There are moments in life when it is useless to call on reason. I was very scared. However, I was sufficiently in control of myself to remember what the Indians had advised us to do in such circumstances. I carried on walking, without breaking into a run or moving my arms, and thought I noted that the wild beast had its eye on a herd of capybaras swimming in the river. The further away I got the more I quickened my pace. I was so tempted to turn round and see if the cat was chasing me! Luckily I resisted this impulse, and the tiger remained lying down. These enormous cats with spotted skins are so well fed in this country well stocked with capybara, peccaries and deer that they rarely attack humans. I reached the launch panting and told my adventure story to the Indians, who did not give it much importance.

We had been warned that we would find the insects at Esmeralda even more cruel and voracious' than in this branch of the Orinoco; despite this we looked forward to sleeping in an inhabited place, and botanizing a little at last. At our last camp on the Casiquiare we had quite a fright. I presume to describe something that might not greatly interest a reader, but should be part of a journal of incidents on a river in such wild country. We slept on the edge of the jungle. At midnight the Indians warned us that they had heard a jaguar growl very close to us; it seemed to be up a nearby tree. The jungle is so thick here that only animals who climb trees exist. As our fires gave off 'plenty of light, and as we had become hardened to fear, we did not worry too much about the jaguar's cries. The smell and barking of one of our dogs had attracted the jaguar. This dog, a large mastiff, had barked at the Start, but when the jaguar approached the dog howled and hid under our hammocks. Since the Apure we had been used to this alternating bravery and fear in a young, tame and affectionate dog. We had a terrible shock the next morning. When getting ready to leave, the Indians told us that our dog had disappeared'. There was no doubt that the jaguar had killed it. Perhaps when it no longer heard the roars it had wandered off along the shore, or perhaps we slept so deeply we never heard the dog's yelps. We were often told that on the Orinoco and the Magdalena old jaguars were so clever that they hunted their prey in the very camps, and twisted their victims' necks so that they could not shout. We waited a long while in case the dog was merely lost. Three days later we returned to the same place and again heard a jaguar roar. So the dog, which had been our companion from Caracas, and had often swum away from crocodiles, had ended up being devoured in the jungle.

Another characteristic common to both the New Andalusian coast and Peru is the frequency of earthquakes and the limits nature seems to have prescribed for these phenomena. In Cumana we ourselves felt violent seismic shocks; they were still rebuilding the ruined houses and so we were able to gather detailed information on the spot about the terrible catastrophe of the 14th of December 1797. These notions will be the more interesting as earthquakes have been considered up to now less from a physical and geographical point of view than from the way they disastrously affect the population and well-being of society.

Among the Indians gathered at Pararuma we found some whites who had come from Angostura to buy turtle butter. After wearying us with their complaints about the 'poor harvest' and about the harm done by the jaguars as the turtles laid their eggs, they led us under an ajupa raised in the middle of the Indian camp. There we found the missionary monks from Carichana and the cataracts sitting on the ground playing cards and smoking tobacco in long pipes. These poor priests received us in a very friendly manner. They had been suffering from tertiary fever for months. Pale and emaciated, they had no trouble convincing us that the countries we were about to visit were dangerous for our health.

The most famous cataracts, with the most obstacles, are called Purimarimi and Manimi and are about 3 meters wide, The difficulties involved in reaching these places, and the foul air filled with millions of mosquitoes, made it impossible to take a geodesical levelling, but with the aid of a barometer I was amazed that the whole fall of the raudal from the mouth of the Cameji to the Toparo was only some 27 to 30 feet. My surprise was related to the terrible din and foam flying from the river.

We entered into the cave following the rivulet, some 28 to 30 feet wide. We walked along the banks as far as the calcareous incrustations allowed us; frequently, when the current slipped between high clusters of stalactites, we were forced to walk along the river bed, only 2 feet deep. To our surprise we learned that this underground stream is the source to the Caripe river and becomes navigable for canoes a few leagues from here, after joining the Santa Maria river. Along the underground rivulet banks we found a quantity of palm-tree wood, remains of trunks used by Indians to climb to the cave's ceiling when searching for nests. The rings formed from the traces of the leaf stems are used as a perpendicular ladder.