The external edges of La Caldera are almost perpendicular, rather like the Somma seen from the Atrio del Cavallo. We got to the bottom of the crater following a trail of broken lava from the eastern breach of the wall. We only felt the heat above the crevices, which exhaled watery vapors with a strange buzzing sound. Some of these crevices can be found on the outside of the crater, on the external parapet that surrounds it. A thermometer placed inside one of them rose suddenly from 68°C to 75°C. This would have risen higher, but we had to pull the thermometer out to prevent our hands from being burned It might be thought that these vapors, which escape in puffs of air, contain muriatic or sulphuric acids, but when condensed they had no particular taste. Experiments showed that these chimneys exhale pure water only.

The confidence of the Indians helped to make us feel braver. One agrees with them that tigers fear fire, and never attack a man in his hammock. If you ask the Indians why jungle animals make such a din at certain moments of the night they say, 'They are celebrating the full moon. I think that the din comes from deep in the jungle because a desperate fight is taking place. jaguars, for example, hunt tapir and peccaries, who protect themselves in large herds, trampling down the vegetation in their way.

The farmers and their slaves cut a path through the jungle to the first Juagua river waterfall, and on the 10th of September we made our excursion to the Cuchivano crevice. Entering the cave we saw a disemboweled porcupine and smelled the stink of excrement, similar to that of European cats, and knew that a jaguar had been near by. For safety the Indians returned to the farm to fetch small dogs. It is said that when you meet a jaguar in your path he will leap on to a dog before a man. We did not follow the bank of the torrent, but a rocky wall overhanging the water. We walked on a very narrow ledge along the side of a precipice with a drop of some 200 to 300 feet. When it narrowed, so that we could not walk along it any further, we climbed down to the torrent and crossed it on foot, or on the backs of slaves, to climb up the other side. Climbing is very tiring, and you cannot trust the lianas, which, like thick rope, hang from tree-tops. Creepers and parasites hang loosely from the branches they grip; their stalks together weigh a lot, and if you slip and grab one of the lianas you risk bringing down a tangle of green branches. The vegetation became impenetrable the more we advanced. In some places the roots of trees grew in the existing cracks between strata and had burst the calcareous rock. We could hardly carry the plants we picked at each step. The canna, the heliconia with pretty purple flowers, the costus and other plants from the Amomum genus reach here the height of 8 to 50 feet. Their tender, fresh green leaves, their silky sheen and the extraordinary development of their juicy pulp contrast with the brown of the arborescent ferns whose leaves are so delicately jagged. The Indians made deep incisions in the tree trunks with their long knives to draw our attention to the beauty of the red-and gold-colored woods, which one day will be sought after by our furniture makers. They showed us a plant with composite flowers that reaches some 20 feet high (Eupatorium laevigatum), the so-called 'Rose of Belveria' (Brownea racemosa), famous for the brilliance of its purple flowers, and the local 'dragon's blood', a species of euphorbia not yet catalogued, whose red and astringent sap is used to strengthen the gums. They distinguished species by their smell and by chewing their woody fibers. Two Indians, given the same wood to chew, pronounced, often without hesitation, the same name. But we could not take advantage of our guides' wisdom, for how could they reach leaves, flowers and fruit (53) growing on branches some 50 to 60 feet above the ground? We were struck in this gorge by the fact that the bark of the trees, even the ground, were covered in moss and lichen.

When you travel through Carib missions and observe the order and submission there it is hard to remind yourself that you are among cannibals. This American word, of doubtful origin, probably comes from the Haitian or Puerto Rican language. It passed into European languages from the fifteenth century as a synonym for anthropophagy. I do not doubt that the conquering island Caribs were cruel to the Ygneris and other West Indian inhabitants, who were so weak and unwarlike; but their cruelty has been exaggerated because the first discoverers listened only to stories from conquered tribes. All the missionaries that I asked assured me that the Caribs are perhaps the least cannibalistic of the New World tribes. Perhaps the desperate way in which the Caribs fought the Spaniards, which led in 1504 to a royal decree declaring them to be slaves, contributed to their fame for ferocity. It was Christopher Columbus who first decided to attack the Caribs and deny them their freedom and natural rights; he was a fifteenth-century man, and less humane than is thought today. In 1520 Rodrigo de Figueroa was appointed by the Spanish Court to decide which South American tribes were Caribs, or cannibals, and which were Guatiaos, or peaceful and friendly to Spain. His ethnographic piece, called El auto de Figueroa, is one of the most curious records of the early conquistadores' barbarism. Without paying attention to languages, any tribe that was accused of eating prisoners was called Carib. All the tribes that Figueroa called Carib were condemned to slavery; they could be sold at will or exterminated. It was after these bloody wars, and the death of their husbands, that Carib women, d'Anghiera says, became known as Amazons.