Chapter XIV: The Rich Coast (2)

Anglerius, Petrus Martyr. De nouo orbe, or the historie of the West Indies, contayning the actes and aduentures of the Spanyardes, which haue conquered and peopled those countries, inriched with varitie of pleasant relation of the manners, ceremonies, lawes, gouernments, and warres of the Indians. Comprised in 8 decades. Written by Peter Martyr a Millanoise of Angleria, cheife secretary. Whereof three, haue beene formerly translated into English, by R. Eden, whereunto the other fiue, are newly added by the industrie, and painefull trauaile of M. Lok. Gent. London, 1612.

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NOTES

[1] Dec. 1, Lib. IX, Cap. 10.

[2] 1513 is the date given by Garcilaso de la Vega, and Peschel, in his Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 521, has proved that this is the date that should be accepted.

[3] The History of Hernando de Soto and Florida; or Record of the Events of Fifty-six Years, from 1512 to 1568, p. 111, 78 and passim, Philadelphia, 1881.

[4] "Floridamque appelaverat quia Resurectionis die eam insulam repererint; vocat Hispanus pascha floridum resurectionis diem." Dec. IV, Cap. 5.

[5] Les Cortereal et leur Voyage au Nouveau Monde, pp. 111, 151.

[6] Le Premier Voyage de Amerigo Vespucci, par F. A. de Varnhagan, Vienne, 1869, p. 34.

[7] Historia General de las Indias, Tom. XXII de Autores Españoles, Madrid, M. Rivadeneyra, Editor, 1877--I have reproduced the passage in the quaint translation of Richard Eden, as given in The first three books on America, p. 345, edited by Edward Arber, Westminster, 1895.

[8] Colección de documentos inéditos del archivo de Indias, Tom. V, pp. 536, 537.

[9] Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias, in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Tom. IV, p. 69, Collection Rivadeneyra, Madrid, 1850.

In spite, however, of the scepticism of Martyr and of the ridicule of Castellanos and the denunciation of Oviedo, the quest for the Fountain of Youth was, according to Herrera, continued until the end of the sixteenth century, and probably longer.

[10] The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight, chap. LII.

[11] Richard Eden, op, cit., p. 34.

[12] For an illuminating discussion of this subject, with citation of authorities, see M. Beauvois' article, La Fontaine de Jouvence et le Jourdain dans les Traditions des Antilles et de la Floride, Le Muséon, Tom. III, No. 3.

[13] "By projecting our modern knowledge into the past," to employ a favorite phrase of John Fiske, many, even among recent writers, speak as if the early explorers knew for a certainty that the land discovered by Columbus was actually distinct from Asia. None of them, however, go to the extreme of Lope de Vega, who, in one of his dramas, El Nuevo Mundo Descubierto, makes the Genoese mariner, in a talk with his brother Bartholomew, ask why is it, that I, "a poor pilot, broken in fortune, yearn to add to this world another and one so remote?"--

"Un hombre pobre, y aun roto,
Que casi lo puedo decir,
Y que vive de piloto
Quiere á éste mundo añadir
Otro mundo tan remoto."

[14] Writings of Columbus, edited by P. L. Ford, New York, 1892.

[15] Relaciones y Cartas de Cristobal Colón in the Biblioteca Clásica, Tom. CLXIV, Madrid, 1892.

[16] Relaciones y Cartas, ut sup., pp. 57, 58.

[17] Hakluyt's Early Voyage, Vol. III, p. 615, London, 1810. The introduction of tobacco into England is by some attributed to Hawkins rather than to Lord Raleigh, who is generally supposed to have introduced it.

[18] "Vedete che pestifero e maluagio ueleno del diaulo e questo." La Historia del Mondo Nuovo, p. 54, Venezia, 1555.

[19] Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de L'Amérique, Vol. II, p. 120, par Jean Baptiste Labat, à la Haye, 1724.

[20] Even royalty took part in the controversy. In A Counterblaste to Tobacco King James concludes his argument against the use of the weed as follows:--

"A custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse." The Works of the Most High and Mightie Prince James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., p. 222, London, 1616.

[21] "Hail, happy soil, whence Mother Nature lavishes in abundance the odoriferous, smokable plant! Hail, happy Havana."

[22] Vida y Escritos de Don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Obispo de Chiapa, por Don Antonio Maria Fabié, Tom. I, pp. 235, 236, Madrid, 1879.

[23] Fray Bartolemé de las Casas, Sus Tiempos y Su Apostolado, por Carlos Gutierres, pp. 351, 352, 368, 369, Madrid, 1878.

[24] Étude sur les Rapports de L'Amérique et de L'Ancien Continent avant Christophe Colomb, par Paul Gaffarel. p. 124 et seq., Paris, 1869.

[25] The diminutive of España, and signifying little Spain. Also known by the Latinized name Hispaniola, and as Isabella, in honor of the illustrious patron of the discoverer. Haiti is an Indian word meaning "craggy land," or "land of mountains."

[26] Historia de las Indias, Dec. II, Lib. 3, Cap. 14.

[27] Southey's History of Brazil, Vol. III, Chap. XXXIII.

