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Antiqua
Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung, Kapitälchen; Fußnoten mit Asterisken.
What gives most celebrity to the valley of Caripe,
besides the extraordinary coolness of the climate, is the
Cueva, or Cavern of the Guacharo. In a country where
birth to a river, and is inhabited by thousands of noc-
turnal birds, the fat of which is employed in the missions
to dress food, is an everlasting object of conversation and
discussion. A lively interest in the phenomena of nature
is preserved wherever society may be said to be without
life; where in dull monotony it presents only simple
relations little fitted to excite the ardour of curiosity.
The cavern which the natives call a mine of fat, is not
in the valley of Caripe itself, but at three short leagues
distance from the convent, toward the West-south-west.
It opens into a lateral valley, which terminates at the
Sierra del Guacharo. We set out toward the Sierra on the
18th September, accompanied by the Alcaids, or Indian
magistrates, and the greater part of the monks of the con-
vent. A narrow path led us at first during an hour and a
half, towards the south, across a fine plain, covered with a
beautiful turf. We then turned toward the West, along
a small river, which issues from the mouth of the cavern.
We ascended during three quarters of an hour, walking
sometimes in the water, which was shallow, sometimes
between the torrent and a wall of rocks on a soil extremely
slippery and miry. The falling down of the earth, the
scattered trunks of trees, over which the mules could
scarcely pass, the creeping plants that covered the ground,
rendered this part of the road fatiguing. We were
surprised to find here, at scarcely 500 toises
above the level of the sea, a cruciferous plant, raphanuspinnatus. It is well known how scarce the plants of this
family are between the tropics; they display in some
sort a northern form, and as such we never expected to
see it on the plain of Caripe at so little an elevation.
At the foot of the lofty mountain of Guacharo, we were
only four hundred steps from the cavern, without yet
perceiving the entrance. The torrent runs in a crevice,
went on under a cornice the projection of which pre-
vented us from seeing the sky. The path winds like
the river: at the last turning we came suddenly before
the immense opening of the grotto. The aspect of this
spot is majestic even to the eye of a traveller accustom-
ed to the picturesque scenes of the higher Alps. Na-
ture in every zone follows immutable laws in the dis-
tribution of rocks, in the exterior forms of mountains,
and even in those tumultuous changes which the ex-
terior crust of our planet has undergone. So great a
uniformity led me to believe, that the aspect of the ca-
vern of Caripe would differ little from what I had ob-
served in my preceding travels. The reality far ex-
ceeded my expectations. If the configuration of the
grottoes, the splendor of the stalactites, and all the
phenomena of inorganic nature, present striking analo-
gies, 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 sur-
mounts the grotto is covered with trees of gigantic
height. The mammee-tree, and the genipa with large
and shining leaves, raise their branches vertically to-
ward the sky; while those of the courbaril and the
erythrina form, as they extend themselves, a thick
vault of verdure. Plants of the family of pothos, with
succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideæ with a golden
flower spotted with black, three inches long, rise in
the driest clefts of the rocks; while creeping plants,
waving in the winds, are interwoven in festoons before
the opening of the cavern. We distinguished in these
and, for the first time, that magnificent solandra, the
orange flower of which has a fleshy tube more than
four inches long. The entrance of grottoes, like the
view of cascades, derive their principal charm from the
situation, more or less majestic, in which they are placed,
and which in some sort determines the character of the
landscape. What a contrast between the Cueva of Ca-
ripe, and those caverns of the north crowned with oaks
and gloomy larch trees!
But this luxury of vegetation embellishes not only
the outside of the vault; it appears 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. The vegeta-
tion continues in the cave of Caripe, as in those deep
crevices of the Andes, half excluded from the light of
day; and does not disappear, till, advancing in the
interior, we reach thirty or forty paces from the en-
trance. We measured the way by means of a cord:
and we went on about four hundred and thirty feet
without being obliged to light our torches. Daylight
penetrates even into this region, because the grotto
forms but one single channel, which keeps the same
direction from south-east to north-west. Where the
light begins to fail, we heard from afar the hoarse
sounds of the nocturnal birds—sounds which the na-
tives think belong exclusively to those subterraneous
places.
