Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena
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Title: Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena
Author: J. A. Zahm
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA ***
FOLLOWING THE CONQUISTADORES
UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA
BY
H. J. MOZANS, A.M., Ph.D.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published May, 1910
TO
MY GENIAL
COMPAGNON DE VOYAGE
BRAVE LOYAL
C.
Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare; novis auctoritatem; absoletis,
nitorem; obscuris, lucem; fastiditis, gratiam; dubiis, fidem;
omnibus vero naturam, et naturae sua omnia. Itaque etiam non
assecutis, voluisse abunde pulchrum atque magnificum est. That is
to say: It is a dyfficulte thynge to gyue newenes to owlde thynges,
autoritie to newe thynges, bewtie to thynges owt of vse, fame to
the obscure, fauoure to the hatefull, credite to the doubtefull,
nature to all and all to nature. To such neuerthelesse as can not
atayne to all these, it is greately commendable and magnificall
to haue attempted the fame.
From the preface, addressed to the Emperor Vespasian, of Pliny's
Natural History.
FOREWORD
The following pages contain the record of a journey made to islands
and lands that border the Caribbean and to the less frequented
parts of Venezuela and Colombia. Thanks to our trade relations
with the Antilles, and the number of meritorious books that have
been written about them during the last few decades, our knowledge
of the West Indies is fairly complete and satisfactory. The same,
however, cannot be said of the two extensive republics just south of
us. Outside of their capitals and a few of their coast towns, they
are rarely visited, and as a consequence, the most erroneous ideas
prevail regarding them. Vast regions in both republics are now less
known than they were three centuries ago, while there are certain
sections about which our knowledge is as limited as it is regarding
the least explored portions of darkest Africa.
This is not the place to account for the prevailing ignorance regarding
the parts of the New Hemisphere that first claimed the attention of
discoverers and explorers. Suffice it to state that, paradoxical as
it may seem, it is, nevertheless, a fact.
When we recollect that the lands in question were not only the
first discovered but that they were also witnesses of the marvelous
achievements of some of the most renowned of the conquistadores,
our surprise becomes doubly great that our information respecting
them is so meager and confined almost exclusively to those who make
a special study of things South American.
Never, perhaps, in the history of our race was the spirit of
adventure so generally diffused as it was at the dawn of the sixteenth
century--just after the epoch-making discoveries of Columbus and his
hardy followers. It was like the spirit that animated the Crusaders
when they started on their long march to recover the Holy Sepulchre
from the possession of the Moslem. It was, indeed, in many of its
aspects, a revival of the age of chivalry. The Sea of Darkness had at
last been successfully crossed. That ocean of legend and mystery with
its enchanted islands inhabited by witches and gnomes and griffins
had been explored. And that strange island of Satanaxio, "the island
of the hand of Satan," where the Evil One was "supposed once a day to
thrust forth a gigantic hand from the ocean to grasp a number of the
inhabitants" was consigned to the limbo of mediæval superstitions. A
new world was revealed to the astonished Spaniards. Every animal,
tree, plant seemed new to them and often entirely different from
anything the Old World could show. There was, too, a new race of men,
with strange manners and customs--men who told them of a Fountain of
Youth, of regions of pearls and precious stones, of cities and palaces
of gold in the lofty plateau and in the heart of the wilderness.
Those who first came to the New World acted as if they were
in a land of enchantment and were prepared to believe any tale,
however preposterous, that appealed to their lust of gold or love of
adventure. No enterprise was too difficult for them, no hardship too
great. Neither trackless forests, nor miasmatic climates, nor ruthless
savages could deter them from their quest of treasure, or quench their
thirst for glory and emolument. Hence those extraordinary expeditions
in search of El Dorado,--that El Dorado which Quesada hoped to find in
Cundinamarca, his brother in Casanare, Orsua among the Omaguas on the
Amazon, Philipp von Hutten in the regions of the Meta and the Guaviare,
and Cesar and Belalcazar in the territories drained by the Cauca and
the Magdalena,--in which were combined the extravagant performances of
a Don Quixote with the feats of prowess of a Rodrigo Diaz. The spirit
of knight-errantry seemed to revive and to bring with it an age of
romance that for hardihood of enterprise and variety of incident
surpassed any period that had preceded it. The feats of individual
prowess were as brilliant as the success of Spanish arms was pronounced
and far-reaching. It was an age of epics, of poetry in action.
Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Lord Clive, writes, "We have always
thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire in
America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great
actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves,
excite little interest."
One reason for the difference noted was the absence, in the English
conquest of India, of those romantic and picturesque elements that
so distinguished the achievements of the conquistadores in the New
World, and which so fascinated Leo X, that he sat up all night to
read the Decades of Peter Martyr. "The picturesque descriptions,"
declares Theodore Irving, in his Conquest of Florida, "of steel-clad
cavaliers with lance and helmet and prancing steed, glittering through
the wildernesses of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the prairies of
the Far West, would seem to us fictions of romance, did they not
come to us recorded in matter-of-fact narratives of contemporaries,
and corroborated by minute and daily memoranda of eye-witnesses."
The same can be said with even more truth of the conquistadores of the
Spanish Main and of the daring adventurers who first penetrated the
trackless forests and scaled the lofty mountains of Venezuela and New
Granada. "Their minds," as Fiske well observes, "were in a state like
that of the heroes of the Arabian Nights who, if they only wander far
enough through the dark forest or across the burning desert, are sure
at length to come upon some enchanted palace whereof they may fairly
hope, with the aid of some gracious Jinni, to become masters." Thus
it was that Cortes, unaided, however, by a gracious Jinni, became the
master of the capital of the Aztecs, as Quesada and Pizarro became the
masters of the lands and the treasures of the Muiscas and the Incas.
It is impossible for the student of early American history to cruise
along the Spanish Main, or sail on the broad waters of the Orinoco,
the Meta and the Magdalena, without harking back at every turn to the
achievements of some of the early discoverers or conquistadores. Every
island, every promontory, every river has been visited by them and,
if endowed with speech, they could tell thrilling stories of daring
adventure and brilliant exploit unsurpassed in the annals of chivalry
and crusading valor. Every place he goes, he will find that he has been
preceded by the Spaniard by three or four centuries, for everywhere
he will find traces or traditions of his passage.
It matters not that the Spaniards were lured on by such ever-receding
chimeras as Manoa, El Dorado and Lake Parime, that many other
objects of their quest were as mythical as that of the Argonauts or as
unattainable as the golden apples of the Hesperides. Their expeditions
were not for these reasons wholly fruitless. Every one of them, whether
for the purpose of exploration or conquest or colonization, contributed
to our knowledge of the lands visited and of the tribes inhabiting
them, many of whom have long since disappeared. And everywhere one
finds towns founded by them, or places, mountains and rivers that still
bear the names that were given them at the time of their discovery.
It was always our pleasure, during our wanderings in the tropics, to
recall what the first explorers thought of the new lands visited by
them while they were still under the spell of the novel and marvelous
things that were ever claiming their rapt attention whithersoever
they went. We loved to look upon the countries we visited as their
first explorers had looked upon them. This we were able to do, for
thanks to the old chroniclers, the wonderment of the discovery of
the New World has been preserved, as in amber, in all its freshness,
and that, too, for all time to come.
Comparatively few people realize how extensive is the literature,
especially in Spanish, that relates to the period of the conquest and
that immediately following it. And still fewer are aware of its intense
interest and importance. In addition to the well-known classic works
of Peter Martyr, Las Casas, Herrera, Oviedo, Garcilaso de la Vega,
Cieza de Leon, Gomara, Acosta, and others scarcely less valuable,
there are scores of similar annals that have for centuries lain in
the archives of Spain and of the various countries of Latin-America
which have but recently been published. Many of these--beyond price
for the historian--were absolutely unknown until a few years ago,
and are still awaiting the artistic pen of a Prescott or an Irving
to transmute their contents in masterpieces of literature. It is safe
to say that nowhere else will the man of letters find a more fertile
and a less cultivated field to engage his talent.
Then there are the works, equally precious, of the early
missionaries. Many of them are veritable mines of information
respecting the manners and customs of the native inhabitants of
the tropics, while not a few of them are the only sources extant
of knowledge respecting many interesting Indian tribes that have
long since become extinct. Among these deserving of special notice
are the works of Simon, Gilli, Caulin, Rivero, Cassani, Gumilla
and Piedrahita--not to mention others of lesser note--that treat
specially of Venezuela and New Granada, and afford us the truest
picture of the condition of these countries during their existence
under Spanish domination. Humboldt frequently quotes them in his
instructive Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions
of America, and usually with the generous approval and commendation
which they so well deserve. To the humble and intelligent and often
erudite missionaries of the tropics the illustrious German savant
was indebted for much of the success that attended his explorations
in the basin of the Orinoco and along the plateau of the Cordilleras.
Worthy of mention, too, in traversing countries where the traveler has
not the benefit of a Murray or a Baedeker, are the numerous works of
those explorers--German, English, French, American--who have followed
in the footsteps of Humboldt and his compagnon de voyage, Bonpland,
and who have cast a flood of light upon the fauna and flora of the
countries visited, and supplemented the works of the early historians
and missionaries by describing the condition of their inhabitants as
it obtains to-day.
In the following pages the author has endeavored to give not
only his own impressions of the lands he has visited but also,
when the narrative permitted or required it, the impressions of
others--conquistadores, missionaries and men of science--who have gone
over the same grounds or discussed the same topics as constitute the
subject-matter of this volume. The rapidly increasing interest of our
people in all matters pertaining to South America, and the eagerness
now manifested to see closer trade-relations established between the
United States and the various republics of Latin America, seemed to
justify this course. For the student, as well as for the general
reader, it seemed to be desirable, if not necessary, to indicate,
at least cursorily, by citations and footnotes, the character and
extent of that large class of works, historical and scientific,
that occupy so important a position in the annals of discovery and
of material and intellectual progress.
In the words of Pliny, quoted on the title page, it has been the aim
of the author "to give newness to old things, authority to new things,
beauty to things out of use, fame to the obscure, favor to the hateful,
credit to the doubtful, nature to all and all to nature." A difficult
task truly; how difficult no one can more fully recognize than the
author himself. If he has failed in many of the things proposed,
he cherishes the hope that the reader's verdict will incline to
that contained in the last sentence of the paragraph cited: "To
such neverthelesse as can not attayne to all these, it is greatly
commendable and magnificall to have attempted the same."
The present book will be followed by a volume to be entitled: "Along
the Andes and Down the Amazon."
The Author.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introductory 1
II. Trinidad and the Orinoco 54
III. The Great River 82
IV. In Mid-Orinoquia 112
V. El Rio Meta 139
VI. Approaching the Andes 165
VII. The Llanos of Colombia 195
VIII. The Cordillera of the Andes 228
IX. In Cloudland 255
X. The Athens of South America 285
XI. The Muisca Trail 313
XII. The Valley of the Magdalena 346
XIII. In the Track of Plate-Fleets and Buccaneers 377
XIV. The Rich Coast 399
BIBLIOGRAPHY 429
INDEX 435
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
A cavalcade in the Andes Frontispiece
On the Coast Range, Venezuela 42
Scene on the Orinoco 76
An Indian home on the Orinoco 94
In the llanos of Venezuela 122
Indians of Mid-Orinoquia 122
Our crew ashore for fuel 160
La Niñita, our launch, on the Upper Meta 176
A traveler's lodge in the llanos of Colombia 204
A shelter on the banks of the Ocoa 220
Our camp in the llanos 220
Stopping for luncheon in the Lower Cordilleras 240
Peons fording a river in the Andes 262
A valley in the Cordilleras 286
Road between Bogotá and Honda 332
Champan going up the Magdalena 354
A palm forest in the tropics 372
Method of transporting freight between Honda and Bogotá 414
UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
EASTER LAND
On a dark, cold day toward the close of January, 1907, the writer
stood at a window in New York, observing some score of a mittened
army removing the avalanche of snow that cumbered the streets after
a half week of continuous storm. He was pondering a long vacation,
musing where rest and recreation might be found, at once wholesome
and instructive, amid scenes quite different from any afforded by his
previous journeys. He was familiar with every place of interest in
North America, from Canada to the Gulf, from Alaska to Yucatan. He
had spent many years in Europe, had visited Asia, Africa, and the
far-off isles of the Pacific. He cared not to revisit these, much
less to go where he must entertain or be entertained. He sought rest,
absolute rest and freedom, untrammeled by conventional life. For
the present he would shun the society of his fellows for the serene
solitude of the wilderness, or the companionship of mighty mountains
and rivers. Not that he was a misanthrope or that he wished to become
an anchoret. Far from it. Still less did he wish to spend his time in
idleness. This for him would have been almost tantamount to solitary
confinement. He dreamed of a land where he could spend most of the
time in the open air close to Nature and in communion with her--where
both mind and body could be always active and yet always free--free
as the bird that comes and goes as it lists.
Whilst thus absorbed in thought, and casting an occasional glance
at the laborers in the street battling against the Frost-King, whose
work continued without intermission, the writer was awakened from his
reverie by the dulcet notes evoked from a Steinway grand and the sweet,
sympathetic voice of one who had just intoned the opening words of
Goethe's matchless song as set to music by Liszt:--
"Knowest thou the land where the pale citron grows,
And the gold orange through dark foliage glows?
A soft wind flutters through the deep blue sky,
The myrtle blooms, and towers the laurel high,
Knowest thou it well?
O there with thee!
O that I might, my own beloved one, flee."
It was La Niña--the pet name of the young musician--that came as a
special providence to clear up a question that seemed to be growing
more difficult the longer it was pondered. The effect was magical,
and all doubt and hesitation disappeared forthwith. La Niña, as if
inspired, had, without in the least suspecting it, indicated the land
of the heart's desire. Yes, the writer would leave, and leave at once,
the region of cloud and frost and chilling blast, and seek the land
of flowers and sunshine, the land of "soft wind" and "blue sky," "the
land where the pale citron grows," where "the gold orange glows." It
would not, however, be the land of which Mignon sang and which she
so yearned to see again. Lovely, charming Italy, with its manifold
attractions of every kind, must for once yield to the sun-land of
another clime far away, and in another hemisphere.
A few days afterwards the writer, with a few friends, had taken his
place in a through Pullman car bound for the Land of Easter--the land
of Ponce de Leon. They found every berth in the car occupied by people
like themselves hastening away from the rigors of winter and betaking
themselves to where
"Trees bloom throughout the year, soft breezes blow,
And fragrant Flora wears a lasting smile."
Some were going for the rest and the amusement promised at several
noted winter resorts. Others were in search of health that had been
shattered by confinement or over-work. Some were going away for a few
weeks only; others for the entire winter. Some were going no farther
south than Florida, others purposed visiting some of the Antilles,
and even, mayhap, the Spanish Main.
As for the writer, he had no fixed plan, and for this reason he had
not even thought of making out an itinerary. He would go to Florida to
take up again a line of travel that had been interrupted some decades
before. He had always been interested in the lives and achievements
of the early Spanish discoverers and conquistadores, and had, in
days gone by, followed in the footsteps of Narvaez and de Soto,
of Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado, Fray Marcos de Niza, and Hernando
Cortes. And now that he had the opportunity, it occurred to him that
he could do nothing better or more profitable than make a reality what
had been a dream from boyhood. He would visit the islands and lands
discovered by the immortal "Admiral of the ocean sea" and follow in
the footsteps of the conquistadores in Tierra Firme. He would explore
the lands first made known by Balboa, and Quesada, and Belalcazar and
rendered famous by the prowess of the Almagros and the Pizarros. He
would visit the homes of the Musicas, the Incas, and the Ayamaras,
wander among the Cordilleras from the Caribbean Sea to Lake Titicaca
and beyond, and follow in the wake of Diego de Ordaz and Alonzo de
Herrera on the broad waters of the Orinoco and in that of Pedro de
Orsua and Francisco de Orellana in the mighty flood of the Amazon.
A great undertaking apparently, and, considered in the light of certain
reports published about tropical America, seemingly impossible. To
say the least, such a journey, it was averred, implied difficulties
and privations and dangers innumerable.
"Do you wish to spend the rest of your life in South America? It will
require a lifetime to visit the regions you have mentioned. I have
myself spent many years in traveling in tropical America, and knowing,
as I do, the lack of facilities for travel, the countless unforeseen
delays of every kind, and the mañana habit that obtains everywhere in
the countries you would visit, I have no hesitation in stating that
you are attempting the impossible, if you mean to accomplish all you
have spoken of in the limited time you have allotted to yourself."
Such were the words addressed to the writer on the eve of his departure
by a noted traveler and one who is considered an authority on all
things South American. Not very encouraging, truly, especially to
one who was seeking rest and recreation and who was anything but
inclined to court hardships and dangers in foreign lands and among
peoples that were reputed to be only half-civilized, where-ever they
chanced to be above the aboriginal savage that still roams over so
much of the territory on both sides of the equator.
But, as already stated, the writer had on leaving home no definite
programme mapped out. He left that to shape itself according to events
and circumstances. He departed on his journey with little more of a
plan than the vague indications of a life-long dream. Still, confiding
in Providence, he hoped that he would be able to realize this, as he
had, in years gone by, realized other dreams that seemed even less
likely ever to become actualities.
LA FLORIDA
Twenty-eight hours after leaving New York, with its snow and ice
and arctic blasts, our party found itself wandering among the orange
groves and promenading beneath the graceful palms of old, romantic
St. Augustine. We could scarcely credit our senses, so complete was the
change in our environment. A soft, balmy atmosphere, gentle zephyrs,
sweet, feathered songsters without number, all joining in a chorus
of welcome to the strangers from the North, made us think that we had
been transported to the Hesperides or to the delights of the Elysian
Fields. And when, after nightfall, we walked about the grounds and
the courts of the famous hostelries that have been recently erected
regardless of expense, and provided with every luxury that money
and art can command--all brilliantly illuminated by thousands of
electric lights of divers colors--it seemed as if we had, in very
deed, suddenly, we knew not how, become denizens of fairyland. To
find anything similar to the scene that here bursts upon the view of
the delighted visitor one must go to Monte Carlo during the season
when thousands are attracted thither from all parts of the world,
or betake oneself to the Place de la Concorde when the gay French
capital is en fête.
St. Augustine, with all its traditions and historic associations,
is one of the most restful and interesting of places, especially
in winter, and a place, too, where one might tarry for months with
pleasure. Nothing can be more delightful than the drives in the
pine-forests adjacent to the city,
"Where west-winds with musky wing
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassias balmy smells."
We could now verify at our leisure what we had been wont to consider
as the exaggerated statements of the early explorers of Florida
regarding the beautiful forests--"trellised with vines and gay
with blossoms"--and the fragrant odors that were wafted from them
by the breeze even out to the ships passing along the coast, and
"in such abundance that the entire orient could not produce so
much." "We stretched forth our hands," writes Lescarbot, in his
Historie de la Nouvelle France, "as if to grasp them, so palpable
were they." All carried away with them the same impression about the
"douceur odoriferante de plusieurs bonnes choses"--the odoriferous
sweetness of many good things--that was everywhere observable.
Nor were their accounts of this grateful feature of the country
overdrawn. It is the same to-day as it was four centuries ago,
when the European had just landed on these shores and found so many
things--as novel as they were marvelous--to excite his delight and
enthusiasm. It is something that is denied to us whose homes are
in the North, and, to enjoy it in all its newness and freshness,
we must perforce immigrate to tropical and subtropical climes.
But the foregoing is only one of the delectable features of this
favored land. As we wander through the groves and gardens and sail on
the placid waters of the rivers and lakes through the silent everglades
or the dark and mysterious forests, we find at every turn something
to charm the ear or delight the eyes. Everywhere we meet with new
and beauteous form of animal and vegetable life and realize for the
first time, perhaps, how diverse and multitudinous are the forms of
animated nature.
