water they contribute. Such are the Caura in the northern section, the Apure and the Meta in the western section, the Cassiquiare and the Iquapo in the southern area. Do you see them there, on this map? Well, I ask you, why should not one of these feeder streams be the Orinoco rather than your Guaviare, my dear Varinas, and your Atabapo, my dear Felipe?”
It was the first time that this proposition had ever been suggested, and it is not surprising that the two opponents remained quite speechless at first upon hearing him spell it all out. What? The question was not limited simply to the Atabapo and the Guaviare? What did he mean, other candidates might emerge?
“Come now!” exclaimed M. Varinas. “That’s not reasonable. You’re not talking seriously, M. Miguel!”
“Very seriously, on the contrary! And I find the opinion quite natural, logical, and thus entirely admissible that other tributaries can contest the honor of being the true Orinoco.”
“Surely you’re joking!” retorted M. Felipe.
“I never joke when it’s a question of geography,” M. Miguel responded gravely. “On the right bank of the upper reach of the Padamo—”
“Your Padamo is but a stream compared to my Guaviare!” countered M. Varinas.
“A stream that geographers consider as important as the Orinoco itself,” answered M. Miguel. “On the left bank you’ll find the Cassiquiare—”
“Your Cassiquiare is but a brook compared to my Atabapo!” shouted M. Felipe.
“A brook that communicates between the Venezuelan and Amazonian basins! On the same shore there’s the Meta—”
“But your Meta is only the faucet of a fountain!”
“A faucet that turns out a flow of water that economists look upon as being the future route between Europe and the Colombian territories.”
It was evident that M. Miguel was well documented and had an answer for all occasions, as he continued.
“On the same bank,” he said, “there’s the Apure, the prairie river that ships can go up for more than five hundred kilometers.”
Neither M. Felipe nor M. Varinas contested this affirmation. The reason for this was that they were half suffocated by M. Miguel’s nerve.
“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,
