Gatiño was familiar with the rivers that flow into the Orinoco above its confluence with the Vichada, and the numerous caños which intersect that region were so well known to him that on one occasion, when flying from some Governor on his way to the upper territories who was anxious to obtain his services as a guide, Gatiño had managed to lose himself in such an intricate maze of caños and water-ways, and, finally, in a small lagoon, unknown to all except the wild Indians, that the Governor had given up the chase in despair. He had travelled on the Casiquiare and the Rio Negro, and had visited the Upper Amazon. According to him, the Upper Orinoco and its affluents are as abundant in india-rubber forests as the Amazon and its tributaries, the Putumayo, the Napo and the Yarabi. The gum or india-rubber is identical in quality with that of the best species of Para. In some places the trees grow so closely that a man may extract from twenty to forty pounds of india-rubber a day. Besides large virgin areas rich in india-rubber forests, in other parts piazaba palm forests stretch for hundreds of acres at a time. This piazaba is used for matting, broom-making, and twisting of ropes and cables. It is perfectly impervious to moisture, and is even said to improve instead of rotting in water. Not far from where we were in one of the caños, the piazaba forest followed the water-course for a distance of, Gatiño said, ‘twenty twists.’ An odd system of measuring, but the only one at his command. ‘Twenty twists’ might be five or twenty miles, according to the size of the curves. These forests further contained infinite abundance of sarsaparilla, tonga bean, peraman and caraña, the resinous substances used for caulking and torch-making. Gatiño himself exploited those sources of wealth as far as his own personal means and limitations would allow him. He stated his willingness at any time to guide us to the spots where rubber, tonga bean, and so forth, could be found, adding that he knew we would treat him well, but that he would never consent to act as a guide to others, especially to the white men in official positions who now and then appeared along the river. These he held in special abhorrence, and no doubt their doings justified his feelings.
Gatiño’s statements as to the wealth of the Orinoco were perfectly truthful. It seems strange that such vast sources of wealth should remain practically unexploited. The rapids of the Orinoco act as a barrier, before which traders and explorers have come to a standstill. Some sixty or seventy years ago cart-roads existed on the shores along the rapids; these were built by the missionaries, and parts of them are still intact. Vegetation being weak on the hard soil of those banks, it would be easy to re-establish them. The great obstacle, however, is to be found in the numerous affluents which fall into the Orinoco along the rapids. The missionaries had large pontoon-like rafts on which they transported their carts from one side to the other. Were this primitive service started once more, the flow of natural products extracted from the forests would soon establish itself from the Upper to the Lower Orinoco.
One day, having left our canoes behind, we arrived at the shores of the Cantaniapo, a clear stream flowing into the Orinoco between two stretches of rapids. No tree shaded us from the fierce glare of the sun. The waters murmured most invitingly on the pebbles of the beach. On the other side was a sort of shed, a vestige of former splendour. A small canoe was moored alongside, tied with a piazaba rope to the trunk of a neighbouring tree. So near, and yet so far! We should have to wait, perhaps, broiling in the sun for hours, till our canoes arrived. Whilst we discussed the arduous architectural problem of building a tent with such articles as coats, india-rubber waterproof sheets, and so on, a noise as of a body falling into the water drew our attention to the river. Leal, holding his machete between his teeth, was swimming llanero fashion—that is to say, throwing each arm out of the water in succession, and covering a distance equal to the length of his body at every stroke. The peril, potentially speaking, was extreme; one never knows whether the alligators and other inhabitants of those waters may or may not be at hand. Yet Leal did not seem to care. Fortunately, he soon landed on the opposite shore, jumped into the canoe, cut the rope and paddled back. On our remonstrating with him, he argued that the danger was slight; alligators hate noise, and he had taken care to be as noisy as possible.
‘Furthermore,’ he added, ‘I had my machete with me.’
We stopped that night under the shed. Gatiño came in due time. We particularly wished to bathe in the transparent waters of that river, not as Leal had done, but in our usual prudent way, standing on the shore far from all possible danger.
The next morning we saw the only living tiger which met our eyes during that long trip. Early, before striking the camp, the shout went forth—‘A tiger! A tiger!’ There, at a distance of about 150 feet from us, on a small protruding ledge which plunged into the river, forming a sort of natural drinking-place, stood a beautiful specimen of the native tiger. The wind, which, as Leal told us, blew from the land, carried the scent in the wrong direction, and this explained the tiger’s visit. On hearing the shout, Leal sprang up and seized one of the rifles. The tiger looked towards our group and turned tail, bolting in the direction whence he had come, behind a clump of bushes. Leal followed him. We soon heard a shot, and after a few minutes Leal returned, disgusted. He had only wounded the animal. I argued with him that we were most thankful to the lord of the forest for his abrupt courtesy in leaving the field entirely to us, as, had he felt inclined to enter into closer relations, we might have found it awkward, to say the least.
Valiente had come with Gatiño. Our belongings seemed to him, as they had previously seemed to Leal, an abnormal accumulation of wealth. We had kept with us, not knowing whether they might again be required, our riding-saddles. My own was large, comfortable, and soft, a work of art in its way. Valiente seemed to admire it. The remarks which he made deserve to be noted here.
‘This saddle is certainly very fine and comfortable; but how do you manage when crossing a river? Do you not find it very heavy on your head?’
I could not understand what he meant, until I remembered that the llaneros, when swimming across a river, generally carry their saddles on their heads to keep them dry. At first I thought Valiente was ‘pulling my leg.’ A mere glance at my person should suffice to persuade anyone that not even the furious onslaught of a regiment of Cossacks would induce me in any circumstances to plunge into a river where there was a chance of meeting alligators and such-like; I was still less likely to venture on such feats with the additional burden of a heavy saddle on my head. However, Valiente was perfectly in earnest, and meant no harm; so I assured him with perfect calm that I had never noticed on any occasion, either in or out of the water, that the saddle was a heavy one.
‘Possibly,’ I added, ‘it is a question of habit.’