If we are to credit Herrera, it was on account of its beautiful aspect,
as well as on the day on which it was discovered, that the locality
received the name it now bears. The historian says explicitly that
Ponce de Leon and his companions "named it Florida because it appeared
very delightful, having many pleasant groves, and it was all level;
as also because they discovered it at Easter, which, as has been said,
the Spaniards call Pascua de Flores or Florida." [1]
In view of this clear and positive statement of Herrera, one is
surprised to see that writers treating the subject ex professo have
fallen into error regarding the origin of the name Florida. Thus
Barnard Shipp writes: "The Peninsula of Florida was discovered by
Juan Ponce de Leon on Pascua Florida, Palm Sunday, in the year 1512,
[2] and because of the day on which he discovered it, he gave it the
name Florida." [3]
All doubt, however, about the real origin of the name, about which
there has been so much misunderstanding, is removed by the declaration
of Peter Martyr, the father of American history. In his delightfully
refreshing work, De Orbe Novo, which is not so well known as it
should be, he asserts in language that does not admit of ambiguity,
that Juan Ponce named the newly discovered territory Florida because
it was discovered the day of the Resurrection, for the Spaniards call
the day of the Resurrection Pascua de Flores." [4]
When the French Huguenots some decades later attempted to colonize
the country they called it "La Nouvelle France"--New France--a name
they also subsequently gave to Canada.
More interesting, however, is the fact that the Spaniards first thought
the peninsula to be an island and called it Isla Florida. Ponce de Leon
in writing to Charles V calls it an island, and it is figured as such
in the Turin map of the New World, circa 1523. But after they learned
that it was the mainland, Florida was made to embrace the whole of
North America except Mexico. Thus writes Herrera and Las Casas. The
latter make it extend from what we now know as Cape Sable to "the
land of Codfish" (Newfoundland), "otherwise known as Labrador, which
is not very far from the island of England." The present boundaries
of Florida, it may be remarked, were not determined until 1795,
when they were fixed by treaty with Spain.
But what in more interesting than names and boundaries, and what will,
perhaps, be more surprising to the readers of popular works on the
subject, is the fact that Ponce de Leon, in spite of all that has
been said to the contrary, was not the discoverer of Florida, the
fact that it was discovered nearly two decades before Ponce de Leon
reached its shores, and the further and more unexpected fact that it
was discovered by that much misrepresented and much abused navigator,
Americus Vespucius.
Thanks to the researches of Varnhagen, Harrisse and others, these facts
have been apparently demonstrated beyond doubt. In his work on the
voyages of the brothers Cortereal, Harrisse has clearly proven that,
between the end of the year 1500 and the summer of 1502, certain
navigators, whose names and nationality are unknown, but who were
presumably Spaniards, discovered, explored and named that part of the
coast-line of the United States which extends from Pensacola Bay,
along the Gulf of Mexico, to the Cape of Florida, and, turning it,
runs northward along the Atlantic coast to about the mouth of the
Chesapeake or the Hudson. [5] The maps of Juan de la Cosa--drawn
in 1500--and the one made for Alberto Cantino in 1502--maps which
have only recently received the attention due them--are overwhelming
evidence of the truth of these conclusions.
According to M. Varnhagen, the one who furnished the data for these
maps, if indeed, he did not construct the prototype from which they
were both executed, was no other than Americus Vespucius, who from now
on must receive different treatment from that which has hitherto been
accorded him. By marshalling a brilliant array of facts, presented with
masterly logic, Varnhagen, silences the detractors of the illustrious
Florentine navigator, and disarms those objectors who have been
unwilling to accept as true the statements contained in the celebrated
Soderini letter regarding his first voyage to the New World in 1497 and
1498. He leaves no doubt on the reader's mind, that Vespucius, after
visiting Honduras and Yucatan, sailed thence to and around Florida,
and that, if he did not himself actually construct the original of the
Cantino map, it was he that supplied the data from which both this
map and that of Juan de la Cosa were rendered possible. [6] If some
fortunate student of early Americana should eventually ferret out
the Quattro Giornate--Four Journeys--of which Vespucius frequently
makes mention, and in which he gives an account of all his voyages,
he would render an incalculable service to the cause of truth, and
would be able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of even the most
exacting critic the extent and importance of the services rendered by
the pilot major of Spain to the crown of Leon and Castile--services
only second to those which distinguish Columbus himself.
FONS JUVENTUTIS
But whatever may be said about the discovery of the country, Ponce
de Leon's name will always remain so closely linked with Florida
that it will never be possible to dissociate the two. One may forget
all about his enterprise as a navigator and may ignore his claims
as a discoverer, but one can never become oblivious of that strange
episode with which his name is inseparably connected--the romantic
search for the Fountain of Youth.
For the historian, as for the psychologist, the subject possesses
an abiding interest, and even the casual visitor to Florida finds
himself unconsciously dreaming about the days long gone by when
Spaniard and Indian were wandering through forest and everglade in
search of the life-giving fountain about which they had heard such
marvelous reports. And if his dreams do not consume all his time,
he also finds himself speculating on the origin of such reports, or
the basis of the legend which started Ponce de Leon and others on a
search for what proved to be an ignis fatuus as extraordinary as was
the mythical Eldorado a few years later.
The historian Gomara, referring to this episode in the life of Ponce de
Leon, writes as follows: "The gouernour of the Islande of Boriquena,
John Ponce de Leon, beinge discharged of his office and very ryche,
furnysshed and sente foorth two carvels to seeke the Ilandes of Boyuca
in the which the Indians affirmed to be a fontayne or spring whose
water is of vertue to make owlde men younge."
"Whyle he trauayled syxe monethes with owtragious desyre among many
Ilandes to fynde that he sought, and coulde fynde no token of any
such fountayne, he entered into Bimini and discouered the lande of
Florida in the yeare 1512 on Easter day which the Spanyardes caule the
florisshing day of Pascha, wherby they named that lande Florida." [7]
Antonio de Herrera speaks not only of this Fountain of Youth but
also of a river whose waters had likewise the marvelous property
of restoring youth to old age. This river was also supposed to be
in Florida. It was known as the Jordan and received quite as much
attention from both Spaniards and Indians as did the Fountain of Youth.
Fonteneda, who spent seventeen years in the wilds of Florida, as a
captive of the Indians, gives more explicit information about the
subject than either Gomara or Herrera. "Juan Ponce de Leon," he says,
"believing the reports of the Indians of Cuba and San Domingo to
be true, made an expedition into Florida to discover the river
Jordan. This he did, either because he wished to acquire renown,
or, perhaps, because he hoped to become young again by bathing in
its waters. Many years ago a number of Cuban Indians went in search
of this river, and entered the province of Carlos, but Sequene, the
father of Carlos, took them prisoners and settled them in a village,
where their descendants are still living. The news that these people
had left their own country to bathe in the river Jordan spread among
all the kings and chiefs of Florida, and, an they were an ignorant
people, they set out in search of this river, which was supposed
to possess the powers of rejuvenating old men and women. So eager
were they in their search, that they did not pass a river, a brook,
a lake, or even a swamp, without bathing in it, and even to this day
they have not ceased to look for it, but always without success. The
natives of Cuba, braving the dangers of the sea, became the victims
of their faith, and thus it happened that they came to Carlos,
where they built a village. They came in such great numbers that,
although many have died, there are still many living there, both old
and young. While I was a prisoner in those parts I bathed in a great
many rivers but never found the right one." [8]
The poet-historian, Juan de Castellanos, writing in mock heroic
style, says that so great were the virtues of the Fountain of
Youth, that by means of its waters old women were able to get rid
of their wrinkles and gray hairs. "A few draughts of the water and
a bath in the restoring fluid sufficed to restore strength to their
enfeebled members, give beauty to their features, and impart to a faded
complexion the glow of youth. And, considering the vanity of our times,
I wonder how many old women would drag themselves to this saving wave,
if the puerilities of which I speak were certainties. How rich and
puissant would not be the king who should own such a fountain! What
farms, jewels, and prized treasures would not men sell in order to
become young again! And what cries of joy would not proceed from
the women-folk--from the fair as well as from the homely! In what
a variety of costumes and liveries would not all go to seek such
favors! Certainly they would take greater pains than they would in
making a visit to the Holy Land." [9]
What Castellanos said might be repeated to-day. If the Fountain of
Youth or the river Jordan, such as Ponce de Leon, Ayllon and de Soto
sought, now existed, Florida would be the most frequented and most
thickly populated country on the face of the globe. Vichy, Homburg,
Karlsbad and other similar resorts would at once be abandoned, and
there would forthwith be a mad rush for the Land of Easter. The
Fountain of Youth would be worth more to its possessor than the
diamond mines of Kimberley, more than the combined interests of
Standard Oil, more than all the stocks and bonds of the United
States Steel Corporation. There would be countless numbers who,
like Faust, would be ready to sell their souls for a single draught
of the life-giving fountain, for a single plunge into the health-
and strength-restoring river.
That the simple and ignorant Indians of Cuba and Haiti and adjacent
islands should have credited the stories in circulation about
the marvelous waters said to exist somewhere in Florida we can
understand. The marvelous and the supernatural always appeal in a
special manner to the superstitious and untutored savage. We are,
however, disposed to smile at the credulity of the enlightened
Spaniard who did not hesitate to sacrifice fortune and life in the
quest of what could never be found outside of Utopia. But, viewing
things in our present state of knowledge, it is easy to judge them
rashly and do them a grave injustice. We must transport ourselves
back to the times in which they lived and acted, and consider
the strange and novel environment in which they suddenly found
themselves. A new world had just been discovered--a world in which
everything--plants, trees, animals, men--seemed different from what
they were familiar with in their own land. And for a people who from
their youth had eagerly listened to stories of knight-errantry, and
who, by long association with their Moorish neighbors, were ready
to accept as sober facts the wildest statements of oriental fable,
a special allowance must be made. They had heard of the adventures
of Marco Polo, and of the wonders of Cathay and Cipango, and their
minds were full of the oft-told tales about the Fortunate Isles, and
the Islands of the Blest--located somewhere in the broad Atlantic,
and presumably in the region of the setting sun--and what more natural
than that they should expect to find themselves some bright morning
in a land of enchantment? The marvelous stories current about the
voyages of St. Brendan and his companions, about the island in the
Western sea inhabited by Enoch and Elias, about the Garden of Eden
moved from the distant East to the more distant West, all contributed
to prepare their minds for a ready acceptance of the most extravagant
statements. Had not the great Admiral, Columbus, announced that he
had located the site of the Terrestrial Paradise, when he sailed by
the rushing water of the Orinoco, and had not his views been accepted
by thousands of his wondering contemporaries?
Such being the case, is it astonishing that the early explorers should
have seriously believed in what we are now so ready to denounce
as absurd? The romantic world of the sixteenth century, when Pliny
and the Physiologus and the Bestiaries, were accepted by students
of nature as unquestioned authorities; when learned men spent their
lives in search of the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone,
and believed in the transmutation of the baser metals into gold,
was quite different from our prosaic twentieth-century world, when
nothing is accepted that cannot pass the ordeal of exact science.
Again, we must not imagine, as is so often done, that a Fons
Juventutis, such as Ponce de Leon and his contemporaries sought for,
was something unheard of in the history of our race. Stories of
miraculously healing fountains have been current from early times
and in divers parts of the world--in India, in Ethiopia, and in the
isles of the Pacific.
The reader will recall what Sir John Mandeville says about a well
of youth he found during his travels in India. It was, he declares,
"a right faire and a clere well, that hath a full good and sweete
savoure, and it smelleth of all maner of sortes of spyces, and also
at eche houre of the daye it changeth his savor diversely, and whoso
drinketh thries on the daye of that well, he is made hole of all maner
of sickenesse that he hathe. I have sometime dronke of that well and me
thinketh yet that I fare the better; some call it the well of youth,
for they that drinke thereof seme to be yong alway, and live without
great sicknesse, and they saye this, cometh from Paradise terrestre,
for it is so vertuous." [10]
So writes Mandeville, but there is reason to believe that he cribbed
this account of the Fountain of Youth from a medieval legend of
Prester John, from which, on account of the interest that attaches
to the subject, I select the following paragraph:--
"Item aboute this passage is a fonteyne or a conduyte so who of this
watere drinked, IIJ. tymes he shall waxe yonge and also yf a man haue
had a sykenes, XXX. yere and drynked of thys same water he shall therof
be hole and sonde. And also as a man thereof drinked hym semeth that
he had occupyed the beste mete and drinke of the worlde, and this same
fonteyne is full of the grace of the holy goost, and who sowe in this
same water wasshed his body he shall become yonge of XXX. yere." [11]
Whether these stories had their origin in folklore or not, they
found their way into Europe at least two centuries before the voyage
of Ponce de Leon to Florida. Mandeville's work appeared in French,
Latin, and English, and such was its popularity, that Halliwell did
not hesitate to declare that "of no book, with the exception of the
Scriptures, can more MSS. be found at the end of the fourteenth and
the beginning of the fifteenth century."
Such being the case, it would be strange indeed if the Spaniards were
not familiar with stories so widely circulated, and stranger still
if, on arriving in the New World, and learning from the Indians of
the existence of a fountain of youth, and at no great distance away,
they should not seek to locate it and test its virtues. Given the
state of knowledge at the time, and the credence accorded to the
accounts of similar fountains in the Old World, the much ridiculed
expedition of Ponce de Leon followed as a natural consequence. It
would have been more surprising if the expedition had not been made
than that it was made.
The foregoing remarks on the Florida Fountain of Youth and river
Jordan would be incomplete without a few words about the probable
origin of the traditions concerning them. To attribute their origin
to folklore simply may be true, but it explains nothing.
M. E. Beauvois, in a series of interesting articles--very plausible
if not conclusive--on the subject, contends that all the traditions
regarding the Fountain of Youth and the river Jordan, which proved
so attractive to the Spaniards, are of Christian origin. He maintains
that the Gaels, as early as 1380, "had established relations with the
aborigines from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the tropical zone of North
America, and that it is very probable that missionaries accompanied
the merchants in their voyages to Florida and the Antilles." He argues
that these missionaries baptized the indigenes in some river which,
for that reason, they called the Jordan, or that they spoke to them
of a river in their country, on which a Christian mission had been
established, and that this fact gave rise to the formation of the
tradition of a Jordan situated somewhere at the north of the Antilles.
It remains to show how this tradition came to be confounded with
the story of the Fountain of Youth. This confusion was the more
natural that the same idea is at the foundation of the two parallel
traditions. The one has reference to the regeneration of the soul,
the other to the rejuvenation of the body, both being effected by
means of vivifying water. In the beginning, but one kind of water
was known, that "which saved by its own proper virtue, the water of
baptism, which is exclusively spiritual." Subsequently, however, the
simple and superstitious Indian attributed to the waters of baptism
properties which seemed to him preferable to those spoken of by the
missionary--the properties, namely, "of curing diseases of the body,
or of restoring youth to the decrepit and of indefinitely prolonging
life. From that time the Fountain of Youth had a proper existence
and began to play an important role in popular traditions."
How long the tradition of the beneficent waters of Florida
existed--and Florida, it must be remembered, meant to the Spaniards
of the sixteenth century all the Atlantic coast--M. Beauvois does
not determine. It may have been only a few generations, or it may
have been several centuries. It may even have dated back to about
the year 1008, when Thorfinn Karlsefni was baptized in "Vinland the
Good"--Massachusetts--the first Christian, so far as known, born on
the American continent. Or it may have originated as far north as New
Brunswick--"Great Ireland or Huitramannaland--which had been occupied
by a Gaelic colony from the year 1000, or from an earlier date,
until the end of the fourteenth century, and where, about the year
1000, the Papas, Columbite monks, the evangelizers of that region,
had baptized the Icelander, Aré Mârsson, who had left his native
island before his conversion to Christianity."
At all events, whatever conclusions may be reached as to the time when
and the place where the tradition originated, it is manifest that
"it could have been propagated in the New World only by Christians
and as it was in existence before the arrival of the Spaniards,
we must attribute its propagation to other Europeans, to those,
for example, whose crosses the indigenes of Tennessee and Georgia
had exhumed from their ancient burial places, or to those whom the
inhabitants of Haiti had known either de visu or by hearsay." [12]
What is here said of the Christian origin of the Florida Fountain of
Youth can likewise be predicated of the one mentioned in the legend
of Prester John--whence, as we have seen, Mandeville got his story,
for it is said, "this same fonteyne is full of the grace of the holy
goost," an obvious allusion to the regenerating waters of baptism.
But it is time to resume the thread of our narrative, interrupted by a
discussion unavoidably long, but pardonable, it is hoped, in view of
its abiding interest and intimate connection with the early history
of Florida. Besides, my purpose is not so much to give descriptions
of the countries through which we shall pass--something which has
in most instances been done before--as to give the impressions of
their earliest explorers and to dwell, as briefly as may be, on topics
relating to the various regions visited, that possess even for the most
casual reader a perennial fascination and importance. In countries like
those we shall visit, the impressions of the first explorers are often
more interesting and instructive than those of the latest tourist or
naturalist, for such impressions have about them a freshness and an
originality--often a quaintness and a simplicity--that are entirely
absent from modern works of travel. Another reason for so doing is that
much of the ground, over which we shall travel, is practically the
same to-day as when it first greeted the eyes of the conquistadores,
and many of the towns and cities we shall visit, no less than the
manners and customs of the people, differ but little from what they
were in the time of Charles V and Philip II. Thus, regarding many
things, the statements of the Spanish writers and missionaries of
four centuries ago are still as true as if they had been penned but
yesterday, and that, too, by the most accurate observer.
From St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States, the traveler
has the choice of two routes to Havana. One is by way of Tampa Bay,
called by De Soto the Bay of Espíritu Santo, and by some of the early
geographers designated as the Bay of Ponce de Leon. What, however,
is now known as Ponce de Leon Bay, is farther south and near the
southernmost point of the peninsula. The other route is along the
east coast of the state. At the time of our visit the railroad was in
operation only as far as Miami, but was being rapidly pushed towards
its terminus at Key West.
We chose the eastern route because we could in fancy follow more
closely in the footsteps of the conquistadores and picture to
ourselves, in the ocean, nearly always visible, that long procession
of barks and brigantines which four centuries ago plowed the main,
some moving northward, others southward--all manned by brawny,
hardy mariners in search of gold and glory. Spaniards, like Ponce
de Leon and Pedro Menendez; Italians, like Americus Vespucius and
Verrazano; Englishmen, like Hawkins and Raleigh; Frenchmen, like
Ribaut and Laudonniere, all passed along this coast--all bent on
achieving distinction or extending the possessions of their respective
sovereigns. Brave and gallant mariners these, men whose names are
writ large on the pages of story and who occupy a conspicuous place
in the records of the heroes of adventure.
From Miami we went by steamer to Key West, which will soon be
accessible by rail from St. Augustine. The sea was as placid as an
inland lakelet and the voyage to Havana was in every way ideal. We
skirted along the Florida Keys--those countless coral islets that
are to serve as piers for the railroad under construction, which is
to form so important a link between Cuba and the United States. When
completed the time consumed in going to the Pearl of the Antilles
will not only be greatly lessened, but the former discomforts and
terrors of the journey will be entirely eliminated. No longer will
the traveler be obliged to encounter the hurricanes of the Bahamas or
the heavy seas off Cape Hatteras. He will be able to take his seat
in a Pullman car in New York and go, without change, through to Key
West and thence to Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
How different was it when the small Spanish craft of four centuries
ago navigated these waters on their way from Panama and Vera Cruz to
the mother country! Then, as the reader will observe, by reference
to the old maps of Florida, the keys or coral reefs along the coast
were known as Los Mártires--the Martyrs--so named by Ponce de Leon on
account of the number of shipwrecks that occurred here, and because
of the number of lives that were lost on these treacherous shoals
and also, as Herrera informs us, because of certain rock-formations
in the vicinity that have the appearance of men in distress.
