The shock of the waves was felt in our boat. My fellow travelers all suffered. I slept calmly, being lucky never to suffer seasickness. By sunrise of the 20th of November we expected to double the cape in a few hours. We hoped to arrive that day at La Guaira, but our Indian pilot was scared of pirates. He preferred to make for land and wait in the little harbor of Higuerote (65) until night. We found neither a village nor a farm but two or three huts inhabited by mestizo fishermen with extremely thin children, which told us how unhealthy and feverish this coast was. The sea was so shallow that we had to wade ashore. The jungle came right down to the beach, covered in thickets of mangrove. On landing we smelled a sickly smell, (66) which reminded me of deserted mines.

Wedid not feel like prolonging our stay in Provence until the spring. Thecountryside, and especially the climate, were a delight, but the sight ofthe sea continuously reminded us of the failure of our plans. During a tripwe made to Hyères and Toulon we came across the frigate La Boudeuse, bound for Corsica, whichhad been under the command of Bougainville 5 during his world voyage. This famous navigator had been particularly kindto me during my stay in Paris while I prepared to join CaptainBaudin. I cannot describe the impression that this ship, which had carriedCommerson to the Pacific, had on me. There are moments in our lives whenpainful feelings mingle with our experiences.

Once the camp has been set up the Uruana missionary designates his representative or superintendent, who divides the beach into lots according to the number in each tribe who are to harvest. They are all mission Indians, as naked and stupid as jungle Indians: they are called reducidos and neofitos because they attend church when the bells toll, and kneel during Communion. With a long pole made of wood or bamboo, he examines the extent of the stratum of eggs. According to our calculations this reaches 120 feet from the shore, and 3 feet deep. The Indians dig with their hands, put the harvested eggs in baskets called mappiri, and bring them to the camp to throw them into great wooden troughs filled with water. The eggs are smashed with sticks, shaken about and exposed to the sun until the yolk, the oily floating part, thickens out. This oily substance collecting on the surface is scooped off and cooked on a hot fire. The animal oil turns into what is called manteca de tortuga by the Spaniards (turtle fat), and keeps better the longer it is cooked. If it is well done it is completely clear, without smell and barely yellow. Missionaries compare it with the best olive oil and not only use it for burning in lamps but also for cooking, as its taste does not spoil good food. However, we could never obtain the pure oil. Generally it stinks because the eggs are mixed up with the already formed but dead baby turtles.

There is exciting chemical and physiological work to be done in Europe with the effects of New World poisons once we are sure that different poisons from different areas are properly distinguished. As far as our botanical knowledge about these poisonous plants is concerned we could sort out the differences only very slowly. Most Indians who make poison arrows completely ignore the nature of poisonous substances used by other tribes. A mystery surrounds the history of toxics and antidotes. Among wild Indians the preparation is the monopoly of piaches, who are priests, tricksters and doctors all at once; it is only with Indians from the missions that you can learn anything certain about such problematic matters. Centuries passed before any Europeans learned, thanks to Mutis's researches, that the bejuco del guaco is the most powerful antidote to snake bites, and which we were the first to describe botanically.

The earthquake of the 4th of November, the first I had experienced, made a great impression on me, heightened, perhaps accidentally, by remarkable meteorological variations. It was also a movement that went up and down, not in waves. I would never have thought then that, after a long stay in Quito and on the Peruvian coast, I would get as used to these often violent ground movements as in Europe we get used to thunder. In Quito we never considered getting out of bed when at night there were underground rumblings (bramidos), which seemed to announce a shock from the Pichincha volcano. The casualness of the inhabitants, who know that their city has not been destroyed in three centuries, easily communicates itself to the most frightened traveler. It is not so much a fear of danger as of the novelty of the sensation that strikes one so vividly when an earthquake is felt for the first time.

Land journeys are made very tiresome by having to transport instruments and collections, but these difficulties are compensated by real advantages. It is not by sailing along a coast that the direction, geology and climate of a chain of mountains can be discovered. The wider a continent is the greater the range of its soil and the richness of its animal and vegetable products, and the further the central chain of mountains lies from the ocean coast the greater the variety of stony strata that can be seen, which reveal the history of the earth. Just as every individual can be seen as particular, so can we recognize individuality in the arrangement of brute matter in rocks, in the distribution and relationships of plants and animals. The great problem of the physical description of the planet is how to determine the laws that relate the phenomena of life with inanimate nature.