After our Surgeon came the Treasurer; his duty was to conduct safely the military chest of the expedition, consisting of sundry bags of hard dollars, ponchos, checkered linen handkerchiefs of the peculiar pattern worn with so much pride by Llaneros on the head, knives, sword blades, and various other articles of barter which they prize more than money itself, and for the attainment of which they labor hard and even expose their lives.
To me was assigned the honorable post of Secretary to the expedition, whose pleasant duty was to keep its records, and at times those of the political “Bulls and Bears” of the country at large. Attached to this office were an English amateur of wild sports, an English artist of considerable merit, and a few others, who, like myself, not being sufficiently trained to the hard operations of the field, were forced to be content with the tamer occupations of the cattle farm, and only an occasional foray among the smaller game of the savannas.
I will mention two other individuals, who, although filling less exalted positions than the preceding—being the cook and the washerman—were very necessary to our comfort; not that we felt over-scrupulous with regard to the dressing of either ourselves or that of the savory dishes of the Llanos—where I relished a beafsteak au naturel with as much gusto as though prepared by the Delmonicos or Maillards of New York—but an early cup of coffee was a luxury not to be despised, and an occasional scouring of our scanty wardrobe was equally an essential. The cook was a mulatto by birth, whose name—Mónico—bore some similarity to that of the distinguished caterer of William street, and was as great a favorite with us as the latter is among the “down town” gentry of the great city, not only on account of his good nature and skill in the preparation of the delicious beverage before mentioned,
“que en los festines
La fiebre insana templará á Lieo,”
but also for the aid he lent his companions in mending their tattered garments, being as accomplished a tailor and shoemaker as cook. Gaspar, the washerman, was a lame negro rather advanced in years, but with all the vivacity of his race still sparkling in his eyes. He had earned some reputation in his time as a brave soldier during the protracted war of Independence, but, disabled now by a bullet and sundry tiger scars, testimonials of his good service in the cause of humanity, could perform no other work than the rather feminine one allotted to him on this occasion. He, however, possessed other accomplishments, among which the chief was that of recounting his adventures in the wars and with the wild beasts of the field, which made him a desirable companion and general favorite.
Poor fellows! they are both dead, and their bones, as well as those of most of that little band of heroes, are now bleaching in the hot sun of the tropics, amid the waving grass of those savannas once rendered famous by their deeds of valor and enlivened by their chivalrous songs. After faithfully following their leader through dangers and hardships no less terrible than those of the battle-field, one by one they fell, not by foe “in battle arrayed,” nor the terrible stroke of the wild bull, but by the assassin’s treacherous hand, and those of the unprincipled myrmidons of military misrule; not because of their political influence in the councils of the Nation, but for being the faithful followers of their beloved Chieftain.
The reader has now been introduced to those constituting the Staff of the expedition; but in addition a host of attendants and idlers formed the rank and file of this motley assemblage. Each one of these had a special duty to perform. Some were asistentes, or the personal attendants of the former, as no blanco ventures to travel in the Llanos without some cicerone of the country to guide him over the trackless wastes, to saddle his horse, and see that both horse and rider are comfortably quartered for the night. Others were appointed to conduct the beasts of burden, of which there were a formidable array; while the most experienced riders were intrusted with the care and guidance of our madrina, or pack of supernumerary horses, which formed by far the most efficient element of our expedition.
Our drove consisted of about two hundred spirited chargers, as swift and slim as any that ever tramped the hot sands of Yemen or the Sahara; these were to be reinforced with fresh relays from the cattle farms, to supply the place of those which might be carried off from various causes during those exciting hunts.
