We left the Conorichite mouth and the Davipe mission and at sunset reached the island of Dapa, picturesquely situated in the middle of the river. We were amazed to find cultivated ground and, on top of a hill, an Indian hut. Four Indians sat round a small brushwood fire eating a kind of white paste spotted with black that aroused our curiosity. These black spots proved to be vachacos, large ants, whose abdomen resemble lumps of grease. They had been dried and blackened by smoking We saw several bags of ants hanging above the fire. These good people paid little attention to us, yet there were more than fourteen Indians lying completely naked in hammocks hung one above the other in the hut. When Father Zea arrived they received him joyously. Two young Indian women came down from their hammocks to make cassava cakes for us. Through an interpreter we asked them if the land on the island was fertile. They answered saying that cassava grew poorly but that it was a good place for ants. Vachacos were the subsistence diet of Río Negro and Guianan Indians. They are not eaten out of greed but because, in the missionary's terms, the fat is very nutritious. When the cakes were ready, Father Zea, whose fever seemed to increase rather than decrease his appetite, asked for a bag of smoked ants to be brought to him. Then he mixed these crushed insects into the cassava flour and urged us to taste. It tasted rather like rancid butter mixed with breadcrumbs. The cassava was not acid, but vestiges of our European prejudices restrained us from praising what the missionary called an excellent ant pâté".