If we may credit the legends and traditions that have obtained in
those parts, many a Spanish treasure-ship has been lost in threading
its way through the uncharted shoals and islands of Los Mártires and
the Bahamas, and many futile attempts have been made to recover at
least a part of the treasure lost, but it was
"Lost in a way that made search vain."
And of the adventurous divers, who braved the dangers of current and
wave, one can safely say in the words of Bret Harte
"Never a sign,
East or West, or under the line,
They saw of the missing galleon;
Never a sail or plank or chip,
They found of the long-lost treasure-ship,
Or enough to build a tale upon."
THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES
Early the morning following our departure from Miami we were aroused
from our slumbers by the cry of a mariner, "Land ho! all hands
ahoy!" We were on deck without delay, and there before us, under a
sky of purest azure, we beheld the hills of Cuba, clad in a mantle
of undying verdure. Its resplendent shores were arrayed in hues of
glowing beauty and unimagined loveliness. Fragrant groves of orange
and pomegranate, luxuriant forests white with clouds of bloom, formed
a glorious setting to the refulgent waves that reflected the crimson
splendors of the rising sun. Delicious zephyrs, fanning their balmy
wings, bathed our brows with dewy freshness, sweet with perfume from
ambrosial fruits and tropic flowers. Yes, we were in the Pearl of
the Antilles, the "Sweet Isle of Flowers"; in Gan Eden--the Garden
of Delight--that in the legends of long ago was reckoned among the
Isles of the Blest.
The beautiful pictures before us, however, were but as a fleeting
panorama. We had but little time to feast our eyes on them before we
were in front of grim, frowning Morro Castle, that for three centuries
and more has stood sentinel of the fair city at its feet. Adjoining
the Castle are the Cabañas, a vast range of fortifications more than a
mile in length, and nearly a thousand feet in breadth. Just opposite,
on the other side of the harbor's entrance, is the Bateria de la
Punta, and some distance farther beyond is the star-shaped Castle
Atares. From a military standpoint Havana is well protected, and,
with Morro Castle properly equipped with modern artillery, would be
practically impregnable.
Few West Indian cities have greater historic interest than Havana. From
the time it was first visited by Ocampo, four hundred years ago, until
the raising of the flag of the Cuban Republic in 1904, it has been
the witness of many stirring events that have effected the destinies
of millions of people in various parts of the world. It was from
Havana's port that Cortes, in 1519, sailed on his memorable voyage to
Mexico. It was from this port that Pamphilio de Narvaez and Hernando
de Soto started on their ill-starred expeditions to Florida. Time
and again the city was harassed by Dutch, French and English pirates
and Buccaneers. Oftentimes, too, the daring sea-rovers, who so long
infested West Indian waters, levied tribute on the unfortunate
inhabitants who were unable to defend themselves. Indeed, it was
to defend the city from these marauders that the kings of Spain,
in the middle of the sixteenth century, began the erection of
those fortifications that, since their completion, have excited the
admiration of all who have visited them.
Cuba was one of the islands Columbus discovered during his first
voyage. But he thought he had discovered a continent--that he had
reached the eastern extremity of Asia. He had set out from Spain
to find a western route to the Indies, to offset the discoveries
of Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama. To him Cuba was the land
of the Great Khan, far-off Cathay, and Española, discovered shortly
afterwards, was Cipango, Japan. Indeed, there is reason to believe that
he died in the belief that Cuba, far from being an island, was a part
of China, as mapped by Toscanelli and described by Marco Polo. We have
no positive evidence that he was ever aware of the circumnavigation
of the island by Pinzón and Solís in 1497, and he was dead two years
before its insularity was again proved by Ocampo. He never dreamed
that he had discovered a new world, nor did any of his contemporaries
or immediate successors have any conclusive reason to infer that the
lands discovered by the great Admiral in his third and fourth voyages
were not a part of the Asiatic continent.
Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean did not supply such reasons,
neither did the rounding of South America and the circumnavigation
of the globe by Magellan. Nor were the necessary proofs furnished by
the explorations of Drake or Frobisher, Davis or Hudson or Baffin.
The final demonstration of the complete separation of America from
Asia was a long process and was not given until the noted explorations
of Vitus Behring in 1728, more than two centuries after Balboa from
the summit of a peak in Darien first descried the placid waters of
the great South Sea. [13]
We had desired to visit the northern and southern coasts of Cuba,
and to feast our eyes on the beautiful scenes that had so captivated
Columbus; to view the hundred harbors that indent its tortuous
shores; to see the Queen's Gardens--now known as Los Cayos de
las Doce Leguas--which the great navigator fancied to be the seven
thousand spice islands of Marco Polo, but our time was too limited to
permit the long and slow coasting that would be required. Besides,
we preferred to study the interior of the country, and pass through
the sugar and tobacco plantations for which the island is so famous.
Fortunately for the comfort of the traveler, there is now a through
train from Havana to Santiago, so that one can make the entire five
hundred and forty miles in twenty-four hours, and that, too, if one
so elect, in a Pullman car.
Columbus, in writing of his first voyage to Rafael Sánchez and Luis
de Santangel, says that all the countries he had discovered, but
particularly Juana--the name he gave to Cuba--"are of surpassing
excellence," and "exceedingly fertile." "All these islands" he
continues, "are very beautiful and distinguished by a diversity of
scenery; they are filled with a great variety of trees of immense
height, and which I believe retain their foliage in all seasons; for
when I saw them"--in November--"they were as verdant and luxuriant
as they usually are in Spain in the month of May--some of them were
blossoming, some bearing fruit, and all flourishing in the greatest
perfection, according to their respective stages of growth, and the
nature and quality of each." Again he writes, "The nightingale and a
thousand other sorts of birds were singing in the month of November
wherever I went. There are palm trees in these countries of six
or eight sorts, which are surprising to see, on account of their
diversity from ours, but, indeed, this is the case with respect to
the other trees, as well as the fruits and weeds. Here are also honey,
and fruits of a thousand sorts, and birds of every variety." [14]
The Admiral's delight and enthusiasm at all he saw knew no bounds,
and in his diary he gives frequent expression to the pleasurable
emotions he experienced. All was new to him, and all beautiful beyond
words to describe. Trees and plants were as different from those in
Spain as day is from night, and the verdure and bloom in November
were as fresh and brilliant as in the month of May in Andalusia. [15]
The great navigator had a poet's love of nature, and artist's eye
for the beautiful. Indeed, it may be truthfully said that no one
since his time has more correctly and more succinctly portrayed the
salient features of these islands, and it may be questioned if any
one has more deeply appreciated their beauty and splendor.
That which frequently arrests the attention of the traveler, on the way
from Havana to Santiago, is the numerous sugar and tobacco plantations
everywhere visible. Sugar cane, as is known, was not found by the
Spaniards on their arrival in the New World, but was introduced there
a short time after, most probably from the Madeira or Canary Islands.
Tobacco, however, is an American plant, and one of the things that
most surprised the Europeans on first coming in contact with the
Indians of the newly discovered islands was to find them smoking the
dried leaves of this now favorite narcotic.
The first mention of tobacco is in Columbus' diary under date of
November 6, 1492. Referring to two messengers he had sent out among the
Indians, he writes, "The two Christians met on the road a great many
people going to their villages, men and women with brands in their
hands, made of herbs, for taking their customary smoke." [16] These,
then, were the first cigars of which we have any record. The use of
tobacco in pipes was apparently first observed in Florida by Captain
John Hawkins during his voyage to the peninsula in 1566. Among many
other interesting things he tells us about the inhabitants is that
of their use and love of the pipe.
"The Floridians when they trauel haue a kinde of herbe dryed, which
with a cane, and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried
herbs put together do sucke thoro the cane the smoke thereof, which
smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they liue foure or five
days without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen vsed for this
purpose; yet do they holde opinion withall, that it causeth water
and flame to void from their stomachs." [17]
The early Italian traveler, Girolamo Benzoni, evidently did not
share the views of the Floridians and Frenchmen regarding the
value of tobacco. To him it was nothing less than an invention of
Satan. Speaking of its evil effects, he says, "See what a pestiferous
and wicked poison from the devil this must be." [18]
But it is the good Old Dominican, Père Labat, who has the most to
say about the introduction and use of tobacco. His charming, gossipy
account of men and things and his vagabunda loquacitas, have lost
none of their fascination for the curious reader since they were
first written nearly two centuries ago.
Among other things he does not hesitate to affirm that the Indians,
"by introducing the use of tobacco among their pitiless conquerors,
succeeded, in great measure, in avenging themselves for the unjust
servitude to which they had been reduced." [19] According to the good
father, tobacco proved to be a veritable apple of discord, because it
gave rise to a protracted war of words among men of science. In this
war a large number of ignoramuses as well as savants participated. And
not the last to declare themselves in favor of or opposed to what
they understood no better than the serious affairs of the day, in
which they had been but too active, were the woman-folk.
Physicians discussed its properties, nature and virtues, as if it
had been known all over the habitable world from the times of Galen,
Hippocrates, and Æsculapius, and their opinions were as diverse, and
as opposed to one another as are to-day the opinions of allopaths
and homeopaths, osteopaths and psychopaths. They prescribed when
and how it was to be taken and in what doses. They and the chemists
of the time soon recognized in tobacco a valuable addition to their
pharmacopoea. Nay, more, it was not long before it was proclaimed as
a panacea for all the ills that poor suffering humanity is heir to.
Its ashes cured glanders; taken as a powder it cured rheumatism,
headache, dropsy, and paralysis. It was a specific against melancholy
and insanity; against the smallpox and the plague, against fever,
asthma and liver troubles. It strengthened the memory and excited
the imagination, and philosophers and men of science could be, it
was averred, no better prepared to grapple with the most difficult
of abstract problems than by having the nose primed with snuff.
The effects induced by chewing tobacco were said to be even more
marvelous, for among other things it was claimed that by thus using
it hunger and thirst were allayed or prevented. It removed bile,
cured toothache and freed an over-charged brain from all kinds of
deleterious humors. It strengthened and preserved the sight. Oil,
extracted from tobacco, cured deafness, gout, sciatica, improved the
circulation, and was a tonic for the nervous. In a word, it was the
great panacea of which physicians and alchemists had so long dreamed,
but had hitherto been unable to find.
Finally, however, a reaction came. Books were written against it,
and kings and princes forbade its use. On the 26th of March, 1699,
the question was seriously discussed before L'Ecole de Médecine
whether the frequent use of tobacco shortened life--An ex tabaci usu
frequenti vita summa brevior? And the conclusion was a demonstration
that the frequent use of tobacco did shorten life. Ergo ex frequenti
tabaci usu vita summa brevior. [20]
But notwithstanding the opinions of learned men and university
faculties regarding the alleged deleterious properties of tobacco,
and the denunciations hurled against the use of this invention of
the Evil One, the smoking of cigars and pipes soon became a general
habit the world over, and, it was at times difficult for the supply
to meet the demand. How little Las Casas dreamed that this "vicious
habit," as he called it, was soon to become universal, and that the
time would come when young and old would regard the "fragrant weed,"
prepared in one way or another, not only as an indispensable luxury,
but also as a prime necessity--for rich and poor alike, if life were
to be worth living.
And how far was Columbus from imagining, when he saw the Indians taking
"their customary smoke," that the leaves which they had so carefully
rolled together for this purpose, would eventually prove to be one
of the great staples of commerce, and one of the world's most valued
sources of revenue. He crossed "the Sea of Darkness" to discover a
direct route to the lands of spice and the Golden Chersonese in order
to fill the coffers of the land of his adoption. He and his companions
explored every island they met in their wanderings in quest of gold
and pearls and precious stones and here, in the narcotic plant, that
appeared to them as little more than a curiosity, there were treasures
greater than those of "Ormus and Ind." In this very island of Cuba,
of whose charms he has left us so glowing a picture, was in after
years to be developed from the humble plant--Nicotiana Tabacum--one
of Spain's most important industries--an industry that would, in the
course of time, contribute more to the nation's exchequer than the
combined output of the mines of Pasco and Potosí. Such was evidently
the thought of the Cuban poet, Zequeira, when, in his much praised
Horatian ode, A La Piña, he sings
"¡Salve, suelo felíz, donde prodiga
Madre naturaleza en abundancia
La ordorifeva planta fumigable!
¡Salve, felíz Habana!" [21]
Santiago, like Havana, is a historic city, and, from its foundation,
nearly four centuries ago, until the memorable siege of 1898, it
experienced many reverses at the hands of privateers and pirates. We
lingered just long enough to see its chief attractions--there are
not many--outside of the Morro--and to get a view of the now famous
El Caney and San Juan Hill.
The sun was sinking below the horizon when we boarded the steamer
that was to take us to Haiti and Santo Domingo. As we passed under El
Morro, that has so long and faithfully guarded the entrance to the
placid harbor, and looked towards the setting sun where Cervera's
proud fleet was scattered, we could not but recall the prophetic
words of Las Casas penned in his last will and testament. Speaking of
the Indians, to whose care and protection he had devoted a long and
fruitful life, the holy bishop writes: "As God is my witness that I
never had earthly interest in view, I declare it to be my conviction
and my faith--I believe it to be in accordance with the faith of
the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which is our rule and guide--that
by all the thefts, all the deaths, and all the confiscations of
estates and other uncalculable riches, by the dethroning of rulers
with unspeakable cruelty, the perfect and immaculate law of Jesus
Christ and the natural law itself have been broken, the name of our
Lord and His holy religion have been outraged, the spreading of the
faith has been retarded, and irreparable harm done to these innocent
people. Hence I believe that, unless it atones with much penance for
these abominable and unspeakably wicked deeds, Spain will be visited
by the wrath of God, because the whole nation has shared, more or
less, in the bloody wealth that has been acquired by the slaughter and
extermination of those people. But I fear that it will repent too late,
or never. For God punishes with blindness the sins sometimes of the
lowly, but especially and more frequently the sins of those who think
themselves wise, and who presume to rule the world. We ourselves are
eyewitnesses of this darkening of the understanding. It is now seventy
years since we began to scandalize, to rob and to murder those peoples,
but to this day we have not come to realize that so many scandals, so
much injustice, so many thefts, so many massacres, so much slavery,
and the depopulation of so many provinces, which have disgraced our
holy religion, are sins or injustices at all." [22]
Were the tragic scenes enacted in these waters and in the harbor of
Manila the fulfillment of the prophecy? If we should be disposed to
think so, let us not forget, in contemplating the humiliation and
punishment of Spain, that we too have sinned as Spain sinned. And
let us pray that the blood of the millions of Indians that have been
exterminated in our own land may not call down the vengeance of Heaven
on our children and our children's children. Nations, like individuals,
are punished where they have sinned. [23]
HAITI AND SAN DOMINGO
A short sail eastwards and we found ourselves crossing the
Windward Passage. Not far from our port quarter was Cape Maisi,
which Columbus, on his first voyage, named Cape Alpha and Omega, as
being the easternmost extremity of Asia; Alpha, therefore, from his
own point of view, and Omega from that of his Portuguese rivals. On
his second voyage Columbus came down through this passage to satisfy
himself that he had actually reached Mangi, the land of the Great Khan,
and coasted along the island of Cuba, as he reckoned, for a thousand
miles. But as fate would have it, he stopped short in his westward
course within a few hours' sail of the present Cape San Antonio,
the westernmost promontory of the island. If he had only journeyed
on a few miles further, he would have detected the insularity of what
he considered a continent, and thus have anticipated the discoveries
of Vespucius and Ocampo. And he would have done more. He would have
reached the shores of Yucatan and Campeachy and had an opportunity of
exploring the famous ruins of Chichen Itza and Uxmal. How different,
too, it would have been, if, after discovering Guanahuani, he had
directed the prow of the Santa Maria slightly to the northwest, when
a short sail would have brought him to the coast of Florida! It is
interesting to speculate not only how much his own life, but also how
greatly the entire course of American history would have been affected
by these slight changes in his course on these momentous occasions.
But during his four voyages among these mysterious islands the great
navigator was as one groping his way in the Cretan labyrinth. On his
return eastward from the Cape of Good Hope--the name he gave to the
westernmost point of Cuba attained by him--he found, almost before
he was aware of it, that he had actually circumnavigated what he had
imagined to be Cipango, the great island of Japan. This surprised
and puzzled him beyond expression. Evidently, either he was mistaken
or the authorities on whom he had been relying were mistaken. If the
island--Española--was not Cipango, what was it? He soon learned that
gold mines existed in the interior of the country and that there was
evidence of excavations that had been long abandoned. [24] What more
natural, then, than his conclusion that this was the far-famed Ophir
whence King Solomon had obtained the gold used in the adornment of
the temple of Jerusalem!
Whatever may be said of the Admiral's theory, one thing is certain,
and that is that the discovery of gold in Española [25] was directly or
indirectly the cause of untold misery to the aborigines, and eventually
led up to the present unfortunate condition of this hapless island. It
was, as the reader knows, the work in the mines that was the chief
factor in the gradual decimation and the final extinction of the
Indians in Española. When there were no longer Indians to do the work,
negroes were imported from Africa, and thence dates that hideous period
of cruel traffic in human beings which, for more than three centuries,
was the blackest stain on the vaunted civilization of the Caucasian
race. But in this, as in other similar cases, an avenging Nemesis
has either already overtaken the offending nations or is giving them
grave concern regarding the future. In the black republics of Haiti and
Santo Domingo the slave has replaced the master, and there are already
indications that the day of reckoning is approaching for the powers
that are in control of the other islands of the West Indies. We saw
evidences of this during our visit in Cuba, and are convinced that,
if it were not for the strong arm of the United States, it would not
be long before we should have another black republic at our doors. And
what is said of Cuba may be said of all the islands of the Lesser
Antilles from Trinidad to Puerto Rico. The race question is one
that will have to be met sooner or later. The whites are decreasing
in numbers and the blacks are rapidly increasing and becoming more
insistent on what they claim to be their rights, especially to that
of a greater representation in government affairs, and to a larger
share of the emoluments of public office.
It was only a few years after the colonizing of Española when negro
slavery was introduced into the island. The motive was, in some
measure, a humane one--namely, to spare the Indians the arduous
labor in the mines for which they were physically incapacitated. The
African was much stronger and had much greater powers of endurance
than the native. According to Herrera, "the negroes flourished so
well in Española, that it was thought that if a negro was not hanged
he would never die, for no one had ever seen one die of disease. Thus
the negroes found, like the oranges, a soil in Española better suited
to them than their own country, Guinea." [26]
Monopolies of licenses were granted by the Spanish monarchs for the
importation of negro slaves to the West Indies, first to their own
subjects, and later on to certain Genoese and Germans, and finally,
by a special asiento, or contract, the Spanish government conveyed
to the English the "exclusive right to carry on the most nefarious
of all trades between Africa and Spanish America." The British
engaged to transport annually to the Spanish Indies during a term
of thirty years, four thousand and eight hundred of what, in trade
language, were called "Indian pieces," that is to say, negro slaves,
paying a duty per head of thirty-three escudos and one-third. [27]
So great was the number of negroes imported into America from 1517,
when Charles V first permitted the traffic, until 1807, when the slave
trade was abolished by an act of the English Parliament, that it has
been computed that their total number was not less than five or six
millions. In one single year, 1768, it is said that the number torn
from their homes and country and transported to Spain's new colonies
was no less than ninety-seven thousand. [28]
But the inevitable soon came to pass--much sooner than even the wisest
statesman could have foreseen. The great Cardinal Ximenes, it is true,
realized from the beginning the risk incurred by sending negroes to
the Indies. He contended that it was wrong to send beyond the ocean
people so "apt in war" as the blacks, who might at any time stir up
a servile war against Spanish rule. He insisted that "the negroes,
who were as malicious as they were strong, would no sooner perceive
themselves to be more numerous in the New World than the Spaniards,
than they would lay their heads together to put on their masters the
chains they now carried." [29]
The cardinal's prediction soon came true. In all parts of the
Indies--in the islands of the sea and on Tierra Firme--there
were massacres and uprisings and "servile wars," without number,
and both the colonies and the mother country had often occasion to
regret the introduction within their boundaries of so dangerous and
warlike subjects. But it was too late to rectify the mistake. It
was impossible to drive them out of the country, or to return them
to the land whence they had been brought against their will. So
rapidly had they increased in numbers that they now, in many places,
constituted a great majority of the population. Española, to-day
constituting the two republics of Haiti and Santo Domingo, was the
first island of which they got supreme control. Which will be the
next? The question is not an idle one. It is one frequently asked
in the West Indies. The unrest and agitation of the blacks are much
greater than we in the North imagine. Their ambition is greater and
their political aspirations higher than those who have not been among
them are prepared to admit. The situation is certainly not one that
justifies supine indifference on the part of the governments now in
control, nor is the difficulty one whose solution can be indefinitely
postponed. Every lover of law and order must hope that some modus
vivendi can be arrived at whereby, while all the legitimate claims
of the negro are conceded, the world will he spared another "decline
and fall" like that which has been witnessed in Española.
