100 THE CUEVADEL GUACHARO. 



nests they can reach, killing thousands of young birds. 

 During the massacre, the old birds, powerless though 

 anxious to defend their broods, wheel to and fro in the 

 gloom, uttering the most j)iercing and discordant cries. 

 The young birds are immediately opened, and the fat 

 removed from them : it is afterwards melted in clay pots 

 at the mouth of the cavern. The oil thus obtained is semi- 

 fluid, transparent, and without smell ; while such is its 

 purity that it will not turn rancid even if kept for upwards 

 of a twelvemonth. 



So great is the annual destruction of these birds that 

 their extermination would soon be brought about were it 

 not, as Humboldt says, for some circumstances which 

 favour the preservation of the species. Tlius : it can 

 hardly be doubted that they breed in many caverns which 

 the oil-gatherers have never explored; and even in the 

 Cueva del Guacharo their cries may be heard in galleries 

 not visited by the Indians, — partly on account of their 

 inaccessibility, and partly through superstitious terrors. 

 " We had much trouble," says Humboldt, " in persuading 

 the Indians to pass the anterior portion of the cave, the 

 only part which they frequent in their yearly collection of 

 fat. It required all the authority of the 2^<^dres to make 

 them advance as far as a spot where the ground rises 

 suddenly at an angle of sixty degrees, and the torrent 

 breaks into a small subterranean cascade. The natives 

 attach mystical ideas to this recess. Men, they say, should 

 shun places which are lighted neither by the sun nor the 

 moon. To go to the guacharos is to join one's fathers — 

 to die." 



