“Having traveled many days in the manner above described, we finally reached the mouth of the much desired Meta. Every one rejoiced, thinking their gravest solicitudes were at an end. And although no human habitations were visible, nevertheless the land was of a bright and cheerful aspect.”

Thus, in sonorous octava rima, does the illustrious historiographer of Tunja2 give expression to the joy which Alonso de Herrera and his companions experienced on their arrival at what they fondly hoped was the goal of their long and daring expedition. It was now more than a year since they had left the mouth of the Orinoco. Before starting on their adventurous journey, they had to construct flat-bottomed boats and make other preparations indispensable for a voyage so replete with danger and of such uncertain duration.

Herrera was the second of the conquistadores to reach the Meta by the Orinoco. He was drawn thither by the reports of vast amounts of gold existing in the province of the Meta. But the reports proved to be as misleading in his case as they had been in that of so many other valiant leaders of expeditions in search of another Mexico or Peru. He had scarcely reached what he was led to believe was the land of gold and precious stones when, in a fight with Indians, his life was cut short by a poisoned arrow.

Unlike Herrera, we were glad of our arrival at the Meta, not because we were in hopes of finding treasure in its neighborhood, but because we were at last sure that our boat would not be commandeered for military purposes. True, we had been told at Urbana that there was nothing to apprehend on this score, but we were not entirely satisfied with the assurances given. When, however, we had entered the Meta, we were in Colombian territory and away from Venezuelan telegraphs and dispatch boats. After this we had no further anxiety, for we had every reason to believe that we should arrive in due course at our destination—OrocuÉ.

Although Herrera’s voyage to the Meta took place as early as 1535, he was not the first Spaniard to explore this part of South America. Diego de Ordaz, a captain under Cortes in Mexico, had preceded him to this region by four years. Instead of continuing his journey up the Meta, as he had been advised by his Indian guides, who assured him that toward the west he would find an abundance of gold, he endeavored to go towards the south on the Orinoco. He found his plans thwarted by the great rapids he encountered—probably those of Atures or Maipures—and was compelled to return without having accomplished anything more than making a general reconnoissance of the country through which he had passed.

I refer especially to the expedition of Diego de Ordaz because it was the first of those famous expeditions made on the great rivers of the New World by the conquistadores. He anticipated Orellana’s marvelous voyage down the Amazon by nearly ten years.

I have also another reason—a personal one—for alluding to it. Twenty-five years before my arrival at the juncture of the Orinoco and the Meta I had made the ascent of Popocatepetl and explored the same crater from which, more than three and a half centuries before, Diego de Ordaz, to the great amazement of the Indians, had taken out sulphur for the manufacture of gunpowder. When scaling this lofty volcano, I had frequently thought of the courage and endurance of this dauntless Spaniard in accomplishing a task which was then far more difficult than it is now. According to Herrera it was then in action, and the smoke and flames rendered the ascent next to impossible. To the Indians the crater was the mouth of hell in which tyrants had to be purified before they could enter the abode of the blest.

But difficult and hazardous as was the ascent of Popocatepetl, the voyage up the Orinoco was, in the days of Ordaz, far more so. Not so to-day, when the trip can be made in a steamer with comparative ease and comfort. But it did seem strange—passing strange—that we two should have visited two such unlikely places and so widely separated from each other in time and space. It was almost like having a rendezvous with an old friend. I confess that I not only thought of Ordaz, but imagined that I felt his presence.

The great conquistador should have been permitted not only to wear a burning volcano on his armorial bearings—as was allowed him by Charles V—but he should also have been granted the privilege of having depicted on his coat of arms one of the great rapids of the Orinoco—La Puerta del Infierno—for instance, which he had so successfully passed. His achievements have been eclipsed by many of his contemporaries, but in enterprise and daring he is second to none.

As I have said, we were glad—very glad—to reach the Meta, but I personally felt a pang of regret on leaving the Orinoco. Nothing would have pleased me more than to have continued on the waters of this great river until we should have reached the wonderful Cassiquiare, which connects the Orinoco with the great Rio Negro and with the still greater Amazon. I consoled myself with the thought that possibly I might be able to make this journey later on, and then probably extend it through the Madeira, MamorÉ, Pilcomayo and Parana to Buenos Ayres. This had long been a fond dream of mine. Will it ever be realized? In the language of one of my Spanish companions, Dios verÁ—God will see—for it is not impossible.

