Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert ... Excepting those on botany and natural history. With additions and corrections by the author |
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THE GUAHIBA. |
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 | Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert |  |
THE GUAHIBA.
The principal circumstances of this lamentable story, the particulars of the scenery, climate, and Indian superstitions, are taken from Humboldt's Personal Narrative. I fear that the facts which he has recorded concerning this barbarous trausaction, and the manner in which Indian children have been hunted by the orders of some of the South American missionaries, must be authentic; at the same time we should remember that he writes (as he himself states) with the feelings of a Calvinist, of course not very favourable to the establishments he visited; and as he tells us that any written attestation in favour of the monks which he might have left amongst them would have been considered as extorted from him under circumstances that made him dependant upon them, so he must allow us to believe that his depositions against them after his return may have been a little coloured by prejudice. With the exception of the modes occasionally employed for obtaining converts or neophytes, I apprehend that the government of the Spanish missions has been mild and patriarchal, though probably indolent and neglectful of stimulating the Indians sufficiently to industrious occupations. The exertions of the Jesuits were much more effective, and, since the dissolution of that distinguished brotherhood, civilization has undoubtedly retrograded in the South American wilderness. Although the particular transaction here recorded cannot be read without indignation, nothing can be farther from my intention than to excite any general odium against the Spanish missionaries, whose meritorious and patient endurance is not to be forgotten, while we lament the faults of their education. Of course it will be understood that the speech of the Guahiba expresses the sentiments natural to an Indian under such circumstances, not those of the writer.
Where Uniana's solitary peak
Shoots thousand fathom to the cloudless sky,
Dreaming myself in Paradise, embower'd
Seem in themselves a world, on either front
“Near Atures the old trees were decorated with beautiful orchideas, yellow bannisterias, blue-flowered bignonias, peperomias, arums and pothoses. A single trunk displays a greater variety of vegetable forms, than an extensive space of ground contains in our countries.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 49.
“On quitting the village of Turmero (near Caraccas) we discover a single tree, the famous zamang del Guayre, known throughout the province for the enormous extent of its branches, which form a hemispheric head five hundred and seventy-six feet in circumference. One side of the tree was entirely stripped of its foliage, owing to the drought; and on the other side there remained at once leaves and flowers. Tillandsias, lorantheæ, cactus, pitahayas, and other parasite plants, cover its branches and crack the bark. The inhabitants of these villages, but particularly the Indians, hold in veneration the zamang del Guayre, which the first conquerors found almost in the same state in which it now remains.”— Humb. P. N. vol iv. p. 116.
Displaying different seasons, bud or fruit,
Springtime or summer, and its glorious trunk
Wreathed and perfumed with odorous parasites
That clothe it like a meadow! while the sound
Of the far waters from Atures' fall
Comes on the breathless moonlight, stealing slow
Like some aërial strain! O could I view
The wonders of that realm! deep rayless chasms,
Where fire-plumed birds hold empire unapproach'd;
The cock of the rock, or rock manakin, with splendid orange-coloured plumage. “A considerable portion of the Oroonoko was dry, because the river had found an issue by subterraneous caverns. In these solitary haunts the rock manakin, with gilded plumage, (pipra rupicola,) one of the most beautiful birds of the tropics, builds its nest. The Raudalito of Carucari is caused by an accumulation of enormous blocks of granite. These blocks are piled together in such a manner as to form spacious caverns.”— Humb. P. N. vol. 5. p. 630.
Cleft rocks, ingulphing the all-powerful flood
In their fantastic caves; and numberless,
With arrowy boughs emerging from the foam
Amidst a cloud of spray, islets palm-crown'd,
Seeming to float in mist! still herbs, that slope
Their glossy leaves, with thousand living lamps
Resplendent, from whose ray the light serene
Over the deafening water-chaos streams,
As from an angel's smile! There let me lull
Life's passions in delight, and thus reclined
Think peace on earth unbroken, and forget
That violence and guilt can scare the charm
Of such calm solitudes! Does nature view,
In all her wide extent of good and fair,
Scene liker Eden, than the flowery site
Of some mild mission in that stormless clime!
The plain's green carpet, and the leaf-built huts
Mantled with sweet lianas, in the shade
Of plantains spreading wide and graceful palms!
The light mimosa s air-spread canopy,
Which seems depictured on the azure vault
Of some majestic Ceïba, that lifts
Its silky cotton into middle air,
The Christian father, with his docile group
Of feather-cinctured Indians, just reclaim'd
From perilous wanderings to the Shepherd's flock!
