BARRANCAS 43 



aborigines of this part of South America. While many 

 of the most powerful tribes have almost entirely dis- 

 appeared, these degraded Indians have succeeded in 

 holding their own, in spite of the unhealthiness of the 

 country where they live. Probably the isolation they 

 have been able to enjoy in this waste of mosquito-infested 

 swamp, where no other human beings would care to 

 reside, has been the cause of their escape from extinc- 

 tion. 



On the morning of the 30th we entered the Orinoco 

 itself, and shortly afterwards stopped at Barrancas, where 

 a couple of hours were spent in repairing one of the 

 boiler-tubes, which had given out a few minutes before 

 we cast anchor. The wretched appearance of these 

 small towns on the banks of the Orinoco is a striking 

 example of the effects of misrule, which appear to 

 have accompanied the Spaniards wherever they planted 

 colonies ; it is really painful to consider that these 

 wretched collections of mud huts covered with thatch 

 are the centres of immense expanses of country capable 

 of sustaining innumerable herds of cattle. Barrancas 

 is advantageously situated in open undulating prairie- 

 country, at some little distance above that extensive tract 

 of swamp-forest through which the Orinoco discharges 

 its waters by a multitude of channels, a short description 

 of which I have just given. It is considered a place 

 of some importance by those cattle-loving patriots who 

 make a business of revolutions. To these people 

 Barrancas is interesting, not so much from a strategic 

 point of view, but because it is possible in its neigh- 

 bourhood to lift a horse or lasso a cow without much 

 waste of energy, if the owners be not in a position 

 to defend their property. Barrancas has, in conse- 