[28] Sir Clements R. Markham in his introduction to Hawkins' Voyages, says, speaking of this subject, "It is not therefore John Hawkins alone who can justly be blamed for the slave trade, but the whole English people during 250 years, who must all divide the blame with him."

[29] The Spanish Conquest in America, by Sir Arthur Helps, Vol. I, p. 350, London and New York, 1900. See also Girolamo Benzoni, Historia del Mondo Nuovo, p. 65, Venezia, 1565, in which he says many Spaniards of Española predicted that the island would surely, within a short time, fall into the hands of the blacks. "Vi sono molti Spagnuoli que tengono per cosa certa que quest' Isola in breue tempo sara posseduta da questi Mori."

[30] Eden's First Three English Books on America, p. 240.

[31] For a complete discussion of this subject, see Christopher Columbus, His Life, His Works, His Remains, pp. 507-613, by J. B. Thatcher, New York, 1904. According to this author, very small portions of the precious ashes of the great discoverer exist in the Vatican, in the University of Pavia, where Columbus was a student, in The Municipal Hall of Genoa, in the Lenox Library, New York, and in the possession of four different private individuals whom he names.

[32] "To Earth he gave immense riches, to Heaven souls innumerable."

[33] Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, par Alexander de Humboldt, Vol. V, pp. 177, 178, Paris, 1839.

[34] "This narrow space is a sepulchre of the man who was a Lion in name and much more one in deed."

[35] Historia de la Conquista y población de la Provincia de Venezuela, Tom. II, p. 36, Madrid, 1885.

[36] The Romans declare that those who cast a coin into the fountain of Trevi are sure to return to the Eternal City. The Caraquenians have a similar saying, viz., that he who drinks of the water of the Catuche, a stream flowing through the city, will return to Caracas. El que bebe de Catuche vuelve á Caracas.

[37] Historia de las Indias, Dec. II, Lib. 3, Cap. 14.

[38] The Pearl Coast extends from Coro to the Gulf of Paria, a distance of more than five hundred miles.

[39] Padre A. Caulin, Historia coro-grafica, natural y evangelica de la Nueva Andalucia, Madrid, 1779, and Conversion en Piritu de Indios Cumanogotos y Palenques, por el P. Fr. Matias Ruiz Blanco O. S. F. seguido de Los Franciscanos en las Indias, por Fr. Francisco Alvarez de Vilanueva, O. S. F., Madrid, 1892.

[40] Even Captain John Hawkins, "an atrocious slave dealer," is forced to pay his tribute of praise to the gentle and peaceful character of the Indians of this part of Venezuela, for of them he writes: "The people bee surely gentle and tractable, and such as desire to liue peaceablie, or else had it been vnpossible for the Spaniards to haue conquered them as they did, and the more to liue now peaceable, they being many in number, and the Spaniards of few." Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 28.

[41] F. A. MacNutt's Bartholomew de las Casas, His Life, His Apostolate and His Writings, Chaps. VIII, XI, XII, New York, 1909.

[42] Antonio de Remesal, Historia de la Provincia de Son Vicente de Chyapa, 1619.

[43] In his last will he writes "Inasmuch as the goodness and the mercy of God, whose unworthy minister I am, called me to be the protector of the inhabitants of the countries, which we call the Indies, who were once the lords of those lands and kingdoms, ... I have labored in the court of the Kings of Castile, going and coming from the Indies to Castile and from Castile to the Indies many times for about fifty years--i. e., from the year 1540, for the love of God alone and through compassion seeing those great multitudes of rational men perish, who originally were approachable, humble, meek and simple, and well fitted to receive the Catholic faith and practice all manner of Christian virtues." Fabié, op. cit., Tom. I, pp. 234, 235.

[44] "In contemplating such a life," writes Fiske, "as that of Las Casas, all words of eulogy seem weak and frivolous. The historian can only bow in reverent awe before a figure which is in some respects the most beautiful and sublime in the annals of Christianity since the Apostolic age. When now and then in the course of the centuries God's providence brings such a life into this world, the memory of it must be cherished by mankind as one of its most precious and sacred possessions. For the thoughts, the words, the deeds of such a man, there is no death. The sphere of their influence goes on widening forever. They bud, they blossom, they bear fruit, from age to age."--The Discovery of America, Vol. II, p. 482.

[45] Dec. 1, Book 8. The same writer informs us that the sailors of Pedro Alonzo Niño, on leaving Curiana to return to Spain, "had three score and XVI poundes weight (after VIII vnces to the pownde) of perles, which they bought for exchange of owre thynges, amountinge to the value of fyve shyllinges."

[46] Of these gems of the ocean, "tears by Naiads wept," one could then repeat, as well as now, the words of Pliny, "The richest merchandise of all, and the most soveraigne comoditie throughout the whole world, are these perles."--Naturalis Historia, Lib. IX, Cap. 35.

[47] The Venezuelan pearl-oyster--Margaritifera Radiata--is related to the Ceylon species, Margaritifera vulgaris, and ranges in color from white to bronze and, sometimes, black. It is slightly larger than the Ceylonese gem, and is occasionally of excellent quality.