I say it is not impossible, because a part of the journey—from the Orinoco to the Amazon—has often been made and is still frequently made every year by traders, missionaries and others. And contrary to what is often asserted, it is not an undertaking of any particular difficulty or danger. The same may be said of the journey from the Amazon to the Parana.

There is reason to believe that the first to make the journey between the Amazon and the Orinoco, by way of the Cassiquiare, were LÓpe de Aguirre, the traitor, and his companions, who went from Peru to the northern coast of Venezuela in 1561. The first white man to pass from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro by the Cassiquiare was the missionary, Padre RomÁn. He made the round trip from his mission near the mouth of the Meta to the Rio Negro in about eight months, and at a time when some of his associates—Padre Gumilla among the number—were endeavoring to prove that there was no connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon, and that, consequently, a journey from one to the other by boat was impossible.3

After Padre RomÁn’s time the journey between the Amazon, the Orinoco and vice versa was a very ordinary occurrence for missionaries and traders. It was made in 1756 by the Spanish commission sent to settle the boundary line between Brazil and Venezuela, by Humboldt and Bonpland, Michelena y Rojas and numerous other explorers who have left us accounts of their travels.

Since the missions have been suppressed the Indian population between Urbana and San Fernando de Atabapo has greatly diminished and, as a result, the traveler at times finds great difficulty in securing boats and rowers. In Humboldt’s time the trip was comparatively easy. There were flourishing missions along the entire course of his travels—through New Andalusia and Barcelona, through the llanos of Venezuela, along the Orinoco from Angostura to Urbana and from Urbana to the Brazilian frontier on the Rio Negro.

Now all this is changed. If he could return to the scene of his famous explorations he would not be able to locate even the site of many of the missions where he was so kindly entertained and of whose hospitality he writes in terms of such unstinted praise. From Ciudad Bolivar to San Carlos on the Rio Negro—a distance of nearly a thousand miles—he would not find more than one or two at most. Even San Fernando de Atabapo, that in Humboldt’s time was the capital of a province and an important missionary centre, is to-day without a pastor. A priest from Ciudad Bolivar goes to this distant place—more than seven hundred miles away—once a year to look after the spiritual welfare of the few inhabitants that still remain there. The other missions, of which the illustrious savant gives us such interesting accounts, have long since disappeared, and the places they occupied are now covered with a dark, impenetrable forest growth. Most of these were suppressed at the time of the War of Independence, or died out during the countless revolutions that have since desolated the country.

In the kindly and hospitable padres in charge of these missions, Humboldt always found counselors and friends, and in some of his longest and most difficult journeys they also proved to be his best and most intelligent guides. It was through them, too, that he was able always to obtain food, boats and boatmen—three essentials that the traveler of to-day often finds it extremely difficult to procure.

Shortly before entering the Meta we passed through the Raudal de Cariben, a swift and foaming cataract, which rushes between immense masses of black granite that stand like sentinels on both sides of the river to warn the navigator against the perils of further advance.

The forms of the rocks are bizarre in the extreme. Some of them are columnar in structure and resemble the sombre pillars of a Hindoo temple. Others are more fantastic in shape and would easily pass for a Sardinian noraghe in ruins. From one point of view the rocks present the appearance of a dismantled fortress with its bastions, parapets and embrasures; its glacis, scarps and counter-scarps.

But the most singular spectacle of all is a formation on the right bank of the river that seemed, for all the world, to be a petrified battleship—just such a man of war as might have been fashioned by the hammer of Thor and used by a race of Titans. The celebrated Garden of the Gods in Colorado does not exhibit more grotesque or diversified rock formations than does the Raudal of Cariben and it is entirely devoid of that wonderful setting given the Orinoco by the luxuriant tropical forest and a cataract that resembles in many respects the rapids above the Falls of Niagara.

