In the preceding section, which I made the subject of an Academical Lecture, I have delineated those boundless plains, whose natural character is so variously modified by climatic relations, that what in one region appear as barren treeless wastes or deserts, in another are Steppes or far-stretching Prairies. With the Llanos of the southern portion of the New Continent, may be contrasted the fearful sandy deserts in the interior of Africa; and these again with the Steppes of Central Asia, the habitation of those world-storming herdsmen, who, once pouring forth from the east, spread barbarism and devastation over the face of the earth.
While on that occasion (1806), I ventured to combine many massive features in one grand picture of nature, and endeavoured to entertain a public assembly with subjects, somewhat in accordance with the gloomy condition of our minds at that period, I will now, confining myself to a more limited circle of phenomena, pourtray in brighter tints the cheerful picture of a luxuriant vegetation, and fluvial valleys with their foaming mountain torrents. I will describe two scenes of Nature from the wild regions of Guiana,—Atures and Maypures, the far-famed Cataracts of the Orinoco,—which, previously to my own travels, had been visited by few Europeans.
The impression which is left on the mind by the aspect of natural scenery is less determined by the peculiar character of the region, than by the varied nature of the light through which we view, or mountain or plain, sometimes beaming beneath an azure sky, sometimes enveloped in the gloom of lowering clouds. Thus, too, descriptions of nature affect us more or less powerfully, in proportion as they harmonize with the condition of our own feelings. For the physical world is reflected with truth and animation on the inner susceptible world of the mind. Whatever marks the character of a landscape: the profile of mountains, which in the far and hazy distance bound the horizon; the deep gloom of pine forests; the mountain torrent, which rushes headlong to its fall through overhanging cliffs: all stand alike in an ancient and mysterious communion with the spiritual life of man.
From this communion arises the nobler portion of the enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she more deeply impress us with a sense of her greatness, nowhere does she speak to us more forcibly than in the tropical world, beneath the “Indian sky,” as the climate of the torrid zone was called in the early period of the Middle Ages. While I now, therefore, venture to give a delineation of these regions, I am encouraged to hope that the peculiar charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt. The remembrance of a distant and richly endowed land, the aspect of a free and powerful vegetation, refreshes and strengthens the mind; even as our soaring spirit, oppressed with the cares of the present, turns with delight to contemplate the early dawn of mankind and its simple grandeur.[HY]
Western currents and tropical winds favour the passage over that pacific arm of the sea[53] which occupies the vast valley stretching between the New Continent and Western Africa. Before the shore is seen to emerge from the highly curved expanse of waters, a foaming rush of conflicting and intermingling waves is observed. The mariner who is unacquainted with this region would suspect the vicinity of shoals, or a wonderful burst of fresh springs, such as occur in the midst of the Ocean among the Antilles[54].
On approaching nearer to the granitic shores of Guiana, he sees before him the wide mouth of a mighty river, which gushes forth like a shoreless sea, flooding the ocean around with fresh water. The green waves of the river, which assume a milky white hue as they foam over the shoals, contrast with the indigo-blue of the sea, which marks the waters of the river in sharp outlines.
The name Orinoco, which the first discoverers gave to this river, and which probably owes its origin to some confusion of language, is unknown in the interior of the country. For in their condition of animal rudeness, savage tribes only designate by peculiar geographical names, those objects which might be confounded with others. Thus the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Magdalena, are each simply termed The River, the Great River, and The Great Water; whilst, those who dwell on the banks of even the smallest streams distinguish them by special names.
The current produced by the Orinoco between the South American Continent and the asphaltic island of Trinidad is so powerful, that ships, with all their canvass spread, and a westerly breeze in their favour, can scarcely make way against it. This desolate and fearful spot is called the Bay of Sadness (Golfo Triste), and its entrance the Dragon’s Mouth (Boca del Drago). Here isolated cliffs rise tower-like in the midst of the rushing stream. They seem to mark the old rocky barrier[55] which, before it was broken through by the current, connected the island of Trinidad with the coast of Paria.
