But I never was so struck with the power which frogs alone can exert “in congress assembled,” as one night that I accompanied—soon after our return from the Llanos—a military expedition to surprise a band of revolutionists, who had been committing all sorts of depredations on the plantations across the lake, and were preparing to attack the town of Villa de Cura on the road to the plains. We started from Maracay in the early part of a rainy night, and had to take a circuitous route—it hardly deserved the name of road—around the eastern end of the lake to reach the village of Magdaleno (headquarters of the marauders) before daylight. As the expedition had to be conducted with much precaution, neither drums nor bugles were allowed; consequently all orders had to be given viva-voce. But when we reached the nearest point to the swampy borders of the lake, I do not believe that even Stentor could have made himself heard in the midst of that hellish uproar. To add to our “confusion worse confounded,” the soil was so spongy and drenched with the vernal deluge, that infantry and cavalry—we had no artillery—were nearly swallowed up by the mud before firing a shot at the enemy; fortunately we extricated ourselves before the latter were apprized of our approach by a volley fired at our vanguard by one of their advanced posts near the village, which, had they exhibited the least judgment in military tactics, they might have stationed a little further off, where we encountered a turbulent stream which only a portion of our force with the utmost difficulty could cross. As it turned out, we entered the village pell-mell with their advanced guard, and soon scattered them over the neighboring mountains, where further pursuit was utterly impossible.
What a glorious chance these swampy realms of Venezuela would offer some French gourmand desirous of migrating to South America! And yet, strange to say, our people will not touch that epicurean bonne-bouche, which has conferred a name upon a whole civilized nation: les sauvages!
Another noisy creature that makes its appearance about this time also, is the chicharra, an insect of the locust tribe, with which the woods are literally filled, and whose sharp, shrill, and continuous chant almost surpasses that of the frogs themselves. Fortunately, they are only heard in the day-time; and our route being mostly over open prairies, we were not so constantly tormented by them, except whenever we had to pass through the woods infested by these noisy insects. It seemed to me that for every leaf of those truly gigantic trees there were twenty chicharras, all singing at the top of their voices, without the least intermission. What they live upon—for I did not perceive any damage to the foliage of the trees—and when do they get their meals, my observations could not discover. Sullivan tells us of two other insects of the tropics, which joined to the above, might rival the nocturnal concerts of maître crapeau.
“During our ride, I was startled by hearing what I fully imagined was the whistle of a steam-engine; but I was informed it was a noise caused by a beetle that is peculiar to Tobago. It is near the size of a man’s hand; and fixing itself against a branch commences a kind of drumming noise, which by degrees quickens to a whistle. It was so loud that, when standing fully twenty yards from the tree where it was in operation, the sound was so shrill that you had to raise your voice considerably to address your neighbor. The entomological productions of the tropics struck me as being quite as astonishing in size and nature as the botanical or zoological wonders. There is another beetle, called the razor-grinder, that imitates the sound of a knife-grinding machine so exactly, that it is impossible to divest oneself of the belief that one is in reality listening to ‘some needy knife-grinder’ who has wandered out to the tropical wilds on spec.”[67]
Some kinds of trees were also alive with another, though quite harmless tenant, the iguana, a green lizard measuring nearly four feet in length, and thick in proportion round the body, whose flesh is said to surpass that of the tenderest chicken, and, I imagine—never having tasted it—even that of the celebrated French bonne-bouche referred to above. The eggs which it lays in great profusion, I know from personal experience, are quite sweet, and can be taken out of the animal, without injury to the harmless creature, by cutting it open and sewing it up again. While at San Jaime I heard a story in connection with this reptile, which is very characteristic of the Spanish commanders during the war of Independence, and whose memory is still fresh throughout the country they overran with their exactions. It appears that one of these gentlemen newly arrived from Spain, had established his headquarters at San Jaime, which was by this time pretty well cleaned out of everything that moved upon the earth. One day, the soi-disant commander was going his rounds about the town, when he met an Indian boy carrying a brace of iguanas suspended from a stick upon his shoulders; these lizards, by virtue of their aerial prerogative, or perhaps on account of their inexhaustible numbers, having escaped the general onslaught upon other living creatures, not excepting the inhabitants. The Spaniard, who had never seen iguanas in his country, naturally had his curiosity aroused, and at once instituted as close an interrogatory respecting these, as if a doomed “insurgent” had been brought to him. “Say, boy, are they good to eat?”—“Si, Señor,” replied the boy, who probably had never tasted in his life any other kind of food.—“What will you take for them?” (quite considerate).—“Una peseta, Señor” (a quarter of a dollar). A bargain was at once made to the satisfaction of both parties, and the iguanas were handed over to the orderly beside the commander, who gave the proper directions to have them served for dinner; and so delighted was His Excellency with the dish, that he published at once a bando offering a reward of twenty-five cents for every brace of iguanas brought to him. Three days afterwards he had to countermand the order through another bando, threatening with capital punishment any one who would dare to bring him another brace of the horrid-looking creatures, with which the juvenile portion of the town had by this time filled his headquarters.