One is not surprised to learn that the Indians have woven many legends about this cataract, which is almost as picturesque as are those of Atures and Maipures further up the river. And still less is one surprised to read of the accounts given by the early missionaries of the difficulties and perils attending the passage of these rapids. For small craft, especially canoes, it is necessary to keep them near the shore and punt them, or pull them along by ropes. With our stern-wheeler we never felt that there was any danger, but our progress was exceedingly slow. At times we were actually at a stand still and once or twice it looked as if we were going to be carried down stream, so great was the force of the current. But finally, after a long and determined struggle, we passed the cataract in safety. To be frank, we all experienced a feeling of relief when we saw that all the reefs and remolinos—whirlpools—were behind us, and that we were again once more in placid and safe water.

“Este raudal es muy maluco,”4—this cataract is very bad—said our pilot to us after the strain was over. “It is much more difficult to steer a boat through it than through La Puerto del Infierno, near Ciudad Bolivar.” Fortunately for all concerned, he knew his business well and was as conscientious as he was skillful. He had been navigating the Orinoco and the Meta for nearly twenty years and was thoroughly familiar with every feature and peculiarity of both of them. He had never had an accident and was justly proud of his record. He had the eye of a hawk and could judge of the relative depths of the water by differences of color that were quite imperceptible to the ordinary observer. Only once, during our entire journey, did we graze a sandbar, and that was only for a moment. But it was quite sufficient to make a young Ethiopian among our crew think that his last day had arrived, and that we were surely going to the bottom. Greatly frightened, he turned to us and remarked, “It am very unwholesome to travel in dis ribber. Dat am certain.”

It was at the mouth of the Meta, according to certain alarmists whom we had met in Ciudad Bolivar, that we should be exposed to grave danger from savages. A band of murderous Guahibos, led by a certain sambo5—a refugee from the llanos of Venezuela—had for some time, we were assured, been stationed at this point, where they attacked every vessel that passed by, and where they had already robbed and killed a large number of people who had ventured too near the outlaw’s lair. The first intimation of their presence, we were told, would be a shower of poisoned arrows from the dense underbrush where the enemy would be concealed. But this report, like so many others regarding the dangers of our journey, proved to be unfounded. There was not a Guahibo, much less a sambo leader to be seen anywhere. Everything was as quiet as on the proverbial Potomac.

Speaking of the Meta, Padre Gilli says: “Its width is greater than that of a dozen Tibers, and in the summer season, when the wind is high, the waves become very large.”6 Far from being an exaggeration, as might appear to the reader, this statement is rather an underestimate of the reality, at least as regards its breadth. In places it is fully two miles wide—almost as broad as the Orinoco near the delta. And this is not because of the shallowness of the river. According to Humboldt, its mean depth near its mouth is thirty-six feet, and it sometimes attains to more than twice this depth.

One of the chief affluents of the Meta from the north is the river Casanare. We were much interested in this on account of its historical associations. It was down this river that Don Antonio Berrio, the son-in-law of the famous adelantado, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, came on his celebrated expedition from BogotÁ to Trinidad. He was the first white man to undertake this long journey, and, considering the difficulties of travel at that time, through an unknown land, and often through the territory of hostile savages, his finally attaining his destination was, indeed, a wonderful achievement, comparable, in some respects, with that of Orellana down the Amazon a few decades before.

For a long time the Casanare river was the favorite route of the missionaries who went from BogotÁ to evangelize the various tribes who dwelt in the valley of the Meta and in the valleys of many of its chief tributaries. Indeed, for a long time some of the most flourishing missions in New Granada were in the country through which we are now passing. But after the religious orders in charge of the missions were withdrawn or suppressed, the Indians returned to their native wilds, and gradually reverted to their original savage condition.

Much as we tried, we could not discover even a vestige of any of the former missions on the Meta. And not only have the former villages and towns disappeared, but even the Indian tribes who, at one time, were so numerous on both sides of the river, seem to have vanished also. We sailed an entire week on the Meta without seeing or hearing a single human being. In some cases the Indians have, for greater security, retired into the depths of the forest. In others, war and disease have done their work and whole tribes, as in other parts of South America, have been exterminated. The names of the mission villages and towns along the Meta still figure on the maps, but the traveler is unable to find the slightest trace of even the sites on which they were located.

About the least favorable place in the world for cultivating literature would, one would think, be in a rude hut in an Indian village on the Meta. And yet, strange as it may seem, one of the most interesting and valuable works that have ever been written on the missions of South America, on the manners, customs, and languages of the various Indian tribes of the plains and forests of Colombia, was produced on the banks of the Meta.

