The best chance for game was on the river, where some fish might also be obtained, while there was every reason to believe that, as on the stream they had left, they would find plantains and bananas. These last Strain had already determined no longer to respect, considering that the treachery of the Indians and their refusal either to sell or give had entirely relieved him from his former promise. Finally, by keeping on the river, should any of the party fall ill, they could, as a last resource, always construct a raft for their conveyance, even if they failed in finding canoes farther down, which they hoped to do.
This imposing council was held upon a shingle beach, upon which Strain sat soaking his hard, dry boots in the water while making his final speech. The different members were scattered around, some drinking water and others smoking, listening with the gravity of Indian chiefs to this lucid exposition of these not very flattering prospects. After he had finished, he invited every one to express his opinions freely. Unlike most councils, no one was found in this to suggest objections, and Strain took a vote on the two alternatives, when it was unanimously determined that they should continue down the river on which they then were.
No proposition was made to return to the ship, nor was it hinted at by any one.
To those easily discouraged—if there were any—the obstacles already surmounted must have appeared too formidable for them to wish to grapple with them a second time; while, as far as one could judge, the idea of a return occurred to very few members of the party. If it had been otherwise Strain would have pushed on, for, to quote his own language, he said, "I neither considered it expedient or consistent with our national and personal reputation, that so formidable a party, and one which so much was expected, should be turned back by trifling obstacles."
Of the seven persons who voted at this council, two perished during the journey, and one afterward, from the effects of starvation and fatigue.
At this point the reader would naturally wish for some clew to unravel the tangled state of things, and know definitely where the party really were, and obtain some explanation of the conduct of the Indians. The river which they had followed for several days after crossing the Cordillera, Strain eventually ascertained to be the Sucubti, a very important stream, utterly ignored in those maps of the moon which Dr. Cullen and Mr. Gisborne—the latter backed by the highest English authority—had published. The Indian guide whom they met on the Sucubti stated that this river was the Chuqunaqua, and that to follow it was a very long route to the Pacific. This, though not literally true, was so in effect, for while it was not the Chuqunaqua, it was a tributary of that river, which certainly did prove to be the most tedious and toilsome route. The river on which they now was the Chuqunaqua, one of the most tortuous known to geographers—in fact, by looking at the map, one will see that it would be almost impossible to double up a stream so as to get more length in the same space. To all Strain's inquiries respecting the name of this river, he could get no other reply than "Rio Grande"—the great river. He therefore remained in utter ignorance respecting it, although, if he gave any credit whatever to the statements of his first Indian guide, that the Sucubti was the Chuqunaqua, he would naturally conclude that they were upon the next river to the westward of it, which was laid down by Mr. Gisborne as the Iglesias. On the whole, Mr. Strain was afterward convinced that the Caledonia Indians and their Sucubti friends intended to lead them by the most direct route to the Savana, and that they were prevented from doing so by the Indians of the Chuqunaqua or Chuqunas, whom they met on their seventh day's march, and who from the first created suspicion. This opinion, which was originally founded upon the conduct of the respective parties, was farther corroborated by the report of a journey made by a Spanish officer in 1788, from the fort of Agla, near Caledonia Bay, to Puerto Principe, on the Savana. He set out under the guidance of the chief of the Sucubti village, who conducted him safely across, cautiously avoiding the Chuquana Indians, who were hostile to the Spaniards. He was prevented from returning, owing to the hostility of this tribe.
It would appear that in 1788, as in 1854, the Chuqunas were on friendly terms with the Indians of the Caledonia and Sucubti valleys, probably on account of their commercial relations, but that the latter have not sufficient influence to obtain a passage for a white man through the territory of these intractable savages. To these Indians is attributed the massacre of the four men in the British expedition.
It afterward turned out that when they struck the Chuqunaqua river, they were within five miles of the road cut by this British expedition before it turned back. At first sight, by looking at the map, it may appear a most unfortunate circumstance that this road could not have been struck, as they might easily have cut their way to it. Still it is very doubtful if they could have followed the Savana without canoes—owing, as before remarked, to the impenetrable mangrove swamps that stretched so far up with its tides into the interior—and they would have been compelled at last to return to the Chauqunaqua.
It is true that from the termination of Prevost's road to the mouth of the Lara, where the English civil engineers in the service of the Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company had established a station for the purpose of surveying the river, was but six miles; yet, as they were unaware of that circumstance, it could not have influenced their determination. A man with a thousand leagues of wilderness before him may be within one mile of deliverance, yet, with the facts in his possession, to go in that direction
