The farm we lodged at was a fine sugar-cane plantation. The ground is smooth like the bed of a dried lake. The Tuy river winds through land covered with banana trees and a little wood of Hura crepitans, Erythrina corallodrendon, and figs with nymphae leaves. The river is formed with quartz pebbles. I can think of no more pleasant bathe than that in the Tuy. The crystal-clear water remains at 18.6°C. This is cool for the climate; the sources of the river are in the surrounding mountains. The owner's house is situated on a hillock surrounded by huts for the negroes. Those who are married provide their own food. They are given, as everywhere in the Aragua valleys, a plot of land to cultivate, which they work on their Saturdays and Sundays, the free days of the week. They have chicken, and sometimes a pig. The owner boasts of their contentment in the same way that northern European landowners boast about the happy peasants on their land. The day we arrived three runaway negroes had been captured; newly bought slaves. I dreaded witnessing those punishments that ruin the charm of the countryside wherever there are slaves. Luckily, the blacks were treated humanely.

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.

The shock of the waves was felt in our boat. My fellow travelers all suffered. I slept calmly, being lucky never to suffer seasickness. By sunrise of the 20th of November we expected to double the cape in a few hours. We hoped to arrive that day at La Guaira, but our Indian pilot was scared of pirates. He preferred to make for land and wait in the little harbor of Higuerote (65) until night. We found neither a village nor a farm but two or three huts inhabited by mestizo fishermen with extremely thin children, which told us how unhealthy and feverish this coast was. The sea was so shallow that we had to wade ashore. The jungle came right down to the beach, covered in thickets of mangrove. On landing we smelled a sickly smell, (66) which reminded me of deserted mines.

April 27th. The night was beautiful; black clouds crossed the sky with surprising speed. Guapasoso's latitude was 3.53'55". The black waters served as my horizon. I was all the more delighted to make this observation as in the white-water rivers from the Apure to the Orinoco we had been cruelly bitten by mosquitoes, as Bonpland recorded the hours with the chronometer, and I myself adjusted the horizon. At two we left the Guapasoso conucos, going south and upstream as the river, at least that part of it free of trees, began to narrow. At sunrise it started to rain. In these forests we no longer heard the cries of the howler monkeys. Dolphins, or toninas, played by the side of our boat. At about midday we passed the mouth of the Ipurichapano river, and a little later the granite rock called Piedra del Tigre. We later regretted not resting near this rock as we had some problems trying to find a spot of dry land large enough upon which to light a fire and set up our hammocks and instruments.

We spent the 23rd of February in the marquis of Toro's house, in the village of Guacara, a large Indian community. The Indians live a life of ease because they have just won a legal case restoring lands disputed by whites. An avenue of carolineas leads from Guacara to Mocundo, a rich sugar plantation belonging to the Moro family. We found a rare garden there with an artificial clump of trees, and, on top of a granitic outcrop near a stream, a pavilion with a mirador or viewpoint. From here you see a splendid panorama over the west of the lake, the surrounding mountains and a wood of palm trees. The sugar-cane fields with their tender green leaves seem like a great plain. Everything suggests abundance, although those who work the land have to sacrifice their freedom.

Even when nature does not produce the same species in analogous climates, either in the plains of isothermal parallels or on tablelands whose temperature resembles that of places nearer the poles, (73) we still noticed a striking resemblance of appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant countries. This phenomenon is one of the most curious in the history of organic forms. I say history, for reason cannot stop man forming hypotheses on the origin of things; he will always puzzle himself with insoluble problems relating to the distribution of beings.

The position of San Fernando on a great navigable river, near the mouth of another river that crosses the whole province of Varinas, is extremely useful for trade. All that is produced in this province, the leathers, cocoa, cotton and top-quality Mijagual indigo, is washed down past this town to the Orinoco mouth. During the rainy season big ships come upstream from Angostura to San Fernando de Apure and along the Santo Domingo river as far as Torunos, the harbor for the town of Barinas. During this season the flooded rivers form a labyrinth of waterways between the Apure, Arauca, Capanaparo and Sinaruco rivers, covering a country of roughly 400 square leagues. At this point the Orinoco, deviating from its course, due not to neighboring mountains but to the rising counter-slopes, turns east instead of following its ancient path in the line of the meridian. If you consider the surface of the earth as a polyhedron formed of variously inclined planes you will see by simply consulting a map that between San Fernando de Apure, Caycara and the mouth of the Meta the intersection of three slopes, higher in the north, west and south, must have caused a considerable depression. In this basin the savannahs can be covered by 12 to 14 feet of water and turned into a great lake after the rains. Villages and farms look as though they are on shoals, rising barely 2 to 3 feet above the water surface. The flooding of the Apure, Meta and Orinoco rivers is also periodic. In the rainy season horses that roam the savannah do not have time to reach the plateaux and they drown in their hundreds. You see mares followed by foals, barely sticking up out of the water, swimming part of the day to eat grass. While swimming they are chased by crocodiles, and some carry crocodile tooth marks on their hides. Horse, mule and cow carcasses attract numberless vultures.