Its author was the zealous and scholarly Padre Juan Rivero, who spent sixteen years as a missionary in this part of the New World. He wrote many works on doctrinal subjects in their own language for the benefit of the Indians. Besides this he gave to the world what are probably the most useful grammars in existence of several of the more important languages and dialects spoken by the various tribes among whom he labored with such marked success.

The work, however, to which I specially refer, is his Historia de las Misiones de los Llanos de Casanare y los Rios Orinoco y Meta.7 It has been the basis of many other works on the same subject—Gumilla’s El Orinoco Ilustrado for example—but, notwithstanding the numerous books that have been written since then on the Indians of the Orinoco and its tributaries, Rivero’s is still facile princeps, and must always be consulted by one who desires accurate knowledge regarding the condition, character, rivalries and wars of the divers savage tribes to whom he preached the gospel of peace and brotherly love. Besides this, he gives us exact information concerning the geography of the country through which he passed and affords us entertaining accounts of its fauna and flora. He supplies us, too, with rare and curious data of great scientific value to the historian and ethnologist, and gives us the benefit of his unique experience as to the best means of civilizing and Christianizing the savage hordes that in his day—1720 to 1736—wandered over the plains and through the woodlands of northern South America.

It was indeed in consequence of the recognized importance of his work, as a contribution to the solution of certain social and economical difficulties, that confronted the Colombian government some decades ago, that it was finally published in 1883, after lying in the dust in manuscript for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

For several years some of the Indians of eastern Colombia had given great trouble to the whites in the more distant settlements. Robberies and massacres and atrocities were becoming daily more frequent and the numerous savage hordes threatened to extend their incursions toward the villages and towns of the interior. The inhabitants were in consternation and called upon the government to devise immediate means for their safety and protection. The authorities were willing to do anything in their power but did not know what steps to take. They had to deal with a foe about whose character, numbers and home they were almost entirely ignorant.

It was then that someone, by a happy inspiration, suggested calling in as adviser one who knew more about the Indians than any of the officials of the government, one who had long lived among them and had won their confidence and affection, one, consequently, who would be better able to counsel in the emergency that confronted the government than any one else that could be named.

The adviser and expert was one who had been dead nearly a century and a half—the sainted missionary Padre Juan Rivero. He could not testify orally, but his great manuscript work on the Indians was in the archives of BogotÁ, and it was decided to print it at once, and in this wise give the public the benefit of the great missionary’s advice and utilize his knowledge of a wild and untractable race that had already become a serious menace to the peace and prosperity of the country.

When published, the book was found to be so modern in many of the views expressed, so well adapted to supply information then sorely needed, that it appeared to be written expressly to meet recent difficulties and throw light on questions that modern legislators and political economists had been discussing, but without sufficient knowledge or the necessary data. Both the data and the knowledge were furnished by Padre Rivero of happy memory.

In the preface to his work the author tells us of the difficulties under which he labored in its production. “The banks of the Meta,” he writes, “have been the workshop in which this work has been forged. Here the inconvenience of the house in which I live, the concourse of Indians with their importunate demands, the visits of the heathen Chiricoas, who are the most noisy chatterers conceivable, and various other disturbances, which would require time to recount, have been the retirement which I have enjoyed, and the quiet which has been allowed me for such an undertaking.”8

Speaking of the Indians who inhabited the llanos and the banks of such rivers as the Casanare and the Meta, he declares they were as numerous as the sands of the seashore and the stars of heaven. During more than three weeks spent in the valley of the Meta, we saw but one small encampment of wild Indians—Indios bravos—about midway between Cariben and OrocuÉ. They greeted us in a friendly manner and seemed to be a very harmless people. They were Guahibos, those merciless savages who, we were assured, would be lying in ambush awaiting our arrival, prepared to assail us with a shower of poisoned arrows, preparatory to serving us up at one of their cannibalistic feasts.

