From the time we left Graciosa the sky remained so consistently hazy that despite the height of the mountains of Gran Canaria we did not make out the island until the evening of the 18th. It is the granary of the archipelago of the Fortunate Islands and, remarkably for an area outside the Tropics, there are two wheat harvests a year, one in February, the other in June. Gran Canaria has never been visited before by a geologist, yet it is worth observing because its mountains differ entirely from those of Lanzarote and Tenerife.

When we left the ravine that descends from the Imposible we entered a thick jungle cut by numerous rivers, which we easily forded. In the middle of the forest, on the banks of the Cedoìo river, as well as on the southern slopes of the Cocollar, we found wild papaw and orange trees with large, sweet fruit. These are probably the remains of some conucos, or Indian plantations, because the orange is not a native tree; neither are the banana, papaw, maize, cassava and so many other useful plants whose countries of origin are unknown, though they have accompanied man in his migrations from remotest time.

In Cumana, on San Francisco hill with its convent, an intense stink of sulphur was smelled on the 14th of December 1797 half an hour before the great catastrophe. In this same place the underground noise was loudest. At the same time flames were seen on the Manzanares river banks near the Capuchin hospital, and in the Gulf of Cariaco near Mariguitar. This phenomenon, so strange in non-volcanic countries, happens frequently in the calcareous mountains near Cumanacoa, in the Bordones river valley, on Margarita Island and on the plains of New Andalusia. On these plains the sparks of fire rose to a considerable height and were seen for hours in the most arid places. Some asserted that when the ground through which the inflammable substances rose was examined not the smallest crack was found. This fire, which recalls the springs of methane or the Salse of Modena and the will-o'-the-wisp of our marshes, does not burn the grass. The people, though less superstitious here than in Spain, call these reddish flames by the odd name of The Soul of the Tyrant Aguirre; imagining that the ghost of Lope de Aguirre, (29) harassed by remorse, wanders over these countries sullied by his crimes.

The missionaries' privilege was to console humanity for a part of the evils committed by the conquistadores; to plead the cause of the Indians before kings, to resist the violence of the comendadores, and to gather nomadic Indians into small communities called missions (42) to help agriculture progress. And so, imperceptibly, following a uniform and premeditated plan, these vast monastic establishments were formed into extraordinary regimes, always isolating themselves, with countries four or five times larger than France under their administration.

Like all the Indian tribes that I know the Chaimas have small, slender hands. Contrary to this, their feet are large, and their toes remain extremely mobile. All the Chaimas resemble each other, as if they were all related, and this is all the more evident because between twenty and fifty years old, age is not indicated by wrinkling skin, white hair or body decrepitude. When you enter a hut it is hard to differentiate a father from a son, one generation from another. I think that this family resemblance has two different causes: the local position of the Indian villages, and the lack of intellectual culture. Indian nations are subdivided into an infinity of tribes, all hating each other, and never allied even if speaking the same language or living on the same river or nearby hill. This characteristic is preserved in the missions where marriages are made only within tribes. This blood link that unites a whole tribe is naively illustrated by those Spanish-speaking Indians who designate members of the same tribe as mis parientes (my relatives).