The Guàcharo cave is pierced into the vertical rock face. The entrance opens towards the south. Gigantic trees grow above the rock that serves as roof to the grotto. The mammee tree and the genipap (Genipa americana), with its large shiny leaves, raise their branches towards the sky while those of the courbaril and the poro, or coral tree, stretch out to form a thick, green vault. Pothos with succulent stems, oxalises and orchids with strange shapes grow in the driest cracks in the rocks, while climbing plants, swaying in the wind, knot themselves into garlands at the cave entrance. Among these we saw a violet-blue jacaranda, a dolichos with purple flowers, and for the first time, that stunning solandra (Solandra scandens) with its orange flower and fleshy tube some 4 inches long.

The Indians we found at San Francisco Solano belong to two different tribes: the Pacimonales and the Cheruvichanenas. The latter came from a prestigious tribe living on the Tomo river, near the Manivas of the Upper Guiana, so I tried to find out from them about the upper course of the Río Negro, and where I could find its sources; but my interpreter could not make them understand the true sense of my question. They just repeated over and over again that the sources of the Río Negro and the Inirida were as close together as two fingers on a hand'. In one of the Pacimonales's huts we bought two great, beautiful birds: a toucan (piapoco), similar to the Ramphastos erythrorynchos, and an ana, a kind of macaw, with purple feathers like the Psittacus macao. In our canoe we already had seven parrots, two cock-of-the-rocks (pipra), a motmot, two guans or pavas del monte, two manaviris (cercoleptes or Viverra caudivolvula), and eight monkeys, of which three were new species. Father Zea was not too happy about the rate our zoological collection increased day by day, although he kept that to himself. The toucan resembles the raven in its habits and intelligence; it is a brave creature and easy to tame. Its long, strong beak serves as its defense. It becomes master of the house; steals whatever it can, frequently takes a bath, and likes fishing on the river bank. The one we bought was very young, yet throughout our journey it took malicious delight in molesting the sad, irritable monkeys. The structure of the toucan's beak does not oblige it to swallow food by throwing it into the air as some naturalists claim. It is true that it does have problems lifting food from the ground, but once food is seized in its long beak it throws back its head so that it swallows perpendicularly. When this bird wants to drink it makes an odd gesture; monks say it makes the sign of the cross over the water. Because of this creoles have baptized the toucan with the strange name of Diostedé (May God give it to you).

As we approached the coast the heat became stifling. A reddish mist covered the horizon. It was sunset but no sea breeze blew. We rested in the lonely farm called both Cambury and House of the Canarian (Casa del Isleìo). The hot-water river, along whose bank we traveled, became deeper. A 9-foot-long crocodile lay dead on the sand. We wanted to examine its teeth and the inside of its mouth, but having been exposed to the sun for weeks it stank so bad we had to climb back on to our horses.

On the evening of the 18th of May we reached a place on the bank where wild cacao trees grew. The seed of these cacao trees is small and bitter; the Indians suck the pulp and throw away the seed, which is then picked up by mission Indians who sell it to those who are not too fussy about how to prepare cocoa. 'This is Puerto del Cacao (Cacao Port)', said our pilot. 'Here the Fathers sleep on their way to Esmeralda to buy Saracens (blowpipes to shoot poison arrows) and jovial (Brazil-nuts). Only five boats a year pass along the Casiquiare. Since Maypures, that is, for a month, we had not met anyone on the rivers outside the missions. We spent the night south of Lake Duractumuni in a forest of palm trees. It poured with rain, but the pothoses, arums and lianas made such a thick trellis that we sheltered underneath.

The farmers and their slaves cut a path through the jungle to the first Juagua river waterfall, and on the 10th of September we made our excursion to the Cuchivano crevice. Entering the cave we saw a disemboweled porcupine and smelled the stink of excrement, similar to that of European cats, and knew that a jaguar had been near by. For safety the Indians returned to the farm to fetch small dogs. It is said that when you meet a jaguar in your path he will leap on to a dog before a man. We did not follow the bank of the torrent, but a rocky wall overhanging the water. We walked on a very narrow ledge along the side of a precipice with a drop of some 200 to 300 feet. When it narrowed, so that we could not walk along it any further, we climbed down to the torrent and crossed it on foot, or on the backs of slaves, to climb up the other side. Climbing is very tiring, and you cannot trust the lianas, which, like thick rope, hang from tree-tops. Creepers and parasites hang loosely from the branches they grip; their stalks together weigh a lot, and if you slip and grab one of the lianas you risk bringing down a tangle of green branches. The vegetation became impenetrable the more we advanced. In some places the roots of trees grew in the existing cracks between strata and had burst the calcareous rock. We could hardly carry the plants we picked at each step. The canna, the heliconia with pretty purple flowers, the costus and other plants from the Amomum genus reach here the height of 8 to 50 feet. Their tender, fresh green leaves, their silky sheen and the extraordinary development of their juicy pulp contrast with the brown of the arborescent ferns whose leaves are so delicately jagged. The Indians made deep incisions in the tree trunks with their long knives to draw our attention to the beauty of the red-and gold-colored woods, which one day will be sought after by our furniture makers. They showed us a plant with composite flowers that reaches some 20 feet high (Eupatorium laevigatum), the so-called 'Rose of Belveria' (Brownea racemosa), famous for the brilliance of its purple flowers, and the local 'dragon's blood', a species of euphorbia not yet catalogued, whose red and astringent sap is used to strengthen the gums. They distinguished species by their smell and by chewing their woody fibers. Two Indians, given the same wood to chew, pronounced, often without hesitation, the same name. But we could not take advantage of our guides' wisdom, for how could they reach leaves, flowers and fruit (53) growing on branches some 50 to 60 feet above the ground? We were struck in this gorge by the fact that the bark of the trees, even the ground, were covered in moss and lichen.

A journey to the Tenerife volcano's summit is not solely interesting for the amount of phenomena available for scientific research but far more for the picturesque beauties offered to those who keenly feel the splendors of nature. It is a hard task to describe these sensations for they work on us so much more powerfully the more they are vague. When a traveler must describe the highest peaks, the river cataracts, the tortuous Andes valleys, he risks tiring his readers with the monotonous expression of his admiration. It seems better suited to my intentions in this narrative of my journey to evoke the particular character of each zone. We get to know the features of each region better the more we indicate its varying characteristics by comparing it with others. This method enables us to discover the sources of the pleasures conferred by the great picture of nature.