As to the monkeys, skipping from tree to tree along the Meta, and exciting the admiration of the traveler by their antics and grimaces, he avers that their number is an embarrassment to the arrows directed against them. Yet, although we were daily on the lookout for these interesting animals, as well as for others popularly supposed to exist in countless numbers along the rivers and in the forests of Venezuela and Colombia, we never got a glimpse of even a single specimen of any of the quadrumanous tribes.9

Padre Rivero was probably the first to give an account of that curious custom—the Couvade—which prevailed among the Indian tribes with whom he was acquainted. As is known, this extraordinary custom has, at one time or another, obtained in all quarters of the globe—in Asia, Africa, in Europe as well as in North and South America. Marco Polo found evidence of it during his travels in the Orient. It is, however, in South America that it is most prevalent and where the prescriptions connected with it are most scrupulously observed. And it was the early missionaries who have furnished us with the most interesting data regarding this widespread custom, and which, according to recent travelers, is still as prevalent in certain parts of South America as it was generations ago.

“It is a ridiculous thing,” says Rivero, “of which I am about to speak, but it is nevertheless a reality. It is this. When a woman gives birth to a child, it is the husband that is to receive the care and attention given on such occasions and not the miserable woman. Scarcely is the child born, when the husband, with the behavior of one who has escaped from a grave mischance, goes to bed complaining as if he were ill. The wife then bestows on him the most tender care, as if on this the welfare of the home depended. As a reason for these superstitious practices and ridiculous ceremonies, they assert that, if during this time they should go walking, they would trample on the head of the infant; if they should chop wood, they would cleave the child’s head; if they should shoot birds in the mountain, they would infallibly shoot the newly born. And so is it with other foolish things of a similar character which they firmly believe.”10

The time during which the father must keep to his bed, or hammock, varies from a few days to several weeks. In some tribes it is longer than in others. During this season and even for months afterwards some articles of food are quite tabooed. He must then abstain from certain kinds of birds or fish, “firmly believing that this would injure the child’s stomach, and that it would participate in the natural faults of the animals on which the father had fed. If, for example, the father ate turtle, the child would be deaf and have no brains, like this animal; if he ate manatee, the child would have little round eyes like this creature.” Again, if he eats the flesh of a waterhaas—Capybara—a large rodent with very protruding teeth—the teeth of the child will grow like those of this animal; or if he eats the flesh of the spotted labba, the child’s skin will become spotted. Among some tribes the father is forbidden to bathe, to smoke, or to use snuff, or even to scratch himself with his finger nails. In their place he must employ “for this purpose a splinter, specially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm.”

Dobrizhoffer, a noted missionary in Paraguay, in his very interesting History of the Abipones, is even more explicit about this superstitious practice. “No sooner,” he says, “do you hear that the wife has borne a child, than you will see the Abipone husband lying in bed, huddled up with mats and skins, lest some rude breath of air should touch him, fasting, kept in private, and for a number of days abstaining religiously from certain viands. You would swear it was he who had had the child.... They are fully persuaded that the sobriety and quiet of the father is effectual for the well-being of the new-born offspring and even necessary.... And they believe, too, that the father’s carelessness influences the new-born offspring, from a natural bond and sympathy between both. Hence if the child comes to a premature end, its death is attributed by the women to the father’s intemperance, this or that cause being assigned. Among these would be that he did not abstain from meat, that he had loaded his stomach with waterhog, that he had swum across the river when the air was chilly, that he had neglected to shave off his long eye-brows, that he had devoured underground honey, stamping on the bees with his feet, that he had ridden till he was tired and sweated. With ravings like this the crowd of women accuse the father with impunity of causing the child’s death and are accustomed to pour curses on the unoffending husband.”11

The whole subject of the couvade opens up many interesting questions for the ethnologist, and its careful study may be productive of much valuable information regarding the early races of mankind. For the student of linguistics and folklore, there is still among the little known tribes of Eastern Colombia a broad and rich field for research concerning the languages, customs and traditions of these people, and the works of the early missionaries are replete with the most precious data respecting them.12

As we quietly sailed up the broad forest-clad Meta, we could not help harking back to the distant past, when, ever and anon, along its banks were to be seen the smiling homes and villages of happy Indians under the watchful eye and protecting arm of their “father priest,” and comparing it with the present desolate and deserted land that for days at a time does not exhibit the slightest trace of a human habitation.

