After more tiring climbing, and soaked from crossing the torrent so often, we reached the foot of the Cuchivano caverns. A wall of stone rises perpendicularly 800 toises up. In a zone where the fertility of nature everywhere hides the ground and rocks, it is rare to see a great mountain revealing naked strata in a perpendicular section. In the middle of this unfortunately inaccessible cutting, the two caverns open out in the form of a crevice. We were assured that nocturnal birds, the same as those that lived in the Cueva del Guàcharo at Caripe, lived there.

The amount of identical species in the two continents and in the two hemispheres is far less than early travelers once led us to think. The high mountains of equinoctial America have their plantains, valerians, arenarias, ranunculuses, medlars, oaks and pines, which from their features we could confuse with European ones, but they are all specifically different. When nature does not present the same species, she repeats the same genera. Neighboring species are often found at enormous distances from each other, in low regions of a temperate zone, and on mountains on the equator. And, as we found on La Silla at Caracas, they are not the European genera that have colonized mountains of the torrid zone, but genera of the same tribe, which have taken their place and are hard to distinguish

The Indians told us that the jungles which cover the banks of the Sipapo abound in the climbing plant called bejuco de maimure. This species of liana is very important for the Indians as they weave baskets and mats from it. The Sipapo jungles are completely unknown. It is there that the missionaries place the Rayas tribe, whose mouths are said to be in their navels, perhaps due to the analogy with rays, whose mouths appear to be halfway down their bodies. An old Indian we met at Carichana, who boasted that he had often eaten human flesh, had seen these headless people with his own eyes'.

We could have included all these details in a work devoted solely to volcanoes in Peru and New Spain. Had I written the physical description of a single province I could have incorporated separate chapters on geography, mineralogy and botany, but how could I break the narrative of our travels, or an essay on customs and the great phenomena of general physics, by tiresomely enumerating the produce of the land, or describing new species and making dry astronomical observations? Had I decided to write a book that included in the same chapter everything observed from the same spot, it would have been excessively long, quite lacking in the clarity that comes from a methodical distribution of subject matter. Despite the efforts made to avoid these errors in this narration of my journey, I am aware that I have not always succeeded in separating the observations of detail from the general results that interest all educated minds. These results should bring together the influence of climate on organized beings, the look of the landscape, the variety of soils and plants, the mountains and rivers that separate tribes as much as plants. I do not regret lingering on these interesting objects for modern civilization can be characterized by how it broadens our ideas, making us perceive the connections between the physical and the intellectual worlds. It is likely that my travel journal will interest many more readers than my purely scientific researches into the population, commerce and mines in New Spain.

The Uruana inhabitants belong to those people of the savannah (Indios andantes), harder to civilize than those from the jungle (Indios del monte). They show a great aversion to agriculture and live exclusively from hunting and fishing. The men are tough, ugly, wild, vindictive and passionately fond of alcohol. They are 'omnivorous animals' in every sense. That is why other Indians consider them as barbarians and say, 'There is nothing, however disgusting it is, that an Otomac will not eat. While the Orinoco and its waters are low the Otomacs live on fish and turtles. They kill fish with astounding skill, hooting them with arrows when they surface. The river floods stop all fishing: it becomes as hard as fishing in deep sea. During the period of floods the Otomacs eat earth in prodigious amounts. We found pyramids of earth balls in their huts. The earth they eat is a fine oily clay, of a greyish-yellow; they cook it slightly so that its hard crust turns red due to the iron oxide in it.

The same reasons that slowed our communications also delayed the publication of our work, which has to be accompanied by a number of engravings and maps. If such difficulties are met when governments are paying, how much worse they are when paid by private individuals. It would have been impossible to overcome these difficulties if the enthusiasm of the editors had not been matched by public reaction. More than two thirds of our work has now been published. The maps of the Orinoco, the Casiquiare and the Magdalena rivers, based on my astronomical observations, together with several hundred plants, have been engraved and are ready to appear. I shall not leave Europe on my Asian journey before I have finished publishing my travels to the New World.

In the port of Encaramada we met some Caribs of Panapa with their cacique on their way up the Orinoco to take part in the famous fishing of turtle eggs. His pirogue was rounded towards the bottom like a bongo, and followed by a smaller canoe called a curiara. He was sitting under a kind of tent (toldo) built, like the sails, of palm leaves. His silent, cold reserve, and the respect others gave him, denoted an important person. The cacique was dressed like his people. All were naked, armed with bows and arrows, and covered in annatto, the dye made from Bixa orellana. The chief, the servants, the furniture, the sail and boat were all painted red. These Caribs are almost athletic in build and seemed far taller than any Indians we had seen up to now. Smooth, thick hair cut in a fringe like choir boys', eyebrows painted black, and a lively and gloomy stare give these Indians an incredibly hard expression. Having seen only skulls of these Indians in European collections we were surprised to see that their foreheads were more rounded than we had imagined. The fat, disgustingly dirty women carried their children on their backs. Their thighs and legs were bound by knotted cotton ligatures, leaving space for flesh to bulge out between the strands. It is noticeable that the Caribs are as careful about their exterior and dress as naked, painted men can be. They attach great importance to the shapes of certain parts of their bodies. A mother would be accused of indifference to her children if she did not artificially bind their calves in the fashion of the country. As none of our Apure Indians spoke the Carib language we could not ask the chief where he was going to camp to gather the turtle eggs.