78 THE NOISE OF THE GUACHAROS. 



of gigantic height. Plants rose in its clefts, and creep 

 ing vines, waving in the wind, were interwoven in fes- 

 toons before the mouth of the cavern. Nor did this 

 luxury of vegetation embellish the external arch merely ; 

 it appeared even in the vestibule of the grotto. They 

 saw with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eight- 

 een feet high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescent arums, 

 following the course of the river, even to those subter- 

 ranean places. The vegetation continued in the cave of 

 Caripe, and did not disappear till, penetrating into the 

 interior, they had advanced thirty or forty paces from the 

 entrance. They measured the way by means of a cord, and 

 went on about four hundred and thirty feet without being 

 obliged to light their torches. Daylight penetrated far 

 into this region, because the grotto formed but one single 

 channel, keeping the same direction. Where the light 

 began to fail, they heard from afar the hoarse sounds of 

 the nocturnal birds. 



The noise of these birds was horrible. Their shrill and 

 piercing cries struck upon the vaults of the rocks, and were 

 repeated by the subterranean echoes. The Indians showed 

 the travellers the nests of the guacharos by fixing a torch 

 to the end of a long pole. These nests were fifty or sixty 

 feet high above their heads, in holes in the shape of fun- 

 nels, with which the roof of the grotto was pierced like a 

 sieve. The noise increased as they advanced, and the birds 

 were scared by the light of the torches. When this 

 noise ceased for a few minutes around them, thev heard 

 at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in 

 other ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if differ- 

 ent groups answered each other alternately. 



The Indians were in the habit of entering this cavern 



