April 28th. It poured with rain as soon as the sun set and we were worried about the damage to our collections. The poor missionary suffered one of his fever attacks and begged us to leave before midnight. After passing the Guarinuma rapids the Indians pointed out the ruins of the Mendaxari mission, abandoned some time back. On the east bank of the river, near the little rock of Kemarumo in the middle of Indian plantations, we saw a gigantic ceiba (the Bombax ceiba). We landed to measure it; it was some 120 feet high, with a diameter of 14 or 15 feet.

After four hours walking through savannah we reached a little wood composed of shrubs called el pejual, perhaps because of the amount of pejoa (Gaultheria odorata) there, a plant with strong-smelling leaves. The mountain slope became more gentle and we could pleasurably study the plants of the region. Perhaps nowhere else can so many beautiful and useful plants be discovered in such a small space. At 1, toises high the raised plains of La Silla gave place to a zone of shrubs that reminded one of the pàramos and punas.

The farm we lodged at was a fine sugar-cane plantation. The ground is smooth like the bed of a dried lake. The Tuy river winds through land covered with banana trees and a little wood of Hura crepitans, Erythrina corallodrendon, and figs with nymphae leaves. The river is formed with quartz pebbles. I can think of no more pleasant bathe than that in the Tuy. The crystal-clear water remains at 18.6°C. This is cool for the climate; the sources of the river are in the surrounding mountains. The owner's house is situated on a hillock surrounded by huts for the negroes. Those who are married provide their own food. They are given, as everywhere in the Aragua valleys, a plot of land to cultivate, which they work on their Saturdays and Sundays, the free days of the week. They have chicken, and sometimes a pig. The owner boasts of their contentment in the same way that northern European landowners boast about the happy peasants on their land. The day we arrived three runaway negroes had been captured; newly bought slaves. I dreaded witnessing those punishments that ruin the charm of the countryside wherever there are slaves. Luckily, the blacks were treated humanely.