Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

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.”[12]

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.[13]

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.