The flood season very nearly corresponds to our own summer,—the rise commencing in April, and the river being at its maximum height in August,—while the minimum is again reached in December. The height to which the Orinoco rises has been variously estimated by travellers: some alleging it to be nearly one hundred feet; while others estimate it to be only fifty, or even less! The reason of this discrepancy may be, that the measurements have been made at different points,—at each of which, the actual height to which the flood attains, may be greater or less than at the others. At any one place, however, the rise is the same—or very nearly so—in successive years. This is proved by observations made at the town of Angostura,—the lowest Spanish settlement of any importance upon the Orinoco. There, nearly in front of the town, a little rocky islet towers up in the middle of the river; the top of which is just fifty feet above the bed of the stream, when the volume of water is at its minimum. A solitary tree stands upon the pinnacle of this rock; and each year, when the water is in full flood, the tree alone is visible,—the islet being entirely submerged. From this peculiar circumstance, the little islet has obtained the name of “Orinocometer,” or measurer of the Orinoco.
The rise here indicated is about fifty feet; but it does not follow from this, that throughout its whole course the river should annually rise to so great a height. In reality it does not.
At Angostura, as the name imports, the river is narrowed to less than half its usual width,—being there confined between high banks that impinge upon its channel. Above and below, it widens again; and, no doubt, in proportion to this widening will the annual rise be greater or less. In fact, at many places, the width of the stream is no longer that of its ordinary channel; but, on the contrary, a vast “freshet” or inundation, covering the country for hundreds of miles,—here flooding over immense marshes or grassy plains, and hiding them altogether,—there flowing among forests of tall trees, the tops of which alone project above the tumult of waters! These inundations are peculiarly observable in the delta of the Orinoco,—where every year, in the months of July and August, the whole surface of the country becomes changed into a grand fresh-water sea: the tops of the trees alone rising above the flood, and proclaiming that there is land at the bottom.
At this season the ordinary channels, or caños, would be obliterated; and navigation through them become difficult or impossible, but for the tree-tops; which, after the manner of “buoys” and signal-marks, serve to guide the pilots through the intricate mazes of the “bocas del Orinoco.”
Now it is this annual inundation, and the semi-submergence of these trees under the flood, that has given origin to the peculiar people of whom we are about to speak,—the Guaraons; or, perhaps, we should rather say, from these causes have arisen their strange habits and modes of life which entitle them to be considered an “odd people.”
During the period of the inundation, if you should sail up the southern or principal caño of the Orinoco,—known as the “boca de navios,” or “ships’ mouth,”—and keep your face to the northward, you would behold the singular spectacle of a forest growing out of the water! In some places you would perceive single trees, with the upper portion of their straight, branchless trunks rising vertically above the surface, and crowned by about a dozen great fan-shaped leaves, radiating outwards from their summits. At other places, you would see many crowded together, their huge fronds meeting, and forming close clumps, or “water groves,” whose deep-green color contrasts finely as it flings its reflection on the glistening surface below.
Were it night,—and your course led you through one of the smaller caños in the northern part of the delta,—you would behold a spectacle yet more singular, and more difficult to be explained; a spectacle that astounded and almost terrified the bold navigators, who first ventured to explore these intricate coasts. You would not only perceive a forest, growing out of the water; but, high up among the tops of the trees, you would behold blazing fires,—not the conflagration of the trees themselves, as if the forest were in flames,—but fires regularly built, glowing as from so many furnaces, and casting their red glare upwards upon the broad green leaves, and downwards upon the silvery surface of the water!
If you should chance to be near enough to these fires, you would see cooking utensils suspended over them; human forms, both of men and women, seated or squatting around them; other human forms, flitting like shadows among the tops of the trees; and down below, upon the surface of the water, a fleet of canoes (periaguas), fastened with their mooring-ropes to the trunks. All this would surprise you,—as it did the early navigators,—and, very naturally, you would inquire what it could mean. Fires apparently suspended in the air! human beings moving about among the tops of the trees, talking, laughing, and gesticulating! in a word, acting just as any other savages would do,—for these human beings are savages,—amidst the tents of their encampment, or the houses of their village. In reality it is a village upon which you are gazing,—a village suspended in the air,—a village of the Guaraon Indians!
Let us approach nearer; let us steal into this water-village—for it would not be always safe to enter it, except by stealth—and see how its singular habitations are constructed, as also in what way their occupants manage to get their living. The village under our observation is now,—at the period of inundation,—nearly a hundred miles from shore, or from any dry land: it will be months before the waters can subside; and, even then, the country around will partake more of the nature of a quagmire, than of firm soil; impassable to any human being,—though not to a Guaraon, as we shall presently see. It is true, the canoes, already mentioned, might enable their owners to reach the firm shores beyond the delta; and so they do at times; but it would be a voyage too long and too arduous to be made often,—as for the supply of food and other daily wants,—and it is not for this purpose the canoes are kept. No these Guaraons visit terra firma only at intervals; and then for purposes of trade with a portion of their own and other tribes who dwell there; but they permanently reside within the area of the inundated forests; where they are independent, not only of foreign aggression, but also for their supply of all the necessaries of life. In these forests, whether flooded or not, they procure everything of which they stand in need,—they there find, to use an old-fashioned phrase, “meat, drink, washing, and lodging.” In other words: were the inundation to continue forever, and were the Guaraons entirely prohibited from intercourse with the dry land, they could still find subsistence in this, their home upon the waters.
Whence comes their subsistence? No doubt you will say that fish is their food; and drink, of course, they have in abundance; but this would not be the true explanation. It is true they eat fish, and turtle, and the flesh of the manatee, or “fish-cow,”—since the capturing of these aquatic creatures is one of the chief occupations of the Guaraons,—but they are oft times entirely without such food; for, it is to be observed, that, during the period of the inundations fish are not easily caught, sometimes not at all. At these times the Guaraons would starve—since, like all other savages, they are improvident—were it not that the singular region they inhabit supplies them with another article of food,—one that is inexhaustible.