How hard it is to express the pleasure we felt arriving at Angostura, capital of Spanish Guiana. The discomforts felt at sea in small boats cannot be compared to those felt under a burning sky, surrounded by swarms of mosquitoes, cramped for months on end in a pirogue that does not let you budge an inch because of its delicate balance. In seventy-five days we had traveled along the five great rivers of the Apure, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro and the Casiquiare for 500 leagues, rarely sighting inhabited places. Although, after our life in the jungle, our clothes were not in good order, we hurried to present ourselves to the provincial governor Don Felipe de Ynciarte. He received us in the most considerate way, and lodged us in the house of the Secretary of the Intendencia. Coming from such deserted places we were struck by the bustle of a town of only 6, people. We appreciated what work and trade can do to make life more civilized. Modest houses seemed luxurious: anybody who spoke to us seemed witty. Long deprivations make small things pleasurable: how can l express the joy we felt on seeing wheat bread on the governor's table. I may be wrong in repeating what all travelers feel after long journeys. You enjoy finding yourself back in civilization, though it can be short-lived if you have learned to feel deeply the marvels of tropical nature. The memory of what you endured soon fades; as you reach the coasts inhabited by European colonists you begin to plan to make another journey into the interior.

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 passed the night of the 20th of May, the last on the Casiquiare, near the bifurcation with the Orinoco. We hoped to make some astronomical observations as we saw extraordinary shooting stars visible through the mist. Indians, who do not embellish their imagination through words, call shooting stars the 'piss of the stars', and dew the 'spit of the stars'. But the clouds thickened and prevented us from seeing both meteors and stars.

We walked round the island with the missionary and a pulpero who boasted that he had been visiting the Indians' camp and the pesca de tortugas for over ten years. People come to this part of the Orinoco in the same way we visit fairs in Frankfurt or Beaucaire. We were on a plain of perfectly smooth sand. 'As far as the eye can see, they told us, 'a layer of sand covers the turtle eggs. The missionary had a long pole in his hand. He showed us that by sounding with this pole (vara) he could determine the depth of the stratum of eggs in the same way a miner discovers the limits of a bed of marl, bog iron or coal. By thrusting the pole perpendicularly into the sand he immediately feels, by the lack of resistance, that he has penetrated into the cavity hiding the eggs. We saw that the stratum is generally spread with such uniformity that the pole finds it everywhere in a radius of 10 toises around any given spot. People speak of 'square poles of eggs'; it is like a minefield divided into regularly exploited lots. The stratum of eggs is far from covering the whole island; it is no longer found where land rises abruptly because the turtles cannot climb to these plateaux. I reminded my guides that Father Gumilla's vivid descriptions assured us that the Orinoco beaches have less grains of sand than turtles, and that they were so numerous that if men and tigers did not annually kill thousands of them the turtles would stop boats sailing upstream. 'Son cuentos de frailes, the pulpero from Angostura whispered; for the only travelers in these lands are poor missionaries and what one calls monks' tales here are what in Europe would be called travelers' tales.

After reaching an extraordinary violence the fever became less alarming. The intestinal inflammation yielded to emollients obtained from malvaceous plants. But the patient's recuperation was very slow, as happens with Europeans not thoroughly acclimatized to the Tropics. The rainy season continued. To return to the Cumana coast meant crossing the llanos, which would be flooded. So as not to expose Bonpland to a dangerous relapse we decided to stay in Angostura until the 10th of July. We spent part of the time in a nearby plantation, which grew mangoes and breadfruit (Artocarpus incisa).

Francisco Lozano, a laborer who lived in this village, presented a curious physiological phenomenon that struck our imagination, but did not contradict any laws of organic nature. This man breast-fed a child with his own milk. When the mother fell ill, the father, to pacify the child, took it to bed and pressed it to his nipples. Lozano, then thirty-two years old, had never noticed before that he had milk, but the irritation of the nipple sucked by the child caused liquid to accumulate. The milk was thick and very sweet. The father, astonished at how his breasts increased, suckled his child two or three times a day for five months. He attracted his neighbors' attention but, unlike someone living in Europe, never thought of exploiting this curiosity. We saw the certificate, drawn up on the spot, that attested this remarkable fact; eyewitnesses are still living. We were assured that during the breast-feeding the child received no other food but his father's milk. Lozano, away from Arenas when we visited, came to see us at Cumanà, accompanied by his son of already thirteen or fourteen. Bonpland carefully examined the father's breasts and found them wrinkled, like those of a woman who has suckled. (49)