NATURAL FEATURES OF VENEZUELA. 517 



is another called the Casquina. Both are navigable for steamers 

 drawing less than ten feet; those requiring deeper water than 

 this must use the southern and main branch of the Orinoco. 

 This one is naturally always preferred by ships. The water of 

 the river is a thick yellow, and the current is as swift as four or 

 five miles an hour. As we went on all day, the Macareo narrowed 

 to about one hundred feet, but was very deep. The banks ap- 

 peared quite uninhabited until we reached the Orinoco proper. 

 First we passed two very small Indian villages. The houses con- 

 sisted merely of grass roofs and wooden pillars, being quite open 

 on all sides, and disclosing numbers of hammocks each containing 

 a nearly nude Indian. Near by were fields of mandioc and bana- 

 nas. On the beach small pirogues were drawn up. At one place 

 some of the boys paddled out to us, and in wanton sport threw 

 on board many sticks of sugar cane. These Indians had stout, 

 strong bodies and broad and good-natured physiognomies, with 

 their hair 'banged' across the forehead and left long at the sides. 



" In its vast size, and large and numerous islands, the Orinoco 

 is not unlike the Amazon, but the banks differ from the Amazon's 

 chiefly in their greater profusion of lianas, the forests being not 

 only decked but half covered with them. After the Indian villages, 

 we passed, upon the Macareo, long lines of widely separated mud 

 huts, belonging to negroes and low-class Creoles. All these people 

 wore clothes, had a variety of cooking utensils, and better dwell- 

 ings than the pure Indians. Near where the Macareo enters the 

 main branch of the Orinoco is a small town called Barrancas 

 simply two short streets of dilapidated mud huts. We stopped 

 only ten minutes to send our boat ashore with the mail, and to 

 bring on board two or three passengers. Some very large islands 

 invite the view hereabout, and the distant ranges of the Imataca 

 Mountains, ridge behind ridge, look blue and picturesque. The 

 current of the Orinoco does not carry down the great number of 

 grassy islands and tree trunks that one sees always on the Ama- 

 zon. ... A fine spectacle at night were the many great prairie 

 fires, the whole sky being aglow with them. A certain fire would 

 suddenly appear, tearing along at a terrific rate, with a blinding 

 glare and long trail of smoke, recalling a night express train a 

 thousand times magnified. The Venezuelans are accustomed to 

 burn their savannas once a year. We had already left the regions 

 of the pristine wilderness, and were now among the great savan- 

 nas, or natural meadows of the central plains of Venezuela. The 

 delta is the only thickly wooded part of the Orinoco, the upper 

 portion of the river being bounded by the llanos, or great grassy 

 and almost treeless plains." 



Near the head waters of the Orinoco is its junction with the 

 Cassiquiare, by which it has a navigable connection with a branch 



