Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.”[20]
The only place of any importance between Orocué and Barrigón is Cabuyaro, a small town of about two hundred inhabitants. It cherishes the hope of becoming the eastern terminus of the long-projected railroad from Bogotá to the Meta. This would no doubt be a good terminal point, as the town is favorably located, and the river is sufficiently deep to permit the passage of good-sized vessels. As at the other towns we passed, the steamer may moor within a few feet of the river’s bank.
Cabuyaro, however, is not the only place ambitious to become the terminus of the Bogotá Eastern railroad. It has several rivals, some of which are little more at present than rude huts in the wilderness. Among these is Barrigón, which also rejoices in the high-sounding name of Puerto Nuevo. It has, certainly, an advantage over Cabuyaro in that it is much nearer the capital. When this railway, which has been in contemplation for many years, shall have been completed, it will be possible to go from Bogotá to the Meta in ten hours. At present it takes six days to make the trip, and a very trying and tiresome one it is.
While our cooks were preparing comida—dinner—we visited the town. As we were passing a neat-looking house on the plaza, next to the church, a woman standing at the door, surrounded by her family, observing that we were strangers, insisted on our partaking of the hospitality of her home. She gave orders at once to have dinner prepared for us, and was deeply disappointed when she learned that our captain had made arrangements for us to dine elsewhere. She then said: “You must do us the honor of taking at least a cup of coffee in our humble home. We cannot let you depart without something.” Before she had finished speaking, one of her daughters, a bright, modest girl of about sixteen, had started to boil the water, and in a short time we were served with as good coffee as we had ever tasted anywhere during our journey.
The kindness and simplicity of these good people were admirable. They were much interested in our journey, and could not understand what could induce us to undertake such a long trip. They were most eager to hear about our own country, and showed an intelligent interest in persons and things that quite surprised us. Soon a number of their neighbors called and each one was duly presented to the viajeros—travelers—and served also with a cup of the aromatic beverage which our hostess knew so well how to prepare. Although we had become accustomed to the generous hospitality of the good people we had everywhere met along the Meta, the cordial reception given us by the people of Cabuyaro during our short stay among them impressed us in a special manner, and made us feel that it is particularly among primitive peoples, among those in the depth of the forest, or in the solitude of the desert, that hospitality is not only regarded as a duty but is also esteemed a pleasure.
How often, when partaking of the simple fare of our kindly hosts in tropical America, were we forced to compare their never-failing hospitality with that of the Greeks of Homeric times! Then nothing was too good for the honored guest, for he might be a god in disguise, or, if not a god, he was at least a friend of the gods. Like the early Christians, who treated their guests as if they might be angels who had come upon them unawares, our Meta hosts always gave us the best at their disposition, and expressed their regret that they were unable to do more. Their home was ours as long as we chose to remain, and their every act showed that they were pleased to be honored—as they expressed it—by the strangers’ visit.[21]
Before leaving Orocué, we had telegraphed to Villavicencio to have saddle and pack mules ready for us on our arrival in Barrigón, which, as planned, was to be the morning after our arrival at Cabuyaro. As, however, we had been delayed a day by trouble with the engine, and loss of our anchor, we could not hope to reach our destination without traveling all night. Fortunately, there was a full moon and a cloudless night. And our crew, the captain notably, were ready and willing, regardless of their own comfort, to do anything in their power to enable us to reach Barrigón at the appointed time.
Never shall I forget our last night on the Meta. C. and I were sitting on the prow of our launch, which was moving merrily along the broad river—as broad as ever, apparently—which, under the bright rays of the moon, shone like molten silver. There was no murky vapor to obscure the fair face of the queen of night, or dim her glowing form. Surrounded by the myriad stars of heaven, she reigned supreme. Then, more truly than ever before in our lives, could we say with Saint Augustine, that we saw “the moon and stars solace the night.”[22]
The air was balmy and impregnated with sweetest perfumes and rarest balsamic odors, wafted from the dark, impervious forest walls that rose in silent majesty on either shore. The sleeping mimosas that had folded their leaves for the night, the ethereal jambos, figs, and laurels, the dark crowns of the jaca and the manga, the slender shafts of bamboo tufts, the dim crests of the palm, trellised vines and liana festoons, defiled before us in rapid succession, and, in the shades of night, assumed the most fantastic shapes and magic combinations.
As we glided along the glassy stretches of the river there was nothing to mar the perfect stillness that pervaded the scene, except the muffled pulsations of our engine, too feeble to wake an echo from the neighboring banks. The time, the place, the freshness of earth and the splendor of heaven lent themselves to reverie, and stirred the fancy to unwonted activity. Frequently on the Orinoco we had amused ourselves by watching the odd and whimsical shapes assumed by the clouds, especially before or after a chubasco, or at the time the sun was dropping below the horizon. Then the imagination, quickened to action, would discover, in the rapidly changing clouds, animal forms varying from the bear and the eagle to the griffin and the dragon.