On the 8th of July a sailor, near death, recovered his health in circumstances worthy of relating. His hammock had been strung in such a way that between his face and the ceiling there was not more than 10 inches. In such a position it was impossible to administer the sacraments; according to the Custom on Spanish ships the Last Sacrament has to be brought down lighted by candles, followed by the crew. For this reason they had to take the sailor to a more airy place near the hatchway where they had made a little berth with flags and canvas. The man would stay there until his death. But hardly had he passed from an asphyxiating, noxious and humid atmosphere to the open air than he gradually began to recover from his lethargy. His convalescence began the day they moved him out from the middle deck. As is common in medicine the same facts are quoted in support of diametrically opposed systems; this recovery confirmed our doctor's ideas about bleeding and evacuation. We soon felt the fatal effects of this treatment and longed to reach the coast of America.

Experience has shown that the mild climate and light air of this place are very favorable to the cultivation of the coffee tree, which, as is known, prefers altitudes. The Capuchin father superior, an active, educated man, introduced this new plant into the province. Before, indigo was cultivated in Caripe, but this plant, which needs plenty of heat, gave off so little dye that its cultivation had to be stopped. In the communal conuco we found many culinary plants, maize, sugar cane and a large area of coffee trees promising a rich harvest. In Caripe the conuco looks like a large, beautiful garden: Indians are obliged to work there every morning from six to ten. The Indian alcaldes (or magistrates) and alguaciles (or bailiffs) watch over these tasks. They are the high functionaries, who alone have the right to carry a walking-stick, and are appointed by the convent superiors. They are extremely proud of their status. Their pedantic and taciturn seriousness, their cold and mysterious air, and the zeal with which they fulfil their role in the church and communal assemblies make Europeans smile. We were still unaccustomed to these nuances of Indian temperament, found equally on the Orinoco, in Mexico and in Peru, among people totally different from each other in customs and language. The alcaldes came to the convent every day, less to deal with the monks about mission matters than to learn about the health of those travelers who had just arrived. As we gave them brandy, they visited us more than the monks thought proper.

The Guaiqueri belong to a tribe of civilized Indians inhabiting the coast of Margarita and the surroundings of the town of Cumana. They enjoy several privileges because they remained faithful to the Castilians from earliest times. Also the King names them in some decrees as 'his dear, noble and loyal Guaiquerias'. Those manning the two pirogues had left Cumana harbor at night. They were searching for building timber from the cedar forests (Cedrela odorata, Linn.) that stretch from Cape San Jose beyond the mouth of the Carupano river. They offered us fresh coconuts and stunningly colored fish from the Chaetodon genus. What riches these poor Indians held in their pirogues! Huge vijao (Heliconia bihai) leaves covered bunches of bananas; the scaly cuirass of an armadillo (Dasypus, cachicamo); the fruit of the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), used by the Indians as a cup, quite common in European cabinets, vividly reminded us that we had reached the longed-for torrid zone.

Despite the heat the traveler feels under his feet on the brink of the crater, the cone of ashes remains covered with snow for several months. The cold, angry wind, which had been blowing since dawn, forced us to seek shelter at the foot of the Piton. Our hands and feet were frozen, while our boots were burned by the ground we walked on. In a few minutes we reached the foot of the Sugar Loaf, which we had so laboriously climbed; our speed of descent was in part involuntary as we slipped down on the ashes. We reluctantly abandoned that solitary place where nature had magnificently displayed herself before us. We deluded ourselves that we might again visit the Islands, but this, like many other plans, has never been carried out.

In 1797 the San Fernando missionary had led his men to the banks of the Guaviare river on one of those hostile incursions banned both by religion and Spanish law. They found a Guahiba mother with three children in a hut, two of whom were not yet adults. They were busy preparing cassava flour. Resistance was impossible; their father had gone out fishing, so the mother tried to run off with children. She had just reached the savannah when the Indians, who hunt people the way whites hunt blacks in Africa, caught her. The mother and children were tied up and brought back to the river bank. The monks were waiting for this expedition to end, without suffering any of the dangers. Had the mother resisted the Indians would have killed her; anything is allowed in this hunting of souls (conquista espiritual), and it is especially children that are captured and treated as poitos or slaves in the Christian missions. They brought the prisoners to San Fernando, hoping that the mother would not find her way back by land to her home. Separated from those children who had gone fishing with their father the day she was kidnapped, this poor woman began to show signs of the deepest despair. She wanted to bring those children in the power of the missionaries back home, and several times ran off with them from the San Fernando village but the Indians hunted her down each time. After severely punishing her the missionary took the cruel decision of separating the mother from her two infants. She was led alone to a mission on the Río Negro, up the Atabapo river. Loosely tied up, she sat ill the bow of the boat. She had not been told where she was going; but she guessed by the sun's position that she was being taken away from her house and native land. She managed to break her bonds and jumped into the water and swam to the river bank. The current pushed her to a bank of rock, which is named after her today. She climbed up and walked into the jungle. But the head of the mission ordered his Indians to follow and capture her. She was again caught by the evening. She was stretched out on the rock (the Piedra de la Madre) where she was beaten with manatee whips. Her hands tied up behind her back with the strong cords of the mavacure, she was then dragged to the Javita mission and thrown into one of the inns called casas del rey. It was the rainy season and the night was very dark. Impenetrable forests separate the Javita and San Fernando missions some 25 leagues apart in a straight line. The only known route was by river. Nobody ever tried to go by land from one mission to another, even if only a few leagues away. But this did not prevent a mother separated from her children. Her children were at San Fernando so she had to find them, rescue them from Christians, and bring them back to their father on the Guaviare. The Guahiba woman was not closely supervised in the inn. As her hands were bloodied the Javita Indians had loosened her bindings. With her teeth she managed to break the cords, and she disappeared into the night. On the fourth day she was seen prowling round the hut where her children were being kept at the San Fernando mission. This woman had just carried out, added the monk telling us this sad story, 'something that the toughest Indian would not have even considered. She had crossed the jungle in a season when the sky is continuously covered with cloud, when the sun appears. only for a few minutes for days on end. Had she followed the flow of water? But flooding had forced her to walk far from the river, in the middle of jungles where the river is imperceptible. How many times must she have been blocked by thorny liana growing round trees! How many times must she have swum across streams! What on earth could this luckless woman have eaten during her four days' walk? She said that she had eaten only those large black ants called vachacos that climb up trees and hang resinous nests from branches. We pressed the missionary to tell us whether the Guahiba woman had finally enjoyed peace and happiness with her family. He did not want to satisfy our curiosity. But on our return from the Río Negro we learned that this Indian woman was not even left to recover from her wounds before she was again separated from her children, and sent to a mission on the Upper Orinoco. She died by refusing to eat food, as do all Indians when faced with great calamities. (112)

On the 13th of July we reached the village of Can, the first of the Carib missions dependent on the Observance monks from the Piritu college. As usual we stayed in the convent, that is, with the parish priest. Apart from passports issued by the Captain-General of the province, we also carried recommendations from bishops and the director of the Orinoco missions. From the coasts of New California to Valdivia and the mouth of the River Plate, along 2, leagues, you can overcome all obstacles by appealing to the protection of the American clergy. Their power is too well entrenched for a new order of things to break out for a long time. Our host could hardly believe how 'people born in northern Europe could arrive in his village from the frontiers with Brazil by the Río Negro, and not by the Cumanà coast'. Although affable, he was also extremely curious, like everyone who meets travelers who are not Spanish. He was sure that the minerals we carried contained gold, and that the plants we had dried were medicinal. Here, as in many parts of Europe, sciences interest people only if they bring immediate and practical benefit.