About three hundred and fifty boats, each manned by five or six men, are now engaged in the pearl fishery of Venezuela. Most of them are from the ports of Cumana, Juan Griego and Carupano.

The reader who is interested in the pearls of Margarita and of the Pearl Coast, may consult with profit the very elaborate work, The Book of the Pearl, by George F. Kunz and Chas. H. Stevenson, New York, 1908, and The Pearl, by W. R. Castelle, Philadelphia and London, 1907.

[48] Rokeby, Canto I, 13.

[49] "The wind then failed me, and I entered a climate where the intensity of the heat was such that I thought both ships and men would have been burned up, and everything suddenly got into such a state of confusion that no man dared go below deck to attend to the securing of the water-cask and the provisions. This heat lasted eight days; on the first day the weather was fine, but on the seven other days it rained and was cloudy, yet we found no alleviation of our distress; so that I certainly believe that if the sun had shone, as on the first day, we should not have been able to escape in anyway."--Writings of Christopher Columbus, ut sup., pp. 113, 114, and Irving's Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, Chap. XXIX.

[50] Op. cit., p. 136.

[51] Eden's First Three English Books on America, p. 338.

[52] Chapman's Odyssey, Bk. VII.

[53] Called Bois immortelle by the French, and in Spanish bearing the appropriate name of madre de cacao, mother of cacao.

[54] It was upon the "boughs and spraies" of these trees that Raleigh found "great store of oisters, very salt and wel tasted." A species of edible oyster is still found on this tree--the Rhizophora Mangle of Linnæus--but, although served on the table in the West Indies, it is far from being as luscious as our "Blue Points" or as large as our "Lynn Havens."

[55] At Last, p. 79, London, 1905.

[56] "At this point called Tierra de Brea or Piche," writes Raleigh, "there is that abondance of stone pitch, that all the ships of the world may therewith loden from thence, and wee made triall of it in trimming our ships to be most excellent good, and melteth not with the sunne, as the pitch of Norway, and therefore for ships trading in the south partes very profitable."--The Discovery of Guiana, pp. 3 and 4, published for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1848.

[57] Writings of Columbus, op. cit., pp. 120, 121.

[58] Coleccion de los Viajes y descubrunientos que hiaeron por mar los Españoles desde fines dil siglo XV. Tom. III, p. 583.

[59] See the aforementioned letter of Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella for the quotations above given. The whole letter will well repay perusal. See also Relaciones y Cartas de Cristobal Colon, Tom. CL, XIV, de la Biblioteca Clasica, Madrid, 1892, p. 268 et seq.

Americus Vespucius shared with Columbus the belief in the existence of the Terrestrial Paradise in the newly-discovered lands near the equator. Writing to his friend, Lorenzo de Medici, giving him an account of his second voyage, he declares "In the fields flourish so many sweet flowers and herbs, and the fruits are so delicious in their fragrance, that I fancied myself near the terrestrial paradise," and again, "If there is a terrestrial paradise in the world it cannot be far from this region."--The Life and Voyages of Americus Vespucius, pp. 197 and 214, by C. Edwards Lester and Andrew Foster, New York, 1846.

[60] The curious reader will be interested in learning that Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as Columbus and Vespucius, speculated about the probable site of Paradise. In his History of the World he devotes a long chapter to the subject, and several pages to the discussion "Of their Opinion which make paradise as high as the moon; and of others which make it higher than the middle region of the air," Chap. III, Oxford, 1829.

[61] He who goes to the Orinoco dies or becomes crazy.

[62] The Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, p. 46, edited by Sir Robert Schomburgk, printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1848.

[63] Purgatorio, Canto 1, vv. 13-16.

[64] Sir Robert Schomburgk is no less enthusiastic in his praise of the tawny beauties of this part of South America. Commenting on Raleigh's opinion, just quoted, he writes as follows:--

"During our eight years' wandering among the tribes of Guiana, who inhabit the vast regions from the coast of the Atlantic to the interior, between the Cassiquiare and the upper Trombetas, we have met with many an Indian female who in figure and comeliness might have vied with some of our European beauties. Although they are rather small in size, their feet and hands are generally exquisite, their ankles well turned, and their waists, left to nature and not forced into artificial shape by modern inventions, resemble the beau ideal of classical sculpture."--The Discoverie of Guiana, ut sup., p. 41.

[65] The reader, I am sure, will be interested in the following paragraph from Peter Martyr on the plantain.

Speaking of the fruit of the Cassia tree (as he calls the plantain), he, in Michael Lok's translation, says,--

"The Egyptian common people babble that this is the apple of our first created Father Adam, whereby hee ouerthrewe all mankinde. The straunge and farraine Marchantes of vnprofitable Spices, perfumes, Arabian Yseminating odours, and woorthlesse precious stones trading those Countries for gaine, call those fruites the Muses. For mine owne part I cannot call to minde, by what name I might call that tree or stalke in Latine," p. 273. De Novo Orbe, the Historie of the West Indies, comprised in eight Decades whereof three haue beene formerly translated into English by R. Eden, whereunto the other fiue are newly added by the industrie and painfull Trauaile of M. Lok, Gent., London, 1612.

