Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

I refer especially to the expedition of Diego de Ordaz because it was the first of those famous expeditions made on the great rivers of the New World by the conquistadores. He anticipated Orellana’s marvelous voyage down the Amazon by nearly ten years.

I have also another reason—a personal one—for alluding to it. Twenty-five years before my arrival at the juncture of the Orinoco and the Meta I had made the ascent of Popocatepetl and explored the same crater from which, more than three and a half centuries before, Diego de Ordaz, to the great amazement of the Indians, had taken out sulphur for the manufacture of gunpowder. When scaling this lofty volcano, I had frequently thought of the courage and endurance of this dauntless Spaniard in accomplishing a task which was then far more difficult than it is now. According to Herrera it was then in action, and the smoke and flames rendered the ascent next to impossible. To the Indians the crater was the mouth of hell in which tyrants had to be purified before they could enter the abode of the blest.

But difficult and hazardous as was the ascent of Popocatepetl, the voyage up the Orinoco was, in the days of Ordaz, far more so. Not so to-day, when the trip can be made in a steamer with comparative ease and comfort. But it did seem strange—passing strange—that we two should have visited two such unlikely places and so widely separated from each other in time and space. It was almost like having a rendezvous with an old friend. I confess that I not only thought of Ordaz, but imagined that I felt his presence.

The great conquistador should have been permitted not only to wear a burning volcano on his armorial bearings—as was allowed him by Charles V—but he should also have been granted the privilege of having depicted on his coat of arms one of the great rapids of the Orinoco—La Puerta del Infierno—for instance, which he had so successfully passed. His achievements have been eclipsed by many of his contemporaries, but in enterprise and daring he is second to none.

As I have said, we were glad—very glad—to reach the Meta, but I personally felt a pang of regret on leaving the Orinoco. Nothing would have pleased me more than to have continued on the waters of this great river until we should have reached the wonderful Cassiquiare, which connects the Orinoco with the great Rio Negro and with the still greater Amazon. I consoled myself with the thought that possibly I might be able to make this journey later on, and then probably extend it through the Madeira, Mamoré, Pilcomayo and Parana to Buenos Ayres. This had long been a fond dream of mine. Will it ever be realized? In the language of one of my Spanish companions, Dios verá—God will see—for it is not impossible.

I say it is not impossible, because a part of the journey—from the Orinoco to the Amazon—has often been made and is still frequently made every year by traders, missionaries and others. And contrary to what is often asserted, it is not an undertaking of any particular difficulty or danger. The same may be said of the journey from the Amazon to the Parana.

There is reason to believe that the first to make the journey between the Amazon and the Orinoco, by way of the Cassiquiare, were Lópe de Aguirre, the traitor, and his companions, who went from Peru to the northern coast of Venezuela in 1561. The first white man to pass from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro by the Cassiquiare was the missionary, Padre Román. He made the round trip from his mission near the mouth of the Meta to the Rio Negro in about eight months, and at a time when some of his associates—Padre Gumilla among the number—were endeavoring to prove that there was no connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon, and that, consequently, a journey from one to the other by boat was impossible.[3]

After Padre Román’s time the journey between the Amazon, the Orinoco and vice versa was a very ordinary occurrence for missionaries and traders. It was made in 1756 by the Spanish commission sent to settle the boundary line between Brazil and Venezuela, by Humboldt and Bonpland, Michelena y Rojas and numerous other explorers who have left us accounts of their travels.

Since the missions have been suppressed the Indian population between Urbana and San Fernando de Atabapo has greatly diminished and, as a result, the traveler at times finds great difficulty in securing boats and rowers. In Humboldt’s time the trip was comparatively easy. There were flourishing missions along the entire course of his travels—through New Andalusia and Barcelona, through the llanos of Venezuela, along the Orinoco from Angostura to Urbana and from Urbana to the Brazilian frontier on the Rio Negro.

Now all this is changed. If he could return to the scene of his famous explorations he would not be able to locate even the site of many of the missions where he was so kindly entertained and of whose hospitality he writes in terms of such unstinted praise. From Ciudad Bolivar to San Carlos on the Rio Negro—a distance of nearly a thousand miles—he would not find more than one or two at most. Even San Fernando de Atabapo, that in Humboldt’s time was the capital of a province and an important missionary centre, is to-day without a pastor. A priest from Ciudad Bolivar goes to this distant place—more than seven hundred miles away—once a year to look after the spiritual welfare of the few inhabitants that still remain there. The other missions, of which the illustrious savant gives us such interesting accounts, have long since disappeared, and the places they occupied are now covered with a dark, impenetrable forest growth. Most of these were suppressed at the time of the War of Independence, or died out during the countless revolutions that have since desolated the country.