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It was Palm Sunday and the Zambo, who had accompanied us to the Orinoco and did not leave us till we returned to France, reminded us that on the same Sunday in the preceding year, we had nearly been lost on the north of the mission of Uruana. There was to be an eclipse of the moon during the night, and the next day an occultation of alpha Virginis.
The Llanos, from the Caqueta to the Apuré, and from thence to the Delta of the Orinoco, contain 17,000 square marine leagues a space nearly equal to the area of France; that which stretches to the north and south is of nearly double the extent, or considerably larger than the surface of Germany; and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, which extend from thence towards Cape Horn, are of such extent, that while one end is shaded by the palm-trees of the tropics, the other, equally flat, is charged with the snows of the antarctic circle."
These tertian agues are attended with great debility of the muscular system; yet we find poor ecclesiastics on the Orinoco, who endure for several years these calenturitas, or tercianas: their effects are not so fatal as those which are experienced from fevers of much shorter duration in temperate climates.
It was to be dragged over land, across an isthmus of thirty-six thousand feet; from the Rio Tuamini to the Rio Negro, to go up by the Cassiquiare to the Orinoco, and to repass the two raudales.
Two monks only are settled in those desert places, between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro; but at Javita you will be furnished with the means of having your canoe drawn over land in the course of four days to Cano Pimichin. Such was the plan traced for our passage, and we carried it into effect without danger, though not without some suffering, in the space of thirty-three days.
The purple haze over all gave to the scene an air of mystery. The stillness was intense. Only the chink of the bobolinks bound for the plains of the Orinoco or the chonk, chonking of ground squirrels broke the silence. This stillness must have been more awful than any noise of battle could possibly be.
The granitic rock on which we lay is one of those, where travellers on the Orinoco have heard from time to time, towards sunrise, subterraneous sounds, resembling those of the organ. The missionaries call these stones laxas de musica.
From the cliff that guarded the outlet from the small valley into the gorge a keen-eyed native, gazing intently eastwards towards the greater valley, might have made out a point of yellow light about three leagues away in a bee-line. The light was on the bank of the affluent of the Orinoco, and came from the camp fire of the adventurers.
The bifurcations of the Orinoco, the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to be made passable by an artificial canal, will ere long fix the attention of commercial Europe.
If the way back to the wood was longer, ten times, and if the great mountains, white with snow on their tops, were between, and the great dark forest, and rivers wider than Orinoco, still I would go alone without fear, because you would come after me, to join me in the wood, to be with me at last and always." "But I should not let you go alone, Rima your lonely days are over now."
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