Crossing from Cumaná to La Guaira by sea our plan was to stay in Caracas until the end of the rainy season; from there we would go to the great plains, the llanos, and the Orinoco missions; then we would travel upstream on the great river from south of the cataracts to the Río Negro and the Brazilian frontier, and return to Cumaná through the capital of Spanish Guiana, called Angostura64 or Straits. It was impossible to calculate how long this journey of some 700 leagues would take in canoes. On the coasts only the mouth of the Orinoco is known. No trading is carried out with the missions. What lies beyond the plains is unknown country for the inhabitants of Caracas and Cumaná. In a land where few travel, people enjoy exaggerating the dangers arising from the climate, animals and wild men.
The boat that took us from Cumaná to La Guaira was one of those that trade between the coasts and the West Indies Islands. They are 30 feet long, and not more than 3 feet above the water, without decks. Although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guaira, and although these boats have large triangular sails, not one of them has been lost at sea in a storm. The skill of the Guaiquerí pilots is such that voyages of 120 to 150 leagues in open sea, out of sight of land, are done without charts or compasses, as with the ancients. The Indian pilot guides himself by the polar star or the sun.
When we left the Cumaná coast we felt as if we had been living there for a long time. It was the first land that we had reached in a world that I had longed to know from my childhood. The impression produced by nature in the New World is so powerful and magnificent that after only a few months in these places you feel you have been here years. In the Tropics everything in nature seems new and marvellous. In the open plains and tangled jungles all memories of Europe are virtually effaced as it is nature that determines the character of a country. How memorable the first new country you land at continues to be all your life! In my imagination I still see Cumaná and its dusty ground more intensely than all the marvels of the Andes.
As we approached the shoal surrounding Cape Arenas we admired the phosphorescence of the sea. Bands of dolphins enjoyed following our boat. When they broke the surface of the water with their broad tails they diffused a brilliant light that seemed like flames coming from the depths of the ocean. We found ourselves at midnight between some barren, rocky islands in the middle of the sea, forming the Caracas and Chimanas groups. The moon lit up these jagged, fantastic rocks, which had not a trace of vegetation. All these islands are uninhabited, except one where large, fast, brown goats can be found. Our Indian pilot said they tasted delicious. Thirty years back a family of whites settled here and grew maize and cassava. The father outlived his children. As he had become rich he bought two black slaves, who murdered him. Thus the goats ran wild, but not the maize. Maize appears to survive only if looked after by man. Birds destroy all the seeds needed to reproduce. The two slaves escaped punishment, as nothing could be proved. One of the blacks is now the hangman at Cumaná. He betrayed his companion, and obtained pardon by accepting being hangman.
We landed on the right bank of the Neveri and climbed to the little fort of El Morro de Barcelona, built some 60 to 70 toises above sea-level. We remained five hours in this fort guarded by the provincial militia. We waited in vain for news about English pirates stationed along the coast. Two of our fellow travellers, brothers of the Marquis of Toro in Caracas, came from Spain. They were highly cultivated men returning home after years abroad. They had more reason to fear being captured and taken as prisoners to Jamaica. I had no passport from the Admiralty, but I felt safe in the protection given by the English Government to those who travel for the progress of science.
The shock of the waves was felt in our boat. My fellow travellers all suffered. I slept calmly, being lucky never to suffer seasickness. By sunrise of the 20th of November we expected to double the cape in a few hours. We hoped to arrive that day at La Guaira, but our Indian pilot was scared of pirates. He preferred to make for land and wait in the little harbour of Higuerote65 until night. We found neither a village nor a farm but two or three huts inhabited by mestizo fishermen with extremely thin children, which told us how unhealthy and feverish this coast was. The sea was so shallow that we had to wade ashore. The jungle came right down to the beach, covered in thickets of mangrove. On landing we smelled a sickly smell,66 which reminded me of deserted mines.
Wherever mangroves grow on the seashore thousands of molluscs and insects thrive. These animals love shade and half light, and in the scaffolding of the thick intertwined roots find shelter from the crashing waves, riding above the water. Shellfish cling to the network of roots; crabs dig into the hollow trunks, and seaweeds, drifting ashore, hang from branches and bend them down. Thus, as the mud accumulates between the roots, so dry land moves further and further out from the jungly shores.
When we reached the high seas my travelling companions got so scared from the boat’s rolling in a rough sea that they decided to continue by land from Higuerote to Caracas, despite having to cross a wild and humid country in constant rain and flooding rivers. Bonpland also chose the land way, which pleased me as he collected numerous new plants. I stayed alone with the Guaiquerí pilot as I thought it too dangerous to lose sight of the precious instruments that I wanted to take up the Orinoco.
