The race of guàcharo would long ago have become extinct had not diverse circumstances combined to preserve them. The superstitious Indians rarely dare to penetrate deep into the grotto. It appears that these birds also nest in other nearby caves inaccessible to man. Perhaps this great cave is repopulated by colonies coming from smaller ones because the missionaries assured us that these birds had not diminished in numbers. When the gizzards of the young birds in the cave are opened they contain all kinds of hard and dried fruits, which, under the name of semilla del guàcharo, are a famous remedy against intermittent fevers. The adult birds carry these seed to their young. They are carefully collected and sent to the sick at Cariaco.

On the 14th of March we entered the Guaurabo river at one of Trinidad de Cuba's two ports, to put our pràctico, or pilot, who had steered us through the Jardinillos and run us aground, ashore. We also hoped to catch a correo marítimo (mail-boat) to Cartagena. Towards evening I landed and began to set up Borda's azimuth compass and the artificial horizon to observe the stars when a party of pulperos, or small traders, who had dined on board a foreign ship cheerfully invited us to accompany them into town. These good people asked us to mount two each to a horse; as it was excessively hot we accepted their offer. The road to Trinidad runs across a plain covered with vegetation where the miraguama, a silver-leafed palm tree, stands out. This fertile soil, although of tierra colorada, needs only to be tilled to yield rich harvests. After emerging from a forest we saw a curtain of hills whose southern slope was covered with houses. This is Trinidad, founded in 1514 on account of the 'rich gold mines' said to lie in the Armani river valley. The streets of Trinidad are all very steep and again show why people complain, as they do over all Spanish America, of how badly the conquistadores chose the sites of new towns.

By the morning of the 21st of June we were on our way to the volcano's summit. The day was not fine and the peak's summit, generally visible from Orotava from sunrise to ten at night, was covered in cloud. What links an excursion to the peak with similar ones to Chamonix or Etna is that one is obliged to follow guides, and sees only what has already been seen and described by previous travelers.

La Guaira is more a bay than a harbor; the sea is always rough, and boats are exposed to dangerous winds, sandbanks and mist. Disembarking is very difficult as large waves prevent mules from being taken ashore. The negroes and freed mulattos who carry the goods on to the boats are exceptionally muscular. They wade into the water up to their waists and, surprisingly, are not scared of the sharks that teem in the harbor. The sharks are dangerous and bloodthirsty at the island opposite the coast of Caracas, although they do not attack anybody swimming in the harbor. To explain physical phenomena simply people have always resorted to marvels, insisting that here a bishop had blessed the sharks in the port.

We spent seven agreeable days at the Hacienda de Cura in a small hut surrounded by thickets; the house itself, located in a sugar plantation, was infected with bubos, a skin disease common among slaves in the valleys. We lived like the rich; we bathed twice a day, slept three times and ate three meals in twenty-four hours. The lake water was warm, some 24°C to 25°C. The coolest bathing place was under the shade of ceibas and zamangs at Toma in a stream that rushes Out of the granite Rincòn del Diablo mountains. Entering this bath was fearsome, not because of the insects but because of the little brown hairs covering the pods of the Dolichos pruriens. When these small hairs, called pica pica, stick to your body they cause violent irritations. You feel the sting but cannot see what stung you.

When we carefully examine this wild part of America we imagine how it was in primitive times when the land was peopled in stages, and seem to be present at the birth of human societies. In the New World we do not see the progressive developments of civilization, those moments of rest, those stations in the lives of a people. Such is the wonderful fertility of nature that the Indian's field is a patch of land. To clear it means setting fire to branches. To farm means dropping a few seeds into the ground. However far back in time you go in thought in these dense jungles the Indians have got their food from the earth, but as this earth produces abundantly on a small patch, without much work, these people often change their homes along the river banks. Still today, the Orinoco Indians travel with their seeds, transporting what they cultivate (conucos), like the Arab does his tents.

But the shores of Lake Valencia are not famed solely for their picturesque beauties: the basin presents several phenomena whose interpretation holds great interest for natural historians and for the inhabitants. What causes the lowering of the lake's water-level? Is it receding faster than before? Will the balance between the flowing in and the draining out be restored, or will the fear that the lake might dry up be proved justified?