Night soon asserted her sway. The blue vault of heaven, alive with innumerable stars, was clear and diaphanous; no cloud was to be seen. The evening noises died away, and the dead silence was only broken now and then by a vague rumour wafted mysteriously through space—the wash of waters on the shore, or possibly the lisp of forests by the river. We gave up all hope of the other canoe arriving that night, and faced the inevitable—no supper, no beds. As in our own canoe we carried a demijohn of aguardiente, one or two generous draughts were our only supper. We were not hampered by excess of riches or of comforts; as to the selection of our beds, the whole extent of the beach was equally sandy and soft; but, having slept for many nights on the shores of the Tua, and knowing that we were at its confluence with the Meta, for the sake of a change—a distinction without a difference—we stretched ourselves full length on the side of the beach looking to the Meta River.
The water-course, practically unknown to civilization, appeared to me as I lay there like a wandering giant lost amidst the forests and the plains of an unknown continent. The surface of the waters sparkled in the starlight like hammered steel. My thoughts followed the luminous ripples until they were lost to sight in the darkness of the opposite shore, or, wandering onwards with the flow, melted into the horizon. Whither went those waters? Whence came they? What were their evolutions, changes, and transformations? Idle questions! Flow of life or flow of wave, who but He that creates all things can know its source and its finality? Idle cavillings indeed!
Suddenly, as drowsiness had begun to seize me, a wonderful phenomenon took place. There from the midst of the waters arose an indistinct yet mighty figure; high it stood amidst the waters which parted, forming a sort of royal mantle upon its shoulders; it gazed upon me with the sublime placidity of the still seas, the high mountains, the unending plains, the primeval forests, and all the manifestations of Nature, great and serene in their power and majesty. And the figure spoke:
‘Listen to me, O pilgrim, lost in these vast solitudes; listen to the voice of the wandering streams! We rivers bring life to forest and valley; we are children of the mountains, heralds of continents, benefactors of man. My current, powerful and mighty though it seems, is but a tiny thread of the many streams that, mingled and interwoven, so to say, go to form the main artery of whirling, heaving water called the Orinoco. From north and south, from east and west, we all flow along the bosom of the plains, after having gathered unto ourselves the playful streamlets, the murmuring brooks that swell into torrents and dash down the mountain-sides, filling the hills and the intervening valleys with life and joy. They come from the highest slopes—nay, from the topmost peaks crowned with everlasting snow, the sources of our life; down they rush, and after innumerable turns and twists, after forming now cataracts, now placid lakes, reach the plain, and in their course they broaden the large streams which in turn merge with others in the huge basin, and form the vast artery that drains the surface of a great part of the continent, and bears its tribute to the Atlantic Ocean. Yea, verily indeed, we rivers are as twin brothers of Time; the hours pass and pass, ceaseless as our waves; they flow into Eternity, we into the bosom of the great deep. This land, the land of your birth and of mine, to-day an unknown quantity in the history of the world, is a destined site of a mighty empire. The whole continent of South America is the reserve store for the future generations of millions of men yet unborn. Hither they will come from all parts of the world: on the surface of the globe no more favourable spot exists for the home of mankind. Along the coast of the Pacific Ocean runs the mighty backbone of the Cordillera like a bulwark, high, immense, stately; above it, like the towers and turrets in the walls of a fortified city, rise the hundred snow-capped peaks that look east and west, now on the ocean, now on the ever-spreading undulating plains, and south and north to the line of mountains extending for thousands of miles.
‘In the very heart of the tropical zone, where the equatorial sun darts his burning rays, are the plateaus of the Andes, hundreds of square miles in extent, with all the climates and the multitudinous products of the temperate zone. In the heart and bowels of the mountains are the precious metals coveted by man’s avarice and vanity, those forming the supreme goal of his endeavours; and the useful—indeed, the truly precious—metals, coal, iron, copper, lead, and all others that are known to man, exist in a profusion well-nigh illimitable. The trade-winds, whose wings have swept across the whole width of the Atlantic Ocean, laden with moisture, do not stop their flight when the sea of moving waters ceases and the sea of waving grass begins. Across the plains, over the tree-tops of the primeval forests, shaking the plumage of the palm-trees, ascending the slopes of the hills, higher, still higher, into the mountains, and finally up to the loftiest peaks, those winds speed their course, and there the last drops of moisture are wrung from them by that immeasurable barrier raised by the hand of God; their force seems to be spent, and, like birds that have reached their native forest, they fold their wings and are still. The moisture thus gathered and thus deposited forms the thousand currents of water that descend from the heights at the easternmost end of the continent, and convert themselves into the largest and most imposing water systems in the world. Thus is formed the Orinoco system, which irrigates the vast plains of Colombia and Venezuela. Further south, created by a similar concurrence of circumstances and conditions, the Amazon system drags the volume of its wandering sea across long, interminable leagues of Brazilian forest and plain. Its many streams start in their pilgrimage from the interior of Colombia, of Ecuador, of Peru, and of Bolivia, and these two systems of water-ways, which intersect such an immense extent of land thousands of miles from the mouth of the main artery that plunges into the sea, are connected by a natural canal, the Casiquiare River, so that the traveller might enter either river, follow its course deep into the heart of the continent, cross by water to the other, and then reappear on the ocean, always in the same boat.
