The mission of San Antonio was usually named after its Indian founder Javita. This captain, Javita, was still living when we arrived at the Río Negro. He was an Indian with a lively mind and body, and spoke Spanish with great ease. As he accompanied us on all our herborizations we obtained very useful information directly from him. In his youth he had seen all the Indian tribes of the region eat human flesh, and the Daricavanos, Puchirinavis and Manitibitanos seemed to him to be the greatest cannibals. (113) He believed that cannibalism was the effect of a system of vengeance; they only eat enemies captured in battle. It was very rare for an Indian to eat a close relation like a wife or an unfaithful mistress.

The electrometer gave no sign of electricity. As the storm gathered the blue of the sky changed to grey. The thermometer rose 3'C, as is usual in the Tropics, and a heavy rain fell. Being sufficiently adapted to the climate not to fear the effect of a tropical downpour we stayed on the shore to observe the electrometer. I held it more than twenty minutes in my hand, 6 feet above the ground. For several minutes the electric charge remained the same, and then I noticed that the electricity in the atmosphere was first positive, then nil, then negative. I have gone into these details on the electric charge in the atmosphere because newly arrived European travelers usually describe just their impressions of a tropical storm. In a country where the year is divided into two halves, the dry and the wet season, or as the Indians say in their expressive language, 'of sun and rain', it is interesting to follow meteorological phenomena as one season turns into the next.

I accepted, and was very politely welcomed by Captain Gamier. He had been as far to the north-west as Vancouver, and was fascinated by all that I told him about the great Atures and Maypures cataracts, about the Orinoco bifurcation and its link with the Amazon. He had followed my progress from reading English newspapers. (134) He introduced me to several of his officers. For over a year I had not met so many well-informed people in one gathering. I was very well treated, and the captain gave me his state room. When you have come from the Casiquiare jungles, with nothing but the company of a narrow circle of missionaries for months, it is a joy to talk to men who have traveled round the world and broadened their minds by seeing so many different things. I left the boat, blessing the career I had devoted my life to.