Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela

“Guess I’ve been asleep, and guess the others have been asleep, too.”

It was Frank who uttered the words as he roused up and rubbed his eyes. Mark was still sleeping and Darry and Sam had just stirred like himself. The professor was dozing with a guide book resting on his lap. Everything around the hotel was quiet, only the dripping of the fountain breaking the stillness.

“It’s a sleepy man’s land during midday,” remarked Darry, as he arose slowly to his feet. “The air takes all the ambition out of a fellow. I don’t wonder that no business is transacted excepting during the early morning and late in the afternoon.”

The boys walked around the hotel and then into the street beyond. A few natives were moving about, but that was all. The sun, striking the pavement, made the place like a furnace, and they were glad to retreat once more to the shelter of the court.

“Where is Hockley?” asked Professor Strong, as he, too, roused up.

“I don’t know,” answered Darry, and the others said the same.

“Perhaps he is taking a look around on his own account,” suggested Mark. “He said something about wanting to see the lumber yards, so that he could write to his father and tell him how they handled lumber down here.”

“They handle it here very much as they do everywhere else in South America,” answered the professor. “Some is carried on wagons, but a great deal is transported on the backs of mules.”

“How can a mule carry a long stick of timber?” asked Frank. “If he carried it sideways it would more than block the street.”

“They use two or more mules and it is wonderful how they balance the loads. Then, too, the natives carry a great lot of things on their shoulders and heads.”

“What are the real natives?” asked Darry. “I’ve seen all sorts of people here—white, black, red, and mixed.”

“The real natives are the Indians, Crane,” returned the professor, with a smile. “They lived here long before the days of Columbus, just as they inhabited our own country. Next to the Indians come the Spaniards who were the first settlers. The Spaniards introduced the negroes, who came from Africa and from the West Indies as slaves. The intermixture of these races have produced the mestizoes, who are of Spanish and Indian blood, the mulattoes, of negro and creole blood, and the zambos, of negro and Indian blood. These people are also intermixed, so that it is sometimes impossible to tell what a person is.”

“Like the man in New York who came up to be naturalized,” said Mark. “His father was an Englishman and his mother a Frenchwoman. His grandfather had been born in Germany and his grandmother in Italy. He had emigrated to Canada and there married a Canadian Indian woman. Then he had moved down to New York, and his oldest daughter had married an Irishman. If they have any children it will be hard to tell what they will be.” And there was a general laugh at this sally.

“They’ll be Americans,” said Frank. “Uncle Sam’s flag is wide and broad enough to cover them all, if they care to come under the folds of Old Glory.”

At last came the hour when Enrique Morano’s carriage could be expected and soon a fine turnout hove into sight, drawn by a team of white horses.

“That’s as fine a carriage as any in Central Park,” said Frank.

“It is probably of United States manufacture,” answered the professor. “We export a great number of vehicles to South America.”

“Evidently they appreciate good horseflesh,” put in Mark. “Here come a couple of horsemen now. The town is beginning to wake up.”

The horsemen dashed by in a spirited manner, clad in white with broad sashes at their waists, and wearing sweeping hats which flapped gracefully in the warm wind. In the rear rode an attendant, carrying a small hamper filled with refreshments.

As Hockley was not at hand, the professor asked the driver of the carriage to wait a little, while he took a look around the square. But the youth was nowhere to be seen and Professor Strong came back looking somewhat worried.

“He knew when we were to leave,” he said. “I can’t understand this.”

“Oh, Hockley takes his time about everything,” put in Sam. “He said he was down here for pleasure, and that he was going to suit himself.”

“He has no right to keep the whole party waiting,” answered the professor briefly. He said no more, but his eyes showed that his mind was busy.

“Hockley will get a lecture when he shows up,” whispered Frank to Darry.

“He’ll get only what he deserves, Darry. Isn’t that so, Beans?”

“To be sure,” came from Sam. “He howled about us delaying him at the railroad cliff; now he’s doing the same thing himself.”

Quarter of an hour went by and the boys wondered if the professor would make them give up the trip if Hockley did not return. Then came a messenger with a note for Professor Strong. The note was from Hockley and ran as follows:

“Hockley has met some friends and wishes to stay with them a few hours,” said the professor. “We will go without him.”

“I’m just as well satisfied,” murmured Mark, but in a low voice, so that Professor Strong did not hear him.

They were soon seated in the carriage, the negro driver touched up the pair, and away they rolled, down the smooth street, around a corner of the public square and on toward the road leading to Valencia, which is located on the lake of the same name, and on the line of a railroad between the two points.

“When I was here before, the railroad ran no further than Victory, a two days’ drive in a carriage,” said the professor, when Caracas was left behind and they found themselves climbing over the hills on a road lined with beautiful tropical trees. “Now one can go straight through to Valencia and also part of the way around the lake. There is also a railroad from Valencia to Puerto Cabello, on the seacoast, west of La Guayra, and a steamer runs every ten days between the two seaports.”

“I don’t see much but coffee plantations around here,” observed Mark.

“Coffee and cocoa is the great industry in this valley, for Caracas affords an easy market for shipments. Caracas chocolate, made from the cocoa bean, is known everywhere, and so is Maracaibo coffee.”

