Nothing matches the difficulty that Indians have in learning Spanish. As long as they are distanced from white men they have an aversion to he called civilized Indians or, as the missions call them, indios muy latinos. But what struck me most, not only among the Chaimas, but among all the isolated missions that I later visited, was the extreme difficulty they have in coordinating and expressing the simplest ideas in Spanish, even if they know the meaning of the single words and sentences.

When we left the ravine that descends from the Imposible we entered a thick jungle cut by numerous rivers, which we easily forded. In the middle of the forest, on the banks of the Cedoìo river, as well as on the southern slopes of the Cocollar, we found wild papaw and orange trees with large, sweet fruit. These are probably the remains of some conucos, or Indian plantations, because the orange is not a native tree; neither are the banana, papaw, maize, cassava and so many other useful plants whose countries of origin are unknown, though they have accompanied man in his migrations from remotest time.

Batabanò was then a poor village, and its church had only just been finished. The ciénega begins about half a league from the village, a marsh stretching about 60 leagues from west to east. At Batabanò it is thought that the sea is encroaching on the land. Nothing is sadder than these marshes. Not even a shrub breaks the monotony; a few stunted palm trees rise like broken masts among tufts of reeds. As we stayed only one night there I regretted not being able to investigate the two species of crocodile, or cocodrilo, infesting the ciénaga. One the locals call a cayman. The crocodile is said to be very daring, and even climbs into boats when it can. It often wanders a league inland just to devour pigs. It reaches some feet long, and even chases (so they say) men on horseback, while the caymans are so shy that people can bathe in the water when they are around.

From La Coruña to the 36th degree of latitude we had scarcelyseen any living creature apart from sea swallows and a few dolphins. Wesearched in vain for seaweed and mollusks. On the 11th of June we werestruckby a curious sight that later we would see often in the Pacific. We reacheda zone where the sea seemed covered with an enormous amount of jellyfish. boat could hardly move, though the jellyfish floated towards thesouth-east four times faster than the current. This procession lasted some forty-five minutes; then we saw a fewscattered and exhausted ones struggling to follow the main bunch, as iftired of their journey.

The Río Negro and the Jupura are two tributaries of the Amazon comparable in length to the Danube, whose upper parts belong to Spain and whose lower reaches are occupied by Portugal. In these majestic rivers people have gathered in those places where civilization is most ancient. The banks of the Upper Jupura or Caqueta have been cultivated by missionaries who came down from the mountains of Popayan and Neiva. From Mocoa to the confluence with Caguan there are many Christian settlements, while in the Lower Jupura the Portuguese have founded hardly a few villages. Along the Río Negro, on the other hand, the Spaniards have not been able to rival their neighbors. How can they rely on a people so distanced from has the province of Caracas? Steppes and virtually deserted jungle some 160 leagues thick separate the cultivated parts of the river bank from the four missions of Maroa, Tomo, Davipe and San Carlos.

The Chaimas have attractive white teeth like all who lead a very simple life, but not as strong as negro teeth. The early explorers noted their custom of blacking their teeth with plant juices and quicklime; today this custom has disappeared. I doubt whether the custom of blacking their teeth had anything to do with odd ideas about beauty or a remedy against toothache. It could be said that Indians do not know toothache, and Spaniards who live in the Tropics do not suffer from this pain either.