With the Maypures Indians, it is the women who decorate the vessels, clean the clay by washing it several times; then they shape it into cylinders and mould even the largest jars with their hands. The American Indians never discovered the potter's wheel.

The perpetual cool that prevails in La Laguna makes the city the favorite home for the inhabitants of the Canaries. The residential capital of Tenerife is magnificently placed in a small plain surrounded by gardens at the foot of a hill crowned with laurel, myrtle and strawberry trees. It would be a mistake to rely on some travelers who believe the town lies by a lake. The rain sometimes forms an enormous sheet of water, and a geologist who sees the past rather than the present state of nature in everything would not doubt that the whole plain was once a great lake, now dried up. La Laguna has fallen from its opulence since the erupting volcano destroyed the port of Garachico and Santa Cruz became the trading center of the island. It has no more than 9, inhabitants, with nearly 400 monks distributed in six convents, though some travelers insist half the population wear cassocks. Numerous windmills surround the city, a sign that wheat is cultivated in this high country. The Guanches called wheat at Tenerife tano, at Lanzarote triffa; barley in Gran Canaria was called aramotanoque, and at Lanzarote tamosen. The flour of roasted barley (gofio) and goat's milk constituted the main food of these people about whose origins so many systematic fables have been written.

We spent the night of the 16th of July in the Indian village of Santa Cruz de Cachipo, founded in 1749 when several Carib families from the unhealthy, flooding Orinoco gathered together. We lodged in the missionary's house. In the parish register we discovered how rapidly the mission had progressed thanks to his zeal and intelligence. From the middle of the plains the heat had become almost unbearable so we thought of travelling by night; but we were not armed and the llanos were infested with numberless robbers who murdered all whites who fell into their hands in atrociously cunning ways. Nothing can be worse than the administration of justice in these colonies. Everywhere we found the prisons filled with criminals who had waited up to eight years for a trial. About one third escape from prison and find refuge in the llanos, where nobody but cattle live. They attack on horseback, like Bedouin Arabs. The dirt in the prisons would be intolerable if prisoners were not allowed to escape every now and then. It is also common that the death penalty cannot be carried out because there are no executioners. When this happens they pardon one of the guilty if he agrees to hang the others. Our guides told us about a zambo, famous for his violence, who, just before our arrival at Cumanà, chose to avoid his execution by turning executioner The preparations broke his will, and he was horrified at what he was about to do, preferring death to the shame of saving his own life. He asked for his irons to be put back on. He did not stay in prison much longer, as cowardice in another prisoner saw that he was executed. This awakening of honour in a murderer is psychologically very interesting. A man who has spilled so much blood robbing travelers on the steppes hesitates to inflict a punishment that he feels he himself has deserved.

On my arrival at Terra Firma I was struck by the correlation between two natural phenomena: the destruction of Cumanà on the 14th of December 1797 and volcanic eruptions in the smaller West Indian Islands. Something similar happened at Caracas on the 26th of March 1812. In 1797 the volcano on Guadeloupe Island, on the Cumanà coast, seemed to have reacted; fifteen years later another volcano on San Vincente also reacted, and its effects were felt as far as Caracas and the banks of the Apure. Probably both times the center of the eruption was at an enormous depth in the earth, equidistant from the points on the earth's surface that felt the movement. The shock felt at Caracas in December 1811 was the only one that preceded the terrible catastrophe of the 26th of March 1812. In Caracas, and for 90 leagues around, not one drop of rain had fallen for five months up to the destruction of the capital. The 26th of March was a very hot day; there was no wind and no cloud. It was Ascension Day and most people had congregated in the churches. Nothing suggested the horrors to come. At seven minutes past four the first shock was felt. 'It was so violent that the church bells rang, and lasted five to six seconds. It was followed immediately by another lasting ten to twelve seconds when the ground seemed to ripple like boiling water. People thought the quake was over when an infernal din came from under the ground. It was like thunder but louder and longer than any tropical storm. Following this there was a vertical movement lasting three seconds followed by undulations. The shocks coming from these contrary movements tore the city apart. Thousands of people were trapped in the churches and houses. (78)

When we first glance at geographical maps, and read the narratives of navigators, we feel a special charm for certain countries and climates, which we cannot explain when older. These impressions exercise a considerable hold over what we do in life, and we instinctively try to connect ourselves with anything associated with these places. When I first studied the stars to identify them I was disturbed by a fear unknown to those who love sedentary life. It was painful to me to have to renounce the hope of seeing the beautiful constellations near the South Pole. Impatient to explore the equatorial regions I could not raise my eyes to the sky without dreaming of the Southern Cross and remembering a passage from Dante. Our joy over discovering the Southern Cross was vividly shared by those sailors who had lived in the colonies. In the solitudes of the oceans you wave at a star as if it is a friend you haven't seen for ages. Portuguese and Spaniards are particularly susceptible to this feeling; religious sentiments attach them to a constellation whose shape recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World.

While following the local custom of drying ourselves in the sun after our bath, half wrapped in towels, a small mulatto approached. After greeting us in a serious manner, he made a long speech about the properties of the Mariara waters, the many sick people who over the years have come here, and the advantageous position of the spring between Valencia and Caracas, where morals became more and more dissolute. He showed us his house, a little hut covered with palm leaves in an enclosure near by, next to a stream that fed the pool. He assured us that we would find there all the comforts we could imagine; nails to hang our hammocks, oxhides to cover reed beds, jugs of fresh water, and those large lizards (iguanas) whose flesh is considered to be a refreshing meal after a bathe. From his speech we reckoned that this poor man had mistaken us for sick people wanting to install themselves near the spring. He called himself 'the inspector of the waters and the pulpero of the place'. He stopped talking to us as soon as he saw we were there out of curiosity - 'para ver no más' as they say in these colonies, 'an ideal place for lazy people'.