After a week in Ciudad Bolivar, we bethought ourselves of continuing the journey to the sea. Civilization had reclaimed us for her own, and rigged in European attire, such as befits the tropics, with all the social conventionalities once again paramount in our mind, we set forth on that, the last stage of the journey. We had been, not a nine days’ but a nine hours’ wonder in the historical town which rears its houses and churches alongside the narrows of the majestic stream. Early in the afternoon of a dazzling tropical day, cloudless, blue and hazy from the very brilliancy of the air, we stepped into the large steamboat that was to carry us to the neighbouring British island of Trinidad, once also a Spanish possession. The usual events accompanying the departure of all steamers from the shore repeated themselves: clanging of chains, shouting of orders, groans of the huge structure, shrill whistles, and that trepidation, the dawn as it were of motion, something like a hesitation of things inert apparently unwilling to be set in motion, which is the life of matter inanimate; then the steady throbbing of the machinery, the stroke of the paddles, splash, splash, until regularity and monotony are attained, and the ship, wheeled into midstream after describing a broad arc, set the prow eastward with the current to the ocean.

We looked at the town as it dwindled indistinct, seeming to sink into the vast azure of the horizon, swallowed in the scintillating folds of the blue distance. We sat on the deck as if in a trance. Shortly after starting, wild Nature reasserted her sway, and the small oasis built by the hand of man in the heart of the untamed region, seemed to us who knew how unmeasurable were those forests and those plains, like a tiny nest perched on the branches of a lofty and over-spreading ceiba. A feeling of superiority over our fellow-passengers unconsciously filled our breasts. For were we not boon companions, fellow-travellers, tried and trusted comrades of those rushing waters? Had we not shared their pilgrimage for days and days, in calm and in storm, in sunshine and in darkness? Had we not slept on their bosom or travelled upon it for countless hours, till the secret of their mystery and the joy of their wandering had penetrated into our very soul? What knew they, the other travellers of a few hours, of the intimate life of those waters which we had watched, gathering their strength from all the points of the compass, swelling the current of the central stream, mingling their life with it, now as rivulets, now as rivers, now placid in the embrace, now plunging, foaming, as if loath to loose their identity? Yea, verily, we were comrades, fellow-pilgrims, with the splendid travelling sea, there on its final march to the boundless deep.

Forest and plain, marsh, morass, jungle, succeeded one another in interminable procession, and the setting sun now broke its ray on the low-lying hills, now reverberated on the far-off marshes on either side of the current, tinging them with a crimson glow. Towards sunset the whistle of the steamer frightened a flock of flamingoes gathered to roost, as is their wont when the shadows of evening approach. The whole flock sought refuge in flight, and their widespread wings, as they rose before us, seemed like a huge transparent pink curtain lifted before our very eyes, rising higher and higher until it vanished in space.

Night fell upon the scene. First the stars and then the moon kindled their beacon fires, dispelling darkness into a semi-obscurity fraught with mystery, embalmed with the effluvia from the forest and the river. We felt like a shadow crossing the wilderness. The littleness of self, the insignificance of the human being, became overwhelming.

What could it matter if that daring shell with its human freight were dashed to pieces against a submerged tree and swallowed in the waves? Nature, impassible, would take no notice of the event; in far-off homes sorrow would fill the loving hearts. The river would be looked upon as a grave, wondrous vast, where a dear one had found his rest, but the river itself would suffer no change, and our world of hopes, ambitions, infinite longings, would leave no more trace than the smallest bubble of the floating foam.