LOWING 
 
 T CASPAR WHIT NET 

 
 o z 
 { o
 
 THE 
 FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ADVENTURING ON THE GREAT 
 RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 
 CASPAR WHITNEY 
 
 ADTHOB OF 
 
 A SPOUT! NO PILGRIMAGE," "ON 8NOW8HOES TO THE B ABB EN GBOUND8, 
 "HAWAIIAN AMEBICA," "JUNQLB TBAILS AND JDNGLE PEOPLE," ETC. 
 
 WITH MAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1912
 
 COPTRIOHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1912 
 
 PRINTED BT J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, TJ. 8. A.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 To 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 BUT FOR WHOSE INSPIRING EXAMPLE THIS DELAYED 
 
 RECORD OF THE CALL OF THE RED GODS 
 
 WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN 
 
 SUBMITTED.
 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 The chapters in this volume are from the expe- 
 rience of five separate overland and river expeditions 
 into South America, beginning in 1902. Largely 
 these were by canoe, and chiefly on streams more or 
 less connecting hence the significance of the title 
 Flowing Road. 
 
 They embraced a continuous journey from Santa 
 Isabel, on the Rio Negro, in Brazil, to Ciudad Boli- 
 var, on the Orinoco, in Venezuela; from San Fer- 
 nando, on the Apure, to the head waters and return, 
 of the Orinoco, via the Atabapo and the Casiquiare; 
 down the Portuguesa, in Venezuela, the Apure and 
 the Orinoco to its mouth; and on the Parana, the 
 Salado and Feliciano rivers in Argentine. The sad- 
 dle trips included crossing the llanos, which stretch 
 between the Venezuelan north coast mountain range 
 and the Orinoco on the south, and the llanos and 
 the forest to the east of Lake Maracaibo ; skirting the 
 Cordilleras at the east of Colombia ; across the Andes 
 into Chile; and some penetration of the pampas of 
 Argentine and the forests of Brazil. Incidental to 
 getting to and from the frontier I sojourned for 
 brief periods at a majority of the leading cities on 
 the continent. 
 
 In the far southeastern corner of Venezuela roam 
 a native people whom common report of the country 
 declares to be savage and unknown. To have a look 
 at these was the object of two of my most prolonged 
 journeys, approaching on one occasion by way of 
 
 3
 
 4 FOREWORD 
 
 the Amazon, Rio Negro, Atabapo and Orinoco, and 
 on another ascending the Orinoco and the Casiquiare. 
 For the rest, I will admit frankly to have been im- 
 pelled neither by a wish to hunt the beasts of the 
 jungle (although such always served as my excuse 
 for escaping the bounds of civilization), nor to report 
 upon the economic, social or industrial conditions of 
 the land, nor even to add to the sum of knowledge of 
 the scientific world ; but solely to satisfy the horizon 
 hunger which incites me every now and again to go 
 and " see things," that curiosity which Professor 
 Shaler has called the " primal instinct." 
 
 And I must say also with equal frankness that no 
 country I have travelled is, as a whole, so frequently 
 or so persistently misrepresented in print as this 
 same potential South America. 
 
 Much of this is due to newspaper dispatches in- 
 spired by self interest (like unto those coming so 
 often out of Cuba), and to magazine articles reveal- 
 ing a prejudice born of ignorance; some of it to the 
 surface observations of casual tourists; and some of 
 it to the travellers who seek to impress their valour 
 upon home friends by colouring letters and tales 
 fantastically with fever, robbers and reptiles. The 
 three favourite themes of these vaunting rather than 
 evilly disposed raconteurs are, the audacious mul- 
 titude of snakes; the malignant prevalence of fever; 
 and the beauty universal of the " dark-eyed seno- 
 ritas." 
 
 But this is not to infer that all travel in South 
 America is luxurious or even agreeable. It depends 
 on where you journey. To all the important centres 
 you may go comfortably. You can ascend the Ama-
 
 FOREWORD 5 
 
 zon, the Parana, the Magdalena, and the Lower 
 Orinoco, to San Fernando on the Apure, by excellent 
 steamers. In a sleeper from Buenos Aires on the 
 Atlantic side you can cross the Andes through a 
 tunnel to Valparaiso, on the Pacific. In comfortable 
 railway coaches you can travel far in Argentine, see 
 something of Venezuela, Chile and Brazil, and in 
 Peru and Ecuador enjoy two train trips reckoned 
 among the famous of the world. Through all the 
 sparsely settled interior you may go laboriously yet 
 safely, so far as molestation by natives is concerned. 
 But the great middle land is terra incognita. 
 
 There are sections of the wilderness where you 
 should not venture, unless adequately supported ; and 
 in all wilderness South America the going is arduous 
 in the extreme, frequently dangerous, and work only 
 for the hardy and the experienced traveller. 
 
 It is an oft-heard colloquism that South America 
 is " not on our map "; and the gibe is no mere jest, 
 as you can determine by turning to the " Atlas of 
 the World," issue of 1907, where, on page 67, you'll 
 find stated that the " Orinoco and its tributaries are 
 navigable for 4,300 miles " ! By the light of its 
 geographical propinquity and its mighty trade prom- 
 ise, how strange appears our unacquaintance with 
 this great continent! 
 
 This volume, as I say, is no trade report, but I 
 cannot refrain from asking contemplation of the fact 
 that despite bad packing (a common failing of Amer- 
 ican shippers ) , and unintelligent selling effort on the 
 part of our merchants, Brazil bought, in round num- 
 bers, about one million more dollars' worth from us 
 than Japan during the same period, according to the
 
 6 FOREWORD 
 
 last obtainable annual figures; while Argentine pur- 
 chases exceeded those of China by eighteen millions. 
 In a word, we sold seventy-four millions to South 
 America, while we were selling thirty millions to 
 China and Japan, where exporters maintain ever 
 an alert and discerning trade eye. We are forever 
 shouting about an open door in the Far East, yet 
 here at hand is one wide open which either we ignore 
 or enter irresolutely and blunder. 
 
 Nor can I forego this opportunity to beg of my 
 compatriots a more open mind when they visit our 
 neighbours. We are prone to look South Americans 
 over from our viewpoint only; to judge them by our 
 standards of work and play; our business methods, 
 our accomplishments. The attitude is both unintelli- 
 gent and unfair, failing as it does to take into account 
 their antecedents, their temperament, their handi- 
 caps of race and government, and the compara- 
 tively undeveloped condition of their great hin- 
 terland. They lack our kind of progressive spirit, 
 it is true, but they are advancing and they are hos- 
 pitable, kindly, polite ; while those who have had busi- 
 ness relations with them tell me they are desirable 
 customers. 
 
 On the other hand, it is very nearly as unfair to 
 exalt them unduly, as a recent author has done in 
 declaring that they are advancing beyond all other 
 peoples save the so-called Anglo-Saxons. It makes 
 for readier comprehension and mutual respect if act- 
 ual conditions are not glossed to thus mislead and 
 so prejudice when the truth is that many genera- 
 tions of Brazilians must come and go before they out- 
 live their heritage of racial predilection and mixed
 
 FOREWORD 7 
 
 blood. The new world Portuguese is by nature a 
 retail shop keeper. He lacks the imagination of a 
 pioneer; he is a bargainer over the counter, not a 
 builder. And a builder is what Brazil needs in her 
 development. 
 
 The man who travels South America with open 
 eye and mind comes away bearing patience for these 
 descendants of a neglectful, wasteful motherland 
 who are working out their salvation slowly but with 
 surety. 
 
 South America has seen too many of Uncle Sam's 
 sons who had left their country for its good, and of 
 that type of tourist who struts and yaps and beats 
 the tom-tom. It is no credit to our manners that to 
 us should be almost exclusively applied in Latin- 
 America the native word " gringo," which means any 
 foreigner, but customarily is employed only in an un- 
 complimentary sense. 
 
 To the path breaker, wilderness South America 
 offers a wonderplace of enigma and romance, 
 whither, during the century following the first land- 
 ing of Columbus, hastened the boldest adventurers, 
 and those unexampled pioneers, the Jesuit Fathers, 
 who, after one hundred and fifty years of beneficent 
 labour among the Indians, were expelled by Spain 
 because they dared to oppose slavery. The Fathers 
 may have made bigoted Indians, but they made 
 happy Indians and by all means read Graham's 
 Vanished Arcadia, if you would know the full story. 
 While North America was yet an untrodden wild, 
 Spain and Portugal were creating cities in Peru, 
 Brazil, Venezuela, and all the world reverberated with 
 stories of uncovered treasure.
 
 8 FOREWORD 
 
 It is one of the extraordinary phases of history 
 that so much of this vast continent should have fallen 
 from the world's ken, to again become for explorers 
 the baffling, mystic land of which only the edges have 
 been searched during modern times. 
 
 Of the Amazon and its southern tributaries much 
 and extended research has been made; of the feeders 
 from the north, however, considerably less, little in- 
 deed, is known. 
 
 Two men have supplied practically all the scien- 
 tific world knows concerning the Amazon's largest 
 northern tributary, the Rio Negro, and that other 
 great river which adjoins it in Venezuela the Ori- 
 noco. To this day the famous English naturalist, 
 Alfred R. Wallace, and the equally famous German 
 naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, continue in 
 authority, undisplaced and unchallenged, although 
 Wallace made his ascent of the Rio Negro and its 
 tributary, the Uaupes, in 1849, while Humboldt ex- 
 plored the Orinoco in 1801-2. 
 
 Three or four years ago, Dr. Hamilton Rice, of 
 Boston, made a descent of the Uaupes, in connection 
 with other important research work to which he is 
 giving notable devotion and intellection, but has not 
 yet made any of his results public. More recently 
 a German, Dr. Theodore Grunberg, spent a couple 
 of years along the same river, called also Caiary- 
 Upes, studying the Indians, from which material 
 he has published an important and informing book. 
 The mere trip up or down either the Orinoco or the 
 Rio Negro to the Casiquiare is nothing remarkable 
 and has been done two or three times by adventure- 
 some travellers, though I know of but one other,
 
 FOREWORD 9 
 
 Henry A. Wickham, to have left a permanent 
 record of his achievement. 
 
 For the regions they visited, however, the books 
 of Humboldt and Wallace are unrivalled the only 
 ones, in fact while for the naturalist, the book of 
 Henry Bates continues to be the undisputed classic 
 of the Amazon, as does that of W. H. Hudson for 
 the La Plata section, and Eugene Andre has made 
 the most complete contribution on the lower Orinoco. 
 
 Finally, I feel constrained to apologize for the 
 photographs which are so unsatisfactory because I 
 could only leave my desk during the winter months 
 the rainy season in the tropics and because, too, of 
 the alternate steaming and soaking to which the films 
 were subjected a very small percentage coming out 
 at all. 
 
 C. W. 
 
 New York, July 20, 1912.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE HEAD OP NAVIGATION 15 
 
 II. TRACKING THE Rio NEGRO 27 
 
 III. VOYAGING OVERLAND 47 
 
 IV. HAULING UP THE RAPIDS 64 
 
 V. ANCIENT SAN GABRIEL AND ITS FOREST DESERT . 73 
 
 VI. BY UBA TO THE FRONTIER 83 
 
 VII. THE DIVIDE OF THE FLOWING ROAD 98 
 
 VIII. THROUGH THE GATEWAY OF THE EL DORADO ... 112 
 
 IX. To THE UPPER ORINOCO VIA THE CASIQUIARE . . . 119 
 
 X. ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE MYSTIC LAND 134 
 
 XI. BEYOND THE BARRIER 149 
 
 XII. AMONG THE INDIOS BRAVOS 162 
 
 XIII. UNDER THE SHADOW OF DUIDA 177 
 
 XIV. CROSSING THE GREAT CATARACTS 192 
 
 XV. RACING THE LOWER ORINOCO 199 
 
 XVI. SITTING UP FOR EL TIGRE 219 
 
 XVII. DOWN THE PORTUGUESA 247 
 
 XVIII. TRAILING AFTER JAGUAR 266 
 
 XIX. OUTFITTING FOR JUNGLE TRAVEL 290
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CARGO-BOAT OF THE Rio NEGRO Frontispiece 
 
 THE ROUTE OF THE AUTHOR OVER THE FLOWING ROAD 20 
 
 A TRADER'S CAMP AT SANTA ISABEL 22 
 
 A CAMPO AND BIT OF FOREST ALONG THE AMAZON RIVER 22 
 
 WORKING UP RIVER BY THE PUSHING AND PULLING METHOD 32 
 
 MY BATELAO TIED TO CHARACTERISTIC BOULDER 32 
 
 HAULING AND PUSHING AROUND THE ROCKS 42 
 
 THE UBA USED ON MY INLAND TRIPS OFF THE Rio NEGRO 54 
 
 AUTHOR'S SKETCH MAP OF SO-CALLED FALLS OF Rio NEGRO 67 
 
 HAULING THE BATELAO OVER THE ROCK AT THE EDGE OF CAMANAOS 
 
 RAPIDS 70 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN SENTINELS ON THE BIG BAY 74 
 
 MY PERSONAL CAMP ALONGSIDE THE RAPIDS AT SAN GABRIEL 74 
 
 WE RECEIVE CONGRATULATIONS 78 
 
 THE NATIVE DUG-OUT CANOES OF THE Rio NEGRO 88 
 
 THE UBA IN WHICH I JOURNEYED 88 
 
 THE ANCIENT PORT OF SAN GABRIEL 88 
 
 AN INSTANCE OF THE GREAT BOULDER BANK 100 
 
 JAVITA 106 
 
 MY CAMP ON THE NECK OF LAND 106 
 
 THE ISOLATED CONICAL MOUNTS RISING OUT OF THE FLATLAND 116 
 
 THE INDIAN FISH TRAP OF THE UPPER NEGRO 116 
 
 THE PESTIFEROUS CASIQUIARE 124 
 
 MY CREW AND CANOE UP THE CASIQUIARE 124 
 
 BOULDERS IN THE UPPER ORINOCO 142 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE GUAINIA 142 
 
 MAKING READY TO CACHE OUR BELONGINGS BEFORE CROSSING THE 
 
 BARRIER 154 
 
 CAMPING IN LUXURY AT ESMERALDA 154 
 
 INDIANS WEST OF LAKE MARACAIBO 170 
 
 THE GREAT CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO FROM AN OLD SPANISH MAP. . 182 
 
 AT THE EDGE OF THE ENCROACHING JUNGLE 190 
 
 BEAUTY UNADORNED ON THE ORINOCO 190 
 
 ON THE LOWER ORINOCO. . . 194
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE OX-CART PACKING MY OUTFIT OVERLAND AT THE GREAT CATARACTS 194 
 
 IN THE APURE DELTA NEAR WHERE THE APURE AND ORINOCO MEET. 210 
 
 TYPICAL HOUSE AND SURROUNDINGS ON THE LOWER PORTUGUESA 210 
 
 CROSSING THE LLANOS 222 
 
 GETTING THE PACKS TOGETHER 230 
 
 THE WATER CARRIER 230 
 
 A WATER-HOLE 236 
 
 DURING THE HEAT OF THE DAY WE LOAFED 236 
 
 ALBERTO AND REGULO BRINGING IN A DEER 244 
 
 THE SIMPLE HOUSE OF THE VENEZUELAN LLANERO 244 
 
 SAN FERNANDO DE APURE IN THE RAINY SEASON 260 
 
 THE GAUCHO IN THE FIELD 272 
 
 PEDRO BRINGS IN His DUG-OUT 280 
 
 ON THE SALADO RIVER 280 
 
 THE HUGE WHEELED DRAUGHT-CARTS OF THE ARGENTINE PAMPAS 286 
 
 A MARBLE HUNTING KNIFE 294 
 
 THE PRESTON MESS KIT ASSEMBLED 294 
 
 THE PRESTON MESS KIT AND HALF-SIZE CANTEEN IN DETAIL 294 
 
 A VENEZUELAN WAYSIDE RESTING PLACE OF THE BEST CLASS 296 
 
 THE "ROORKEE" TAKEDOWN CAMP CHAIR 298 
 
 THE GOLD MEDAL FOLDING COT. . . . 298
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE HEAD OF NAVIGATION 
 
 Santa Isabel, which was to be the beginning of 
 my canoe journey to the Orinoco River, is about five 
 hundred miles beyond Manaos and may be called the 
 jumping-off place on the Rio Negro. Speaking more 
 formally, it is head of navigation on this section of the 
 flowing road, and likely to remain so for many years. 
 Some folks might not call casual steamers navigation 
 thus to argue themselves untravelled in South 
 America ; but however my choice of word may be dis- 
 puted, the fact remains that sooner or later the per- 
 severing, stern-wheel, little steamboat to which you 
 commit yourself at Manaos puts you down at Isabel, 
 the end of the journey. 
 
 If you are lucky enough to begin your travels in 
 June, when the river is high, your arrival will be 
 " sooner," but should you happen to set out upon 
 your adventures in February, it will be " later." For 
 it is one of the surprising phenomena of this riverful 
 country that in the early stages of the rainy season 
 even three feet of draught ascends the Rio Negro's 
 broad, shallow course shiftingly, intermittently and 
 only by help of the gifted native " practice " (pilot), 
 whose familiarity with the whims of the changing 
 flood seems almost a species of second sight. In the 
 height of the dry season the boat makes no attempt 
 
 15
 
 16 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 to ascend the river, but remains anchored at Manaos, 
 which town with its fifty thousand people is the most 
 considerable inland port of Brazil. And, by the way, 
 it is likewise the rubber clearing-house of South 
 America, contrary to popular misconception regard- 
 ing Para. I should add, also, that Manaos is nine 
 miles above where the black water of the Rio Negro 
 joins the yellowish Amazon, one thousand miles from 
 the gaping mouth of this wonderful waterway. Here, 
 from New York or Liverpool, you may come by the 
 steamer which goes on to Iquitos, its final port in 
 Peru, more than thirteen hundred miles farther up 
 the Amazon. 
 
 And, speaking of the Amazon, let us pause a 
 moment to consider this mighty river, with its source 
 on the other side of South America in the very foot- 
 hills of the Andes, three thousand miles to the west. 
 Yet not its length or its depth makes it so notable 
 among the world's great rivers as the volume of 
 water discharged through its one-hundred-and- 
 sixty mile opening upon the Atlantic a volume 
 so enormous as to colour the ocean nearly one hundred 
 miles off shore !* Reaching forth over an area of two 
 thousand miles east and west, by seventeen hundred 
 north and south, its tributaries drain the upper one- 
 third of all South America a basin two- thirds the 
 size of Europe. It will convey to you, more clearly 
 than maps, an idea of the resources of this mother of 
 rivers, to say that you can, with comparatively short 
 
 * Curiously there are no official figures. Estimates range 
 from fifty to one hundred and eighty miles. Above Maraj6 
 Island, near mouth, thirty-five miles is accepted width of 
 Amazon.
 
 THE FOREST BLANKET OF THE AMAZON 17 
 
 portages, make your way from the Caribbean Puerto 
 Cabello, at the top of the continent, to Buenos Aires, 
 at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in the far south 
 a flowing road indeed ! 
 
 Yet with all this supply, the current of the 
 Amazon for half of the year is little more or less 
 than four miles an hour, except at Obidos, five 
 hundred miles up the one point along the first one 
 thousand miles where both banks of the Amazon can 
 be seen at the same time. Here only a mile intervenes, 
 through which narrowed passage the river crowds 
 itself at a depth of one hundred and twenty fathoms.* 
 Elsewhere, though variously reckoned at from six to 
 fifteen miles, its width is difficult to estimate, but 
 always, on either side, is the flanking of a dead-level 
 country, accentuated by the clean-trunked, high- 
 standing, and heavily buttressed ceibas, which lift 
 their great bushy tops on high as though to escape 
 the smother of forest blanket. 
 
 A cross section of this Amazonian blanket would 
 show clean, high trunks, light gray predominating, 
 surmounted by close-growing rounded tops, and 
 palms that range from three inches to nearly as many 
 feet in girth and are sometimes fruit laden. An ex- 
 ception to the clean trunk rule is a very graceful 
 example, much the form of our own honoured elm. 
 Draping the bushes on the bank is often a vine 
 carrying yellow and white morning-glory-like blos- 
 soms, and once in a way you see a wistaria reaching 
 from top to bottom of a sizable tree, while again a 
 
 * Opinions differ, the extreme claim being 270 fathoms. 
 Passage is locally called Strait of Pauxis.
 
 18 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 favouring wind may bring you delicious fragrance. 
 
 Preconceived notions of gorgeously hued winged 
 life are destined, however, to disappointment on such a 
 trip up the Amazon ; not for lack of life but for lack 
 of opportunity to see it. No dependable knowledge 
 of a section and its life can be gained from the deck 
 of a passing steamer; though none-the-less the 
 steamer tourist has written many an article on South 
 America the most misrepresented and least known 
 of our neighbours. It must be confessed even after 
 closer scrutiny that the general outlook along this 
 great river is unvarying and monotonous. For the 
 first three hundred or four hundred miles the banks 
 to the very water's edge, are low, covered by rank, 
 dense bush and tree growth. Farther along they be- 
 come higher and more definite, so that once in a day's 
 travel, perhaps, you may round a point standing, say 
 fifteen feet. For the most part, however, the so-called 
 high banks may be eight or ten feet, and the average 
 level nearer three feet. This is the conclusion of 
 observations made in February at low water. In 
 June, when the river is high, all the lower country and 
 much of the upper becomes flood land, called " gapo," 
 and only the highest banks are visible. 
 
 After five hundred to six hundred miles of up- 
 river travel you come now and again to an opening or 
 clearing, locally known as a " campo," which indicates 
 an attempt at cattle raising, or may carry a planting 
 of cacao abandoned quite as often as not for the 
 alluring rubber industry, which exacts much in dep- 
 rivation and hard work but pays better. Such spots, 
 however, are but occasional, and for the rest the 
 heavy, gloomy forest reaches down to the water, im- 
 penetrable to the eye beyond thirty or forty feet.
 
 A HIGHLY SKILFUL PILOT 19 
 
 You would hardly believe there could be scarcity 
 of water along such a river system, but I was delayed 
 at Manaos ten days while the anchored Inca awaited 
 a rise in the Rio Negro; and to reach Santa Isabel 
 required seven days of running from daylight until 
 dark under the utmost skill of the practice. Nor was 
 there a day of the seven when we were free of strong 
 wind and driving rain and lowering clouds, to churn 
 the shoal water and darken the sky, thus adding to the 
 difficulty of keeping the channel. Yet, the practico 
 never faltered, nor did we once touch bottom. Just 
 in front of the unhoused wheel on the forward deck, 
 signalling the steersman, sometimes himself seizing 
 the spokes, but never speaking except now and again 
 to the diligent lead-man (whose deepest record was 
 twelve feet ) , so stood the pilot. Through the storms 
 and into the dark of the early night he found the tor- 
 tuous channel without mistake; twisting and turning, 
 at times making hardly a half mile dead ahead. On 
 every side, reaching to the horizon, the deep forest, 
 unrelieved by the individual lofty trees of the Amazon, 
 rimmed the water like a great hedge trimmed to even- 
 ness by some giant hand. Occasionally a strip of 
 bright sandy beach, framed in vivid green, supplied 
 needed contrast and emphasized the darkness of the 
 enveloping woodland. 
 
 Of the Amazon's great feeders, each over a 
 thousand miles in length, the Rio Negro, if not first 
 in size, is certainly second, having two large con- 
 tributing rivers of its own, the Branco on the north- 
 extending six hundred miles up to the mountain 
 barrier guarding southeast Venezuela and the 
 Uaupes on the west, that comes from the far Amazon- 
 ian forests lining the base of the Cordilleras.
 
 20 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Just above Manaos the Rio Negro is from six to 
 ten miles wide; beyond, for several hundred miles, it 
 becomes an island-filled, heliotrope sea, with banks 
 ranging from ten to twenty-five miles apart; all the 
 islands heavily wooded, and one as much as thirty 
 miles in length. Approaching Santa Isabel, itself an 
 island, the Negro narrows to about five miles, and the 
 first indication of up-river rock outcroppings is seen 
 in the prevalence of granite beaches. 
 
 Whenever the Inca came to a high bank, always 
 once and sometimes twice a day, we found a settle- 
 ment of one-story, crudely built houses, usually to 
 the number of two or three. In fact none had more 
 than half a dozen, except Barcellos, which boasts 
 forty of better structure, and is at once the oldest 
 town on the river and the metropolis of the Negro 
 above Manaos. Although they can raise anything, 
 the truth is these people along the river above Manaos 
 practically grow nothing, and are dependent almost 
 entirely on the infrequent comings and goings of the 
 one small steamboat. From the interior they get a 
 little " caucho," as the second-grade rubber is called, 
 just enough to tempt existence in these spots hewn 
 out of the surrounding forest. 
 
 At such halts therefore the provisions were dis- 
 charged for which the crew had been ransacking the 
 cargo since perhaps the previous stop the cargo hav- 
 ing been dumped in at Manaos apparently without 
 regard to destination. 
 
 Certainly the Inca looked the part of a first aid to 
 the needy. Its two open decks overflowed. The 
 entire lower one was filled with cattle, pigs, baled mer- 
 chandise, and the engine mostly the engine: the
 
 is 
 
 g 
 
 zo 
 
 li 
 
 s 
 a 2 
 
 *
 
 THE RIVER BOAT OF MANY CARGOES 21 
 
 upper was reserved for the passengers. Forward the 
 practice and his helpers held their domain; in the 
 centre the culinary department and a few cabins had 
 been set up; while at the rear were two long tables 
 on which the meals were served. In every otherwise 
 unoccupied spot on the upper deck, were the highly 
 coloured tin trunks so dear to the Brazilian heart, and 
 the tin canisters (from three gallons to twice the 
 capacity of a milk can) in which are carried sugar, 
 coffee, and everything likely to be affected by the 
 humid atmosphere. At night the second class passen- 
 gers swung their sleeping hammocks over the cattle; 
 the first class swung theirs along the sides of the upper 
 deck and over the tables. Looking astern from the 
 centre you encountered a vista of protruding bare 
 feet, with much soiled soles. The out of town Brazil- 
 ian wears shoes on occasions only; shoes indeed con- 
 stitute a sign of distinction for the man as do stockings 
 for the woman. What a tiara is in New York, stock- 
 ings are to up-country Brazil; and when in rural 
 South America the female of the species attains to 
 drawers she is entitled to be classed close to the 
 aristocracy. 
 
 There were about a dozen of us on the upper 
 deck, except myself all Brazilian traders in rubber, 
 who kept to their hammocks most of the time when 
 the rain did not drive them huddling among the tin 
 cans, and who maintained long distance discussions 
 in voices loud and unceasing. Some of them gave a 
 realistic touch to the domestic scene by slam banging 
 around the deck in shoes from which the counter and 
 all the upper save only the toe had been cut! They 
 were punctilious to the last degree in the form of
 
 22 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 addressing one another, but at table 'twas the devil 
 take the hindmost ; and a pretty alert devil he'd need 
 to be at that ! My favourite and peaceful retreat for 
 reading was under the feed box of a couple of cows 
 near the paddle wheel. 
 
 Thus we came to the head of navigation with 
 the wind blowing a gale, the rain drilling us through 
 and through, and everybody on board yapping except 
 the practice, who was attending strictly to the no 
 easy business of avoiding a huge uprooted tree, which 
 swirled threateningly in the current around us. 
 
 When the storm had passed, Santa Isabel, a rock 
 and sand island, unfolded itself. Eight houses, a 
 score of long-legged pigs, and children to the com- 
 bined number of men, women, houses, and pigs, com- 
 prised the colony at this first view. But as I 
 lingered at its boulder-strewn gates the population 
 increased with the opening of the wet season by 
 twenty or more rubber-laden canoes and batelaos 
 for Santa Isabel is the rubber headquarters of the 
 " alto " (upper) Rio Negro. Here the Indian 
 " caucheros " in their dugouts and the Brazilian traders 
 in their cargo boats bring the small amount of rubber 
 gathered along this river and its many branches ; and 
 here, by the Inca from Manaos, come supplies and the 
 agents who bargain for the season's catch. 
 
 Those prone to class all South Americans as 
 indolent should peruse the workaday life-story of the 
 average cauchero who, with food necessarily scant 
 and unnourishing because of the conditions of travel 
 and climate, penetrates far into the most un- 
 healthy sections where rubber is to be found 
 at its best, and for months at a time searches
 
 A TRADER'S CAMP AT SANTA ISABEL ON THE RIO NEGRO AMONG THE ROCKS 
 
 A CAMPO AND CHARACTERISTIC BIT OF FOREST ALONG THE AMAZON RIVER
 
 NATIVE IMPROVIDENCE 23 
 
 r 
 
 the tropical hotbed, returning with the raw 
 fruits of his labour but once a year, for a brief respite, 
 at the source of supplies. Should the expedition 
 fail to locate rubber in profitable quantity he finds 
 himself heavily burdened with debt, perhaps ruined 
 beyond repair. Of all pioneering, I know of none 
 where life is so drear, or the work more exhausting 
 or beset by such discomfort. 
 
 I never cease to marvel at the costly improvidence 
 of these frontier people. In the far North where 
 dogs and sledges constitute the only means of winter 
 transportation, I found it most difficult to secure an 
 additional train; while on the Rio Negro, where the 
 flowing road is the only road, canoes, and especially 
 men, for hire are as exceptional as sunshine in the 
 rainy season. I had brought with me on the Inca 
 provisions to last the four or five hundred miles* canoe 
 trip to San Carlos, frontier post of Venezuela, where, 
 I was assured, I could replenish them, but at Santa 
 Isabel I expected to engage canoes and men for the 
 journey. That none were to be had despite Manaos 
 assurance to the contrary, was a rude shock at the 
 very outset, even though not entirely unforeseen. 
 And if I may be permitted the aphorism, I should 
 like to add, that in wilderness journeying one will ex- 
 tract more comfort from invariably expecting the un- 
 foreseen. Experience has taught me alas! how little 
 dependence may usually be placed on the informa- 
 tion of the interior offered at frontier towns, and I 
 
 * This is an estimate based on our rate of progress 
 which is true of all the other distances given in this book. 
 Actual figures are unobtainable. Thirty-six days were con- 
 sumed in actual travel from Santa Isabel to San Carlos.
 
 24 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 was not greatly surprised later to find no provisions 
 at San Carlos or my gun and fish-line necessary to 
 eating en route. 
 
 Since Santa Isabel is the point of communication 
 between the outside world and all that vast interior 
 
 * 
 
 reaching far to the west and north even to one gate- 
 way of fabled El Dorado it required several fruit- 
 less days of urgent searching to convince me the 
 scarcity of means of travel was actual rather than 
 professed. I was indeed on the point of despair when 
 I had the good fortune to meet and interest in my 
 behalf Netto, a young Brazilian, whose English was 
 about on a par with my Portuguese. Even with his 
 kindly help it was impossible to secure a canoe, 
 though I finally did engage passage on a trading 
 freight-batelao to San Gabriel, at the great rapids, 
 sometimes called the Falls of the Rio Negro. 
 
 Pending its start, we went two days up-river 
 heralded at every turning by the vigorous blowing of 
 a not unmusical concho, to a beautifully situated point 
 from which the view of the Negro and its banks was 
 extended and most attractive. 
 
 On this commanding site lived Netto with his wife 
 an alluring young native whose beauty was rather 
 enhanced by informal skirt and stockingless feet, 
 and her mother, in a long, low adobe, which the 
 dogs and goats and the ducks shared on easy terms 
 with the family. Here were a man and his wife 
 who had been to Paris the Mecca of all South 
 Americans who were, as country Brazilians go, 
 educated, and yet, who wear no stockings, live like 
 peasants, and whose sense of propriety was not 
 offended by Netto placing before me, on the evening
 
 FOOD OF THE COUNTRY 25 
 
 of my arrival, and while we sat in a circle his wife, 
 mother and a number of other women and I a cer- 
 tain toilet article common enough to the civilized world, 
 but rare beyond the frontier. Netto, by the manner 
 in which he bore and placed it within our midst, no 
 doubt was extremely proud of its possession, and 
 brought it forth to impress me with his and his fam- 
 ily's superiority over the common herd. 
 
 These people were representative of the better 
 country class, simple in their habits of living per- 
 haps, but kind to their dependents and courteous 
 beyond need to the voyaging stranger. My few days 
 at their house were happily and instructively occupied. 
 In addition to making personal acquaintance with 
 several, I gained knowledge of the birds and fish and 
 products of the country that afterwards proved of 
 much service to me. To my taste nothing on either 
 Amazon or Rio Negro equals the flesh of the " tor- 
 tuga " (turtle) , and the " peixeboe," or cowfish, as the 
 manati is known in Portuguese. The turtle in vary- 
 ing sizes and a few edil species is common on most 
 of the large waterways north of the Amazon; it is 
 really toothsome, mop. jo than the manati, the meat 
 of which is not unlike pork in flavour. Both are cut 
 up, fried in their own fat, and marketed in cans, a 
 manati yielding sometimes as much as fifty gallons 
 of oil, whereas often the oil of two turtles is neces- 
 sary for the preservation of one. 
 
 Of fish there are many kinds, every waterway 
 appearing to have its individual varieties, but one 
 called " pirarucu," or " lou lou," according to locality 
 is common to all the Rio Negro, and a staple food 
 among the Indians, notwithstanding the Brazilians
 
 26 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 look upon scaleless fishes, such as it is, with aversion, 
 claiming their flesh conduces to the fever. The most 
 toothsome fish I caught averaged about a foot in 
 length, and bore lake trout markings. The curassow 
 family is rather a large one through this section and all 
 of its members are good eating. Strange enough, no 
 fruit is to be seen from Manaos to Santa Isabel, but at 
 Boa Vista, as Netto's locality is called, were oranges, 
 lemons, " avocados " (alligator pear), bananas, man- 
 goes. In fact, they could have any kind they cared to 
 plant not to mention the breadfruit, which grows 
 wild but must be cooked before eating. There were 
 also several fruit-bearing palms besides the tucuman, 
 and the assahy, from the cherry-like berries of which 
 an excellent wine is made, by the way. All palm 
 fruits yield an oil which is used in cooking fish, the 
 Brazilian being very fond of grease. 
 
 Here also is the country " where the nuts come 
 from," meaning particularly the Brazil nut, which, 
 perhaps, it may interest you to learn, does not grow 
 solitary in its husk like oui . vn less prolific nuts, but 
 with true tropic temperamei t, in this case also artistic, 
 in groups of a dozen or me :e housed so compacted 
 within a cocoanut shell-like globe that once you have 
 taken them out you are unable to get more than two- 
 thirds of them back again. These hang near the 
 ends of long open limbs on a large-girthed, wide- 
 spreading tree which towers a hundred feet, and is 
 altogether one of the most attractive in Brazil. 
 
 Small excuse indeed for the denizens of this land 
 to go hungry, and yet, strange to say, many of them 
 lead a miserable half-fed existence.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TRACKING THE RIO NEGRO 
 
 It is upwards of three hundred miles from the 
 head of navigation to San Gabriel, and not many 
 of the miles are free of rapid water ; rapid water which 
 develops into cataracts on the slightest provocation 
 of turning river or obtruding rock, and a current that 
 ranges five and six miles to a pace impossible to stem 
 by paddles alone. 
 
 If you would read this tale with interest and 
 understanding keep in your mind's eye a picture of 
 this Rio Negro. From Manaos to Santa Isabel it is, 
 as I have said, substantially a great inland sea, ten 
 to twenty-five miles in width, filled with islands that 
 seem floating, so low do they set in the water. 
 
 At Santa Isabel you come to the first rock ob- 
 struction, after which the character of the river 
 changes to become a succession of long island-filled 
 bays, while the width from bank to bank is reduced 
 to an average of four or five miles, sometimes more, 
 occasionally less. Now and again great boulder 
 islands cut the river into several very rapid sections 
 which try the soul and muscles of the voyager. The 
 forest lining the banks differs little from that below 
 Santa Isabel. It is the same dense, evenly trimmed, 
 hedge-like covering, with none of the campos or the 
 single great trees looming as on the Amazon, but 
 now the points extending into the Negro are as 
 often as not rock instead of brush covered usually 
 boulder-like sometimes a single large flat rock. 
 
 27
 
 28 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Two or three times you come to a palm-thatched 
 house or two of a trader, to whom the Indians of the 
 many tributary streams entering the Negro from both 
 north and south bring caucho. 
 
 Throughout the length of the flowing road canoes 
 are of few types but of many names. The batelao, 
 varying from twenty-five to forty feet in length, with 
 crews of from four to a dozen, is the long- journey 
 cargo boat, corresponding in some of its phases to 
 the " lancha " of Venezuela. In both countries it 
 has a comparatively deep cockpit, covered, sometimes 
 for half its length, sometimes wholly, with a barrel- 
 shaped, thatch house " toldo " and is built of 
 planks around a crude but strong framework, to 
 withstand that hardest of usage, navigation among 
 the rocks of the rapids. High up on the .Guainia, a 
 species of crude bark craft obtains, but elsewhere 
 the canoe of the Indian is always a dugout, known 
 as " uba " in Brazil, and " canoa," or " curiara " or 
 " bongo " in Venezuela, varying in width amidships 
 from eighteen inches to four feet, and from a dozen or 
 fifteen feet to as much as thirty or forty feet in length. 
 One I measured at Santa Isabel was fifty- two feet 
 long, fashioned out of a single tree. Incidentally I 
 found it somewhat curious that a Brazilian Indian 
 when alone in a small uba often paddles from the 
 bow rather than from the stern, as is the customary 
 method among most native watermen elsewhere. Far 
 inland the uba, fitted with toldo, is also the long- 
 journey boat, but on the lower reaches of the Rio 
 Negro and the Amazon and the Orinoco, one, two, 
 or three board ribs are added to its gunwale, and 
 the craft becomes respectively " montaria " among 
 the Portuguese, and " falca " among the Spanish
 
 THE SLOW MOVING BATELAO 29 
 
 speaking peoples. The common boat of this descrip- 
 tion carries one twelve-inch board rib atop its dugout 
 gunwale, and is from twenty to twenty-five feet long. 
 
 Paddles are very much of a type with short, heart- 
 shaped to roundish heads, which are decorated in 
 primal colours with lines or squares or other simple 
 forms, as individual fancy dictates. Handles vary 
 in length with the size of dugout, except on the lower 
 Orinoco and Rio de la Plata, where the rough water 
 requires always a longer handle as well as a larger 
 blade. On the upper Orinoco beyond Esmeralda I 
 found a very distinct heart-shaped unpainted blade, 
 made of a beautiful wood, which glistened in the 
 water like burnished gold. 
 
 The large batelao is propelled by oars from atop 
 the toldo or from its deck when smaller, or by track- 
 ing and poling. It all depends on the character of 
 the river and whether your course is up or down 
 stream. In going down stream you keep the middle 
 of the river to enjoy the full force of the current as 
 you float, or perhaps sail along with a little easy 
 paddling or rowing to hold direction and secure extra 
 speed. That is the luxury of river travel ; but going 
 up is quite another story. In the middle of the river 
 it is impossible to make way against the current, so 
 you cling to the bank, following faithfully all the 
 turns of a much turning river, except where a deep 
 bay tempts a crossing and you pull your heart out 
 before reaching the bank again. Only on the first 
 stretch of the lower Orinoco where its course is west 
 may upstream work be lightened; here the summer 
 trade winds from the Atlantic often make sailing pos- 
 sible as far as Caicara, where the river turns south. 
 
 The very slow pace of the batelao was maddening
 
 30 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 to me at first, I confess, despite the novel method 
 of propulsion, but when a later acquired small uba 
 provided means for exploring the many "canos," 
 the back water canals made by the rising river and the 
 tributaries coming in from the north bank to which 
 we clung, I found the thirty- four days' journey to 
 San Gabriel after I became the supercargo of the 
 batelao (March 9th) none too long. No day was 
 without its interest. Nothing, however, relieved or 
 shortened the nights. The rain, which we did not so 
 much mind in the day, because it clouded the other- 
 wise blistering sun, even if it failed to cool the atmos- 
 phere, made sleeping a dispiriting series of catnaps, 
 with alternate boat bailing and clothes wringing. 
 Rain or shine, however, we were off always at day- 
 light, and, though we kept going until an hour or so 
 after dark, as conditions permitted, we never at our 
 fastest made over twenty miles a day, and I doubt if 
 our average exceeded fifteen. 
 
 My crew of nine Indians were all from above 
 San Gabriel, but of several types; one Negroid, 
 another Semitic, others of the lank variety which ap- 
 pears to predominate in this section. 
 
 Alleo, the " patron " or captain of the crew, was a 
 wizened little man about sixty years of age, and 
 scarcely five feet five inches in height or one hundred 
 and twenty-five pounds in weight, but when he squat- 
 ted I never saw body of man hang so straight from 
 the knees without touching ground. Sometime during 
 an excess of artificial joy he had lost the top section 
 of his left ear, but he was obviously proud of the 
 two or three tufts of hair decorating his upper lip. 
 Also he sported a felt hat jammed over a straw one,
 
 A STEERSMAN WITH CONVICTIONS 31 
 
 as well as a rather frisky shirt cut off midway to 
 the loin-cloth he wore when it rained, but replaced 
 at other times by the cotton jumper-shirts and 
 overalls with which the men clothed themselves fully 
 in clear weather. Clothes, I may add, were valued 
 chiefly as protection against the sun; whenever it 
 rained they were carefully tucked away under the 
 toldo. 
 
 Alleo was a steersman with convictions; he stood 
 with one foot on top of the toldo supporting his 
 weight, the other guiding the tiller, while one hand 
 emphasized his brief directions and the other searched 
 his anatomy for insects. Because of his expressive 
 hands and badgering inflection, I always wished to 
 understand what Alleo said to his men, but they 
 chattered a patois of which I could catch no meaning. 
 He never relaxed a stern countenance at these mo- 
 ments ; nor by any chance allowed himself to be drawn 
 into argument. His orders were curt and decisive. 
 He was always an alert and rakish figure outlined 
 atop the toldo, far and away the best man in the 
 boat in fact one of the most competent steersmen 
 I met on the flowing road. 
 
 Yeggo was the fisherman of the party, and long 
 after the others had turned in at night, the swish of 
 his line could be heard. He baited by preference 
 with a mantis a four or five inch " walking-stick " 
 grasshopper kind of creature, which turned a round 
 head on a long neck and fixed me rather eerily with 
 prominent eyes as I sought to catch it. When I 
 failed he used farinha,* and appeared quite as suc- 
 
 * Also called mandioca the native meal or flour.
 
 32 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 cessfully to hook a one or two pound gray-and-black 
 trout-shaped fish, with dark, bulging eyes. As a 
 worker, however, Yeggo did not shine. He was for- 
 ever cutting capers on the batelao, often indeed to 
 our loss of a point rounded after hardest struggling. 
 Nor did Yeggo rate high as to looks, with his -bridge- 
 less nose, close-set eyes, and file-pointed teeth show- 
 ing through a cavernous mouth. In common with so 
 many others, his legs and hands bore the white- 
 spotted souvenirs of the prevalent skin disease. His 
 dearest possession seemed to be a dirty straw hat 
 several sizes too small, which, therefore, was ever fall- 
 ing from his head and being replaced to fall again at 
 his first strenuous movement. 
 
 And whenever we were hardest pressed, Yeggo 
 invariably lost that irritating hat, always letting go 
 the pulling-rope to recover it, no matter how much we 
 needed his weight on the line. One day I took him 
 with me on an inland trip and lost the hat as you 
 will learn in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 The best-looking Indian type on the boat was 
 Ramon, who, among a broad-footed people, had 
 the broadest feet I ever beheld, and used them on 
 the ropes almost as readily as his hands. Save this 
 man, none of the crew stood more than five feet six 
 inches in height, or weighed over one hundred and fifty 
 pounds; but they all had round, full stomachs, due 
 no doubt to frequent and heavy mandioca feeding, 
 and so at least looked well nourished. Neither this 
 lot of men, however, nor any others I had on the 
 flowing road, were impressive as to physique. 
 
 It is a fallacy that wilderness people are necessar- 
 ily robust merely because they lead a simple life. The
 
 WORKING UP RIVER BY THE PUSHING AND PULLING METHOD 
 
 MY BATELAO TIED TO THE CHARACTERISTIC GRANITE BOULDER OUTCROPPING ALONG 
 
 THE NEGRO. THE INDIAN IN THE FOREGROUND CARRIES 
 
 A PUSHING POLE
 
 A FEAST OR A FAMINE 33 
 
 truth is they are not robust, so far as my experience 
 goes along the waterways of South America from the 
 Kio de la Plata of the Argentine to the Portuguesa 
 of Venezuela, though they are patient and enduring. 
 Alternate stuffing and fasting, and exposure, are 
 not the builders of rugged constitutions. Fish, dried 
 meat in the sections within reach of supplies, and 
 mandioca, or farinha as the Brazilians call it, may be 
 declared the staple food of the Indian from Venezuela 
 to the Argentine. There are seasons and regions 
 when and where water-fowl, the widely distributed 
 curassow family, the agouti, or other members of 
 the extensive rodent tribe, contribute to their food 
 supplies. There are also places and times where and 
 when they must resort to eating snakes, lizards, and 
 vermin. But for the greater time they feed on fish 
 and mandioca the bran-like meal which is made 
 from the root of a yucca plant. Tourists that ven- 
 ture no farther than the comfortable ports are apt to 
 indulge themselves in ill-natured, unfair and uncom- 
 prehending comment on these unhappily situated 
 people because of their lack of the finer qualities 
 and generous impulses: how can such attributes be 
 expected of a man whose entire life is occupied in 
 ceaseless struggle merely to keep alive? 
 
 They work fitfully, and their casual methods 
 would inflame one unaccustomed to travel in the 
 tropics. For instance, on my batelao, in the midst 
 of hauling through rapids, one of the crew was just 
 as apt as not to let go the rope to make a cigarette 
 or hunt for vermin or inspect a cut toe. Of fourteen 
 men I used on one occasion in the rapids, four were 
 engaged taking in on two ropes, four in putting the
 
 34. THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 cable aboard the uba leaving six who were doing 
 the actual pulling. And though a man might 
 " soldier " patently and constantly, yet none of the 
 others objected. For example, the stern-port oar 
 on the small batelao in which we journeyed from 
 Santa Isabel to the home of my new-found Brazilian 
 friend, was constantly stopping to study his toes or 
 to dig an insect from under his skin but no one 
 protested though the going was very hard and the 
 crew small. Not even Netto called him to order: 
 the other Indians laughed; Netto ate raisins. Such 
 is rapid transit in Brazil. 
 
 My batelao was large and heavily laden, and 
 we progressed by a species of tracking, and by 
 pulling and pushing along the forest-lined bank 
 a method of poling peculiar to the flowing 
 road. Seven of the crew remained on the boat, Alleo, 
 of course, at the tiller, and two changed daily, for 
 it was much the easiest task scouted ahead in the 
 uba for rocks or points to which the hauling-cable 
 could be attached. Thus six men were always on 
 the poles, divided equally as pullers and pushers. 
 The puller used a thirty-foot pliable pole having a 
 natural hook at the far end; it was his business to 
 fasten to some limb ahead, and, by walking down 
 the length of the batelao, so help drag us forward. 
 The pusher used a twenty-foot stiffer pole terminat- 
 ing in a short, stout fork, which by preference he 
 fixed against the river bottom when he could reach 
 it, or seated it against a limb of a passing tree. Some- 
 times as a pusher set his weight on the pole he went 
 overboard amid the united shouts of the crew; and 
 often there was a voluntary scramble into the water 
 to capture a marsupial rodent, somewhat larger
 
 A VICIOUS WASP 35 
 
 than a big prairie-dog and fair eating, which had 
 been hooked out of a tree. 
 
 Frequently, too, there was a general plunge into 
 the river by all hands to escape the attack of a vicious 
 black-and-yellow-striped wasp which attacked with 
 the speed of lightning and the ferocity of a tiger. Nor 
 was it to be evaded; you could only protect your 
 eyes with your hands, and, for the rest, take what was 
 coming, rejoicing that its habit is not to linger, but 
 to sting in passing a sting, I may add, which is like 
 the touch of a glowing-hot needle. Having been 
 stung one afternoon into a reckless retaliatory 
 humour, I routed a colony and secured its house a 
 light gray earthen cylinder, one and a half inches 
 in diameter by four in height which sat upright 
 on the limb of a tree. 
 
 Not all my crew were skilful, yet one was a 
 master. Standing at the bow, he handled his pole 
 like a six-ounce trout-rod, never failing to land upon 
 an overhanging limb at just the moment necessary 
 to draw the bow shoreward as it turned out-stream 
 because of slovenly work of some pusher walking 
 astern. Here is the real skill in this kind of locomo- 
 tion to keep the boat going comparatively straight 
 ahead, instead of swinging in and out in response 
 to the individual efforts of the pole-men. I have 
 seen this particular man hook on to roots under 
 water not visible to my eye, or on to a log floating 
 just below the surface, as does so much of the heavy 
 tropic driftwood. To decide at once, to hook in- 
 stantly, to move as an endless chain down the shore 
 side and up the stream side is what makes a good 
 tracking crew and keeps the boat going. 
 
 And not the least necessity to fair batelao progress
 
 36 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 is honest work by the scouts in the uba who have un- 
 excelled opportunities for loafing, and can easily make 
 a difference one way or the other of several miles in 
 the day's score. The uba carries about one hundred 
 yards of stout three-inch cable (made, as is all rope 
 in this country, of the piassava fibre) which the scouts 
 fasten to an advantageous point where the water 
 is swift, or to the far bank of a bay, paddling back 
 with the other end as fast as they can to the approach- 
 ing batelao, where the men simply walk it in. This 
 is a much swifter method than poling and may raise 
 the pace to two miles the hour. Occasionally on 
 stretches where neither pole nor cable could be used 
 we were obliged to resort to the oars, and then our 
 rate of travel fell to the lowest, or scarcely a mile 
 an hour. Except when toiling up through the rapids, 
 the heavily forested banks enabled us to employ the 
 combined poling and hauling, by which we averaged 
 at the best about one and a half miles. 
 
 Whatever the method of progression, these 
 Rio Negro Indians were usually cheerful; the best- 
 natured people I ever fell among. They were always 
 ready with a laugh, often singing at their work 
 if the rain was not too severe; like children, as, in- 
 deed, most wilderness people are. If one of the 
 crew missed an overhanging limb and fell into the 
 river, if the uba was caught under the cable and 
 upset, the others indulged in raillery. If the boat 
 swung around at a rapid or broke away, requiring 
 extra effort to repair the damage, every one laughed 
 as he set to the task. Had they, however, promptly 
 jumped into the breach and laughed afterward, we 
 would have made better time on the long journey 
 at less expense of bodily effort. They had good
 
 THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY RIVERMEN 37 
 
 nature and patience in plenty, but more alertness 
 and instant application of energy would have given 
 less need of patience. Their way was to laugh while 
 they viewed the barrel roll down-hill, and then set 
 to work rolling it up again, rather than to check its 
 flight at the top of the hill. 
 
 In a broad sense they are of the Tupi family, 
 though so crossed with other Indians, Portuguese, 
 Brazilians, and negroes as to have lost nearly all 
 tribal traditions and customs. As a rule, they bring 
 no highly developed skill to their handiwork the 
 possibilities of the poling are only half realized, save 
 in exceptional cases. Although in individual cases 
 clever beyond comparison in handling canoes at 
 the cataracts with which the rivers are all plentifully 
 supplied, they appear in general to take no pride in 
 expertness with the implement by which they travel 
 or secure food that corresponds to the American 
 Indian's esteem of paddle skill, or the Canadian 
 Indian's regard for speed on snow-shoes or dexter- 
 ous handling of dogs. On the river they are not 
 to be mentioned in the same breath with those con- 
 summate watermen of Malaya and Siam. A little 
 effort and a heavy dependence on luck that's about 
 their gait. Often we ran on rocks which should 
 have been easily avoided by men whose life's work 
 is the handling of boats. Daily in rounding boulder 
 points in rapid water, the bow was permitted to 
 swing out on a carelessly slack and unattended rope, 
 sometimes resulting in the escape of the boat and 
 subsequent disaster among the rocks ; while in getting 
 out of difficulties there was a surprising lack of 
 intelligently applied skill. 
 
 Big as the batelao was, it had no room for a
 
 38 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 supercargo. The days for the most part I spent 
 exploring the interior; the nights aboard among the 
 loud-smelling pirarucu how I loathed the odour of 
 that fish as the journey lengthened! My days on 
 the boat, as few as possible you may be sure, were 
 chiefly occupied in dodging either the poles or the 
 tree branches which raked us fore and aft as we 
 clung to the bank, or the wasps and the ants that 
 often swept upon us in swarms. And whenever we 
 sought the easier going of a narrower channel, as 
 for example between an island and the river bank, 
 always the insect life became more active. 
 
 The forest continued the same dense hedge. 
 Sometimes where the bank was exposed, slender 
 pendants screened the view in running loops or hung 
 straight to the ground from the tree-limbs to take 
 root and send forth their own little shoots for 
 tropical nature is opposed to the unit. I found it 
 very interesting. My favourite lookout was on top 
 the forward end of the toldo, where, flat on my 
 stomach, with hands and feet braced against the 
 framework, I managed to keep from being torn off 
 by the branches about half the time Alleo quite 
 approving my position, as much of the insect life was 
 thus deposited on me before reaching him. When 
 not engaged in thus holding on for dear life to my 
 perch, I watched, if the sun shone, for birds and 
 butterflies, and studied the small, stingless, yellow 
 bees called " angelitos " (little angels) by the Vene- 
 zuelans, which settled in hundreds on the piassava 
 cable hung across the toldo. 
 
 I was surprised not to see more birds on the banks,
 
 BIRDS OF THE RIO NEGRO 39 
 
 though when the sky was clear always some voices 
 were heard issuing from the jungle as we passed, and 
 rarely were the voices pleasing. There is one bird 
 inhabitant of river Brazil, however, that makes up for 
 the song delinquencies of many others; this is the 
 japim,* a liquid-noted, black member of the oriole 
 family, with a yellow back, yellow eye and whitish bill. 
 These birds build in colonies a fourteen to sixteen 
 inch grass woven pendent pouch (entered near the 
 bottom on the side), and I have seen a tree nigh full 
 of their swaying nests, which sometimes are even two 
 feet or more in length. They are pert and active and 
 busy music makers, with an ever-changing song which 
 takes on the notes of many neighbours, for the japim 
 is an excellent mimic. Among his virtues is a pen- 
 chant for the young of the wasp with the electric 
 stinger. 
 
 I remarked as we moved along upon the many 
 whistling notes sounding inland one a short, sharp 
 explosion, followed by a kind of catbird call. A 
 bluish gray bodied kingfisher twice the size of our 
 common variety I saw often, and a dashing figure he 
 made, with a white slashing encircling his throat. At 
 dusk, and only at dusk, unless it was raining, I almost 
 invariably saw on the Rio Negro a brown bird having 
 white splotches on neck and shoulder, and a hawk-like 
 
 * This is the cassique (Cassicus persicus), very generally 
 distributed in South America, north of the Amazon, but not 
 to be mistaken for the Central American troupial, which is 
 not a hang-nest ; or confused with the common yellow oriole of 
 black back and dark bill and eye.
 
 40 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 head, which was accompanied by another I never 
 could see that gave voice to a plaintive three-note 
 song, so unusual in its soft melody as to arrest atten- 
 tion and please mightily. 
 
 You half see so many things and hear so much of 
 which you would learn more ; that's the exasperation 
 of such journeying. 
 
 The really interesting bird display is inland, those 
 on the river being largely the parrots, constantly in 
 the air, and striking in colour combinations one had 
 a blue back and wings and yellow breast but noisy to 
 distraction; the brilliant macaws in their reds and 
 greens and blues and yellows, always in pairs and fly- 
 ing fast and high; and an occasional toucan a re- 
 cluse that seeks the denser foliage with its ungainly 
 great yellow bill and black and green body. Like 
 the elephant, the parrot and its entire family, in- 
 cluding the screaming little brother parrakeets, are 
 very destructive eaters, wasting much more than they 
 consume. They are all fairly palatable, but the 
 macaws require a lot of boiling, as the flesh is tough 
 beyond anything on two legs. 
 
 At sundown a long, doleful bird whistle is heard ; 
 parrots chatter noisily until dusk falls; and then the 
 frogs take up their refrain. 
 
 The butterflies were lovely beyond description, 
 and I luxuriated in their glory on my inland trips as 
 well as on sunshiny days from the toldo, even though 
 their presence meant scorching heat. The air was 
 full of them. From a tiny yellow to a superb purple 
 as large as my hand, they fluttered hither and yon, in 
 all sizes and of every colour noticeably in shades of 
 blues and yellows and reds very yellow yellows,
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES 41 
 
 burning scarlets, lustrous blues, and velvet purples. 
 An entire insect might be solid scarlet, or blue, or 
 yellow, with slight markings of contrasting colours. 
 One I caught was a golden yellow throughout ; another 
 was a deep crimson with under wings a paler shade 
 and black lines crossing the body; another was all 
 white save for a blue circle on each wing. How often 
 I regretted not bringing a hand-net ! 
 
 One day I spied a beauty on the water where it had 
 been knocked from a limb by the passing batelao. In 
 reaching for it I fell into the river, and when I had 
 swum within arm's-length, it righted itself and flew 
 away. Except for one other I found on the upper 
 Orinoco, it was the most brilliant of the countless 
 host of beauties. Its body was a deep purple with 
 black and gold markings, the under wings of a light 
 or sky blue. Some handsome moths of large size 
 were also in evidence. One I caught had a body over 
 two inches in length, scarlet wings with deeper self 
 markings and a kind of gray colouring underneath. 
 A great resplendent darning-needle zigzagged fre- 
 quently among the butterflies, and always when the 
 sun shone, and for as long as it shone, there sounded 
 the metallic singing of a cicada, which shrieked un- 
 ceasingly, like an axle revolving a thousand times a 
 minute and screeching for oil. 
 
 The temperature, by- the- way, ranged from 88 
 to 96 in the coolest spot I could place my ther- 
 mometer on the batelao of bright days, and 110 to 
 120 in the sun. Under clouded skies the mercury 
 stood at 90 in the day, and, at night, about 80. 
 It is noteworthy, too, that at this registry a penetrat- 
 ing chill in the air before dawn made a very light
 
 42 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 blanket comfortable, in addition to light flannel 
 pajamas. Inland the mercury rarely fell below 85 
 during the night, and frequently remained at 88 or 
 even 90. On such nights the insects held high 
 carnival and every member of the South American 
 insect world is a militant member. 
 
 While nothing like so plentiful on the black, vege- 
 table-stained rivers as on the yellowish or white ones, 
 the insects which frequent the Rio Negro appear 
 to be a choice stinging lot, even though they are in 
 truth indifferent workmen by comparison with those 
 of the upper Orinoco and the Casiquiare. The 
 demon of the Negro is a busy gnat of several sizes 
 called " pium." Unlike the wasp of swift attack, 
 the pium comes without warning and to remain. You 
 may kill it, but your trouble is brewing none the less 
 in the tiny blood dot marking the scene of its feast. 
 Of insect visitations, however, the ants were perhaps 
 the most troublesome. With and without wings, 
 harmless and vicious, ashore and afloat they came 
 upon us in active myriads. On occasion the batelao 
 and the toldo, inside and out, would be so literally 
 covered that we had to tie up and all hands clear 
 and clean ship. 
 
 We made long days, turning out before dawn at 
 six o'clock and starting with little delay, as the 
 Indians made breakfast on a " cuia " (gourd) of 
 farinha, and I on coffee straight, if it were not raining. 
 This would carry us to midday, when, some time be- 
 tween twelve and two, usually there was a let-up in the 
 rain, and we would have our one real meal of the day, 
 consisting of coffee; dried fish and rice. (Then we'd 
 travel on until dark, about six-thirty, unless the sky
 
 THE FROG CHORUS 43 
 
 was free of rain clouds, when we'd go on an hour or 
 two longer. No fire was made night or morning if it 
 rained, and we fared off farinha, which needs but a 
 little cold water to prepare it for eating. When the 
 day had been exceptionally hard or wet I generally 
 gave the men a small horn of cachaca as the native 
 rum is called to fortify their heart and warm their 
 rain soaked bodies. Likewise I found the potion most 
 persuasive in inducing to urgent effort. Indeed a 
 bit of cachaca for the man, and a little bottle of per- 
 fume for the woman will open a way where money, 
 entreaty or threats are unavailing. I always carried 
 a demijohn of this rum among my stores, and found 
 it, together with a plentiful supply of tobacco, of 
 inestimable service in trading. 
 
 When the sun shone the glare from the reflecting 
 black river was blinding. On clear nights the stars 
 were mirrored in the Negro as in a Claude Lorraine 
 glass. 
 
 Thus from bush to tree, from rock to root, pull- 
 ing, hauling, poling, most of the time in the rain, we 
 worked our way from point to point, from island 
 to island. Usually we tied up for the night along 
 the bank, where the insects love to dwell and the 
 anvil chorus of the frogs swells its loudest ; but when 
 we could we camped on a point of rocks or sand, 
 to secure some relief from the pests. Often we en- 
 countered stretches of rocks and rapids extending 
 entirely across the river, where our only way of ad- 
 vancing beyond such obstruction was by hauling from 
 boulder to boulder, sometimes thus crossing to the 
 opposite bank and back again in the same arduous, 
 time-consuming manner. It was slow work, and it
 
 44 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 was hard work, and once we nearly ended our river 
 journey in the midst of such a crossing. 
 
