“What a wide river!” was the exclamation of a fellow-passenger as our steamer passed out of the Macareo and turned the apex of the delta. It was, indeed, very wide, and the bank of the Orinoco on our port-quarter was almost invisible. Here, even during the dry season, this mighty water course is no less than four leagues in width. We now, for the first time, fully realized that we were sailing on the broad waters of one of the world’s master rivers. After the Parana and the Amazon, it is the largest waterway in South America, and, for the volume of water it carries into the ocean, it ranks with the Mississippi, the Congo, Yang-tse-Kiang, and the Brahmaputra. Well have the natives of the lands through which it flows named it the Great River—for it is great in every way—great in the immense basin it drains; great in the tribute it carries to the ocean, and great in the number and magnitude of the rivers it counts among its affluents from the distant Cordilleras.

As along the Macareo, so here along the Orinoco, one never tires of gazing at the magnificent forest trees and the dense shrubbery with which the banks are fringed. At one time it is the wide-branched ceiba, covered with bright-blooming epiphytes; at another a clump of graceful moriche palms, whose tremulous plumes are given an added beauty by the presence of a bevy of multicolored parrots and macaws. The foliage of tree and shrub is here ever fresh and luxuriant and retains always that delicate hue so characteristic of the leafage of our northern woodlands in the early days of spring.

Most of the trees, large and small, are literally weighed down with parasites and epiphytes. Among the latter growths are orchids of countless variety and rarest beauty, such as are seldom seen in our northern floral conservatories. And the way in which the trees are held together by those strange forms of vegetable life—so abundant in the tropics—the bejucos or bush ropes! Sometimes they are as thick as a man’s arm, sometimes they are like a ship’s cable, sometimes they may be mistaken for telegraph wires—so long and fine are they. They extend from the ground to the tops of the highest trees, or drop from the summits of the loftiest monarchs of the forest to the earth beneath, sometimes singly, sometimes by scores. Then again they cross one another from tree to tree and form a trelliswork that at times is next to impassable. And these bejucos, or lianas, as they are also called, are, like the trees, burdened with air-plants of various species, at one time large masses of leaves, at another long spikes of the richest blossoms.

At almost every turn the vision is delighted by lovely arboreal groups and charming natural bowers, all graced with the most gorgeous combinations of emerald foliage and ruby bloom—interspersed with delicate tufts of lilac, pink and canary—and illumined by gleams of flitting sunshine which bring out a glorious play of color effects with which the eye is never tired. “A dryad’s home,” we heard an enthusiastic seÑorita exclaim, as we passed one of these flower-decked bowers, on which glittered the checkered sunlight. And so well it might be, it was so rare a gem of sylvan loveliness.

While passing up this majestic river and admiring the ever-varying panorama of rarest floral beauty, we recalled a couple of paragraphs in Darwin’s Journal of Researches, in which he refers to the futility of attempting to describe, for one who has never visited the tropics, the wonders of the scenery there and above all the marvels of the vegetable world. He expresses himself as follows:

“Such are the elements of the scenery, but it is a hopeless attempt to paint the general effect. Learned naturalists describe these scenes of the tropics by naming a multitude of objects, and mentioning some characteristic feature of each. To a learned traveler this possibly may communicate some definite ideas; but who else from seeing a plant in an herbarium can imagine its appearance when growing in its native soil? Who from seeing choice plants in a hothouse, can magnify some into the dimensions of forest trees, and crowd others into an entangled jungle? Who, when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former—the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics? It is when the sun has attained its greatest height, that such scenes should be viewed; then the dense, splendid foliage of the mango hides the ground with its darkest shade, whilst the upper branches are rendered, from the profusion of light, of the most brilliant green. In the temperate zones the case is different—the vegetation there is not so dark or so rich, and hence the rays of the declining sun, tinged of a red, purple, or bright yellow color, add most to the beauties of those climes.

“When quietly walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each successive view, I wished to find language to express my ideas. Epithet after epithet was found too weak to convey to those who have not visited the intertropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences. I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every admirer of Nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of another planet! yet to every person in Europe, it may be truly said, that at the distance of only a few degrees from his native soil, the glories of another world are opened to him. In my last walk I stopped again and again to gaze on these beauties, and endeavored to fix in my mind for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or later must fail. The form of the orange tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate; but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene must fade away; yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures.”1

While the flora of the Orinoco, near the apex of the delta, is so varied and exuberant, but little is seen of its fauna, notwithstanding all that has been said and written to the contrary. In a recent work, for instance, written by one who pretends to have made the trip from Trinidad, is a sentence that will equal any of the extravagances of Jules Verne’s Le Superbe OrÉnoque.

“The jaguar,” says the author, “will stop drinking, or the tapir look up from browsing on the grass, and the monkey pause in swinging from tree to tree, as the boats hurry noisily by, while the drowsy alligator or manatee floats lazily on, his head half out of the water, until perhaps a conical bullet from a Winchester rifle or from a revolver, which everyone carries, rouses him to a knowledge that it is not good to trust too much to mankind.”

