The pilots trusted the ship's log more than my time- keeper, and smiled at my prediction that we would soon sight land, sure that we still had two to three days of sailing. It was with great satisfaction that on the 13th, at about six in the morning, high land was seen through the mist by someone from the mast. A strong wind blew and the sea was very rough. Every now and then heavy drops of rain fell. Everything pointed to a difficult situation. The captain intended to pass through the channel that separates the islands of Tobago and Trinidad and, knowing that our corvette was slow to turn, feared the south wind and the approach to the Boca del Dragon.

Our stay in Turbaco was extremely agreeable, and useful for our botanical collection. Even today those bamboo forests, the wild fertility of the land, the orchids carpeting the old ocotea and Indian fig-tree trunks, the majestic view of the snowy mountains, the light mist covering the valleys at sunrise, bunches of gigantic trees like green islands above a sea of mist, all return incessantly to my imagination. Our life at Turbaco was simple and hard-working; we were young, linked by similar tastes and characters, always full of hope in the future, on the eve of a journey that would take us to the highest Andean peaks, and volcanoes on fire in a country where earthquakes are common. We felt happier than at any other moment in our expedition. The years that have passed since then, not without bitterness and hardships, have added to the charms of these impressions; I would like to think that in his exile in the Southern hemisphere, in the isolation of Paraguay, my unfortunate friend Bonpland (145) might still recall our delightful herborizings. As Bonpland's health had cruelly suffered during our journey on the Orinoco and Casiquiare we decided to follow the advice of the locals and supply ourselves with all the comforts possible on our trip up the Magdalena. Instead of sleeping in hammocks or lying on the ground on skins, exposed to the nightly torment of mosquitoes, we did what was done in the country, and got hold of a mattress, a country-bed that was easy to unfold, as well as a toldo, a cotton sheet, which could fold under the mattress and make a kind of closed-off tent that no insects could penetrate. Two of these beds, rolled into cylinders of thick leather, were packed on to a mule. I could not praise this system more; it is far superior to the mosquito net.

All day, even when rowing, Indians continually slap each other hard with the palm of the hand to scare off mosquitoes. Brusque in all their movements they continue to slap each other mechanically while they sleep. At Maypures we saw young Indians sitting in a circle, cruelly scratching each other's back with bark dried by the fire. With that patience only known in the copper-colored race, some Indian women busied themselves by digging small lumps of coagulated blood from each bite with a sharp, pointed bone. One of the wildest Orinoco tribes, the Otomacs, use mosquito nets woven from fiber from the moriche palm. In villages on the Magdalena river Indians often invited us to lie down on oxhides near the church in the middle of the plaza grande where they had herded all the cattle, as the proximity of cattle gives you some respite from bites. When Indians saw that Bonpland was unable to prepare his plants because of the plague of mosquitoes they invited him into their 'ovens' (hornitos), as they call these small spaces without doors or windows, which they slide into on their bellies through a low opening. Thanks to a fire of greenwood, which gives off plenty of smoke, they expel all the insects and then block the 'oven' door. Bonpland, with a praiseworthy courage and patience, dried hundreds of plants shut up in these Indian hornitos.

On the 3rd and 4th of July we crossed that part of the Atlantic Ocean where charts indicate the Maelstrom; at night we changed course to avoid the danger, though its existence is as dubious as that of the isles of Fonseco and Saint Anne. (19) The old charts are filled with rocks, some of which really exist, though most are due to optical illusions, which are more frequent at sea than on land.

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 lower strata of air, from the ground to some 20 feet up, are invaded by poisonous insects, like thick clouds. If you stand in a dark place, such as a cave formed by granite blocks in the cataracts, and look towards the sunlit opening you will see actual clouds of mosquitoes that get thicker or thinner according to the density of insects. I doubt that there is another country on earth where man suffers more cruelly during the rainy season than here. When you leave latitude the biting lessens, but in the Upper Orinoco it becomes more painful because it is hotter, and there is absolutely no wind so your skin becomes more irritated. 'How good it would be to live on the moon, a Saliva Indian said. 'It is so beautiful and clear that it must be free of mosquitoes. (104)