The appearance of this region first convinced the bold navigator Columbus of the existence of an American continent. “Such an enormous body of fresh water,” concluded this acute observer of nature, “could only be collected from a river having a long course; the land, therefore, which supplied it must be a continent, and not an island.” As, according to Arrian, the companions of Alexander, when they penetrated across the snow-crowned summits of Paropanisus[56], believed that they recognized in the crocodile-teeming Indus a part of the Nile,[HZ] so Columbus, in his ignorance of the similarity of physiognomy which characterises all the products of the climate of palms, imagined that the New Continent was the eastern coast of the far projecting Asia. The grateful coolness of the evening air, the ethereal purity of the starry firmament, the balmy fragrance of flowers, wafted to him by the land breeze—all led him to suppose. (as we are told by Herrera, in the Decades[57],) that he was approaching the garden of Eden, the sacred abode of our first parents. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four rivers, which, according to the venerable tradition of the ancient world, flowed from Paradise, to water and divide the surface of the earth, newly adorned with plants. This poetical passage in the Journal of Columbus, or rather in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, written from Haiti in October, 1498, presents a peculiar psychological interest. It teaches us anew, that the creative fancy of the poet manifests itself in the discoverer of a world, no less than in every other form of human greatness.
When we consider the great mass of water poured into the Atlantic Ocean by the Orinoco, we are naturally led to ask which of the South American rivers is the greatest—the Orinoco, the Amazon, or the La Plata? The question is as indeterminate as the idea of greatness itself. The Rio de la Plata has undoubtedly the widest mouth, its width measuring 92 miles across; but this river, like those of Great Britain, is comparatively of but inconsiderable length. Its shallowness, too, is so great as to impede navigation at Buenos Ayres. The Amazon, which is the longest of all rivers, measures 2880 miles from its rise in the Lake of Lauricocha to its estuary. Yet its width in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, near the cataract of Rentama, where I measured it at the foot of the picturesque mountain of Patachuma, is scarcely equal to that of the Rhine at Mayence.
The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the La Plata or the Amazon, while its length, according to my astronomical observations, does not exceed 1120 geographical miles. But in the interior of Guiana, 560 miles from its estuary, I found that at high water the width of the river measured upwards of 17,265 feet. Its periodical swelling here raises the level of the waters every year from 30 to 36 feet above the lowest water-mark. We are still without sufficient data for an accurate comparison between the enormous rivers which traverse the South American Continent. For such a comparison it would be necessary to ascertain the profile of the river-bed, as well as the velocity of the water, which varies very considerably at different points.
If the Orinoco, in the Delta formed by its variously divided and still unexplored branches, as well as in the regularity of its rise and fall, and in the number and size of its crocodiles, exhibits numerous points of resemblance to the Nile; there is this further analogy between the two rivers, that they for a long distance wind their impetuous way, like forest torrents, between granitic and syenitic rocks, till, slowly rolling their waters over an almost horizontal bed, skirted by treeless banks, they reach the sea.
An arm of the Nile (the Green Nile, Bahr-el-Azrek), from the celebrated mountain lake, near Gondar, in the Gojam Alps, in Abyssinia, to Syene and Elephantis, winds its way through the mountain range of Schangalla and Sennar; and in like manner the Orinoco rises on the southern slope of a mountain chain, which stretches between the parallels of 4° and 5° north lat., from French Guiana, in a westerly direction towards the Andes of New Granada. The sources of the Orinoco have never been visited by any European[58], nor even by any natives who have held intercourse with Europeans.
When, in the summer of 1800, we ascended the Upper Orinoco, we passed the mission of Esmeralda, and reached the mouths of the Sodomoni and the Guapo. Here soars high above the clouds, the mighty peak of the Yeonnamari or Duida; a mountain which presents one of the grandest spectacles in the natural scenery of the tropical world. Its altitude, according to my trigonometrical measurement, is 8278 (8823 English) feet above the level of the sea. Its southern slope is a treeless grassy plain, redolent with the odour of pine-apples, whose fragrance scents the humid evening air. Among lowly meadow plants rise the juicy stems of the anana, whose golden yellow fruit gleams from the midst of a bluish green diadem of leaves. Where the mountain springs break forth from beneath the grassy covering, rise isolated groups of lofty fan-palms, whose leaves, in this torrid region, are never stirred by a cooling breeze.
