90 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



EivERS. — The Orinoco System. 

 The Orinoco, which flows entirely within Venezuelan territory, although its 

 western affluents have their rise in the republic of Colombia, was formerly known, 

 amongst other numerous native names, as the Paragua, a word analogous to 

 Paraguay, and, like it, meaning "Great Water." Orinucu, a Tamanak word 

 already mentioned in 1531 by its firsT. explorer, Diego de Ordaz, has probably 

 the same meaning. The title is fully justified by a watercourse which is one of 

 the most copious in the world, and which in South America is exceeded in size 

 only by the Amazons and the Parana. In North America it is rivalled by the 

 Mississippi and the Saint Lawrence, and it probably takes the eighth or the 

 ninth place amongst the great rivers of the globe, ranking in volume after the 

 Amazons, Congo, Parana- Uruguay, Niger, Yang-tse-kiang, Brahmaputra, Missis- 

 sippi and Saint Lawrence. But before the construction of the canals turning 

 its falls and rapids the Saint Lawrence itself was greatly inferior to the Orinoco in 

 the extent of its continuous navigable waters. The obstructions to the Venezuelan 

 artery are of relatively slight importance, and a clear navigable highway is 

 presented by the mainstream and its affluents from the Atlantic to the foot of 

 the Andes, its ramifying channels even giving access to the Amazons basin, 

 so that a vessel penetrating into the South American waters through the Dragon's 

 or Serpent's Mouth might sail from river to river right into the heart of Brazil 

 or Bolivia. 



Yet these regions, so easily reached, with an abundant rainfall, a fertile soil, 

 and an endless variety of natural products, are still almost uninhabited. The 

 massacres and epidemics following the Conquest have done their work, and the 

 tide of immigration setting towards the seaboard has not yet had time to reach 

 the interior. In the whole of the Orinoco basin, including the Colombian 

 section, there are at present not more than about 800,000 inhabitants, whereas it 

 would contain 200,000,000 were it as densely peopled as Belgium, which it might 

 well be considering the immense resources of the land. At the last census 

 Ciudad Bolivar, the largest town on the banks of the Orinoco, had less than 

 10,000 inhabitants, a number exceeded by some Hungarian villages 



Towards the middle of the last century the Spanish Government attempted 

 to solve the problem of the sources of the Orinoco, with a view to supporting 

 its claims against Portugal in the question of frontiers. Diaz de la Fuente, 

 the first explorer, ascended the river in 1760 as far as the rapids known as the 

 Randal de los Guaharibos, from the neighbouring Indian tribe. Four years 

 later Bobadilla undertook the same journey, but failed even to reach the 

 cataracts. In 1840 Robert Schomburgk, after exploring the Guianas, crossed the 

 Sierra Parima, and descended the Rio Padamo, an affluent of the upper Orinoco, 

 as large as the branch regarded as the main headstream. Above the confluence 

 the Orinoco is only about 100 yards wide, and scarcely deep enough for small 

 boats. At last Chaffanjon succeeded, in 1886, in surmounting the Guaharibos 

 rapids, and another cataract beyond them, previously known as the Salto de la 



