MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



451 



the weak, the victors and the van- 

 quished. 



The race of the guacharoes 

 would have been long ago extinct, 

 had not several circumstances 

 contributed to its preservation. 

 The natives, restrained by their 

 superstitious ideas, have seldom 

 the courage to penetrate far into 

 the grotto. It appears also, that 

 birds of the same species dwell 

 in neighbouring caverns, which 

 are too narrow to be accessible to 

 man. Perhaps the great cavern 

 is repeopled by colonies, that 

 abandon the small grottoes ; for 

 the missionaries assured us, that 

 hitherto no sensible diminution of 

 the birds had been observed. 

 Young guacharoes have been sent 

 to the port of Cumana, and have 

 lived there several days without 

 taking any nourishment; the seeds 

 offered to them not suiting their 

 taste. When the crops and giz- 

 zards of the young birds are 

 opened in the cavern, they are 

 found to contain all sorts of hard 

 and dry fruits, which furnish, 

 under the singular name of gua- 

 charo seed, semilla del guacharo, 

 a very celebrated remedy against 

 intermittent fevers. The old birds 

 carry these seeds to their young. 

 They are carefully collected, and 

 sent to the sick at Cariaco, and 

 other places of the low regions, 

 where fevers are prevalent. 



We followed, as we continued 

 our progress through the cavern, 

 the banks of the small river, which 

 issued from it, and is from twenty- 

 eight to thirty feet wide. We 

 walked on the banks, as far as the 

 hills formed of calcareous incrust- 

 ations permitted us. When the 

 torrent winds among very high 

 masses of stalactites, we were 



often obliged to descend into its 

 bed, which is only two feet in 

 depth. We learnt, with surprise, 

 that this subterraneous rivulet is 

 the origin of the river Caripe, 

 which, at a few leagues distance, 

 after having joined the small river 

 of Santa Maria, is navigable for 

 canoes. It enters into the river 

 Areo under the name of Canno de 

 Terezen. We found on the banks 

 of the subterraneous rivulet a 

 great quantity of palm-tree wood, 

 the remains of trunks, on which 

 tlie Indians climb to reach the 

 nests hanging to the roofs of the 

 cavern. The rings, formed by the 

 vestiges of the old footstalks of 

 the leaves, furnish as it were the 

 footsteps of a ladder perpendicu- 

 larly placed. 



The Grotto of Caripe preserves 

 the same direction, the same 

 breadth, and its primitive height 

 of sixty or seventy feet, to the 

 distance of 472 metres, or 1458 

 feet, accurately measured. I have 

 never seen a cavern, in either 

 continent, of so uniform and re- 

 gular a construction. We had 

 great difficulty in persuading the 

 Indians to pass beyond the outer 

 part of the grotto, the only part 

 which they annually visit to collect 

 the fat. The whole authority of 

 los padres was necessary, to induce 

 them to advance as far as the 

 spot, where the soil rises abruptly 

 at an inclination of sixty degrees, 

 and where the torrent forms a 

 small subterraneous cascade.* 

 The natives connect mystic ideas 

 with this cave, inhabited by noc- 



* We find this phenomenon of a 

 subterranean cascade, but on a much 

 larger scale, in England at Yordas 

 Cave, near Kingsdale, in Yorkshire. 



2 G 2 turnal 