There, by vast waters, which give back their banks
As from a mirror, of their limpid depth
Revealing to the eye each secret form,
Celestial truth is cherish'd, which imparts,
In that still wilderness, midst earthly joys,
Hope of a brighter Eden. Wo to man,
Who mars that glorious vision, giving scope
To lawless might, unto his perverse will
Likening his Maker's! and, for gentle lore
Breathed by the unadulterate voice of truth,
Yields force the reins, and makes his zeal the law
Oppressing nature, and hopes so to stand
Pure before God! O for a Seraph's might
To whelm the Mother's rock beneath the depth
Before we reach the confluence of the river Temi, a granitic hummock that rises on the western bank [of the Atabapo] near the mouth of the Guasacavi fixed our attention; it is called the rock of the Guahiba woman, or the Rock of the Mother, Piedra della Madre. If in these solitary scenes man scarcely leaves behind him any trace of his existence, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see perpetuated by the name of a rock, by one of those imperishable monuments of nature, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our species, the contrast between the virtue of a savage and the barbarism of civilized man In 1797, the missionary of San Fernando had led his Indians to the banks of the Rio Guaviare, on one of those hostile excursions, which are alike prohibited by religion and the Spanish laws. They found in an Indian hut, a Guahiba mother with three children, one or two of whom were still infants. They were occupied in preparing the flour of cassava. Resistance was impossible; the father was gone to fish and the mother tried in vain to flee with her children. Scarcely had she reached the savannah, when she was seized by the Indians of the mission, who go to hunt men, like the Whites and the Negroes in Africa. The mother and the children were bound, and dragged to the banks of the river. The monk, seated in his boat, waited the issue of an expedition, of which he partook not the danger. Had the mother made too violent a resistance, the Indians would have killed her, for every thing is permitted when they go to the conquest of souls (à la conquista espiritual), and it is children in particular they seek to capture, in order to treat them in the mission as poitos, or slaves of the Christians. The prisoners were carried to Fernando, in the hope that the mother would be unable to find her way back by land. Far from those children who had accompanied their father on the day in which she had been carried off, this unhappy woman showed signs of the deepest despair. She attempted to take back to her family the children who had been snatched away by the missionary; and fled with them repeatedly from the village of San Fernando, but the Indians never failed to seize her anew; and the missionary, after having caused her to be mercilessly beaten, took the cruel resolution of separating the mother from the two children who had been carried off with her. She was conveyed alone towards the missions of the Rio Negro, going up the Atabapo. Slightly bound, she was seated at the bow of the boat, ignorant of the fate that awaited her; but she judged by the direction of the sun, that she was removing farther and farther from her hut and native country. She succeeded in breaking her bonds, threw herself into the water, and swam to the left bank of the Atabapo. The current carried her to a shelf of rock which bears her name to this day. She landed and took shelter in the woods, but the President of the Missions ordered the Indians to row to the shore, and follow the traces of the Guahiba. In the evening she was brought back. Stretched upon the rock (la piedra de la Madre) a cruel punishment was inflicted on her with those straps of manatce leather, which serve for whips in that country, and with which the Aleades are always furnished. This unhappy woman, her hands tied behind her back with strong stalks of Mavacure, was then dragged to the mission of Javita. She was then thrown into one of the caravanseras that are called Casa del Rey. It was the rainy season, and the night was profoundly dark. Forests till then believed to be impenetrable separated the mission of Javita from that of San Fernando, which was twenty-five leagues distant in a straight line. No other path is known but that of the rivers; no man ever attempted to go by land from one village to another, were they only a few leagues apart. But such difficulties do not stop a mother who is separated from her children. Her children are at San Fernando de Atabapo; she must find them again, she must execute the project of delivering them from the hands of the Christians, of bringing them back to their father on the banks of the Guaviare. The Guahiba was carelessly guarded in the Caravansera. Her arms being wounded, the Indians of Javita had loosened her bonds, unknown to the Missionary and the Alcades. She succeeded by the help of her teeth in breaking them entirely; disappeared during the night; and at the fourth rising sun was seen at the mission of San Fernando, hovering around the hut where her children were confined. “What that woman performed,” added the missionary who gave us this sad narrative, “the most robust Indian would not have ventured to undertake.” She traversed the woods at a season when the sky is constantly covered with clouds and the sun during the whole day appears but for a few minutes. Did the course of the waters direct her way? The inundations of the rivers forced her to go far away from the main stream, through the midst of woods where the movement of the waters was almost imperceptible. How often must she have been stopped by the thorny lianas, that form a net-work around the trunks they entwine! How often must she have swam across the rivulets that run into the Atabapo! This unfortunate woman was asked how she had sustained herself during four days. She said, that, exhausted with fatigue, she could find no other nourishment than those great black ants called vachacos, which climb the trees in long bands, to suspend on them their resinous nests. We pressed the missionary to tell us, whether the Guahiba had peacefully enjoyed the happiness of remaining with her children; and if any repentance had followed this excess of cruelty. He would not satisfy our curiosity, but at our return from the Rio Negro we learnt that the Indian mother was not allowed time to cure her wounds, but was again separated from her children and sent to one of the missions of the Upper Oroonoko. Here she died, refusing all kind of nourishment, as the savages do in great calamities. Such is the remembrance annexed to this fatal rock, to the Piedra de la Madre.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 233.
Of Atabapo, and wipe out the blot
From Christian annals! the stain stamp'd in gore,
Love's purest drops! or rather let it stand,
As, on some awful heath, the accursed tree
Which beacons to posterity the spot
Where guilt once triumph'd! Will the plume-crown'd chiefs
Bow at the shrine of Christ, in whose great name,
Blasphemed by his disciples, deeds were wrought,
That, whisper'd, turn Religion's cherub cheek
To deathlike hue? The trees are in their prime
Which waved their green arms o'er the ruthless scene,
The rock of the Guahiba. It shall stand
The opprobrious name shall to the granite cling,
While Pity hath a tear and Mercy shrinks
Back to her throne in heaven, as blood-stain'd zeal
With murder desecrates the font of Christ.
