CHAPTER VIII
On the fourth day, about two hours’ sail from the confluence of the Tua with the Meta River, we stopped at a large cattle-ranch called Santa Barbara. The owner invited us to a dinner—the inevitable dishes of the llano: meat roasted over a bonfire, plaintains and coffee.
The ranch consisted, we were told, of about 10,000 head of cattle, and was typical of the ranches to be found on the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela.
Here, in the person of what might be called the sub-manager, whose name was Secundino, we came face to face with a real tiger-hunter.
After dinner I asked Secundino how men fleeted the time away in that lonely region beyond the din of civilized life. His statements corroborated what I had heard before, that there is no ownership of land in the llanos; the herds graze freely over the plains, the animals being practically wild, and kept together by the presence amongst them of a few tame cattle which, being accustomed to the presence of man, will remain in the neighbourhood of the houses or caneyes. Another great attraction to the cattle is the salt which is strewn upon large slabs of stone or flat boards. By these two devices, thousands of animals are kept within a comparatively short distance of the ranch.
To enable each ranch-owner to brand the cattle belonging to him, rodeos or round-ups are held two or three times during the year. These rodeos are gatherings of the herds. The men ride out in all directions from the ranch, and drive the cattle towards the corrales. In this task they are greatly helped by the presence of the tame animals, which are easily led or driven as required, and are always followed by the others.
Once in the corrales, the branding begins. A red-hot iron is used, shaped either to form one or two letters or some special sign which constitutes the trade or hall mark, so to speak, of the respective ranch. The animals are forced to pass through a long, narrow enclosure between two fences, and are branded as they go by; but with animals that give a great deal of trouble a different method is followed. This consists in starting the bull, heifer, or cow, as the case may be, on the run. A man on horseback follows, and when both the horse and the bull have attained sufficient impetus, the man seizes the bull by the tail, and with a sudden twist turns it over on its side, jumping at once from his horse to pass the tail under the bull’s leg; this compresses certain muscles, prevents all motion, and leaves the fallen animal helpless. The branding is then done without any difficulty, either on the fore or the hind quarters.
Secundino told us that this way of throwing the cattle down was not confined to the branding season, but that it formed a frequent sport amongst herdsmen in the plains, as it required great skill to accomplish it. Another sport in which he and his friends indulged, and which he described with great zest, was riding wild bulls. The process consists first in throwing the bull to the ground, whereupon a thick rope is tied as a girdle, only that it is placed quite close to the withers and right under the forelegs of the animal. All this time the bull has been held on the ground, bellowing and panting for sheer rage; as soon as the rope is ready, the intending rider stands by the side of the animal with his two hands stuck between the rope and the skin, on either side of the spine, and the moment the bull is let loose and stands on its feet the man leaps on its back. Then follows a wonderful struggle: the beast, unaccustomed to any burden, rears and plunges, springs backwards and forwards with great violence; the man, always spurred, increases the fury of the animal by pricking its sides. His two arms, like bars of iron, stand rigid, and man and bullock seem as though made of one piece. At last the bull is exhausted, and sullenly acknowledges the superior force of the rider; but it takes rare courage and strength to accomplish this feat.
After describing these and other pastimes, Secundino quietly added:
‘Whenever my work leaves me time, I kill tigers.’
He said this unpretentiously, yet with a certain air of self-consciousness that must have brought the shadow of a doubting smile to my lips. Secundino saw this, and, without appearing to take notice of it, invited us outside the house, and showed us, at a certain distance from it, lying on the ground, ten tigers’ skulls, some of which bore traces of having been recently cleansed from skin and flesh.
‘You see,’ he added, ‘that I have some proofs of my tiger-killing!’
He told us that the tigers were the worst enemies of the cattle-farmer.
‘Other animals,’ he said, ‘will take just what they want, but the tiger is fierce, cruel, and kills for the sake of killing. If he should happen to get into an enclosure containing twenty or thirty young calves, he will kill them all, and take one away with him. We are at open and constant warfare with the tigers,’ he added, ‘and there is no truce between us.’
The llaneros usually kill tigers by spearing them. Referring to this, Secundino said that doubtless it was more dangerous than shooting the beast down at long range with a Winchester or a Remington rifle; ‘but,’ he went on to say, ‘powder and lead are expensive, cartridges are difficult to obtain, and when once exhausted your weapon is no better than a broomstick. The spear, however, is always ready, and never fails you. When I go out tiger-hunting I take my dogs, who follow the scent and guide me. I carry with me, besides the spears, a muzzle-loader, in case of emergency. The moment the dogs see the tiger they give cry; the beast seeks higher ground, and the fight with the dogs begins at once. The tiger is afraid even of a cur. The dogs that we have here are well trained, and though at times they are killed by the tiger, that seldom happens. I follow my dogs, keeping the animal well in sight, with my spear ready, and at the right moment dash forward and plunge it into his breast. If the blow is a good one, that ends it. Now and then it is necessary to fire the rifle into him; but this is a great pity, owing to the waste of lead and gunpowder.’
