Of all body complaints those that persist without change are the worst; against them the only cure is patience. It is likely that the emanations of the Casiquiare jungle infected Bonpland with such a serious disease that he almost died when we reached Angostura. Luckily neither he nor I suspected this at the time. The view of the river and the hum of insects became monotonous; but our natural good temper did not snap, and helped us survive this long journey. We discovered that eating small bits of dry cacao ground without sugar and drinking a lot of river water appeased our hunger for several hours. Ants and mosquitoes annoyed us more than hunger and humidity.

At the Divina Pastora hospice the path turns to the north-east along a stretch without trees, formerly leveled by the waters. There we found not only cacti, tufts of cistus-leaved tribulus and the beautiful purple euphorbia, cultivated in Havana gardens under the odd name of Dictamno real, but also the avicennia, the allionia, the sesuvium, the thalinum and most of the portulaceous plants that grow on the banks of the Gulf of Cariaco. This geographical distribution of plants appears to designate the limits of the ancient coast and to prove that the hills along the southern side, which we were following, once formed islands separated from the continent by an arm of the sea.