[66] The Anaconda is called by the inhabitants of Guiana, La Culebra de Agua, or Water Serpent. It is also named El Traga Venado--Deer Swallower--while in British Guiana it is known as the Camoudi. Mr. Waterton, speaking of it, says, "The Camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to forty feet long; though not venomous, his size renders him destructive to the passing animals. The Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows to the length of seventy or eighty feet, and that he will destroy the strongest and largest bull. His name seems to confirm this; there he is called 'matatoro,' which literally means 'bull-killer.' Thus be may be ranked among the deadly snakes; for it comes nearly to the same thing in the end, whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood, and makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this hideous beast."--Wanderings in South America, First Journey.

[67] Neue Reisen, p. 698, Berlin. Cf. Wandertage eines Deutschen Touristen im Strom und Küstengebiet des Orinoko, Chap. XXXIII-XXXV, von Eberhard Graf zu Erbach, Leipzig, 1892.

[68] "The navigator," writes the illustrious savant, "in proceeding along the channels of the delta of the Orinoco at night, sees with surprise the summit of the palm trees illumined by large fires. These are the habitations of the Guarons (Titivitas and Waraweties of Raleigh), which are suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle, on a layer of moist clay, the fire necessary for their household wants. They had owed their liberty and their political independence for ages to the quaking and swampy soil, which they pass over in the time of drought, and on which they alone know how to walk in security to their solitude in the delta of the Orinoco; to their abode on the trees, where religious enthusiasm will probably never lead any American stylites. Vol. III, Chap. XXV.

[69] History of the New World, printed for the Hakluyt Society, pp. 237, 238.

[70] Historia del Almirante de las Indias, Don Cristobal Colón, Escrita por Don Fernando Colón, p. 178, Madrid, 1892.

[71] Dec. II, Bk. IV. Eden's translation.

[72] Op. cit., pp. 50, 51.

[73] With reason does the pious missionary call the moriche palm--Mauritia flexuosa--"nuevo arbol de la vida, y milagro del Supremo Autor de la naturaleza"--a new tree of life, and a miracle of the Author of Nature--for this tree alone furnishes the Indian with victum et amictum--food and raiment.--Historia Natural Civil y Geografica de las naciones situadas en las Riberas del Rio Orinoco, Vol. I, Cap. IX, Barcelona, 1882. Compare the following lines of Thomson's Seasons:--

"Wide o'er his isles, the branching Oronoque
Rolls a brown deluge, and the native drives
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,
At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms."

[74] Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 9.

[75] Discoverie of Gviana, p. 50.

[76] Unter den Tropen, Erster Band, p. 521, Jena, 1871.

[77] El Delta del Orinoco tomado de la esploracion al alto bajo Orinoco y central en 1850, por Andres E. Level, Vol. III, de la Memoria de la Dirección General de Estradistica al Presidente de los Estados Unidos de Venezuela, en 1873.

[78] Chapter XXXI.

[79] Op. cit, Vol. II, pp. 255, 256.

[80] The Ewaipanomas, to whom Othello, in his address to the fair Desdemona, refers in the following passage:--

"... the cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."

Captain Keymis, who served under Raleigh, tells us, as we read in Hakluyt, of people "who have eminent heads like dogs, and live all the day-time in the sea, and they speak the Carib language."

[81] John Hagthorpe, a contemporary of Raleigh, writes about the matter as follows: "Sir Walter Rawley knewe very well when he attempted his Guayana businesse, who err'd in nothing so much,--if a free man may speak freely,--as in too much confidence in the relations of the countrie: For who knowes not the policy and cunning of the fat Fryers, which is to stirre up and animate the Souldiers and Laytie to the search and inquisition of new Countries, by devising tales and coments in their Cloysters where they live at ease, that when others have taken payne to bringe in the harvest, they may feed upon the best and fattest of the croppe?"--England's Exchequer, or A Discourse of the Sea and Navigation with Some Things Thereunto Coincident Concerning Plantations, London, 1625.

[82] Kingsley in Westward Ho! speaks of Columbus and Raleigh as "the two most gifted men, perhaps, with the exception of Humboldt, who ever set foot in tropical America." Spanish writers, it is safe to say, would strongly demur to this statement so far as Raleigh is concerned.

[83] Elsewhere he tells us of the thousands of "vglie serpents," which he calls Lagartos, the Spanish word for lizards, that he saw everywhere along the Orinoco. They were what are now known as crocodiles and caymans, the former of which, according to Schomburgk, are seldom more than six to eight feet long, while the latter are said sometimes to attain a length of twenty-five feet. We saw several of them every day but their number was far from being as great as is usually represented.

Of the armadillo, which is prized as a delicacy in Guiana, Raleigh says "it seemeth to be barred ouer with small plates like to a Renocero with a white horne growing in his hinder parts, as big as a great hunting horne which they vse to winde in steed of a trumpet." Op. cit., p. 74.

