“Well,” added M. Miguel, “on the right bank, you’ll find the Cuchivero, the Caura, the Caroni—”
“When you get done with all the nomenclature—” said M. Felipe.
“We’ll discuss the subject,” added M. Varinas, who had just folded his arms.
“I’m done,” answered M. Miguel, “and if you want to know my personal opinion—”
“Is it worthwhile?” retorted M. Varinas in a tone of supreme irony.
“Not very likely!” declared M. Felipe.
“Here’s what I think, anyway, my dear colleagues. None of these affluents could be considered the mainstream, the one that is legitimately called the Orinoco. So I believe that this name can neither be applied to the Atabapo, recommended by my friend Felipe—”
“An error!” replied the latter.
“—nor to the Guaviare, recommended by my friend Varinas!”
“Heresy!” responded friend Varinas.
“And I conclude,” added M. Miguel, “that the name of Orinoco should be saved for the upper region of the river whose sources are situated in the Sierra Parima. It flows entirely across the territory of our republic and it does not irrigate any other. The Guaviare and the Atabapo should be willing to take on the role of simple tributaries, which is, after all, a very acceptable geographic situation.”
“That I do not accept!” replied M. Felipe.
“That I refuse!” echoed M. Varinas.
The lone result of M. Miguel’s intervention in that hydrographic discussion was that now three people rather than two were at each other’s throats over which was the true source, the Guaviare, the Orinoco, or the Atabapo. The quarrel continued for another hour and would perhaps never have come to an end if M. Felipe on the one hand and M. Varinas on the other had not exclaimed, “Well, let’s go!”
“Go?” responded M. Miguel, who was scarcely expecting such a proposal.
“Yes!” added M. Felipe, “let’s head for San Fernando and there, if I can’t prove to you right off that the Atabapo is really the Orinoco—”
“And I,” retorted M. Varinas, “if I can’t prove once and for all that the Orinoco is the Guaviare—”
“That’s because,” said M. Miguel, “I will have forced you to recognize that the Orinoco is just the Orinoco!”
And this is how, as a result of this discussion, these three people resolved to undertake such a trip. Perhaps this new expedition would finally decide once and for all the real course of the Venezuelan river, provided that it had not been already so determined by the latest explorers.
Moreover, it was only a question of going up to the village of San Fernando, to the bend in the river where the mouths of the Guaviare and the Atabapo are located, only a few kilometers apart from each other. If it could be established that neither one nor the other was or could be anything more than a simple affluent, then it would be necessary to yield to M. Miguel and to confer upon the Orinoco its official status as the main river, which these unworthy streams would no longer be able to deny.
One should not be greatly surprised if this resolution, born in the course of a stormy spat, was soon to be followed by an immediate effect. Nor should one be surprised by the immediate repercussions it produced in the scientific world, among the upper classes of Ciudad Bolívar, and soon among the whole Venezuelan republic.
With some cities, it is just like with some men: before setting up a fixed and definitive residence, they hesitate, they feel their way along. That is what happened to the provincial capital of Guyana from the date of its appearance in 1576, on the right bank of the Orinoco.8 After being established at the mouth of the Caroni under the name of San Tome, it had been reported ten years later at a location fifteen leagues downstream. Destroyed by fire under the orders of the famous Sir Walter Raleigh,9 it had moved, in 1764, some hundred and fifty kilometers upstream, to a site where the width of the river was reduced to less than eight hundred yards. Hence the name of Angostura, the “narrows,” that was given to it until it eventually became Ciudad Bolívar.
This provincial capital is situated about a hundred leagues from the Orinoco delta, whose low-water mark, indicated by the Midio Rock rising up in the middle of the current, varies considerably from the dry season of January to May, the rainy season.10
This city, which was given some eleven or twelve thousand inhabitants by the latest census, includes the suburb of Soledad on the left bank. It extends from the Alameda promenade up to the “Dry-dog” quarter, which has a rather curious name since this low-lying district, more than any other, is subject to flooding caused by the sudden and copious high waters of the Orinoco.11 The main street, with its public buildings, its elegant stores, its covered galleries, the houses spread over the flank of the schistose hill which rises above the city, the spread of rural houses under the trees which cradle them, the sort of lakes that the river forms as it widens both up and downstream, the movement and animation of the port, the numerous ships of both sail and steam attesting to its bustling river commerce, which is supplemented by its substantial trade on land—all this contributed to make the area quite charming and picturesque.
Through Soledad, where the railroad is to end, Ciudad Bolívar will not be long in linking up with Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.12 Its exports in cow and deer hides, in coffee, cotton, indigo, cacao, and tobacco will thus be expanded, adding to its already sizeable increases due to the mining of deposits of gold-bearing quartz, discovered in 1840 in the valley of Yurauri.
So the news that the three scientists, members of the Geographic Society of Venezuela, were going on an expedition to settle the question of the Orinoco and its two tributaries in the southwest caused a great stir throughout the country. The Bolívarians are a demonstrative sort, passionate and fiery by nature. The newspapers soon became involved, taking sides with the Atabapoists, Guaviarians, and the Orinocophiles. Public sentiment became inflamed. One might really have thought that these waterways were threatening to rise up from their beds, to leave the country, to emigrate to some other state in the New World if they were not treated fairly.
Did this journey upriver hold any serious dangers? Yes, especially for travelers with only themselves to rely on. So would it not have been appropriate for the government to make a few sacrifices to solve this critical problem? Was not this a clear opportunity to use the militia, which could put 250,000 men in the field but which has never called up more than a tenth of them? Why not assign the explorers a unit of 6,000 soldiers from this standing army whose upper ranks include, according to Elisée Reclus who is always so perfectly documented in such ethnographic curiosities,13 up to 7,000 generals plus a lavish assortment of other officers?14
But MM. Miguel, Felipe, and Varinas asked for no such help. They would travel at their own expense, escorted only by the laborers, ranchers, boatmen, and guides who reside along the banks of the river. They would proceed in the same fashion as all other pioneers of science before them. Besides, they did not have to go beyond the village of San Fernando, which had been built at the junction of the Atabapo and Guaviare. Further, it is mainly in the lands along the upper reaches of the river that there is a danger of attack by Indians from independent tribes who are difficult to contain and who are sometimes justly blamed for the massacres and looting in those parts, which is not surprising in a region that used to be inhabited by the Caribes.
To be sure, downstream of San Fernando in the lands opposite the mouth of the Meta, it is also wise to avoid both the Guahibo Indians, so resistant to social laws, and the Quivas, whose reputation for savagery is well deserved, thanks to the outrages they perpetrated in Colombia before moving to the banks of the Orinoco.
As a result, there was definite uneasiness in Ciudad Bolívar concerning the fate of two Frenchmen who had gone off on a similar expedition about a month before. After heading up the river past its junction with the Meta,