We spent only one day at San Fernando de Atabapo, despite the village, with its pirijao palms and their peach-like fruit, promising us a delightful refuge. Tame pauxis (Crax alector) ran round the Indian huts; in one of which we saw a very rare monkey that lives on the banks of the Guaviare. It is called the caparro, which I have made known in my Observations on Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. Its hair is grey and extremely soft to touch. It has a round head, and a sweet, agreeable expression.

At nightfall we ordered our instruments to be disembarked; and to our relief none had been damaged. We hired a spacious and well-situated house for our astronomical observations. When the sea wind blew we enjoyed the cool air. The windows did not have glass panes, nor the paper squares that replace glass in most Cumana houses. All the passengers on the Pizarro left the ship, but those with the malignant fever recovered very slowly. Some were still terribly pale and emaciated after a month of illness, despite the care lavished on them by their compatriots. In the Spanish colonies the hospitality is such that a European who arrives without money or recommendations is almost sure to find help should he disembark sick in any port. Catalans, Galicians and Basques maintain an intense trade with America, where they form three distinct bodies, and exercise a great influence on the customs, industry and commerce of the colonies. The poorest inhabitant of Sitges or Vigo may be assured of being received in the house of a Catalan or Galician merchant (pulpero) (26) whether in Chile or Mexico or the Philippines. I have witnessed moving examples where strangers are looked after assiduously for years. Some may say that hospitality is no virtue in a land with such a magnificent climate, with plenty of food, and where indigenous plants supply efficient medicines, and a sick person finds necessary refuge in a hammock under a covering. But does not the arrival of a stranger in a family imply more work? Are not the proofs of disinterested sympathy, the spirit of sacrifice in the women, the patience that long convalescence requires, worthy of note? It has been observed that, with the exception of some populated cities, hospitality has not really decreased since the arrival of the Spanish settlers in the New World. It distresses me to think that this change will happen as the colonial population and industry progress rapidly, and that the state of society that we have agreed to call advanced civilization might banish 'the ancient Castilian frankness'.

We prolonged our stay in Cartagena as long as our work and my comparisons with Fidalgo's astronomical observations demanded. The company of this excellent sailor and Pombo and Don Ignacio Cavero (once Secretary to Viceroy Gòngora) taught us a lot about statistics. I often quoted Pombo's notes about trade in quinquina and the state of the province of Cartagena's population and agriculture. We also came across a curious collection of drawings, machine models and minerals from New Granada in an artillery officer's house. The Pascua (Easter) processions enabled us to see how civilized the customs of the lower classes are. The temporary altars are decorated with thousands of flowers, including the shiny Plumeria alto and Plumeria rubra. Nothing can be compared with the strangeness of those who took the main parts in the procession. Beggars with crowns of thorns asked for alms, with crucifixes in their hands. They were covered in black cloth and went from house to house having paid the priest a few piastres for the right to collect. Pilate was dressed in a suit of striped silk; the apostles sitting round a long table laid with sweet foods were carried on the shoulders of zambos. At sunset you saw dummies of Jews dressed as Frenchmen, filled with straw and rockets, hanging from strings like our own street lights. People waited for the moment when these judíos (Jews) would be set on fire. They complained that this year the Jews did not burn as well as they had in others because it was so damp. These 'holy recreations' (the name given to this barbarous spectacle) in no way improves manners.

Our guides led us to the 'mine'. We turned west, and finally reached the Quebrada de Oro. On the hillside there was hardly a trace of a quartz seam. The landslide, caused by rain, had so transformed the ground that we could not even think of exploring it. Huge trees now grew where twenty years before gold seekers had worked. It is likely that there are veins in the mica-slate containing this venerable metal, but how could I judge if it was worth exploiting or if the metal was to be found in nodules? To compensate our efforts, we set to botanizing in the thick wood around the Hato.

We continued to climb from this pine to the crater of the volcano without crossing one valley, for the ravines do not merit this name. To the eyes of a geologist the whole of the island is one mountain whose oval base is prolonged to the north-east and in which several systems of volcanic rock, formed in different periods, may be distinguished.

During our stay at Cura we made numerous excursions to the rocky islands in the middle of Lake Valencia, to the hot springs at Mariara, and the high mountain called El Cucurucho de Coco. A narrow, dangerous path leads to the port of Turiamo and the famous coastal cacao plantations. Throughout all our excursions we were surprised not only by the progress of culture but also by the increase in the numbers of the free, hard-working population, used to manual work and too poor to buy slaves. Everywhere whites and mulattos had bought small isolated farms. Our host, whose father enjoyed an income of 40, piastres a year, had more land than he could farm; he distributed plots in the Aragua valley to poor families who wanted to grow cotton. He tried to surround his enormous plantation with free working men, because they wanted to work for themselves, or for others. Count Tovar was busy trying to abolish slavery and hoped to make slaves less necessary for the important estates, and to offer the freed slaves land to become farmers themselves. When he left for Europe he had broken up and rented land around Cura. Four years later, on returning to America, he found fine cotton fields and a little village called Punta Samuro, which we often visited with him. The inhabitants are all mulatto, zambo (80) and freed slaves. The rent is ten piastres a fanega of land; it is paid in cash or cotton. As the small farmers are often in need, they sell their cotton at modest prices. They sell it even before harvest, and this advance is used by the rich landowners to make the poor dependent on them as day workers. The price of labor is less than it is in France. A free man is paid five piastres a month without food, which costs very little as meat and vegetables are abundant. I like quoting these details about colonial agriculture because they prove to Europeans that there is no doubt that sugar, cotton and indigo can be produced by free men, and that the miserable slaves can become peasants, farmers and landowners.

When we arrived in Esmeralda, most of the Indians were returning from an excursion they had made beyond the Padamo river to pick juvias, the fruit of the bertholletia, and a liana that gives curare. Their return was celebrated with a feast called in this mission the fiesta de las juvias, which resembles our harvest festivals. Women had prepared plenty of alcohol and for two days you met only drunk Indians. Among people who attach importance to palm-tree fruits and other useful trees, the period when these are harvested is marked by public celebrations. We were lucky to find an Indian slightly less drunk than others, who was making curare with the recently picked plants. He was the chemist of the locality. Around him we saw large clay boilers used to cook the vegetable juices, as well as shallow vessels used for evaporation, and banana leaves rolled into filters to separate the liquid from the fibers. The Indian who was to teach us was known in the mission as master of the poison, amo del curare; he had that same formal and pedantic air that chemists were formerly accused of in Europe. 'I know, he said, 'that whites have the secret of making soap, and that black powder which scares away the animals you hunt when you miss. But the curare that we prepare from father to son is superior to all that you know over there. It is the sap of a plant that "kills silently", without the victim knowing where it comes from.