To the east of the Duida mountain, begins a thicket of wild cacao trees, among which are found the celebrated almond tree, Bertholletia excelsa, the most luxurious product of a tropical vegetation[59]. Here the Indians collect colossal stalks of grass, whose joints measure upwards of 18 feet from knot to knot, which they use as blow-pipes for the discharge of their arrows[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 suspended over it, near the waterfall of the Guaharibes, a bridge woven of the stems of twining plants. The Guaicas, of palish complexion and short stature, armed with poisoned arrows, oppose all further progress eastward.
Therefore, all that has been advanced to prove that the Orinoco derives its source from a lake must be regarded as a fable[61]. In vain the traveller seeks to discover the Lake of El Dorado, which, in Arrowsmith’s maps, is set down as an inland sea measuring upwards of 20 geographical (80 English) miles. Can the little reed-covered lake of Amucu, near which rises the Pirara (a branch of the Mahu), have given rise to this myth? This swamp lies, however, 4° to the east of the region in which we may suppose the sources of the Orinoco to be situated. Here tradition placed the island of Pumacena, a rock of micaceous schist, whose shining brightness has played a memorable, and, for the deluded adventurers, often a fatal, part in the fable of El Dorado, current since the sixteenth century.
According to the belief of many of the natives, the Magellanic clouds of the southern sky, and even the glorious nebulæ in the constellation Argo, are mere reflections of the metallic brilliancy of these silver mountains of the Parime. It was besides an ancient custom of dogmatising geographers to make all the most considerable rivers of the world originate in lakes.
The Orinoco is one of those remarkable rivers which, after numerous windings, first towards the west and then to the north, finally return towards the east in such a manner as to bring both its estuary and its source into nearly the same meridian. From the Chiguire and the Gehette as far as the Guaviare, the course of the Orinoco inclines westward, as if it would pour its waters into the Pacific. Here branches off to the south, the Cassiquiare, a remarkable river, but little known to Europeans, which unites with the Rio Negro, or as the natives call it, the Guainia: furnishing the only example of a bifurcation which forms in the very interior of a continent a natural connection between two great river valleys.
The nature of the soil, and the junction of the Guaviare and Atabapo with the Orinoco, cause the latter to deflect suddenly northwards. From a want of correct geographical data, the Guaviare, flowing in from the west, was long regarded as the true source of the Orinoco. The doubts advanced since 1797 by an eminent geographer, M. Buache, regarding the possibility of a connection with the Amazon, have, I trust, been completely set at rest by my expedition. In an uninterrupted voyage of 920 miles, I penetrated through a remarkable net-work of rivers, from the Rio Negro, along the Cassiquiare, into the Orinoco; across the interior of the continent, from the Brazilian boundary to the coast of Caracas.
In the upper portion of this fluvial district, between 3° and 4° north lat., nature has exhibited, at many different points, the puzzling phenomenon of the so-called black waters. The Atabapo, whose banks are adorned with Carolinias and arborescent Melastomas, the Temi, Tuamini, and Guainia, are all rivers of a brown or coffee colour, which, under the deep shade of the palms, assumes a blackish, inky tint. When placed in a transparent vessel, the water appears of a golden yellow colour. These black streams reflect the images of the southern stars with the most remarkable clearness. Where the waters flow gently they afford the astronomer, who is making observations with reflecting instruments, a most excellent artificial horizon.
An absence of crocodiles as well as of fish—greater coolness—less torment from stinging mosquitoes—and salubrity of atmosphere, characterize the region of the black rivers. They probably owe their singular colour to a solution of carburetted hydrogen, to the rich luxuriance of tropical vegetation, and to the abundance of plants on the soil over which they flow. Indeed, I have observed that on the western declivity of the Chimborazo, towards the shores of the Pacific, the overflowing waters of the Rio de Guayaquil gradually assume a golden yellow, approaching to a coffee colour, after they have covered the meadows for several weeks.
