando io mirando
Padre, Padre me diciendo.") instead of, "when I saw the missionary, he
said to me." I have mentioned in another place, how wise it appeared
to me in the Jesuits to generalize one of the languages of civilized
America, for instance that of the Peruvians,* (* The Quichua or Inca
language, Lengua del Inga.) and instruct the Indians in an idiom which
is foreign to them in its roots, but not in its structure and
grammatical forms. This was following the system which the Incas, or
king-priests of Peru had employed for ages, in order to humanize the
barbarous nations of the Upper Maranon, and maintain them under their
domination; a system somewhat more reasonable than that of making the
natives of America speak Latin, as was gravely proposed in a
provincial concilio at Mexico.
We were told that the Indians of the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro are
preferred on the Lower Orinoco, and especially at Angostura, to the
inhabitants of the other missions, on account of their intelligence
and activity. Those of Mandavaca are celebrated among the tribes of
their own race for the preparation of the curare poison, which does
not yield in strength to the curare of Esmeralda. Unhappily the
natives devote themselves to this employment more than to agriculture.
Yet the soil on the banks of the Cassiquiare is excellent. We find
there a granitic sand, of a blackish-brown colour, which is covered in
the forests with thick layers of rich earth, and on the banks of the
river with clay almost impermeable to water. The soil of the
Cassiquiare appears more fertile than that of the valley of the Rio
Negro, where maize does not prosper. Rice, beans, cotton, sugar, and
indigo yield rich harvests, wherever their cultivation has been
tried.* (* M. Bonpland found at Mandavaca, in the huts of the natives,
a plant with tuberous roots, exactly like cassava (yucca). It is
called cumapana, and is cooked by being baked on the ashes. It grows
spontaneously on the banks of the Cassiquiare.) We saw wild indigo
around the missions of San Miguel de Davipe, San Carlos, and
Mandavaca. No doubt can exist that several nations of America,
particularly the Mexicans, long before the conquest, employed real
indigo in their hieroglyphic paintings; and that small cakes of this
substance were sold at the great market of Tenochtitlan. But a
colouring matter, chemically identical, may be extracted from plants
belonging to neighbouring genera; and I should not at present venture
to affirm that the native indigoferae of America do not furnish some
generic difference from the Indigofera anil, and the Indigofera
argentea of the Old World. In the coffee-trees of both hemispheres
this difference has been observed.
Here, as at the Rio Negro, the humidity of the air, and the consequent
abundance of insects, are obstacles almost invincible to new
cultivation. Everywhere you meet with those large ants that march in
close bands, and direct their attacks the more readily on cultivated
plants, because they are herbaceous and succulent, whilst the forests
of these countries afford only plants with woody stalks. If a
missionary wishes to cultivate salad, or any culinary plant of Europe,
he is compelled as it were to suspend his garden in the air. He fills
an old boat with good mould, and, having sown the seed, suspends it
four feet above the ground with cords of the chiquichiqui palm-tree;
but most frequently places it on a slight scaffolding. This protects
the young plants from weeds, worms, and those ants which pursue their
migration in a right line, and, not knowing what vegetates above them,
seldom turn from their course to climb up stakes that are stripped of
their bark. I mention this circumstance to prove how difficult, within
the tropics, on the banks of great rivers, are the first attempts of
man to appropriate to himself a little spot of earth in that vast
domain of nature, invaded by animals, and covered by spontaneous
plants.
During the night of the 13th of May, I obtained some observations of
the stars, unfortunately the last at the Cassiquiare. The latitude of
Mandavaca is 2 degrees 4 minutes 7 seconds; its longitude, according
to the chronometer, 69 degrees 27 minutes. I found the magnetic dip
25.25 degrees (cent div), showing that it had increased considerably
from the fort of San Carlos. Yet the surrounding rocks are of the same
granite, mixed with a little hornblende, which we had found at Javita,
and which assumes a syenitic aspect. We left Mandavaca at half-past
two in the morning. After six hours' voyage, we passed on the east the
mouth of the Idapa, or Siapa, which rises on the mountain of Uuturan,
and furnishes near its sources a portage to the Rio Mavaca, one of the
tributary streams of the Orinoco. This river has white waters, and is
not more than half as broad as the Pacimoni, the waters of which are
black. Its upper course has been strangely misrepresented on maps. I
shall have occasion hereafter to mention the hypotheses that have
given rise to these errors, in speaking of the source of the Orinoco.
