Twelve years have elapsed since I left Europe to explore the interior of the New Continent. From my earliest days I was excited by studying nature, and was sensitive to the wild beauty of a landscape bristling with mountains and covered in forests. I found that travelling out there compensated for a hard and often agitated life. But pleasure was not the only fruit of my decision to contribute to the progress of the physical sciences. For a long time I had prepared myself for the observations that were the main object of my journey to the torrid zone. I was equipped with instruments that were easy and convenient to use, made by the ablest artists, and I enjoyed the protection of a government that, far from blocking my way, constantly honored me with its confidence. I was supported by a brave and learned friend whose keenness and equanimity never let me down, despite the exhaustion and dangers we faced.

After struggling a while with our plan to descend the Guarapiche river to the Golfo Triste, we took the direct road to the mountains. The Guanaguana and Caripe valleys are separated by an embankment or calcareous ridge famous for miles around for its name Cuchilla de Guanaguana. We found this way tiring because we still had to climb the cordilleras, but it is by no means as dangerous as they claim in Cumanà. In many places the path is no more than 14 or 15 inches wide; the mountain ridge it follows is covered with a short slippery grass; its sides are both very steep and the traveler who fell could roll some 700 to 800 feet down over that grass. However, the mountain has abrupt slopes, not precipices. The local mules are so sure-footed that they inspire confidence. They behave just like mules from Switzerland or the Pyrenees. The wilder a country, the more acute and sensitive is instinct in domestic animals. When the mules glimpse a danger they stop and turn their heads from right to left and raise and lower their ears as if thinking. They delay making up their minds, but always choose the right course of action if the traveler does not distract them or make them continue. In the Andes, during journeys of six and seven months, in mountains furrowed with torrents, the intelligence of horses and beasts of burden develops in a surprising way. You often hear mountain people say: 'I will not give you a mule with a comfortable gait, but the one that reasons best (la màs racional). This popular expression, the result of long experiences, contradicts far more convincingly than speculative philosophy those who claim that animals are simply animated machines.

I will not go into further details about the physiological properties of these New World poisons that kill so quickly without ever making you sick if taken in the stomach, and without warning you of death by violently exciting the marrow in your spine. On the Orinoco river banks you cannot eat chicken that has not been killed by a poison arrow. Missionaries claim that animal flesh is only worth eating if killed in this way. Though ill with tertiary fever Father Zea insisted every morning that a poison arrow and the live chicken due to be eaten by us be brought to his hammock. He did not want anybody else to kill the bird, despite his weakness. Large birds like the guan (pava de monte) or the curassow (alector), pricked in their thighs, die in two to five minutes, but it takes ten to twelve minutes for a pig or peccary to die. Bonpland found that the same poison bought in different villages revealed enormous differences.

A few minutes before the first shock there was a violent gust of wind, accompanied by flashes of lightning and large raindrops. The sky remained covered; after the storm the wind died down, staying quiet all night. The sunset was extraordinarily beautiful. The thick veil of clouds tore open into strips just above the horizon, forming shreds, and the sun shone at 12 degrees of altitude against an indigo-blue sky. Its disc appeared incredibly swollen, distorted and wavy at its edges. The clouds were gilded, and clusters of rays colored like the rainbow spread in every direction from its center. A great crowd had congregated in the main square. This phenomenon, the accompanying earthquake, thunder rolling as the earth shook, and that reddish mist lasting so many days were blamed on the eclipse.

The savannah we crossed to reach the Indian village of Santa Cruz is - made up of various very flat plateaux lying one above another. This geological phenomenon seems to show that they were once basins where water poured from one to the other. On the spot where we last saw the limestone of the Santa María jungle we found nodules of iron ore, and, if I was not mistaken, a bit of ammonite, but we could not detach it. The Santa Cruz mission is situated in the middle of the plain. We reached it as night fell, half dead with thirst as we had been eight hours without water. We spent the night in one of those ajupas known as 'kings' houses', which serve as tambos or inns for travelers. As it was raining there was no chance of making any astronomical observations so, on the next day, the 23rd of September, we set off for the Gulf of Cariaco. Beyond Santa Cruz thick jungle reappears. Under tufts of melastoma we found a beautiful fern, with leaves similar to the osmunda, which belonged to a new genus (Polybotria) of the polypodiaceous order.

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'.