On the 31st of May we passed the Guahibo and Garcita rapids. The islands in the middle of the river were covered in a brilliant green. The winter rains had unfolded the spathes of the vadgiai palms whose leaves pointed up to the sky. Just before sunset we landed on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the Puerto de Expedicion, in order to visit the Ataruipe cavern, apparently the burial-ground of a tribe that was destroyed.

I acquired some statistical notions on the spot by consulting the Uruana missionary and the traders. The three beaches furnish annually some 5, botijas, or jars of oil. Two hundred eggs yield enough oil to fill a bottle, and 5, eggs to fill the jar. If we estimate the number of eggs laid by each turtle as 116, and reckon that one third are destroyed, we can calculate that 330, arrau turtles must lay 33 million eggs on the three shores. But this calculation is far too low. For example, the number of eggs that hatch before the cosecha is so prodigious that near the Uruana camp I saw the whole beach swarming with little turtles escaping from the Indian children.

The morning was deliciously cool. The road, or rather path, that led to Cumanacoa follows the right bank of the Manzanares river, passing the Capuchin hospital situated in a small wood of lignum vitae and caper trees. After leaving Cumanà we reached the San Francisco hill during twilight and enjoyed an extensive view of the sea, the plain covered with golden-flowered bera (Palo sano, Zygophyllum arboreum), whose flowers smell of vanilla, and the Brigantín mountains.

The Chaimas hardly have any hair on their chins, like the Tongouses and other Mongolic races. They pluck out the few hairs that grow. In general it is erroneous to say that they cannot grow beards, because they pluck them out though even without that custom, they would be mostly smooth-faced.

'You cannot imagine, said the old Mandavaca missionary, 'how perverse this familia de indios (family of Indians) is. You accept individuals from another tribe into your mission; they seem tame, honest, good workers; you let them out on a foray (entrada) to capture wild Indians and you can scarcely stop them throttling all they can and hiding pieces of the corpses. We had with us in our pirogue an Indian who had escaped from the Guaisia river. In a few weeks he had become very civilized. At night he helped us prepare our astronomical instruments. He was as cheerful as he was intelligent, and we were ready to employ him. Imagine our disappointment when through an interpreter we heard him say that 'Marimonda monkey meat, although blacker, had the same taste as human meat. He assured us that 'his relations - that is, his tribal brothers -preferred to eat the palms of human hands, as well as those of bears'. As he spoke he gestured to emphasize his brutal greed. We asked this young, pacifistic man through our interpreter if he still felt a desire to 'eat a Cheruvichanena Indian' and he answered calmly that 'in the mission he would eat only what he saw los padres (the fathers) eating'. It is no point reproaching Indians about this abominable practice. In the eyes of a Guaisia Indian, a Cheruvichanena Indian is totally alien to him; to kill one was not morally very different from killing a jaguar. Eating what the fathers ate in the mission was simply convenience. If Indians escape to rejoin their tribes, or are driven by hunger, they quickly fall back into cannibalism.

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.

Our boat was waiting for us in the Puerto de Arriba above the Atures cataract. On the narrow path that led to the embarcadero we were shown the distant rocks near the Ataruipe caves. We did not have time to visit that Indian cemetery though Father Zea had not stopped talking about the skeletons painted red with onoto inside the great jars. 'You will hardly believe, said the missionary, 'that these skeletons and painted vases, which we thought unknown to the rest of the world, have brought me trouble. You know the misery I endure in the Raudales. Devoured by mosquitoes, and lacking in bananas and cassava, yet people in Caracas envy me! I was denounced by a white man for hiding treasure that had been abandoned in the caves when the Jesuits had to leave. I was ordered to appear in Caracas in person and journeyed pointlessly over 150 leagues to declare that the cave contained only human bones and dried bats. However, commissioners were appointed to come up here and investigate. We shall wait a long time for these commissioners. The cloud of mosquitoes (nube de moscas) in the Raudales is a good defence.