[84] According to Sr. F. Michelenena y Rojas, Exploracion Oficial, p. 54, the palm for physical superiority and intelligence is to be awarded to the Caribs. He says the Carib race is without doubt ... the most beautiful, the most robust and the most intelligent of all those in Venezuela. Not only this; he seems inclined to consider them the superiors of all the Indians in South America. Vespucci speaks, too, of them as "magnae sapientiae viri"--men of superior intelligence--as well as men of superior strength and valor.

[85] Raleigh gives the following graphic description of the wife of an Indian chief whom he met during his voyage to this region:--

"In all my life I haue seldome seene a better fauored woman: She was of good stature, with blacke eies, fat of body, of an excellent countenance, hir haire almost as long as hir selfe, tied vp againe in pretie knots, and it seemed she stood not in that aw of hir husband, as the rest, for she spake and discourst, and dranke among the gentlemen and captaines, and was very pleasant, knowing hir owne comelines, and taking great pride therein. I haue seene a Lady in England so like hir, as but for the difference of colour I would haue sworne might haue beene the same." Op. cit., p. 66.

[86] Peter Martyr says of them:--"Edaces humanarum carnium novi helluones anthropophagi, Caribes alias Canibales appellati."

Notwithstanding all that has been said on the subject since the discovery of America, it is still a moot question with many serious investigators whether the Caribs of Tierra Firme were ever cannibals, as is so generally believed. That the Caribs of certain of the West Indian islands were addicted to anthropophagy there can, it seems, be little doubt. The concurrent testimony of the earlier writers, including Peter Martyr and Cardinal Bembo and others, have apparently placed the matter beyond controversy. It was the cruelties and anthropophagous habits of the Caribs, as reported to Spain, that provoked the law which was promulgated in 1504 in virtue of which every Indian, who could be proved to be of Carib origin, might be enslaved by the Spaniards. This law, however, although designed by its framers to eliminate a practice that was a disgrace to humanity, opened the door to evils almost as great--if not greater in some instances--as those it was expected to suppress. Selfish, soulless colonists had but to circulate the report that certain Indians, whom they coveted for slaves, were cannibals, in order to justify themselves before the law for tearing them from their homes and keeping them in servitude. Thus it happened that, shortly after the promulgation of the law aforesaid, the Caribs of the Mainland, as well as those of the West Indies, were classed as cannibals. They were accordingly hunted like wild beasts, and countless thousands of them--the same innocent, gentle, inoffensive creatures that so strongly appealed to Columbus--were sold into slavery and met with a cruel death in the mines of Española. So successful were the atrocious slave-dealers of the time in fixing the stigma of cannibal on the Indians of the Mainland that Herrera felt authorized to declare that there was in every pueblo of Venezuela a slaughter house in which human flesh could be obtained--en cada Pueblo havia Caneceria publica de carne humana (Dec. VIII, Lib. II, Cap. XIX).

Direct and specific as is this charge, it is quite safe to assert that it is utterly devoid of foundation in fact. The most charitable construction we can put on Herrera's statements is that he was misled by the false reports of those whose interest it was to have it believed that the Caribs of Venezuela, as well as those of the West Indies, indulged in the horrid practice of devouring their enemies. Humboldt was among the first to raise his voice in defense of the Indians of the Mainland and to assert that it was only the Caribs of the West Indies that had "rendered the names cannibals, Caribbees and anthropophagi, synonymous." (Personal Narrative, Vol. II, p. 414.)

A recent Venezuelan writer, Tavera-Acosta, declares that it is "an incontrovertible fact that so far the anthropophagy of which they have been accused by their ferocious and ignorant executioners has never been proved" against the Caribs. Their sole crime was that they took arms against their ruthless invaders in defense of their homes, and relying on their numbers and conscious superiority over other tribes endeavored by all possible means to preserve their independence. (Anales de Guayana, p. 320, Ciudad Bolivar, 1905.)

There can be no doubt that the Indians, during the period of the conquest and subsequently, were the victims of gross misrepresentations and had in consequence to endure untold hardships and miseries. Not content with denouncing them as cannibals, their relentless persecutors--Dutch, Germans, English, French and Portuguese, as well as Spaniards--insisted on regarding them as mere animals--like a species of chimpanzee or orang-outang--that had no souls and no rights any one was bound to respect. It required the bull--Sublimis Deus--of Pope Paul III to define the status of the hapless Indians, to make it clear that they are not "dumb brutes created for our service," but that they "are truly men"; that "they are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property"; that they are not "to be in any way enslaved"; and that "should the contrary happen, it shall be null and of no effect."

What has been said of the cannibalism of the South American Indian in times past may with even greater truth be iterated of it to-day. In spite of what has been written to the contrary, even by so distinguished an explorer as Rafael Reyes--ex-president of Colombia--it may well be doubted if there is a single tribe in South America that can justly be accused of cannibalism. Some of them, owing to their miserable social condition, or because they have for generations past been the victims of the injustice and cruelty of the whites, may be ferocious and vindictive, but, that even the worst of them are cannibals, is yet to be proved. Compare Oviedo y Baños, op. cit., II, p. 377 et seq., and Across the South American Continent, Exploration of the Brothers Reyes, Paper Read at the Pan-American Conference, by General Rafael Reyes, the Delegate for Colombia, Dec. 30th, 1901, Mexico and Barcelona, 1902.