 We had been all day toiling through this going, 
 under continuous rain, and had come finally, long 
 after dark, to a forty or fifty foot squarish rock-and- 
 sand island in the middle of the river where it made 
 a sharp bend and sped away for a mile or more over 
 a boulder-filled bed. Here, on the down-stream side, 
 we dragged the uba onto a diminutive sand beach and 
 tied the batelao alongside, probably not over five 
 miles from where we had started at daylight. It was 
 a picturesque camp; the stars shone brilliantly after 
 a day of storm and clouds, and on all sides loomed 
 the dark, unbroken line of forest. The crew had 
 spent the early part of the evening seated ashore 
 around a feeble fire of driftwood making coffee and 
 jabbering, smoking and laughing, while a cloud of 
 insects, revealed intermittently by the flickering 
 flame, played round them as a halo. Early they had 
 subsided, however worn by the day's work. I could 
 hear their sonorous breathing as I lay on the odorifer- 
 ous pirarucu aboard the batelao watching the South- 
 ern Cross slowly right itself. Once in a while a shoot- 
 ing-star, of which I saw many night by night, dropped 
 into the far horizon, while on either side of us the 
 water swirled and chirruped and danced past in the 
 vigorous gladness of a rising and broken river. 
 
 Alternately straining on its painter and bumping 
 against the rock to which it was fastened, the batelao 
 was scarcely a slumber cradle, so I needed no awaken- 
 ing when a violent bang brought me up standing; 
 and the next instant I was trying to check the loosed 
 bow which was swinging down-stream. But the only
 
 A RUNAWAY BOAT 45 
 
 pole on board was a push-pole, of no service for hook- 
 ing and holding, and by the time I rushed astern I 
 could not touch bottom though I could easily have 
 jumped ashore. Meanwhile the boat was going out 
 and swinging rapidly to the current, which, luckily 
 indeed, was so swift and strong that it had turned 
 the bow quite around by the time I reached the tiller 
 and set up a hurricane yelling to arouse the Indians, 
 who were sleeping comfortably, unaware of my 
 hurried, not to say disturbing, departure from our 
 island camp. 
 
 To my first startled look down-stream it appeared 
 a river of boulders, and as we sped lurchingly toward 
 them, I was almost overwhelmed at the thought of 
 the momentous task confronting me. Was my care- 
 fully planned trip to end in this wreck? Of course 
 a swamped boat in that torrent meant lost provisions, 
 and lost provisions meant a retreat to Manaos, and 
 abandonment of the project for that year at all events. 
 The bare suggestion of such a disastrous possibility 
 was certain to demoralize or to steady with nerves of 
 steel; fortunately it steadied. My first impulse was 
 to work shoreward, but after I felt the strength of 
 the river, which hurled the boat onward like a chip, 
 I prayed only that I might steer safely and keep 
 thought of the dire consequences of failure from 
 putting me in a blue funk. 
 
 Meanwhile the batelao was tearing along, swaying 
 from side to side as I put up or jammed down the 
 tiller to overcome its tendency to slide off the course. 
 Twice we narrowly escaped being flung on big bould- 
 ers where the water swirled at their base, and several 
 times the scraping of the bottom raised my hair the
 
 46 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 while we careened and plunged in the half-light which 
 conjured shapes fantastic and awesome and confus- 
 ing to my straining, dreading eyes. At last I could 
 hear the beat of paddles, and a joy wave lifted me as 
 I realized the Indians were overtaking us, and my 
 course nearly run with success. On the rrtoment 
 of the thought came the harsh warning of a scraping 
 bow which I heeded by putting the tiller hard over- 
 followed instantly by a sudden stop and a swerve 
 which sent me over the side into the water, to be 
 swept away before I scarce could comprehend what 
 had happened. 
 
 That current was too strong for me to breast, 
 but before it carried me down I was thankful to 
 see the batelao held fast, and that the uba and the 
 Indians were near-by. Sweeping me along without 
 ceremony, the river demanded my best efforts to keep 
 it from battering me against the rocks, and no 
 small struggle ensued before I finally pulled myself 
 out on a slippery boulder in mid-stream, quite a mile 
 below the boat, which itself was two miles from camp. 
 Here the Indians found me at daylight. 
 
 By noon we floated the batelao, which providen- 
 tially had run upon a flat, sloping rock, and by the 
 close of day had recovered the lost ground and were 
 again tied up, this time on the other side of the rock- 
 island whence I had begun my exciting flight the 
 night before. 
 
 Why had we broken loose? Oh, Yeggo had 
 fastened the boat with a piassava tie-rope, of which 
 two of its four strands were severed! Thereafter I 
 never turned in without giving the moorings personal 
 inspection.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 VOYAGING OVERLAND 
 
 Travel was growing more difficult. In gaining 
 half of the forty-five feet which marks the extremes 
 between low water in December and high water in 
 June, the river had so strengthened its already stout 
 current that we could scarcely make one mile the 
 hour, while the contributary streams coming in from 
 the north flung themselves upon us with added force 
 and pace, as we laboriously hauled and paddled 
 across their mouths. But if the rapidly rising Negro 
 was making more arduous our progress with the 
 batelao, it was also lending success to my inland canoe 
 trips by increasing the number and volume of the 
 " igarapees "* and generously overflowing the con- 
 tiguous land, so as to afford me opportunity of pen- 
 etrating farther and farther into the jungle. 
 
 To really see the marvellous fecundity and intri- 
 cacy of its vegetable life, one must pass behind the 
 half-concealing drop curtain nature hangs along the 
 river bank. Of such opportunity I took full advan- 
 tage. Sometimes through a passage not over six feet 
 wide, opening directly off the swirling, noisy river, I 
 passed through the dense overhanging growth at the 
 bank into submerged woodland where reigned the 
 oppressive silence of primeval forest; now a little 
 river, after many windings and cross canals, led 
 finally to a lagoon whose shores teemed with bird life ; 
 yet again the igarapee widened and narrowed and 
 
 * A canal in Brazil ; same as cano in Venezuela. 
 
 47
 
 48 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 widened once more, twisting through forest and 
 campo to end far inland in pond or perhaps continue 
 on to another, or even two or three such expansions 
 before running its length. And all the while, whether 
 the road was narrow or wide, or across lagoon or 
 along igarapee, it led through a wonderland,* where 
 the flora amazed, and the small reptilia scurried hither 
 and yon as I journeyed on however silently. 
 
 On the second morning following my night ad- 
 venture with the batelao among the rocks, we came 
 to where the Negro opened into a large bay full 
 five miles from its top to the south bank of the river. 
 By noon we had worked around to the upper end, 
 where I discovered a cove-like neck leading inland 
 through an all but closed passage, so mysterious with 
 its veil of bush and swinging vines and pendent black 
 fibre swaying to the wind from the tree branches, 
 that it piqued my curiosity, and I determined upon 
 exploring its hidden road. 'Taking Yeggo, whom 
 with his bothersome hat the patron had delegated to 
 the service of my inland wanderings because he was 
 easiest spared from the crew, I headed into the little 
 canal, which appeared to end in a wall of bramble. 
 Nor did reality belie appearance, for here the stream 
 narrowed and led into a tangle of bush so resistant, 
 so tenacious, that at times we were put to actually 
 cutting our way through. After a short space, how- 
 ever, we came out upon an igarapee clear of obstruc- 
 tion, but of no great width, although it sent off 
 another stream of equal size at right angles, which, 
 no doubt, finally emerged upon the Negro above 
 where we had left it a not uncommon habit. I have 
 seen an igarapee divide itself three times between the
 
 EXPLORING AN INLAND CANAL 49 
 
 lagoon whence it started and the river into which it 
 emptied apparently with no diminution of its volume 
 in any branch. I have noted branches where no 
 apparent connection existed between river and 
 lagoon, or where was no lagoon at all! The ways 
 of the Brazilian igarapee, like those of the cano, its 
 Spanish counterpart, are devious, indeed, and passeth 
 the understanding of the mere traveller along their 
 sluggish course. 
 
 The igarapee upon which we emerged held an 
 unchanging, howbeit a crooked, northerly direction, 
 widening at times to as much as fifty feet, again 
 narrowing so we could hardly have placed the canoe 
 athwart the stream between its densely covered banks. 
 When we had traversed a couple of miles, it opened 
 into a tree-enclosed lagoon which in turn spread out 
 so that we soon found ourselves travelling as if 
 through inundated forest. 
 
 And now perforce we went slowly, for there was 
 neither bank nor channel to guide us, through lanes 
 of great-girthed monarchs. Here piercing the loop of 
 hanging vines; there dodging the entangling meshes 
 of some upstanding wide-spreading thorn-bearer; 
 now listening to the subdued music of the batrachian 
 host, anon gazing hungrily at some brilliant orchid 
 perched temptingly out of reach just above us. Thus, 
 slowly, quietly, we passed on and on, until we 
 appeared to be in the very heart of an ancient and 
 submerged wood. Then I moored the canoe at the 
 side of a buttressed giant and sat feasting my eyes. 
 
 Until you attain to some familiarity. witK such 
 a scene, the vista is one maze of trailing, looping, 
 suspended things, with the actual tree trunks loom-
 
 50 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ing vaguely amid the festooning vines and the en- 
 cumbering parasites. Even with a clearing vision 
 you find it well nigh impossible to single out indi- 
 viduals at any distance through the curtain of myriad 
 pendants which in places hang like one of those 
 Japanese bamboo door screens, dropping* from 
 some high limb, and all the size or less of a lead 
 pencil. On one tree I counted twenty-three such, 
 hanging from forty to sixty feet without other attach- 
 ment, straight to the ground. In other places, they 
 were fewer in number and as much as three inches 
 in diameter where they fell from the limb to fasten 
 themselves to the ground very much after the manner 
 of the famous banyan tree of India. Other trees 
 again, sent from their lower limbs veritable multi- 
 tudes of these pendants, which hung only part of the 
 way to the ground and were so small as to look like 
 great, coarse hair. 
 
 Yet the parasitic growths are even more bewilder- 
 ing, and one, which for want of a better name I will 
 call the hanging garden, is beautiful beyond any- 
 thing I ever saw in jungle anywhere. Varying from 
 one to two, or even three feet in diameter, these cling 
 midway of the straight tree trunk, sometimes on 
 one side, sometimes embracing two sides, a collec- 
 tion of moss and mould and ferns, glorified by 
 brilliant single-coloured flowers occasionally by an 
 orchid, which perhaps may have been at once their nu- 
 cleus and inspiration. A crude description is this of 
 one of nature's wildest and loveliest bouquets, which, 
 fixed midair in the gloom of the forest, are like radiant 
 gems nestling in dishevelled, dark hair, and must be 
 seen to be appreciated.
 
 THE MARVELLOUS PARASITES 51 
 
 Of single expressions of marvellous parasitic orna- 
 ments, the number is legion, but I shall mention only 
 one or two, for it is a subject to which I can do scant 
 justice, and I fear to bore with detail rather than to 
 interest. One queer growth is about the size and ap- 
 pearance of a pineapple top; so nearly like it, you 
 have difficulty at first in persuading yourself it has 
 riot been fixed to the tree by some jocular aviator. It 
 grows usually in the crotch of the limb where the 
 latter joins the trunk, yet often it is found on the 
 middle of the limb, sometimes in pairs, suggesting 
 potted plants. There were trees, indeed, which bore 
 these parasites on all main top limbs, giving a queer 
 and not unattractive effect. 
 
 An even stranger growth was a four by six inch 
 roundish leaf at the end of a clean, long stem, which 
 attached itself without favour or regularity here and 
 there to the limbs, swaying in the air like a feather at 
 the end of a pliant vine that had been hurled into place 
 by some tropic Robin Hood. Another form some- 
 what on the same order bore a pond lily kind of leaf at 
 the end of a shortish stem, which adhered to the tree 
 with neither frequency nor order. Other trees, un- 
 hampered by such abnormal growths, bore in several 
 instances the loveliest burden of yellow flowers 
 stretching canopy-like over a part of their top. One 
 marvelled at the vitality of trees which could sustain 
 such a drain, and incidentally I observed that smooth- 
 barked light-coloured trunks appeared to outnumber 
 the darker, rougher ones. 
 
 On every side were the patent evidences of lavish 
 nature. From the stump of a six-inch tree broken off 
 :iear its top had sprung a three-foot shoot bearing
 
 52 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 leaves. Once I picked up a nut with a one foot grow- 
 ing twig attached, which had sprung up out of it 
 while it lay on the ground! Again I saw a blue- 
 flower-bearing vine, which reaching from the ground 
 had caught and entwined a pendant full fifty feet in 
 the air making of this column of blue blossoms 
 against the deep green back-ground a very lovely 
 spectacle. 
 
 Only in Malaya, have I seen such luxuriance 
 and not there anything to compare with the hanging 
 gardens. On the other hand, the fern growth of the 
 Malayan and Siamese jungle, gigantic in spread and 
 reach and marvellous in design, has no equal in South 
 America. Nor, in the South, is there the colouring of 
 the Far East, or the ever recurring bamboo with its 
 picturesquely disordered top, or the leeches which 
 beset the wilderness traveller at every step. I am 
 referring to the interior not to the jungle edge, which 
 always contains more life and is more colourful. The 
 Malayan jungles appear less encompassed by vast 
 stretches of primeval forest, which no doubt accounts 
 for their advantage in colour. The dismal solitudes 
 of the South American forests are avoided by both 
 the sunlight which gives colour, and the life that 
 makes exploration interesting rather than depressing. 
 
 We spent an entire morning paddling in this way 
 overland through the forest, in which was entertain- 
 ment in plenty to keep us a day or more had I not 
 wished to push on and find a place where we might 
 land. So for an hour or two farther we went along, 
 working out to the edge of the submerged woodland, 
 until we came again to the igarapee. After a bit this 
 led us in turn to a lagoon apparently having no outlet
 
 BIRDS OF THE LAGOON 53 
 
 other than that through which we had come, until, 
 on the far side close by a huge tree with three great 
 buttress flanges standing out half a dozen feet at 
 base, we found an opening into a stream about twenty 
 feet wide. This carried us through a second piece 
 of inundated forest before bringing us to another 
 lagoon, where, because the surroundings appeared 
 like terra firma, I decided to disembark for a more 
 extended survey. 
 
 A great flapping of wings and a raising of bird 
 voices, mostly displeasing, greeted our landing. 
 Somehow I never could overcome my wonderment 
 that in a land where there is so much to please the 
 eye, there should be so little agreeable to the ear. 
 It continues always strangely incongruous to me that 
 these tropical birds, so brilliantly painted, should for 
 such a majority have notes so unmusical. The rasp- 
 ing toucan, the screaming parrot tribe, the croaking 
 herons, the bugling crane clan, the shrill complaints 
 of the stilt-legged family what an unlovely chorus 
 they make! And since practically all the noises at 
 the edge of the forest are made by birds, the ear 
 
 / 
 
 grows aweary longing for the note of a mocker, cat- 
 bird, bob-o-link, meadow-lark, wood-thrush or veery, 
 those sweet singers of our own blessed land. 
 
 One bird voice I heard on this trip relieved the 
 monotony even though it lacked melody. A dark 
 bird, having the body of a big duck and legs like a 
 heron, a long, supple, black neck, and a short beak, 
 stalked the side of the swamp one evening, now and 
 again plunging its bill into the pools which had settled 
 at the base of small trees. Without other provoca- 
 tion for all I could see than the prompting of a wind-
 
 54 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 filled body, it would at intervals inflate this long, 
 black neck until it appeared to be on the verge of 
 bursting then opening its bill a little squeak 
 came forth, so tremulous, so surprisingly weak, 
 as to be absurdly inadequate. Considering the.size of 
 the bird and the labour of production, one had a right 
 to expect at least a squawk. I never saw it but the 
 once. 
 
 On one side of the lagoon appeared a kind of 
 campo, but on the other sides were a swamp and 
 palms, and behind stretched the dark forest. Skirt- 
 ing it we plunged into the swamp to reach the timber, 
 carrying our camp outfit easily, for it was limited 
 to dried fish, mandioca, a hammock and a cuia each. 
 This is the usual equipment where such wilderness 
 adventuring is attempted, for the way is devious and 
 trap filled, and multitudinous thorned and noosed 
 things reach forth to stay your progress, if, indeed, 
 they do not throw you full length. There is other 
 trek food more palatable, but none yielding equal sub- 
 stance for its bulk. You can easily carry enough 
 dried fish to last you ten days, and the ways of serv- 
 ing it are many. As for mandioca it is unrivalled 
 for such travel. It tastes like a bran mash, to be sure, 
 but it keeps you going, and its preparation is utterly 
 simple. When hunger assails, you have merely to 
 put a handful of the mandioca in your cuia, fill full 
 of water, drain according to taste, or according to 
 how much of drink you desire with your solid, and 
 your meal is ready. Food and drink in one, in fact. 
 
 Before we had gone one hundred feet we fell 
 into the enemies' hands. However free of such pests 
 the black water of the Negro, the exemption is not
 
 CROSSING A SWAMP 55 
 
 extended to the lagoons and swamps and igarapees 
 of the back country. We got the real thing on this 
 occasion; nearly as real as I afterwards found it on 
 the upper Orinoco, but of greatly inferior quality 
 to the breed of the Casiquiare River, where each and 
 every individual insect holds out a welcoming pro- 
 boscis. Though it took quite a long step ahead with 
 this experience, my insect education was after all but 
 in its swaddling clothes. My first line of defence 
 was a big bandanna handkerchief fastened about my 
 head and under my chin with the idea of protecting 
 my neck, but when it successfully resisted being 
 dragged off by the brush we worked through, it 
 served as a protected harbour for the bug brigade that 
 marched in at the open sides with colours flying and 
 bands playing. 
 
 Having mastered my first lesson, I tied the ban- 
 danna around my neck, put my trousers inside my 
 socks under canvas leggings, closely fastened my 
 wristbands to head off too intimate exploration 
 by the invaders, and yielded my face to the flying 
 hosts. And they made the most of the opportunity, 
 for I was fresh to this environment, and tender 
 (comparatively). On the morning following, my 
 neck and face were so swollen that I looked out 
 through a pair of slits. Yeggo's face was normal, but 
 his legs, bare to the knees, and his body, exposed 
 through the many holes of his shirt, showed the wear 
 and tear of the attack. The only joyful feature of 
 our swamp trip was the final disappearance of that 
 tantalizing hat of Yeggo's, which he wouldn't leave 
 in the canoe as I had mine. Of course, it was im- 
 possible to keep it on his head as we squirmed through
 
 56 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the thick cover, using hands as well as feet, and after 
 repeated failure he fastened it to his pack. In a 
 piece of going where we floundered through over our 
 knees in muck, a stout reed snatched the hat loose, 
 springing erect to dangle it aloft in triumph as if it 
 were the scalp lock of a vanquished foe. Yeggo was 
 too much occupied ploughing passage to be aware of 
 his loss. I saw it, however and silently breathed 
 a sigh of relief. Poor Yeggo mourned the hat for 
 days and would not be comforted even though I 
 gave him the wherewithal to equip himself with the 
 most fantastic headgear the stock of the next trader 
 he met could furnish. 
 
 On the other side of the swamp, we came to a 
 small river flowing between forested banks in the 
 direction of the Negro, although we had not passed 
 it in our inland journey. Here we camped for a 
 couple of days while I stalked the neighbourhood for 
 new sights and Yeggo spent much of his time under 
 a nearby palm, which bore in clusters a round, 
 purplish berry the size of a big cherry, having a large 
 stone covered with a pungent, pulpy flesh, that he 
 seemed to relish, although they so puckered my 
 mouth I decided them to be unripe. With its slender 
 trunk and twenty feet of height the palm resembled 
 what had been pointed out to me lower on the river 
 as the assahy, the berries of which afford a native 
 drink. 
 
 This first camp site was unhappily located in 
 the course of an ant line of march, which made its 
 appearance shortly after daylight, as we were pre- 
 paring breakfast forthwith postponed as we beat 
 a hasty retreat, gathering our modest equipment for
 
 THE TROUBLESOME ANT 57 
 
 rearrangement at a nearby spot outside the ant zone. 
 I have read, in books of tourist manufacture, that you 
 should permit the ants to continue their march across 
 you that they are " going somewhere," and " if un- 
 molested will pass on." All of which reads well to the 
 man in town also as if the authors were lacking ex- 
 perience with certain South American species of the 
 genus ant. By the time the busy and inquiring scouts 
 have finished their foraging, you are unlikely to sit 
 inert while the remainder of the army toils over 
 you, especially when they are, as I have known them 
 to be, several hours in passing. iThere are few insects, 
 indeed, in the jungles, more troublesome to the ad- 
 venturer than the ants, which are in numbers un- 
 countable from the big sauba with its dome-shaped 
 ground house, to those with houses in the trees, and 
 other winged ones, apparently homeless and con- 
 stantly on the move. Of all ants, however, the arch 
 demon is a black monster an inch or more in length, 
 which bites as hard as any wasp stings, and seems 
 to deposit a poison, for the effects of its assaults 
 stayed with me longer than those of any other insect 
 in the country, and one of the most miserably un- 
 comfortable quarter hours I ever had in the jungle 
 was an encounter with a line of these ants, which fell 
 upon me once as I slept on the Orinoco River. 
 
 Luck favoured me better in the new site we chose 
 aside from the invader's line of advance. I had wished 
 closer acquaintance with the rodents, of which there 
 are many representatives, and an entire day of 
 stealthy hunting nearby furnished me with several 
 examples, including the paca. The smaller members 
 of this large tribe have heads and bodies somewhat re-
 
 58 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 sembling those of the weasel, and the larger are 
 patterned after the woodchuck, including the largest, 
 the capybara, which in the water looks like a big 
 beaver. It is a stupid, semi-aquatic creature often 
 seen in alluvial country, is easily killed and furnishes 
 neither sport nor palatable meat. The agouti, accord- 
 ing to my taste, is the only one worth eating, and 
 frequents the dank places less than the others. I 
 have seen it oftenest, in fact, on the campos near the 
 forest, sitting up eating like a squirrel and looking 
 like a clipped-eared rabbit. 
 
 Stopping at an isolated pool to examine a fuchsia- 
 like flower which clung to a bush at the side, on my 
 way back to camp after a day of exploration, my eye, 
 always alert at such crocodile shelters, fell upon a 
 lizard, full one foot and a half long, posed on the bank 
 opposite. Instantly I " froze," returning the concen- 
 trated gaze with which I was regarded. At first sight 
 of the reptile, memory jumped me to Arizona wander- 
 ings and the Gila monster, which it resembled near 
 enough to be a foster brother, having, in fact, the same 
 dark skin as the latter, and a similar decoration of 
 light spots and lines. But for its tail, which was very 
 long, a casual glance might easily mistake it for our 
 one poisonous North American lizard. 
 
 Have you ever, in your woodland rambles, tested 
 the duration and the steadfastness of the gaze of a 
 creature which, either from fright attending upon 
 surprise, or from curiosity unfraid, has stayed its 
 flight to inspect you? How intent and how abso- 
 lutely motionless it is! This lizard when discovered 
 had its head raised at an acute and decidedly uneasy 
 angle, yet there it remained without a quiver, with-
 
 ACTIVITY OF SNAKES AND LIZARDS 59 
 
 out a breath movement ; it might have been fashioned 
 from bronze for all the sign it gave. Probably at 
 least five minutes elapsed (a heron and I once thus 
 motionlessly stared at each other for ten minutes) 
 before I slowly, as slowly as I could, began to draw 
 my gun up from the ground where it rested butt 
 down. I thought my action so slow as to be un- 
 detected, but with a flash of black the lizard had 
 darted out of sight into the jungle before I could get 
 even a hip shot. It was very likely a tegu. 
 
 The rapidity with which big lizards, even those so 
 big as the apparently clumsy iguana, and large snakes, 
 get out of view is another lesson the jungle holds for 
 most of us. I shall always remember my one and only 
 meeting with the bushmaster, that most dreaded of 
 tropical America snakes. It was in a damp, open, 
 wood growth, where I had been searching for jaguar 
 tracks, that I came upon the snake, suddenly, un- 
 expectedly. At the first swift glance I thought it, 
 because of the marking, a six foot timber rattler. 
 Realizing in the second flash of intelligence where I 
 was, I knew that the reptile must be the repulsive 
 thing which is accounted the largest and most danger- 
 ous of New World venomous snakes. And while 
 I gathered myself to fire it was gone. Had van- 
 ished as though only a foot long and no bigger than 
 my finger. If it could go from me so quickly, how 
 swift need the shooting be, I pondered (as I stood 
 staring into the brush where it had disappeared) 
 should it another time take the notion to come towards 
 me? 
 
 Before I was out of my hammock next morning, 
 Yeggo, trembling with obvious emotion, stood at my
 
 60 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 head pointing a vibrant finger towards the water. 
 
 Stealing from tree to bush, from bush to tree, for 
 about seventy yards, I discerned, on the bank in the 
 early daylight, a full grown tapir cropping the lush 
 grass by help of its prehensile lip, all unconscious of 
 our nearby presence. 'Twas the best view I ever had 
 of this seeming cross between the 'rhino and hog, an 
 ungainly animal of the jungle with pig eyes set 
 half way down to the mouth. It isn't ugly enough to 
 be picturesque, like the wart hog or the 'rhino, or the 
 spine armoured iguana of South America; it's just 
 plain stupid looking. If there is any choice between 
 them, the Brazilian is perhaps an improvement on the 
 Malayan, because its head has more modelling, greater 
 depth, and comes sharper off at the mouth, with a 
 shorter, more snout-like nose. The Malayan is 
 heavier, with longer prehensile lip and is lightish gray 
 from shoulders to rump, otherwise it is a dirty black 
 like the Brazilian. Both are extremely shy, haunting 
 the rivers, in which they spend as much time as on 
 land, and vigorous swimmers. 
 
 As I squatted watching the awkward beast, 
 Yeggo disappeared, only to return shortly and 
 proffer me the rifle which I had left, having no 
 thought to kill so unsporting a creature. As I gave 
 no indication of shooting after accepting the gun 
 from his hands, my Indian factotum entered upon 
 an energetic and appealing sign talk with such earn- 
 estness that a hand struck the brush and away went 
 the tapir. Yeggo was the most disgusted Indian 
 I ever beheld. For a few hours the loss of the tapir 
 overshadowed even the loss of his hat, and neither 
 agouti nor a rail-like bird with which our larder was
 
 DISAPPOINTMENTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY 61 
 
 supplied, kept him from sorrowing throughout our 
 morning meal. The Indians hereabouts appear to 
 greatly fancy the meat, and every tapir killed is 
 signal for feasting, which, quite Indian-like, usually 
 continues until the animal is devoured. Sometimes 
 where luck favours the hunter so that more than one 
 tapir is secured, the meat is smoked to cure it for 
 keeping, but as a rule the flesh is roasted and eaten 
 forthwith, for one tapir at a time is regarded as a 
 find. When killed in the water it is said the tapir 
 sinks like the 'hippo, to rise after an hour or two, 
 but I can give no first hand information on the sub- 
 ject, those I killed both in Malaya and South America 
 being on land at the moment of shooting. 
 
 Setting our faces toward the Negro, we spent 
 that night near the swamp we had crossed two days 
 before, and I killed a bat with a body within a shade 
 of seven inches in length. Of small bats, there were, 
 in fact, almost as many as of the ever chorusing frogs. 
 Heavens, what throats those South American frogs 
 must have ! All night long the clamour continues with- 
 out ceasing and without rivalry. No birds call at 
 night, except occasionally a heron may croak dis- 
 mally. Even fireflies, I was surprised to note, keep 
 themselves under cover, though perhaps they await 
 the dry season. 
 
 Regaining our canoe at the lagoon, I spent 
 another couple of hours with the birds in a vain 
 attempt in the drizzle and lowering clouds to get 
 some photographs; but every exposure proved a 
 blank. To be unable to utilize photographically such 
 opportunities was disappointing to say the least, es- 
 pecially at this place, where the variety of birds
 
 62 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 seemed unusual to me wading, swimming, arboreal 
 all within calling distance of one another! 
 
 Going back to the river, we kept closely to the 
 igarapee, moving swiftly along with the overhanging 
 foliage reflected but vaguely under the leaden sky. 
 At the submerged forest I yielded to the temptation 
 to linger amid its strange beauty and manifold rep- 
 tilian life. To hear a sudden plunk here, or an un- 
 expected splash there, according to the size of the 
 startled creature, or to detect a pair of bright eyes 
 furtively sentineling you is not without its thrills in 
 this shadowed loneliness. 
 
 Here we saw, too, the only snake of this trip, a 
 richly coloured water boa of nine and a half feet, 
 whose head I shattered with buckshot as it lay partly 
 coiled on the low limb of a tree. Such waters are 
 infested with these boas, which may grow to eighteen 
 or twenty feet, it is said (a trader once showed me a 
 skin twenty-seven feet long), but this was the only 
 one recorded in my notebook on the Negro, or on the 
 number of inland trips therefrom. In fact, the 
 motive of this identical inland trip was to see the " big 
 snakes," which everyone, including my batelao men, 
 told me I should encounter. Incidentally I may say, 
 I have seen more snakes (rattlesnakes) in north- 
 western Texas or southeastern New Mexico during 
 a single trip than ever I saw in all my tropical 
 travels in South America and the Far East com- 
 bined. Let me add that on land this boa is the con- 
 strictor, feeding mostly on the peccaries and the 
 various rat tribe, and does not reach such length as 
 its aquatic relative, the anaconda. 
 
 Winding our way through the forest, we again
 
 THE FREAK MATA MATA TURTLE 63 
 
 emerged upon the igarapee, with its contractions and 
 expansions, pushing along with only an occasional 
 brief stop to inspect some strange plant or creature 
 which may have caught my eye. 
 
 At one such time, when I had stopped to closely 
 survey a six-inch tree twisted like a corkscrew, I 
 saw that strange, aquatic, well named snake-bird 
 (properly called anhinga) with its long, slim neck 
 and serpentine-like head, which feeds upon fish 
 caught under water. 
 
 Again, after we had passed the cleft-like water- 
 way through the forest wall and had come near to 
 the river, where, as I paddled round and round an 
 unusually alluring orchid which invited to efforts of 
 capture, I spied a dainty, reddish back jacana speed- 
 ing lightly across the water, over the floating plants. 
 And soon after I secured a young mata mata, 
 that freak member of the turtle family, with its snake 
 neck, ridged shell, and flat, broad head ending in 
 elongated snout between tiny eyes. Seeing the head 
 and neck alone, you'd never in a thousand years 
 guess it belonged to a turtle. These turtles are rare 
 and I congratulated myself on my find, a young one 
 about eight inches long (they grow to three feet) 
 and planned taking it to my friend Dr. Charles H. 
 Townsend, for his most popular museum of all 
 America, viz. the New York Aquarium. Sad to tell, I 
 lost it subsequently on one of my numerous upsets 
 in the uba. 
 
 In another hour we were again on the river, and 
 in half a night and a long day's paddling caught up 
 with the batelao.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 HAULING UP THE RAPIDS 
 
 Since passing several conical hills a little to the 
 west of Santa Isabel, the character of the land as 
 far as eye could see had continued flat and unchanged, 
 while along the river the trimmed hedge effect of 
 forest presented an obscure and monotonous fore- 
 ground. Approaching the Cababuri River, however, 
 coming in on the left (north) bank, a vista of other 
 conical hills looming in the south gave us cheer, for 
 we knew they marked the beginning of the Rio 
 Negro's long turn to the north near San Jose, and that 
 of the three hundred miles to San Gabriel, more than 
 two thirds had been left behind. Yet the hardest six 
 hours of the journey lay before us in crossing the half 
 mile mouth of Cababuri, augmented as it is by the 
 swift water of the rapids, or " caxoeiras," as the 
 Portuguese call them, just beyond. There were no 
 rocks on which to fasten a hauling line and no way 
 to get beyond, therefore, except by making a dash for 
 it, which we did, the uba ahead with a towing line, and 
 everyone on the batelao, including Alleo and I, pull- 
 ing to our limit on the sweeps. Even so, we were all 
 of the morning in the passage. 
 
 Before we reached the San Jose rapids, in another 
 day and a half, we had a further struggle through 
 the narrows, a five-mile stretch where the river frees 
 itself of islands to race swiftly and smoothly between 
 banks not over one mile apart. Meantime, we en- 
 countered rain, which descended with such force that 
 
 64
 
 FIRST SIGHT OF MOUNTAINS 65 
 
 it actually stung our backs, and lasted long enough to 
 cool the air very perceptibly, my notebook recording 
 82, the lowest of the voyage. 
 
 San Jose was the first sign post of the trip to 
 bear definite tidings to me of our precise whereabouts. 
 We had toiled through caxoeiras most of the days of 
 the journey, but here I knew was practically the be- 
 ginning of a stretch of sixty to seventy miles (includ- 
 ing over forty miles of cataracts, sometimes called the 
 Falls of the Rio Negro) of which the north end ter- 
 minated my journey as supercargo on the batelao. 
 
 According to the maps, apparently compiled by 
 an absent treatment process, the great bend of the 
 Rio Negro from west to north begins at the cataracts ; 
 in truth, it begins about twenty to twenty-five miles 
 to the east at San Jose, where a small rounded hill 
 on the right bank points to a short ridge as marking 
 the start of the northward swing. Here the river 
 expands suddenly so that it becomes a bay four or five 
 miles wide, and upwards of seven long, with unruffled 
 surface and greatly diminished current. A few miles 
 inland, at the head of this bay on its west side, and 
 facing down river, is seen another ridge-like eleva- 
 tion, with two peaks of seven hundred and fifteen 
 hundred to two thousand feet, respectively, each 
 crowning an end. A little to the south stands a dome- 
 shaped rock and tree-covered mount, solitary and 
 sheer, to about the same height. These constitute 
 the Sierras Curicuriari, rising as do the ones near 
 Santa Isabel and elsewhere, abruptly out of the level 
 plains. Apparently they are covered with vegetation 
 in part at least, and quite disconnected with any 
 range a geological characteristic along this river.
 
 66 
 
 Wallace, I note, estimates the higher two of these 
 peaks the isolated one and that on the east end of the 
 ridge as being three thousand feet. This appears 
 rather too high to me, although my calculation was 
 merely one of comparison with the rock peak at Cocui, 
 on the Brazilian frontier, which is known to be about 
 one thousand feet. As between the estimates of 
 that distinguished scientist and mine, there can be 
 no hesitation by the reader; I merely cite what 
 I find recorded on the ground in my notebook. 
 Abrupt rock peaks rising out of the dead level 
 country, loom large to the voyager who has been 
 passing through the flat land of the Road, and 
 perhaps I estimated too low in fear of being be- 
 trayed by the sudden (and welcome) contrast into 
 making figures too high. Still, with all due respect, 
 I should like to see that dome measured. 
 
 Some of our universities ought to send a scientific 
 expedition up the Negro and to Duida on the 
 Orinoco; there is plenty to give to the world in the 
 way of exploration and of authoritative description. 
 
 Sweeping the base of these solemn sentinels as it 
 turns, the river is headed due north by the time it 
 reaches Camanaos, twenty to twenty-five miles be- 
 yond San Jose and the real beginning of the bad 
 rapids. Picture to yourself a mill-race, sometimes 
 more, sometimes less than a mile in width, and fifty 
 miles long, sprinkled with upstanding boulders, 
 crossed by ledges of rock, and divided by occasional 
 islands, with cataracts and whirlpools and patches of 
 comparatively unbroken, though always racing 
 water. That is the Rio Negro from Camanaos to 
 Garrapana, where another group of three conical
 
 THE RIO NEGRO TURNS NORTH 
 
 67 
 
 peaks on the west bank marks the final effort of this 
 long series of cataracts before the river calms and 
 broadens to a width of three miles. 
 
 Standing on the ruins of the old Spanish fort on 
 the bluff above Forteleza, a bird's-eye view, beginning 
 at the north of this seventy miles of the Negro from 
 
 THE NARROWS 
 
 = INDICATES CATARACTS 
 
 AUTHOR'S APPROXIMATE SKETCH MAP OF THE SO-CALLED FALLS OF THE BIO NEGRO 
 
 San Jose to Camanaos, 18 to 20 miles, required 3 days ; Camanaos to San Gabriel, 25 to 
 30 miles, required 5 days ; San Gabriel to Forteleza, 9 miles, required 2 days ; Forteleza to 
 Garrapana, 11 miles, required 2 days ; 65 to 70 miles and 12 days of ajmost continuous hauling. 
 Bad rapids begin at Camanaos. A small island at San Gabriel divides the Negro into two 
 racing, seething channels. 
 
 Garrapana to San Jose, reveals a sudden narrowing 
 of the river from three miles to one mile at Garra- 
 pana, followed by an immediate expansion, which con- 
 tinues until Forteleza. Here again it shrinks to begin 
 forty miles of cataracts to Camanaos, where starts 
 the big bend to the east which ends at San Jose. At 
 the north and south ends of this flight of cataracts, a
 
 68 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 group of three conical peaks rise from the otherwise 
 unbroken land surface; and beyond these again 
 another small group all on the right bank out- 
 posts, so to say, to the flanking sentinels of this land 
 strait, which closely resembles that other famous land 
 strait in Venezuela between Maipures and Atures. 
 Though emphasized at San Gabriel and at Maipures, 
 such outcroppings are a geological characteristic of 
 this division of the flowing road from Santa Isabel 
 on the Negro to Atures on the Orinoco, where they 
 end. Dr. Hamilton Rice discovered similar rock out- 
 croppings on the upper waters of the Uaupes, dur- 
 ing his thorough and distinctly notable exploration 
 of that river. 
 
 The day following our soaking at the Cababuri 
 was a scorcher and as we stuck midstream on a rock 
 all the afternoon, the mishap afforded excellent and 
 welcome opportunity to sun our outfit in the 98 tem- 
 perature. Another day and night of toilsome prog- 
 ress brought us on the twenty-fifth of our journey to 
 San Jose, of which the only recollections lingering 
 with me are a big yellow butterfly that came aboard, 
 with blue moons at the centre edge of its wings, and 
 a hang-nest oriole (japim) plaintively calling so 
 much like a lost chick as to entirely deceive me. Three 
 days more brought us to Camanaos, with its three 
 palm-adobe houses and as many families, whom we 
 had planned to have help us around the rapids but 
 whose interest in our belongings appeared so absorb- 
 ing we scarce could get their attention long enough to 
 even make a proposal of work. We sought to buy 
 fresh fish but they had none; with a river full of fish 
 they were eating mandioca and dried fish and no bet-
 
 NATIVE STIMULANTS 69 
 
 ter off in supplies than we. In fact, they were not so 
 well off, as I found to my dismay after they had dis- 
 covered my canister of sugar; and I simply had to 
 stand guard over my demijohn of cachaca, though 
 here I was aided by my Indians, whose interest in pro- 
 tecting this and the tobacco with which I rewarded 
 their greater efforts, was not unselfish. They well 
 knew that the fewer demands on these stores the more 
 would be coming to them; and the cachaca was 
 getting low. 
 
 Ordinarily I disbelieve in stimulants on a journey 
 of sustained, tiring effort, but along this division of 
 the Road in the rainy season, the continuous soaking 
 to which the men were subjected, eating in the rain, 
 sleeping in the rain and directly on the water where 
 a morning miasma hung so thick you could not see 
 fifty feet, not to mention the depression following 
 upon days of wearisome struggle in sodden surround- 
 ings, under an ever recurring downpour all this, I 
 say, persuaded me to employ a small amount of the 
 native rum as a preventive against fever and a 
 counter-irritant to mental and physical conditions 
 generally. I merely regard its moderate use as 
 medicinal and protective. 
 
 Every people of the wilderness or the near 
 wilderness have their fermented drinks, rather 
 raw stuff, which in South America may be brewed 
 from bananas, palm-nuts, pineapples, even from 
 mandioca. Of such class is cachaca. Whether it is 
 efficacious as a fever safeguard I cannot declare. I 
 can only say my crews made better time and seemed 
 in better condition than other canoes of Indians we 
 met ; but there is no doubt whatever of its inspirative
 
 70 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 service and of its use as a persuader to endeavour. 
 Many a time we should have stuck or lost hours but 
 for the hope of that small horn of rum promised at 
 the close of a hard, long day. And when cachaca 
 failed of its persuasive powers, there remained 
 tobacco better than money and in barter coveted 
 beyond all else except sugar, which is so scarce as to be 
 a luxury eagerly sought and seldom secured. 
 
 It is reckoned twenty-five to thirty miles from 
 Camanaos to San .Gabriel, and we were five days 
 covering the distance, from three in the morning until 
 long after night. Most of the hours of those days 
 it rained, and on two nights thunder and lightning 
 visited us with vivid flashes and thunderous crashes 
 which boomed and reverberated and roared and 
 cracked until my ears rang. You must experience 
 a tropical storm at its full to realize what an up- 
 roar thunder can make when it is real earnest. 
 
 At Camanaos and all the other major rapids 
 throughout this much broken course, everything had 
 to be taken out of the batelao and packed along shore 
 on our backs, while the boat was dragged up and 
 through the cataracts and over and around the rocks, 
 until the worst was passed. Then we loaded up, 
 hauled another short piece, encountered more cata- 
 racts, partly unloaded, again dragged the batelao 
 across the rock dikes, and once more went on our way, 
 to shortly repeat the laborious performance. Such 
 was the manner of our progress during those five 
 days. Perhaps for brief spaces in some, clear, little 
 bay we could work along the bank with the poles ; for 
 still shorter distances, maybe a stretch of back water 
 or " remanse " enabled us to use the oars; but quickly 
 there would come again the swift water, the projecting
 
 WORKING THROUGH THE ROCKS 71 
 
 boulders and the cataracts with another period of 
 heavy surging on the rope by all hands. 
 
 Sometimes we came to a series of great, bare 
 rock islands divided by narrow streams of boiling 
 water, and impossible of passage because of the 
 menacing, jagged tops. Here hauling on the cable 
 fastened ahead by the uba crew, we worked our slow 
 way from rock island to rock island until we passed 
 outside the last obstruction, sometimes considerably 
 beyond midstream; then by the same process we 
 worked along the up-river side of the barriers back to 
 the north bank again. It was excessively arduous, 
 slow and hazardous progression, for as we worked out 
 the rapid water swung us around, often tearing us 
 loose from our grip and hurling us back against the 
 rocks. At such times every device of locomotion was 
 employed. One-half the crew hauled on the cable, 
 part of the other half used the poles with the numer- 
 ous rocks for purchase, and, where the water shoaled, 
 the rest jumped out to push and heave. 
 
 Frequently we advanced by hauling along the 
 rocks under the bank. Sometimes the men tracked 
 the batelao through the swirling water, scrambling 
 from rock to rock, but most often we moved onward 
 hauling from one boulder to another by the cable. 
 Stretched on the deck, every man of us with feet 
 braced against the gunwale, we pulled at a given 
 signal pulled pulled the rope being securely fas- 
 tened as it came in literally inch by inch. That was 
 the process. At times we hung straining for minutes, 
 our advance scarcely perceptible to the eye; and at 
 times, indeed, we lost ground by the slipping of the 
 rope. Round some of the difficult rapids we tracked 
 with a line at bow and stern.
 
 72 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Too frequently the batelao got away from us. 
 On the second day the piassava three-inch cable broke 
 and the boat set off on a mad career, soon checked, 
 however, by jamming among the rocks and seething 
 water with a smashed tiller. Often, while being 
 carried ahead, the submerged cable became entangled 
 on the bottom among the rocks, and on such 
 occasions it was most interesting to watch the 
 diving and under water work of the Indians while 
 they attempted to free it. All these Rio Negro 
 Indians appear to be equally at home in the water as 
 on land, but one of my crew, with a negro cast of 
 countenance, was well nigh amphibious. He would 
 remain under for two minutes at a stretch, working 
 to loose the cable and long after the others had come 
 to the surface for air. 
 
 From the half information I gained through a 
 limited communication with my men, I had fancied 
 San Gabriel the end of our troubles, but when we 
 finally arrived, I found them only a little more than 
 half over, as we still had another three days getting 
 the batelao over the major cataracts Cocui and the 
 Forteleza at the other end of the neck of land upon 
 which San Gabriel is situated; three days of almost 
 unbroken rope-hauling, with intervals of heavy rains 
 and a blistering sun that sent the mercury up to 100 
 in the shade. Even with the cargo out, it took all day 
 to get the batelao around Cocui. But what a feast 
 those Indians had when the boat at last rested beyond 
 the Forteleza, after the twelve days' toil from San 
 Jose! And as the disembarked cargo lay upon the 
 rocks, the rain gave that dried pirarucu another sous- 
 ing, to add to its already well developed odour |
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ANCIENT SAN GABRIEL AND ITS 
 FOREST DESERT 
 
 The children of a cheerful fancy are the inspira- 
 tion of a long trail ; often too they lead to a disillusion 
 which appears tragic enough at the moment of 
 unveiling, but actually adds an enlivening element to 
 adventuring in the great, silent places. Until you 
 cross the frontier to pass beyond the area of support- 
 ing columns and cached supplies, your progress 
 towards the border land is very apt to be a series 
 of scrambles from post to post of outfit. You leave 
 one to struggle on to the next, which forthwith be- 
 comes a goal of plenty and of ease to beckon weary 
 muscles and soothe rebellious stomachs. You may 
 know full well that the creature comforts in the offing 
 comprise nothing more luxurious than a crudely con- 
 structed bedstead or an armchair of clumsy, home- 
 make perhaps, yet day by day as you cut down the 
 intervening distance, the true traveller sense of you 
 optimistically pictures those homely furnishings till 
 they become things of artistic modelling and volupt- 
 uous ease; while the anticipated dish of baked beans 
 stands unrivalled this side of Boston. Viewed from the 
 lower end of a swift running river the least settlement 
 above transforms to metropolitan completeness; the 
 lowliest interior into all the comforts of home. 
 
 Ah those rose-tinted visional camps of to-morrow, 
 how they lighten the journey! 
 
 From my first day aboard the crawling batelao, 
 
 7?
 
 74 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 always San Gabriel had loomed splendid and inviting 
 upon the mental horizon as a harbour where rest and 
 bounty awaited us after a month's up-river toil. In 
 reality we found it a port of destitution, unequalled 
 for sheer physical beauty elsewhere on the Rio Negro, 
 but with scarce enough in the larder to sustain life 
 among its handful of hopeless denizens. Except 
 from Corcovado, the three thousand foot mountain 
 guard of Rio Janeiro, I have had few more entrancing 
 views, indeed, than from atop the ruined walls of 
 the old fort here, now crumbling beyond repair on 
 a knoll which for miles commands the river both 
 ways. To the west, the rapids whirl and roar directly 
 below you; on your right and left at the north and 
 south ends, respectively, of the maddened water, rise 
 those isolated conical peaks to which I have made 
 repeated reference; beyond and on every side, ex- 
 tending as far as eye can reach, runs the dark line 
 of the forest, unbroken, unrelieved, appalling in its 
 immensity and gloom. 
 
 Should San Gabriel, in progressive ages to come, 
 ever develop into a city, the great foundation blocks 
 of that relic of a long forgotten life, which was both 
 enterprising and sanguinary, will be displaced for the 
 cornerstone of a world famous hotel. 
 
 One hundred and fifty years ago, San Gabriel 
 (founded in 1753) was filled with consequence and 
 bustle as became the most important rally and trade 
 station on Portugal's New World frontier ; to-day, it 
 has only the tradition of its past and twelve more or 
 less ramshackle houses, of which but three were 
 occupied at the time of my sojourn. On the ground 
 next highest to that covered by the decaying fort,
 
 THE MOUNTAIN SENTINELS OX THE BIG BAY 
 
 MY PERSONAL CAMP ALONGSIDE THE RAPIDS AT SAN GABRIEL
 
 A MONGREL TYPE 75 
 
 stands the church. Its walls for the greater part are 
 bare of mortar covering; the once ornate mural 
 decoration is almost obliterated, and outside on a 
 nearby scaffold, four bells of varied size show years 
 of neglect in their grime. A path over great, flat, 
 sunken boulders bearing rough hewn steps, leads to 
 the houses far below; and alongside, tottering posts 
 tilting a carved iron lantern arm, indicate where once 
 were artistic sense and a lighted way. 
 
 But its light has quite gone out now, and with it, 
 alas, seem also to have departed, ambition, even 
 common industry from the desolate stragglers! 
 When hunger presses they catch fish; the remainder 
 of their time is passed in the hammock, where they 
 sway and smoke and gossip. Nor is this propensity 
 peculiar to San Gabriel; in truth, it is fairly repre- 
 sentative of native disposition on most of the Rio 
 Negro. 
 
 (The posts which thrived in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries when the Portuguese and Span- 
 iards traded actively, have all but passed away along 
 the flowing road in Brazil and Venezuela. The 
 Indians have receded farther and farther from the 
 highway, and in their place we find the mixture of 
 Portuguese and Indian, Portuguese and Negro, 
 Indian and Negro a mongrel, who is active neither 
 to the advantage of his fellows nor the development 
 of the country. He raises practically nothing; not 
 even mandioca, his staff of life, except here and 
 there ; scarcely any fruit, and strangest of all, only an 
 occasional cocoanut, that manna of tropical lands 
 which here would of course flourish widely. Even the 
 country tobacco, of which all smoke much in cigarette
 
 76 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 form rolled in the inner bark of a kind of birch tree 
 is grown sparsely. Wherever industrial conscience 
 awakens, rubber is the incentive; for the rest, life is 
 literally a from hand to mouth existence endured 
 without shame and closed prematurely. 
 
 All over the world to kick another man's dog is 
 to invite a fight with its owner. Not so with the 
 Rio Negro degenerate he merely laughs; you may 
 kick his dog as much as you please if you are that 
 odious kind of human brute. 
 
 My heart sank as the impoverishment of San 
 .Gabriel and the nature of its derelict householders 
 unfolded before me; for the chances of securing an 
 uba and a crew for the pursuit of my journey were 
 anything but encouraging. As soon as it became 
 known the stranger had cachaca the male contents 
 of the three houses so promptly gathered about where 
 I camped in the open on the rocks, I was led to think 
 for a moment that perhaps, after all, my task would 
 not be so difficult. But I was soon undeceived; their 
 interest lay in the rum, as they evinced speedily. 
 
 Now the truth is that I had had trouble all along 
 to save my cachaca from the Indians; not that I be- 
 grudged them the small cheer they might derive from 
 it, but simply because my supply was limited, while 
 the journey was long, and I wanted its stimulating in- 
 fluence distributed throughout the route rather than 
 used up as a joy-maker for one section. Hitherto, 
 my difficulties had been confined largely to my own 
 crew; here with all my belongings brought from the 
 batelao and perching in full view on the rocks, I had 
 to withstand local importunities as well as those of 
 my erstwhile boatmen now grown almost insolent in
 
 QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP 77 
 
 their demands. It really became quite a serious little 
 situation for a period ; and as well for the continuance 
 of my leadership as for the advance of my expedition 
 a showdown was necessary and made that there might 
 be no doubt of my determination to protect my pro- 
 visions and dispense my favours as I choose. 
 
 Nothing is so fatal to success in wilderness ad- 
 venturing as loss of mastership. The traveller who 
 permits himself to be " bamboozled " or his outfit 
 rifled, loses hold upon his men and lays the founda- 
 tion for future trouble of a continuous and increasing 
 character. Whether he be hunting or exploring or 
 border-land travelling, the lone white man must 
 maintain unquestioning native belief in his author- 
 ity and fairness; for the latter attribute is equally 
 essential. It means there will be occasions when 
 he must act promptly, sometimes severely though 
 never cruelly, of course. He must punish theft 
 without delay; he must checkmate underhand ma- 
 noeuvres ; he must tolerate no familiarity that suggests 
 equality. He must, in a word, be the boss, a just boss 
 whose reward is as swift as his punishment. And un- 
 less he is so qualified, the adventurer will be wise to 
 turn round and beat a safe retreat while he may. 
 Once control is lost, riot results and a solitary man in 
 such a plight in the wilderness has about as much 
 chance as a snowball in that place of traditional heat 
 and untimely repentance. 
 
 Having decided I was not to be " bulldozed " 
 my visitors sulked in groups around me, but after 
 a time I warmed them up a bit with a little sugar, 
 and when eventually a more friendly atmosphere had 
 been established, sought to interest them in my trip.
 
 78 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 No volunteers were forthcoming, however, until I 
 announced that a small horn of cachaca every night, 
 as long as it lasted, went with the job, in addition 
 to a reward of tobacco at the end of the journey 
 for those that merited it. On this basis eight men 
 offered their services, but none of them had*a canoe, 
 nor would any of the others trade me an uba for 
 the liberal portions of rice or pirarucu I was willing 
 to give. 
 
 With the labour field at hand exhausted, the 
 necessity of extending my search became manifest, 
 and incidentally developed a rather perplexing situa- 
 tion. I could not of course leave my belongings 
 unguarded while I went looking for a canoe, as thus 
 to forsake them, meant not to find them on my re- 
 turn; and squatting over my stuff on the rock was 
 not likely to get me very far on my journey. So 
 I made the outfit into packs and sallied forth on my 
 mission laden like unto an itinerant street peddler 
 of Rio. On my back were the remaining rice and 
 dried fish; over one shoulder balanced the sugar and 
 coffee canisters and the cachaca demijohn, while from 
 the other hung camera and the two water-proof 
 canvas bags in which I carried tobacco and note- 
 books ; in hand, of course, was my rifle. I must have 
 made an amusing figure of a peripatetic recruiting 
 sergeant, as it were. At any rate I found what I 
 sought under an open shed-like rain shelter, in shape 
 of a forlorn round faced little man, who said he knew 
 where, up-river, he could get me an uba, but it would 
 take three to five days to fetch it, meanwhile, I could 
 make the inland excursion I planned. And so it was 
 arranged.
 
 Unless you had seen the demonstration however, 
 you would not believe that one's departure after 
 so brief an acquaintance could arouse such deep 
 emotion as surged under that crude shelter in the 
 next hour while I endeavoured to engage two other 
 men for my inland trip extra men being necessary 
 to carry the demijohn and other unneeded things 
 which I felt I could not leave in safety at San 
 Gabriel. The fervid assurances, reiterated and in- 
 dorsed over and again by the assembled company, 
 of the safe-guarding of my effects, including the 
 cachaca, during my absence, would have moved a 
 wooden Buddha to compliance. I'm ashamed to have 
 been so obdurate, but being a firm disciple of the 
 ounce of prevention doctrine, I finally secured two 
 boys to go along. Incidentally I had to keep an eye 
 on the demijohn boy all the days we spent in the 
 forest; his popularity with the others of the party 
 was instant and alarming. After all, I'm not so 
 sure that the bother attendant upon carrying cachaca 
 does not very nearly counter-balance the magic of 
 its presence in opening ways and providing means 
 of travel! However, we at last got started for the 
 forest, each of us carrying a pack swung on fore- 
 head or shoulder bands, the Indians making their 
 harness of vines and tough, pliable inner bark. 
 
 How awesome is the deep equatorial forest in its 
 immensity, and how disappointing! It is not at all 
 the picture of your untutored imagination brilliant 
 in flaming foliage and gay with the chatter of wild 
 life. On the contrary, it is sombre and forbidding 
 and silent. Here is no frog chorus, or hum of insect, 
 or hoarse croaking bird; even the harassing voice
 
 80 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 of the parrot is stilled. 'Tis a vast desert where you 
 may not venture without compass, for neither land- 
 marks nor the stars attend you; there is only the 
 canopy of the trees above and the tangle of under- 
 growth below and around. Where indeed is there 
 a desert to equal the forest desert! But the trees 
 are wonderfully impressive with their huge, smooth 
 trunks from four to six feet in diameter, limbless 
 for forty to sixty feet. Some are supported by 
 buttresses which stand out at their base three or four 
 feet, like great flanges, and all share their burden 
 of the marvellous parasitic life which may express 
 itself in flower-like decorations, or in festooning, en- 
 twining, pendent vines, innumerable in quantity, and 
 of every character and many dimensions. 
 
 Of course there is life in the deep forest, plenty 
 of it, but it is sly and noiseless, in keeping with the 
 huge solitude it calls home. You find here the many 
 varieties of rodent family; the sly tapir; the clumsy 
 appearing but surprisingly active ant-eater; a wild 
 dog a greyish coyote-like animal with a dog tail of 
 which I shot one; several of the cats, though they 
 (including jaguar head of the family) keep closer 
 to the jungle edges or near the breaks in the forest 
 where birds and streams and peccaries are more fre- 
 quent and the hunting is better and the quarry an 
 improvement on the rodents. 
 
 At such an opening where we camped one night 
 after five days in the forest, I heard a curious drumming 
 or booming, not at all unlike that made by the grouse, 
 only of much less volume, and Gregorio, my best 
 man, whom I signalled inquiringly, stalked it with 
 me. From behind a bush I had a plain view of a
 
 A BOOMING GROUSE-LIKE BIRD 81 
 
 dark bird about the size of a pheasant, standing some 
 fifty feet away, booming without opening its bill or 
 moving its wings. On its neck appeared loose skin, 
 which might have played a part in the booming, though 
 I could not see any inflation as the bird strutted in life. 
 We found it good eating. Gregorio, by the way, took 
 more interest in the wild life and had more knowl- 
 edge of it than any of the Indians I met on the 
 river. Another of the travellers' surprises being the 
 small knowledge these people appear to have of 
 the life to which they live so near. He was a queer 
 chap, Gregorio, but cheerful, and often indulged in 
 song. One night at a camp we made at base of a 
 beautiful stem-fluted fern, he broke out in one which 
 for intoning and rhythm sounded oriental. Out of 
 sight you would have sworn a Japanese had suddenly 
 turned up in the woods and was rejoicing thereat. 
 
 We had some dry hours, but not many, for the 
 reputation of San Gabriel as being the rainiest section 
 on the Negro was fully sustained. In these hours of 
 relief most of our bird killing was done, and among 
 others brought down, was one brown about the size 
 of a grouse, with red on its head, and tiny white 
 spots on its wings. In temper it resembled our 
 northern " fool hen " grouse, usually making a short, 
 low flight to roost in full view. None of the hand- 
 some, metallic trogans common to this neighbourhood 
 crossed our path, and only one recluse toucan did 
 we spy, which was not surprising. Indeed, we con- 
 sidered ourselves very lucky in seeing as many. The 
 often published, full catalogues of beasts and birds 
 which the casual traveller* seems to have seen simply 
 in passing along, usually in launch or canoe, are
 
 82 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 always a source of envious wonderment to me. I 
 have had no such good fortune, and yet have counted 
 myself rather lucky in seeing so much of wild life. 
 One must be lucky indeed, or the wild life teeming to 
 see many of the varieties merely in passing. My less 
 spectacular and evidently less profitable method has 
 been to sit quietly waiting, hour after hour, for what 
 chanced to come, moving from section to section in my 
 observation. 
 
 Returning to the river we had a small adventure 
 with a herd of peccaries, which have more courage 
 to the square inch than all the cat family combined; 
 and Gregorio was well scratched getting one of the 
 smaller of the ant-eaters * out of a tree to which it 
 clung by its sharp curving claws. In fact, our menu 
 on this trip was varied and excellent, for in addition 
 to the birds, not to mention pigs and rats, we came 
 across several berry bearing palms, one particularly 
 good-looking specimen carrying an apricot-like 
 yellowish fruit in great bunches, which Gregorio 
 said tasted like banana, but which we did not stop 
 to gather, being on the last leg of our return rain 
 soaked and leg weary. 
 
 * Not including tail, this ant-eater is approximately one 
 and a half to two feet in length which is about half that 
 of the great ant-eater. It is also yellowish with black lateral 
 band, and arboreal, whereas the large species is greyish and 
 black, and frequents swampy ground.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 BY UBA TO THE FRONTIER 
 
 My round face little man proved to be as good 
 as his word, and the promised uba lay high on the 
 bank two days before our return on April 16. The 
 question of crew remained unanswered, however. 
 When I left for the forest, seven men, including a 
 patron, had agreed to accompany me, but when after 
 another day or so of dilly-dallying I decided to start, 
 two were all I could muster in addition to Gregorio, 
 which gave us a total of four paddles, including mine 
 rather few for the strength of current and the 
 length of canoe we had to drive against it. 
 
 Though we left at Forteleza the last of the bad 
 rapids, yet for several days we encountered cataracts 
 formidable enough to necessitate emptying the canoe 
 in passage. Nor was it the rough water which gave 
 the greatest tussle, but the smooth, strong flow above 
 just before it broke upon the rocks. Always the water 
 was swift. Every bend, every clump of projecting 
 trees, every up- standing or jutting rock, of which 
 there were many, set up its whirlpool to increase our 
 task in a river that already was speeding at the rate 
 of seven miles the hour. At places we'd haul the 
 uba unsteadily among a sea of rocks; again drag it 
 bodily over ledges of bare granite; at night it would 
 pound against the smooth boulder we invariably chose 
 for rest, if we were so fortunate as to find one, because 
 of the comparative immunity afforded from insects. 
 
 From the Garrapana rapids (the uppermost of 
 
 83
 
 84 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the long series which ends at Camanaos) throughout 
 the thirteen days it took us to cover the about four 
 hundred miles to Pimichin at the southern gateway 
 to fabled El Dorado, with changes of fresh men 
 at the two trading posts (San Marcellinos and 
 San Carlos), we travelled hard from before day- 
 light to long after dark, at times until midnight. 
 This was partly during the moon's last quarter and 
 the scene at three in the morning when we started 
 was one of weird beauty which always fascinated 
 me; the soft half-light with its shifting outlines, 
 the nodding limbs in the current, the dark 
 bays with their lurking shadows, the looming points 
 with their fantastic images, the swaying canoe as 
 we put on steam to round a bend of swift water. I 
 fear I did not do my share with the paddle under 
 the magic influence of the " madrugar," as the 
 Indians call this hour. The first streaks of dawn 
 came about five, and in half an hour the sun was up, 
 if it was coming at all that day. Often, however, a 
 heavy mist hung over the trees, hiding everything 
 from view beyond a hundred yards, and then the 
 day opened slowly, silently, seemingly sullen and 
 ashamed. Its close was no less unlovely. As the 
 very short dusk set in the bats took up their faltering 
 flight, the clanging frog chorus tuned up, and a blue 
 haze like the sluggard smoke of a campfire, settled 
 below the tree tops. 
 
 Few birds showed along this division of the road, 
 although wherever the forest opened, especially be- 
 hind the boulder camps, they announced themselves 
 noisily, as if to prove that opportunity, rather than
 
 INFREQUENT, SHIFTING MEAL HOURS 85 
 
 life was lacking. None-the-less my note-book records 
 always a scarcity of birds at or near rapids. 
 