The Guacharo is of the size of our fowls, has the
mouth of the goatsuckers and procnias, and the port of
those vultures, the crooked beak of which is surrounded
with stiff silky hairs. It forms a new genus, very diffe-
rent from the goat-sucker by the force of its voice, by
the considerable strength of its beak, containing a
that unite the anterior phalanxes of the claws. The
plumage of the Guacharo is of a dark bluish gray, mix-
ed with small streaks and specks of black. Large white
spots, which have the form of a heart, and which are
bordered with black, mark the head, the wings, and
the tail. The eyes of the bird are hurt by the blaze of
day; they are blue, and smaller than those of the goat-
sucker. The spread of the wings, which are compo-
sed of seventeen or eighteen quill-feathers, is three feet
and a half. The Guacharo quits the cavern at night-fall,
especially when the moon shines. It is almost the only
frugiverous nocturnal bird that is yet known; the con-
formation of its feet sufficiently shows that it does not hunt
like our owls. It is difficult to form an idea of the hor-
rible noise occasioned by thousands of these birds in the
dark part of the cavern, and which can only be com-
pared to the croaking of crows, which, in the pine
forests of the north, live in society, and construct their
nests upon trees, the tops of which touch each other.
The shrill and piercing cries of the Guacharoes strike
upon the vaults of the rocks, and are repeated by the
echo in the depth of the cavern. The Indians showed
us the nests of these birds, by fixing torches to the end
of a long pole. These nests were fifty or sixty feet
high above our heads, in holes in the shape of funnels,
with which the roof of the grotto is pierced like a sieve.
The noise increased as we advanced, and the birds were
affrighted by the light of the torches of Copal. When
this noise ceased a few minutes around us, we heard at a
distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other
ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if those bands
answered each other alternately.
The Indians enter into the Cueva del Guacharo once
a year, near midsummer, armed with poles, and des-
troy the greater part of the nests. At this season, seve-
if to defend their brood, hover over the heads of the
Indians, uttering terrible cries. The young, which fall
to the ground, are opened upon the spot. Their caul
is extremely loaded with fat, a layer of which is conti-
nued, so as to form a kind of cushion between the legs
of the bird. This quantity of fat in frugiverous ani-
mals, not exposed to the light, and exerting very little
muscular motion, reminds us of what has been long
since observed in the fattening of geese and oxen. It
is well known how favourable darkness and repose are
to this process. The nocturnal birds of Europe are
lean, because instead of feeding on fruits, like the Gua-
charo, they live on the scanty produce of their prey.
At the period which is commonly called, at Caripe, theoil harvest, the Indians build huts with palm leaves,
near the entrance, and even in the porch of the cavern.
Of these we still saw some remains. There, with a fire
of brushwood, they melt, in pots of clay, the fat of the
young birds just killed. This fat is known by the
name of butter, or oil of the Guacharo. It is half li-
quid, transparent, without smell, and so pure, that it
may be kept above a year without becoming rancid.—
At the convent of Caripe, no other oil is used in the
kitchen of the monks but that of the cavern, and we
never observed that it gave the aliments a disagreeable
taste or smell.
The quantity of this oil collected, little corresponds
with the carnage made every year in the grotto by the
Indians. It appears that they do not get above 150 or
160 bottles
parent, is preserved in large earthern vessels. This
branch of industry reminds us of the harvest of pi-
geon’s oil, of which some thousands of barrels were
the oil of the Guacharo is very ancient, and the mission-
aries have only regulated the method of extracting it.
The members of an Indian family, which bears the
name of Morocoymas, pretend, as the descendants of
the first colonists of the valley, to be the lawful pro-
prietors of the cavern, and arrogate to themselves the
monopoly of the fat: but, thanks to the monastic in-
stitutions, their rights at present are merely honorary.