I am trying to repeat here word by word Secundino’s quiet statement. It sounds fanciful and exaggerated, but all those who have travelled over the plains of either Venezuela or Colombia will have heard that such is the commonest mode of tiger-killing amongst the llaneros. The tiger of these latitudes, however, is not the same as the tiger of India and other parts of Asia. It is smaller, but not less ferocious; it is spotted, and not striped. The spear used is very long, made of very hard wood, and has a most murderous appearance.
Secundino, after telling me of his short way with tigers, asked me to handle the weapon, and generously gave me some instructions as to the exact poise to be adopted for striking a blow, explaining to me how dangerous it might be were I to forget the rules which he could recommend from experience. To begin with, I could hardly lift the spear, and, then, there was practically no chance of my ever going to seek a tiger in his lair. Secundino, however, was profoundly in earnest, and, rather than disabuse him or hurt his feelings, I solemnly promised him that I would never kill tigers otherwise than in strict conformity with his advice, and that at the first opportunity I would practise throwing the spear and poising my body, so as to make sure.
Towards evening, as we were about leaving, when I was already seated in the canoe, whilst Leal was still ashore, I overheard these words passing between him and Secundino:
‘How far are you going, Friend Leal?’
‘Down to the Orinoco, to accompany these gentlemen.’
‘How are you coming back, by land or by water?’
‘I do not know yet—that depends.’
‘Well, all right; if you come this way, I should like you to tackle a horse that we have here, which no one seems able to ride, and which I dare not tackle myself.’
‘Never you mind,’ answered Leal; ‘I will see to it when I return.’
Here was a revelation. Leal’s prowess grew in our estimation. This guide of ours was called upon to break in a horse which Secundino, the tiger-hunter, whose title to the name, if devoid of diplomas or academic signatures, was vouched for by the ten tiger-skulls which we had seen, would not dare to ride himself!
On we went towards the Meta River, leaving our friends on the shore shouting to us messages of good speed. We soon noticed that our canoe, being lighter in draft, had left the other far behind it.
It darkened much earlier than we expected, and to our great regret we saw that the second canoe could not catch us up, which was annoying, as supper, beds, and everything else, with the exception of a demijohn of aniseed aguardiente, were in it. We landed at the first beach that we struck, hoping against hope that the stragglers might overtake us.
Time had passed so agreeably at Santa Barbara, listening to Secundino’s tales, that we had not noticed how late it was. It seemed to us, furthermore, that darkness had set in earlier than usual. On hearing some remark to that effect, Fermin observed that the sun had set for us that day earlier than usual. He laid stress upon the words ‘for us,’ and, on being asked what he meant thereby, said that the darkness had been caused by a cloud which had interposed itself between us and the setting sun, thus bringing night earlier than usual.
‘What nonsense are you talking about?’ said Raoul. ‘There is no cloud in the matter; we went on talking and talking, and forgot the time.’
‘No, sir,’ Fermin said, without moving a muscle; ‘I know what I am talking about. The cloud was formed by the feathers of that bird which we tried to pluck yesterday; they are so many that they darken the light of the sun!’
Up to this day I cannot say what happened. I do not know if we mistook the hour of the day and were overtaken by night, or if, in truth, as Fermin asserted, the wrathful ghost of the mishandled duck spread its black feathers above our heads, thus forming a mantle like the mantle of arrows which the Spartan warriors asked the Persian invaders to fire at them, so that they might fight in the shade. This problem, which contains historical, astronomical and atmospherical elements, will remain for ever as dark and mysterious as the feathers of the dead bird.
CHAPTER IX
Night soon asserted her sway. The blue vault of heaven, alive with innumerable stars, was clear and diaphanous; no cloud was to be seen. The evening noises died away, and the dead silence was only broken now and then by a vague rumour wafted mysteriously through space—the wash of waters on the shore, or possibly the lisp of forests by the river. We gave up all hope of the other canoe arriving that night, and faced the inevitable—no supper, no beds. As in our own canoe we carried a demijohn of aguardiente, one or two generous draughts were our only supper. We were not hampered by excess of riches or of comforts; as to the selection of our beds, the whole extent of the beach was equally sandy and soft; but, having slept for many nights on the shores of the Tua, and knowing that we were at its confluence with the Meta, for the sake of a change—a distinction without a difference—we stretched ourselves full length on the side of the beach looking to the Meta River.
The water-course, practically unknown to civilization, appeared to me as I lay there like a wandering giant lost amidst the forests and the plains of an unknown continent. The surface of the waters sparkled in the starlight like hammered steel. My thoughts followed the luminous ripples until they were lost to sight in the darkness of the opposite shore, or, wandering onwards with the flow, melted into the horizon. Whither went those waters? Whence came they? What were their evolutions, changes, and transformations? Idle questions! Flow of life or flow of wave, who but He that creates all things can know its source and its finality? Idle cavillings indeed!
