The Mighty Orinoco

Chapter VIII A Cloud of Dust on the Horizon

86 chapter VIII A Cloud of Dust on the Horizon One could call La Urbana the capital of the middle Orinoco. It is the most important village between Caicara and San Fernando de Atabapo, each situated at one of the two angles the river makes—the first where it leaves the direction of east to west in order to head south, the second where it leaves the southerly direction to take that of the west to east. It goes without saying that this particular hydrographic disposition is true only if M. Miguel’s opinion is accepted over those of MM. Felipe and Varinas, and in accordance with the layout of the Orinoco as indicated on modern maps. In any event, some six hundred kilometers upstream, the geographers would eventually reach the point of triple confluence where this important question would finally be settled—so one could hope, at least. A cerro, a hill of modest height, rose on the right bank and bore the same name as the village built at its foot. At that time, La Urbana had a population of 350 to 400 inhabitants, sharing a hundred or so huts. For the most part they were mulatto, a mix of Spanish and Indian. They were not tillers of the soil, and only a few raised cattle. Aside from the seasonal harvesting of tonka beans and turtle eggs, they did nothing but fish and hunt and showed a natural penchant for laziness. But they lived a life of ease, and the dwellings spread out among the banana trees along the shore suggested a level of comfort and wellbeing that was rare in these distant regions.1 MM. Miguel, Felipe, and Varinas, Sergeant Martial, and Jean de Kermor were planning to stay only one night in La Urbana. Since they had arrived around five o’clock, the evening would be enough to renew their provisions of meat and vegetables, for La Urbana had an ample supply for all their needs. They decided that it would be best to deal with the head o~cial, who was eager to o¬er his services and accommodate the passengers 87 in his home. He was a mulatto some fifty years old whose authority extended over the plains of the region and to policing the river. He lived with his mulatto wife and a half dozen children from six to eighteen, boys and girls, vigorous and in fine health. When he learned that M. Miguel and his two colleagues were wellknown personages from Ciudad Bolívar, he granted them an even warmer welcome and invited them to spend the evening in his home. The invitation also included the passengers of the Gallinetta. Jean de Kermor was all the happier for perhaps having the chance to find out more about his two countrymen whose fate continued to worry him. First the skippers, Valdez and Martos, took charge of resupplying the boats, providing sugar, yams, and especially manioc flour crushed in a stone grinder called a rayo that is commonly used for bread making in the regions of the mid-Orinoco. The two falcas had drawn alongside the inner shore, which was fairly steep, to a cove which formed a little harbor where dinghies and fishing boats were at their moorings. They also saw a third falca in the care of a native skipper. It was the boat of the two French explorers, MM. Jacques Helloch and Germain Paterne. Their crew had been waiting for them at La Urbana for six weeks. They had received no word from them and were very concerned , as might well be imagined. After dining aboard the falcas, the passengers went on to the home of the head o~cial. The family was in the main room, which was simply furnished with a table and leather-appointed chairs and decorated with a few hunting trophies. Several notables of La Urbana had been invited to the evening festivities , and with them a local habitant. This person was not entirely unknown to Jean, thanks to a portrait that M. Cha¬anjon had made of him in his report; at his home the French traveler had received a very cordial and generous welcome. He described him as follows: “M. Marchal, an elderly Venezuelan, came some fifteen years ago to settle in Tigra, situated upstream from La Urbana. He is a true man of wisdom. Abandoning politics for cattle raising, he founded a hato, a cattle ranch, whose corral holds some hundred animals, cared for...