The Cumanacoa plains, scattered with farms and tobacco plantations, are surrounded by mountains, which are higher in the south. Everything suggests that the valley is an ancient seabed. The mountains that once formed its shores rise vertically from the sea. When excavating foundations near Cumanacoa, beds of round pebbles mixed with small bivalve shells were found. According to many reliable people two enormous femur bones were discovered, about thirty years ago. The Indians took them, as do people today in Europe, for giant's bones, while the semi-educated country people, who try to explain everything, seriously claimed that they are nature's sports, not worthy of consideration. They were probably the gigantic femur of elephants of a vanished species.

How hard it is to express the pleasure we felt arriving at Angostura, capital of Spanish Guiana. The discomforts felt at sea in small boats cannot be compared to those felt under a burning sky, surrounded by swarms of mosquitoes, cramped for months on end in a pirogue that does not let you budge an inch because of its delicate balance. In seventy-five days we had traveled along the five great rivers of the Apure, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro and the Casiquiare for 500 leagues, rarely sighting inhabited places. Although, after our life in the jungle, our clothes were not in good order, we hurried to present ourselves to the provincial governor Don Felipe de Ynciarte. He received us in the most considerate way, and lodged us in the house of the Secretary of the Intendencia. Coming from such deserted places we were struck by the bustle of a town of only 6, people. We appreciated what work and trade can do to make life more civilized. Modest houses seemed luxurious: anybody who spoke to us seemed witty. Long deprivations make small things pleasurable: how can l express the joy we felt on seeing wheat bread on the governor's table. I may be wrong in repeating what all travelers feel after long journeys. You enjoy finding yourself back in civilization, though it can be short-lived if you have learned to feel deeply the marvels of tropical nature. The memory of what you endured soon fades; as you reach the coasts inhabited by European colonists you begin to plan to make another journey into the interior.

From the time we left Graciosa the sky remained so consistently hazy that despite the height of the mountains of Gran Canaria we did not make out the island until the evening of the 18th. It is the granary of the archipelago of the Fortunate Islands and, remarkably for an area outside the Tropics, there are two wheat harvests a year, one in February, the other in June. Gran Canaria has never been visited before by a geologist, yet it is worth observing because its mountains differ entirely from those of Lanzarote and Tenerife.

The titi of the Orinoco (Simia sciurea) is very common south of the cataracts. Its face is white, with a blue-black spot covering its mouth and the tip of its nose. No other monkey reminds you more of a child than the titi; the same innocent expression, the same cheeky smile, the same sudden shifts from joy to sadness. Its large eyes fill with tears the moment it is frightened. It is avid for insects, especially spiders. The cleverness of this little monkey is such that one we brought in our boat could perfectly distinguish different plates in Cuvier's Tableau élémentaire d'histoire naturelle. (98) Though the engravings are not colored yet the titi tried to catch a grasshopper or a wasp with its small hand every time we showed a plate with these insects represented. When several of these little monkeys are shut up in the same cage and exposed to rain they twist their tails round their necks and hug each other to warm themselves. The titis are delicate and timid little animals. They become sad and dejected when they leave the jungle and enter the llanos.

Despite their authority the missionaries could not persuade the Indians to go any further on into the cavern. The lower the vault the more piercing the screaming of the guàcharos became. Thanks to the cowardice of our guides we had to retreat. We found that a bishop of Saint Thomas of Guiana had gone further than us. He had measured 2, feet from the mouth to where he stopped, but the cavern went further. The memory of this feat was preserved in the Caripe convent, without precise dates. The bishop had used torches made from white Castile wax, while we had torches made of tree bark and resin. The thick smoke from our torches in the narrow underground passage hurt our eyes and made breathing difficult.

The rounded Turimiquiri summit and the sharp peaks, or cucuruchos, stand out, covered with jungle where many tigers live and are hunted for the beauty of their skin. We found that this grassy summit stood at 707 toises above sea-level. A steep rocky ridge going west is broken after a mile by an enormous crevice that descends to the Gulf of Cariaco. In the place where the mountain ridge should have continued two mamelons or calcereous peaks rise, with the more northern one the highest. It is the Cucurucho de Turimiquiri proper, considered to be higher than the Brigantín, well known to sailors approaching the Cumanà coast.

The fine Carib tribes inhabit only a small part of the country they once occupied before the discovery of America. European cruelty ensured that they completely vanished from the West Indies and Darien coasts. Once subdued they lived in populous villages in Nueva Barcelona province and Spanish Guiana. I think you could count more than 35, Caribs living in the Piritu llanos and on the banks of the Caroní and Cuyuni. If you add the independent Caribs living in the Cayenne and Pacaraymo mountains between the Essequibo and Branco river sources they would reach a total of 40, pure-blooded Indians. I linger on this point because the Caribs, before my voyage, had been supposed to have become extinct.