A wondrous giant on his cradle lull'd
By the hoarse lapse of torrents, in the shade
Of thine immeasurable woodlands, stretch'd
To the utmost Cordillera's snowy peaks,
Where noontide's hottest splendors dart in vain
From the meridian! In thy loneliest wilds
How great, how glorious is thy majesty!
“San Fernando de Atabapo is placed near the confluence of three great rivers, the Guaviare, the Atabapo, and the Oroonoko.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 200.
“The missionary of San Fernando has the title of President of the Missions of the Oroonoko.”— Ib. vol. v. p. 200.
“The President of the Mission gave us an animated account of his incursions on the river Guaviare. He related to us how much these journeys, undertaken ‘for the conquest of souls,’ are desired by the Indians of the mission. All, even women and old men, take part in them. On the vain pretext of recovering neophytes who have deserted the village, children above eight and ten years of age are carried off and distributed amongst the Indians as serfs.”— Ib. vol. v. p. 215.
Surveying from her walls the mingled swell
Of three huge waters, singly which outvie
Danau or Nile. There in fierce eddy blends
The turbid Guaviare's powerful stream
“The Rio Paragua [or Upper Oroonoko], that part of the Oroonoko which you go up to the east of the mouth of the Guaviare, has clearer, more transparent, and purer water than the part of the Oroonoko below San Fernando. The waters of the Guaviare, on the contrary, are white and turbid.’— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 221.
With stately Atabapo crown'd with palms;
And thee, renown'd of rivers, whose clear strength
Comes roaring from the East, foredoom'd to give
Thy name, great Oroonoko, to each flood
That rolls its thunder from the Western ridge,
Lofty Granada. Thence with proud excess
Shall thy broad deluge rush, wider than range
Of cannon shot, in a long line of foam
From Parima's dark buttress hurrying down,
“After a tranquil course of more than 160 leagues from the little Raudal of Guaharibos, east of Esmeralda, as far as the mountains of Sipapu, the river, augmented by the waters of the Jao, the Ventuari, the Atabapo, and the Guaviare, suddenly changes its primitive direction from east to west, and runs from south to north; and in crossing the land-strait (formed by the Cordilleras of the Andes of New Grenada and the Cordillera of Parima), in the plains of Meta, meets the advanced buttresses of the Cordillera of Parima. This obstacle is the cause of cataracts, &c.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 42.
Till, join'd by Meta and Apure's tide,
It flows, like one vast ocean, thro' the plain
Of Barcelona to the Mournful gulf
Right against Trinidad, that bars its mouth
Four hundred leagues aloof. There cultured scenes
And the mixt hum of commerce ever rings
Thro' burnt Cumana. Here, in wilds scarce trod,
An awful silence thro' thy forest reigns,
Save where the snowy bird of loneliness,
The carunculated chatterer.— Lathan's Synopsis, vol. ii. p. 98. plate 40. Cotinga blanc.—Brisson and Buffon.
“These birds inhabit Cayenne and Brazil, and are said to have a very loud voice, to be heard half-a-league off, which is composed of two syllables, in, an, uttered with a drawling kind of tone, though some have compared it to the sound of a bell. The Brazilian name is Guirapanga.”— Latham.
It is called Campanero, or bell-man, and delights in lonely parts of the forests.
The doleful Campanero, seems to toll
The dirge of solitude. In these rude wastes,
Tranquillest scenes, where Art has never rear'd
Her mimic shapes, stands most reveal'd the might
Of One benign, by whose prolific will
The plain is like a cultured garden gemm'd
With shrubs and flowers; who lifts the towering tree
Unto the sky serene, loaded with fruits
By his spontaneous bounty. Savage minds
Know this, and own their God in loveliness.
Guiana's Indian, underneath the palms,
Which o'er his thicket wave their feathery heads
E'en like a second forest in mid air,
“Clusters of palm-trees [of the species called el Cucurito], the leaves of which, curled like feathers, rise majestically at an angle of seventy degrees, are dispersed amidst trees with horizontal branches, and their bare trunks, like columns of 100 or 120 feet high, shoot up into the air, and appearing distinctly against the sky, resemble a forest planted upon another forest.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 46.
Sees God in all his works, and, thankful, bends
To one great source of life, whose genial power
For him bids plantain and cassava yield
Their sure increase, filling each swollen brook
With teeming wealth. No sounds, save sounds of peace,
Break on his solitude; the wailing winds
“When you have passed the latitude of three degrees north and approach the equator, you seldom have an opportunity of observing the sun and stars. It rains almost the whole year, and the sky is constantly cloudy. As the breeze is not felt in this immense forest of Guyana, and the refluent polar-currents do not reach it, the column of air that reposes in this wooden zone is not renewed by drier strata.”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 246.
