The hill of calcareous rocks on which Cumana stands, once an island in an ancient gulf, is covered with candle-like cacti and opuntia, some of the most arresting reaching as much as 30 to 40 feet high, with their trunks branching out like candelabra and covered in lichen. Near Maniquarez, at Punta Araya, we measured a cactus (Tuna macho) whose trunk had a circumference of 1. meters. Europeans who do not know opuntia apart from those in hothouses will be surprised to learn that the wood of this plant hardens extraordinarily with age, that for centuries it resists both air and humidity and that the Cumana Indians use it for making oars and door-frames. Cumana, Coro, Margarita Island and Curacao are the places in South America where the nopals thrive most. Only after a long stay could a botanist write a monograph on the genus Cactus.

Our first excursion to the Araya peninsula was followed by another more important and instructive one to the mountain missions of the Chaima Indians. Such a variety of objects attracted our attention. We found ourselves in a country bristling with forests on our way to visit a convent shaded by palm trees and arborescent ferns in a narrow valley which was deliciously fresh, despite being in the middle of the torrid zone. In the surrounding mountains there are eaves inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds; and, what struck our imagination more than all the marvels of the physical world, even further up we found a people until recently still nomadic, hardly free from a natural, wild state, but not barbarians, made stupid more from ignorance than from long years of being brutalized. What we knew about history increased our interest in these people. The promontory of Paria was what Columbus first saw of this continent; these valleys ended there, devastated first by the warlike, cannibalistic Caribs, then by the mercantile and orderly European nations. If the Spaniards visited these shores it was only to get, either by violence or exchange, slaves, pearls, gold and dye-woods; they tried to dignify their motives for such an insatiable greed with the pretence of religious zeal.

The most majestic palm tree of its tribe, the palma real, gives the countryside around Havana its special character. It is the Oreodoxa regia in our description of American palms; its tall trunk, swelling slightly in the middle, rises 60 to 80 feet high; its upper part shines with a tender green, newly formed by the closing and dilation of the petioles, and contrasts with the rest, which is whitish and fissured. It looks like two columns, one on top of the other. The Cuban palma real has feathery leaves rising straight up towards the sky, curving only at the tips. The form of this plant reminded us of the vadgiai palm covering the rocks on the Orinoco cataracts, balancing its long arrows above the mist of foam. Here, like everywhere, as the population increases so vegetation diminishes. Around Havana, in the Regla amphitheater, these palms that so delighted me are now disappearing year by year. The marshy places covered with bamboos have been cultivated and are drying out. Civilization progresses; and today I am told that the land offers only a few traces of its former savage abundance. From the Punta to San Làzaro, from the Cabaìa to Regla, from Regla to Atares, everything is covered with houses: those circling the bay are lightly and elegantly built. The owners draw a plan and order a house from the United States, as if ordering furniture. As long as yellow fever rages in Havana, people will retire to their country houses and enjoy fresher air. In the cool nights, when ships cross the bay and leave long phosphorescent tracks in the water, these rural sites become a refuge for those who flee a tumultuous, over-populated city. (137)

We stopped to observe the howler monkeys, which move in lines across the intricate branches linking the jungle trees in packs of thirty and forty. While watching this new spectacle we met a group of Indians on their way to the Caripe mountains. They were completely naked, like most Indians in these lands. Behind them came the women, laden with heavy packs, while all the men and boys were armed with bows and arrows. They walked in silence, staring at the ground. We would have liked to ask them if the Santa Cruz mission, where we hoped to spend the night, was far off. We were exhausted, and thirsty. The heat was increasing as the storm approached, and we had not found any springs. As the Indians invariably answered si padre and no padre we thought they understood a little Spanish. In their eyes every white is a monk, a padre. In the missions the color of the skin characterizes the monk more than the color of his habit. When we asked those Indians if Santa Cruz was far off they answered si or no so arbitrarily that we could make no sense of their answers. This made us angry, for their smiles and gestures showed that they would have liked to direct us as the jungle became thicker and thicker. We had to leave them; our guides, who spoke the Chaima language, lagged behind as the loaded mules kept falling into ravines.

Towards evening the captain weighed anchor and sailed west. Soon we came within sight of the little island of Cubagua, now entirely deserted but once famous for its pearl fisheries. There the Spaniards, immediately after Columbus's and Ojeda's journeys, had built a city called Nueva Cadiz, of which there is now not a trace. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Cubagua pearls were known in Seville, Toledo and the great fairs at Augsburg and Bruges. Nueva Cadiz had no water, so it had to be conveyed there from the Manzanares river. For some reason this water was thought to cause eye diseases.

Many chapels, called ermitas by the Spaniards, surround La Laguna. Built on hillocks among evergreen trees, these chapels add a picturesque effect to the countryside. The interior of the town does not correspond at all to its outskirts. The houses are solid, but very ancient, and the streets sad. A botanist should not complain of the age of these houses for the roofs and walls are covered with Sempervivum canariensis and the pretty trichomanes, mentioned by every traveler. The plants are watered by the abundant mists.

We waited nearly the whole day in the miserable village of Mahates for the animals carrying our belongings to the landing-stage on the Magdalena river. It was suffocatingly hot; at this time of year there is not a breath of wind. Feeling depressed we lay on the ground in the main square. My barometer had broken and it was the last one I had. I had anticipated measuring the slope of the river and fixing the speed of its current and the position of different stages through astronomical observations. Only travelers know how painful it is to suffer such accidents, which continued to dog me in the Andes and in Mexico; each time this happened I felt the same. Of all the instruments a traveler should carry the barometer is the one, despite all its imperfections, that caused me the most worry and whose loss I felt the most. Only chronometers, which sometimes suddenly and unpredictably change their rates, give rise to the same sense of loss. Indeed, after travelling thousands of leagues over land with astronomical and physical instruments, you are tempted to cry out: 'Lucky are those who travel without instruments that break, without dried plants that get wet, without animal collections that rot; lucky are those who travel the world to see it with their own eyes, trying to understand it, and recollecting the sweet emotions that nature inspires!