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.

From that high point, as far as the eye could see, there was only naked savannah; tufts of trees were scattered about in small ravines and, despite the apparent uniformity of the vegetation, we found a great number of extremely interesting plants. Here I shall limit myself to citing a magnificent lobelia with purple flowers (Lobelia speetabilis), the Brownea coccinea, which reaches almost 100 feet high, and above all the pejoa (Gaultheria odorata), famous in the country because when crushed between your fingers it gives off a delicious aroma. What enchanted us most about this solitary place was the beauty and silence of the nights. The owner stayed up with us; he seemed delighted that Europeans recently arrived in the Tropics never tired of admiring the fresh spring air enjoyed in these mountains when the sun sets.

Batabanò Gulf, surrounded by a low marshy coast, looks like a vast desert. The sea is a greenish-brown. Our sloop was the only boat in the gulf, for this sea route is used only by smugglers or, as they are politely called here, 'traders' (los tratantes). One large island called Isla de Pinos, with mountains covered with pines, rises in this bay. We sailed east-south-east to clear the archipelago that Spanish pilots called Jardines (Gardens) and Jardinillos (Bowers), reaching the rocky island of Cayo de Piedras. Columbus named them the Queen's Gardens in 1494 when on his second voyage he struggled for fifty-eight days with the winds and currents between Pinos Island and the eastern cape of Cuba. A part of these so-called gardens is indeed beautiful; the scene changes all the time and the green contrasts with the white, barren sands. The sand seems to undulate in the sun's heat as if it were liquid.

Orotava, the ancient Taoro of the Guanches, lies on an abrupt slope of a hill. The streets seemed deserted; the houses solidly built but melancholic; they nearly all belong to a nobility accused of being too proud, presumptuously calling itself the Twelve Houses. We passed along a high aqueduct lined with luxuriant fern, and visited many gardens where northern European fruit trees grow along with orange, pomegranate and date trees. Even though we knew about Franqui's dragon tree (16) from previous travelers, its enormous thickness amazed us. We were told that this tree, mentioned in several ancient documents, served as a boundary mark and already in the fifteenth century was as enormous as it is today. We calculated its height to be about 50 to 60 feet; its circumference a little above its roots measured 45 feet. The trunk is divided into many branches, which rise up in the form of a chandelier and end in tufts of leaves similar to the Mexican yucca.

We counted more than 500 Caribs in the Cari village; and many more in the surrounding missions. It is curious to meet a once nomadic tribe only recently settled, whose intellectual and physical powers make them different from other Indians. Never have I seen such a tall race (from 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet 2 inches). As is common all over America the men cover their bodies more than the women, who wear only the guayuco or perizoma in the form of narrow bands. The men wrap the lower part of their bodies down to their hips in a dark blue, almost black, cloth. This drapery is so ample that when the temperature drops at night the Caribs use it to cover their shoulders. Seen from far off against the sky, their bodies, dyed with annatto, and their tall, copper-colored and picturesquely wrapped figures, look like ancient statues. The way the men cut their hair is typical: like monks or choirboys. The partly shaved forehead makes it seem larger than it is. A tuft of hair, cut in a circle, starts near the crown of the head. The resemblance of the Caribs with the monks does not come from mission life, from the false argument that the Indians wanted to imitate their masters, the Franciscan monks. Tribes still independent like those at the source of the Caroní and Branco rivers can be distinguished by their cerquillo de frailes (monks' circular tonsures), which were seen from the earliest discovery of America. All the Caribs that we saw, whether in boats on the Lower Orinoco or in the Piritu missions, differ from other Indians by their height and by the regularity of their features; their noses are shorter and less flat, their cheekbones not so prominent, their physiognomy less Mongoloid. Their eyes, blacker than is usual among the Guiana hordes, show intelligence, almost a capacity for thought. Caribs have a serious manner and a sad look, common to all the New World tribes. Their severe look is heightened by their mania for dyeing their eyebrows with sap from the caruto, then lengthening and joining them together. They often paint black dots all over their faces to make themselves look wilder. The local magistrates, governors and mayors, who alone are authorized to carry long canes, came to visit us. Among these were some young Indians aged between eighteen and twenty, appointed by the missionaries. We were struck to see among these Caribs painted in annatto the same sense of importance, the same cold, scornful manners that can be found among people with the same positions in the Old World. Carib women are less strong, and uglier than the men. They do nearly all the housework and fieldwork. They insistently asked us for pins, which they stuck under their lower lips; they pierce their skin so that the pin's head remains inside the mouth. It is a custom from earlier savage times. The young girls are dyed red and, apart from their guayuco, are naked. Among the different tribes in the two continents the idea of nakedness is relative. In some parts of Asia a woman is not allowed to show a fingertip, while a Carib Indian woman wears only a 2-inch-long guayuco. Even this small band is seen as less essential than the pigment covering her skin. To leave her hut without her coat of annatto dye would be to break all the rules of tribal decency.

The most majestic palm tree of its tribe, the palma real, gives the countryside around Havana its special character. It is the Oreodoxa regia in our description of American palms; its tall trunk, swelling slightly in the middle, rises 60 to 80 feet high; its upper part shines with a tender green, newly formed by the closing and dilation of the petioles, and contrasts with the rest, which is whitish and fissured. It looks like two columns, one on top of the other. The Cuban palma real has feathery leaves rising straight up towards the sky, curving only at the tips. The form of this plant reminded us of the vadgiai palm covering the rocks on the Orinoco cataracts, balancing its long arrows above the mist of foam. Here, like everywhere, as the population increases so vegetation diminishes. Around Havana, in the Regla amphitheater, these palms that so delighted me are now disappearing year by year. The marshy places covered with bamboos have been cultivated and are drying out. Civilization progresses; and today I am told that the land offers only a few traces of its former savage abundance. From the Punta to San Làzaro, from the Cabaìa to Regla, from Regla to Atares, everything is covered with houses: those circling the bay are lightly and elegantly built. The owners draw a plan and order a house from the United States, as if ordering furniture. As long as yellow fever rages in Havana, people will retire to their country houses and enjoy fresher air. In the cool nights, when ships cross the bay and leave long phosphorescent tracks in the water, these rural sites become a refuge for those who flee a tumultuous, over-populated city. (137)