At around eleven in the morning we caught sight of a low-lying island with large sand dunes. We did not see any sign of life or farming through the telescope. Here and there rose the cylindrical cacti in the form of candelabra. The ground, devoid of vegetation, seemed to ripple due to the intense refraction of the sun's rays through the air above an intensely heated surface. All over the world deserts and beaches look like rough seas from the effect of mirage.

Despite the indignation of our guides we opened various mapires to study the skulls. They were all typical of the American race, with one or two Caucasian types. We took several skulls with us, as well as a skeleton of a six- or seven-year-old child, and two Atures adults. All these bones, partly painted red, and partly covered in resin, lay in the baskets already described. They made up the whole load of one mule and, as we knew all about the superstitious aversions that Indians have about corpses once they have been buried, we covered the baskets with newly woven mats. But nothing could fool the Indians and their acute sense of smell. Wherever we stopped Indians ran to surround our mules and admire the monkeys we had bought on the Orinoco. But hardly had they touched our luggage than they announced the certain death of the mule that 'carried the dead'. In vain we tried to dissuade them and said the baskets contained crocodile and manatee skeletons. They insisted that they smelled the resin that covered the bones 'of their old relations'. One of the skulls we brought from the Ataruipe cavern has been painted by my old master Blumenbach. But the skeletons of the Indians have been lost with much of our collection in a storm off Africa, where our travelling companion and friend the Franciscan monk Juan Gonzalez also drowned. We left the burial-ground of this extinct race in a sad mood.

The perpetual cool that prevails in La Laguna makes the city the favorite home for the inhabitants of the Canaries. The residential capital of Tenerife is magnificently placed in a small plain surrounded by gardens at the foot of a hill crowned with laurel, myrtle and strawberry trees. It would be a mistake to rely on some travelers who believe the town lies by a lake. The rain sometimes forms an enormous sheet of water, and a geologist who sees the past rather than the present state of nature in everything would not doubt that the whole plain was once a great lake, now dried up. La Laguna has fallen from its opulence since the erupting volcano destroyed the port of Garachico and Santa Cruz became the trading center of the island. It has no more than 9, inhabitants, with nearly 400 monks distributed in six convents, though some travelers insist half the population wear cassocks. Numerous windmills surround the city, a sign that wheat is cultivated in this high country. The Guanches called wheat at Tenerife tano, at Lanzarote triffa; barley in Gran Canaria was called aramotanoque, and at Lanzarote tamosen. The flour of roasted barley (gofio) and goat's milk constituted the main food of these people about whose origins so many systematic fables have been written.

Our pilot had tied up the pirogue at the Playa de Huevos to buy provisions as our stores were running out. We found fresh meat, Angostura rice and even biscuits made of wheat. Our Indians filled the boat with live young turtles and sun-dried eggs for their own use. After saying good-bye to the missionary who had been so friendly to us we continued our journey upstream. There was a fresh wind that turned into squalls. Since we had entered the mountainous part of the country we had begun to notice that our boat sailed poorly, but the pilot wanted to show the Indians gathered on the bank that by sailing close to the wind he could reach the middle of the stream without tacking. Just as he was boasting of his skill and the daring of his maneuver the wind gusted against the sail with such violence that we nearly sank. One of the boat's sides was submerged. Water poured in so suddenly that we were soon knee-deep in water. It washed over a table I was writing on in the stern. I just managed to rescue my diary, and then saw our books, dried plants and papers floating away. Bonpland was sleeping in the middle of the boat. Woken by the flooding water and the shrieking Indian he immediately took control of the situation with that coolness which he always showed in danger. (96) As one side of the boat rose up out of the water he did not think the boat would sink. He thought that if we had to abandon boat we could swim ashore as there were no crocodiles about. Then the ropes holding the sails broke, and the same gust of wind that almost sank us now helped us recover. We baled the water out with gourds, mended the sail, and' in less than half an hour we were able to continue our journey. When we criticized our pilot for having sailed too close to the wind he resorted to that typical Indian phlegmatic attitude: 'that the whites would find plenty of sun on the beaches to dry their papers'. We had lost only one book overboard - the first volume of Schreber's Genera plantarum. Such losses are particularly painful when you are able to take so few scientific books.

