¹ La Vorágine has been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian. The English translation is by E. K. James (New York, 1935).

² Special mention should be made here, however, of the article published by Arturo Torres Rfoseco in Revista Cubana vi (1936), Nos. 16–18. Other critical studies have been published by R. Sánchez Ramirez, Revista Chilena (1927), Nos. 90–91, pp. 1–12; E. K. James, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, ii (1929), No. 1, pp. 69–73; Concha Meléndez, Cultura Venezolana (1930), xliii (1930), 138–149; Juan Marinello, Sur, vi (1936), No. 16, pp. 59–75; L. E. Nieto Caballero, Libros Colombianos. (Bogotá, 1925), pp. 154–162; and Rafael Maya, De Silva a Rivera (Bogotá, 1929). Shorter notices and appreciations have also been published in the pages of Repertorio) Americano, Universidad, Atenea, Mercure de France, Hispania, Books Abroad, and other magazines.

³ Ybarra, Carlos Álamo, Nuestras fronteras occidentales (Caracas, 1927), pp. 100–103.Google Scholar

⁴ Cf. E. K. James, “José Eustasio Rivera,” Resista de Estudios Hispánicos, ii, 71.

⁵ La Vorágine, p. 336. All references are to the fifth Spanish edition (New York, 1928).

⁶ Rice, Hamilton, El Rio Negro (Amazonas) y sus grandes afluentes de la Guyana, brasileña. Tr. by D. Juan Riaño y Gayangos (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), p. 180.Google Scholar

⁷ Tunes was killed by Arévalo Cedent), January 30, 1921. Rivera's novel appeared three years later.

⁸ Corroborations can be found in The Putumayo Red Book, London, 1913. There is also a Spanish edition of Bogota, 1913.

⁹ La Vorágine, p. 298. Before describing the massacre Arthur Friel states: “On the night of May 8, 1913, San Fernando was gay with music and general jollification for the caucho (rubber) season had ended.” The River of Seven Stars (New York: Harper and Bros., 1924), p. 128.

¹⁰ Brisson, George, Casanare (Bogotá, 1896); Hiram Bingham, The Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela and Colombia, 1906–1907 . . . (New Haven, Conn., 1909), Chapters vi–ix; H. J. Mozans (J. A. Zahm), Up the Orinoco and Down the Magdalena (London, 1910), Chapter vii.Google Scholar

¹¹ La Vorágine, pp. 62, 133.

¹² Brisson, op. cit., pp. 156, 170.

¹³ La Vorágine, pp. 42, 60, 73.

¹⁴ Brisson, op. cit., pp. 140–141. If we remember that Brisson wrote in 1896 about a man whom Rivera probably met several years later we have slight differences accounted for.

¹⁵ La Vorágine, p. 112.

¹⁶ Mendoza, Daniel, El llanero. Estudio de sociologia venezolana (Caracas, 1912).Google Scholar

¹⁷ La Vorágine, p. 37.

¹⁸ Mendoza, op. cit., p. 59.

¹⁹ La Vorágine, p. 41.

²⁰ Brisson, op. cit., p. 214.

²¹ Many references to the belief in “El Poira” can be found in the novel Toá (Manizales, 1933), by César Uribe Piedrahita, who gathered first-hand information during his travels in the jungles of Colombia.

²² La Vorágine, p. 42.

²³ Brisson, op. cit., p. xi. See also p. 70. A similar opinion in entertained by Manuel Roca Castellanos in his recent book, Diez luces sobre el futuro, Bogotá, 1936, pp 232–233.

²⁴ Dickey, H. C., My Jungle Book (Boston, 1932) pp. 57–71.Google Scholar

²⁵ See “Algunos conceptos sobre La Vorágine“ appended to the novel, p. 360.

²⁶ La Vorágine, p. 218.

²⁷ Joaquín Rocha, Memorandum de viaje (Bogotá, 1905), p. 124. See also Vicente Olarte Camacho's Las crueldades de los peruanos en el Putumayo y en el Caquetá, third edition (Bogotá, 1932), p. 66.

²⁸ Rocha, op. cit., p. 119.

²⁹ de Pinell, Fray Gaspar, Excursión apostólica par los ríos Putumayo, San Miguel de Sucumbíos, Cuyabeno, Caquetá y Caguán (Bogotá, 1929), p. 220.Google Scholar

³⁰ La Vorágine, p. 198.

