The Indian pilot who had led us from San Fernando de Apure up to the Pararuma beach did not know his way through the Orinoco rapids, and no longer wanted to sail our boat. We had to accept his decision. Luckily the Carichana missionary agreed to loan us a fine pirogue quite cheaply. Father Bernardo Zea, missionary from Atures and Maypures near the Great Cataracts, even offered to accompany us himself to the Brazilian border. The number of Indians willing to carry the canoes along the cataracts was so few that without this monk's presence we risked waiting weeks in that humid and unhealthy area. Father Zea hoped to recover his health by visiting the Río Negro missions. He talked of those places with the enthusiasm that all those in the colonies feel when talking about far-off places.

The missionary led us into several ordered and extremely clean Indian huts. It was painful to see how Carib mothers forced their children from the earliest age to enlarge the calves of their legs, as well as mould their flesh in stripes from the ankle to the top of the thigh. Bands of leather or cotton are tied tightly 2 inches apart and pulled hard so that the muscles in between swell out. Our swaddled children suffer far less than the Carib children, who are meant to be closer to nature. The monks, ignorant of Rousseau's works (132) and even of his name, are unable to prevent this ancient physical education; man from the jungle, whom we believed to be so simple in customs, is far from docile when it comes to his dress and ideas about beauty and well-being. I was also surprised to see that the torture imposed on these children in no way hindered their blood circulation or their muscular movements. There is no tribe that is stronger or runs faster than the Caribs.

Near the town of Orotava we came across great flocks of canaries. These birds, well known in Europe, were in general uniformly green; some had a yellowish tinge on their backs; their song was the same as that of the domesticated canary. It has been noted that those canaries captured in the island of Gran Canaria, and in the islet of Monte Clara, near Lanzarote, have a louder, more harmonious call. In every zone, among birds of the same species, each flock has its peculiar call. The yellow canaries are a variety now breeding in Europe; those we saw in cages had been bought at Cadiz and other Spanish ports. But the bird from the Canary Islands that has the most agreeable song is unknown in Europe. It is the capirote, which has never been tamed, so much does he love his freedom. I have enjoyed his sweet and melodious warbling in a garden in Orotava, but have never seen him close enough to judge what family he belongs to. As for the parrots supposedly seen during Captain Cook's stay at Tenerife, they never existed but in the narratives of some travelers who have copied from each other.

Our mules waited for us on the left bank of the Orinoco. The plant collections and geological specimens brought from Esmeralda and the Río Negro had greatly increased our baggage. It would have been dangerous to leave our herbals behind, but this added weight meant we now faced a tediously slow journey across the llanos. The heat was excessive due to the bare ground's reverberations. The thermometer by day recorded between 30°C and 34°C, and at night 27°C to 28°C. Like everywhere in the Tropics it was less the actual degree of heat than its duration that affected our bodies. We spent thirteen days crossing the steppes, resting a little in the Carib missions and in the village of Payo.

An alley of avocado trees led us to the Aragonese Capuchins' hospice. We stopped in front of a Brazil-wood cross, surrounded with benches on which the sick monks sit and say their rosaries, in the middle of a spacious square. The convent backs on to an enormous perpendicular wall of rock, covered with thick vegetation. Dazzling white stone appears every now and then through the foliage. It would be hard to imagine a more picturesque place. Instead of European beeches and maples you find here the imposing ceiba trees and the praga and irasse palms. Numerous springs bubble out from the mountainsides that encircle the Caripe basin and whose southern slopes rise to some 1, feet in height. These springs issue mainly from crevices or narrow gorges. The humidity they bring favors the growth of huge trees, and the Indians, who prefer solitary places, set up their conucos along these ravines. Banana and papaw trees grow around groves of arborescent ferns. This mixture of wild and cultivated plants gives a special charm to this place. From afar, on the naked mountainside, you can pick out the springs by the thick tangles of vegetation, which at first seem to hang from the rock, and then, as they descend into the valley, follow the meandering streams.

The further we left the African coast behind the weaker the wind became: it was often completely calm for hours, followed regularly by electrical phenomena. Thick black perfectly shaped clouds formed in the east; it seemed as if a squall might force us to fasten the topsail; then the wind would rise again, a few large raindrops would fall, and the storm would vanish without a single clap of thunder. It is thanks to these squalls alternating with dead calms that you are able to cross the ocean from the Canaries to the West Indies during June and July.

It was already dark when we crossed the Orinoco bed for the last time. We meant to spend the night near the small San Rafael fort and begin the journey across the Venezuelan steppes at dawn. Nearly six weeks had passed since our arrival at Angostura, we dearly wanted to reach the Cumanà or Nueva Barcelona coasts to find a boat to take us to Cuba and then on to Mexico. After several months on mosquito-infested rivers in small canoes, a long sea journey excited our imaginations.