I placed very active curare on the crural nerves of a frog without noticing any change, measuring the degree of its organs' irritability with an arc formed of heterogeneous metals. But these Galvanic experiments hardly worked on birds a few minutes after they had been shot with poison arrows. Curare works only when the poison acts on the vascular system. At Maypures, a colored man (a zambo, a cross between Indian and negro) was preparing one of those poison arrows that are shot in blowpipes, to kill small monkeys or birds for M. Bonpland. He was a carpenter of extraordinary strength. He stupidly rubbed the curare between slightly bleeding fingers and fell to the ground, dizzy for half an hour. Luckily it was a weak curare (destemplado), used for small animals, which may be revived later by placing muriate of soda in the wound. During our journey back from Esmeralda to Atures. I escaped from danger myself. The curare had attracted humidity and become liquid and spilled from a poorly closed jar on to our clothes. We forgot to check the inside of a sock filled with curare when washing our clothes. Just touching this sticky stuff with my hand I realized I should not pull on the poison sock. The danger was all the greater as my toes were bleeding from chigoe wounds.

The earthquake of the 4th of November, the first I had experienced, made a great impression on me, heightened, perhaps accidentally, by remarkable meteorological variations. It was also a movement that went up and down, not in waves. I would never have thought then that, after a long stay in Quito and on the Peruvian coast, I would get as used to these often violent ground movements as in Europe we get used to thunder. In Quito we never considered getting out of bed when at night there were underground rumblings (bramidos), which seemed to announce a shock from the Pichincha volcano. The casualness of the inhabitants, who know that their city has not been destroyed in three centuries, easily communicates itself to the most frightened traveler. It is not so much a fear of danger as of the novelty of the sensation that strikes one so vividly when an earthquake is felt for the first time.

We had left doubled the northern cape of Tobago and the small island of Saint Giles when the look-out pointed out the presence of an enemy squadron. We immediately changed course and the passengers began to fret as many of them had invested small fortunes in goods to sell in the Spanish colonies. The squadron did not appear to move and soon we saw that the look-out had confused ships with an isolated reef.

We reached Maracay late. The people who had been recommended to us were away, but no sooner had the inhabitants realized our worries than they came from everywhere to offer us lodging for our instruments and mules. It has been said a thousand times, but the traveler always feels the need to repeat that the Spanish colonies are the authentic land of hospitality, even in places where industry and commerce have created wealth and a little culture. A Canarian family warmly invited us to stay, and cooked an excellent dinner. The master of the house was away on a business trip and his young wife had just given birth. She was wild with joy when she heard that we were due to pass through Angostura where her husband was. Through us he would learn about the birth of his first child. As we were about to leave we were shown the baby; we had seen her the night before, asleep, but the mother wanted us to see her awake. We promised to describe her features one by one to the father, but when she saw our instruments and books the good woman worried: 'On such a long journey, and with so many other things to think about, you could easily forget the color of my baby's eyes!

On the 8th of February we set off at sunrise to cross Higuerote, a group of tall mountains separating the valleys of Caracas and Aragua. Descending the woody slopes of Higuerote towards the south-west we reached the small village of San Pedro, 584 toises high, located in a basin where several valleys meet. Banana trees, potatoes and coffee grow there. In an inn (pulpería) we met several European Spaniards working at the Tobacco Office. Their bad temper contrasted with our mood. Tired by the route, they vented their anger by cursing the wretched country ('estas tierras infelices') where they were doomed to live, while we never wearied of admiring the wild scenery, the fertile earth and mild climate. From Las Lagunetas we descended into the Toy river valley. This western slope is called Las Cocuyzas, and is covered with two plants with agave leaves; the maguey of Cocuzza and the maguey of Cocuy. The latter belongs to the Yucca genus. Its sweet fermented juice is distilled into an alcohol, and I have seen people eat its young green leaves. The fibers of the full-grown leaves are made into extremely long cords. At Caracas cathedral a maguey cord has suspended the weight of a 350-pound clock for fifteen years. We spent two very agreeable days at the plantation of Don José de Manterola who, when young, had been attached to the Spanish Legation in Russia. Brought up and protected by Sr de Xavedra, one of the more enlightened administrators in Caracas, de Manterola wanted to leave for Europe when that famous man became minister. The governor of the province, fearing de Manterola's prestige, arrested him in the harbor and when the order from Spain finally arrived to release him from such an unjust arrest the minister had fallen from grace.

Beyond the village of Turmero, towards Maracay, you can observe on the distant horizon something that seems to be a tumulus covered in vegetation. But it is not a hill, nor a group of trees growing close together, but one single tree, the famous zamang de Guayre, known through the country for the enormous extent of its branches, which form a semi-spherical head some 576 feet in circumference. The zamang is a fine species of the mimosa family whose twisted branches are forked. We rested a long time under this vegetable roof. The branches extend like an enormous umbrella and bend towards the ground. Parasitical plants grow on the branches and in the dried bark. The inhabitants, especially the Indians, venerate this tree, which the first conquerors found in more or less the same state as it is in today. We heard with satisfaction that the present owner of the zamang had brought a lawsuit against a cultivator accused of cutting off a branch. The case was tried and the man found guilty.

In the mountainous regions we have just crossed, Indians form half the population of the provinces of Cumanà and New Barcelona. Their number can be calculated at some 60,000, of which some 24, live in New Andalusia. The Indians of Cumanà do not all live in the mission villages. Some are dispersed around the cities, along the coasts, attracted by fishing, and some in the small farms on the llanos or plains. Some 15, Indians, all belonging to the Chaima tribe, live in the Aragonese Capuchin missions we visited. However, their villages are not as densely populated as in New Barcelona province. Their average population is only 500 to 600, while more to the west, in the Franciscan missions of Piritu, there are Indian villages with up to 3, inhabitants. If I calculated the Indian population in the provinces of Cumanà and New Barcelona to be some 60, I included only those living on Terra Firma, not the Guaiquerí on Margarita Island, nor the great number of independent Guaraunos living in the Orinoco delta islands. Their number is estimated, perhaps exaggeratedly, at some 6, to 8,000. Apart from Guaraunos families seen now and then in the marshes (Los Morichales), which are covered with moriche palms, for the last thirty years there have been no wild Indians living in New Andalusia.