We called at several of the ports of Haiti and Santo Domingo but we
found little to interest us outside of the capital of the latter
republic. Santo Domingo is not only the oldest city in the New
World--the early abandoned settlement of Isabella never deserved the
name of city--but is, in many respects, the most interesting. Founded
by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496, and named Santo Domingo after the
patron saint of his father, Domenico, it was, for a while, the seat
of the vice-royalty. It was to this place that Don Diego Colon, the
son of the Admiral, brought his lovely bride, Doña Maria de Toledo,
a daughter of one of the oldest and proudest families of Spain. Here
he set up a vice-regal court that excited the envy of his enemies,
and was by them made the basis of charges preferred against him that
he meditated establishing a government independent of the mother
country. Of the viceroy's palace, Oviedo writes to Charles V, it
"seemeth unto me so magnificall and princelyke that yowr maiestie
maye bee as well lodged therin as in any of the mooste exquisite
builded houses of Spayne." [30]
From Santo Domingo radiated the lines of discovery and conquest that
culminated in the achievements of Cortes, Balboa and Pizarro. Here
Columbus was loaded with chains and imprisoned by Bobadilla. Here was
established the first university of the New World. Here, within the
walls of the Convent of San Domingo, prayed and labored that noble
"Protector of the Indians," Las Casas, and here he planned and began
work on his monumental Historia de las Indias. Until the last assault
by Drake in 1586, it was the centre of commercial activity in the
Indies, for it was the chief port of call to and from Spain and
the place where merchants, miners, and planters disposed of their
commodities and amassed fortunes.
But Santo Domingo's halcyon days were of short duration. Before the
end of the sixteenth century the city began to decline. The theatre of
activity, that had hitherto been confined to Española, was transferred
to Cuba and Mexico, Panama and Peru, and to-day the once gay and
prosperous capital exhibits but a shadow of its pristine glory.
Homenage Castle, the crumbling palace of Don Diego Columbus, and the
few churches and monasteries that still, even in their neglected
condition, attest the former importance of the place, present a
pathetic picture, and tell, in mute but elegant language, of the
reverses and evil days that have been the lot of America's first city.
Besides the buildings just named we were especially interested in the
Cathedral. It is a noble structure and its interior decorations compare
favorably with similar edifices in Spain and Mexico. But there was one
attraction there that had for us, as it must have for all Americans,
a special interest, and which alone would well repay a pilgrimage to
Santo Domingo--the last resting place of the one "who to Castile and
Leon gave a new world."
As the reader is aware, there has been a long and spirited controversy
as to the location of los restos--the remains--of the illustrious
discoverer. We have been shown his sepulchre in the Cathedral
of Havana, and in that of Seville, yet it has been demonstrated
beyond question that his ashes have never reposed in either of these
places. Without entering into details, it may now be stated, as facts
which no longer admit of any reasonable doubt, that after his death
in 1506, the remains of Columbus were interred in the Franciscan
monastery of Valladolid, whence, in 1508, they were transferred to
the monastery of Las Cuevas, at Seville. In 1541, at the request of
"Doña Maria of Toledo, Vicereine of the Indies, wife that was of the
Admiral Don Diego Columbus," Charles V, by a special cedula, granted
permission for the transfer of the remains of Christopher Columbus
to Española, to be interred in the capilla mayor of the Cathedral of
Santo Domingo. Here they have since reposed, with the exception of
the short time during which they were kept in the adjoining church,
when the Cathedral was undergoing certain necessary repairs in 1877
and 1878. The supposed remains of the first Admiral, that were taken
to Havana in 1795, and finally transferred to Seville in 1899, have
been shown to be those of his son, Don Diego, who, together with Don
Luis Columbus, the third Admiral, and the first Duke of Veragua, was
also buried in the capilla mayor of the Cathedral, where the remains
of Don Luis still lie near those of his illustrious grandfather. [31]
As our steamer moved out of the water of Santo Domingo our eyes
remained fixed on the Cathedral, whose Spanish tiled roof reflected
the vermilion rays of the setting sun, and afford shelter for one of
the world's greatest heroes and benefactors.
"Hic locus abscondit præclari membra Coloni,"
This place hides the remains of the illustrious Columbus, of him who,
in the language of one of the many epitaphs devoted to his memory,
"Dió riquezas immensas á la tierra,
Innumerables almas al cielo." [32]
And then, as the last vestiges of this noble old temple vanished
from our vision, we thought of the words of Humboldt, than whom no
one was better qualified to pronounce a fitting eulogy on one of the
world's immortals.
"The majesty of great memories," he declares, "seems concentrated
in the name of Christopher Columbus. It is the originality of his
vast conceptions, the compass and fertility of his genius, and the
courage which bore out against the long series of misfortunes, which
have exalted the Admiral high above all his contemporaries." [33]
And we dreamed--or was it a telepathic intimation of a future
reality?--when the precious remains, that have so long been guarded
in this distant and rarely visited island, should be transferred for
a third and a last time, but this time where they might be visited
and venerated by millions instead of the few hundred that now find
their way hither, and where they might occupy a noble sarcophagus,
like that which beneath the dome of the Invalides, holds all that is
mortal of the great Corsican, and in a temple worthy alike of the
man and of the greatest nation in the world. There is one edifice
in which all the nations of the hemisphere discovered by Columbus
have a common interest, the splendid structure now being erected in
Washington, for the special use and benefit of the North and South
American Republics. Here in the capital of the nation, in the district
named after the discoverer, in sight of the tomb of the "Father of
his Country," should the remains of "The Admiral of the Ocean Sea,"
find an abiding place of sepulture commensurate with the magnitude of
his achievements. Alongside and in connection with this Pan-American
building, in the heart of what is to be "the City Beautiful," and
there alone, let there be erected a mausoleum that, as a monument of
art, shall rank, as did those of Hadrian and Mausolus, amongst the
world's wonders, and be a fitting culmination of the architectural
creations that have been planned for the great and growing capital
of the New World, the world of Columbus.
PUERTO RICO AND CURAÇAO
From Santo Domingo we went to Puerto Rico. As is well known,
this island was discovered by Columbus during his second voyage in
1493. Sixteen years later a settlement was founded here by Ponce de
Leon. It was from here that he set forth in quest of the "Fountain
of Youth," and it is in San Juan, in the Church of Santo Domingo,
that he was buried after a poisoned arrow from the bow of an Indian
brave had terminated his existence during his second expedition to
Florida. Over his tomb was inscribed the following epitaph:--
"Mole sub hac fortis requiescunt ossa Leonis
Qui vicit factis nomina magna suis." [34]
After sojourning a week in Puerto Rico, we called at the little Dutch
island Curaçao and spent the greater part of the day in the quaint
little town of Willemstad. The harbor is perfectly landlocked and was
at one time the favorite rendezvous for pirates and buccaneers. In
strolling through its streets, we could easily fancy ourselves in
some quiet section of Rotterdam or Amsterdam. The island is known for
its much prized liqueur, Curaçao, which, however, strange to say,
is not made here but in Holland. Curaçao supplies only the orange
rind with which the liqueur is flavored. Willemstad is a popular
resort for smugglers, who do an extensive business on the mainland,
and the temporary home of a colony of exiled Venezuelan generals and
colonels, who here eke out a precarious existence in the hope that
one of their periodical revolutions may soon give them the eagerly
desired opportunity of enjoying some of the spoils of office, that,
for the time being, are monopolized by their enemies.
ON THE SPANISH MAIN
We arrived in the roadstead of La Guayra early in the morning, after
our departure from Curaçao, and our vessel was soon moored alongside a
splendid breakwater, which extends out from the shore for more than
a half mile, and gives this port a fairly good harbor, which even
the largest ships may enter. We were now on the Spanish Main where
we had our first view of the great continent of South America.
As the phrase, "The Spanish Main," has been given many and different
significations since it was first introduced, I shall employ it,
in what was long its generally accepted meaning, as designating
the southern part of the Caribbean Sea, and the coast line of what,
on the early maps of South America, was known as Tierra Firme--the
Firm Land--namely, that part of the present republics of Venezuela
and Colombia on which the Spaniards effected their first settlements.
The first thing to attract our attention and that which impressed
us most, was the apparently stupendous height of the mountains in
the rear of the town. Before us were La Silla and Pico de Naiguata,
sheer and precipitous, rising almost from the water's edge and piercing
the clouds at an altitude of more than eight thousand and two hundred
feet. They are thus apparently higher than any of the peaks of the
Rocky Mountain chain. The summits of the latter are attained only
after traveling over a long and gradual incline, that is scarcely
perceptible, and after scaling numerous foothills that conceal and
dwarf the giants which tower behind and above them. Thus, while the
summit of Pike's Peak is more then fourteen thousand feet above sea
level, it is less than seven thousand feet above the charming town of
Manitou, that nestles at its feet. For this reason, and because the
sides of the Colorado peak are not so steep as those behind La Guayra,
La Silla and the Pico de Naiguata give an impression of height and
majesty that is not experienced even when contemplating the loftiest
monarchs of the Alps.
The distance from La Guayra to Caracas, in a straight line, is less
than six miles; by rail it is twenty-three. There has been talk
of connecting the capital and its port by a tunnel but under the
existing conditions of the country it will be a long time before such
an undertaking shall be realized.
From sea level to the summit of the range, the railroad is conspicuous
for its heavy grade--about four per cent.--its sharp curves, its cuts
and tunnels, but above all for the magnificent scenery everywhere
visible. From the car window one may look over precipitous cliffs
into yawning abysses far below the track on which the train slowly
and carefully winds its way. On the beetling rocks above, in the dark
and wild gorge below--what a wealth of vegetation, what luxuriance
of growth, what a gorgeous display of vari-colored fruit and flower,
of delicate fern and majestic palm!
As a feat of engineering the road is quite equal to any of the kind
that may be seen in Europe or the United States; but for scenic beauty
and splendor it is absolutely unrivaled. On the lofty flanks of the
Rockies, and in the deep cañons of the Fraser and Colorado rivers,
where the shrill whistle of the locomotive startles the falcon and
the eagle, one can have fully gratified one's sense of the grand and
the sublime in nature; but here it is beauty, grandeur, sublimity
all combined. And what marvelous perspectives, what delightful
exhibitions of color, what superb and ever-changing effects of light
and shade--scenes that would be the despair of Claude Lorrain and
Salvator Rosa, and as difficult to catch on canvas as the glories of
the setting sun.
No where else in the wide world can one find such another picture as
greets one's vision when, rising into cloudland, one gets one's last
view of the Caribbean circling the mountain thousands of feet beneath
the silent and awe-stricken spectator. It is matchless, unique--like
Raphael's Madonna di San Xysto, impossible to duplicate.
As we reached this point, the sea disclosed itself as a vast mirror
resplendent under the aureate glow of the quivering beams of the
departing lord of day. Fleecy clouds of every form and hue flitting
over sea and land, by a peculiar optical illusion, magnified both
objects and distances, and unfolded before the astonished beholder
a panorama of constantly varying magnitude and of surpassing
loveliness. On the foreground Nature shed her brightest green, and
imparted to flower and foliage the flush of the rainbow. Of a truth,
"Never did Ariel's plume
At golden sunset hover
O'er scenes so full of bloom."
Away and beyond was the boundless, glimmering sea, ravishing in
its thousand tints, and in its harmonious dance of vanishing light
and color.
So occupied were we in observing the beauties of the everchanging
landscape, that, before we realized it, we were in Caracas. And so
momentary was the twilight-- a characteristic of the tropics--that the
transition from daylight to darkness was almost startling. We found an
unexpected compensation, however, in the friendly glow of the electric
lights which illumine the street and plazas of Venezuela's capital.
We spent a month in and about Caracas, finding every hour enjoyable. It
is, in many respects, a beautiful city and located near the base of
the mountains La Silla, the saddle--from its fancied resemblance to
an army saddle--and El Cerro de Avila, in a charming valley from one
to three miles wide and about ten miles long. The valley was at one
time, seemingly, the bed of a lake, and its soil is, consequently,
exceedingly fertile, and admirably adapted to cultivation of the farm
and garden produce of both tropical and temperate climates.
A friend, who had traveled much, once told us that he regarded
Taormina, in Sicily, as the best and most beautiful winter resort
in the world. We are familiar with both places, and can say, in all
candor, that we prefer Caracas. True, Taormina is one of the beauty
spots of the world, but one expects to find more than beauty in a
winter resort. Some years before our visit to Caracas we were in
Taormina, and during the same time of the winter as marked our visit
to Caracas, and we found it so cold that, during our entire stay, we
were obliged to have our rooms heated by steam. In the latter place we
could leave the doors and windows of our room open day and night, and
enjoyed, during all the time we tarried there, the name soft, balmy,
fragrant air, and the same equable temperature. The mean temperature
we found to be about 70° F., the thermometer seldom rising above 75°
F. and rarely falling below 65° F. The only place where we over had a
like experience was on the slope of a mountain in one of the Hawaiian
Islands, where the temperature is so constant that the native language
has no word to express the idea of weather--what we call "weather"
being always the same.
Considering the many natural beauties of the valley of Caracas,
its rich, tropical vegetation, its matchless climate, its soft,
balmy atmosphere, the rippling brooks and purling rivulets that
everywhere gladden the landscape, we can understand how an early
Spanish historian, Oviedo y Baños, [35] was in his enthusiasm led to
declare this location of the capital of Venezuela to be that of the
home of perpetual spring--nay, more, that of a terrestrial paradise. If
he could revisit these scenes to-day, he would find but little change
in their general physical aspect, but he would see at once that the
serpent's trailing has cast a blight over its former beauty, and that
the people, as a whole, have sadly degenerated since his time. Then,
as he tells us, the stranger that had spent two months in this Eden
would never wish to leave it. Alas, that one cannot say this now! [36]
After a month's sojourn in Caracas we felt the Spiritus movendi again
upon us, urging us onward, we knew not whither. We were under the
spell of what the Germans so aptly call the Wanderlust and it did
not make much difference what direction we took so long as the road
we traveled enabled us to enjoy new scenes and visit peoples whose
manners and customs were different from our own.
Having thoroughly rested and recuperated the strength we so much
needed, we felt that we should like to take a trip to the Orinoco,
in order that we might have an opportunity of studying the fauna and
flora of its wonderful valley and of meeting some of the many Indian
tribes that rove through its forests. In spite of all our efforts,
however, we could find no one who could give us any satisfactory
information about the best means of reaching the river or the time
that would be required to make the journey. We consulted government
officials and merchants that had business relations along the Orinoco,
but their information was vague and contradictory.
We purposed going first to San Fernando de Apure, on an affluent
of the Orinoco, and thence by water to Ciudad Bolivar and the
Port-of-Spain. We were told that there were steamers plying between San
Fernando and Ciudad Bolivar--the chief city on the Orinoco--during the
wet season, our summer, but not during the dry season, our winter. That
meant that if we went to San Fernando we should be obliged to use
a canoe to reach Ciudad Bolivar, and this implied a long, tiresome,
and somewhat dangerous voyage under a burning sun and in what we were
assured was a malarious region. The time necessary to reach the river
on horseback varied, according to our informants, from one to two
weeks. One well known general, it was stated, had by an extraordinary
tour de force made the trip the preceding year in four days. Some
assured us we could go by carriage the entire distance. Others were
equally positive that there was nothing more than a trail connecting
the points we wished to visit, and that mules would be better than
horses for such a journey. Outside of one or two small towns, there
were no hotels along the route. But this did not matter. We had our
camping outfit with us, and rather preferred to live in our tent to
risking our night's rest in such uninviting posadas--lodging houses--as
we should meet with in the way.
Finding that we could not get in Caracas the information we desired,
we resolved to go to Victoria, an interesting town southwest of the
capital, and accessible by rail in a few hours. But our success in
Victoria was no better than it had been in Caracas. In spite of all
our efforts we could elicit no information that would warrant us in
starting on so long a journey as that to the Orinoco, and one that
might involve many hardships and dangers without adequate compensation.
Yet, notwithstanding our ill success so far, we did not for a moment
think of abandoning our contemplated trip to the valley of the
Orinoco. Far from it. The more we thought of it the more fascinating
the project became. Now that we had gone so far, we were determined to
see the famous river at all hazards. If we could not reach it by one
route we would go by another. We accordingly concluded to continue
our journey by rail to Puerto Cabello, and thence go by steamer to
Trinidad. Once there, we felt reasonably sure we should find some
means of attaining our goal--the grassy plains and vast forests of
the Orinoco basin. As proved by subsequent events, it was for us
a most fortunate occurrence that we did not adhere to our original
plan of reaching the Orinoco by San Fernando de Apure, as our change
of programme enabled us to see far more of South America and under
more favorable auspices, than we had before deemed possible.
Instead of going directly to Puerto Cabello, we spent a week at
the quiet old city of Valencia, Nueva Valencia del Rey, as it was
originally called, and which, according to the Valencianos, should
be the capital of the republic. It was begun in 1555, by Alonzo Diaz
Moreno, twelve years before Santiago de Leon de Caracas--the original
name of the capital--was founded by Diego de Losada. As a matter
of fact, Valencia was designated as the capital of Venezuela at the
time of the revolt against Spain, and congress was actually in session
there at the time Caracas was destroyed by an earthquake in 1812. Five
years after its foundation, Valencia was captured by the infamous Lopez
de Aguirre and his sanguinary band, who treated its inhabitants with
the greatest atrocity. Near by, on the plains of Carabobo, was fought
the decisive victory which resulted in Venezuelan independence. [37]
As a port of entry, Puerto Cabello is incomparably superior to
La Guayra, and has one of the finest harbors on the Caribbean. The
climate, however, is far from salubrious. Situated, as it is, in low,
marshy ground, surrounded by countless pools of stagnant water,
it is not surprising to find that malarial fevers are prevalent
here, and that El vómito--yellow fever--is a frequent visitant. The
"nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks" can here count more fetid
effluvia and putrefactive ferments than in any place we had so far
seen in Venezuela.
THE PEARL COAST
A most delightful voyage was ours from Puerto Cabello to the
Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad. The sea was as placid as an
inland lake on a windless day, and the air as balmy as in a morning
of June. The coast of the mainland was nearly always in sight,
and at times the peaks of the Coast Range rose far above the fleecy
clouds that encircled their lofty flanks. The days were beautiful
but the nights were glorious. All our youthful dreams about the
delights of sailing on southern seas, amid emerald isles, and under
bright starlit skies, where soft spice-scented zephyrs blow, were
here realized. The serenity and transparency of the azure vault of
heaven, with its countless shooting stars, had their counterpart in
the smooth, unruffled Caribbean, to whose water millions of Noctilucæ
imparted a phosphorescent glow which rivaled that of molten gold. We
were at last in the favored home of the chambered nautilus, happily,
dreamily gliding along on an even keel
"In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise from crystal springs
To sun their streaming hair."
