The Indians enter the caves once a year near midsummer with poles to destroy most of the nests. Several thousand birds are killed; the older ones hover over their heads to defend their young, screaming horribly. The young, called los pollos del guàcharo, fall to the ground and are cut open on the spot. Their peritoneum is loaded with fat; a layer of fat reaches from the abdomen to the anus, forming a kind of wad between the bird's legs. During this period, called the cosecha de la manteca (oil harvest) in Caripe, the Indians build palm-leaf huts near the entrance and in the cave vestibule itself. We could see their remains. With a brushwood fire they melt the fat of the young birds just killed and pour it into clay pots. This fat is known as butter or guàcharo oil; it is semi-liquid, clear and odorless, and so pure that it lasts for a year without going rancid. In the Caripe convent kitchen they only use fat from this cave, and the food never had a disagreeable taste or smell thanks to this fat.

At Javita we had the pleasure of meeting a cultured, reasonable monk. We had to stay in his house the four or five days it took to carry our canoe along the Pimichín portage. Delay allowed us to visit the region, as well as rid us of an irritation that had been annoying us for the last two days: an intense itching in the articulations of our fingers and the backs of our hands. The missionary said this came from aradores (literally, 'ploughers') encrusted under our skin. With the aid of a magnifying glass we saw only lines, or whitish parallel furrows, which show why it is called an arador. The monks called for a mulatta who knew how to deal with all the little insects that burrow into human skin, from niguas, nuches and coyas to the arador. She was the curandera, the local doctor. She promised to remove all the insects irritating us, one by one. She heated the tip of a little stick on the fire and dug it into the furrows in our skin. After a long examination she announced, with that pedantic gravity peculiar to colored people, that she had found an arador. I saw a little round bag that could have been the egg of the acaride. I should have been relieved when this clumsy mulatta poked out three or four more of these aradores. But as my skin was full of acarides I lost all patience with an operation that had already lasted until well into the night. The next day a Javita Indian cured us incredibly quickly. He brought a branch of a shrub called uzao, which had little shiny leathery leaves similar to the cassia. With its bark he prepared a cold bluish infusion that smelled of liquorice. When he beat it it became very frothy. Thanks to a washing with this uzao infusion the itching caused by the aradores disappeared. We were never able to find flowers or fruit of this uzao; the shrub seemed to belong to the leguminous family. We dreaded the pain caused by these aradores so much that we took various branches with us right up to San Carlos.

The destruction of the forests, the clearing of the plains, and the cultivation of indigo over half a century has affected the amount of water flowing in as well as the evaporation of the soil and the dryness of the air, which forcefully explains why the present Lake Valencia is decreasing. By felling trees that cover the tops and sides of mountains men everywhere have ensured two calamities at the same time for the future: lack of fuel, and scarcity of water. Trees, by the nature of their perspiration, and the radiation from their leaves in a cloudless sky, surround themselves with an atmosphere that is constantly cool and misty. They affect the amount of springs by sheltering the soil from the sun's direct actions and reducing the rainwater's evaporation. When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America by European planters, with imprudent haste, the springs dry up completely, or merely trickle. River beds remain dry part of the year and are then turned into torrents whenever it rains heavily on the heights. As grass and moss disappear with the brushwood from the mountainsides, so rainwater is unchecked in its course. Instead of slowly raising the river level by filtrations, the heavy rains dig channels into the hillsides, dragging down loose soil, and forming sudden, destructive floods. Thus, the clearing of forests, the absence of permanent springs, and torrents are three closely connected phenomena. Countries in different hemispheres like Lombardy bordered by the Alps, and Lower Peru between the Pacific and the Andes, confirm this assertion.

On the 7th of June we sadly left Father Ramon Bueno. Alone among all the missionaries we met he cared for the Indians. He hoped to return to Madrid to publish the result of his researches into the figures and characters that cover the Uruana rocks. In this area between the Meta, Arauca and Apure, Alonso de Herrera, during the first 1535 expedition to the Orinoco, found mute dogs (perros mudos). We cannot doubt that this dog is indigenous to South America. Different Indian languages have words for this dog that cannot be related to European languages. Early historians all speak of mute dogs, and this same dog was eaten in Mexico and on the Orinoco.

From Puerto Cabello we returned to the Aragua valley, and stopped again at the Barbula plantation through which the new road to Nueva Valencia will pass. Weeks before we had been told about a tree whose sap is a nourishing milk. They call it the 'cow tree', and assured us that negroes on the estates drank quantities of this vegetable milk. As the milky juices of plants are acrid, bitter and more or less poisonous, it seemed hard to believe what we heard, but during our stay in Barbula we proved that nobody had exaggerated the properties of palo de vaca. This fine tree is similar to the Chrysophyllum cainito (broad-leafed star-apple). When incisions are made in the trunk it yields abundant glutinous milk; it is quite thick, devoid of all acridity, and has an agreeable balmy smell. It was offered to us in tutuma-fruit - or gourd - bowls, and we drank a lot before going to bed, and again in the morning, without any ill effects. Only its viscosity makes it a little disagreeable. Negroes and free people who work on the plantations dip their maize and cassava bread in it. The overseer of the estate told us that negroes put on weight during the period that the palo de vaca exudes milk. This notable tree appears to be peculiar to the cordillera Coast At Caucagua the natives called it the 'milk tree'. They say they can recognize the trunks that yield most juice from the thickness and color of the leaves. No botanist has so far known this plant.