In the preceding section, which was made the subject of an academical lecture, I sought to depict those boundless plains which, according to the varying modification of their natural characters induced by climatic relations, appear to us sometimes as Deserts devoid of vegetation, and sometimes as Steppes, or widely-extended grassy plains or Prairies. In so doing I contrasted the Llanos of the southern part of the New Continent with the dreadful seas of sand which form the African Deserts; and these again with the Steppes of Central Asia, the habitation of world-assailing pastoral nations, who at a former period, when pressed hitherward from the East, spread barbarism and devastation over the earth.
If on that occasion, (in 1806,) I ventured to combine widely distributed portions of the earth’s surface in a single picture of nature, and to entertain a public assembly with images whose colouring was in unison with the mournful disposition of our minds at that epoch, I will now, limiting myself to a narrower circle of phenomena, sketch the more cheerful picture of river scenery composed of foaming rapids and rich luxuriant vegetation. I propose to describe in particular two scenes of nature in the wildernesses of Guiana,—the celebrated Cataracts of the Orinoco, Atures and Maypures,—which, previous to my visit, few Europeans had ever seen.
The impression left on our minds by the aspect of nature is frequently determined, less even by the peculiar character of the strictly terrestrial portion of the scene, than by the light thrown on mountain or plain, either by a sky of azure purity, or by one veiled by lowering clouds; and in the same manner descriptions of nature act upon us more powerfully or more feebly, according as they are more or less in harmony with the requirements of our feelings. For it is the inward mirror of the sensitive mind which reflects the true and living image of the natural world. All that determines the character of a landscape,—the outline of the mountains, which, in the far-vanishing distance, bound the horizon,—the dark shade of the pine forests,—the sylvan torrent rushing between overhanging cliffs to its fall,—all are in antecedent mysterious communion with the inner feelings and life of man.
On this communion rests the nobler portion of the enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she penetrate us more deeply with the feeling of her grandeur, nowhere does she speak to us with a more powerful voice, than in the tropical world, under the “Indian sky,” as, in the early middle ages, the climate of the torrid zone was called. If, therefore, I venture again to occupy this Assembly with a description of those regions, I do so in the hope that the peculiar charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt. The remembrance of a distant richly endowed land,—the aspect of a free and vigorous vegetation,—refreshes and strengthens the mind; in the same manner as our spirits, when oppressed with the actual present, love to escape awhile, and to delight themselves with the earlier youthful age of mankind, and with the manifestations of its simple grandeur.
Favouring winds and currents bear the voyager westward across the peaceful Ocean arm,[53] which fills the wide valley between the New Continent and western Africa. Before the American shore rises from the liquid plain, he hears the tumult of contending, mutually opposing, and inter-crossing waves. The mariner unacquainted with the region would surmise the vicinity of shoals, or a wonderful outbreak of fresh springs in the middle of the ocean,[54] like those in the neighbourhood of Cuba. On approaching nearer to the granitic coast of Guiana, he becomes sensible that he has entered the wide embouchure of a mighty river, which issues forth like a shoreless lake and covers the ocean around with fresh water. The green, and on the shallows the milk-white, tint of the fresh water contrasts with the indigo-blue colour of the sea, and marks with sharp outlines the limits of the river waves.
The name Orinoco, given to the river by its first discoverers, and which probably originated in some confusion of language, is unknown in the interior of the country. Nations in a rude state designate by proper geographical names only such objects as can be confounded with each other. The Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Magdalena rivers, are called simply “The River,” or “The Great River,” or “The Great Water;” whilst those who dwell on their banks distinguish even the smallest streams by particular names.
The current produced by the Orinoco, between the mainland and the Island of Trinidad with its asphaltic lake, is so strong, that ships with all sail set, and with a favourable breeze, can with difficulty make way against it. This deserted and dreaded part of the sea is called the Bay of Sadness (Golfo Triste); the entrance forms the Dragon’s Mouth (Boca del Drago). Here detached cliffs rise like towers above the foaming floods, and seem still to indicate the ancient site of a rocky bulwark[55], which, before it was broken by the force of the current, united the island of Trinidad with the coast of Paria.