Stir not, thro' that wide forest, in their birth
Spell-bound. The unseen Genius of the wild
From out its vast interminable depth
Seems to cry “Peace, peace!” Peace to nature's works,
And glory to their Maker! Ebb and flow
Of seasons come not here; the fiery sun,
Once robed in mist, sleeps in that quiet shroud,
As if he waited till the Archangel's trump
Wafts incense; high o'er the Guahiba's hut
Wave plumy heads surcharged with fruit, that shame
Persia or Babylonian gardens. There,
Lord of the waste, he casts his palm-string net,
Where, far removed from billowy ocean, sport
Huge dolphins, spouting in their noisy play
“On beating the bushes a shoal of fresh water dolphins four feet long surrounded our boat. These animals had concealed themselves beneath the branches of a fromager or bombax ceiba. They fled across the inundated forest, throwing out those spouts of compressed air and water which have given them in every language the name of blowers.”— Humb. vol. v. p. 240.
Water and foam, or lurking by the shade
Of other greens than wreath old Nereus' hair.
Expect his coming, when at fall of day
He and his sturdy boys shall bear the spoil
Of those lone floods. Wo waits his next return;
Silence profound and desolation reign
Where welcome should resound. His frugal meal
Lies half prepared; and gaudy parrot-flowers
That sooth'd his fretful child, and leaves, and plumes,
Upon the sod confused. What force profane
Hath made the echoes of the forest mute?
Jaguar, or Boa, or the wily strength
Of scale-arm'd crocodile hath ne'er approach'd
This tranquil dwelling; but at one fell swoop
Fanatic hands have made thee desolate!
The priest of San Fernando and his crew
Of red barbarians, in the faith baptized
Of Him who died to save, yet left not here
Peace but a sword! So works the ruthless zeal
Of man against his God, making that name
A curse amongst the heathens, which should breathe
Infinite bliss, unheard beatitude,
Bidding the wilds rejoice, thro' all their depth
Proclaiming social love, benevolent laws
Down Guaviaré's flood, freighted by force,
The holy reaver's barque. Maternal shrieks
Die on the distance, and the fruitless wail
Of those rapt infants. Past the limpid mouth
Of Atabapo mingling its dark wave,
“The waters of the Oroonoko are turbid and loaded with earthy matter; those of the Atabapo are pure, agreeable to the taste, without any trace of small, brownish by reflected, and of a pale yellow by transmitted light.”— Humb. vol. v. p. 227.
“What proves the extreme purity of the black waters is their limpidity; their transparency, and the clearness with which they reflect the images and colors of surrounding objects. The smallest fish are visible in them at the depth of twenty or thirty feet.” “Nothing can be compared with the beauty of the banks of the Atabapo.”— Ib. vol. v. p. 218.
They shoot amain, to where the Eastern stream
Winds round Fernando, in its gorgeous strength
Rushing from Cerro Duïda, whose front
“Opposite the point [of the Upper Oroonoko] where the bifurcation takes place, the granitic group of Duïda rises in an amphitheatre on the right bank of the river. This mountain, which the missionaries call a volcano, is nearly 8000 feet high. Perpendicular on the South and West, it has an aspect of solemn greatness: its summit is bare and stony; but wherever its less steep acclivities are covered with mould, vast forests appear suspended on its flanks. At the foot of Duïda is placed the mission of Esmeralda, a little hamlet with eighty inhabitants; surrounded by a lovely plain, bathed by rills of black but limpid water.”— Humb. vol. v. p. 502.
“A mineralogical error gave celebrity to Esmeralda. The granites of Cerro Duïda and Maraguaca contain in open veins fine rock crystals, some of them of great transparency, others colored by chlorite or blended with actinote, and they were taken for diamonds and emeralds.”— Ib. p. 506.
Gleams to the daybeam with smaragdine hue
Abrupt, and counterfeits the diamond's blaze.
Of those impetuous waters, and the trees
Which round thee rear their tall and barren trunks
Obscure and boundless! In that solitude
The flood, the desert, are thy prison walls,
Danger and Famine the stern sentinels!
Between thee and thy home two giant streams,
With all their tributary train, deny
Regress or hope. The Southern Cross scarce gleams
Thro' that unchanging veil, the eternal cloud
That wraps the horizon; from thy calm abode
Thou art divorced by more than human power,
Nature's impediments. Yet hope still lives,
The unconquerable throb, the inborn spring,
That swells a mother's heart. Dauntless she mark'd
The rite baptismal, to her tender brood
Suspected badge of thraldom. They the while
Unconscious mourn'd, by cruel force estranged
From their dear native liberty; so will'd
The Christian ravisher, misnamed of Him,
Who, robed in gentleness, forbade his own
Determined courage reign'd; the firm resolve
To barter life for freedom, or reguide
The nestlings to her hut. Their toil-burnt sire,
Brothers, and fatherland, were all to her;
All else without them, nought; or, worse than nought,
Loath'd circumscription, tenfold servitude.
Mantled with sweets umbrageous, slept secure
Christians, and neophytes by Christian rites
Regenerate, but heathen still in mind.