We stopped near the raudal of Cunuri. The noise of the little cataract
augmented sensibly during the night, and our Indians asserted that it
was a certain presage of rain. I recollected that the mountaineers of
the Alps have great confidence in the same prognostic.* (* "It is
going to rain, because we hear the murmur of the torrents nearer," say
the mountaineers of the Alps, like those of the Andes. The cause of
the phenomenon is a modification of the atmosphere, which has an
influence at once on the sonorous and on the luminous undulations. The
prognostic drawn from the increase and the intensity of sound is
intimately connected with the prognostic drawn from a less extinction
of light. The mountaineers predict a change of weather, when, the air
being calm, the Alps covered with perpetual snow seem on a sudden to
be nearer the observer, and their outlines are marked with great
distinctness on the azure sky. What is it that causes the want of
homogeneity in the vertical strata of the atmosphere to disappear
instantaneously?) It fell before sunrise, and the araguato monkeys had
warned us, by their lengthened howlings, of the approaching rain, long
before the noise of the cataract increased.
On the 14th, the mosquitos, and especially the ants, drove us from the
shore before two in the morning. We had hitherto been of opinion that
the ants did not crawl along the cords by which the hammocks are
usually suspended: whether we were correct in this supposition, or
whether the ants fell on us from the tops of the trees, I cannot say;
but certain it is that we had great difficulty to keep ourselves free
from these troublesome insects. The river became narrower as we
advanced, and the banks were so marshy, that it was not without much
labour M. Bonpland could get to a Carolinea princeps loaded with large
purple flowers. This tree is the most beautiful ornament of these
forests, and of those of the Rio Negro. We examined repeatedly, during
this day, the temperature of the Cassiquiare. The water at the surface
of the river was only 24 degrees (when the air was at 25.6 degrees.)
This is nearly the temperature of the Rio Negro, but four or five
degrees below that of the Orinoco. After having passed on the west the
mouth of the Cano Caterico, which has black waters of extraordinary
transparency, we left the bed of the river, to land at an island on
which the mission of Vasiva is established. The lake which surrounds
this mission is a league broad, and communicates by three outlets with
the Cassiquiare. The surrounding country abounds in marshes which
generate fever. The lake, the waters of which appear yellow by
transmitted light, is dry in the season of great heat, and the Indians
themselves are unable to resist the miasmata rising from the mud. The
complete absence of wind contributes to render the climate of this
country more pernicious.
From the 14th to the 21st of May we slept constantly in the open air;
but I cannot indicate the spots where we halted. These regions are so
wild, and so little frequented, that with the exception of a few
rivers, the Indians were ignorant of the names of all the objects
which I set by the compass. No observation of a star helped me to fix
the latitude within the space of a degree. After having passed the
point where the Itinivini separates from the Cassiquiare, to take its
course to the west towards the granitic hills of Daripabo, we found
the marshy banks of the river covered with bamboos. These arborescent
gramina rise to the height of twenty feet; their stem is constantly
arched towards the summit. It is a new species of Bambusa with very
broad leaves. M. Bonpland fortunately found one in flower; a
circumstance I mention, because the genera Nastus and Bambusa had
before been very imperfectly distinguished, and nothing is more rare
in the New World, than to see these gigantic gramina in flower. N.
Mutis herborised during twenty years in a country where the Bambusa
guadua forms marshy forests several leagues broad, without having ever
been able to procure the flowers. We sent that learned naturalist the
first ears of Bambusa from the temperate valleys of Popayan. It is
strange that the parts of fructification should develop themselves so
rarely in a plant which is indigenous, and which vegetates with such
extraordinary rigour, from the level of the sea to the height of nine
hundred toises, that is, to a subalpine region the climate of which,
between the tropics, resembles that of the south of Spain. The Bambusa
latifolia seems to be peculiar to the basins of the Upper Orinoco, the
Cassiquiare, and the Amazon; it is a social plant, like all the
gramina of the family of the nastoides; but in that part of Spanish
Guiana which we traversed it does not grow in those large masses which
the Spanish Americans call guadales, or forests of bamboos.