Yes, we were skirting along the Pearl Coast, [38] celebrated in legend
and story--darkened by deeds of barbarous cruelty and resplendent
in records of heroic achievement. I shall not tell of our second
visit to La Guayra and of the day we spent at Macuto or describe the
present conditions of the historic old towns of Barcelona, Cumana and
Carupano, which lay on our course. Much might be said of all these
places, distinguished, since their foundation, both in peace and war.
I cannot, however, pass this part of the Pearl Coast without recalling
the fact that it was near Cumana that the earliest settlements in
Venezuela were effected and that here it was that one of the first--if
not the first--permanent colonies on the mainland of the New World was
established. Columbus, during his fourth voyage, attempted to make a
settlement in Veragua, that might serve as a base of future operations,
but the attempt resulted in complete failure. Similar efforts had been
made by Alonso de Ojeda and others, but without lasting results. Panama
was not founded until 1516 or 1517. Nombre de Dios, it is true, was
founded somewhat earlier, but in the beginning was little more than
a blockhouse. But here, as early in 1514, on the Rio Manzanares,
then the River Cumana, only "a cross-bow-shot" from the shore, the
zealous Sons of St. Francis had erected a monastery, and a short time
subsequently the Dominicans established another monastery, not far
distant, at Santa Fe de Chiribichi. Here they gathered the simple
children of the forest around them, and soon had the beginnings
of flourishing missions. [39] The trusting and unspoiled Indians
welcomed these apostles of the gospel of peace and love, and soon
learned to regard them as friends and fathers. So peaceful did all
this land become under the influence of the benign teaching of the
gentle friars, that, according to Oviedo and Las Casas, a Christian
trader could go alone anywhere without ever being molested. [40]
It was to the Pearl Coast that Las Casas came, after he found, by
sad experience, that his efforts in behalf of the Indians in Cuba,
Española and Puerto Rico were frustrated by influences he was unable
to control. It was here, aided by Franciscans and Dominicans, who had
preceded him by only a few years, that he purposed laying the corner
stone of that vast Indian commonwealth, for which he had secured
letters patent from Charles V.
For this great experiment in colonization, the greatest the world
has ever known, he had received a grant of land extending from
Paria to Santa Marta, and from the Caribbean Sea to Peru. In his
colossal undertaking he planned to have the coöperation of an order
of knights--the Knights of the Golden Spur--specially created to
aid him in the work of civilizing and christianizing the Indians. It
was his dream to bring within the fold of the Church all the Indians
of Central and South America, and to establish for their behoof and
benefit an ideal Christian state such as a century and a half later
was realized in the fertile basins of the Parana and Paraguay. [41]
If the noble philanthropist had been properly supported by the rich and
the powerful, the entire course of subsequent events in South America
would have been altered, and the historian would have been spared the
task of penning those dark annals of injustice and iniquity which,
for long centuries, were such a foul blot on humanity. But from the
time he set foot on the Pearl Coast, in pursuance of his noble plan,
he found himself beset by untold difficulties, and his designs thwarted
at every turn, and that, too, by his own countrymen. Blinded by lust
of gold and pleasure, they left nothing undone to insure the failure
of his project, and in the end succeeded in their nefarious purpose.
Abandoned by those on whose coöperation he fully relied, he was, in its
very inception, forced to relinquish his heroic enterprise, and return
to Española. Discomfited and heartsick, but not crushed, he sought
an asylum in the monastery of Santo Domingo. There for eight years
he devoted himself to prayer and study, and, true Christian athlete
that he was, he was always preparing himself for a final struggle in
a new arena. When his enemies least expected it, he came forth from
his retirement, and, clad in the habit of a Dominican, proclaimed
himself again the champion of the downtrodden Indian. And from that
moment until the day of his death, at the advanced age of ninety-two,
whether as a simple monk or as the bishop of Chiapa, [42] his voice
was always raised in behalf of the children of the forest, and against
their enslavement by cruel, soulless seekers after fortune. [43]
He was, if not the first, the world's greatest abolitionist, and if
there are still many millions of red men in the New World to-day
who have escaped the bond of servitude, it is mainly due to their
illustrious protector, Bartolomé de Las Casas. [44]
THE PEARL ISLANDS
Within sight of the land where Las Casas went to lay the first
foundation-stone of his ideal commonwealth is a group of islands
which had a special claim on our attention--islands which, during
four centuries, have been the scene of many a romance and have been
stained, no one can tell how often, by the blood of tragedy.
These islands are Coche, Cubagua and Margarita. They were discovered
by Columbus during his third voyage, and the larger of the two was
called Margarita--pearl--from the number and beauty of the pearls
found in the waters that wash its shore. Even before he had left the
Gulf of Paria, between Trinidad and the mainland, he had observed
that the aborigines of Tierra Firme were decked with bracelets and
necklaces of pearl, and soon discovered, to his great satisfaction,
that these much-prized gems could be obtained in great abundance,
and that many of them were of extraordinary size and beauty. Peter
Martyr, as translated by Eden, tells us, "Many of these pearls were
as bygge as hasellnuttes, and oriente (as we caule it), that is lyke
unto them of the Easte partes." [45] During the first third of the
sixteenth century the value of the pearls sent to Europe was equal
to nearly one-half of the output of all the mines in America. [46]
In one year--1587--after the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Panama
had been discovered, nearly seven hundred pounds weight of pearls
was sent to the markets of Europe, some of them rivaling in beauty
of sheen and perfection of form the rarest gems ever found in the
waters of Persia or Ceylon. It was from these fisheries of the New
World that Philip II obtained the famous pearl, weighing two hundred
and fifty carats, of the size and shape of a pigeon's egg, mentioned
by the early chroniclers.
So great was the commercial activity among these little islands,
especially in Cubagua, that the Spaniards built a town there, which
they called New Cadiz, although the site chosen was without water,
and so sterile that the Indians had never lived on it. Toward the end
of the sixteenth century the pearl fishery in these parts diminished
rapidly, and in the early part of the century following, the industry,
according to Laet, had died out altogether, and the islands of Coche
and Cubagua fell into oblivion. But while it lasted, sad to say,
it meant untold misery for the thousands of Indian and Negro slaves
who were forced, at the sacrifice of their health and often of their
lives, to enrich their cruel masters by work that was almost as fatal
as that in the mines of Española.
For more than two hundred years the pearl fisheries in the waters
around these islands were practically abandoned. Even during the last
century comparatively little work was done to develop an industry
that, during the sixteenth century, contributed so much to the
coffers of Spain. About the year 1900, however, a French company
secured a concession from Venezuela to fish in the neighborhood of
these islands. According to agreement, it is to pay the government
ten per cent. royalty, and to employ divers and diving apparatus so
as to select only the larger oysters and avoid the destruction of
those that are immature.
From the estimates available, about $600,000 worth of pearls are
annually sent to the Paris market from Margarita. While a large
proportion of them are cracked and of poor color, there are,
nevertheless, many of the finest orient, and these find ready
purchasers. As for ourselves, we saw few of large size, and none of
great value. Even in Caracas, where we made diligent inquiry about
them, we did not find a single one from these waters that would
attract attention for either size or lustre. [47]
The weather could not have been more delightful than it was during
our all too brief cruise among these islands around which at one time,
as has been truly remarked, "all the wonder, all the pity and all the
greed of the age had concentrated itself." They are now shorn of all
their former glory, and there is little to indicate their pristine
importance. They are practically deserted, with the exception of
Margarita, which, on account of the arid and unproductive soil,
is but sparsely inhabited. And yet, as they lay clustered there on
the calm bosom of the Caribbean, without a ripple to disturb its
mirror-like surface, they possessed a certain undefinable beauty
that defied analysis. Besides, there was still hovering over and
around them the glamour of days long past, when they were visited
for the first time by the great Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and later
on, by Cristobal Guerra and Alonzo Niño, and by Francisco Orellana,
after his memorable voyage down the Amazon.
The sun was sloping down to his ocean bed--the air was glimmering with
a mellow light, as we drifted from these waters over which Merlin
seemed to wave his enchanting wand. As the orb of day touched the
distant horizon, and sank into the crimson mist that floated above
the placid sea, it assumed strange oval and pear-shaped figures that
grew larger in their waning splendor. The rainbow hues that steeped
in molten lustre the receding shores seemed to float on clouds from
spirit-land.
A scene it was to swell the tamest bosom, a fairy realm where Fancy
would
"Bid the blue Tritons sound their twisted shells,
And call the Nereids from their pearly cells."
Below us, beneath the dark depths of the crystal sea, illumined by
the lamps of the sea-nymphs, were living flower beds of coral, the
blooms and the palms of the ocean recesses, where the pearl lies hid,
and caves where the gem is sleeping, the gardens, fair and bewildering
in their richness and beauty, of Nereus and Amphitrite. It was indeed
such a scene as the poet has painted for us in these charming verses:--
"Wherever you wander the sea is in sight,
With its changeable turquoise green and blue,
And its strange transparence of limpid light.
You can watch the work that the Nereids do
Down, down, where their purple fans unfurl,
Planting their coral and sowing their pearl."
CHAPTER II
TRINIDAD AND THE ORINOCO
"The battle's rage
Was like the strife which currents wage,
Where Orinoco, in his pride,
Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
But 'gainst broad ocean urges far
A rival sea of roaring war;
While in ten thousand eddies driven,
The billows fling their foam to heaven,
And the pilot seeks in vain,
Where rolls the river, where the main." [48]
--Scott.
THE ISLAND OF THE BLESSED TRINITY
The morning following our departure from the Pearl Islands we were
delighted to find our good ship anchored in the beautiful Gulf of
Paria. Thus, almost before we were aware of it, we found ourselves
reposing on the waters of the famed Orinoco which we had made such
futile efforts to reach from Caracas and Victoria. The Gulf of Paria,
as is known, is just north of several of the largest estuaries of the
Orinoco and the line of demarcation between the salt water of the
Atlantic and the fresh water of Venezuela's great river is usually
quite marked. As we entered the gulf, through the Dragon's Mouth,
we had the mainland on our starboard and the island of Trinidad on
our port quarter. Although the waters of the Orinoco now enter the
Atlantic through two channels--the Boca del Draco and the Boca de la
Sierpe--there is no doubt that Trinidad was in recent geological times
a part of the mainland of South America and that the Orinoco, instead
of reaching the ocean, as it now does, flowed almost directly across
the island through a depression which is still quite conspicuous. It
will thus be seen that during long geologic ages there has been an
intimate physical connection between Trinidad and the Orinoco as
there has been a close commercial connection between the two ever
since the Spanish conquest.
Owing to the shallow waters of the harbor of the Port-of-Spain,
the capital of Trinidad, our steamer had to anchor about a mile from
the quay. When we were prepared to go ashore--and we lost no time in
getting ready--we were surrounded by a motley crowd of sable, shouting,
importunate boatmen, all clamoring and gesticulating and sounding the
praises of their canoes, and calling attention to their fantastic
names, as if this were a guarantee of their safety and comfort. In
a few moments we were seated in one of these gayly decked craft,
with our baggage beside us, on our way to the customhouse. Here we
were delayed only a few minutes, for the English in their colonies,
as in the mother country, rarely subject the traveler to those
delays and annoyances that constitute so disagreeable a feature in
certain other countries. "What a contrast," we said to ourselves,
"between the conduct of the officials here and that of the officious
inquisitors at La Guayra!"
After we had been comfortably located in our hotel--there are several
good hotels in the city--our first thought was about our journey up
the Orinoco. To our great delight we learned that there would be a
steamer going to Ciudad Bolivar in about a week. This accorded with
our plans perfectly, as we thus had ample time to visit the chief
points of interest--and there are many--of the island, and enjoy at
least a passing view of the wonderful and varied floral display for
which Trinidad is so famous.
Trinidad, as the reader will recollect, was discovered by Columbus
during his third voyage, and given the name it still bears in honor
of the Blessed Trinity. In his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella,
describing this voyage, he says he started from San Lucar in the
name of the most Holy Trinity, and after two months at sea, during a
portion of which time all aboard suffered intensely from the heat,
[49] they saw to the westward three mountain peaks, united at the
base, rising up before them. Here, then, was to them the symbol of the
Triune God--the Three in One--in whose name all had left their native
land, and what more natural than that it should be named Trinidad--the
Trinity? "Upon this," writes the pious admiral, "we repeated the 'Salve
Regina,' and other prayers, and all of us gave thanks to our Lord."
What a grateful change it was from the extreme heat which they
had endured, to the delightful climate of the newly discovered
island. "When I reached the island of Trinidad," I again quote from
the Admiral's letter, "I found the temperature exceedingly mild;
the fields and the foliage were remarkably fresh and green, and as
beautiful as the gardens of Valencia in April." [50]
What so deeply impressed Columbus on his arrival at Trinidad was what
likewise most impresses the visitor to-day--its mild climate and the
beauty and luxuriance of its vegetation. Although the island is but
little more than 10° from the Equator the mean annual temperature
is not more than 77° F. In the mornings and evenings of the cooler
season the thermometer is about 10° lower. During our sojourn of some
weeks in Trinidad we never suffered from the heat. On the contrary,
during our morning and evening drives, especially in the mountains,
we found the ocean breeze delightfully refreshing.
Columbus was also much impressed by the natives of the island. They
had a whiter skin--he had expected to find them very black--than any
he had hitherto seen in the Indies and were very graceful in form,
tall and elegant in their movements.
With the exception of a few scattered families, of more or less mixed
descent, the visitor will find no evidence of the former existence
here of that splendid type of Indian of whom the great navigator
speaks so highly, and of whose race there were then on the island many
thousands of souls. Here, as on the other islands of the West Indies,
the aborigines have disappeared, never to return.
In their place we find the most cosmopolitan agglomeration of
people under the sun--English, Germans, Spaniards, French, Chinese,
Hindoos, and Negroes from the darkest Senegambian to the fairest
Octaroon. About one-half of the population is composed of Negroes,
one-third of Coolies, and one-sixth of whites of various nationalities
and shades of color. As we contemplated the motley crowds which always
throng the streets of the Port-of-Spain we could not but recall Lopez
de Gomara's curious reflections on the divers colors of the different
races of men. We give his remarks in Richard Eden's translation:
"One of the marueylous thynges that god ... vseth in the composition
of man, is coloure; whiche doubtlesse can not bee consydered withowte
great admiration in beholding one to be white and an other blacke,
beinge coloures vtterlye contrary. Sum lykewyse to be yelowe whiche
is betwene blacke and white; and other of other colours as it were
of dyuers liueres. And as these colours are to be marueyled at,
euen so is it to be considered howe they dyffer one from an other
as it were by degrees, forasmuche as sum men are whyte after dyuers
sortes of whytnesse: yelowe after dyuers maners of yelowe: blacke
after dyuers sortes of blacknesse: and howe from whyte they go to
yelowe by ... discolourygne to browne and redde: and to blacke by
asshe colour, and murrey sumwhat lyghter then blacke: and tawnye lyke
vnto the west Indian which are all togyther in general eyther purple,
or tawny lyke vnto sodde quynses, or of the colour of chestnuttes or
olyues: which colour is to them natural and not by theyr goynge naked
as many haue thought: albeit theyr nakednesse haue sumwhat helped
thereunto. Therfore in lyke maner and with suche diuersitie as men
are commonly whyte in Europe and blacke in Affrike, euen with like
varietie are they tawny in these Indies, with diuers degrees diuersly
inclynynge more or lesse to blacke or whyte." [51]
The Coolies interested us immensely, in whatever part of the island
we met them--and they are to be seen everywhere--and were for us the
subject-matter of constant study. They occupy an entire suburb of the
Port-of-Spain, and, for those who are interested in sociological and
economic questions, no place is more worthy of a visit. Day after day,
when the delicious evening breezes began to sweep in from the ocean,
we found ourselves directing our course towards the "Indian Quarter,"
as it is called, and we always found something new to arrest our
attention or excite our admiration. It required no effort whatever of
the imagination to fancy ourselves in the crowded streets and markets
of Benares or Madras.
Port-of-Spain, whose population is about 50,000, rejoices in quite
a number of large and handsome public buildings and churches. Among
the latter the Roman Catholic Cathedral is conspicuous. The homes
of the people in the better quarters of the city--surrounded by a
rich profusion of tropical flowers, and shrubs and trees covered with
blooming climbers--are frequently models of architectural excellence,
and betoken refinement, comfort and even affluence.
To us the most attractive part of the city was the Botanical Garden,
adjoining the residence of the governor. This spot is justly famous
not only in the West Indies, but the world over. Here have been
collected from every tropical clime all the plants and shrubs and
trees that are admired, for beauty of bloom, richness of fragrance,
or grace and majesty of form.
Here we see the hibiscus shrub, with large, flaming, crimson flowers;
the poinciana, aglow with a bloom of yellow and orange, scarlet
flowered balisiers, and the poui tree decked with a rich robe of
saffron. Alongside them are oranges and lemons, pineapples, guavas,
mongosteens, nutmegs, tamarinds, and scores of other kinds of tropical
fruits. A little further on we meet with tea shrubs, the clove and
the cinnamon tree, the rubber tree, and the Bertolettia excelsa, laden
with nuts, each of which contains from ten to twenty seeds. Then there
are the curious cannon-ball tree, stately samans, the leopardwood
tree, the trumpet tree and others equally attractive. Besides all
these there are those princes of the forest--the palms--from every
quarter of the tropics, with every variety of trunk and leaf--date,
fern, talipot, Palmyra, and groo-groo palms, the tall traveler's-tree
with its graceful plantain-like leaves, and the Oreodoxa speciosa,
"the glory of the mountains." On and among them are rare orchids,
and parasites of countless species, climbing ferns, and convolvuluses
of every hue.
And to complete this scene of beauty, we behold at almost every step,
fluttering across our path, brilliant heliconias and other butterflies
that contribute such life and charm to the forest glories of tropical
lands. And then the humming birds--those lovely animated gems that
flit from bush to bush, and flower to flower--flashing all the fire
of the opal, and emitting in rapid succession all the brilliant hues
of the topaz and the sapphire, the ruby and the emerald. They are
not as numerous now--more is the pity--as they were formerly, when
the aborigines gave the name Iere--humming bird--to this island on
account of their great numbers and when they protected and venerated
them as the souls of departed Indians. But one still meets them in
one's strolls through the gardens and the forest, and always with a
new sense of wonder and delight.
Here, of a truth, were realized, nay, eclipsed, all the marvels of
the garden of Alcinous, for here
"There was still
Fruit in his proper season all the year.
Sweet Zephyr breath'd upon them blasts that were
Of varied tempers. These he made to bear
Ripe fruits, these blossoms. Time made never rape
Of any dainty there." [52]
It is, indeed, worth a visit from afar to see and study these marvels
of plant and vine, and bush and tree of the Botanic Garden. But the
whole island is, at least for the stranger from the North, one vast
botanic garden. Go where we will, we are astonished and bewildered
by the novelty and the exuberance of the vegetation that surrounds us.
If we drive over the broad and well-kept roads along the western
coast, we pass under shady avenues of cocoa palms bending under
their burden of fruit. If we go to the cacao groves--and they are
large and numerous here--our eyes are gladdened by the vermilion
bloom that covers the protecting Erythrina umbrosa. [53] In a glen
hard by is a giant ceiba, transformed, by the countless number of
creepers and epiphytes to which it has given hospitality, into a
vast air-garden. Along the streams and mountain torrents are lovely
canopies formed by the plume-like foliage of bamboos--seventy to eighty
feet high--affording retreats of rarest sylvan beauty. Again it is in
the Rosa del Monte, with its crimson bloom, the purple dracona, the
yellow croton, the night-blooming cereus, the angelim, covered with
purple tassels, the carmine poinsettia, the sweet-scented vanilla,
festoons of purple flowered lianas, and gray candelabra of a giant
cereus. Beyond it all, as a felicitous background to this gorgeous
display and at the same time an adequate enclosure for Flora's fairy
palace, there is such a profusion of vegetable tracery and arabesques
"as would have stricken dumb with awe and delight him who ornamented
the Loggie of the Vatican."