“Hockley was saying that Mocha coffee came from here,” put in Frank. “But I said it came from Arabia.”

“So it does come from Arabia. But there is a kind of coffee grown here which is a good deal like Mocha in flavor and is often sold as such.”

“I’d like to know something about coffee raising,” put in Darry. “We drink so much of the stuff that I think we ought to know about it.”

“I will explain when we get to Professor Morano’s plantation.”

An hour’s drive from Caracas brought them to the entrance of the plantation and they passed through a wide gateway along a broad and well kept path lined with giant palms. Between the palms were urns of flowers, all blooming in red, yellow and blue. Trailing vines were also in evidence, and they covered the stone wall which separated the plantation from the highway.

The plantation house proved to be an old and substantial affair, one story in height, and occupying the space of a small city block. The outside was decorated with stucco work painted in pale blue and yellow. There was the usual archway in front, over which was erected a lattice-work covered with trailing plants.

The civil engineer, for such Enrique Morano really was, was already there to receive them, in spotless white, even to the tie with a diamond which he wore.

“Welcome, three times welcome to all of you!” he cried, gaily, as he ran forward and assisted Professor Strong to alight. “You have given me a great pleasure by coming, and while you stay you must make yourselves perfectly at home.”

“Thank you, we will, Morano,” answered the professor.

They were soon inside the building, which was built, like so many others, in the form of a hollow square. The patio was a garden of flowers, with a single giant palm in the center. There was a broad veranda running entirely around the house, with two steps at either side of the passage leading to the outside. The flooring of the veranda was of two kinds of wood, laid in fancy designs.

“Come into the parlor,” said Enrique Morano, and led the way into an apartment facing the highway beyond. It was a room at least twenty feet square, with a polished floor partly covered with rugs. The furniture was of hardwoods, elaborately carved but without any fixed coverings.

“Not so very different from a summer parlor at home,” whispered Frank, when they were left alone for a moment.

“They don’t cover the furniture on account of the bugs and insects,” said the professor.

Opening up from the parlor was a library and smoking room. Enrique Morano had furnished this to suit himself, and it was very much in the style of a rich college man at Princeton or Yale. There was a case of books and files of the latest papers and magazines, and also a case containing cigars, cigarettes, smoking tobacco and pipes.

“A regular den!” cried Professor Strong, his face brightening. “And just as you had it in the olden days.”

“It reminds me of good old times,” answered Enrique Morano. “Those college days! I shall never forget them, nor the many friends I made in the United States.”

He asked them to sit down, while he offered the professor a cigar. The boys were glad enough to look over the files of native papers and Spanish magazines, although they could read but little. There were El Diario de Caracas, the leading daily of the capital, El Pregonero, another daily, and a magazine with some reproductions of pictures from American and foreign weeklies.

“What funny advertisements,” said Mark, as he spelt one and another out. “Here is a store that has for sale American sewing machines of the latest fashions, and another that sells clothing that will make a man look like a President.”

While Professor Strong and his old friend were smoking and conversing the boys were told to roam through the house at will, and this they did. Next to the library they found a dining hall, long and broad, with a table in the center which was so heavy none of the boys could budge it. Here the tableware was of solid silver and of the finest cut glass.

Passing from the dining hall, they entered a narrow corridor, with bed chambers on either side. Here the windows were covered with bamboo or venetian blinds. All of the beds stood in the center of the apartments, never against a wall. There were handsome dressing cabinets, also of massive wood in fancy designs. Between the bedrooms was a large bathroom, where the bath was nothing less than a small swimming pool, the top being on a level with the floor.

“Hurrah! a fellow can take a regular swim here!” cried Frank. “No wonder these folks look so clean. I’d want to bathe in that all the time.”

Beyond the bedrooms was the kitchen, in which the most of the food for the table was prepared. Attached to the kitchen was a small room of rough stone, in which were located half a dozen tiny charcoal stoves for cooking.

The servants attached to the place were as interesting as the house itself. A little negro boy went around with them. He had learned to say, “Yes, mistair,” and “No, mistair,” and he repeated these over and over again, each time bowing profoundly and rolling his eyes in a truly comical fashion. The boy’s name was Bulo, and our friends took to him from the start.

“Pretty big house,” said Mark, as they stopped near the kitchen, where a dozen girls were at work, some preparing dinner and some shining tableware, all under the directions of a tall Spanish housekeeper.

“Yes, mistair,” said Bulo, and bowed to the ground.

“How many servants?” questioned Darry.

“No, mistair,” replied the little colored youth, and bowed again.

“I said, how many servants?” repeated Darry.

“Yes, mistair, no mistair,” returned Bulo, and bowed half a dozen times, then as the boys laughed he laughed too, showing two rows of pure white ivories.

“You’re all right, Bulo,” said Mark, after the merriment was over. “Here’s a souvenir for you,” and he handed the colored boy a medio, which, as mentioned before, is worth five cents.

“Yes, mistair, yes, mistair,” said Bulo, with glistening eyes. And as he stuffed the coin in his shirt, he bowed half a dozen times again, and then, considering himself dismissed ran off, singing at the top of his voice.