The Chaimas are usually short and thickset, with extremely broad shoulders and flat chests, and their legs are rounded and fleshy. The color of their skin is the same as that of all American Indians from the cold plateaux of Quito to the burning jungles of the Amazon.

The lake is usually full of fish; there are three species with soft flesh, which are not very tasty: the guavina, the bagre and the sardina. The last two reach the lake from streams. The guavina, which I sketched on the spot, was some 20 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide. It is perhaps a new species of Gronovius's Erythrina. It has silver scales bordered with green. This fish is extremely voracious and destroys other species. Fishermen assured us that a little crocodile, the bava, which often swam near as we bathed, contributed to the destruction of the fish. We never managed to catch this reptile and examine it close up. It is said to be very innocent; yet its habits, like its shape, clearly resemble the alligator or Crocodilus acutus. It swims so that only the tips of its snout and tail show: it lies at midday on deserted beaches.

We counted more than 500 Caribs in the Cari village; and many more in the surrounding missions. It is curious to meet a once nomadic tribe only recently settled, whose intellectual and physical powers make them different from other Indians. Never have I seen such a tall race (from 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet 2 inches). As is common all over America the men cover their bodies more than the women, who wear only the guayuco or perizoma in the form of narrow bands. The men wrap the lower part of their bodies down to their hips in a dark blue, almost black, cloth. This drapery is so ample that when the temperature drops at night the Caribs use it to cover their shoulders. Seen from far off against the sky, their bodies, dyed with annatto, and their tall, copper-colored and picturesquely wrapped figures, look like ancient statues. The way the men cut their hair is typical: like monks or choirboys. The partly shaved forehead makes it seem larger than it is. A tuft of hair, cut in a circle, starts near the crown of the head. The resemblance of the Caribs with the monks does not come from mission life, from the false argument that the Indians wanted to imitate their masters, the Franciscan monks. Tribes still independent like those at the source of the Caroní and Branco rivers can be distinguished by their cerquillo de frailes (monks' circular tonsures), which were seen from the earliest discovery of America. All the Caribs that we saw, whether in boats on the Lower Orinoco or in the Piritu missions, differ from other Indians by their height and by the regularity of their features; their noses are shorter and less flat, their cheekbones not so prominent, their physiognomy less Mongoloid. Their eyes, blacker than is usual among the Guiana hordes, show intelligence, almost a capacity for thought. Caribs have a serious manner and a sad look, common to all the New World tribes. Their severe look is heightened by their mania for dyeing their eyebrows with sap from the caruto, then lengthening and joining them together. They often paint black dots all over their faces to make themselves look wilder. The local magistrates, governors and mayors, who alone are authorized to carry long canes, came to visit us. Among these were some young Indians aged between eighteen and twenty, appointed by the missionaries. We were struck to see among these Caribs painted in annatto the same sense of importance, the same cold, scornful manners that can be found among people with the same positions in the Old World. Carib women are less strong, and uglier than the men. They do nearly all the housework and fieldwork. They insistently asked us for pins, which they stuck under their lower lips; they pierce their skin so that the pin's head remains inside the mouth. It is a custom from earlier savage times. The young girls are dyed red and, apart from their guayuco, are naked. Among the different tribes in the two continents the idea of nakedness is relative. In some parts of Asia a woman is not allowed to show a fingertip, while a Carib Indian woman wears only a 2-inch-long guayuco. Even this small band is seen as less essential than the pigment covering her skin. To leave her hut without her coat of annatto dye would be to break all the rules of tribal decency.

We waited nearly the whole day in the miserable village of Mahates for the animals carrying our belongings to the landing-stage on the Magdalena river. It was suffocatingly hot; at this time of year there is not a breath of wind. Feeling depressed we lay on the ground in the main square. My barometer had broken and it was the last one I had. I had anticipated measuring the slope of the river and fixing the speed of its current and the position of different stages through astronomical observations. Only travelers know how painful it is to suffer such accidents, which continued to dog me in the Andes and in Mexico; each time this happened I felt the same. Of all the instruments a traveler should carry the barometer is the one, despite all its imperfections, that caused me the most worry and whose loss I felt the most. Only chronometers, which sometimes suddenly and unpredictably change their rates, give rise to the same sense of loss. Indeed, after travelling thousands of leagues over land with astronomical and physical instruments, you are tempted to cry out: 'Lucky are those who travel without instruments that break, without dried plants that get wet, without animal collections that rot; lucky are those who travel the world to see it with their own eyes, trying to understand it, and recollecting the sweet emotions that nature inspires!

In the Indian huts we found several vegetable productions brought from the Guiana mountains that fascinated us. I will mention only the fruit of the juvia or Brazil-nut, some extremely long reeds, and shirts made from marima bark. The almendron or juvia, one of the most impressive trees in the New World jungles, was virtually unknown before our journey to the Rio Negro.

The missionary from the Raudales looked after the preparations for our journey rather too well. He worried that there might not be enough Maco and Guahibo Indians on hand who knew the labyrinth of small canals and rapids that form the raudales and cataracts, so at night he put two Indians in the cepo, that is, they were tied to the ground and fastened together between two pieces of wood with a padlock. In the morning we were awoken by the shouts of a young Indian who was being brutally beaten with a whip of manatee skin. His name was Zerepe, an extremely intelligent Indian who later served us well, but at the time refused to travel with us. He had been born in the Atures mission; his father was from the Maco tribe and his mother from the Maypure; he had run off to the jungle (al monte) and lived with wild Indians for years. He had learned several languages, and the missionary used him as an interpreter. Not without difficulty did we obtain his pardon. 'Without severity, we were told, 'you would get nothing'.

On the eve of Saint John's Day we were present at a country party in Little's garden. This gentleman, who greatly helped the Canarians during the last wheat famine, has cultivated a hill covered with volcanic debris. In this delicious place he has installed an English garden from which there is a magnificent view of the peak, of the villages along the coast, and of the island of Las Palmas on the edge of the great ocean. That view can only be compared to the views of Genoa and Naples bays; but Orotava is far superior to both in terms of the grandeur of its masses and the richness of its vegetation. As night fell the volcano's slopes presented us with a wonderful spectacle. Following a custom introduced by the Spaniards, though it dates back to remotest times, the shepherds lit the fires of Saint John. The scattered masses of fire and columns of smoke driven by the wind stood out from the deep green of the forests lining the peak. The shepherds' distant yells of joy were the only sounds that broke the silence of that night in those solitary places. (18)