A few minutes before the first shock there was a violent gust of wind, accompanied by flashes of lightning and large raindrops. The sky remained covered; after the storm the wind died down, staying quiet all night. The sunset was extraordinarily beautiful. The thick veil of clouds tore open into strips just above the horizon, forming shreds, and the sun shone at 12 degrees of altitude against an indigo-blue sky. Its disc appeared incredibly swollen, distorted and wavy at its edges. The clouds were gilded, and clusters of rays colored like the rainbow spread in every direction from its center. A great crowd had congregated in the main square. This phenomenon, the accompanying earthquake, thunder rolling as the earth shook, and that reddish mist lasting so many days were blamed on the eclipse.

The savannah we crossed to reach the Indian village of Santa Cruz is - made up of various very flat plateaux lying one above another. This geological phenomenon seems to show that they were once basins where water poured from one to the other. On the spot where we last saw the limestone of the Santa María jungle we found nodules of iron ore, and, if I was not mistaken, a bit of ammonite, but we could not detach it. The Santa Cruz mission is situated in the middle of the plain. We reached it as night fell, half dead with thirst as we had been eight hours without water. We spent the night in one of those ajupas known as 'kings' houses', which serve as tambos or inns for travelers. As it was raining there was no chance of making any astronomical observations so, on the next day, the 23rd of September, we set off for the Gulf of Cariaco. Beyond Santa Cruz thick jungle reappears. Under tufts of melastoma we found a beautiful fern, with leaves similar to the osmunda, which belonged to a new genus (Polybotria) of the polypodiaceous order.

At nightfall we ordered our instruments to be disembarked; and to our relief none had been damaged. We hired a spacious and well-situated house for our astronomical observations. When the sea wind blew we enjoyed the cool air. The windows did not have glass panes, nor the paper squares that replace glass in most Cumana houses. All the passengers on the Pizarro left the ship, but those with the malignant fever recovered very slowly. Some were still terribly pale and emaciated after a month of illness, despite the care lavished on them by their compatriots. In the Spanish colonies the hospitality is such that a European who arrives without money or recommendations is almost sure to find help should he disembark sick in any port. Catalans, Galicians and Basques maintain an intense trade with America, where they form three distinct bodies, and exercise a great influence on the customs, industry and commerce of the colonies. The poorest inhabitant of Sitges or Vigo may be assured of being received in the house of a Catalan or Galician merchant (pulpero) (26) whether in Chile or Mexico or the Philippines. I have witnessed moving examples where strangers are looked after assiduously for years. Some may say that hospitality is no virtue in a land with such a magnificent climate, with plenty of food, and where indigenous plants supply efficient medicines, and a sick person finds necessary refuge in a hammock under a covering. But does not the arrival of a stranger in a family imply more work? Are not the proofs of disinterested sympathy, the spirit of sacrifice in the women, the patience that long convalescence requires, worthy of note? It has been observed that, with the exception of some populated cities, hospitality has not really decreased since the arrival of the Spanish settlers in the New World. It distresses me to think that this change will happen as the colonial population and industry progress rapidly, and that the state of society that we have agreed to call advanced civilization might banish 'the ancient Castilian frankness'.

The city, dominated by the fort, lies at the foot of a hill without greenery. Not one bell-tower nor one dome attract the traveler from afar; just a few tamarind trees and coconut and date palms stand out above the flat-roofed houses. The surrounding plains, especially near the sea, appear sad, dusty and arid, while fresh, luxuriant vegetation marks out the winding river that divides the city from its outskirts and the European settlers from the copper-colored Indians. The isolated, bare and white San Antonio mountain, with its fort, reflects a great mass of light and heat: it is made of breccia, whose strata contain fossil marine life. Far away towards the south you can make out a dark curtain of mountains. They are the high calcareous New Andalusian alps, topped with sandstone and other recent geological formations. Majestic forests cover this inland mountain chain linked along a forested valley with the salty, clayey and bare ground around Cumana. In the gulf and on its shores you can see flocks of fishing herons and gannets, awkward, heavy birds, which, like swans, sail along the water with their wings raised. Nearer the inhabited areas, you can count thousands of gallinazo vultures, veritable flying jackals, ceaselessly picking at carcasses. A gulf whose depths contain hot thermal springs divides the secondary from the primary and schistose rocks of the Araya peninsula. The two coasts are bathed by a calm blue sea lightly rippled by a constant breeze. A dry, pure sky, only lightly clouded at sunset, lies above the sea, over a peninsula devoid of trees and above the Cumana plains, while one sees storms building up and bursting into fertile downpours around the inland mountain peaks.

The current dragged us towards the coast with more force than wassafe. As we advanced we saw first the island of Fuerteventura, famous forthe many camels that live there, and then later the small island of Lobos, the channel that separates Fuerteventura from Lanzarote. We spent the night on deck; the moon illumined theisland's volcanic peaks, whose slopes, covered in ash, shone like silver. night was beautifully serene and fresh; although we were only a shortdistance from theAfrican coast and the limit of the torrid zone, the thermometer recordedonly 18¡C. It seemed as if the phosphorescence of the sea heightened the mass oflight diffused in the air. After midnight great black clouds rose behindthe volcano and intermittently covered the moon and the beautiful Scorpion constellation. On the shorewe saw lights move in all directions; probably fishermen getting ready forwork. During the voyage we had been reading the ancient Spanish navigators, those moving lights reminded us of Pedro Gutiérrez Queen Isabel's page, who saw similarlights on Guanahani Island on the memorable night the New World wasdiscovered.

Lake Valencia is full of islands, which embellish the countryside with the picturesque form of their rocks and by the kind of vegetation that covers them. Tropical lakes have this advantage over alpine ones. The islands, without counting Morro and Cabrera, which are already joined to the mainland, are fifteen in number. They are partially cultivated, and very fertile due to the vapors rising from the lake. Burro, the largest island, some 2 miles long, is inhabited by mestizo families who rear goats. These simple people rarely visit the Mocundo coast. The lake seems gigantic to them: they produce bananas, cassava, milk and fish. A hut built of reeds, some hammocks woven with cotton grown in neighboring fields, a large stone on which they build their fires, and the ligneous fruit of the tutuma to draw water with are their sole household needs. The old mestizo who offered us goat's milk had a lovely daughter. We learned from our guide that isolation had made him as suspicious as if he lived in a city. The night before our arrival some hunters had visited the island. Night surprised them and they preferred to sleep out in the open rather than return to Mocundo. This news spread alarm around the island. The father forced his young daughter to climb a very tall zamang or mimosa, which grows on the plain at some distance from the hut. He slept at the foot of this tree, and didn't let his daughter down until the hunters had left.