 Except at the mouth of the Uaupes or Caiary, as 
 it is variously called which Alfred Wallace first 
 ascended in 1851 and Dr. Hamilton Rice descended 
 from its source in 1909, thus adding much to our 
 knowledge of this strange region we tarried little by 
 the wayside even for food, making no pretence to have 
 more than one cooked meal during the twenty-four 
 hours and that at noon. At night, when we tied up 
 it would be to a boulder where wood was lacking, or, if 
 there happened to be wood, also there was rain. In 
 the morning we made no fire for the same reason. The 
 " noon " meal was eaten any hour between ten in the 
 morning and three in the afternoon, according to how 
 the rain came, or more correctly speaking, according to 
 when it stopped and where we found ourselves. The 
 distance we made was a long way short the ratio of 
 work, but after the crawling batelao, the uba was a 
 Twentieth Century Limited. 
 
 Following the bends added tremendously to the 
 distance we travelled, but eased the paddling, which 
 was hard in the extreme. Gregorio spoke truly when 
 he tried to comfort me in my disappointment at 
 Forteleza, by saying the crew was capable, even 
 though small. They kept steadily at the exacting 
 work without a murmur, unless I except Miguel, the 
 patron, who was constantly mumbling, and relieving 
 himself now and again of yawns so prodigious it 
 seemed they must rack his system to its keelson. 
 You'd think he was about to yield the ghost, but it 
 was only his day habit, which by night took form of 
 loud and repeated groaning as he slept soundly. He
 
 86 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 was willing enough, but not a good steersman, and 
 several times got us into trouble, from which he should 
 have kept clear. 
 
 The pride of the canoe was Ato, a Venezuelan 
 Indian of negro blood, who towered over the other 
 members of the crew, although he probably dfd not 
 exceed five feet ten inches in height. His eyes were 
 closely set, his teeth file pointed, he had a pronounced 
 negro nose and the white-spot scars of the country 
 skin disease covered his hands, feet and legs. The 
 chief article of his costume was a sleeveless tunic, held 
 at the waist by a very fanciful bead and leather belt; 
 but his pride was a much bedecorated brown plush 
 sombrero, for which he said he had given a month's 
 hard work. He was no Adonis, but had a powerful 
 stroke and set a good pace. 
 
 There is none of the poetic, silent stealth of 
 novelists and tradition in the South American 
 Indian's up-stream paddling. The ordinary stroke, 
 to which a pronounced beat is given by striking the 
 gunwale with the paddle handle just before taking 
 water with the blade, is about thirty to the minute, 
 though I have Counted eighty and over in brief spurts 
 to get beyond swirling cataract water. The most 
 serviceable stroke on a long stretch is really 
 two strokes, a short easy one, followed by a hard 
 longer one, the first keeping way on the canoe. 
 This stroke the crew will maintain at about thirty 
 to the minute, increasing or decreasing at command 
 of the bowman, who raises his paddle as a preliminary 
 to speeding, and at the end of the spurt throws the 
 water high in the air from his blade as signal to slow 
 down. During the hitting up, the uba rocks
 
 THE ENDURING UBA 87 
 
 like a row boat in a cross sea, and the water on the 
 keel sloshes over everything within reach. Oftentimes 
 after such a spurt all the crew take up the bowman's 
 signal in a playful spirit of rivalry as to who can throw 
 the most water highest. This is great fun for the 
 men, but it soaks every uncovered thing in the for- 
 ward end of the toldo. Usually a period of loafing 
 follows a burst of this kind, during which half of the 
 men eat and banter the others who keep the uba 
 headed up. It always amused me mildly to see Ato 
 set Miguel's ration of mandioca afloat in a cuia which 
 the current carried back to the expectant patron at 
 the stern. Once an eddy deflecting its course, Miguel 
 went overboard after it, partly wrecking the toldo 
 and very nearly upsetting the canoe among some 
 rocks, where it rammed and jammed until it seemed 
 as if it must be split from stem to stern. 
 
 No craft but a very heavy dugout like the uba 
 could endure such usage, and ours being typical of 
 the river, is entitled to description. It was thirty 
 feet long on a two foot and a half beam at its widest, 
 with both ends tapering slowly. The floor grating 
 is made of inch wide lengths of split bamboo laid 
 about an inch apart lengthwise on cross pieces six 
 inches or so above the keel, which always carries 
 about three inches of water, bailed out periodically 
 when it exceeds that depth. At the floor the uba 
 was two feet wide with six inches from floor to gun- 
 wale inside, and two or three inches outside freeboard 
 according to loading all of which conveys an idea of 
 how ill-equipped we were for rough going. 
 
 The toldo is a barrel-shaped house made by lash- 
 ing, over hoops of cane, a kind of native matting
 
 88 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 which when new sheds rain that does not continue too 
 long. They are set up in the stern end and vary in 
 size. Mine was eight feet long, about two feet 
 and a half high from the canoe floor at the entrance, 
 and a foot lower at the back. Of this I occupied 
 about four feet, the remainder being taken up by 
 the mandioca and other supplies, directly in front 
 of which my personal outfit was arranged as much 
 as possible to provide something for me to lie back 
 against. It is impossible to sit upright, even in 
 the front end, so mostly you must recline with drawn 
 knees. When you can no longer endure several 
 varieties of this cramped position you stretch forth 
 your bare feet into the burning sun or the rain, as 
 the case may be. 
 
 Even as I write, so long after, I am amused at 
 recollection of the inside of my toldo, and perhaps 
 it may interest you. Needless to say, in such quarters, 
 what one uses daily should be at hand ; and there must 
 be no butter fingers, for anything like a pencil, match- 
 box, pipe, knife, slipping from your grasp goes 
 into the water on the keel, which in addition to 
 penalizing careless fingers, is a harbor for insects. 
 Articles must be stowed intelligently and in the 
 smallest possible compass, for you can not be moving 
 round much in a cranky boat having less than three 
 inches of freeboard. Of course you are barefooted, 
 as you have frequently to go overboard and help the 
 canoe among the rocks ; also because you cannot move 
 about in the uba with shoes. You need all the care 
 and ease of motion you can command; no sudden 
 movements over that crank keel. Inside the toldo you 
 navigate on hands and knees ; outside it is the work of
 
 THE NATIVE DUGOUT CANOES OF THE RIO NEGRO 
 
 THE UBA IN WHICH I JOURNEYED 
 
 THE ANCIENT PORT OF SAN GABRIEL
 
 THE RESTRICTED TOLDO 89 
 
 a gymnast. To those who have grown prideful of 
 toilet making triumphs in the sleeping-car upper 
 berth, I recommend, as an entertaining experience, 
 dressing inside a toldo of this size. 
 
 Whatever you require must be within reach. 
 Midway up the toldo, inside under the hoops support- 
 ing the matting, was the favourite repository of the 
 men for their tobacco, and bark cigarette papers. 
 And here also I kept my towel, shoes and socks 
 (which I wore only when we stopped as protection 
 against the insects) and soap and comb, each on a 
 string. Field glasses and gun were lashed along the 
 top; at my left were belt, with knife and revolver, 
 watch, thermometer, aneroid all tied to the toldo 
 ribs. At my right, on the floor was the camera case, 
 a small gripsack and the water-proof canvas bag 
 containing films and note-books, which I kept 
 always where I could grab them to safety with- 
 out delay when the canoe careened. At the left 
 on the floor were my Preston kit, comprising canteen, 
 fry pan, cup, fork, spoon and tooth brush, and a 
 cuia in which I kept pipe, tobacco in immediate 
 use, and matches. All these hanging things were 
 fastened so as not to swing before my eyes, other- 
 wise when the canoe rocked I should have had the 
 D. T's. Directly back of my head were other water- 
 proof canvas bags containing emergency medicines, 
 reserve tobacco and matches; and near the centre, 
 overhead, were the invaluable filter and the collapsible 
 canvas bucket. 
 
 What a junk shop it appeared! Lying on my 
 back surveying this motley array, only the three 
 balls seemed missing to complete the picture. I used
 
 90 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 a single blanket folded lengthwise between water- 
 proof canvas, all rolled up during the day, both for 
 cleanliness and convenience. When it rained I pulled 
 up the canvas, spread a poncho over the camera at 
 the side and baggage behind, and sat like a brooding 
 hen trying to keep things dry. It was a constant and 
 ineffectual struggle. Most of the storms drove down- 
 river and protection against the rain was next to im- 
 possible; we were literally soaked for by far the 
 greater portion of the time. 
 
 Among the diversions afforded by the toldo was 
 the catching of large spiders, which appeared to 
 flourish despite my daily assault. I wondered where 
 they came from in such abundance, and concluded 
 they must be swept aboard from the over-hanging 
 trees of the banks; yet I never actually saw the in- 
 vasion, as very well I might, since the biggest I killed 
 covered a space about the size of my palm, and was 
 by no means shy, indeed, he undertook to dispute 
 possession of the toldo with me. 
 
 'Twas not a joyful place, that toldo, with its heat 
 and smells, and I used it only at night, and not 
 then, if the men were sleeping ashore. 
 
 There were many islands in this stretch of the 
 river, though of smaller area than those seen 
 below San Gabriel, and once in a while we passed 
 an open place on the bank that made an agreeable 
 break in the otherwise unchanging dark sky line. On 
 one memorable day, too, we came to a collection of 
 four Indian shacks, which seemed as an oasis in a 
 forest desert, but proved so in appearance only, for 
 the Indians had nothing in the food line to trade, 
 having come to the river to fish. Throughout this
 
 THE HELPFUL REMANSE 91 
 
 section the scattered Indians live in small companies 
 and almost invariably on or very close to the rivers, 
 because these latter offer opportunities for occasional 
 employment, and yield them fish, turtles, and water- 
 fowl. The great woodland wildernesses are not food 
 producers, and there is almost no overland travel; 
 the Indians following the windings of the rivers in 
 their process of establishing temporary or permanent 
 settlement, as well as in search for food. 
 
 In this particular part of the river we found 
 other attractions also, frequently coming to a "re- 
 manse " as it is called a helpful phenomenon which 
 reverses the current for a short distance close in to the 
 bank. I have seen some queer remanse freaks. Once 
 I remember a double-barrelled example: i.e. a re- 
 manse flowing up-stream on both sides the main 
 current which was readily distinguished by quantities 
 of white spume on its surface. Invariably, when we 
 encountered such a life-saving station, the Indians 
 stopped paddling and fell to eating, and though my 
 anxiety to get forward made any delay harassing 
 to a distressful degree, I never interfered with their 
 habit. You must not expect to make over the people 
 you encounter in the borderland. They have their 
 established manner of doing things and you must 
 have the patience to fall in with it, and the spirit and 
 experience to seek out the best of things as they 
 happen, and make it serve you, otherwise you fret 
 yourself to incapability and get nowhere. 
 
 Our habit of pushing on another hour or two 
 when conditions happened to warrant adding to our 
 day's mileage, often led us to some rather poor camps. 
 The night we should have spent on the high, dry
 
 92 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ground of the abandoned old fort San Felipe, for 
 instance, we camped some distance beyond on the 
 edge of a swamp-like campo, where the piums nearly 
 devoured us, but where, by way of recompense, I 
 climbed to the view of a very beautifully coloured 
 orchid relative. 
 
 Another experience I had a night or two 
 later was equally diverting. Fifty yards from 
 where we landed we discovered three travelling 
 Indians bivouacked, and made coffee to lend a festal 
 air to the occasion, my crew appearing to enjoy 
 hugely the meeting and its flow of gossip, which 
 lasted late. After we had retired I heard voices, 
 obviously lowered and expectant. Turning out I dis- 
 covered Ato to be the only one at hand, and the demi- 
 john missing. Quietly stealing towards the talking 
 I found Miguel and Leea and the three Indians sit- 
 ting around a small fire, chattering in subdued tones ; 
 gesturing, laughing, evidently warming up for the 
 anticipated good time. Approaching just as Leea 
 was passing a cuia I seized and emptied it of the 
 cachaca, and then taking the demijohn, ordered my 
 men back to camp. The Indians moved as though 
 to regain possession of the precious demijohn, but 
 covering them with my revolver, I herded Leea and 
 Miguel sulkily away, when backing into the dark, I 
 sought a new camping spot for myself and the demi- 
 john, quite apart from the others. To this, by way 
 of safeguarding against vengeful impulse, I fetched 
 also all the paddles of my uba. Soon a very heavy 
 storm broke upon us, which no doubt cooled feverish 
 tendencies, for when I roused my crew before dawn 
 the revellers went to their work without hesitation.
 
 A GENTLEMAN TRADER 93 
 
 They said nothing, nor did I. I did not see the other 
 Indians, but thereafter I slept near the demijohn. 
 
 The next afternoon in crossing from one side to 
 the other of the river, as some boulder rilled, rapid 
 water obliged us to do, and paddling our fastest, we 
 struck a rock which Miguel should have avoided. 
 The uba keeled over, half filling, and we all went 
 overboard of course, but escaped with nothing worse 
 than a thorough wetting and the loss of some pirarucu 
 and tobacco. The day following (the fifth since leav- 
 ing Forteleza) we got a three o'clock start, and at 
 nine at night came to San Marcellinos. 
 
 Reaching San Marcellinos was like getting money 
 from home. Not that it was any wonder town, con- 
 sisting as it did of just one house; but because of 
 its hospitality and gentle courtesy, for that one house 
 was the home of Miguel Pecil, a trader with an eye to 
 business, but the manners of a gentleman. He took 
 me in, administering to my physical needs, and what 
 was of more consequence undertook to facilitate my 
 journey to San Carlos, where he prophesied I should 
 be able to replenish my depleted provisions and with- 
 out difficulty secure canoe and men for the trip across 
 the isthmus of Javita on to San Fernando de 
 Atabapo, where I hoped to outfit for a venture into 
 the upper Orinoco and the unknown region beyond 
 Esmeralda. How little he knew San Carlos as I was 
 destined to find it! How little indeed these widely 
 separated settlements seem to know of one another! 
 Like tiny oases ' in the desert of uncompromising 
 forest, each must be, and is, independent of the other; 
 there is no intercourse and no communication except 
 that brought by the occasional trading boat.
 
 94 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 In addition to letting me have a few supplies in 
 trade, Pecil helped me to get three new men, one to 
 replace Leea, who had been stricken with fever, so 
 that we were able to get away in the afternoon of the 
 day after our arrival. Together with the steersman 
 I had now a crew of five, which, including *mine, 
 meant five paddles, so we set out to make a record run 
 to San Carlos, after first exchanging the uba for a 
 canoe with board topsides called montaria, of less 
 length but more breadth. 
 
 To doctor one of my men who had been 
 stricken, we made an early first camp at Marabitanas, 
 another abandoned fort on a most attractive site, 
 which offers a fine view of the Cababuri, or Imeri 
 Sierras, the long row of hills to the northeast, bearing 
 isolated conical peaks. When we started on again 
 we were minus one paddle, though later I picked up 
 a stray Indian as we neared the Brazilian frontier. 
 One hundred years ago this was a locality of much 
 activity, but we saw only two deserted houses 
 upon an open twelve foot bank (high for the Negro) 
 in a cleared space of perhaps an acre, bitten out of 
 the surrounding forest, a shattered flagstaff, a rot- 
 ting lamp post leaning towards the setting sun across 
 the river, and a rusted cannon of ancient make lying 
 unmounted on the ground. Back to the northeast, 
 rising solitary and majestic, is the Piedra de Cocui, 
 a conical solid rock monument perhaps one thousand 
 feet high, the only elevation above the forest level 
 immediately on the river to be seen between here 
 and Forteleza. Not a living creature appeared in 
 sight as we paused to view the border line dividing
 
 THE INDIAN FISH TRAP 95 
 
 Brazil and Venezuela, save a large white crane, which 
 flapped lazily away. 
 
 We had the good fortune above here to overtake 
 an Indian who was visiting his " cakouri," as the fish 
 trap is locally called, and we forthwith entered upon 
 a trade with him. These traps are common to the 
 river and are built in the shape of a triangle of slats 
 of palm and set near, if not on, a point. Securing 
 the fish after they are in the trap is by the very simple 
 process of dropping into the triangle from on top 
 and hand catching them. And since the water is 
 clear, it was entirely possible for me to stand on the 
 top an interested spectator of the manoeuvering man 
 and fish. By such traps and by shooting with arrows 
 from small canoes in which they sneak along the 
 river bank, the Indians get practically all their fish; 
 and I was much more impressed by their waterman- 
 ship than by their marksmanship. 
 
 We got three fish from the Indian, who went off 
 happy with tobacco and a small horn of cachaca, and 
 made our noon meal on the spot ; I celebrated further 
 with a bath and fresh clothes, which, together with 
 the treat of fresh fish, made me feel quite civilized 
 again. The truth is, the meal became a gorge, as 
 such feasts are apt to be on a long and ill-provisioned 
 trail; and when we started, the pace was sluggish. 
 There is nothing like an empty stomach to spur one 
 to endeavour. I've always remembered and usually 
 acted upon what an old Hudson Bay Company factor 
 told me at .Great Slave Lake. He said that when he 
 wished his voyagers to make good time, he gave them 
 full rations for only three-quarters of the distance, 
 which meant they must keep at top speed to have
 
 96 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the rations last out the full distance. The fact is, 
 in my wilderness travel, I never found I need give 
 myself much concern over rationing too liberally, 
 and certainly along the flowing road the traveller 
 who lives off the country (as he must much of the 
 time) need have no fear of faring too sumptuously. 
 
 We made rather poor time for the balance of the 
 day after the noon debauch, and a storm of unusual 
 severity, but of wondrous beauty, came near to 
 putting us out of business at one crossing of rapid 
 water where the wind had lashed the current to a fury. 
 I never shall forget the lightning curious with its 
 vivid flashes, rather than of the usual forked variety. 
 It was as though a great illuminating flame suddenly 
 flared up out of the blackness, and though it aided our 
 progress, the thunder, which seemed to shake the 
 very canoe, made the crew rather miserable. We 
 kept at work, however, and when we finally tied up 
 in the downpour I reckoned we were not over a good 
 twelve hours paddling from San Carlos, which I ex- 
 pected to reach the next night. 
 
 But the flowing road is full of surprises that sadly 
 interrupt schedules. Starting at two in the morning, 
 we were swinging at a great rate just as day dawned, 
 when a half covered rock we ran onto as we were 
 steaming around a bend, turned the canoe partly over. 
 We were speedily driven back by the current into the 
 bushes, some of us swimming, the others holding the 
 canoe, which, after partial bailing, we took farther 
 along to a rocky point where we unpacked and bailed 
 it thoroughly. It was surprising we did not at this 
 and other upsets lose more things ; the explanation of 
 which is that they couldn't escape from the low set
 
 THE COST OF UPSETTING 97 
 
 toldo, the provisions at the back preventing the water 
 having a clear sweep through. Nor did the wetting 
 appear much to affect the mandioca; at least we ate 
 it. What I regretted most of my losses on the Negro 
 was that of the mata-mata turtle so rarely to be seen 
 in captivity. 
 
 We lost two hours on account of the mishap, 
 and before we started again the men must needs 
 eat a while, but when I got off I kept them going 
 until midnight, and early the next morning the long 
 sought San Carlos loomed on the bank ahead of us.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE DIVIDE OF THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 When you have pictured a Mecca, it's not easy 
 to be reconciled to a Gehenna. And as I looked upon 
 the bedraggled settlement we had now come to, I 
 could scarce believe it to be the San Carlos towards 
 which my eyes for so long had been directed. Stand- 
 ing on a clear, comparatively high bank, the settle- 
 ment had appeared quite imposing from the river, 
 but after we landed, it developed into a woebegone 
 collection of houses squatting dejectedly around a 
 large flagstaff bearing plaza, grass grown, and 
 equally neglected. 
 
 Here, in 1801, Alexander von Humboldt, the 
 great German explorer, terminated his journey from 
 the north, and fifty years later, the famous English 
 naturalist, Alfred Wallace, passed through on the 
 way to Javita, his most northerly point. Both write 
 of San Carlos (which by the way is from four to 
 five hundred feet elevation above sea level) as Ven- 
 ezuela's chief frontier post, having much trade and 
 a large amount of self-esteem. But, in common with 
 all the old posts on the upper Rio Negro, its glory 
 and its trade have vanished, and it looked, at the 
 time of my visit, as though self-respect also was 
 going rapidly. In the days of its prosperity it sup- 
 ported upwards of two hundred inhabitants ; I found 
 it with not more than fifty, I should say at a rough 
 guess, who were actually in residence. 
 
 The Commandante, to whom I carried Peril's 
 letter, received me politely, but on learning my desire 
 
 98
 
 THE TOWN OF " NADA " 99 
 
 for supplies, a canoe, and men, he exclaimed with 
 increasing emphasis and shrugging shoulders, " Nada 
 Senor, nada, nada " (nothing). And I feared he 
 hadn't exaggerated local conditions when I looked 
 around the room of his home in which we held our 
 conference, and over the dozen or so of men that 
 crowded upon us, raising a babel of suggestion. It 
 was a scene eloquent with the story of San Carlos 
 decadence. The whitewashed walls of the adobe were 
 entirely without ornament and badly in need of fresh- 
 ening; the floor was bare and worn, while the entire 
 furniture comprised a table, and three chairs which 
 had seen better days. On one of these I sat with 
 extreme care and some uncertainty of equilibrium, and 
 between the Commandante and me, on the third one, 
 perched a cavernous-mouthed individual who ap- 
 peared to regard himself as the interlocutor of the 
 occasion. When I did not at once comprehend what 
 the Commandante said in his too rapid speech, this 
 creature, peering anxiously into my face for the dawn 
 of understanding, and missing it, would forthwith 
 render his own version at the top of his loud voice, to 
 my distress, as though deafness were my trouble, 
 rather than faltering Spanish. 
 
 Every one in the room took his cue from 
 the Commandante; was, in a word, polite and dis- 
 couraging. They were unanimously of the opinion 
 that neither men nor a canoe could be engaged, and 
 as for provisions, they had not enough for themselves, 
 they said, but would sell me a few small (five cent) 
 boxes of matches at the equivalent of fifty cents the 
 box. If I would be patient, perhaps " poco-poco " 
 (little by little) I should be able to pick up a crew, 
 and maybe a canoe. Meantime, they assured me, in
 
 100 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the meaningless form of the country, that the town 
 and all therein was at my disposition. Now, indeed, 
 did I begin to fully appreciate, by comparison, the 
 considerate helpfulness of Miguel Pecil el caballero 
 del alto Rio Negro. 
 
 " Poco-poco " was no new expression to me; it 
 had become a familiar of my South American ad- 
 ventures, though the situation here did in truth seem 
 more than usually hopeless. When, however, you 
 have reached a divisional milestone in your journey, 
 marking the final stretch, you're not likely to give 
 up until you come to the last ditch; and I did not 
 consider I had yet reached that boundary. 
 
 Taking advantage of the Commandante's prof- 
 fered hospitality (the howling gentleman having 
 locked his house and gone away after urging the 
 " poor honour " of its liberty upon me, with truly 
 simulated Venezuelan humility) I moved my belong- 
 ings into an adjoining empty room and, locking it, 
 went forth to replace my crew, which, following the 
 custom of the river (of every borderland river in 
 fact) , would go no farther. Indians will engage to go 
 only to a locality or into a region known to them. 
 Rarely can you induce them to venture beyond. 
 
 All that day, and far into the night, I searched 
 unceasingly for a canoe, the inhabitants viewing my 
 anxious diligence with apathetic and undisguised 
 amusement. They'd all listen politely, then shrug 
 their shoulders as they repeated the dread word 
 " nada " ; others leaned against the door scratching 
 and mute. Everyone appeared to be scratching, 
 though the mosquitoes seemed to be not so vicious as 
 to warrant such industry. If you meet a copperish-
 
 WISDOM OF EARLY STARTING 101 
 
 complexioned gentleman, one hand scratching his 
 posterior, the other working feverishly over the 
 upper body under the shirt, set him down from San 
 Carlos by the Casiquiare, upon whose official seal 
 should be a man couchant scratching, on a forest back- 
 ground, with bugs rampant. 
 
 At last, in the early afternoon of the second 
 day, I secured a montaria; and it was the identical 
 canoe I had uncovered at the very outset of my quest, 
 only to be positively informed by the Commandante 
 that it could not be hired! By four o'clock, aided 
 this time by the Commandante, I had pledged six 
 men and ordered an immediate start, much to the 
 disgust of the prospective crew and all their friends, 
 who demurred on the plea of its being so near night. 
 But I persisted, and together with cajolery and prom- 
 ise of extra presents, we pushed off in the rain 
 about an hour before dark. We camped only a little 
 way up the river, where the men got all the post 
 gossip and excitement of leaving out of their system, 
 and in the morning, before dawn, were under way 
 and going fine. Thus, that one hour of light had 
 really saved a day, as in quitting their home post 
 for such a trip, men need a night's sleep to shake 
 them down to the humdrum work of the voyage. 
 That is why, on such journeys, I invariably plan 
 and allow for a late afternoon start from a new point 
 of departure, especially if it is a settlement. In 
 that way all the lingering and otherwise delaying 
 farewells and the general dilly-dallying which pre- 
 cedes actual getting away do not matter; and in the 
 morning we are settled to business. 
 
 Now curiously, and by way of recompense for its
 
 102 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 other deficiencies, San Carlos gave me the best crew 
 I had at any time on the Negro. They were all 
 Indians or Venezuelan half-breeds, much superior to 
 the Brazilian cross, and the zip they put into their 
 paddles encouraged me to feel that we should arrive 
 at San Fernando de Atabapo before the nine days 
 habitually allotted to the trip had expired. They 
 made me hustle, I can tell you, to keep in beat with 
 the usual working stroke, and when they resorted 
 to the fancy rapid-fire stunts of the expert I joined 
 the " also ran " class. 
 
 Starting about four of this first morning we 
 camped for breakfast in less than three hours at 
 the mouth of the ill-famed Casiquiare River, half 
 a mile wide, where it discharges into the Negro, and 
 while we cooked one of the numerous curassow 
 relatives I had shot, received a generous dose of the 
 insects with which its notorious white waters are 
 plentifully supplied. 
 
 From here the Rio Negro becomes narrower, 
 showing some islands, smaller than below, and a 
 cooler atmosphere of from 85 to 90 by day and 72 
 to 76 at night, probably caused by the wind and 
 rain, which were a considerable factor hereabouts. 
 Bearing more westerly than hitherto, the river runs 
 past Maroa, where it takes a decided slant towards the 
 setting sun and finally turns almost abruptly south. 
 Somewhere between San Carlos and Maroa the Negro 
 changes its name to Guainia, increases its pace, and 
 along its sides and turns replaces with rocks, the 
 great banks of sand which we had seen below San 
 Carlos standing out of water two or three feet, and 
 extending at times a hundred yards or more. The
 
 DESPERATE PADDLING 103 
 
 Indians say fish are scarce, and certainly I saw none 
 of the traps common to the lower river. In general 
 appearance it is much like the Negro the low banks 
 being covered by the same monotonous forest hedge. 
 But its waters are deceptive. Unbroken in its middle 
 course, you do not appreciate the force of the current 
 until you attempt to cross ; then as, out of the corner 
 of your eye, you see with dismay the canoe slipping 
 steadily backward despite your desperate paddling, 
 you realize the hidden power of that smooth flowing, 
 deep, black body. 
 
 We met one canoe of four Indians, and passed 
 several deserted houses in one of which we slept, or 
 rather the crew did ; I remained in the uba, and, inci- 
 dentally, was surprised at their burning the lantern all 
 night, curled round it like dogs before a fire. We were 
 running our day's travel late into the night, starting 
 as early as two-thirty or three in the morning, and 
 encountering storm constantly, often obliged to 
 lay behind a boulder point until some particularly se- 
 vere gust had eased a bit so we might circumvent 
 safely the rocks which continued to come more and 
 more in evidence as we advanced. For one wild, beau- 
 tiful stretch the river narrows to three hundred yards 
 racing through two upstanding great rocks, which cut 
 the water into cross currents extremely difficult to 
 negotiate. And on the day following, at noon, in a 
 blinding rain storm and a breeze which brought the 
 mercury down to 84, we arrived at another post of 
 departed glory and trade, Maroa, once a thriving 
 centre of boat building, in the days when native 
 products went out by the Negro rather than by the 
 Orinoco, as most of what is left does now.
 
 104 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Where the Gnainia, locally spelled " Gauynia," 
 bends to the south, we left it and entered the 
 Pimichin, a winding little river which maintains a gen- 
 eral northerly course, averaging in width about thirty 
 to forty feet, though at times of low water narrowing 
 to twenty, and in the full of the wet season spreading 
 to seventy-five feet or more. Feeling our way slowly 
 through the storm and the dark, saved several times 
 from upsetting only by the high skill of Geronomo, 
 as I christened the patron, we came finally, near ten 
 o'clock that night, to the Puerto, the lower gate of the 
 ten mile land neck which separates two of the world's 
 greatest river basins the mighty Amazon with its 
 multiple feeders at the south, the wide draining 
 Orinoco on the north. 
 
 No one lives on the south side of the portage, but 
 we found a squaw and a young Indian camped in the 
 lee of a big boulder at the beginning of the forest trail 
 to Javita on the north end, and I tried without success 
 to induce one or the other to go over the mountain for 
 carriers, that we might have them in the morning, 
 and so get my cargo across without delay. But 
 they refused, declaring the trail " muy malo " (very 
 bad) with snakes and tigre plentiful. Then I endeav- 
 oured, and likewise failed, to persuade one of my own 
 Indians to go with me. They protested against travel 
 at night on road avowedly disreputable, which none 
 had passed over except by day. So we sat around the 
 boulder talking it out while I expressed myself as 
 plainly as I could on their faint heartedness, and 
 sought to tempt one of the lot to show me the way. 
 At last the lanky Tomaso agreeing to go, we started 
 forthwith; and soon discovered that the squaw had 
 correctly described the road as " muy malo."
 
 THE LAST RESORT 105 
 
 It was in truth as rough a ten miles as ever I cov- 
 ered on tropical trail. In the days gone when 
 Pimichin lived and the portage was a busy highway 
 the path was periodically cleared of encroaching jun- 
 gle and fallen trees by the Indians, who went in bodies, 
 because this isthmus always has had an evil reputation 
 for jaguar and especially for snakes. However ex- 
 aggerated the snake stories may be (as such stories 
 unfailingly are) , there is no lack of foundation for the 
 characterization of the road itself. It is but an indis- 
 tinct trail, which, when not obliterated by the un- 
 usually severe rain storms common to this section, 
 winds through swamp and over mountain, crossing 
 several little streams where the spanning logs that 
 once served to make fair passage have rotted until 
 they are worse than no bridge at all. 
 
 We picked our way without too much hinder- 
 ance until we had gone a third of the distance, when 
 Tomaso falling broke the lantern glass and the storm 
 made relighting an impossibility. As fast and as 
 often as Tomaso succeeded in bringing a flame to life 
 the wind killed it. In fact, he wasted so much time 
 with the lantern that I took it away; whereupon he 
 refused to go forward, saying he was afraid without 
 a light. I did my persuasive best, offering presents, 
 but could not move him until in sheer desperation I 
 assumed the role of boss, sliding my revolver holster 
 ostentatiously to the front of my belt as though to 
 back up my commands. It was a resort I did not 
 relish, I confess, but I was bound to overcome the 
 obstacles in my path, and to use the most effective 
 means at hand. Otherwise, I should still be flounder- 
 ing somewhere along the flowing road. 
 
 So we went stumblingly along through mud and
 
 106 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 water, occasionally to the waist, often to the knees, 
 and always ankle deep in the sw r ampland; climbing 
 over fallen trees or balancing ourselves along the 
 full length of wind-falls that saved us from more 
 wading ; trailing vines catching our feet and stubborn 
 undergrowth slapping our faces. In such going, the 
 recurring prophecy of snakes was not calculated to be 
 comforting; but I got consolation from the other 
 thought that, never but once in all my wilderness 
 wanderings, had I found anything so evil as painted. 
 And so it proved with the snakes. Of course we 
 " heard things " repeatedly to the fright of Tomaso 
 and my own disturbance I frankly acknowledge, but 
 at all events by a little after four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, we had arrived unscathed, if bedraggled, at 
 Javita across the " mountain " portage. 
 
 Within an hour I had ten Indians, men, women 
 and boys, on the road to the Puerto at Pimichin, 
 where they arrived at eleven. Two hours later they 
 were returning with my cargo distributed among 
 them in small packs, which they carried on their 
 heads topped by large trailing palm leaves as pro- 
 tection against alternating sun and rain, and suggest- 
 ing at a distance nothing so much in appearance as 
 the frequently seen moving column of great sauba 
 ants half concealed by their burden of leaves. 
 
 By daylight the portage revealed a large propor- 
 tion of above the average big trees, especially cedars 
 and ceibas, in the very dense forest; but the especial 
 interest to me, and the real motive of my more or 
 less sentimental journey hither, was a sight of some of 
 the fast disappearing log skids, across which for four 
 days Humboldt and his twenty-three men had drag-
 
 JAVITA, 
 
 WHICH HUMBOLDT AND WALLACE FOUND PEOPLED AND PROSPEROUS, BUT WHICH NOW 
 
 HAS BUT A FEW FAMILIES OF INDIANS WHO EKE OUT 
 
 A BARE EXISTENCE 
 
 MY CAMP ON THE NECK OF LAND DIVIDING THE ORINOCO AND THE AMAZON RIVER 
 SYSTEMS. FROM HERE WE PORTAGED TO JAVITA
 
 AN ANTIDOTE FOR SNAKE BITE 107 
 
 ged his canoe to Pimichin over one hundred years ago. 
 
 iThe trail made good its evil name on the return 
 trip, one of the carriers being struck by a four foot 
 long, white bellied brownish snake. Although I killed 
 the serpent the entire party fled terror stricken to- 
 wards Javita, now not far, carrying the fainting man 
 whose wound they dressed (and cured) with a brew of 
 some vegetable antidote, leaving me chasing the most 
 superb butterfly I saw in all South America. The 
 rain had ceased at about four in the afternoon, and 
 the sun blazed out as we drew near the more open 
 upland pass, giving us such a steaming as I have not 
 often endured. Here just ahead of me fluttered this 
 marvellously coloured insect, as large as my hand, of 
 royal purple with light blue under wings. Up and 
 down the trail, and deep into the woods on both sides, 
 careless of lurking serpents, I ran after that beautiful 
 flutterer without avail. I could get within a foot or 
 two, but always it evaded the eager reaching hand; 
 and as I pursued it, I remember I wondered how such 
 lovely life keeps dry. Where do they hide during the 
 soaking and long-continued rains? 
 
 The unkempt Indian pueblo of Javita offers 
 another illustration of the unprosperous days which 
 have fallen upon all the little settlements between San 
 Gabriel and San Fernando de Atabapo. When 
 Humboldt passed through, and again in the day of 
 Wallace (1851), it was a flourishing village support- 
 ing from one hundred and fifty to two hundred con- 
 tented souls. On this, my first visit (1906), a large 
 majority of the houses were deserted, and I doubt if 
 even a score of adults could have mustered. Hum- 
 boldt was able to restock his supplies; Wallace out-
 
 108 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 fitted here for his return trip to San Carlos ; they could 
 spare me barely enough for one meal! As I grew 
 more and more familiar with the impoverished condi- 
 tions and moribund tribes, it was hard to realize that 
 this neck of land had been a bone of vigorous conten- 
 tion between the Spaniards and the Portuguese in 
 the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Diversion of trade is largely answerable for the 
 decline of San Carlos, San Gabriel, Maroa, Javita 
 and the other impaired river ports, 'but also the 
 nomadic nature of the natives must share responsi- 
 bility for the general deterioration. Not that they are 
 hunters ; the density of the forests does not favour the 
 chase, and in truth, amid the teeming wild animal life 
 comparatively few species along the flowing road may 
 be classed as edible viz., rodents, peccaries, deer in 
 the outskirts of the woodland, and the timid tapir 
 of the interior; also the curassows. 
 
 Thus it is that the Indians turn to the rivers where 
 fish abound, and where they can the more readily clear 
 a spot for a planting of the mandioca and plantains, 
 which they abandon usually after the second year for 
 virgin soil. They make less of their natural resources 
 than almost any primitive folk I have visited. This 
 ought to be a land of plenty, for with scarcely any care 
 all the southern fruits and vegetables will grow, and 
 the rivers are full of fish; yet, throughout the about 
 three thousand miles I paddled first and last over the 
 flowing road (not counting duplications) a house- 
 hold along the way with to-morrow's dinner in the 
 larder was the exception. Fancy going hungry 
 alongside a river! 
 
 It is reckoned a voyage of three days and nights
 
 THE JOY OF DOWN STREAM CANOEING 109 
 
 from Javita down the iTemi to the Atabapo River, 
 and so on to the town of San Fernando; but we 
 made the distance between five o'clock of an after- 
 noon and ten o'clock of the morning of the second 
 day (thus taking seven days from San Carlos to 
 San Fernando) notwithstanding we had to lay to 
 for an hour or so at midnight on account of a storm 
 which all but swamped us. But it was a joyful trip 
 despite the hard work and the frequent heavy rain. 
 The country had quite changed. In place of the un- 
 broken forest line there were now occasional open 
 spots of rolling land, refreshing indeed, after long 
 travel between hedge-like banks. Even where the 
 forest reached to the river, a low bank was often vis- 
 ible, while the relieving grace of palms in close grow- 
 ing groups or scattered individuals lifted the gloom of 
 the otherwise compact foliage. In places, what 
 appeared to be mangroves covered low banks, even 
 extending out into the water quite after the inland 
 manner of Sumatran and Malayan rivers. 
 
 Once in a while we saw islands, now grown smaller 
 in size and fewer in number, having sometimes a shore 
 line of fine white sand, but more often of the boulders, 
 which also armoured most of the points I observed 
 as we sped past. Yes, " sped " is now the word, for 
 we were going down-stream the first relaxation after 
 weeks of hard, continuous struggling against a strong 
 current. Ah ! the joy of being able to rest your paddle 
 and know that the river itself is carrying you on at the 
 rate of four or five miles an hour, instead of hurling 
 its great weight against you ! Only the man who has 
 bent over a paddle day after day in the stress of up- 
 river work can appreciate the sensation of watching
 
 110 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the bank glide by and keep on gliding while you 
 indolently fill your pipe, trusting to the steersman to 
 hold the canoe in its course. Now, for the first time, 
 too, we were keeping the middle of the stream, where 
 there were no insects to torture and no tree branches to 
 rip the toldo or shower us with ants. The long bends 
 we had toiled around for two hours at a time we now 
 left behind in ten to twenty minutes. It was a veri- 
 table joy ride. 
 
 But San Fernando, where I planned to outfit for 
 an expedition to the headwaters of the Orinoco River, 
 proved to be a sad sequel. A hardluck tale is not 
 interesting to anyone but yourself, and this one 
 differs little from the rest of its class. Suffice it to 
 say my cup overflowed. The crew I managed to get 
 hold of after much manoeuvering would not take me 
 where I wished to go. I had to leave them on the 
 river shortly after starting, and finally to abandon 
 my project and make my bitterly disappointed way 
 out to that other San Fernando on the Apure. 
 
 The good Lord has done much for San Fernando 
 on the Atabapo River in the way of attractive environ- 
 ment, but man has made very little of the natural 
 endowment. Situated practically at the meeting of 
 the rivers Guaviare, Atabapo and Orinoco (seven 
 hundred miles from the sea), it is headquarters for 
 the small amount of rubber gathered on these rivers 
 and the upper Negro, as well as for the piassava 
 industry which occupies the Indians hereabouts. 
 Being the largest settlement between Ciudad Bolivar 
 on the north, and Manaos on the south, one is inclined 
 perhaps to expect too much of it. At least, I found 
 it rather insolent and crude; an uninviting assembly
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN WAY OF SETTLEMENT 111 
 
 of adobes, and either a gun or a knife on the belt of 
 many of its men. 
 
 If ever this region becomes settled, San Fernando 
 should develop into one of the most important inland 
 cities of South America. But will this section ever be 
 livable? Not for generations upon generations of 
 pioneers, in my opinion; and only in the compara- 
 tively elevated regions. The blanket of forest (a 
 standing menace) ; the difficulties of travel (in large 
 areas possible only by canoe) ; the insects (a pest be- 
 yond belief everywhere except on black waters) con- 
 vince me that no industrial impression will ever be 
 made upon this land until an army of immigrants 
 simultaneously attack a given section with provisions 
 and means sufficient to support them a few years until 
 they have overcome the jungle and attained to de- 
 pendable harvests. It's no place for the lone farmer. 
 The tropical growth encroaches too rapidly upon a 
 small clearing to allow of successful results in occa- 
 sional or individual agricultural effort. 
 
 And this is reckoning without the insect host, or 
 the fever a forbidding pair ! 
 
 I feel that the next adventurer whose response 
 to the wanderlust carries him across my tracks here, 
 will find San Fernando as I left it. No doubt its 
 chance would be improved were it possible to eliminate 
 the thirty to forty miles of rocks and rapids which 
 connect the forbidding cataracts of Atures and 
 Maipures to make of them a natural barrier to upper 
 Orinoco navigation; but there they stand, and there 
 they will stand long after man has ceased troubling.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THROUGH THE GATEWAY OF THE EL DORADO 
 
 On the Mapa Fisico y Politico de Venezuela (1884) 
 Maroa stands forth in the heavy black letters by 
 which we are accustomed to recognize important cen- 
 tres ; in reality it is a group of palm and adobe houses 
 fewer in number than the sorry collection at San Car- 
 los, one hundred miles down the river, but having a 
 larger portion inhabited, and all of them more 
 sightly. Yet Maroa came honestly by her distinc- 
 tion long since passed into tradition save among the 
 map-makers of upper South America. During the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the armed peace 
 established between the Spaniards of Venezuela and 
 the Portuguese of Brazil, nourished at wide in- 
 tervals along the Rio Negro between San Carlos 
 and San Gabriel thriving settlements which served 
 as frontier posts to safeguard the trade that displaced 
 the bitter if desultory warfare previously existing. 
 
 Of these settlements none prospered more than 
 Maroa, peculiarly favoured by its location to the 
 course of traffic. Three or four days' journey to the 
 south of it the Casiquiare, entering the Rio Negro, 
 thus joins the Orinoco and the Amazon river systems 
 to establish the world's most extended flowing road; 
 while almost directly opposite on the Negro, the six- 
 league Pimichin provides another connecting link 
 with the Orinoco via the ten-mile portage to Javita 
 and the Atabapo River. It is a natural trans-ship- 
 ping point, and became in those days a frontier ship- 
 
 112
 
 SEARCHING FOR THE FABLED LAND 113 
 
 yard of renown. Master- workmen came from Spain, 
 Indians abandoned the jungle to apprentice them- 
 selves to the new trade, and the fame of Maroa as a 
 builder of canoes and freight-boats spread far. It 
 was the golden age of the alto Rio Negro. 
 
 Other near-by smaller hamlets Tomo, San 
 Miguel flourished from sheer force of juxtaposi- 
 tion. The Jesuit missions multiplied, to the well-being 
 of the natives, who had suffered much during the 
 wanton activities of those undaunted though merciless 
 pioneers, the Conquistadores; for here, too, had been 
 set up a gateway to the El Dorado by one of the 
 hardiest of the intrepids Lope de Aguirre, the 
 ' Wanderer " who in 1561 passed up the Casiquiare 
 looking for storied treasure. 
 
 For the better part of two centuries, indeed, had 
 the reported riches of this mysterious land been noised 
 about the small world, calling soldiers of fortune to 
 every gateway and putting in motion a series of dar- 
 ing explorations never since equalled. From the Meta 
 River on the north to the Caqueta (a north branch of 
 the Amazon) on the south; from the Andes' Cordil- 
 leras on the west to the Rio Negro and the Orinoco 
 on the east so ranged the fabled land where gold and 
 precious stones were said to await the successful 
 adventurer. Von Huten searched the wilderness be- 
 tween the Guaviare River, which empties into the 
 Orinoco at San Fernando de Atabapo, and the 
 Uaupes, entering the Rio Negro just above San 
 Gabriel. Ordaz, a captain of Cortes, in 1531 surveyed 
 the Orinoco as far as Atures, the north end of the 
 great cataracts; Herrera went up the Meta via the 
 Orinoco four years later; Orellana in 1561 voyaged
 
 114 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 down the Amazon; Quesada hunted far to the west 
 and south, even into Peru. And all the while the 
 restless Caribs spread the fable along their voyages, 
 which began at the mouth of the Orinoco and extended 
 south to the Rio Negro. 
 
 What energy they had! those first pioneers and 
 their immediate followers, who, so early as 1776, had 
 built a chain of blockhouses reaching from San 
 Carlos, north to the lower Orinoco, across a country 
 now rated as " unexplored." Their zeal and enter- 
 prise under the tremendous obstacles of forest and 
 climate and insect pest is no less astounding than is 
 the now complete abandonment of a region once so 
 valorously secured. 
 
 And with the blockhouses and the soldiers shortly 
 thereafter disappeared the missions, which from early 
 in the eighteenth century had been numerous and 
 populous a haven for the Indians and a stimulant 
 to trade. Even in 1801, when the great Humboldt 
 made his monumental trip from the Apure River to 
 Esmeralda on the Orinoco, he found missions 
 throughout the full length of his course. Now, how- 
 ever, the missions are deserted ; Maroa builds no boats, 
 and El Dorado is only a historic incident of which 
 few living today in the land of its nativity have 
 scarcely even heard. 
 
 No; Maroa is not the kind of place one would 
 visit a second time without urgent need, and the very 
 good reason that took me there again was to seek a 
 crew for a venture into the Orinoco head-waters. 
 
 Since the defeat of my first attempt I had studied 
 long and exhaustively the question of the most ad-
 
 vantageous point of departure, and how best to make 
 my sally into this forbidding up-river region. 
 
 Before I had obtained intimate acquaintance with 
 this particular country and people, my plan was to 
 ascend the Orinoco from Atabapo, making a side trip 
 up the Ventuario, which has always fascinated me as 
 being the flowing division of the sixteenth-century 
 highway to the lower Orinoco via a mountain 
 (Maigualida) portage and the Caura River. But, 
 with the advantage of one visit to San Fernando de 
 Atabapo, I knew through unhappy failure something 
 of the difficulty of securing voyagers at that townlet, 
 which devotes itself chiefly to rubber and piassava, 
 and when not so occupied prefers to stay at home and 
 enjoy itself. I still retained a vivid remembrance 
 of my previous year's conflict with the men, who 
 though engaged to take me up-river, persisted in 
 going down-stream, and finally (when I refused to 
 go farther in the direction opposite to my arrange- 
 ment and desire) taking my canoe and provisions, 
 abandoned me at a two-hut settlement not very far 
 below the Ventuario. 
 
 With experience bought dearly at both ends of 
 the line therefore on two separate occasions, my best 
 chance of getting help seemed to be among these 
 Indians of Javita and Maroa. My most direct course 
 I calculated to be one of the canos coming into the 
 Guainia from the east, which are locally thought 
 to make their way far inland, and in one or more 
 instances believed to cross entirely to the Casiquiare 
 River. In other words, instead of retracing the 
 Guainia, as the Rio Negro is here called, and then 
 having one hundred and fifty miles of the pestif-
 
 116 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 erous Casiquiare to cover before reaching the 
 Orinoco, my simple scheme was to cut across from 
 somewhere in the neighbourhood of Maroa, thus sav- 
 ing, if I got through, a good half of the Casiquiare's 
 length the lower and worse half which winds part 
 way round the compass and over troublesome rapids 
 before flowing west into the Negro. My ambition 
 was not to explore the Casiquiare of notorious and 
 deserved reputation for insect pest, but to arrive on 
 the upper Orinoco with certainty and with the least 
 possible delay. Apart, too, from shortening the dis- 
 tance, the carlo route appealed to me because the 
 marauders of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 are said to have used such by-paths from the Guainia 
 to the Casiquiare to outwit their less adventuresome 
 compatriots in pillage; and the Portuguese slave 
 traders also travelled these short cuts to reach the 
 then Spanish territory. 
 
 But it is one thing to work out a plan as you lie 
 on your back staring at the stars, and quite another 
 to put it into execution. Although I came to Maroa, 
 I was none too hopeful of success. To begin with, 
 there was the handicap of communicating with these 
 Indians, whose patois of mixed native and Spanish 
 I could comprehend not at all beyond what their ges- 
 tures conveyed; and though they understood some 
 simple straight Spanish, they were slow to catch my 
 meaning slower than any I met in this section, where 
 every other Indian village has a tongue of its own. 
 Such dialectic variance is reported also on many of 
 the tributaries of the Rio Negro, where the original 
 speech appears to have merged with the Spanish or 
 Portuguese to make a linguistic mess requiring es-
 
 THE ISOLATED CONICAL MOUNTS RISING OUT OF THE FLAT LAND TYPICAL OF THE 
 UPPER RIO NEGRO 
 
 THE INDIAN FISH TRAP OF THE UPPER NEGRO
 
 A PORT OF DEPARTED GLORY 117 
 
 pecial study. I do not pretend to discuss this evo- 
 lution; it is one quite beyond me, a mere wilderness 
 traveller of no scientific learning on the subject, but 
 I do testify to its confounding existence. 
 
 Somewhat increasing my problem, too, was the 
 absence at Atabapo, I learned of the head-man, so 
 I was left to do my own skirmishing; not a novel situa- 
 tion for me, nor an unwelcome one. I have nearly 
 always, in the long run, got more satisfactory results 
 in the wilderness by dealing direct with men than 
 through an intermediary. What did seriously hin- 
 der me, however, was native disinclination to enter 
 the unknown, and especially the Orinoco beyond Es- 
 meralda, commonly regarded throughout all this re- 
 gion as a land of mystery peopled by savages. To 
 make bad matters worse, it happened also to be late 
 in April, and after the last fishing excursion to the 
 Casiquiare until the end of the wet season ; for whether 
 because the fish do not bite or because of custom my 
 limited converse with them could not discover the 
 Indians do their fishing during the dry period. 
 
 Since the departed days of boat-building, life is 
 not easy with these Indians. The course of trade has 
 shifted, no development has retrieved the deflection, 
 and they live miserably and dwindle unceasingly. 
 Wallace, in 1851, found from three hundred and fifty 
 to four hundred people divided between Maroa and 
 Javita ; and both he and Humboldt before him refer to 
 thriving colonies around the missions all along the 
 river to San Carlos. I doubt if I saw one hundred, 
 and not many in\ jthat vicinity escaped me first and 
 last. These occupy themselves mostly by gathering 
 piassava, or serving as carriers on the portage between
 
 118 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Pimichin and Javita, whence the canoes go down to 
 San Fernando de Atabapo, which in a trade sense 
 drains the upper Rio Negro, as it does also the upper 
 Orinoco country; a condition which further and more 
 fully explains the lost commercial glory of San Carlos 
 and other of the one-time fairly well-to-do little set- 
 tlements on the upper Negro. 
 
 This piassava is a black, coarse fibre parasite, 
 which entwines the trunk, but more plentifully the 
 base of the stems of a palm growing on nearly all the 
 smaller streams that extend back into the swampish 
 sections, where, like rubber, it appears to thrive best if 
 not exclusively although my knowledge is not suffi- 
 ciently exact to give that statement authority. Wal- 
 lace says it is not found on the main rivers, and I 
 never saw it except on flood-land or near a lagoon. 
 Unwound from the palm and with no treatment what- 
 ever, this fibre is forwarded to Atabapo, where it is 
 braided into the rope of the country or distributed in 
 bulk to Bolivar for the making elsewhere of the fin- 
 ished product. It is not as strong as manila fibre, but 
 very stout none the less ; I saw cables of it in use on the 
 docks at Manaos, and all the freight-batelaos and 
 canoes of the flowing road have no other rope. 
 
 Thus nature seems to have sought in a measure to 
 recompense the impoverishment of this passing peo- 
 ple by distributing among them with a lavish hand 
 one of the most useful of her many gifts.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 TO THE UPPER ORINOCO VIA THE CASIQUIARE 
 
 The Indians I fell among were friendly and dis- 
 posed to lend a hand to my project. By promise of 
 ample reward and by dint of playing on their curios- 
 ity, perhaps entertaining them who knows? with 
 some of the, to them, novelties of my equipment, I 
 aroused their interest. They seemed to get great fun 
 out of my collapsible canvas bucket; and when I 
 filled the filter with muddy water and delivered a 
 clean cupful there was a real sensation. They exam- 
 ined, tasted, and treated the exhibition as a miracle. 
 I think I derived as much amusement as they. What- 
 ever the contributing cause, within four days I had 
 secured six men and a canoe also one of the beauti- 
 fully woven grass hammocks made by up-Guainia 
 Indians and we set out to execute my plan of reach- 
 ing the Casiquiare by canoe overland so to say. 
 
 This section we are about entering is worth a 
 word, for it is like a great delta of the Orinoco, Casi- 
 quiare, Guainia or Negro, and Atabapo Rivers ; being 
 entirely encompassed by those streams, except for a 
 small neck in the northwest which attaches it to the 
 mainland. It is wedge-shaped, about one hundred 
 and fifty miles long, and not over fifty broad at the 
 top, expanding to probably one hundred miles along 
 the Casiquiare. The Orinoco bounds its northern as 
 well as its eastern face; the straighter western 
 boundary is formed by the Guainia and the Atabapo. 
 Each one of these boundary rivers flows in a different 
 
 119
 
 120 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 direction. The Orinoco slopes to the northwest; the 
 Casiquiare southwest; the Atabapo northward; and 
 the Guainia toward the northeast. Roughly this tract 
 is estimated as having an area of three thousand 
 square miles, but there is little if any real information 
 concerning the character of its interior. One can 
 judge only from what one has seen on the several 
 river-banks and from what one hears in the country 
 a good half of which must be liberally discounted. 
 
 So far as I could discover, it is uninhabited and un- 
 travelled except when Indians cruise after the ducks, 
 which in March make this region a popular resting- 
 point on their northward flight. On the Atabapo side 
 the forest is heaviest. Along the Casiquiare, for the 
 most part, there appears the same dense, hedge-like 
 growth reaching to the water's edge as on the Rio 
 Negro. The truth is that river fronts are much alike 
 over all South America, and jungle country is jun- 
 gle country, whether in Argentine, Brazil or Vene- 
 zuela. From the Orinoco side the delta is a great, 
 flat waste, except in the northeast for one more 
 example of those conical rock familiars of this Road. 
 Tradition says the interior contains several la- 
 goons or ponds of fair size, and a century-old map 
 I saw at Bolivar (of which, thanks to the courtesy 
 of a German trader, I secured the much prized 
 copy reproduced in this chapter), indicates one or 
 two of goodly area. On the other hand, Humboldt, 
 whose investigations along the route he pursued 
 were very thorough and much more likely to be 
 accurate, prints none and speaks of none; it is true, 
 however, the great German explorer did not make 
 the traverse, and, therefore, depended on hearsay
 
 INFLUENCE OF RAIN ON RIVERS 121 
 
 evidence. Whether or not there are lakes must 
 remain unanswered until a crossing is made of the sec- 
 tions where they are alleged to be. No lakes were 
 revealed by my journey, although the cano did at one 
 remembered place open out into what might be called 
 a pond of fair size; and there were other sections we 
 passed through which afforded lagoon opportunities 
 in high water. 
 
 Ponds in these districts of little rivers or canos 
 themselves largely the inland overflow of the main 
 stream are, in my opinion, entirely a matter of sea- 
 son. Land so flat as this basin, with its chief river 
 rising thirty or even forty feet in three months, of- 
 fers wide possibilities in this respect. The cano 
 through which I paddled in April, might, and very 
 likely did, by the close of the rainy season, swell to a 
 river. The first time I ascended Pimichin it was a 
 twenty-foot wide canal sunk in a tortuous granite bed, 
 hampered with rock obstructions difficult to avoid ; on 
 the next occasion I paddled over a stream from 
 seventy-five to one hundred feet broad without a 
 check. Toward the close of the rainy season I have 
 navigated canos where, during the dry weather, there 
 wasn't water enough to make a puddle. Perhaps the 
 most notable example of such variability is the Apure 
 River, which at its lowest accommodates very light- 
 draught trading-boats with difficulty, and when full 
 floats easily and to spare the large steamers that voy- 
 age to Bolivar. 
 
 Those familiar with the arroyo freshets of our own 
 Southwest, which, within an hour, turn dry sand bot- 
 toms into raging torrents you cannot ford, will appre- 
 ciate the whimsical streams of South America, where,
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 however, fluctuations are of months' duration instead 
 of hours'. Records must be made at the same site in 
 both seasons wet and dry, high and low water- 
 otherwise they are almost worthless, for what one 
 observer notes in February not at all describes what he 
 or another sees in June. 
 
 I was astonished at the width of the cano we en- 
 tered a short distance below Maroa, and at its cur- 
 rent. Based on my inland explorations from the bate- 
 lao to San Gabriel the year before, I fancied the cano 
 slightly more than a canal, with a feeble, if any, cur- 
 rent. Here, however, was one but little short of a 
 hundred yards wide where it flowed into the Rio 
 Negro, and with a current strong enough to make 
 our paddling by no means a summer-day's jaunt; in 
 truth, good, stiff work more fittingly describes it 
 though not to compare with up-river labour, of course. 
 The changing colour of the water also offered ma- 
 terial for speculation, and amid the depressing un- 
 certainty which enveloped me, brought the first hope 
 of our being able to make the traverse. 
 
 One of the phenomena of this land of waters is 
 the retention by each river of its own colour without 
 diffusion to the very point of actual contact, even 
 where the rivers differ vastly in volume. Black 
 waters flow into white, and white empty into black, 
 retaining their individuality up to the very edge; a 
 visible line of demarcation on one side white, on the 
 other side black, unmingled and unexplained. Thus 
 the puny black Atabapo joins the surging white Ori- 
 noco with no loss of integrity; the black Negro re- 
 ceives almost at right angles the odious white Casi- 
 quiare without contamination, and itself empties into
 
 THE MANY COLOURED WATERS 123 
 
 the Amazon, not so much as tirigeing the mud-coloured 
 waters of that monster river. Humboldt reports on 
 the lower Casiquiare, which I did not visit, a black 
 and a white stream, both coming from the east; while 
 of the rivers flowing in from the west, some are of 
 white and some of black water. Dr. Hamilton Rice 
 declares the upper Uaupes to be white, while the 
 lower section in granite districts is black water, as are 
 also two tributaries, one coming in on the north, the 
 other on the south. Of the number of small streams 
 coming into the upper Casiquiare from the east, those 
 I noted were olive. 
 
 These colours, which among white waters range 
 from the really white Branco through many yel- 
 lowish mud shades, and of black waters, from the 
 greenish and bluish and deep brownish to the really 
 deep, almost black of the upper Negro, are explained, 
 the scientists maintain, by the character of the soil 
 whence they take their source and through which they 
 flow. Those rising among the decaying roots, leaves, 
 and vegetable matter of the forests are the black, and 
 those that have their source and course in the clayey 
 and alluvial soils are the white waters. Yet the 
 Orinoco rises in the heart of the forested mountains 
 and flows under their very shadow on the north until 
 it sends off the Casiquiare to the south. 
 
 When, therefore, after two days, I noticed the 
 alteration of our cano water from a greenish black to a 
 yellowish olive, I knew we were being defiled by the 
 Casiquiare and rejoiced in its happy augury. On 
 the evening of that same day the patron attracted my 
 attention by waving his arms in large fashion to the 
 west of north, and saying, " Camino Atabapo " ;
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 by which I understood him to mean that the source 
 of the Atabapo River was within reach of a not too 
 far portage, and one could cross in high water and 
 so journey to San Fernando. Perhaps my imagina- 
 tion filled in more than he intended to convey, for, 
 while the patron talked on to considerable length, the 
 only other word I rescued out of his patois was " otra," 
 which means other i.e., other road to San Fernando 
 de Atabapo than the usual one of travel from Javita 
 as I interpreted it. As I have already related, 
 communication between us, limited to signs and a 
 few words, was not such deprivation in the canoe as 
 it had appeared on shore. When you are bending 
 your back to the paddle there is neither the time nor 
 the inclination for conversation simple words and 
 a very small number of them fulfill all requirements. 
 " Go," " stop," " no," " yes," " good," " bad," " eat," 
 constitute an elaborate vocabulary when you're 
 hustling along by the sweat of your brow from day- 
 light till dark with brief halts for eating. 
 
 Apropos of eating, mandioca and dried fish made 
 the substance of our daily fare. I had hoped on set- 
 ting out to reach here in March, when ducks are plen- 
 tiful, but one cannot so reckon on the flowing road, 
 and I was far behind my original schedule, so care- 
 fully worked out in New York. After my San 
 Fernando experience I would not have been surprised 
 to find myself reduced to feeding on heron that 
 later-season leathery tidbit which the Indians are fre- 
 quently thankful to devour, so pressed for food are 
 they at times. 
 
 We got no fish in the cano we made no attempt
 
 THE PESTIFEROUS CASIQUIARE 
 
 MY CREW AND CANOE UP THE CASIQUIARE
 
 SIGHT A JAGUAR 125 
 
 to get any ; I tolerated no delay during daylight, even 
 for the purpose of securing fresh food, and the rain 
 and the fatigue dulled sporting proclivities at night. 
 The truth is, we saw no fish, and, come to think of it, 
 I do not recall seeing fish in any cano, though I 
 know of no good reason why there should not be, un- 
 less because of the unstability of the stream. More- 
 over, I was given to understand there is not much 
 life in this basin save when the ducks visit it, but I 
 saw several of the herons, and a busy member of the 
 bobtail gallinule family, which always amused me by 
 their brisk industry and indifference to other near-by 
 birds. And if I did not hear that extraordinary 
 pumping of the bittern, I certainly heard its counter- 
 feit. Of frogs and bats there was no limit. One mar- 
 vels at the myriads of batrachians along the South 
 American waterways. On the rivers the night clam- 
 our beggars description ; one must hear it if he would 
 fully realize what a din these lowliest among the 
 lowly of God's creatures can raise when chorusing in 
 countless thousands. 
 