[87] Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amérique, Vol. VI, pp. 127, 128, Paris, 1743.

[88] "Facilius enim mulieres incorruptam antiquitatem conservant, quod multorum sermonis expertes ea tenent semper, quæ prima didicerunt."--De Orat., Lib. III, Cap. XII, 45.

[89] See, among other works on the subject, Du Parler des Hommes et du Parler des Femmes dans la Langue Caraïbe, par Lucien Adam, Paris, 1879, in which the author makes the following statement:--

"Le double langage se réduit, au point de vue de la lexicologie, à cette singularité que, pour exprimer environ 400 idées sur 2,000 à 3,000, les hommes invariablement, et les femmes seulment entre elles, se servaient de mots différents."

See also Introduction à la grammaire Caraïbe, du P. R. Breton, and the Dictionaire Caraïbe, of the same author.

[90] The Purgatorio, Canto I, vv. 22-27.

The poet is not to be taken too literally in this last verse. In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the constellations are ever changing their position with reference to any given point on the earth's surface. There was a time, in the distant past, when the Southern Cross was visible in the very land in which Dante penned his immortal poem. "At the time of Claudius Ptolemæus," says Humboldt, "the beautiful star at the base of the Southern Cross had still an altitude of 6° 10' at its meridian passage at Alexandria, while at the present day it culminates there several degrees below the horizon.

"In the fourth century, the Christian anchorites in the Thebaid desert might have seen the Cross at an altitude of ten degrees." And again, "The Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52° 30' north latitude 2900 years before our era, since, according to Galle, this constellation might previously have reached an altitude of more than 10°. When it disappeared from the horizon of the countries on the Baltic, the great pyramid of Cheops had already been erected more than five hundred years. The pastoral tribe of the Hyksos made their incursion seven hundred years earlier. The past seems to be visibly nearer to us when we connect its measurement with great and memorable events."--Cosmos, Vol. II, pp. 288-291, New York, 1850.

For an interesting discussion of Dante's "quattro stelle," four stars, with references, see Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio, Vol. I, pp. 10, 11, third edition. Compare also Ramusio, Delle Navigazioni e Viaggi, Vol. I, pp. 127 and 193, Venetia, 1550, and Oviedo, Historia General y Natural de las Indias. Lib. II, Cap. 11, pp. 45 and 46, Madrid, 1851.

[91] Geografia Statistica de Venezuela, p. 461, Firenze, 1864.

[92] It was here that the well-known brand of Angostura bitters was first prepared by Dr. Siegert. The women of the city, however, maintain that its discovery was due to a Venezolana, who was the wife of the German doctor. Owing to the exactions of the Venezuelan government, the manufacture of this widely used infusion was long ago transferred to the Port-of-Spain, where it now constitutes one of the city's chief industries.

[93] A Naturalist in the Guianas, p. 65, by Eugene André, New York, 1904.

[94] In the quasi-suburb, known as morichales, from the number of moriche palms found there, the homes of the well-to-do people are not unlike those we so much admired in Trinidad. Some of them are delightful arbors, surrounded by gardens filled with the rarest shrubs and blooms. Here truly, in the language of Pliny, flowers are the joy of trees, and they vie with one another in the brilliance of their colors, and in the exuberance of their growth.

[95] Sr. Pérez Triana, the son of a former president of Colombia, was in 1893 obliged to flee from his country, and as the seaports were watched he and his companions were forced to escape by way of the Meta and the Orinoco. He tells us in his charming book, De Bogotá al Atlantico, p. 3, of the dread inspired by the thought of "lo incierto del viaje, que emprendiamos hacia regiones desconocidas, acaso nunca holladas par la planta del hombre civilizado," "the uncertainty of the journey we were undertaking to unknown regions, probably never trod by the foot of civilized man."--Segunda Edición, Madrid, 1905.

Mr. Cunninghame Graham, in his introduction to this book, remarks that "The voyage in itself was memorable because, since the first conquerors went down the river with the faith that in their case, if rightly used, might have smoothed out all the mountain ranges in the world, no one, except a stray adventurer, or india-rubber trader, has followed in their footsteps," p. 13, English edition, London, 1902.

Another Colombian, Sr. Modesto Garces, had made the same journey eight years before, a record of which he has given us in his little work, Un viaje á Venezuela, Bogotá, 1890. But neither he nor Sir Pérez Triana saw the lower Meta, for they left this river a short distance above Orocué, and voyaged to the Orinoco by way of the Vichada.

Three years subsequently to Pérez Triana's trip the same journey, with slight modifications, was made by a German naturalist, Dr. Otto Bürger. He has given us a record of it in his Reisen eines Naturforschers im Tropischen America, Leipzig, 1900.

So far as I am aware, no writer has made the journey up the river from Ciudad Bolivar to Bogotá. In a certain limited sense it was, therefore, probably true that we were the first to undertake the journey described in the following pages.