It is quite safe to say that neither the author of the work quoted nor any one else has ever seen a jaguar, or a tapir or a manatee under the circumstances mentioned. They are all timid animals and are never seen from the deck of noisy steamers.

Although we saw no quadrupeds like those just mentioned, there were countless birds, large and small. Those that were most conspicuous were ibises, flamingoes and herons of various species. So numerous at times were the flamingoes that, to borrow an idea from Trowbridge, the sunrise flame of their reflected forms actually crimsoned “the glassy wave and glistening sands.” Of the herons, the largest species is named by the natives soldado—a soldier—so called both from its size and the stately attitude it assumes, which, at a distance, gives it the appearance of a sentry on duty.

A flock of these tall, white birds, seen feeding in an everglade in Cuba was, during the second voyage of Columbus, taken for a party of men clad in white tunics, and led the Admiral to believe that they were inhabitants of Mangon, a province just south of Cathay. Indeed, so striking is their resemblance to men posted as sentinels that, according to Humboldt, “the inhabitants of Angostura, soon after the foundation of their city, were one day alarmed by the sudden appearance of soldados and garzas, on a mountain towards the south. They believed they were menaced with an attack of Indios monteros, wild Indians, called mountaineers; and the people were not perfectly tranquilized till they saw the birds soaring in the air and continuing their migration towards the mouths of the Orinoco.”2

Our first stopping place was Barrancas, a small and squalid village of mud, palm-thatched huts. It is situated in the centre of one of the finest grazing regions of Venezuela and under a wise and progressive government, would soon become a place of considerable importance.

In the time of the Franciscan Missions here, suppressed nearly a century ago, the herds that roamed the beautiful undulating prairies on both sides of the Orinoco counted no fewer than one hundred and fifty thousand cattle, and with the markets that could easily be had for beef and hides, this number could, under favorable conditions, be greatly increased. As it is, however, it is known rather as a favorite rendezvous for that numerous class of revolutionists for whom the country is so noted, that have been born insolvent, but who, by grandiloquent pronunciamientos, and through the coÖperation of hungry spoil-seekers like themselves, hope one day to improve their financial condition.

Near Barrancas we were shown the spot where General Antonio Paredes and his confiding followers were shot in cold blood, a few days before our arrival, in pursuance of an order, we were told, that President Castro had issued from his sick bed in Macuto. This speedy, albeit unconstitutional, disposition of the leaders of what was heralded as a great popular reform movement was designed to put a quietus on other revolutionists who were making or preparing to make pronunciamientos in various parts of the republic. It did not, however, seem to have the desired effect, as during our sojourn in the country two other revolutions cropped out when least expected. For a while one of these gave the government very grave concern but was finally suppressed; not, however, until the country had suffered by anticipation many of the miseries of internecine strife.

Before our departure from Caracas, we tried in vain to get some information not only about the dates of sailing of the Orinoco steamers but also about their character. After leaving the capital, some of our friends tried to dissuade us from our projected trip to Ciudad Bolivar, assuring us that the only craft plying up and down the river were filthy cattle boats unfit for a white man to enter. Imagine our surprise, then, when we found that our vessel, far from being the unclean, poorly-provisioned boat that had been pictured to us, was in every way fairly comfortable, and with a cuisine and service that were far from bad. In construction and general arrangement, it was not unlike the smaller double-decked steamers on the Hudson river or on our northern lakes. Our cabins were spacious, with broad berths, and clean bedding and furniture. Indeed, we have often had cabins in our large transatlantic steamers in which there was less of comfort and convenience than were afforded by our cabin in this unpretending boat on the Orinoco.

As to the passengers, they were quite a cosmopolitan crowd. Among them were some Europeans and several Americans, but the greater number were Venezuelans—most of them bound for Ciudad Bolivar. Of the Americans there were two men in quest of fortune in the celebrated Yuruari mining district in southern Guiana.

The upper deck of the boat was reserved for the first-class passengers, while the lower one was occupied by those of the second-class, and by such freight as was carried up and down the river. On returning to the Port-of-Spain, the steamer usually carried about two hundred head of cattle for the Trinidad market. When these were taken on board at night, as sometimes happened, sleep was impossible. What with the tramping and bellowing of the affrighted brutes below us and the shouting of the cattlemen and crew, there was a veritable pandemonium which continued the greater part of the night.

Frequently there are not enough cabins for the passengers. But this makes very little difference to the Venezuelan. He simply swings his chinchorro—hammock—between two stanchions of the vessel and is soon calmly reposing in slumberland. Indeed, many of the inhabitants of the tropics prefer a hammock to a bed, and do not apply for a stateroom when traveling on the rivers of equatorial America.