Suddenly, as drowsiness had begun to seize me, a wonderful phenomenon took place. There from the midst of the waters arose an indistinct yet mighty figure; high it stood amidst the waters which parted, forming a sort of royal mantle upon its shoulders; it gazed upon me with the sublime placidity of the still seas, the high mountains, the unending plains, the primeval forests, and all the manifestations of Nature, great and serene in their power and majesty. And the figure spoke:
‘Listen to me, O pilgrim, lost in these vast solitudes; listen to the voice of the wandering streams! We rivers bring life to forest and valley; we are children of the mountains, heralds of continents, benefactors of man. My current, powerful and mighty though it seems, is but a tiny thread of the many streams that, mingled and interwoven, so to say, go to form the main artery of whirling, heaving water called the Orinoco. From north and south, from east and west, we all flow along the bosom of the plains, after having gathered unto ourselves the playful streamlets, the murmuring brooks that swell into torrents and dash down the mountain-sides, filling the hills and the intervening valleys with life and joy. They come from the highest slopes—nay, from the topmost peaks crowned with everlasting snow, the sources of our life; down they rush, and after innumerable turns and twists, after forming now cataracts, now placid lakes, reach the plain, and in their course they broaden the large streams which in turn merge with others in the huge basin, and form the vast artery that drains the surface of a great part of the continent, and bears its tribute to the Atlantic Ocean. Yea, verily indeed, we rivers are as twin brothers of Time; the hours pass and pass, ceaseless as our waves; they flow into Eternity, we into the bosom of the great deep. This land, the land of your birth and of mine, to-day an unknown quantity in the history of the world, is a destined site of a mighty empire. The whole continent of South America is the reserve store for the future generations of millions of men yet unborn. Hither they will come from all parts of the world: on the surface of the globe no more favourable spot exists for the home of mankind. Along the coast of the Pacific Ocean runs the mighty backbone of the Cordillera like a bulwark, high, immense, stately; above it, like the towers and turrets in the walls of a fortified city, rise the hundred snow-capped peaks that look east and west, now on the ocean, now on the ever-spreading undulating plains, and south and north to the line of mountains extending for thousands of miles.
‘In the very heart of the tropical zone, where the equatorial sun darts his burning rays, are the plateaus of the Andes, hundreds of square miles in extent, with all the climates and the multitudinous products of the temperate zone. In the heart and bowels of the mountains are the precious metals coveted by man’s avarice and vanity, those forming the supreme goal of his endeavours; and the useful—indeed, the truly precious—metals, coal, iron, copper, lead, and all others that are known to man, exist in a profusion well-nigh illimitable. The trade-winds, whose wings have swept across the whole width of the Atlantic Ocean, laden with moisture, do not stop their flight when the sea of moving waters ceases and the sea of waving grass begins. Across the plains, over the tree-tops of the primeval forests, shaking the plumage of the palm-trees, ascending the slopes of the hills, higher, still higher, into the mountains, and finally up to the loftiest peaks, those winds speed their course, and there the last drops of moisture are wrung from them by that immeasurable barrier raised by the hand of God; their force seems to be spent, and, like birds that have reached their native forest, they fold their wings and are still. The moisture thus gathered and thus deposited forms the thousand currents of water that descend from the heights at the easternmost end of the continent, and convert themselves into the largest and most imposing water systems in the world. Thus is formed the Orinoco system, which irrigates the vast plains of Colombia and Venezuela. Further south, created by a similar concurrence of circumstances and conditions, the Amazon system drags the volume of its wandering sea across long, interminable leagues of Brazilian forest and plain. Its many streams start in their pilgrimage from the interior of Colombia, of Ecuador, of Peru, and of Bolivia, and these two systems of water-ways, which intersect such an immense extent of land thousands of miles from the mouth of the main artery that plunges into the sea, are connected by a natural canal, the Casiquiare River, so that the traveller might enter either river, follow its course deep into the heart of the continent, cross by water to the other, and then reappear on the ocean, always in the same boat.
‘If the wealth of the mountains is boundless and virgin, if on the slopes and on the plateaus and the neighbouring valleys all the agricultural products useful to man may be grown—and the forests teem with wealth that belongs to him who first takes it—if the rocks likewise cover or bear immense deposits of all the metals and minerals useful to man, the lowlands and the plains offer grazing-ground for untold herds of cattle and horses, and further to the south beyond the Amazon, running southward, not eastward like the Orinoco and the Amazon, the Parana unrolls its waves, which, after leaving the tropic, enter the southern temperate zone, irrigating for untold miles the endless pampas of Argentina and Uruguay. In very truth, this continent is the Promised Land.
‘In your pilgrimage along the waters of the Orinoco, you will see all the wonders of tropical Nature. Now the forests will stand on either bank close along the shores in serried file, and moving mirrors of the waters will reflect the murmuring tops of the trees, noisy and full of life as the winds sweep by in their flight, or else the frowning rock, bare and rugged, will stand forth from the current like the wall of a medieval castle. Now the trees will open a gap through which, as from under a triumphal arch, the current of a river, a wanderer from the mysterious and unknown depths of the neighbouring forests, pours forth into the main stream and mingles with the passing waters, joining his fate to theirs, even as the High Priest of some unknown creed might issue from the temple and mingle with the passing crowd. Some rivers that reach the main artery have had but a short pilgrimage, the junction of their many waters having taken place at no great distance from the main stream; others have had a long wandering, sometimes placid and serene, sometimes amidst rocks and boulders, with an ever frenzied and agitated course like the lives of men striving and struggling till the last great trumpet sounds. The course of the river will be studded with islands large enough for the foundation of empires, and before reaching the sea the river will extend and spread its current into a thousand streams, as if loth to part from the Mother Earth it sought to embrace more firmly in its grasp, and our waters will flow into the unplumbed deep, there to mingle with those of all the rivers, whether their course has been through lands alive with civilization, swarming with multitudes of men on their shores, laden with the memories of centuries and famous in history, or whether they, like us, have wandered through vast solitudes where Nature is still supreme in her primeval pride, as yet unpolluted by the hand of man. There we all meet, and to us what men call time and its divisions exist not, for all the transformations that affect mankind are as naught to us who form part and parcel of Nature itself, who only feel time after the lapse of æons which to the mind of man are practically incomprehensible. Seek to learn the lesson of humility, to acknowledge the power of the Creator, who gave to man what we rivers and all other material things can never hope for—a future beyond this earth, higher, brighter, infinite, eternal.’