 Rounding a bend on the third day, with rain 
 beating upon the surface of the water so hard that 
 it sputtered under the impact, the patron sighted a 
 jaguar, and stopped us in much excitement by his 
 whispered warning. Through the downpour, which 
 unquestionably had deadened our noisy paddling, it 
 was not at first so simple as it reads to discover the 
 beast crouching at the water's edge of a point sixty 
 or seventy feet away. But when I made him out 
 he was a good mark, almost side on, and two soft- 
 nosed balls from a 9-millimeter Mannlicher turned
 
 126 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 him over on the top of the covered bank he had 
 sought at the first shot, not fifty feet from where he 
 was when first seen by us. 
 
 The Indians were stirred to gleefulness by the 
 firing, but responded with exasperating slowness to 
 my urgent signals for landing, as I could not from the 
 canoe see the result of my shots, and was, of course, 
 keen to get on the spoor of the quarry. Finally 
 setting me ashore, they remained afloat until I 
 shouted, " Bueno! " the local equivalent for all right. 
 Even though thus assured, they came cautiously, 
 almost as though stalking the big cat in life. And I 
 must say I respected their fear, armed as they were 
 with only bow and arrows, suitable enough for the 
 timorous capybara, the agouti, or others such ; but no 
 more than irritating to an animal so powerful, and, 
 when aroused, so ferocious as the jaguar. It would 
 give me great joy to watch, under such conditions and 
 equipment, one of that pooh-poohing tribe of near- 
 hunters who skirt the jungle for copy and at their 
 club " smokers " make every native apprehension an 
 excuse for raillery. There would be a recanting, I 
 warrant you. 
 
 Over all South America the natives justly dread 
 the jaguar, not so much on account of its aggressive 
 nature, as because of their own unpreparedness to 
 oppose its occasional attack with any hope of success ; 
 and in every local mouth are the fanciful, exaggerated 
 stories of the man-eating propensities we find re- 
 counted with all faith and solemnity in tourist tales. 
 True, it is the most powerful and the most savage of 
 the New World cats, but, like all members of the 
 family, from the majestic tiger to the poor cougar,
 
 LORD OF THE JUNGLE 127 
 
 which men dog-chase up trees to then shoot or rope 
 in the delusion that they are treading the way of " ye 
 mighty hunter," the jaguar will, almost as a rule, get 
 out of your path. 
 
 Purely out of curiosity it may follow man, and in 
 rare cases may attack, either in imagined defence or in 
 ravenous hunger; when it does, it is a formidable 
 brute indeed. Along the flowing road, where the 
 forests are alive with many varieties of the rat genus 
 and the streams run with fish, the jaguar seldom goes 
 hungry. His usual haunts are not far from streams 
 where he catches fish scooping them out of the 
 water with lightning strokes of his alert, powerful 
 fore paw often turtles, and once in a while the tapir, 
 one of the shyest animals in the South American 
 forest and a very strong and swift swimmer. Later I 
 shall further pursue this jaguar subject; suffice to say 
 here, that getting one in this part of South America is 
 entirely a matter of chance meeting, and being 
 equipped to act promptly and efficiently. It was in 
 this manner I secured five of my trophies and without 
 a charge, save when I found a pair and only wounded 
 at the first shot. 
 
 When I had thrown the fair-sized and clearly 
 marked pelt of the cano trophy over the toldo, we re- 
 embarked and started along at a lively clip, the In- 
 dians in extra good-humour, whether because of one 
 less jaguar at large to stir their superstitious frenzy, 
 or merely that they were an uncommonly even-tem- 
 pered lot. The spirit of the moment moved me, too, 
 for I also was light-hearted because thus far we had 
 progressed unimpeded, and in another day or so, if 
 my figuring was not too much at fault, we ought to be
 
 128 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 emerging upon the Casiquiare. So with the Indians 
 expressing their hilarity in a series of fancy-beat 
 strokes, with which I tried, unsuccessfully more often 
 than not, to keep time efforts that amused them so 
 they laughed and postured like a lot of children we 
 went along in a regular frolic of paddling; which is 
 always well in a long- journey canoe, especially toward 
 the dragging days at the end, for it relieves the 
 monotonous drudgery, even if it does add the labour of 
 bailing the canoe. Besides, it puts heart in the men 
 more to be desired than food in the stomach, and 
 always harder to acquire. 
 
 There was little or no change in appearance of 
 the country through which we passed. The cano 
 banks seemed a smaller edition of the river, minus the 
 big trees and much of the parasitic growth, although 
 there were spots as rank as on any river and always, 
 of course, we had with us the palm tree and the palm- 
 like plants. We appeared to be going through a flat- 
 tish country, but with no opportunity, on account of 
 this growth alongside, to learn much else of its char- 
 acter ; and as I was using it merely as a means to more 
 quickly reach my goal, and not interested in its physi- 
 cal peculiarities, I spared none of our working hours 
 for inspection. 
 
 The fourth day our traverse began with a burning 
 sun that drove us to cover our bare shoulders for the 
 first time during the otherwise wet crossing, but early 
 afternoon again opened the heavenly flood-gates as 
 we dug along unmindful of aught save holding our 
 pace to three miles the hour and increasing when we 
 could. Thus plodding as night drew near, bringing 
 no evidence of the Casiquiare, so far as I had dis-
 
 THE SURPRISING CASIQUIARE 129 
 
 covered in my periodic searchings of the rain-streaked 
 atmosphere ; lo ! we emerged upon a brown-yellow sea. 
 And maybe I sat up to take notice ! Had we, by some 
 magic short cut, come into the Orinoco? If not, what 
 then was this swelling river? Not the Negro cer- 
 tainly; the colour answered that. Surely this strong- 
 flowing stream, a full one thousand feet wide where 
 we saw it first, with heavily forested banks, could not 
 be the Casiquiare the canal, the merely larger-dimen- 
 sion cano I had pictured as the link connecting the 
 Orinoco and the Rio Negro rivers, which Father 
 Roman, the faithful and the brave, was the first white 
 man to ascend in 1744. But such is just what it was; 
 and the joy of successful venture was quite sub- 
 ordinated to the amazement with which I viewed the 
 scene so different to the one of my fancy. 
 
 In all my wilderness experience I recollect no sur- 
 prise equal to this first look at the Casiquiare. I could 
 not reconcile the fiction of my imagination with the 
 broad-bodied and swirling tide which took hold of our 
 canoe with a vicious determination to carry it off 
 down-stream. That is to say, I questioned if we were 
 really on the Casiquiare until the insects discovered 
 us; then forthwith I was assured, for there is only 
 one such pest-hole known to man. 
 
 If I wrote at length, frankly, of the insects of the 
 Casiquiare as we found them during our four days' 
 voyage to the Orinoco, you would no doubt think me 
 to be over-drawing. I have been in some places 
 greatly favoured by the insect hordes Siam, Malaya, 
 North Argentine swamp-land but never have I en- 
 countered such throngs as on the Casiquiare. There 
 was cessation neither by day nor by night. They
 
 130 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 came in voracious relays; the day shifts tilled what 
 the night hordes furrowed and fertilized. To the 
 height of six or eight feet above the water they 
 formed a literal cloud, denser at the river-bank by the 
 bushes, where we had to travel close in to escape the 
 force of the current. "Dope?" Oh yes; that's a 
 pleasant figment of the quasi-wilderness traveller 
 which may repel black flies and other cadets of 
 the insect army, but to the serried ranks of these 
 grim and bloodthirsty campaigners it is as nectar 
 before the votaries of Lucullus. We carried no dope ; 
 the Indians knew better, and already I had learned 
 its uselessness in other distant and less afflicted dis- 
 tricts of the flowing road. 
 
 The only recourse is to bathe your swollen and 
 lacerated face, neck, and hands with a bi-chloride 
 solution made from the easily carried tablets, not as 
 a relief measure, but as a prevention against poison- 
 ing. And if you would go safely and with least dis- 
 comfort, you must not scratch ; you simply must not, 
 despite the madness of the itching and such madness 
 it is! The danger signal in tropical travel is the 
 broken skin, the wound open to the multitude of sting- 
 ing and poisonous creatures. Put your hands in thick 
 gloves bags, if necessary but don't make of your 
 misery a distress well-nigh unendurable, by fan- 
 ning to consuming flame the fiery fluid deposited 
 under your skin by the native " mosquito," which is 
 not the mosquito you know, but a tiny fly-like thing 
 possessing incredible activity and a virulence of attack 
 unequalled by winged insects the world over. 
 
 Parenthetically, I wish to say, because I have 
 heard the contrary contended, that the Indians had
 
 THE BATTLE WITH INSECTS 131 
 
 to sustain their share of suffering; not so much as I, 
 for naturally their skin, always exposed when the 
 sun is lenient, toughens, as do the always unconfined 
 feet, but yet enough to give them great trouble. 
 Often I have seen ugly scars on native arms and legs 
 where the eggs of a vicious woodtick species common 
 to all South America, or of a winged borer of the 
 Orinoco-Casiquiare region, have arrived to fruition. 
 The insects of this land accord no immunity whether 
 the skin of the wayfarer be light or dark. 
 
 We made long days of our flight to the Orinoco, 
 journeying from before dawn until long after dark, 
 stopping for rest and alleged sleep as infrequently as 
 nature would permit, because whether in the canoe, 
 under the bushes, or on the closely grown bank, the 
 battle with the insects raged unceasingly. As we 
 ascended, the heavily wooded banks became higher; 
 at low water they would in places be accounted big 
 banks for South America, where low ones predom- 
 inate. With a current of at least four miles always 
 against us, once in a while we came to rapid water 
 that doubtless becomes formidable in season. But 
 we did not see a soul during the four days it took us to 
 reach the head of the Casiquiare ( I concluded we had 
 entered midway of its length, and praised Allah for 
 having escaped the other half) . Yet it is said, diffi- 
 cult to believe as it may be for one who has been there, 
 that in the latter part of the eighteenth century 
 quite a number of settlers lived on the banks of this 
 river. If any stray settler lives there now, at least 
 in the upper half, he must be buried in the consuming 
 jungle, for we came to no visible habitation by day, 
 or saw any light as we paddled at night, as we did
 
 132 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 usually until ten or eleven o'clock. I did see, 
 however, a few comparatively open spots, set off by 
 palms, but who, one is driven to marvel, would live 
 on the Casiquiare if he could keep body and soul to- 
 gether in any other place on earth! 
 
 None of us was too happy as we bent to the heavy 
 paddle work under the plentiful rain, and every now 
 and again the patron's solemn, even voice, like the 
 chant of a priest, broke the silence in single, direct- 
 ing words to the crew. He was a serious-minded, 
 diligent person, was this patron, who squatted at the 
 extreme stern on a six-by-tAvelve-inch extension over 
 the water, where he handled dexterously a blade 
 twice the size of the others, alternately steering and 
 lifting the canoe forward with several successive, pro- 
 digious strokes that made our straining efforts mere 
 dabbling by comparison. 
 
 The ways of these men, less touched by civiliza- 
 tion than any crew I had on the road, interested me 
 greatly. Yet how much alike are the different species 
 of the human family! In Siam and in Malaya my 
 men built crude little altars in the jungle upon which 
 to lay a bit of fruit, a flower, a piece of their costume, 
 when they wanted to propitiate the gods for protec- 
 tion against the fever of some malodorous spot, or 
 against " the animal," as always the terrible tiger is 
 called. In the far north, when all but famished, 
 we snow-shoed wearily back from the Barren 
 Grounds, old Beniah, leader of my company of Dog- 
 Rib Indians, was wont to invite a fair wind by throw- 
 ing pinches of the treasured tobacco into the air with 
 muttered invocation. At the other end of the world, 
 here on the Casiquiare, my men had a rather literal
 
 AN IMPRESSIVE VIEW 133 
 
 manner of casting their bread upon the waters by 
 throwing a handful of mandioca over the side of the 
 canoe, or a piece of shirt, always accompanied by 
 much palaver. 
 
 All things, even the most disagreeable, reach an 
 end, and so there came the finish to our toiling up the 
 Casiquiare when we turned east from its miserable 
 confines into the Orinoco, under the shadow of Duida 
 the seven thousand foot lookout of the range which 
 impinges on the upper Orinoco from its source to 
 the rock barriers at Maipures. I have been favoured 
 with few more impressive sights, indeed, than that 
 which greets northern escape from the Casiquiare. 
 In the background loom mountains, several appar- 
 ently separate ranges of them a welcome change 
 from the everlasting forest ! Almost in front of you is 
 Duida, one-time jack-o'-lantern to the fabled El Do- 
 rado. Entering the Orinoco, the south bank in either 
 direction is flat, but a short way to the east rises 
 another of the rock pinnacles. Near this we camped 
 that night of our fourth day since entering the Casi- 
 quiare and eight since leaving the Guainia, and slept 
 delivered from the insects, which, though numerous, 
 were as nothing to what we had just left. 
 
 In the morning, two hours' paddling took us to 
 the one-time flourishing but now deserted mission 
 of Esmeralda.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE MYSTIC LAND 
 
 So this was Lope de Aguiarres' gateway to El 
 Dorado! the phantom land which lured the Conquis- 
 tadores to those marvellous voyages that gave the 
 world its first slight knowledge of north South Amer- 
 ica interior. Here from the Amazon he had come 
 after months of unending tribulation and toil, look- 
 ing for the precious storehouse tradition declared to 
 be guarded by one-eyed men and fighting women a 
 New World mating of Cyclops and Amazons. Here, 
 too, on the line dividing the Amazon and the Orinoco 
 basins at the base of stern Duida, let us, before taking 
 up our journey, contemplate the swift-flowing road 
 he searched. 
 
 Starting in the Parima Sierras to the west of the 
 Guianas, it races northwest for about three hundred 
 miles,* when, turning abruptly, it runs six hundred 
 miles almost due north before heading straight east 
 toward the Atlantic. Throughout its length of about 
 sixteen hundred miles it drains all of Venezuela and 
 the larger part of eastern Colombia. Receiving on its 
 left (west) bank, rivers great in themselves, like the 
 Guaviare and the Meta from the very foot of the Cor- 
 dilleras, and the Apure, which, together with its tribu- 
 taries, irrigates northwestern Venezuela as the veins 
 
 * In the absence of official figures all these distances are 
 the estimates of a traveller without instruments for authentic 
 reckoning. 
 
 134
 
 THE FAR REACHING ORINOCO 135 
 
 of a hand; while on the right bank enter from the 
 east the Ventuario, from the south the Caura and the 
 Caroni that rise in the Parima and Pacaraima ranges 
 
 those disconnected and many-named mountains ex- 
 tending quite across this timbered fastness of which 
 Duida and Roraima are respectively the western and 
 the eastern outposts. 
 
 All the lower Orinoco, from the sea to Atures, 
 about seven hundred and eighty miles, is open to tour- 
 ist travel. By one of the several channels of its wide- 
 open mouth excellent steamers ply regularly between 
 Trinidad and Ciudad Bolivar, two hundred and forty 
 miles up on the right bank; the Meta affords a com- 
 fortable launch route to within sixty miles of Bogota, 
 Colombia ; the Apure in season is navigable for steam- 
 boats to its chief town, San Fernando, and practically 
 the year round for launches throughout its innumer- 
 able ramifications; the lower stretches of the Caura 
 and Caroni are easy going for canoe or launch, but 
 are blocked by rapids and rocks in their upper sec- 
 tions, as the plucky Andre discovered on the Caura 
 nearly at the cost of his life. Yet it is by these rivers 
 
 the Caura and Caroni that the Caribs in the days 
 of their dominance used to ascend into the great 
 plateau to the south and thence to the Orinoco via 
 the Ventuario, and even to the head of the Branco 
 (affluent of the Negro) via the Parima. 
 
 Atures, just south of the Meta, where the insect 
 jpest really begins, is the northern front of the forty 
 miles of cataracts and rocks, which, ending at Mai- 
 pures, present an effectual block to navigation and 
 divide the lower from the upper Orinoco. Of this 
 up-river region the Guaviare and the Ventuario are
 
 136 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the largest and least known, each coursing through un- 
 explored and uninhabited country though save of 
 the one main-travelled road the same may be said, 
 indeed, of all streams in this region. 
 
 Above the Casiquiare, where the mountains 'loom 
 in the background, a number of rivers enter the Ori- 
 noco from the north; the Padamo a couple of days 
 beyond Esmeralda; the Ocamo a little farther east; 
 and the Manaviche still another day's travel. Of 
 these Padamo is the largest, being at least two hun- 
 dred feet wide at the mouth when I crossed it. As 
 far as the more broken Geheta region on the other 
 and south bank, the country is forested though flat, 
 except for the rock mount just east of the Casiquiare 
 and a group of them about opposite the Manaviche 
 River; beyond, the rough country draws nearer both 
 banks. 
 
 To the Manaviche River the Orinoco averages in 
 width about a half-mile and the tributary streams 
 come in mostly on the right or north bank ; but above 
 the Manaviche it becomes more circuitous, narrower 
 by as much as half in places, the current increases 
 while the mountains continue on the north, and sev- 
 eral fairish streams enter from the south. Approach- 
 ing the Geheta River, about thirty miles farther up, 
 both banks contribute many little streams ; the waters 
 are much swifter, broken with rocks and rapids, and 
 the going becomes increasingly difficult until you 
 reach the rock barrier about four hundred miles 
 from Maipures, which separates the known from the 
 unknown and resolutely disputes your way. Here is 
 a cataract which may, no doubt, be negotiated when 
 the river is at its highest, but which I found so for-
 
 AT THE PORTAL OF THE UNKNOWN 137 
 
 midable as to necessitate hauling the canoe around it. 
 At lowest water it must present well-nigh a solid wall 
 of rock, or a succession of cataracts, which, though 
 increasing in rapidity as the river rises, doubtless offer 
 less menace to navigation. 
 
 Even if not the gateway Lope the Wanderer 
 sought, here is the very portal to an enchanted area, 
 for although the illusion of El Dorado is dispelled, 
 fable and mystery still enshroud this head-water coun- 
 try of the Orinoco, which begins at this natural en- 
 trance about six days' voyaging and some one hundred 
 and twenty miles or thereabouts southeast of Esmer- 
 alda. To this point no insurmountable difficulty 
 to travel offers at least, not in May; beyond, 
 however, is the terra incognita. One hears fearsome 
 tales of this region from Brazilian to Venezuelan end 
 of the flowing road, and no Indian will enter it be- 
 cause of the vengefulness these interior people are 
 said to nourish against everybody since an eighteenth- 
 century brutal onslaught they suffered at the hands 
 of an invading Spanish commander. The subsequent 
 killing from ambush of venturesome native rubber 
 explorers on two widely separated occasions strength- 
 ened the general impression and terror. 
 
 To get beyond this barrier and have a look at the 
 savages was the sole object of my trip to the upper 
 waters of the Orinoco. 
 
 Esmeralda, once the prospering end of the Span- 
 iards' known world in South America, we found to 
 be a dismal place, now practically abandoned to the 
 transient occupation of wayfarers like ourselves. It 
 is situated on the least attractive site to be found un- 
 der Duida, which, because of a report that it contained
 
 138 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 gold, is really responsible for the original establish- 
 ment of the mission. Heaven only knows why the 
 founders did not locate upon the plain reaching back 
 from the river, where the air is fresher and the in- 
 sects fewer. But even at its worst, it was a delight 
 after our recent experience, and we made a quite 
 comfortable camp near three Maquiritare Indians, 
 whom we found already lodged on our arrival, while 
 I fell to speculating on the chances of inducing my 
 crew to continue up river. 
 
 Of my cherished intention to go beyond the 
 Geheta I had said nothing in parleying with them 
 at Maroa and Javita for two excellent reasons: 
 first, because I could not voice that much lingo they 
 would understand, and second, I knew full well they 
 would not start at all if aware of my ambition. 
 I had, therefore, named Esmeralda as my destina- 
 tion, with which all Indians are acquainted, for it, 
 too, at one time was a centre of canoe-building. I 
 was jubilant in securing men to go so far it was 
 more than I had been able to do on a previous en- 
 deavour and well satisfied to let the question and 
 means of going farther rest for the time being. Nor 
 did I hurry to the subject now we had arrived. 
 
 After an afternoon of loafing, eating and smok- 
 ing, I made a casual approach, saying I was going 
 up-river on the morrow. The patron, to whom I 
 addressed myself, did not at once comprehend, but 
 when he did understand he spared no time or emphasis 
 in declaring he would not go which, of course, in- 
 cluded crew and canoe. Nothing I could say, noth- 
 ing I could offer from the equipment so much ad- 
 mired by them, made the smallest impression; argu-
 
 DESERTED BY MY CREW 139 
 
 merit, gifts, were equally futile. They were not in 
 the slightest degree swerved from their intention at 
 any period of the discussion. I say " discussion " for 
 lack of a more descriptive word. Really of discus- 
 sion there was none. The seance might better be lik- 
 ened to a mute sign show with detached Spanish 
 words uttered earnestly and frequently on my part, 
 while on the part of the patron a disheartening and 
 monotonous " No " or shaking of the head, accom- 
 panied by a subdued and concerted hum of approval 
 on the part of the Indians around us. There was no 
 mistaking their feeling about the up-river district 
 yet I did not relax in my efforts to change their de- 
 cision until we put up in our hammocks for the night. 
 
 In the morning my late crew and the canoe were 
 missing. They had unslung their hammocks during 
 the night and set off for home, as the quickest and 
 surest method of disposing of the issue between us. 
 Yet all they took away with them of mine were the 
 sack of mandioca and the bundle of dried fish, which, 
 together with some presents already given, consti- 
 tuted the agreed wage for taking me to Esmeralda. 
 Notwithstanding my plight, I could not resist ac- 
 claiming their simple honesty. 
 
 My predicament was no more than I had half 
 expected, though the first shock of it was somewhat 
 disconcerting. Not that desertion much worried so 
 old a hand in wilderness travel, but the thought of be- 
 ing thus put near to a possible second failure gave me 
 a chill or two, I confess, for at the moment there 
 seemed no other people left on earth with me but my 
 camp neighbours. The Maquiritares, I felt certain, 
 would not listen to any suggested exploration beyond
 
 their ken; for, though members of this tribe oftener 
 than any other are encountered on this bit of the 
 Orinoco, yet they do not go far above the Padamo, up 
 which to some extent they are in residence. Very few 
 Indians of any tribe get more than a couple of days 
 beyond Esmeralda, and then for only a fleeting visit; 
 I did not see a permanent habitation on the upper 
 waters after I had separated from the Maquiritares. 
 
 My neighbours seemed unsurprised at the disap- 
 pearance of my Indians not unlikely they knew of 
 it before my discovery. When I sought to communi- 
 cate with them they received me as though to be left 
 high and dry without a canoe on the bank of the river 
 one thousand miles from nowhere were an every-day 
 happening. A meal being the first aid to reciprocity 
 with an Indian, I spread the best of my larder and in- 
 vited their attention. As we ate in silence my brain 
 worked overtime devising ways and means, for I knew 
 if I failed to interest them in some proposal, they 
 would as likely as not move off without me, in which 
 event I should be marooned for a certainty. 
 
 My best course, indeed the only course open ex- 
 cept sitting down to await other stray Indians, seemed 
 that of attaching myself to these Maquiritares, wher- 
 ever their up-river journey took them, abiding my 
 time and developing my plan according to oppor- 
 tunity. It was most important of all that I get a 
 canoe, for without one I was as a waif in a land where 
 none has to spare and every home is roofless. I de- 
 cided, therefore, to dissemble, to say nothing about 
 going beyond the Barrier, to let them think that with 
 loss of my crew I had dismissed such adventuring, 
 and was now just a traveller like themselves who
 
 HOPE THE TRAVELLER'S FRIEND 141 
 
 wanted a canoe and was willing to pay well for one. 
 Giving them tobacco for cigarettes and filling my 
 pipe, we smoked, exchanging with difficulty a few 
 comments on the meal or the insects. Not a hint did 
 they get that loss of my means of travel was of any 
 more concern to me than it appeared to be to them. 
 Before we slept in our hammocks, however, I learned 
 they were going " one sleep " up-river at " sun up," 
 as they expressed it, and would take me with them. 
 
 I had won the first redoubt, and you can picture 
 my happiness and relief; luckily for my assumed in- 
 difference, the night concealed the elation which must 
 have shown in my countenance, try as I might to 
 suppress it. 
 
 At the close of the next day, near the mouth of a 
 little river coming in from the north, called Gaupo, 
 and the end, by the way, of Humboldt's up-Orinoco 
 journey, we camped with five other Indians, two of 
 whom had ears pierced near the top. By their com- 
 plexion and ready converse with my companion I 
 judged all the strangers to be Maquiritares save a 
 much darker, heavier featured one who looked like a 
 Zambo, as they call the Indian-Negro mixture in 
 Venezuela. And at the night meal I was cheered as 
 though by the unexpected appearance of an old friend 
 when he addressed me in Spanish. For the first time 
 in weeks I was able to abandon the manual wig-wag- 
 ging which had been my chief means of communica- 
 tion and to embark upon an entire sentence in jungle 
 Spanish; to understand and to make myself under- 
 stood almost to chatter. It was great joy. 
 
 From him I learned that my Indians were going 
 up several of the nearby small rivers rubber hunting,
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 while the others were seeking herbs; that the 
 Maquiritares live in small, scattered groups along the 
 Orinoco between Atabapo and about where we were 
 camped; that a few "Indies blancos " (white 
 Indians) live up small tributaries on both sides of the 
 river hereabouts; that all the upper Orinoco is " muy 
 malo," where it rains most of the time and nobody 
 lives and the insects feast upon the few who now and 
 then voyage above San Fernando de Atabapo the 
 end of habitation on the river; and, finally, that no 
 one ever goes far up the Orinoco because the " Indies 
 bravos " (savage Indians) will "kill them." A lot 
 more to the discredit of the up-country the Zambo 
 told me to unmistakably prove that he shared the 
 common aversion to the upper Orinoco. 
 
 As for myself, I too was an Indian by nature, I 
 told him, a genuine " Indio bianco " kept from his 
 native spirit heath by force of circumstance, and who 
 made hunting the excuse of returning now and again 
 to his own. I did not, however, say anything of my 
 immediate desires, except that I wished to buy a small 
 canoe, which he forthwith gratified by arranging with 
 his companions to sell me the small one of their fleet 
 of two. No doubt they discussed among themselves 
 my deserted condition, but nothing of their specula- 
 tions reached my ears. 
 
 In the morning, as things seemed to be coming 
 my way, I determined to venture upon the next step, 
 evolved as I lay in my hammock after the evening 
 talk with the Venezuelan. This, in a word, was to 
 engage his services for a " short trip " and trust to the 
 irresistible lure of the gold sovereigns I carried to 
 hold him when finally we got as far up-river as nor-
 
 BOULDERS IN THE UPPER ORINOCO 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE GUAINIA
 
 THE SO-CALLED WHITE INDIANS 
 
 mally he would go. The intention of the Indians to 
 tarry on this little river gave me excellent reason for 
 planning to go on, and my scheme worked very nicely, 
 especially as the Venezuelan appeared not much in 
 sympathy with their purpose whatever it may have 
 been. In fact, to borrow the expressive word of the 
 country, he was not " simpatico " ; 'twas my notice of 
 that which first gave birth to my scheme. 
 
 Among wandering people with whom life is a 
 constant series of comings and goings, slight heed is 
 given to arrivals or leave-takings, so we got our stuff 
 together without comment and set out upon our jour- 
 ney up-stream with the Venezuelan at the bow and I 
 in the stern of my newly acquired canoe, which was 
 about fifteen feet long and unusually deep for its 
 length an excellent quality for my purpose. Send- 
 ing it along at a good pace, notwithstanding the cur- 
 rent, I was particularly pleased with my first paddle 
 of sassafras a durable, yellow wood, which glistens 
 when wet as though shellaced. The " crew " in- 
 formed me that during the time of Esmeralda's pros- 
 perity canoes were made there of this wood, and that 
 paddles are now and again fashioned of it by the Ma- 
 quiritares, who, however, appear to prefer the deco- 
 rated, darker, heavier ones of the lower river. 
 Through subsequent vicissitudes of the flowing road, 
 down to the present day, I have retained possession 
 of that tough and good looking paddle. 
 
 On the second day after starting we passed the 
 Padamo, and in another day and a half came to the 
 Ocamo, the river on which live, so the Zambo said, the 
 reputed white Indians, about whom so much imagin- 
 ary is uttered none more ridiculous than that their
 
 144 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 lighter complexion is due to the visitations of Dutch 
 traders from Guiana a century or two ago. I have 
 never been able to learn that traders crossed into this 
 country the chances are ninety-nine out of one hun- 
 dred they never did but to assume that a fewstrag- 
 glers could lighten the skin of an entire tribe is credit- 
 ing the Dutch with industry and prepotency unrivalled 
 in the history of man. If these are the " Indies 
 blancos " of scientist tract and traveller's yarn at Rio 
 Janeiro and Caracas, Manaos and Bolivar, they are 
 variously set down as of the Guaycas, the Guainares 
 and the Guaharibos families. Probably, they really 
 belong to the Guaharibos, which seems to comprise 
 practically all the Indians south of the Orinoco be- 
 tween the Meta and the Guaviare rivers. 
 
 Their complexion is certainly the lightest on the 
 Road a bleached copper, I should call it. Those I 
 saw were taller and better looking than the average 
 Indian of the country, and friendly and honest so far 
 as my experience goes. In small collections of palm 
 thatched houses they live up tributaries within a day 
 or two's travel east of Esmeralda, but I found only a 
 wandering few individuals on the Orinoco itself. 
 They are famous brewers of the curare poison, for 
 which, it is maintained, no antidote is known, and 
 with which arrows and darts are charged. 
 
 I have no first-hand evidence of its powers, but 
 competent experimenters with examples fetched to 
 the outside world have given trustworthy results that 
 leave no doubt of its deadly power. A big bird, such 
 as the curassow, succumbs in a couple of minutes, 
 while the largest members of the rat family and the 
 peccary yield in ten; a drop in a mere pin prick is
 
 BLOW-GUNS AND ARROWS 145 
 
 claimed to be fatal to man. The formula of this 
 poison is a zealously kept secret, and the making is 
 attended by much ceremony in guarded seclusion. 
 Outside knowledge is confined to such general infor- 
 mation as that it is made from an herb found up the 
 small rivers flowing into the Orinoco, and macerated, 
 stewed and strained until finally drawn off to be 
 kept in hollow sections of cane. The fibre strung 
 bows used by these Indians are very stiff, from four 
 to six feet in length, and the arrows are tipped with 
 bone and hard wood; their blow-gun * " sarabatana " 
 is a small, straight, hollow reed about seven feet long, 
 fitted inside of a bamboo or palm sapling, which makes 
 a firm, stout sheath ; the darts are slivers of hard wood 
 with wool-like butt made of inner tree bark. The 
 blow-gun secures small animals and birds, while fish 
 are killed with bow and arrow, which also serve for 
 larger game, like the tapir. 
 
 It was still a big river, this Orinoco, but after 
 another two days its breadth diminished considerably ; 
 meanwhile, as anything interesting offered, I made 
 it the opportunity for a halt and a smoke. We loafed 
 along a good bit, and you may be sure I treated that 
 Venezuelan well. Among my slender supplies 
 nothing was too good for him. No word of destina- 
 tion was spoken, my thought being that the nearer we 
 got to the Barrier before the disclosure, the easier it 
 would be to win him; therefore, I talked only of the 
 birds, was constantly on the outlook for new ones or 
 
 * Though credited with using, I never actually saw it in 
 the hands of the Guaharibos. Dr. Rice reports it on the 
 Uaupes.
 
 146 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 for the jaguar, of which he appeared fairly well in- 
 formed and less afraid than most natives I had taken 
 with me. A rich, blackish-brown bird about the size 
 of a dove attracted my attention by its long whistle 
 ending in a couple of explosive notes. Once I 
 heard several of them answering; and there was 
 another call, a hoarse rasp followed by a very agree- 
 able flute note, which frequently came to my ears, 
 though I never saw the bird. But neither bird nor 
 animal life was plentiful. Truth is, the upper 
 Orinoco birds made slight impression upon me. At 
 this stage I was entirely absorbed with thought of my 
 plan which was soon to be put to test; later I was 
 working too hard to pay heed to any life save the 
 omnipresent insect life which at no time or place can 
 be quite disregarded. 
 
 But two phenomena demanded recognition of the 
 most thoroughly occupied mind. The first was the 
 rain Jupiter Pluvius, how it did rain, and yet rain, 
 day and night! The oppressive humidity, the enor- 
 mous plant life, the tree trunks on the north bank 
 larger than any I saw elsewhere along the flowing 
 road; it seemed as if we were passing through the 
 hothouse of South America. I could actually smell 
 the rank vegetation. And the insects were a good 
 second in numbers and aggression to those of the 
 Casiquiare. The other compelling feature of these 
 days was the storms. Thunder which came peal after 
 peal down from the mountains at the north to rever- 
 berate along our track, almost to shake our canoe it 
 seemed ; lightning that flashed at the forest edge like a 
 meteor in dazzling, bewildering zigzags ; and momen- 
 tary gusts of wind, which were refreshing indeed and
 
 THE LURE OF THE SOVEREIGN 147 
 
 a foe to the insects, but that roughed the water to a 
 point of upset for our low craft. Thus we journeyed 
 east with no word of my objective. At last the chal- 
 lenge came. 
 
 It was on the night of the fifth day and the 
 Venezuelan had said we must turn back on the 
 morrow as the "Indios bravos" were near. The show- 
 down was due, and I was frank. I told him I 
 intended going a few days beyond the Barrier to 
 see what there was to be seen; that I wished him 
 to go with me and would pay him handsomely five 
 libras i.e., twenty-five dollars in addition to the 
 " peso " (one native dollar) a day wage. I scoffed at 
 the danger, declared the bad Indians a fairy-tale and 
 assured him we should avoid them, anyway, as I pro- 
 posed to travel only in the night. But he was 
 a stiff er proposition than I expected. He declined 
 emphatically, putting aside the five libras as though 
 his pockets already overflowed with gold. Then I 
 offered him ten and again he put temptation aside, 
 more slowly, but with apparent resolution, much to 
 my growing dismay. In a situation less fateful, his 
 second refusal would, no doubt, have terminated my 
 overtures, but I was not to be deterred, just at the 
 door of this land of mystery. To get behind that 
 barrier was the purpose of the hardest trip of my 
 life. A buckskin bag in my pocket held my entire 
 capital forty English sovereigns (two hundred dol- 
 lars) . Emptying its contents into my hand I divided 
 the shiny gold coins into two equal, glittering piles, 
 and told him one would be his if he went with me. 
 The display appeared to fascinate him ; an avaricious 
 expression distorted his usually good-humoured coun-
 
 148 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 tenance; and with the feeling that I had won came 
 also a strangely repellent sensation not unmixed with 
 anxiety because of what his face revealed. 
 
 Even after he'd agreed to go I was not sure of him 
 until we were actually on the way. For half the night 
 he raved, alternately declaring he would and he 
 wouldn't, that he'd be killed by the savages if he 
 did, and a lot more which I did not understand. 
 Likewise, he revealed why he so much wanted money. 
 He was a deserter, he said, from the Venezuelan 
 army, his name Cristobal; he had worked his way up 
 the Orinoco, finally joining the Maquiritares, hoping 
 to get a little rubber or herbs or seeds or something 
 he could turn into trade and so make his way down 
 the Casiquiare into the Negro and on to Brazil, where 
 a Zambo is in good favour, and where he would be safe 
 from the wrath of Castro. 
 
 After Cristobal had quieted in slumber, I stole into 
 the canoe at the bank and, dropping down-stream 
 about one hundred yards, remoored and slept. 
 
 I was determined that another canoe and crew 
 should not leave me in the night.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 BEYOND THE BARRIER 
 
 Apparently now reconciled to his lot, Cristobal, 
 in the morning, remonstrated no longer, though his 
 reswung hammock had proved an eloquent telltale on 
 my daylight return, suggesting, if it did not actually 
 reveal, frustrated desire and at least indorsing the 
 wisdom of my precaution in putting the canoe safely 
 out of reach. It began to look as if both of my eyes 
 were to be kept busy one on my crew and the other 
 for " Indies bravos." 
 
 As we were, according to my closest figuring, 
 about a day or two at most from the Barrier, I de- 
 cided upon making this camp our home base for the 
 dash into the unknown, and here to cache everything 
 not absolutely necessary. It was not a long list, for 
 my belongings were few, comprising all clothing 
 except what I stood in notebook, pipe, tobacco, 
 medicine kit, camera (which had been of little use to 
 me at any time in the almost continuous rain), 
 the dried fish, and coffee. In fact, everything 
 except my revolver, rifle with ammunition sheath 
 knife, field-glasses, watch, match-box, enough man- 
 dioca to last for about ten days, hammock, tooth- 
 brush, a thong of buckskin with which I am 
 always equipped in the wilderness, and, of course, 
 the little buckskin bag containing the gold sov- 
 ereigns. I chose the mandioca instead of the fish, 
 not that it is more sustaining, but because the haz- 
 ard of a cooking fire to disclose my presence was thus 
 
 149
 
 150 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 avoided; and because this native food is so easily and 
 simply prepared. You have, as I think I have al- 
 ready written, only to put the meal into a gourd, 
 the dish of the country, flip in enough river water to 
 moisten it and there you are I a food which tastes 
 like a bran mash, if you've ever sampled what is ex- 
 cellent for your horse now and again, but one which 
 nevertheless keeps you going. Along all the flowing 
 road from port to port it is the basic provender. 
 
 Having put my note-book, together with camera, 
 in a water-proof canvas bag, and bundled the remain- 
 ing mandioca in a rubber poncho heavy hot thing, 
 useless for the real tropical rainy reason I rolled 
 the lot together with the coffee and sugar canisters 
 in a small tarpaulin which had cost nearly its weight 
 in gold at Para, and fastened it up in the tree to 
 which Cristobal had tied his hammock the night be- 
 fore. Then we moved on, lighter as to bulk, and with 
 the cheeriness gone out of the Zambo's face. 
 
 We had several false alarms before finally, on 
 the next afternoon, a short way beyond a small stream 
 from the south which I decided to be the Geheta, we 
 came to a series of cataracts and rock benches and 
 boulders extending across the river as a boundary 
 a barrier, the Barrier at last, the long sought ! * 
 
 It surely looked a formidable obstruction, and at 
 low water must present in one place practically a 
 rock wall, the stream cascading down its centre and 
 over one edge with force enough to turn a mill. Our 
 
 * Relying upon what he was told at Esmeralda, Hum- 
 boldt apparently errs in locating these cataracts, and under- 
 estimates their distance from the Gaupo, the most easterly 
 point he attained on the upper Orinoco.
 
 IN A QUANDARY 151 
 
 first view gave a vista of boulders of all sizes with 
 rapid water everywhere. It didn't look good to me 
 for navigation, so we went as far as we could with- 
 out risking an upset, and then landed at the bank. 
 I wished very much to make a reconnaissance that 
 I might the more intelligently choose the best way 
 of crossing, but I did not dare leave Cristobal, lest, 
 overwhelmed with fear at thought of being at the 
 very entrance to the dreaded land, he might stampede 
 with the canoe; nor in the circumstances did I want 
 to take him and leave the canoe. I believe always in 
 keeping your means of transportation canoe, horse, 
 legs in condition and at command. So I decided to 
 haul and pack around overland and to do so at once 
 instead of awaiting nightfall, for I did not believe 
 savages had been sitting on these boulders ever since 
 they had killed rubber-seeking natives many years 
 before, awaiting and a-thirsting for the next victim. 
 The honest fact is, I found myself perplexed as 
 to just how much of common report and fear to 
 respect. I could not help feeling that the " Indies 
 bravos " tales were overdrawn, although the death of 
 the two natives referred to seemed well established. 
 At the same time, I could not ignore the general 
 feeling of the country. The spirit of adventure 
 ruling strong within me, I was ready and eager to 
 take a chance, yet the idea of being potted from 
 the densely covered bank by some one I could neither 
 see nor get at did not commend itself as a sporting 
 proposition, particularly as no antidote is yet known 
 for the poison with which the darts and arrows used 
 hereabouts are anointed. Not that the poisoned ar- 
 row route isn't preferable, if one must die, to typhoid,
 
 152 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 for instance I think it is; but the sting of the im- 
 plied failure is sometimes more repulsive than old 
 Death himself, and this was one of those occasions. 
 
 As a provident and an experienced wilderness 
 traveller, I was bound to feel my way cautiously, ac- 
 cepting the country at its own valuation and prepared 
 for whatever might happen. If I did not succeed 
 in getting out, the joy of getting in would encounter 
 a blight almost before it had opened its eyes upon 
 the gay world. Thus debating with myself again 
 here at the Barrier as I had done night after night 
 since arriving on the hobgoblin threshold, I resolved 
 to play the spy entering enemies' country to travel 
 by night and lay up by day. Meantime the first 
 business in hand was to get to the other side of the 
 Barrier with as little delay as possible. 
 
 I did not at all fear our being heard, as the noise 
 of the river drowned any we might make and the 
 friendly rain veiled our movements against long-range 
 discovery. But when we had drawn the canoe well 
 up on the bank, I attentively scanned our surround- 
 ings in every direction with my glasses, finding 
 neither signs of human life nor evidence of a bridge 
 of vines which the Indians are said to have con- 
 structed in the eighteenth century. Then we 
 marched forward, mostly carrying the canoe with our 
 dunnage inside or hauling it where possible, as walk- 
 ing over the rocks was at risk of stumbling and per- 
 haps damaging our craft. And despite my belittle- 
 ment of danger for the benefit of Cristobal I could 
 not drive out the insistent thought that any moment 
 might bring notice of our official eviction by way 
 of twang of bow and smart of flesh. You cannot keep
 
 HAZARDOUS GOING 153 
 
 your imagination from soaring under such condi- 
 tions, however your deliberate judgment may deride 
 its phantom painting. Thus alternately carrying and 
 surveying, at dusk we floated the canoe on the other 
 side the magic line and immediately went forward, 
 paddling noiselessly, every sense alert, astonished to 
 find that from first to last we had been only a little 
 over three hours. 
 
 Once well under way, tension relaxed and gave 
 opportunity to look around. I was surprised that at 
 this mid-season between high and low water the 
 width of the river above the Barrier should be over 
 one hundred feet. Within two days, however, it con- 
 tracted, becoming as narrow as seventy-five to even 
 fifty feet for a stretch, while the shoals multiplied. 
 Going became both slow and hazardous, for, though 
 the rain confined its fury chiefly to the morning and 
 afternoon, easing up at noon and during the night, 
 the river remained dark and rock ridden. Some- 
 times for a space we covered distance at a fair rate, 
 but for a great deal of the time we almost literally 
 felt our way. We kept close to the south bank, ex- 
 cept on a few occasions when obliged by shoals to 
 swing out, starting as soon as it grew dark and stop- 
 ping before daylight. 
 
 These were long " days " full of wearying exer- 
 tion, yet I but half slept, waking at the slightest 
 sound. Our usual laying-up place during the day 
 was under concealing bushes at the river edge or in 
 the dense growth back from the water; once when a 
 rocky bank compelled it, I drew the canoe under the 
 earth and sprawling root cover of an upturned tree. 
 Needless to say I never rested so far away from the
 
 154 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 canoe as not to be able to reach out and touch it with 
 my hand. Cristobal always swung his hammock, as I 
 insisted he should, a little distance off from fifty to 
 one hundred feet, according to the character of the 
 bank. I avoided arousing his suspicion by sug- 
 gesting the separation on the ground that our 
 divided camp was safer and more vigilant which 
 explanation had also the advantage of being truthful. 
 But I was keeping an eye on my Zambo that's the 
 truth because, since crossing the Barrier, he had 
 laboured so well and so sympathetically and endured 
 the hard work and the discomforts so uncomplain- 
 ingly that I mistrusted his zeal ; I could not down the 
 doubt, though I believe that at this time he was really 
 actuated by no other motive than to make the best 
 and the quickest of a bad job. Until we got beyond 
 where he could in a single dash escape to the Barrier, 
 however, I kept one hand on the canoe and rested 
 where I could command his position. 
 
 So for five days we rested and for six nights we 
 paddled, with no indication of man or of any of his 
 works. But the works of the Almighty envel- 
 oped us. From across the opposite bank, the north 
 bank, the mountains, now nearer, frowned upon us; 
 big bodied trees raised themselves on high to accent- 
 uate the thick jungle beneath; great smooth boul- 
 ders bespoke a relationship with those of the Negro ; 
 and the river took on more the nature of a mountain 
 stream in current and shoals, though maintaining a 
 breadth never less, as I saw it, than approximately 
 fifty feet. The air was heated, the insects plentiful, 
 and the rain less frequent, though when it came it 
 was in such a downpour as if the heavens had opened
 
 MAKING READY TO CACHE OUR BELONGINGS BEFORE CROSSING THE BARRIER 
 
 CAMPING IN LUXURY AT ESMERALDA
 
 A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 155 
 
 a picture further strengthened by the outburst of 
 thunder and lightning which often accompanied the 
 flood. These storms were of short duration, perhaps 
 an hour at a time, but the fury of them while they 
 lasted was terrific. I had heard of tropical storms 
 and I had witnessed them often during my adventur- 
 ing in South American jungles, but never have I 
 encountered any to compare with those which swept 
 down upon us on the upper Orinoco in the early days 
 of May, 1907. 
 
 We had completed our sixth long night's pad- 
 dling, had made fast, and were eating our mandioca 
 breakfast before composing ourselves for the day 
 when out of the near distance came an unmistakable 
 human shout. Need I say it startled us? No cast- 
 away on a desert isle could have been more so. We 
 turned amazed, inquiring faces to each other at 
 least, Cristobal's bore amazement, and I suspect mine 
 did also, for though hourly we had been looking, lis- 
 tening for just such a sound, the coming of it on a 
 sudden without warning, where only the river made 
 itself heard, was strongly agitating no less. It was 
 a great moment, for it meant we had at least come up 
 with some of the inhabitants of this land; but it was 
 also an anxious moment until we had our bearings. 
 And then we sat breathlessly awaiting a repetition 
 that we might locate the voice, for so suddenly had it 
 broken upon us I could not be sure whether the owner 
 was on our side or the other side of the river. Not 
 another shout came to relieve our suspense; though 
 we waited minutes upon minutes, no sound reached 
 our ears from any quarter save the singing of the 
 river directly below us. Somebody, however, was
 
 156 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 certainly within call, and it was up to us to find him. 
 
 Making the canoe ready for instant action and 
 signing Cristobal to follow me, I crawled along the 
 bank, seeking vantage ground from which I might 
 examine our whereabouts more closely than I could 
 from the secluded spot we had purposely selected 
 for our day's retirement. But we had chosen our 
 retreat too well for our present need, the bush growth 
 on the bank being so dense that getting through it 
 without noise was an unbelievably slow and worri- 
 some task. Finally, we reached a point where the 
 jungle opened so as to offer a fair view of the river 
 and its north side. The eager first glance was unre- 
 warded; only a jungle-covered bank such as I had 
 been daily looking upon greeted my eyes. Deliberate 
 scrutiny, however, uncovered a small bay-like recess 
 where, close under the upper bank, seemingly stand- 
 ing on the water and not over seventy-five feet from 
 us, was a nude Indian evidently fishing. Cristobal 
 and I drew back on the discovery to further insure 
 our concealment, and then securing as advantageous 
 a view-point as possible I studied the Indian and his 
 environment long and minutely with my glasses. Up 
 and down the bank and back as far as I could pene- 
 trate, I searched, while Cristobal beside me crouched 
 silent in perturbation none the less obvious because 
 held in check. Nor was the Zambo the only excited 
 member of this exploring party; abundant emotion 
 stirred in me, too, at sight of the lone fisherman and 
 the evidence he provided that my long journey was 
 not to be unrewarded. 
 
 He was fishing with bow and arrow, after the 
 manner common to all the flowing road country,
 
 THE LONG-SOUGHT WILD MAN 157 
 
 standing on what appeared to be a log manoauvred 
 along the recessed bank by a boy squatting astern. 
 Thrice he shot, each time securing a fish and recov- 
 ering his arrow the only one he appeared to have 
 and not once did he shift his position. Indeed, the 
 two resembled bronze images graven against the 
 darker forest background. The man held his bow in 
 readiness at thigh with eyes riveted upon the water, 
 and the boy manipulated his crude paddle so gently 
 you scarce could detect its movement. Small wonder 
 we had not seen them at the first hurried glance. He 
 was slender and tall, darker than the Maquiritares, 
 who are rather lighter than the Indians of the lower 
 river ; and, contrary to custom prevailing on both the 
 Orinoco and the Negro rivers, his hair was long. I 
 had not before in South America seen Indians thus 
 wearing their hair, although told that such is the 
 habit of the savages. So far as hair evidence went 
 we seemed to have fallen among the " Indios bravos " 
 sure enough. 
 
 Save for a narrow ribbon of vine or fibre of some 
 kind tightly circling his waist just above the hips 
 he was without ornament or covering. As long as 
 the fisherman remained in sight, which was perhaps 
 for half an hour or less, I kept my glasses on him, 
 giving little heed to exploration of the bank behind; 
 but when he had gone, quietly disappearing at the 
 lower and inside end of the recess, I gave all my at- 
 tention to the bank where he had vanished. So sud- 
 den had the picture come and gone, so quiet, it scarce 
 seemed of the realities yet, Cristobal there at my 
 side, wide-eyed and serious, gave it tangibility.
 
 158 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 The jungle opposite, which had swallowed our 
 Indian, appeared to differ not at all from that of the 
 usual heavily forested and densely bushed bank I 
 had learned to know so well. No opening relieved 
 the shadow except where he had disappeared. "Here 
 showed a definite break extending as far back as 
 I could see, where individual trees appeared to stand 
 out from the jumble of undergrowth and swaying 
 vines; while at the water's edge the brush thinned, so 
 a low bank was visible. Cristobal ascended a near- 
 by tree in an attempt to descry more, but he could 
 add nothing to my meagre knowledge. Thus I spent 
 the entire morning, learning as much as could be 
 gained through first-class field-glasses, detailing in 
 undertone to Cristobal such information as would 
 help him the more intelligently to cooperate with 
 me. We each carried a mental photograph of that 
 opposite bank when, toward mid-afternoon, we re- 
 turned to our interrupted and still unfinished break- 
 fast, in the jungle back of the canoe. 
 
 There was no sleep in camp that day, neither for 
 me nor for Cristobal, who seemed to have become less 
 affrighted and more interested; twice he went 
 up a tree, once taking my glasses which he said 
 were not so good as his own eyes but saw nothing, 
 and not again did we hear a sound from across the 
 river. As night drew on I slowly and carefully laid 
 my plans before the Zambo, picking the simplest 
 Spanish in my vocabulary, and reiterating such de- 
 tails as depended upon his cooperation. 
 
 Only one way of seeing these Guaharibos people 
 at short range was possible in the circumstance viz., 
 to sneak among them. Of course, there was the open
 
 LOOKING FOR THE SAVAGES 159 
 
 way of approaching with beads in hand, but I had 
 no beads, nor a crew that would thus convey me, 
 nor, in such handicapped condition, the wish to test 
 either the verity of common report as to their blood- 
 thirstiness or the potency of their curare poison. I 
 told Cristobal that as soon as night fell we'd paddle 
 up-stream half a mile, cross to the other bank and 
 drop down half the distance, where I would land and 
 endeavour to make my way thence to some point of 
 observation from which I could get a near view of the 
 savages; that my action on shore would be governed 
 by conditions as I found them; that he was to im- 
 mediately return to camp over the same course we 
 had come and follow it again at dark next night, 
 to where he left me. When he asked what he 
 should do if I failed to meet him at the given time 
 and place, I told him with a show of confidence there 
 was no such probability; I might be delayed a little, 
 but I was certain to arrive. And with great earnest- 
 ness I warned him to carry out my instructions to 
 the letter, for on his so doing depended not only my 
 life, but his as well. 
 
 He did not like the idea of being left and wanted 
 to go with me on shore, protesting vigorously against 
 returning with the canoe. I pointed out the greater 
 safety for us both in my outlined scheme; that one 
 was much the less likely of discovery than two, and 
 that loss of the canoe would be as serious as loss of life. 
 Notwithstanding my logic, the project was obviously 
 not to his liking and he sulked. Whereupon I told 
 him very plainly and with much emphasis that if 
 he wished to reach Brazil instead of the Venezuelan 
 prison his one way was to earn the money I had
 
 160 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 promised him ; and that was possible only by obeying 
 my instructions promptly without deviation. 
 
 With all preparations made and plans decided, 
 nothing remained but the coming of night for their 
 execution, and as darkness began its sudden descent 
 I gave the final touch to my personal equipment so 
 I might step out of the canoe at ready. Most of 
 the time I had been barefooted in the canoe, as I 
 have already explained, for three good reasons: (1) 
 always these low dugouts ship water, so there is two 
 or three inches continuously in the bottom; (2) shoes 
 are a hinderance to moving around in such a craft; 
 and (3) one is so often going overboard in a day's 
 journey, handling the canoe around points of rapid 
 water or over rocks, that it saves the time of putting 
 on and off shoes. 
 
 For this island adventure, however, I put on 
 shoes, the high canvas lace kind I use in the trop- 
 ics, because I knew my feet were not tough 
 enough for the going and might betray me, I feared, 
 into some sudden noise-making motion at a time 
 when soundless walking was imperative. For the 
 same reason I cut off my khaki trousers at just 
 below the knee, so there would be no surplus 
 to scrape against the brush. A gray flannel shirt 
 and a silk handkerchief of the bandanna pattern 
 around my neck concluded my attire. I wore 
 no hat, and when I had need to keep my long hair 
 from falling over my eyes I bound it Indian fashion 
 with the kerchief. Such headgear is my habit, in fact, 
 in all interior jungle travel; a hat or cap affords no 
 protection, is constantly being snatched off the head, 
 and therefore a nuisance. Only on the river and in
 
 READY FOR THE INVASION 161 
 
 the sun did I ever wear one. In addition to my usual 
 light trousers belt, I wore another and a heavier one 
 on which hung my knife and revolver; around my 
 neck I carried the little buckskin bag with its pre- 
 cious contents; in my pocket some cartridges. 
 
 Thus, in marching trim with every one of our 
 few articles of equipment in place, and all com- 
 pact and portable, we launched our canoe for my 
 first attempt to approach the family circles, so to 
 say, of the " Indios bravos."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 AMONG THE INDIOS BRAVOS 
 
 Fortune prospered my enterprise by providing a 
 clear night to help us pick our way silently. For a 
 half-mile or a little more, we paddled up-stream, 
 keeping under cover of the bank as much as was 
 possible and crossing to the other side quietly with 
 some difficulty on account of the current and the 
 rocks. When we had dropped down about a quar- 
 ter of a mile, following every turn of the shore 
 the better to secure protection of its bushes, we halted 
 at a small opening, where I landed for the prelimi- 
 nary survey which decided me to make this my base 
 of operations. Cristobal again begged to be allowed 
 to accompany me, but I promptly made him under- 
 stand the discussion of that subject was closed. Tak- 
 ing the mandioca sack out of the canoe and handing 
 him a half-day's ration, I repeated my instructions 
 for him to go back over our route, following it again 
 without deviation when he came to this spot the next 
 night and bade him start. 
 
 He went reluctantly enough, and with him went 
 my connection with the outside; should he not return 
 my position would certainly be precarious. Of course, 
 I realized the chance I was taking that's the sport 
 of adventuring but it was not so long a chance as 
 to make the odds too heavy against me. I had 
 watched the man very attentively and felt he would 
 stick, not on account of loyalty I didn't believe he 
 had a spark of it but on purely selfish grounds. I 
 
 162
 
 KEYS TO THE SITUATION 163 
 
 held the key to the situation two keys, indeed, the 
 gold and the mandioca. I knew he was terrified by 
 the trip and had come for the sole reason of getting 
 those shining sovereigns which were to take him to 
 liberty; it was not likely he would now run away 
 from these, however much he recoiled at the price 
 of service. Moreover, even if his fright overcame his 
 cupidity, there remained the question of food. We 
 were a long way from any habitation or the likelihood 
 of meeting a travelling Indian on the river from 
 whom food might be procured too far for provi- 
 sionless flight; and all he had was the scant ration I 
 had purposely provided a single meal in the small 
 calabash. So the odds were in my favour, I thought. 
 Having one or the other of the keys, he might have 
 put me to the necessity of discovering if these " Indios 
 bravos " merit their reputation; but with neither gold 
 nor food well, as I cached the sack by hanging it 
 on an inland hidden tree, I felt rather sure that if 
 Cristobal did not have another handful out of it the 
 next night it would be through my failure, not his, 
 to keep the rendezvous. 
 
 For a full half-hour after the Zambo had gone, 
 I studied the shadows of the forest over which the 
 starlight twinkled with slight effect; and when my 
 eyes saw independent of my imagination in the weird 
 light, I began my furtive approach upon the recessed 
 bank where the Indian had fished in the morning and 
 which I intended to make the pivot of my explora- 
 tions inland. Ready now for action, I adjusted my 
 equipment according to habit. To facilitate noise- 
 less, unhampered movement, I slipped my rifle strap 
 over the left and under the right shoulder, so it car-
 
 164 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ried firmly on my back, butt upmost ; my glasses were 
 slung so as to seat securely under the left arm pit; 
 my revolver and knife I slipped to the front of my 
 belt, one on either side, right and left. Thus I knew 
 by experience I had everything under body Control 
 in worming through brush, with nothing at my sides 
 to need watching or to catch; and my hands free. 
 
 The section I entered was more open than it ap- 
 peared to be from the river, often the case when 
 concealing bushes of the bank give no hint of com- 
 parative clearings behind. Yet one unaccustomed to 
 jungle would hardly have called it open going, for 
 of plant and bush life there was abundance and too 
 many bore thorns for careless or painless walking; 
 many were the times I wished for those discarded 
 trouser lengths! 
 
 I came to the little bay much sooner than I ex- 
 pected the current had been swifter than our calcu- 
 lations but no one was there or any evidence of 
 habitation or canoe. Circling, I found what in such 
 setting might be described as a path, which showed 
 no great usage and was barely discernible, Follow- 
 ing this with utmost caution, I passed through the 
 denser jungle edging of the river into more open 
 forest, and in less than a mile into a small savannah 
 with a group of the familiar, smooth-looking boulders 
 at the near side. Turning my steps towards these, 
 with a view to using them for a lookout point, I was 
 of a sudden halted with a rising pulse, by voices- 
 several voices! 
 
 Stealing a dozen paces nearer and to one side, I 
 crouched in my tracks listening. Evidently it was an
 
 FIND AN ENCAMPMENT 165 
 
 abode, or at least an encampment, the voices always 
 from the same direction not over fifty to sixty 
 feet away; I could hear them distinctly. Even more 
 distinctly I could hear my heart thumping, which 
 calmed as it recovered from the abrupt arrival of the 
 novel situation. The talking continued now desul- 
 tory, now flaring up in a sustained flow, always mod- 
 ulated, but never tuneful. There seemed to be three 
 or four men and a woman, and I concluded them 
 fixed for the night, as they gave no signs of shifting. 
 It was not late I guessed not over nine, though 
 I could not read my iwatch dial and, of course, 
 would not strike a match. I remained where I had 
 crouched long after the last voice had subsided, and 
 then retreating as I had come there being no fear 
 of leaving tracks in such cover I reached the edge 
 of the savannah again. 
 
 Recalling Cristobal's tree lookout of the day be- 
 fore, I determined to try the same method in an at- 
 tempt to see something of these people. But the 
 idea came easier than its execution. Trees were not 
 wanting, but either they were festooned with innu- 
 merable vines, making climbing next to impossible, or 
 they presented sixty feet of smooth, clear trunk of 
 too great circumference, or one so covered with para- 
 sitic growth as to effectually block ascent. Sidling 
 thus cautiously in my inspection from tree to tree, 
 on a sudden I was rooted to the spot by a crashing 
 at my side while visions of a whole tribe of im- 
 placable cannibals flashed before me and almost as 
 instantly I recognized the quick rustling and the 
 clacking of peccaries. Nor was recognition of the
 
 166 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 true intruder much relief. Nothing on four feet is 
 more pugnacious for its inches than these same little 
 brutes; already they had put me up a tree in Brazil 
 after I had killed four of a herd. Luckily, this 
 was a small company, and with the tree as a shield 
 I remained undiscovered while they busied round 
 a few moments before passing on. 
 
 At last, after being stopped midway up one tree 
 by the hanging-garden parasite, I finally ascended 
 about forty feet of a gray, slim, unencumbered trunk 
 after the hardest bit of shinning I had ever expe- 
 rienced. Being just back of the first trees at the 
 savannah's edge it commanded an entire view of the 
 boulders which showed indistinctly about one hundred 
 and fifty to two hundred feet off. I made myself as 
 comfortable as I could, which, because of the fre- 
 quency of the limbs, was more comfortable than I had 
 expected. Straddling two close-growing ones, to 
 which I secured the rifle, with one arm over another, 
 and my back against the trunk, I passed the buckskin 
 thong around the tree and my body under the arms, 
 fastening it at my breast. Thus I awaited daylight, 
 getting several quite respectable cat naps, as the condi- 
 tions for dozing, although somewhat unconventional, 
 were but little less comfortable than in the canoe. 
 
 Three men, a woman, and some children made up 
 the party camped among the boulders, and it did 
 not take long to record their points of interests. Like 
 the fisherman, who was not among them, they were 
 taller and slimmer and darker than the average of 
 Indians I had met on the river having no negro 
 blood. Yet there were no negroid characteristics; 
 their noses were neither broad nor flat less inclined
 
 HUMANS WITHOUT A COOKING STOVE 167 
 
 that way, indeed, than many of lighter hue along 
 the road; their hair was long and coarse; they were 
 nude save for girdles of fibre, or something like 
 it, which afforded no concealment except partially in 
 the case of the woman, and were probably not worn 
 for such purpose. Of ornaments they bore very few ; 
 the woman had a necklace of either beans or small 
 teeth like monkey teeth; and one of the men wore 
 a neck ring which appeared to be of vine. None had 
 ear pendants or nose rings, and there was less of the 
 pot-belly conformation so usual to interior peo- 
 ple of South America because of the coarse and in- 
 nutritions food they consume in great quantities. 
 
