Those who have not traveled the great rivers of tropical America, like the Orinoco or the Magdalena, cannot imagine how all day long, ceaselessly, you are tormented by mosquitoes that float in the air, and how this crowd of little animals can make huge stretches of land uninhabitable. However used to the pain you may become, without complaining; however much you try to observe the object you are studying, the mosquitoes, jejenes and zancudos will tear you away as they cover your head and hands, pricking you with their needle-like suckers through your clothes, and climbing into your nose and mouth, making you cough and sneeze whenever you try to talk. In the Orinoco missions the plaga de las moscas, or plague of mosquitoes, is an inexhaustible subject of conversation. When two people meet in the morning the first questions they ask each other are, 'Que le han parecido los zancudos de anoche? and 'Como estamos hoy de mosquitos? ('How were the zancudos last night? and 'How are we for mosquitoes today?').

Having outlined the general aim, I will now briefly glance at the collections and observations we made. The maritime war during our stay in America made communications with Europe very uncertain and, in order for us to avoid losses, forced us to make three different collections. The first we sent to Spain and France, the second to the United States and England, and the third, the most considerable, remained constantly with us. Towards the end of our journey this last collection formed forty-two boxes containing a herbal of 6, equinoctial plants, seeds, shells and insects, and geological specimens from Chimborazo, New Granada and the banks of the Amazon, never seen in Europe before. After our journey up the Orinoco, we left a part of this collection in Cuba in order to pick it up on our return from Peru and Mexico. The rest followed us for five years along the Andes chain, across New Spain, from the Pacific shores to the West Indian seas. The carrying of these objects, and the minute care they required, created unbelievable difficulties, quite unknown in the wildest parts of Europe. Our progress was often held up by having to drag after us for five and six months at a time from twelve to twenty loaded mules, change these mules every eight to ten days, and oversee the Indians employed on these caravans. Often, to add new geological specimens to our collections, we had to throw away others collected long before. Such sacrifices were no less painful than what we lost through accidents. We learned too late that the warm humidity and the frequent falls of our mules prevented us from preserving our hastily prepared animal skins and the fish and reptiles in alcohol. I note these banal details to show that we had no means of bringing back many of the objects of zoological and comparative anatomical interest whose descriptions and drawings we have published. Despite these obstacles, and the expenses entailed, I was pleased that I had decided before leaving to send duplicates of all we had collected to Europe. It is worth repeating that in seas infested with pirates a traveler can only be sure of what he takes with him. Only a few duplicates that we sent from America were saved, most fell into the hands of people ignorant of the sciences. When a ship is held in a foreign port, boxes containing dried plants or stones are merely forgotten, and not sent on as indicated to scientific men. Our geological collections taken in the Pacific had a happier fate. We are for their safety to the generous work of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London, who, in the middle of Europe's political turmoils, has struggled ceaselessly to consolidate the ties that unite scientific men of all nations.

According to tradition, during the quake of 1766 the earth moved in simple horizontal waves; only on the fatal day of the 14th of December did the earth rise up. More than four fifths of the city was completely destroyed, and the shock, accompanied by a loud subterranean noise, resembled the explosion of a mine placed deep in the ground. Fortunately the main shocks were preceded by light undulations thanks to which most of the inhabitants were able to reach the streets, and only a few who hid in the church died. It is generally believed in Cumana that the worst earthquakes are preceded by weak oscillations in the ground, and by a humming that does not escape the notice of those used to this phenomenon. In those desperate moments you heard people everywhere shouting 'Misericordia! Tiembla! Tiembla! ('Mercy! The earth is trembling!') The most faint- hearted attentively observe the dogs, goats and pigs. These last, with their acute sense of smell, and skill in poking around in the earth, give warnings of approaching dangers with frightened screams.

From the top of a sandstone hill overlooking the Quetepe spring we had a magnificent view of the sea, Cape Macanao and the Maniquarez peninsula. From our feet an immense jungle stretched out as far as the ocean. The tree-tops, intertwined with lianas and their long tufts of flowers, formed an enormous green carpet whose dark tint increased the brilliancy of the light. This picture struck us more powerfully as it was the first time we had seen tropical vegetation. On the Quetepe hill, under the Malpighia cocollobaefolia, with its hard coriaceous leaves, we collected our first melastoma; especially that beautiful species that goes under the name of Melastoma rufescens, among thickets of Polygala montana. Our memory of this place will remain with us for a long time; the traveler pleasurably remembers those places where for the first time he finds a plant family never seen before in its wild state.

Hardly twenty-two months had passed since a previous earthquake had nearly destroyed the city of Cumanà. The people regard the reddish mist veiling the sky and the absence of a sea breeze at night as infallible ill omens. Many people came to see us to ask if our instruments predicted any further quakes. Their anxiety increased greatly when on the 5th of November, at the same time as the day before, there was a violent gust of wind, accompanied by thunder and a few raindrops. But no shock was felt.

Mixed with the aromatic smells given off by the flowers, fruit and even wood there was something of our misty autumn forests. Among the majestic trees that reach 120 to 130 feet high our guides pointed out the curucay, which yields a whitish, liquid resin with a strong odor. The Cumanagoto and Tagire Indians used to burn it before their idols as incense. The young branches have an agreeable taste, though somewhat acid. Apart from the curucay and the enormous trunks of the hymenaea, from 9 to so feet in diameter, we noticed, above all others, the dragon (Croton sangulfluum), whose dark purple resin flows from its white bark; as well as the medicinal calahuala fern, and the irasse, macanilla, corozo and praga palm trees. This latter gives a tasty 'heart of palm' that we sometimes ate at the Caripe convent. These palm trees with pinnate and thorny leaves contrast pleasingly with the tree ferns. In the Caripe valley we discovered five new species of tree fern, while in Linnaeus's time botanists had not even found four in both continents.

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.