On the 21st of February, at nightfall, we left the pretty Hacienda de Cura and set off for Guacara and Nueva Valencia. As the heat of the day was stifling we traveled by night. We crossed the village of Punta Zamuro at the foot of Las Viruelas mountain. The road is lined with large zamangs, or mimosa trees, reaching some 60 feet high. Their almost horizontal branches meet at more than 150 feet distance. I have never seen a canopy of leaves so thick and beautiful as these. The night was dark: the Rincòn del Diablo and its dentated rocks appeared every now and then, illuminated by the brilliance of the burning savannahs, or wrapped in clouds of reddish smoke. In the thickest part of the brush our horses panicked when they heard the howl of an animal that seemed to be following us. It was an enormous jaguar that had been roaming these mountains for three years. It had escaped from the most daring hunters. It attacked horses and mules, even when they were penned in, but not lacking food had not yet attacked human beings. Our negro guide screamed wildly to scare off the beast, which he obviously did not achieve.

We left the Manterola plantation on the 11th of February at sunrise. A little before reaching Mamon we stopped at a farm belonging to the Monteras family. A negress, more than a hundred years old, was sitting outside a mud-and-reed hut. Her age was known because she had been a creole slave. She seemed to enjoy amazing good health. 'I keep her in the sun' (La tengo al sol), said her grandson. 'The heat keeps her alive. This treatment seemed rather harsh as the sun's rays fell vertically on to her. Blacks and Indians reach very advanced ages in the torrid zone. Hilario Pari, a native of Peru, died at the extraordinary age of one hundred and forty-three, having been married ninety years.

The supposed gold mine of Cuchivano, which was the object of our trip, was nothing but a hole that had been cut in one of the strata of black marl, rich in pyrites. The marly stratum crosses the torrent and, as the water washes out metallic grains, the people imagine that the torrent carries gold because of the brilliancy of the pyrites. We were told that after the great earthquake of 1765 the Juagua river waters were so filled with gold that 'men came from great distances and unknown countries' to set up washing places on the spot. They disappeared over night, having collected masses of gold. Needless to add that this is a fable. Some direct experiments made with acids during my stay at Caracas proved that the Cuchivano pyrites are not at all auriferous. My disbelief upset our guides. However much I said and repeated that from the supposed gold mine the most that could be found was alum and sulphate of iron, they continued to gather secretly all the pyrite fragments they saw sparkling in the water. The fewer mines there are in a country, the more the inhabitants hold exaggerated ideas about how easily riches are extracted from the depths of the earth. How much time was lost during our five-year voyage exploring ravines, at the insistence of our hosts, where pyrite strata have for centuries been called by the pretentious name of minas de oro! We have smiled so often seeing men of all classes - magistrates, village priests, serious missionaries - all grinding amphibole or yellow mica with endless patience, desperate to extract gold by means of mercury! This rage for searching for mines amazed us in a climate where the earth needs only to be slightly raked in order to produce rich harvests.

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.

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.

Above the region of arborescent heaths, called Monte Verde, lies the region of ferns. Nowhere else have I seen such a profusion of pteris, blechnum and asplenium. The roots of the Pteris aquilina serve as food for the inhabitants of Palma and Gomera; they grate it to a bit powder and mix in a bit of barley flour, which when boiled is called gofio. The use of such a primitive food is proof of the misery of the peasants of the Canary Islands. Monte Verde is scored by several small and arid ravines. Above the zone of ferns we reached a juniper and pine wood, severely punished by storms.