J i v 1 liRTOIt OF THE CAVEItS. 
259 
!-ot suiting their taste. When the crops and gizzards of the 
young birds are opened in the cavern, they are found to 
contain all sorts of hard and dry fruits, which furnish, under 
tlie singular name of guacharo seed (semilla del guaeharo) a 
Cbl ' ated reraed y against intermittent fevers. The 
old birds carry these seeds to their young. They are care- 
inily collected, and sent to the sick at Cariaco, "and other 
valent 0t ^° W re S* ons > where fevers are generally pre- 
As we continued to advance into the cavern, we fol- 
lowed the banks of the small river which issues from it and 
is from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide. We walked on the 
banks, as far as the hills formed of calcareous incrustations 
permitted us. Adhere the torrent winds among very high 
masses of stalactites, we were often obliged to descend into 
S be Vr£ - S 0n fc tW0 feet dee P- We Earned with sur- 
prise that this subterranean rivulet is the origin of the 
river Can po, which, at the distance of a few leagues, where 
it joins the small river of Santa Maria, is navigable for 
canoes. It flows into the river Areo under the name of 
t-auo do Terezen. We found on the banks of the subterra- 
nean rivulet a great quantity of palm-tree wood, the remains 
1 trunks, on which the Indians climb to reach the nests 
langtng from the roofs ot the cavern. The rings, formed 
• by the vestiges of the old footstalks of the leaves, furnish as 
1 rpf re ^ a ladder perpendicularly placed. 
Ihe Grotto of Caripe preserves the same direction, the 
same breadth, and its primitive height of sixty or seventy 
leet, to the distance of 472 metres, or 1458 feet, accurately 
measured. We had great difficulty in persuading the Indians 
to pass beyond the anterior portion of the grotto, the only 
part which they annually visit to collect the fat. The whole 
authority of los padres’ was necessary to induce them to 
advance as far as the spot where the soil rises abruptly at an 
uicimation of sixty degrees, and where the torrent forms a 
M subterranean cascade* The natives connect mystic 
(leas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds; they 
oeiicve that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in the deep 
; ’ ,' Ve the phenomeaen of a subterranean cascade, but on a much 
° er scaIe ’ ,u England, at lordas Cave, near Kingsdaie in Yorkshire. 
H 2 