Near the mouths of the Guaviare and Atapabo grows one of the noblest forms of the palm-tree, the Piriguao[62], whose smooth stem, which is nearly 70 feet in height, is adorned with delicate flag-like leaves having curled margins. I know no palm which bears equally large and beautifully coloured fruits. They resemble peaches in their blended tints of yellow and crimson. Seventy or eighty of these form one enormous cluster, of which each stem annually ripens three. This noble tree might be termed the peach-palm. It s fleshy fruit, owing to the extreme luxuriance of vegetation, is generally devoid of seed; and it yields the natives a nutritious and farinaceous article of food which, like the banana and the potato, is capable of being prepared in many different ways.
To this point, that is, as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, the Orinoco flows along the southern declivity of the chain of the Parime. From its left bank, across the equator, and as far us the parallel of 15° south lat., extends the boundless wooded plain of the river Amazon. At San Fernando de Atabapo the Orinoco, turning off abruptly in a northerly direction, intersects a portion of the mountain chain itself. Here are the great waterfalls of Atures and Maypures, and here the bed of the river is everywhere contracted by colossal masses of rocks, which give it the appearance of being divided by natural dams into separate reservoirs.
At the entrance of the Meta stands, in the midst of an enormous whirlpool, an isolated rock, which the natives very aptly term the “Rock of Patience,” because when the waters are low, it sometimes retards for two whole days the ascent of the navigator. Here the Orinoco, biting deep into its shores, forms picturesque rocky bays. Opposite the Indian mission of Carichana, the traveller is surprised by a most remarkable prospect. Involuntarily his eye is arrested by a steep granite rock, “El Mogote de Cocuyza,” a cubiform mass, which rises precipitously to a height of more than 200 feet; and whose summit is crowned with a luxuriant forest. Like a Cyclopic monument of simple grandeur, this bold promontory towers high above the tops of the surrounding palms, cutting the deep azure of the sky with its strongly marked outlines, and lifting, as it were, forest upon forest.
On descending beyond Carichana, the traveller arrives at a point where the river has opened itself a passage through the narrow pass of Baraguan. Here we everywhere recognise traces of chaotic devastation. To the north, towards Uruana and Encaramada, rise granite rocks of grotesque appearance, which, in singularly formed crags of dazzling whiteness, gleam brightly from amidst the surrounding groves.
At this point, near the mouth of the Apure, the stream leaves the granitic chain, and flowing eastward, separates as far as the Atlantic, the impenetrable forests of Guiana from the Savannahs, on whose far distant horizon the vault of heaven seems to rest. Thus the Orinoco surrounds on the south, west, and north, the high mountain chain of the Parime, which occupies the vast space between the sources of the Jao and of the Caura. No cliffs or rapids obstruct the course of the river from Carichana to its mouth, excepting, indeed, the “Hell’s Mouth” (Boca del Inferno) near Muitaco, a whirlpool occasioned by rocks, as at Atures and Maypures, which does not, however, block up the whole breadth of the stream. In this district, which is contiguous to the sea, the only dangers encountered by the boatmen arise from the natural timber-floats, against which canoes are often wrecked at night. These floats consist of forest trees which have been uprooted and torn away from the banks by the rising of the waters. They are covered, like meadows, with blooming water-plants, and remind us of the floating gardens of the Mexican lakes.
After this brief glance at the course of the Orinoco and its general features, I pass to the waterfalls of Maypures and Atures.
From the high mountain-group of Cunavami, between the sources of the rivers Sipapo and Ventuari, a granite ridge projects to the far west towards the mountain of Uniama. From this ridge descend four streams, which mark, as it were, the limits of the cataracts of Maypures; two bound Sipapo and Sanariapo, on the eastern shore of the Orinoco; and two the Cameji and Toparo, on the western side. At the site of the missionary village of Maypures the mountains form a wide bay opening towards the south-west.