The aspect of this region first convinced the great discoverer of the New World of the existence of an American continent. Familiar with nature, he inferred that so immense a body of fresh water could only be collected in a long course, and “that the land which supplied it must be a continent, not an island.” As, according to Arrian, the companions of Alexander, after crossing the snow-covered Paropanisus,[56] on reaching the Indus imagined, from the presence of crocodiles, that they recognised in that river a branch of the Nile; so Columbus, unaware of the similarity of physiognomy which characterises the various productions of the climate of Palms, readily supposed this new continent to be the eastern coast of the far-projecting continent of Asia. The mild coolness of the evening air, the ethereal purity of the starry firmament, the balsamic fragrance of the flowers wafted to him by the land breeze,—all led him (as Herrara tells us in the Decades)[57], to deem that he had approached the garden of Eden, the sacred dwelling-place of the first parents of the human race. The Orinoco appeared to him to be one of the four rivers descending from Paradise, to divide and water the earth newly decked with vegetation. This poetic passage from the journal of Columbus’s voyage, or rather from a letter written from Hayti, in October 1498, to Ferdinand and Isabella, has a peculiar psychological interest. It teaches us anew that the creative imagination of the poet exists in the Discoverer as in every form of human greatness.
In considering the quantity of water which the Orinoco bears to the Atlantic, the question arises—Which of the great South American Rivers,—the Orinoco, the Amazons, or the River Plate,—is the largest? The question, however, thus put is not a determinate one, the idea of size in this case not being altogether definite. The River Plate has the widest embouchure, being 92 geographical miles across; but, like the British rivers, its length is comparatively small. Even at Buenos Ayres its depth is already so inconsiderable as to impede navigation. The Amazons is the longest of all rivers: its course from its origin in the Lake of Lauricocha to its mouth is 2880 geographical miles. But its breadth in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, near the cataract of Rentama, as measured by me at the foot of the picturesque mountain of Patachuma, hardly equals that of the Rhine at Mayence.
The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the River Plate or the Amazons; and its length, according to positions astronomically determined by me, only amounts to 1120 geographical miles. But, on the other hand, far in the interior of Guiana, 560 miles from its mouth, I still found its breadth, when full, 16200 Parisian (17265 Eng.) feet. The periodical swelling of the river annually raises its level at this part of its course from 30 to 36 feet above its lowest level. Sufficient materials for an accurate comparison of the enormous rivers which intersect the continent of South America are still wanting. For such a comparison it would be needful to know in each case the profile of the river-bed, and the velocity of the water, which differs very greatly in different parts of the same stream.
If, in the Delta enclosed by its variously divided and still unexplored arms,—in the regularity of its periodical rise and fall—and in the number and size of its crocodiles,—the Orinoco shews points of resemblance to the Nile, there is this further analogy between the two rivers, that after long rushing rapidly through many windings between wood-fringed shores formed by granitic and syenitic rocks and mountains, during the remainder of their course they slowly roll their waters to the sea, between treeless banks, over an almost horizontal bed. An arm of the Nile (the Green Nile, Bahr-el-Azrek) flows from the celebrated mountain-lake near Gondar, in the Abyssinian Gojam Alps, to Syene and Elephantis, through the mountains of Shangalla and Sennaar. In a similar manner the Orinoco rises on the southern declivity of the mountain chain which, in the 4th and 5th parallel of North latitude, extends westward from French Guiana towards the Andes of New Granada. The sources of the Orinoco[58] have never been visited by any European, or even by any natives who have been in communication with Europeans.
In ascending the Upper Orinoco in the summer of 1800, we passed the Mission of Esmeralda, and reached the mouths of the Sodomoni and the Guapo. Here rises high above the clouds the massive summit of the Yeonnamari or Duida, a grand and picturesque mountain which presents to the spectator one of the finest scenes of nature which the tropical world has to offer. Its altitude, according to my trigonometrical measurement, is 8278 (8823 Eng.) feet above the level of the sea. The southern slope of the mountain presents a treeless grassy surface, and the humid evening air is filled far and wide with the fragrance of the ripe ananas. The stalks of the pine apples, swelling with rich juice, rise between the lowly herbs of the meadow, and the golden fruit is seen shining at a distance from under its leafy crown of bluish-green. Where mountain springs or rivulets break forth from the turfy covering, the scene is further adorned by groups of tall fan-palms, whose foliage never feels the influence of a cool breeze.
