In the chronicle of our journey to the Caripe missions I did not wish to insert general considerations concerning the customs, languages and common origins of the different Indian tribes populating New Andalusia. Now, having returned to my starting-point, I will place in one section matters that concern the history of human beings. As we advance further into the interior of the continent this subject will become even more interesting than the phenomena of the physical world.

The Casiquiare Indians, though easily reverting to barbaric customs, show some intelligence in the missions, work well and learn Spanish. As most missions have two or three tribes speaking different languages the language of the missionaries lets them communicate with each other. I saw a Poignave Indian talk in Castilian with a Guahibo, though both had left the jungle only three months before. Every quarter of an hour one spoke a carefully prepared phrase in which the verb, following the grammar of their own languages, was always a gerund ('When me seeing the father, the father me saying...').

On leaving the Apure river we found ourselves in a vastly different countryside. An immense plain of water stretched out in front of us like a lake as far as the eye could see. White-topped waves rose several feet high from the clash between the breeze and the current. We no longer heard the cries of the herons, flamingos and spoonbills flying in long lines from one bank to the other. We vainly looked out for those diving birds whose busy tricks vary according to their species. Nature herself seemed less alive. Only now and then did we see between waves some large crocodiles breaking the water with their tails. The horizon was lined with a ribbon of jungle; but nowhere did the jungle reach the river. Vast beaches burned by the sun were as deserted and arid as sea beaches and, thanks to mirages, resembled stagnant marshes from afar. Rather than limiting the river these sandy banks blurred it. The banks drew near or receded according to the play of the sun's rays.

We re-embarked at sunset and set sail, but the breeze was too weak toenable us to follow our route to Tenerife. The sea was calm; a reddish hazecovered the horizon, seeming to magnify everything. In such solitudes, by so many uninhabited islands, we savored the view of such a grandiose and wild nature. Theblack mountains of Graciosa had perpendicular walls some 500 to 600 feet high. Their shadows, projected across the sea, made thescene gloomy. The basalt rocks stuck out of the water like the ruins of avast building. Their existence reminded us of that bygone age whenunderwater volcanoes gave birth to new islands, or destroyed continents. Everything around us spoke of destructionand sterility; yet beyond this scene the coast of Lanzarote seemed morefriendly. In a narrow gorge, between two hills crowned with scatteredtrees, you could see some cultivated land. The last rays of sun lit up the ripe corn, ready for harvesting. Even thedesert is animated when you see some trace of man's work in it.

After struggling a while with our plan to descend the Guarapiche river to the Golfo Triste, we took the direct road to the mountains. The Guanaguana and Caripe valleys are separated by an embankment or calcareous ridge famous for miles around for its name Cuchilla de Guanaguana. We found this way tiring because we still had to climb the cordilleras, but it is by no means as dangerous as they claim in Cumanà. In many places the path is no more than 14 or 15 inches wide; the mountain ridge it follows is covered with a short slippery grass; its sides are both very steep and the traveler who fell could roll some 700 to 800 feet down over that grass. However, the mountain has abrupt slopes, not precipices. The local mules are so sure-footed that they inspire confidence. They behave just like mules from Switzerland or the Pyrenees. The wilder a country, the more acute and sensitive is instinct in domestic animals. When the mules glimpse a danger they stop and turn their heads from right to left and raise and lower their ears as if thinking. They delay making up their minds, but always choose the right course of action if the traveler does not distract them or make them continue. In the Andes, during journeys of six and seven months, in mountains furrowed with torrents, the intelligence of horses and beasts of burden develops in a surprising way. You often hear mountain people say: 'I will not give you a mule with a comfortable gait, but the one that reasons best (la màs racional). This popular expression, the result of long experiences, contradicts far more convincingly than speculative philosophy those who claim that animals are simply animated machines.

In the New Andalusia and Barcelona provinces, under the name of the Gobierno de Cumanà, there are more than fourteen tribes: in New Andalusia reside the Chaimas, the Guaiquerí, the Pariagotos, the Quaquas, the Araucans, the Caribs and the Guaraunos; in the province of New Barcelona, the Cumanagotos, the Palenques, the Caribs, the Piritus, the Tomuzas, the Topocuares, the Chacopotes and the Guarives. Nine to ten of these tribes consider themselves to be of entirely different races. Of the remaining tribes, the most numerous are the Chaimas in the Caripe mountains, the Caribs in the southern savannahs of New Barcelona, and the Cumanagotos in the Piritu missions. Some Guarauno families live on the left shore of the Orinoco where the delta begins, under missionary discipline. The most common languages are those of the Guaraunos, the Caribs, the Cumanagotos and the Chaimas.