 Not until I had been watching them all morning 
 did it suddenly dawn upon me that they had no fire 
 or had made one at any time. Yet they had eaten, 
 were eating indeed, when I awoke to the absence of 
 any cooking agency. The men busied themselves, 
 one making a bow, another scraping a bit of wood 
 with something seemingly stone, as near as I could 
 judge, while the third made a jaunt into the forest 
 beyond the savannah, bringing back a bird which the 
 woman threw behind her into what looked like a 
 hole in the ground or the rocks. They ate fish and 
 something vegetable I did not recognize which they 
 picked up and bit as one might an apple. But at no 
 time was there indication of fire, and of utensils I 
 saw only gourds and one larger vessel resembling a 
 shallow, earthen bowl. Fingers were the only forks 
 and spoons, and either a sliver of hard wood or bone 
 served as a knife. 
 
 It rained in the afternoon, and they all disap- 
 peared among the rocks, but just where and how I
 
 168 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 could not see, so I decided to hunt another tree 
 from which I could overlook that part of their camp. 
 Until dark, therefore, I occupied myself locating 
 such a one and speculating on these humans who 
 appeared to live in the ground and eat without fire. 
 
 On attempting to descend, I discovered I was 
 quite a bit stiffened, but a little muscle flexing soon 
 smoothed the machinery, and I found my way with- 
 out accident or incident to the place of rendezvous. 
 Sure enough, there was Cristobal waiting. He 
 greeted me as a dear, returning friend, and 
 lost no time in preparing the mandioca I had 
 fetched from the cached sack; in which repast I 
 joined him with gusto, for small as his ration, mine 
 had been even smaller. I had taken none, the neces- 
 sary water not being accessible aloft. 
 
 Cristobal was full of wonderment, but could throw 
 no light on what I had seen; he had always heard 
 these savages lived " como perro " (like dogs) with- 
 out fixed houses; as to whether they used fire no 
 one had ever been with them to find out, he said. 
 
 The second tree lookout was almost opposite my 
 first perch a little farther from the boulders, and put 
 me in position to solve the disappearance of the In- 
 dians. They were in caves, of which the boulder 
 group appeared to have several, all shallow. 
 
 This was rather a stupid day. The men went 
 away, the woman and children remained holed. Late 
 in the afternoon I heard a shouting across the savan- 
 nah, inland way, followed shortly after by the com- 
 ing of two men who fraternized with the woman un- 
 til the men of the house returned, and then all six 
 sat around eating the vegetable to which I have re-
 
 GROPING THROUGH JUNGLE 169 
 
 ferred. The strangers differed in no respect from 
 the others except that one, a young man, wore a 
 necklace of small claws about ocelot size, with a 
 long talon in the centre as sizable as that of an eagle. 
 
 When the visitors departed, I followed them care- 
 fully with my glasses, and as soon as night had set- 
 tled, hastened to my meal with Cristobal, who did not 
 arrive until after I had eaten. He had been delayed 
 in starting by a man and woman and a little boy, 
 who remained until dusk at the tiny bay, the man 
 fishing, the woman digging into the bank at various 
 places getting nothing so far as Cristobal could see. 
 
 It was easy now finding my way to the savannah, 
 and I made the detour to where I had marked down 
 the visitors with not much difficulty but at this point 
 I was puzzled. Listening long, I could detect no 
 sound. I felt sure the camps were not widely sepa- 
 rated that the new one, if not in a savannah, would 
 be in the more open jungle. It had rained most of 
 the afternoon and was doing so now, making the 
 denser woods so black that to say I groped my way 
 along would be fairly to describe my progress. I 
 knew there would be no voices to either guide me or 
 arrest me before I walked on to the strangers, but I 
 also felt that unless I stumbled actually upon them, 
 any small noise, if detected, would be ascribed to 
 some animal often, as I stole along, I heard such 
 sounds. So I went ahead. 
 
 Passing through this close bit of forest, I came 
 into comparative openness and decided to find a tree 
 here, for it was too dark to survey my surroundings, 
 and I felt I must be near the new camp. Daylight, 
 however, revealed neither camp nor Indians. I was
 
 170 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 at the opening of a kind of pocket dotted with 
 groups of trees and beyond, at the end, a hill rose. 
 I could sweep practically the entire place, but not a 
 sound did I hear or a thing did I see indicating hu- 
 man life. All morning I used my glasses industri- 
 ously without reward. In disgust at my failure I 
 had just about made up my mind to descend when 
 the crying of a child directly at the right renewed my 
 interest in life. I couldn't see because of intervening 
 trees, but as the sounds were, I reckoned, several hun- 
 dred feet away, I hastened to earth and toward a 
 tree which would, I felt, overlook the sought-for 
 camp. Yet I was again disappointed, for I could see 
 nothing resembling Indians, and the crying had 
 ceased before I got out of the other tree. It's no 
 speedy performance even to come down quietly thirty 
 to sixty feet of limbless tree trunk accoutred as I 
 was as to shinning up, tramping the northern mus- 
 keg in spring-time is a picnic beside it! 
 
 It seemed as if my day was destined to be a blank, 
 when, shortly after four, I discovered one of the two 
 visitors of yesterday coming up the pocket carrying, 
 as I saw when he drew nearer, an agouti. He passed 
 within one hundred feet of me and stopped at a small 
 grove of large trees not another hundred feet away. 
 Forthwith issued the sound of voices, then a shout, 
 and soon whom should I see approaching from be- 
 yond but my lone fisherman. Evidently there was 
 another camp at hand, and under cover of the early 
 dark, before joining Cristobal, I located both with 
 certainty and a tree from which to observe them the 
 day following. 
 
 My fourth attempt to view the home life of these
 
 INDIANS WEST OF LAKE MARACAIBO SHOWING STYLE OF BO\V COMMON TO ALL VENEZUELA
 
 AT CLOSE QUARTERS 171 
 
 homeless people began after a good half -night's doz- 
 ing in a tree at the jungle edge. From this elevated 
 position I could see both camps about two hundred 
 and fifty feet distant, each being a very simply con- 
 structed lean-to, housing, all told, four men, three 
 women, and several children, similar in feature and 
 undress to the others I had seen. Bows were the only 
 weapons in sight, while the culinary department ap- 
 peared to be restricted to the gourd-like vessels ; there 
 was no fire, though I saw them eating in the early 
 morning and at noon. 
 
 Having evidently exhausted what they had to 
 show in the way of home life from this vantage-point, 
 I determined on descending for some exploration on 
 foot. Swinging to the far side of the camp and the 
 hillside of the pocket and working up-wind, I discov- 
 ered another lean-to quite open to view under a high- 
 branched tree, occupied by two men, one oldish, the 
 other young and wearing a neck-band strung with 
 what looked like parrot beaks. He was vigorously 
 grinding or polishing something between stones which 
 now and again his companion examined. Finally, he 
 appeared to finish the job, when, picking up his bow 
 and slipping on an open-braided basket-like quiver, 
 he headed for the jungle practically at where I stood. 
 
 This was disconcerting or good luck as you 
 feel. I thought it a providential opportunity to see 
 the Indian at work, so moving to one side behind a 
 great plant, I let him pass within twenty-five feet of 
 me; and before another fifty feet I was on his trail. 
 He was looking for game, otherwise moving so cau- 
 tiously I could not have kept within hailing distance, 
 and as it was, the forest permitted me only occa-
 
 172 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 sional glimpses of him. On one of these he was 
 stringing a rat creature he had shot on a vine which 
 he attached to his girdle. 
 
 As I followed, the wild fancy of capturing and 
 taking him out flashed through my brain; then sober 
 second thought queried how it was to be accom- 
 plished. I could not hold him up because a rifle 
 meant nothing to him; he'd probably think it some 
 new kind of blow-gun, which, together with the 
 bow, completes his knowledge of deadly weapons. 
 The instant I showed myself he would either lodge 
 an arrow where it would do the most good for him 
 or raise an alarm; probably both. Meantime, 
 there'd be nothing for me but either to kill him or 
 skip neither of which alternatives pleased me. So 
 I forsook the capturing alive idea and turned toward 
 my cache, as dusk was approaching and I had 
 strayed quite a distance. 
 
 Scarcely had I separated from the Indian when 
 a boa constrictor, all of eight feet long, drew slowly 
 across my path, filling me, as these unblinking rep- 
 tiles always do, with resistless desire to kill. It was 
 second largest of the few snakes I saw, but often as 
 I stealthily crept along in the night I fancied I heard 
 them which was worse than seeing them. Really, 
 you see remarkably few snakes in the jungle consid- 
 ering their multitude ; they flee your path. 
 
 Cristobal grinned for the first time in a couple 
 of weeks when I told him this night that the distin- 
 guished exploring expedition into the Mystic Land, 
 under the auspices of the American with the wander- 
 lust, had come to an end, bringing harm to none and
 
 WORK FOR AN EQUIPPED EXPEDITION 173 
 
 mighty little information of value to any one. Per- 
 sonally, however, I felt amply repaid for my arduous 
 journey. To be sure, merely looking upon these 
 savages of such ill-repute had brought me chiefly the 
 joy of adventure and the satisfaction of finally grasp- 
 ing what I had struggled to reach, but for me that 
 spelled attainment. My mission was neither punitive 
 nor scientific nor yet humanitarian; the sole motive 
 force behind my enterprise was the wish to " look be- 
 hind the ranges " the lust of adventure, if you prefer 
 so to call it. Of course, I could easily have learned the 
 real attitude of the Indians toward intruders and 
 might even have brought out important knowledge 
 for the savants; or, on the other hand, I might have 
 been compelled to defend myself, and frankly I did 
 not invite such an issue. I had no relish for being 
 put to the necessity of waging so uneven a battle as 
 a magazine rifle against bows and arrows or blow- 
 guns suggested. It seemed too much like poking a 
 stick into an ant-hill and then swatting the insects as 
 they hurried forth. 
 
 Some day, perhaps, an adequately equipped and 
 numbered party with interpreters will penetrate this 
 region to gather scientific data concerning these 
 Indians and determine, without slaughtering them, 
 I hope, if they are as eager for human gore as now 
 freely claimed to be. My feeling is that any attack 
 they might make would be in supposed self-defence 
 on account of traditional dread of intruders rather 
 than because of bloodthirstiness. I find it indeed 
 difficult in a retrospective view to transform any 
 one of those groups I saw into a war party.
 
 174 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 I believe these Indians as a whole are an inland 
 people ranging over the mountains to the north and 
 the plateau beyond; that like those bordering on the 
 lower Orinoco they make periodic pilgrimages in 
 groups to the river for the purpose of fishing or of 
 gathering the turtle eggs which lower down are laid 
 by the thousands in the sand-banks or bars in the 
 very early spring. That they had no canoes, as I 
 satisfied myself after repeated search, is convincing 
 evidence of their not being a river people. The 
 groups I saw were, no doubt, belated parties, for 
 over all this north section of South America the 
 Indians travel in this manner; there being no such 
 thing as a tribe movement or a tribal head. 
 
 At midnight of the third night we were back 
 at the Barrier, and by next noon drew up at the cache 
 we had left two weeks before. 
 
 And now came the unhappy sequel to my other- 
 wise happy adventure. 
 
 Believing that to give quickly is to give twofold, 
 as the saying goes, I divided the sovereigns as we en- 
 joyed our first smoke, telling Cristobal as I handed 
 him his promised share that I was much pleased 
 and intended to get a larger canoe for myself down 
 the river and give him the small one for his own jour- 
 ney to the Negro. Then I dropped the buckskin bag 
 with its remaining gold into my camera case, where, 
 with the day-by-day note-book and pencils, I often 
 placed it for safety when laundrying or bathing, as 
 now I did before swinging my hammock. When I 
 returned from the river I was somewhat surprised 
 to find that Cristobal, usually a ready and deep
 
 MY MAN TURNS TRAITOR 175 
 
 sleeper, had not put up his hammock, and I thought 
 his unsolicited reason of wishing to smoke rather 
 strange, for, if there is any luxury of indolence a 
 Venezuelan enjoys more than another it is lolling in 
 a hammock smoking. 
 
 I swung my hammock, but I remained wide 
 awake, the incident being just enough unusual to 
 arouse my curiosity, the almost sub-conscious guard 
 of the wilderness traveller. I knew he was as tired 
 as I and his stirring around puzzled as well as dis- 
 concerted me. When he had reseated himself after a 
 second trip to the river, I concluded it time to in- 
 vestigate. .Going down to the canoe I found it 
 pushed off the bank whence I had drawn it, and 
 loaded with the entire cache ! It was as plain as type ; 
 Cristobal intended to decamp with the provisions. 
 
 Drawing the canoe again well up on land, I re- 
 turned directly to my camera-box and as I stooped 
 over it, Cristobal, evidently divining I was on to his 
 game, bolted for the canoe. Covering him with my 
 rifle I yelled, "para!" "para!" (stop) unheeded, 
 however. Not wishing to harm him, though I boiled 
 at the thought of his outrageous perfidy, I dropped 
 the rifle and gave chase. 
 
 Speedily overtaking and tripping him, I 
 rolled him down the bank; but regaining his feet 
 he seized the canoe in an endeavour to drag 
 it into the water. With a yank at his arm and 
 a shove at his shoulder I loosed his hold, throwing 
 him over again, and as he got on his feet, cursing 
 and furious, he pulled a dirk-like knife out of his 
 breech clout and came at me. It was a swift change 
 of relationship from the recent almost intimate
 
 176 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 association. Dodging his first quick lunge, I seized 
 my sassafras paddle from the canoe and as he came 
 again I swung it edge on into his stomach, doub- 
 ling him up with a groan. Another sharp rap 
 knocked the knife out of his hand, and as he was 
 rather well done I sat down at hand to await the next 
 chapter, heartsick at the thought that the lure of the 
 sovereign could be so strong.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 UNDER THE^SHADOW OF DUIDA 
 
 Notwithstanding my justifiable resentment of his 
 treachery, the encounter with Cristobal weighed sor- 
 rowfully upon me as I sat watching him come back 
 to consciousness. 'Twas not fear of the consequences 
 of the engagement, nor remorse over the hurt I had 
 given him which distressed me, but the thought that 
 one human being could want one hundred dollars 
 bad enough to leave another fellow creature 
 foodless and boatless in a wilderness where rescue 
 was an improbability and escape otherwise impos- 
 sible. Precisely such a creature I had on my hands. 
 Safe return down-stream in his company loomed as 
 more of a problem than had advance beyond the Bar- 
 rier. Of the unfriendliness of the denizens of the 
 mystic land there was always the chance that it might, 
 despite all the talk, prove merely a bit of local tradi- 
 tion left over from the eighteenth century conflict 
 with the Spaniards. Cristobal's attitude, however, 
 admitted of no conjecture; he lay before me, a living, 
 tangible thing that had entirely uncovered his pur- 
 pose and the extent he would go to execute it. 
 
 What in the world to do with him puzzled me 
 sorely, nor was the question to be evaded; it had to 
 be met and answered just as soon as he recovered 
 from the swing of my paddle. To maroon him there 
 with some supplies would have been the simplest so- 
 lution, as well as the safest, and perhaps, too, a bit of 
 poetic justice; but it was not to my liking. It came 
 
 177
 
 178 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 too near to being a sentence of death since we were far 
 beyond the reach of occasional Indian canoes, while 
 inland stretched the forbidding, tropical forest- 
 illimitable, untenanted, well-nigh impassable. I 
 could not abandon him; some other course had to be 
 devised, and I needed relaxation and sleep that I 
 might face the question and the future with a fresher 
 mind. I was very tired, worn out, indeed. 
 
 By the time Cristobal sat up, I had determined 
 on a plan for the immediate future that night and 
 as soon as he got on his feet, lost no time putting it 
 in operation. No words were wasted on the Zambo. 
 I commanded him to hand over the bag of sovereigns, 
 which he did with grievous reluctance, and when I 
 divided the gold and returned him half, he at first 
 doubted my sincerity, but seized the coins hun- 
 grily as he understood I really meant him to have 
 the promised share for accompanying me, and stowed 
 the lot in the kind of breech clout he wore always, 
 whether in or out of trousers. Briefly, I told him he 
 must obey me instantly on the word or pay the full 
 penalty of a man who has sought the life of a com- 
 rade. Keeping him always at arm's length or far- 
 ther, so he could not spring upon me unawares, and 
 with my revolver loosed in its holster, we rearranged 
 the loaded canoe, and then started down river from 
 that camp of unpleasant memory, the Zambo at his 
 customary station in the bow and I at the steer 
 paddle. 
 
 Making great time with the current in the mid- 
 dle of the river, we kept going until dusk, and then 
 running to the left bank, I landed Cristobal with 
 hammock, blanket and a meal of mandioca; where-
 
 DECIDING THE FATE OF A RENEGADE 179 
 
 upon he lifted up his voice in lamentations, thinking, 
 no doubt, I was preparing to desert him. He quieted 
 when I announced that as I couldn't bring myself to 
 abandon him as he richly deserved, and as I didn't 
 trust him, I proposed crossing to the other side of the 
 river for the long sleep I very much needed, and 
 would return in the morning. 
 
 It was past noon when I awoke the next day 
 (May 31) to hear the voice of Cristobal, like the 
 wail of a lost spirit, rising and falling in a ques- 
 tioning call, which sounded weird enough coming up 
 out of that vast jungle solitude. Giving answering 
 halloa of reassurance, I floated the canoe, and, as 
 with clear head and steadied nerves, after nearly 
 eighteen hours of deep slumber, I paddled over to 
 pick up the Zambo, the perplexities of the situation 
 seemed less formidable. Disposal of the half-breed 
 was no nearer fulfilment, but it harried me less. 
 After a night's refreshment, the only possible course 
 opened clearly to me patent from the very first to 
 one less perturbed viz., to journey down-stream un- 
 til a practicable solution presented. Hailing any In- 
 dian voyagers we happened to meet farther west 
 and so transferring Cristobal sounded feasible, but 
 did not, in the circumstances, appear wise. The game 
 was not yet won, and I intended to hold my vantage 
 by playing safe. 
 
 Thus we began our journey down the Orinoco, 
 speeding along with the river, which was a good 
 six to eight feet higher now than on our up trip 
 and rising perceptibly every day, the Zambo doing 
 his share of work without comment, and I ever 
 ready for prompt action should the need be. Of
 
 180 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 course, we stopped always before dark that there 
 might be less temptation for Cristobal and more fa- 
 vourable conditions for me in finding a camp on the 
 opposite bank after I had put him ashore; and on 
 each occasion of our nightly separation, my late es- 
 teemed crew swore eternal loyalty by the name of his 
 mother and the Virgin Mary. 
 
 As the third day drew to a close, we arrived off 
 the mouth of the Guapo, near where I had found the 
 Zambo three weeks before, and Cristobal asked that 
 I land him, as on the small river he had, he said, 
 " amigos " (friends) a rather unhappy choice of 
 word for him just then, as it aroused my suspicions 
 at once. However, on deliberation, I concluded the 
 Zambo himself had provided the best answer that 
 could offer of the problem of what to do with him. 
 He had begged not to be left at San Fernando de 
 Atabapo, the nearest settlement, where he might run 
 into trouble because of his army desertion, and, more- 
 over, I had no wish to see Atabapo a second time, 
 after my unpleasant previous visit. At the Guapo 
 he would be no farther from his home port than when 
 I picked him up, and was at least within striking 
 distance of food, so it seemed really the natural con- 
 clusion to his voyage. None the less, I thought it the 
 better part of valour to be cautious, and put in a little 
 above the mouth of the Guapo, where I left him with 
 the twenty sovereigns reward for going with me be- 
 yond the Barrier, four other sovereigns as wages for 
 the twenty days we had been together, and three 
 days' supplies. 
 
 Then out into the middle of the current again I
 
 SODDEN BUT HAPPY 181 
 
 went on my way alone, rejoiced to a degree I could 
 not make you believe. 
 
 All that night I paddled, impelled partly by the 
 spirit of elation which possesses one when he turns 
 his face homeward after successful adventuring, and 
 partly because I considered it timely discretion to 
 get away from this section of the river as rapidly as 
 possible. By early noon I was passing Esmeralda, 
 and two hours later reached the Casiquiare. Beyond 
 here I tied up for a bit of rest and food as well 
 as to do a little in the way of toilet making, which 
 for three weeks past had begun and ended with moist- 
 ening my face and brushing my teeth and not al- 
 ways that much. So I was in need of attention 
 also I wished to put on " the other " shirt and the 
 only trousers to replace the abbreviated coverings 
 which exposed me needlessly now to insect attack. 
 Not that the other pair was dry nothing was; even 
 the cached stuff was saturated. My canoe had no 
 toldo, of course, so since starting up-river from the 
 Guapo nearly a month before, there had been no pro- 
 tection from the rain; and as the rain fell upon us 
 daily, sometimes nightly too, for good measure, it is 
 easy to imagine the sodden condition of my equip- 
 ment. Being alternately soaked and dried once or 
 even twice on the same day was not an unusual oc- 
 currence, for while once wet meant to remain wet 
 even under a toldo, yet the sun, when it shone, steamed 
 the moisture out of you and whatever you wore. 
 
 In a thinnish, rather inviting spot on the north 
 bank where the thermometer read 82, the aneroid 
 five hundred and fifty feet, with Duida shadowing my 
 left shoulder, I stayed until late in the day, bringing
 
 182 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 my notes to date from the last camp on the Casiquiare, 
 eating, sleeping and sprucing up generally, until I felt 
 once more like a white man. Here, as I sat, a small 
 flock of grayish birds with white breasts, about the 
 size of a thrush, flew near me, and of two others 
 about the same size I especially noted, one was 
 black with a long spreading tail and one brown with 
 black and white spots on wing and throat. Though 
 this humid upper Orinoco stretch displayed compara- 
 tively few examples of the brilliant tropical species, 
 how I wished for the knowing eyes of a Frank 
 Chapman on these jungle journeys! 
 
 It was lacking about an hour or two of dusk when 
 I set out again down river. 
 
 From here, Maipures, the southern front of the 
 great cataract, is about three hundred miles away. 
 The mountains on the north which approach com- 
 paratively near to the river east of Esmeralda recede 
 to the west of Duida, and the banks of the river take 
 on somewhat the character of the Rio Negro, except 
 that on the Orinoco the background is always of 
 mountains. From the Casiquiare west, the south bank 
 on the left is a great flat, and both banks are heavily 
 covered to the water. It was a gloomy stretch of 
 going had I been of mind to be affected; the truth 
 is I was hilarious. Nothing could be sombre enough 
 to sadden me, now; everything appeared gay. 
 
 Keeping to the middle of the river to get the ut- 
 most benefit of a swift and rising current, I made 
 excellent time at least six miles the hour, I should 
 say and revelled in the luxurious ease of down- 
 stream travel, with its freedom from insects, though 
 my observations of the passing banks were less in-
 
 * Vft/i^. aC*JA* 
 U, 
 
 O^A*-^^ 
 
 ~;n 
 
 V> Dj'tx^.vto 
 ATURES, THE NORTH GATE 
 
 "H 
 
 MAIPURES, THE SOUTH GATE 
 
 THE GREAT CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO FROM AN OLD 
 SPANISH MAP
 
 AN ANCIENT INLAND ROUTE 183 
 
 forming than in the slower ascent. It is in working 
 up-river hugging the banks to avoid the force of the 
 current that you can better observe the plant and 
 such animal and bird life as you may happen upon 
 and also receive the merciless insect attack in 
 its entire fury. Descending such a river as the 
 Rio Negro, for example, I doubt if one would be at 
 all bothered by the busy pium, for even on the Ori- 
 noco, where the upper waters are bady infested, I 
 was stung so comparatively little on the retreat as 
 to make the experience unworthy of mention. 
 
 In two days I had done over one hundred miles 
 and came to the mouth of the unexplored Ventuario, 
 largest of Orinoco tributaries entering on the right 
 or east bank, and a river which interested me so 
 greatly that I had planned an expedition to its source 
 the year previous, getting as near as Atabapo, only to 
 have my efforts frustrated by failure to secure men. 
 And here I was at last actually on its waters, but 
 unable to do more now than take a cursory survey 
 of its mouth, for, in my crewless and provisionless 
 condition, exploration was out of the question. 
 
 Since the days of the Jesuits, those courageous 
 pathfinders, no white man so far as known has passed 
 inside the Ventuario's island-filled delta. In the lat- 
 ter half of the eighteenth century, the Spaniards 
 were active on the upper Orinoco as far west as 
 Esmeralda, and built a road inland so they could from 
 the Orinoco reach their missions on the Caura via a 
 portage and the Erewato and Ventuario rivers. 
 They were admirably adventuresome, but pitilessly 
 cruel to the Indians, who, towards the close of the 
 century, finally wiped out the entire string of protect-
 
 184 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ing blockhouses, extending over a hundred miles, to- 
 gether with all the soldier defenders they could lay 
 hands on in one night's concerted attack. So far as 
 the white man is concerned, the fall of those block- 
 houses closed the road, which since has been reclaimed 
 by the jungle; but the Caribs (once the flower and 
 terror among Venezuelan Indians, of whom now only 
 a degenerate remnant remain) continued, as they had 
 before the advent of the brutal masters they helped 
 massacre, to journey from the Lower to the Up- 
 per Orinoco, to the Casiquiare and even to the Rio 
 Negro, by ascending the Caroni, or the Caura to the 
 Erewato and thence by a several days' portage to the 
 larger Ventuario. 
 
 They say there are impassable cataracts on the 
 upper waters of the Ventuario; perhaps there are, 
 though except for the insect pest of the Casiquiare, I 
 have never found anything so bad as painted, espe- 
 cially in South America, where the conditions do not 
 invite the native to adventuring. At all events, the 
 Caribs passed this way, and what Indians did two 
 hundred years ago white man can do to-day if he has 
 the needed incentive. The only white man thus far in 
 modern times to have attempted the penetration of 
 this rugged region from whose mountainous interior 
 spring the Ventuario, Caura, Caroni great among 
 the great tributaries of the Orinoco which bounds it 
 on three sides, north, south and west is Eugene 
 Andre, who, about ten years ago (1902), essayed 
 the Caura route with a party of Indians engaged on 
 the Orinoco and thereabouts. Half-way up he lost 
 his canoe in the rapids and barely escaped to the 
 starting point at the Caura's mouth after a hazardous
 
 THE SOLEMN SOLDADO 185 
 
 retreat by raft and jungle, during which a couple of 
 men were lost and the remainder of the company all 
 but perished of hunger. 
 
 As the way appeared rather devious across the 
 mouth of the Ventuario, I camped for the night just 
 inside on the south or east bank, according to how 
 you approach, that I might have at least a good look 
 by daylight at the water course which had figured so 
 largely in my day dreams. But nothing to espe- 
 cially distinguish it from other great contributaries 
 to the Road showed so near the Orinoco; there is an 
 uninteresting sameness, in fact, to all tropical water 
 courses particularly in their lower stretches. Ex- 
 cept for its islands the mouth of the Ventuario might 
 in general appearance answer for that of the Meta, 
 or the Casiquiare, or the Guaviare. I found one 
 new thing, however, in several short morning jaunts 
 back from the bank, viz., a tall, coarse grass which 
 cut my ear like a knife and made a really formidable 
 obstruction to passage. I knew the grass and its 
 character well enough to avoid it, but at the time 
 of the encounter I happened to be following one 
 of those solemn stalking herons in an effort to see it 
 close by, and the shortest approach was through the 
 grass. I often tried, but never did get a very near 
 view of these birds, more frequently seen on the lower 
 Orinoco, standing solitary and dejected like a sen- 
 tinel weary of his job; the natives call them "sol- 
 dados" (soldiers). They sound an unmusical note, 
 and excepting the hoarse croak of the crocodile I 
 know of none less pleasing for its volume. 
 
 What I did get a near and somewhat prolonged 
 look at was a great ant-eater, or ant bear as some
 
 186 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 call it, which was so busy with its slender snout 
 and long, curved claws investigating a find that it 
 failed to hear me stealing along in my endeavour to 
 view the soldado. Such queer acting, unattractive 
 brutes they are! The penned captives of the Zoo 
 give no proper idea of their energy or activity. This 
 one worked almost with the zest of a badger, making 
 fine subject for a photograph had there been more 
 light. Always the same disappointing camera story! 
 Never is there light to get anything in the jungle 
 interior, and when the amateur photographer comes 
 to the comparative clearings it is sure to be raining, 
 while views along the river are dreary and monoto- 
 nous, not to mention the effect of the steaming hu- 
 midity on his films. Not one in a dozen of my ex- 
 posures resulted in a recognizable negative, though, 
 of course, the treatment of my boxes, what with be- 
 ing under the rain so constantly and into the river 
 several times from upset canoes, was not conducive 
 to results and unfair to the film makers. 
 
 Another opportunity for a nature photograph 
 at my camp here at the mouth of the Ventuario I 
 wish I could have made the most of was an attack 
 upon me of large black ants, one-half to three-quar- 
 ters of an inch long. You may have read, as I had 
 in some of the collections of natural history misin- 
 formation, that ants in their journeys en masse in- 
 variably keep to the ground. Perhaps this is true 
 of the species ordinary to civilization, but these of 
 which I speak swarmed over me in my hammock, 
 turning me out in double quick time, for no insect 
 with which I have had experience bites with the ma- 
 lignity of the biting ant.
 
 ATTACKED BY BLACK ANTS 187 
 
 When I sprang out of my hammock, both hands 
 diligently combing and brushing and vigorously 
 slapping my person from head to foot, I landed 
 unaware in the midst of the marching army. 
 It may sound ridiculous, no doubt, that an active 
 pair of No. 7 shod feet should be overwhelmed, 
 routed by mere ants, of which hundreds could 
 be crushed to death -at every stamp of the foot 
 but it's true, none the less. Until I had, in jump- 
 ing around, got out of the line of march of the ant 
 army, the battle was all one way. I could not kill 
 or knock them off me fast enough to stand free of 
 assault. The invasion of my hammock had begun 
 before dawn, and daylight filtered through the jun- 
 gle edge by the time I finally escaped the invaders, 
 if not " bleeding at every vein," as the hero patriot 
 of famous song, at least with every vein punctured 
 and flaming. 
 
 Never in all my wilderness experience did I 
 undergo such a thorough and painful insect " biting 
 up." At broad daylight the ant army was still march- 
 ing, millions of them, it appeared, in a column 
 as much as a foot wide in places and never nar- 
 rower than six inches; where I had fought them 
 they spread to two feet over the multitude of car- 
 casses that littered the ground. The line led to and 
 deflected round the tree to which the foot-rope of 
 my hammock was attached, but a division of great 
 numbers filed up the tree itself, and, I was tremen- 
 dously interested to note, many filed down again, 
 though the returning ones seemed nowhere near so 
 numerous as those advancing. My hammock line 
 made a popular sidetrack for other battalions that
 
 188 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 were climbing the tree to which my head-rope was 
 fastened; and all the while the main body marched 
 past the tree in its course, seemingly undiminished 
 or undismayed by either desertion or disaster. It 
 was a sight of which I never saw the equal, though, 
 no doubt, it is habitual enough in the lives of , these 
 determined and industrious insects. 
 
 Swinging to the west and into the current where 
 it joined that of the Orinoco, I got under way from 
 my Ventuario camp, smarting and stewing, with 
 plenty to occupy me until I had paddled beyond the 
 various swirls and counter-currents of the islands 
 and the meeting rivers. When I had quite regained 
 the Orinoco again, not far to the west of the delta 
 a couple of houses on the right bank caught my eye, 
 and I wondered if they were all that remained of 
 the once thriving mission of Santa Barbara. I did 
 not stop, as the settlement suggested neither supplies 
 nor canoes, and I was hitting the trail as hard as I 
 knew how with no delay. As I looked forward to 
 the estimated ten days' (it proved to be twelve) 
 work ahead of me, I was simply afire with a desire 
 to " eat 'em up," and I sang for very joy as my 
 canoe sped down the long flowing road, which must 
 have been moving near to its high water rate of six 
 to seven miles the hour. 
 
 While the river is said to be at its full flood in 
 August, and it was now only June, yet once in a 
 while a solitary tree on a point past which the cur- 
 rent raced close, told me we were within ten feet of 
 the average maximum, which ordinarily ranges from 
 thirty to forty feet above the minimum; although on 
 my trip the year before at the time of low water
 
 ESCAPING THE FOREST DEAD LEVEL 189 
 
 extreme marks were pointed out by the Indians 
 which must have been sixty to seventy feet above 
 our level. Such figures would probably denote a 
 freshet; also allowance must be made for local pride 
 the " boosters " are not all confined to Los 
 Angeles. But I have paddled through the forest time 
 and again noting on the great trees among which I 
 navigated a very plain high water mark twenty, thirty 
 and forty feet above me, usually just at the base 
 of the curiously wrought hanging baskets of which 
 I have written, and which so often hold the exquisite, 
 many-coloured orchid, the most delicately fashioned, 
 I may add, of all jungle flora. 
 
 A few miles down the east bank, below where 
 the Guaviare empties its yellowish waters into the 
 Orinoco, after receiving without stain the black Ata- 
 bapo, I came late the next afternoon upon a falca and 
 four natives camped in about the first attractive 
 spot I had seen on the upper Orinoco. The river 
 here is a full mile wide, with great cone-shaped 
 boulder-islands rising from the water, which in sev- 
 eral instances seemed to match similar rock monu- 
 ments deposited at intervals along shore. Inland an 
 occasional hill relieves the hitherto doleful monotony 
 of the unchanging forest, while far in the background 
 lift the mountains. This is the beginning of that 
 most picturesque stretch of all the Orinoco, starting 
 just below the Guaviare and extending to the Meta 
 north of the cataracts, with the thickly covered peaks 
 of Sipapo at the east as its most conspicuous and 
 altogether impressive sign post. Paralleled by the 
 Sierra Parima, this region is in such strong contrast 
 to the flat lower river as to appear of another and
 
 190 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 strange country. To me, it appeared the most at- 
 tractive bit of scenery in all South America east of 
 the Andes, next to the rare scenic beauties surround- 
 ing the harbor of Rio Janeiro. 
 
 Although the forest came thickly to the river's 
 edge, back of the strangers' camp a savannah-like 
 opening afforded inviting relief from the gloomy 
 woodland and the interminable river with its unvary- 
 ing hedge of trees. It was a cheerful range for mak- 
 ing acquaintance with the perceptibly increased num- 
 ber of birds, which, as we journeyed down-stream, 
 multiplied more and more in species and numbers, un- 
 til they reached the great quantity of colonies and in- 
 dividuals which make a veritable birdland of that 
 part of the Orinoco where it turns to the east and 
 more especially of its western bank, over towards 
 the bountiful Apure. Here where we were, humor- 
 ous looking toucans, parrots, and herons of several 
 dimensions were the most abundant, but also there 
 were the spoonbill with its delicately tinted plumage, 
 and macaws in colourings as loud as their rasping 
 voices. So long as the daylight lasted the screaming 
 parrots were always with us (to the very end of the 
 river), and night brought, with an increased supply 
 of insects, a curious drumming fish I had never be- 
 fore heard, which makes a noise exactly like the 
 humming telegraph wire you have no doubt heard 
 by listening at the wire-strung pole. 
 
 In joining this party I had hoped to induce one 
 of them to serve me as a crew, but they proved to 
 be on their way to a small settlement below the Meta 
 called Urbana, for trade, and while none would en- 
 gage to accompany me, they offered to carry me to
 
 AT THE EDGE OF THE ENCROACHING JUNGLE 
 
 BEAUTY UNADORNED ON THE ORINOCO
 
 NEW FRIENDS AND A HELPING HAND 191 
 
 their destination for a sovereign. As I knew I could 
 not get my canoe across the great cataracts from 
 Maipures to Atures without help, which was not to 
 be had on the ground, I accepted their proposal, 
 abandoning the little dugout which had proved so 
 serviceable, after transferring my now very small 
 amount of luggage to their thirty-foot, toldo-topped 
 boat. They had a good supply of cassava, the na- 
 tive bread, which was a treat indeed after so con- 
 stant a diet of straight dried fish and mandioca, and 
 a plenty of the local dried meat. The meat did not 
 tempt me, being already familiar with the jaw- 
 wearying Venezuelan variety which at its best is about 
 the thickness of a knife blade and with all the unctu- 
 ous succulence of leather. 
 
 My new friends were extremely curious as to my 
 journeying, whence I had come and why I was alone, 
 what I was doing; but appeared satisfied with my 
 statement of being a hunter who had come from 
 Maroa. Hunting to the average native is a sealed 
 book opened only by the " Inglis " or the " Ameri- 
 cano " whose endurance of privations and long, hard 
 trips for the mere purpose of shooting a beast or 
 seeing a few birds they cannot at all comprehend. 
 
 Near by under the bank that night, a crocodile 
 croaked at intervals like a tremendous basso profundo 
 frog, and the insects raided heavily as if to warn us 
 that we were nearing the great rock bulwark which 
 marks where the Sierras cross the river, thus dividing 
 it into Lower and Upper Orinoco. 
 
 At noon on the morrow we landed at Maipures, 
 the southern face of the crossing.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 CROSSING THE GREAT CATARACTS 
 
 Forty miles separate Maipures on the upper 
 Orinoco from Atures on the lower Orinoco, and 
 every mile of it is filled during the wet season with 
 fever, and always with insects and scenic splendour. 
 Sending up a roar at either end which may be heard 
 a mile or more, the river, throughout its picturesque 
 course, plunges and whirls and flattens, expands 
 and contracts, according to the character of the ob- 
 stacle impeding its progress. Occasionally narrow- 
 ing to a couple of hundred feet, it lashes itself into 
 one long stretch of foam and vapour as it riots be- 
 tween rock-lined shores; again it speeds along be- 
 tween wood-covered banks in comparative calm. In 
 some spots it presents an unbroken surface; in 
 others, thickly placed rock islands leave turbulent 
 channels scarcely twenty feet wide. Often on its 
 banks a palm of unusual height and beauty lifts its 
 feathery top above the surrounding jungle, and every 
 once in a while conical " cerros " (mounts) rise from 
 fifty to two hundred feet, now out of forest, again 
 out of rock-covered meadow, standing isolated or in 
 groups as last monuments of the crossing sierras 
 through which the tumultuous river has literally 
 carved a thoroughfare. 
 
 Ever in the background may be seen one of the 
 mountain spurs which the Parimas send off in sev- 
 eral directions under varying names from the centre 
 of that immense region bounded on three of its sides 
 
 192
 
 THE PEST OF INSECTS 193 
 
 by the Orinoco, and whence rise the Ventuario, the 
 Caura, and the Caroni rivers. The mountains close 
 in on the south entrance to this land pass, while at 
 the north gate at Atures, a lone but lofty cerro rises 
 out of the plain to the west. It is a scene of rare 
 charm, unique in nature's offerings the world over. 
 The pity that also it should be a notorious pest hole! 
 for here the ascending voyager comes first to know a 
 real plague of insects. He makes painful acquaint- 
 ance with the " zancudo," the giant gnat despoiler of 
 the night, and with that vicious daylight worker, the 
 little " jen- jen," a venomous fly relative of the Bra- 
 zilian pium. The " calentura," as the fever is called, 
 also adds danger to discomfort; while the withering 
 humidity incubates the poison deposited in suscep- 
 tible veins. Although no hotter during the day than 
 elsewhere on the Road (the average of my thermom- 
 eter in February-March was 88 to 90, and in June 
 95), the nights are excessively muggy, and as on the 
 river beyond Esmeralda, unrelieved by any breeze. 
 But of local evils, Zancudo & Co. are, to my think- 
 ing, the most formidable; you may escape the fever, 
 but the jen- jen and its night-shift are inevitable. On 
 these two insects rest all odium for the distracting 
 annoyances which beset the wayfarer on the portage. 
 On each of my three crossings, some of the ac- 
 companying party succumbed to the fever, but on 
 no occasion was I touched, though I am bound to 
 say I regard myself somewhat immune after my 
 extended experience. I have, it is true, had a day 
 or two of feeling quite seedy, but never been com- 
 pelled to stop in camp an hour during my jungle 
 adventuring, either in Asia or South America, or
 
 194 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 East or West Indies and my wanderings have car- 
 ried me into very active fever breeding districts. 
 This exemption I attribute partly to natural health 
 and strength, but mostly to intelligent care of my 
 stomach; to moderate eating of simple food as 
 nourishing as may be and especially to extremely 
 moderate drinking of spiritus frumenti; abstinence, 
 in fact, except at moments of chill from inordinate 
 wetting. At such times a small horn of rum with 
 plenty of lemon is a preventive of that fever herald 
 ague, and not unagreeable to the taste of the average 
 hunter. Against insects, however, there is no pre- 
 ventive; and next to the Casiquiare River, this por- 
 tage remains unrivalled the full length of the Road 
 for their malignity. 
 
 On the south side a considerable tribe of the Mai- 
 pure Indians once dwelt and maintained a more or 
 less predatory warfare against the Atures that had 
 their headquarters on the north side. But nothing 
 now remains of these one time active people save their 
 names, given by the missionaries to the great cata- 
 racts at each terminal of the strait, and the cavern 
 tomb of the Ataruipe where rest the bones of many 
 of the lost tribe of Atures. 
 
 Those left try to wrest a living from the uncon- 
 genial surroundings, aided largely by what they earn 
 from the few travellers through transporting cargoes 
 overland and assisting the passage of the canoes 
 among the rocks. The man who on one trip took my 
 stuff across to Atures in his ox-drawn cart told me, 
 indeed, that without the wage made from voyagers 
 he could not remain on the portage. 
 
 As if their life's burden was not already heavy to
 
 OX THE LOWER ORINOCO 
 
 THE OX-CART PACKING MY OUTFIT OVERLAND AT THE GREAT CATARACTS ONE OF 
 THE GREAT BOUI.DER MOUNDS IN THE BACKGROUND
 
 AN ARDUOUS PASSAGE 195 
 
 the crushing point, jaguars keep the poor, straggling 
 Indians hereabouts in more than the usual terror 
 presumably one of Mother Nature's little ironies in 
 thus guarding with wild beasts, as it were, a spot 
 essentially so uninviting as to repel residence. If 
 there were cattle on the isthmus, the rather open and 
 rock-filled savannahs of the west side might offer 
 bait for " el tigre " (jaguar) , and give just cause for 
 his bad name, which, as it is, seems to me undeserved. 
 There are vouched-for records of one jaguar having 
 carried off a child, and of another openly attacking 
 and killing a woman, but I saw nothing of the big cat 
 and heard nothing to justify its local reputation. Yet 
 it holds the Indians in subjection none the less. 
 
 Roughly outlined, this " land strait," as Hum- 
 boldt authoritatively called it, may be described as 
 forty miles of savannah-topped rocky isthmus and 
 tumbling water plentifully strewn with boulders, 
 rapids and cataracts. 
 
 When I ascended the river they told me the cata- 
 racts are more easily crossed in the time of high 
 water ; on my down trip, low water was declared best 
 suited to the attempt. The truth is, the difficulties 
 vary a bit in kind but mighty little in degree; the 
 passage in all seasons is arduous in the extreme and 
 hazardous to the canoe and, in places, to the men. 
 Perhaps, when going up-stream at low water, we had 
 a trifle less trouble at the Atures end and more under 
 like river conditions at Maipures, which contains an 
 eight- or ten-foot-high rock dike, whereas the deeply 
 imbedded Atures has swifter water but no obstruc- 
 tion so tremendous. In the main, however, the cata- 
 racts present similar impediments to the voyager,
 
 196 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 viz., stretches of rapid water racing over a succession 
 of rock dams or benches, many of them bearing 
 names given by the Indians. Between these benches, 
 islands divide and still further quicken the swift river 
 into narrow channels through which the water boils 
 and cascades to test the utmost skill of the canoe- 
 men. Some of these islands are low and flat, others 
 several hundred feet long bear cone-shaped hills and 
 most of them send off cavernous, granite islets which 
 serve as refuge harbours to the canoeist laboriously 
 ascending, but add another point of prospective ship- 
 wreck in the mad rush down-stream through the 
 churning, twisting channels. 
 
 Where the benches were low and the bed not too 
 full of rocks, we stuck to the canoe in the down pas- 
 sage and hauled by rope on the up trip, but mostly 
 the empty craft was passed along from rock shelf to 
 rock shelf, an exhausting task with the river slam- 
 ming you about and tripping you up, endangering 
 both your boat and your head. Where the going is 
 at its worst, the canoe is carried along shore until 
 another flotation may be attempted. So you keep it 
 up for all of the forty miles of land strait separating 
 the Upper from the Lower Orinoco. And whether 
 you are bound up-stream or down, getting across 
 the isthmus is like a hurried, anxious scramble over 
 a rocky and slippery causeway, where a single mis- 
 step will plunge you headlong into the seething 
 waters below. 
 
 We had wretched crossings going down three 
 days of heavy rain with intervals of zancudo attack, 
 which usually attains to activity nothing short of 
 fiendish just before and just after a downpour, and
 
 SHOOTING THE CHUTES 197 
 
 two of the crew rolled in their blankets fever-stricken 
 during practically the entire passage. Luckily we 
 had less portaging along shore on the up-trip, which 
 consumed the better part of a week, although log- 
 rolling the canoe overland would have come as a wel- 
 come relief to our short-handed drudgery among the 
 granite blocks of the rampant river, that not only 
 snatched the canoe out of hand, but hurled us aside 
 contemptuously as it willed. Yet the shooting-the- 
 chutes way we slipped through some of the narrow 
 channels gave exhilarating moments that repaid the 
 toil of the heavier, less enlivening work. 
 
 On the ten-mile portage which terminates the 
 Atures side of the strait, I left the canoe to the re- 
 inforced crew and went on foot across the bare, boul- 
 der-scattered savannah while the cargo followed in 
 ox carts at a pace which took all day for the journey. 
 Incidentally the trip provided a very fair exposition 
 of the average local intelligence. In packing the 
 cart, the Indians stowed away under my rubber sheet 
 some canned stuff picked up at Maipures, and left 
 my blanket and duffle bags on top exposed to the 
 rain! of which, by the way, less than usual fell. In 
 fact, for the first time in many weeks, I experienced 
 almost an entire afternoon of sunshine, and took sev- 
 eral photographs, though only a poor one of the ox 
 carts with one of the cone-shaped cerros in the back- 
 ground resulted, because, I suppose, of the later 
 steamings and river baptism to which the films were 
 subjected before I finally reached Bolivar. 
 
 What a pleasure it was to give my legs a real good 
 stretching! one gets so canoe weary. Despite the in- 
 sects, which were making the most of the unusual
 
 198 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 weather, the walk gave me great pleasure and an 
 intimate knowledge of these curious and picture- 
 making rock meadows. Except for doves, there were 
 almost no birds ; indeed, bird life is scarce at the cat- 
 aracts, and the somewhat sharply drawn incongruity 
 of cooing peace birds and devilishly murderous jen- 
 jens amused me as I sat on a granite cube listening to 
 the one and lustily defending myself against the 
 other. Across on the north side, however, I descried 
 a grand king-fisher, two of them, in fact, and shot a 
 bird new to me called " land duck " by the natives, 
 which was tough eating. 
 
 On a small tributary river beyond the last cat- 
 aract, I found the canoe and the Indians in a hot and 
 insect-ridden camp, and here with the roar of the 
 rapids rising and falling as a fitful breeze played over 
 us, I swung my hammock for the last time on this 
 colourful but vexatious isthmus.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 RACING THE LOWER ORINOCO 
 
 After so tempestuous a portage, the lull and the 
 indolence of the bay at the northern harbour ( Atures) 
 was balm to high tension nerves and jaded muscles. 
 'Tis a haven providentially placed, and Bay of Con- 
 tent should be its name. Like the roadside hostelry 
 of the two-faced sign, it affords cheer for the traveller 
 in either direction. .Going down-stream, it is a wel- 
 comed rest house where he seeks composure and takes 
 stock of belongings including his bones; going up, 
 after five hundred miles of some sailing and much 
 paddling, it is equally welcome to the adventurer as 
 the passage to the little known upper Orinoco and 
 a signal to gird up loins for the approaching strug- 
 gle to the southern gateway at Maipures, where na- 
 ture provides no similar spot of tranquillity amid its 
 wilder splendours. 
 
 A becoming omen of the comparative peace of 
 the lower river is the Bay, yet, after all, but a breath- 
 ing spot, for not until we have passed under the im- 
 pressive mountain-flanked portal at the Zambore 
 River, and have crossed the mouth of the Meta, do 
 we reach untroubled water. As immediately above 
 the cataracts the Orinoco (apparently to conserve its 
 strength for the crossing) holds to a half-mile path, 
 so also immediately below it retains the force of its 
 narrowed track until these outposts of the conquered 
 Parimas at the Zambore are passed. Here, sweep- 
 ing grandly through the huge, granite gateway, it 
 
 199
 
 200 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 rushes along in furious haste, to open again into 
 another two-mile bay before finally changing into the 
 less hampered and broader course. 
 
 There are three miles of this impetuosity at Zam- 
 bore just above the Meta, and almost half of it is over 
 rock huge granite blocks singly and in loosely 
 joined company, making a weary path for the up- 
 stream voyager, especially in low water. 
 
 My ascent from the Meta to Atures cost me, in 
 February, three, hard full days, with a narrow es- 
 cape from shipwreck in the whirling waters around 
 the great mid-stream boulder El Tigre ; down-stream 
 over the same course, in June, I was twelve hours 
 on my first journey and ten on my second! Every 
 time I passed this bay I landed to get a " howler," 
 a large, reddish monkey, and possessor of the most 
 outlandish voice ever I heard in jungle or out of it. 
 I never succeeded, though I had several near views 
 of a small monkey of white face and black muzzle, 
 which huddled in pairs and looked down with so piti- 
 ful an expression I could not find heart to shoot 
 as my men requested roast monkey being relished 
 by some Indians. I often thought I'd taste the flesh 
 to satisfy my curiosity as to its flavour, but never did 
 so even with hunger fairly established among us. 
 
 On passing the Meta, one comes into a new coun- 
 try; the banks grow more open and varied, the for- 
 est scatters, the mountains recede, animal and par- 
 ticularly bird life increases. The river widens, sandy 
 shores come first in evidence, and because of the more 
 gentle land slope, the speed of its current slackens, 
 while islands and bays in places give it almost the 
 appearance of an estuary. It is the same Orinoco,
 
 A VAST FLOOD LAND 201 
 
 only now tamed, though here and there it breaks the 
 peace bonds for a short period of rampage. Ex- 
 panding to over a mile in width after the run through 
 Zambore, it is never less and sometimes adds another 
 mile en route until at Urbana it spreads, accord- 
 ing to season, from two miles to four. Where far- 
 ther along it turns east and is joined by the Apure, 
 entering from the northwest, it becomes an inland sea, 
 which was all of five or six miles across on the several 
 times I saw it in June and never less than two miles 
 in low water. 
 
 The character of the contingent country under- 
 goes as much change as the river itself. From the 
 quarter-mile mouth of the mud-coloured Meta, all 
 that west bank to the Apure is so low, even in its 
 northern quarter, as to become largely flood land in 
 high water. On the east bank, the isolated rock cer- 
 ros make practically their last important appearance 
 a bit north of the bay at the Meta; while the moun- 
 tain spurs, to which, on the descent, one has become 
 accustomed, diminish and withdraw until a short 
 two-mile bit five or six hundred feet high off Ur- 
 bana is the first signal of the plain country and the 
 last vanguard of the mountainous interior the be- 
 ginning or the end, according to whether you are 
 headed up-river or down. 
 
 Between the Meta and a little settlement called 
 Caicara, just inside the bend made by the Orinoco's 
 sharp turn to the east, are many exposed beaches of 
 islands and flood land and sand shoals loosely called 
 " playas." These are the chosen and populous resorts 
 of the crocodiles and the turtles. At the lowest water 
 the latter gather in multitudes, and while the New
 
 202 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 World representative of the Old World saurian is 
 mostly in evidence in the time of rains and affects the 
 shoals and the flood-land, the turtles are more discrim- 
 inating, and confine themselves to the islands, espe- 
 cially the islands near Urbana, which is halfway be- 
 tween Caicara and the Meta. Here, in February and 
 March, nature puts on view one of the most remark- 
 able of her amazing: exhibitions a spectacle like unto 
 that of the great flamingo nesting colony with which 
 the illuminating photographs and studies of Frank 
 M. Chapman have acquainted us. 
 
 There are two kinds of turtles on the Orinoco; 
 one bears a dark green shell about a foot in diameter ; 
 the other averaging twice as large, weighs about fifty 
 pounds and has a grayish shell and flat head heavily 
 furrowed between the eyes. Neither of these is 
 found on the upper river, but a fresh water tortoise, 
 about the size of and similar in aspect to the smaller, 
 is said to abound above the cataracts and to supply 
 edible eggs and flesh to the Maquiritares. I some- 
 times saw this turtle in the water, and learned that 
 though it is sought for food it does not, like the larger 
 one, lay in colonies and, therefore, conducts no yearly 
 assemblage to attract the Indians. On the lower 
 river the smaller is an inconsequential figure denied 
 even the right of its generic name, for the natives 
 commonly employ only the general term, " tortuga," 
 which simply means turtle, and is invariably and ex- 
 clusively applied to the large one. 
 
 What with its flesh providing meat and its eggs 
 both meat and a commercial oil, the tortuga comes 
 near to being to the natives on the Orinoco and Ama-
 
 THE AMAZING TURTLE HOST 203 
 
 zon what the caribou is to the Indians of the far 
 Northwest. Certainly it shares with fish in furnish- 
 ing the basic food yield of the Road north of the 
 Argentine. And a most palatable flesh it offers. I 
 had no opportunity to try it in my hurried and out of 
 season voyages on the Orinoco, but on the Amazon 
 and the lower Rio Negro, fried in its own oil, I ate 
 it often and found it tasteful as fried things go. 
 Next to peixeboi, I liked it best of local offerings, 
 the fish being, as a rule, coarse or of little flavour. Of 
 turtle eggs, I cannot speak as highly, although they 
 are much relished by the Indians; for me they had a 
 peculiar and not pleasing oily taste. Perhaps 
 full stores at the time made me fastidious. 
 
 On the Amazon, the turtle lays its eggs in Sep- 
 tember, but on the Orinoco, extreme low water comes 
 in late January, and at that time in the waters far- 
 thest from travel and on the islands amid the least 
 used channels begins the every year gathering of the 
 tortuga host. 
 
 And what a host! I have seen the beach of an 
 island literally covered by them and could have seen 
 the same sight on many other beaches, had I not 
 confined my observations to the one out of respect 
 to the feelings of the natives, who, during these 
 periods, avoid the known breeding grounds so the 
 turtles will not be disturbed. During all of Feb- 
 ruary, the turtles thus disport themselves on the 
 beaches under the burning sun a necessary stimu- 
 lant, the Indians maintain, to the following function 
 of egg laying. Early in March, the sun bath being 
 completed and the signal set, the turtles swim in com- 
 panies to such other beaches as they have been wont
 
 204 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 to frequent only for the purpose of laying their inch- 
 round, white eggs. 
 
 It is an accepted fact among the Indians that, 
 whereas great throngs of turtles sun together on a 
 given beach, they divide into troops when the eggs 
 press, and journey to other beaches, the same ^each 
 year if unmolested. On the beach of these chosen 
 islands, always in the night, they deposit their eggs 
 in holes of about two feet in depth by as much in 
 diameter, digging rapidly with their powerful feet 
 as the pressure comes upon them. At times, when 
 the seemingly uncontrollable egg flow has prema- 
 turely started, they usurp the prepared or even 
 partly or entirely filled nest of a nearby and more 
 provident turtle. The Indians of the Orinoco say 
 the tortuga lays from seventy-five to one hundred 
 eggs each. Naturalist Bates, whose thorough studies 
 on the Amazon give authority to his statements, says 
 the Amazonian turtle lays one hundred and twenty 
 eggs; and on both divisions of the flowing road, the 
 clutch, if I may borrow the word, occupies about half 
 the hole, which for the rest the turtle dirt fills level 
 with the beach in which it is dug. 
 
 Until the turtles have all deposited their eggs, 
 the Indians protect them from intrusion, but once the 
 holes are filled they lose no time flocking to the scene, 
 and forthwith, in the last of March or first of April, 
 the harvest begins. With long, slender sticks, they 
 travel up and down the beach sounding for the cov- 
 ered eggs, often destroying many, despite the tough 
 membrane casing, in their eagerness to outstrip a 
 companion explorer. It is not the harvest it used to 
 be, when the catch was large enough to bring plenty
 
 EGGS FOR MAN AND BEAST 205 
 
 to practically all of the inhabitants on the river be- 
 tween Atures and Apure. The same old story of 
 greed with which we of the North are familiar leav- 
 ing no eggs to hatch is answerable for the depleted 
 supply. Traffic in oil is still an item of local impor- 
 tance, but as about two thousand eggs are required to 
 produce a gallon, the demand on both the supply and 
 native industry is too heavy to warrant serious de- 
 velopment in a commercial way. 
 
 Nor is man the only one to exact toll of the tor- 
 tuga. The eggs which are overlooked by the natives 
 are sought with persistence and rising appetite by 
 jaguars, crocodiles, herons and various members of 
 the rat family the jaguar preying also upon the 
 turtle itself, which he turns on its back to helplessly 
 await the pleasure of this great cat's feeding. The 
 heron, with its long beak, sounds for eggs with nearly 
 the prescience and all the success of the Indians. In- 
 deed, once the turtles have left their nest, the beach 
 becomes a scene of egg carnage and vicious reprisal, 
 beginning with man as the first and most audacious 
 actor and extending down through animal, bird and 
 reptilian imitators, to the timid agouti which comes 
 trembling upon the scene sniffing, not too far from 
 the bush edge, for the possible leavings of the others. 
 
 Such eggs as escape intelligent search and preda- 
 tory prowlers hatch out little turtles, which, under 
 cover of night, unaided, dig out of their sand hole, 
 and, unguided, find their way to shallow water, where, 
 if the bottom is rock-strewn, they are safe from all 
 their enemies, even the crocodiles. A striking illus- 
 tration of hereditary instinct it seems to me, for it is, 
 no doubt, because of an inherited struggle for exist-
 
 206 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 ence that the tortuga invariably deposits its eggs and 
 the hatched appear in the protecting darkness. 
 
 Not so with the crocodile it has no need to hunt 
 seclusion or the cover of night to produce its young. 
 On the playas its eggs are deposited in several sepa- 
 rate holes, and at the time of hatching, the mother, 
 in the broad light of day, returns to help the young 
 out of the sand and to herd them back among the 
 overflow pools where life is more prosperous and 
 less liable to accident. Like the jaguar, the crocodile 
 of these remote parts has nothing to fear on land or 
 in the water, unless it be one another. The Indians 
 used often to tell me of fights between these two 
 in which the jaguar was mostly the loser but I never 
 saw such an encounter, or knew of such a one being 
 authenticated. No doubt in the water, a full-grown 
 crocodile could worst a jaguar, and as the latter are 
 occasional swimmers and usually range near a stream, 
 such combats are entirely probable. I cannot, how- 
 ever, picture a jaguar beaten on land by a crocodile, 
 be it the biggest imagination can picture. 
 
 It is commonly said that crocodiles are vicious 
 and aggressive. First and last, in Malaya and South 
 America, I have seen quite a lot of the brutes and 
 hold the contrary belief, with the reservation that 
 they are quite liable to attack if they can do so un- 
 observed. In other words, I consider the crocodile 
 a coward that will never assail you if your eye is on 
 him. It is true the hideous creature will lurk about 
 a settlement or at a specific spot from which it has 
 been driven. In my own experience I have known 
 of its repeatedly entering at night the compound of 
 a small collection of huts on the Malay coast, to
 
 A DREADED REPTILE 207 
 
 terrorize the wretched people and finally to seize and 
 partly carry off a sleeping young woman. 
 
 Where not effectually repulsed, i.e., actually hurt, 
 it will sneak again and again to a locality where a 
 tidbit offers, such as dog or pig or chicken or child, 
 growing bolder with each unharmed adventure, until 
 it really reduces the place to practical vassalage. 
 Often some little settlement is thus held in subjection 
 until guns are brought to raise the siege knives and 
 spears being, as a rule, the extent of armament at 
 the average Malayan hut. At such a terrorized ham- 
 let, where a baby boy had been seized at its play in 
 broad day near the water whence it had strayed, I 
 once spent a week of bloody warfare, killing a baker's 
 dozen of the beasts three of them in the basin 
 whither the people went for their water. Many a 
 dog and small pig has been seized as it lowered its 
 head to drink, and often a child sent to the water- 
 hole unaccompanied or unaware of danger has been 
 dragged in as it stooped to fill the jar for the water- 
 hole is a favourite lurking ground of the crocodile 
 which has singled out a village for toll, and even the 
 men and women need to be on the lookout. 
 
 The crocodile hunts singly; I have never heard of 
 a case where they have invaded in company, or of an 
 instance of seizure in which more than one has been 
 concerned. And it seems strange to me that the beast 
 should leave companions in order to make a seiz- 
 ure. Is there a confederacy, and one chosen to do 
 the hunting? Or, among a given company in given 
 water near by a settlement, do they take turns in 
 hunting? Is it the same one which nightly makes 
 the attempt to drag down the human morsel? Do
 
 208 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 they share the spoils, or does the successful monster 
 retire to a secluded spot for his feast? Were the 
 crocodiles which continued nightly to visit the hamlet 
 and the creature which captured the child near the 
 water-hole one and the same, or had those I here 
 subsequently slaughtered alternated the vigil and the 
 stalk? It is difficult to say, for among a troop of 
 crocodiles there is no distinguishing mark save size. 
 Is the man-eater, as in the case of the maligned tiger, 
 one by accident or by nature? Is it perverted or 
 acquired taste? 
 