The figure seemed to sink slowly under the mantle of waters that had covered its shoulders; the sun was rising in the eastern horizon, the rumour of awakening Nature filled the air with its thousand echoes, and drifting rapidly towards us we saw Leal with the canoe that had remained behind the night before.
On telling Alex, Raoul, and Fermin my experience, and asking in good faith what they had thought of the visitation, they looked askance at me. It seems that sleep had overpowered them; they had not seen the river-god of the Meta, and irreverently set down the whole occurrence to the quality of my supper the preceding night. It is ever thus with unbelievers; they will seek some material or vulgar explanation for that which they cannot understand and have not seen.
That very morning, after the necessary arrangements and the usual morning coffee, we started down the Meta River. If we might have called the navigation on the Tua somewhat amphibious, navigation on the Meta, specially for such small craft as we possessed, seemed to us as on the open sea. Our first care was to seek larger canoes. Leal guided us through one of the neighbouring caños to a cattle-ranch, where he expected to suit our requirements. This caño chanced to be famous for its snakes, principally of the kind called macaurel, a dark brownish species, varying from 2 to 4 and 5 feet in length, and from ¼ inch to 2 inches in diameter. When in repose they coil themselves around the branches of the trees, and their bite, if not cured immediately, is fatal. Leal shot one of the horrible reptiles in the body; the linking of the rings that take the place of vertebræ being thus unloosened, the coils became wider, the animal lost its grip and fell into the water, staining it with a blue-greenish reflection of a metallic hue. It seems that one shot of the smallest size is sufficient to kill these snakes, provided it breaks one of the rings above mentioned. I shuddered as we passed under the trees, knowing that many of these dreaded reptiles must be above our heads. The caño in some parts was so narrow and the forest so dense that it was impossible to avoid the overhanging branches, and when I thought that we should have to go over the same route next day, disgust and a feeling of dread took possession of me. By the time we reached our destination, after a journey of eight or ten miles, over twenty of these creatures had been brought down. We obtained two large canoes, which seemed to us like veritable ships or floating palaces compared to the little craft we had used for so many days. We turned to the river Meta, and did not feel safe until we had left the caño behind, and could breathe once more in the open air on the bosom of the large river, with only heaven above our heads.
The Meta River, which flows entirely upon Colombian territory, describes large winding curves in its course eastward towards the Orinoco. Its banks are high and well defined, its channel fairly steadfast even in the dry season. This is not common, most of these rivers often shifting their course, to the despair of pilots and navigators. Both sides of the Meta we knew were occupied, or, rather, frequently visited, by various wild tribes. Now and then Leal would point out a part of the shore, stating that it belonged to some ranch, but how he could know was a mystery to us, as no visible difference existed.
The temperature, though quite hot in the middle of the day, was agreeable, and even cool, in the early morning and a greater part of the night. The trade-wind, which blows steadily every day during the dry season, at times gathered such force that we were compelled, going against it as we did, to wait long hours for it to subside. Our canoes were not so arranged as to enable us to hoist sail and tack against the wind.
On the river Meta we observed a large species of fish, which, had we been at sea, we should have identified at once as porpoises. The men told us that they were called bufeos, and in reality came from the sea, having ascended the waters of the Orinoco for thousands of miles, and branched off into the Meta River. One of the men, illiterate like all his fellows, but versed in forest, mountain and plain lore, stated that those bufeos were the friends of man; that they loved music and song; that they would follow a boat or canoe whence the echoes of singing or of some musical instrument could be heard for miles and miles at a time; that when they were present in the water the alligators and all the other enemies of man kept away, or were driven away by the bufeos; and that whenever by chance the fishermen caught one of these, he would at once release it in remembrance of their friendship for mankind. These were, therefore, our old-time friends the porpoises.
The simple tale of the man, one of our paddlers, who had never been in a city in his life nor seen any of the wonders of our times, to whose mind such words as civilization, Fatherland, and religion, as well as many others that form the glib vocabulary of modern man, were mere empty sounds or air, could not but set me a-thinking—first, as to the value of those words. Fatherland, our country, his and mine, yet how different the conception, and how those consecrated, holy words are abused by the tricksters, great and small, who control and exploit mankind for their own benefit! Patriotism should consist in justice and equality of rights and tolerance to all, whereas, in fact, it is but a mask for the greed and avarice of the strong. My countryman is he whose ideals are identical with mine. What makes another being my fellow-man and my brother is an identity of ideals, not a concurrence of geographical conditions of birth. If he who is born ten thousand miles away in an unknown climate and in a different latitude shares with me the love of justice and of freedom, and will struggle for them even as I would, why should we be separated by conventional distinctions which benefit neither him nor me nor justice nor freedom as ideals?
