I am inclined to think that nothing escapes from the shaken earth during earthquakes and that when gases and steam are seen they precede as often as they follow or accompany the shocks. This last circumstance probably explains the mysterious influence in equinoctial America of earthquakes on the climate and seasons of rains and droughts. If the earth acts only on the air at the moment of shock we can see why a perceptible meteorological change so rarely predicts one of these great revolutions of nature.

The history of the jade, or green Guianan stones, is intimately linked with that of the warlike women named Amazons by sixteenth-century travelers. La Condamine has produced many testimonies in favor of this tradition. Since returning from the Orinoco and Amazon I have often been asked in Paris if I agreed with that learned man, or thought that he said what he said to satisfy a public eager for novelties. A taste for the marvelous and a wish to describe the New World with some of the tones of antiquity no doubt contributed to the reputation of the Amazons. But this is not enough to reject a tradition shared by many isolated tribes. I would conclude that women, tired of the state of slavery in which men have held them, united together and kept their independence as warriors. They received visits once a year from men, and probably killed off their male babies. This society of women may have been quite powerful in one part of Guiana. But such is the disposition of man's mind that, in the long succession of travelers discovering and writing about the marvels of the New World, each one readily declared that he had seen what earlier ones had announced.

We set off before sunrise, at five in the morning, with the slaves carrying our instruments. Our party consisted of eighteen people, and we advanced in Indian file along a narrow path on a steep grassy slope. From La Puerta the path becomes steep. You have to lean forward to climb. The thick grass was very slippery because of the prolonged drought. Cramp-irons and iron-tipped sticks would have been very useful. Short grass covers the gneiss rocks; it is impossible to grip it or dig steps into it as in softer soil. More tiring than dangerous, the climb soon disheartened the men accompanying us who were not used to mountain climbing. We wasted a lot of time waiting for them, and did not decide to continue alone until we saw them returning down the mountain instead of climbing up after us. Bonpland and I foresaw that we would soon be covered in thick fog. Fearing that our guides would use the fog to abandon us we made those carrying the instruments go ahead of us. The familiar chatting of the negroes contrasted with the taciturn seriousness of the Indians who had accompanied us up to then. They joked about those who had spent hours preparing for the ascent, and then abandoned it straightaway.