 My opinion is that the crocodile, which preys 
 upon a number of smallish, more or less to its 
 eyes, dog-like, jungle animals, such as the several 
 tiny deer in Malaya and the many members of the 
 rat family in South America, has its attention first 
 drawn to these hamlets by dogs, perhaps, and thus 
 on forays becomes acquainted with the chickens and 
 the humans, while with pigs it already has a jungle 
 intimacy. Moreover, the crocodile is a forager which 
 takes whatever in its sneaking path is unaware or 
 not too large ; an opinion, so far as disposition is con- 
 cerned, shared by as eminent a herpetologist as 
 Raymond L. Ditmars, Curator of Reptiles at the 
 N. Y. Zoological Park, who says that in captivity 
 the crocodiles become so bold as to attack the 
 careless or unwatchful keeper. In the wilderness, 
 so far as my observation goes, what the crocodile se- 
 cures it takes away to devour alone if it can, or fights 
 for a share if it must; it does not drag its victim to 
 the water if it is not interrupted or pursued, or if its 
 quarry can be consumed on the spot. Considering 
 the smallness of its throat, the theory that it enjoys
 
 THE COWARDLY FORAGER 209 
 
 mostly the blood and fat may account for its never 
 seeking anything so large, as, for instance, the capy- 
 bara. I have seen it rend on the spot of seizure a 
 small animal about the size of the common rabbit, 
 and I have seen several crocodiles fight savagely over 
 a poor dog one of them had dragged into the water 
 from the bank where it was incautiously drinking.* 
 
 What I have written here of the crocodile forag- 
 ing for human meat is the result of Far Eastern 
 observation. I have never heard of similar exhibitions 
 along any part of the Road, or, indeed, in any part 
 of South or Central America or Mexico or Cuba 
 or the West Indies where I have journeyed. Yet 
 the natives everywhere have a firmly established 
 and entirely warranted dread of the loathsome brute, 
 which, while never attacking in the open, so far as 
 I have ever heard, is always liable to pounce upon 
 a helpless victim unconscious of its presence. That 
 is why in crocodile infested rivers you should never, 
 from the bank, dip up water without first exploring 
 it with a long stick, for to lie close to the edge and 
 thus to catch the drinking animals is a favourite 
 game of the ugly thing; nor should you approach 
 water-holes without careful scrutiny of the jungle 
 immediately surrounding. Moreover, it is helpful to 
 bear in mind that the crocodile belongs to the arrant 
 class that ambush their quarry and you need never 
 fear the one in sight. The yarns about crocodiles 
 
 * Feeding immediately on capture is not usual, croco- 
 diles being thought to prefer their meat quite " high " in 
 flavour and accustomed to hide a kill until it attains to the 
 necessary degree of decomposition. But this, like all rules, 
 has its exceptions.
 
 210 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 attacking men in canoes and knocking them off the 
 stern with their tails into the water for easier cap- 
 ture are fully out of accord with my experience and 
 probably may be classed with the weird stories which 
 filter through town-confined government officers and 
 sea captains to tourists who spread them in more sub- 
 stantial forms. 
 
 On the playas of this reach of the Orinoco, on 
 two descents, I saw more crocodiles than I thought 
 the entire river held, yet they were suprisingly diffi- 
 cult of near approach. Time and again, after a very 
 careful stalk to where I had viewed a troop sunning, 
 I came within camera range only to see them sliding 
 into the water, and although I shot many, I never 
 succeeded in being near enough for a photograph 
 when there was a fair light. I do not regard the kill- 
 ing of them as sport. My shooting was for the pur- 
 pose of securing data on their length, and I picked 
 out of each company only those which appeared un- 
 usually large incidentally, I found them fairly easy 
 practice here, making a very much higher average 
 of kills than in Malaya, where mostly one must take 
 them in the water, and unless killed instantly they 
 are apt to go to the bottom. The biggest crocodile 
 I potted on the Orinoco measured twelve feet three 
 inches, and was next to the largest one I saw, which 
 could not have been short of fifteen feet as he lay 
 apart from companions on the point of a long sand 
 shoal. I felt so sure of securing his photograph that 
 I left my rifle in the canoe, when, from the bank on 
 the down-stream side, I began a cautious approach, 
 hidden by the slant of the playa ; but when, after ar- 
 riving near the end, I crawled to the crest with 
 camera ready, no crocodile giant was in sight. I
 
 IN THE APURE DELTA NEAR WHERE THE APURE AND ORINOCO MEET 
 
 TYPICAL HOUSE AND SURROUNDINGS ON THE LOWER PORTUGUESA
 
 THE QUESTION OF CROCODILE LENGTH 
 
 sometimes wondered, after such experiences, if they 
 could scent me, and, at least, I learned that for all 
 their sluggishness, a crocodile can move quickly if 
 need be. 
 
 In the English edition of Humboldt it is recorded 
 that he encountered crocodiles on the Orinoco meas- 
 uring twenty-four and twenty-five feet in length, but 
 I am inclined to believe the translator has taken lib- 
 erties with that distinguished explorer's original, or 
 misread his comment. It is not unlikely Humboldt 
 encountered tales of such reptiles; the Indians with 
 me at the time of my record kill said there were 
 others much larger, and on being urged to say how 
 much larger, paced off from one mark in the sand to 
 another about twenty feet. Over in the Lake 
 Maracaibo country, a man assured me he had seen 
 one dead on the bank of a contributing river, killed 
 in some way unaccountable, which was twenty feet 
 long. All I can say is, that I never saw one so large 
 on the Orinoco or the Apure or the Parana, or heard 
 of an authenticated case beyond eighteen feet. The 
 average size of those I killed and saw in South 
 America was ten feet upwards ; in Malaya, one I shot 
 on the coast measured nineteen feet seven inches, but 
 the average was little over twelve feet.* 
 
 Urbana is six hundred miles up the Orinoco and 
 
 * Mr. Ditmars declares that the caimans, which are fre- 
 quently confused with crocodiles, although smaller, are more 
 closely related to the alligators than to the crocodiles, not- 
 withstanding that several species have sharp snouts like the 
 latter. The further fact that among South American croco- 
 diles some have sharp and others blunt, alligator-like snouts, 
 makes distinction difficult for the layman. All of my kills 
 were sharp snouted like the Malayan or true crocodile.
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 about half that distance from Venezuela's capital 
 city, which was founded in 1764, and once appropri- 
 ately known as Angostura (the narrows), but now, 
 with its 9000 people, called Bolivar, to honour the 
 " libertador," Simon Bolivar. 
 
 It has the best opinion of itself of any pf the 
 settlements between Bolivar and San Fernando de 
 Atabapo; for one reason, because it is nearest the 
 turtle islands, and for another, on account of its 
 having as many as ten habitable houses strung out 
 in a row at the base of a point which projects into 
 the Orinoco at perhaps the river's widest stretch, 
 next to that where the Apure comes in to swell the 
 summer flood. From here it had taken five active 
 days to go up to the Meta, but my second descent 
 was made in two. 
 
 On my first trip, I drifted past the hamlet in my 
 own canoe after laying in a bountiful supply of 
 the half-inch-thick disks of cassava, for which the 
 little place appears justly famed; but on the second 
 coming, fortune was not so kind. The crew that 
 had proved both companionable and competent could 
 go no farther, and there appeared no immediate pros- 
 pect of replacing them, although half a dozen canoes 
 were moored to the bank and men in plenty lounged 
 around the houses. But after patient recruiting and 
 dickering, I finally succeeded engaging four who 
 agreed to take me to Caicara. The canoe they pro- 
 vided was a bongo modelled out of what must have 
 been a monster tree, as it was full fifty feet long, 
 about two feet deep and three feet wide amidships, 
 with neither toldo for the top nor gratings for the 
 bottom. It had been used as a cargo carrier and was
 
 WE CAPSIZE IN THE RAPIDS 
 
 an unwieldy as well as a cranky craft for five men, 
 our light luggage making so little impression on its 
 draft that we could barely reach the water with our 
 paddles. To undertake a journey in such a boat, so 
 inadequately equipped, was, of course, foolhardy, 
 but Caicara is not more than a day and a night's run 
 in a strong current. Furthermore, it was the only 
 transportation obtainable after long hours of search 
 and eloquence. 
 
 Adept to a diabolical degree in placing stumbling 
 blocks before the foreign wayfarer is a certain vicious 
 class of interior Venezuelan and Brazilian! 
 
 So we set sail, which is poetic license for saying 
 that the bongo lumbered from under the point and 
 went wobbling along in the current, spasmodically 
 aided, so to say, by a nondescript crew, among whom 
 the author held the honoured station of patron. We 
 must have made an impressive spectacle for the be- 
 holders, and it is too bad the photograph I took of 
 the bongo and its native crew just before starting 
 could not have been saved from subsequent wreck. 
 
 The Arauca River, rising well up in the foot of 
 the eastern slope of the Andes, or, as officially called, 
 the Cordillera Oriental, becomes, for a space of sev- 
 eral hundred miles, like both the Orinoco and the 
 Meta, a line of boundary between Colombia and 
 Venezuela. Where it finally joins the Orinoco not 
 very far below Urbana, there is a plentiful sprinkling 
 of rocks, and the result is the Concession Rapids 
 prophetic name! Here, in our clumsy boat, of neces- 
 sity clumsily handled, we turned over on a rock, and 
 the entire Orinoco, it seemed, swept through the bongo 
 from end to end, washing out the crew and every
 
 214 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 last article except my field-glasses, which had caught 
 by the case strap onto a projecting nail in the point 
 of the bow, and a quite small waterproof canvas 
 bag containing my note-book and money, that was 
 fastened, as usual, by its strap to the seat. Food, 
 clothing, rifle, camera, tin film cases, bedding, not 
 a thing escaped the river. Of all the photographs 
 only one pack of twelve was saved. The crew was 
 as widely distributed as the cargo and had to swim 
 for the bongo, which, after a game of battledore and 
 shuttlecock among the rocks, cruised to the far side 
 of the river, where in a deep bend we overtook it 
 bobbing along bottom side up. We spent an hour or 
 two seeking our scattered stuff, but the sum total 
 of our find was a blanket, several soggy slabs of cas- 
 sava, one hat, and my camera, so battered as to be 
 useless thenceforth. It is illustrative of confirmed 
 habit that each one of us retained his grasp on his 
 paddle in my case the favourite sassafras. 
 
 Such a catastrophe would not have overtaken us 
 had we been properly shipped, for these rapids should 
 be safely negotiated at all times. Yet we were not 
 blameless ; had my crew been of better stuff, I believe 
 our passage would have been without accident. As it 
 was, however, they aroused from slouchy work too 
 late, and without their vigorous and concerted help I, 
 at the steer paddle, could not master the lout of a 
 canoe, which, once out of control amidst the rocks, 
 nothing but providence could save from disaster; and 
 providence doubtless thought we needed punishment, 
 as we did. 
 
 From Caicara, where we arrived on the second 
 morning out, with appetites somewhat whetted as
 
 THE REWARD OF VIRTUE 215 
 
 you may imagine, I had the same difficulty getting 
 away as from Urbana, plus insolent extortion. The 
 village, if I may so dignify a handful of adobes, was 
 quickly and very much alive to my wanting a canoe 
 and crew, and seemed disposed to make the most of 
 the situation. Men were willing to be engaged, but 
 at figures double the established rate. It wasn't the 
 demand, but the manner of it, that determined me to 
 disappoint their sneering confidence of having me at 
 their mercy. Strolling from the forum, as it were, I 
 found in the afternoon a man living apart from the 
 settlement, who sold me, for five of the last eight sov- 
 ereigns I possessed, a small dugout, which I forth- 
 with stocked with cheese and cassava, the only edible 
 things I could secure, preparatory to pursuing my 
 journey alone. At this evidence of self-reliance vol- 
 unteers at the usual wage simply flocked to me, but 
 being now in full command of the situation I 
 graciously declined their service, wishing them the 
 while bon voyage for another journey, warmer than 
 the torrid Orinoco. 
 
 Thus saluting the Alcade and paying my warm 
 respects in unequivocal terms to the city fathers, as 
 well as to their brothers and sons and other male 
 relatives, I had slipped the painter of my craft and 
 was backing out into the river in order to courteously 
 face the reciprocal greetings, hosannas and other 
 things coming my way, when the only good man of 
 my late crew, a halfbreed named Bias, called from 
 the bank asking to be taken. 
 
 Bias was the best native product I met on the 
 Orinoco. During the four days and nights of al- 
 most continuous travel which now followed before
 
 216 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 arriving at Bolivar, he laboured quite as steadily as 
 I, without equal incentive, uttered no plaint at the 
 stint of provisions, and was a cheerful companion 
 throughout constant hard work. It was work with 
 adversity, too, for on the first night we ran foul that 
 drifting octopus one sometimes encounters qn the 
 lower river in the wet season a derelict tree keeping 
 pace with the current, butt foremost, roots and 
 branches reaching high and wide to enmesh every 
 luckless thing in its path. It fell upon us in the late 
 dark. Bias, at my bidding, had lain down for a nap 
 while I at the stern kept the canoe to our course, 
 when suddenly out of the quiet and the blackness of 
 the night came the disconcerting clasp of its root 
 tentacles. It was my first intimation of its presence, 
 and a queer sensation it gave me! The careening 
 canoe shook Bias out of his slumber and he was 
 quickly to my assistance, but we were nearly overset 
 before getting free unharmed, save for loss of a few 
 cakes of cassava. 
 
 Next morning as we came into the last reach of 
 the Orinoco where it runs straightway to the east we 
 picked up a couple of men whose help I was glad to 
 have, as we were now in the region of the " chubasco," 
 a squall similar to the pampero of the Plata, caused 
 by shifting and very strong sea winds blowing up- 
 stream against the current. These burst upon you so 
 suddenly that from the middle of the river it is impos- 
 sible to reach the bank, although you start at first sight 
 of the warning cloud, for in the rough water you must 
 perforce take the wave bow on and so cannot head 
 straight for the bank. I have never had such dis- 
 turbing or muscle breaking moments at the steer end
 
 A GREAT SHOW OF WILD LIFE 217 
 
 of a canoe as in any one of several chubascos which 
 fell upon us with a swiftness unbelievable. Even in 
 its normal condition the river at this part was too 
 rough for a dugout such as we had, and during the 
 squalls the waves mounted high around us. I fully 
 expected at the time to be swamped, and to this day I 
 do not understand how our canoe lived through at 
 least two of those storms. 
 
 Where the river straightened out, we kept close 
 to the hotter course inshore to avoid the rougher 
 water, thus losing much of the current's help, but 
 partly recompensed by the bird life almost constantly 
 in sight. Cranes and egrets held their perch as we 
 glided noiselessly by, close enough to see startled 
 questioning in their dull eyes; a solitary fishing great 
 heron stretched its long neck to watch us until past; 
 some small reptile one of the fifty-seven million 
 varieties of lizards, no doubt scurried at the feet 
 of this long fisherman without disturbing his equa- 
 nimity; a flock of large, black birds, bigger than 
 robins, with long spreading tail, kept ahead of us 
 from bush to bush; a crane less curious or more 
 timorous than his fellows flapped his way slowly in- 
 land ; a hawk-like bird, large as an eagle, circled over- 
 head; a band of twittering local swallows, small but 
 noisy, skittered by; high above a pair of macaws 
 crossed with the speed of a duck, sounding their 
 harsh note unendingly; parrots filled a nearby bit of 
 wood with their unpleasant voice; there were ducks 
 on the sand bars and ibis and spoonbill under the 
 banks. Such was the bird life about us on the savan- 
 nahs which now topped the banks. It was cheering 
 to lose sight of the sombre forest line, and to see in-
 
 218 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 stead the llanos along the north horizon. And the 
 breeze was a blessing after the windlessness which 
 makes the Upper Orinoco so trying. 
 
 The rain was diminishing, though storms of ut- 
 most severity burst upon us with frequency in the 
 afternoon, but when clear, the sunsets were of radiant 
 glory lilac and gold effects prevailing in the cloud- 
 ful sky; and as the short twilight neared its eclipse 
 an irregular yellow behind a deep blue added an oc- 
 casional arrangement of surpassing beauty among 
 great masses of mounting cumuli. 
 
 The sun was hot, but the breeze directly off the 
 Atlantic brought relief, and after the upper river 
 the insect pest seemed mild to inconsequence; even 
 the jen- jen appeared but a trifler. We were on the 
 well-travelled route which leads from Apure to Boli- 
 var and so on to Trinidad. It was good to be alive 
 after all even on cheese and cassava. 
 
 Bright and early on a late June morning, the 
 twenty-second day from that on which I had looked 
 last upon the Casiquiare, about 1000 miles up-river, 
 my canoe grated the sloping bank of Ciudad Bolivar, 
 and I stood upon the beach, bare-legged to the 
 thighs, looking, no doubt, in tattered shirt, like a 
 derelict cast up by the sea. Luckily, it was 4.30 A.M. 
 
 My actual travelling time from Esmeralda had 
 been fourteen " days " averaging about twenty hours 
 for I travelled all night as well as all day which, 
 considering delay at the cataracts, was excellent go- 
 ing, and indicates the speed of the Flowing Road.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 SITTING UP FOR EL TIGRE 
 
 Sprawled along the west bank of the largest lake 
 in South America, Maracaibo offers little in the way 
 of looks, but it has a warm heart and courtesy and 
 manners. At least, so I found it, and I cannot re- 
 gard myself an exception in the rule of the town's 
 conduct to the stranger within her gates. No; it's 
 the way of the people; and when one travels a land 
 where politeness is a habit and hospitality the first 
 thought, the inconveniences of laggard progress ap- 
 pear inconsequential. It's an old, old town, this 
 Maracaibo, established far back in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury (1529), and bearing the added distinction of 
 having been sacked by that industrious buccaneer, 
 Henry Morgan, in the seventeenth. Nearer our day, 
 it paid exhausting tribute to another freebooter, the 
 notorious Castro, whose methods, if modern rather 
 than picturesque, were none the less thorough and 
 calamitous. 
 
 There is every natural reason why Venezuela in 
 general, and the country round about Maracaibo in 
 particular, should tempt any filibuster, for with its 
 cocoanuts, its sugar, its cacao, its coffee, its divi-divi 
 and copaiba, not to mention the bananas of which it 
 sent forth eleven million bunches the year of my visit, 
 the treasury of the state should be overflowing. But 
 this is reckoning without Castro, the vainglorious 
 though cunning upstart, who, during his reign, laid 
 so heavy and blighting a hand upon the country's 
 
 219
 
 220 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 prosperity none dared to invest or to develop lest 
 the grasping attention of the president be attracted. 
 Monopoly, with this pirate in the background, con- 
 trolled the commonest necessities salt, matches, cat- 
 tle ; blackmail ruled, levied by enough favoured politi- 
 cal parasites to wreck any country; while the dank 
 dungeon, San Carlos, at mouth of the harbour, 
 frowned portentous warning to those who thought to 
 uphold their rights. 
 
 Squeezed by Castro, bullied by his henchmen, and 
 threatened by revolution, Maracaibo has begun to 
 live only since this avaricious vandal was cast out. 
 Poor, tax-ridden Venezuela! first in natural wealth 
 among South American countries and the least devel- 
 oped. Perhaps now, under more honest and en- 
 lightened administration, she may fulfil the destiny 
 preordained by a wider, richer potentiality than that 
 of any of her sister republics. 
 
 As I found it, the city on the Lake afforded ex- 
 cellent business opportunities for several large ex- 
 porting houses and enough trade to keep the forty- 
 five or fifty thousand people agreeably occupied. 
 And that's about as much as Maracaibo wants, high 
 or low. With the average native able to get along 
 comfortably on about ten cents a day, no very 
 serious effort is necessary; and truth to tell, no se- 
 rious desire for hard work is manifest in that hot 
 region where the noon siesta lasts late and the cool 
 of the adobe invites to relaxation. In common 
 with all South America, the Moorish architecture 
 prevails, with its low, flat-top houses, its barred win- 
 dows and its alluring patio or open inner court- 
 yard of flowers and refreshing green in Chile and
 
 AN OLD SCHOOL SPORTSMAN 
 
 the Argentine, this patio becomes a charming resort 
 and a bower of beauty to catch the eye of the passer 
 who spies it through the open door or gateway. De- 
 spite its considerable population and commercial im- 
 portance, however, Maracaibo is beyond the zone of 
 the tourist postcard and its one hotel was unendu- 
 rable. But my stay in town while outfitting was 
 made delightful through the kindness of Franz 
 Miiller, who placed his attractive Lake estate (in- 
 cluding a pet tiger-cat) and its servants at my 
 disposal. 
 
 It was not, however, to look upon its commercial 
 side that I went to the Maracaibo section of Vene- 
 zuela, but to explore its Lake country and to hunt the 
 jaguar, reported to be plentifully distributed on its 
 borders and along its rivers. A good friend at Cara- 
 cas had given me a letter to a grizzled old warrior, 
 Gen. B. Tinedo Velasco, depicting him as a hunter 
 of long local experience and a sportsman of the first 
 quality; and from the time I met him first until I 
 reluctantly bade him adios, there was no hour in the 
 day in which he did not amply justify that opinion. 
 He was of the old school, the General, gentle of heart, 
 soft of speech, courtly in manner, prone to suffer in- 
 convenience rather than miss opportunity for a kindly 
 word or act, and yet a fighter withal who had proved 
 his courageous spirit and valiant heart to the dismay 
 of his foes through several lively campaigns. 
 
 Together we organized our party while the friends 
 of the General and those who had heard our project, 
 quickly noised about, came to advise and to tell us 
 stories of the fury of the " tigre," as the jaguar is 
 called. Every night we gathered under the Gen-
 
 222 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 eral's hospitable roof to hear the tales, apparently 
 inexhaustible, for every ranch making down to the 
 Lake or having river frontage contributed its quota. 
 Most of the reports of encounters were vague and 
 imaginative and not unlike what I had heard so far 
 away as the Argentine, but at least one yarn was 
 novel and interesting. It told of a dog that, on be- 
 ing chased in the night by a jaguar, crawled under 
 the mosquito netting enveloping the camp bed of its 
 master, where it remained unmolested by el tigre, 
 which had stopped short of the netting, nosing it sus- 
 piciously but going no farther, although the cower- 
 ing dog was not a foot beyond! The beast was 
 finally frightened away by the shouts of the awakened 
 and astonished man. 
 
 Certainly el tigre is a prolific theme at any gath- 
 ering near the jungle land of South America, nor are 
 authenticated instances wanting of its unquestionable 
 ferocity when cornered, but the trustworthy consen- 
 sus, as I have found it from Mexico to the Argentine, 
 added to my own experience, maintains that it rarely 
 makes an unprovoked attack on man. Its especial 
 fondness on the borders of a settlement is for dogs 
 and pigs, and in the wilderness peccaries, tapir, the 
 agouti and other members of that multitudinous rat 
 family likewise afford an abundant and assorted 
 menu ; also it is fond of fish, for which it " angles " 
 industriously and successfully. 
 
 Jaguar size and species appear to create as much 
 debate as their disposition. Over all its wide range 
 from Mexico, through Central America and to almost 
 the southernmost end of South America, the jaguar 
 varies in temper and size according to season, food
 
 THE TIGRE, MANY RELATIVES 
 
 supply, environment and the imagination of the 
 beholder. The average native is apt to report three 
 or four species, and the many highly coloured and 
 fantastic books and articles on animal life in the 
 jungles repeatedly finding their way into print are 
 even less reliable. All jungle cat variants are called 
 tigre by the people: tigre of the forest, tigre of the 
 caves, tigre of the llanos, much to the confusion of 
 the casual hunter. My observation and travel con- 
 vince me that the felis family is represented in South 
 America by (1) jaguar (Felis onca), heaviest and 
 most powerful of the family next to the tiger, having 
 a similar tawny pelt, marked with black rosettes in- 
 stead of black stripes; (2) by the puma (Felis con- 
 color), incorrectly called panther (Felis pardus), 
 and lighter in structure than its North American 
 cougar or mountain lion relative, but darker in color ; 
 
 (3) by the ocelot (Felis pardalis), a smaller leop- 
 ard-like creature, with beautiful black markings; and 
 
 (4) by several sizes and colourations of cats, from the 
 dimensions of our unlovely United States wild- or 
 bobcat to a pretty, vicious thing about the size of a 
 domestic cat handsomely striped in black on dark 
 gray; and all of them long tailed. 
 
 I found much variation in the depth of the body 
 colour of the jaguar pelt and in the size and lustre of 
 the rosettes, and incline to the belief that this change- 
 ableness is due not to variation of species, but to in- 
 fluence of range and health of the animal. The hides 
 of the jaguars I killed and saw coming from the 
 llanos were of a lighter shade than those from the 
 more heavily forested sections. On the upper Ori- 
 noco the Indians claim a black jaguar, and have thus
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 misled two very distinguished travellers Humboldt 
 and Wallace, no less as well as a number of lesser 
 lights, one of whom, named Smith, goes so far in his 
 book on Amazon travel as to not only credit the local 
 fiction, but to give it name, F. nigra! Wallace 
 records shooting one on the crossing from Pimichin 
 to Javita on the neck of land which projects between 
 the upper Rio Negro and the Atabapo, and appears 
 to accept the Indian statement. But in my more ex- 
 tended travel over this section, especially in the north, 
 where the animal is reported abundant, I learned 
 nothing to warrant a revision of natural history. 
 The black jaguar, like the black leopard or panther 
 of the Far East, is a melanic accident, a freak, no 
 more, no less, just as a black or a silver is, in the first 
 instance, a freak of the red fox.* It corresponds to 
 the occasional albino among animal kind. To accept 
 the black jaguar is to fall a victim to local tradition. 
 It appeared to be quite generally the opinion at 
 the General's that when eating a kill the jaguar is 
 invariably dangerous to approach. But only the 
 largest of them prey upon cattle, and much of the 
 terror attaching to the name of el tigre must be ac- 
 counted for by the impressive havoc he creates when 
 he does attack; for at full strength he is, indeed, a 
 
 * Repeated breeding of freaks may result in establishing 
 a distinct class just as we have the " fancy " in pigeons and 
 dogs. For instance, in Canada an effort has been making 
 to breed silver foxes for the market by persistently mating 
 the freaks, and one man after long and sustained experiment- 
 ing appears to have succeeded. But outside some of our 
 up-to-date " nature " books, eugenics is not yet recognized 
 among the four-footed jungle folk.
 
 A RECORD TROPHY 225 
 
 powerful beast, second by only a little to his more 
 royal brother, the real tiger of the East. Like the 
 wolf and the cougar, the jaguar sometimes displays 
 the curiosity to follow without thought of attack, and 
 once one came into my night camp without harming 
 a thing or arousing any of us evidently prowling 
 for food. The smaller fry of the felis family which 
 are so lucky as to be established near settlements vic- 
 timize the local poultry; at times a single ocelot or 
 cat will wantonly kill hundreds of chickens at one 
 visit, carrying off a few to apparently do naught else 
 than suck their blood. The largest jaguar of which 
 I ever heard was at one of these gatherings at the 
 General's. Its body measurement was 6 feet 9 inches 
 in length, 28 inches in height, with a tail of three feet. 
 The largest of five shot by me measured 7 feet 3 
 inches from nose tip to tail end. 
 
 Although the range of the jaguar is wide, the 
 areas where he can be hunted with intelligent direc- 
 tion or a fair chance of success are comparatively 
 restricted ; confined, in a word, to the more open sec- 
 tions where he may be chased with dogs, or to those 
 districts where, in the dry season, water-holes are few 
 and far between. In the open spots of Mexico and 
 Central America, on the llanos edges of Venezuela 
 and on the borders of the Argentine Gran Chaco, 
 dogs are employed, and the jaguar in such a country 
 always takes to a tree to await the arrival of the 
 man with the gun, who has only to walk up and pot 
 him in the same manner that some hunt the cougar. 
 
 I confess I fail to find sport in such target prac- 
 tice on any creature, from raccoon io cougar, which 
 has taken refuge up a tree and thus awaits me unable
 
 226 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 to escape. Nor is there much more sport in sitting 
 up assassin-like over a water-hole, perhaps the only 
 one in the region, to shoot down the beast when it 
 comes to slake its thirst. The only excuse for killing 
 under such unfair conditions is either for purpose of 
 ridding a locality of its pests, or of securing examples 
 for scientific purposes. On the other hand, fair stalk- 
 ing of the jaguar or of any of the felis family but 
 the lion, which lives in the open country, is, except on 
 rare and unusual occasions, an impossibility on ac- 
 count of the jungle of its habitat and nature of the 
 beast, which is a skulker. In the dense cover of the 
 forest along the Road, if ever you see a jaguar it's 
 by merest chance of coming on to him noiselessly and 
 unexpectedly. To hunt el tigre in such a country is 
 out of the question. The Indians of the wilderness 
 give him a wide berth, if on occasion they come on 
 his trail, for their arrows are poor defence against so 
 powerful and active an animal. Moreover, the In- 
 dian is not wasting precious arrow points on anything 
 not edible. 
 
 While being regaled thus in the evenings by the 
 local raconteurs, preparations for our expedition 
 were going forward during the day at good rate. 
 Within a week everything was ready for the start 
 provisions stoutly sacked and labelled and grouped in 
 fifty-pound lots, the better to fit into the pack ham- 
 pers borne by the burros each man carrying his own 
 duffle or personal luggage rolled inside his hammock 
 and so tied on behind his saddle. Two articles of the 
 personal luggage, viz., the alpargatas and the chin- 
 chorro (hammock), are worthy of comment as being
 
 NATIVE WORKS OF ART 227 
 
 the two things without which the equipment of any 
 traveller in Venezuela is incomplete. 
 
 The alpargata is the common shoe of the people, 
 a kind of sandal with a leather sole and a cloth toe 
 which extends a narrow band around the heel to hold 
 it firmly on the foot; in the back country the sole is 
 made of aloe fibres. They are indispensable in camp 
 for those unaccustomed to going barefooted, especially 
 in a tropical country, and of such utility that I am 
 never without a pair. They are not handsome, but as 
 a lounge and camp slipper they are indeed serviceable. 
 
 On the lower Orinoco, the native-made ham- 
 mocks are of the moriche palm fibre, elsewhere, on 
 the upper Orinoco, the alto Rio Negro and some of 
 its branches, long and tough textile grasses furnish 
 the strands. Some are real works of art, beautifully 
 woven and decorated with bird plumage; but these 
 are far from the markets and difficult to secure, as 
 they are made for individual use and not to sell. One 
 I succeeded in getting on the Negro is not orna- 
 mented, but I have never seen so fine a bit of ham- 
 mock weaving. Really, it's too closely woven for cool 
 sleeping in hot weather. It might almost be com- 
 pared to the exquisite handiwork revealed in those 
 fine hats called " Panama," which are not and never 
 were made on the Isthmus, but in Peru and Ecuador, 
 where grow the palms that supply the fine and en- 
 during straw of which they are woven.* 
 
 It was a part of the General's scheme that we 
 
 * Attempts are making to manufacture these hats on 
 the Isthmus by importing the straw and workers, but except 
 in coarser kinds, with no marked success at this writing.
 
 228 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 should await the coming of the new moon, so as to 
 adopt the infinitely more comfortable idea of accom- 
 plishing our longest stretches of travel by night in- 
 stead of by day; as well as to improve our chances 
 of securing game sitting up at night over water-holes 
 being his plan for the hunting campaign. So it was 
 another week after we were ready before we actually 
 set out for the llanos across the Lake. These llanos of 
 Venezuela in being more or less watered and wooded 
 diif er from those other great plains of South America, 
 the pampas of the Argentine, which stretch away to 
 the horizon as far as the eye can see, flat and treeless 
 for the most part. From directly back of the moun- 
 tain range which skirts practically all the north coast 
 of Venezuela, down to the Orinoco and the Apure 
 rivers, and west to Lake Maracaibo, they extend 
 broken only by Cordillera spurs that well nigh en- 
 circle Barquisimeto before losing identity in the great 
 Andes, where it terminates to the south of the Lake. 
 There are, so it is officially claimed, almost four or 
 five hundred rivers flowing into the one-hundred-and- 
 twenty-five-mile, bottle-shaped Lake Maracaibo, 
 whose shores at the neck on the north are separated 
 in places by no more than seven miles, and on the 
 south by as much as eighty. Near one of these rivers 
 we landed on the east where a fringe of those tropic 
 first-aids to beauty, the cocoa-nut palm, half concealed 
 and wholly glorified some scattering houses pictu- 
 resquely distributed in the half-lights among the trees 
 in the background. Closer view, however, dispelled 
 the illusion and uncovered half a dozen thatched huts 
 of simplest construction. It was a little Indian set- 
 tlement of the kind common to the lagoons and the
 
 THE BURRO THAT WOULDN'T DROWN 229 
 
 bays and the rivers of Venezuela, which grow a small 
 quantity of " yucca brava " (the manna of South 
 America, and in such respect a correlative of the 
 East Indian sago plant), do a little fishing and much 
 talking and smoking. 
 
 We came near to drowning several of our pack 
 animals in the landing and so sustaining a serious 
 delay at the very outset. Rather a rough sea was 
 running, lifting the shallow steam-kettle boat high to 
 smack her down again violently so that burros and 
 horses were tossed about in disordered alarm, and nat- 
 urally much confused when prematurely thrown over- 
 board by the unintelligent captain for the purpose of 
 swimming them ashore. Instead of heading inshore, 
 some of them headed out, while a burro circled and cir- 
 cled, the waves breaking over his head as he sank so his 
 nose alone was visible. Only prompt action in send- 
 ing out canoes saved this little burden bearer as well 
 as two or three of the horses ; yet apparently the expe- 
 rience did them no harm. Starting a few hours 
 later, that selfsame burro covered forty-seven miles 
 from two o'clock until midnight without food and 
 practically without rest, also without water until noon 
 of the day following, carrying both pack baskets full 
 and behind them one of the party who certainly 
 weighed all of one hundred and thirty or one hundred 
 and forty pounds ! 
 
 For three days we made our way back across the 
 llanos, maintaining a good average of pace, as our 
 mounts were of that excellent thirteen to fourteen- 
 hand bronco type native to Venezuela, which has a fox 
 trot that eats up distance and is easy on the rider. Cu- 
 riously, the Venezuelans do not appear to appreciate
 
 230 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the advantage of a hard, smooth saddle surface for 
 long, arduous riding. There is no gainsaying their 
 endurance, however, for they ride day in and day 
 out and ride well, on a saddle somewhat of the Eng- 
 lish tree order, with a blanket or cloth or sheepskin 
 belted a-top of it after the fashion of that much-over- 
 rated horseman the Argentine gaucho. Our long 
 rest we took at noon, and for the balance of the 
 twenty-four hours kept on the trail mornings, late 
 afternoons and far into the night. When the moon 
 went down, the General got out lanterns and kept on 
 going ; and this was in late January, before the begin- 
 ning of the seasonal rains when everything is shriv- 
 elled and noisy and awry. 
 
 Though the high lights and the contorted vines 
 and the crackling brush gave a novel and, therefore, 
 agreeable vista, yet they parched the throat and 
 switched the face as we filed in and among the crooked 
 and creaking dead timber which swayed ominously in 
 every coppice we struggled through. How many 
 times we stopped to readjust the packs in this tan- 
 glewood! For the longer time, however, we wound 
 over the llanos, dusty grass and cactus covered 
 plains, now cutting through a bit of tearing, slap- 
 ping, noisy jungle, now circling an island of small- 
 tree groups in a sea of scorched vegetation, and 
 again passing under some high-standing solitary tree 
 giant, bearing strange-shaped pods and often covered 
 with brilliant parasitic flower growth. Two of these 
 especially attracted me as I rode. One bore a rough 
 bark forming great elongated diamond sections, from 
 whose branches hung long, pod-like pendants and a 
 yellow flower. The other was not over thirty or
 
 GETTING THE PACKS TOGETHER 
 
 THE WATER CARRIER
 
 THROUGH THE PARCHED LLANOS 
 
 forty feet in height with a trunk tapering rapidly 
 from about two feet in diameter at the base to not 
 over six inches. Another very tall tree raised an um- 
 brella-like top almost completely covered with little 
 blue flowers ; and once in a while we came to the wide- 
 spreading, handsome ceiba, each with its abnormal 
 clinging growths, for every tree has its particular 
 parasite. Of the cactus, too, there were many, and one 
 had a bristling trunk with prickly arms placed much 
 like the cross-bars of a telegraph pole. 
 
 Always with us were the parrakeets that build 
 their mud nests in trees and are forever screeching, 
 besides many other birds more agreeable, though 
 doves of two sizes predominated. Often I saw at 
 work an industrious woodpecker, carpenter of the 
 woods, as the natives call him, with his red top busily 
 hammering a tattoo which the dry condition of wood 
 and the quiet of the air carried far. At night, we 
 frequently heard the crashing of the plucky little 
 peccaries, sweeping past our column in hurried flight. 
 
 So we pursued our course, cutting across savan- 
 nahs, filing through thickets, winding over and round 
 little mounts and open parks, often coming to soil 
 quite sandy; travelling ever as though in a sunken 
 territory, with only an occasional vista ahead. 
 
 Finally, when the General pulled up at what he 
 declared to be our first camp, we were in what looked 
 like a one-time river bottom, now entirely covered 
 with small trees and brush, here and there one of 
 good size, but not too dense to prevent seeing a fair 
 distance. Beyond could be seen " the monte " 
 (wooded upland), which is the beginning of the foot- 
 hills that reach back into the mountains to the east.
 
 232 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 It was a confined, closed-in sort of camping ground, 
 and seemed to suggest floodland, insects and jaguars; 
 the General, in fact, assured me it was a famous ren- 
 dezvous for the last two and the General's judgment 
 was rarely at fault. 
 
 As I have said, the entire country was dried up, 
 with no running streams, and every living thing com- 
 pelled to come to the pools of standing water spar- 
 ingly distributed. These were little else than mud 
 holes, ranging in size from a dozen feet or so to one 
 I sat by long and often that was a good one hundred 
 feet long and twenty to thirty feet wide. Such as they 
 were, these holes supplied the drinking water not 
 only for the birds and the beasts, but for us as well. 
 
 The outlined scheme of our hunting prescribed 
 looking for tracks by day, and watching by night at 
 the water-hole to which they led ; and after a thorough 
 reconnaissance of the surrounding country, opinion 
 seemed unanimous that we were favourably located 
 for a successful trial. Accompanied by one of the 
 men to cut loose the barbed bush things which en- 
 tangled our feet and ensnared our clothing, the Gen- 
 eral and Alberto, his son, a fine lad, set out next day 
 in the late afternoon, each with a hammock and a 
 gourd of yellow water. Alberto was after meat 
 rather than a trophy, so we left him up a tree which 
 grows a sweetish, plum-like fruit the deer are very 
 fond of, and trudged on till we came to a rather large 
 water-hole, where one of the scouts claimed to have 
 found jaguar spoor, though incidentally I could not 
 see it on arrival. 
 
 In the Far East, when you sit up for tiger over 
 a kill or a bait or a water-hole, even the meanest
 
 AN UNSTEADY SHOOTING PLATFORM 
 
 platform or staging upon which you await is some- 
 thing of a structure, while the elaborate " mecham " 
 of India is almost an architectural creation; but in 
 South America simplicity rules. Merely you take to 
 a tree, and in a small hammock, which is really nothing 
 more than a broad sling made especially for the pur- 
 pose, you compose yourself for the denouement of the 
 venture. There are serious faults in the South 
 American method. The hammock does not make a 
 steady shooting platform, the dangling legs get be- 
 numbed and the position is strained and uncomfort- 
 able ; or, if you lie in the hammock, you have some diffi- 
 culty in the last long and silent hours of watching to 
 keep from being lulled by its gentle rocking to that 
 bourne of the dolce far niente whence no hunter re- 
 turns unashamed. 
 
 Using the dishevelled roots of an upturned tree 
 as a step-ladder, the General and I swung our ham- 
 mock seats about ten feet above ground to stout bam- 
 boo at the edge of a considerable clump where they 
 rattled in the breeze, as is the way of the tough and 
 useful bamboo, not over twenty feet from the water- 
 hole. Here, gently swaying as the air stirred our 
 vibrant supports, or checking the movement with 
 cautious hand every once in a while as the agitation 
 grew to violence, we strained eye and ear for jaguar 
 sign from about five in the afternoon until a couple 
 of hours past midnight. But no " tigre " put in an 
 appearance ; yet, as a first night vigil in such country 
 there was plenty to see so long as the light lasted. 
 
 For me there is no experience so fascinating as 
 that provided for the watcher near a dry season water- 
 hole during the twilight hours. Such a variety of
 
 234 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 wild life on the bank, and such a collection of noises 
 as come up out of the forest round you ; the groaning 
 trees; the hoarse quoking of herons, sometimes inter- 
 mingled with the roaring bellow of the monkey 
 howler. The birds begin to assemble as the sun goes 
 down ; doves in groups curtsey to the dirty water and 
 raise a thankful head at each libation; small herons 
 stand dejected and watchful; a beautifully tinted 
 rosy spoonbill explores the muck; stilt and rail-like 
 birds dart busily hither and thither ; a brown-red gal- 
 linule with pert black little tail industriously picks 
 his way entirely around the edge of the hole, utterly 
 oblivious to the active and somewhat noisy life round 
 about. Now and then the deep croak of the great 
 heron is heard as it flies overhead or, in nearby tree, 
 sounds its raucous note. If you look sharp you'll 
 see, like as not, just as dusk is coming on, a small 
 band of the black-bodied and feathery topknotted 
 " paujil " (curassow) stealing forth with stilted step 
 and bobbing head, perhaps occasionally exploding a 
 disproportionately small whistle, on the way to its 
 post-prandial drink. 
 
 As dusk draws closer, the birds, except for the 
 ugly heron, silently withdraw, and small animal life 
 begins to show. A black squirrel (a beauty I never 
 saw out of Venezuela) comes jerkily upon the scene; 
 the always-present rodents are represented by a 
 brownish creature which noses along, sitting up once 
 in a while like a prairie-dog to safeguard against overt 
 attack; a deer, sometimes two or even three, will sud- 
 denly stand before you across the hole, and you won- 
 der how that large, beautiful thing could have ap- 
 peared without your hearing until you note enrap-
 
 WILD LIFE AT THE WATER-HOLE 235 
 
 tured its absolutely silent and dainty approach to 
 the water ears sounding the air like alert sema- 
 phores, the great eyes shining in their liquid beauty. 
 As it stands, a listening, exquisitely modelled image, 
 with nose reaching forward inquiringly, a small herd 
 of the ever-moving, ever-bustling peccaries goes 
 scampering by rattling the dry brush as though under 
 a cavalry charge and you tingle with admiration at 
 the marvellous scent of the deer, which, unperturbed 
 by the sound, knows it for that of no enemy and 
 awaits its passing unafraid. 
 
 For a while after the tropical night has drawn its 
 curtain upon the scene, new forms stand out before 
 your tense eyes, mostly the creatures of your fancy, 
 for the wild denizens have gone their various ways. 
 Perhaps, as you stare, once in a while a pair of glow- 
 ing orbs loom suddenly in the darkness like the magic 
 picture of the lantern materializing out of space; 
 and your grasp tightens on the rifle in thought that 
 maybe at last your victim has arrived. But it is only 
 one of the smaller cat tribe come for its belated 
 drink, or to prowl the jungle lest perchance some un- 
 wary agouti may recklessly have strayed from its 
 hole, or a foolish paujil delayed its roosting to fur- 
 nish toothsome meal for an active, lustful member 
 of the felis family. At last all the jungle world 
 seems sleeping, save the insects, and you sway gently 
 in the breeze among the creaking bamboo, with ear 
 cocking at every other sound and skin writhing un- 
 der the insect attack, which you dare not repel too 
 energetically. 
 
 Now it is when night has really settled that the 
 senses concentrate in wary fixity to detect the stealthy
 
 236 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 approach of your quarry. With the close of day, in 
 a word, you cease to be the absorbed student of wild 
 life going about its business unconsciously before you, 
 and become an animal of destruction. It is no longer 
 sport; it is now merely the getting of a trophy no 
 less ; and only the discomfort and the heavy odds and 
 the remoteness make the game but a trifle more sport- 
 ing than shooting deer or boar driven up to your very 
 feet, or calling moose, or slaughtering swimming deer. 
 
 The blank night was frankly disappointing to us 
 all, since evidence of jaguar had been so generously 
 reported, yet we remained in this carnp several days 
 more, sitting up as before over different water-holes, 
 but always with no better result. And when we had 
 exhausted the nearby drinking places, and our own 
 patience, we moved to another camp about a day off, 
 in a similar piece of country. Here we scoured the 
 surroundings for tracks, the scouts reporting them 
 plentiful, though, as before, I saw none fresh, which, 
 however, did not argue the men mistaken, because 
 the ground, hard and dry as a bone, was neither 
 retentive of footprints nor dependable as to their age. 
 Hope springs eternal in the hunter's breast, so again 
 we took up our nightly vigil for the tigre which re- 
 fused to come. If we failed of success it was not for 
 lack of industry. Astir at daylight, we tracked until 
 about ten, returning then to camp to eat and sleep 
 until four in the afternoon, when each went his sepa- 
 rate way with hammock and gourd for the night 
 watch. 
 
 The gourd merits a chapter to itself. In whole 
 it is the country canteen, and with its top section re- 
 moved becomes the ubiquitous catch-all and serve-all
 
 A WATER-HOLE 
 
 THIS IS TYPICAL OF THE KIND WHERE WE SAT UP FOR JAGUAR AND FROM WHICH WE 
 
 TOOK OUR DRINKING WATER. IT WAS AT THIS PARTICULAR ONE, ALSO, 
 
 THAT I SCRAPED ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE CROCODILE 
 
 DURING THE HEAT OF THE DAY WE LOAFED GENERAL TINEDO STANDING BY THE TREE
 
 HUNTING THE FIENDISH GARRAPATA 237 
 
 utensil of the country household, the common size 
 ranging between a large cup and a medium bowl. In 
 Brazil it is called cuia and decorated with elaborate 
 but pleasing and indelible designs; in Venezuela it 
 is calabash and mostly unadorned. They grow on a 
 low (fifteen feet), wide-spreading tree, attached in 
 considerable numbers to the limb where it is heavy 
 and leafless. We were well supplied with this native 
 water bottle, in all sizes and shapes, and to see Saturno 
 returning from the water-hole was a sight equalled 
 only by the itinerant tinsmith of Rio Janeiro, who 
 carries on his head and body every pan conceivably 
 of use in the kitchen. Saturno was our cook, a thin, 
 gray-bearded, oldish chap, whose only garment, made 
 out of a sack, hung from his waist to his knees. He 
 was always good-natured, constantly suspending his 
 work at the camp-fire to look for garrapatas, that 
 charter member of South America's trinity of insect 
 devils pium, zancudo, garrapata. 
 
 By now I had become fully acquainted with this 
 trio. Known to Central America and Mexico as the 
 red-bug, the garrapata is the tick of Venezuela, and 
 breeds in four sizes of malignance; the largest as 
 large as a full grown bedbug, the smallest little big- 
 ger than a pen point. These in all their sizes infest 
 the brush and the grass. The low branches that sweep 
 your hat as you ride, the bush that drags across your 
 legs in the saddle, the grass through which you walk, 
 the log upon which you rest, each and sundry, as the 
 idiom goes, supplies its quota of swarming, biting gar- 
 rapatas. And the smallest is the arch fiend of the lot, 
 for not only is it so tiny as to be all but invisible, but 
 it burrows into your skin immediately upon contact.
 
 238 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Hunting garrapatas was quite as much a business 
 of the day as was watching for jaguar by night. On 
 returning to the camp every man went at once to 
 the fire, where, divesting himself of all clothing, he 
 held the different articles over the flames to loosen 
 the grip of the insect so it might be shaken off the 
 shirt being turned inside out for this especial purifi- 
 cation. Then standing nude, search for those on his 
 body would be instituted by a fellow sufferer, whose 
 back in turn he explored later. The General brought 
 relief to many a companion and earned a memorial 
 from tortured dry season jungle travellers in Vene- 
 zuela, by discovering that beeswax applied to the 
 garrapata ere he quite disappears under the skin, lifts 
 him from his prey; hence everyone in camp was pro- 
 vided with a ball of beeswax, which he rolled over as 
 much of his anatomy as he could reach, while another 
 curried his back. 
 
 It's easy to recognize the fever mosquito if you 
 can see it, because instead of alighting on its feet like 
 other respectable fly things, including its harmless 
 relative, it stands on its head when settling upon you. 
 The impossibility of knowing as you sit in the dark 
 over the stagnant water-hole a prolific breeder 
 whether the insect getting into action on your neck 
 is standing sedately on its feet or disreputably on its 
 head adds to the diverting experiences of certain bits 
 of jungle. There is, however, always the comforting 
 thought that the farther you are from town, the less 
 is the likelihood of its depositing the yellow fever 
 germ, but that isn't to say you may not get one of 
 the dozen varieties of malarial fever. The speculation 
 always reminded me of the unfailing method I once
 
 THE INDUSTRIOUS ANT 239 
 
 heard a witty after-dinner speaker suggest by which 
 the delicious mushroom can be certainly distinguished 
 from the deadly toadstool; "if it's a mushroom," he 
 said, "you live; if a toadstool, you die." Of ants, 
 too, we had a plenty a yellow one three-fourths of 
 an inch long such as I had not before seen, a black 
 one about one-half inch in length, with a small red 
 spot back of its head ; and both of them bit like fury. 
 Another quite small ant with white belly is entirely 
 harmless to man, but very destructive to trees and 
 buildings. I have seen tree trunks and house timbers 
 so grooved and honeycombed as to be on the verge of 
 collapse. Think of the industry of an insect a quar- 
 ter-inch long that will thus tunnel a six-inch post. 
 
 The day came round after several more blank 
 nights when we left this camp and moved to another, 
 still in a country of the same general character. This 
 time we thought we certainly had found the long- 
 sought-for tracks; some of them, quite fresh, were to 
 be seen at two different water-holes. To double our 
 chances of success, the General and I watched over 
 different holes, each where the tracks were visible; 
 but the General neither heard nor saw anything sug- 
 gestive of jaguar, and the nearest I came to good for- 
 tune was a momentary view of two large fire balls, 
 seemingly too large to belong to any other of the fam- 
 ily, which vanished while I stretched out a hand to 
 steady my swaying hammock. 
 
 But I did have an unusual view of the curassow, 
 the bird with grouse flavoured flesh, which is scattered 
 all along the Flowing Road and in Venezuela is 
 known as paujil. It has a body about the size of a 
 small turkey, short legs and a large feathery crest
 
 240 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 which shows whitish on the females when raised 
 and black on the males, who, in addition, have a 
 yellow knob at base of the black beak. Six of these 
 birds on this particular night paraded before me for 
 a quarter of an hour, strutting down from cover to 
 the water and occasionally making their call, * that 
 is not unlike certain turkey notes. It is a shy bird, 
 roosts high up in the trees, and keeps to the close 
 growing bush where the berries upon which it feeds 
 grow. I sat up three nights especially for the pur- 
 pose of watching the paujil, taking my camera in 
 the hope of being able to secure some photographs, 
 but though the birds performed, the light was too 
 weak, and nothing resulted on the films. Many a 
 time I tried to photograph a water-hole scene, but 
 never with any success, for lack of light. One bird 
 grew quite friendly as my visits multiplied, a prettily 
 marked, chipper little fellow about the size of a spar- 
 row, with yellow breast, brown wings, black strip to 
 the eye and a white band circling round a brown 
 topknot. It seemed greatly interested in my proceed- 
 ings, perching quite near to regard me with frank 
 curiosity as it flicked from branch to branch, 
 
 We played hide and seek with the jaguar in this 
 section there being more drinking holes than we 
 could cover at one sitting. Once I saw dimly his out- 
 line in the deep dusk as he slunk off to one side to 
 leave me on the very edge of unrealized expectations 
 the remainder of the night; and frequently I saw to 
 good advantage the smaller members of the feUs 
 group. But the tigre gave me no opportunity for 
 shooting. If it hadn't been for the fascinating scenes 
 of wild life at sunset I'd have grown much bored,
 
 ACQUAINTANCE WITH A CROCODILE 
 
 for at its best I was none too enamoured of this un- 
 sporting method of getting a trophy. Every day 
 offered some new interest and none more amusing 
 than an acquaintance I struck up with a crocodile 
 in the pool near camp which supplied our drinking 
 water. This was an oval-shaped pond, about fifty 
 to sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, to which I had 
 journeyed several times without seeing any large 
 life in it when I searched the water with a stick be- 
 fore reaching down to fill the gourd by aid of which 
 I made my ablutions on the bank. One day, as I 
 stooped with my gourd, I glimpsed the end of a 
 snout and two glassy eyes staring at me about twenty 
 feet off; and so we remained for minutes, regarding 
 each other I careful to make no sudden move. 
 
 Let me interpolate here for the benefit of those 
 desirous of studying wild life, never to approach 
 abruptly or make sudden movements of any kind, for 
 the sake of safety as well as for the sake of observation. 
 I am convinced that three-quarters of the time a beast 
 charges or a snake attacks, fear of you rather than 
 aggression is the compelling impulse ; the creature acts 
 in a spirit of self-defence. 
 
 While we, the croc, and I, stared motionless at 
 one another, many little creatures came forth fur- 
 tively lizards, great spiders, a long-necked tortoise; 
 it is nothing less than amazing what an amount of 
 life you will see in the jungle if you simply remain still 
 and watch. On this day of our introduction, the 
 croc, disappeared noiselessly the instant I arose from 
 my squatting position, but before moving camp we 
 grew to such terms of friendliness that he would re- 
 main on the surface an apparently interested spec-
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 tator of my bath. No doubt had he recognized in 
 me a disciple of the new nature school, he'd forthwith 
 have confided his woes over the restricted hunting 
 field and how he happened in that pond, and why 
 he wasn't holed up in his dry season slumber like the 
 majority of well-regulated crocs, in country such as 
 this, instead of frivolling with an inquisitive wanderer. 
 
 Perhaps he was, indeed, so minded when once or 
 twice he suddenly sank from view in the middle of 
 the pool as I stooped, dipping water at the edge, 
 but if so I fear I did not encourage his advances as 
 should a true interpreter of wild life, for on such 
 occasions I always stepped back from the muddy 
 waters to the top of the bank. All of which prompts 
 another suggestion to those who would adventure 
 among tropical jungles if you would not be a can- 
 didate for the " though-lost-to-sight-to-memory-dear 
 class," locate the spot where the croc, of the pool or 
 the river bank is or is not before you stretch your 
 arm to dip up water; so long as you've got your eye 
 on him you needn't fear the crocodile, but keep a sharp 
 watch when he goes out of sight in dirty water. 
 
 They say washing in the water of these mud-holes 
 is likely to give you fever, but I simply had to take a 
 chance; I was too uncomfortably in need of a bath. 
 Walking in such a country at such a season is soiling 
 business. It was as drink that the water really 
 offended. Of course, we filtered and boiled and 
 charged it heavily with lemon or orange and sugar 
 anything to destroy its natural flavour. The Gen- 
 eral had taught Saturno to make quite a palatable 
 orangeade kind of drink upon which we came to rely. 
 In parenthesis I will add that except for the real wil-
 
 CALLING ON THE CAVE TIGRE 243 
 
 derness lover, or one glad to pay heavily in bodily dis- 
 comfort for the chance to observe strange wild life, 
 there is no delight in such tropical camping. 
 
 After more days of fruitless searching and nights 
 of patient watching, we abandoned sitting up over 
 water-holes and the section which, promising so much 
 had yielded so little, and journeyed into a region 
 where the General said a tigre lived in caves. This 
 proved rather an attractive bit of country with open 
 spots scattered in the forest further broken by little 
 wooded hills and shallow gullies. 
 
 Here we had finally the most comfortable camp of 
 our trip and I was much amused at the process of 
 evolution. On the day of arrival we simply dumped 
 everything in the sand; sweeping much of the brush 
 away and burning over the ground to kill the insects 
 being the only camping preparations made. The next 
 day a canvas fly was set over our hammocks; the 
 third day another one covered the culinary depart- 
 ment and Saturno; two days later a rack for the 
 dishes was made, and a few days before breaking camp 
 a stationary dining table and benches were constructed 
 of lashed poles set upon crotched uprights. 
 
 In caves which were really enlarged burrows 
 opening into the gullies, the tigre was reported to 
 have its abode, and plenty of tracks were plainly 
 visible here where the soil was yielding. At several 
 of the caves our solitary dog sniffed suspiciously and 
 occasionally whined affrightedly, backing away and 
 stubbornly refusing to be brought up to the work of 
 investigation; but beyond such signs our four days' 
 efforts resulted in no more here than at the water- 
 holes. I tried building fires at the mouths of the
 
 244 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 caves where the tracks were freshest, but if there was 
 tigre he was smoke proof. Only an occasional cave 
 was large enough for me to enter with any freedom 
 of movement, and such as I explored on hands and 
 knees, thrusting a burning brand before me, yielded 
 neither sight nor sound of jaguar. Yet glowing re- 
 ports continued to be brought daily into camp by the 
 deer hunters, who kept us easily in more meat than 
 we could eat of a smallish white tail with face like 
 the moluccan and a sporting pair of antlers rather 
 heavy for their spread. Only the General and I 
 clung steadfastly to pursuit of the elusive jaguar, 
 going out by dawn and by night. 
 
 Each hunter's return was signal for the gathering 
 of all in camp to hear his dramatic recital given to 
 its minutest detail. Invariably tigre played a lead- 
 ing role. One hunter had found the dead carcass of 
 a tapir (long dead, I discovered next day) ; another 
 heard tigre gnashing its teeth! another had remained 
 in his tree fearful lest the tigre he heard growling 
 nearby should get him! Scarcely a man returned to 
 camp but what was sure he had heard either the tigre 
 or the " lione," as they called the puma. 
 
 A few days more of this unrequited casting con- 
 vinced me that however many jaguar might roam the 
 country at other times, to seek farther in the dry sea- 
 son was wasting time a conclusion supported by our 
 having found not one tigre-killed deer. Therefore, 
 wishing to get down the Apure River before the rains 
 began, I suggested returning, and the General agree- 
 ing, we broke camp instanter. I truly believe the 
 dear old man, who always called me Don Gaspar, 
 had endured the discomfort of these many days more
 
 s -^J 
 
 THE SIMPLE HOUSE OF THE VENEZUELAN LLANERO
 
 THE LOVELY ROSA DE MONTE 245 
 
 from a sense of courtesy than because he derived 
 pleasure. Not that he failed to enjoy the hunting, 
 for he did, like the hale old man he was, that at sixty- 
 eight could not be outridden by any of us on the hard, 
 continuous marching, or outstayed on the uncom- 
 fortable tree hammock. 
 
 Our return road, travelled chiefly at night as be- 
 fore, took us into a new country to the eastward, 
 partly through pieces of forest and jungle and partly 
 across the llanos. Near occasional outcroppings of 
 malpais-like rock we saw a fibrous giant of a pine- 
 apple kind of plant , six to eight feet high and with a 
 spread of over twelve to fifteen feet, which, the Gen- 
 eral said, supplies the Indian with his native thread. 
 The country was dry as punk, and as we rode, the 
 clatter of the bamboo swinging to the wind rose above 
 all sounds save that made by the leather-lunged 
 " guacharaca," a bird which runs a scale having a 
 top note quite unparalleled except by the calliope. 
 But I shall remember longest the " rosa de monte," 
 a brilliant flower the General pointed out to me on 
 the hillside which opened to reveal vivid scarlet leaves 
 veined in lighter crimson and a white fringed petal 
 bending outward from the centre. 
 
 Drawing near the Lake we came to several small 
 ranchos humblest of human habitations consisting 
 of four upright poles supporting a palm-thatched 
 roof. Sometimes these crude abodes have sides, as 
 often they are open, and some I passed at another 
 time on the llanos from Valencia to the Apure were 
 cruder still. Here live the llaneros, a contented lot, 
 as a whole, who tend the cattle and know no greater 
 luxury than an occasional meat and vegetable stew
 
 246 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 called " sancocho " in Venezuela and " puchero " in 
 Argentine, where it is a favourite of the gauchos. At 
 one of these ranches, the mother of several naked, 
 playing kiddies could not tell me her age; with her 
 mouth shut she looked twenty, but any age with it 
 open, for she had lost all her upper front teeth! 
 Nothing could be simpler than the domestic economy 
 of such ranches; hammocks are the beds, gourds and 
 cocoanut shells the utensils, and all outdoors a dump- 
 ing ground. The only decorative thing I saw was a 
 vine-made cage holding a bright and talkative mem- 
 ber of the oriole family, which was so tame the woman 
 could handle it. 
 
 Thus, stopping here and there to note some bird 
 or plant or tree, we came to the Lake again. So far 
 as concerned el tigre the trip was a failure, but it was 
 none the less interesting and well worth while if 
 only for the pleasure of the General's companionship.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 DOWN THE PORTUGUESA 
 
 Our failure to dislodge jaguar in the easterly 
 Lake country appeared to bother the General a whole 
 lot more than it did me, and on our return to Mara- 
 caibo he set inquiry afoot as to prospects on the 
 west side, securing information no more encouraging 
 than that the section from which we had just returned 
 was considered second to none for such game. Of 
 course I had no thought of giving up without another 
 try in north Venezuela, and having heard of the 
 Portuguesa River as a territory much favoured by 
 el tigre, decided on descending that way to the lower 
 Orinoco instead of again crossing the llanos from 
 Cagua as I had planned. Thus resolved, I arrived, 
 in due course of steamer and railway travel, at Bar- 
 quisimeto, connected with Tucacas at the sea by a 
 short railroad. 
 
 Here I had no difficulty whatever in assembling 
 my simple equipment, or in securing the two horses 
 which were to carry me and Chavez, the native picked 
 up where I bought the animals, as well as the small 
 outfit of supplies divided between us and stowed in 
 the saddle bags. 
 
 Like her sister towns, Maracaibo and Valencia, 
 Barquisimeto came into life about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. Unlike either of the others, how- 
 ever, she sits upon a plateau facing the ridge which 
 divides the streams flowing into Lake Maracaibo on 
 the west from those emptying on the south finally 
 
 247
 
 248 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 into the Apure that northerly division of the Road 
 whose branches reach like veins throughout all this 
 western section. With a little valley at its feet, 
 nearby the enveloping mountains whence comes 
 much of the raw material for its special industry 
 of hammock and rope manufacture Barquisimeto 
 appeared about the busiest of Venezuelan towns, and 
 the coolest barring Caracas. Maracaibo does not rank 
 in the comparative cool class: always it is hot in the 
 village by the Lake. 
 
 There are two ways of reaching the Portuguesa 
 from the north ( 1 ) by rail to Valencia from Puerto 
 Cabello, thence by saddle across the llanos to San 
 Carlos and so on south to San Rafael; or (2) from 
 Tucacas on the sea by rail to Barquisimeto and so 
 by horse through an opening in the hills to Cojedes, 
 just below San Carlos. I chose the latter route, prob- 
 ably also the longer, having already, in a previous 
 year, made a ten-day crossing of the plains, horseback 
 through Calabozo, its midway metropolis, to San 
 Fernando de Apure. 
 
 It's an attractive ride from Barquisimeto through 
 el Altar to the Cojedes, a shallow river about one hun- 
 dred feet wide, easily forded as I saw it, but which 
 swells to considerable of a stream after the rains. We 
 were three days on the journey that need not con- 
 sume half so much time if you keep going, for it is 
 little over forty miles; but I loitered along the road, 
 spending half a day where the pass winds through 
 the small Cordillera trying to get a good look at a 
 " campanero," or bell bird, whose abrupt metallic call 
 sounded high and loud in the adjoining forest. Un- 
 like the Venezuelan variant of the oriole, the cam-
 
 THE SEASON FOR LLANOS TRAVEL 249 
 
 panero shuns the settlements and lives entirely on the 
 forest edge, where he is prone to seek the top of a tall 
 tree, from which he sends his ringing note repeatedly. 
 Whenever I heard it, mostly on the lower Orinoco, 
 the bird was fairly close, but the volume and pene- 
 trating clearness of the note led me to believe that 
 it will carry a mile under favourable atmospheric con- 
 ditions in the jungle. I never saw a campanero in 
 captivity or heard of one being killed, as the bird is 
 a great favourite with the natives, who make astonish- 
 ing claims for the carrying power of its bell. 
 
 The little river we left at the pass, Chavez as- 
 sured me, empties into the larger Tinaco, which in 
 turn flows into the Portuguesa, thus at high water 
 offering another route to the Apure without the ride 
 to San Rafael. Col. Dtiane, who passed through el 
 Altar in 1823 on his trip from Caracas to Bogota, 
 makes the same claim, if I rightly recall the inter- 
 esting and informing record he has left for those that 
 enjoy tales of travel in out-of-the-way places. But I 
 had no time for experimenting; moreover, the rivers 
 were not full, as it was April and only the beginning 
 of the rain, which proved most agreeable after the 
 dust-laden, arid llanos to the west. When I had 
 crossed the llanos in February, everything was 
 parched, save the moriche palm. Now, with only a 
 week or so of rain, already a notable change in the 
 foliage could be seen, while the thermometer ranged 
 from 88 to 92 in the day and from 60 to 65 at 
 night. Indeed, in early weeks of the wet season is 
 the best time to travel the llanos provided you are 
 inured to tropical weather and have the temperament 
 and the physical hardihood to withstand its miasmatic
 
 250 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 influence. Yet, even in the dust, I always enjoyed 
 those great, grass plains which extend from the 
 Orinoco to the north coast range and west to the 
 Cordilleras of the Andes. There's something ap- 
 pealing to me in the sweep of the land with its patches 
 of woodland, its groves of moriche palm the almost 
 invariable pointer to water and the isolated hut of its 
 native cowboy the llanero. 
 
 Life is no sinecure for the llanero, a hard work- 
 ing chap who gives heavily for what he gets out of 
 life. Usually in small companies, at the ratio of 
 about one for every sixty head of cattle, he wanders 
 hither and thither, content to home where he throws 
 down his skins for the night or in the primitive palm 
 rancho he builds when stationed. In view of his 
 lonely life it is not surprising he is as superstitious 
 and as fearful of spirits as the Indian of the moun- 
 tain, or that he is ever apprehensive of the will-o'-the- 
 wisp which dances over the llanos under certain at- 
 mospheric conditions. If within reach, he attends the 
 fiesta and, no doubt, gets drunk with the rest of 
 llanos mankind, for such is the popular form of cele- 
 bration among the peasantry. Fiestas come, where 
 the tonca bean grows, frequently in February and 
 March, the time of plenty, but, in May, when the 
 crops are over and the wet season sets in to last until 
 July or August, sometimes even into September, life 
 grows sombre indeed. 
 
 Not the least cause of his woes is the jaguar, who 
 takes toll of the pigs and the dogs wherever a settle- 
 ment of llaneros raise their ranches for permanent 
 abode near water enough to assure a crop of plan- 
 tains, which, with coffee and " carne seca " (dried
 
 DECREASE IN CATTLE 251 
 
 meat) , constitute the fundamentals of his daily menu. 
 Fresh beef is a luxury. It's a day of rejoicing when 
 the llanero has a sancocho, for cattle are not killed for 
 the feeding of such as he; hence, the 'longshoreman 
 fares better, for he makes sancocho of any kind of 
 fish, including sharks, which he has always at hand. 
 
 From the time we came out of el Altar all the way 
 to Gunare, we rode through the edge of the llanos, 
 frequently crossing small streams with thickly wooded 
 banks. Now and again we came to those canals or 
 caiios, and ponds typical of these llanos, which are 
 quite shallow in the dry season, sometimes disappear- 
 ing, but in the time of rains are full and even bois- 
 terous. As when crossing to Calabozo, I was sur- 
 prised at the comparatively few cattle in sight be- 
 cause of the many being kept on the lower llanos 
 south and east of the Apure River during the dry sea- 
 son. Yet is it a fact that there are fewer cattle on 
 these plains than formerly, before Castro so sapped 
 the industrial vitality of the people by his greedy and 
 unscrupulous methods. 
 
 San Rafael is a tiny settlement mostly church, and 
 accounted the port of the Portuguesa, but I decided 
 to go on six miles to Gunare, where I thought the 
 chances better for getting provisions and an outfit. 
 'Twas through here also the road ran which Pro- 
 fessor Bingham and Dr. Hamilton Rice travelled to 
 Bogota, whence the latter made his important trip 
 across country to the headwaters of the Uaupes. 
 Churches, including some picturesque old ones, remain 
 the chief impression of the several little villages 
 along my fifty-mile ride down this trail from the Co- 
 jedes. Acarigua, a short distance below Cojedes, was
 
 252 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the only town looking prosperous; in fact (official re- 
 ports to the contrary notwithstanding), it appeared 
 to my eye more important and populous than Gu- 
 nare, which was a sorry disappointment despite its two 
 thousand people, and reputation of being " the " city 
 of this corner of the llanos. With its careworn air 
 and big church it did not look a promising outfitting 
 point, as we rode in, but Chavez had said he knew 
 here just the man for me, and so the town's hopeless 
 appearance gave me no concern as we ambled through 
 the adobes, for I had grown to depend on what Chavez 
 said ; indeed he impressed me so favourably I sought 
 to induce him to go with me, for every other Vene- 
 zuelan, unless born a llanero, is at home on the water ; 
 but he had no stomach for it. 
 
 On the day following our arrival he fetched me 
 an unusually tall, slender, and very dark Indian who 
 wore an enormous grass hat nearly covering his shoul- 
 ders, and a pair of blue canvas trousers hoisted mid- 
 way between bare ankles and knees. Named Ignacio, 
 he belonged to that class of wanderers who, though 
 willing and able to put in day after day at hard pad- 
 dling, can rarely be induced for love or money to work 
 on land. There are many such in Venezuela that 
 travel the rivers catching fish and birds; or roam the 
 land getting an odd job here or there, while the plan- 
 tains, the bananas, the " pawpaw " (breadfruit), and 
 the " palo de vaca " (cow tree) furnish food and milk 
 for which they have but to reach forth a hand; yet, 
 curiously enough, great numbers of them live 
 wretchedly. 
 
 Chavez had the beans and carne seca and coffee 
 delivered at the house of his friend where we slept,
 
 INDIAN RIVER ROVERS 253 
 
 and on the second day after arrival, we packed it all 
 on one horse to Ignacio's falca, and within an hour 
 thereafter had started on our way. 
 
 The Portuguesa is perhaps the largest of several 
 tributaries of the Apure flowing southeasterly 
 through these western llanos, and in its course, which 
 we followed for ten days, receives several little rivers 
 on its own account, mostly from the north on its up- 
 per reaches, but near its mouth others enter from the 
 south bank. In truth, by the time you come finally 
 to the Apure, it's hard to say whether you officially 
 are on the Portuguesa or one of the contributors to 
 its volume. If it fills its banks at high water it must 
 be considerable of a river, and it was, in truth, al- 
 ready quite a stream as we neared San Fernando de 
 Apure, though where we launched our canoe it had 
 been wide and shallow. For the greater part of the 
 western half it continued a single, somewhat narrow 
 channel, which wound around sandbars, no doubt 
 fully covered in high water, or spread out in shoal and 
 sluggish stretches between low banks whose brush- 
 covered tops scarce concealed the adjoining flat coun- 
 try. It would take a lively imagination, indeed, to de- 
 scribe the Portuguesa as a picturesque waterway ; and 
 the country through which it flows is no less monoto- 
 nous. Towards the western end the banks are heavily 
 wooded, but farther into the llanos, to the south and 
 east, they thin out, and brush and canebrakes and 
 jungle become the characteristic covering. Occa- 
 sionally we met natives, sometimes Venezuelans, 
 sometimes Indians, mostly rovers like Ignacio, I de- 
 cided; and we could have lodged at a rancho for at 
 least three of the nights on the river.
 
 254 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 One rancho of a group where we stopped an 
 hour or two in the day was scarcely more than a 
 shed ; four uprights with a covering of thatched palm. 
 A loosely braided, straw curtain, shifted according 
 to direction of wind and rain, offered only a little 
 protection against either, while the moist spots in 
 the earth floor proved the roof of slightly better 
 construction. Most of these ranches are suitable only 
 for the hot, dry weather which prevails at intervals 
 during about half the year. For the steady down- 
 pour and frequent driving storms of the rainy sea- 
 son they are as unfitted as well could be. It isn't 
 difficult to believe in the Darwinian theory of evolu- 
 tion if you travel a little among wilderness people. 
 
 Ignacio had asserted very confidently that we 
 should see jaguar, as did the natives along the river, 
 but by now I was accustomed to this, the customary 
 story of the land, and took no stock of it. Float- 
 ing down-stream as we were, landing here and there 
 the better to see some bird that may have attracted 
 my attention, making short side excursions in quest 
 of the wild life I sought to study jaguar was but 
 an incident in my trip, and as I have said, unless 
 you can hunt systematically with dogs, getting one 
 is chiefly a matter of luck. Yet luck was with me, as 
 you shall see. 
 
 Late one afternoon, while we paddled slowly, 
 cautiously, around a bend in the wake of what I 
 thought to be a great, white jabiru stork which had 
 flown from the river up a small currentless carlo 
 that twisted back into the llano, my eyes fell sud- 
 denly on jaguar, two jaguar, apparently at the very 
 water's edge where a light covering bush only half
 
 THE RARE SIGHT OF A HUNTER'S LIFE 255 
 
 concealed them. With no commotion at all I in- 
 stantly backed water, a signal Ignacio well under- 
 stood, and in less time than it takes to write it we were 
 under the protecting bank. Then to Ignacio's instant 
 animation I whispered " tigre." 
 
 Standing in the bow, with ready rifle, and a leg 
 on either side the cross seat to steady me, I bade him 
 advance with utmost quiet, keeping close to the bank 
 so as to round the point slowly. Approaching noise- 
 lessly we came just at the turn, where peering cau- 
 tiously through the brush screen with breath all but 
 suspended in my hushed eagerness, I saw in very life 
 two jaguar, one for the entire length of its body, the 
 other to just back of the shoulders. They appeared 
 to be engaged in post-prandial ablutions, alternately 
 tonguing their paws and washing their noses for all 
 the world like the giant cats they really are. The 
 animal in full view was the male and larger, and oc- 
 casionally he would turn his head towards the female 
 at his side as if caressing her shoulder or neck, though 
 from my position I could only see his head moving 
 in rhythmic motion and my imagination supplied 
 the reason. There was no play between them so far 
 as I could see, but they were obviously on most 
 friendly terms, surveying one another with the quiet- 
 eyed content of intimate and agreeable relationship. 
 They licked and stretched in peace and silence, a com- 
 munion, as it were, of stomachs well filled but re- 
 cently, very likely at no great distance from where 
 they lay, for your true jaguar is a water lover and 
 ranges near by a stream when he can. I was so in- 
 terested watching them I quite forgot for the moment 
 the business of trophy getting, and even recollecting
 
 256 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 continued to feast upon the domestic scene so rare a 
 sight in a hunter's lifetime. I cannot say how many 
 minutes I had stood gazing at them when the fe- 
 male quietly and for no reason I could discover with- 
 drew into the enveloping jungle, while the male 
 showed signs of following. But on that instant I 
 ceased to be the fascinated student and became in- 
 stead the zealous hunter of wild life. 
 
 Holding as steady as I could on a platform not en- 
 tirely at rest, I fired into the chest of the male just as 
 he was rising. A sullen growl, a crash of brush, and 
 silence and emptiness where a second before had 
 been jaguar, was the result of my shot. Paddling 
 quickly round the bend I was prepared to find blood 
 in plenty to witness my score, for the distance was 
 little over seventy-five feet, and picking up the spoor 
 easily I followed at good pace though with utmost cau- 
 tion, for the brush was thickish and well calculated 
 to conceal an awaiting and maddened beast. For 
 half a mile I stalked warily through the jungle before 
 emerging upon the llanos edge, along which ran the 
 trail of blood. It seemed remarkable the beast could 
 lose so much and keep travelling, and I was expect- 
 ing to come upon his dead body at any moment, when 
 directly from my left front came the crooning, snarl- 
 ing you may have heard the house cat make on a 
 much smaller scale when the dog has come near her 
 as she chewed on a mouthful of mouse. 
 
 Swinging sharply, with gun at shoulder, I dis- 
 covered the male crouched not over thirty feet away, 
 grimacing at me hideously and growling ominously, 
 the female, a bit back on the near side, also crouched 
 and making faces, though I do not recall hearing her
 
 A BAG OF TWO JAGUAR 257 
 
 voice. She seemed indeed to be taking the situation 
 so easily I was encouraged to attempt a little ma- 
 noeuvring in order to get a clearer shot at her mate, 
 but on my sidling to the right, he sprang at me, 
 landing short, and before he could gather himself 
 for another attempt, I put a ball in his head. With 
 the fall of her companion, the female recoiled to one 
 side, and was making off when I stopped her with 
 a raking shot through the hindquarters which brought 
 her down tearing and raging. Dragging her hind 
 legs and snarling furiously, she continued coming 
 until I closed her struggle with a second bullet. The 
 male was of good size, with pelt in excellent condi- 
 tion, measuring about seven feet from the tip of its 
 nose to the end of its tail ; the female was a foot and a 
 half smaller. 
 
 If Ignacio had principles against working on land, 
 he certainly set them aside while in my employ, for 
 a more willing or helpful man Friday I never had. 
 He had followed me ashore, which I considered 
 plucky of him, as he had no weapon but his machete, 
 and now indulged in fervid admiration of the rapid 
 work of the rifle. Having removed the pelts and 
 instructed him to return to the canoe with them and 
 await me, I went on a bit to see if perchance the 
 great, white stork had outlasted the bombardment. 
 But though I found a small lagoon and other likely 
 territory, no sight of the jabiru rewarded me, though 
 there were many of the birds now become familiar 
 figures as we approached the Apure spoonbills, ibis, 
 small herons, egrets. 
 
 Drawing close to the canoe I explored the cano in
 
 258 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 a last vain hope that perhaps on the other clearer 
 side the jabiru might be found in its peaceful pose. 
 But no more uncommon sight repaid my toilsome 
 threading of the jungle along the water's edge than 
 an iguana, the big tropical lizard whose tail is a native 
 relish in South America, Siam, Malaya. The biggest 
 I ever saw was in South America on one of the Apure 
 tributaries. It had jumped to the ground from the 
 low limb of a tree which my men had surrounded, and 
 thence into the water, leaving a two-foot tail behind 
 a yarn you will probably consider as entitling me 
 to membership in the nature faking class, but which 
 only gives what actually happened, none the less, be- 
 fore my eyes, precisely as I recount it. It is an un- 
 lovely looking creature with a head similar in outline 
 to that of the horned toad common in southwest 
 United States, and a spinal column which rears on 
 high in the middle where the dorsal vertebras appear 
 to have broken forth in an abnormal, not to say riot- 
 ous growth. On a small scale it resembles the extinct 
 Stegosaurus, so if you wish a vague idea of what the 
 iguana looks like, visit the Museum of Natural His- 
 tory in New York and view the reproduction of its 
 prehistoric prototype. 
 
 Reaching the canoe, I found Ignacio had been 
 doing some successful hunting on his own account. 
 He had cut down with his machete a brownish snake 
 about five feet long, which he said was the " macau- 
 rel " or " macaure " that lives in trees and is " malo " 
 (bad). It had the poisonous type head, and most 
 likely was one of the deadly lance-heads; but I saw 
 no other. Indeed, snakes were the wild life of which
 
 A THIEF IN THE NIGHT 259 
 
 I saw the least, though they fairly squirm on every 
 page of most accounts of South American travel. 
 Not that snakes are lacking, but they get out of your 
 way; you may hear them often, particularly in the 
 dry season, but to see one is unusual at least, such 
 was the experience of my five trips into the wilderness 
 of the great continent which we know so slightly and 
 continue to overlook so persistently. 
 
 As if to amend her previous disregard of my im- 
 portunities, the elusive Dame who rules our des- 
 tinies, whether we be in town or jungle, now pro- 
 ceeded to embarrass me with gifts. The very next 
 day we arrived at a rancho a short distance back from 
 the river where the family loudly bemoaned the loss 
 of a favourite dog carried off by the jaguar, so they 
 said, and, told by Ignacio of our exploit of the pre- 
 vious day, besought me to find and shoot the thief. 
 I was not averse, of course, to comply, but as it 
 was now mid-afternoon, and the dog had been seized 
 before daylight, I thought the chance slim of catch- 
 ing up with the jaguar, which would probably make 
 a single meal of so small a quarry and therefore not 
 return for further feasting thus to provide us with 
 opportunity for seeing, if not killing. However, I 
 signified my willingness to make the try. 
 
 Followed by Ignacio, and each of them carrying a 
 spear, the man of the rancho led the way inland across 
 the open llanos to a grove whence he claimed to have 
 heard the yelps of his dog, and we had not searched 
 over half an hour before we found its mutilated re- 
 mains. I was now convinced that the marauder was a 
 smaller beast than jaguar, and would return to finish
 
 260 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 its repast as night drew on; so at my suggestion we 
 each went up a tree overlooking the kill. No birds 
 came here at sundown as at the water-holes over 
 Maracaibo way, but of furtive, small animal life 
 there was much and varied; the jungle seeming to be 
 literally alive with small rodents. How one can walk 
 amid these hordes without seeing a head! It is to 
 marvel! A nearby howling monkey disturbed the 
 peace, subsiding in a long, dismal wail as the dusk 
 thickened. Suddenly, as if out of the earth, appeared 
 a large cat. After a quick survey, it fell upon the 
 carcass, and at once I shot, tumbling the creature 
 over with the first cartridge. Scrambling out of the 
 trees we found what Ignacio called a " tegrillo " 
 (little tigre) , though it had none of the jaguar mark- 
 ings. On the contrary, it was grayish with black 
 markings, about the size of a big lynx ; in fact, except 
 for its long tail, it might have been a monster bob-cat. 
 There was rejoicing at the rancho when we re- 
 turned, and a sancocho prepared to celebrate the 
 death of the robber and do honour to the guest, as they 
 insisted on making me. The poverty of the house- 
 hold, with father, mother, four children and the wife's 
 sister in the one room with shed annex, was unmis- 
 takable, but it seemed to have no dampening influence 
 upon the spirits or the bounty of the family; the 
 children raced and tumbled while the elders ate and 
 talked and laughed with never a sigh or a sign of 
 care. There was no hard-luck story in that house. 
 Yet the roof leaked, a raw, chill wind sifted through 
 the flimsy, palm-leaf sides, and so far as I could see, 
 except for coffee and a large thin slab of carne seca,
 
 THE SLAUGHTER OF EGRETS 261 
 
 our sancocho emptied the larder. Truly, happiness 
 is comparative! 
 
 The father, in the summer season, was a plume 
 hunter, he told me, devoting his efforts almost en- 
 tirely to the egrets, whose feathers he took to San 
 Fernando de Apure to a milliner's agent, who as- 
 sorted and forwarded them to New York. The 
 last year had been a poor one for him; indeed, for 
 several seasons the general annual plume harvest 
 had fallen far below the standard, because of the great 
 and repeated yearly slaughter. He referred enthu- 
 siastically to the profits of the business, declaring he 
 had in a few weeks' hunting made enough to keep him 
 a year, and one hundred birds in a single visit to a 
 colony rookery not unusual. 
 
 Killing an egret is as easy as killing chickens in the 
 yard, he explained, because the birds return year after 
 year to the same places to make their rookeries, which 
 are closely occupied in great numbers, and because 
 they are easy of approach during their breeding pe- 
 riod the only time they wear the white nuptial 
 plume (worn by both sexes between the shoulders), 
 known to the millinery world as aigrette. For- 
 merly, when the birds were so plentiful as to yield a 
 quick and bountiful harvest, only the nuptial plume 
 was carried away, but now some of the finer of the 
 egret's other feathers are taken in small quantities. 
 In reply to my particular query if moulted feathers 
 are gathered, he answered that some such are used 
 by the Indians for decorative purposes, but none of 
 commercial value are ever found on the ground, the 
 season of slaughter being while the birds are nesting, 
 when the plumes are in full lustre and life. With the
 
 262 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 decrease of the egret,* or little white heron, native 
 gunners from San Fernando and Bolivar in the em- 
 ploy of the millinery interests are beginning to kill 
 other birds of attractive plumage, which previously 
 have been unmolested several of the larger herons, 
 the cranes, spoonbills, ibises, being thus preyed upon. 
 In short, he added that the entire bird colony is be- 
 coming perceptibly reduced in numbers. 
 
 All kinds of bird and reptile life increased as we 
 reached the Apure River, and by the time we had 
 arrived at San Fernando, every lagoon we saw 
 swarmed with the heron-crane-ibis-wader type, and 
 every waterway with crocodiles. 
 
 As the back door, so to say, of Venezuela, and a 
 town doing considerable business, I had pictured San 
 Fernando as something better than nondescript. 
 Centred about the port are buildings somewhat in 
 accord with its commercial importance, but back of 
 these it becomes for the greater part a straggling, 
 uncared-for adobe village. Maybe the fickleness of 
 the river is a contributing cause to the town's unim- 
 posing appearance. By turns it is left high and dry 
 beyond the reach of its regular steamers, or so inun- 
 dated the flooded streets are navigated only by means 
 of boats. In midsummer I have seen the river but 
 a shrunken image of the one thousand foot tide I 
 found the last of April, with heavy rains to come. 
 
 * There are two, both pure white the smaller and more 
 exquisitely plumed snowy or little heron (Egretta candid- 
 issima) and the twice as large American or white egret 
 (Herodias egretta), whose plumes are straight and not re- 
 curved at tip as on the little heron.
 
 A FISH TERROR OF THE WATERS 263 
 
 Having replenished the supplies exhausted by 
 our loitering along the Portuguesa, and exchanged 
 our low dugout for a higher-sided canoe more suited 
 to the rougher water we should soon meet, we took 
 up our way again through a veritable fairyland of 
 bird life. Shortly, the Apure divides itself into two 
 main streams, and in high water offers a maze of 
 channels and canos to the bewilderment of the trav- 
 eller. All that country to the west, lying between 
 the Apure and the Arauca rivers, is floodland. In- 
 deed, the lower section might, with good reason, be 
 called the Apure delta, for here the two, rivers join 
 by a branch which the Apure sends south, thus mak- 
 ing an island of a part of the west Orinoco bank. 
 From the Arauca south to the Meta is about a seven 
 or eight-day ride across savannahs or llanos which 
 are passable most of the year, though it is not until 
 beyond the Meta that the country really rises above 
 floodland. Riding in the Apure- Arauca delta, if I 
 may so call it, is out of the question, except by boat 
 during the wet season. Here and along the southern 
 reaches of the Apure itself are the egret shambles. 
 
 Although this section is monotonous and unin- 
 teresting as to scenery, it offers a fascinating jour- 
 ney in the early wet season to one sufficiently devoted 
 to the study of wild life to be above the torture 
 of insects and the discomfort of constant rain. At 
 least, so I found it, extending my ten days from San 
 Fernando into another nine while we explored the 
 Apure mouth and the streams coming into it. Here 
 I made acquaintance with that fish terror which is 
 common to the lower waters of tne Apure, especially 
 in the Orinoco at the big bend, and called " el caribe "
 
 264 
 
 by the natives and Serrasalmo TiumerdLis by the 
 scientists. It is more dreaded than the crocodile; al- 
 though less than a foot in length, man and beast alike 
 shun whatever water it frequents, for it travels in 
 schools and attacks with such ferocity that both have 
 died from being bitten. It has a grayish back, an 
 orange belly, a mouth full of canine teeth and if its 
 upper jaws were a little longer, its profile would quite 
 resemble that of a small pike. Blood, not flesh, is 
 what the fish craves, and you have only to squeeze 
 blood upon the surface of the water to see it rise snap- 
 ping, a method by which it may be caught, for the 
 caribe is excellent eating, as I can attest. 
 
 Both heat and rain increased as we pursued our 
 river journey; the mercury going up from an average 
 of 90 to 93-94, while at night it clung to 
 80. One day, a terrific thunder and lightning storm 
 caused Ignacio to grovel terror-stricken at the bot- 
 tom of the canoe, to my amazement, for although I 
 found that everywhere in wilderness South America 
 my Indians feared thunder and lightning as manifes- 
 tations of the dreaded evil spirits, yet none had been 
 so affected as this fellow. One would think these 
 people accustomed to the tropical storms which rage 
 with such violence. 
 
 In these last days of paddling over the lower 
 Apure country I had a good view of many kinds of 
 birds, but never succeeded in getting close to the 
 jabiru stork,* which I craved more than a jaguar, and 
 
 * Professor Bingham got one on his trip to Bogota hav- 
 ing a wing spread of 7 feet 10 inches and a beak one foot 
 long.
 
 THE CONTENT OF FEW DESIRES 265 
 
 for which I had extended my wanderings over this 
 lower Apure country to the very limit of my time. It 
 is not always possible, however, to secure the trophy 
 you want even in South America, and I was forced to 
 leave with this desire unrealized. More fortunate was 
 Ignacio, who appeared to have no ambition unfilled, 
 when, before boarding the little Apure steamer for 
 Ciudad Bolivar, I left with him my canoe and pres- 
 ents in both hands.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 TRAILING AFTER JAGUAR 
 
 Chancing upon Pedro for my first jaguar hunt 
 in South America is the story of how an indulgent 
 Providence came to the rescue of a wandering hunter 
 who had little time and less money. 
 
 Unable to secure any dependable information of 
 the game even at Sante Fe near the mouth of the Rio 
 Salado, I went up the Parana River prospecting for 
 a district and a guide likely to give most results in 
 the time at my disposal. The territory of Corrientes 
 was my objective, particularly that western part 
 which borders the vast pampas and forest wilderness 
 of the Gran Chaco across the river. 
 
 Just above the capital town, the Parana bends 
 abruptly to the east and then north, making the south- 
 erly and westerly boundaries of Paraguay, before 
 extending far into southwestern Brazil to thus form 
 the great southern division of the Flowing Road and 
 run a course second only to that of the Amazon. 
 South of the east-flowing Parana a notorious lagoon 
 is reported to be the resort of beasts and many kinds 
 of crawling things, and almost every day as I as- 
 cended the river its reptilian and fever horrors were 
 recounted for my benefit. If you turn to your map 
 of the Argentine Republic, you will get a clearer 
 idea of the locality of this ill-famed haunt. I will 
 here, however, anticipate my story and so dismiss the 
 subject, by saying that I was never able to induce 
 a native for love or money to undertake to pilot me 
 
 266
 
 THE ISLAND-FILLED PARANA 267 
 
 thither, though I located and one day intend to pene- 
 trate its mysteries; for here and in the little known 
 Gran Chaco run many trails of the jaguar. 
 
 So with no definite disembarking port in mind, I 
 sailed up river, getting all the data I could and trust- 
 ing entirely to my wilderness traveller faculty of mak- 
 ing the most of whatever finally offered. 
 
 It is a prolific waterway, this mud-colored Parana, 
 with broad, changeful body, dividing over and over 
 into parallel rivers sometimes as much as a mile in 
 width, anon to gather again to the one common 
 mother stream. Where the Paraguay coming from 
 many miles north in Brazil joins the Parana near 
 Corrientes the banks for a space are two and three 
 miles apart, and when the Uruguay adds also its 
 volume the three become the Rio de la Plata, a veri- 
 table inland sea with shores so widely separated you 
 can not see either from midstream. 
 
 Always one is coming upon islands, sometimes 
 submerged almost to the top of their small tree 
 growth, again showing high against the lower bank 
 of one side for one bank of the river is invariably 
 low; and most of the time it is the west one. A 
 monotonous panorama indeed. Boundless pampas 
 stretch away on the west to the foot of the Andes with 
 here and there a group of trees to show where some 
 ranchman has his house. Now and then a pole re- 
 places the trees, floating a small white flag from its 
 top as a sign of " almacen " (store) ; but with the 
 Gran Chaco begins tropical forest. 
 
 A rough-travelling, fickle river it is and a pilot 
 must know his business to pass safely through its 
 shifting shoals; ever altering the boat's direction
 
 268 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 to conform to the tortuous channel, steaming ahead 
 by day and night, stopped only by fog, which is often 
 heavy. Few pilots have I ever encountered, indeed, 
 that know their business better than these on the 
 Parana, always on watch, as they need be, and de- 
 pending upon keenness of vision to read aright the 
 signs of the courses which vary so constantly. 
 
 It was with a pilot of this class that I made 
 friends. Standing on the top deck photographing 
 a passing craft, the strong wind had snatched me 
 bareheaded in the noon-day sun, sweeping my hat 
 down the deck and over the stern rail into the water ; 
 and, by way of illustrating native apathy, no one of 
 all the other many passengers on deck made an effort 
 to stay the runaway headgear. My own indiffer- 
 ence to the loss seemed to arouse interest in Lucas 
 for as I turned from taking the snapshot and wound 
 in another film, I caught his black eyes eloquent 
 with speech, though the tongue uttered only " se va " 
 it has gone. iThe humour of the situation appealed 
 to both of us and we were at once on easy terms. 
 
 He was a pilot, he told me, on the steamers which 
 run from Buenos Aires, in Argentine, to Asuncion, 
 in Paraguay, but had been laid off a week or so by 
 the " chuchu " (fever), and was now going over to 
 Parana to rejoin his boat. He was about thirty, 
 with hair hanging below his ears, a small black mus- 
 tache, and a large, square-crowned, black sombrero, 
 securely fastened to his head by a string under the 
 chin that tied in a bow-knot below his left ear. His 
 trousers, though not so full in the leg, were fastened 
 at the ankles Zouave fashion. He wore an ordinary 
 European sack coat, a waist sash of the worsted fre-
 
 THE OVERDRAWN GAUCHO 269 
 
 quently seen on up-country natives, a collarless shirt, 
 and a very much soiled white handkerchief around 
 his neck. On his feet were a kind of heel-less leather 
 slippers, unadorned. His father was Italian and his 
 mother a native, he said; a parentage quite usual to 
 not only a majority of pilots, but also to great num- 
 bers of Argentine's 'longshoremen. Truth to tell, the 
 Italian is becoming to South America, and particu- 
 larly to Argentine, what the Chinaman is to Malaya 
 and Siam, viz., the industrial backbone; for the na- 
 tive here as in parts of the Far East is not a depend- 
 able labourer. 
 
 There is not much colour in the costume of the na- 
 tive Argentine, but Lucas made the most of it, though 
 in all his regalia he showed not nearly the picturesque- 
 ness of the rivermen of Eastern Canada or of our 
 own extreme northwest. Absence of colour, both in 
 costume and habitation, indeed, is the chief disillusion- 
 ment of the traveller in South America; and not the 
 least factor in shattering the spell is the " gaucho," 
 as the Argentine cattle tender is called. According 
 to the tourist trumpeter, the gaucho is a pictu- 
 resquely clad cowboy of transcendent horsemanship. 
 Actually, he is rather commonplace in appearance and 
 not in the same riding class with the keen-eyed type 
 of our Western cowboy. In the " gato," a kind of 
 walk-round dance to guitar accompaniment, with 
 " facon " (knife) stuck in his wide belt, the gaucho 
 may swagger to the deception of tenderf eet, but afield, 
 in the saddle, he is, to trained eyes, the most over- 
 drawn character in South America and dirty. 
 
 Alongside of the American red man, or the na- 
 tive of the mysterious Far East, but little of human
 
 270 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 interest worth noting may be found among the 
 dwellers in South America outside of interior Brazil. 
 In fact, Paris excepted, the cities of Italy or Spain 
 or France show more colour than the towns of South 
 America; while of home manufactured articles there 
 are practically none, except the " poncho " (a blan- 
 ket with a head hole, worn over the shoulders), a few 
 crude household utensils, wool rugs, and the " Pana- 
 ma " and other palm straw hats. 
 
 If it lacked " colour," at least the human freight of 
 the river boat was varied. The first-class filled the 
 cabins amid a jumble of tin trunks, bundles and bird 
 cages half of them it seemed carried a bird cage 
 while the third-class shared the stern deck with great 
 piles of fruit and vegetables, and the chickens, ducks 
 and sheep. Like all Latin-Americans, though 
 abashed before strangers, they were instinct with life 
 and gaiety among themselves, the solemn little chil- 
 dren with their splendid, wondering eyes becoming 
 radiant imps under the influence of parental romping. 
 Unvarying politeness and universal love for children 
 are the traits which warm my heart to these people. 
 I never tire watching a native woman at play with 
 her babe; such a flow of tender diminutives and rap- 
 turous vivacity! there is no sight more pleasing in all 
 of South America. 
 
 When the boat stopped to discharge passengers 
 the men sauntered forward, with poncho thrown bull- 
 fighter fashion over one shoulder, leading the elder 
 children. The women carried a majority of the bun- 
 dles and showed a tendency to violent dress effects 
 a yellow waist being as likely worn with a purple 
 as with a black or brown skirt. Harmony is not a
 
 THE DISFIGURING FOREIGN HAT 271 
 
 preeminent feature of the modernized costume of 
 the South American woman of the people; but its 
 most discordant note is the hat. It is remarkable 
 what a transformation ensues when the average 
 Spanish- American woman replaces her mantua with 
 a European hat. It is like putting a bonnet on 
 Aphrodite; not that these women of the South are 
 so perfect but the hat appears to destroy the grace 
 and dignity of a naturally graceful and attractive 
 figure. It is nearly as dreadful a presentment as the 
 Japanese woman in European clothes. From Brazil 
 down the coast and across the Andes, through Chile 
 and into Peru, the better class of women have dis- 
 carded the mantua, although, in Peru, they wear the 
 mantilla, while the lower class retain the mantua for 
 church attendance.* 
 
 Frankly, I preferred the deck passengers to those 
 occupying cabins, for whereas the one fitted to their 
 environment, the other lacked the behaviour and 
 habits which belong to purchasers of first-class quar- 
 ters. And that leads to another of the impressions 
 made upon the traveller into South America, particu- 
 larly into Brazil. There is wide pretence to culture, 
 but outside a select and delightful few, in truth very 
 slight familiarity with the canons of refined people. 
 It is as though a simple-minded, simple-living pas- 
 toral people had recently attained to wealth and set 
 up town houses. But the European stock, originally 
 
 * A solid-colour shawl, almost invariably black, some- 
 times blue for gala occasions, which is worn over the head 
 and shoulders. The mantilla is of lace, and covers only the 
 head and the neck ; for church and street wear it is black ; 
 as an evening wrap it is white.
 
 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 low, for the most part, is gradually clarifying, es- 
 pecially in the Argentine, and strengthening in the 
 developing country of its adoption. Meanwhile, there 
 is not the vulgar display or the boorish manners or 
 blatant voice of the corresponding class which pre- 
 dominates in the high-price New York restaurant. 
 
 Lucas was very eager to learn something of me, 
 whence I came, and what had brought me into his 
 country; and when I told him I wanted to make 
 my way north into Corrientes to a famous lagoon 
 where were jaguar, he grew much concerned. He 
 had heard of the lagoon, and held it in horror; but 
 he said he had a riverman friend living not many 
 miles above Parana who had not only seen the lagoon, 
 but had killed tigre in the Gran Chaco. 
 
 Here at last was the very man I sought. Did 
 Lucas think his friend Pedro could be persuaded 
 to go with me? " Oh, si, si " (yes, yes) ; Lucas was 
 sure of it, and promised to bring Pedro to me at once 
 on our landing. 
 
 It must not be supposed all this information came 
 to me so easily or so quickly as I am here writing 
 it. My Spanish was none too fluent and the three 
 hours from Santa Fe to Parana none too long for 
 the task. But even had it been unnecessary to labor- 
 iously repeat each simple sentence, I should in some 
 way have prolonged the confab with Lucas, for his 
 happy laugh and child-like interest in my plans were 
 very agreeable. To arouse in another such unselfish 
 interest in one's own schemes is a novel experience to 
 the New Yorker. Had Lucas not been obliged to 
 join his boat, he would have gone with me himself: he 
 said so and I believe he meant it.
 
 A COUSIN TO THE APACHE 273 
 
 I was elated with the thought of securing a guide 
 who had been into the .Gran Chaco, for this great 
 wilderness is known to but few men and has few 
 roads save the waterways which cut it through from 
 northwest to southeast. Although of the Argentine 
 Republic, it is occupied almost solely by Indians of 
 a common source but maintaining several tribal dis- 
 tinctions and dialects. Of smallish stature they are 
 also of rather a low intellectual order; those I saw of 
 the Mocovito tribe, that find their homes along the 
 jungles on the Rio Salado, resembled the nomads 
 who trail over northwestern Mexico, particularly 
 where it touches the California .Gulf. The Gran 
 Chaco people are neither imaginative nor creative. 
 They have no arts other than the manufacture of 
 crude earthen pots, and of bows, arrows and lances, 
 which they make of hard wood; their arrows, I must 
 add, are very skilfully turned, and fitted with a shaft 
 of willow, a head of hard wood and sometimes of 
 notched bone. 
 
 Their house or " toldo " is roundish and squat, 
 varying in size according to the extent of the family, 
 though in general having a diameter of six to seven 
 feet. It is built of willows stuck in the ground, drawn 
 together at the top and covered with straw or vine or 
 leaves to such a depth that the roof is made water- 
 proof, as it must needs be in their rainy country. 
 They are not unlike a type of summer-house made 
 by the American Apache. 
 
 As is customary with wilderness people, all the 
 work is done by the women, from the making of the 
 earthen cooking utensils, the gathering of the wood 
 and the building of the toldos, to the gathering of
 
 274 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 roots which they boil and eat. Of ornaments they 
 have few, sometimes skins and sometimes birds' 
 feathers, but, by preference, when they can get them 
 by trading, the plumes of the rhea, commonly called 
 " ostrich," which are worn on the forehead, at the 
 waist, ankles and wrist. Slight attention is given to 
 clothes ; once they made a kind of loin covering from 
 cocoanut and other plant fibre, now they adopt such 
 rag-tag and bob-tail garments as come their way, and 
 are especially fond of anything red. 
 
 There are places in the Chaco where these abo- 
 rigines resent the intrusion of the white man; have 
 even opposed exploration and killed the adventurers, 
 but as a people they are a poor lot, cowardly and 
 scattering. Yet, it is well to be armed and to keep 
 your eyes open, if you journey into their country, 
 for their habit is to ambush the march or sneak 
 up when you are sleeping. Several explorers 
 have lost their lives in the Gran Chaco, but from all 
 I could discover, bad management was quite as re- 
 sponsible as Indian truculence. The Argentine gov- 
 ernment maintains a post at the frontier and the 
 condition seems to be one of ever-recurring reprisal 
 on the part of both soldiers and Indians. The In- 
 dian policy is a mighty poor one too closely pat- 
 terned after that Spain pursued in the Philippines. 
 
 Pedro was not on the dock when we arrived at 
 Parana, and Lucas, even more concerned than I, 
 sought to comfort me by the assurance that he would 
 certainly find him; so as Lucas set forth to explore 
 the river front, I went up to the little hotel in the 
 town atop the high bank. Although not interesting, 
 as indeed few towns are in the Argentine, yet Parana
 
 THE PRIDE OF RACE 275 
 
 is one of the most pleasingly situated in the Repub- 
 lic. It is on the east bank of the Parana River, one 
 hundred and twenty feet above the water, about 
 two miles back from the landing, and with its twenty- 
 five thousand inhabitants is the chief centre of a very 
 rich surrounding country. It has the cobblestone 
 streets so common to South American cities, which 
 loosen the teeth of the unwary stranger on his first 
 drive. The streets must be paved, otherwise cart 
 wheels would disappear from view and usefulness, 
 but why they are so partial to such an aggressive pin- 
 nacle of stone no one could say. To me Parana is a 
 confused recollection of imposing cathedral, ever- 
 clanging bells, and jarring streets. 
 
 It was not quite daylight next morning when, 
 with his friend in tow, Lucas joined me. Pedro 
 was absolutely the opposite type of Lucas. He was 
 a small, dried-up Spaniard, simple and conventional 
 in dress. He wore conventional trousers, a felt hat, 
 a pair of canvas shoes, and a worn skimp white 
 canvas coat, buttoned up the front. More truth- 
 fully, the coat had been white at one period in 
 its existence; a period that had passed long before 
 my introduction to him. Nevertheless, I could see 
 he took great pride in this garment and kept it al- 
 ways closed to its limit of button. It looked as 
 though it had been a soldier's jacket, and Pedro fur- 
 thered the suggestion by strips of the same ma- 
 terial sewn across the shoulder like the straps of a 
 commissioned officer. However unprepossessing his 
 dress, Pedro's face was attractive. It was a wrin- 
 kled, sallow old face, but the wrinkles around the 
 eyes told of good nature, and the look in the eye
 
 276 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 itself, though not brilliant, was steady and inviting. 
 
 While we had the invariable coffee and ciga- 
 rettes, Lucas held forth long and earnestly with 
 Pedro, and though he talked so rapidly I could not 
 follow, yet a word here and there told me he was 
 impressing Pedro with the need of doing his best 
 for me, laying special emphasis on the fact that I 
 was making a journey of " ten thousand miles " to see 
 this little bit of country. To all of which Pedro 
 nodded, raising his hands in acquiescence and inter- 
 jecting " como no " (why not; surely), so frequently 
 as to appear to bear the full burden of his share in 
 the conversation. Then we all got into a three-horse 
 cart and drove bumpingly down to the river, where, 
 to my genuine regret, Lucas bade me good-bye. 
 
 From no one in South America did I take leave 
 more reluctantly than from this same pilot who, out 
 of pure, genuine desire to help a stranger, had put 
 me on my way and revealed the heart of a gentle- 
 man. I lost his address in subsequent rains and 
 swamps. Should this ever fall under his eye I hope 
 he will make his whereabouts known to me. 
 
 Pedro was not very talkative, and when he did 
 interrupt his habitual silence I could not understand 
 him so readily as I had Lucas, for half the blood in 
 Pedro's veins came from a Chaco mother, and their 
 trick of talking in their throats adds to the diffi- 
 culties of a foreigner's Spanish. Therefore, our at- 
 tempts at conversation were few and widely sepa- 
 rated. Not that he was at all surly; on the contrary, 
 he was very good-natured and willing, and, as I 
 found before I got through the trip, considerable of 
 a philosopher; a quality I strove to emulate, for
 
 IN THE FACE OF A PAMPERO 277 
 
 there was need of it in the almost constant down- 
 pour of rain we encountered day by day on our little 
 journey after jaguar. 
 
 In a dug-out of rather well-turned bow and 
 stern, we set forth on our way up the Parana. The 
 river was stirring with the beginning of a wind storm, 
 known locally as a pampero, and what with the waves 
 and the strong current to buck against, we had our 
 work cut out to make fair headway, hugging the 
 east bank. Often we eased our work by the slower 
 poling. I had no clear idea of precisely where we 
 were going. Lucas had given me some vague in- 
 formation, probably all he had, and in a general way 
 I understood Pedro's house, quite a little distance 
 up the river, to be the rendezvous from which we 
 were to make up the Feliciano River toward a sec- 
 tion Pedro " knew " offered a fair prospect of jaguar. 
 The need of continuously hard blade work gave lit- 
 tle opportunity to observe the scenery as we went 
 along; and in truth there was not much to look at, 
 nor could we have seen it very clearly even had there 
 been, for the wind-blown spray from the tops of the 
 choppy waves, and the rain driving all around the 
 compass, left our eyes swimming. From my post in 
 the bow with head bent to the storm I saw nothing 
 beyond the reach of my paddle. And whether we 
 were on the main stream or a branch of it I cannot 
 say, for none but a pilot knows just where he is on 
 this much divided river. 
 
 We, of course, clung almost within touching dis- 
 tance of the bank, to ease our work as much as pos- 
 sible, and twice we narrowly escaped collision with 
 other canoes running down stream at a lively pace.
 
 278 ,THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 Three times we stopped at the thatched-roofed house 
 of Pedro's always polite and hospitable friends, to 
 wipe our eyes and drink the Paraguayan tea which 
 to the native is consolation and chief liquid nourish- 
 ment, and withal a refreshing beverage for anybody. 
 This tea is made from an indigenous holly-like (ilex) 
 plant and prepared by putting its powdered leaves in 
 a small gourd and pouring in boiling water. A few 
 moments' steeping makes it ready to be sucked out 
 of the gourd receptacle through a tube which has a 
 perforated expansion at one end, and is called " bom- 
 billa " (little pump). This tea is called " yerba 
 mate," or more commonly " mate " not a very defi- 
 nite name surely, for yerba means simply herb, and 
 mate is the dried and hollowed gourd. But, however 
 casually named, its popularity is wide, and so great 
 that cultivation is now supplementing the supply 
 which comes from the great forests of Brazil, Para- 
 guay and northern Argentine. Some day I expect 
 the drink to spread beyond South America. 
 
 Toward the close of day, we drew up to a settle- 
 ment of half a dozen houses set snug against the river 
 bank, and here, Pedro announced, was his " casa " 
 (house). A quaint two-room adobe it was, stuck 
 against the bank so close as to suggest its being a 
 vestibule to caverns and underground passages be- 
 yond; a fancy rather helped by an unroofed shed 
 which joined one side. But the house really tres- 
 passed on the bank no farther than to permit of a 
 very small and dark coop to accommodate the three 
 family chickens. If, however, Pedro was short on 
 chickens, he was long on dogs, having five of various 
 mongrel degrees and size, all of which lived indoors,
 
 THE YERBA MATE CUP THAT CHEERS 279 
 
 together with his wife and four children. In repose 
 his wife looked as if the menage got on her nerves, but 
 in conversation she far outshone Pedro. The differ- 
 ence in the faces of these Spanish- Americans in re- 
 pose and in animation is the difference between dark- 
 ness and sunlight. 
 
 Outside and just at the entrance of the house was 
 an open portico composed of a framework of poles 
 and a covering of rushes and small brush, where the 
 family received its guests, and the charcoal burning 
 stove kept the kettle going. Here, on the night of 
 our arrival, Pedro's friends gathered to drink mate, 
 no doubt also to satisfy their curiosity concerning 
 the stranger; and there was no more colour among 
 them, or among those of other settlements subse- 
 quently visited, than among the passengers on the 
 steamer. In fact, outside of the Chaco, Argentines 
 are of the one type everywhere, perhaps here and 
 there an individual bit of colour, but, as a rule, all cut 
 off the same piece and unpicturesqueness as Anglo- 
 Saxons. 
 
 The mate cup is to the Spanish- American what 
 the peace-pipe is to our American Indian. The cup 
 itself may range from plain gourd to elaborately en- 
 graved metal, and the bombilla may be a silver tube 
 or a reed, or even a curassow leg bone, but, like 
 the betel-nut knife of the Far East, its significance 
 is unvarying. It makes for amiability and gossip 
 and story telling. There is often the little prelimi- 
 nary ceremony of starting the host's mate at one side 
 of the gathering and passing it around like a lov- 
 ing cup, each guest taking his turn at the unwiped 
 bombilla. Not fewer than a dozen could have been
 
 280 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 seated under and around the little portico on this 
 night when Pedro started the mate brew, and I hap- 
 pened to be on the extreme opposite end from that 
 whence the gourd set forth on its convivial cruise. To 
 have deliberately wiped the bombilla when it came 
 to me would have been to insult my host, so I clum- 
 sily dropped it on the ground to give me the needed 
 excuse. 
 
 Jaguar and jaguar hunting formed the main 
 theme of the stories told that night, and disclosed the 
 very wholesome fear these natives have of the beast, 
 though they do not hold it in such superstitious dread, 
 or envelop it with mystery or supernatural power, as 
 the Far Eastern natives do that other greater cat, the 
 real tiger. Yet the voice was always lowered that 
 night in Pedro's house while reciting a thrilling tale 
 of jaguar ferocity, and when Pedro himself told of 
 having seen a tigre, not twenty miles from where 
 he sat, spring upon a female tapir, crushing her 
 neck in one bite of its powerful jaws, the silence 
 which followed was eloquent. No one present save 
 Pedro had ever hunted tigre, much less seen a live 
 one, so my guide, warmed by the buzz of admira- 
 tion which greeted and the hush which succeeded his 
 stories, told harrowing yarns of men walking and 
 mounted who had been overcome by jaguars spring- 
 ing upon them from overhanging tree limbs. Now 
 the truth of the matter is, as I took pains to learn, 
 that while these native stories are exaggerated, as 
 native stories always are, the jaguar is formidable 
 quarry. There are well authenticated reports in the 
 Argentine of his pouncing upon the solitary traveller, 
 #nd of his killing one or more of a native hunting
 
 PEDRO BRINGS IN HIS DUG-OUT 
 
 ON THE SALADO RIVER
 
 THE FISHING CAT 281 
 
 party that had wounded and cornered him. He is not 
 nearly so numerous as he was, or rather is seen less 
 frequently than formerly not that he has been killed 
 off, but the river traffic has driven him back from the 
 waterways into the jungles and into the swamps and 
 smaller river courses where few men venture. 
 
 The trails of the jaguar are many, but they nearly 
 all lead to a river, for water appears to be more need- 
 ful to the tigre than to any other of the cat family. 
 And this is not that he actually drinks more, so far 
 as I can learn, but rather because along the water- 
 ways he finds easy and abundant food supply in a 
 river hog, in the small deer, and in the fish that swim 
 plentifully in all these streams. In the Rio de la 
 Plata, just off Buenos Aires, is an island where at 
 one time several jaguar lived and thrived practically 
 off the fish they caught. There was no other life on 
 the island and never any evidence of the beasts vis- 
 iting the mainland, which, so far as distance is con- 
 cerned, was entirely possible, because the tigre is a 
 strong, bold swimmer, and minds no river of South 
 America, not the widest, if he wishes to reach the 
 opposite bank. He is a patient, unerring fisherman, 
 watching for long periods from some vantage point, 
 which may be either a fallen tree trunk extending 
 into the stream, or at the bank's edge, until a vic- 
 tim draws within reach, when with a lightning blow 
 he hurls the fish out onto the bank. While the 
 swampy jungle and the water courses are his habitat, 
 yet the jaguar will make incursions upon dry ground 
 if cattle, or horses, or dogs, or poultry offer, and river 
 food happens to be scarce, or for the time being more
 
 282 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 difficult to secure. I heard several trustworthy ac- 
 counts of cattle and colts killed by the jaguar. 
 
 Pedro quoted a gray-haired herder, who had wit- 
 nessed the performance, as authority for asserting 
 that the jaguar's method of killing animals of this size 
 is to literally stalk them up-wind to within the distance 
 of a few bounds and then to rush upon them, spring- 
 ing on their back and fastening teeth and claws in 
 their neck. In attacking smaller animals the jaguar 
 springs at once for the neck, and appears to prefer 
 the hindquarters to the stomach, which is left for the 
 vultures that are omnipresent in the open country. 
 Tigre is a much noisier animal than any other of the 
 feline family, particularly at night, and roams the 
 jungle disdainful of lesser beasts in his manifest su- 
 periority. Without doubt, he is absolute king of the 
 South American forest ; there is literally none to dis- 
 pute his domain, none even worthy to do him homage ; 
 for the puma, which is the darker coated southern 
 brother to our cougar, has as little the courage of its 
 convictions in South as in North America. 
 
 From Venezuela to Patagonia the jaguar is com- 
 monly said to attack man unprovoked, but, as I have 
 already said, such occasions are rare ; all the same, it's 
 well to keep your eyes open when entering his do- 
 main. The puma, cougar, panther, mountain lion 
 (as variously called) , tackles deer, sheep, goats, dogs, 
 colts I have heard of its springing upon horses but 
 except when painfully wounded and cornered, this cat 
 will not molest man, though I did hear of its falling 
 upon a sleeping native in the Argentine. 
 
 In the interior of Brazil, where not many people 
 have ventured, the jaguar is reported to most fre-
 
 POOR WEAPONS FOR TIGRE 283 
 
 quently lurk in the low, overhanging branches of 
 trees, near the rivers, and from these to pounce upon 
 its prey. In the Argentine Chaco, where tigre is 
 said to have more than once taken toll, the Indians 
 are deathly afraid of him, for their arrows and spears 
 are not very suitable weapons with which to meet an 
 enemy at once so swift and so powerful. Along the 
 western edges of the Chaco certain of the " estancias " 
 (large ranches) keep dogs and hunt jaguar with some 
 success ; under such conditions tigre takes to a tree like 
 the cougar. Quite unlike, however, the latter pusil- 
 lanimous creature, which, having crawled to a perch, 
 suffers all manner of indignity without response, the 
 jaguar may not be trifled with. No native climbs 
 within arm's reach to poke him with a pole from 
 the limb; in fact, he is quite likely to spring from 
 the tree upon his tormentors. 
 
 Up the Parana beyond a small chain of hills called 
 Cuchilla Montiel, that run northeast and south- 
 west across northern Entre Rios into Corrientes, we 
 turned into the Rio Feliciano, which, rising in Cor- 
 rientes, flows parallel with the Cuchilla and is fed 
 en route by several other streams having their source 
 in the hills. Feliciano has the characteristics of all 
 South American rivers of the tributary class, 
 which are smaller editions of the larger ones, except 
 that often the water is clearer and the better de- 
 fined inland banks sometimes freer of the dense 
 tropical growth. We paddled through a rather open, 
 flat country supporting scattered trees, rank grass 
 shoulder high, willows, and abounding bird life. One 
 brown bird about robin size, with a long tail and a 
 white streak on its breast, had a song somewhat like
 
 284 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the meadow lark, and in the early morning hours, 
 before other life was astir, its liquid notes made 
 pleasing music. Another, smaller, of dark body and 
 yellow wings, uttered no note, but zigzagged con- 
 stantly across our horizon ; and I saw several varieties 
 of blackbird, two cardinals, some flamingoes, and 
 occasional members of the crane family. Mostly the 
 smaller birds were songsters and quite friendly. 
 
 But one bird, always in evidence, which Pedro 
 called the " teru-tero," was not such acceptable com- 
 pany. It is a noisy, perky imp, about the size of a 
 pigeon, and so long as we were in the comparative 
 open, it followed, scolding us in untunef ul, harsh voice, 
 as though resenting our intrusion. It was tame to the 
 point of audacity; one stood on the bank within half 
 a dozen feet as we glided past, and again as we rested 
 for a meal, another perched on the canoe stern and 
 slanged us with uninterrupted vehemence. When 
 we reached the jungle edge we escaped the teru-tero, 
 but suffered martyrdom at the throat of another 
 smaller bird termagant, which, in rasping tones, 
 shrieked at us unabatingly. If these birds are in 
 league with tigre, as is said, he could not have two 
 scouts more alert and distracting. 
 
 Except for this pair of brawlers, the bird life 
 was most inviting; indeed, the Argentine birds as a 
 class, while less brilliant as to plumage than Brazil, 
 for instance, have more agreeable voices. Within 
 the jungle occasionally I saw the toucan, with its 
 ridiculously large orange- coloured beak, twice the 
 size of its bluish-black, pigeon-shaped and white- 
 breasted body. It is an awkward, comical looking 
 bird, that lives solitary and shuns observation. In
 
 THE TALE OF A LIZARD 285 
 
 this particular section where all plant life appeared 
 to be horned either at leaf -point or at its junction 
 with the stalk, I noted with speculative interest the 
 many birds that are hooded or tufted. 
 
 In the night, along the river, great fire-flies such 
 as I had never seen, even in Siam land of insect 
 plenty hovered over us, bearing lights that appeared 
 to be constant, and in some individual cases to be 
 double. No doubt it is these more brilliant night 
 lamps which the women of northern Argentine and 
 Paraguay wear in their hair on festal occasions. 
 
 Two or three times Pedro tried, though unsuc- 
 cessfully, to kill a crocodile with a long, iron-pointed 
 spear he carried, and once his attempt nearly resulted 
 in upsetting the canoe. Again he secured a hideous 
 looking lizard creature for which he gave an unfa- 
 miliar name, but which to me looked to be of the 
 iguana family. It had a red and green speckled skin 
 and was about two and one-half feet long, with a short, 
 thick tail, which Pedro proceeded to cut off, subse- 
 quently to cook and eat with unconcealed gusto. I 
 did not share his feast, much preferring the native 
 " puchero," a stew of dried beef and rice, which, with 
 hard biscuit and coffee, comprised our menu. The 
 puchero, by the way, may be rice and dried beef, and 
 very tough, or it may be beef and rice and potatoes 
 and turnips and carrots and various other green vege- 
 tables that go to make a most palatable concoction. 
 It may also be all this with fish replacing the beef, and 
 remain toothsome. 
 
 Gradually we worked away from the level coun- 
 try into forest and smaller hills, and in these drier, 
 upper sections toward the Cuchilla, after we left
 
 286 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 our dugout, I had my first view of the famous algar- 
 robo, the native's all-useful tree, from which he ex- 
 tracts drink and covering. Here, too, soaring over 
 our heads or alighting with pendent, springy legs, 
 were numerous of those ugly but very useful bird 
 things, the turkey buzzard, which Peru protects as a 
 common scavenger, Argentine and Brazil tolerate, 
 and Chile mistakenly has banished. 
 
 If ever you make a hunt into the swampy interior 
 of South America, take my advice and wear the 
 comparatively hotter spiral cloth puttee, because 
 woodticks are innumerable and infernal and attack 
 the ankle, which they reach easily between shoe and 
 the ordinary legging, whether it be of canvas or 
 leather. Then there is also the jigger another ma- 
 lignant insect that burrows into you, depositing its 
 head to inflame your skin and harass your peace of 
 mind while it goes off to grow another fester-breed- 
 ing head, for the torment of the next traveller. 
 
 We had seen several small deer, river hogs, and 
 many times a swimming animal whose head sug- 
 gested otter, but which Pedro declared to be a 
 fish-cat, to quote literally from the Spanish name he 
 gave it. None of these I troubled, because they did 
 not interest me, and we wanted no meat. Once a 
 little deer, about the size of a fawn, and of a light- 
 ish brown colour, carrying spike horns, stood gazing 
 at us long enough for me to snap-shot it with my 
 camera, but this, like all the other such attempts 
 in the almost continuous rain from December to 
 April and poor light of the jungle, came to noth- 
 ing in development. I find in these latter-day jaunts 
 that I much prefer to photograph or to study strange
 
 SIMILARITY OF TROPICAL JUNGLE 287 
 
 animal life than to shoot. So I never kill except the 
 particular quarry I am seeking, or those strange to 
 me for the purpose of closer acquaintance. But 
 South America, during the rainy season, is a sad dis- 
 appointment to the amateur photographer. 
 
 On this occasion I indeed had eyes for nothing 
 but jaguar, and you may be sure that with Pedro's 
 exciting stories fresh in mind, I passed under 
 no tree in the jungle without first narrowly scruti- 
 nizing the overhanging limbs. The real jungle here 
 differs very little, if at all, from tropical jungle the 
 world over. There is the same primeval forest, the 
 dense growth of smaller, younger trees, the rank, 
 thorn-covered underbrush, all interlaced and bound 
 together with creeping things of every length and 
 thickness and twisting form. Below all is the swamp- 
 like soil, and around you the dank, noisome, warm 
 smell of steaming, fermenting vegetation. 
 
 The section we hunted seemed made to order for 
 jaguar. The river with its plentiful food to the east, 
 dense jungle and higher hills on the west, and be- 
 yond, the more open country where the deer roamed. 
 Far into the jungle we heard no bird note or any 
 other sound by day, but at night it seemed as though 
 the trees, the mud and the air surrounding us were 
 alive with creaking, rasping things. And, however 
 far we penetrated, we never got beyond the woodtick 
 zone or that of the mosquitoes, which became numer- 
 ous to distraction. 
 
 Pedro ceased to be a guide once we got into the 
 jungle and became instead a much bullied and dis- 
 respected master of hounds. At times he would put 
 me on edge with a sudden, low, drawn-out hiss-s-s-ss;
 
 S88 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 upon which, only my patient, alert hunter's soul knows 
 how many anxious minutes I would spend scanning 
 with painful closeness every tree in the vicinity. 
 Then forward without a word. Again a sharp, short 
 hist would stop me in my tracks with visions of jaguar 
 directly overhead. And again I would move on un- 
 rewarded. Pedro was a well-meaning, but a some- 
 what disconcerting element, and pleased me most when 
 he was out of sight, as he was for more than half the 
 time, concealed by the high, rank growth through 
 which we worked. Always I studied the bare spots 
 carefully for signs of jaguar and several times found 
 ample evidence on nearby trees of his visits to the 
 locality, in deep, oblique scars, where he had reached 
 high and dug his claws into the bark, as every mem- 
 ber of the cat family will do, to smooth ragged claw 
 edges and not to sharpen them, we read. One 
 tree I saw was deeply scarred with slanting lines a 
 foot in length, where tigre had been at work. 
 
 But scars were all that rewarded our search for 
 jaguar on that trip. 
 
 We hunted diligently and widely, yet to find our 
 quarry without dogs was one chance in a hundred; 
 and we were as good as being without dogs, for those 
 we brought from Pedro's house, to which his well- 
 disposed neighbours had contributed, were absolutely 
 useless. While we were on the river they spent their 
 time and energy chasing the teru-tero ; and when we 
 entered the jungle, woodticks absorbed every particle 
 of their time and energy. 
 
 For the woodtick, it seems, dearly loves dog even 
 better than it does man. 
 
 Returning to the river with hope of jaguar aban-
 
 THE BEST SPORT IN ARGENTINE 289 
 
 doned, I easily killed a bushy-back ant bear after 
 noting its queer jumpy trot; a tapir browsing be- 
 side a small, deep stream; and a swamp deer; but 
 none of them afforded sport. In fact, if your idea 
 of sport is beyond the mere killing of things, there 
 isn't much for you here but the birds, as the condi- 
 tions make hunting a mere potting after happening 
 upon your quarry. By this method I shot several 
 small deer, one with six points, the others having only 
 a pair of spikes, and most of them dark gray; three 
 cavies, a twelve to fifteen-pound rabbit-like animal; 
 and a " carpincho," as the uninteresting and stupid 
 capybara is known in this part of South America. 
 
 The greatest sport I had, and, to my mind, the 
 best in all the Argentine, was bola hunting the local 
 " ostrich " (Rhea Americana) on the pampas. Al- 
 though getting near enough I was too unskilled in 
 throwing the bolas to score, but I had all the fun of an 
 exhilarating gallop. The rhea is also stalked with a 
 rifle, and is always hard to get on account of its wari- 
 ness. Also I had great sport with the shotgun on 
 several kinds of the curassow or grouse-like family 
 (some of them great runners) and particularly on a 
 bird about guinea-hen size called " pavo del monte " 
 (wood turkey) by the natives. Had I been able to 
 take the time I could have done equally well on ducks, 
 of which there are thousands of many species up and 
 down the river. 
 
 But you need a good dog a rattling good re- 
 triever else you'll lose half you shoot.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 OUTFITTING FOR JUNGLE TRAVEL 
 
 It is a rash man who waxeth didactic on the sub- 
 ject of camp equipment. The wise wilderness trav- 
 eller, which is to say the experienced one, does not 
 dogmatize; but the tyro who ventures into the jun- 
 gle without drawing upon the knowledge of those 
 who have it, is foolish beyond hope of saving. 
 
 The kit is largely an expression of personal prej- 
 udice, which a veteran will not indulge too freely and 
 never at the expense of efficiency. But to separate 
 the wheat from the chaff among the multitudinous 
 and confusing array of impedimenta offered by well- 
 meaning advisers and alluring advertisements, re- 
 quires a cold heart and a discriminating hand. Even 
 among the " old guard " kits and outfits vary accord- 
 ing to conditions, temperament, and the nature or 
 locality of experience. 
 
 Whatever the conditions and whatever the adven- 
 ture or however erratic the temperament, two feat- 
 ures, however, are common to the genuinely expe- 
 rienced namely, adequate equipment so far as trans- 
 portation permits, and the best bed possible at the 
 nightly camp. No one thing is more surely indicative 
 of the campaigner than the bed ; which, whether for a 
 single night or a week, he invariably makes as com- 
 fortable as conditions and his skill will allow. The 
 man who does not sleep well and eat well does not 
 stand up under hardships or travel far. In a word, 
 I may indeed say, that the test of experience is to ex- 
 
 290
 
 A SURE SIGN OF EXPERIENCE 291 
 
 tract rude comfort and clean camps out of the mate- 
 rial at hand, however unpromising. 
 
 The man who unnecessarily cuts his equipment to 
 needless limitations, abandoning simple and legiti- 
 mate camp comforts under the impression that he is 
 simulating the veteran, proclaims his novitiate. Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt, with characteristic clarity, places this 
 type among the " harmless defectives " who should 
 not enter the woods without a guardian ; and Stewart 
 Edward White refers often in his several outdoor 
 classics to the vainglorious tenderfoot who denies 
 himself when transportation is ample, and puts aside 
 actual necessities in the spirit of bravado. Such a 
 one exhibits neither the attributes of the wilderness 
 traveller nor of the man of sense. He is just plain 
 silly, doing what is expected of the veriest beginner. 
 
 It demands neither hardihood nor experience, for 
 example, to leave at home the extra pair of shoes. 
 Apropos of which false attitude, I recall vividly cer- 
 tain groups of volunteers whom I found with beds 
 made down in the mud before Santiago, though brush 
 in abundance grew all round. They scouted my sug- 
 gestion to lay a deep bed of brush before spreading 
 their blankets as an action unworthy a soldier, pro- 
 fessing to regard such precaution as effeminate ; even 
 chaffing me, " an old campaigner," for thought of it. 
 Later, a considerable percentage of these men were 
 laid up with fever, superinduced by sleeping on the 
 rain-soaked ground. There was nothing soldierly in 
 such stupidity if the truth be told, indeed, it was 
 unsoldierly for it is no small part of the volunteer's 
 duty to keep fit. 
 
 Equipment is governed by where you are going
 
 292 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 and how ; and, as I say, the man of experience builds 
 his outfit accordingly. Under conditions of compara- 
 tively open country and unrestricted transportation 
 he will indulge himself. Thus, in India, I have at- 
 tended tiger and rhino hunting junkets embracing 
 three or four hundred beaters and upwards of hun- 
 dred elephants, where tables, chairs, valets, jams, even 
 champagne and bathtubs, were the camp rule. In 
 Africa, where carts and hundreds of porters are pos- 
 sible, creature comforts which would be classed as 
 luxuries elsewhere in the average hunter's camp are 
 articles of common supply. Nor is such luxurious 
 equipment in such environment indicative of the dilet- 
 tante, as the near-hunter is prone to think. It is 
 merely carrying out to a logical degree the campaign 
 principle that one should always do for himself the 
 best possible in the circumstances. According to car- 
 riage make your outfit as extensive as you please so 
 long as it continues appropriate. 
 
 The truth is that the actual personal kit of the ex- 
 perienced man is always simple and varies little either 
 in quality or scope whatever the transportation 
 facilities. 
 
 As bearing on this averment I am tempted to 
 quote a paragraph from an entertaining article on 
 " Kits and Outfits " Richard Harding Davis wrote 
 for Scribner's in 1905, based on his observations while 
 serving as war correspondent : 
 
 In one war in which I worked for an English paper, we 
 travelled like major-generals. . . . Everyone travelled with 
 more than he needed and more than the regulations allowed, 
 and each correspondent was advised that if he represented
 
 " GOING LIGHT " 293 
 
 a first-class paper and wished to " save his face " he had 
 better travel in state. When the army stripped down to 
 work, all this was discontinued, but at the start I believe 
 there were carried with that column as many tins of tan 
 leather dressing as there were rifles. On that march my 
 own outfit was as unwieldy as a gypsy caravan. It consisted 
 of an enormous cart, two oxen, three Basuto ponies, one 
 Australian horse, three servants and four hundred pounds 
 of supplies and baggage. When it moved across the plain 
 it looked as large as a Fall River boat. Later, when I 
 joined the opposing army and was not expected to main- 
 tain the dignity of a great London daily, I carried all my 
 belongings strapped to my back and to the back of one pony ; 
 and I was quite as comfortable, clean and content as I had 
 been with a private car and circus tent. 
 
 " Going light " is the touchstone of experience. 
 It is also a bone of ceaseless contention among hunt- 
 ers whose interpretations range and differ as widely 
 as their experiences and inexperiences. There is 
 going light and going light according to means of 
 transportation and whether you are planning merely 
 a camping trip or an adventure into the wilderness. 
 So very much depends on circumstances as to make 
 hard and fast rules impertinent. 
 
 Whatever I write here is out of my own expe- 
 rience and observation with no disposition to proclaim 
 my conclusions inerrable ; and in no sense to lay down 
 the law. I have gone " light " on forty-five pounds 
 with a single horse; again on some of my exploration 
 hunting trips from the base of supplies, I have taken 
 less than twenty pounds. It all depends, as I say, 
 where you are going, and how, and for what. 
 
 Writing of the interior and not of its edges where
 
 294 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 in many places travel by horse or even by bullock 
 cart is possible, jungle travel is either on foot or by 
 canoe. In the deep jungle of South America and 
 of the Far East, you find your way along the water 
 courses or on portage; or you wind slowly through 
 the rank entangling undergrowth of the great forest 
 often only by help of your machete. 
 
 I need not say your outfit must be assembled ac- 
 cording to whether the journey is to be by canoe and 
 horse, or by canoe alone; and whether the route is 
 broken by portages, rapids or cataracts. Nine-tenths 
 of the travel in the deep jungle, however, is by canoe 
 or on foot, and in either case equipment must be re- 
 duced to the lightest. I have been able to keep my 
 personal outfit under such conditions within dimen- 
 sions that easily fitted into a waterproof canvas bag 
 which might be packed on my own back across the 
 portage. Travelling by horse, I have found nothing 
 so serviceable as a strip of waterproof canvas about 
 the length of a single blanket and a foot wider fitted 
 with an inside flap pocket in which to stow extra cloth- 
 ing and such valuables as films and note-books. 
 Closely rolled, this can be handily carried behind your 
 saddle. And in packing blankets and duffle gener- 
 ally, it is well always to make a running noose knot 
 in the tie rope that you may loosen quickly in case of 
 emergency. 
 
 Most of my jungle canoeing has been in the rainy 
 season when to keep provisions dry is the chief end 
 sought. For this purpose I advise a tarpaulin 
 and buy it in your home city; I paid thirty dollars 
 for a ten-dollar piece at Para, in Brazil. For your- 
 self, be prepared to be thoroughly soaked much of the
 
 A "MARBLE" HUNTING KNIFE NOTE THE STRAIGHT LINE OF BLADE BACK AT POINT 
 
 THE PRESTON MESS-KIT ASSEMBLED 
 
 FRYING P'vN 
 
 FRYING PAN 
 
 THE PRESTON MESS-KIT AND HALF-SIZE CANTEEN IN DETAIL
 
 KEEPING DRY 295 
 
 time if you penetrate the equatorial forest during the 
 wet months. You simply cannot escape; it's part of 
 the tropical game. In the canoe, my Indians always 
 stripped to a loin cloth during rain, and I finally 
 adopted the same course as the most practical solution 
 of " keeping dry." Clothes were chiefly serviceable as 
 protection again the sun. The thickly growing, ag- 
 gressively armed thorn brush forbade our stripping 
 in the forest, and even a water-logged shirt has pro- 
 tective qualities all its own. The much touted rub- 
 ber poncho is a poor thing for the tropics, in my 
 opinion; it is hot and it is not waterproof. The one 
 real waterproof I've ever discovered is the " slicker " 
 (oilskin), which is possible only for the saddle in 
 comparative open going, or on boat when you are 
 travelling more or less at ease. 
 
 For my individual use on inland travel, I've never 
 found anything I like so well as the Preston Mess 
 Kit, which has two fry pans (also possible as stew 
 pans), a cup (answering as well for coffee pot), a 
 knife and fork and spoon fitted round a half-size 
 canteen, leaving space for emergency rations, and 
 all enclosed in a canvas case with canvas strap for 
 slinging over the shoulder. As I invariably carry a 
 knife on my belt, I replace the one of the canteen 
 by a toothbrush and comb when travelling light 
 thus having both toilet and mess kit in compact form 
 a desideratum when everything must be toted on 
 your back. 
 
 In clothes and shoes, I have found khaki and 
 canvas unquestionably the best; though do not wear 
 half (low) shoes in an insect-infested country with- 
 out the spiral cloth puttee, which will help to keep the
 
 296 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 woodtick family from getting under your trousers. 
 When leggings are used I advise the army pattern; 
 they are simple and durable. The canvas shoe is a 
 long way the most desirable, because it does not hold 
 water like one of leather and comes nearer to drying 
 nothing once wet ever really dries in the jungle 
 interior without fire. 
 
 Physicians and the majority of campers agree 
 upon wool for drawers and socks under all climatic 
 conditions, but the only time I ever used wool was 
 when I snowshoed after musk oxen in the Arctics; 
 you probably won't wear either socks or drawers 
 while you are paddling in tropical rainy season. Light 
 gray flannel is the best for the shirt, and you should 
 carry also a light flannel coat, as there is often a damp 
 chill in the air which is apt to be dangerous after a 
 long-continued downpour, and light flannel pajamas. 
 
 If you can get them, there is nothing round camp 
 to equal the " alpargata," the sandal shoe of the 
 Venezuelan native ; otherwise take a pair of easy slip- 
 pers or old shoes with the counters cut off . You will 
 find them a great comfort. In fact, it's one of the lux- 
 uries in which I indulge myself, even if I have to 
 cut down on some of the necessities. Another item 
 in the same class is a bandanna handkerchief, which 
 has many uses apart from the conventional one. 
 
 A hammock is the bed of the tropics and indis- 
 pensable because it is the cleanest and the easiest 
 procured ; and to carry a cot in a canoe or on a horse 
 is impracticable. Comfortable sleeping, however, 
 rests upon its being properly hung. Nine men out 
 of ten not South American born string the hammock 
 too taut, i.e., they tie the ends too far apart. Cor-
 
 ~ -
 
 THE BED 297 
 
 rectly swung it should show quite a bow in the cen- 
 tre, more of the letter U shape than is usually allowed 
 by the unskilled, in order that you may lie diagonally 
 across it. A strip of table oilcloth, three yards long 
 and one and a half wide, with socket at each end for 
 the stretchers, provides a fairly waterproof awning 
 for your hammock during moderate rain. 
 
 If you are travelling by the main rivers on boats 
 large enough to accommodate a cot, it is, of course, a 
 very desirable addition which you may discard when 
 you come to your canoe. Several excellent ones are 
 made especially for tropic travel, the most complete 
 being the " bed oriental," of Levy Freres & Co., 
 Paris, with uprights that serve either for the mosquito 
 netting or the waterproof. Such an affair is too heavy 
 except for steamer or caravan travel, and not to be 
 thought of in a canoe, or even in a batelao, unless it 
 be a large one or without cargo. By all means take 
 along a cot should you do any steamer touring on 
 tropical rivers ; and the " Gold Medal " is the handiest 
 folding pattern I have used. 
 
 Sleeping on ground or rock or the bottom of a 
 canoe is hard sleeping at best, but may be eased a 
 bit. It is most comfortable, of course, to rest on 
 your back, but you need the refreshment of turning 
 on the side occasionally; and such a position can be 
 eased by extending the under elbow at right angles 
 from the body, stretching out the under leg at 
 full length and drawing up the top leg bent at 
 the knee. Thus the body has the triangular 
 support of the knee of the upper leg, the muscles 
 of the under thigh and the under arm; all 
 of which relieves the hip bone. Do not make your
 
 298 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 pillow too high. High pillows strain the neck muscles 
 and throw more pressure on the hip bone ; and if you 
 are in a narrow dugout, don't spread the canvas sheet 
 under your blanket to the very edges of the floor, as 
 the water coming over the side will thus be caught and 
 drained into your bed, whereas, if you leave a space 
 between the sides of your bed and the insides of the 
 canoe, the water will trickle to the keel. 
 
 Some people like the sleeping bag. I don't; 
 neither for the arctics nor the tropics; it is either too 
 cold or too hot and never cleanly. On my winter 
 musk ox hunt, I started into the Barren Grounds 
 with a bag made of caribou and lined with rabbit 
 skin, the very warmest robe possible, but I ripped it 
 open before I had been on the road three days. No 
 less distinguished an explorer than Peary does not 
 favor the bag for his personal use. But if you want 
 a sleeping bag, try a wool one, which Fiala, the Arc- 
 tic explorer, has recently patented; it appears to me 
 the least objectionable of any I have seen; though I 
 cannot imagine any one using a sleeping bag in the 
 stewing tropics. 
 
 Before leaving the personal equipment subject, I 
 must allude to one article a chair which sounds 
 luxurious, but that has given me more real joy on 
 long trips than any single article of my outfit. After 
 a hard day in the saddle, or of continuous paddling, 
 the pleasure of sitting in a chair is very considerable. 
 Whenever possible, I include one: the same one and 
 the best a takedown model I first saw in India, 
 where it originated, and is still called the " roorkee," 
 but which is now made in England, where it may be 
 bought at the Army and Navy stores. It can be rolled
 
 THE "ROORKEE" TAKEDOWN CAMP CHAIR WHICH THE AUTHOR HAS CARRIED AROUND THE 
 WORLD AND CONSIDERS THE BEST MODEL OF ITS KIND 
 
 4IN.X5 IN.X3 FT.2 IN.LONG 
 
 THE GOLD MEDAL FOLDING COT
 
 BOIL YOUR DRINKING WATER 299 
 
 into a comparatively small parcel, about 17 x 7 
 inches, and is really a comfortable armchair for camp 
 or steamer. 
 
 Every hunter has his own ideas as to pots, pans 
 and the like, so I will suggest only two items 
 the iron tripod cooking stand; and the cuia, or cala- 
 bash, as the gourd bowl is called, which, in size from 
 a cup to a big basin, is lighter and stands more knock- 
 ing than any camp utensil I know. Curiously enough, 
 firewood in the tropics, even in the midst of the great 
 forest, does not come easily to hand, so you need to 
 make what you get go far, and for this purpose the 
 tripod is unexcelled. 
 
 I never make a journey without a collapsible lan- 
 tern and a collapsible canvas bucket. For the former 
 I use what are known as sick-room candles, which, 
 however, require a larger socket you must have fitted, 
 and should be packed in a strong box, so they are 
 protected against pressure. Of course, the most 
 satisfactory light is given by kerosene should you be 
 able to have it. 
 
 A first-class filter there are not so many on the 
 market and a brush to clean it after usage is a 
 necessity, but keep in mind that the filter is only 
 cleansing and not purifying; therefore, if the water is 
 doubtful, be on the safe side and boil it. Also put 
 fresh water every night in the canteen you use 
 even though you do not drink it all. It will be cooler 
 next morning and freer from the sediment always 
 present even after filtering. One grows careless in 
 this respect and oftentimes circumstances do not ad- 
 mit of precaution. When you have been paddling 
 hard all day under a pouring rain and tie up for night
 
 300 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 at the bank where no opportunity offers of making 
 fire, you are rather apt to drink the water as you 
 find it. There were days, and sometimes weeks, at 
 a stretch on some of my river journeys in South 
 America and in Sumatra when I did not boil the 
 water because I could not make a fire. And it is my 
 good fortune never to have paid the penalty, which 
 may easily be heavy, of such neglect. 
 
 Entirely as a tribute to my palate, I carry coffee 
 when I can and tea when I must in the tropics; and 
 both must be kept in water-tight tin cans as well to 
 preserve them against upset as for protection under 
 rainfall, which not on occasion will amount to a 
 foot of precipitation in one storm. To anyone canoe- 
 ing in the rainy season my advice is to always make 
 an extra quantity so you will have some on hand for 
 days when, as is often the case, building fire is not 
 possible. If you can be certain of a fire once a day 
 it will be a good average, and there are days at a time 
 when you will not be able to cook at all. 
 
 Eschew the patent cigar lighter and its fuse. 
 They may be all right on a steamer, but they are use- 
 less in the damp jungle. Have a canvas " fire bag," 
 as it is called in the Far North country, that you can 
 attach to your belt or put in pocket for your pipe, 
 tobacco and matches in daily use, keeping the balance 
 of your supply in waterproof sacks. And get both 
 tobacco and matches of native make; it's the only 
 kind that will withstand the climate. Keep your pipe 
 clean, but do not scrape the inside or take out the 
 " button." I discovered I did not smoke as much in 
 the tropics, particularly in the rainy season, as in the 
 temperate or Arctic zones.
 
 THE DITTY BAG 301 
 
 In my individual ditty bag, in addition to the 
 usual small housewife, I always carry one of those 
 tools-in-the-handle. kits, a small whetstone, a spool of 
 medium-sized copper wire, a pair of cutting pliers and 
 a stout fishline. The tools-in-handle kit I have found 
 most handy, scarcely a day passing without its serv- 
 ing; and nothing is so all-round useful in camping 
 and travelling as copper wire. In a waterproof 
 canvas bag that may be slung from the shoulder I 
 place notebooks, field glasses and compactly rolled 
 toilet articles, including razor and tube of the incom- 
 parable shaving cream " Euxesis," which requires 
 neither water nor a brush. If you are a wearer of 
 spectacles (and don't try to use eyeglasses in jungle 
 travel) have the large round lenses set in aluminum 
 frames, with a thin cork cushion under the bridge, 
 and rubber tubing enclosing the arms where they fit 
 around the ears. Of course, you should take along 
 one extra pair at least, in a strong case. 
 
 A spool of the dental floss, which comes in a metal 
 cylinder, is the only practical form for the traveller, 
 among the many that will be offered by the druggist. 
 In this bag also is such literature as I may be fortu- 
 nate enough to find opportunity to read, of which 
 there is not a great deal in rainy season travel through 
 the jungle, though I am never without hope or the 
 material. Watch and compass I carry in trousers 
 pockets, at the end of lanyards fastened to my belt; 
 also a stout but medium size utility jack-knife. 
 
 I do not use a tent in the jungle, but spread 
 a tarpaulin in the wet and a stout fly in the dry 
 season make it double when you can. 
 
 In the matter of provisions here again the char-
 
 302 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 acter of the trip must influence choice. I am one of 
 those wilderness travellers who always lives the best 
 he can as long as he can. I adapt myself to condi- 
 tions. Whenever the transportation enables me to 
 carry along a cot, I take it, and when the transpor- 
 tation affords opportunities for a comparatively 
 elaborate menu, I go the limit. Otherwise, it is my 
 habit to live on the country, that is, to eat what the 
 natives eat, having found that to be the only way 
 to make extended exploration in really untravelled 
 regions. On many divisions of the Road it would 
 have been utterly impossible for me to carry outside 
 supplies and equally impossible to prepare them. 
 Mandioca and dried fish comprise the local food 
 and that is what the adventurer to the unfrequented 
 sections in that land must depend upon. There are 
 parts of the Road upon which provisions may be 
 carried for example, on the lower Orinoco, the 
 lower Rio Negro and the Parana, where I included 
 rice as the most satisfying; you can carry more of it 
 and it goes farther and suits you better than any 
 other fare. Beans are a favourite of mine, but not 
 for canoe travel in the rainy tropics; they are too 
 long cooking. In Far Eastern jungles I relied upon 
 rice, with dried peas as a side dish. 
 
 In short, the staples for tropical small canoe travel 
 are coffee, rice, dried fish, mandioca and beans if 
 you can take time to prepare them. Canned goods 
 are impossible for this kind of travel, but if you 
 journey on waters open to a large boat, they may be 
 carried, though I do not favour them for the tropics. 
 
 Whenever I can arrange a menu to suit me, it con- 
 sists of beans, rice, fish and fruit; a very little meat
 
 THE WORTH OF LIMES 303 
 
 and, where to be found, that little of turtle or the 
 grass-eating manati. If like me, you will not much 
 care for soup in hot countries, but the German 
 ebswurst is hard to beat as an emergency ration. 
 
 Whether or not you use sugar and tobacco, you 
 should add as much of each as you conveniently can 
 for barter. Tobacco especially is better than money. 
 
 Another article equally important is limes, which 
 are a great bracer when you are feeling feverish or 
 " done." Some hot water, lime juice and a little 
 rum make a very effective pick-me-up for the 
 tropics; though pick-me-ups are not to be dal- 
 lied with here unless you really need them. I should 
 advise a good, stiff, straight lemonade every day, 
 whether you think you require it or not. It's excellent 
 for the stomach. Indeed, the medicinal value of limes 
 is not half appreciated one should never be without 
 them in the tropics. But leave the spirits alone un- 
 less you feel decidedly chilly after a wetting, and 
 even then hot coffee or tea is better for you. 
 
 You should have waterproof bags for provisions 
 as well as for clothing, and if you wish to save time 
 and gray hairs, put your different kinds of 
 provisions in separate, differently coloured sacks, or 
 give each sack a distinguishing mark so you can 
 readily recognize and find what you seek. This saves 
 hours on a trip and makes life a little more endur- 
 able when you are pitching camp in the rain. 
 
 Powdered coffee is the easiest to carry and the 
 simplest and quickest for usage. You put the coffee 
 in a cloth strainer and pour the boiling water over it, 
 thus needing no mill and having hot water for other 
 purposes. It simplifies the equipment. I also take
 
 304 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 along some powdered chocolate, which is thankfully 
 consumed when you are shy a meal or two. Of native 
 things, the cheese is wholesome and satisfying, and I 
 suggest stocking up on it whenever there is the 
 opportunity. 
 
 Once a week, if you can, give everything a good 
 sun bath all your provisions and all your equip- 
 ment unfailingly if you are on an extended journey. 
 This is as true of the dried fish as it is of the clothing. 
 On the other hand, do not you yourself at any time 
 take the sun for long, especially on the back. If you 
 have to sit in the sun, face it if possible. 
 
 Every wilderness adventurer should familiarize 
 himself with simple medicinal remedies and elemental 
 surgery. He ought to know how to treat burns and 
 bruises and wounds and snake bites. He must know 
 how to make a tourniquet, and that it should be ap- 
 plied between the wound and the heart when the 
 blood is bright red and comes in spurts, but on the 
 side of the wound farthest from the heart when the 
 blood is dark and flows steadily. He ought always 
 to carry a medicine kit arranged under the advice of a 
 physician who has first hand knowledge of the tropics. 
 In this kit should be something for quick action 
 against chills and fever and constipation and diarrhea ; 
 scissors, tourniquet, tweezers, carbolized vaseline, in 
 addition, of course, to dressings such as sterilized 
 gauze and roller bandages. And last, but not least, a 
 roll of one-inch adhesive plaster, equally serviceable 
 in mending your gun stock or shoes, as in patching 
 your face, and with the advantage over electrician 
 tape of being medicated. 
 
 Carbolic soap is safest to use and arnica leaves
 
 CAMP DOCTORING 305 
 
 make the best lotion for bruises and are easily carried. 
 Also include collodion or a tube of new skin; it is in- 
 valuable for protecting wounds against dirt. If you 
 are making your first trip, take along something like 
 Jamaica ginger for stomach instead of using rum or 
 chlorodyne; and I never go without blue ointment as 
 vermin preventive and exterminator. 
 
 Quinine is the common fever preventive. When 
 I first went into the jungle I was told to take five 
 grains daily, but never followed that advice, although 
 it has given satisfaction to many others. My 
 plan is to leave myself alone if I feel all right ; when I 
 feel feverish I take from twenty to twenty-five grains 
 in two doses, fifteen at night and ten in the morning. 
 In other words, my scheme is to knock the ailment 
 when it comes rather than to keep filtering medicine 
 into my system. Never have I been laid up by fever 
 so I could not travel, although I've felt very seedy. 
 Also I strongly advise a cup of black, strong 
 coffee the first thing on awakening in the morning, 
 before you stir around. 
 
 Snake bites, while always a possibility, are not a 
 probability, despite popular belief to the contrary. 
 However, you should be prepared for the excep- 
 tion that proves the rule. Open the clothing and 
 expose the point of attack without delay. Quickly 
 apply a tourniquet above the bite to partly stop 
 the circulation, so the venom will not be carried 
 into the system. Then with a sharp knife (there 
 should be a scalpel with a closing blade in your 
 medicine kit) lay open the skin just where the 
 snake's fangs have struck, cutting outward and 
 lengthwise of the limb. Don't make a pin prick;
 
 306 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 make a fair, free cut, letting the blood run for a few 
 seconds to wash out the poison. Sucking the 
 wound answers the same purpose (be sure there are 
 no scratches or cuts on your lips in this case) . Wash 
 out the wound with whiskey or other spirits, if at 
 hand, or boiled, cool water. After this rub some per- 
 manganate of potash into the wound. Do not take off 
 the tourniquet for some little time, and then remove 
 it and put it on again at short intervals. Finally 
 dress the wound as any other. The sting of scorpions, 
 tarantulas, centipedes, should be treated in a simi- 
 lar manner, though so large a wound need not be 
 made, as the poison is not virulent. 
 
 The chief things to remember in such surgery are 
 (1) to keep your hands clean, (2) to put no dress- 
 ing on the wound which is not clean and antiseptic, 
 and (3) to use no unboiled water. You should al- 
 ways carry bichloride tablets, with which a solution 
 is made for the washing of wounds as well as mere 
 irritations, which are susceptible to infection. 
 
 Infection from insect bite you are sure to en- 
 counter and it is always to be taken seriously. It is 
 most important to keep any wound clean. There- 
 fore, to those visiting insect-infested tropics, I say 
 with greatest emphasis, resist, at all cost of effort, 
 the temptation to scratch and so save yourself un- 
 told trouble and possible blood poisoning. To keep 
 from scratching will require every bit of fortitude 
 you possess, but if you do scratch, you not only im- 
 measurably increase the itching and the irritation 
 and the swelling, but you lay yourself liable to in- 
 fection. You cannot depend on any " dope " to pro- 
 tect you against insect pest not against the real
 
 CHOOSING A BATTERY 307 
 
 insect plague if you get into it. I have tried many 
 kinds many times in Siam, in Malaya, where are some 
 of the most noisome jungles in the Far East, and 
 in South America, but never with success. I refer 
 to the pest at its worst; if you are making a short 
 excursion into the outer edges of the jungle, or on 
 the llanos, or can keep the middle of the big rivers, 
 the insects are not troublesome. Under such condi- 
 tions, I have found a preparation of two parts pure 
 olive oil and one part tar to be moderately useful. 
 
 The " best " battery offers a theme for never 
 ending discussion; it is a subject upon which hunters 
 perhaps agree least. There are so many different 
 rifles, all good, and so many different loads and cali- 
 bres of so nearly equal efficiency, that the choice is 
 wide. I presume I am a bit old-fashioned in my prej- 
 udices, as being one of those hunters who do not 
 believe in going afield with a rifle which carries a 
 mile for game never seen over seventy-five or one 
 hundred yards distant. I confess that for deer, elk 
 or moose, I prefer the older style of cartridge, the one 
 carrying a big, sickening lump of lead which does 
 not journey into the next county but stops in the 
 quarry. If, however, you expect to meet really dan- 
 gerous game in the jungle lion, tiger, the seladang 
 of Malaya, elephant, Cape buffalo or the rhino the 
 more smashing power your gun has the better for 
 you and your friends. 
 
 In the first line of defence against such game noth- 
 ing equals the cordite .450 and .500 double-barrelled 
 express rifles of English make, though W. A. Chanler, 
 Kermit Roosevelt, Stewart E. White and several 
 more American sportsmen have scored in Africa on
 
 308 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 the biggest game with American rifles of smaller 
 calibre, such as the Winchester and others. But 
 these demand a better target, usually unobtainable in 
 dense cover, and consummate marksmanship. 
 
 In South America there is no dangerous game ex- 
 cept the jaguar, and he is not so very dangerous, 
 for, like most of the cat family, he will usually retire 
 if there is the chance, and as an almost invariable rule 
 fights only when, cornered or maddened by wounds, 
 he meets you in close quarters. South America is not 
 a game country so far as animals as concerned ; apart 
 from the jaguar, there are the tapir, several kinds of 
 deer and the peccaries. Some, I am told, class the 
 guanaco as game, but I should about as soon think 
 of shooting a camel as one of those creatures or any of 
 its kindred the alpaca and the vicuna. 
 
 If you go into a given section with a definite 
 purpose of jaguar or of deer, you will carry the rifle 
 which most pleases you. Any of the high-grade 
 American rifles is quite strong enough for the jaguar, 
 if your bullet mushrooms well; but you must shoot 
 straight and hit hard, for, as I say, it is a beast which 
 is formidable on occasions and then takes a lot of 
 killing. The tapir affords no sport. It's extremely 
 shy, frequents the rivers and is a strong swimmer, 
 but if you are in want of meat, it will supply you 
 with a fairly palatable piece. 
 
 The real sport of South America is supplied by 
 its birds, among which are many members of the 
 partridge, grouse, snipe and pheasant-like families 
 ranging wide and in season wild fowl by the multi- 
 tudes. No sportsman, of course, shoots the birds of 
 plumage. The best of sport is afforded by the rhea
 
 LUXURIES 309 
 
 or Argentine ostrich, hunted with dogs, and the bolas 
 which the natives throw with great skill. 
 
 When you can carry but one rifle and are likely to 
 come across birds, deer or possibly jaguar, I advise 
 the pump gun because it shoots both shot and ball 
 fairly well. This gun constituted my armory for 
 much of my South American jungle travel; and when 
 I could pack it I added a Mannlicher 9 mm. (.3546 
 calibre) . Percy C. Madeira has been most successful 
 with the 8 millimeter. If your rifle leads drop a small 
 quantity of mercury into the barrel, then plug and 
 shake. The lead can readily be removed after this 
 treatment by a swab. You must keep your guns well 
 oiled, and your camera films in tin cases. 
 
 For knife and ax, a Marble pattern is best suited 
 to my requirements. The scalloped blade, after the 
 alleged bowie model, is a miserable skinning knife, 
 but useful on the tenderfoot belt for photographic 
 purposes. The genuine butcher blade is the ideal. 
 
 In going to South America let me urge that you 
 include a butterfly net if you are at all interested in 
 studying at close hand those beautiful winged crea- 
 tures, of which the varieties are countless. 
 
 As to expenses, that again is a question of where 
 you are going and how you go. Mine, by and large, 
 averaged from one hundred to three hundred dollars 
 a month, though it is only fair to add that I was al- 
 ways obliged to keep within a limited time and a given 
 small amount of money hence I was by sheer neces- 
 sity compelled to put my outfit on the simplest work- 
 ing basis practicable shorn of all luxuries. 
 
 Speaking of luxuries, it is rather interesting, I 
 think, to know and to record here that even the har-
 
 310 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 diest veteran hunter among us always has in mind 
 some cherished article outside of fundamentals for 
 which he hopes to find room in his outfit and which he 
 does include unless his equipment is restricted to 
 actual necessities, such as food and the essentials of 
 fire-making and travel. Thus, under " going light " 
 conditions, Col. Theodore Roosevelt says that his first 
 item of luxury would be " floss silk for the teeth," and 
 adds that " tea I would consider almost a necessity 
 for a long trip." Stewart Edward White, who, like 
 the Colonel, has hunted in Africa as well as in 
 America, declares for " more syrup." Charles 
 Sheldon, a notable example of the self-reliant, com- 
 petent wilderness traveller and hunter, as his books 
 of Alaskan adventures indicate, says that aside from 
 the necessities, such as food, etc., there are " two spe- 
 cial things I insist on taking into the woods one is 
 an Alpine Ruchsack ; this perhaps would not be classi- 
 fied as a luxury. The other, on the contrary, is dis- 
 tinctly one. I always bring with me an extra fine 
 quality of tea." 
 
 Dr. Wm. Lord Smith, who has made a specialty 
 of hunting tigers over all the world, says that where 
 he has done most of his shooting, in Asia and Africa, 
 " porters are cheap and plenty and my luxury would 
 be a portable tub with plenty of hot water to fill it." 
 The dean of big game hunters is unquestionably the 
 Englishman, F. C. Selous, who, now in his sixtieth 
 year, is, as I write (December, 1911), on his way to 
 the Lorian Swamp in East Africa. None has had 
 so long or so continuous experience in the hunting 
 field as he, so that what he says as to a first choice of 
 a luxury is worth quoting at length:
 
 GOLDEN RULES 311 
 
 " Personally I have no fad or fancy for any small luxury, 
 as I learnt to travel very light in my early days of African 
 hunting and for twenty years never carried even a tooth- 
 brush, as I used to clean my teeth as the natives did with a 
 piece of wood. I had to live entirely out of the country and 
 found that in the way of food I required fat and sugar in 
 addition to lean meat, and what I could buy from the natives 
 in the way of native corn, meal or rice. The first I obtained 
 from the larger animals, elephants, hippos, white rhinoc- 
 eroses, giraffes and elands, and I rendered out large quan- 
 tities in the early part of the dry season for use during the 
 later months when all animals were in low condition. The 
 second sugar I obtained from wild honey, which was 
 unusually plentiful. All my life I have been a teetotaller 
 and a non-smoker and I have never carried a single bottle 
 of brandy even for medicine. Putting aside all food, matches 
 and necessary clothing equipment, the one thing I would 
 always take with me on any trip, in either a hot or a cold 
 country, before anything else, would be tea. I am not very 
 particular as to the kind of tea I get and I think it is the hot 
 drink more than anything else which I like. I like my tea 
 with sugar and milk when I can get it, but even when I have 
 to drink it without any adjunct I find it a great comfort, 
 and should miss it very much if I had to do without it 
 altogether." 
 
 Richard Harding Davis, our eminent war cor- 
 respondent, who as such has trekked the globe over, 
 writes me, in reply to my request for his first choice 
 of luxury: 
 
 " A luxury if you want it badly enough becomes a neces- 
 sity. My idea of both is a Forbes chair, or, as you call it 
 and as it is often called, the roorkee chair; and books to 
 read on rainy days, on days when you are kept in camp 
 waiting for fresh supplies or remounts or reinforcements, 
 or just because you are lazy."
 
 312 THE FLOWING ROAD 
 
 For myself, talcum powder has always been the 
 first real luxury to go into my pack. But on all my 
 trips, wherever they may be and whatever the sea- 
 son, the two things which invariably have my first, 
 and last and continuous best thoughts are 
 
 (1) To keep my stomach normal, and, 
 
 (2) To keep my feet in good condition. 
 
 These I consider the two most important essen- 
 tials to wilderness travel however or wherever it be. 
 Indeed, to keep my feet sound, my mouth shut, and 
 my eyes, ears and bowels open are my golden rules. 
 
 Finally, I will say, that in addition to suitable 
 equipment and a sound constitution, the successful 
 wilderness hunter must have also patience and 
 courage and good temper; and the last is not the 
 least important. Temperance I consider imperative. 
 
 Adventuring in the deep jungle is a plod, day 
 after day a hard plod. There is none of the inter- 
 est and excitement of Africa's vast open game fields 
 with something happening every hour to keep you en- 
 thused. Instead, there is the silent, forbidding for- 
 est apparently deserted where you need grim per- 
 severance and enough experience to prevent panic 
 if, one day in the untracked solitude, doubt of your 
 bearings suddenly grips you.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acarigua, town, Venezuela, 251. 
 
 Agouti, edible rodent, Brazil, 57. 
 
 Algarrobo tree, 286. 
 
 Alpargata, Venezuelan sandal, 227. 
 
 Altar Pass, 248. 
 
 Amazon River, extent, 16; char- 
 acter of banks, 17. 
 
 Andre, Eugene, 135; on Caura, 184. 
 
 Anhinga-snake bird, 63. 
 
 Ant-eater or bear, 82, 186, 289. 
 
 Ants, visitations, 42; march of, 
 stings, 55-57; adventure with, 
 186; ferocity, industry, 239. 
 
 Apure River, west tributary, 
 lower Orinoco, high water 
 marks, 121; extent, 248; flood 
 land, 263. 
 
 Arauca River, west tributary, 
 lower Orinoco, 213; flood land, 
 263. 
 
 Arrows, native, 145. 
 
 Atabapo River, south tributary, 
 upper Orinoco, 109. 
 
 Atures, north port, Orinoco 
 cataracts, 135, 192. 
 
 B 
 
 Barcellos, town, Brazil, 20. 
 
 Barquisimeto, town, Venezuela, 
 247. 
 
 Batelao, cargo craft, 28; propel- 
 ling, 34. 
 
 Bates, on turtles, 204. 
 
 Bats, 61, 125. 
 
 Bed, hanging a hammock, 296; 
 cots, 297; sleeping position, 
 297; pillows, 298; bags, 298. 
 
 Bees, "Angelitos," 38. 
 
 Bingham, Prof. Hiram, route 
 Bogotd,, 251; jabiru stork, 264. 
 
 Birds, lower Negro, 39-40; of 
 swamp voices, 53; snake bird 
 (anhinga), 63"; drumming, 80; 
 scarcity at Rapids, 84, 198; 
 upper Orinoco, 146, 191; lower 
 Orinoco, 217; at water-holes, 
 234; on llanos, 245; along 
 Portuguesa, 257-262; egret kill- 
 ing, 261; at Atures, 263; on 
 Feliciano, 284; hooded in Argen- 
 tine, 285; bell bird, campanero, 
 248-249. 
 
 Bittern, 125. 
 
 Blow-gun, " Sarabatana," 145. 
 
 Boats, see canoe. 
 
 Bolivar, town, Venezuela, 212. 
 
 Bombilla, 279. 
 
 Bongo, see canoe. 
 
 Bows, native, 145. 
 
 Branco River, north tributary, 
 lower Rio Negro, 19, 123. 
 
 Brazil nut, 26. 
 
 Bushmaster, 59. 
 
 Butterflies on Negro, 40; a marvel, 
 105. 
 
 Cababuri River, north tributary, 
 
 lower Negro, 64. 
 Cachaca, Brazil, 43; uses, 69. 
 Cactus, 231. 
 
 Cagua, town, Venezuela, 247. 
 Caicara, settlement, Venezuela, 
 
 214. 
 
 Caiman, 211 ; see crocodile. 
 Cakouri, 95. 
 Calabash, Spanish, 42; also gourd; 
 
 also Cuia in Brazil; uses, 237. 
 
 313
 
 314 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Calabozo, llanos " metropolis," 
 
 Venezuela, 248. 
 Calentura, 193; see fever. 
 Camanaos, beginning bad rapids 
 
 where Negro turns north, 66. 
 Campanero, voice, 248-249; see 
 
 bell bird. 
 Campo, 18. 
 Cano, Venezuela; igarapee, Brazil; 
 
 47; connecting rivers, 115; size, 
 
 current, 121. 
 Canoe, types; uba, canoa, curiara, 
 
 dugout, bongo, falca, montaria; 
 
 28. 
 Capybara, Brazil, 58; same as 
 
 Carpincho, Argentine, 289. 
 Caribe, bloodthirsty fish, 263. 
 Caribs, Indians, 114; ancient road 
 
 of, 135, 184. 
 Caroni River, south tributary, 
 
 lower Orinoco, 135. 
 Carne seca, dried meat, 252; 
 
 toughness of, 191. 
 Casiquiare River, connecting Ori- 
 noco and Negro, 116, 129; char- 
 acter, 131. 
 Cassava, 191. 
 Cassique, 39; also japim and 
 
 oriole. 
 
 Castro, freebooter, 219. 
 Caucho, 20. 
 Caura River, south tributary, 
 
 lower Orinoco, 115. 
 Cavy, 289. 
 Caxoeiras, rapids, Brazil; raudales, 
 
 Venezuela, 64. 
 Ceiba tree, 49, 231. 
 Chair for camp, 298. 
 Chanler, W. A., rifle of, 307. 
 Chapman, Frank, knowing eyes, 
 
 182. 
 
 Chinchorro, see hammock. 
 Chubasco, 216. 
 
 Chuchu, Argentine, 268; see fever. 
 Cicada, shrieking, 41. 
 Cigarettes, native, 75, 
 
 Clothes and shoes for jungle, 295- 
 
 296. 
 
 Cloud effects, 218. 
 Cocui, 1000-foot rock on frontier 
 
 between Brazil and Venezuela, 
 
 66, 94. 
 Cojedes, settlement, Venezuela, 
 
 248. 
 Conquistadores, seekers for^ fabled 
 
 El Dorado, 113. 
 Cook outfit, 299. 
 Cougar, 223; curiosity, 225; lack 
 
 of courage, 282-283. 
 Crocodile, voice, 191; disposition, 
 
 205; friendly encounter, 241. 
 Cuia, Brazil; also calabash and 
 
 gourd, among Spanish speaking. 
 Curare, poison, power, 144; for- 
 mula, 145. 
 
 Curassow, 234, 239, 289. 
 Curiosity, guard of wilderness 
 
 traveller, 175. 
 
 Darts, blow-gun, 145. 
 
 Davis, Richard Harding, on kits, 
 292; first choice camp luxury, 
 311. 
 
 Deer, 232, 234, 244, 286, 289. 
 
 Ditmar, Raymond L., on croco- 
 diles, 208. 
 
 Ditty bag, 301. 
 
 Dope fallacy, 130. 
 
 Doves, 198, 231, 234. 
 
 Drudgery, relief, 128. 
 
 Duane, Colonel, 249. 
 
 Ducks, 120, 198, 289. 
 
 Dugout, see canoe. 
 
 Duida, Mt., Venezuela, 135. 
 
 E 
 
 Egret, slaughter, 261; moulted 
 plumage, 262; shambles, 263. 
 
 El Dorado, fabled land, 113; see 
 also Conquistadores.
 
 INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Equipment, jungle trekking afoot, 
 55, 160, 163; vocabulary, 124; 
 in saddle, 226; beeswax for ticks, 
 238; suggestions on meeting wild 
 life, 241; general, 290. 
 
 Esmeralda, mission, 137. 
 
 Expense, 309. 
 
 EXPLORERS: Wallace, 66, 85, 98. 
 Andre, 135, 184. 
 Bingham, 251. 
 
 Conquistadores, seekers for the 
 El Dorado, 113; Sir Walter 
 Raleigh voyaged up the Ori- 
 noco to the Caroni, about 90 
 miles below present Ciudad 
 Bolfvar and only 180 miles 
 from the Atlantic. See also 
 Foreword, 3. 
 
 Humboldt, 98, 106, 120, 196. 
 Rice, 68, 85. 
 
 F 
 
 Facon, Gaucho knife, 269. 
 
 Falca, see canoe. 
 
 Farinha, Brazil; mandioca, Ven- 
 ezuela; native flour, 31; see 
 mandioca. 
 
 Feliciano River, northeast tribu- 
 tary, Parana. 
 
 Fever, 193; preventive, 194, 305; 
 to recognize mosquito, 238; 
 chuchu, 268; washing water, 242. 
 
 Fiesta, 250. 
 
 Filter, 299 ; drinking, 300. 
 
 Fire flies, 285. 
 
 Fish, pirarucu, staple, 26; catch- 
 ing, 95; scarcity, 103; seasons, 
 117; absence in cano, 125; drum- 
 ming, 190. 
 
 Flowers, in forest, 51; on llanos, 
 231, 245. 
 
 Flowing Road, 16-112. 
 
 Forest, vegetation, 47; luxuriance, 
 parasites, 50, 53; awesomeness, 
 79; monotony, 120; along upper 
 Orinoco, 146, 165; llanos in dry 
 season, 230; sameness, 287. 
 
 Fox breeding, freaks, 224. 
 Frogs, anvil chorus, 43, 61, 125. 
 Fruit, lack of, Negro, 26. 
 
 Gallinule, 125, 234. 
 
 Gapo, flood land, 18. 
 
 Garrapata, Venezuela, 237; catch- 
 ing, 238; same as jigger, red- 
 bug, wood-tick; see insects. 
 
 Gato dance, 269. 
 
 Gaucho, overrated, 230, 269. 
 
 Geheta River, south tributary, 
 upper Orinoco, 136. 
 
 Going light, 293. 
 
 Golden Rules, jungle, 312. 
 
 Gourd, 42; uses, 237; also cala- 
 bash and cuia. 
 
 Gran chaco, Argentine forest, 266; 
 Indians, 273. 
 
 Guacharaca, bird, 245. 
 
 Guaharibos, Indians, 144, 164, 169; 
 alleged disposition, 173. 
 
 Guainia River, Brazil, 104; con- 
 tinuation Rio Negro. 
 
 Guaviare River, west tributary, 
 upper Orinoco, 134. 
 
 Gunare, town, Venezuela, 252. 
 
 H 
 
 Hammock, 227; also chinchorro. 
 Heron, croaking, 53; stare, 59; as 
 
 food, 124; soldado, 185, 190, 234. 
 Horse, Venezuela, bronco, 229. 
 Housewife, 301 ; see ditty bag. 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, 98, 
 
 106, 120, 196; on crocodiles, 
 
 211; on jaguars, 224. 
 
 Ibis, 262. 
 
 Igarapee, Brazil, 47; also cano. 
 Iguana, 59, 258, 285. 
 Indians, crew, 30; method work, 
 33; cheeriness, 36; family, Tupi,
 
 316 
 
 INDEX 
 
 character, skill, 37; diving, 72; 
 mongrel, 75; improvidence, 68, 
 75, 108; nomadic, 90, 108, 140; 
 patois, 116; not immune to in- 
 sects, 131; similarity, 132; Ma- 
 quiritares, 138, 142; honesty, 
 139; "White Indians," 142, 143; 
 Guaharibos, 144; hair, costume, 
 157, 166, 169; alleged disposi- 
 tion, 173; Maipures and Atures, 
 194; superstition, 250; river 
 wanderers, 252; gran chaco, 273; 
 Argentine policy, 274. 
 
 Insects, Rio Negro, 42; lagoons, 
 55; Casiquiare, 129; preventive, 
 130; Orinoco, 135, 193; period 
 of attack, 197; garrapata, 237; 
 recognizing fever mosquito, 238; 
 infection, 306. 
 
 Italian laborer, Argentine, 269. 
 
 Jabiru stork, 254. 
 
 Jacana bird, 63. 
 
 Jaguar (Felis onca) kill, 125; 
 native fear, 126; fairy stories, 
 126; food, chance of meeting, 
 127, 195; variation, 222; black 
 freak, 224; size, temper, range, 
 method of hunting, 225; cave 
 living, 243; toll of llaneros, 250; 
 an encounter, 255-257; Argen- 
 tine fancies, 280; as a swimmer 
 and fisher, 281; attacking, 282; 
 hunting with dogs, 283; tree 
 scarring, 288. 
 
 Japim (Cassicus persicus), Brazil, 
 39; mimicry, 68; see Cassique. 
 
 Javita, north port of neck of land 
 separating the Amazon and 
 Orinoco river systems, 107. 
 
 Jesuit missions, 113-114. 
 
 Jen-jen, 193; see insects. 
 
 Jigger, 286; same as wood-tick, 
 red-bug, garrapata; see insects. 
 
 K 
 
 Kilo, two and one-fifth pounds. 
 Kingfisher, 39, 198. 
 Kits, equipment, 290. 
 
 Lagoon, 54; changing size, 121. 
 
 Lantern, 299. 
 
 Leadership, qualities, 77, 9>. 
 
 Leggings, 296. 
 
 Limes, medicinal, 303. 
 
 Lione, Venezuela, puma, 223, 244. 
 
 Lizard, steady gaze, 58. 
 
 Llanos, 228; character, 230-231- 
 251; plants, flowers, 245; habi- 
 tations, 245-246; llaneros life, 
 250. 
 
 M 
 
 Macaws, 40. 
 
 Madeira, Percy, rifle of, 307. 
 
 Madrugar, 84. 
 
 Maipures, south port great Ori- 
 noco cataracts, 135, 192. 
 
 Manaos, town, Brazil, 16. 
 
 Manati, Brazil, peixeboe or cow- 
 fish, 25. 
 
 Manaviche River, north tributary, 
 upper Orinoco. 
 
 Mandioca or mandioc, Venezuela, 
 31; preparation, 54; see also 
 farinha, its Brazilian equivalent. 
 
 Mantilla, 271. 
 
 Mantua vs. hat, 271. 
 
 Maps, casual character, those 
 made of South America, 65, 
 113; Rapids San GabrieL, 67. 
 
 Maquiritare Indians, 142-144. 
 
 Maracaibo, town, Venezuela, 219- 
 220. 
 
 Maracaibo Lake, Venezuela, 230. 
 
 Marajo Island, Amazon, 16. 
 
 Maroa, town, Venezuela, 112, 117. 
 
 Mata mata turtle, 63. 
 
 Mecham, hunting platform, 233. 
 
 Medicines, emergency remedies, 
 304.
 
 INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Melanism, 224. 
 
 Mess kit, individual, 295; see ditty 
 bag. 
 
 Meta River, west tributary, lower 
 Orinoco. 
 
 Mocovito Indians, Argentine, 273. 
 
 Monkey-howler, 200-234. 
 
 Montaria, see canoe. 
 
 Mont, 231. 
 
 Morgan, Henry, buccaneer, 219. 
 
 Mosquito, 130; to know fever 
 breed, 238, 287; see insects. 
 
 Mountains, Curicuriari, character- 
 istic along Negro, 65-66-68; Ca- 
 baburi, 94; Duida, 133; Parima 
 and Pacaraima Sierras, 134-135; 
 Roraima, 135; Cuchilla Montiel, 
 283. 
 
 N 
 
 Natives, better country class, 24. 
 
 Near-hunters, potting out of trees, 
 126, 225; water-hole ambush- 
 ing, 226; trophy snatching, 236. 
 
 Ocama River, north tributary, 
 upper Orinoco. 
 
 Ocelot, 223; wanton killing, 225. 
 
 Orchid, 50. 
 
 Orinoco River, 134; character of 
 upper, 136, 145, 153-154, 190, 
 189; lower course, 199. 
 
 Oriole (Cassicus persists), 39; see 
 also japim in Brazil and Cas- 
 sique in Venezuela. 
 
 Ostrich of pampas (Rhea Ameri- 
 cana), bolo hunting, 289. 
 
 Outfits, general, 290. 
 
 Paca, Brazil, edible rodent, 58, 108; 
 
 see also agouti. 
 Packing basket, native, 79. 
 Packing, sacks of different colours, 
 
 303. 
 
 Padamo River, north tributary, 
 
 upper Orinoco, 136. 
 Paddles, type, 29; method of 
 
 using, 86; joy down stream 
 
 work, 109. 
 
 Palm, berry-bearing, 56, 82. 
 Pampas, Argentine, 228, 267. 
 Pampero, Argentine, 277. 
 Panama hat, 227. 
 Paraguayan tea, 278; see Yerba 
 
 mate. 
 
 Parana River, 267. 
 Parana, town, Argentine, 275. 
 Parasite, on trees, 51, 230. 
 Parrakeets, 40, 231. 
 Parrots, 40; voice, 53, 190. 
 Parima, Pacaraima Mts., Vene- 
 zuela, 135, 192. 
 Patio, 220. 
 Patr6n, 30. 
 
 Paujil, Venezuela, see curassow. 
 Pauxis, Strait of, Amazon, 17. 
 Pecil, Miguel, gentleman, 93. 
 Photographing, difficulties, disap- 
 pointments, 61, 149, 186, 240, 
 
 286. 
 
 Piassava, 36; collecting, 118. 
 Pilot, Argentine, skill, 268. 
 Pimichin River, west tributary to 
 
 Negro or Guainia as here called, 
 
 104. 
 
 Pipe, tobacco, matches, 300. 
 Pium, Brazil, 42; see insects. 
 Plata, Rio de la, 267. 
 Playa, Venezuela, 201. 
 Poncho, uselessness of, 295; woven, 
 
 270. 
 Portuguesa River, west tributary, 
 
 Apure, character, 253; bird life, 
 
 262. 
 
 Posada, Venezuela, Inn. 
 Practico, Brazil, 15; skill, 19; also 
 
 pilot. 
 
 Provisions, 301. 
 Puchero, Argentine stew, 285. 
 Puerto Cabello, town, Venezuela.
 
 318 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Puerto, south port of land neck 
 separating Orinoco and Amazon 
 river systems, 104. 
 
 Puma, 223} lack courage, 282; see 
 also cougar and lione. 
 
 Rail-birds, 234. 
 
 Rain, frequency of, 69; storm, 70, 
 85, 90, 96, 103, 125, 128, 146, 
 155, 180, 218, 264, 277; precipita- 
 tion, 300. 
 
 Rancho, 250; poverty, 254; cheeri- 
 ness, 260. 
 
 Rapids, Negro, 66; map, 67; 
 crossing, 70. 
 
 Rations, jungle trekking on foot, 
 54; to increase pace, 95; allow- 
 ance, Brazil, one kilo dried meat, 
 one-half kilo dried fish per day 
 per man; two kilos farinha, 
 three days per man. One kilo 
 coflfee per man a week. Kilo is 
 two and one-fifth pounds. 
 
 Red-bug, see garrapata. 
 
 Remanse, Brazil, 91. 
 
 Rice, Dr. Hamilton, 68, 85, 251. 
 
 Rifle, 125; choice of battery, 307. 
 
 Rio Negro, largest north tributary 
 Amazon and one of its greatest 
 feeders, 15, 19; character of 
 lower course, 27; character of 
 upper course, 83, 102. 
 
 Rivers, similarity in South Amer- 
 ica, 120-185; rise and fall, cur- 
 rent, 188; affected by rain, 121; 
 records, 122; colour, 122; down 
 stream travel, 183. 
 
 Rodent family, see agouti, paca, 
 capybara. 
 
 Roman, Father, 129. 
 
 Roosevelt, Kermit, rifle of, 307. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 291; first 
 choice camp luxury, 310. 
 
 Roraima, Mt., Venezuela, 183. 
 
 Rubber hunting, 22, 
 
 Saddle, native, 230. 
 
 Salado River, west tributary, 
 
 Parana, 266. 
 San Carlos, Venezuelan frontier 
 
 post, 98; trade, 118. 
 Sancocho, Venezuelan stew, 246. 
 San Fernando on Apure, town, 
 
 Venezuela, 262. 
 San Fernando on the Atabapo, 
 
 town, Venezuela, 110; trade, 118. 
 San Gabriel, on divide between 
 
 lower and upper Negro, at be- 
 ginning of great rapids, 73. 
 San Jose, first of great Negro 
 
 rapids, 64. 
 San Rafael, town, head of Por- 
 
 tuguesa, 251. 
 
 Santa Fe, town, Argentine, 266. 
 Santa Isabel, head navigation on 
 
 Rio Negro, 15; rubber head- 
 quarters, 22. 
 
 Sarabatana, blow-gun, 145. 
 Savannah, 164, 231. 
 Schedules, difficulty of making 
 
 or keeping, 96, 124. 
 Selous, F. C., first choice camp 
 
 luxury, 311. 
 Sheldon, Charles, first choice camp 
 
 luxury, 310. 
 Simpatico, Venezuela, congenial, 
 
 143. 
 Slave traders, routes of 18th 
 
 century, 116. 
 Smith, Dr. Wm. Lord, first choice 
 
 camp luxury, 310. 
 Snakes, rapidity, 59; water boa, 
 
 62; attack and antidote, 107; 
 
 land boa, 172; macaurel, 258; 
 
 flee your path, 259. 
 Soldado, Venezuela heron, 185. 
 Southern Cross, 44. 
 Spiders, 90. 
 
 Spiritus frumenti, use of, 194. 
 Spoonbill, 190, 234, 262. 
 Squirrel, black, Venezuela, 234.
 
 INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 Stilt, 53, 234. 
 
 Sugar, for barter, 303. 
 
 Superstition, llanero, 250; Indian, 
 
 264. 
 Surgery in camp, 306. 
 
 Tapir, Brazilian, Malayan, 60. 
 
 Tegrillo, Venezuela, little tigre, 
 260. 
 
 Tegu-lizard, 58. 
 
 Temi River, south tributary Ata- 
 bapo, 109. 
 
 Temperature, lower Negro, 41, 68, 
 72; upper Negro, 102, 103; 
 upper Orinoco, 181; at cataracts, 
 193; on llanos, 249; on Apure, 
 264. 
 
 Tent, 301. 
 
 Teru-tero, Argentine, 284. 
 
 Tigre, see jaguar. 
 
 Tinaco River, north tributary, 
 Portuguesa, 249. 
 
 Tobacco, for trade, 70. 
 
 Toldo, canoe house, 28; descrip- 
 tion, 87. 
 
 Toucan, 40, 53, 190. 
 
 Townsend, Dr. Charles H., most 
 popular museum of, 63. 
 
 Tucacas, town, Venezuela, 247. 
 
 Tupi, Brazil, Indian family, 37. 
 
 Turtle, tortuga, 25; annual gath- 
 ering, 202. 
 
 u 
 
 Uaupes River, west tributary, 
 
 upper Negro, 19. 
 Uba, description, 87; see canoe. 
 Urbana, town, Venezuela, 211. 
 
 Valencia, town, Venezuela, 247. 
 
 Velasco, General B. Tinedo, old 
 school sportsman, 221; endur- 
 ance of, 245. 
 
 Venezuela, natural wealth, 220. 
 
 Ventuario River, east tributary, 
 upper Orinoco, 116, 183-184. 
 
 Vocabulary for travelling, 124. 
 
 Vulture, turkey buzzard, 286. 
 
 W 
 
 Wallace, Alfred Russel, on eleva- 
 tion, 66, 85, 98; on jaguar, 224. 
 
 Wasps, 35. 
 
 Water, drinking, washing, 242; 
 filtering, 299; boiling, 300. 
 
 Water-hole, character, 232; sitting 
 over, 233; variety wild life, 234- 
 235. 
 
 Weapons, native, 145; of Gran 
 Chaco Indians, 273. 
 
 White, Stewart Edward, 291; rifle 
 of, 307; first choice camp luxury, 
 310. 
 
 Wolf, curiosity, 225. 
 
 Woodpecker, 231. 
 
 Wood-tick, 287; see also tick, red- 
 bug* Jigg er garrapata. 
 
 Wood turkey, Argentine, pavo del 
 monte, 289. 
 
 Yerba mate, Paraguayan tea, 278; 
 cup of and ceremony, 279. 
 
 Zambo, Venezuela, 141. 
 Zancudo, Venezuela, 193; see in- 
 sects.
 
 __i University of California 
 
 R El* SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 TO . 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 REC'O URL ClHl- 
 
 AUG 27 1993
 
 UCLA-College Library 
 
 F2223W611f 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 097 932 6
 
 mm, 
 
 m