From the mouth of the Meta, the Orinoco seemed freer of shoals and rocks. We navigated in a canal 500 toises wide. The Indians stayed in the pirogue, rowing without towing or pushing it with their hands, tiring us with their wild screams. It was already dark when we found ourselves by the Raudal de Tabaje. The Indians did not want to risk crossing the cataract and so we spent the night on land on a site that was extremely uncomfortable, on a rock bench with a steep slope sheltering a cloud of bats in crevices. All night we heard the cries of jaguars. Our dog answered by howling back. The deafening noise of the Orinoco waterfalls contrasted with the thunder grumbling over the jungle.

I have no doubt that from remotest times the whole valley was filled with water. Everywhere the shape of the promontories and their steep slopes reveals the ancient shore of this alpine lake. We find vast tracts of land, formerly flooded, now cultivated with banana, sugar cane and cotton. Wherever a hut is built on the lake shore you can see how year by year the water recedes. As the water decreases, you can see how islands begin to join the land while others form promontories or become hills. We visited two islands still completely surrounded by water and found, under the scrub, on small flats between 4 and 8 toises above the water-level, fine sand mixed with helicites deposited by waves. On all these islands you will discover clear traces of the gradual lowering of the water.

From the 28th of October to the 3rd of November the reddish mist was thicker than usual: at night the heat was stifling yet the thermometer did not rise beyond 26°C. The sea breeze, which usually refreshed the air from eight to nine at night, was not felt at all. The air was sweltering hot, and the dusty, dry ground started cracking everywhere. On the 4th of November, around two in the afternoon, extraordinarily thick black clouds covered the tall Brigantín and Tataraqual mountains, and then reached the zenith. At about four it began to thunder way above us without rumbling; making a cracking noise, which often suddenly stopped. At the moment that the greatest electrical discharge was produced, twelve minutes past four, we felt two successive seismic shocks, fifteen seconds from each other. Everybody ran out into the street screaming. Bonpland, who was examining some plants, leaning over a table, was almost thrown to the floor, and I felt the shock very clearly in spite of being in my hammock. The direction of the earthquake was from north to south, rare in Cumanà. Some slaves drawing water from a well, some 18 to 20 feet deep next to the Manzanares river, heard a noise comparable to artillery fire, which seemed to rise up out of the well; a surprising phenomenon, though quite common in American countries exposed to earthquakes.

We had yet to climb the steepest part of the mountain, the Piton, which forms the summit. The slope of this small cone, covered with volcanic ashes and fragments of pumice-stone, is so steep that it would have been impossible to reach the top had we not been able to follow an old lava current that seemed to have flowed down from the crater and whose remains have defied the ravages of time. The debris forms a wall of scoria, which reaches into the loose ash. We climbed to the Piton by clinging to this sharp-edged scoria, which, worn down by the weather, often broke off in our hands. It took us half an hour to reach the top, though it was only some 90 toises above us.

April 9th. We reached the Pararuma beach early in the morning where we found a camp of Indians, like those we had seen before. They had come to dig up the sand and harvest turtle eggs for their oil but unluckily they had arrived several days too late. The young turtles had broken out of their eggs before the Indians had set up camp. Crocodiles and garzas, a kind of white heron, had benefited from this mistake because they devour quantities of these young. They hunt at night as the young turtles do not break the surface of the sand until it is dark.

It took us three days to reach the Cari Carib missions. The ground was not as cracked by the drought as in the Calabozo plains. A few showers had revived the vegetation. We saw a few fan palms (Corypha tectorum), rhopalas (Chaparro) and malpighias with leathery, shiny leaves growing far apart from each other. From far off you recognize where there might be water from groups of mauritia palms. It was the season in which they are loaded with enormous clusters of red fruit looking like fir-cones. Our monkeys loved this fruit, which tasted like overripe apples. The monkeys were carried with our baggage on the backs of mules and did all they could to reach the clusters hanging over their heads. The plains seemed to ripple from the mirages. When, after travelling for an hour, we reached those palms standing like masts on the horizon, we were amazed to realize how many things are linked to the existence of one single plant. The wind, losing its force as it strikes leaves and branches, piles sand round the trunks. The smell of fruit and the bright green of the leaves attract passing birds that like to sway on the arrow-like branches of the palms. All around you hear a murmur of sound. Oppressed by the heat, and used to the bleak silence of the llanos, you think you feel cooler just by hearing the sound of branches swaying. Insects and worms, so rare in the llanos, thrive here so that even one stunted tree, which no traveler would have noticed in the Orinoco jungles, spreads life around it in the desert.

In the little Atures church we were shown remains of the Jesuits' wealth. A heavy silver lamp lay half buried in sand. This object did not tempt the Indians; the Orinoco natives are not thieves, and have a great respect for property. They do not even steal food, hooks or axes. At Maypures and Atures locks on doors are unknown.