³¹ Fuentes, Hildebrando, Loreto. Apuntes geográficos, históricos, estadísticos, políticos y sociales (Lima, 1908), ii, 113.Google Scholar

³² Cf. House of Commons: Correspondence Respecting the Treatment of British Colonial Subjects and Native Indians in the Putumayo District, Including Sir Roger Casement's Report, Vol. lxviii (1912–13), Miscellaneous No. 8; Special Report and Report from the Select Committee on Putumayo Atrocities . . . Vol. ix (1912–13); Reports, Proceedings, Evidence, Appendices and Index, Vol. xiv (1913), 713 pp.; House of Representatives: Slavery in Peru . . . 62nd Congress, 3rd. Session, Document No. 1366 (Washington, 1913), 443 pp.

³³ Cf. The Putumayo Red Book (London, 1913); W. W. Hardenburg, The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise (London, 1913); G. S. Paternoster, The Lords of the Devil's Paradise (London, 1913); J. F. Woodroffe, The Upper Reaches of the Amazon (New York, 1914). A biography of Julio César Arana is given by Fray Gasper de Pinell, op. cit., pp. 196 ff. Arana's evasive testimony in London is found in House of Commons, xiv, 459—500.

³⁴ La Vorágine, p. 192.

³⁵ Triana, Miguel, Por el sur de Colombia (Paris, 1907), p. 121. Details of his life and sudden death, probably by poisoning, are given in The Putumayo Red Book, pp. 86–87, and in Pinell's book, pp. 149–150.Google Scholar

³⁶ From accusation of Unos Colombianos, Manaos, July, 1907, apud Olarte Camacho, op. cit., p. 48. Cf. La Vorágine, pp. 199, 211, 226.

³⁷ La Vorágine, pp. 214, 197.

³⁸ Camacho, Olarte, op. cit., pp. 87–88. A picture of Macedo can be seen in Paternoster, op. cit., between pages 64–65.Google Scholar

³⁹ La Vorâgine, p. 207.

⁴⁰ “Un senor francés llegó a las caucherías como explorador y naturalista. Al principio se susurró en los barracones que venía por cuenta de un gran museo y de no sé qué sociedad geográfica; luego se dijo que los amos de los gomales le costeaban la expedición.” La Vorágine, p. 203. The contract between Robuchon and Arana as well as a picture of the scientist and his wife are found in Robuchon's own book: En el Putumayo y sus afluentes (Lima, 1907).

⁴¹ “Los sefiores Arana y Hermanos presumen, con fundamento, que el Sr. Robuchon haya sido víctima de los indios antropófagos que frecuentan esos parajes. Los mismos señores han hecho todo género de esfuerzos para descubrir el paradero del activo explorador, pero sin resultado alguno satisfactorio.” Robuchon, op. cit., p. xviii.

⁴² El libro rojo del Putumayo, p. 58.

⁴³ La Vorágine, p. 206.

⁴⁴ Cf. Fray Gaspar de Pinell, op. cit., p. 213; Olarte Camacho, op. cit., pp. 48–49, 51. Mr. Uribe Piedrahita calls him “hombre peligroso y taimado,” Toá, p. 30.

⁴⁵ The reports of Eberhardt, Paredes and Fuller are found in Slavery in Pent, House of Representatives, Document No. 1366 (Washington, 1913).

⁴⁶ La Vorágine, p. 222.

⁴⁷ Paternoster, op. cit., p. 283.

⁴⁸ La Vorágine, p. 218. General Velasco is mentioned in Olarte Camacho, op. cit., pp. 65–66.

⁴⁹ La Vorágine, p. 193.

⁵⁰ Camacho, Olarte, op. cit., pp. 65–70.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Caballero, L. E. Nieto, Vuelo al Orinoco, in El Tiempo, Bogotá, Nov. 1., 1934, a pud Arturo Torres Rioseco, “José Eustasio Rivera,” Revista Cubana, vi (April–June, 1936). Nos. 16–18, p. 75.Google Scholar

⁵² MacCreagh, Gordon, White Waters and Black (New York, 1926), pp. 320–321. So accurate is the factual data of La Vorágine that Messrs. Howard and Ralph Wolf did not hesitate to include El Cayeno as an authentic figure in their excellent work Rubber—A Story of Glory and Greed (New York, 1936). The authors have informed us that their reference to El Cayeno was written on the basis of the facts given in Rivera's novel.Google Scholar