Further on we have the comely bread-fruit tree, with its deeply-lobed
leaves and its massive fruit, the many-rooted and many-branched
mangrove, [54] and not far distant is a clump of royal palms, with
their smooth pearl-gray columns and coronals of verdure. Or there is a
group of kindred growth--jagua palms--whose crown of pinnated leaves,
each full twenty-five feet long, caused Humboldt to declare that
on this truly magnificent tree "Nature had lavished every beauty of
form." While standing by one of the pillar-stems of the jagua palm,
beneath its emerald ostrich plumes, we were quite prepared to share
Kingsley's enthusiasm for palm trees in general. "Like a Greek statue
in a luxurious drawing-room," he writes, "sharp-cut, cold, virginal;
shaming by the grandeur of mere form the voluptuousness of mere color,
however rich and harmonious; so stands the palm of the forest; to be
worshipped rather than to be loved." [55]
It would tire the reader to attempt a description of the many pictures
of interest of this charming island, of its delightful drives in
every direction, of its beauteous cascades and waterfalls, one of
which, Maracas Falls, three hundred feet in height, is a reproduction
of Bridal Falls in the Yosemite, with the added setting of tropical
verdure. No pen can picture the exquisite charm of the Caura or Maraval
valleys, of Blue Basin and Macaripe Bay, or of the Five Islands--real
gems of the ocean--with their cozy and inviting cottages. When in
Egypt years ago we fancied that we should like to spend the rest of
our days on the island of Philæ, ever in the presence of its matchless
ruins. When we spent a happy day--how fleeting it was--on one of these
five islands--it was the largest and fairest--we felt that we had at
length found that inland home--far away from noise and strife, from
"Fever and fret and aimless stir"
of which we had so often dreamed, and in which we had so often longed
to dwell.
The people of Trinidad think their island the most beautiful of all
the West Indian group. Having visited, at one time or other, all the
chief islands comprising the Greater and Lesser Antilles, we should
hesitate to dispute their claim. It is certainly very beautiful,
and possesses many attractions that are either entirely absent from
the other islands or are found only in a lesser degree. Puerto Rico
and Jamaica equal it in many respects, and in others surpass it,
but in some important features the American possession is inferior
to those of the British.
I have said nothing of La Brea, the wonderful pitch lake for which
Trinidad has been celebrated since the time of Raleigh, [56] and
which for some decades past has supplied us with much of the asphalt
used in the United States. This curious phenomenon has been described
so often that there is no call for further comment. Suffice to say
that it, together with the sugar plantations and the cacao groves,
constitutes the chief source of the revenue of the island.
Like Curaçao, Trinidad is a favorite resort of Venezuelan
revolutionists, expatriated generals and colonels and their
sympathizers. As a rule, they are an impecunious set, and rarely
interesting. Crespo and Guzman Blanco both started from here on their
way to the presidential chair in Caracas. So did the unfortunate
Paredes, shortly before our arrival in Venezuela, but he had scarcely
set foot on the soil of his native country, which he had promised to
liberate from the evils of Castroism, before he, with his followers,
was shot down in cold blood.
On account of its proximity to the mainland and commanding,
as it does, the entire Orinoco basin, Trinidad should enjoy an
extensive trade with Venezuela. And this she would undoubtedly
have were it not that Venezuela imposes an extra ad valorem duty
of thirty per cent. on all merchandise that comes from or by way of
Trinidad. This is in retaliation for the island's harboring smugglers
and revolutionists. One of the results of this policy is smuggling
on a most extensive scale, at which many of the customs officials
connive. This means a great loss to the Venezuelan government, for
it is estimated that it thus loses a greater part of the duties that
should go to the national treasury.
Another temptation to smuggle arises from the excessively high tariff
on certain necessary articles of consumption. Thus salt, which is a
government monopoly, costs sixteen times as much in Ciudad Bolivar
as it does in Trinidad. The natural consequence is that there is a
large contraband traffic in this important commodity. In some cases
the smugglers elude the vigilance of the government officials and
pay nothing whatever in the way of duties. In others they have an
understanding with the officials, and pay por composicion--that is,
only a portion of the tax--the other portion being divided between
the official and the smuggler.
Contraband trade, however, is nothing new in this part of the world. It
dates back to the sixteenth century when, according to Fray Padre
Simon, the learned author of Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de
Tierra Firme, religion and policy prohibited all commercial relations
between Spaniards and foreigners, especially the Dutch and the English.
As an obiter dictum, however, it may be remarked that it was this
restricted and short-sighted trade policy that, more than anything
else, led to the enormous losses that Spain suffered during so many
decades from corsairs and buccaneers, and that eventually resulted
in the wars of independence in the Spanish colonies of the New World.
THE DELTA OF THE ORINOCO
We were still reveling in the countless beauties of forest and
field--quite oblivious of the passage of time--when we were informed
that our steamer would, in a few hours, start for Ciudad Bolivar,
the chief city on the Orinoco, and distant about two days' sail from
the Port-of-Spain.
Eager as we were to explore the wonders of the famed and mysterious
Orinoco, it was with great reluctance that we tore ourselves away
from the cherished home of flowers and humming birds--sweet Iere. In
Trinidad, thanks to the kind and considerate hospitality of its
people, we had enjoyed all the comforts of home and the same freedom
of movement as if we had been given the keys of the city.
Our steamer was scheduled to leave at two o'clock in the afternoon,
but, as a matter of fact, did not weigh anchor until some hours
later. This, however, we did not regret, as it gave us an opportunity
to have "one last lingering look" at the island beautiful from the
upper deck of the vessel. Besides this, we could by means of our
field glasses take a survey of the Gulf of Paria--for it is famous
in history, this Gulf of Paria--and has been visited by men whose
names are writ large in the annals of the world's heroes.
Its waters were visited in 1805 by England's one-eyed, one-armed
sailor-man, while in pursuit of the French and Spanish warships which
he had chased from Gibraltar to the Caribbean Sea and thence back
to Trafalgar, where Spain lost its navy and England her greatest
admiral. "Had Nelson found the hostile squadron under the lee of
Trinidad, the delta of the Orinoco would now be as famous in naval
history as the delta of the Nile."
It is, however, the imposing figure of Spain's great admiral, Cristobal
Colon, that looms highest in these parts. He it was that gave the
chief promontories of island and mainland, and the channels that
separate the one from the other, many of the names they still bear.
Far down to the south is La Boca de la Sierpe--the Serpent's Mouth--the
channel that separates the southwesternmost point of Trinidad from
Venezuela. It was through this channel that Columbus passed when he
entered the gulf in which we now are, and from which he got his first
view of the mainland of the New World. But he did not realize at first
the magnitude of his discovery. Thinking the land he saw on his port
quarter was an island--for during his two preceding voyages he had
seen nothing but islands, outside of Cuba, which he fancied to be the
eastern part of Asia--he named it Isla Santa, or Holy Island. A short
distance to the northwest of us is La Boca del Draco, the Dragon's
Mouth, through which the great navigator
"Push'd his prows into the setting sun,
And made West East."
The names Serpent's Mouth and Dragon's Mouth were given to the two
straits mentioned on account of the strong currents found there and
on account of the danger Columbus experienced in taking his ships
through them. His letter to Ferdinand and Isabella contains a graphic
description of the dangers he encountered while passing through the
Serpent's Mouth. "In the dead of night," he writes, "while I was
on deck, I heard an awful roaring, that came from the south, toward
the ship; on the top of this rolling sea came a mighty wave roaring
with a frightful noise, and with all this terrific uproar were other
conflicting currents, producing, as I have already said, a sound as
of breakers upon rocks. To this day I have a vivid recollection of
the dread I then felt lest the ship might flounder under the force of
that tremendous sea; but it passed by, and reached the mouth of the
before-mentioned passage, where the uproar lasted for a considerable
time." [57] He had similar difficulty in making his exit through the
Dragon's Mouth.
No wonder that the frightened sailors of Columbus imagined that they
were the sport of the Evil One. "Being in the region of Paria," writes
Navarrete, "the Admiral asked the pilots what they made their position
to be; some said that they were in the sea of Spain, others that they
were in the sea of Scotland, and that all the seamen were in despair,
and said the Devil had brought them there." [58]
Columbus, as has been stated, at first considered the land on his
port side to be insular in character, but before he left the Gulf of
Paria he was evidently convinced by the raging surges of fresh water
that had nearly swamped his ships, that he had discovered a land of
continental dimensions. In his letter to the Spanish sovereigns he
writes, "This land, which your highnesses have sent me to explore,
is very extensive, and I think there are many other countries in the
south of which the world has never had any knowledge."
He had observed that a very large river debouched from the land of
Gracia and he at once "rightly conjectured that the currents and the
overwhelming mountains of water which rushed into these straits with
such an awful roaring, arose from the contest between the fresh water
and the sea. The fresh water struggled with the salt to oppose its
entrance and the salt water contended against the fresh in its efforts
to gain a passage outward. And I formed the conjecture, that at one
time there was a continuous neck of land from the island of Trinidad
and the land of Gracia, where the two straits now are." All these
conclusions have been confirmed by the observations of subsequent
explorers.
What, however, will most interest the curious reader are the
speculations into which Columbus was led by the various phenomena
observed in the Gulf of Paria. The most fantastic, from our modern
point of view, were his theories regarding the form of the earth and
the location of the Terrestrial Paradise.
Before his arrival in the Gulf of Paria, he had been a firm believer
in the sphericity of the earth, but in this part of the world he had
observed so many new and unexpected features--"so much irregularity,"
as he phrased it--that he came "to another conclusion respecting the
shape of the earth, namely: that it is not round, as they describe,
but of the form of a pear, which is very round except where the stalk
grows, at which part it is most prominent."
It is very easy for us, in the light of all the advance in
scientific knowledge since his time, to smile at his hypotheses,
and the reasonings by which he arrived at his conclusions. What
seemed plausible then appears preposterous now. But we must remember
that the proofs of the rotundity of the earth before his time were
quite empirical, and were far from having the demonstrative force
of those that are now adduced. All the epoch-making work in physics
and astronomy by such men as Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Laplace,
Huyghens and Foucault, and the French academicians, bearing on the form
of our globe, has been accomplished since his time. If we now know that
the earth has the form of an oblate spheroid and not that of a pear, it
is in consequence of the progress of physical astronomy during the four
centuries that have elapsed since Columbus sailed the western seas.
Before his time the learned had located the earthly paradise in
various parts of the eastern hemisphere. Some contended that it was
in Mesopotamia, others that it was in Ethiopia near the head waters
of the Nile, but all agreed that it was somewhere in the East. Now
Columbus, who imagined he had reached the eastern part of Asia, by
sailing westwards from Spain, thought he had incontrovertible evidence
for locating the Garden of Eden in the newly discovered land of Gracia.
"I do not suppose," he writes, "that the Earthly Paradise is in
the form of a rugged mountain, as the descriptions of it have made
it appear, but that it in on the summit of the spot which I have
described as being in the form of the stalk of a pear; the approach
of it from a distance must be by a constant and gradual ascent; but
I believe that, as I have already said, no one could ever reach the
top"--except "by God's permission," as he asserts elsewhere. "I think
also that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it
be far off, and that, stopping at the place which I have just left,
it forms this lake. There are great indications of this being the
Terrestrial Paradise, for its site coincides with the opinions of
the holy and wise theologians whom I have mentioned; and moreover,
the other evidences agree with the supposition, for I have never
either read or heard of fresh water coming in so large a quantity,
in closer conjunction with the sea. The idea is also corroborated by
the blandness of the temperature, and if the water of which I speak
does not proceed from the Earthly Paradise, it appears to be still
more marvelous, for I do not believe there is any river in the world
so large or so deep." [59]
Besides Nelson and Columbus, a third celebrated seaman visited this
part of the world. This was Sir Walter Raleigh, of whom we shall have
more to say as we proceed. [60]
Our parting view of the forest-clad mountains of Trinidad we shall
never forget. The sun was setting on the mainland--the land of Gracia
of Columbus--but before disappearing below the horizon he tinged
Iere's mountains with a parting smile and enveloped them in a
"--soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst;"
reminding one of the azure haze that veils Hymettus as the sun sinks
behind Parnassus in an evening in June--something that only the gifted
Greek poet has ever been able adequately to describe.
The shades of night had fallen long before we reached the Serpent's
Mouth, which we were obliged to pass before entering the Macareo, one
of the numerous channels of the Orinoco delta. We were thus deprived
of the opportunity of getting a good view of the huge billows that
are produced by the meeting of river and sea, of which Columbus has
given us so graphic a description.
Those of the passengers that were disposed to become seasick retired
to their staterooms before we arrived at the Macareo bar, where the sea
is roughest, and where the ground-swells are most unpleasant. For half
an hour or more the steamer tossed considerably, reminding one of the
English Channel in stormy weather. But the impact of surge against
surge, of which Columbus speaks, was much less than we had been
led to anticipate, and there was little indication of the forcible
eddies of the "violentlie swift Orinoco," which caused Raleigh so
much embarrassment.
This was easily accounted for, as the rainy season had not yet
set in, and the waters at the various estuaries were, therefore,
comparatively little agitated. Columbus, however, arrived here
towards the end of the rainy season, when the floods of the Orinoco
were at their height, while Raleigh came after the rainy season was
quite well advanced. Again, ours was a fairly good-sized steamer and
better adapted to stem wave and current than were the fragile barks
of Columbus, or the frail wherries and cock-boats of Raleigh. When the
floods of the Orinoco were at high-water mark, we can well understand
that the early navigators had reason to be deeply impressed by the
dangers that confronted them in these seething and roaring waters,
and that, to their exalted imaginations, the realities of their
surroundings were in nowise short of the fancies of the poet as
indicated in the verses at the head of this chapter. Indeed, so great
were the supposed difficulties, and so dangerous the climate in these
parts, that sailors were wont to say,
"Quien se va al Orinoco,
Si no se muere, se vuelve loco." [61]
When it comes to navigating the less known rivers and
caños--channels--which, like a network, intersect the delta in every
direction, the difficulty and danger are even now so great that the
most skilled Indian pilots often become bewildered. When this occurs
nothing remains but to follow the current until one reaches the gulf,
and then enter a branch with which one is familiar. Sir Walter gives
such a graphic account of the difficulties he experienced in reaching
"the great riuer Orenoque," that I reproduce in his own words a part
of a paragraph bearing on the subject.
After telling us how his Indian pilot had gotten lost in the maze
of caños through which he was trying to grope his way, he says:
"If God had not sent vs another helpe we might haue wandred a whole
yeere in that laborinth of riuers, ere we had found any way, either
out or in, especiallie after we were past the ebbing and flowing,
which was in fower daies: for I know all the earth doth not yeeld
the like confluence of streames and branches, the one crossing the
other as many times, and all as faire and large and so like one to
another, as no man can tell which to take: and if we went by the Sun
or compasse hoping thereby to go directly one way or other, yet that
waie we were also carried in a circle amongst multitudes of Islands,
and euery Island so bordered with high trees as no man could see any
further than the bredth of the riuer, or length of the breach." [62]
Exaggerated as this account seems, it does scant justice to the
reality. Raleigh had no opportunity to explore the delta, and to
acquire definite notions of its immensity, or he would have had
much more to add to the foregoing description of its extent and
marvels. Even to-day we have no map of this region, which is, in
many respects, as unknown as the least explored part of Central
Africa. As yet our knowledge of land and river is limited only to
its most salient features, but this is quite sufficient to excite our
wonder. Suffice it to say that the area of the delta is greater than
that of Sicily; that its base, from its main branch at the Boca de
Navios to the embouchure of the Manamo, is nearly two hundred miles
in length; that the Orinoco, at the bifurcation of its two principal
branches, is twelves miles in width; that there are no fewer than fifty
branches conveying the waters of the mighty river into the Atlantic;
that the lowlands of the delta are divided into thousands of islands,
and islets, by a network of rivers diverging in fan-shape towards the
sea, and by innumerable caños and bayous, some with stagnant water,
others with strong currents, ramifying in every direction in straight
lines and in curves, so that escape from their intricacies by any one,
except an experienced pilot, would be as impossible as would have
been an exit from the Cretan labyrinth without the clew of Ariadne.
When we arose the morning after leaving Trinidad, our steamer had
already advanced quite a distance on its way through the Macareo. This
brazo, or branch, is chosen not because it is the largest or the
deepest, but because it affords the shortest and most direct route
between the Port-of-Spain and Ciudad Bolivar. Although the distance to
this latter place from the mouth of the Macareo is only two hundred
and sixty miles, it usually required nearly two days, counting the
stops on the way, for the trip up the river, so strong is the current
The return trip, however, can be made in much less time.
We shall never forget our first view of the Orinoco and of the
impressions we then received. Was it that we were at last sailing in
the placid waters of the one river of all the world that we had from
our youth most yearned to behold, or was it that we had been dreaming
of the site and beauties of the Terrestrial Paradise, as fancied by
Columbus to exist in these parts, or was it because of both these
elements combined? We know not, but one thing is certain, and that
is that our first view of the Orinoco and its forest-shaded banks,
festooned with vines and flowers, recalled at once those musical
words of Dante,
"Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, that was spread
O'er the serene aspect of the pure air,
High up as the first circle, to mine eyes
Unwonted joy renewed." [63]
and brought vividly back to memory his inimitable description of
his entrance into the Garden of Eden, where he was to meet again his
long-lost Beatrice.
To emphasize the illusion, there suddenly appeared under a noble
moriche palm on the flower-enameled bank of the river and only a few
rods from where we were standing, two children of the forest--a young
man and a young woman--bride and groom, we loved to think--who were
as Columbus found the American, as Adam and Eve were after the fall,
when, in the words of Milton,
"Those leaves
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe,
And with what skill they had, together sewed
To gird their waist."
Handsome was the youth and beautiful was the maiden, strong as
Hiawatha, fair as Minnehaha--both fit models for sculptor and painter,
and such as the poet dreams of when depicting his heroes and heroines
of the forest primeval.
Were they the king and queen of their tribe? Fancy said, "Yes." But
whether they were or not, one could say with truth that the tan-colored
maid was like the one Raleigh met along this very same river and who,
in his own words, "was as well fauored and as well shaped as euer I
saw anie in England." [64]
Near this interesting young couple, both in the heyday of youth,
lay a cluster of plantains, which was doubtless to contribute to
their morning repast. But what a coincidence that, even in this
trifling circumstance, we should find an additional reminder of the
Earthly Paradise! Have not men of science named the plantain Musa
Paradisaica, in allusion to the tradition, which has long obtained,
that it was the plantain, and not the apple, that was the forbidden
fruit in Eden? [65] It was there to fill out the picture as an artist
in the tropics would wish to see it painted.
But there was still something wanting. While we were yet under the
spell of our environment, and lost in the contemplation of the Edenic
beauties around us, we were awakened from our reverie by a plunge and a
splash before the prow of our vessel--and there, greatest surprise of
all in our series of coincidences, was a giant anaconda, full thirty
feet long, vigorously plowing its way to the opposite bank of the
river. It was like the water-snakes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
"Blue, glossy, green and velvet black,
It coiled and swam,
And when it reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes."
So startling was this strange apparition that we could scarcely
credit our senses, and, had it not been for exclamations of surprise
by several of the passengers near by, we should have thought, for a
while, that it was all a dream.