The only method of travelling as yet adopted in the country is on horseback. This is at first somewhat fatiguing to those unaccustomed to long journeys; but the traveller soon becomes inured to it, and ends by preferring it to any other, on account of the exhilarating sensation of independence he experiences; at all events, it is the most convenient that can be adopted in a country which, like the Pampas, is subject to vast inundations, and overgrown in all its extent by the rank herbage of the savannas. On the mountains, mules are usually preferred for their surefootedness, as also for their astonishing endurance of hunger and fatigue; but in the Pampas, where journeys must be accomplished with great expedition and rapidity, they are comparatively worthless from the shortness of their gait, and also because their hoofs become softened by the marshy soil which everywhere prevails, they being never shod, owing to a mistaken notion of the riders, who believe that by so doing the surefootedness of the animal is impaired. The best horses, consequently, had been selected on this occasion, but were not to be saddled until we reached the Llanos. These were all collected into a madrina or drove, together with the vaqueros or horses destined for the chase, and placed under the charge of half a dozen experienced Llaneros, who were to drive them loose across the country. In the mean time we would perform on mules the first four days of our journey, which lay across the rough and hilly country between the valleys and the plains. As beasts of burden, mules are particularly serviceable; in view of this we had collected a pack of about twenty for the purpose of transporting our loads, consisting partly, as I have observed, of various descriptions of goods for distribution among the Llaneros, in part payment of their wages; but the greater number were laden with our own chattels and provisions; for although the Llanos are justly regarded as a land of plenty, the habitations are yet so widely distant, that it is expedient to provide for all contingencies.
Our road, at times, lay across extensive fields of sugar cane, indigo, and tobacco; or through vast plantations of Erithynas (bucarales) raised for the protection of the shade-loving Cacao trees, loaded with the luscious bean that yields its “divine food”[19] to gods and mortals. At other times, extensive tracks of waste lands (rastrojos) overgrown with a luxuriant vegetation, intercepted the line of our march, giving the country a wild and desolate aspect. Land is so cheap and plentiful in Venezuela, that it is always more advantageous for the planter, whenever the land has become exhausted with repeated cultivation, to clear a new patch of ground for his crop, than to trouble himself about restoring to the ground by artificial means what nature will provide in the course of time. The rapidity with which a patch of waste land, that only a year or two before had been abandoned as unserviceable, becomes covered with an exuberant vegetation in the tropics, is quite extraordinary. Hardly have the plough and hoe of the industrious husbandman ceased to harass the land with their incessant toil, when an entirely different crop of indigenous plants, which had been silently struggling for existence, now make their appearance, and change the aspect of the landscape with new forms of vegetation. Insignificant weeds at first, scarcely worth noticing, they soon attain sufficient strength to arrest the progress of any stragglers that might have remained of the plantation. In a short time they have acquired the size and form of well-developed trees, with boughs spreading far above a man on horseback; and before two summers have elapsed, not a vestige remains of what was once a flourishing plantation. An endless variety of creepers, such as convolvulus, bignonias, and passion flowers, now find support among their numerous branches, forming with them the most picturesque bowers and arcades, or hanging by their sides in graceful garlands and festoons of the most exquisite beauty. Our troop of supernumerary horses, as if unwilling to leave behind these delightful retreats, did not fail to profit by the tangled nature of the cover, frequently eluding the vigilance of the drivers, and dashing forward whenever they saw an opening to decamp. The most skilful management on the part of the drivers was then required to disentangle them from the thick jungle; otherwise we should have arrived at the end of our journey with less than half their number. It was quite amusing to see those reckless fellows gliding here and there through the tangled woods in full pursuit of the refractory animals, now hanging from one leg down the sides of their steeds, or stretched over their necks to avoid being lifted from the saddle by the intervening branches. In spite of all precaution, and the vigilance of their drivers, we missed several valuable hunters in the course of the journey, every one of which made his way back to the potreros or old grazing grounds with unerring precision. So remarkable is this peculiarity in horses of one place driven across a strange country, and the cunning they display in effecting their escape, that although we left instructions along the route to secure all deserters, most of those we missed at a considerable distance from Maracay, made their way back across the fields, avoiding in their flight the public roads and populated districts through which we had passed.