[96] The plaga, as understood by the natives, has special reference to the insects known to them as mosquitoes, zancudos and jejenes. What they call mosquitoes we call gnats. The zancudo is our mosquito. The jejen is a small fly whose bite is quite as painful as that of the zancudo. Sometimes the term zancudo is applied to all these pests indiscriminately.

Besides these insects, that are often the cause of much suffering to the traveler in low woodlands, there are others that are sometimes included under the general designation of the plaga. These are a very small red insect known as the coloradito, and the nigua, or jigger--pulex penetrans--which, on account of the misery they occasion, are often more dreaded than serpents or the wild beasts of the forest. They usually bury themselves under the toe nails, where they lay their eggs. If not immediately removed they cause painful and often dangerous sores. It is related of Sir Robert Schomburgk that a negress once extracted from his feet no fewer than eighty-three jiggers at one sitting.

The coloradito, called by the French bête-rouge, and in some places known as the red tick, is almost invisible to the naked eye. It is found everywhere in the equatorial lowlands, especially during the rainy season. Its bite causes an intolerable itching, and when one has been exposed to the combined attacks of many of these microscopic insects, the result is as painful as the burning produced by the poisoned tunic of Nessus. Schomburgk, in describing his personal experience, declares that "the bite of this insect drives by day the perspiration of anguish from every pore, and at night makes one's hammock resemble the gridiron on which St. Lawrence was roasted." Simson informs us that the intense irritation produced by the bites of the bête-rouge at times drove him almost to the verge of madness. "Notwithstanding every effort of self-control," he writes, "to bear the itching sensation, I have many times awoke in the night to find myself sitting up in the bed, and literally tearing the skin off my legs, where most of the insects collect, with my nails." Mosquitoes and the zancudos are bad enough, but, as a pest, the coloradito is far worse. Truth to tell, our greatest suffering in the tropics came from the coloradito, but it was in great measure due to our lack of precaution. Had we exercised more care we should have avoided many painful hours. The best way to allay the pain is to rub the part affected with rum or lemon juice.

Padre Gumilla assures us that leaving the Gulf of Paria and entering the Orinoco, or any of the tropical rivers, is tantamount to engaging in a fierce and continued warfare, day and night, with countless insects of all kinds. Of certain mosquitoes, he tells us, their sharp, uninterrupted noise is more to be dreaded than their piercing proboscis.

So trying and difficult did Raleigh consider a voyage up the Orinoco that he declared it a task "fitter for boies," than for men of mature years, although, when he visited Guiana, he was nearly three lustra younger than was the author of the present work when he made the journey herein described.

[97] Journal of an Expedition 1400 miles up the Orinoco and 300 up the Arauca, pp. 62 and 66, London, 1822.

[98] Adventures Amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America, p. 63, by Villiers Stuart, London, 1891.

Accepting as true these and similar exaggerated statements made by travelers from the time of Gumilla to our own regarding the insect pests of tropical America, the reader will no doubt be inclined to agree with Sydney Smith that it is better for one to become reconciled to the trials of our northern climate than to expose oneself to the still greater trials in the lands bordering the equator. In a characteristic article in the Edinburgh Review on Waterton's Wanderings, the genial humorist has the following paragraph:--

"Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The bête-rouge lays the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you are covered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your flesh, and hatch a large colony of young chigoes in a few hours. They will not live together, but every chigoe sets up a separate ulcer, and has his own private portion of pus. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose; you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches, and snakes, get into the bed; ants eat up the books; scorpions sting you on the foot. Everything bites, stings, or bruises; every second of your existence you are wounded by some piece of animal life that nobody has ever seen before, except Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect with eleven legs is swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine wings is struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over your bread and butter! All nature is alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomological hosts to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Such are the tropics. All this reconciles us to our dews, fogs, vapours, and drizzle--to our apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures--to our old, British, constitutional coughs, sore throats, and swelled faces."

[99] "In a region," says Humboldt, "where travelling is so uncommon, people seem to feel a pleasure in exaggerating to strangers the difficulties arising from the climate, the wild animals and the Indians." Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 361.

[100] "More bold a man is, he prevails the more,
Though man nor place he ever saw before."

--The Odyssey, Book VII, vv. 50, 51.

[101] Op. cit., p. 87.

[102] Voyages dans l'Amérique du Sud, p. 578, Paris, 1883.

Major Stanley Patterson, writing in the Royal Geographical Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 1, p. 40, 1899, of the Venezuelans living on the Orinoco, declares that "All are avaricious, thriftless, independent, faithless, untruthful, lazy, capable of hard work, quick-tempered, vindictive, changeful and full of laughter. If there are clouds these children of the sun see them not; nothing is really serious to them." Certain of his adjectives may apply to some of the inhabitants but they surely cannot truthfully be applied to all of them. We found many good people among them and retain the pleasantest recollections of their kindness and hospitality.

