On the 21st of May we again entered the bed of the Orinoco, 3 leagues above the Esmeralda mission. It had been a month since we had left this river near the mouth of the Guaviare. We still had 750 leagues to navigate as far as Angostura, but it was downstream, and this made the thought less painful. Going downstream you follow the middle of the river bed where there are less mosquitoes. Going upstream you are forced to stick close to the banks, to benefit from eddies and counter-currents, where the jungle and organic detritus thrown up on the beaches attract insects of the Tipulary family. The point where the Orinoco bifurcates is incredibly imposing. High granitic mountains rise on the northern shore, among them the Maraguaca and the Duida. There are no mountains at all on the left bank, or to the west or east as far as the mouth of the Tamatama. (118)

We spent the night on Isla Conserva. The Indians had lit a camp-fire near the water. Again we confirmed that the glow of the flames attracted crocodiles and dolphins (toninas) whose noise stopped us sleeping until we decided to put the fire out. That night we had to get up twice. I mention this as an example of what it means to live in the jungle. A female jaguar approached our camp-site when it brought a cub to drink water. The Indians chased it away, but we heard its cub's cries, like a cat's, for hours. A little later our large dog was bitten, or stung as the Indians say, by some enormous bats (94) that flew around our hammocks. The wound in its snout was tiny and the dog howled more from fear than pain.

When we carefully examine this wild part of America we imagine how it was in primitive times when the land was peopled in stages, and seem to be present at the birth of human societies. In the New World we do not see the progressive developments of civilization, those moments of rest, those stations in the lives of a people. Such is the wonderful fertility of nature that the Indian's field is a patch of land. To clear it means setting fire to branches. To farm means dropping a few seeds into the ground. However far back in time you go in thought in these dense jungles the Indians have got their food from the earth, but as this earth produces abundantly on a small patch, without much work, these people often change their homes along the river banks. Still today, the Orinoco Indians travel with their seeds, transporting what they cultivate (conucos), like the Arab does his tents.

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.

From the time we entered the torrid zone we never tired of admiring, night after night, the beauty of the southern sky, which as we advanced further south opened up new constellations. A strange, completely unknown feeling is awoken in us when nearing the Equator and crossing from one hemisphere to another; the stars we have known since infancy begin to vanish. Nothing strikes the traveler more completely about the immense distances that separate him from home than the look of a new sky. The grouping of great stars, some scattered nebulae that rival the Milky Way in splendor, and regions that stand out because of their intense blackness, give the southern sky its unique characteristics. This sight strikes the imagination of those who even, without knowledge of the exact sciences, like to stare at the heavens as if admiring a lovely country scene, or a majestic site. You do not have to be a botanist to recognize immediately the torrid zone by its vegetation. Even those with no inkling of astronomy know they are no longer in Europe when they see the enormous constellation of the Ship or the brilliant Clouds of Magellan rise in the night sky. Everything on earth and in the sky in the tropical countries takes on an exotic note.