In this plantation, as in all the provinces of Venezuela, you can distinguish, from afar, three kinds of sugar cane by the color of their leaves; the old Creole cane, Otaheite cane and Batavia cane. The first has a darker green leaf, a thinner stalk with knots close together. It was the first sugar cane introduced from India to Sicily, the Canaries and the West Indies. The second is lighter green; its stalk is fatter, more succulent. The whole plant seems more luxuriant. It arrived thanks to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook and Bligh. Bougainville brought it to Mauritius, where it went to Cayenne, Martinique and from 1792 to the rest of the West Indies. Otaheite sugar cane, the to of the islanders, is one of the most important agricultural acquisitions due to the voyages of naturalists. On the same plot of land it gives a third of vezou (juice) more than Creole cane, but due to the thickness of its stalk and strength of its ligneous fibers furnishes much more fuel. This is an advantage in the West Indian Islands where the destruction of the forests has forced planters to use the bagasse as fuel for their furnaces. The third species, the violet sugar cane, is called Batavia or Guinea cane, and certainly comes from Java. Its leaves are purple and large and it is preferred in Caracas for making rum. (79) At Tuy they were busy finishing a ditch to bring irrigation water. This enterprise had cost the owner 7, piastres to build and 4, piastres in lawsuits with his neighbors. While the lawyers argued over the canal, which was only half finished, de Manterola had already begun to doubt the worth of his project. I took the level of the ground with a lunette d'épreuve placed on an artificial horizon and found that the dam had been placed 8 feet too low. What sums of money have not been uselessly spent in the Spanish colonies founding constructions on poor levelling!

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 rounded Turimiquiri summit and the sharp peaks, or cucuruchos, stand out, covered with jungle where many tigers live and are hunted for the beauty of their skin. We found that this grassy summit stood at 707 toises above sea-level. A steep rocky ridge going west is broken after a mile by an enormous crevice that descends to the Gulf of Cariaco. In the place where the mountain ridge should have continued two mamelons or calcereous peaks rise, with the more northern one the highest. It is the Cucurucho de Turimiquiri proper, considered to be higher than the Brigantín, well known to sailors approaching the Cumanà coast.

After entering the Río Negro by the Pimichín, and passing the small cataract at the confluence of the two rivers, we saw the mission of Maroa a quarter of a league off. This village of 150 Indians appeared prosperous and cheerful. We bought some beautiful live toucans (piapoco) birds whose 'intelligence' can be trained, like our ravens. Above Maroa we passed the mouths of the Aquio and of the Tomo. We did not enter the Tomo mission, but Father Zea told us with a smile that the Indians of Tomo and Maroa had been in full insurrection because monks had tried to force them to dance the famous 'dance of the devils'. The missionary had wanted to hold the ceremony in which the piastres (who are shamans, doctors and conjurors) evoke the evil spirit Jolokiamo, but in a burlesque way. He thought that the 'dance of the devils' would show the neophytes that Jolokiamo no longer had any power over them. Some young Indians, believing the missionary's promises, agreed to act as devils; they were decked out in black and yellow feathers and jaguar skins with long tails. The church square had been surrounded by soldiers from other missions to make the missionary more redoubtable. Indians who were unsure about the dance and the impotence of the evil spirits were brought along. But the oldest of the Indians managed to imbue all the younger ones with a superstitious dread and they decided to flee al monte. The missionary had to postpone his project of mocking the Indian demon.

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.

It was moving to see the beach where we had first arrived, and where Bonpland had nearly lost his life. Among the cacti stood the Guaiquerí Indian huts. Every part of the landscape was familiar to us, from the forest of cacti to the huts and the giant ceiba, which grew near where we had swum every evening. Our Cumanà friends came to meet the lancha; botanizing had enabled us to meet people from all social classes. They were relieved as there had been news that Bonpland had died of fever on the banks of the Orinoco, and that we had sunk in a storm near the Urana mission.

We left the Esmeralda mission on the 23rd of May. We were not exactly ill, but emaciated and weak thanks to the torment of mosquitoes, the bad food and the long journey on that narrow and damp pirogue. We did not go further up the Orinoco than the mouth of the Guapo; had we wanted to reach the Orinoco sources we would have gone beyond this point, but private travelers are not authorized to leave pacified areas. From the Guapo river to the Guaharibo cataract there are only 15 leagues. But the cataract is crossed by a liana bridge where Indians armed with bows and arrows stop whites from entering their lands. Up to the present time the Orinoco posed two distinct problems for geographers: its sources, and the nature of its communications with the Amazon. This latter was the aim of our journey.