The Devil-Tree of El Dorado: A Novel Read online

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  _THE DEVIL-TREE OF EL DORADO_

  "IT WAS PASSED ABOUT; NOW LIFTED HIGH IN THE AIR BY ONE END, THEN BY THE OTHER." _Frontispiece._] [_Page 249._]

  _THE DEVIL-TREE OF EL DORADO_

  A novel

  BY FRANK AUBREY

  _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEIGH ELLIS AND FRED. HYLAND._

 

  NEW YORK NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 156 FIFTH AVENUE

  LONDON: HUTCHINSON & COMPANY

  COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY.

  PREFACE.

  SHALL RORAIMA[1] BE GIVEN UP TO VENEZUELA?

  [1] The Indians of British Guiana pronounce this word Roreema.

  Shall Roraima be handed over to Venezuela? Shall the mysteriousmountain long known to scientists as foremost among the wonders of ourearth--regarded by many as the greatest marvel of the world--becomedefinitely Venezuelan territory?

  This is the question that hangs in the balance at the time these wordsare being written, that is inseparably associated--though many ofthe public know it not--with the dispute that has arisen about theboundaries of British Guiana.

  Ever since Sir Robert Schomburgk first explored the colony at theexpense of the Royal Geographical Society some sixty years ago, Roraimahas remained an unsolved problem of romantic and fascinating interest,as attractive to the 'ordinary person' as to the man of science. Andto those acquainted with the wondrous possibilities that lie behindthe solution of the problem, the prospect of its being handed overto a country so little worthy of the trust as is Venezuela, cannot becontemplated without feelings of disappointment and dismay.

  This is not the place in which to give a long description of Roraima.It will suffice here to say that its summit is a table-land which,it is believed, has been isolated from all the rest of the world foruntold ages; no wilderness of ice and snow, but a fertile country ofwood and stream, and, probably, lake. Consequently it holds out to thesuccessful explorer the chance--the probability even--of finding therehitherto unknown animals, plants, fish. In this respect it exceeds ininterest all other parts of the earth's surface, not excepting thepolar regions; for the latter are but ice-bound wastes, while Roraima'smysterious table-land lies in the tropics but a few degrees north ofthe equator.

  Why, then, it may be asked, have our scientific societies not exhibitedmore zeal in the solving of the problem presented by this strangemountain? Why is it that unlimited money can, apparently, be raisedfor expeditions to the poles, while no attempt has been made toexplore Roraima? Yet, sixty years ago, the Royal Geographical Societycould find the money to send Sir Robert Schomburgk out to exploreBritish Guiana--indeed, it is to that fact that we owe the discoveryof Roraima--but nothing has been done since. Had the good work thusbegun been followed up, we should to-day have been able to show betterreason for claiming Roraima as a British possession. But, as the writerof the article in the _Spectator_ quoted on page 3 says, "we leave themystery unsolved, the marvel uncared for." This article is commendedto the perusal of those interested in the subject, as also are thefollowing books, which give all the information at present available,viz.--Mr. Barrington Brown's 'Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana,'and Mr. Boddam-Whetham's 'Roraima and British Guiana.' Mr. Im Thurn's'Among the Indians of British Guiana' should also be mentioned, sinceit contains references to Roraima, though the author did not actuallyvisit the mountain, as in the case of the first named.

  As an illustration of the confusion and uncertainty that prevail as tothe international status of this unique mountain, it may be mentionedthat in the map of British Guiana which Sir Robert Schomburgk drew outfor the British Government, it is placed within the British frontier.But in the map of the next Government explorer, Mr. BarringtonBrown--'based,' he says, 'upon Schomburgk's map'--it is placed justinside the Venezuelan boundary; and no explanation is given of theapparent contradiction. Again, another authority, Mr. Im Thurn (abovereferred to), Curator of the Museum at Georgetown (the capital of thecolony), in his book says that Roraima "lies on the extreme edge of thecolony, or perhaps on the other side of the _Brazilian_ boundary."These references show the obscurity in which the whole matter is atpresent involved.