I thought, are these lands and this vast continent still virgin in the sense that humanity has not exploited them? are they to be the last scene of the stale criminal imposture now called civilization? Are men to come by thousands and by millions to these plains and these mountains, and settle on the shores of these rivers, bringing with them their old prejudices, their old tyrannical conventionalities, the hatreds that have stained history with blood for hundreds and for thousands of years, rearing on these new lands the old iniquities, calling them fatherlands, baptizing their crimes with holy words, and murdering in the name of patriotism? If such is to be the future of these lands, far better were it that the mighty rivers should overflow their course and convert into one immense lake, twin brother of the neighbouring sea, the vast plains, the endless mysterious forest; and that the immense bulwark of the Andes, aflame with a thousand volcanoes, should make the region inhospitable and uninhabitable to man: for of iniquity there is enough, and no more should be created under God’s heaven.
But the tale set me also a-thinking of the power of tradition and the beauty of song. If my memory plays me no trick, Arion, homeward-bound from the Court of Corinth, and laden with gifts of a King who worshipped song, was seized and thrown into the sea by the crew, but the listening dolphins or porpoises, grateful for the heavenly message thus delivered by him, bore him ashore and saved his life. So, more or less, runs the classical tale; and here in the wilds of America, from the lips of an unlettered woodman, the same beautiful conceit, clothed in simple words, had rung in my ears. The power of song, the beauty of the legend, had filtered itself through hundreds of generations from the days of our mother Greece, the mother of art and of beauty, across the mountains and the years and the seas and the continents, and the legend and the allegory were alive in their pristine and essential characteristics in the forests of tropical America. This gave me hope. If the power of things ideal, of things that have in them the divine charm of undying force, overcomes time and distance, why should not the ideal of righteousness, of liberty, and of justice prevail? And the vast continent of South America, why should it not be the predestined home of a happy and regenerate humanity? The trade-winds which come from the old world and across the ocean are purified on the heights of the Cordilleras. Even so humanity in that pilgrimage that is bound to take place ere long, as the ancient world begins to overflow, may regenerate itself and establish liberty and justice in that new world. If these be dreams, awakening were bitter.
We soon heard that it was easy to reach one of the affluents of the Vichada by crossing the plains for about a mile overland, and, all things considered, decided to abandon the Meta River, even though the journey might be longer than we had at first intended. Thus, on the fourth day of navigation down the Meta we stopped, and at a place known as San Pedro del Arrastradero, where we found quite a large settlement, about 150 people, we left the Meta behind us and at once made ready for our journey through the Vichada, as large as the Meta, we were told, and inhabited by numerous savage tribes. This gave additional interest to the journey, and we looked forward to it with pleasure.
CHAPTER X
The settlement of San Pedro del Arrastradero—or of Arimena, as it is also called—lies on the right shore of the River Meta about 150 miles from its confluence with the Orinoco. Within a very short distance of the Meta at that point, less than a mile to the south, the caño of Caracarate branches towards the Muco River, which, flowing to the south-east, joins the Vichada; the latter, of about the same volume as the Meta, flows south-east till it strikes the Orinoco above the rapids. The Meta and the Vichada and the Orinoco form a triangle, of which the last named is the base. The Vichada enters the main stream some fifty miles above, and the Meta about 200 miles below, the series of rapids which divide the river into the Lower and the Upper Orinoco.
Scattered far and wide at long distances apart on the plain which borders the Meta are numerous cattle-ranches, and on its very shores are settlements testifying to the effort of civilized man. But the new region that we were about to enter, irrigated by the Muco, the Vichada, and their affluents, is absolutely wild, and has seldom been crossed by white men other than stray missionaries, or adventurous traders in search of cheap rubber, resinous substances, tonga beans, hammocks, etc. These the Indians exchange for trifles, or implements which they prize very highly: to the wild inhabitants an axe, a cutlass, a knife, are veritable treasures, distinguishing their owner among his fellows.
The tribes along the shores of the Meta River were known to be mostly hostile and aggressive. Travellers on that river always, if possible, pitch their camps on islets in mid-stream for fear of night attacks, and even then they need to keep strict watch and have their arms beside them. It is dangerous for small expeditions to cross the part of the river below San Pedro del Arrastradero.
But the tribes along the region that we were about to cross, though no less primitive than the others, are mild and easily amenable to civilization. They are numerous, and under good guidance might be advantageously employed in useful work, might be taught to gather the natural products abounding in the forests, and cultivate the soil systematically. Their present notions of agriculture are elementary; they only practise it on a very small scale, relying principally on what they can hunt and fish.
At San Pedro we found an individual who for over thirty years had been in the habit of travelling on the Muco and the Vichada, often going as far as Ciudad Bolivar, near the mouth of the Orinoco. He had amassed a little fortune by trading with the Indians. He spoke their dialect, and practised polygamy in accordance with their unsophisticated rites and customs. It was said that he had a great number of children along the shores of the river; he could therefore recommend us to his family, so to speak. His name was Gondelles. He had often accompanied the missionaries who had attempted to preach the Gospel among the savages, and, unless Rumour was a lying jade, he had himself strenuously endeavoured to observe that Divine precept which refers to increasing and multiplying the human species!
