"The great green or brown plain of the Llanos is often beautified by small golden, white and pink flowers, and sedges and irises make up much of the small vegetation. Here and there the beautiful 'royal' palm, with its banded stem and graceful crown, the moriche, or one of the other kinds, forms clumps to break the monotony, and along the small streams are patches of chaparro bushes, cashew-nuts, locusts and so forth. The banks of the rivers often support denser groves of ceibas, crotons, guamos, etc.; the last-named bears a pod covered with short, velvety hair, within which, around the beans (about the size of our broad beans), is a cool, juicy, very refreshing pulp, not unlike that of the young cocoa-pod. Along the banks of the streams in front of the trees are masses of reeds and semi-aquatic grasses, which effectually conceal the higher vegetation from a traveller in a canoe at water-level."[7]
Much stress has been laid upon the possible economic value of the llanos by some writers, whilst others regard these possibilities as exaggerated.[8] Their area is calculated at 100,000 square miles. They are neither prairies nor desert. During a large part of the year they are subject to heavy rainfall and become swamped, followed by a drought so intense that the streams dry up and the parched grass affords no pasture for stock. There is a total lack of roads, and the rivers are unbridged, and the region is far from the ocean. The trade wind blows fiercely across them.
The view over these vast plains as the traveller's eyes suddenly rest upon them as he descends the Andes is very striking, and has been described by various observers, among them Humboldt.
In the wet season, when the river overflows, the cattle are driven back to higher ground. When the waters retire alligators and water snakes bury themselves in the mud to pass the dry season.
In this connexion stories are told of travellers and others who, having camped for the night in some hut or chosen spot, are suddenly awakened by the upheaval of the ground beneath them and the emergence of some dreadful monster therefrom. A certain traveller's experience in the night was that of being awakened by the barking of his dogs, the noise of which had roused a huge alligator, which heaved up the floor of the hut, attacked the dogs and then made off.[9]
As for the old type llanero, half Spanish, half Indian, the wild, brave, restless, devil-may-care cowboy, a Cossack of the Colombian Steppes and a boastful Tartarin full of poetic fire rolled into one, is rapidly disappearing. Vanished is the poetry and romance of his life, if it ever really existed outside of his remarkable cantos, wherein heroic exploits as soldier, as hunter and as gallant lover are recounted with a superb hyperbole. He seems to have tamed down completely, in spite of the solitary, open-air life, and in spite of the continuance of a certain element of danger, battling with the elements. Encounters with jaguars, reptiles, savage Indians are, however, the rarest of episodes in the life of even the most daring and exposed llanero.[10]
A "picturesque" character of original llanero stamp was the notorious President Castro of Venezuela, who defied the whole world at one time, and almost succeeded in bringing about a conflict between England and the United States over the Guiana-Venezuela boundary.
The wild tribes of Venezuela, and part of British Guiana, are typified in those inhabiting the delta of the Orinoco. They have preserved their racial character in marked degree here, and have been regarded as an offshoot of the Caribs.
"They are dark copper in colour, well set up, and strong, though not as a rule tall, and with low foreheads, long and fine black hair, and the usual high cheek-bones and wide nostrils of the South American 'Indians.' Where they have not come into contact with civilization they are particularly shy and reticent, but they soon lose this character, and some are said to show considerable aptitude as workmen.
"Living as they do mainly in the delta, their houses are of necessity near water, and are raised from the ground as a protection against floods, being sometimes, it is said, even placed on platforms in trees. The roof is supported in the middle by two vertical posts and a ridge pole, and is composed of palm-leaves, supported at the corners by stakes. The sides of this simple hut consist of light palm-leaf curtains, and the floor is of palm-planks. The hammocks are slung on the ridge pole, and the bows and arrows of the occupants fixed in the roof, while their household furniture, consisting of home-made earthenware pots, calabashes of various sizes, etc., lie promiscuously about the floor. Some of the Warraus are nomadic, and live in canoes, but the majority are grouped in villages of these huts, with captains responsible to the Venezuelan local government authorities.
"The staple diet of these people is manioc and sago, with chicha (a mixture of manioc meal and water). For clothing they dispense with everything in their homes, except the buja or guayuco, a tiny apron of palm-fibre or ordinary cloth, held in position by a belt of palm-fibre or hair. That worn by women is triangular, and often ornamented with feathers or pearls. Among the whites the men always wear a long strip of blue cloth, one end of which passes round the waist, the other over the shoulder, hanging down in front; the women have a kind of long sleeveless gown. For ornament they wear necklaces of pearls, or more frequently of red, blue and white beads, and tight bracelets and bangles of hair or curagua (palm-fibre); some pierce ears, nose and lower lips for the insertion of pieces of reed, feathers or berries on fête days. The characteristic dull red paint on their bodies is intended to act as a preventive against mosquitoes, and it is made by boiling the powdered bark and wood of a creeper in turtle or alligator fat. All hair is removed from the body by the simple but painful process of pulling each one out with a split reed.
"Marriage, as is usual among savage races, takes place at a very early age, the husband being often only fourteen, the wife ten or twelve years of age. Polygamy is common, but not universal; where a chief or rich man has several wives, the first, or the earliest to become a mother, takes charge of the establishment during the absence of the owner on his hunting or fishing expeditions. The girls are sometimes betrothed at the age of five or six years, living in the house of the future husband from that time on.
"At birth the mother is left in a separate house alone, where all food that she may need is placed for her, though she remains unvisited by any of her companions throughout the day; meanwhile the father remains in his hammock for several days, apparently owing to a belief that some evil may befall the child; there he receives the congratulations of the villagers, who bring him presents of the best game caught on their expeditions. This male child-bed, or couvade, is common to many of the Indian tribes.
"The dead are mourned with elaborate ceremony—shouting, weeping and slow, monotonous music; the nearest relatives of the defunct cut their hair. The body is placed in leaves and tied up in the hammock used by the owner during life, and then placed in a hollow tree-trunk or in his canoe. This rude coffin is then generally placed on a small support, consisting of bamboo trestles, and so left in the deserted house of the dead man."[11]