In conformity to the system of the missionaries, the
Indians are obliged to furnish Guacharo-oil for the
church lamp: the rest, we were assured, is purchased of
them. We shall not decide either on the legitimacy of
the rights of the Morocoymas, 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 according to the relations which are
established between the strong and the weak, the vic-
tors and the vanquished.
The race of the Guacharoes would have been long
ago extinct, had not several circumstances contributed
to its preservation. The natives, restrained by their
superstitious ideas, have seldom the courage to pene-
trate far into the grotto. It appears, also, that birds of
the same species dwell in the neighbouring caverns,
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 there several days
without taking any nourishment; the seeds offered to
them not suiting their taste. When the crops and giz-
zards of the young birds are opened in the cavern, they
furnish, under the singular name of Guacharo seed, a
very celebrated remedy against intermittent fevers.—
The old birds carry these seeds to their young. They
are carefully collected, and sent to the sick at Cariaco,
and other places of the low regions, where fevers are
prevalent.
We followed, as we continued our progress through
the cavern, the banks of the small river which issued
from it, and is from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide.
We walked on the banks, ar far as the hills formed of
calcareous incrustations permitted us. When the tor-
rent winds among very high masses of stalactites, we
were often obliged to descend into its bed, which is
only two feet in depth. We learnt, with surprise, that
this subterraneous rivulet is the origin of the river Ca-
ripe, which at a few leagues distance, after having join-
ed the small river Santa Maria, is navigable for canoes.
It enters into the river Areo under the name of Cannode Terezen. We found on the banks of the subterra-
neous rivulet a great quantity of palm-tree wood, the
remains of trunks, on which the Indians climb to reach
the nests hanging to the roofs of the cavern. The rings
formed by the vestiges of the old footstalks of the leaves
furnish, as it were, the footsteps of a ladder perpendi-
cularly placed.
The Grotto of Caripe preserves the same direction,
the same breadth, and its primitive height of sixty or
seventy feet, to the distance of 472 metres, or 1458 feet,
accurately measured. I have never seen a cavern, in
either continent, of so uniform and regular a construction.
We had great difficulty in persuading the Indians to
pass beyond the outer part of the Grotto, the only part
of which they annually visit to collect the fat. The
whole authority of the missionaries was necessary to
induce them to advance as far as the spot, where the
where the torrent forms a small subterraneous cascade.
The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inha-
bited by nocturnal birds; they believe, that the souls
of their ancestors sojourn in the deep recesses of the
cavern. “Man,” say they, “should avoid places which
are enlightened neither by the Sun (Zis), nor by the
Moon (Numa).” To go and join the Guacharoes, is to
rejoin their fathers—is to die. The magicians (piaches)
and the poisoners (imorons) perform their nocturnal
tricks at the entrance of the cavern, to conjure the
chief of the evil spirits (ivorokiamo). Thus, in every
climate, the first fictions of nations resemble each other,
those especially which relate to two principles govern-
ing the world, the abode of souls after death, the hap-
piness of the virtuous and the punishment of the guilty.
The most different and most barbarous languages pre-
sent a certain number of images, which are the same,
because they have their source in the nature of our in-
tellect and our sensations. Darkness is every where
connected with the idea of death. The Grotto of Ca-
ripe is the Tartarus of the Greeks, and the Guacharoes,
which hover over the rivulet, uttering plaintive cries,
remind us of the Stygian birds.
At the point where the rivulet forms the subterran-
eous cascade, a hill covered with vegetation, which is
opposite the opening of the grotto, presents itself in a
very picturesque manner. It appears at the extremity
of a straight passage, 240 toises
actites, which descend from the vault, and which re-
semble columns suspended in the air, display them-
selves on a back-ground of verdure. The opening of
the cavern appeared singularly contracted, when we
saw it about the middle of the day, illumined by the
vivid light reflected at once from the sky, the plants,
what of a magical contrast with the darkness, that sur-
rounded us in those vast caverns. We discharged our
pieces at a venture, wherever the cries of the nocturnal
birds, and the flapping of their wings, led us to suspect
that a great number of nests were crowded together.