⁵³ “Nominally—says the British Consul-General—the men were well paid with from 5 l. to 6 l, per month, but this pay given with one hand was generally taken back with the other, for the prices at which the men were forced to satisfy their necessities from the company's stores ate up each month's and even several months of their earnings before they became due. A man in debt anywhere in the Amazon rubber districts is not allowed to leave until the debt is paid and, as the creditor makes out the account and keeps the books, the debtor frequently does not know how much he owes and, even if he had the means, might not always be able to satisfy their claims. Accounts are falsified and men are kept in what becomes a perpetual state of bondage, partly through their own thriftlessness (which is encouraged) and partly by deliberate dishonesty.” From Sir Roger Casement's Report, House of Commons, Vol. lxviii, Miscellaneous No. 8, p. 18. Cf. La Vorágine, pp. 189, 217.

⁵⁴ Rivera mentions the Vanivas, Barés, Carijonas, Huitotos, Andoques, Puinaves and Maipureños, aside from a cosmopolitan tribe of the Papunagua formed by refugees from the rubber regions. La Vordgine, pp. 134, 168, 169, 176, 195. Mr. Custodio Morales tells of the existence of a similar cosmopolitan tribe at Cuemanf. Cf. Olarte Camacho, op. cit., pp. 67–58.

⁵⁵ Details on the use of achiote, yopo, yagé, and on Indian beliefs and practices may be found in the books of Fray Gaspar de Pinell, Pérez Triana, and Brisson, already cited.

⁵⁶ Cf. Rufino Blanco Fombona, Diario de mi vida (Madrid, 1929), pp. 181–182.

⁵⁷ La Vorágine, p. 299. “El gobernador—the novelist explains—no había establecido impuestos estúpidos; sin embargo, fraguábase la conjura para suprimirlo. Su mala estrella le aconsejó dictar un decreto en el cual disponía que los derechos de exportar caucho se pagaran en San Fernando, con oro o con plata, y no con pagarés girados contra el comercio de Ciudad Bolívar.” La Vorágine, p. 300.

⁵⁸ “He would take fifty per cent of the cigarettes out of each pot, as owner of the resort, and sell them back to the players. And I have it on good authority that he did not disdain shoes and articles of clothing, even food of the soldiers for which he exchanged more cigarettes for gambling.” H. C. Dickey, My Jungle Book (Boston, 1932), pp. 173–174.

⁵⁹ Friel, Arthur, op. cit., p. 127.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cf. Leo E. Miller, In the Wilds of South America (New York, 1919), pp. 153, 163.

⁶¹ La Vorágine, pp. 302–303.

⁶² La Vorágine, p. 301.

⁶³ Dickey, op. cit., pp. 175–176.

⁶⁴ La Vorágine, p. 302.

⁶⁵ “The most noted butchers in Funes's force were Luciano López, his second in command, who really was a butcher—the town's official killer of cattle—and one Avispa, whose name (real or assumed) meant ‘Wasp’.” Friel, op. cit., p. 144.

⁶⁶ Ibid., pp. 144, 145. Cf. La Vorágine, p. 303.

⁶⁷ Friel, op. cit., pp. 135–136, 137.

⁶⁸ Rice, H. A., op. cit., p. 180.

⁶⁹ Ibid., p. 6.

⁷⁰ Cf. Informes de las Misiones Católicas de Colombia relatives a los años 1925 y 1926 (Bogotá, 1926).

⁷¹ Subsequent to the completion of this article I consulted the excellent book of Earl P. Hanson, Journey to Manaos, (New York, 1938). In the detailed account of Funes's regime the author alludes to the Italian Jesús Capecchi and to Dr. Baldomero Benítez, both historical characters mentioned by Rivera. (Cf. La Vorágine, pp. 302, 305). I also succeeded in obtaining a copy of El proceso del Putumayo (Lima, 1915), a general exposé written in self-defense by Sr. Carlos A. Valcárcel, the Peruvian judge at Iquitos already discussed (See footnote 46). The evidence given by Valcárcel concerning the affairs of the Putumayo is overwhelming. Finally, one modification. When the articles published in El Tiempo of Bogotá appeared in book form, L. E. Nieto Caballero inserted a letter signed by Nazira (dona Narcisa Saba) denying the supposition that she is Zoraida Ayram. Vuelo al Orinoco (Bogotá, 1935), p. 151.