the great cavern of guacharo, in south america.

Abridged from the Personal Narrative of Humboldt, vol. iii.

In a country where the people love what is marvellous, a cavern that gives birth to a river, and is inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds, the fat of which is employed in the Missions to dress food, is an everlasting object of conversation and discussion.

Scarcely has a stranger arrived at Cumana, when he is told of the stone of Araya for the eyes; of the labourer of Arenas who suckled his child; and of the Cavern of Guacharo, which is said to be several leagues in length; till he is tired of hearing of them.

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.

The rock, that surmounts the grotto, is covered with trees of gigantic 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 extend themselves, a thick vault of verdure.

Plants of the family of pothos with succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideæ of a singular structure, rise in the driest clefts of the recks; while creeping plants, waving in the winds, are interwoven in festoons before the opening of the cavern.

We distinguished in these festoons 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 entrances 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 Caripe, 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 vegetation 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 entrance.

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.

Day-light penetrates 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 natives 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 vulture, the crooked beak of which is surrounded with stiff silky hairs.

It forms a new genus, very different from the goatsucker by the force of its voice, by the considerable strength of its beak, containing a double tooth, by its feet without the membranes that unite the anterior phalanxes of the claws.

In its manners it has analogies both with the goatsuckers and the alpine crow.

The plumage of the guacharo is of a dark bluish-grey, mixed with small streaks and specks of black.

It is difficult to form an idea of the horrible noise occasioned by thousands of these birds in the dark part of the cavern, and which can only be compared to the croaking of our 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 shewed 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 orches of copal.

When this noise ceased around us, we heard at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the cavern.

It seemed as if these bands answered each other alternately.

The Indians enter into the Cueva del Guacharo once a-year, near midsummer, armed with poles, by means of which they destroy the greater part of the nests.

At this season several thousands of birds are killed; and the old ones, to defend their brood, hover around the heads of the savage Indians, uttering terrible cries, which would appal any heart but that of man in an untutored state.

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, as far as the hills formed of calcareous incrustations permitted us.

When the torrent 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 Caripe, which, at a few leagues distance, after having joined the small river of Santa Maria, is navigable for canoes.

It enters into the river Areo under the name of Canno de Terezen.

We found on the banks of the subterraneous 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 perpendicularly 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 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 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 inclination of sixty degrees, and where the torrent forms a small subterraneous cascade.

The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited 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 nor by the Moon. To go and join the guacharoes, is to rejoin their fathers, is to die.

The magicians and the poisoners perform their nocturnal tricks at the entrance of the cavern, to conjure the chief of the evil spirits.

We find this phenomenon of a subterranean cascade, but on much large scale, in England, at Yordas Cave, near Kingsdale, in Yorkshire.

At the point where the river forms the subterraneous 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 in length.

The stalactites, which descend from the vault, and which resemble columns suspended in the air, display themselves 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, and the rocks.

The distant light of day formed somewhat of magical contrast with the darkness that surrounded us in those vast caverns.

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 stretching to the north-east, without deviating from its primitive direction, which is parallel to that of the great valley of Caripe.

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 guacharoes became more shrill.

We were obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and trace back our steps.

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 distance, and to which the mouth of the cavern served as a frame.

Having at length reached the entrance, and seated ourselves on the bank 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.