I still have to refer to the most isolated of the Christian colonies of the Upper Orinoco. Opposite the point where the Orinoco bifurcates there is a granite mass called Duida, in the form of an amphitheater. The missionaries call this mountain of nearly 8, feet a volcano. Because its slopes on the south and west are very steep it looks grand. The peak is bare and stony; but everywhere else in the less steep slopes earth has collected and jungles seem to hang from the air. At the foot of the Duida lies the Esmeralda mission, a small village of eighty people, surrounded by a lovely plain, and fed by little black-watered but limpid streams; a proper prairie with groups of mauritia palms, the American breadfruit. As you approach the mountain the marshy plain becomes a savannah that stretches along the lower reaches of the chain. There you find enormous, delicious pineapples. These bromelia always grow solitary among the grasses.

We took the opportunity to use the boat to survey the land around the large bay. words can evoke the feelings of a naturalist who first steps on soiloutside Europe. So many objects call for his attention that it is hard toorder his impressions. At each step he thinks he is coming across something new, and in his excitement he doesnot recognize things that commonly feature in botanical gardens and naturalhistory collections. Two hundred yards off the Coast we saw a man fishingwith a rod. We turned the boat towards him but he fled and hid behind a rock. It took our sailors someeffort to capture him. The sight of the corvette, the thunder of ourcannons in such a solitary place - possibly visited only by pirates - thelaunching of our boat, all this terrified the poor fisherman. He informed us that the island of Graciosa on whichwe had landed was separated from Lanzarote by a small channel called El Río. He offered to guide us to Los Colorados harbor to find outabout the blockade at Tenerife but, when the man assured us that for weeks he had not seen any ships out at sea, captain decided to set sail for Santa Cruz.

April 21st. After spending two and a half days in the little village of Maypures near the Great Cataracts, we embarked in the canoe that the Carichana missionary had got for us. It had been damaged by the knocks it had received in the river, and by the Indians' carelessness. Once you have passed the Great Cataracts (107) you feel you are in a new world; that you have stepped over the barriers that nature seems to have raised between the civilized coasts and the wild, unknown interior. On the way to the landing-stage we caught a new species of tree frog on the trunk of a hevea. It had a yellow belly, a back and head of velvety purple, and a narrow white stripe from its nose to its hind parts. This frog was 2 inches long; probably allied to the Rana tinctoria whose blood, so it is said, makes the feathers that have been plucked out of a parrot grow again in frizzled yellow and red if poured on to its skin.

As the Orinoco runs from south to north it crosses a chain of granite mountains. Twice checked in its course the river breaks furiously against rocks that form steps and transversal dykes. Nothing can be grander than this countryside. Neither the Tequendama Falls (99) near Bogotà, nor the magnificent cordilleras surpassed my first impressions of the Atures and Maypures rapids. Standing in a position that dominates the uninterrupted series of cataracts it is as if the river, lit by the setting sun, hangs above its bed like an immense sheet of foam and vapors. The two great and famous cataracts of the Orinoco are formed as the river breaks through the Parima mountains. Indians call them Mapara and Quituna, but missionaries have substituted these names with Atures and Maypures, named after tribes living in two villages near by. On the Caracas coast the two Great Cataracts are simply called the two Raudales, from the Spanish raudo, 'rushing'. (100)

The Chaimas lead an extremely monotonous life. They go to bed regularly at half past seven in the evening, and get up long before dawn, at about half past four. Every Indian has a fire next to his hammock. Women suffer the cold greatly; I have even seen a woman shiver at church when the temperature was above 18°C. Their huts are very clean. Their hammocks and reed mats, their pots full of cassava or fermented maize, their bow and arrows, all are kept in perfect order. Men and women wash every day, and as they walk around naked do not get as dirty as people who wear clothes. Apart from their village hut they also have in the conuco, next to a spring or at the entrance to a small valley, a hut roofed with palm- or banana-tree leaves. Though life is less comfortable in the conuco they prefer living there as much as possible. I have already alluded to their irresistible drive to flee and return to the jungle. Even young children flee from their parents to spend four or five days in the jungle, feeding off wild fruit, palm hearts and roots. When travelling through the missions it is not rare to find them empty as everyone is either in their garden or in the jungle, al monte. Similar feelings account for civilized people's passion for hunting: the charm of solitude, the innate desire for freedom, and the deep impressions felt whenever man is alone in contact with nature.

Cumana harbor has an anchorage in which all the fleets of Europe would fit. The whole of the Gulf of Cariaco, which is about 35 miles long and 6 to 8 miles wide, offers excellent anchoring. The hurricanes of the West Indies are never felt in this region, and you can sail about in an open boat. I have spent some time describing the location of Cumana because it seemed important to make the place that has seen so many tremendous earthquakes known.