La Guaira is more a bay than a harbour; the sea is always rough, and boats are exposed to dangerous winds, sandbanks and mist. Disembarking is very difficult as large waves prevent mules from being taken ashore. The negroes and freed mulattos who carry the goods on to the boats are exceptionally muscular. They wade into the water up to their waists and, surprisingly, are not scared of the sharks that teem in the harbour. The sharks are dangerous and bloodthirsty at the island opposite the coast of Caracas, although they do not attack anybody swiming in the harbour. To explain physical phenomena simply people have always resorted to marvels, insisting that here a bishop had blessed the sharks in the port.
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 I 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
From La Venta the road to Caracas rises another 150 toises to El Guayabo, the highest point; but I continued to use the barometer until we reached the small fort of Cuchilla. As I did not have a pass – for over five years I only needed it once, when I first disembarked – I was nearly arrested at an artillery post. To placate the angry soldiers I transformed the height of the mountains into Spanish varas. They were not particularly interested in this, and if I had anyone to thank for my release it was an Andalusian who became very friendly the moment I told him that the Sierra Nevada of his home were far higher than any of the mountains around Caracas.
When I first travelled the high plateaux towards Caracas I met many travellers resting mules at the small inn of Guayabo. They lived in Caracas, and were arguing over the uprising that had recently taken place concerning the independence of the country. Joseph España had died on the scaffold.68 The excitement and bitterness of these people, who should have agreed on such questions, surprised me. While they argued about the hate mulattos have for freed blacks, about the wealth of monks, and the difficulties of owning slaves, a cold wind, which seemed to blow down from La Silla, enveloped us in a thick mist and ended the animated discussion. Once inside the inn, an old man who before had spoken with great equanimity, said to the others that it was unwise to deal with political matters at a time when spies could be lurking around, as much in the mountains as in the cities. These words, spoken in the emptiness of the sierra, deeply impressed me; I was to hear them often during our journeys.
Caracas is the capital of a country almost twice the size of Peru and only a little smaller than Nueva Granada (Colombia). This country is officially called in Spanish the Capitanía-General de Caracas or the Capitanía-General de las Provincias de Venezuela, and has nearly a million inhabitants, of whom some 60,000 are slaves. The copper-coloured natives, the indios, form a large part of the population only where Spaniards found complex urban societies already established. In the Capitanía-General the rural Indian population in the cultivated areas outside the missions is insignificant. In 1800 I calculated that the Indian population was about 90,000, which is one ninth of the total population, while in Mexico it rose to almost 50 per cent.
Among the races making up the Venezuelan population blacks are important – seen both compassionately for their wretched state, and with fear due to possible violent uprisings – because they are concentrated in limited areas, not so much because of their total number. Of the 60,000 slaves in the Venezuelan provinces, 40,000 live in the province of Caracas. In the plains there are only some 4,000 to 5,000, spread around the haciendas and looking after the cattle. The number of freed slaves is very high as Spanish legislation and custom favour emancipation. A slave-owner cannot deny a slave his freedom if he can pay 300 piastres,69 even if this would have cost the slave-owner double because of the amount of work the slave might have done.
After the blacks I was interested in the number of white criollos, who I call Hispano-Americans,70 and those whites born in Europe. It is difficult to find exact figures for such a delicate issue. People in the New World, as in the Old, hate population censuses because they think they are being carried out to increase taxation. The number of white criollos may reach some 200,000 to 210,000 people.71
I remained two months in Caracas. Bonpland and I lived in a large virtually isolated house in the elevated part of the city. From the gallery we could see the La Silla peak, the serrated crest of the Galipano, and the cheerful Guaire valley whose leafy fields contrasted with the curtain of the mountains around. It was the dry season. To improve the land the savannah and grass on the rocks were set on fire. Seen from far off, these great fires created surprising light effects. Wherever the savannah climbed up the slopes and filled the gorges cut by torrential waters these strips of land on fire seemed at night like lava hanging above the valley.
If we had reasons to be pleased with the location of our house we had even more for the way we were welcomed by people from all classes. I have had the advantage, which few Spaniards can share with me, of having successively visited Caracas, Havana, Bogotá, Quito, Lima and Mexico, and of making contact with men of all ranks in these six capitals. In Mexico and Bogotá it seemed to me that interest in serious scientific studies predominated; in Quito and Lima people seemed more inclined to literature and all that flatters a lively imagination; in Havana and Caracas, there predominated a broader culture in political matters, more open criteria about the state of the colonies and metropolis. Intense commerce with Europe and the Caribbean Sea have powerfully influenced the social evolution of Cuba and the beautiful provinces of Venezuela. Nowhere else in Spanish America does civilization appear so European.
