Hardly twenty-two months had passed since a previous earthquake had nearly destroyed the city of Cumanà. The people regard the reddish mist veiling the sky and the absence of a sea breeze at night as infallible ill omens. Many people came to see us to ask if our instruments predicted any further quakes. Their anxiety increased greatly when on the 5th of November, at the same time as the day before, there was a violent gust of wind, accompanied by thunder and a few raindrops. But no shock was felt.

Mixed with the aromatic smells given off by the flowers, fruit and even wood there was something of our misty autumn forests. Among the majestic trees that reach 120 to 130 feet high our guides pointed out the curucay, which yields a whitish, liquid resin with a strong odor. The Cumanagoto and Tagire Indians used to burn it before their idols as incense. The young branches have an agreeable taste, though somewhat acid. Apart from the curucay and the enormous trunks of the hymenaea, from 9 to so feet in diameter, we noticed, above all others, the dragon (Croton sangulfluum), whose dark purple resin flows from its white bark; as well as the medicinal calahuala fern, and the irasse, macanilla, corozo and praga palm trees. This latter gives a tasty 'heart of palm' that we sometimes ate at the Caripe convent. These palm trees with pinnate and thorny leaves contrast pleasingly with the tree ferns. In the Caripe valley we discovered five new species of tree fern, while in Linnaeus's time botanists had not even found four in both continents.

The syndic in Cumanà had recommended us to the missionaries who run the Chaima Indian mission. This recommendation was all the more useful to us as the missionaries, zealous for the purity of their parishioners' morals, and wary of the indiscreet curiosity of strangers, tended to apply an ancient rule of their order according to which no white secular person could remain more than one night in an Indian village. In general, to travel agreeably in Spanish missions it would not be wise to trust solely to the passport issued by the Madrid Secretary of State: you must arm yourself with recommendations from the ecclesiastical authorities, especially the custodians of convents, or the generals of orders residing in Rome, who are far more respected by missionaries than bishops. Missions have become, in reality, a distinct, almost independent, hierarchy, despite being primitive or canonical institutions.

When a traveler recently arrived from Europe steps into South American jungle for the first time he sees nature in a completely unexpected guise. The objects that surround him only faintly bring to mind those descriptions by famous writers of the banks of the Mississippi, of Florida and of other temperate regions of the New World. With each step he feels not at the frontiers of the torrid zone but in its midst; not on one of the West Indian Islands but in a vast continent where everything is gigantic; mountains, rivers and the masses of plants. If he is able to feel the beauty of landscape, he will find it hard to analyse his many impressions. He does not know what shocks him more: whether the calm silence of the solitude, or the beauty of the diverse, contrasting objects, or that fullness and freshness of plant life in the Tropics. It could be said that the earth, overloaded with plants, does not have sufficient space to develop. Everywhere tree trunks are hidden behind a thick green carpet. If you carefully transplanted all the orchids, all the epiphytes that grow on one single American fig tree (Ficus gigantea) you would manage to cover an enormous amount of ground. The same lianas that trail along the ground climb up to the tree-tops, swinging from one tree to another 100 feet up in the air. As these parasitical plants form a real tangle, a botanist often confuses flowers, fruit and leaves belonging to different species.

After three hours' walking we reached a small plain called La Rambleta at the far end of the malpaís; from its center rises the Piton or Sugar Loaf. From the Orotava side this mountain resembles those pyramids with steps found in Féjoun or Mexico. Here we found the air holes that locals call the Nostrils of the Peak (Narices del Pico). Hot watery vapors seep out at regular intervals from cracks in the rock, and the thermometer marked 43.2°C. I cannot, however, accept the daring hypothesis which states that the Nostrils of the Peak are vents of an immense apparatus of distillation whose lower part is situated below sea-level. Since we have been studying volcanoes with more care, and since innate love for all that is marvelous is less common in geological books, doubts have been expressed about these constant and direct links between sea water and volcanic fire. There is a far simpler explanation of this phenomenon. The peak is covered with snow part of the year; we found snow still around on the Rambleta plain. This led us to conclude that the Tenerife peak, like the Andes and Manila islands' volcanoes, are filled with filtered water. The watery vapors emitted by the Nostrils and cracks of the crater are those same waters heated.