Our first resting-place above Vasiva was easily arranged. We found a
little nook of dry ground, free from shrubs, to the south of the Cano
Curamuni, in a spot where we saw some capuchin monkeys.* (* Simia
chiropotes.) They were recognizable by their black beards and their
gloomy and sullen air, and were walking slowly on the horizontal
branches of a genipa. During the five following nights our passage was
the more troublesome in proportion as we approached the bifurcation of
the Orinoco. The luxuriance of the vegetation increases in a manner of
which it is difficult even for those acquainted with the aspect of the
forests between the tropics, to form an idea. There is no longer a
bank: a palisade of tufted trees forms the margin of the river. You
see a canal two hundred toises broad, bordered by two enormous walls,
clothed with lianas and foliage. We often tried to land, but without
success. Towards sunset we sailed along for an hour seeking to
discover, not an opening (since none exists), but a spot less wooded,
where our Indians by means of the hatchet and manual labour, could
clear space enough for a resting-place for twelve or thirteen persons.
It was impossible to pass the night in the canoe; the mosquitos, which
tormented us during the day, accumulated toward evening beneath the
toldo covered with palm-leaves, which served to shelter us from the
rain. Our hands and faces had never before been so much swelled.
Father Zea, who had till then boasted of having in his missions of the
cataracts the largest and fiercest (las mas feroces) mosquitos, at
length gradually acknowledged that the sting of the insects of the
Cassiquiare was the most painful he had ever felt. We experienced
great difficulty, amid a thick forest, in finding wood to make a fire,
the branches of the trees in those equatorial regions where it always
rains, being so full of sap, that they will scarcely burn. There being
no bare shore, it is hardly possible to procure old wood, which the
Indians call wood baked in the sun. However, fire was necessary to us
only as a defence against the beasts of the forest; for we had such a
scarcity of provision that we had little need of fuel for the purpose
of preparing our food.
On the 18th of May, towards evening, we discovered a spot where wild
cacao-trees were growing on the bank of the river. The nut of these
cacaos is small and bitter; the Indians of the forest suck the pulp,
and throw away the nut, which is picked up by the Indians of the
missions, and sold to persons who are not very nice in the preparation
of their chocolate. "This is the Puerto del Cacao" (Cacao Port), said
the pilot; "it is here our Padres sleep, when they go to Esmeralda to
buy sarbacans* (* The bamboo tubes furnished by the Arundinaria, used
for projecting the poisoned arrows of the natives. See Views of Nature
page 180.) and juvias ( Brazil nuts). Not five boats, however, pass
annually by the Cassiquiare; and since we left Maypures (a whole month
previously), we had not met one living soul on the rivers we
navigated, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the missions. To
the south of lake Duractumuni we slept in a forest of palm-trees. It
rained violently, but the pothoses, arums, and lianas, furnished so
thick a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as under a vault of
foliage. The Indians whose hammocks were placed on the edge of the
river, interwove the heliconias and other musaceae, so as to form a
kind of roof over them. Our fires lighted up, to the height of fifty
or sixty feet, the palm-trees, the lianas loaded with flowers, and the
columns of white smoke, which ascended in a straight line toward the
sky. The whole exhibited a magnificent spectacle; but to have enjoyed
it fully, we should have breathed an air clear of insects.
The most depressing of all physical sufferings are those which are
uniform in their duration, and can be combated only by long patience.
It is probable, that in the exhalations of the forests of the
Cassiquiare M. Bonpland imbibed the seeds of a severe malady, under
which he nearly sunk on our arrival at Angostura. Happily for him and
for me, nothing led us to presage the danger with which he was
menaced. The view of the river, and the hum of the insects, were a
little monotonous; but some remains of our natural cheerfulness
enabled us to find sources of relief during our wearisome passage. We
discovered, that by eating small portions of dry cacao ground without
sugar, and drinking a large quantity of the river water, we succeeded
in appeasing our appetite for several hours. The ants and the
mosquitos troubled us more than the humidity and the want of food.
Notwithstanding the privations to which we were exposed during our
excursions in the Cordilleras, the navigation from Mandavaca to
Esmeralda has always appeared to us the most painful part of our
travels in America. I advise those who are not very desirous of seeing
the great bifurcation of the Orinoco, to take the way of the Atabapo
in preference to that of the Cassiquiare.