The picture was now complete. There was the serpent in this paradise
of delights, as in the paradise of our first parents. And what added
to the strangeness--the uncanniness--of the appearance of the serpent
at this particular juncture was the extraordinary rarity of such an
occurrence. One of the officers of the steamer told us that he had
been sailing up and down the Orinoco for twenty years and had never
seen one of these boas before. And more wonderful still, it was the
first and last we ourselves saw, although we subsequently traveled
many thousands of miles on tropical rivers along which such serpents
have their habitat. [66]
All in all, our first view of the Orinoco fully met our fondest
expectations so far as they related to variety and exuberance of
vegetation and beauty of scenery. The entire delta of the Orinoco
may aptly be described as one of Nature's choicest conservatories,
in which Flora has collected together the fairest growths of garden
and forest, and where the charm of foliage and flower is enhanced by
the presence of countless species of the feathered tribe of richest
plumage and of dazzling hue.
A distinguished German traveler, Friedrich Gerstäcker, writing of his
impressions of the delta of the Orinoco, does not hesitate to declare
that "there is not in the world anything more glorious in vegetation
than is to be seen on the banks of the Orinoco," and that there is
no place more attractive to the tourist. [67]
To form some conception of the wonderful variety of vegetable life
to be seen in the delta, it will suffice to observe that a third of
a century ago botanists had counted in the forests of Guiana no fewer
than 132 families of plants, 772 genera and 2,450 distinct species. Of
the genera more than sixty were indigenous.
Although we saw many things in the delta of the Orinoco that
possessed intense interest for us, we saw none of the natives living
in houses built on the summits of trees, about which some recent
writers, following Raleigh, Humboldt and others, still entertain
their readers. To tell the truth, we did not expect to find such
dwellings, as it has been demonstrated beyond question that they do
not now exist, and probably never did exist in these parts outside
of the fertile imaginations of Raleigh and Gumilla. Humboldt never
visited the delta, and hence, what he says on the subject in Personal
Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions, is based on reports
received from others. [68]
Cardinal Bembo, writing in the first half of the sixteenth century,
speaks of them, and Benzoni, his contemporary, who spent fifteen years
in traveling in the New World, illustrates by an engraving what he
has to say about the Indian houses built on the tops of trees. [69]
Ferdinand Columbus, who, although a mere youth, had accompanied his
father on his fourth voyage, writes, that when in the Gulf of Uraba,
"We saw people living like birds in the tops of trees, laying sticks
across from bough to bough, and building their huts upon them; and
though we knew not the reason of the custom, we guessed that it was
done for fear of their enemies, or of the griffins that are in this
island." [70]
Peter Martyr, who most likely got his information about these strange
dwellings from Ferdinand Columbus, tells us that the trees on which
they were built were of "suche heighth, that the strength of no mane's
arme is able to hurle a stone to the houses buylded therein." He adds,
however, that the owners of the houses have "theyr wyne cellers in
the grounde and well replenysshed." And he vouchsafes the reason for
not keeping the wine, with "all other necessayre thinges they haue,
with theym in the trees. For albeit that the vehemencie of the wynde,
is not of poure to caste downe those houses, or to breeke the branches
of the trees, yet are they tossed therwith, and swaye sumwhat from
syde to syde, by reason therof, the wyne shulde be muche troubeled
with moouinge.... When the Kynge or any of the other noblemen, dyne or
suppe in these trees, theyr wynes are brought theym from the celleres
by theyr seruantes, whyche by meanes of exercise are accustomed with
noo lesse celeritie to runne vppe and downe the steares adherete to
the tree, then doo owre waytynge boyes vppon the playne grounde, fetche
vs what wee caule for from the cobbarde bysyde owr dynynge table."
As to the size of the trees the same writer avers, "Owr men measuringe
manye of these trees, founde them to bee of suche biggnes, that seuen
men, ye sumetymes eight, holdinge hande in hande with theyr armes
streached furthe, were scarcely able to fathame them aboute." [71]
Raleigh had evidently read some of these accounts about people living
on tree tops, but not satisfied with the Munchausen tales of his
predecessors, he proceeds to entertain his readers with stories as
marvelous as those of Sindbad the Sailor.
Writing of the Indians of the delta, he says: "In the winter they
dwell vpon the trees, where they build very artificiall towns, and
villages, ... for between May and September, the riuer Orenoke riseth
thirtie foote vpright, and then are those Ilands ouerflowen twentie
foote high aboue the leuell of the ground, sauing some few raised
grounds in the middle of them.... They neuer eate of anie thing that
is set or sowen, and as at home they vse neither planting nor other
manurance, so when they com abroad the refuse to feede of ought but
of that which nature without labor bringeth foorth." [72]
Of the Waraus, the Indians who inhabit the delta, the missionary, Padre
Gumilla, writes that when their islands are periodically inundated
by the rise of the Orinoco, they erect their huts on piles--not on
trees, as Raleigh states--above the water. Furthermore, he tells us
that these huts are made of the moriche palm, which grows abundantly
in these islands, and are covered with the leaves of it. From the
fibres of the leaf, they make their hammocks and their cords for
fishing and for bowstrings.
Around the pulpy shoot that ascends from the trunks is a web-like
integument that serves them for the slight covering they wear. On
the productions of this tree, also, they entirely subsist. The pulpy
shoot is eaten as cabbage, and the tree bears a fruit like the date,
but somewhat larger. When the inundation ceases, the tree is cut down,
and being perforated, a palatable juice exudes, from which they make
a drink. The interior substance of it is then taken out and thrown
into vessels of water and well washed and the ligneous fibres being
removed, a white sediment is deposited, which, dried in the sun,
is made into a very wholesome bread. [73]
Accepting the foregoing statements as true, Humboldt philosophizes as
follows: "It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of civilization
the existence of a whole tribe depending on a single species of palm
tree, similar to those insects which feed on one and the same flower,
or on one and the same part of a plant." [74]
Yet, notwithstanding all that has been written about the Indians of
the Orinoco delta living on the tops of trees, and depending on only
the moriche palm for food and raiment, it is certain that they do not
do so now, and it is almost equally certain that they have never done
so in the past. Truth to tell, these stories seem to repose on little
better foundation than those so long circulated and credited regarding
Lake Parime, and the great city of Manoa--the home of El Dorado.
Raleigh had no time or opportunity to explore the delta, and there is
reason to believe that in this, as in other matters, he gave free reign
to his fancy to satisfy his reader's desire for the marvelous. Gumilla,
apparently, got his information regarding these particular subjects
at secondhand. He spent many years on the middle Orinoco and some of
its affluents, but there is no evidence that he was ever in a position
to verify the stories so long current regarding the manner of living
of the inhabitants of the delta.
The fact is, no one, so far as known, ever made any attempt to explore
the interior of the delta until more than two centuries after Raleigh's
time and until nearly a half century after Humboldt's visit to the
valley of the Orinoco. As a consequence, all that had been reported by
earlier writers was exaggeration and guesswork, if not pure invention.
Sir Robert Schomburgk, who, as Her Majesty's commissioner to survey
the boundaries of British Guiana, explored the delta in 1841--and
some months of his sojourn there was during the rainy season--states
explicitly, that not in a single instance did he find Indians dwelling
on trees. "We can well suppose that the numerous fires which were
made in each hut, and the reflection of which was the stronger in
consequence of the stream of vapor around the summit of trees in
those moist regions, illuminated at night the adjacent trees; but
the fire itself was scarcely ever made on the top of a tree. The
inundation rises at the delta seldom higher than three or four feet
above the banks of the rivers;"--not twenty or thirty feet, as Raleigh
asserts--"and if the immediate neighborhood of the sea and the level
nature of the land be considered, this is an enormous rise." [75]
Herr Appun, who visited the delta some years subsequently to
Schomburgk's sojourn there, declares, "I have lived more than a year
and a half among the Waraus of the Orinoco delta, and those of the
east coast of South America, from Cape Sabinetta to Cape Nassau, at
the mouth of the Pomeroon river in British Guiana, both during the
dry and the rainy season, and never have I beheld any of the aerial
dwellings that have been described." [76]
The one, however, who has most thoroughly explored the interior
of the delta is Sr. Andres E. Level, who spent several years among
the Waraus, or Guaraunos, as they are called by the Spaniards. His
investigations have completely exploded the false notions so long
entertained regarding the delta and its inhabitants. The land is not
all an impassable swamp. Much of it is so elevated above the river
that it is never reached by the high floods of the Orinoco.
Its soil is even more fertile than that of the Nile valley and produces
every tropical fruit and tree in the greatest profusion. Game is
abundant, and the Indians have extensive rancherias--plantations--which
supply them grain, fruits and vegetables of all kinds. In the rivers
near by they have the greatest variety of fish, besides turtle that
would be the delight of the epicure.
As the Waraus of the interior are a timid people and have long since
learned to distrust the white man, they remain, as a rule, concealed in
the depths of forests that are impassable. They are, however, a quiet,
industrious, home-loving people, and are famous among the tribes in
this section of Guiana for their beautiful curiaras, or canoes--made
from a single log of the cedar, or of a tree called Bioci. Some of
these dugouts--the monoxyla of the Greeks--are full fifty feet long
and from five to six feet broad and find a ready sale as far south
as Demerara.
Far from being a dismal swamp, inhabited only by poor, starving
savages, condemned to live on tree tops, and to find food and clothing
in a single palm, Sr. Level [77] shows us that the delta is a garden
of exceeding richness and that the Indians, if the government did
its duty towards them by developing the marvelous resources of their
land and by giving its inhabitants, so long neglected, some measure of
attention and assistance, would eventually make efficient contributors
to the national revenue, and become desirable citizens of the republic.
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT RIVER
"What a wide river!" was the exclamation of a fellow-passenger as
our steamer passed out of the Macareo and turned the apex of the
delta. It was, indeed, very wide, and the bank of the Orinoco on our
port-quarter was almost invisible. Here, even during the dry season,
this mighty water course is no less than four leagues in width. We
now, for the first time, fully realized that we were sailing on the
broad waters of one of the world's master rivers. After the Parana
and the Amazon, it is the largest waterway in South America, and,
for the volume of water it carries into the ocean, it ranks with the
Mississippi, the Congo, Yang-tse-Kiang, and the Brahmaputra. Well have
the natives of the lands through which it flows named it the Great
River--for it is great in every way--great in the immense basin it
drains; great in the tribute it carries to the ocean, and great in
the number and magnitude of the rivers it counts among its affluents
from the distant Cordilleras.
As along the Macareo, so here along the Orinoco, one never tires of
gazing at the magnificent forest trees and the dense shrubbery with
which the banks are fringed. At one time it is the wide-branched ceiba,
covered with bright-blooming epiphytes; at another a clump of graceful
moriche palms, whose tremulous plumes are given an added beauty by the
presence of a bevy of multicolored parrots and macaws. The foliage of
tree and shrub is here ever fresh and luxuriant and retains always
that delicate hue so characteristic of the leafage of our northern
woodlands in the early days of spring.
Most of the trees, large and small, are literally weighed down with
parasites and epiphytes. Among the latter growths are orchids of
countless variety and rarest beauty, such as are seldom seen in our
northern floral conservatories. And the way in which the trees are held
together by those strange forms of vegetable life--so abundant in the
tropics--the bejucos or bush ropes! Sometimes they are as thick as a
man's arm, sometimes they are like a ship's cable, sometimes they may
be mistaken for telegraph wires--so long and fine are they. They extend
from the ground to the tops of the highest trees, or drop from the
summits of the loftiest monarchs of the forest to the earth beneath,
sometimes singly, sometimes by scores. Then again they cross one
another from tree to tree and form a trelliswork that at times is next
to impassable. And these bejucos, or lianas, as they are also called,
are, like the trees, burdened with air-plants of various species,
at one time large masses of leaves, at another long spikes of the
richest blossoms.
At almost every turn the vision is delighted by lovely arboreal
groups and charming natural bowers, all graced with the most gorgeous
combinations of emerald foliage and ruby bloom--interspersed with
delicate tufts of lilac, pink and canary--and illumined by gleams of
flitting sunshine which bring out a glorious play of color effects
with which the eye is never tired. "A dryad's home," we heard an
enthusiastic señorita exclaim, as we passed one of these flower-decked
bowers, on which glittered the checkered sunlight. And so well it
might be, it was so rare a gem of sylvan loveliness.
While passing up this majestic river and admiring the ever-varying
panorama of rarest floral beauty, we recalled a couple of paragraphs
in Darwin's Journal of Researches, in which he refers to the futility
of attempting to describe, for one who has never visited the tropics,
the wonders of the scenery there and above all the marvels of the
vegetable world. He expresses himself as follows:
"Such are the elements of the scenery, but it is a hopeless attempt to
paint the general effect. Learned naturalists describe these scenes
of the tropics by naming a multitude of objects, and mentioning some
characteristic feature of each. To a learned traveler this possibly
may communicate some definite ideas; but who else from seeing a plant
in an herbarium can imagine its appearance when growing in its native
soil? Who from seeing choice plants in a hothouse, can magnify some
into the dimensions of forest trees, and crowd others into an entangled
jungle? Who, when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the
gay exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with
these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and
the lazy flight of the former--the sure accompaniments of the still,
glowing noonday of the tropics? It is when the sun has attained its
greatest height, that such scenes should be viewed; then the dense,
splendid foliage of the mango hides the ground with its darkest
shade, whilst the upper branches are rendered, from the profusion
of light, of the most brilliant green. In the temperate zones the
case is different--the vegetation there is not so dark or so rich,
and hence the rays of the declining sun, tinged of a red, purple,
or bright yellow color, add most to the beauties of those climes.
"When quietly walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each
successive view, I wished to find language to express my ideas. Epithet
after epithet was found too weak to convey to those who have not
visited the intertropical regions, the sensation of delight which the
mind experiences. I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to
communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The
land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature
for herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with
gay houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every
admirer of Nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of
another planet! yet to every person in Europe, it may be truly said,
that at the distance of only a few degrees from his native soil, the
glories of another world are opened to him. In my last walk I stopped
again and again to gaze on these beauties, and endeavored to fix in
my mind for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or
later must fail. The form of the orange tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm,
the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate;
but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene
must fade away; yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood,
a picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures." [78]
While the flora of the Orinoco, near the apex of the delta, is so
varied and exuberant, but little is seen of its fauna, notwithstanding
all that has been said and written to the contrary. In a recent work,
for instance, written by one who pretends to have made the trip from
Trinidad, is a sentence that will equal any of the extravagances of
Jules Verne's Le Superbe Orénoque.
"The jaguar," says the author, "will stop drinking, or the tapir look
up from browsing on the grass, and the monkey pause in swinging from
tree to tree, as the boats hurry noisily by, while the drowsy alligator
or manatee floats lazily on, his head half out of the water, until
perhaps a conical bullet from a Winchester rifle or from a revolver,
which everyone carries, rouses him to a knowledge that it is not good
to trust too much to mankind."
It is quite safe to say that neither the author of the work quoted
nor any one else has ever seen a jaguar, or a tapir or a manatee
under the circumstances mentioned. They are all timid animals and
are never seen from the deck of noisy steamers.
Although we saw no quadrupeds like those just mentioned, there were
countless birds, large and small. Those that were most conspicuous
were ibises, flamingoes and herons of various species. So numerous at
times were the flamingoes that, to borrow an idea from Trowbridge,
the sunrise flame of their reflected forms actually crimsoned "the
glassy wave and glistening sands." Of the herons, the largest species
is named by the natives soldado--a soldier--so called both from
its size and the stately attitude it assumes, which, at a distance,
gives it the appearance of a sentry on duty.
A flock of these tall, white birds, seen feeding in an everglade in
Cuba was, during the second voyage of Columbus, taken for a party of
men clad in white tunics, and led the Admiral to believe that they
were inhabitants of Mangon, a province just south of Cathay. Indeed,
so striking is their resemblance to men posted as sentinels that,
according to Humboldt, "the inhabitants of Angostura, soon after the
foundation of their city, were one day alarmed by the sudden appearance
of soldados and garzas, on a mountain towards the south. They believed
they were menaced with an attack of Indios monteros, wild Indians,
called mountaineers; and the people were not perfectly tranquilized
till they saw the birds soaring in the air and continuing their
migration towards the mouths of the Orinoco." [79]
Our first stopping place was Barrancas, a small and squalid village of
mud, palm-thatched huts. It is situated in the centre of one of the
finest grazing regions of Venezuela and under a wise and progressive
government, would soon become a place of considerable importance.
In the time of the Franciscan Missions here, suppressed nearly a
century ago, the herds that roamed the beautiful undulating prairies
on both sides of the Orinoco counted no fewer than one hundred and
fifty thousand cattle, and with the markets that could easily be had
for beef and hides, this number could, under favorable conditions,
be greatly increased. As it is, however, it is known rather as a
favorite rendezvous for that numerous class of revolutionists for
whom the country is so noted, that have been born insolvent, but who,
by grandiloquent pronunciamientos, and through the coöperation of
hungry spoil-seekers like themselves, hope one day to improve their
financial condition.
Near Barrancas we were shown the spot where General Antonio Paredes
and his confiding followers were shot in cold blood, a few days before
our arrival, in pursuance of an order, we were told, that President
Castro had issued from his sick bed in Macuto. This speedy, albeit
unconstitutional, disposition of the leaders of what was heralded as a
great popular reform movement was designed to put a quietus on other
revolutionists who were making or preparing to make pronunciamientos
in various parts of the republic. It did not, however, seem to have
the desired effect, as during our sojourn in the country two other
revolutions cropped out when least expected. For a while one of these
gave the government very grave concern but was finally suppressed;
not, however, until the country had suffered by anticipation many of
the miseries of internecine strife.
Before our departure from Caracas, we tried in vain to get some
information not only about the dates of sailing of the Orinoco
steamers but also about their character. After leaving the capital,
some of our friends tried to dissuade us from our projected trip to
Ciudad Bolivar, assuring us that the only craft plying up and down the
river were filthy cattle boats unfit for a white man to enter. Imagine
our surprise, then, when we found that our vessel, far from being
the unclean, poorly-provisioned boat that had been pictured to us,
was in every way fairly comfortable, and with a cuisine and service
that were far from bad. In construction and general arrangement,
it was not unlike the smaller double-decked steamers on the Hudson
river or on our northern lakes. Our cabins were spacious, with broad
berths, and clean bedding and furniture. Indeed, we have often had
cabins in our large transatlantic steamers in which there was less
of comfort and convenience than were afforded by our cabin in this
unpretending boat on the Orinoco.
As to the passengers, they were quite a cosmopolitan crowd. Among
them were some Europeans and several Americans, but the greater
number were Venezuelans--most of them bound for Ciudad Bolivar. Of
the Americans there were two men in quest of fortune in the celebrated
Yuruari mining district in southern Guiana.
The upper deck of the boat was reserved for the first-class passengers,
while the lower one was occupied by those of the second-class, and
by such freight as was carried up and down the river. On returning
to the Port-of-Spain, the steamer usually carried about two hundred
head of cattle for the Trinidad market. When these were taken on
board at night, as sometimes happened, sleep was impossible. What
with the tramping and bellowing of the affrighted brutes below us
and the shouting of the cattlemen and crew, there was a veritable
pandemonium which continued the greater part of the night.
Frequently there are not enough cabins for the passengers. But this
makes very little difference to the Venezuelan. He simply swings his
chinchorro--hammock--between two stanchions of the vessel and is soon
calmly reposing in slumberland. Indeed, many of the inhabitants of the
tropics prefer a hammock to a bed, and do not apply for a stateroom
when traveling on the rivers of equatorial America.
The second-class passengers sleep in their hammocks if they happen to
have them; if not, they lie down anywhere they can find room and are
soon fast asleep. Many of them have no beds at home, except a mat,
a rawhide, or the lap of Mother Earth, and the absence of a bed or
hammock is no appreciable privation to them.