Then, in the beautiful language of Colombia’s great lyric poet, D. JosÉ Joaquin OrtÍz, “One clime and one region was not sufficient for the ardor that inflamed the breasts of the holy disciples of Christ. They will go to enkindle the pure flame of love in the breast of the savage, at the same time teaching him the arts of peace in the immense solitudes which are fertilized by the Arauca, and the Meta and the Casanare and the torrential Upia. They will scale the ever-precipitous throne of the deafening storm, and will finally hear the canticle sounding in praise of the redeeming cross, in as many tongues and by as many tribes as people my native land from the West to the East.”

And then, too, was to be seen one of those charming gatherings so beautifully pictured by our own Longfellow in “The Children of the Lord’s Supper”—“Thus all the children of the Mission hasten, at the sound of the bell, to gather about the cross, which is raised on high, and to approach near the venerable man who with his silver locks towers above so many infantile heads. Oh, neither Plato nor Socrates, famous in the annals of knowledge, after long years of continuous vigils, ever knew what these poor, ingenuous children learnt from the tremulous lips of the old man at the foot of a tree-trunk in the forest.”13

Much, however, as we were disposed to linger on the glories of the past, and to regret the absence of what, in days gone by, possessed such an intense human interest, we were not insensible to the marvelous natural beauties of river and forest that defiled before our admiring gaze from morning until night.

At one time it is a colossal Bombax ceiba14 that claims our attention. This tree is remarkable alike for the height it often attains and for the wonderful expanse of its branches. To support such a giant of the forest, Nature has made a special provision. It is supplied by large buttresses, from six to twelve inches thick and from ten to twenty feet above the ground, which project like rays from all sides of its lofty trunk. Were it not for these peculiar stays the tree would be uprooted by the first violent wind to which it might be exposed.

At another time it is a huge fig tree that we admire, or a tall and graceful Candelero, so named from its resemblance to an ornate candlestick. In both cases we observe the same peculiar, buttressed roots that are so characteristic of the ceiba and some other giants of the forest.

But more wonderful far than the ceiba is a tree called by the natives by the expressive name of Matapalo—Tree-Killer. It is a species of fig tree, known to naturalists as the Ficus dendroica. It is at first but a feeble, climbing shrub, sometimes resembling a vine, but it soon spreads itself over the tree on which it has fastened itself and eventually encloses it in a tubular mass. It is a veritable boa constrictor of the vegetable world, for it sooner or later crushes the life out of its victim.

“After the incarcerated trunk has been stifled and destroyed, the grotesque form of the parasite, tubular, corkscrew-like, or otherwise fantastically contorted, and frequently admitting the light through interstices like loopholes in a turret, continues to maintain an independent existence among the straight-stemmed trees of the forest—the image of an eccentric genius in the midst of a group of sedate citizens.”15

Another remarkable tree seen in the tropics is the cow tree, the palo de vaca, or arbol de leche—the milk tree of the natives. Its sap resembles milk in taste and appearance, and is extensively used as an aliment, especially by the negroes and mestizos. In referring to this strange specimen of plant life, Humboldt remarks: “Amidst the great number of curious phenomena which I have observed in the course of my travels, I confess there are few that have made so powerful an impression on me as the aspect of the cow tree.... It is not here the solemn shades of forests, the majestic course of rivers, the mountain wrapped in eternal snow, that excite our emotion. A few drops of vegetable juice recall to our minds all the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at the surface. Some empty the bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their children.”16

After leaving the Orinoco we made no attempt to travel at night. The ever-changing bed of the river, the sand banks, the large trunks of trees that were hurried along by the current, eddies and rapids and rocks and islands unnumerable, made sailing at night quite impossible. For this reason, at nightfall we sometimes moored at the river’s bank, attaching our boat by a rope to the nearest tree, but, more frequently, in order to escape mosquitoes and other insects, we dropped anchor in mid-river.

The night was always tranquil, and we were never disturbed by any of those noises—the howling of monkeys and the cries of jaguars—which, in tropical forests, are usually supposed to be so pronounced a feature. Nor were we ever troubled by mosquitoes during our entire trip of two weeks from Ciudad Bolivar. And never did we deem it necessary to take the precaution of putting up our mosquiteros—mosquito nets—to protect ourselves from the plaga—plague—which we had been assured would be a nightly visitant during our entire journey.

