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).

One place where spiky cacti of great size grow together is almost impossible to walk through. These areas, known as tunales, not only prevent bare-chested Indians from entering, but also anyone fully dressed. During our solitary walks we tried several times to penetrate the tunal that crowns the hill with the fort, along which runs a path. There we found thousands of examples of this strange plant. At times nightfall surprised us as there is no twilight. Then this place becomes dangerous, for the rattlesnake (Crotalus cumanensis), the coral and other poisonous snakes seek out these hot places to deposit their eggs in the sand.