The Indians of this region are specially expert in weaving beautiful hammocks from fibres of the various kinds of maguey or agave plants, or else extracted from the leaves of the moriche. The most prized, however, are those made of fibre of the cumare palm, soft and pliant as silk. A large and comfortable hammock woven of this fibre will take up the smallest possible space and last longer than any other. These Indians are also skilled in canoe-making; with their primitive stone instruments, aided by fire, they will make admirable canoes of one piece, hewn from the trunk of a tree. These canoes at times are so large that they will seat from twenty to twenty-five men comfortably, but most of them are small craft easily handled, holding six or eight persons at most.
Some of the men who had accompanied us thus far now refused to continue the journey. We were informed that it would be comparatively easy to replace them with Indians who would accompany us for four or five days at a trifling wage. The tribes being numerous, it would not be difficult to find new hands at each stage.
The wage of our new canoe men was always paid in kind: a handkerchief, a pound of salt, an empty bottle, a strip of gaudy silk—we had still some London cravats—were the most coveted articles. The idea of equity and work done for value received does not exist amongst the Indians. We soon found that it was folly to give them the article agreed upon until the work was done; for once the men had received what they coveted, they would abandon us, stealthily leaving the camp in the dusk at the first landing, and sometimes even rushing into the jungle in broad daylight.
So now with a full crew, now crippled, we managed to continue the journey, first for six days on the Muco, and then on the Vichada, the navigation of which proved to be much longer than we had expected.
The general aspect of Nature on these two rivers differed very little from what we had seen on the Meta. The shores of the Muco are generally covered with mangroves that push far into the current their submerged network of roots and branches, of which one must steer clear, as they are hiding-places for snakes, and are apt, if struck unexpectedly, to capsize the canoes. These beautiful clear waters, so harmless, so placid, in appearance, are in truth full of danger. Apart from alligators and water snakes, they abound in a species of small fish called caribe, which attack men and animals, especially if they find a sore spot in the skin. They swarm in such quantities and are so voracious that a bull or a horse crossing the river, if attacked by these fish, may lose a leg, or receive such a deep wound in the body that death is inevitable. No less perilous is the electric eel, which, on being touched, gives a shock so strong that the man or animal receiving it generally falls into the stream. Even tigers are known to have been struck by these peculiar fish, and it is said that some have been drowned, being unable to recover themselves in time.
During the month of January the turtles begin to lay their eggs. Our attention was called to a specially bright star in the horizon, which the men asserted only appeared in that month of the year. It was called the star of the terecayes. The terecay is a small species of turtle, and much prized, and with reason, on account of its exquisite flesh. On more than one occasion, quite unexpectedly, the canoes would be steered ashore, the men would jump on the sand and run as if guided by some well-known landmark. After a few yards they would stop, and, digging in the sand with their hands, would extract a nest full of terecay eggs, the contents varying from fifty to over a hundred. Their experienced eyes had seen the tracks of the terecay on the sand. These turtles, like all others, lay their eggs once a year on the sand, and cover them up carefully, leaving the cares of motherhood to the forces of Nature. Once hatched in this fashion, the young turtles must shift for themselves, and their instinct tells them that their numerous enemies lie in watch for their awakening to active life. The moment they break the shell they make as quickly as they can for the neighbouring waters, where they are comparatively safe.
If the inhabitants of those regions lack book-learning and knowledge of things in which their more civilized fellow-creatures are versed, Nature and the life which they lead have given them a keenness of sight, of hearing, and of touch far beyond the average citizen of town and village. I often noticed of an evening, as the canoes were being tied and hoisted halfway out of the water, that the men walking along the beach would mutter to themselves, or call the attention of their fellows to the sand, which to me seemed smooth and uniform. Pointing to the ground, they would say, duck, turtle, tapir, alligator, wild-boar, deer, tiger, and so forth. The tracks which they saw were, so to speak, the visiting-cards of animals which had spent the day on the beach where our camp was pitched at night.
When we first came in contact with a real wild Indian I experienced a feeling very difficult to describe.
Here was a being whose appearance was identical with our own, save for details of colour of skin and other trivial distinctions which could not affect the essential organic elements; yet he awakened within us a curiosity akin to that with which we gaze at a wild animal in some zoological garden. What a deep gulf yawned between that forlorn brother and ourselves! The work of generations, the treasures heaped up by man for man during centuries of struggle and endeavour, hopes and fears, disappointments, traditions, ideals, conventionalities, all that constitutes civilization; the higher belief in a Supreme Being, the evolution of habits, the respect for established laws and regulations, the reverence for sacred things—all that world essential to us was as naught, absolutely non-existent, for that naked fellow-creature who stood before us, unprotected, lost amid the forest in a climate unfavourable to man. There was no one to help him, or make any effort to improve the natural forces within him, none to lift his soul into a higher and better world. Curiosity gave way to pity. The labour of the missionary—of the ideal missionary—became holier and greater in my eyes. Here was a field of promising harvest for a real worker.
