Like all the Indian tribes that I know the Chaimas have small, slender hands. Contrary to this, their feet are large, and their toes remain extremely mobile. All the Chaimas resemble each other, as if they were all related, and this is all the more evident because between twenty and fifty years old, age is not indicated by wrinkling skin, white hair or body decrepitude. When you enter a hut it is hard to differentiate a father from a son, one generation from another. I think that this family resemblance has two different causes: the local position of the Indian villages, and the lack of intellectual culture. Indian nations are subdivided into an infinity of tribes, all hating each other, and never allied even if speaking the same language or living on the same river or nearby hill. This characteristic is preserved in the missions where marriages are made only within tribes. This blood link that unites a whole tribe is naively illustrated by those Spanish-speaking Indians who designate members of the same tribe as mis parientes (my relatives).

Seated on the crater's external edge we turned our eyes towards the north-east where the coasts are decorated with villages and hamlets. At our feet masses of mist, continually tossed about by the winds, changed shape all the time. A uniform layer of cloud between us and the lower regions of the island had been pierced here and there by wind currents sent up from the heated earth. The Orotava bay, its vessels at anchor, the gardens and vineyards round the town, appeared in an opening that seemed to enlarge all the time. From these solitary I regions our eyes dived down to the inhabited world below; we enjoyed the striking contrasts between the peak's arid slopes, its steep sides covered with scoriae, its elevated plains devoid of vegetation, and the smiling spectacle of the cultivated land below. We saw how plants were distributed according to the decreasing temperatures of altitudes. Below the peak lichens begin to cover the scorious and polished lava; a violet (Viola cheiranthifolia) similar to the Viola decumbens climbs the volcano's slopes up to 1, toises above all other herbaceous plants. Tufts of flowering broom decorate the valleys hollowed out by the torrents and blocked by the effects of lateral eruptions. Below the retama lies the region of ferns, and then the arborescent heaths. Laurel, rhamnus and strawberry-tree woods grow between the scrub and the rising ground planted with vines and fruit trees. A rich green carpet extends from the plain of brooms and the zone of alpine plants to groups of date palms and banana trees whose feet are bathed by the ocean.

If in the peaceful times when Bonpland and myself traveled through both Americas the llanos were the refuge of criminals from the Orinoco missions, or who had escaped from coastal prisons, how much worse it must be following the bloody Independence struggles! Our wastes and heaths are but a poor image of the New World savannahs, which for over 8, to 10, square leagues are as smooth as the sea. Their immensity makes it easy for vagabonds to remain free.