Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

In the kindly and hospitable padres in charge of these missions, Humboldt always found counselors and friends, and in some of his longest and most difficult journeys they also proved to be his best and most intelligent guides. It was through them, too, that he was able always to obtain food, boats and boatmen—three essentials that the traveler of to-day often finds it extremely difficult to procure.

Shortly before entering the Meta we passed through the Raudal de Cariben, a swift and foaming cataract, which rushes between immense masses of black granite that stand like sentinels on both sides of the river to warn the navigator against the perils of further advance.

The forms of the rocks are bizarre in the extreme. Some of them are columnar in structure and resemble the sombre pillars of a Hindoo temple. Others are more fantastic in shape and would easily pass for a Sardinian noraghe in ruins. From one point of view the rocks present the appearance of a dismantled fortress with its bastions, parapets and embrasures; its glacis, scarps and counter-scarps.

But the most singular spectacle of all is a formation on the right bank of the river that seemed, for all the world, to be a petrified battleship—just such a man of war as might have been fashioned by the hammer of Thor and used by a race of Titans. The celebrated Garden of the Gods in Colorado does not exhibit more grotesque or diversified rock formations than does the Raudal of Cariben and it is entirely devoid of that wonderful setting given the Orinoco by the luxuriant tropical forest and a cataract that resembles in many respects the rapids above the Falls of Niagara.

One is not surprised to learn that the Indians have woven many legends about this cataract, which is almost as picturesque as are those of Atures and Maipures further up the river. And still less is one surprised to read of the accounts given by the early missionaries of the difficulties and perils attending the passage of these rapids. For small craft, especially canoes, it is necessary to keep them near the shore and punt them, or pull them along by ropes. With our stern-wheeler we never felt that there was any danger, but our progress was exceedingly slow. At times we were actually at a stand still and once or twice it looked as if we were going to be carried down stream, so great was the force of the current. But finally, after a long and determined struggle, we passed the cataract in safety. To be frank, we all experienced a feeling of relief when we saw that all the reefs and remolinos—whirlpools—were behind us, and that we were again once more in placid and safe water.

“Este raudal es muy maluco,”[4]—this cataract is very bad—said our pilot to us after the strain was over. “It is much more difficult to steer a boat through it than through La Puerto del Infierno, near Ciudad Bolivar.” Fortunately for all concerned, he knew his business well and was as conscientious as he was skillful. He had been navigating the Orinoco and the Meta for nearly twenty years and was thoroughly familiar with every feature and peculiarity of both of them. He had never had an accident and was justly proud of his record. He had the eye of a hawk and could judge of the relative depths of the water by differences of color that were quite imperceptible to the ordinary observer. Only once, during our entire journey, did we graze a sandbar, and that was only for a moment. But it was quite sufficient to make a young Ethiopian among our crew think that his last day had arrived, and that we were surely going to the bottom. Greatly frightened, he turned to us and remarked, “It am very unwholesome to travel in dis ribber. Dat am certain.”

It was at the mouth of the Meta, according to certain alarmists whom we had met in Ciudad Bolivar, that we should be exposed to grave danger from savages. A band of murderous Guahibos, led by a certain sambo[5]—a refugee from the llanos of Venezuela—had for some time, we were assured, been stationed at this point, where they attacked every vessel that passed by, and where they had already robbed and killed a large number of people who had ventured too near the outlaw’s lair. The first intimation of their presence, we were told, would be a shower of poisoned arrows from the dense underbrush where the enemy would be concealed. But this report, like so many others regarding the dangers of our journey, proved to be unfounded. There was not a Guahibo, much less a sambo leader to be seen anywhere. Everything was as quiet as on the proverbial Potomac.

Speaking of the Meta, Padre Gilli says: “Its width is greater than that of a dozen Tibers, and in the summer season, when the wind is high, the waves become very large.”[6] Far from being an exaggeration, as might appear to the reader, this statement is rather an underestimate of the reality, at least as regards its breadth. In places it is fully two miles wide—almost as broad as the Orinoco near the delta. And this is not because of the shallowness of the river. According to Humboldt, its mean depth near its mouth is thirty-six feet, and it sometimes attains to more than twice this depth.

One of the chief affluents of the Meta from the north is the river Casanare. We were much interested in this on account of its historical associations. It was down this river that Don Antonio Berrio, the son-in-law of the famous adelantado, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, came on his celebrated expedition from Bogotá to Trinidad. He was the first white man to undertake this long journey, and, considering the difficulties of travel at that time, through an unknown land, and often through the territory of hostile savages, his finally attaining his destination was, indeed, a wonderful achievement, comparable, in some respects, with that of Orellana down the Amazon a few decades before.

For a long time the Casanare river was the favorite route of the missionaries who went from Bogotá to evangelize the various tribes who dwelt in the valley of the Meta and in the valleys of many of its chief tributaries. Indeed, for a long time some of the most flourishing missions in New Granada were in the country through which we are now passing. But after the religious orders in charge of the missions were withdrawn or suppressed, the Indians returned to their native wilds, and gradually reverted to their original savage condition.