As the inhabitants of Cumana prefer the freshness of the sea breeze to forests their favorite walk is along the open shore. The Castilians, accused of not being fond of trees or birdsong, have transported these tastes and prejudices into their colonies. In Terra Firma, Mexico and Peru it is rare to see a native plant a tree just to get some shade, and, excepting the great capitals, tree alleys are almost unknown. Time type ="abs" value = "1799/07/31/19/00"/>The arid plain of Cumana provides an extraordinary phenomenon after violent rainstorms. After being drenched with rain the earth is heated by the sun and gives off that musky smell common to many different tropical animals like the jaguar, the small tiger-cat, the capybara (Cavia capybara), the gallinazo vulture (Vultur aura), the crocodile, viper and rattlesnake. These gases seem to emanate from mould containing innumerable reptiles, worms and insect remains. I have seen Indian children from the Chaima tribe pick out 18-inch millipedes from the earth and eat them.

The sight of such a flat land did not match the ideas we had formed about the island of Margarita. While we tried hard to match what we saw with what appeared on our map a look-out sighted some small fishing-boats. The captain of the Pizarro called them with a cannon shot: but this signal is useless in places where the weak confront the strong only to be crushed. The boats escaped to the west. The coasts from a distance are like clouds, where each observer sees the form of the objects that occupy his imagination. Our readings on the chronometer contradicted our maps, and we were lost in useless conjectures. Some took dunes for Indian huts, and pointed out the place where the fort of Pampatar was situated; others saw herds of goats common in the dry valleys of Saint John; or the high mountains of Macanao, partly hidden by clouds. The captain decided to send a pilot ashore, and the men prepared to lower the longboat.

We left the Esmeralda mission on the 23rd of May. We were not exactly ill, but emaciated and weak thanks to the torment of mosquitoes, the bad food and the long journey on that narrow and damp pirogue. We did not go further up the Orinoco than the mouth of the Guapo; had we wanted to reach the Orinoco sources we would have gone beyond this point, but private travelers are not authorized to leave pacified areas. From the Guapo river to the Guaharibo cataract there are only 15 leagues. But the cataract is crossed by a liana bridge where Indians armed with bows and arrows stop whites from entering their lands. Up to the present time the Orinoco posed two distinct problems for geographers: its sources, and the nature of its communications with the Amazon. This latter was the aim of our journey.

I have no doubt that from remotest times the whole valley was filled with water. Everywhere the shape of the promontories and their steep slopes reveals the ancient shore of this alpine lake. We find vast tracts of land, formerly flooded, now cultivated with banana, sugar cane and cotton. Wherever a hut is built on the lake shore you can see how year by year the water recedes. As the water decreases, you can see how islands begin to join the land while others form promontories or become hills. We visited two islands still completely surrounded by water and found, under the scrub, on small flats between 4 and 8 toises above the water-level, fine sand mixed with helicites deposited by waves. On all these islands you will discover clear traces of the gradual lowering of the water.

The chemical operation, whose importance is exaggerated by the master of the curare, seemed to us very simple. The bejuco used to make the poison in Esmeralda has the same name as in the Javita jungles. It is the bejuco de mavacure, which is found in abundance east of the mission on the left bank of the Orinoco. Although the bundles of bejuco that we found in the Indian's hut were stripped of leaves, there was no doubt that they came from the same plant of the Strychnos genus that we examined in the Pimichin jungles. They use either fresh mavacure or mavacure that has been dried for several weeks. The sap of a recently cut liana is not considered as poisonous; perhaps it only really works when it is very concentrated. The bark and part of the sapwood contain this terrible poison. With a knife they grate some mavacure branches; the bark is crushed and reduced to thin filaments with a stone like those used to make cassava flour. The poisonous sap is yellow, so all this matter takes on that color. It is thrown into a funnel some 9 inches high and 4 inches wide. Of all the instruments in the Indian's laboratory, this funnel is the one he was most proud of. He several times asked if por alla (over there, in Europe) we had seen anything comparable to his embudo. It was a banana leaf rolled into a trumpet shape, and placed into another rolled trumpet made of palm leaves; this apparatus was held up by a scaffolding made of palm-leaf stalks. You begin by making a cold infusion, pouring water on the fibrous matter that is the crushed bark of the mavacure. A yellow water filters through the leafy funnel, drop by drop. This filtered water is the poisonous liquid; but it becomes strong only when concentrated through evaporation, like molasses, in wide clay vessels. Every now and then the Indian asked us to taste the liquid. From its bitterness you judge whether the heated liquid has gone far enough. There is nothing dangerous about this as curare only poisons when it comes into contact with blood. The steam rising from the boiler is not noxious, whatever the Orinoco missionaries might say.

Wherever the Temi forms bays the jungle is flooded for more than half a square league. To avoid the bends and shorten our journey the Indians leave the river bed and go south along paths or sendas, that is, canals, some 4 or 5 feet wide. The depth of the water rarely exceeds half a fathom. These sendas are formed in the flooded jungle like paths in dry land. Whenever they could the Indians crossed from one mission to another along the same path in their pirogues. But as the passage is narrow the thick vegetation sometimes leads to surprises. An Indian stands in the bow with his machete, incessantly cutting branches blocking the canal. In the thickest part of the jungle we heard an odd noise. As the Indian cut at some branches a school of toninas - freshwater dolphins - surrounded our boat. The animals had hidden under branches of a ceiba and escaped through the flooded jungle, squirting up water and compressed air, living up to their name of 'blowers'. What a strange sight, inland, 300 to 400 leagues from the Orinoco and Amazon mouths!