Identifier: aroundaboutsouth00vinc (find matches)
Title: Around and about South America
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Vincent, Frank, 1848- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ls are varied and plentiful in char-acter. The captain and chief engineer were Americans.The steamer and machinery were built at Wilmington, Del.This company, called the Orinoco Steamship Line, receivesno subsidy, and is virtually a monopoly. The passenger-fares and tariff for freight are exceedingly high. Thus, thevoyage from Port-of-Spain to Bolivar, a distance requiring butthirty-six hours to cover, costs, for a first-class ticket, twentydollars in gold. There is a line of steamers which sends oneabout every six weeks direct from New York to Bolivar.From Bolivar you may go in the rainy season, or duringnearly half the year, up the Orinoco and Apure to Nutrias, atotal distance of about a thousand miles from the mouth ofthe great river. The Orinoco is itself put down in the gazet-teers as twelve hundred miles in length. On leaving Port-of-Spain we headed at once toward thesouthwest and the Serpents Mouth, out of which we safelypassed and entered that branch, or rather that one of the
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A Hindoo Coolie, Port-of-Spain. TRINIDAD AND UP THE ORINOCO. 401 many great mouths of the Orinoco, styled the Macareo River,which was at first about half a mile in width, its shoresdensely covered with aquatic plants and forests. Runningnearly parallel to this river, is another called the Cascuina.Both are navigable for steamers drawing less than ten feet;those requiring deeper water than this must use the southernand main branch of the Orinoco. This one is naturallyalways preferred by ships. The water of the river is a thickyellow, and the current is as swift as four or five miles anhour. As we went on all day, the Macareo narrowed toabout one hundred feet, but was very deep. The banksappeared quite uninhabited, until we reached the Orinocoproper. First we passed two very small Indian villages.The houses consisted merely of grass roofs and wooden pil-lars, being quite open on all sides, and disclosing numbers ofhammocks each containing a nearly nude Indian. Near bywere fields of mand

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