M. Humboldt on the Great Cavern of the Guacharo> SS 
rior form of mountains, and even in those tumultuous changes^ 
which the exterior crust of our planet has undergone. So great 
a uniformity led me to believe, that the aspect of the cavern of 
Caripe would differ little from what I had observed in my pre- 
ceding travels. The reality far exceeded my eJcpectations. If 
the configuration of the grottoes, the splendor of the stalactites^ 
and all the phenomena of inorganic nature, present striking ana- 
logies, the majesty of equinoxial vegetation gives at the same 
time an individual character to the aperture of the cavern. 
The Cueva del Guacharo is pierced in the vertical profile 
of a rock. The entrance is toward the south, and forms a vault 
eighty feet broad^ and seventy-two feet high. This elevation is 
but a fifth less than that of the colonnade of the Louvre. The 
rock, that surmounts the grotto, is covered with trees of gigan- 
tic height. The mammee-tree, and the genipa with large and 
shining leaves, raise their branches vertically toward the sky ; 
while those of the coUrbaril and the erythrina form, as they ex- 
tend themselves, a tfiick vault of verdure. Plants of the family 
of pothos with succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideae of a sin- 
gulair structure, rise in the driest clefts of the rocks; while creep- 
ing plants, waving in the winds, are interwoven in festoons be- 
fore the opening of the cavern. We distinguished in these fes- 
toons a bignonia of a violet-blue, the purple dolichos, and for 
the first time that magnificent olandra, the orange flower of 
which has a fleshy tube more than four inches long. The en- 
trances of grottoes, like the view of cascades, derive their prin- 
cipal charm from the situation, more or less majestic, in which 
they are placed, and which in some sort determines the charac- 
ter of the landscape. What a contrast between the Cueva of 
Garipe, and those caverns of the North crowned with oaks and 
gloomy larch-trees ! 
But this luxury of vegetation embellishes not only the out- 
side of th^ vault, it appea^is even in the vestibule of the grotto. 
We saw with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eighteen 
feet high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescent arums, follow 
the banks of the river even to those subterranean places. Tho^ 
vegetation continues in the cave of Caripe, as in those deep cre- 
vices of the Andes, half excluded from the light of day ; and 
does not disappear, till, advancing in the interior, we reach thir- 
