At the end of April Bonpland and I had completed the observations we intended to make at the northern extreme of the torrid zone and were about to leave for Veracruz with Admiral Ariztizabal's fleet. But we were misled by false information concerning Captain Baudin's journey and decided to forgo our plan of passing Mexico on our way to the Philippine Islands. A newspaper announced that the two French sloops, the Géographie and the Naturaliste, had set sail for Cape Horn and would call in at Chile and Peru on their way to New Holland. This news shook me. I was reminded of my original intention in Paris when I had asked the Directorate to hasten Captain Baudin's departure. (138)

Whoever lives in this region, whether white, mulatto, black or Indian, suffers equally from insect stings. People spend their time complaining of the plaga, del insufrible tormento de las moscas. I have mentioned the curious fact that whites born in the Tropics can walk about barefoot in the same room where a recently arrived European runs the risk of being bitten by niguas, or chigoes (Pulex penetrans). These hardly visible animals dig under toenails and soon reach the size of a pea as they develop their eggs, situated in little sacs under their abdomens. It seems as if the nigua is able to distinguish the cellular membrane and blood of a European from those of a white criollo, something that the most detailed chemical analysis has been unable to do. It is not the same with mosquitoes, despite what is said on South American coasts. These insects attack Indians as much as Europeans; only the consequences of the bites vary with race. The same venomous liquid applied to the skin of a copper-colored Indian and to a recently arrived white does not cause inflammations to the first, while to the second it causes hard, inflamed blisters that last for various numbers of days.

We suffered much from the heat, increased by the reverberation from the dry, dusty ground. However, the excessive effect of the sun held no harmful consequences for us. At La Guaira sunstroke and its effects on the brain are feared, especially when yellow fever is beginning to appear. One day I was on the roof of our house observing the meridian point and the temperature difference between the sun and shade when a man came running towards me and begged me to take a drink he had brought along with him. He was a doctor who had been watching me for half an hour out in the sun from his window, without a hat on my head, exposed to the sun's rays. He assured me that coming from northern climes such imprudence would undoubtedly lead that night to an attack of yellow fever if I did not take his medicine. His prediction, however seriously argued, did not alarm me as I had had plenty of time to get acclimatized. But how could l refuse his argument when he was so polite and caring? I swallowed his potion, and the doctor must now have included me in the list of people he had saved from fever that year. (67)

The vagabonds of the plains had as little interest in working as the Indians, who were obliged to live 'under the sound of the church bell'. The former used their pride to justify their indolence. In the missions every colored person who is not completely black like an African, or copper-colored like an Indian, calls himself a Spaniard; belongs to the gente de razon, that is, gifted with reason, and this reason', which is both arrogant and lazy, tells the whites and those who think themselves white that agriculture is work for slaves, poitos and newly converted Indians. As these American colonists were separated from their homelands by jungles and savannahs they soon dispersed, some going north to Caura and Caroni, and others south to the Portuguese possessions. Thus, the fame of the emerald mines of Duida died out, and Esmeralda became a cursed place of banishment for monks where the dreadful cloud of mosquitoes darkens the atmosphere all year round. When the father superior of the mission wants to upbraid his monks he threatens to send them to Esmeralda: 'That is, say the monks, 'to be condemned to mosquitoes, to be devoured by zancudos gritones (shouting flies), which God seems to have created to punish man.

The bamboo-lined road led us to the small village of San Fernando, located in a narrow plain, surrounded by steep calcareous cliffs. It was the first mission we visited in America. The houses, or rather shacks, of the Chaima Indians are scattered about, and are without vegetable gardens. The straight narrow streets cut each other at right angles. The thin irregular walls are made of clay and bound with lianas. The monotony of the houses, the serious and taciturn aspect of the inhabitants and the extreme cleanliness inside their homes reminded us of the establishments of the Moravian Brethren. (47) Each family cultivates the conuco de la comunidad, which is outside the village, as are their own individual vegetable plots. Adults of both sexes work there an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. In the missions near the coast, the communal garden is nearly always planted with sugar cane or indigo and run by the missions. Their product, if the law is strictly followed, can be used only for the upkeep of the church and the purchase of whatever the priests may need. San Fernando's great square, in the center of the village, contains the church, the missionary's house and the modest building that goes pompously under the name of 'king's house' (casa del rey). This is the official hostel for travelers and, as we often confirmed, a real blessing in a land where the word 'inn' is unknown. These casas del rey can be found all over Spanish colonies, no doubt imitating the Peruvian tambos established by Manco Capac's laws. (48)

As night fell we camped on a deserted island in the middle of the river. We dined in the moonlight sitting on scattered empty turtle shells. How pleasing it was to be safe and together! We imagined how it would be if one man had saved himself alone, wandering these deserted banks, meeting more and more tributaries and unable to swim because of the crocodile and caribe fish. We pictured this sensitive man never knowing what had happened to his companions, more worried about them than himself. If you like surrendering to these sad thoughts it is because escaping from danger makes you feel the need for strong emotions.