One clear and fragrant night, when all the camp slept, the bonfires half out, the river a few feet off, as I lay awake thinking of the world to which we belonged, so different from our present surroundings, so distant that it seemed a far-off cloud in the sky, something that had gone by, and which could never be reached again, I suddenly remembered the words uttered by one of our men when we landed that afternoon upon the beach. He had clearly enumerated a long list of animals whose tracks were upon the very sand covered by my body. Logic took possession of my brain with overpowering rapidity. The alligator, the tiger, and their numerous companions have visited this beach; they may again visit it during the night. What is to hinder them from doing so; and in that case, what is to protect me from their attack? Little did I care for the wild-boar, the tapir, or the deer—I knew they would be as scared of me as I was of the other animals; and so, after this attack of fright, my imagination worked till the sweat began to run clammy on my forehead. It seemed to me that from the neighbouring forest a veritable Noah’s-ark of living, rushing, roaring, famished beasts, multiplied by my fancy, and numerous as the progeny of Gondelles, came upon us. I almost felt the hot breath and saw the glistening eyes of the tiger outside the thin partition of cotton of my mosquito-bar, heard the awkward shamble of the alligator’s body, and felt the unpleasant, musky odour of the huge lizard an instant before it crushed my bones between its jaws. Unable to master myself, I sat upright, and would have yelled from dread but for the spectacle that met my eyes in the moonlight, flooding the surrounding scene. There to right and left of me snored all my companions; the river shone brilliantly, the breeze blew softly, no one stirred. This absence of fear on the part of those who were perfectly familiar with all the dangers of the region reassured me completely. Oh blessed snores and valiant snorers! My peace of mind returned, and, lying back upon my sandy couch, I lustily joined the tuneful choir.
Community of danger constitutes the most acceptable guarantee; no man ever thinks of ascertaining who drives the locomotive that is to whirl him and hundreds of his fellow-creatures at lightning speed through glade and forest, over bridge and under tunnel; no man questions the capability of the captain responsible for the steamship and for the lives of thousands of his fellow-men; the most distrustful of us never gives a thought to these points. Why? Because we know that the driver or the captain, as the case may be, stakes his own life. Each humble boatman who listened to Cæsar’s proud assurance that the skiff could not sink because it carried him and all his fortunes equalled Cæsar in self-esteem, for the lives of those poor mariners were as dear to them as Cæsar’s life could be to him. The truth of my assertion that community of danger constitutes the acceptability of a given guarantee is demonstrated when, for instance, a traveller entrusting his life on a railway or a ship to the agent of a company advances or lends money to the same company. Then comes the hour of discrimination. All the appliances invented by that most wonderful engine of human ingenuity, the law of commerce, which in its numerous forms rules the world paramount and supreme, are brought to bear. No one’s word is accepted as sufficient; documents, signatures, seals, formalities, numerous and complicated, are employed as a delicate proof of the trust that the man of the world ever places in the good faith of his brother before God. This suspicion is responsible for an enormous amount of expense and trouble which, were good faith more abundant or were belief in its existence general, might be applied to relieve misery and sorrow. If the action of humanity all the world over in this dreary endeavour to protect man from the rascality of man be justified, we are, indeed, not very far removed in truth and in essence from the savages of the forest, who seize what they need and prey upon each other according to the dictates of nature. If beauty be but skin-deep, civilization is not more profoundly ingrained, and the smallest rub reveals the primitive ravening beast. Yet I may be mistaken; perhaps it is not distrust which begets all those precautions, but something so noble that I dare not presume to divine, much less to understand, it.
CHAPTER XI
Though several years have elapsed since my journey across those wild vast regions, the remembrance of them is most vivid and clear in my mind. It seems to me that everything in that period of my life, landscape and human beings, forest and plain, stream and cloud, mountains and breezes, all, all are still alive; they form part of the panorama or scene wherein my memory keeps them immortal, abiding for ever as I saw them, though unattainable to me. What was, is; what was, must be; so I imagine. Memory is in this respect like the artist. The sculptor or the painter seizes one moment of life, fashions and records it in marble or in bronze, in line or colour, and there it remains defying time, unchanging and unchangeable. The gallery of the mind, the vast storehouse of the past, is infinite. It keeps in its inmost inexhaustible recesses the living record of our life, the tremulous shadowy hues of early night deepening into the dark, the glory of the rising sun casting its veil of light upon the waves, the sensation of the breeze as it fans our heated brow after an anxious night, the thunder of the ocean or the deafening tumult of frenzied crowds in hours of national misfortune or universal anger, the last parting word or look of those who are gone before, the blithe greeting of him who comes back to us after years of absence and of sorrow: all these manifestations of life, the ebb and flow of joy and happiness, of pain and grief, stand individualized, so to speak, in the memory, and nothing, save the loss of memory itself, can change them. Nothing so dear to the heart as those treasures; against them time and the vicissitudes of life are powerless—even as the lovers and the dancers and the singers and the enchanted leafy forest in Keats’ ‘Grecian Urn.’ That love will know no disappointment. Sweet as songs heard may be, far sweeter are those unheard of human ear; beautiful as are the green boughs of the forest, far lovelier are those whose verdure is imperishable, whose leaves will know no autumn; and sweeter than all melody, the unheard melody of those flutes, dumb and mute in the infinite harmony which man can imagine, but not create. Our own mind keeps that record of the past; hallowed and sacred should it be, for therein our sorrow may find relief, and our joy purity and new strength.
