The port of Cumanà was closely blockaded, and we had to wait there two and a half months longer. We spent our time completing our collection of the flora of Cumanà, geologizing along the eastern part of the Araya peninsula, and observing numerous planetary eclipses. The live animals we had brought from the Orinoco intrigued all the Cumanà inhabitants. We wanted to send them to the zoo in Paris. The arrival of a French squadron gave us an unexpected opportunity to send the monkeys and birds on, but they all died in Guadeloupe.

Paris, February 1812.

The valley of Tacoronte leads one into a delicious country glowingly spoken of by all travelers. In the Tropics I found places where nature is more grand and richer in its varieties; but after crossing the Orinoco, the Peruvian cordilleras and the valleys of Mexico I admit that I have never seen a more attractive, more harmonious view in the distribution of greenery and rocks than the western coast of Tenerife.

The Río Conorichite played an important role in the time when the Portuguese traded in slaves in Spanish territory. The slave-traders went up the Casiquiare and the Caìo Mee to Conorichite; then they carried their canoes over land to the Rochuelas de Manuteso, and thus reached the Atabapo. This abominable trade lasted until about 1756. The Caribs, a warrior and trading people, received knives, hooks, mirrors and glass objects from the Dutch and Portuguese. In exchange, they urged Indian caciques to fight each other, and then bought their prisoners of war, or cunningly grabbed them, or used force to get them. These Carib incursions covered an enormous region.

After two days near the Atures cataract we were happy to load the canoe again and leave a place where the temperature was usually 29°C by day and 26°C at night. All day we were horribly tormented by mosquitoes and jejenes, tiny venomous flies (or simuliums), and all night by zancudos, another kind of mosquito feared even by the Indians. Our hands began to swell, and this swelling increased until we reached the banks of the Temi. The means found to escape these insects are often quite original. The kind missionary Father Zea, all his life tormented by mosquitoes, had built a small room near his church, up on a scaffolding of palm trunks, where you could breathe more freely. At night we climbed up a ladder to dry our plants and write our diary. The missionary had correctly observed that the insects preferred the lower levels, that is, from the ground up to some 15 feet. At Maypures the Indians leave their villages at night and sleep near the cataracts because the mosquitoes seem to avoid air loaded with vapors.

According to tradition, during the quake of 1766 the earth moved in simple horizontal waves; only on the fatal day of the 14th of December did the earth rise up. More than four fifths of the city was completely destroyed, and the shock, accompanied by a loud subterranean noise, resembled the explosion of a mine placed deep in the ground. Fortunately the main shocks were preceded by light undulations thanks to which most of the inhabitants were able to reach the streets, and only a few who hid in the church died. It is generally believed in Cumana that the worst earthquakes are preceded by weak oscillations in the ground, and by a humming that does not escape the notice of those used to this phenomenon. In those desperate moments you heard people everywhere shouting 'Misericordia! Tiembla! Tiembla! ('Mercy! The earth is trembling!') The most faint- hearted attentively observe the dogs, goats and pigs. These last, with their acute sense of smell, and skill in poking around in the earth, give warnings of approaching dangers with frightened screams.

On the morning of the 18th the wind freshened a little and we managedto pass through the channel. We lost sight of the small islands of Alegranza, Montaña Clara and Graciosa, which appear to have beeninhabited by the Guanches. People visit them now only to gather archil, but this is less sought aftersince so many north European lichens yieldbetter dyes. Montana Clara is noted for its beautiful canary-birds. Thereare also goats, proof that the interior of the island is not as desolate asthe coast we had seen.