Note 595 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 595: A modern traveller thus describes this river: "Right and left of us lay, at some distance off, the low banks of the Apuré, at this point quite a broad stream. But before us the waters spread out like a wide dark flood, limited on the horizon only by a low black streak, and here and there showing a few distant hills. This was the Orinoco, rolling with irrepressible power and majesty sea-wards, and often upheaving its billows like the ocean when lashed to fury by the wind.... The Orinoco sends a current of fresh water far into the ocean, its waters—generally green, but in the shallows milk-white—contrasting sharply with the indigo blue of the surrounding sea." Bates, Central America, the West Indies, and South America, 2d ed., London, 1882, pp. 234, 235. The island of Trinidad forms an obstacle to the escape of this huge volume of fresh water, and hence the furious commotion at the two outlets, the Serpent's Mouth and Dragon's Mouth, especially in July and August, when the Orinoco is swollen with tropical rains.[Back to Main Text]