On the east of the Duida mountain a dense thicket of wild Cacao groves begins, and amidst these are found trees of the celebrated Bertholletia excelsa, the most vigorous of the productions of the tropical world[59]. Here the Indians collect the materials for their blow-pipes, colossal grass-stalks having joints above 18 feet long from knot to knot.[60] Some Franciscan monks have penetrated as far as the mouth of the Chiguire, where the river is already so narrow that the natives have thrown across it, near the waterfall of the Guaharibes, a suspension bridge formed of the twining stems of climbing plants. The Guaicas, a race of comparatively light complexion but of small stature, armed with poisoned arrows, forbid any farther advance towards the east.
All, therefore, that has been put forward respecting the lake origin of the Orinoco is fabulous[61]. We seek in vain in nature for the Laguna of El Dorado, which is still marked in Arrowsmith’s maps as an inland sea 80 geographical miles in length. Has the little reedy lake of Amucu, from which the Pirara (a branch of the Mahu) flows, given rise to this fable? But the swamp in which the lake of Amucu is situated is four degrees of longitude to the east of the district in which the sources of the Orinoco must be sought.
It was an ancient custom of dogmatising geographers to make all the larger rivers of the world originate in considerable lakes. To the lake forming the supposed origin of the Orinoco was transferred the site of the island of Pumacena, a rock of micaceous slate, the glitter of which, in the 16th century, played, in the fable of El Dorado, a memorable, and to deceived humanity often a fatal part. It is the belief of the natives, that the Magellanic clouds of the southern hemisphere, and even the fine nebulæ in the constellation of the ship Argo, are a reflection of the metallic brilliancy of the silver mountains of the Parime.
The Orinoco is one of those rivers which, after many windings, seem to return back towards the region in which they took their rise. After following a westerly and then a northerly course, it runs again to the east, so that its mouth is almost in the same meridian as its source. From the Chiguire and the Gehette as far as the Guaviare the Orinoco flows to the west, as if it would carry its waters to the Pacific. It is in this part of its course that it sends out towards the south a remarkable arm, the Cassiquiare, but little known in Europe, which unites with the Rio Negro, (called by the natives the Guainia), and offers perhaps the only example of a bifurcation forming in the very interior of a continent a natural connection between two great rivers and their basins.
The nature of the ground, and the junction of the Guaviare and Atabapo with the Orinoco, cause the latter to turn suddenly towards the north. In the absence of correct geographical knowledge, the Guaviare flowing in from the west was long regarded as the true origin of the Orinoco. The doubts raised by an eminent geographer, M. Buache, since 1797, as to the probability of a connection with the Amazons, have I hope been entirely refuted by my expedition. In an uninterrupted navigation of 920 geographical miles I passed through the singular network of rivers, from the Rio Negro, by the Cassiquiare, into the Orinoco; traversing in this manner the interior of the Continent, from the Brazilian boundary to the coast of Caraccas.
In the upper portion of the basin of the Orinoco and its tributaries, between the 3rd and 4th degrees of north latitude, nature has several times repeated the enigmatical phenomenon of the so-called “black waters.” The Atabapo, whose banks are adorned with Carolinias and arborescent Melastomas, and the Temi, Tuamini, and Guainia, are all rivers of a coffee-brown colour. In the shade of the palm groves this colour seems almost to pass into ink-black. When placed in transparent vessels, the water appears of a golden yellow. The image of the Southern Constellations is reflected with wonderful clearness in these black streams. Where their waters flow gently, they afford to the observer, when taking astronomical observations with reflecting instruments, a most excellent artificial horizon. A cooler atmosphere, less torment from stinging mosquitoes, greater salubrity, and the absence of crocodiles (fish, however, are also wanting), mark the region of these black rivers. They probably owe their peculiar colour to a solution of carburetted hydrogen, to the luxuriance of the tropical vegetation, and to the quantity of plants and herbs on the ground over which they flow. On the western declivity of the Chimborazo, towards the coast of the Pacific, I remarked that the flooded waters of the Rio de Guayaquil gradually assumed a golden yellow or almost coffee-brown colour, when covering the meadows for some weeks.
