The gallitos, or cock-of-the-rocks, sold at Pararuma in pretty cages woven from palm leaves, are far rarer on the Orinoco banks and in all northern and western tropical America than in French Guiana. They have been spotted only here in the Raudales. This bird chooses its nest in hollows in the granite rocks of the cataracts. We saw it a few times in the middle of the foaming river, calling its females and fighting like our cocks while folding back the mobile double crest on top of its head.

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.

At nightfall we ordered our instruments to be disembarked; and to our relief none had been damaged. We hired a spacious and well-situated house for our astronomical observations. When the sea wind blew we enjoyed the cool air. The windows did not have glass panes, nor the paper squares that replace glass in most Cumana houses. All the passengers on the Pizarro left the ship, but those with the malignant fever recovered very slowly. Some were still terribly pale and emaciated after a month of illness, despite the care lavished on them by their compatriots. In the Spanish colonies the hospitality is such that a European who arrives without money or recommendations is almost sure to find help should he disembark sick in any port. Catalans, Galicians and Basques maintain an intense trade with America, where they form three distinct bodies, and exercise a great influence on the customs, industry and commerce of the colonies. The poorest inhabitant of Sitges or Vigo may be assured of being received in the house of a Catalan or Galician merchant (pulpero) (26) whether in Chile or Mexico or the Philippines. I have witnessed moving examples where strangers are looked after assiduously for years. Some may say that hospitality is no virtue in a land with such a magnificent climate, with plenty of food, and where indigenous plants supply efficient medicines, and a sick person finds necessary refuge in a hammock under a covering. But does not the arrival of a stranger in a family imply more work? Are not the proofs of disinterested sympathy, the spirit of sacrifice in the women, the patience that long convalescence requires, worthy of note? It has been observed that, with the exception of some populated cities, hospitality has not really decreased since the arrival of the Spanish settlers in the New World. It distresses me to think that this change will happen as the colonial population and industry progress rapidly, and that the state of society that we have agreed to call advanced civilization might banish 'the ancient Castilian frankness'.

When we left the Cumanà coast we felt as if we had been living there for a long time. It was the first land that we had reached in a world that I had longed to know from my childhood. The impression produced by nature in the New World is so powerful and magnificent that after only a few months in these places you feel you have been here years. In the Tropics everything in nature seems new and marvelous. In the open plains and tangled jungles all memories of Europe are virtually effaced as it is nature that determines the character of a country. How memorable the first new country you land at continues to be all your life! In my imagination I still see Cumanà and its dusty ground more intensely than all the marvels of the Andes.

We spent seven agreeable days at the Hacienda de Cura in a small hut surrounded by thickets; the house itself, located in a sugar plantation, was infected with bubos, a skin disease common among slaves in the valleys. We lived like the rich; we bathed twice a day, slept three times and ate three meals in twenty-four hours. The lake water was warm, some 24°C to 25°C. The coolest bathing place was under the shade of ceibas and zamangs at Toma in a stream that rushes Out of the granite Rincòn del Diablo mountains. Entering this bath was fearsome, not because of the insects but because of the little brown hairs covering the pods of the Dolichos pruriens. When these small hairs, called pica pica, stick to your body they cause violent irritations. You feel the sting but cannot see what stung you.

Guanaguana still does not have a church. The old priest, who had lived for more than thirty years in the American jungles, pointed out that the community's money, meaning the product of the Indians' work, should first be spent on building the missionary house; secondly on building a church; and lastly on their clothes. He seriously insisted that this order could not be altered on any account. The Indians can wait their turn as they prefer walking around completely naked to wearing the scantiest clothes. The spacious padre's house had just been finished and we noted with surprise that the terraced roof was decorated with a great number of chimneys that looked like turrets. Our host told us that this was done to remind him of his Aragonese winters, despite the tropical heat. The Guanaguana Indians grow cotton for themselves, the church and the missionary. The produce is supposed to belong to the community; it is with this communal money that the needs of the priest and altar are looked after. They have simple machines that separate the seed from the plant. Wooden cylinders of tiny diameter between which the cotton passes are activated, like a spinning-wheel, by pedals. However, these primitive machines are very useful and other missions are beginning to imitate them. But here, as in all places where nature's fertility hinders the development of industry, only a few hectares are converted into cultivated land, and nobody thinks of changing that cultivation into one of alimentary plants. Famine is felt each time the maize harvest is lost to a long drought. The Guanaguana Indians told us an amazing story that happened the year before when they went off with their women and children and spent three months al monte, that is, wandering about in the neighboring jungle and living off juicy plants, palm cabbages, fern roots and wild fruit. They did not speak of this nomadic state as one of deprivation. Only the missionary lost out because his village was left completely abandoned, and the community members, when they returned from the woods, appeared to be less docile than before.

The preparation of sugar, its boiling, and the claying, is not well done in Terra Firma because it is made for local consumption. More papelòn is sold than either refined or raw sugar. Papelòn is an impure sugar in the form of little yellowish-brown loaves. It is a blend of molasses and mucilaginous matter. The poorest man eats papelòn the way in Europe he eats cheese. It is said to be nutritious. Fermented with water it yields guarapo, the favorite local drink.