We were all on deck sunk in sad thoughts. There was no doubt that the fever raging on board had taken a pernicious turn. Our glances were fixed on a deserted mountainous coast, intermittently lit by the moon. The calm sea shone with a feeble phosphorescence. We heard only the monotonous cries of large sea birds seeking the shore. A deep calm reigned in these lonely places, but nature's calm contrasted with the painful feelings agitating us. Towards eight that night the dead man's knell was tolled; at this lugubrious signal the sailors stopped work and kneeled in short prayers in a touching ceremony, which, recalling the times when the early Christians saw themselves as members of the same family, brought us together in a common sorrow. At night the young Asturian's corpse was carried to the bridge, and the priest arranged to delay dropping him into the sea until dawn, according to the Roman Catholic rite. Everybody mourned the bad luck of this young man who but a few days before had seemed so fresh and healthy.

The Guàcharo cave is pierced into the vertical rock face. The entrance opens towards the south. Gigantic trees grow above the rock that serves as roof to the grotto. The mammee tree and the genipap (Genipa americana), with its large shiny leaves, raise their branches towards the sky while those of the courbaril and the poro, or coral tree, stretch out to form a thick, green vault. Pothos with succulent stems, oxalises and orchids with strange shapes grow in the driest cracks in the rocks, while climbing plants, swaying in the wind, knot themselves into garlands at the cave entrance. Among these we saw a violet-blue jacaranda, a dolichos with purple flowers, and for the first time, that stunning solandra (Solandra scandens) with its orange flower and fleshy tube some 4 inches long.