On the 21st of May we again entered the bed of the Orinoco, 3 leagues above the Esmeralda mission. It had been a month since we had left this river near the mouth of the Guaviare. We still had 750 leagues to navigate as far as Angostura, but it was downstream, and this made the thought less painful. Going downstream you follow the middle of the river bed where there are less mosquitoes. Going upstream you are forced to stick close to the banks, to benefit from eddies and counter-currents, where the jungle and organic detritus thrown up on the beaches attract insects of the Tipulary family. The point where the Orinoco bifurcates is incredibly imposing. High granitic mountains rise on the northern shore, among them the Maraguaca and the Duida. There are no mountains at all on the left bank, or to the west or east as far as the mouth of the Tamatama. (118)

The Pizarro's captain accompanied us to the provincial governor's residence to present Don Vicente Emparan with our passports granted by the First Secretary of State. He received us with that frankness and simplicity that have always characterized the Basques. Before he was appointed governor of Portobello and Cumana he distinguished himself as a captain in the Royal Navy. His name evokes one of the most notable and distressing episodes in the history of naval warfare. After the last break between Spain and England two of Governor Emparan's brothers, outside Cadiz, attacked each other's ships, thinking the other was the enemy. The battle was ferocious and both ships sunk at almost the same time. Only a few of the crew were saved, and the two brothers realized their mistake just before dying.

Travelers know by experience that views from the summits of high mountains are neither as beautiful, picturesque, nor as varied as those from the heights of Vesuvius, Righi or the Poy-de-Dôme. Colossal mountains such as Chimborazo, Antisana or Monte Rosa compose such a huge mass that the richly cultivated plains are seen only at a great distance where a bluish and watery tint spreads over the landscape. The Tenerife peak, due to its narrow shape and local position, combines the advantages of the less high summits with those of the very high. From its top we can see not only the sea to the horizon, but also the forests of Tenerife and the inhabited coastal strips, which seem so close that their shapes and tones stand out in beautiful contrasts. It could be said that the volcano crushes the little island that serves as its base, and that it shoots up from the depths of the seas to a height three times higher than cloud level in summer.

April 10th. We were unable to set sail until ten in the morning. It was hard to adapt to the new pirogue, which we saw as a new prison. To make it wider at the back of the boat we made branches into a kind of trellis, which stuck out on both sides. Unfortunately the leaf roof of this lattice-work was so low that you either had to lie down, and consequently saw nothing, or you had to stay hunched over. The need to transport pirogues across rapids, and even from one river to another, and the fear of giving too much hold to the wind by raising the toldo made this construction necessary for the little boats going up the Río Negro. The roof was designed for four people stretched Out on the deck or lattice-work, but your legs stuck far out, and when it rained half your body got wet. Worse still, you lie on oxhides or tiger skins, and the branches under the skins hurt you when you lie down. The front of the boat was filled with the Indian rowers, armed with 3-foot-long paddles in the form of spoons. They are all naked, sitting in twos, and row beautifully together. Their songs are sad and monotonous. The little cages with our birds and monkeys, increasing as we went on, were tied to the toldo and the prow. It was our travelling zoo. Despite losses due to accidents and sunstroke, we counted fourteen little animals when we came back from the Casiquiare. Every night when we established camp, our zoo and instruments occupied the middle; around them we hung our hammocks, then the Indians' hammocks and, outside, the fires we thought indispensable to scare off jaguars. At sunrise our caged monkeys answered the cries of the jungle monkeys.

The mail-boats (correos) that cross from La Coruìa to Havana and Mexico had been due for over three months. It was thought they had been attacked by English ships near by. I was in a hurry to reach Cumanà and cross to Veracruz so on the 26th of August I hired an open boat called a lancha. This lancha smuggled cocoa to the island of Trinidad, so its owner was not afraid of the enemy ships blockading the Spanish ports. We loaded our plants, instruments and monkeys and hoped that it would be but a short journey from the mouth of the Neveri river to Cumanà. But no sooner were we in the narrow canal that separates the mainland from the rocky islands of Borracha and Chimanas than we bumped into an armed ship, which ordered us to stop, and fired a round at us from far off. The boat belonged to a pirate from Halifax. By his accent and build I recognized a Prussian from Memel among his crew. Since I had been in America I had not once spoken my mother tongue, and would have preferred a more peaceful opportunity to do so. But my protests were to no avail, and we were led aboard the pirate ship. They ignored the passports issued by the governor of Trinidad allowing cocoa smuggling, and considered us a lawful prize. As I spoke English fairly well I was, able to bargain with the captain, and stopped him from taking us to Nova Scotia by persuading him to put us ashore on the nearest Coast. While I was arguing about our rights in the' cabin I heard a noise on deck. A sailor rushed in and whispered something to the captain, who left quite upset. Luckily for us an English warship (the Hawk) was also passing by. It had signaled the pirate boat, but on receiving no answer had shot a round of artillery and sent a midshipman aboard. He was a polite young man who led me to hope that our lancha with its cocoa would be released. He invited me to accompany him, assuring me that Captain John Gamier of the Royal Navy could offer better accommodation than the ship from Halifax.

In the lands of the Río Negro Indians we found several of those green stones known as 'Amazon stones' because Indians claim that they come from a country of 'women without men', or 'women living alone'. Superstition attaches great importance to these stones, which are worn as amulets round the neck as popular belief claims they protect wearers from nervous diseases, fevers and poisonous snake bites. Because of this they have for centuries been traded between the Indians of the northern Orinoco and those in the south. The Caribs made them known on the coast. Up to a few years ago during debates about quinine these green stones were considered an efficient febrifuge in enlightened Europe; if we can count on the credulity of Europeans, there is nothing odd about Spanish colonizers appreciating these amulets as much as the Indians, or that these stones are sold at high prices. Usually they are shaped into cylinders with holes down the sides, and covered in inscriptions and figures. But it is not today's Indians who have perforated holes in such hard stones or carved animals and fruit. This work suggests another, older culture. The actual inhabitants of the torrid zone are so ignorant of how to carve hard stone that they think the green stone comes from soft earth, and that it hardens when carved.