Another characteristic common to both the New Andalusian coast and Peru is the frequency of earthquakes and the limits nature seems to have prescribed for these phenomena. In Cumana we ourselves felt violent seismic shocks; they were still rebuilding the ruined houses and so we were able to gather detailed information on the spot about the terrible catastrophe of the 14th of December 1797. These notions will be the more interesting as earthquakes have been considered up to now less from a physical and geographical point of view than from the way they disastrously affect the population and well-being of society.

The supposed gold mine of Cuchivano, which was the object of our trip, was nothing but a hole that had been cut in one of the strata of black marl, rich in pyrites. The marly stratum crosses the torrent and, as the water washes out metallic grains, the people imagine that the torrent carries gold because of the brilliancy of the pyrites. We were told that after the great earthquake of 1765 the Juagua river waters were so filled with gold that 'men came from great distances and unknown countries' to set up washing places on the spot. They disappeared over night, having collected masses of gold. Needless to add that this is a fable. Some direct experiments made with acids during my stay at Caracas proved that the Cuchivano pyrites are not at all auriferous. My disbelief upset our guides. However much I said and repeated that from the supposed gold mine the most that could be found was alum and sulphate of iron, they continued to gather secretly all the pyrite fragments they saw sparkling in the water. The fewer mines there are in a country, the more the inhabitants hold exaggerated ideas about how easily riches are extracted from the depths of the earth. How much time was lost during our five-year voyage exploring ravines, at the insistence of our hosts, where pyrite strata have for centuries been called by the pretentious name of minas de oro! We have smiled so often seeing men of all classes - magistrates, village priests, serious missionaries - all grinding amphibole or yellow mica with endless patience, desperate to extract gold by means of mercury! This rage for searching for mines amazed us in a climate where the earth needs only to be slightly raked in order to produce rich harvests.

I met the Swedish Consul Skiöldebrand, who passed through Paris on his way to embark in Marseille on a missionto bring gifts to the Dey of Algiers. That respectable gentleman had lived for a long time on the African coast and, as he was well known in theAlgerian Court, could get me authorization to visit the Atlas mountains. Every year he despatched a ship to Tunis, which brought pilgrims to Mecca, and he promised to let me go to Egypt that way. I did not hesitate to seize that chance and was convinced Icould carry out the plan I had hatched before my arrival in France. Up until then no geologist had ever exploredthe high mountain ranges that in Morocco reach the perpetual snows. Iquickly completed my collection of instruments and obtained books thatdealt with the countries I was to visit. I said good-bye to my brother, whose example and advice had helped guidemy thinking. He approved of my motives for wanting to abandon Europe; a'secret voice told me we would see each other again. I left Paris eager toembark for Algeria and Egypt, andchance - so often playing a decisive role in human lives - had it that Iwould see my brother again after returning from the Amazon and Peru, putting a foot on African soil.

After more tiring climbing, and soaked from crossing the torrent so often, we reached the foot of the Cuchivano caverns. A wall of stone rises perpendicularly 800 toises up. In a zone where the fertility of nature everywhere hides the ground and rocks, it is rare to see a great mountain revealing naked strata in a perpendicular section. In the middle of this unfortunately inaccessible cutting, the two caverns open out in the form of a crevice. We were assured that nocturnal birds, the same as those that lived in the Cueva del Guàcharo at Caripe, lived there.

Days passed quickly in the Capuchin convent in the Caripe mountains, despite our simple but monotonous life. From sunrise to sunset we toured the forests and mountains near by looking for plants, and have never collected so many. When the heavy rain stopped us travelling far we visited Indian huts and the communal conuco, or attended the nightly meetings when the alcaldes handed out the work for the following day. We did not return to the convent until bells called us for meals in the refectory with the monks. At dawn we sometimes accompanied them to the church to attend doctrina, that is, religious classes for Indians. It was hard explaining dogma to people who hardly knew Spanish. The monks are almost completely ignorant of the Chaima Indian language, and the resemblance of sounds between the languages muddles the poor Indians so that strange ideas arise. One day we witnessed a missionary struggling to explain to his class that invierno, winter, and infierno, hell, were not the same thing, but as different as hot and cold. The Chaima Indians know winter only as the rainy season, and imagine that 'the white's hell' is a place where the evil are exposed to horrific rainstorms. The missionary lost his temper, but it was useless; the first impression caused by the almost identical words persisted; in the Indians' minds the images of rain and hell could not be separated.

On leaving Spain I had promised to join his expedition wherever I could reach it. Bonpland, as active and optimistic as usual, and I immediately decided to split our herbals into three lots to avoid the risk of losing what had taken so much trouble to collect on the banks of the Orinoco, Atabapo and Río Negro. We sent one collection by way of England to Germany, another via Càdiz to France, and the third we left in Havana. We had reason to congratulate ourselves on this prudence. Each collection contained virtually the same species; if the cases were taken by pirates there were instructions to send them to Sir Joseph Banks or to the natural history museum in Paris. Luckily I did not send my manuscripts to Càdiz with our friend and fellow traveler Father Juan Gonzalez, who left Cuba soon after us but whose vessel sank off Africa, with the loss of all life. We lost duplicates of our herbal collection, and all the insects Bonpland had gathered. For over two years we did not receive one letter from Europe; and those we got in the following three years never mentioned earlier letters. You may easily guess how nervous I was about sending a journal with my astronomical observations and barometrical measurements when I had not had the patience to make a copy. After visiting New Granada, Peru and Mexico I happened to be reading a scientific journal in the public library in Philadelphia and saw: 'M. de Humboldt's manuscripts have arrived at his brother's house in Paris via Spain. I could scarcely suppress an exclamation of joy.