In the vicinity of the mouths of the Guaviare and Atabapo grows the Piriguao,[62] one of the noblest of palm trees, whose smooth and polished trunk, between 60 and 70 feet high, is adorned with a delicate flag-like foliage curled at the margins. I know no palm which bears such large and beautifully coloured fruits. They resemble peaches, and are tinged with yellow mingled with a roseate crimson. Seventy or eighty of them form enormous pendulous bunches, of which each tree annually ripens three. This fine tree might be called the peach palm. The fleshy fruits are from the luxuriance of vegetation most often devoid of seeds, and offer to the natives a nutritious farinaceous food which, like plantains and potatoes, can be prepared in a variety of ways.
Hitherto, or as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, the Orinoco flows along the southern declivity of the Sierra de Parime; and from its southern bank the vast forest-covered plain of the Amazons River stretches far beyond the equator, even to the 15th degree of south latitude. When the Orinoco turns suddenly to the north near San Fernando de Atabapo, it breaks through a part of the mountain chain along the base of which it had previously flowed; and this is the site of the great waterfalls of Atures and Maypures. The river bed is here everywhere hemmed in by colossal masses of rock, and divided as it were into separate reservoirs by natural dikes.
In front of the entrance of the Meta there stands in the middle of a mighty whirlpool an isolated cliff, to which the natives have given the very appropriate name of the “rock of patience;” because when the waters are low it sometimes costs those who are ascending the river two days to pass it. Here the Orinoco, eating deep into the land, forms picturesque rocky bays. Opposite to the Indian mission of Carichana the traveller is surprised by the singular prospect which presents itself to his view. His eye is involuntarily riveted on an abrupt granitic rock, el Mogote de Cocuyza, a cube with vertically precipitous sides, above 200 feet high and bearing on its upper surface a forest of trees of rich and varied foliage. Resembling a Cyclopean monument in its simple grandeur, this mass of rock rises high above the tops of the surrounding palms, its sharp outlines appearing in strong relief against the deep azure of the sky, and its summit uplifting high in air a forest above the forest.
In descending the Orinoco from this point, still within the range of the Carichana mission, we arrive at the part of the river where the stream has forced for itself a way through the narrow pass of Baraguan. Here we recognise everywhere traces of chaotic devastation. To the north, (towards Uruana and Encaramada), masses of granite of extraordinarily notched and serrated outline and grotesque aspect shine with dazzling whiteness high above the thickets from amidst which they rise.
It is in this region, after receiving the Apure, that the Orinoco leaves the granitic chain of mountains and flows eastward to the Atlantic, dividing the impenetrable forests of Guiana from the grassy plains on which the vault of heaven seems everywhere to rest as on the horizon of the ocean. Thus the elevated cluster of the Parime mountains, which occupies the entire space between the sources of the Jao and the Caura, is surrounded on three sides, to the South, to the West, and to the North, by the Orinoco. Below Carichana the course of the river is uninterrupted by rocks or rapids to its mouth, excepting at the whirlpool of the Boca del Infierno (Hell’s mouth) near Muitaco, where, however, the rocks which occasion the rapid do not extend across the entire bed of the river as at Atures and Maypures. In these lower parts of the river in the vicinity of the sea, the only danger feared by the boatmen is that of encountering the great natural rafts, consisting of trees torn from the banks by the swelling of the river, against which canoes are often wrecked during the night. These rafts, covered like meadows with flowering water plants, remind the spectator of the floating gardens of the Mexican lakes.
After this rapid review of the course of the Orinoco, and of its general relations to the surrounding country, I pass to the description of the Falls of Maypures and Atures.