There is no more curious sight than is presented at night on a crowded
river steamer in the tropics. One sees scores of hammocks swung in
every conceivable place. All davits and stanchions, all uprights
and crosspieces are provided with hooks and rings, so that hammocks,
when necessary, may be attached to them. In saloons and passageways,
on forward-deck and after-deck, wherever there is any available space,
there is stretched on the floor, or snugly ensconced in his chinchorro,
some quietly sleeping or loudly snoring specimen of humanity. Sometimes
one will see several persons stowed away in a single hammock. It is
not an unusual thing to see two persons in the same chinchorro, and
one may now and then see a mother and three children serenely reposing
in one of these aerial cots. How they do it, it is difficult to say,
but the fact is that they do it, and there is apparently not a budge
in the hammock's occupants until they are awakened in the morning by
the call of the birds--Nature's alarm clocks in the tropics.
A place of more than passing interest between Barrancas and Ciudad
Bolivar is Los Castillos, formerly Guayana la Vieja, founded by
Antonio de Berrio in 1591. It was here, in 1618, that young Walter
Raleigh, the son of the Admiral, lost his life in an encounter with
the Spaniards who had possession of this stronghold. It was near here,
also, that Bolivar, at a critical hour during the War of Independence,
saved his life by hiding in a swamp near the village.
About ten leagues further up the river, at the mouth of the Caroni,
and opposite the island of Fajardo, Diego de Ordaz--the officer under
Cortes who got sulphur out of the crater of Popocatepetl--found in 1531
a settlement called Carao during his exploration of the Orinoco. This
was afterwards named Santo Tomé de Guayana, and was for a short time a
missionary centre--the first on the Orinoco. It was, however, destroyed
in 1579 by the Dutch under Jansen. There is little now at this point
to interest the traveler except the beautiful Salto--cataract--of the
Caroni river, so celebrated for its picturesque scenery, and the wealth
of orchideous plants with which the adjacent trees are clothed. Raleigh
in describing these falls says that so great was the mass of vapor due
to the fury and rebound of the waters that "we tooke it at the first
for a smoke that had risen ouer some great towne," and Padre Caulin, in
his description of it, says the roar of the cataract is so great that
it can be heard at a distance of several leagues. Both these accounts
are quite exaggerated. The falls are very beautiful and romantic,
but by no means so grand or so imposing as they have been depicted.
Near the confluence of the Caroni and the Orinoco is the straggling
little town of San Felix. At this point our mining party left us
for their long journey of one hundred and fifty miles on mule-back
to Callao. They gave us a cordial invitation to accompany them, but
we had other plans, and, although we should have enjoyed exploring
this famous mining district of southern Guiana, we felt constrained
to continue our course westwards.
For a number of years the Yuruari mining district promised to equal, if
not surpass, the most famous gold fields of Nevada and California. One
of the mines, the Callao, rivaled the great Comstock mines of Virginia
City, and for "a considerable period," we are assured, "original shares
of 1,000 pesos produced dividends of 72,000 pesos yearly." In 1895,
however, the main lode was lost, and since that time, owing to lack of
funds, little has been done in any of the mines in the district. The
owners of the Callao mine still hope to find the lost lode, and it was
to investigate the condition of this mine, and of certain others in
the neighborhood, that our American friends undertook their long trip
southwards. If the outlook justifies it, they purpose improving the
present wretched cart-road, which connects the mines with San Felix,
and putting on suitable traction engines for the transportation of
freight, which has hitherto been carried on the backs of burros and
in carts of the most primitive type.
During the halcyon days of the Callao mine, when all eyes were directed
towards this quarter of the world, a certain syndicate tried to secure
from the government a concession for building a railroad from the
Orinoco to the Yuruari gold fields. The then president of Venezuela
was quite willing to grant the concession, but insisted, it is said, on
having by anticipation a much larger share of the prospective profits
of the road than the company was willing to give. Had the railway
been constructed, there is no doubt that many other valuable mines
would have been developed, and that southeastern Guiana would soon
have become one of the most productive regions of the republic. The
road would have benefited not only the mining interests but would have
led to a rapid development of the grazing and agricultural industries,
which, in this part of Venezuela, could, under favorable conditions,
be second only to those of the llanos of the Apure, and of the fertile
plains of the states of Bermudez and Bolivar.
Aside from the interest that attaches to this part of South America,
on account of its many scenic attractions and its varied natural
resources of forest and field and mine, it will always possess an added
interest by reason of its connection with Raleigh's ill-fated search
for El Dorado. When his purse became depleted, and he had fallen from
the favor of Queen Elizabeth--who for a while was so "much taken with
his elocution" that she "took him for a kind of oracle"--he bethought
him of retrieving fortune and favor by the discovery and conquest of
a second Incaic empire, and, with this end in view, he projected his
famous voyage to
"Yet unspoil'd
Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons
Call El Dorado."
It is beside my purpose to comment on the "cruell and blood-thirsty
Amazones," and the race of people who "haue their eyes in their
shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts," [80]
about whom Raleigh writes in his remarkable book, so often quoted,
The Discoverie of Gviana, and which caused Hume to brand the work
as being a tissue of "the grossest and most palpable lies." We are
here interested only in what he says about the finding of gold in the
region bordering the Caroni and in his fantastic tales regarding El
Dorado. [81]
Whether Raleigh himself really believed in the existence of El Dorado,
such as he has described it, or whether he wished to work on the
imaginations of his countrymen, who were as credulous and as great
lovers of the marvelous as were their contemporaries on the continent
of Europe, cannot be affirmed with certainty. It is probable that he
possessed a full share of the credulity of his age, and that, if he
embellished his accounts of what he saw or exaggerated the reports
which he received from the aborigines, he really gave credence to the
leading features of the extraordinary stories that were then current
regarding the fabulous riches of the great city of Manoa.1
And he was most likely in earnest when he declared that "whatsoeuer
Prince shall possess it"--Guiana--"that Prince shal be Lorde of more
gold, and of a more beautifull Empire, and of more Cities and people,
then eyther the King of Spayne, or the great Turke," and was probably
honest in the belief that he who should "conquerere the same," would
"performe more than euer was done in Mexico by Cortez, or in Peru
by Pacaro."
The New World was, for the people of the Old, still a land of mystery
and enchantment, and the great majority of the adventurers in the
newly discovered lands were quite ready to credit the wildest tales,
and follow the most elusive phantoms, provided they gave indications,
however slight, of the possibility of satisfying that auri sacra
fames which consumed the poor and rich alike.
The remarkable thing about Raleigh is that he actually found gold and
gold-bearing quartz in the land watered by the Caroni, and located the
capital of El Dorado near where the great Callao mine was discovered
nearly three centuries later. And not only did he discover gold-bearing
quartz, but he found a variety of gold quartz essentially the same
as that which occurs in the Yuruari districts. It is interesting to
speculate what effect the actual discovery by him of the Callao mine
would have had on his subsequent career and on England's schemes of
expansion in the Western Hemisphere. One thing is certain. He would
have recouped his lost fortunes, and his head, in all probability,
would never have fallen on the block in Old Palace Yard. [82]
The following is Raleigh's résumé of the riches and marvels of Guiana
and the Orinoco valley, and at the same time a sample of the stories
then current regarding the land of El Dorado--stories which those
to whom the writer appealed, found little difficulty in accepting as
unquestioned expressions of unvarnished truth:
"For the rest, which my selfe haue seene I will promise these
things that follow and knowe to be true. Those that are desirous to
discouer and to see many nations, may be satisfied within this riuer,
which bringeth forth so many armes and branches leading to seuerall
countries, and prouinces, aboue 2000 miles east and west, and 800
miles south and north: and of these, the most eyther rich in Gold, or
in other merchandizes. The common soldier shal here fight for gold,
and pay himselfe, in steede of pence, with plates of halfe a foote
brode, wheras he breaketh his bones in other warres for prouant and
penury. Those commanders and Chieftaines, that shoote at honour,
and abundance, shal find there more rich and bewtifull cities, more
temples adorned with golden Images, more sepulchers filled with
treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico, or Pazarro in Peru,
and the shining glorie of this conquest will eclipse all those so
farre extended beames of the Spanish nation. There is no countrey
which yeeldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, either for these
common delights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest,
then Guiana doth. It hath so many plaines, cleare riuers, abundance of
Phesants, Partridges, Quailes, Rayles, Cranes, Herons, and all other
fowls: Deare of all sortes, Porkes, Hares, Lyons, Tygers, Leopards,
and diuers other sortes of beastes, eyther for chace, or foode." [83]
Although we were intensely interested in the fauna and flora of
the Orinoco, and never tired of the magnificent prospects, which,
like an ever-changing panorama, were constantly presented to our
view, we found time to observe the native population, especially
the Indians, who are seen in considerable numbers along the entire
course of the river. In the Delta and in its immediate neighborhood,
they are represented chiefly by the Waraus, Aruacs, and Caribs.
The Waraus have a slightly darker complexion than either the Aruacs or
Caribs. Owing to their lack of personal cleanliness, and the amount
of oil with which they besmear their bodies, their hue becomes so
dark, that, were it not for their straight hair, it would at times be
difficult to distinguish them from negroes. In consequence of their
careless habits regarding their persons and places of abode, and the
way in which they neglect their children, they are despised by the
neighboring tribes. Their rude huts, often no more than a little
palm thatch supported by a few uprights, afford them but little
protection from sun and rain. With these, however, they seem to be
quite satisfied.
The Aruacs found here belong to that great group of Indians that, at
the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, inhabited
all the large islands of the Antilles. According to ethnologists,
their original home was probably on the eastern slopes of the
Bolivian Cordilleras. Thence they migrated towards the north and
east and constituted for a time one of the most powerful races in
the Western Hemisphere.
They are also one of the oldest of the great South American
tribes. They were the first Indians with whom the Spaniards came
in contact and are to-day, as they were in the time of Columbus, a
friendly, good-natured, peace-loving people, in spite of all the harsh
treatment their forefathers received from their cruel conquerors. They
are fairer than either the Waraus or the Caribs, and their women
are reputed the most beautiful of all the native Guianians. [84]
Their hair is occasionally so long that it reaches the ground, and,
although they sometimes do it up and in the most tasteful manner,
they usually allow it to fall over their shoulders. They anoint it
daily with Carapa nut oil, and seem to realize as fully as do their
white sisters in the north, that "a woman's glory is in her hair." [85]
The Caribs here referred to belong to that dread race of whom Columbus
heard such blood-curdling stories from the peaceful inhabitants of
Cuba and Española. They are, too, among the youngest of the great
migratory races of South America, and their original abode seems to
have been in the upper basins of the Xingu and Tapajos, two of the
great affluents of the Amazon.
Descending these rivers, they took possession of the greater part of
the continent bordering the Atlantic from the mouth of the Amazon to
the Caribbean sea, which is named from them. Subsequently, in large
fleets of canoes, in making which they excelled, they pushed their
way up the Orinoco and its principal tributaries, spreading death
and destruction wherever they went. And not satisfied with their
conquests on land, they eventually extended their dominion over the
islands of the Lesser Antilles as far as St. Thomas. Had it not been
for the timely arrival of the Spaniards, there is no doubt that they
would have driven the peaceful Waraus out of the Greater Antilles,
as they had forced them from their other homes in the islands to the
southeast and on the mainland of South America.
They were the terror of all the tribes with whom they came in
contact. They enslaved the women, and celebrated their victories
by devouring the men. They were the cannibals who so strenuously
opposed the Spaniards on many a bloody field, and who, it is alleged,
celebrated their victory over the white invader by serving up, at their
savage banquets, the captives taken in ambush or in battle. Indeed,
the word cannibal is but a corruption of the word Carib. [86] For
many generations they preyed on the peaceful Indians of the missions
of the Orinoco basin and elsewhere, and time and again the zealous
missionary saw the work of years undone in a few moments by the sudden
onslaught of these dread and ruthless visitants.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Spanish Franciscans, the Caribs
who inhabit the eastern part of Venezuela were eventually civilized
and Christianized, and converted from wild nomads into peaceful
and useful citizens, having their own towns and villages. They were
chiefly engaged in the breeding of cattle and in agriculture.
A century ago there were in the territory bounded by the Caroni,
the Cuyuni and the Orinoco no fewer than thirty-eight missions, with
sixteen thousand civilized Indians. But by decrees promulgated by the
Republic of Colombia in the years 1819 and 1821 these missions were
suppressed and to-day one sees scarcely a vestige of their former
existence. The Indians are not only much less numerous than formerly,
but most of them have returned to the mode of life they led before
the advent of the missionary.
They are, as a rule, peaceful and harmless, but as they have been so
long neglected by the government, their social status is but little
above that of their savage ancestors. More is the pity. The suppression
of the missions here was followed by the same consequences as resulted
from the suppression of the missions in Paraguay and elsewhere--the
relapse of the Indians into savagery and the loss to the state of
thousands of useful and worthy citizens. It is difficult to see the
wisdom of thus eliminating from the body politic elements so prolific
of good and so essential to the public weal.
Père Labat, referring to the language of the Caribs, writes as
follows:--"The Caribs have three kinds of language. The first, the
most ordinary, and that which every one speaks, is the one affected
by the men.
"The second is so proper to the women, that, although the men
understand it, they would consider themselves dishonored if they spoke
it, or if they answered their women in case they had the temerity
to address them in this language. They--the women--know the language
of their husbands, and must make use of it when they speak to them,
but they never use it when they talk among themselves, nor do they
employ any language but the one peculiar to themselves, which is
entirely different from that of the men.
"There is a third language, which is known only by the men who have
been in war, and particularly by the old men. It is rather a jargon
than a language. They use it in important assemblies of which they
desire to keep the resolutions secret. The women and young men are
ignorant of it." [87]
This statement was for a long time discredited, and classed among those
fables regarding the New World that were unworthy of the attention of
serious men. Later on it was discovered that the victoriosa loquacitas
of the charming monk was based on fact. But the next thing was to
explain the fact. On investigation it was found that something similar
exists among other Indian tribes of South America, as, for instance,
among the Guaranis, the Chiquitos, the Omaguas and the Quichuas.
In explanation of this strange phenomenon, it was then suggested
"that women, from their separate way of life, frame particular terms
which men do not adopt." Cicero observes that old forms of language
are best preserved by women, because, by their position in society,
they are less exposed to those vicissitudes of life, changes of place
and occupation, which tend to corrupt the primitive purity of language
among men. [88]
This suggestion, ingenious though it be, was far from satisfactory to
philologists and ethnologists. The quest, therefore, for a solution of
the strange problem, was continued with renewed interest, and with the
result that the mystery was at length completely solved. As has been
stated, it was the custom of the Caribs in their wars with other Indian
tribes to massacre the men and reduce the women to servitude. In some
instances many of the women and not infrequently the majority of them
became the wives of their conquerors. But even after this enforced
alliance, the women retained their own language. The consequence
was that, in families thus constituted, there were two languages
spoken--that of the conqueror and that of the conquered.
While, however, the general accuracy of Père Labat's statements were
thus put beyond further doubt, it was discovered, by a comparative
study of the languages of the Caribs and those of the tribes which
they had subjugated, that it was not strictly true to assert that
the language of the women was entirely different from that of the
men--totalement different de celui des hommes--as the good Dominican
had affirmed. They were entirely different in the words of daily use
and of most frequent occurrence, but the difference extended in reality
only to the minor part of the vocabulary actually employed. But the
difference was quite sufficient to justify the interest it had so
long excited among men of science, and to stimulate the researches
which have only in recent years been crowned with success. [89]
The night before arriving at Ciudad Bolivar, while dreamily reclining
in a steamer chair, I was awakened from my musings by a vivacious
senorita, of pronounced Castilian type, rushing up to her father,
near by, and exclaiming in an excited manner, "Mira, padre, mira,
la Cruz del Sur!" Look, father, look--the Southern Cross! And
sure enough, there, in the constellation Centauri, was the "Croce
Maravigliosa,"--the marvelous cross--of the early navigators, the
"Crucero" of incomparable beauty and brightness, the celestial clock
of the early missionaries in the tropical lands of the New World. The
cloud-veiled skies of the preceding nights had prevented us from
getting a view of these "luci sante"--holy lights--but now we were
privileged to behold them in all their heavenly splendor. At once we
recalled that well-known passage of Dante, which the lovers of the
great Florentine have applied to this constellation:--
"To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind,
On the other pole attentive, where I saw
Four stars ne'er seen before save by the ken
Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays
Seemed joyous. O, thou northern site! bereft
Indeed, and widened, since of these deprived!" [90]
We never suspected it at the time, but as subsequent events proved,
the señorita's Cruz del Sur was to be our timepiece for many subsequent
months. During long wanderings over mountain and plain and in many
changing climes, it was the Southern Cross that served as our guide,
and marked the hours of night, in lieu of Polaris and Ursa Major,
which had disappeared below the horizon.
Toward noon, the second day after leaving the Port-of-Spain, we got
our first view of Ciudad Bolivar, founded in 1764 by Joaquin Moreno de
Mendoza, and since that time the capital of Guiana, now the great State
of Bolivar. Situated upon an eminence, on the right bank of the river,
it presents a very imposing appearance and seems much larger than it is
in reality. The white stone walls of the houses, and the brownish-red
tiles of the roofs, together with the delicate green crowns of lofty
palms that dot every part of the city, enhance in a marked degree the
beauty of the picture as seen under the brilliant light of the noonday
sun. The cathedral, and the government buildings around the plaza in
the higher part of the town, loom up with splendid effect. Indeed,
it would be difficult to find a more beautiful picture of a city,
when seen at a distance, than is that of Ciudad Bolivar.
As one approaches this metropolis of the Orinoco basin, the details of
the city come gradually into view. Parallel with the river bank is the
principal business street--La Calle del Coco--which is at the same time
the most delightful promenade in the place. Here is the custom-house,
the American and other consulates, and a number of large mercantile
establishments, controlled chiefly by Germans, Americans and Corsicans.
From a broad waterway, from two to three miles in width, the river
here contracts to a narrow channel which, at low water, is not
more than a half mile in width. According to Codazzi, [91] the mean
depth of the river at this point is sixty feet. Towards the end of
the rainy season, however, the water rises from forty to fifty feet
above low-water mark. Sometimes it rises considerably higher. In
1891 the flood was so high that the stores and dwellings of the part
of the city fronting the river were inundated to a height of several
feet. Then the inhabitants were obliged to have recourse to canoes in
passing from house to house. Then, too, stray alligators were seen
in the streets and it was possible to catch enough fish for a meal
in the patio--court-yard--of one's residence.
The original name of the city was Santo Tomé de la Nueva Guayana--the
third place on the river to bear this name. The first, it will be
remembered, was situated at the confluence of the Caroni and the
Orinoco and was destroyed by the Dutch in 1579. The second, now known
as Los Castillos--formerly Guayana la Vieja--was founded by Antonio de
Berrio in 1591, and is famous in the history of this part of Venezuela
for its vigorous resistance to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom Spanish writers
designate as the "great pirate Gualtero Reali." As the inhabitants
found the first name of their city inconveniently long they called
it Angostura--the Narrows--from the contraction of the river at this
point. The name was so appropriate that it is a pity it could not have
been retained. In 1819, however, Congress gave it the name of Ciudad
Bolivar, in honor of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of South America.
As our steamer neared the steep bank in front of the city our
attention was arrested by a large, dark, granitic mass--La Piedra
del Medio--looming up in the middle of the river. Like the celebrated
Nileometer at Cairo, this rock, which may appropriately be called an
Orinocometer, serves as a gauge of the annual rise of the flood. As
we passed it, we could see distinctly the height to which the waters
had risen the preceding year.
If ever the long-talked-of railroad from Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar
shall be constructed, this rock, almost midway between the latter
city and Soledad, a small town on the opposite side of the river,
will serve as an invaluable pier for the bridge that is planned to
span the Orinoco at this point. Until, however, the country shall have
a more stable government than it has now, and until foreign capital
shall have more confidence in the future of the republic than it has
at present, it is quite safe to say that there will be neither bridge
nor railroad, although both are very much needed to develop the vast
resources of t
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