Among the races making up the Venezuelan population blacks are important - seen both compassionately for their wretched state, and with fear due to possible violent uprisings - because they are concentrated in limited areas, not so much because of their total number. Of the 60, slaves in the Venezuelan provinces, 40, live in the province of Caracas. In the plains there are only some 4, to 5,000, spread around the haciendas and looking after the cattle. The number of freed slaves is very high as Spanish legislation and custom favor emancipation. A slave-owner cannot deny a slave his freedom if he can pay 300 piastres, (69) even if this would have cost the slave-owner double because of the amount of work the slave might have done.

Frightened about being exposed too long to the unhealthy Cartagena airs we moved to the Indian village of Turbaco (once called Tarasco) on the 6th of April. It is situated in a delicious place where the jungle begins some 5 leagues south-south-east of Pipa. We were happy to leave a foul inn (fonda) packed with soldiers left over from General Rochambeau's unfortunate expedition. (144) Interminable discussions about the need to be cruel to the blacks of Santo Domingo reminded me of the opinions and horrors of the sixteenth-century conquistadores. Pombo lent us his beautiful house in Turbaco, built by Archbishop Viceroy Gòngora. We stayed as long as it took us to prepare for our journey up the Magdalena, and then the long land trip from Honda to Bogotà, Popoyàn and Quito. Few stays in the Tropics have pleased me more. The village lies some 180 toises above sea-level. Snakes are very common and chase rats into the houses. They climb on to roofs and wage war with the bats, whose screaming annoyed us all night. The Indian huts covered a steep plateau so that everywhere you can view shady valleys watered by small streams. We especially enjoyed being on our terrace at sunrise and sunset as it faced the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, some 35 leagues distant. The snow-covered peaks probably San Lorenzo - are clearly seen from Turbaco when the wind blows and brings cooler air. Thick vegetation covers the hills and plains between the Mahates dyke and the snowy mountains: they often reminded us of the beautiful Orinoco mountains. We were surprised to find, so close to the coast in a land frequented by Europeans for over three centuries, gigantic trees belonging to completely unknown species, such as the Rhinocarpus excelsa (which the creoles call caracoli because of its spiral-shaped fruit), the Ocotea turbacensis and the mocundo or Cavanillesia platanifolia, whose large fruit resemble oiled paper lanterns hanging at the tip of each branch.

April 18th. We set off at three in the morning in order to reach the cataracts known as the Raudal de Guahibos before nightfall. We moored at the mouth of the Tomo river, and the Indians camped on the shore. At five in the afternoon we reached the raudal. It was extremely difficult to row against the current and the mass of water rushing over a bank several feet high. One Indian swam to a rock that divided the cataract in two, tied a rope to it, and began hauling our boat until, halfway up, we were able to get off with our instruments, dried plants and bare provisions. Surprisingly we found that above the natural wall over which the river fell there was a piece of dry land. Our position in the middle of the cataract was strange but without danger. Our companion, the missionary father, had one of his fever fits, and to relieve him we decided to make a refreshing drink. We had taken on board at Apures a mapire, or Indian basket, filled with sugar, lemons and grenadillas, or passion-fruit, which the Spaniards call parchas. As we had no bowl in which to mix the juices we poured river water into one of the holes in the rock with a tutuma, and then added the sugar and acid fruit juices. In a few seconds we had a wonderfully refreshing juice, almost a luxury in this wild spot, but necessity had made us more and more ingenious. After quenching our thirst we wanted to have a swim. Carefully examining the narrow rocky dyke on which we sat, we saw that it formed little coves where the water was clear and still. We had the pleasure of a quiet bathe in the midst of noisy cataracts and screaming Indians. I enter into such detail to remind those who plan to travel afar that at any moment in life pleasures can be found.

The night was very dark and it would take us two hours to reach the village of Maypures. We were soaked to the skin, and after it stopped raining the zancudos returned. My companions were undecided as to whether to camp in the harbor or walk to the village. Father Zea insisted on going to the village where, with help from Indians, he had begun to build a two-floored house. 'You will find there, he said naively, 'the same comforts as you have out of doors. There are no tables or chairs but you will suffer less from mosquitoes because in the mission they are not as shameless as down by the river. We followed the missionary's advice. He ordered torches of copal to be lit. These are tubes of bark filled with copal resin. At first we passed beds of slippery rock, then a thick palm grove. We twice had to cross streams over tree trunks. The torches burned out. They give off more smoke than light, and easily extinguish. Our companion, Don Nicolas Soto, lost his balance in the dark crossing a marsh and fell off a tree trunk. For a while we had no idea how far he had fallen, but luckily it was not far and he was not hurt. The Indian pilot, who spoke Spanish quite well, did not stop saying how easy it would be to be attacked by snakes or jaguars. This is the obligatory topic of conversation when you travel at night with Indians. They think that by frightening European travelers they will become more necessary to them, and will win their confidence.

We left Imposible on the 5th of September before dawn. The descent is very dangerous for the pack-animals; the path is only some 15 inches wide, with precipices on either side. In 1796 a useful plan to build a road from the village of San Fernando to the mountain was conceived. A third of this route had already been finished, but unfortunately it ran only from the plain to the foot of Imposible. Work was halted for one of those reasons that makes all attempts at improvement in the Spanish colonies fail. Several authorities wanted to assume the rights of running the works. The people patiently paid their tolls for a route that did not exist until the Cumanà governor put an end to this abuse. As we descended we noticed that alpine limestone reappeared under the sandstone. As the strata generally incline to the south and south-east many springs well up along the southern side of the mountain. In the rainy season these springs become torrents that rush down under the hura, the cuspa and the silver-leafed cecropia, or trumpet trees.

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.

Our first excursion to the Araya peninsula was followed by another more important and instructive one to the mountain missions of the Chaima Indians. Such a variety of objects attracted our attention. We found ourselves in a country bristling with forests on our way to visit a convent shaded by palm trees and arborescent ferns in a narrow valley which was deliciously fresh, despite being in the middle of the torrid zone. In the surrounding mountains there are eaves inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds; and, what struck our imagination more than all the marvels of the physical world, even further up we found a people until recently still nomadic, hardly free from a natural, wild state, but not barbarians, made stupid more from ignorance than from long years of being brutalized. What we knew about history increased our interest in these people. The promontory of Paria was what Columbus first saw of this continent; these valleys ended there, devastated first by the warlike, cannibalistic Caribs, then by the mercantile and orderly European nations. If the Spaniards visited these shores it was only to get, either by violence or exchange, slaves, pearls, gold and dye-woods; they tried to dignify their motives for such an insatiable greed with the pretence of religious zeal.