Once on board we had to contend with strong winds. It poured with rain, and near by thunder rolled. Flocks of flamingos, egrets and cormorants flew past towards the shore. Only the alcatras, a large kind of pelican, continued to fish calmly in the gulf. We were eighteen on board, and the narrow pirogue, overloaded with sugar cane and bunches of bananas and coconuts, could hardly hold our instruments. The edge of the boat barely stood above the water-line.

The Indian pilot who had led us from San Fernando de Apure up to the Pararuma beach did not know his way through the Orinoco rapids, and no longer wanted to sail our boat. We had to accept his decision. Luckily the Carichana missionary agreed to loan us a fine pirogue quite cheaply. Father Bernardo Zea, missionary from Atures and Maypures near the Great Cataracts, even offered to accompany us himself to the Brazilian border. The number of Indians willing to carry the canoes along the cataracts was so few that without this monk's presence we risked waiting weeks in that humid and unhealthy area. Father Zea hoped to recover his health by visiting the Río Negro missions. He talked of those places with the enthusiasm that all those in the colonies feel when talking about far-off places.

The missionary told us a story about the jaguars. Some months before our arrival a young jaguar had wounded a child while playing with him. I have verified the facts on the spot; it should interest those who study animal behavior. Two Indian children, a boy and a girl of about eight and nine years of age, were sitting on the grass near the village when a jaguar came out from the jungle and ran round the children, jumping and hiding in the high grass, like our cats. The little boy sensed danger only when the jaguar struck him with its paw until blood began to flow. The little girl chased it off with branches from a tree. The intelligent little boy was brought to us. The jaguar's claw had ripped skin from his forehead. What did this playfulness mean in the jaguar? If the jaguar was not hungry, why did it approach the children? There is something mysterious in the sympathies and hatreds of animals.

A dreadful circumstance forced us to stay a whole month in Angostura. The first days after our arrival we felt tired and weak, but completely healthy. Bonpland began to study the few plants that he had managed to protect from the humidity while I was busy determining the longitude and latitude of the capital and observing the dip of the magnetic needle. All our work was interrupted. On almost the same day we were struck by an illness that took the form of a malignant typhus in my travelling companion. At that time the air in Angostura was quite healthy and, as the only servant we had brought from Cumana showed the same symptoms, our generous hosts were sure that we had caught the typhus germs somewhere in the damp Casiquiare jungles. As our mulatto servant had been far more exposed to the intense rains, his illness developed with alarming speed. He got so weak that after eight days we thought he was dead. However, he had only fainted, and he later recovered. I too was attacked by a violent fever; I was given a mixture of honey and quinine from the Caroni river (Cortex angosturae), a medicine recommended by the Capuchin monks. My fever continued to rise, but vanished the following day. Bonpland's fever was more serious, and for weeks we worried about his health. Luckily be was strong enough to look after himself; and took medicines that suited him better than the Caroni river quinine. The fever continued and, as is usual in the Tropics, developed into dysentery. During his illness Bonpland maintained his strength of character and that calmness which never left him even in the most trying circumstances. I was tortured by premonitions. It was I who had chosen to go up-river; the danger to my companion seemed to be the fatal consequence of my rash choice.

In Europe we calculate the number of inhabitants of a country by the extent of cultivation; in the Tropics, in the warmest and most humid parts of South America, very populated areas seem deserted because man cultivates but a small number of acres to feed himself. Without neighbors, virtually cut off from the rest of mankind, each family forms a different tribe. This isolated state retards the progress of civilization, which advances only as society becomes more populated and its connections more intimate and multiplied. But, on the other hand, solitude develops and strengthens liberty and independence; and has fed that pride of character which distinguishes the Castilian race.