Not so the sad Guahiba; she forlorn
Watch'd each still hour, forecasting from those bonds
Thro' that untrodden wilderness escape
To her heart-cherish'd home. Beside her lay
The unfledged captives, from a father's love
Sever'd by zealous rapine; one, just skill'd
To lisp his name; one, conscious of her fate,
Joy of his hopes. “My child,” with cautious breath
She whisper'd, “night is mirksome, but these wilds
“Are not without their guide; well have I mark'd
“Each globe of fire that studs the firmament;
“And that huge orb, which from the east each morn
“Rolls its illumined bulk to those dark hills
“Whence comes the rain. Behold yon star; it gleams
“Behind thy father's dwelling, a sure lamp
“In trackless deserts. Better to confront,
“Exposed and lone, that shaggy savage form,
“It was among the cataracts that we began first to hear of the hairy man of the woods, called salvaje, that carries off women, constructs huts, and sometimes eats human flesh. The natives and missionaries have no doubt of the existence of this anthropomorphous monkey, which they singularly dread. Father Gili gravely relates the history of a lady in the town of Carlos (in Venezuela) who much praised the gentle character and attentions of the man of the woods. She lived several years with one in great domestic harmony, and only requested some hunters to take her back “because she was tired, she and her children (a little hairy also), of living far from the church and the sacraments.”—Humb. p. 81. “We will not admit, with a Spanish author, that the fable of the man of the woods was invented by the artifice of Indian women, who pretended to have been carried off, when they had been long absent from their husbands; we rather counsel travellers who shall visit the missions of the Oroonoko, to continue our researches on the salvaje or great devil of the woods; and examine whether it be some unknown species of bear, or some very rare monkey analogous to the simia chiropotes, or simia satanas, that can have given rise to such singular tales.”— Humb. vol. v. p. 84.
The absurdity of Humboldt's suggestion that the salvaje might be an unknown species of bear is too great to be passed over in silence. The accounts of this creature and its violence to women are exactly consistent with the habits of the ourang-outang, and it cannot reasonably be doubted that they are referable to some analogous species of monkey. He adds, “We were every where blamed, in the most cultivated class of society, for being the only persons to doubt the existence of the great anthropomorphous monkey of America.”— Ib. 82.
“Half-man, half-brute, wide-famed for cruel rape
“In woody solitudes, than bide the curse
“Of this our prison-mansion! Better wade
“Thro' flooded groves obscure, and stem the force
“Tempting the scaly crocodile! Its waves
“Have seen thee, fearless infant, in thy sport,
“Their glittering dolphins chase, and wreathe thy brows
“With river-lilies: thy life link'd to mine
“Together shall we sink, or burst our chain
“Free as free-born. Dread nothing; thro' the waste
“A mother's strength shall aid thee, little charge!
“Father and brothers from thy native bank
“Shall cleave the well-known tide, breasting its foam
“To rescue us. Myself thro' swampy shades
“Will bear thy tender limbs, warding the harm
“Of thorn-arm'd brake, or the nut's ponderous fall,
“Serpent or jaguar's fang.” Forth stretch'd her arms,
Smiling, the lovely maid, and press'd her cheek
Against a mother's bosom, hiding there
The fearful tear; and low she murmur'd, “Haste,
“Ere our fell guards awake.” Behind her back
The mother slung love's lesser burthen, hush'd
By kisses into silence; that sweet girl,
Strain'd with firm sinew to her heart, she bore
Into the darksome wilderness (what time
All nature robed in awful stillness lay)
Fearless of toil. Rise, floods, and trackless brakes,
And swamps not trodden by the step of man,
Alone she would o'erpass ye! Her fleet course
Would mock pursuit! But ah! those infant limbs
Dread the rough bindweed, with its thorny ropes
Barring their path. Famish'd they cry for food,
Which, on the tree's high spire, eludes the grasp,
Or shrink from the coil'd snake. Behind them swell
Nearer and nearer on the breathless air,
Phrensied with love, till close beneath her feet
She sees majestic Atabapo glide,
Pellucid, deep, and strong. Loud and more loud
The Christians come. With living cordage, pluck'd
From the green stem, she lashes to her flanks
Her timid cherubs, kissing from their eyes
The starting tear; then fearlessly she glides
Into that crystal gulph, her grave, if not
Her path to freedom. Gurgling o'er them closed
The liquid volume. Soon she breasts the wave;
Her sinewy limbs triumphantly throw back
The glassy tide; amazed the Christians view.
Their barques are on the deep, and oars ply swift
To intercept her. On the adverse bank
Vast trees, that dip their interwoven arms
In the strong flood inhospitable, yield
No refuge, saving to the wily snake
That lurks for blood. Vain all her struggles, vain
Strength desperate, from that relentless crew
To make evasion; so the lavrock, close
Beside the umbrage of some tangled brake,
A tarsel's talons overtake in air
Swift gliding. Captive once again, and bound,
She loses all, save that undying spring
That ever wells within the guiltless mind,
All-radiant hope. Matron, thy foes prevail,
And hearts of stone have sever'd thee from thine,
Their tender limbs with other fetters chafed,
Than when, fast lash'd to thy parental side
By pious love, the precious freight was launch'd
On Atabapo's flood. In vain they shriek
Was life, protection, nourishment, and joy,
Before their dawn of knowledge, and shall be
Remember'd, above all things, unto death,
Sole image upon earth of that wise care,
Which is, and ever hath been, over all.
