Over night the Orinoco had swollen and its faster current took us in ten hours the 13 leagues from the mouth of the Mataveni to the higher Maypures cataract, reminding us where we had camped coming up river. From the mouth of the Atabapo to that of the Apure we enjoyed travelling through a country in which we had long lived. We were just as squashed in the canoe and were stung by the same mosquitoes, but the certainty that in a few weeks our suffering would end kept our spirits up.

We cannot question that the earth, when split open and shaken by shocks, sometimes emits gaseous substances into the atmosphere in places remote from active volcanoes. At Cumana, as we have already observed, flames and vapors mixed with sulphurous acid rise from the most arid soil. In other parts of the same province the earth throws up water and petroleum. At Riobamba, a muddy, inflammable mass, called moya, issues from crevices that close up again and pile up into hills. Seven leagues from Lisbon, near Colares, during the terrible earthquake of the 1st of November 1755, flames and a column of thick smoke rose up from the rock face of Alvidras and, according to some witnesses, from the depths of the sea. This smoke lasted several days and was thicker when the underground noises accompanied the strongest tremors.

The fresh north-east wind blew us at full sail towards the boca de la tortuga. At eleven in the morning we landed on an island, which the Indians of the Uruana mission regard as their own, situated in the middle of the river. This island is famous for the fishing of turtles or, as is said here, the cosecha, or annual harvest of eggs. We found a group of Indians camping in palm-leaf huts. This camp-site had over 300 people in it. As we had been used, since San Fernando de Apure, to seeing only deserted beaches, we were struck by the bustle. Apart from Guamos and Otomacs, seen as two wild and untamed tribes, there were Caribs and other Indians from the Lower Orinoco. Each tribe camped separately, and could be recognized only by the different paints on their skins. We also found, among this noisy reunion, some white men, mainly pulperos, the small traders from Angostura, who had come upstream to buy turtle-egg oil from the Indians. The Uruana missionary, from Alcalà de Henares, came to meet us, extremely surprised to see us there. After inspecting our instruments, he exaggeratedly described the hardships we would suffer going further upstream beyond the cataracts. The purpose of our journey seemed very mysterious to him. 'How is anyone to believe, he said, 'that you left your homeland to come up this river to be eaten by mosquitoes and measure lands that do not belong to you? Luckily we were armed with recommendations from the guardian father of the Franciscan missions, while the brother-in-law of the Barinas governor accompanying us soon resolved the doubts that the whites there had about our dress, accent and arrival on the island. The missionary invited us to share a frugal meal of bananas and fish with him. He told us he had come to camp with the Indians during the harvesting of the eggs 'to celebrate open-air mass every day, to get oil for the lights in his church, and above all to govern this Republica de Indios y Castellanos where individuals wanted to profit selfishly with what God had given to everybody'.

Due to the thickness of the vegetation, made up of a plant of the Musaceae family, it was hard to find a path. We had to make one through that jungle of musaceous plants; the negroes led us, cutting a path with machetes. We saw the peak at intervals through breaks in the cloud, but soon we were covered in a thick mist and could only proceed using the compass; with each step we risked finding ourselves at the edge of a precipice, which fell 6, feet down to the sea. We had to stop, surrounded by cloud down to the ground, and we began to doubt if we would reach the eastern peak before sunset. Luckily the negroes carrying the water and the food had arrived, so we decided to eat something. But the meal did not last long because either the Capuchin father had not calculated our numbers properly or the slaves had already eaten everything. We found only olives and some bread. We had been walking for nine hours without stopping or finding water. Our guides seemed to lose heart, and wanted to go back. Bonpland and I had difficulty in persuading them to stay with us.

About a league from San Fernando village we left the jungle. A narrow winding path led to open but extremely humid country. In a more temperate climate this region would have been a vast meadow of grass and reeds: but here the ground was packed with aquatic plants with lanceolate leaves, especially basil plants among which we recognized the magnificent flowers of the costus, thalia and heliconia. These succulent plants reach some 8 to so feet high; in Europe their bunching together would be considered a small wood.

The Caripe grotto measures exactly 472 meters and keeps the same width and height of 60 to 70 feet all through. It was difficult to persuade the Indians to penetrate any further into the grotto than where they usually went to collect the fat. We needed the padres' authority to make them go as far as the point where the ground rises suddenly at a 60-degree angle and where the rivulet forms a small underground cascade. This cave, home of nocturnal birds, is for the Indian a mystical place; they believe that the souls of their ancestors live in its depths. Man - they say - should fear these places not illumined by the sun (zis) or moon (nuna). To join the guàcharos is synonymous with joining your ancestors, that is, to die. For this reason, the magicians (piaches) and the poisoners (imorons) cast their nocturnal spells to call up the supreme evil spirit Ivorokiamo. Thus, all over the earth similarities may be found in the early fictions of people, especially those concerning the two principles ruling the world: the abode of souls after death, the happiness of the virtuous and the punishment of the guilty. The most different and barbarous languages present a certain number of similar images because they have the same source in the nature of our intelligence and our sensations. Darkness is everywhere connected with death.

The Indian pilot who had led us from San Fernando de Apure up to the Pararuma beach did not know his way through the Orinoco rapids, and no longer wanted to sail our boat. We had to accept his decision. Luckily the Carichana missionary agreed to loan us a fine pirogue quite cheaply. Father Bernardo Zea, missionary from Atures and Maypures near the Great Cataracts, even offered to accompany us himself to the Brazilian border. The number of Indians willing to carry the canoes along the cataracts was so few that without this monk's presence we risked waiting weeks in that humid and unhealthy area. Father Zea hoped to recover his health by visiting the Río Negro missions. He talked of those places with the enthusiasm that all those in the colonies feel when talking about far-off places.