The morning was deliciously cool. The road, or rather path, that led to Cumanacoa follows the right bank of the Manzanares river, passing the Capuchin hospital situated in a small wood of lignum vitae and caper trees. After leaving Cumanà we reached the San Francisco hill during twilight and enjoyed an extensive view of the sea, the plain covered with golden-flowered bera (Palo sano, Zygophyllum arboreum), whose flowers smell of vanilla, and the Brigantín mountains.

The Chaimas hardly have any hair on their chins, like the Tongouses and other Mongolic races. They pluck out the few hairs that grow. In general it is erroneous to say that they cannot grow beards, because they pluck them out though even without that custom, they would be mostly smooth-faced.

'You cannot imagine, said the old Mandavaca missionary, 'how perverse this familia de indios (family of Indians) is. You accept individuals from another tribe into your mission; they seem tame, honest, good workers; you let them out on a foray (entrada) to capture wild Indians and you can scarcely stop them throttling all they can and hiding pieces of the corpses. We had with us in our pirogue an Indian who had escaped from the Guaisia river. In a few weeks he had become very civilized. At night he helped us prepare our astronomical instruments. He was as cheerful as he was intelligent, and we were ready to employ him. Imagine our disappointment when through an interpreter we heard him say that 'Marimonda monkey meat, although blacker, had the same taste as human meat. He assured us that 'his relations - that is, his tribal brothers -preferred to eat the palms of human hands, as well as those of bears'. As he spoke he gestured to emphasize his brutal greed. We asked this young, pacifistic man through our interpreter if he still felt a desire to 'eat a Cheruvichanena Indian' and he answered calmly that 'in the mission he would eat only what he saw los padres (the fathers) eating'. It is no point reproaching Indians about this abominable practice. In the eyes of a Guaisia Indian, a Cheruvichanena Indian is totally alien to him; to kill one was not morally very different from killing a jaguar. Eating what the fathers ate in the mission was simply convenience. If Indians escape to rejoin their tribes, or are driven by hunger, they quickly fall back into cannibalism.

The Chaimas lead an extremely monotonous life. They go to bed regularly at half past seven in the evening, and get up long before dawn, at about half past four. Every Indian has a fire next to his hammock. Women suffer the cold greatly; I have even seen a woman shiver at church when the temperature was above 18°C. Their huts are very clean. Their hammocks and reed mats, their pots full of cassava or fermented maize, their bow and arrows, all are kept in perfect order. Men and women wash every day, and as they walk around naked do not get as dirty as people who wear clothes. Apart from their village hut they also have in the conuco, next to a spring or at the entrance to a small valley, a hut roofed with palm- or banana-tree leaves. Though life is less comfortable in the conuco they prefer living there as much as possible. I have already alluded to their irresistible drive to flee and return to the jungle. Even young children flee from their parents to spend four or five days in the jungle, feeding off wild fruit, palm hearts and roots. When travelling through the missions it is not rare to find them empty as everyone is either in their garden or in the jungle, al monte. Similar feelings account for civilized people's passion for hunting: the charm of solitude, the innate desire for freedom, and the deep impressions felt whenever man is alone in contact with nature.

Our boat was waiting for us in the Puerto de Arriba above the Atures cataract. On the narrow path that led to the embarcadero we were shown the distant rocks near the Ataruipe caves. We did not have time to visit that Indian cemetery though Father Zea had not stopped talking about the skeletons painted red with onoto inside the great jars. 'You will hardly believe, said the missionary, 'that these skeletons and painted vases, which we thought unknown to the rest of the world, have brought me trouble. You know the misery I endure in the Raudales. Devoured by mosquitoes, and lacking in bananas and cassava, yet people in Caracas envy me! I was denounced by a white man for hiding treasure that had been abandoned in the caves when the Jesuits had to leave. I was ordered to appear in Caracas in person and journeyed pointlessly over 150 leagues to declare that the cave contained only human bones and dried bats. However, commissioners were appointed to come up here and investigate. We shall wait a long time for these commissioners. The cloud of mosquitoes (nube de moscas) in the Raudales is a good defence.

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.

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.