The chief of one of the pirogues offered to stay on board to guide us as a coastal pilot. He was a most trustworthy Guaiqueri; a keen observer, and led by a genuine thirst for learning he had studied the produce of the sea and land around him. It was fortunate that the first Indian we met on arrival was a man whose knowledge was to prove extremely helpful for our journey's objectives. With great pleasure I record his name as Carlos del Pino, who accompanied us for sixteen months up and down the coast, and into the interior.

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.