The second-class passengers sleep in their hammocks if they happen to have them; if not, they lie down anywhere they can find room and are soon fast asleep. Many of them have no beds at home, except a mat, a rawhide, or the lap of Mother Earth, and the absence of a bed or hammock is no appreciable privation to them.

There is no more curious sight than is presented at night on a crowded river steamer in the tropics. One sees scores of hammocks swung in every conceivable place. All davits and stanchions, all uprights and crosspieces are provided with hooks and rings, so that hammocks, when necessary, may be attached to them. In saloons and passageways, on forward-deck and after-deck, wherever there is any available space, there is stretched on the floor, or snugly ensconced in his chinchorro, some quietly sleeping or loudly snoring specimen of humanity. Sometimes one will see several persons stowed away in a single hammock. It is not an unusual thing to see two persons in the same chinchorro, and one may now and then see a mother and three children serenely reposing in one of these aerial cots. How they do it, it is difficult to say, but the fact is that they do it, and there is apparently not a budge in the hammock’s occupants until they are awakened in the morning by the call of the birds—Nature’s alarm clocks in the tropics.

A place of more than passing interest between Barrancas and Ciudad Bolivar is Los Castillos, formerly Guayana la Vieja, founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591. It was here, in 1618, that young Walter Raleigh, the son of the Admiral, lost his life in an encounter with the Spaniards who had possession of this stronghold. It was near here, also, that Bolivar, at a critical hour during the War of Independence, saved his life by hiding in a swamp near the village.

About ten leagues further up the river, at the mouth of the Caroni, and opposite the island of Fajardo, Diego de Ordaz—the officer under Cortes who got sulphur out of the crater of Popocatepetl—found in 1531 a settlement called Carao during his exploration of the Orinoco. This was afterwards named Santo TomÉ de Guayana, and was for a short time a missionary centre—the first on the Orinoco. It was, however, destroyed in 1579 by the Dutch under Jansen. There is little now at this point to interest the traveler except the beautiful Salto—cataract—of the Caroni river, so celebrated for its picturesque scenery, and the wealth of orchideous plants with which the adjacent trees are clothed. Raleigh in describing these falls says that so great was the mass of vapor due to the fury and rebound of the waters that “we tooke it at the first for a smoke that had risen ouer some great towne,” and Padre Caulin, in his description of it, says the roar of the cataract is so great that it can be heard at a distance of several leagues. Both these accounts are quite exaggerated. The falls are very beautiful and romantic, but by no means so grand or so imposing as they have been depicted.

Near the confluence of the Caroni and the Orinoco is the straggling little town of San Felix. At this point our mining party left us for their long journey of one hundred and fifty miles on mule-back to Callao. They gave us a cordial invitation to accompany them, but we had other plans, and, although we should have enjoyed exploring this famous mining district of southern Guiana, we felt constrained to continue our course westwards.

For a number of years the Yuruari mining district promised to equal, if not surpass, the most famous gold fields of Nevada and California. One of the mines, the Callao, rivaled the great Comstock mines of Virginia City, and for “a considerable period,” we are assured, “original shares of 1,000 pesos produced dividends of 72,000 pesos yearly.” In 1895, however, the main lode was lost, and since that time, owing to lack of funds, little has been done in any of the mines in the district. The owners of the Callao mine still hope to find the lost lode, and it was to investigate the condition of this mine, and of certain others in the neighborhood, that our American friends undertook their long trip southwards. If the outlook justifies it, they purpose improving the present wretched cart-road, which connects the mines with San Felix, and putting on suitable traction engines for the transportation of freight, which has hitherto been carried on the backs of burros and in carts of the most primitive type.

During the halcyon days of the Callao mine, when all eyes were directed towards this quarter of the world, a certain syndicate tried to secure from the government a concession for building a railroad from the Orinoco to the Yuruari gold fields. The then president of Venezuela was quite willing to grant the concession, but insisted, it is said, on having by anticipation a much larger share of the prospective profits of the road than the company was willing to give. Had the railway been constructed, there is no doubt that many other valuable mines would have been developed, and that southeastern Guiana would soon have become one of the most productive regions of the republic. The road would have benefited not only the mining interests but would have led to a rapid development of the grazing and agricultural industries, which, in this part of Venezuela, could, under favorable conditions, be second only to those of the llanos of the Apure, and of the fertile plains of the states of Bermudez and Bolivar.