‘If the wealth of the mountains is boundless and virgin, if on the slopes and on the plateaus and the neighbouring valleys all the agricultural products useful to man may be grown—and the forests teem with wealth that belongs to him who first takes it—if the rocks likewise cover or bear immense deposits of all the metals and minerals useful to man, the lowlands and the plains offer grazing-ground for untold herds of cattle and horses, and further to the south beyond the Amazon, running southward, not eastward like the Orinoco and the Amazon, the Parana unrolls its waves, which, after leaving the tropic, enter the southern temperate zone, irrigating for untold miles the endless pampas of Argentina and Uruguay. In very truth, this continent is the Promised Land.
‘In your pilgrimage along the waters of the Orinoco, you will see all the wonders of tropical Nature. Now the forests will stand on either bank close along the shores in serried file, and moving mirrors of the waters will reflect the murmuring tops of the trees, noisy and full of life as the winds sweep by in their flight, or else the frowning rock, bare and rugged, will stand forth from the current like the wall of a medieval castle. Now the trees will open a gap through which, as from under a triumphal arch, the current of a river, a wanderer from the mysterious and unknown depths of the neighbouring forests, pours forth into the main stream and mingles with the passing waters, joining his fate to theirs, even as the High Priest of some unknown creed might issue from the temple and mingle with the passing crowd. Some rivers that reach the main artery have had but a short pilgrimage, the junction of their many waters having taken place at no great distance from the main stream; others have had a long wandering, sometimes placid and serene, sometimes amidst rocks and boulders, with an ever frenzied and agitated course like the lives of men striving and struggling till the last great trumpet sounds. The course of the river will be studded with islands large enough for the foundation of empires, and before reaching the sea the river will extend and spread its current into a thousand streams, as if loth to part from the Mother Earth it sought to embrace more firmly in its grasp, and our waters will flow into the unplumbed deep, there to mingle with those of all the rivers, whether their course has been through lands alive with civilization, swarming with multitudes of men on their shores, laden with the memories of centuries and famous in history, or whether they, like us, have wandered through vast solitudes where Nature is still supreme in her primeval pride, as yet unpolluted by the hand of man. There we all meet, and to us what men call time and its divisions exist not, for all the transformations that affect mankind are as naught to us who form part and parcel of Nature itself, who only feel time after the lapse of Æons which to the mind of man are practically incomprehensible. Seek to learn the lesson of humility, to acknowledge the power of the Creator, who gave to man what we rivers and all other material things can never hope for—a future beyond this earth, higher, brighter, infinite, eternal.’
The figure seemed to sink slowly under the mantle of waters that had covered its shoulders; the sun was rising in the eastern horizon, the rumour of awakening Nature filled the air with its thousand echoes, and drifting rapidly towards us we saw Leal with the canoe that had remained behind the night before.
On telling Alex, Raoul, and Fermin my experience, and asking in good faith what they had thought of the visitation, they looked askance at me. It seems that sleep had overpowered them; they had not seen the river-god of the Meta, and irreverently set down the whole occurrence to the quality of my supper the preceding night. It is ever thus with unbelievers; they will seek some material or vulgar explanation for that which they cannot understand and have not seen.
That very morning, after the necessary arrangements and the usual morning coffee, we started down the Meta River. If we might have called the navigation on the Tua somewhat amphibious, navigation on the Meta, specially for such small craft as we possessed, seemed to us as on the open sea. Our first care was to seek larger canoes. Leal guided us through one of the neighbouring caÑos to a cattle-ranch, where he expected to suit our requirements. This caÑo chanced to be famous for its snakes, principally of the kind called macaurel, a dark brownish species, varying from 2 to 4 and 5 feet in length, and from ¼ inch to 2 inches in diameter. When in repose they coil themselves around the branches of the trees, and their bite, if not cured immediately, is fatal. Leal shot one of the horrible reptiles in the body; the linking of the rings that take the place of vertebrÆ being thus unloosened, the coils became wider, the animal lost its grip and fell into the water, staining it with a blue-greenish reflection of a metallic hue. It seems that one shot of the smallest size is sufficient to kill these snakes, provided it breaks one of the rings above mentioned. I shuddered as we passed under the trees, knowing that many of these dreaded reptiles must be above our heads. The caÑo in some parts was so narrow and the forest so dense that it was impossible to avoid the overhanging branches, and when I thought that we should have to go over the same route next day, disgust and a feeling of dread took possession of me. By the time we reached our destination, after a journey of eight or ten miles, over twenty of these creatures had been brought down. We obtained two large canoes, which seemed to us like veritable ships or floating palaces compared to the little craft we had used for so many days. We turned to the river Meta, and did not feel safe until we had left the caÑo behind, and could breathe once more in the open air on the bosom of the large river, with only heaven above our heads.