Between the sources of the rivers Sipapo and Ventuari a granite ridge projects from the elevated mountain group of Cunavami, and advances far to the west towards the mountains of Uniama. Four streams, which may be said to mark the limits of the cataracts of Maypures, descend from this ridge; two, the Sipapo and the Sanariapo, on the eastern side of the Orinoco; and two, the Cameji and the Toparo, on its western side. Near the Missionary village of Maypures the mountains retire and form a wide bay open to the south-west.
The foaming stream flows at the present time at the foot of the eastern mountain declivity, and far to the west we recognise the ancient bank now forsaken by the water. A grass-covered plain, only about thirty feet above the present highest level of the river, extends between the two chains of hills. The Jesuits have built upon it a small church formed of the trunks of palm trees.
The geological aspect of the district, the shapes of the rocks of Keri and Oco, which have so much the character of islands, the water-worn hollows in the first named of these rocks, situated at exactly the same height as the cavities in the opposite island of Uivitari, all testify that the Orinoco once filled the whole of this now dry gulf or bay. Probably the waters formed a wide lake as long as the northern dike was able to withstand their pressure. When it gave way, the prairie now inhabited by the Guareke Indians must have been the first part which appeared above the waters; which may subsequently, perhaps, have long continued to surround the rocks of Keri and Oco, which rising like mountain fortresses from the ancient bed of the river, present a picturesque aspect. As the waters gradually diminished they withdrew altogether to the foot of the eastern hills, where the river now flows.
This conjecture is confirmed by several circumstances. The Orinoco, like the Nile near Philæ and Syene, has the property of imparting a black colour to the reddish white masses of granite which it has bathed for thousands of years. As far as the waters reach, one may remark on the rocky shore the leaden-coloured coating described in page 189: its presence, and the hollows before mentioned, mark the ancient height of the waters of the Orinoco.
In the rock of Keri, in the islands of the Cataracts, in the gneiss hills of Cumadaminari above the island of Tomo, and lastly at the mouth of the Jao, we trace these black-coloured hollows at elevations of 150 to 180 (160 to 192 English) feet above the present height of the river. Their existence teaches us a fact of which we may also observe indications in the river beds of Europe; viz. that the streams whose magnitude now excites our astonishment are only the feeble remains of the immense masses of water belonging to an earlier age of the world.
These simple remarks and inferences have not escaped even the rude natives of Guiana. The Indians everywhere called our attention to the traces of the former height of the waters. There is in a grassy plain near Uruana an isolated granite rock, on which, according to the report of trustworthy witnesses, there are at a height of more than eighty feet drawings of the sun and moon, and of many animals, particularly crocodiles and boas, engraven or arranged almost in rows or lines. Without artificial aid it would now be impossible to ascend this perpendicular precipice, which deserves to be carefully examined by future travellers. The hieroglyphical rock engravings on the mountains of Uruana and Encaramada are equally remarkable in respect to situation.
If one asks the natives how these figures can have been cut in the rocks, they answer that it was done when the waters were so high that their fathers’ boats were only a little lower than the drawings. Those rude memorials of human art would in such case have belonged to the same age as a state of the waters implying a distribution of land and water very different from that which now prevails, and belonging to an earlier condition of the earth’s surface; which must not, however, be confounded with that in which the earlier vegetation which adorned our planet, the gigantic bodies of extinct land animals, and the oceanic creatures of a more chaotic state, became entombed in the indurating crust of globe.
At the northernmost extremity of the cataracts, attention is excited by what are called the natural drawings or pictures of the Sun and Moon. The rock Keri, to which I have several times referred, has received its name from a white spot which is conspicuous from a great distance, and in which the Indians have thought they recognised a remarkable similarity to the disk of the full moon. I was not myself able to climb the steep precipice, but the white mark in question is probably a large knot of quartz formed by a cluster of veins in the greyish-black granite.
Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the island of Uivitari, which has a basaltic appearance, the Indians shew with mysterious admiration a similar disk which they venerate as the image of the Sun, Camosi. Perhaps the geographical position of the two rocks may have contributed to these denominations, as the Keri (or Moon Rock) is turned to the West, and the Camosi to the East. Some etymologists have thought they recognised in the American word Camosi a similarity to Camosh, the name of the Sun in one of the Phœnician dialects, and to Apollo Chomeus, or Beelphegor and Ammon.
Unlike the grander falls of Niagara (which are 140 French or 150 English feet high) the “Cataracts of Maypures” are not formed by the single precipitous descent of a vast mass of waters, nor are they “narrows” or passes through which the river rushes with accelerated velocity, as in the Pongo of Manseriche in the River of the Amazons. The Cataracts of Maypures consist of a countless number of little cascades succeeding each other like steps. The “Raudal” (the name given by the Spaniards to this species of cataract) is formed by numerous islands and rocks which so restrict the bed of the river, that out of a breadth of 8000 (8526 E.) feet there often only remains an open channel of twenty feet in width. The eastern side is now much more inaccessible and dangerous than the western.
At the confluence of the Cameji with the Orinoco, goods are unladen in order that the empty canoe, or, as it is here called, the Piragua, may be conveyed by Indians well acquainted with the Raudal to the mouth of the Toparo, where the danger is considered to be past. Where the separate rocks or steps (each of which is designated by a particular name) are not much above two or three feet high, the natives, if descending the stream, venture, remaining themselves in the canoe, to let it go down the falls: if they are ascending the stream they leave the boat, swim forward, and when after many unsuccessful attempts they have succeeded in casting a rope round the points of rock which rise above the broken water, they draw up their vessel, which is often either overset or entirely filled with water in the course of these laborious proceedings.
Sometimes, and it is the only case which gives the natives any uneasiness, the canoe is dashed in pieces against the rocks; the men have then to disengage themselves with bleeding bodies from the wreck and from the whirling force of the torrent, and to gain the shore by swimming. Where the rocky steps are very high and extend across the entire bed of the river, the light boat is brought to land and drawn along the bank by means of branches of trees placed under it as rollers.
The most celebrated and difficult steps, those of Purimarimi and Manimi, are between nine and ten feet high. I found with astonishment by barometric measurements, (geodesical levelling being out of the question from the inaccessibility of the locality, its highly insalubrious atmosphere, and the swarms of mosquitoes which fill the air), that the whole fall of the Raudal from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo hardly amounts to 28 or 30 feet (30 or 32 English). I say, “I found with astonishment;” for this shews that the dreadful noise and wild dashing and foaming of the river are the results of the narrowing of its bed by countless rocks and islands, and of the counter currents produced by the form and situation of the masses of rock. The best ocular demonstration of the small height of the whole fall is obtained by descending from the village of Maypures to the bed of the river by the rock of Manimi.
From this point a wonderful prospect is enjoyed. A foaming surface of four miles in length presents itself at once to the eye: iron-black masses of rock resembling ruins and battlemented towers rise frowning from the waters. Rocks and islands are adorned with the luxuriant vegetation of the tropical forest; a perpetual mist hovers over the waters, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through the cloud of spray and vapour. When the rays of the glowing evening sun are refracted in these humid exhalations a magic optical effect begins. Coloured bows shine, vanish, and reappear; and the ethereal image is swayed to and fro by the breath of the sportive breeze. During the long rainy season the streaming waters bring down islands of vegetable mould, and thus the naked rocks are studded with bright flower-beds adorned with Melastomas and Droseras, and with small silver-leaved mimosas and ferns. These spots recall to the recollection of the European those blocks of granite decked with flowers which rise solitary amidst the glaciers of Savoy, and are called by the dwellers in the Alps “Jardins,” or “Courtils.”
In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain of Cunavami, a long extended ridge which terminates abruptly in a truncated cone. We saw the latter, (Calitamini is its Indian name), glowing at sunset as if in roseate flames. This appearance returns daily: no one has ever been near the mountain to detect the precise cause of this brightness, which may perhaps proceed from a reflecting surface produced by the decomposition of tale or mica slate.