Above the Cano Duractumuni, the Cassiquiare pursues a uniform
direction from north-east to south-west. We were surprised to see how
much the high steep banks of the Cassiquiare had been undermined on
each side by the sudden risings of the water. Uprooted trees formed as
it were natural rafts; and being half-buried in the mud, they were
extremely dangerous for canoes. We passed the night of the 20th of
May, the last of our passage on the Cassiquiare, near the point of the
bifurcation of the Orinoco. We had some hope of being able to make an
astronomical observation, as falling-stars of remarkable magnitude
were visible through the vapours that veiled the sky; whence we
concluded that the stratum of vapours must be very thin, since meteors
of this kind have scarcely ever been seen below a cloud. Those we now
beheld shot towards the north, and succeeded each other at almost
equal intervals. The Indians, who seldom ennoble by their expressions
the wanderings of the imagination, name the falling-stars the urine;
and the dew the spittle of the stars. The clouds thickened anew, and
we discerned neither the meteors, nor the real stars, for which we had
impatiently waited during several days.
We had been told, that we should find the insects at Esmeralda still
more cruel and voracious than in the branch of the Orinoco which we
were going up; nevertheless we indulged the hope of at length sleeping
in a spot that was inhabited, and of taking some exercise in
herbalizing. This anticipation was, however, disturbed at our last
resting-place on the Cassiquiare. Whilst we were sleeping on the edge
of the forest, we were warned by the Indians, in the middle of the
night, that they heard very near us the cries of a jaguar. These
cries, they alleged, came from the top of some neighbouring trees.
Such is the thickness of the forests in these regions, that scarcely
any animals are to be found there but such as climb trees; as, for
instance, the monkeys, animals of the weasel tribe, jaguars, and other
species of the genus Felis.
As our fires burnt brightly, we paid little attention to the cries of
the jaguars. They had been attracted by the smell and noise of our
dog. This animal (which was of the mastiff breed) began at first to
bark; and when the tiger drew nearer, to howl, hiding himself below
our hammocks. how great was our grief, when in the morning, at the
moment of re-embarking, the Indians informed us that the dog had
disappeared! There could be no doubt that it had been carried off by
the jaguars.* (* See Views of Nature page 195.) Perhaps, when their
cries had ceased, it had wandered from the fires on the side of the
beach; and possibly we had not heard its moans, as we were in a
profound sleep. We have often heard the inhabitants of the banks of
the Orinoco and the Rio Magdalena affirm, that the oldest jaguars will
carry off animals from the midst of a halting-place, cunningly
grasping them by the neck so as to prevent their cries. We waited part
of the morning, in the hope that our dog had only strayed. Three days
after we came back to the same place; we heard again the cries of the
jaguars, for these animals have a predilection for particular spots;
but all our search was vain. The dog, which had accompanied us from
Caracas, and had so often in swimming escaped the pursuit of the
crocodiles,* had been devoured in the forest. (* Ibid page 198.)
On the 21st May, we again entered the bed of the Orinoco, three
leagues below the mission of Esmeralda. It was now a month since we
had left that river near the mouth of the Guaviare. We had still to
proceed seven hundred and fifty miles* (* Of nine hundred and fifty
toises each, or two hundred and fifty nautical leagues.) before
reaching Angostura, but we should go with the stream; and this
consideration lessened our discouragement. In descending great rivers,
the rowers take the middle of the current, where there are few
mosquitos; but in ascending, they are obliged, in order to avail
themselves of the dead waters and counter-currents, to sail near the
shore, where the proximity of the forests, and the remains of organic
substances accumulated on the beach, harbour the tipulary insects. The
point of the celebrated bifurcation of the Orinoco has a very imposing
aspect. Lofty granitic mountains rise on the northern bank; and amidst
them are discovered at a distance the Maraguaca and the Duida. There
are no mountains on the left bank of the Orinoco, west or east of the
bifurcation, till opposite the mouth of the Tamatama. On that spot
stands the rock Guaraco, which is said to throw out flames from time
to time in the rainy season. When the Orinoco is no longer bounded by
mountains towards the south, and when it reaches the opening of a
valley, or rather a depression of the ground, which terminates at the
Rio Negro, it divides itself into two branches. The principal branch
(the Rio Paragua of the Indians) continues its course west-north-west,
turning round the group of the mountains of Parime; the other branch
forming the communication with the Amazon runs into plains, the
general slope of which is southward, but of which the partial planes
incline, in the Cassiquiare, to south-west, and in the basin of the
Rio Negro, south-east. A phenomenon so strange in appearance, which I
verified on the spot, merits particular attention; the more especially
as it may throw some light on analogous facts, which are supposed to
have been observed in the interior of Africa.