Aside from the interest that attaches to this part of South America, on account of its many scenic attractions and its varied natural resources of forest and field and mine, it will always possess an added interest by reason of its connection with Raleigh’s ill-fated search for El Dorado. When his purse became depleted, and he had fallen from the favor of Queen Elizabeth—who for a while was so “much taken with his elocution” that she “took him for a kind of oracle”—he bethought him of retrieving fortune and favor by the discovery and conquest of a second Incaic empire, and, with this end in view, he projected his famous voyage to

It is beside my purpose to comment on the “cruell and blood-thirsty Amazones,” and the race of people who “haue their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts,”3 about whom Raleigh writes in his remarkable book, so often quoted, The Discoverie of Gviana, and which caused Hume to brand the work as being a tissue of “the grossest and most palpable lies.” We are here interested only in what he says about the finding of gold in the region bordering the Caroni and in his fantastic tales regarding El Dorado.4

Whether Raleigh himself really believed in the existence of El Dorado, such as he has described it, or whether he wished to work on the imaginations of his countrymen, who were as credulous and as great lovers of the marvelous as were their contemporaries on the continent of Europe, cannot be affirmed with certainty. It is probable that he possessed a full share of the credulity of his age, and that, if he embellished his accounts of what he saw or exaggerated the reports which he received from the aborigines, he really gave credence to the leading features of the extraordinary stories that were then current regarding the fabulous riches of the great city of Manoa.4

And he was most likely in earnest when he declared that “whatsoeuer Prince shall possess it”—Guiana—“that Prince shal be Lorde of more gold, and of a more beautifull Empire, and of more Cities and people, then eyther the King of Spayne, or the great Turke,” and was probably honest in the belief that he who should “conquerere the same,” would “performe more than euer was done in Mexico by Cortez, or in Peru by Pacaro.”

The New World was, for the people of the Old, still a land of mystery and enchantment, and the great majority of the adventurers in the newly discovered lands were quite ready to credit the wildest tales, and follow the most elusive phantoms, provided they gave indications, however slight, of the possibility of satisfying that auri sacra fames which consumed the poor and rich alike.

The remarkable thing about Raleigh is that he actually found gold and gold-bearing quartz in the land watered by the Caroni, and located the capital of El Dorado near where the great Callao mine was discovered nearly three centuries later. And not only did he discover gold-bearing quartz, but he found a variety of gold quartz essentially the same as that which occurs in the Yuruari districts. It is interesting to speculate what effect the actual discovery by him of the Callao mine would have had on his subsequent career and on England’s schemes of expansion in the Western Hemisphere. One thing is certain. He would have recouped his lost fortunes, and his head, in all probability, would never have fallen on the block in Old Palace Yard.5

The following is Raleigh’s rÉsumÉ of the riches and marvels of Guiana and the Orinoco valley, and at the same time a sample of the stories then current regarding the land of El Dorado—stories which those to whom the writer appealed, found little difficulty in accepting as unquestioned expressions of unvarnished truth:

“For the rest, which my selfe haue seene I will promise these things that follow and knowe to be true. Those that are desirous to discouer and to see many nations, may be satisfied within this riuer, which bringeth forth so many armes and branches leading to seuerall countries, and prouinces, aboue 2000 miles east and west, and 800 miles south and north: and of these, the most eyther rich in Gold, or in other merchandizes. The common soldier shal here fight for gold, and pay himselfe, in steede of pence, with plates of halfe a foote brode, wheras he breaketh his bones in other warres for prouant and penury. Those commanders and Chieftaines, that shoote at honour, and abundance, shal find there more rich and bewtifull cities, more temples adorned with golden Images, more sepulchers filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico, or Pazarro in Peru, and the shining glorie of this conquest will eclipse all those so farre extended beames of the Spanish nation. There is no countrey which yeeldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, either for these common delights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest, then Guiana doth. It hath so many plaines, cleare riuers, abundance of Phesants, Partridges, Quailes, Rayles, Cranes, Herons, and all other fowls: Deare of all sortes, Porkes, Hares, Lyons, Tygers, Leopards, and diuers other sortes of beastes, eyther for chace, or foode.”6

Although we were intensely interested in the fauna and flora of the Orinoco, and never tired of the magnificent prospects, which, like an ever-changing panorama, were constantly presented to our view, we found time to observe the native population, especially the Indians, who are seen in considerable numbers along the entire course of the river. In the Delta and in its immediate neighborhood, they are represented chiefly by the Waraus, Aruacs, and Caribs.

The Waraus have a slightly darker complexion than either the Aruacs or Caribs. Owing to their lack of personal cleanliness, and the amount of oil with which they besmear their bodies, their hue becomes so dark, that, were it not for their straight hair, it would at times be difficult to distinguish them from negroes. In consequence of their careless habits regarding their persons and places of abode, and the way in which they neglect their children, they are despised by the neighboring tribes. Their rude huts, often no more than a little palm thatch supported by a few uprights, afford them but little protection from sun and rain. With these, however, they seem to be quite satisfied.

The Aruacs found here belong to that great group of Indians that, at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, inhabited all the large islands of the Antilles. According to ethnologists, their original home was probably on the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Cordilleras. Thence they migrated towards the north and east and constituted for a time one of the most powerful races in the Western Hemisphere.