  Apart, however, from the special interest that surrounds Roraima owingto the inaccessible character of its summit,[2] it is of very greatgeographical importance, from the fact that it is the highest mountainin all that part of South America, _i.e._, in all the Guianas, inVenezuela, and in the north-east part of Brazil. Indeed, we must crossBrazil, that vast country of upwards of three million square miles, tofind the nearest mountains that exceed in height Roraima. Consequently,it forms the apex of the water-shed of that part of South America; andit is, in fact, the source of several of the chief feeders of the greatrivers Essequibo, Orinoco and Amazon. Schomburgk, in pointing this out,dwelt strongly upon the importance of the mountain to British Guiana,and insisted that its inclusion within the British boundary was ageographical necessity.

  [2] Mr. Barrington Brown says the mountain can only be ascended by means of balloons (see article previously referred to on page 3); and Mr. Boddam-Whetham came to the same conclusion.

  Finally, Sir Robert's brother, Richard Schomburgk, a skilled botanist,who had visited almost all parts of Asia and Africa in search oforchids and other rare botanical productions, tells us that the countryaround Roraima is, from a botanical point of view, one of the mostwonderful in the world. "Not only the orchids," he says, "but theshrubs and low trees were unknown to me. Every shrub, herb and treewas new to me, if not as to family, yet as to species. I stood on theborder of an unknown plant zone, full of wondrous forms which lay as ifby magic before me.... Every step revealed something new." ('Reissen inBritisch Guiana,' Leipzig, vol. ii., p. 216.)

  Are our rulers, in their treatment of the question, bearing these factssufficiently in mind? Are they as keenly alive as are the Venezuelansto the importance of Roraima? If they are, there is no sign of it; forwhile, in the Venezuelan statements of their case, there are lengthy,emphatic, and repeated references to the importance of Roraima, on theEnglish side--in the English press even--there is scarcely a word aboutit.

  From these observations it will be seen that there is reason to fearwe may be on the point of allowing one of the most scientificallyinteresting and geographically important spots upon the surface of theglobe to slip out of our possession into that of a miserable littlestate like Venezuela, where civil anarchy is chronic, and neither lifenor property is secure.

  One of the avowed objects of this book, therefore, is to stimulatepublic interest, and arouse public attention to the considerations thatactually underlie the 'Venezuelan Question,' as well as to while awayan idle hour for the lovers of romance.

  It has been suggested that, if it is too late to retain thewonderful Roraima as exclusively British--and to effect this it wouldbe well worth our while to barter away some other portion of thedisputed territory--then an arrangement might be come to to make itneutral ground. Standing, as it does, in the corner where the threecountries--Brazil, Venezuela and British Guiana--meet, it is ofimportance to all three, and, no doubt, in such an endeavour, we shouldhave the support of Brazil as against Venezuela.

  * * * * *

  With regard to the oft-discussed question of the situation of thetraditional city of Manoa, or El Dorado--as the Spaniards calledit--most authorities, including Humboldt and Schomburgk, agree ingiving British Guiana as its probable site. We are told that it stoodon an island in t
he midst of a great lake called 'Parima'; but no suchlake is now to be found in South America anywhere near the localityindicated. An explanation of the mystery, however, is afforded by thesuggestion that such a great lake, or inland sea, almost certainlyexisted at one time in precisely this part of the continent; in thatcase what are now mountains in the country would then have been islands.

  Indeed, most of British Guiana lies somewhat low, and it is estimatedthat if the _highlands_ were to sink two thousand feet the wholecountry would be under water--the mountain summits excepted--and therewould then be only 'a narrow strait' between the Roraima range and theAndes. In this great supposed ancient lake the group of islands nowrepresented by mountain summits might well have been the home of apowerful and conquering race--as is to-day Japan with its group of morethan three thousand islands--and Roraima, as the highest, and thereforethe most easily defensible, may very well have been selected as theirfastness, and the site of their capital city.

  Schomburgk thus states his speculations upon the point, in his book onBritish Guiana, page 6:--

  "The geological structure of this region leaves but little doubtthat it was once the bed of an inland lake which, by one of thosecatastrophes of which even later times give us examples, broke itsbarriers, forcing for its waters a path to the Atlantic. May we notconnect with the former existence of this inland sea the fable of thelake Parima and the El Dorado? Thousands of years may have elapsed;generations may have been buried and returned to dust; nations whoonce wandered on its banks may be extinct and exist no more in name;still, tradition of Parima and the El Dorado survived these changes oftime; transmitted from father to son, its fame was carried across theAtlantic and kindled the romantic fire of the chivalric Raleigh."