We had been told, too, that the intense heat of the atmosphere would be another cause of continual suffering—day and night. But we did not find it so. At no time did the thermometer rise higher than 86° F., and it frequently sank as low as 66° F., when we were glad to put on wraps of some kind. We observed that a variation of a few degrees was more appreciable than the same variation in our northern latitudes. A drop of two or three degrees below 70° F. produced a greater sensation of cold than a fall to 50° would produce in New York.

As a matter of fact, one need not remain long in the tropics before he becomes affected by very slight changes of temperature. And another fact is soon impressed on the observer, which is that the heat in the tropics is not so much greater than that in more northern latitudes, as measured by the thermometer. It is the almost uniform temperature, day and night, the whole year through, that eventually becomes so depressing and so difficult to endure.

At no time, either on the Orinoco or the Meta, did we ever see the thermometer rise within fifteen degrees of the intense heat one frequently experiences during the summer in New York and Washington. The nights, although usually warm, were never unpleasant. A sheet was generally sufficient covering, but we sometimes found it necessary to use a blanket. Only once were we annoyed—and that for but a short time—by insects, and that was because we moored near the bank under large, overhanging trees, which seemed to be alive with certain bugs of a very noxious odor.

Once or twice during each day it was necessary to stop to take on wood, which was usually ready and piled up on the bank. Sometimes, however, the owner would demand more than the captain was willing to give, and that meant that the crew was then obliged to go into the forest and cut fuel sufficient to take us to the next wood-pile further up the river. Fortunately, we were not often obliged to cut the wood ourselves. Each time we did so meant an extra delay of three or four hours.

Besides stopping for wood, it was at times necessary to call for provisions, fruits, chickens, eggs, and a certain queso Á mano—hand-made cheese—of which the Llaneros are very fond and which we found very palatable.

On one occasion our supply of beef became exhausted, and it was necessary to stop—about noon—at a hato along the river to get a heifer for our next meal. Unfortunately, the owner of the ranch was not at home. He was out among his herds several miles distant. Our steward, nothing disconcerted, started in search of him, but before he had found the proprietor of the herd, and had gotten the desired novilla—heifer—on board, it was dark. There was then nothing to do but tie our boat up near the house in which we had spent most of the afternoon, and wait until the following morning before continuing our journey.

At first, it would appear that such delays would prove very annoying, but this was very far from being the case. On the contrary, it was most interesting, as it gave us an opportunity of getting acquainted with the people, and of familiarizing ourselves with their mode of life and occupations, and enjoying many interesting conversations with them about matters in which they were most concerned. We always found them very hospitable and very entertaining. They always gave us a cordial welcome to their humble home, and rarely allowed us to depart without giving us something from their simple store. Sometimes it was a brace of chickens, at other times a basket of fruit, a calabash of eggs, or generous piece of queso Á mano—which was made by the mistress of the house herself.

Here we were among people who lived the simple life, and appeared all the happier for it. We saw no evidences of suffering anywhere. The only thing that seemed to concern them was the instability of the government. True, Colombia had been in the enjoyment of peace for several years past, but every now and then some gossip-monger would circulate reports about another uprising in some part of the country, and about the imminent danger to which the men were exposed of being drafted into the army, and of being torn away from their families, to whom they are devotedly attached.

Occasionally, while the crew was cutting wood, we were able to make a collection of orchids, of which there are along the Meta many wonderfully beautiful species. At one time our deck was a veritable bower of all kinds of orchids of the most brilliant colors and of the strangest imaginable forms. Some of them possessed a most delicate fragrance, while others emitted a delightful perfume that spread over the greater part of our deck.

LinnÆus knew only about a dozen exotic orchids, and expressed it as his opinion that when the world was fully explored by botanists, it might probably yield a hundred species all told. How surprised he would be if he could now return to the world and find that the species of this curious plant are actually counted by thousands! To English horticulturists alone some thousands of species are known. Even some of the many genera of this extensive order contain hundreds of species. Of odontoglossums there are more than a hundred species catalogued. Of oncidiums more than two hundred and fifty species have been described. Of dendrobiums between three and four hundred species are known, while the genus Habenaria counts more than four hundred species. Then there are the countless hybrids—and their number is rapidly increasing—that, during the last few years, have been produced in the conservatories of Europe and America.