The piteous kiss of love, which takes in tears
Sweet compensation for all ills to come,
Is not for her: that agonizing pang
Of lingering disseverment, which draws
From grief enjoyment keener than delight,
The cruel have forbidden her. She sees
Her innocents borne down the rapid stream,
And speaks not; for her heart too well has learnt
That pity dwells not, where fanatic zeal
Has dried kind nature's issues. Untaught minds
Lean least upon the hope of social aid,
And crave no mercy from their fellow men,
But brave the rack, defying all those ills
Which must be borne. But one bright look she threw
To them amid their wailing, which dispensed
Unutterable hope, the flash of strength
That swells superior to all earthly wrongs
To cheer the sufferer; and high she waved
Her manacles above her streaming locks,
And pointed to the wilderness aloof,
Her husband's home, the cradle and the grave
Of all her father's line. The plunderer's boat
Shoots down the torrent to Fernando's keep.
She widow'd, childless, bound, must stem the flood
To lone Javita, where of her beloved
Laboring against the current's might, they pass
The tiger's rock, the rapid's foaming chain,
A granitic pass known by the name of Piedra del Tigre. “This solitary rock is only sixty fect high, yet it enjoys great celebrity in these countries. A little to the south of the mountains of Sipapu, we reach the southern extremity of the chain of cataracts, which I proposed to call the Chain of Parima. The whole of the land extending from the mountains of Parima toward the river of Amazons, which is traversed by the Atabapo, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, is an immense plain, partly covered with forests and partly with grasses. Small rocks rise here and there like castles.”— Humb. v. 227.
“After having passed the rapids of Guarinuma, the Indians showed us, in the middle of the forest, on our right, the ruins of the mission of Mendaxari which has been long abandoned. On the East bank, near the little rock of Kemaruma, in the midst of Indian plantations, a gigantic Bombax Ceiba attracted our attention. This enormous effort of vegetation surprised us the more, as we had till then seen on the banks of the Atabapo only small trees with slender trunks.” — Ib. v. 228.
“It was night when we arrived at the mission of San Balthasar. A Catalan missionary had planted a fine garden where the fig-tree of Europe was found in company with the persea, and the lemon tree with the mammee. The village was built with that regularity which in the North of Germany, and in protestant America, we find in the hamlets of the Moravian brethren.”— Ib. v. 230.
“The ground from the mouth of the Guaviare constantly displays the same geological constitution. It is a vast granitic plain, in which from league to league the rock pierces the soil and forms not hillocks, but small masses that resemble pillars or rained buildings.”— Ib. v. 242.
The cataract Guarinuma. On her view
Plains open vast and drear, part thickly clothed
With giant grasses, thro' whose bosom wind
Streams tributary, part by forest hid;
And ever and anon rise castled rocks
In ruin'd form, pillars and pyramids,
Quaint work of nature, mocking human art;
And oft-times on their summits towering stand
Yucca or palm. Next where the crumbling walls
Of Mendaxari, once the fane of Christ,
Frown o'er the waters, they suspend the oar,
Hymning a strain to its protecting saint;
Then striving fast by Kemarumo's crag
See culture smile, and pause beneath the boughs
Of that far-venerated tree, whose trunk
Enormous, born what time the deeps were staid,
O'erbrows the Indian gardens; next descry
The Christian hamlet, deck'd in beauteous guise,
Balthasar, where the fig and lemon vie
With Americ's treasures. Onward still they pass,
By toil undaunted. Thrice the sun had sloped
His ray thro' feathery trees that fringe the bank
“The river Atabapo displays every where a peculiar aspect. You see nothing of its real banks formed by flat lands, eight or ten feet high: they are concealed by a row of palms and small trees with slender trunks, the roots of which are bathed by the waters. There are many crocodiles from the point where you quit the Oroonoko to the mission of San Fernando, and their presence indicates, as we have said above, that this part of the river belongs to the Rio Guaviare and not to the Atabapo. In the real bed of the river above the mission of San Fernando there are no longer any crocodiles: we find some bavas, a great many fresh water dolphins, but no manatees. We also seek in vain on those banks the thick-nosed tapir, the araguates or great howling monkeys, the Zamuro or vultur aura, and the crested pheasant. Enormous water-snakes, in shape resembling the boa, are unfortunately too common, and are dangerous to the Indians who bathe. We saw them almost from the first day, swimming by the side of our canoe: they were at the most twelve or fourteen feet long.”— Humb. P. N. v. 225.
“Unaccustomed to those forests which are less inhabited by animals than those of the Oroonoko, we were almost surprised no longer to hear the howlings of the monkeys. The dolphins or toninas sported by the side of our boat.” — Ib. v. p 227.
Laving their slender trunks; aloft the clouds
Floated swift-borne; beneath, mute calmness reign'd,
And voiceless solitude. The monkey's howl
Came not from far; the screaming vulture's wing
Was not upon the air; and dark, yet clear,
The glassy depth reveal'd no living form;
In turbid floods Alone around the barque,
Cleaving the surface with resplendent scales
Dolphins kept pace, or bounding by the prow,
Or in the silver wake. Her eye survey'd
Far hills and mountains in pale distance, oft
Measuring in thought the weary way between
Her and her husband Moonlight fell so soft
On the transparent volume, its pure stream
Scarce seem'd to flow: and those, who labouring pull'd
The frequent oar, to the blest Virgin raised
Their hallow'd chorus; the soul-melting notes
Seem'd to ascend unto the cope of heaven
By tranquil airs upborne. The slacken'd bonds
Dropp'd unperceived from the sad mother's limbs;
Hope fired her thoughts, as, gliding by, she mark'd
A stony buttress thro' the swampy fringe
Shelve down into the torrent. Heedless pass
That rock the Christians, which man never more
Shall pass unheeded. With impetuous plunge
Down the deep gulph she goes. They see her dive
Five fathom deep; and, near, the water-snake
Writhes his stupendous folds, fierce, yet amazed
To see his haunts invaded: but secure
She rises, floating down the rapid stream.