Here the stream rushes foaming down the eastern declivity of the mountain, while far to the west traces remain of the ancient and now forsaken bank of the river. An extensive Savannah stretches between the two chains of hills, at an elevation of scarcely 30 feet above the upper water-level of the river, and here the Jesuits have erected a small church formed of the trunks of palms.
The geognostical aspect of this region, the insular form of the rocks of Keri and Oco, the cavities worn in the former by the current, and which are situated at exactly the same level as those in the opposite island of Uivitari; all these indications tend to prove that the Orinoco once filled the whole of this now dried-up bay. It is probable that the waters formed a wide lake, as long as the northern dam withstood their passage. When this barrier gave way, the Savannah now inhabited by the Guareke Indians emerged as an island. The river may perhaps long after this have continued to surround the rocks of Keri and Oco, which now picturesquely project, like castellated fortresses, from its ancient bed. After the gradual diminution of the waters, the river withdrew wholly to the eastern side of the mountain chain.
This conjecture is confirmed by various circumstances. Thus, for instance, the Orinoco, like the Nile at Philæ and Syene, has the singular property of colouring black the reddish-white masses of granite, over which it has flowed for thousands of years. As far as the waters reach one observes on the rocky shore a leaden-coloured manganeseous and perhaps carbonaceous coating which has penetrated scarcely onetenth of a line into the stone. This black coloration, and the cavities already alluded to, show the former water level of the Orinoco.
These black cavities may be traced at elevations of from 160 to 192 feet above the present level of the river on the rocks of Keri, in the islands of the cataracts; in the gneiss-like hills of Cumadanimari, which extend above the island of Tomo; and lastly at the mouth of the Jao. Their existence proves, what indeed we learn from all the river-beds of Europe, that those streams which still excite our admiration by their magnitude, are but inconsiderable remains of the immense masses of water belonging to a former age.
These simple facts have not escaped even the rude natives of Guiana. Everywhere the Indians drew our attention to these traces of the ancient water-level. Nay, in a Savannah near Uruana there rises an isolated rock of granite, which, according to the testimony of persons worthy of credit, exhibits at an elevation of between 80 and 90 feet, a series of figures of the sun and moon, and of various animals, especially crocodiles and boa-constrictors, graven, almost in rows. At the present day this perpendicular rock, which well deserves the careful examination of future travellers, cannot be ascended without the aid of scaffolding. In a similarly remarkable elevated position, the traveller can trace hieroglyphic characters carved on the mountains of Uruana and Encaramada.
If the natives are asked how these characters could have been graven there, they answer that it was done in former times, when the waters were so high that their fathers’ canoes floated at that elevation. Such lofty condition of the water level must therefore have been coeval with these rude memorials of human skill. It indicates an ancient distribution of land and water over the surface of the globe widely different from that which now exists; but which must not be confounded with that condition when the primeval vegetation of our planet, the colossal remains of extinct terrestrial animals, and the oceanic creatures of a chaotic world, found one common grave in the indurating crust of our earth.
At the most northern extremity of the cataracts our attention is attracted by what are called the natural representations of the Sun and Moon. The rock of Keri, to which I have more than once referred, derives its name from a glistening white spot seen at a considerable distance, and in which the Indians profess to recognize a striking resemblance to the disc of the full moon. I was not myself able to climb this precipitous rock, but it seems probable that the white spot is 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 point, with mysterious admiration, to a similar disc, which they venerate as the image of the Sun, Camosi. The geographical position of these two rocks may have contributed to their respective appellations, for I found that Keri was turned towards the west, and Camosi towards the east. Some etymological inquirers have thought they could recognize an analogy between the American word Camosi and the word Camosh, a name applied in one of the Phœnician dialects to the sun, and identical with the Apollo Chomeus or Beelphegor and Amun.
