Down the Orinoco in a Canoe

by Santiago Pérez Triana

Figarella was the name of the Corsican ‘doctor’ who enlivened the few days we spent at Santa Catalina with his songs, his tales of Corsica, the narrative of his adventures, true and fanciful, in all parts of the world, and who managed to prepare sumptuous dinners with turtle eggs, wild-boar meat, fresh fish, and other ingredients, picked up the Lord only knows where. I often had qualms that he must be drawing too freely on his medicine-chest, but the dishes proved palatable, and as we survived from day to day we have nothing but thanks and gratitude to the friend whom we met in the midst of those wilds, with whom our lives came in contact for a few days, who then remained behind to work out his own destiny, as we ours, even as two ships that sight each other for a moment in mid-ocean and then both disappear.

CHAPTER XIV

Friend Valiente turned up at Santa Catalina, his canoes laden with mañoc and casabe, two days after our arrival.

Though the ranch had been abandoned for some time, stray cattle, more or less wild, roamed about the neighbourhood. Leal and Valiente soon lassoed a fine heifer, which, slaughtered without delay, replenished our commissariat. We celebrated a banquet like that held on New Year’s Day at San Pedro del Tua. We still had a little coffee, but of rum, which had then formed such an attraction, only the fragrant memory remained. Its place was supplied with what was left of our last demijohn of aniseed aguardiente.

As Valiente intended following the same route, we decided to wait for him. He knew that part of the Vichada and the Orinoco well. There were several small rapids which it was not advisable to cross without a pilot.

Two days after leaving Santa Catalina we struck the Orinoco, with a feeling of boundless joy. It seemed to us as if we had reached the open ocean, and the air itself appeared purer, more charged with invigorating oxygen.

After a short spin from the mouth of the Vichada, we reached Maipures, where Venezuelan authorities were stationed. Knowing that Venezuelans, as a rule, are inclined to be less reverent and respectful towards the Church and its servants than the average Colombian, we abandoned our ecclesiastical character, dropping it, as Elias dropped his mantle upon earth, on the waters of the Vichada, where it had done us such good service.

It was indispensable that we should find a pilot for the rapids. It seems that in former days the Venezuelan Government kept two or three pilots at Maipures, but we found to our sorrow that they had disappeared long since. However, not far from Maipures we were told that we should find a man named Gatiño, one of the best pilots on the river. We at once started in quest of him, and found him in the thick of the forest about a mile from the shore. He was gathering tonga beans, and had formed a little camp, accompanied by his family, which consisted of his wife, two children, a boy and girl of fourteen and twelve respectively, and two smaller children of five and six. He agreed to take us across the rapids, provided we would wait at Maipures until he could pack his beans and gather some india-rubber extracted by himself. As there was no help for it, we agreed to wait. Maipures turned out to be nothing but a group of some fifteen or twenty tumble-down, rickety houses, inhabited by about a score of people, amongst them the prefect or political representative of the Government. He received us most cordially, and placed one of the buildings at our service. I believe both Valiente and Leal gave him to understand that we were high and mighty personages representing the Colombian Government on a tour of inspection through the lands awarded to Colombia by a recent decision in a case of arbitration between the two republics, handed down by the Queen of Spain. Maipures, where the functionary in question was supreme, came within the new jurisdiction, and possibly the belief that we might exercise some influence in maintaining him in his important office may have had to do with his courtesy and goodwill towards us. It was lucky, however, that such an impression was created. Shortly after our arrival he informed us that the Governor of the Amazon territory had just communicated to him orders to prevent all travellers on the river from ascending or descending the stream—in a word, to keep them as prisoners at Maipures. On reading the Governor’s note to us, he argued, ‘This cannot apply to you, for, being Colombians, you are outside the Governor’s jurisdiction.’ Here, again, as when conferring ecclesiastical dignity upon us, Leal had acted with prudence and foresight.

At Maipures we felt, as we never felt before or after during the journey, the presence of the numerous insects, and noticed that these winged creatures worked with method and discipline. The puyon sounded the charge shortly after sunset, attacking without haste and without rest during the whole night. At dawn it would retire to camp, sated with our gore. The post of honour was taken by the sand-flies, which would remain on duty during the earlier part of the forenoon. In their turn they were replaced by some other arm of the service during the hot hours of the day, and so on till nightfall, when the puyon, refreshed and eager, would again fall upon his prey. There is no greater regularity in the change of guards at a fortress than is observed by these insects in their war upon men and animals.

The mosquito-net was the only real protection. Some relief is obtained by filling the room with smoke from smouldering horse or cattle manure, but the nauseous smell and the ammonia fumes made the remedy worse than the evil. We also feared to share the fate of herrings and other fish subject to the process, and preferred the seclusion of our mosquito-bars.