[103] As to the flora of the forests of Venezuelan Guiana one can truthfully say what Richard Schomburgk affirms of the flora of British Guiana. In his Reisen in British Guiana, Vol. II, p. 216, speaking of the plants in the country around Roraima, he writes as follows: "Not only the orchids, but the shrubs and low trees were unknown to me. Every shrub, herb and tree was new to me, if not as to the family, yet as to the species. I stood on the border of an unknown plant-zone, full of wondrous forms which lay as if by magic before me.... Every step revealed something new."

As an evidence of the variety of plant life in this part of the world, it suffices to state that Bonpland, the companion of Humboldt in his memorable journey to South America, discovered no fewer than six hundred species of new plants on his way to the Cassiquiare, and that, too, in spite of the fact that his investigations were necessarily confined entirely to the banks of the river along which he passed. There are still many large tracts in Venezuela and Colombia that have never been visited by the botanist.

[104] S. Pérez Triana, op. cit., p. 309.

[105] Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela and New Granada from 1817-1830, Vol. I, p. 119, London.

[106] In his Travels and Adventures in South and Central America, Don Ramon Paez, the son of the first president of Venezuela, writes as follows of a certain cattle farm in the llanos: "Its area, would measure at least eighty square leagues, or about one hundred and fifty thousand acres of the richest land, but which under the present backward and revolutionary state of the country is comparatively valueless to the owner. The number of cattle dispersed throughout the length and breadth of this wide extent of prairie land was computed to be about a hundred thousand head, and at one time, ten thousand horses; but what with the peste, revolutionary exactions, and skin hunters, comparatively very few of the former and none of the latter have been left." Pp. 202, 203, New York, 1864.

[107] "My wife and my valued horse
Died both at the same time.
To the devil with my wife,
For my horse do I repine."

[108] "With my lance and horse, I care not for fortune, and it matters not whether the sun shines or the moon gives light."

[109] For valuable information regarding the llanos and their inhabitants, the Llaneros, the reader may consult, besides Páez, already quoted, Aus den Llanos, von Carl Sachs, Leipzig, 1879, and Vom Tropischen Tieflande zum Ewigen Schnee, von Anton Goering, Leipzig.

[110] Uncle, a name by which Páez was frequently addressed by the Llaneros.

[111] Recollections of a Service of Three Years during the War of Extermination in the Republics of Venezuela and Colombia, pp. 176, 178, London, 1728.

[112] El Orinoco Ilustrado, Cap. XXII.

[113] Op. cit., Cap. VIII.

[114] Tom. I, p. 2.

[115] Purgatorio, VI, 124-126.

[116] The unstable and turbulent condition from which the country has so long suffered cannot be attributed to a defective constitution or to impracticable laws. The constitution of Venezuela is modeled after that of the United States, and the laws are largely based on the best legislation of other countries. But this is not sufficient. Of this unhappy country, and especially of its rulers, one may exclaim in the words of the great Florentine poet:--

"Laws indeed there are,
But who is he observes them? None."

During our wanderings through this country, which Nature has so highly favored, we often thought that the interests of the people and of humanity would be subserved by adopting a method of government that, for a while, was deemed necessary in Florence. To quell sedition and dissension and break up the factions that had so long made law and order impossible, rulers were brought in from outside--men who had no affiliations with either the Bianchi or the Neri, Guelphs or Ghibellines, and who could, therefore, be counted upon to execute the laws with strict impartiality, regardless of family or party.

Unless those responsible for the government of the country shall soon give evidence of being able to guarantee peace and tranquillity and give the people an opportunity of developing the resources of the country--something in which the whole civilized world is becoming daily more interested--the time may come when the great powers will find it necessary, in the interests of international expediency, to appoint some one who may be counted upon to keep the peace, and foster the commercial and social development that is so greatly needed and is so essential to national progress and prosperity.

[117] Juan de Castellanos, Varones Ilustres de Indias, Primera Parte, Elegia, XI, Canto II.

[118] Castellanos was for a while a soldier and afterwards an ecclesiastic, enjoying a benefice in the town of Tunja, New Granada. Like Pope, he had an extraordinary faculty for versification, and, like him, "He spoke in numbers for the numbers came." This does not, however, detract from his authority as a historian. Having taken an active part in many of the campaigns, which he describes, and, knowing intimately many of the earlier conquerors of that vast territory now known as the Republic of Colombia, few writers were better qualified than he to record the events so graphically depicted in his Elegias, or to portray the characters of those conquistadores who figure so prominently among his Varones Ilustres de Indias. The first part of his work was published in 1589. The second and third parts were published in 1850 by Rivadeneyra in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles. The fourth part, discovered only a few years ago, was issued by D. Antonio Paz y Melia in 1887 under the title of Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada. In his introduction to this work, Sr. Melia gives an able résumé of all that is known or conjectured regarding Castellanos. For a critical estimate of the author of Las Elegias de Varones Ilustres, consult Jimenez de la Espada, in his study, Juan de Castellanos y su Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada, in the Rivista Contemporanea, Madrid, 1889.

[119] Padre Caulin, Historia Coro-Grafica, Natural y Evangelica, Lib. I, Cap. X, p. 79, 1779.

[120] Maluco, a word frequently used in Venezuela for malo, bad.