The lofty falls of Niagara, which are 150 feet in height, derive their origin, as is well known, from the combined precipitation of one enormous mass of water. Such, however, is not the case with respect to the cataracts of Maypures, nor are they narrow straits or passes through which the stream rushes with increasing velocity, like the Pongo of Manseriche on the Amazon, but rather to be regarded as a countless number of small cascades succeeding each other like steps. The Raudal, (as the Spaniards term this kind of cataract,) is formed by an archipelago of islands and rocks, which so contract the bed of the river that its natural width of more than 8500 feet is often reduced to a channel scarcely navigable to the extent of 20 feet. At the present day the eastern side is far less accessible and far more dangerous than the western.
At the mouth of the Cameji the boatmen unload their cargo that they may leave the empty canoe, or, as it is here called, the Piragua, to be piloted by Indians well acquainted with the Raudal, as far as the mouth of the Toparo, where all danger is supposed to be past. Where the rocks or shelvy ledges, (each of which has its particular name,) are not above two or three feet in height, the natives venture to shoot the rapid with their canoes. When, however, they have to ascend the stream, they swim in advance of the piragua, and after much labour, and, perhaps, many unsuccessful efforts, succeed in throwing a rope round a point of rock projecting above the breakers, and by this means draw the canoe against the stream, which, in this arduous operation, is often water-logged, or upset.
Sometimes the canoe is dashed to pieces on the rock, and this is the only danger the natives fear. With bleeding bodies they then strain every nerve to escape the fury of the whirlpool and swim to land. Where the rocky ledges are very high and form a barrier by extending across the entire bed of the river, the light canoe is hauled to land and dragged for some distance along the shore on branches of trees which serve the purpose of rollers.
The most celebrated and most perilous ledges are those of Purimarimi and Manimi, which are between nine and ten feet in height. It was with surprise I found, by barometrical measurements, that the entire fall of the Raudal, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo, scarcely amounted to more than 30 or 32 feet. (A geodesic levelling is not practicable, owing to the inaccessibility of the locality and the pestiferous atmosphere, which swarms with mosquitoes.) I say with surprise, for I hence discovered that the tremendous roar and wild dashing of the stream arose from the contraction of its bed by numerous rocks and islands, and the counter-currents produced by the form and position of the masses of rock. The truth of my assertion regarding the inconsiderable height of the whole fall will be best verified by observing the cataracts, in descending to the bed of the river, from the village of Maypures, across the rocks of Manimi.
At this point the beholder enjoys a most striking and wonderful prospect. A foaming surface, several miles in length, intersected with iron-black masses of rock projecting like battlemented ruins from the waters, is seen at one view. Every islet and every rock is adorned with luxuriant forest trees. A perpetual mist hovers over the watery mirror, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through the clouds of vapoury spray. When the rays of the glowing evening sun are refracted in the humid atmosphere, an exquisite optical illusion is produced. Coloured bows appear, vanish, and reappear, while the ethereal picture dances, like an ignis fatuus, with every motion of the sportive breeze.
During the long rainy seasons, the falling waters carry down quantities of vegetable mould, which accumulating, form islands of the naked rocks; adorning the barren stone with blooming beds of Melastomes and Droseras, silver-leaved Mimosæ, and a variety of ferns. They recal to the mind of the European those groups of vegetation which the inhabitants of the Alps term courtils, blocks of granite bedecked with flowers which project solitarily amid the Glaciers of Savoy.
In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain of Cunavami, a far-stretching chain of hills which terminates abruptly in a sharply truncated cone. We saw this conical hill, called by the Indians Calitamini, glowing at sunset as if in crimson flames. This appearance daily returns. No one has ever been in the immediate neighbourhood of this mountain. Possibly its dazzling brightness is produced by the reflecting surface of decomposing talc, or mica schist.
During the five days that we passed in the neighbourhood of the cataracts, we were much struck by the fact that the roar of the rushing torrent was three times as great by night as by day. The same phenomenon is observed in all European waterfalls. To what can we ascribe this effect in a solitude where the repose of nature is undisturbed? Probably to ascending currents of warm air, which producing an unequal density of the elastic medium, obstruct the propagation of sound by displacing its waves; causes which cease after the nocturnal cooling of the earth’s surface.
