The beach near the mouth of the small Santa Catalina river is lined with mangrove trees (Rhizophora mangle); but these mangroves (manglares) are not extensive enough to affect the salubrity of Cumana's air. Otherwise the plain is partly bare and partly covered with tufts of plants including the Avicennia tomentosa, the Scoparia dulcis, a shrub-like mimosa with very sensitive leaves, (28) and especially cassias, so many of which can be found in South America that on our travels we gathered more than thirty new species.

The most concentrated sap from the mavacure is not thick enough to stick on arrows. It is thus only to thicken the poison that another concentrated infusion of vegetable sap is added. This is an extremely sticky sap taken from a tree with long leaves called kiracaguero. As this tree grows a long way off, and at this period is without flowers or fruit like the bejuco de mavacure, we were not able to name it botanically. I have often spoken of the ill fate that prevents travelers from studying the most interesting plants. When you travel quickly you hardly see an eighth of the trees that offer the essential parts of their fructification, even in the Tropics where flowers last so long.

The most remote part of the valley is covered with thick jungle. In this shady place lies the opening to the Ataruipe cavern, less a cavern than a deep vault formed by an overhanging rock, and scooped out by water when it reached this height. This is the cemetery of an extinct race. We counted some 600 well-preserved skeletons, lined in rows. Each skeleton is enclosed in a basket made of palm-leaf petioles. These baskets, called mapires by the Indians, are a kind of square sack whose dimensions vary according to the age of the dead. Children who die at birth also have their mapires. The skeletons are so intact that not even a rib or a phalanx is missing.

After three days' journey we finally glimpsed the Cumanà mountains between the llanos or, as they say here, 'the great sea of green' ('los llanos son como un mar de yerbas'), and the Caribbean coast. Although some 800 toises high, the Brigantín is visible from over 27 leagues away; however, the atmosphere prevented us from seeing that attractive curtain of mountains. At first it appeared as a layer of mist; gradually this mass of mist turned blue and took on its fixed outline. What a sailor sees on approaching new land is what a traveler experiences on the borders of the llano. A llanero, or llano inhabitant, only feels at ease when, so the popular saying goes, 'he can see all around him'. What appears to us as covered in vegetation, a rolling land with slight hills, is for him a terrible region bristling with mountains. After having lived for months in the thick Orinoco jungles where you see stars as if from a well, a gallop across the steppes is quite agreeable. The novelty of all you feel strikes you, and like a llanero you too feel happy 'to see everywhere around you'. But this new pleasure (which we ourselves experienced) does not last long. To contemplate an immense horizon is imposing whether from Andean summits or the Venezuelan plains. Limitless space reflects a similar quality inside us (as poets in all languages have written) it suggests higher matters, and elevates the minds of those who enjoy solitary meditation. However, there is also something sad and monotonous about the dusty and cracked steppes. After eight to ten days' journey you get used to the mirages and the brilliant green of the tufts of mauritia palms, and seek more variety, like seeing tall jungle trees or wild cataracts or cultivated lands.

We left San Fernando on the 30th of March at four in the afternoon. The heat was suffocating; the thermometer marked 34'C in the shade despite a strong south-east wind. This wind prevented us from setting our sails. During our journey along the Apure, the Orinoco and the Rio Negro we were accompanied by the brother-in-law of the governor of the Barinas province, Don Nicolas Soto, recently arrived from Cadiz. To get to know land worthy of a European's curiosity he decided to spend seventy-four days with us in a narrow lancha, invaded by mosquitoes. The right bank of the Apure is somewhat better cultivated than the left bank where the Yaruro Indians have built huts with reeds and palm-leaf stalks. They live from hunting and fishing, and are skilled in hunting the jaguar whose skins, called 'tiger skins', reach Spain thanks to them. Some of these Indians have been baptized, but they never go to church. They are considered to be wild because they want to remain independent. Other Yaruro tribes accept missionary discipline. The people of this tribe look like a branch of the Mongol family. Their look is serious; their eyes elongated, their cheek-bones high and with a prominent nose.

The way Havana looks as you enter the port makes it one of the most pleasant and picturesque places on the American equinoctial coasts. (136) Celebrated by travelers from all over the world, this site is not like the luxurious vegetation along the Guayaquil banks, nor the wild majesty of Río de Janeiro's rocky coasts, but the charms that in our climates embellish cultivated nature are here joined to the power and organic vigor of tropical nature. In this sweet blend of impressions, the European forgets the dangers that threaten him in crowded West Indian cities; he tries to seize all the diverse elements in this vast countryside and contemplate the forts that crown the rocks to the east of the port, the inland basin surrounded by villages and farms, the palm trees reaching amazing heights, a town half hidden by a forest of ships' masts and sails. You enter Havana harbor between the Morro fort (Castillo de los Santos Reyes) and the San Salvador de la Punta fort: the opening is barely some 170 to 200 toises wide, and remains like this for one fifth of a mile. Leaving this neck, and the beautiful San Carlos de la Cabaìa castle and the Casa Blanca to the north, you reach the basin shaped like a clover whose great axis, stretching south-south-west to north-north-east, is about 2. miles long. This basin links up with three creeks, one of which, the Atares, is supplied with fresh water. The city of Havana, surrounded by walls, forms a promontory limited to the south by the arsenal; to the north by the Punta fort. Passing some sunken ships, and the Luz shoals, the water becomes some 5 to 6 fathoms deep. The castles defend the town from the west. The rest of the land is filled with suburbs (arrabales or barrios extra muros), which year by year shrink the Field of Mars (Campo de Marte). Havana's great buildings, the cathedral, the Casa del Gobierno, the admiral's house, the arsenal, the correo or post office, and the tobacco factory are less remarkable for their beauty than for their solidity; most of the streets are very narrow and are not yet paved. As stones come from Veracruz, and as transporting them is expensive, someone had recently come up with the strange idea of using tree trunks instead of paving-stones. This project was quickly abandoned, though recently arrived travelers could see fine cahoba (mahogany) tree trunks sunk into the mud. During my stay, few cities in Spanish America could have been more unpleasant due to the lack of a strong local government. You walked around in mud up to your knees, while the amount of four-wheeled carriages or volantes so typical of Havana, carts loaded with sugar cane, and porters who elbowed passers-by made being a pedestrian annoying and humiliating. The stench of tasajo, or poorly dried meat, stank out the houses and tortuous streets. I have been assured that the police have now remedied these inconveniences, and cleaned up the streets. Houses are more aerated; but here, as in ancient European cities, correcting badly planned streets is a slow process.

Having given up hope of the mail-boat from Spain we boarded an American ship loaded with salt for Cuba. We had spent sixteen months on this coast and in the interior of Venezuela. On the 16th of November we left our Cumanà friends to cross the Gulf of Cariaco for Nueva Barcelona for the third time. The sea breeze was strong and after six hours we anchored off the Morro of Nueva Barcelona, where a ship was waiting to take us to Havana. (135)