They are also one of the oldest of the great South American tribes. They were the first Indians with whom the Spaniards came in contact and are to-day, as they were in the time of Columbus, a friendly, good-natured, peace-loving people, in spite of all the harsh treatment their forefathers received from their cruel conquerors. They are fairer than either the Waraus or the Caribs, and their women are reputed the most beautiful of all the native Guianians.7 Their hair is occasionally so long that it reaches the ground, and, although they sometimes do it up and in the most tasteful manner, they usually allow it to fall over their shoulders. They anoint it daily with Carapa nut oil, and seem to realize as fully as do their white sisters in the north, that “a woman’s glory is in her hair.”8

The Caribs here referred to belong to that dread race of whom Columbus heard such blood-curdling stories from the peaceful inhabitants of Cuba and EspaÑola. They are, too, among the youngest of the great migratory races of South America, and their original abode seems to have been in the upper basins of the Xingu and Tapajos, two of the great affluents of the Amazon.

Descending these rivers, they took possession of the greater part of the continent bordering the Atlantic from the mouth of the Amazon to the Caribbean sea, which is named from them. Subsequently, in large fleets of canoes, in making which they excelled, they pushed their way up the Orinoco and its principal tributaries, spreading death and destruction wherever they went. And not satisfied with their conquests on land, they eventually extended their dominion over the islands of the Lesser Antilles as far as St. Thomas. Had it not been for the timely arrival of the Spaniards, there is no doubt that they would have driven the peaceful Waraus out of the Greater Antilles, as they had forced them from their other homes in the islands to the southeast and on the mainland of South America.

They were the terror of all the tribes with whom they came in contact. They enslaved the women, and celebrated their victories by devouring the men. They were the cannibals who so strenuously opposed the Spaniards on many a bloody field, and who, it is alleged, celebrated their victory over the white invader by serving up, at their savage banquets, the captives taken in ambush or in battle. Indeed, the word cannibal is but a corruption of the word Carib.9 For many generations they preyed on the peaceful Indians of the missions of the Orinoco basin and elsewhere, and time and again the zealous missionary saw the work of years undone in a few moments by the sudden onslaught of these dread and ruthless visitants.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Spanish Franciscans, the Caribs who inhabit the eastern part of Venezuela were eventually civilized and Christianized, and converted from wild nomads into peaceful and useful citizens, having their own towns and villages. They were chiefly engaged in the breeding of cattle and in agriculture.

A century ago there were in the territory bounded by the Caroni, the Cuyuni and the Orinoco no fewer than thirty-eight missions, with sixteen thousand civilized Indians. But by decrees promulgated by the Republic of Colombia in the years 1819 and 1821 these missions were suppressed and to-day one sees scarcely a vestige of their former existence. The Indians are not only much less numerous than formerly, but most of them have returned to the mode of life they led before the advent of the missionary.

They are, as a rule, peaceful and harmless, but as they have been so long neglected by the government, their social status is but little above that of their savage ancestors. More is the pity. The suppression of the missions here was followed by the same consequences as resulted from the suppression of the missions in Paraguay and elsewhere—the relapse of the Indians into savagery and the loss to the state of thousands of useful and worthy citizens. It is difficult to see the wisdom of thus eliminating from the body politic elements so prolific of good and so essential to the public weal.

PÈre Labat, referring to the language of the Caribs, writes as follows:—“The Caribs have three kinds of language. The first, the most ordinary, and that which every one speaks, is the one affected by the men.

“The second is so proper to the women, that, although the men understand it, they would consider themselves dishonored if they spoke it, or if they answered their women in case they had the temerity to address them in this language. They—the women—know the language of their husbands, and must make use of it when they speak to them, but they never use it when they talk among themselves, nor do they employ any language but the one peculiar to themselves, which is entirely different from that of the men.

“There is a third language, which is known only by the men who have been in war, and particularly by the old men. It is rather a jargon than a language. They use it in important assemblies of which they desire to keep the resolutions secret. The women and young men are ignorant of it.”10

This statement was for a long time discredited, and classed among those fables regarding the New World that were unworthy of the attention of serious men. Later on it was discovered that the victoriosa loquacitas of the charming monk was based on fact. But the next thing was to explain the fact. On investigation it was found that something similar exists among other Indian tribes of South America, as, for instance, among the Guaranis, the Chiquitos, the Omaguas and the Quichuas.

In explanation of this strange phenomenon, it was then suggested “that women, from their separate way of life, frame particular terms which men do not adopt.” Cicero observes that old forms of language are best preserved by women, because, by their position in society, they are less exposed to those vicissitudes of life, changes of place and occupation, which tend to corrupt the primitive purity of language among men.11

This suggestion, ingenious though it be, was far from satisfactory to philologists and ethnologists. The quest, therefore, for a solution of the strange problem, was continued with renewed interest, and with the result that the mystery was at length completely solved. As has been stated, it was the custom of the Caribs in their wars with other Indian tribes to massacre the men and reduce the women to servitude. In some instances many of the women and not infrequently the majority of them became the wives of their conquerors. But even after this enforced alliance, the women retained their own language. The consequence was that, in families thus constituted, there were two languages spoken—that of the conqueror and that of the conquered.

