88 M. Humboldt on the Great Cavern of the Guacharo. 
The quantity of this oil collected little corresponds with the 
carnage made every year in the grotto by the Indians. It ap- 
pears that they do not get above 150 or 160 bottles (sixty cubic 
inches each) of very pure manteca ; the rest, less transparent, is 
preserved in large earthen vessels. This branch of industry re- 
minds us of the harvest of pigeon’s oil of which some thou- 
sands of barrels were formerly collected in Carolina. At Caripe, 
the use of the oil of guacharoes is very ancietit, and the mission- 
aries have only regulated the method of extracting it. The mem- 
bers of an Indian family, which bears the name of Morocomas, pre- 
tend, as descendants of the first colonists of the valley, to be the 
lawful proprietors of the cavern, and arrogate to themselves the 
monopoly of the fat ; but, thanks to the monastic institutions^ 
their rights at present are merely honorary. In conformity to 
the system of the missionaries, the Indians are obliged to fur- 
nish guacharo-oil for the church-lamp : the rest, we were as- 
sured, is purchased of them. We shall not decide either on the 
legitimacy of the rights of the Morocomas, or on the origin of 
the obligation imposed on the natives by the monks. It would 
seem natural, that the produce of the chace should belong to 
those who hunt: but in the forests of the New World, as in the 
centre of European cultivation, public right is modified accord- 
ing to the relations which are established between the strong 
and the weak, the victors and the vanquished. 
The race of the guacharoes would have been long ago ex- 
tinctj had not several circumstances contributed to its preserva- 
tion. The natives, restrained by their superstitious ideas, haVe 
seldom the courage tb penetrate far into the grotto. It appears, 
also, that birds of the same species dwell in neighbouring ca^ 
verns, which are too narrow to be accessible to man. Perhaps 
the great cavern is repeopled by colonies, that abandon the small 
grottoes; for the missionaries assured us, that hitherto no sensible 
diminution of the birds had been observed. Young guacharoes 
have been sent to the port of Cumana, and have lived thef’e se- 
veral days without taking any nourishment ; the sbeds offered to 
them not suiting their taste. When the crops and gizzards of the 
• This pigeon oil comes from the coluniba migratoria, (Pennant’s Arctic Zoo- 
logy, vol. ii. p. 13.) 