In the colonies skin colour is the real badge of nobility. In Mexico as well as in Peru, at Caracas as in Cuba, a barefoot man with a white skin is often heard to say: ‘Does that rich person think himself whiter than I am?’ Because Europe pours so many people into America, it can easily be seen that the axiom ‘Todo blanco es caballero’ (All whites are gentlemen) must wound the pretensions of many ancient and aristocratic European families. We do not find among the people of Spanish origin that cold and pretentious air which modern civilization has made more common in Europe than in Spain. Conviviality, candour and great simplicity of manner unite the different classes in the colonies.72
In several families I found a feeling for culture. They know about the great works of French and Italian literature; music pleases them, and is played with talent, which like all of the arts unites the different social classes. The exact sciences, and drawing and painting, are not as well established here as they are in Mexico and Bogotá, thanks to the liberality of the government and the patriotism of the Spanish people.
In a country with such ravishing views I hoped to find many people who might know about the high mountains in the region; and yet we could not find one person who had climbed to La Silla’s peak. Hunters do not climb high enough, and in these countries nobody would dream of going out to look for alpine plants, or to study rock strata, or take barometers up to high altitudes. They are used to a dull domestic life, and avoid fatigue and sudden changes in climate as if they live not to enjoy life but to prolong it.
The Captain-General, Sr Guevara, lent us guides; they were negroes who knew the way that led to the coast along the sierra ridge near the western peak. It is the path used by smugglers, but neither our guides nor the most experienced militia, formed to chase the clandestine traffickers, had ever climbed to the eastern La Silla peak.
We set off before sunrise, at five in the morning, with the slaves carrying our instruments. Our party consisted of eighteen people, and we advanced in Indian file along a narrow path on a steep grassy slope. From La Puerta the path becomes steep. You have to lean forward to climb. The thick grass was very slippery because of the prolonged drought. Cramp-irons and iron-tipped sticks would have been very useful. Short grass covers the gneiss rocks; it is impossible to grip it or dig steps into it as in softer soil. More tiring than dangerous, the climb soon disheartened the men accompanying us who were not used to mountain climbing. We wasted a lot of time waiting for them, and did not decide to continue alone until we saw them returning down the mountain instead of climbing up after us. Bonpland and I foresaw that we would soon be covered in thick fog. Fearing that our guides would use the fog to abandon us we made those carrying the instruments go ahead of us. The familiar chatting of the negroes contrasted with the taciturn seriousness of the Indians who had accompanied us up to then. They joked about those who had spent hours preparing for the ascent, and then abandoned it straightaway.
After four hours walking through savannah we reached a little wood composed of shrubs called el pejual, perhaps because of the amount of pejoa (Gaultheria odorata) there, a plant with strong-smelling leaves. The mountain slope became more gentle and we could pleasurably study the plants of the region. Perhaps nowhere else can so many beautiful and useful plants be discovered in such a small space. At 1,000 toises high the raised plains of La Silla gave place to a zone of shrubs that reminded one of the páramos and punas.
Even when nature does not produce the same species in analogous climates, either in the plains of isothermal parallels or on tablelands whose temperature resembles that of places nearer the poles,73 we still noticed a striking resemblance of appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant countries. This phenomenon is one of the most curious in the history of organic forms. I say history, for reason cannot stop man forming hypotheses on the origin of things; he will always puzzle himself with insoluble problems relating to the distribution of beings.
A grass from Switzerland grows on the granitic rocks of the Magellan Strait.74 New Holland contains more than forty European phanerogamous plants. The greater amount of these plants, found equally in the temperate zones of both hemispheres, are completely absent in the intermediary or equinoctial regions, on plains and on mountains. A hairy-leafed violet, which signifies the last of the phanerogamous plants on Tenerife, and long thought specific to that island, can be seen 300 leagues further north near the snowy Pyrcncan peaks. Grasses and sedges of Germany, Arabia and Senegal have been recognized among plants collected by Bonpland and myself on the cold Mexican tablelands, on the burning Orinoco banks and on the Andes, and at Quito in the Southern hemisphere. How can one believe that plants migrate over regions covered by sea? How have the germs of life, identical in appearance and in internal structure, developed at unequal distances from the poles and from the oceans, in places that share similar temperatures? Despite the influence of air pressure on the plants’ vital functions, and despite the greater or lesser degree of light, it is heat, unequally distributed in different seasons, that must be considered vegetation’s most powerful stimulus.
