Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

—a race suave, gentle and benign—and even when all else fails them they have their hammock to comfort them in misfortune, banishing their trouble in its oblivious embrace. The poet, like many others, evidently shares the Indian’s fondness for the hammock, as the best verses he ever wrote was his poem La Hamaca.[11]

There were several reasons for stopping at one of these native huts when we could conveniently do so. We were thus enabled to get fresh fruit, eggs and chickens, and have them cooked as well. We had no complaint to make of our own cooks, but we soon discovered that the Indian and mestizo women were far better. I shall never forget our surprise and pleasure at the manner in which a young Indian woman prepared for us roast chicken, and that, too, in a remarkably short time. I never tasted a more tender or better flavored fowl in the best restaurants of New York or Paris. And she had no stove or oven in which to roast it. Her sole utensil was a wooden spit over a few coals surrounded by three stones about seven or eight inches in diameter. And all was as clean as it was enjoyable.

All the furniture of the house is as primitive as the fireplace on which the meals are cooked. Often the only utensils of metal are a pot, or kettle, and a machete, which takes the place of a knife in cutting. When the hammock is not used one sits on the ground or on a log that serves as a bench. Occasionally we were offered the carapace of a large turtle in lieu of a chair. When the hammock is not used, an ox hide, or a rush mat, or a large palm leaf serves as a bed. Often the poor people sleep on the bare ground.

Aside from the single metal kettle above mentioned, all other culinary utensils are made from the fruit of the calabash tree. It is the species known to botanists as Crescentia Cujete and is called by the natives totumo. The fruit is used at various stages of its growth according as it is employed for making small or large utensils. The younger and smaller fruits are fashioned into spoons, those of medium size serve for drinking vessels, while the largest full-grown fruits—often eight inches in diameter—are used for dishes and platters.[12] They also furnish a kind of musical instrument resembling the castanet. But marvelous to relate, they are also employed for lanterns of a most original kind. After the shell is pierced with a large number of small holes it is filled with those wonderful Cocuios—fireflies—that are found in such numbers in the tropics. Such a lantern seen at a distance is not unlike the familiar Chinese lantern, and, considering the nature of the illuminant, gives a surprising amount of light.

A house, such as the one just described, is the lodging place of the dogs, and poultry, and not infrequently of the pigs also. The poultry roost upon the crosspieces immediately under the roof. The other animals occupy their own corner, and no one seems to be molested by their presence. Benzoni, in speaking of the habits of the Indians he saw, remarks in his quaint fashion: “They all sleep together like fowls, some on the ground and some suspended in the air.”[13]

Every house is surrounded by a number of fruit trees. Among these the platano and the banana are the most conspicuous, and are never wanting, for they supply a large part of the food of the inhabitants of the tropics. Equally important are maize and yuca.[14] The latter is used for making bread. In certain parts of the tropics no other kind of bread is obtainable. To me it has a very insipid taste, somewhat like that of bran or cellulose. Schomburgk considered that it had a deleterious effect on the stomach, but there are few, I think, that share his view. Certain it is, that its use as food is universal in the tropics, and it is one of the three plants—yuca, maize and the platano—that one is always sure to find in every conuco—even that of the poorest Indian. These three articles are his staff of life. The natives also eat fish and flesh of various kinds, it is true, but as the three plant products named are quite sufficient to sustain life, and as they require little care after they are once planted, many people make little or no effort to secure other kinds of food. They are content with little and seem to enjoy the living of the simple life fully as much as some of our friends in the North enjoy talking and writing about it.

Often, too, where one would least expect it, one will find beautiful flower gardens around the most unpretentious habitations. Of the flowers that we in the North are most familiar with—not to mention countless peculiarly tropical species—those we most frequently observed were roses, jasmines, dahlias, pinks, violets, dracenas, gladioli and gardenias. The large rose bushes, or rather rose trees—they are so huge—one sometimes sees in the hot, dry climate of the tropics are truly remarkable. They sometimes attain a height of twenty feet, and one may count on a single bush as many as a thousand buds. From such a bush one may pluck a hundred beautiful roses every day in the year without any apparent diminution in the number on the parent stem.

While journeying up the Orinoco and Meta, we several times tried our luck at fishing, but our efforts were always attended with the most ignominious failures. Outside of a few minnows we caught absolutely nothing. One of our crew once caught a fish about two feet long resembling a pickerel and this was the only time that we ever tasted fresh fish all the time we were on the river.

No sooner had the hook sunk into the water than the bait was taken. There was a momentary nibble, and presto! the bait had disappeared. On investigation we found that we had to deal with the terrible Caribe—that voracious little fish about which so many extraordinary stories are related. In crossing rivers the natives dread the attacks of this serrasalmonine marauder more than they do the gymnotus, the stingray or the cayman. They have very sharp, trenchant teeth, usually swim in schools, and, when attracted by blood, will attack men and the larger animals without hesitation. And so fierce and rapid is their combined action that their attack usually means death to the victim.

We had often heard and read of their snapping fishhooks in twain but had classed this statement among the stories of the monkey-bridge class—stories that entertained us during our early school days, and which, I doubt not, still perform the same function for the rising generation in certain parts of the world.