The existence of a communication of the Orinoco with the Amazon by the
Rio Negro, and a bifurcation of the Caqueta, was believed by Sanson,
and rejected by Father Fritz and by Blaeuw: it was marked in the first
maps of De l'Isle, but abandoned by that celebrated geographer towards
the end of his days. Those who had mistaken the mode of this
communication hastened to deny the communication itself. It is in fact
well worthy of remark that, at the time when the Portuguese went up
most frequently by the Amazon, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare, and
when Father Gumilla's letters were carried (by the natural
interbranching of the rivers) from the lower Orinoco to Grand Para,
that very missionary made every effort to spread the opinion through
Europe that the basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon are perfectly
separate. He asserts that, having several times gone up the former of
these rivers as far as the Raudal of Tabaje, situate in the latitude
of 1 degree 4 minutes, he never saw a river flow in or out that could
be taken for the Rio Negro. He adds further, that a great Cordillera,
which stretches from east to west, prevents the mingling of the
waters, and renders all discussion on the supposed communication of
the two rivers useless. The errors of Father Gumilla arose from his
firm persuasion that he had reached the parallel of 1 degree 4 minutes
on the Orinoco. He was in error by more than 5 degrees 10 minutes of
latitude; for I found, by observation, at the mission of Atures,
thirteen leagues south of the rapids of Tabaje, the latitude to be 5
degrees 37 minutes 34 seconds. Gumilla having gone but little above
the confluence of the Meta, it is not surprising that he had no
knowledge of the bifurcation of the Orinoco, which is found by the
sinuosities of the river to be one hundred and twenty leagues distant
from the Raudal of Tabaje.
La Condamine, during his memorable navigation on the river Amazon in
1743, carefully collected a great number of proofs of this
communication of the rivers, denied by the Spanish Jesuit. The most
decisive proof then appeared to him to be the unsuspected testimony of
a Cauriacani Indian woman with whom he had conversed, and who had come
in a boat from the banks of the Orinoco (from the mission of Pararuma)
to Grand Para. Before the return of La Condamine to his own country,
the voyage of Father Manuel Roman, and the fortuitous meeting of the
missionaries of the Orinoco and the Amazon, left no doubt of this
fact, the knowledge of which was first obtained by Acunha.
The incursions undertaken from the middle of the seventeenth century,
to procure slaves, had gradually led the Portuguese from the Rio
Negro, by the Cassiquiare, to the bed of a great river, which they did
not know to be the Upper Orinoco. A flying camp, composed of the troop
of ransomers,* favoured this inhuman commerce. (* Tropa de rescate;
from rescatar, to redeem.) After having excited the natives to make
war, they ransomed the prisoners; and, to give an appearance of equity
to the traffic, monks accompanied the troop of ransomers to examine
whether those who sold the slaves had a right to do so, by having made
them prisoners in open war. From the year 1737 these visits of the
Portuguese to the Upper Orinoco became very frequent. The desire of
exchanging slaves (poitos) for hatchets, fish-hooks, and glass
trinkets, induced the Indian tribes to make war upon one another. The
Guipunaves, led on by their valiant and cruel chief Macapu, descended
from the banks of the Inirida towards the confluence of the Atabapo
and the Orinoco. "They sold," says the missionary Gili, "the slaves
whom they did not eat."* (* "I Guipunavi avventizj abitatori dell'
Alto Orinoco, recavan de' danni incredibili alle vicine mansuete
nazioni; altre mangiondone, altre conducendone schiave ne' Portoghesi
dominj." "The Guipunaves, at their first arrival on the Upper Orinoco,
inflicted incredible injuries on the other peaceable tribes who dwelt
near them, devouring some, and selling others as slaves to the
Portuguese." Gili tome 1 page 31.) The Jesuits of the Lower Orinoco
became uneasy at this state of things, and the superior of the Spanish
missions, Father Roman, the intimate friend of Gumilla, took the
courageous resolution of crossing the Great Cataracts, and visiting
the Guipunaves, without being escorted by Spanish soldiers. He left
Carichana the 4th of February, 1744; and having arrived at the
confluence of the Guaviare, the Atabapo, and the Orinoco, where the
last mentioned river suddenly changes its previous course from east to
west, to a direction from south to north, he saw from afar a canoe as
large as his own, and filled with men in European dresses. He caused a
crucifix to be placed at the bow of his boat in sign of peace,
according to the custom of the missionaries when they navigate in a
country unknown to them. The whites, who were Portuguese slave-traders
of the Rio Negro, recognized with marks of joy the habit of the order
of St. Ignatius. They heard with astonishment that the river on which
this meeting took place was the Orinoco; and they brought Father Roman
by the Cassiquiare to the Brazilian settlements on the Rio Negro. The
superior of the Spanish missions was forced to remain near the flying
camp of the troop of ransomers till the arrival of the Portuguese
Jesuit Avogadri, who had gone upon business to Grand Para. Father
Manuel Roman returned with his Salive Indians by the same way, that of
the Cassiquiare and the Upper Orinoco, to Pararuma,* a little to the
north of Carichana, after an absence of seven months. (* On the 15th
of October, 1774. La Condamine quitted the town of Grand Para December
the 29th, 1743; it follows, from a comparison of the dates, that the
Indian woman of Pararuma, carried off by the Portuguese, and to whom
the French traveller had spoken, had not come with Father Roman, as
was erroneously affirmed. The appearance of this woman on the banks of
the Amazon is interesting with respect to the researches lately made
on the mixture of races and languages: it proves the enormous
distances through which the individuals of one tribe are compelled to
carry on intercourse with those of another.) He was the first white
man who went from the Rio Negro, consequently from the basin of the
Amazon, without passing his boats over any portage, to the basin of
the Lower Orinoco.
