Adventure, June 1911 — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

328 long range, with Castro the Contemptible, who came into power two years after I had finally settled down at Santa Catalina as manager for the Orinoco Company. Cipri- ano Castro had been in Congress as Dipu- tado, or Member of the House, from one of the Andean districts while I was in Caracas with President Crespo, and, though he was regarded as a good fighter and a disturbing element, he was never considered as a Presi- dential possibility. With all of my hatred for Castro and everything pertaining to him, it must be admitted that he was an exceedingly shrewd scoundrel. Had he been half as honest he could have made himself the greatest man in South America. He supported Anduesa Palacio, the deposed President, who had be- trayed Guzman Blanco, in his final cam- paign against Crespo, before the latter was. recognized as Dictator, and defeated Gen- eral Morales in the battle of Tariba, May 15, 1892. For some time after that he was in full control of that section of the country, but with the firm establishment of the new : régime he gave up the fight. In recognition of the military ability he had displayed, Crespo offered to make him Collector of Customs at Puerto Cabello. He declined the position, but, egotistically exaggerating the purpose of the proffer, pompously promised Crespo that he would not attempt to overthrow his Government. He then came to Congress, where he would have been almost unnoticed but for the amusement he created by solemnly remov- ing his shoes and putting on black kid gloves every time he sat down to the—to him— herculean task of drafting a bill. He was as rough and uncouth as the rest of the moun- taineers; short of stature, secretive of mind and suspicious of every one, excepting only a few of his brother brigands from the Andes. At the expiration of this term he returned to the hills and bought a farm just across the Colombian border. He posed as a cat- tle-raiser, but all of the reports that reached Caracas said he was much more of a cattle- rustler, or stealer. He was a persistent tax- dodger, and his herd—which was said to show fifty different brands that represented as many thefts—was driven back and forth across the border to avoid the Venezuelan — and Colombian collectors. He was engaged in this profitable pastime when I left Cara- cas, and had disappeared from all political © and revolutionary calculations. Adventure I FIRST arrived at Santa Catalina, oi whither I had gone on the urgent advice of Crespo, early in 1896. It was a straggling little town, with the com- pany’s headquarters standing close to the bank of the Piacoa River, a branch of. the Orinoco, opposite the lower end of the Is- land of Tortola—the “Iwana” of Sir Walter -Raleigh. The building contained a store, with a large supply of goods adapted to the needs of colonists in a new and tropical country, and around it were carpenter-, blacksmith- and machine-shops. The company also owned three small steamers, which were used to bring supplies from Trinidad and run back and forth to Barrancas, thirty miles upstream at the head of the Macareo River, the main estuary of the Oriffoco, through which all of the commerce passes. The Atlantic Ocean was 150 niiles below us, and Ciudad Bolivar, the principal city on the Orinoco and the head of all-the-year navigation, was 180 miles above. Tradition says that Santa Catalina was named by Raleigh who, according to the native story, camped there when he was pushing his way up the Orinoco in search of the fabled El Dorado, with its golden city of Manoa. Just above Barrancas are the ruins of a strong fort he built for a part of his force while he went farther on up the river.” It is, perhaps, the irony of an unkind fate which pursued the great adventurer, that near this fort, from which searching parties- were sent out, is the rich mine of El] Callao. If Raleigh had been looking for gold by the pound instead of by the ton, and had searched more carefully, he probably would have found enough to satisfy him. Stretching away to unmeasured lengths from the pin-prick the headquarters village made in it, was the virgin forest, with its wealth of gold and iron, rubber and asphalt, and its square miles of mahogany, Spanish cedar, rosewood, carapo, greenheart and mora wood, all within the confines of our concession. Far off to the southwest, in a region I never could find time to explore, was the mythical dwelling-place of the people whom Raleigh described—though only on the word of the natives—as having no heads, but with eyes in their shoulders and mouths in their chests, with a long mane trailing out from their spines. Down the Orinoco, half way to the coast, was Imitaca Mountain, a great hill of iron ore which is COnmmiclboooks ©