Orchids are found in all parts of the world; in the marshes and groves of the lowlands and in the lofty plateaus of mountain ranges. But it is in the warm and humid regions of the equator that they occur in the greatest variety and profusion. Twenty years ago the number of species known in Venezuela alone exceeded six hundred. In Colombia the number is probably greater. It is here, too, that some of the choicest specimens have their habitat. From this country tens of thousands of plants are shipped annually to the florists of Europe and the United States. As an illustration of the extent of this industry it suffices to state that a single firm has under cultivation no fewer than one hundred thousand Odontoglossums, for of this species alone hundreds of thousands of plants are marketed annually. Other species are scarcely less popular. To supply the ever-increasing demand for them, there is now a small army of men continually engaged in the tropical forests in the work of collecting and preparing them for shipment. We met several of them in both Venezuela and Colombia.

In the forests along the Meta we could within a small area easily have collected more orchids than were known to LinnÆus. They were everywhere—in the forks of trees, on their branches, on decaying trunks, on the lianas stretching from one tree to another, and, forming with the flowering epiphytes17 with which they were laden, the most beautiful tapestry, beside which the most exquisite Gobelin masterpiece would pale into insignificance. In other places they grew on bare, precipitous rocks, where they were quite inaccessible, on prickly cactus plants, near beautiful cascades, or clumps of arborescent ferns. We found them flourishing near the ocean shore and near the limits of perpetual snow on the crests of the Cordilleras.

Everywhere they were attractive and worthy of study—some on account of their bizarre forms, mimicking insects and butterflies, others on account of their delicate fragrance, and others still on account of their gorgeous colors, which fairly rival those of the rainbow.

The odors of orchids are almost as diverse as their colors and forms. While most of them have an agreeable scent, there are some that have an unbearably fetid odor. Some emit a faint and delicate perfume; others possess a fragrance which, although delicious, is almost overpowering. In some the fragrance is perceptible only in the morning, in others solely in the evening. Some have a scent like that of violets, others like that of musk or noyeau, and others again like that of angelica or cinnamon. More wonderful still, “some species,” we are told, “give out different scents at different times, such as Dendrobium nobile, which smells like grass in the evening, like honey at noon, and has in the morning a faint odor of primroses.”18

It was a fortnight, almost to the hour, since we had left Ciudad Bolivar, when, one bright day, as the sun was approaching the zenith, our captain, pointing to a tongue of land in the river ahead of us, said, in a cheerful tone of voice, “A la vueltÁ esta OrocuÉ.” OrocuÉ is beyond that point.

And so it was. In a few minutes more we had the town in full view. We had finished another stage of our journey and that, too, without an untoward incident of any kind whatsoever. The entire voyage had been made with comfort and pleasure, and we actually regretted to leave the boat on which we had spent so many delightful and happy hours. It was indeed an experience of a lifetime, one of enchanting panoramas, such as can be witnessed only along the great water courses of the equator. The flora, the fauna, the people, the lands, so rich in romance and so celebrated for the achievements of the conquistadores—those of the cross as well as those of the world—all fascinated us and enchained our interest during every moment of our wakeful hours. Yes, it was a memorable, never-to-be-forgotten experience, one of those experiences that necessarily exalt the lover of Nature and bring him near to Nature’s God.

All the inhabitants in OrocuÉ—men, women and children—were gathered on the bank to witness the arrival of our little steamer. So rarely does anything larger than a small sailboat come here that the arrival of a steamboat is regarded as an event of paramount interest and importance. Most grateful to us, for it was so unexpected, was the welcome accorded us by a number of the leading citizens of the town. They had been advised by telegraph of our coming, and had prepared most comfortable quarters for our reception and entertainment. Escorting us to our temporary home—which was not only well furnished but a model of neatness—we were told, with true Castilian politeness, accompanied by an air of simplicity and sincerity that made us feel at home from the first moment, “AquÍ estÁn Uds. en su casa. Estamos todos Á sus Órdenes.” “Here you are in your own home and we are all at your disposition.” The keys of the house were then handed us, and with them we were accorded the freedom and hospitality of generous, never-to-be forgotten OrocuÉ.