The Indians showed us traces of ruts caused by wheels. They speak with wonder of the horned cattle, (oxen,) which at the period of the Jesuit missions used to draw the trucks, that conveyed the canoes, along the left shore of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo. The canoes at that time were transported without the discharge of their cargoes, and were not as now injured by being constantly dragged over sharp-pointed rocks, or stranded.
The topographical plan which I have sketched of the locality, shews that a canal might be opened between the Cameji and the Toparo. The valley in which these two abundantly watered rivers flow is a gentle level; and the canal, of which I suggested a plan to the Governor-General of Venezuela, would become a navigable arm of the Orinoco, and supersede the old and dangerous bed of the river.
The Raudal of Atures is exactly similar to that of Maypures, like which it consists of a cluster of islands between which the river forces itself a passage extending from 18,000 to 24,000 feet. Here too a forest of palm trees rises from the midst of the foaming surface of the waters. The most celebrated ledges of the cataract are situated between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana and Uirapuri.
When M. Bonpland and myself were returning from the banks of the Rio Negro, we ventured to pass the latter, that is the lower half, of the Raudal of Atures in our loaded canoe. We several times disembarked to climb over rocks, which, like dykes, connected one island with another. At one time the water shoots over these dykes; at another it falls into their cavities with a deafening hollow sound. In some places considerable portions of the bed of the river are perfectly dry, in consequence of the stream having opened for itself a subterranean passage. In this solitude the golden-coloured Rock Manakin (Pipra rupicola) builds its nest. This bird, which is as pugnacious as the East India cock, is one of the most beautiful birds of the tropics, and is remarkable for its double moveable crest of feathers with which its head is decorated.
In the Raudal of Canucari the dyke is formed of piled-up granitic boulders. We crept into the interior of a cavern, whose humid walls were covered with confervæ and phosphorescent Byssus. The river rushed over our heads with a terrible and stunning noise. By accident we had an opportunity of contemplating this grand scene longer than we desired. The Indian boatmen had left us in the middle of the cataract, to take the canoe round a small island, at the other extremity of which, after a considerable circuit, we were to re-embark. For an hour and a half we remained exposed to a fearful thunder-storm. Night was approaching, and we in vain sought shelter in the fissures of the rocks. The little apes which we had carried with us for months in wicker cages, attracted by their plaintive cries large crocodiles, whose size and leaden-grey colour indicated their great age. I should not have alluded to the appearance of these animals in the Orinoco, where they are of such common occurrence, were it not that the natives had assured us that no crocodiles had ever been seen among the cataracts; indeed, on the strength of that assertion, we had repeatedly ventured to bathe in this portion of the river.
Meanwhile our anxiety increased every moment, lest, drenched as we were and deafened by the thundering roar of the falling waters, we should be compelled to spend the long tropical night in the midst of the Raudal. At length, however, the Indians made their appearance with our canoe. Their delay had been occasioned by the inaccessibility of the steps they had to descend, owing to the low state of the water; which had obliged them to seek in the labyrinth of channels a more practicable passage.
Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank of the river, lies the cavern of Ataruipe, so celebrated among the Indians. The surrounding scenery has a grand and solemn character, which seems to mark it as a national burial-place. With difficulty, and not without danger of being precipitated into the depths below, we clambered a steep and perfectly bare granite rock, on whose smooth surface it would be hardly possible to keep one’s footing were it not for large crystals of feldspar, which, defying the action of weather, project an inch or more from the mass.
On gaining the summit, a wide prospect of the surrounding country astonishes the beholder. From the foaming bed of the river rise hills richly crowned with woods, while beyond its western bank the eye rests on the boundless Savannah of the Meta. On the horizon loom like threatening clouds the mountains of Uniama. Such is the distant view; but immediately around all is desolate and contracted. In the deep ravines of the valley moves no living thing save where the vulture and the whirring goat-sucker wing their lonely way, their heavy shadows gleaming fitfully past the barren rock.
