At sunset on the 8th of June the look-out sighted from hiscrow's-nest a British convoy sailing along the coast towards thesouth-east. To avoid it we altered our course during the night. We werealso given orders not to put our lights on in the great cabin so that we would not be seen from afar. We constantly had to usedark-lanterns to make our observations of the sea's temperature, or readthe markings on our astronomical instruments. In the torrid zone, where twilight lasts a few minutes, we were condemned to inaction, insimilar circumstances, from six in the evening. For me this wasparticularly irritating as I have never suffered from seasickness and nosooner am I on board than I feel the urge towork more than ever.

The chemical operation, whose importance is exaggerated by the master of the curare, seemed to us very simple. The bejuco used to make the poison in Esmeralda has the same name as in the Javita jungles. It is the bejuco de mavacure, which is found in abundance east of the mission on the left bank of the Orinoco. Although the bundles of bejuco that we found in the Indian's hut were stripped of leaves, there was no doubt that they came from the same plant of the Strychnos genus that we examined in the Pimichin jungles. They use either fresh mavacure or mavacure that has been dried for several weeks. The sap of a recently cut liana is not considered as poisonous; perhaps it only really works when it is very concentrated. The bark and part of the sapwood contain this terrible poison. With a knife they grate some mavacure branches; the bark is crushed and reduced to thin filaments with a stone like those used to make cassava flour. The poisonous sap is yellow, so all this matter takes on that color. It is thrown into a funnel some 9 inches high and 4 inches wide. Of all the instruments in the Indian's laboratory, this funnel is the one he was most proud of. He several times asked if por alla (over there, in Europe) we had seen anything comparable to his embudo. It was a banana leaf rolled into a trumpet shape, and placed into another rolled trumpet made of palm leaves; this apparatus was held up by a scaffolding made of palm-leaf stalks. You begin by making a cold infusion, pouring water on the fibrous matter that is the crushed bark of the mavacure. A yellow water filters through the leafy funnel, drop by drop. This filtered water is the poisonous liquid; but it becomes strong only when concentrated through evaporation, like molasses, in wide clay vessels. Every now and then the Indian asked us to taste the liquid. From its bitterness you judge whether the heated liquid has gone far enough. There is nothing dangerous about this as curare only poisons when it comes into contact with blood. The steam rising from the boiler is not noxious, whatever the Orinoco missionaries might say.

The natural sciences are connected by the same ties that link all natural phenomena together. The classification of species, which we should consider as fundamental to botany, and whose study has been facilitated by introducing natural methods, is to plant geography what descriptive mineralogy is to the rocks that form the outer crust of the earth. To understand the laws observed in the rocks, and to determine the age of successive formations and identify them from the most distant regions, a geologist should know the simple fossils that make up the mass of mountains. The same goes for the natural history that deals with how plants are related to each other, and with the soil and air. The advancement of plant geography depends greatly on descriptive botany; it would hinder the advancement of the sciences to postulate general ideas by neglecting particular facts.

The syndic in Cumanà had recommended us to the missionaries who run the Chaima Indian mission. This recommendation was all the more useful to us as the missionaries, zealous for the purity of their parishioners' morals, and wary of the indiscreet curiosity of strangers, tended to apply an ancient rule of their order according to which no white secular person could remain more than one night in an Indian village. In general, to travel agreeably in Spanish missions it would not be wise to trust solely to the passport issued by the Madrid Secretary of State: you must arm yourself with recommendations from the ecclesiastical authorities, especially the custodians of convents, or the generals of orders residing in Rome, who are far more respected by missionaries than bishops. Missions have become, in reality, a distinct, almost independent, hierarchy, despite being primitive or canonical institutions.

In trying to explain the motives that led me to travel into the interior of a continent I can only outline what my ideas were at an age when we do not have a fair estimate of our faculties. What I had planned in my youth has not been completely carried out. I did not travel as far as I had intended when I sailed for South America; nor did it give me the number of results I expected. The Madrid Court had given me permission in 1799 to sail on the Acapulco galleon and visit the Philippine Islands after crossing its New World colonies. I had hoped to return to Europe across Asia, the Persian Gulf and Baghdad. With respect to the works that Bonpland and I have published, we hope that their imperfections, obvious to both of us, will not be attributed to a lack of keenness, nor to publishing too quickly. A determined will and an active perseverance are not always sufficient to overcome every obstacle.

The Chaimas lead an extremely monotonous life. They go to bed regularly at half past seven in the evening, and get up long before dawn, at about half past four. Every Indian has a fire next to his hammock. Women suffer the cold greatly; I have even seen a woman shiver at church when the temperature was above 18°C. Their huts are very clean. Their hammocks and reed mats, their pots full of cassava or fermented maize, their bow and arrows, all are kept in perfect order. Men and women wash every day, and as they walk around naked do not get as dirty as people who wear clothes. Apart from their village hut they also have in the conuco, next to a spring or at the entrance to a small valley, a hut roofed with palm- or banana-tree leaves. Though life is less comfortable in the conuco they prefer living there as much as possible. I have already alluded to their irresistible drive to flee and return to the jungle. Even young children flee from their parents to spend four or five days in the jungle, feeding off wild fruit, palm hearts and roots. When travelling through the missions it is not rare to find them empty as everyone is either in their garden or in the jungle, al monte. Similar feelings account for civilized people's passion for hunting: the charm of solitude, the innate desire for freedom, and the deep impressions felt whenever man is alone in contact with nature.