In Cumana, on San Francisco hill with its convent, an intense stink of sulphur was smelled on the 14th of December 1797 half an hour before the great catastrophe. In this same place the underground noise was loudest. At the same time flames were seen on the Manzanares river banks near the Capuchin hospital, and in the Gulf of Cariaco near Mariguitar. This phenomenon, so strange in non-volcanic countries, happens frequently in the calcareous mountains near Cumanacoa, in the Bordones river valley, on Margarita Island and on the plains of New Andalusia. On these plains the sparks of fire rose to a considerable height and were seen for hours in the most arid places. Some asserted that when the ground through which the inflammable substances rose was examined not the smallest crack was found. This fire, which recalls the springs of methane or the Salse of Modena and the will-o'-the-wisp of our marshes, does not burn the grass. The people, though less superstitious here than in Spain, call these reddish flames by the odd name of The Soul of the Tyrant Aguirre; imagining that the ghost of Lope de Aguirre, (29) harassed by remorse, wanders over these countries sullied by his crimes.

The San Francisco mission, situated on the left bank of the Casiquiare, was named after one of the leaders of the boundary expedition, Don Joseph Solano. This educated officer never got any further than San Fernando de Atabapo; he had never seen the Río Negro waters or the Casiquiare, or the Orinoco east of the Guaviare. Ignorance of the Spanish language drove geographers to locate erroneously on the famous La Cruz Olmedilla map the 400 league route made by Joseph Solano to the sources of the Orinoco. The San Francisco mission was founded not by monks but by military authorities. Following the boundary expedition, villages were built wherever an officer or a corporal stopped with his soldiers. Some of the Indians withdrew and remained independent; others, whose chiefs were caught, joined the missions. Where there was no church they were happy to raise a great red wooden cross, and to build a casa fuerte, that is, a house with long beams placed horizontally on top of each other, next to it. This house had two floors; upstairs were placed small cannons; downstairs two soldiers lived, served by Indian families. Tamed Indians established themselves around the casa fuerte. In the event of an attack soldiers would gather the Indians together by sounding the horn, or the baked-earth botuto. These were the nineteen so-called Christian establishments founded by Don Antonio Santos. Military posts had no effect in civilizing the Indians living there. They figured on maps and in mission works as pueblos (villages) and as reducciones apostòlicas.

On leaving the Apure river we found ourselves in a vastly different countryside. An immense plain of water stretched out in front of us like a lake as far as the eye could see. White-topped waves rose several feet high from the clash between the breeze and the current. We no longer heard the cries of the herons, flamingos and spoonbills flying in long lines from one bank to the other. We vainly looked out for those diving birds whose busy tricks vary according to their species. Nature herself seemed less alive. Only now and then did we see between waves some large crocodiles breaking the water with their tails. The horizon was lined with a ribbon of jungle; but nowhere did the jungle reach the river. Vast beaches burned by the sun were as deserted and arid as sea beaches and, thanks to mirages, resembled stagnant marshes from afar. Rather than limiting the river these sandy banks blurred it. The banks drew near or receded according to the play of the sun's rays.

The Indians in the missions dedicate themselves to agriculture, and, apart from those who live in the high mountains, all cultivate the same plants; their huts are arranged in the same manner; their working day, their tasks in the communal conuco, their relationship with the missionaries and elected functionaries, all run along fixed rules. However, we observe in the copper-colored men a moral inflexibility, a stubbornness concerning habits and customs, which, though modified in each tribe, characterize the whole race from the equator to Hudson's Bay and the Strait of Magellan.

April 15th. At dawn we passed the Anaveni river, a tributary river that comes down from mountains in the east. The heat was so excessive that we stayed for a long time in a shaded place, fishing, but we could not carry off all the fish we hooked. Much later we reached the foot of the Great Cataract in a bay, and took the difficult path - it was night by then - to the Atures mission, a league away. We found this mission in a deplorable state. At the time of Solano's boundary expedition (101) it contained 320 Indians. Today it has only forty-seven. When it was founded Atures, Maypures, Meyepures, Abanis and Uirupas tribes lived there, but now there were only Guahibos and a few families from the Macos left. The Atures have completely disappeared; the little known about them comes from burial caves in Ataruipe.

Orotava, the ancient Taoro of the Guanches, lies on an abrupt slope of a hill. The streets seemed deserted; the houses solidly built but melancholic; they nearly all belong to a nobility accused of being too proud, presumptuously calling itself the Twelve Houses. We passed along a high aqueduct lined with luxuriant fern, and visited many gardens where northern European fruit trees grow along with orange, pomegranate and date trees. Even though we knew about Franqui's dragon tree (16) from previous travelers, its enormous thickness amazed us. We were told that this tree, mentioned in several ancient documents, served as a boundary mark and already in the fifteenth century was as enormous as it is today. We calculated its height to be about 50 to 60 feet; its circumference a little above its roots measured 45 feet. The trunk is divided into many branches, which rise up in the form of a chandelier and end in tufts of leaves similar to the Mexican yucca.

In the overloaded pirogue, which was only 3 feet deep, there was no other room for the dried plants, trunks, sextant, compass and meteorological instruments but under the lattice of branches on which we were obliged to lie down for most of our trip. To take the smallest object from a trunk, or to use an instrument, we had to moor up and get ashore. To these inconveniences can be added the torment of mosquitoes that accumulate under the low roof, and the heat coming from the palm leaves continually exposed to the burning sun. We tried everything to improve our situation, without any results. While one of us hid under a sheet to avoid insects, the other insisted on lighting greenwood under the toldo to chase off the mosquitoes with the smoke. Pain in our eyes and increasing heat in a climate that was already asphyxiating made both these means impractical. With some gaiety of temper, with looking after each other and taking a lively interest in the majestic nature of these great river valleys, the travelers put up with the evils that became habitual. I have entered into such minute details in order to describe how we navigated on the Orinoco, and to show that despite our goodwill, Bonpland and I were not able to multiply our observations during this section of the journey.