Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

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.”[14]

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.”[15]

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,