While, however, the general accuracy of PÈre Labat’s statements were thus put beyond further doubt, it was discovered, by a comparative study of the languages of the Caribs and those of the tribes which they had subjugated, that it was not strictly true to assert that the language of the women was entirely different from that of the men—totalement different de celui des hommes—as the good Dominican had affirmed. They were entirely different in the words of daily use and of most frequent occurrence, but the difference extended in reality only to the minor part of the vocabulary actually employed. But the difference was quite sufficient to justify the interest it had so long excited among men of science, and to stimulate the researches which have only in recent years been crowned with success.12

The night before arriving at Ciudad Bolivar, while dreamily reclining in a steamer chair, I was awakened from my musings by a vivacious senorita, of pronounced Castilian type, rushing up to her father, near by, and exclaiming in an excited manner, “Mira, padre, mira, la Cruz del Sur!” Look, father, look—the Southern Cross! And sure enough, there, in the constellation Centauri, was the “Croce Maravigliosa,”—the marvelous cross—of the early navigators, the “Crucero” of incomparable beauty and brightness, the celestial clock of the early missionaries in the tropical lands of the New World. The cloud-veiled skies of the preceding nights had prevented us from getting a view of these “luci sante”—holy lights—but now we were privileged to behold them in all their heavenly splendor. At once we recalled that well-known passage of Dante, which the lovers of the great Florentine have applied to this constellation:—

We never suspected it at the time, but as subsequent events proved, the seÑorita’s Cruz del Sur was to be our timepiece for many subsequent months. During long wanderings over mountain and plain and in many changing climes, it was the Southern Cross that served as our guide, and marked the hours of night, in lieu of Polaris and Ursa Major, which had disappeared below the horizon.

Toward noon, the second day after leaving the Port-of-Spain, we got our first view of Ciudad Bolivar, founded in 1764 by Joaquin Moreno de Mendoza, and since that time the capital of Guiana, now the great State of Bolivar. Situated upon an eminence, on the right bank of the river, it presents a very imposing appearance and seems much larger than it is in reality. The white stone walls of the houses, and the brownish-red tiles of the roofs, together with the delicate green crowns of lofty palms that dot every part of the city, enhance in a marked degree the beauty of the picture as seen under the brilliant light of the noonday sun. The cathedral, and the government buildings around the plaza in the higher part of the town, loom up with splendid effect. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more beautiful picture of a city, when seen at a distance, than is that of Ciudad Bolivar.

As one approaches this metropolis of the Orinoco basin, the details of the city come gradually into view. Parallel with the river bank is the principal business street—La Calle del Coco—which is at the same time the most delightful promenade in the place. Here is the custom-house, the American and other consulates, and a number of large mercantile establishments, controlled chiefly by Germans, Americans and Corsicans.

From a broad waterway, from two to three miles in width, the river here contracts to a narrow channel which, at low water, is not more than a half mile in width. According to Codazzi,14 the mean depth of the river at this point is sixty feet. Towards the end of the rainy season, however, the water rises from forty to fifty feet above low-water mark. Sometimes it rises considerably higher. In 1891 the flood was so high that the stores and dwellings of the part of the city fronting the river were inundated to a height of several feet. Then the inhabitants were obliged to have recourse to canoes in passing from house to house. Then, too, stray alligators were seen in the streets and it was possible to catch enough fish for a meal in the patio—court-yard—of one’s residence.

The original name of the city was Santo TomÉ de la Nueva Guayana—the third place on the river to bear this name. The first, it will be remembered, was situated at the confluence of the Caroni and the Orinoco and was destroyed by the Dutch in 1579. The second, now known as Los Castillos—formerly Guayana la Vieja—was founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591, and is famous in the history of this part of Venezuela for its vigorous resistance to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom Spanish writers designate as the “great pirate Gualtero Reali.” As the inhabitants found the first name of their city inconveniently long they called it Angostura—the Narrows—from the contraction of the river at this point. The name was so appropriate that it is a pity it could not have been retained. In 1819, however, Congress gave it the name of Ciudad Bolivar, in honor of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of South America.

As our steamer neared the steep bank in front of the city our attention was arrested by a large, dark, granitic mass—La Piedra del Medio—looming up in the middle of the river. Like the celebrated Nileometer at Cairo, this rock, which may appropriately be called an Orinocometer, serves as a gauge of the annual rise of the flood. As we passed it, we could see distinctly the height to which the waters had risen the preceding year.

If ever the long-talked-of railroad from Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar shall be constructed, this rock, almost midway between the latter city and Soledad, a small town on the opposite side of the river, will serve as an invaluable pier for the bridge that is planned to span the Orinoco at this point. Until, however, the country shall have a more stable government than it has now, and until foreign capital shall have more confidence in the future of the republic than it has at present, it is quite safe to say that there will be neither bridge nor railroad, although both are very much needed to develop the vast resources of this section of Venezuela.

