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.

The plain, or rather tableland, on which Cumanacoa stands is only 104 toises above sea-level, three or four times lower than the inhabitants of Cumanà, who have an exaggerated view of how cold it is up there, think it is. The climatic difference between the two neighboring towns is due less to the height of one of them than to local weather conditions. Among these causes are the proximity of the jungle, the frequency of rivers falling down narrow valleys, the amount of rain and those thick fogs that block out sunlight. The cool climate surprises us all the more because, as in the town of Cartago, at Tomependa on the Amazon, as in the Agarua valleys west of Caracas, very great heat is felt though the height varies between 200 and 480 toises above sea-level. In plains, as well as on mountains, isothermal lines are not constantly parallel to the equator or the surface of the earth. Meteorology's great problem will be to determine the direction of these lines and variations due to local causes, and to discover the constant laws in the distribution of heat.

The road from San Fernando to Cumanacoa passes through small plantations in a humid, open valley. We forded numerous streams. In the shade the thermometer did not rise above 30°C, but we were exposed to the sun's rays because the bamboos along the path gave only a feeble shade and we suffered a lot from the heat. We passed through the village of Arenas, inhabited by Indians of the same race as those at San Fernando. But Arenas is no longer a mission, and the Indians, governed by a regular priest, are less naked and more civilized. Their church is known in the area for the primitive paintings on its walls. A narrow frieze encloses pictures of armadillos, caymans, jaguars and other New World animals.

Our first camp, above the Vasiva, was easily set up. We found a corner of dry land free from shrubs at the south of the cano Curamuni in a place where we saw capuchin monkeys, so easily identified with their black beards and sad, wild look, as they climbed along horizontal branches of a genipap. The next five nights became more and more uncomfortable as we approached the Orinoco bifurcation. The exuberance of the vegetation increases to such a point that it is hard to imagine, even when you have got used to the Tropics. There is no beach; a palisade of bunched trees becomes the river bank. You see a channel some 200 toises wide bordered with two enormous walls carpeted with leaves and liana. We tried to get ashore but could not even get out of the canoe. Sometimes at sunset we would follow the bank for an hour to reach, not a clearing, but a less overgrown patch where our Indians with their machetes could cut down enough to let thirteen or fourteen people camp. We could not spend the night in the pirogue. The mosquitoes that tormented us during the day crowded towards evening under the toldo, that is, the roof made of palm leaves that sheltered us from rain. Never were our hands or faces more swollen. Even father Zea, boasting that in his cataract missions he had the biggest and bravest (los más valientes) mosquitoes, agreed that these Casiquiare bites were the most painful he had ever felt. In the middle of thick jungle it was difficult to find any wood to light our fire; the branches are so full of sap in this equatorial region where it always rains that they hardly burn. Where there are no arid beaches we hardly ever came across that old wood which Indians say has been 'cooked in the sun'. A fire was only necessary to scare away jungle animals: we had such a low stock of food that we did not need wood to cook.