The llaneros, or inhabitants of the llanos (plains), send their products maize, hides and cattle - to Cumanà harbor by the road over Imposible. We saw Indians or mulattos with mules coming towards us, rapidly moving in single file.

May 1st. The Indians wanted to leave long before sunrise. We got up before them because we had hoped to see some stars, but in this humid, thick-jungled zone the nights were getting darker and darker as we approached the Río Negro and the interior of Brazil. We stayed in the river until dawn, fearing to get lost in the trees. But as soon as the sun rose we went through the flooded jungle to avoid the strong current. We reached the confluence of the Temi and Tuamini and went upstream on the latter south-west, reaching the Javita mission on the banks of the Tuamini at about eleven in the morning. It was at this Christian mission that we hoped to find help in carrying our pirogue to the Río Negro. A minor accident shows how fearful the little sagouin monkeys are. The noise of the 'blowers' seared one of them and it fell into the water. These monkeys can hardly swim, and we just managed to save it.

The bamboo-lined road led us to the small village of San Fernando, located in a narrow plain, surrounded by steep calcareous cliffs. It was the first mission we visited in America. The houses, or rather shacks, of the Chaima Indians are scattered about, and are without vegetable gardens. The straight narrow streets cut each other at right angles. The thin irregular walls are made of clay and bound with lianas. The monotony of the houses, the serious and taciturn aspect of the inhabitants and the extreme cleanliness inside their homes reminded us of the establishments of the Moravian Brethren. (47) Each family cultivates the conuco de la comunidad, which is outside the village, as are their own individual vegetable plots. Adults of both sexes work there an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. In the missions near the coast, the communal garden is nearly always planted with sugar cane or indigo and run by the missions. Their product, if the law is strictly followed, can be used only for the upkeep of the church and the purchase of whatever the priests may need. San Fernando's great square, in the center of the village, contains the church, the missionary's house and the modest building that goes pompously under the name of 'king's house' (casa del rey). This is the official hostel for travelers and, as we often confirmed, a real blessing in a land where the word 'inn' is unknown. These casas del rey can be found all over Spanish colonies, no doubt imitating the Peruvian tambos established by Manco Capac's laws. (48)

From the Manimi rock there is a marvelous view. Your eyes survey a foaming surface that stretches away for almost 2 leagues. In the middle of the waves rocks as black as iron, like ruined towers, rise up. Each island, each rock, is crowned by trees with many branches; a thick cloud floats above the mirror of the water and through it you see the tops of tall palms. What name shall we give these majestic plants? I guess that they are vadgiai, a new species, more than 80 feet high. Everywhere on the backs of the naked rocks during the rainy season the noisy waters have piled up islands of vegetation. Decorated with ferns and flowering plants these islands form flower-beds in the middle of exposed, desolate rocks. At the foot of the Manimi rock, where we had bathed the day before, the Indians killed a 7. snake, which we examined at leisure. The Macos called it a camudu. It was beautiful, and not poisonous. I thought at first that it was a boa, and then perhaps a python. I say 'perhaps' for a great naturalist like Cuvier appears to say that pythons belong to the Old World, and boas to the New. I shall not add to the confusions in zoological naming by proposing new changes, but shall observe that the missionaries and the latinized Indians of the mission clearly distinguish the tragavenado (boa) from the culebra de agua, which is like the camudu.

For the past year so many obstacles had crossed my path that I couldhardly believe that at last my innermost desires would be fulfilled. Weleft Madrid in the middle of May and crossed Old Castile and the kingdomsof Le-n and Galicia to La Coruña, where we were to embark for the island of Cuba. The winter had been long and hard but now, duringour journey, we enjoyed the mild temperatures of spring that in the southusually begin in March or April. Snow still covered the tall granitic peaksof the Guadarrama but in the deep Galician valleys, which reminded me of the picturesque scenery ofSwitzerland and the Tyrol, the rocks were covered in flowering cistus andarborescent heaths. The traveler is happy to quit the Castilian plainsdevoid of vegetation and their intense winter cold and summers of oppressive heat.

After the blacks I was interested in the number of white criollos, who I call Hispano-Americans, (70) and those whites horn in Europe. It is difficult to find exact figures for such a delicate issue. People in the New World, as in the Old, hate population censuses because they think they are being carried out to increase taxation. The number of white criollos may reach some 200, to 210, people. (71)

The last days of our crossing were not as peaceful as the mild climate and calm ocean had led us to hope. We were not disturbed by the dangers of the deep, but by the presence of a malignant fever that developed as we approached the West Indies. Between the overcrowded decks the heat was unbearable; the thermometer stayed at 36'C. Two sailors, several passengers and, strangely, two blacks from the Guinean coast and a mulatto child were attacked by an illness that threatened to turn into an epidemic. The symptoms were not as serious in all the sick; but some of them, even among the most robust, became delirious on the second day and lost all body strength. With that indifference which on passenger ships affects everything that is not to do with the ship's movements and speed, the captain did not for a moment think of applying the simplest remedies. He did not fumigate. A phlegmatic and ignorant Galician surgeon prescribed bleedings, attributing the fever to what he called the heat and corruption of blood. There was not an ounce of quinine on board and we, on boarding, had forgotten to bring a supply, more concerned for our instruments than for our health as we had not predicted that a Spanish ship would be without this Peruvian bark febrifuge.