In its location and surroundings, Ciudad Bolivar possesses all the essential elements of a beautiful and prosperous metropolis. It controls the trade of the immense Orinoco basin, and the amount of business transacted here should, under favorable conditions, be many times what it is at present. But, at the time of our visit, everything was in a state of abandonment that was sad to behold. The streets, parks and public buildings, which could easily be made the most attractive features of the city, were in a neglected condition, and the number of vacant houses in certain sections, some crumbling into ruins, showed the inevitable effects of protracted misrule and periodic turmoil.

When I asked one of the prominent merchants of the city the reason for the deplorable state referred to, he replied:—”No hay dinero. Hay tantas revoluciones.” (“There is no money. There are so many revolutions.”) And when I sought a reason for the business lethargy everywhere manifested, a similar reply was forthcoming. “Somos pobres, estamos arruinados. Hay tantas guerras y el gobierno es malÍsimo.”—(“We are poor, ruined. There have been so many wars and the government is very bad.”) Merchants, tradesmen, day-laborers, professional men—all, except government employees, who were interested in retaining their positions as long as possible, had the same pitiful story to relate.

Oppressive taxes, exorbitant prices for many of the necessaries of life, intolerable monopolies, controlled by leading government officials or their favorites, had reduced the majority of the population to a condition bordering on despair. No encouragement was given to foreign capital for the exploitation and development of the immense natural resources of the country. On the contrary, foreigners were looked upon with suspicion, while Castro and his henchmen were openly antagonistic to them. Nor was it only in Ciudad Bolivar and in other parts of the Orinoco valley that this lamentable condition of things obtained. We found the same business depression, the same hopeless outlook in Caracas, Valencia, Puerto Cabello, and other commercial centres of the republic. Small wonder, then, was it that the discouraged, downtrodden people were longing and praying for a change in the administration.

The long desired change came at last, and in a way that no one could have foreseen. The dramatic downfall of Castro suddenly and unexpectedly opened the way to an amelioration of conditions that had become intolerable, while the accession of Gomez to power has inspired all patriotic and peace-loving Venezuelans with the hope that their long distracted country is about to enter upon a new era—an era of social progress and business prosperity—an era of amity with other nations accompanied by a spirit of comity which was so long conspicuous by its absence.

Notwithstanding the comparatively large number of vessels that come to this place, there is no wharf, and people here say that the great rise and fall of the river make it impossible to construct one. Fortunately, it is not a prime necessity, as the water, even in the dry season, is so deep that the largest vessels can approach so near the bank that both freight and passengers can be discharged by an ordinary gangplank.

Our steamer, like all the others there, was moored head and stern by cables leading to the venerable Ceiba trees that lined la Calle del Coco high above us. The inclination of the bank, where merchandise is landed, amounts in places to almost 45°, and yet no machinery of any kind is used for transferring even the heaviest kinds of freight from the vessel to the top of the acclivity. All is carried on the shoulders of men, usually mestizos and negroes.

We spent a week in and around Ciudad Bolivar, and, during this time, we had ample opportunities to study the manners and customs of its people. The population of the city is not more than twelve or thirteen thousand—a small number for the entrepot of the immense Orinoco basin. Under less untoward conditions it would be many times as great.15

To this place are brought the products of the forests and plains of the upper Orinoco and its numerous tributaries. Among the most important articles of export are hides, rubber—especially the coarser variety known as balata—cacao, coffee, and tobacco from Zamora, pelts of the jaguar and other wild animals, tonka beans, copaiba and feathers.

The last item is amazing, when one considers what a slaughter of the feathered tribe it implies. We met a Frenchman here who was just packing for shipment to Paris several hundred thousand egrets, the result of a three-years’ hunt in the forests and plains of the Orinoco basin. But he was not the only one engaged in this wholesale slaughter of birds. There were many others, and their work of despoiling the tropics of their most attractive ornaments extends to all the vast regions on both sides of the equator.

The small egret—Ardea candidissima—which supplies the most valuable plumes, and the large egret—Ardea garzetta—which produces a coarser feather, are the principal victims. As only a few drooping plumes from the backs of the birds are taken, one can readily see what a terrific slaughter is required to meet the demands of the markets of the world.

The worst feature about the business is that the birds are killed during the mating and breeding season. Already the result is manifest in the rapidly diminishing numbers of egrets that frequent the garceros—the name given to the places where they nest and rear their young.

