THE SUBTEKKAXEAN STEEAil. 79 



once a year, near midsummer. They went armed with 

 poles, with which they destroyed the greater part of the 

 nests. At that season several thousand birds were killed ; 

 and the old ones, as if to defend their brood, hovered 

 over the heads of the Indians, uttering terrible cries. 

 The young, which fell to the ground, were opened on the 

 spot for their fat. 



At the period commonly called, at Caripe, the oil har- 

 vest, the Indians built huts with palm-leaves, near the 

 entrance, and even in the porch of the cavern. There, 

 with a fire of brushwood, they melted in pots of clay the 

 fat of the young birds just killed. This fat was known 

 by the name of the butter of the guacharo. 



As the travellers continued to advance into the cavern, 

 they followed the banks of the river which issued from 

 it, and was from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide. They 

 walked on the banks, as far as the hills formed of cal- 

 careous incrustations permitted them. Where the tor- 

 rent wound among high masses of stalactites, they 

 were often obliged to descend into its bed, which was 

 only two feet deep. They learned that this subterranean 

 rivulet was the origin of the river Caripe, which, at the 

 distance of a few leagues, where it joined the small river 

 of Santa Maria, was navigable for canoes. They found 

 on the banks of the subterranean rivulet a great quan- 

 tity of palm-tree wood, the remains of trunks, on which 

 the Indians climbed to reach the nests hanging from the 

 roofs of the cavern. The rings formed by the vestiges 

 of the old footstalks of the leaves, furnished as it were 

 the steps of a ladder perpendicularly placed. 



They had great difficulty in persuading the Indians to 

 pass beyond the anterior portion of the grotto, the only 