The cauldron-shaped valley is encompassed by mountains, whose rounded summits bear huge granite boulders, measuring from 40 to more than 50 feet in diameter. They appear poised on only a single point of their surface, as if the slightest shock of the earth would hurl them down.
The further side of this rocky valley is thickly wooded. It is in this shady spot that the cave of the Ataruipe is situated; properly speaking, however, it is not a cave, but a vault formed by a far projecting and overhanging cliff,—a kind of bay hollowed out by the waters when formerly at this high level. This spot is the grave of an extinct tribe[63]. We counted about six hundred well-preserved skeletons, placed in as many baskets, formed of the stalks of palm-leaves. These baskets, called by the Indians mapires, are a kind of square sack varying in size according to the age of the deceased. Even new-born children have each their own mapire. These skeletons are so perfect, that not a rib or a finger is wanting.
The bones are prepared in three different ways: some are bleached, some dyed red with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa Orellana; others like mummies, are anointed with fragrant resin and wrapped in banana leaves.
The Indians assured me that the corpse was buried during several months in a moist earth, which gradually destroyed the flesh; and that after being disinterred, any particles of flesh still adhering to the bones were scraped off with sharp stones. This practice is still continued among many tribes of Guiana. Besides these baskets or mapires, we saw many urns of half-burnt clay, which appear to contain the bones of whole families. The largest of these urns are upwards of three feet in height and nearly six feet in length, of an elegant oval form, and greenish colour; with handles shaped like crocodiles and serpents, and the rims bordered with flowing scrolls and labyrinthine figures. These ornaments are precisely similar to those which cover the walls of the Mexican palace at Mitla. They are found in every clime and every stage of human culture,—among the Greeks and Romans, no less than on the shields of Otaheitans, and other South Sea islanders,—in all regions where a rhythmical repetition of regular forms delights the eye. The causes of these resemblances, as I have explained elsewhere, are rather to be referred to psychical conditions, and to the inner nature of our mental qualifications, than as affording evidence in favour of a common origin and the ancient intercourse of nations.[IA]
Our interpreters could give us no certain information regarding the age of these vessels; but that of the skeletons did not in general appear to exceed a hundred years. There is a legend amongst the Guareke Indians, that the brave Atures, when closely pursued by the cannibal Caribs, took refuge on the rocks of the cataracts,—a mournful place of abode, in which this oppressed race perished, together with its language![64] In the most inaccessible portion of the Raudal other graves of the same character are met with; indeed it is probable that the last descendants of the Atures did not become extinct until a much more recent period. There still lives and it is a singular fact, an old parrot in Maypures which cannot be understood, because, as the natives assert, it speaks the language of the Atures!
We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the extreme annoyance of our Indian guides, several skulls and the perfect skeleton of an aged man. One of these skulls has been delineated by Blumenbach in his admirable craniological work;[IB] but the skeleton, together with a large portion of our natural history collections, especially the entomological, was lost by shipwreck off the coast of Africa on the same occasion when our friend and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk, Juan Gonzalez, lost his life.
As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned from the grave of a departed race with feelings of deep emotion. It was one of those clear and deliciously cool nights so frequent beneath the tropics. The moon stood high in the zenith, encircled by a halo of coloured rings, her rays gilding the margins of the mist, which in well defined outline hovered like clouds above the foaming flood. Innumerable insects poured their red phosphorescent light over the herb-covered surface, which glowed with living fire, as though the starry canopy of heaven had sunk upon the grassy plain. Climbing Bignonia, fragrant Vanillas, and golden-flowered Banisterias, adorned the entrance of the cave, while the rustling palm-leaves waved over the resting-place of the dead.
Thus pass away the generations of men!—thus perish the records of the glory of nations! Yet when every emanation of the human mind has faded—when in the storms of time the monuments of man’s creative art are scattered to the dust—an ever new life springs from the bosom of the earth. Unceasingly prolific nature unfolds her germs,—regardless though sinful man, ever at war with himself, tramples beneath his foot the ripening fruit!