These, however, were all minor troubles, mentioned here as a matter of record. From our temporary abode we could hear the distant thunder of the rapids, as of batteries of cannon in a great artillery duel. The waters of the Orinoco, suddenly twisted into a narrow bed, wrestle with the boulders of granite scattered in the channel, which they have frayed through the very heart of the huge basaltic mountains.
Life in those regions, from what we gathered, is as wild, as untamed, and irresponsible as the rivers or forests, and as the animals that roam in them. Violence and force are the only law, greed is the sole guiding principle, amongst men. The functionaries in most cases are only authorized robbers and slayers. The Indians, being the most helpless victims, are plundered and murdered, as best suits the fancy of those representatives of organized Governments, whose crimes remain hidden behind the dense veil of interminable forests.
When news of any of these misdeeds does chance to reach the official ear, the facts are so distorted on the one hand, and there is so little desire to investigate on the other, that no redress is ever obtained.
Whilst at Maipures there came in a man from San Carlos, the capital of one of the Amazon territories. He told a gruesome story. The Governor of that province, whom he represented as a prototype of the official robbers just mentioned, had exasperated his companions by his all-absorbing greed. The Governor seized all the tonga beans and india-rubber extracted by the poor Indians, who were forced to work without any pay, unfed, whip-driven. His companions, who expected a share in the plunder, conspired to murder him. He was known to be fearless and an admirable shot. One night, however, his house was surrounded by a score or so of his followers; a regular siege ensued; the young Governor kept his assailants at bay for several hours. He was accompanied by a young Spanish ballet-dancer, who had followed his fortunes undaunted by the dangers of that wild land. She would reload the guns whilst he scanned the ground from the only window of the room. One of the assailants crept upon the roof of the house and shot him from behind. He died in a few hours. The canoes laden with all kinds of produce despatched by him—not down the Orinoco, for he feared they might be seized on the long journey through Venezuelan territory, but through the Casiquiare to the Amazon—were said to be worth £40,000 or £50,000. Even if not accurate in all its details, which I repeat from the statement of the new arrival at Maipures, this instance gives an idea of the conditions that prevail in those localities.
True to his word, Gatiño turned up at Maipures on the third day, and we continued our journey at once.
The rapids of the Orinoco break the open current of the river for a distance of some forty or fifty miles. The Maipures rapids are from five to six miles in length. The river then continues its quiet flow for about twenty or twenty-five miles down to the rapids of Atures; thence it flows to the ocean without any further obstacle of importance.
Gatiño had his own canoe of a special type, much larger than ours, very deep, heavy, capacious, and comfortable. It was the real home of his family.
I asked him why he did not settle somewhere on the banks of those rivers. He told me that both on the Orinoco and on the affluents there were numberless spots on high ground, free from all floods, abundant in game, within easy reach of good fishing, healthy and cool, where he would fain settle. ‘But we poor wretches,’ he added, ‘have no rights. When we least expect it, up turns a fine gentleman sent by some Government or other with a few soldiers; they lift our cattle and steal our chickens, destroy what they do not take away, and compel us to accompany them, paddling their canoes or serving them as they may want without any pay. Whenever I hear,’ he went on to say, ‘that white men in authority are coming along the river, I start immediately in my canoe through the caños as far inland as I can. The wild Indians and the savages are kind and generous; it is the whites and the whites in authority who are to be dreaded.’
Gatiño was himself a full-blooded Indian, but, having been brought up on some settlement, he considered himself a civilized man, and in truth it was strange to see how he practised the highest virtues of an honest man. He loved his wife and family tenderly; he worked day and night for their welfare. He longed for a better lot for his children, the eldest of whom ‘studied’ at the city of San Fernando de Atabapo, the only city which he knew of by personal experience. As it consists of eighty or a hundred thatch-roofed houses, one may well imagine what the word ‘city’ implied in his case; yet his thoughts were constantly centred on the learning which that child was storing to the greater honour and happiness of his wandering family. Reading and writing formed the curriculum of that university, possibly because they marked the limit of the teacher’s attainments; but let us be ashamed of mocking the humble annals of so good a man.
I cannot forbear mentioning an incident, a parallel to which it would be difficult to find amongst nominally civilized folk. One of our men who had accompanied us from San Pedro de Arimena, knowing our plight and our dependence on Gatiño, took him aside, informing him that we had plenty of gold, and that as one of us was ill, and we desired to reach the open river as soon as possible, it would be easy for him to name his price. He suggested that Gatiño should charge one or two thousand dollars for the job, which we would be bound to pay. Gatiño not only did not improve that wonderful opportunity, but he forbore from telling us of the advice given to him. He charged us 100 dollars, a moderate price for the work, and it was only when on the other side of the rapids that Leal learned the incident from the other men.