“The beauty of a few feathers on their backs,” writes one who, if not a misogynist, is evidently in sympathy with the aims and purposes of our Audubon society, “will be the cause of their extinction. The love of adornment common to most animals is the source of their troubles. The graceful plumes which they doubtless admire in each other have appealed to the vanity of the most destructive of all animals. They are doomed, because the women of civilized countries continue to have the same fondness for feathers and ornaments characteristic of savage tribes.”16

The houses of Ciudad Bolivar, built on a hill of dark, almost bare hornblende-schist, are in marked contrast with those of the Port-of-Spain. In Trinidad’s capital each residence—usually frame—is provided with numerous doors, and jalousied windows, and surrounded by gardens, with a profusion of the most beautiful tropical flowers and trees. Here, on the contrary, the houses, generally only one story high, have but one door, with all the external windows crossed by heavy iron bars, not unlike those of our jails.17

This, however, is not peculiar to Ciudad Bolivar, but obtains throughout Latin America, as it obtains in all the parts of Spain formerly occupied by the Moors. Yet these windows, which are in themselves so forbidding, are in the cool of the evening the most attractive parts of the house. Here bevies of bright, well-dressed seÑoritas, who, during the heat of the day remain secluded in their rooms or some shady corner of the patio, congregate to enjoy the fresh air that is wafted to them on the wings of the trade-winds, to listen to the daily gossip and to exchange confidences with those of their companions who may have called to spend the evening. Here and there one will observe some philandering caballero, dressed as faultlessly as Beau Brummel, exchanging vows with some languishing Dulcinea behind the bars. So absorbed are they in each other that they are totally oblivious of all else in the world, and utterly unconscious of the attention they attract from the passers-by. For the time being they themselves are the world and for them everything else is nonexistent.

We were sitting one evening in the beautiful plaza of Ciudad Bolivar, listening to the music of the military band which plays here several times a week. The Élite of the city were there. Beautiful, dark-eyed seÑoritas, adorned with their graceful mantillas, were promenading with their fathers and mothers, and gay young cavaliers were following at a discreet distance, Á la EspaÑola. The tropical trees and flowers, which gave to the plaza the aspect of a botanical garden, were beautifully illuminated, and, without any effort of the imagination, one could easily imagine one’s self in fairyland. Hard by, a young lady from Trinidad, on whose finger was a sparkling solitaire, was recounting, in a more audible tone than she imagined, the pleasures of her voyage up the Orinoco. In the glow of her enthusiasm she declared to her confidant, “I am going to come to the Orinoco during my honeymoon. Don Esteban”—evidently her fiancÉ—“will just have to bring me here. I cannot imagine a more delightful trip anywhere.”

This young lady, who had traveled extensively, in this inadvertent publication of her secret but expresses the impression that would be reiterated, I fancy, by the majority of her sex under the same circumstances. The Orinoco is, indeed, beautiful, and a sail on its placid waters, if not “the most delightful excursion one could take,” as Miss Trinidad declared, is certainly one of the most delightful.

The day before we were to return to the Port-of-Spain, while chatting with a friend on the upper deck of our steamer—which we had made our hotel, because the lodging houses of the city were so poor—we saw a small vessel coming down stream under a full head of steam. On inquiry we found it to be a boat from OrocuÉ, a small town in Colombia, on the river Meta. We immediately called upon the captain of the craft, and, as a result of our interview, determined to accompany him on his return trip to this distant point.

When we left Trinidad, we had no intention of going further up the river than Ciudad Bolivar, but we had enjoyed everything so much, that now that an occasion thus so unexpectedly presented itself, we rejoiced that we should have an opportunity of seeing more of the great Orinoco, and of sailing on the waters of its great tributary, the historic Meta.

Dreams of the past began at once to flit before us as possible realities in the near future. If we once got to OrocuÉ, what was to prevent us from going further up the river—as far as its waters were navigable? Then by crossing the llanos of eastern Colombia, and the Cordilleras of the Andes we would be in far-famed BogotÁ, the Athens of South America.

We had had, it is true, visions of this trip, but rather as something greatly to be desired than as even a remote possibility. And now, in a few moments—after a brief conversation with the captain of the boat that had just moored alongside our own, the journey was decided on, and nothing remained but to make the necessary preparations.

As, however, the steamer would not be ready to go to OrocuÉ for about two weeks, we concluded to return to the Port-of-Spain and come back the following week. This would give us an opportunity of studying more in detail several interesting features of the lower Orinoco that we had only gotten a glimpse of during the upward trip, and of seeing by daylight parts of the river that we had before passed during the night. We would also be able to spend a few more days in the beautiful island of Trinidad, and feast our eyes on its thousand beauties which greet one at every turn.

It was, indeed, providential for us that we returned to Trinidad as we did, for while there—was it chance or was it our usual good fortune?—we found, what above all else we needed in this juncture—a good, brave, enthusiastic companion for the long and arduous trip before us. Our compagnon de voyage, who would fondly affect the ways and dress of a dapper young caballero, and whom, therefore, we shall call C.—caballero—was a professor of languages. He had traveled extensively, was interested in the Spanish language and literature and the peoples we were about to visit. He was, like ourselves, fond of adventure, and was not averse to its being accompanied by an element of danger. This only gave additional zest to what were else rather tame and prosaic. Our plans were soon made, and, before the steamer was ready to return to Ciudad Bolivar, we were fully equipped with everything necessary for our long trip across the continent.