During the five days which we passed in the neighbourhood of the cataracts, it was striking to hear the thunder of the rushing torrents sound three times louder by night than by day. In all European waterfalls the same phenomenon is remarked. What can be its cause in a wilderness where there is nothing to interrupt the repose of nature? Perhaps the currents of heated ascending air by causing irregular density in the elastic medium impede the propagation of sound during the day, by the disturbance they may occasion in the waves of sound; whereas during the nocturnal cooling of the earth’s surface the upward currents cease.
The Indians called our attention to ancient tracks of wheels. They speak with admiration of the horned animals, (oxen), which in the times of the Jesuit missions used to draw the canoes on wheeled supports, along the left bank of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo. The lading was not then removed from the boats, nor were the latter worn and injured as they now are by being constantly stranded upon the rocks and dragged over their rough surface.
The topographical plan of the district sketched by me shews the facilities which the nature of the ground offers for the opening of a canal from the Cameji to the Toparo, which would form a navigable side arm to the river, the dangerous portion of which would be thus avoided. I proposed its execution to the Governor-General of Venezuela.
The Raudal of Atures closely resembles that of Maypures; like it, it is a cluster of islands between which the river forces its way for ten or twelve thousand yards; a forest of palms rising from the midst of the foaming waters. The most celebrated “Steps” of this Raudal are situated between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana and Uirapuri.
When M. Bonpland and I returned from the banks of the Rio Negro, we ventured to pass the latter or lower half of the Raudal of Atures with the loaded canoe, often leaving it for the rocky dikes which connect one island with another. Sometimes the waters rush over these dikes, and sometimes they fall with a hollow thundering sound into cavities, and flowing for a time through subterranean channels, leave large pieces of the bed of the river dry. Here the golden Pipra rupicola makes its nest; it is one of the most beautiful of tropical birds, with a double moveable crest of feathers, and is as pugnacious as the East Indian domestic cock.
In the Raudal of Canucari the rocky dike or weir consists of piled-up granite spheres. We crept into the interior of a grotto the damp walls of which were covered with confervæ and shining Byssus, and where the river rushed high above our heads with deafening noise.
We had accidentally more time than we desired for the enjoyment of this grand scene of nature. The Indians had left us in the middle of the cataract, proposing to take the canoe round a long narrow island below which we were to re-embark. We waited an hour and a half under a heavy tempestuous rain; night was coming on, and we sought in vain for shelter between the masses of granite. The little monkeys, which we had carried with us for months in wicker cages, by their mournful cries attracted crocodiles whose size and leaden-grey colour shewed their great age. I should not here notice an occurrence so usual in the Orinoco, if the Indians had not assured us that no crocodiles were ever seen in the cataracts; and in dependence on this assurance we had even ventured repeatedly to bathe in this part of the river. Meanwhile our anxiety lest we might be forced to pass the long tropical night in the middle of the Raudal, wet through and deafened by the thundering noise of the falling waters, increased every moment; until at last the Indians reappeared with our canoe. From the low state of the waters they had found the steps by which they had intended to let themselves down inaccessible, and had been forced to seek among the labyrinth of channels for a more practicable passage.
Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank of the river, is the cave of Ataruipe, which is widely celebrated among the Indians. The grand and melancholy character of the scenery around fits it for the burying-place of a deceased nation. We climbed with difficulty, and not without danger of falling to a great depth below, a steep and perfectly bare granite precipice. It would be hardly possible to keep one’s footing on the smooth surface, if it were not for large crystals of feldspar, which, resisting “weathering,” project as much as an inch from the face of the rock.
On reaching the summit the traveller beholds a wide, diversified, and striking prospect. From the foaming river-bed rise wood-crowned hills, while beyond the western shore of the Orinoco the eye rests on the boundless grassy plain of the Meta, uninterrupted save where at one part of the horizon the Mountain of Uniama rises like a threatening cloud. Such is the distance; the nearer prospect is desolate, and closely hemmed in by high and barren rocks. All is motionless save where the vulture or the hoarse goat-sucker hover solitarily in mid-air, or, as they wing their flight through the deep-sunk ravine, their silent shadows are seen gliding along the face of the bare rocky precipice until they vanish from the eye.
