When we left the Cumanà coast we felt as if we had been living there for a long time. It was the first land that we had reached in a world that I had longed to know from my childhood. The impression produced by nature in the New World is so powerful and magnificent that after only a few months in these places you feel you have been here years. In the Tropics everything in nature seems new and marvelous. In the open plains and tangled jungles all memories of Europe are virtually effaced as it is nature that determines the character of a country. How memorable the first new country you land at continues to be all your life! In my imagination I still see Cumanà and its dusty ground more intensely than all the marvels of the Andes.

We spent seven agreeable days at the Hacienda de Cura in a small hut surrounded by thickets; the house itself, located in a sugar plantation, was infected with bubos, a skin disease common among slaves in the valleys. We lived like the rich; we bathed twice a day, slept three times and ate three meals in twenty-four hours. The lake water was warm, some 24°C to 25°C. The coolest bathing place was under the shade of ceibas and zamangs at Toma in a stream that rushes Out of the granite Rincòn del Diablo mountains. Entering this bath was fearsome, not because of the insects but because of the little brown hairs covering the pods of the Dolichos pruriens. When these small hairs, called pica pica, stick to your body they cause violent irritations. You feel the sting but cannot see what stung you.

Guanaguana still does not have a church. The old priest, who had lived for more than thirty years in the American jungles, pointed out that the community's money, meaning the product of the Indians' work, should first be spent on building the missionary house; secondly on building a church; and lastly on their clothes. He seriously insisted that this order could not be altered on any account. The Indians can wait their turn as they prefer walking around completely naked to wearing the scantiest clothes. The spacious padre's house had just been finished and we noted with surprise that the terraced roof was decorated with a great number of chimneys that looked like turrets. Our host told us that this was done to remind him of his Aragonese winters, despite the tropical heat. The Guanaguana Indians grow cotton for themselves, the church and the missionary. The produce is supposed to belong to the community; it is with this communal money that the needs of the priest and altar are looked after. They have simple machines that separate the seed from the plant. Wooden cylinders of tiny diameter between which the cotton passes are activated, like a spinning-wheel, by pedals. However, these primitive machines are very useful and other missions are beginning to imitate them. But here, as in all places where nature's fertility hinders the development of industry, only a few hectares are converted into cultivated land, and nobody thinks of changing that cultivation into one of alimentary plants. Famine is felt each time the maize harvest is lost to a long drought. The Guanaguana Indians told us an amazing story that happened the year before when they went off with their women and children and spent three months al monte, that is, wandering about in the neighboring jungle and living off juicy plants, palm cabbages, fern roots and wild fruit. They did not speak of this nomadic state as one of deprivation. Only the missionary lost out because his village was left completely abandoned, and the community members, when they returned from the woods, appeared to be less docile than before.

The preparation of sugar, its boiling, and the claying, is not well done in Terra Firma because it is made for local consumption. More papelòn is sold than either refined or raw sugar. Papelòn is an impure sugar in the form of little yellowish-brown loaves. It is a blend of molasses and mucilaginous matter. The poorest man eats papelòn the way in Europe he eats cheese. It is said to be nutritious. Fermented with water it yields guarapo, the favorite local drink.