Till, whirl'd in the swift eddy, lost in foam,
She grasps the dangerous ledge; with wounded limbs
Then labours to its summit, and achieves
The river's lofty bank. Rabid pursuit
Rings on her steps. To holy strains succeed
The unhallow'd war-cry and the hunter's shout,
Fierce and discordant. Morning sweetly dawn'd,
By toil and bleeding wounds, bay'd by their dog
Beneath the thickest jungle; the loud voice
Of triumph echoed thro' that silent waste,
The death-whoop o'er their quarry. Her they led
Faint, hopeless, unresisting, to the rock;
That rock! late witness of her faith, and more
Than Roman valour! Every leaf was still
In the mute forest; on the umbrageous bank
There was no sound, save of the ceaseless flood
That foam'd against the granite, where her foot
First trod the stone; upon that rock they scourged
The wife, the mother, while her innocent blood
Fell drop by drop, reeking to Heaven, which saw
And yet withheld its thunder. Merciful God!
Those were e'en Christians! Those had press'd the cup
Of thy salvation! with their bloody rites
Mingling thy praise, and casting on thy name
The curse of their own hellish outrage! This,
(Weak, uninstructed, helpless!) had no guide
But thy wide book of nature, from each page
Breathing the voice of love; and yet she trod
The steps of our great Saviour, like a lamb
Led to the sacrifice, thro' pious love
For those her little ones. Will not her blood,
Spilt by thy hoary priests, rise against Spain
E'en to thy thunderous threshold? and the stain,
Fixt on that granite. like a furnace glow
Unexpiated in the day of wrath!
She sees her hard oppressors plough their way,
Thro' Temi's winding and the auxiliar course
“Above the mouth of the Guasucavi we entered the Rio Temi.”— Humb. v. p. 238.
“We remained in the bed of the river till day, afraid of losing ourselves amongst the trees. At sun-rise we again entered the inundated forests, to avoid the force of the current. Arrived at the junction of the Temi with another river, the Tuamini, the waters of which are equally black, we followed the latter toward the south west. This direction led us to the mission of Javita, which is founded on the banks of the Tuamini.”— Ib. vol. v. p. 243.
Where stands remote Javita. There forlorn
She chews the bread of grief; but high resolve
Still nerves her heart with unextinguish'd hope.
That spring unquenchable of holy love
Which fires the mother, while her infant brood
Pines in captivity! Floods, torrents, wastes,
And fearfullest vicissitudes of clime,
Unheeded vanish from the thought of her,
Who seeks home, husband, children. Long she watch'd
Occasion meet for flight, thro' pathless tracts
Deem'd unimagineable. Foot of man
Girded in fittest season for such toil
Had ne'er traversed them. Weak, alone, uncheer'd,
She, while rains pour'd their deluge, and the brakes
Yielded no fruit, committed her frail strength
To God and to the desert. Night and day
Wading or swimming, torn by bristled cords
Which serpent-like around her wound their folds,
Defying toil and famine, still she press'd
To one dear gaol, her children's prison; fed
With loathsome insects, gather'd from the stem
Of barren trees, that knit their cumbrous arms.
Nor ceased the while that lesser plague, blood-fed
Zancudoes, and the countless winged tribes,
“After a few minutes repose, you feel yourself stung by Zancudoes, another species of gnat with very long legs. The Zancudo, the proboscis of which contains a sharp-pointed sucker, causes the most acute pain and a swelling that remains many weeks.”— Humb. P. N. p. 94.
“At fixed and invariable hours, in the same season and the same latitude, the air is peopled with new inhabitants; and in a zone where the barometer becomes a clock, where every thing proceeds with such admirable regularity, we might guess blindfold the hour of the day or night by the hum of the insects, and by their stings, the pain of which differs according to the nature of the poison that each insect deposits in the wound.”— Humb. P. N. p. 96.
Morning and eve and in noon's sultry hour
Successive, trumpeting their endless war:
And oft, when twilight's shadows were abroad,
High on some tortuous bough, with grin obscene,
She saw (or dream'd she saw) the man like form
In whose rude haunts, tho' scaped from human wrong,
Worse rape might seize her, brutish violence.
Before, around, unbounded forests rose,
Waters and woods illimitably stretch'd;
But Nature's might was stronger in the breast
Of one lone woman, than in all her works
Gloriously array'd in that wide solitude.