This precipitous valley is bounded by mountains on whose rounded summits are enormous detached granite spheres of more than 40 to 50 feet diameter: they appear to touch the base on which they rest only in a single point, as if the slightest movement, such as that of a faint earthquake shock, must cause them to roll down.
The farther part of the valley is densely wooded, and it is in this shady portion that the cave of Ataruipe is situated. It is not properly speaking a cave, but rather a vaulted roof formed by a far over-hanging cliff, the cavity having apparently been formed by the waters when at their ancient level. This place is the vault or cemetery of an extinct nation.[63] We counted about 600 well-preserved skeletons placed in as many baskets woven from the stalks of palm leaves. These baskets, which the Indians call “mapires,” are shaped like square sacks, differing in size according to the age of the deceased. Even new-born children had each its own mapire. The skeletons are so perfect that not a bone or a joint is wanting.
The bones had been prepared in three different ways; some bleached, some coloured red with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa Orellana; and some like mummies closely enveloped in sweet-smelling resin and plantain leaves.
The Indians assured us that the custom had been to bury the fresh corpses for some months in damp earth, which gradually consumed the flesh; they were then dug up, and any remaining flesh scraped away with sharp stones. This the Indians said was still the practice of several tribes in Guiana. Besides the mapires or baskets we found urns of half burnt clay which appeared to contain the bones of entire families. The larger of these urns were about three feet high and nearly six feet long, of a pleasing oval form and greenish colour, having handles shaped like snakes and crocodiles, and meandering or labyrinthine ornaments round the upper margin. These ornaments are quite similar to those which cover the walls of the Mexican Palace at Mitla. They are found in all countries and climates, and in the most different stages of human cultivation,—among the Greeks and Romans, as well as on the shields of the natives of Tahiti and other islands of the South Sea,—wherever the eye is gratified by the rhythmical recurrence of regular forms. These similarities, as I have elsewhere remarked in more detail, are rather to be ascribed to psychological causes, or to such as belong inherently to our mental constitution, than to be viewed as evidences of kindred descent or ancient intercourse between different nations.
Our interpreters could give us no certain information as to the age of these vessels; that of the skeletons appeared for the most part not to exceed a century. It is reported among the Guareca Indians, that the brave Atures, being pressed upon by cannibal Caribs, withdrew to the rocks of the Cataracts; a melancholy refuge and dwelling-place, in which the distressed tribe finally perished, and with them their language. In the most inaccessible parts of the Raudal there are cavities and recesses which have served like the cave of Ataruipe as burying-places. It is even probable that the last family of the Atures may not have been long deceased, for (a singular fact,) there is still in Maypures an old parrot of whom the natives affirm that he is not understood because he speaks the Ature language.
We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the great displeasure of our Indian guides, several skulls and the entire skeleton of a man. One of these skulls has been figured by Blumenbach in his excellent craniological work, but the skeleton (together with a large part of our natural history collections, especially the entomological) was lost in a shipwreck on the coast of Africa, in which our friend and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk Juan Gonzalez, perished.
As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned our steps in a thoughtful and melancholy mood from this burying-place of a race deceased. It was one of those clear and cool nights so frequent in the tropics. The moon, encircled with coloured rings, stood high in the zenith illuminating the margin of the mist which lay with well-defined cloud-like outlines on the surface of the foaming river. Countless insects poured their red phosphoric light on the herb-covered ground, which glowed with living fire as if the starry canopy of heaven had sunk down upon the turf. Climbing Bignonias, fragrant Vanillas, and yellow-flowering Banisterias, adorned the entrance of the cave; and the summits of the palms rustled above the graves.
Thus perish the generations of men! Thus do the name and the traces of nations fade and disappear! Yet when each blossom of man’s intellect withers,—when in the storms of time the memorials of his art moulder and decay,—an ever new life springs forth from the bosom of the earth; maternal Nature unfolds unceasingly her germs, her flowers, and her fruits; regardless though man with his passions and his crimes treads under foot her ripening harvest.