After several fruitless attempts, Mr Bonpland succeed-
ed in killing a couple of guacharoes, which, dazzled by
the light of the torches, seemed to pursue us. This cir-
cumstance afforded me the means of drawing this bird,
which hitherto had remained unknown to naturalists.
We climbed, not without some difficulty, the small hill,
whence the subterraneous rivulet descends. We saw
that the grotto was perceptibly contracted, retaining
only forty feet in height; and that it continued stretch-
ing to the North-east, without deviating from its primi-
tive direction, which is parallel to that of the great val-
ley of Caripe.
We walked in a thick mud to a spot, where we be-
held with astonishment the progress of subterraneous
vegetation. The seeds, which the birds carry into the
grotto to feed their young, spring up wherever they can
fix in the mould, that covers the calcareous incrusta-
tions. Blanched stalks, with some half formed leaves,
had risen to the height of two feet. It was impossible
to ascertain the species of plants, the form, colour, and
aspect of which had been changed by the absence of light.
Those traces of organization amid darkness forcibly ex-
cited the curiosity of the natives, in general so stupid,
and difficult to be moved. They examined them in
that silent meditation inspired by a place they seemed
to dread. It might be thought, that these subterran-
eous vegetables, pale and disfigured, appeared to them
phantoms banished from the face of the Earth. To me
the scene recalled one of the happiest scenes of my early
youth, a long abode in the mines of Freiberg, where I
very different, according as the air is pure, or over-
changed with hydrogen or azote.
The missionaries with all their authority, could not
prevail on the Indians to penetrate farther into the
cavern. As the vault grew lower, the cries of the gua-
charoes became more shrill. We were obliged to yield
to the pusillanimity of our guides, and retrace our steps.
The appearance of the cavern was indeed very uniform.
We find that a bishop of St Thomas of Guiana, had
gone farther than ourselves. He had measured nearly
2500 feet from the mouth to the spot where he stopped,
though the cavern reached farther. The remembrance
of this fact was preserved in the convent of Caripe,
without the exact period being noted. The bishop had
provided himself with great torches of white wax of
Castille. We had torches composed only of the bark
of trees, and native resin. The thick smoke which
issued from these torches, in a narrow subterranean
passage, hurts the eyes, and obstructs the respiration.
We followed the course of the torrent to go out of
the cavern. Before our eyes were dazzled with the
light of day, we saw, without the grotto, the water of
the river sparkling amid the foliage of the trees that
concealed it. It was like a picture placed in the dis-
tance, and to which the mouth of the cavern served as
a frame. Having at length reached the entrance, and
seated ourselves on the banks of the rivulet, we rested
after our fatigues. We were glad to be beyond the
hoarse cries of the birds, and to leave a place where
darkness does not offer even the charm of silence and
tranquillity. We could scarcely persuade ourselves
that the name of the Grotto of Caripe had hitherto
remained unknown in Europe. The Guacharoes alone
would have been sufficient to have rendered it cele-
brated. These nocturnal birds have been nowhere yet
manacoa.
The missionaries had prepared a repast at the entry
of the cavern. Leaves of bananas and vijao, which
have a silky lustre, served us as a table cloth, accord-
ing to the custom of the country. Nothing was want-
ing to our enjoyment, not even remembrances, which
are so rare in those countries, where generations dis-
appear without leaving a trace of their existence. Our
hosts took pleasure in reminding us, that the first monks
who came into these mountains to found the little vil-
lage of Santa Maria, had lived during a month in the
cavern; and there, on a stone, by the light of torches,
had celebrated the mysteries of their religion. This
solitary retreat served as a refuge to the missionaries
against the persecutions of a warlike chief of the Tua-
copans, encamped on the banks of the river Caripe.