Opposite Bermúdez's farm two spacious caves open out of Cuchivano's crevice. At times flames, which can be seen from great distances, burst out. They illuminate the surrounding mountains, and from the mark left on the rocks by these burning gases we could be tempted to believe they reach some 100 feet high. During the last violent Cumanà earthquake this phenomenon was accompanied by long, dull, underground noises.

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 my second visit to Havana in 1804 (139) I could not return to the Batabanò ciénaga and so I had these two species brought to me at great expense. Two crocodiles arrived alive. The eldest was 4 feet 3 inches long. They were captured with great difficulty and arrived on mules with their snouts muzzled and bound. They were lively and ferocious. In order to observe them we let them loose in a great hall, and from high pieces of furniture watched them attack large dogs. Having lived on the Orinoco, the Apure and the Magdalena for six months among crocodiles we enjoyed observing this strange animal before leaving for Europe, as they change from immobility to frenzied action quite suddenly. I counted thirty-eight teeth in the upper jaw and thirty in the lower. In the description that Bonpland and I made on the spot we deliberately marked that the lower fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw. The cayman sent from Batabanò died on the way and stupidly was not brought to us, so we could not compare the two species.

April 12th. We left Carichana at about two in the afternoon and found our way obstructed with granite blocks that break the river current. We passed close to the great reef called Piedra del Tigre. The river is so deep that sounding with a line of 22 fathoms did not touch the bottom. Towards the evening the sky covered over and squalls of wind announced a coming storm. It began to pour so hard with rain that our leafy roof hardly protected us. Luckily the rain scared off the mosquitoes that had been tormenting us all day. We were opposite the Cariven cataract, and the current was so strong that we had great difficulty in reaching land. Time and time again we were pushed back to the middle of the river until two Salivas, excellent swimmers, threw themselves into the water and swam ashore, pulling the boat in until it could be tied to a rock where we spent the night. Thunder rolled all night; the river swelled under our eyes, and we often worried that the furious waves would sink our fragile boat.

'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.

At the foot of the tall Guàcharo mountain, and only 400 steps from the cave, we still could not make out its entrance. The torrent flows from a ravine, cut by the waters, under a ledge of rocks that blocks out the sky. The path follows the winding rivulet. At the last bend you suddenly come across the enormous grotto opening. This is an imposing scene, even for those used to the picturesque higher Alps. I had seen the caves of the Derbyshire peaks where, lying flat on a boat, we went down an underground stream under an arch 2 feet high. I had visited the beautiful grotto of Treshemienshiz in the Carpathian mountains, and the Hartz and Franconia caves, which are vast cemeteries with bones of tigers and hyenas, and bears as large as horses. Nature in every zone follows immutable laws in the distribution of rocks, mountains and dramatic changes in the planet's crust. Such uniformity led me to expect that the Caripe caves would not differ from what I had previously seen in my travels. The reality far exceeded my expectations.

These scattered features of the countryside, this trait of solitude and grandeur, characterizes the course of the Orinoco, one of the greatest New World rivers. Everywhere water, like land, displays its unique characteristics. The Orinoco bed has no similarities with the Meta, Guaviare, Río Negro or Amazon beds. These differences do not depend solely on the width or speed of the current; they derive from a combination of relations easier to grasp on the spot than to define precisely. In the same way, the shape of the waves, the color of the water, the kind of sky and clouds, all help a navigator guess whether he is in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean or in the equinoctial part of the Pacific.