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.

The Tuy valley has its 'gold mine', as do nearly all the places near mountains inhabited by white Europeans. I was assured that in 1780 foreign gold seekers had been seen extracting gold nuggets and had set up a place for washing the sand. The overseer of a nearby plantation had followed their tracks and after his death a jacket with gold buttons was found among his belongings, which according to popular logic meant that they came from the gold seam, later covered by a rock fall. It was no use my saying that from simply looking at the ground, without opening up a deep gallery, I would not be able to decide if there once had been a mine there - I had to yield to my host's entreaties. For twenty years the overseer's jacket had been the talking-point of the area. Gold dug out from the ground has; in the people's eyes, a special lure unrelated to the diligent farmer harvesting a fertile land under a gentle climate.

On the 14th of March we entered the Guaurabo river at one of Trinidad de Cuba's two ports, to put our pràctico, or pilot, who had steered us through the Jardinillos and run us aground, ashore. We also hoped to catch a correo marítimo (mail-boat) to Cartagena. Towards evening I landed and began to set up Borda's azimuth compass and the artificial horizon to observe the stars when a party of pulperos, or small traders, who had dined on board a foreign ship cheerfully invited us to accompany them into town. These good people asked us to mount two each to a horse; as it was excessively hot we accepted their offer. The road to Trinidad runs across a plain covered with vegetation where the miraguama, a silver-leafed palm tree, stands out. This fertile soil, although of tierra colorada, needs only to be tilled to yield rich harvests. After emerging from a forest we saw a curtain of hills whose southern slope was covered with houses. This is Trinidad, founded in 1514 on account of the 'rich gold mines' said to lie in the Armani river valley. The streets of Trinidad are all very steep and again show why people complain, as they do over all Spanish America, of how badly the conquistadores chose the sites of new towns.

But the shores of Lake Valencia are not famed solely for their picturesque beauties: the basin presents several phenomena whose interpretation holds great interest for natural historians and for the inhabitants. What causes the lowering of the lake's water-level? Is it receding faster than before? Will the balance between the flowing in and the draining out be restored, or will the fear that the lake might dry up be proved justified?

The farmers and their slaves cut a path through the jungle to the first Juagua river waterfall, and on the 10th of September we made our excursion to the Cuchivano crevice. Entering the cave we saw a disemboweled porcupine and smelled the stink of excrement, similar to that of European cats, and knew that a jaguar had been near by. For safety the Indians returned to the farm to fetch small dogs. It is said that when you meet a jaguar in your path he will leap on to a dog before a man. We did not follow the bank of the torrent, but a rocky wall overhanging the water. We walked on a very narrow ledge along the side of a precipice with a drop of some 200 to 300 feet. When it narrowed, so that we could not walk along it any further, we climbed down to the torrent and crossed it on foot, or on the backs of slaves, to climb up the other side. Climbing is very tiring, and you cannot trust the lianas, which, like thick rope, hang from tree-tops. Creepers and parasites hang loosely from the branches they grip; their stalks together weigh a lot, and if you slip and grab one of the lianas you risk bringing down a tangle of green branches. The vegetation became impenetrable the more we advanced. In some places the roots of trees grew in the existing cracks between strata and had burst the calcareous rock. We could hardly carry the plants we picked at each step. The canna, the heliconia with pretty purple flowers, the costus and other plants from the Amomum genus reach here the height of 8 to 50 feet. Their tender, fresh green leaves, their silky sheen and the extraordinary development of their juicy pulp contrast with the brown of the arborescent ferns whose leaves are so delicately jagged. The Indians made deep incisions in the tree trunks with their long knives to draw our attention to the beauty of the red-and gold-colored woods, which one day will be sought after by our furniture makers. They showed us a plant with composite flowers that reaches some 20 feet high (Eupatorium laevigatum), the so-called 'Rose of Belveria' (Brownea racemosa), famous for the brilliance of its purple flowers, and the local 'dragon's blood', a species of euphorbia not yet catalogued, whose red and astringent sap is used to strengthen the gums. They distinguished species by their smell and by chewing their woody fibers. Two Indians, given the same wood to chew, pronounced, often without hesitation, the same name. But we could not take advantage of our guides' wisdom, for how could they reach leaves, flowers and fruit (53) growing on branches some 50 to 60 feet above the ground? We were struck in this gorge by the fact that the bark of the trees, even the ground, were covered in moss and lichen.

Frightened about being exposed too long to the unhealthy Cartagena airs we moved to the Indian village of Turbaco (once called Tarasco) on the 6th of April. It is situated in a delicious place where the jungle begins some 5 leagues south-south-east of Pipa. We were happy to leave a foul inn (fonda) packed with soldiers left over from General Rochambeau's unfortunate expedition. (144) Interminable discussions about the need to be cruel to the blacks of Santo Domingo reminded me of the opinions and horrors of the sixteenth-century conquistadores. Pombo lent us his beautiful house in Turbaco, built by Archbishop Viceroy Gòngora. We stayed as long as it took us to prepare for our journey up the Magdalena, and then the long land trip from Honda to Bogotà, Popoyàn and Quito. Few stays in the Tropics have pleased me more. The village lies some 180 toises above sea-level. Snakes are very common and chase rats into the houses. They climb on to roofs and wage war with the bats, whose screaming annoyed us all night. The Indian huts covered a steep plateau so that everywhere you can view shady valleys watered by small streams. We especially enjoyed being on our terrace at sunrise and sunset as it faced the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, some 35 leagues distant. The snow-covered peaks probably San Lorenzo - are clearly seen from Turbaco when the wind blows and brings cooler air. Thick vegetation covers the hills and plains between the Mahates dyke and the snowy mountains: they often reminded us of the beautiful Orinoco mountains. We were surprised to find, so close to the coast in a land frequented by Europeans for over three centuries, gigantic trees belonging to completely unknown species, such as the Rhinocarpus excelsa (which the creoles call caracoli because of its spiral-shaped fruit), the Ocotea turbacensis and the mocundo or Cavanillesia platanifolia, whose large fruit resemble oiled paper lanterns hanging at the tip of each branch.

April 30th. We continued upstream on the Atabapo for 5 miles, then instead of following this river to its source, where it is called the Atacavi, we entered the Temi river. Before reaching this tributary, near the Guasacavi mouth, a granite outcrop on the west bank fixed our attention: it is called the rock of the Guahiba Indian woman, or the Mother Rock, the Piedra de la Madre. Father Zea could not the explain its bizarre name, but a few weeks later another missionary told us a story that stirred up painful feelings. If, in these deserted places, man leaves hardly any traces behind him, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see in the name of a rock a memory of the moral degradation of whites that contrasts the virtue of a wild Indian with the barbarity of civilized men!