A vengeful spectre deem'd, found way unblench'd
To her own innocents. Both arms outspread
To clasp those forms, so loved, she sank foredone
In that last, fondest, cherishment. With speed
They tore her from her children, unappeased,
And steel'd by bigot zeal. From the sweet trance
Aroused to chains, serene her holy judge
She fronts, and thus with fearless majesty:
“Nature forbids. Against a mother's love,
“Against a wife's firm faith, there is no law,
“Not e'en to fellest nations gorged with flesh
“Of mangled captives. Whence should we adore
“Thy Deity, who mew'd like one infirm,
“The Indians of the Upper Oroonoko, the Atabapo, and Inirida, have no other worship than that of the powers of nature. They call the good principle Cachimana; it is the Manitou, or Great Spirit, that regulates the seasons and favours the harvests. There is an evil principle, Iolokiamo, less powerful, but more artful, and in particular more active. The Indians of the forest, when they visit occasionally the missions, conceive with difficulty the idea of a temple or an image.—‘These good people,’ said the missionary, ‘like only processions in the open air. When I last celebrated the patron-festival of my village, that of Antonio, the Indians of Inirida were present at the mass. ‘Your God,’ said they to me, ‘keeps himself shut up in a house as if he were old and infirm; ours is in the forest, in the fields, and on the mountains of Sipapo, whence the rains come.’”— Humb. P. N. vol. v. p. 272.
“In that low fane, sends forth his ministers
“To deeds of pitiless rape? Our God bestows
“Harvest and summer fruits, chaining the winds
“Which never lash our groves. Ye bend the knee
“To the carved crucifix in temples wrought
“By human hands; ye lift the hymn of praise
“By torches' glare at noon day: but the God
“We serve, best honour'd by the glorious ray
“Prison'd midst walls, frail work of mortal skill.
“We worship him abroad, under the vault
“Of his own heaven; yon star-paved firmament,
“The wilderness, the flood, the wreathed clouds
“That float from those far mountains robed in mist,
“The summits unapproach'd, untouch'd by time,
“Snow clad, are his; too vast to be confined
“He fills his works. Bow ye the trembling knee
“To your own idols and that murd'rous law
“Which bids you seize a mother's callow brood
“In hour of peace! The Carib doth not this,
“The man-devouring Cabre! Are ye slaves
“Unto the spirit of ill who wars with God,
“Iolokiamo, the worst foe to man?
“That, riving thus the hallow'd ties of life,
“Ye work his evil will, and mar the scheme
“Of Him beneficent, whose fostering care
“Amid these wilds is over all his works.
“If there be one great Being, who hears our prayer,
“When that sonorous trump (which but to view
“There are but a small number of these sacred trumpets. The most anciently celebrated is that upon a hill near the confluence of the Tomo and the Guainia. It is pretended that it is heard at once on the banks of the Tuamini and at the mission of San Miguel de Davipe, a distance of ten leagues.”
—“Women are not permitted to see this marvellous instrument, and are excluded from all ceremonies of this worship. If a woman have the misfortune to see this trumpet, she is put to death without mercy.”— Humb. P. N. p. 274.
“The trumpets are made of baked earth, and called Botutos.”— Ib. p. 232.
“Were death to woman) thro' each leafy glade
“Ten leagues aloof sends forth the voice of praise,
“O tremble at his wrath! My little ones,
“If e'er, restored, ye reach your father's hut,
“Tell him I live but while the fervent hope
“Of freedom and reunion with my own
“Leaves life its worth. That lost, I welcome death.”
That might have sway'd the sternest; arms outstretch'd
Pleaded for mercy to the throne of power,
And little hands, that struggled as if life
Reluctant strove for freedom. Had the heart
Of him, who in that priestly conclave ruled,
Beat worthy of its Saviour, not in vain
Had been her proud appeal; but ruthless chains
Are thrown on her worn limbs. Again they waft
Her bound, up ceaseless waters, far away
To Esmeralda, by the sparkling foot
Of Cerro Duïda's huge precipice.
Restrain'd with iron there, in guarded cell
Confined, her eye dwells fixt upon the flood
Of Oroonoko hurrying to the walls
Where rest immured her children. Scorn'd, the food
Lies at her feet. She speaks not, sad and stern.
She had braved famine in the desert, now
She woos it. Death in most abhorred guise,
By frightful inanition, with its train
Of loathsome and disgusting sympathies,
Smiles to her fancy; Death, her comforter.
She views the stream, as who, in burning climes
Where reigns the calenture, misled by love
Of his dear native meadows and the green
Delicious landscape, dreams of leafy glades
Umbrageous, sparkling with fresh morning dew,
Midst the calm ocean fever-struck, and dies
In that sweet error, sinking in the wave
As on a couch of herbage. She, deceived,
Sees in that flood, as fancy fires her brain,
Her hut, her husband, her blithe boys, and those
Two ravish'd innocents, from prison freed
To share that last delight. Her hollow cheek,
Foreshowing death's approach, wears yet a mien
Seems lit by saintlike bliss. Silent and still,
As life beat slow and faint, she look'd away
Her soul upon the waters, and it pass'd
In that illusive dream without a sigh.
Who sent His Own to gather his stray'd flock
And light the path to heaven, forgive her what
She knew not! and, by his all-saving power,
Guide her to living streams, there to abide
With her beloved by mercy's hand upraised,
Where want, and sorrow, and force shall never come,
Nor voice of her oppressors! May the wilds
Where those foul deeds were wrought, erewhile resound
To purer hymns of praise, and social love
In that huge continent exalt to heaven
Christ's worthiest temple, deck'd with freedom's crown!
| Works of the Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert | |