“They are as numerous as the mosquitoes, but they are much less annoying!” Sergeant Martial exclaimed. “Besides, these you can eat!”
It was a perfectly apt comparison.
And it does prove that Professor Elisée Reclus was right when he quoted Carl Sachs. They assure us that if a regiment of cavalry camped for fifteen days along a lagoon in this region and ate nothing but wild duck from the surrounding wetlands, they still would not make a measurable dent in the local bird population.4
The hunters from the Gallinetta and the Maripare—like the aforementioned cavalry regiment—effected no noticeable reduction in these legions of feathered creatures. The travelers settled for shooting only a couple dozen, which they drifted down in their curiares to retrieve. Jean fired several excellent shots, to Sergeant Martial’s intense satisfaction. The old soldier, saying to himself that one good deed deserves another, delivered part of his bounty to M. Miguel and company. They already had plenty, but he obviously did not want to feel indebted to them in any way.
That day the skippers of the two falcas faced a real test of skill: they had to dodge sharp rocks in the river. Colliding with one of these could mean losing a boat in the midst of rain-swollen waters. Not only did this maneuvering require a flawless technique with the stern paddle, but one also needed to watch for drifting tree trunks and avoid crashing into them. These trees had been uprooted from the island of Zamuro, which for years had been coming apart bit by bit. Our travelers could verify that this island, eaten away by the encroaching water, was almost to the point of vanishing completely.
The falcas eventually spent the night moored off the upstream tip of Casimirito Island. There they found an adequate refuge from the unusually violent squalls. A few deserted huts, ordinarily used by turtle fishermen, offered travelers a more substantial shelter than their standard deckhouse. At least they did to travelers on the Maripare, since those on the Gallinetta declined to go ashore, despite the invitations extended to them.
But it probably was not the height of prudence to set foot on Casimirito Island, which is overrun with apes, not to mention cougars and jaguars. Luckily, the nasty weather convinced these beasts to stay inside their lairs, and the shore party never came under attack. Even so, during lulls in the rainstorm, ferocious snarls could be heard along with the riotous bawling of the local apes, who have been dubbed howler monkeys by naturalists, and no wonder.
The following day, the skies looked more friendly. The clouds had retreated during the night. Those heavy rains from the higher zones were followed by a light drizzle, a sort of powdered water that stopped altogether after daybreak. The sun shone from time to time, and there was a strong northeasterly breeze. Since the river detours to the east and passes Buena Vista before going south again, the falcas set sail with a brisk wind behind them.
As natives of Nantes, Jean de Kermor and Sergeant Martial had to be struck by the Orinoco’s appearance, now much wider. And so the old NCO could not help making this comment: “Take a look, nephew—see where we’ve ended up!”
The young man left the deckhouse and stood in the bow of the vessel, its billowing sail now behind him. Under clear skies the distant grasslands were visible on the horizon.
Then Sergeant Martial added, “Could we have gotten turned around and returned to Brittany?”
“I see what you mean,” Jean answered. “Along this stretch, the Orinoco looks just like the Loire.”5
“Exactly, Jean, our very own Loire both above and below Nantes! Look at those yellow sandbars! Put half a dozen barges with big square sails in line over there, and you’d think we were heading in to Saint-Florent or Mauves!”
“You’re right, my dear Martial, it’s amazingly similar. What’s more, those wide plains extending beyond the two banks of the river remind me of the prairies along the lower Loire near Pellerin or Paimboeuf.”
“You’ve got me believing it, nephew! Any minute now I expect to see the steam launch from Saint-Nazaire—the ‘pyroscaphe’ she’s called, one of those Greek names that I can never understand.”
“And when this pyroscaphe actually shows up, uncle,” the lad replied with a smile, “we won’t climb aboard. We’ll let her go right on by because, by then, my father will be back in Nantes, won’t he?”
“Yes, the gallant colonel will be home again! Once we find him and he realizes he isn’t alone anymore, we’ll all sail back down the river, hop aboard the Simón Bolívar, and in no time we’ll be off to France on the Saint-Nazaire liner. And then he’ll be back for good!”
“Please, Lord, hear this man’s prayer!” Jean murmured.
And as he uttered these words, his eyes turned upstream toward the hills whose distant silhouettes stood out in the southeast.
Returning to Sergeant Martial’s very apt comment on the similarity between the Loire and this section of the Orinoco, he said, “All the same, sometimes you can see things on these sandy shores that you’d never see along the Loire.”
“Like what?”
“Every year toward mid-March, turtles come to lay and bury their eggs.”
“Turtles?”
“Thousands of them. See that river off the right bank? Before they began to call it Chaffanjon River, it was known as Turtle River.”6
“If that’s so, it probably deserved the name somehow. But around here I don’t see a single—”
“Have a little patience, Uncle Martial. Even though their nesting season is over, you’ll see an incredible number of these turtles.”
“But if they’re done laying eggs, we can’t help ourselves to their eggs, which are supposed to be a treat.”
“Indeed, and the meat of the turtles themselves is just as tasty. So I’m counting on our skipper, Valdez, to catch us a couple for our cookpot.”
“We’ll have turtle soup!” the Sergeant chortled.
“Right, and for once it won’t be made of leftover veal like back home!”
“Nobody should come all this way,” Sergeant Martial agreed, “and have to settle for veal stew!”
Jean was correct when he said their boats were approaching the waterways where the large quantity of these hard-shelled reptiles attracted Indians from the entire region. The natives now come only during fishing season, but they used to show up in huge numbers. The Taparitos, Panares, Yaruros, Guamos, and Mapoyos all fought furiously over this territory. Earlier on, the Otomacos7 were solidly entrenched in these parts, but nowadays they are scattered over the lands to the west. According to Humboldt’s accounts, these Indians, who claim their line dates back to the Stone Age, are staunch handball players, even more adept than those European Basques who have emigrated to Venezuela.8 They are also listed among those geophagous tribes, who, outside fishing season, will eat pellets of clay, actual potter’s earth lightly roasted. It is a custom, moreover, that still continues. This vice—what else can it be called?—is picked up in childhood and becomes addictive. Geophagists eat dirt like Chinese smoke opium—they are driven to it by an irresistible craving. M. Chaffanjon came across some of these poor wretches, who had reached the point of licking the clay of their adobe huts.9
That afternoon the falcas faced a thousand difficulties of navigation, giving their crews an exhausting workout. The current picked up speed tremendously in this part of the river, restricted by the encroaching sandbars.
The sky was threatening, the atmosphere was saturated with electricity, and thunder rumbled to the south. A giant storm was coming up from the southwest. Soon the breeze blew itself out, and there was