From La Venta the road to Caracas rises another 150 toises to El Guayabo, the highest point; but I continued to use the barometer until we reached the small fort of Cuchilla. As I did not have a pass - for over five years I only needed it once, when I first disembarked - I was nearly arrested at an artillery post. To placate the angry soldiers I transformed the height of the mountains into Spanish varas. They were not particularly interested in this, and if I had anyone to thank for my release it was an Andalusian who became very friendly the moment I told him that the Sierra Nevada of his home were far higher than any of the mountains around Caracas.

I use the word 'savage' grudgingly because it implies a cultural difference between the tamed Indians living in missions and the free ones, which belies the facts. In the South American jungles there are Indian tribes who live peacefully in villages under their chiefs, who cultivate banana trees, cassava and cotton in large areas of land, and weave their hammocks with cotton fibers. They are not more barbarous than the naked Indians of the missions who have learned to make the sign of the cross. In Europe it is a common fallacy to assume that all Indians who are not tamed are nomadic hunters. In Terra Firma agriculture was known long before the arrival of the Europeans, and today is still practiced between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers in jungle clearings never visited by missionaries. What the missionaries have achieved is to have increased the Indians' attachment to owning land, their desire for secure dwelling places, and their taste for more peaceful lives. It would be accepting false ideas about the actual condition of South American Indians to assume that 'Christian', tamed' and 'civilized' were synonymous with 'pagan', 'savage' and free'. The tamed Indian is often as little a Christian as the free Indian is an idolater. Both, caught up in the needs of the moment, betray a marked indifference for religious sentiments, and a secret tendency to worship nature and her powers.

The old Indian called 'master of the poison' was flattered by our interest in his chemical procedures. He found us intelligent enough to think that we could make soap; for making soap, after making curare, seemed to him the greatest of human inventions. Once the poison was poured into its jars, we accompanied the Indian to the juvias fiesta. They were celebrating the Brazil-nut harvest, and became wildly drunk. The hut where the Indians had gathered over several days was the strangest sight you could imagine. Inside there were no tables or benches, only large smoked and roasted monkeys lined up symmetrically against the wall. These were marimondas (Ateles belzebuth) and the bearded capuchins. The way these animals, which look so like human beings, are roasted helps you understand why civilized people find eating them so repulsive. A little grill made of a hard wood is raised about a foot from the ground. The skinned monkey is placed on top in a sitting position so that he is held up by his long thin hands; sometimes the hands are crossed over his shoulders. Once it is fixed to the grill a fire is lit underneath; flames and smoke cover the monkey, which is roasted and smoked at the same time. Seems Indians eat a leg or arm of a roasted monkey makes you realize why cannibalism is not so repugnant to Indians. Roasted monkeys especially those with very round heads, look horribly like children. Europeans who are forced to eat them prefer to cut off the head and hands before serving up the rest of the monkey The flesh of the monkey is so lean and dry that Bonpland kept an arm and a hand, roasted in Esmeralda, in his Paris collections. After many years it did not smell in the least.

Four days had passed and our boat still had not reached the Pimichín river landing-stage. 'There is nothing you lack in my mission, Father Cerezo said to us. 'There are bananas and fish; at night mosquitoes do not bite; and the longer you stay the more likely it is that you will be able to observe stars. If your boat is wrecked during the portage we will get you another one and I will enjoy living a few more weeks con gente blanca y de razòn (with white and rational people). Despite our impatience, we listened with interest to this missionary's stories confirming all that we had been told about the spiritual state of the Indians in that region. They live in isolated clans of forty to fifty people under a chief. They recognize a common cacique only in times of war with neighbors. Between these clan. mutual mistrust is great, as even those who live near each other speak different languages. Such is the labyrinth of these rivers that families settled themselves without knowing what tribe lived nearest to them. In Spanish Guiana a mountain or a jungle just half a league wide separates clans who would need two days navigating along rivers to meet. In the impenetrable jungle of the torrid zone rivers increase the dismemberment of great nations, favor the transition of dialects into separate languages, and nourish distrust and national hatred. Men avoid each other because they do not understand each other, and hate because they fear.

There we met the district corregidor, Don Alejandro Mejía, an amiable and well-educated man. He gave us three Indians who would cut us a path through the jungle with machetes. In this country, where people rarely travel, the vegetation is so fertile that a man on horseback can barely make his way along the jungle paths tangled with liana and branches during the rainy season. To our great annoyance the Catuaro missionary insisted on leading us to Cariaco, and we could not decline his offer. He told us a dreadful story. The independence movement, which had nearly broken out in 1798, had been preceded and followed by trouble among the slaves at Cariaco. An unfortunate negro had been condemned to death and our host was going to Cariaco to give him some spiritual comfort. How tedious this journey became. We could not escape talking about 'the necessity of slavery, the innate wickedness of the blacks, and how slavery benefited Christians'!

The Governor of Cumana expressed great satisfaction at our decision to remain awhile in New Andalusia, a province scarcely known in Europe at the time, not even by name, and whose mountains and numerous river banks afford a naturalist a wonderful field for observations. The governor showed us cottons dyed with indigenous plants and beautiful furniture carved from local wood. He was interested in all branches of natural philosophy, and to our amazement asked us if we thought that the atmosphere in the beautiful tropical sky contained more nitrogen than that in Spain, or if the speed with which iron oxidated was due to the greater humidity shown by the hair hygrometer. The name of his native country pronounced on a distant shore could not please the ears of a traveler more than hearing the words 'nitrogen', 'oxidation of iron' and 'hygrometer'. We knew, despite the court orders and recommendations of an influential minister, that we would face innumerable unpleasant incidents if we did not manage to make good relations with those ruling these immense lands. Sr Emparan was far too enamoured of the sciences to think it odd that we had come so far to collect plants and determine specific places from astronomical observations. He did not suspect any other motives than those that figured in our safe conducts, and the proof of public esteem he gave us throughout our stay in his territory contributed to giving us a warm welcome in all the South American countries.

For these reasons land in the most populated areas of tropical America still seems wild; a quality lost in temperate climates by the cultivation of wheat. Within the Tropics agriculture occupies less land; man has not extended his empire, and he appears not as the absolute master who alters the soil at his will but as a transient guest who peacefully enjoys the gifts of nature. There, near the most populated cities, land remains bristling with forests or covered with a tangle of plants, untouched by plough. Spontaneous vegetation still predominates over cultivated plants, and determines the aspect of nature. If in our temperate regions the cultivation of wheat contributes to the spreading of a dull uniformity over the cleared land, we cannot doubt that, even with an increasing population, the torrid zone will keep its majesty of plant life, those marks of an untamed, virgin nature that make it so attractive and picturesque.