The amount of identical species in the two continents and in the two hemispheres is far less than early travellers once led us to think. The high mountains of equinoctial America have their plantains, valerians, arenarias, ranunculuses, medlars, oaks and pines, which from their features we could confuse with European ones, but they are all specifically different. When nature does not present the same species, she repeats the same genera. Neighbouring species are often found at enormous distances from each other, in low regions of a temperate zone, and on mountains on the equator. And, as we found on La Silla at Caracas, they are not the European genera that have colonized mountains of the torrid zone, but genera of the same tribe, which have taken their place and are hard to distinguish.
The more we study the distribution of organized life on the globe, the more we tend to abandon the hypothesis of migration. The Andes chain divides the whole of South America into two unequal longitudinal parts. At the foot of this chain, on both east and west, we found many plants that were specifically identical. The various passes on the Andes would not let any vegetation from warm regions cross from the Pacific coast to the Amazon banks. When a peak reaches a great height, whether in the middle of low mountains and plains, or in the centre of an archipelago raised by volcanic fires, its summit is covered with alpine plants, many of which are also found at immense distances on other mountains under similar climates. Such are the general phenomena of plant distribution.
There is a saying that a mountain is high enough to reach the rhododendron and befaria limit, in the same way one says one has reached the snow limit. In employing this expression it is tacitly assumed that under identical temperatures a certain kind of vegetation must grow. This is not strictly true. The pines of Mexico are absent in the Peruvian Andes. The Caracas La Silla is not covered with the same oaks that flourish in New Granada at the same height. Identity of forms suggests an analogy of climate, but in similar climates the species may be very diversified.
The attractive Andean rhododendron, or befaria, was first observed by Mutis75 near Pamplona and Bogotá, in the 4th and 7th degree of latitude. It was so little known before our expedition up La Silla that it was not to be found in any European herbal. The learned editors of The Flora of Peru had even described it under another name. The two species of befaria we brought down from La Silla are specifically different from those at Pamplona and Bogota. Near the equator the Andean rhododendrons cover the mountains right up to 1,600 and 1,700 toises. Going further north on La Silla we find them lower, below 1,000 toises. Befaria recently discovered in Florida, in latitude 30, grow on low hills. Thus, within 600 leagues in latitude, these shrubs descend towards the plains in proportion as their distance from the equator increases.
Due to the thickness of the vegetation, made up of a plant of the Musaceae family, it was hard to find a path. We had to make one through that jungle of musaceous plants; the negroes led us, cutting a path with machetes. We saw the peak at intervals through breaks in the cloud, but soon we were covered in a thick mist and could only proceed using the compass; with each step we risked finding ourselves at the edge of a precipice, which fell 6,000 feet down to the sea. We had to stop, surrounded by cloud down to the ground, and we began to doubt if we would reach the eastern peak before sunset. Luckily the negroes carrying the water and the food had arrived, so we decided to eat something. But the meal did not last long because either the Capuchin father had not calculated our numbers properly or the slaves had already eaten everything. We found only olives and some bread. We had been walking for nine hours without stopping or finding water. Our guides seemed to lose heart, and wanted to go back. Bonpland and I had difficulty in persuading them to stay with us.
To reach the peak we had to approach as near as possible to the great cliff that falls to the coast. We needed three quarters of an hour to reach the top. While sitting on the peak observing the inclination of the magnetic needle I saw a great number of hairy bees, somewhat smaller than the northern European ones, crawling all over my hands. These bees nest in the ground and rarely fly. Their apathy seemed to derive from the cold mountain air. Here they are called angelitos (little angels) because they hardly ever sting. Until you are sure about the harmlessness of these angelitos you remain suspicious. I confess that often during astronomic observations I almost dropped my instruments when I realized my face and hands were covered with these hairy bees. Our guides assured us that these bees only attacked when you annoyed them by picking them up by their legs. I did not try.
It was half past four in the afternoon when we finished our observations. Satisfied with the success of our journey we forgot that there might be dangers descending steep slopes covered with a smooth, slippery grass in the dark. We did not arrive at the valley bottom until ten at night. We were exhausted and thirsty after walking for fifteen hours, practically without stopping. The soles of our feet were cut and torn by the rough, rocky soil and the hard, dry grass stalks, for we had been forced to pull our boots off as the ground was too slippery. We spent the night at the foot of La Silla. Our friends at Caracas had been able to follow us on the summit with binoculars. They liked hearing our account of the expedition but were not happy with the result of our measurements, for La Silla was not as high as the highest mountains in the Pyrenees.