Founded in 1555, under the government of Villacinda, by Alonso Díaz Moreno, Nueva Valencia is twelve years older than Caracas Some justifiably regret that Valencia has not become the capital of the country. Its situation on the plain, next to a lake, recalls Mexico City. If you consider the easy communications offered by the Aragua valleys with the plains and rivers entering the Orinoco; if you accept the possibility of opening up navigation into the interior through the Pao and Portuguesa rivers as far as the Orinoco mouth, the Casiquiare and the Amazon, you realize that the capital of the vast Venezuelan provinces would have been better placed next to the superb Puerto Cabello, under a pure, serene sky, and not next to the barely sheltered bay of La Guaira, in a temperate but always misty valley.

Our journey from Cuba to the South American coast near the Sinu river took sixteen days. On the 30th of March we doubled Punta Gigantes, and made for the Boca Chica, the present entrance to Cartagena harbor. From there to our anchorage the distance is 7 or 8 miles. We took a pràctico to pilot us but repeatedly touched sandbanks. On landing I learned with great satisfaction that M. Fidalgo's coastal surveying expedition (140) had not yet Set out to sea. This enabled me to fix astronomical positions of several towns on the shore. The passage from Cartagena to Porto Bello, and the isthmus along the Chagres and Cruces rivers, is short and easy. But we were warned that we might stay in Panama a while before finding a boat for Guayaquil, and then it would take ages to sail against the winds and currents. I reluctantly gave up my plan to level the isthmus mountains with my barometer, though I never guessed that as I write today (1827) people would still be ignorant of the height of the ridge dividing the waters of the isthmus. (141) Everybody agreed that a land journey via Bogotà, Popayàn, Quito and Cajamaraca would be better than a sea journey, and would enable us to explore far more. The European preference for the tierras frías, the cold, temperate climate of the Andes, helped us make our decision. The distances were known, but not the time we finally took. We had no idea it would take us eighteen months to cross from Cartagena to Lima. This change in our plan and direction did allow me to trace the map of the Magdalena river, and astronomically determine eighty points inland, collect several thousand new plants and observe volcanoes.

We stopped to observe the howler monkeys, which move in lines across the intricate branches linking the jungle trees in packs of thirty and forty. While watching this new spectacle we met a group of Indians on their way to the Caripe mountains. They were completely naked, like most Indians in these lands. Behind them came the women, laden with heavy packs, while all the men and boys were armed with bows and arrows. They walked in silence, staring at the ground. We would have liked to ask them if the Santa Cruz mission, where we hoped to spend the night, was far off. We were exhausted, and thirsty. The heat was increasing as the storm approached, and we had not found any springs. As the Indians invariably answered si padre and no padre we thought they understood a little Spanish. In their eyes every white is a monk, a padre. In the missions the color of the skin characterizes the monk more than the color of his habit. When we asked those Indians if Santa Cruz was far off they answered si or no so arbitrarily that we could make no sense of their answers. This made us angry, for their smiles and gestures showed that they would have liked to direct us as the jungle became thicker and thicker. We had to leave them; our guides, who spoke the Chaima language, lagged behind as the loaded mules kept falling into ravines.

It is well established in the missions that there is no cure for curare that is fresh and concentrated and that has remained long enough in the wound for it to enter the bloodstream. Indians who have been wounded in wars by arrows dipped in curare described to us symptoms that resembled those of snake bites. The individual feels a congestion in his head, and giddiness makes him sit down. He feels nausea, vomits several times, and is tortured by thirst as the area around his wound becomes numb.

When you travel through Carib missions and observe the order and submission there it is hard to remind yourself that you are among cannibals. This American word, of doubtful origin, probably comes from the Haitian or Puerto Rican language. It passed into European languages from the fifteenth century as a synonym for anthropophagy. I do not doubt that the conquering island Caribs were cruel to the Ygneris and other West Indian inhabitants, who were so weak and unwarlike; but their cruelty has been exaggerated because the first discoverers listened only to stories from conquered tribes. All the missionaries that I asked assured me that the Caribs are perhaps the least cannibalistic of the New World tribes. Perhaps the desperate way in which the Caribs fought the Spaniards, which led in 1504 to a royal decree declaring them to be slaves, contributed to their fame for ferocity. It was Christopher Columbus who first decided to attack the Caribs and deny them their freedom and natural rights; he was a fifteenth-century man, and less humane than is thought today. In 1520 Rodrigo de Figueroa was appointed by the Spanish Court to decide which South American tribes were Caribs, or cannibals, and which were Guatiaos, or peaceful and friendly to Spain. His ethnographic piece, called El auto de Figueroa, is one of the most curious records of the early conquistadores' barbarism. Without paying attention to languages, any tribe that was accused of eating prisoners was called Carib. All the tribes that Figueroa called Carib were condemned to slavery; they could be sold at will or exterminated. It was after these bloody wars, and the death of their husbands, that Carib women, d'Anghiera says, became known as Amazons.