We could have included all these details in a work devoted solely to volcanoes in Peru and New Spain. Had I written the physical description of a single province I could have incorporated separate chapters on geography, mineralogy and botany, but how could I break the narrative of our travels, or an essay on customs and the great phenomena of general physics, by tiresomely enumerating the produce of the land, or describing new species and making dry astronomical observations? Had I decided to write a book that included in the same chapter everything observed from the same spot, it would have been excessively long, quite lacking in the clarity that comes from a methodical distribution of subject matter. Despite the efforts made to avoid these errors in this narration of my journey, I am aware that I have not always succeeded in separating the observations of detail from the general results that interest all educated minds. These results should bring together the influence of climate on organized beings, the look of the landscape, the variety of soils and plants, the mountains and rivers that separate tribes as much as plants. I do not regret lingering on these interesting objects for modern civilization can be characterized by how it broadens our ideas, making us perceive the connections between the physical and the intellectual worlds. It is likely that my travel journal will interest many more readers than my purely scientific researches into the population, commerce and mines in New Spain.

Among the Saliva Indians we found a white woman, the Sister of a Jesuit from New Granada. After having lived with people who did not understand us, it is hard to describe the joy we felt on meeting somebody with whom we could converse without an interpreter. Each mission has at least two interpreters, lenguarazes. These Indians are rather less stupid than the others through whom the missionaries, who do not bother to learn the languages any more, communicate with neophytes. These interpreters accompanied us when we went out botanizing; they understood Spanish but spoke it badly. With their usual apathy they would arbitrarily answer any questions with a smiling 'yes father' or 'no father'. You will understand that after months of this kind of dialogue you lose patience without managing to get the information that you urgently require. It was not rare for us to use several interpreters, and sometimes we had to translate several times the same sentence in order to begin to understand the Indians. 'After leaving my mission, said the goodly monk at Uruana, 'you will be travelling as mutes. This prediction was exact. To get something even from the most primitive Indians we met, we turned to sign language. As soon as the Indian realizes you do not need him as an interpreter but are asking him something directly by pointing it out, he drops his usual apathy and shows a special skill in making himself understood. He varies his signs, pronounces his words slowly, and seems flattered by your interest.

The hate that Indians show for nearly all human beings who speak another language, and are considered to be barbarians of an inferior race, often erupts in the missions after years of slumber. A few months before our arrival at Esmeralda, an Indian born in the jungle behind the Duida was travelling with another who previously, having been captured by the Spaniards on the banks of the Ventuario, had lived peacefully in the village or, as they say, 'under the sound of a bell' (debajo de la campana). This latter Indian had to walk slowly because of a fever he had caught in the mission, usually due to a sudden change in diet. Annoyed by this delay his companion killed him and hid the corpse under some thickets near Esmeralda. The crime, like so many others committed among the Indians, would not have been discovered if the murderer had not proposed to celebrate a feast the following day. He tried to persuade his sons, who were born in the mission and were Christians, to accompany him to the jungle and fetch bits of the corpse to eat. The boys had difficulty in stopping him. The family squabble alerted a soldier who found out what the Indians had tried to conceal.

We were received with eagerness by the monks of the hospice. The father superior was away but, notified of our departure from Cumanà, be had taken great pains to ensure our comfort at the convent. There was an inner cloister, typical of all Spanish monasteries. We used this enclosed space to install our instruments and get them working. In the convent we discovered a varied company; young monks recently arrived from Spain before being sent out to different missions, while old, sick missionaries recuperated in the healthy air of the Caripe bills. I was lodged in the father superior's cell, which had a notable library. To my surprise I found Feijòo's Teatro crítico, the Lettres édifiantes, and L'abbé Nollet's Traité d'électricité. Science has progressed to even the American jungles. The youngest of the Capuchin monks had brought with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's treatise on chemistry, (56) which he intended to study in the isolation of the mission where he was to be abandoned on his own for the rest of his days. I doubt that the desire to learn can be kept alive in a young monk isolated on the banks of the Tigre river; but what is certain, and an honour to the spirit of this century, is that during our long stay in South American missions we never saw the least sign of intolerance.