Beautiful indeed were our days. Gliding softly over the waters, we would read, and there, in forced and intimate communion with Nature, would seek our old-time friends the historians, the poets, the humbler singers that had charmed, or instructed, or taught us how to live. The lessons of history seemed clearer and more intelligible, the puissant and sonorous voice of poetry sounded fitly under that blue sky in the midst of those forests, even as the notes of the organ seem to vibrate and echo as in their very home, under the fretted vault of some Gothic temple. The majesty of surrounding Nature lent an additional charm to the voice of the great ones who had delivered a message of consolation and of hope to mankind. We lived now in Rome, now in Greece, now in modern Europe, and frequently the songs of our own poets filled our minds with joy, as the twitter of native birds when the sun rose and the morning sparkled, bedewed with jewels that night had left on leaves and flowers.
One day, when we had grown expert in bargaining with the Indians, shortly before sunset a solitary Indian paddled towards our camp. He had been attracted by the novel sight. We had learnt that within the memory of living man no such large convoy as ours had passed through those waters; groups of eight or ten men in one canoe were the largest ever seen—at least, the largest groups of strangers. Here was a small army, with two large canoes and great abundance of strange and wonderful equipment—boxes, trunks, weapons, cooking utensils, many men with white faces and marvellous strange array; indeed, enough to attract the attention and curiosity of any child of the forest. The canoe upon which the Indian stood was barely six feet in length—so narrow and shallow that at a distance he seemed to stand on the very mirror of the waters. He carried a large paddle, shaped like a huge rose-leaf somewhat blunted at the end, and with a very long stem. He plunged this gracefully in the water on either side, seeming hardly to bend or to make any effort, and in feathering there appeared a convex mirror of liquid glass, upon which the sunlight fell in prismatic hues each time that his paddle left the water. He drew near, and stood before us like a bronze statue. He was stark naked, save for a clout round his loins. On his brow was a crown of tiger-claws surmounted by two eagle feathers. Across his neck, hung by a string, was a small bag of woven fibre containing a piece of salt, some hooks made of bone and small harpoons which could be set on arrows, and two hollow reeds about an eighth of an inch in diameter and four or five inches long. By means of these reeds the Indians inhale through their nostrils an intoxicating powder, in which they delight. The man was young, powerfully built, about five feet ten in height, and well proportioned; his teeth glistening and regular; his eyes black and large, gleaming like live coals; he was a perfect incarnation of the primitive race, and the hardships and exposure of his past life had left no more trace on him than the flowing waters of the river on the swan’s-down.
Guided by our civilized instinct, which in these utilitarian days prompts man to seek in whatever meets his eye, first and foremost, not its beauty or the symbol which it may represent, or the tendency towards something higher which it may indicate, but its utility, following this delightful system of our latest Christian civilization, I, in common with my companions, at once decided to exploit that simple spirit and press him into our service. Being unable to bargain ourselves—which was lucky for him, for in our enlightened way we should have driven a harder bargain than our men—we entrusted the task to Leal.
The Indian, also true to his instinct, immediately indicated—first by signs, and then by word of mouth, when he saw he was understood—that he craved a part of the innumerable riches before his eyes. He really did not ask for much; he wanted some salt, a knife, a piece of glass like a small mirror that he saw glittering in the hands of one of our men, and whatever else we might be willing to give. He was told that he could have all that he asked and more. He smiled broadly, and a light of joy came over his face. These were signs truly human, not yet trained into the hypocritical conventions of well-bred society. As he stretched forth his hand, he was told that the gift was conditional—that he must earn the articles he coveted, that we expected him to sit beside the other paddlers and help to carry us for two or three days, whereupon he would receive these rich gifts from our prodigal bounty.
This statement seemed to our Indian interlocutor absurd, just as something utterly incongruous and ludicrous in business would strike the mind of a London banker. In his primitive mental organism the idea that one man should work for another was something that found no place. Those forests, rivers, and plains were his home; he roved free and fearless through them, alone or in the company of others, each one of whom provided for himself. A bargain—that basis of civilization, of culture, that great agent of progress and of human development—was something which he could not understand. The essence of the fact, and the fact itself, were beyond him. We could see the struggle between his greed and his love of freedom. The riches that we offered him tempted him far more than glittering diamonds on the counter of a jeweller tempt a vain woman or a burglar at bay. Yet he overcame the temptation. The glad smile vanished; his face darkened with a look that we could interpret as reproach, and possibly contempt; he silently lifted his paddle, and with two strokes sped his canoe into mid-stream. Without glancing backwards, giving now and then a tremendous stroke, he disappeared in the distance. The rays of the sinking sun reddened the waters of the river and the surrounding horizon; the Indian, upright in his canoe, seemed as if clad in a sheet of flame, and finally vanished as though consumed in the crimson glow. The sun itself in the western horizon resembled a huge ball of red-hot iron, as if the Cyclops and the Titans, after playing, had left it behind on the bosom of the endless plain, flat and still as the sea in a calm.