The tidings of this extraordinary passage spread with such rapidity
that La Condamine was able to announce it* at a public sitting of the
Academy, seven months after the return of Father Roman to Pararuma. (*
The intelligence was communicated to him by Father John Ferreyro,
rector of the college of Jesuits at Para. Voyage a l'Amazone page 120.
Mem. de l'Acad. 1745 page 450. Caulin page 79. See also, in the work
of Gili, the fifth chapter of the first book, published in 1780, with
the title: Della scoperta delle communicazione dell' Orinoco col
Maragnone.) "The communication between the Orinoco and the Amazon,"
said he, "recently averred, may pass so much the more for a discovery
in geography, as, although the junction of these two rivers is marked
on the old maps (according to the information given by Acunha), it had
been suppressed by all the modern geographers in their new maps, as if
in concert. This is not the first time that what is positive fact has
been thought fabulous, that the spirit of criticism has been pushed
too far, and that this communication has been treated as chimerical by
those who ought to have been better informed." Since the voyage of
Father Roman in 1774, no person in Spanish Guiana, or on the coasts of
Cumana and Caracas, has admitted a doubt of the existence of the
Cassiquiare and the bifurcation of the Orinoco. Father Gumilla
himself; whom Bouguer met at Carthagena, confessed that he had been
deceived; and he read to Father Gili, a short time before his death, a
supplement to his history of the Orinoco, intended for a new edition,
in which he recounts pleasantly the manner in which he had been
undeceived. The expedition of the boundaries, under Iturriaga and
Solano, completed in detail the knowledge of the geography of the
Upper Orinoco, and the intertwinings of this river with the Rio Negro.
Solano established himself in 1756 at the confluence of the Atabapo;
and from that time the Spanish and Portuguese commissioners often
passed in their canoes, by the Cassiquiare, from the Lower Orinoco to
the Rio Negro, to visit each other at their head-quarters of Cabruta*
and Mariva. (* General Iturriaga, confined by illness, first at
Muitaco, or Real Corona, and afterward at Cabruta, received a visit in
1760 from the Portuguese colonel Don Gabriel de Souza y Figueira, who
came from Grand Para, having made a voyage of nearly nine hundred
leagues in his boat. The Swedish botanist, Loefling, who was chosen to
accompany the expedition of the boundaries at the expense of the
Spanish government, so greatly multiplied in his ardent imagination
the branchings of the great rivers of South America, that he appeared
well persuaded of being able to navigate, by the Rio Negro and the
Amazon, to the Rio de la Plata. (Iter page 131.)) Since the year 1767,
two or three canoes come annually from the fort of San Carlos, by the
bifurcation of the Orinoco to Angostura, to fetch salt and the pay of
the troops. These passages, from one basin of a river to another, by
the natural canal of the Cassiquiare, excite no more attention in the
colonists at present than the arrival of boats that descend the Loire
by the canal of Orleans, awakens on the banks of the Seine.