The favorite haunts of the iguana are the Ceiba, and the Sand-box trees—Ura crepitans—both bristling with sharp thorns, a good protection against the persecution of predatory boys; otherwise these lizards fall an easy prey, when perched upon more accessible localities, by merely “whistling for them;” for being, as it appears, very fond of musical sounds, they are readily lulled to sleep by that means, while the captors prepare a noose at the end of a long rod with which they secure their victim. They do not always fare badly, however, for being easily domesticated, they are kept as pets by the female portion of the household, where they become very useful in ridding the cottage of cockroaches and other vermin. Their bitterest enemies, however, are roving, lazy Indians, who not only consider them a dainty morsel, but take particular delight in tormenting these inoffensive creatures by quartering them alive, and teazing them in various ways; thus, when any person is in a bad plight his troubles are compared to those of the iguana in that predicament, as will be seen in the following popular ditty:
Los trabajos de la iguana
Cuando los Indios la cojen,
Le quitan los cuatro patas
Y le dicen, iguana, corre!
——
When Indians seize the iguana
Her sorrows are begun,
They cut off her four feet,
And cry, “Iguana, run!”
How different the case would have been if, instead of the puny, harmless creatures that iguanas are at the present day, their cruel tormentors had lived in the times of their prototype, the Iguanodon, the most colossal of the saurian reptiles, sixty feet in length, with a horn on its snout as formidable as that of the rhinoceros, and teeth sharp enough to munch to a jelly the most stately Ceiba or Sand-box tree. “It is difficult to resist the feeling of astonishment, not to say incredulity”—observes Figuier—“which creeps over one while contemplating the disproportion so striking between this being of the ancient world and its congener of the new.”[68] The Iguanodon was in fact an iguana of huge dimensions, enjoying the freedom of the jungle with the Hylæosaurus and the Megalosaurus—two other saurian monsters of the cretaceous period. The latter is represented as possessing teeth in perfect accord with the destructive functions developed in this formidable creature, for they partake at once of the knife, the sabre, and the saw.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CALABOZO.
While quietly absorbed one day in the pleasures of the angler by the banks of a creek not far from the camp, I was startled in my peaceful occupation by the report of fire-arms in that direction. There were rumors concerning the depredations of a band of robbers in that neighborhood, and therefore I had every reason to suppose they had been bold enough to attack our little band of resolute men with a view to plundering the camp. To pack up lines and portfolio was the work of an instant, and hurrying toward the camp, I arrived breathless and panting with fatigue in time to get the last glimpses of the cause of this uproar in the shape of a lancha gliding quickly down the river. It seems that the boatmen, delighted with the presence of the beloved Chieftain of the Llanos, immediately recurred to the usual way of expressing their enthusiasm, whether in peace or war, through the means of the all-potent gunpowder. In the afternoon of the same day a detachment of horse, composed for the most part of citizens from Calabozo, arrived at the pass to invite the general to their city, and to offer him protection, in case of need, from the band of desperadoes above mentioned; these had already been bold enough to attack the prison guard of Calabozo, with the object of carrying off one of its inmates, a prominent citizen of the place who had been implicated in the robbery of a large drove of mules. Although it was currently reported that his two sons were the perpetrators of this unworthy act, yet, the fact that the animals were found on his estate, and his stout refusal to implicate his sons, made him responsible for the robbery; he was therefore incarcerated and his trial had commenced when his sons, adding sedition to theft, attacked the prison during the night with a band of peons from their own and other cattle estates. The result was most disastrous to the assailants; one of the sons having been badly wounded in the strife was taken prisoner and shot in the public square; while the other forfeited his life soon after during the vigorous persecution undertaken by the citizens against his band. Yet, this handful of men, badly armed and without leaders, but with a wide field of forest and savannas for retreat, and plenty of cattle for subsistence, continued for a long time to engage the serious attention of the government; and finally, when the following revolution broke out, they formed the nucleus around which the rebel party mustered very strong. In this manner many depredators not only evade the punishment of justice for their crimes, but eventually rise in importance, and even become leading spirits in the land where the laws are powerless in repressing their excesses.