We did not leave the Pericantral farm until dark. We spent a very uncomfortable night in the narrow, overloaded pirogue. At three in the morning we found ourselves at the mouth of the Manzanares river. As the sun rose we saw the zamuro vultures (Vultur aura) perched in flocks of forty and fifty in the coconut palms. To sleep, these birds line up together on branches like fowl, and are so lazy that they go to sleep ages before sunset and do not wake up until the sun is up. It seems as if the trees with pinnate leaves share this laziness with the birds. The mimosas and tamarinds close their leaves when the sky is clear some twenty-five to thirty-five minutes before sunset, and in the morning do not open them again until the sun is high up.

How hard it is to express the pleasure we felt arriving at Angostura, capital of Spanish Guiana. The discomforts felt at sea in small boats cannot be compared to those felt under a burning sky, surrounded by swarms of mosquitoes, cramped for months on end in a pirogue that does not let you budge an inch because of its delicate balance. In seventy-five days we had traveled along the five great rivers of the Apure, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro and the Casiquiare for 500 leagues, rarely sighting inhabited places. Although, after our life in the jungle, our clothes were not in good order, we hurried to present ourselves to the provincial governor Don Felipe de Ynciarte. He received us in the most considerate way, and lodged us in the house of the Secretary of the Intendencia. Coming from such deserted places we were struck by the bustle of a town of only 6, people. We appreciated what work and trade can do to make life more civilized. Modest houses seemed luxurious: anybody who spoke to us seemed witty. Long deprivations make small things pleasurable: how can l express the joy we felt on seeing wheat bread on the governor's table. I may be wrong in repeating what all travelers feel after long journeys. You enjoy finding yourself back in civilization, though it can be short-lived if you have learned to feel deeply the marvels of tropical nature. The memory of what you endured soon fades; as you reach the coasts inhabited by European colonists you begin to plan to make another journey into the interior.

The Indians in the missions dedicate themselves to agriculture, and, apart from those who live in the high mountains, all cultivate the same plants; their huts are arranged in the same manner; their working day, their tasks in the communal conuco, their relationship with the missionaries and elected functionaries, all run along fixed rules. However, we observe in the copper-colored men a moral inflexibility, a stubbornness concerning habits and customs, which, though modified in each tribe, characterize the whole race from the equator to Hudson's Bay and the Strait of Magellan.

During the night we had left the Orinoco waters almost without realizing it. At sunrise we found ourselves in a new country, on the banks of a river whose name we had hardly heard mentioned, and which would lead us after a foot journey over Pimichín to the Río Negro on the Brazilian frontier. The father superior of the San Fernando mission said to us: 'First you must go up the Atabapo, then the Temi, and finally the Tuamini. If the black-water current is too strong to do this the guides will take you over flooded land through the jungle. In that deserted zone between the Orinoco and the Río Negro you will meet only two monks established there. In Javita you will find people to carry your canoe over land in four days to Caìo Pimichín. If the canoe is not wrecked go straight down the Río Negro to the fort of San Carlos, then go up the Casiquiare and in a month you will reach San Fernando along the Upper Orinoco. That was the plan drawn up for us, which we carried out, without danger, in thirty-three days. The bends are such in this labyrinth of rivers that without the map which I have drawn it would be impossible to picture the route we took. In the first part of this journey from east to west you find the famous bifurcations that have given rise to so many disputes, and whose location I was the first to establish through astronomic observations. One arm of the Orinoco, the Casiquiare (108) running north to south, pours into the Guainia or Río Negro, which in turn joins the Maraìon or Amazon.

Among the Chaimas, as among all semi-barbarous people, the state of women is one of privation and suffering. The hardest work falls to them. In the evening when we saw the Chaimas return from their gardens the men carried only their machetes to cut their way through the undergrowth. The women walk loaded with bananas, a child in their arms and two others sometimes perched on top of their load. Despite this social inequality South American Indian women seem, in general, happier than North American ones. In the missions men work in the fields as much as women.

In the missions there are a few villages where families belong to different tribes, speaking different languages. Societies composed of such heterogeneous elements are difficult to govern. In general, the padres have settled whole tribes, or large parts of them, in villages not far from each other. The Indians see only those of their own tribe, for lack of communication and isolation are the main aims of missionary policy. Among the tamed Chaimas, Caribs and Tamanacs racial characteristics are retained if they are allowed to keep their respective languages. If man's individuality is reflected in his dialects, then these in their turn influence thoughts and feelings. This intimate link between language, national character and physical constitution ensures the differences and idiosyncrasies of the tribes, which in turn constitutes an unending source of movement and life at the mental level.

The moment the sticky sap of the kiracaguero tree is poured into the poisonous and concentrated liquid, kept boiling, it blackens and coagulates to become rather like tar or a thick syrup. This mass is the curare that is sold inside crescentia fruit; but as its preparation is in the hands of a few families, first-class curare from Esmeralda and Mandavaca is sold at high prices. When dried this substance looks like opium, but it attracts humidity if exposed to air. It tastes agreeably bitter, and Bonpland and I have often swallowed little bits. There is no danger as long as you make sure your gums and lips are not bleeding. The Indians regard curare taken by mouth as an excellent stomachic. The way the poison is made is rather similar everywhere, but there is no certainty that different poisons sold under the same name in the Orinoco and Amazon are identical or from the same plant.