The missionary in San Fernando was an Aragonese Capuchin, well advanced in years but very strong and lively. His obesity, his good humor and his interest in battles and sieges contradicted the ideas held in northern countries concerning the melancholic reveries and contemplative life of missionaries. Though extremely busy organizing the slaughter of a cow for the following day he received us good-naturedly, and let us hang our hammocks in a gallery of his house. Sitting in his redwood armchair most of the day without doing anything, he complained of what he called the laziness and ignorance of his countrymen. He asked us thousands of questions about the real purpose of our journey, which to him seemed hazardous and quite useless. Here, as on the Orinoco, we grew weary of the lively curiosity manifested by Europeans in the middle of American jungles for the wars and political storms in the Old World.