  * * * * *

  As a natural sequence to the foregoing arises the inquiry, What sortof people were those who inhabited this island city, or who 'wanderedon the banks' of the great lake? Here much is to be learned from therecent discoveries of the Government of the United States who, of lateyears, have devoted liberal sums to pre-historic research. The moneyso expended has been the means of unearthing evidence of a startlingcharacter--relics of a former civilisation that existed in Americaages before the time of its discovery by Christopher Columbus. TheSpaniards, as we know, found races that were white, or nearly so; butthese later discoveries go to show that long anterior to these--ata time, in fact, probably coeval with what we call the Egyptiancivilisation--America was peopled with a white race fully as cultured,as advanced in the sciences, and as powerful on their own ground as theancient Egyptians; and as handsome in personal appearance--if some ofthe heads and faces on the specimens of pottery may be accepted as fairexamples--as the ancient Greeks.

  It has long been known that America possesses extraordinary relics ofa former civilisation in what are known as the great 'earthworks,'which are still to be seen scattered about in many parts of thecontinent, and which, as vast engineering works, challenge comparisonwith the pyramids themselves. But now discovery has gone muchfurther; bas-reliefs and pottery have been found that set forth withmarvellous fidelity many minute details concerning this pre-historicpeople--their personal appearance, and their ornaments and habiliments;the style of wearing the hair and the beard; and other particularsthat can be appreciated only by inspection and study of the reducedfac-similes lately printed and issued by the Government of the UnitedStates.

  Many of them relate to the custom of human sacrifice which, as mostpeople are probably aware, prevailed largely in America when theSpaniards first landed there; though few, perhaps, know the terribleextent to which it was carried. Prescott tells us that few writers haveventured to estimate the yearly number of victims at less than twentythousand, while many put it as high as fifty thousand, in Mexico alone!If we consider that the lowest of these estimates represents an averageof some four hundred a week, or nearly sixty a day, such figuresare appalling! And now we learn, beyond the possibility of a doubt,that the same practices obtained in America in times that must havebeen ages before the Spanish conquest, and, judging by the frequencyof the representations of such things in these old bas-reliefs, asextensively. In these sculptures we can see the very shape of theknives used; the form of the plates or platters on which severed headsof victims were placed, and other such details; and in a certain serieswe are enabled to note the curious point, that, while the officiatingpriests always wear full beards, the victims appear to have usuallypossessed no hirsute adornments, or to have 'shaved clean,' as we termit. It may be added that these ancient white people seem to have been atotally different race from those the Spaniards found on the continent;and that between the two there is believed to have been a gap lastingfor many ages, during which the country was overrun by Indian or otherbarbaric hordes; though how or why this came about is one of thosemysteries that will probably never be unravelled.

  * * * * *

  In conclusion, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the writerswhose books of travel I have named for the information I have made useof; as well as to express a hope that the writer of the review in the_Spectator_ will regard with indulgence the liberties I have taken withhis admirable article. I am sanguine enough to believe, however, that Ishall have the sympathy and good wishes of all these in the endeavourhere made to arouse public attention to the real meaning and importanceof the 'Venezuelan Question'; and to add to the number of those whofeel an interest in the future status and ultimate exploration ofthe mysterious Roraima. I wish also to express my thanks to Messrs.Leigh Ellis and Fred Hyland, the artists to whom the illustrationswere entrusted, for the thought and care they have bestowed upon thework, and the successful manner in which they have carried out myconceptions.

  For the rest--if objection be taken to the accounts of the mountainand what is to be found on its summit given by the characters in mystory--I desire to claim the licence of the romance-writer to maintaintheir accuracy--till the contrary be proved. If this shall serve tostimulate to renewed efforts at exploration, so much the better, andanother of my objects in writing the book will thereby have beenattained.

  FRANK AUBREY.