April 18th. We set off at three in the morning in order to reach the cataracts known as the Raudal de Guahibos before nightfall. We moored at the mouth of the Tomo river, and the Indians camped on the shore. At five in the afternoon we reached the raudal. It was extremely difficult to row against the current and the mass of water rushing over a bank several feet high. One Indian swam to a rock that divided the cataract in two, tied a rope to it, and began hauling our boat until, halfway up, we were able to get off with our instruments, dried plants and bare provisions. Surprisingly we found that above the natural wall over which the river fell there was a piece of dry land. Our position in the middle of the cataract was strange but without danger. Our companion, the missionary father, had one of his fever fits, and to relieve him we decided to make a refreshing drink. We had taken on board at Apures a mapire, or Indian basket, filled with sugar, lemons and grenadillas, or passion-fruit, which the Spaniards call parchas. As we had no bowl in which to mix the juices we poured river water into one of the holes in the rock with a tutuma, and then added the sugar and acid fruit juices. In a few seconds we had a wonderfully refreshing juice, almost a luxury in this wild spot, but necessity had made us more and more ingenious. After quenching our thirst we wanted to have a swim. Carefully examining the narrow rocky dyke on which we sat, we saw that it formed little coves where the water was clear and still. We had the pleasure of a quiet bathe in the midst of noisy cataracts and screaming Indians. I enter into such detail to remind those who plan to travel afar that at any moment in life pleasures can be found.

The tribes of the Upper Orinoco, the Atabapo and the Inirida, worship only the forces of nature. The principle of good is called Cachimana; it is the manitu, the great spirit, that controls the seasons and ripens fruit. Next to Cachimana there is the principle of evil, Jolokiamo, less powerful but more astute and, especially, more dynamic. When the jungle Indians go to missions it is difficult for them to conceive of a church or an image. 'These good people, said our missionary, 'like only outdoor processions. Recently when I celebrated the village's saint's day the Inirida Indians came to mass. They told me: Your god is locked into a house as if he was old and sick; our god is in the jungle, in fields, in the Sipapu mountains from where the rains come. In the larger, and thus more barbarous tribes, peculiar religious societies are formed. Some of the older Indians claim to be better initiated in divine matters and guard the famous botuto that they play under palm trees to make the fruit ripen. On the Orinoco banks no images or idols can be found, but the botuto, the sacred trumpet, is worshipped. To be initiated into the mysteries of the botuto you must be pure and celibate. The initiated are subject to flagellations, fasting and other disciplinarian practices. There are few sacred trumpets. The most famous is found on a hill at the confluence of the Tomo and Guainia rivers. It is said it can be heard at a distance of 10 leagues. Father Cerezo assured us that Indians talk of this botuto as the object of a cult common to several neighboring tribes. Fruit and alcoholic drinks are placed round this sacred trumpet. Sometimes the great spirit Cachimana himself blows the botuto, sometimes he speaks through whoever guards the instrument. As these tricks are very ancient (the fathers of our fathers, the Indians say) you should not be surprised that there are many believers. Women are not allowed to see the marvelous trumpet, and are excluded from all religious service. If one has the misfortune to see it she is mercilessly killed. The missionary told us that in 1798 he was lucky enough to save a young girl whom a jealous lover had accused of having followed the Indians who sounded the botuto. 'They would have murdered her publicly, said Father Cerezo. 'How could she have protected herself from Indian fanaticism, in a country where it is so easy to be poisoned? I sent her away to one of the missions on the Lower Orinoco.

May 14th. Mosquitoes and ants chased us from the river bank before two in the morning. We thought that ants could not climb the ropes on which we hung our hammocks; but whether this was inexact, or whether they fell on top of us from branches, we struggled to rid ourselves of these annoying insects. The more we advanced the narrower the river became. Its banks were so muddy that Bonpland could only reach the trunk of a Carolinea princeps covered with enormous purple flowers with extreme effort. This tree is the most beautiful in these jungles.