Although, since the journey of Father Roman, in 1744, precise notions
have been acquired in the Spanish possessions in America, both of the
direction of the Upper Orinoco from east to west, and of the manner of
its communication with the Rio Negro, this knowledge did not reach
Europe till a much later period. In 1750, La Condamine and D'Anville*
were still of opinion that the Orinoco was a branch of the Caqueta
coming from the south-east, and that the Rio Negro issued immediately
from it. (* See the classical memoir of this great geographer in the
Journal des Savans, March 1750 page 184. "One fact," says D'Anville,
"which cannot be considered as equivocal, after the proofs with which
we have been recently furnished, is the communication of the Rio Negro
with the Orinoco; but we must not hesitate to admit, that we are not
yet sufficiently informed of the manner in which this communication
takes place." I was surprised to see in a very rare map, which I found
at Rome (Provincia Quitensis Soc. Jesu in America, auctore Carolo
Brentano et Nicolao de la Torre; Romae 1745) that seven years after
the discovery of Father Roman, the Jesuits of Quito were ignorant of
the existence of the Cassiquiare. The Rio Negro is figured in this map
as a branch of the Orinoco.) It was only in the second edition of his
South America, that D'Anville (without renouncing that
intercommunication of the Caqueta, by means of the Iniricha (Inirida),
with the Orinoco and the Rio Negro) describes the Orinoco as taking
its rise at the east, near the sources of the Rio Branco, and marks
the Rio Cassiquiare as bearing the waters of the Upper Orinoco to the
Rio Negro. It is probable that this indefatigable and learned writer
had obtained information on the manner of the bifurcation from his
frequent communications with the missionaries,* who were then the only
geographers of the most inland parts of the continents. (* According
to the Annals of Berredo, it would appear, that as early as the year
1739, the military incursions from the Rio Negro to the Cassiquiare
had confirmed the Portuguese Jesuits in the opinion that there was a
communication between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Southey's Brazils
volume 1 page 658.)
Had the nations of the lower region of equinoctial America
participated in the civilization spread over the cold and alpine
region, that immense Mesopotamia between the Orinoco and the Amazon
would have favoured the development of their industry, animated their
commerce, and accelerated the progress of social order. We see
everywhere in the old world the influence of locality on the dawning
civilization of nations. The island of Meroe between the Astaboras and
the Nile, the Punjab of the Indus, the Douab of the Ganges, and the
Mesopotamia of the Euphrates, furnish examples that are justly
celebrated in the annals of the human race. But the feeble tribes that
wander in the savannahs and the woods of eastern America, have
profited little by the advantages of their soil, and the
interbranchings of their rivers. The distant incursions of the Caribs,
who went up the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, to carry
off slaves and exercise pillage, compelled some rude tribes to rouse
themselves from their indolence, and form associations for their
common defence; the little good, however, which these wars with the
Caribs (the Bedouins of the rivers of Guiana) produced, was but slight
compensation for the evils that followed in their train, by rendering
the tribes more ferocious, and diminishing their population. We cannot
doubt, that the physical aspect of Greece, intersected by small chains
of mountains, and mediterranean gulfs, contributed, at the dawn of
civilization, to the intellectual development of the Greeks. But the
operation of this influence of climate, and of the configuration of
the soil, is felt in all its force only among a race of men who,
endowed with a happy organization of the mental faculties, are
susceptible of exterior impulse. In studying the history of our
species, we see, at certain distances, these foci of ancient
civilization dispersed over the globe like luminous points; and we are
struck by the inequality of improvement in nations inhabiting
analogous climates, and whose native soil appears equally favoured by
the most precious gifts of nature.
Since my departure from the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a new
era has unfolded itself in the social state of the nations of the
West. The fury of civil discussions has been succeeded by the
blessings of peace, and a freer development of the arts of industry.
The bifurcations of the Orinoco, the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to be
made passable by an artificial canal, will ere long fix the attention
of commercial Europe. The Cassiquiare, as broad as the Rhine, and the
course of which is one hundred and eighty miles in length, will no
longer form uselessly a navigable canal between two basins of rivers
which have a surface of one hundred and ninety thousand square
leagues. The grain of New Grenada will be carried to the banks of the
Rio Negro; boats will descend from the sources of the Napo and the
Ucuyabe, from the Andes of Quito and of Upper Peru, to the mouths of
the Orinoco, a distance which equals that from Timbuctoo to
Marseilles. A country nine or ten times larger than Spain, and
enriched with the most varied productions, is navigable in every
direction by the medium of the natural canal of the Cassiquiare, and
the bifurcation of the rivers. This phenomenon, which will one day be
so important for the political connections of nations, unquestionably
deserves to be carefully examined.