We suffered much from the heat, increased by the reverberation from the dry, dusty ground. However, the excessive effect of the sun held no harmful consequences for us. At La Guaira sunstroke and its effects on the brain are feared, especially when yellow fever is beginning to appear. One day I was on the roof of our house observing the meridian point and the temperature difference between the sun and shade when a man came running towards me and begged me to take a drink he had brought along with him. He was a doctor who had been watching me for half an hour out in the sun from his window, without a hat on my head, exposed to the sun's rays. He assured me that coming from northern climes such imprudence would undoubtedly lead that night to an attack of yellow fever if I did not take his medicine. His prediction, however seriously argued, did not alarm me as I had had plenty of time to get acclimatized. But how could l refuse his argument when he was so polite and caring? I swallowed his potion, and the doctor must now have included me in the list of people he had saved from fever that year. (67)

We spent the night on a dry, wide beach. The night was silent and calm and the moon shone marvelously. The crocodiles lay on the beach so that they could see our fire. We thought that maybe the glow of the fire attracted them, as it did fish, crayfish and other water creatures. The Indians showed us tracks in the sand from three jaguars, two of them young; doubtless a female with cubs come to drink water. Finding no trees on the beach we stuck our oars in the sand and hung our hammocks. All was peaceful until about eleven when a dreadful noise began in the jungle around us that made sleep impossible. Among the many noises of screeching animals the Indians could recognize only those that were heard separately; the fluted notes of the apajous, the sighs of the abuate apes, the roar of the jaguar and puma; the calls of the pecarry, sloth, hocco, parraka and other gallinaceous birds. When the jaguars approached the edge of the jungle our dog, who up to then had been barking continuously, began to growl and hid under our hammocks. Sometimes, after a long silence, we again heard the tiger's roar from the tops of trees, and then the din of monkeys' whistles as they fled from danger.

It was Carnival Tuesday, and everywhere people celebrated. The amusements, called carnes tollendas (or 'farewell to the flesh'), became at times rather wild: some paraded an ass loaded with water, and whenever they found an open window pumped water into the room; others carried bags full of hair from the pica pica (Dolichos pruriens), which greatly irritates skin on contact, and threw it into the faces of passers-by.

The cuspa, common enough around Cumanà and Bordones, is still an unknown tree to European botanists. For a long time it was used only for building houses. Since 1797, under the name of the cascarilla or bark tree (cinchona), it has become rather famous. Its trunk barely reaches 15 to 20 feet high. Its thin, pale yellow bark is an excellent febrifuge. It is even more bitter than the bark of the real cinchona, but less disagreeable. Cuspa is administered with great success in both alcoholic extracts and watery infusions for both intermittent and malignant fevers. (45)

On the 31st of May we passed the Guahibo and Garcita rapids. The islands in the middle of the river were covered in a brilliant green. The winter rains had unfolded the spathes of the vadgiai palms whose leaves pointed up to the sky. Just before sunset we landed on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the Puerto de Expedicion, in order to visit the Ataruipe cavern, apparently the burial-ground of a tribe that was destroyed.

I acquired some statistical notions on the spot by consulting the Uruana missionary and the traders. The three beaches furnish annually some 5, botijas, or jars of oil. Two hundred eggs yield enough oil to fill a bottle, and 5, eggs to fill the jar. If we estimate the number of eggs laid by each turtle as 116, and reckon that one third are destroyed, we can calculate that 330, arrau turtles must lay 33 million eggs on the three shores. But this calculation is far too low. For example, the number of eggs that hatch before the cosecha is so prodigious that near the Uruana camp I saw the whole beach swarming with little turtles escaping from the Indian children.

The morning was deliciously cool. The road, or rather path, that led to Cumanacoa follows the right bank of the Manzanares river, passing the Capuchin hospital situated in a small wood of lignum vitae and caper trees. After leaving Cumanà we reached the San Francisco hill during twilight and enjoyed an extensive view of the sea, the plain covered with golden-flowered bera (Palo sano, Zygophyllum arboreum), whose flowers smell of vanilla, and the Brigantín mountains.