78 mi KOISE OF TIIK QUACHABOS. 



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

 ing vines, waving in the wind, were interwoven in : 

 toons before the mouth of the cavern. Nor did this 

 luxury < >f vegetation embellish the external arch merely ; 

 it appeared even in the vestibule of the grotto. They 

 Baw with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eight- 

 d feel high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescenl arums, 

 ii »]]« »winLr tlif course of the river, even to those subter- 

 ranean places. Tin- 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 Bame 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 rock's, 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 



t 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 tiny advanced, and the birds 



were • d by the light of the torches. When this 



noise ceas d for a few minutes around them, thev heard 



a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in 

 r 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 