The Meta River, which flows entirely upon Colombian territory, describes large winding curves in its course eastward towards the Orinoco. Its banks are high and well defined, its channel fairly steadfast even in the dry season. This is not common, most of these rivers often shifting their course, to the despair of pilots and navigators. Both sides of the Meta we knew were occupied, or, rather, frequently visited, by various wild tribes. Now and then Leal would point out a part of the shore, stating that it belonged to some ranch, but how he could know was a mystery to us, as no visible difference existed.
The temperature, though quite hot in the middle of the day, was agreeable, and even cool, in the early morning and a greater part of the night. The trade-wind, which blows steadily every day during the dry season, at times gathered such force that we were compelled, going against it as we did, to wait long hours for it to subside. Our canoes were not so arranged as to enable us to hoist sail and tack against the wind.
On the river Meta we observed a large species of fish, which, had we been at sea, we should have identified at once as porpoises. The men told us that they were called bufeos, and in reality came from the sea, having ascended the waters of the Orinoco for thousands of miles, and branched off into the Meta River. One of the men, illiterate like all his fellows, but versed in forest, mountain and plain lore, stated that those bufeos were the friends of man; that they loved music and song; that they would follow a boat or canoe whence the echoes of singing or of some musical instrument could be heard for miles and miles at a time; that when they were present in the water the alligators and all the other enemies of man kept away, or were driven away by the bufeos; and that whenever by chance the fishermen caught one of these, he would at once release it in remembrance of their friendship for mankind. These were, therefore, our old-time friends the porpoises.
The simple tale of the man, one of our paddlers, who had never been in a city in his life nor seen any of the wonders of our times, to whose mind such words as civilization, Fatherland, and religion, as well as many others that form the glib vocabulary of modern man, were mere empty sounds or air, could not but set me a-thinking—first, as to the value of those words. Fatherland, our country, his and mine, yet how different the conception, and how those consecrated, holy words are abused by the tricksters, great and small, who control and exploit mankind for their own benefit! Patriotism should consist in justice and equality of rights and tolerance to all, whereas, in fact, it is but a mask for the greed and avarice of the strong. My countryman is he whose ideals are identical with mine. What makes another being my fellow-man and my brother is an identity of ideals, not a concurrence of geographical conditions of birth. If he who is born ten thousand miles away in an unknown climate and in a different latitude shares with me the love of justice and of freedom, and will struggle for them even as I would, why should we be separated by conventional distinctions which benefit neither him nor me nor justice nor freedom as ideals?
I thought, are these lands and this vast continent still virgin in the sense that humanity has not exploited them? are they to be the last scene of the stale criminal imposture now called civilization? Are men to come by thousands and by millions to these plains and these mountains, and settle on the shores of these rivers, bringing with them their old prejudices, their old tyrannical conventionalities, the hatreds that have stained history with blood for hundreds and for thousands of years, rearing on these new lands the old iniquities, calling them fatherlands, baptizing their crimes with holy words, and murdering in the name of patriotism? If such is to be the future of these lands, far better were it that the mighty rivers should overflow their course and convert into one immense lake, twin brother of the neighbouring sea, the vast plains, the endless mysterious forest; and that the immense bulwark of the Andes, aflame with a thousand volcanoes, should make the region inhospitable and uninhabitable to man: for of iniquity there is enough, and no more should be created under God’s heaven.
But the tale set me also a-thinking of the power of tradition and the beauty of song. If my memory plays me no trick, Arion, homeward-bound from the Court of Corinth, and laden with gifts of a King who worshipped song, was seized and thrown into the sea by the crew, but the listening dolphins or porpoises, grateful for the heavenly message thus delivered by him, bore him ashore and saved his life. So, more or less, runs the classical tale; and here in the wilds of America, from the lips of an unlettered woodman, the same beautiful conceit, clothed in simple words, had rung in my ears. The power of song, the beauty of the legend, had filtered itself through hundreds of generations from the days of our mother Greece, the mother of art and of beauty, across the mountains and the years and the seas and the continents, and the legend and the allegory were alive in their pristine and essential characteristics in the forests of tropical America. This gave me hope. If the power of things ideal, of things that have in them the divine charm of undying force, overcomes time and distance, why should not the ideal of righteousness, of liberty, and of justice prevail? And the vast continent of South America, why should it not be the predestined home of a happy and regenerate humanity? The trade-winds which come from the old world and across the ocean are purified on the heights of the Cordilleras. Even so humanity in that pilgrimage that is bound to take place ere long, as the ancient world begins to overflow, may regenerate itself and establish liberty and justice in that new world. If these be dreams, awakening were bitter.
We soon heard that it was easy to reach one of the affluents of the Vichada by crossing the plains for about a mile overland, and, all things considered, decided to abandon the Meta River, even though the journey might be longer than we had at first intended. Thus, on the fourth day of navigation down the Meta we stopped, and at a place known as San Pedro del Arrastradero, where we found quite a large settlement, about 150 people, we left the Meta behind us and at once made ready for our journey through the Vichada, as large as the Meta, we were told, and inhabited by numerous savage tribes. This gave additional interest to the journey, and we looked forward to it with pleasure.