The Río Conorichite played an important role in the time when the Portuguese traded in slaves in Spanish territory. The slave-traders went up the Casiquiare and the Caìo Mee to Conorichite; then they carried their canoes over land to the Rochuelas de Manuteso, and thus reached the Atabapo. This abominable trade lasted until about 1756. The Caribs, a warrior and trading people, received knives, hooks, mirrors and glass objects from the Dutch and Portuguese. In exchange, they urged Indian caciques to fight each other, and then bought their prisoners of war, or cunningly grabbed them, or used force to get them. These Carib incursions covered an enormous region.

After two days near the Atures cataract we were happy to load the canoe again and leave a place where the temperature was usually 29°C by day and 26°C at night. All day we were horribly tormented by mosquitoes and jejenes, tiny venomous flies (or simuliums), and all night by zancudos, another kind of mosquito feared even by the Indians. Our hands began to swell, and this swelling increased until we reached the banks of the Temi. The means found to escape these insects are often quite original. The kind missionary Father Zea, all his life tormented by mosquitoes, had built a small room near his church, up on a scaffolding of palm trunks, where you could breathe more freely. At night we climbed up a ladder to dry our plants and write our diary. The missionary had correctly observed that the insects preferred the lower levels, that is, from the ground up to some 15 feet. At Maypures the Indians leave their villages at night and sleep near the cataracts because the mosquitoes seem to avoid air loaded with vapors.

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.

On the morning of the 18th the wind freshened a little and we managedto pass through the channel. We lost sight of the small islands of Alegranza, Montaña Clara and Graciosa, which appear to have beeninhabited by the Guanches. People visit them now only to gather archil, but this is less sought aftersince so many north European lichens yieldbetter dyes. Montana Clara is noted for its beautiful canary-birds. Thereare also goats, proof that the interior of the island is not as desolate asthe coast we had seen.

On the 7th of June we sadly left Father Ramon Bueno. Alone among all the missionaries we met he cared for the Indians. He hoped to return to Madrid to publish the result of his researches into the figures and characters that cover the Uruana rocks. In this area between the Meta, Arauca and Apure, Alonso de Herrera, during the first 1535 expedition to the Orinoco, found mute dogs (perros mudos). We cannot doubt that this dog is indigenous to South America. Different Indian languages have words for this dog that cannot be related to European languages. Early historians all speak of mute dogs, and this same dog was eaten in Mexico and on the Orinoco.

We crossed some violent rapids before reaching the Mandavaca mission. The village, also called Quirabuena, has only sixty inhabitants. Most of these Christian settlements are in such a deplorable condition that over a stretch of 50 leagues we counted barely 200 people. The river banks were more populated before the arrival of the missionaries. The Indians retreated into the jungle towards the east as the plains on the west are uninhabited. They live for part of the year off the large ants I have already described. In Mandavaca we met a good missionary who had spent 'over twenty years of mosquitoes in the Casiquiare jungles' and whose legs were so spotted by mosquito bites that you could hardly see he was a white. He spoke of his isolation, and the sad necessity that forced him to witness how the most atrocious crimes went unpunished. In Vasiva a few years before an Indian chief had eaten one of his wives after taking her from her conuco and fattening her up with plenty of food. If the Guiana Indians eat human flesh it is not because of privations, or during rituals, but out of vengeance after a victory or, as the missionaries say, 'out of their perverted greed'. Victory over an enemy horde is celebrated with a feast where parts of prisoners' corpses are eaten. During the night an enemy family is attacked, or an enemy found by chance in the jungle is killed by a poisoned arrow. The corpse is cut up and brought home like a trophy. Civilization has led man to sense the unity of the human race, the bonds that link him to customs and languages which he does not know. Wild Indians hate all those who do not belong to their tribe or family. Indians who are at war with a neighboring tribe hunt them as we would animals in the wood. When they see unknown jungle Indians arrive at their mission they say: 'They must be related to us as we understand what they say. They recognize only their own family: a tribe is but a reunion of relations. They recognize family and kin ties, but not those of humanity in general. No feelings of compassion prevent them from killing women or children of an enemy tribe. These latter are their favorite food after a skirmish or ambush.