Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Their Peritoneum Is Found Extremely Loaded With
Fat, And A Layer Of Fat Reaches From The Abdomen To The Anus,
Forming A Kind Of Cushion Between The Legs Of The Bird.
This
quantity of fat in frugivorous animals, not exposed to the light,
and exerting very little muscular motion, reminds us of what has
been observed in the fattening of geese and oxen.
It is well known
how greatly darkness and repose favour this process. The nocturnal
birds of Europe are lean, because, instead of feeding on fruits,
like the guacharo, they live on the scanty produce of their prey.
At the period commonly called, at Caripe, the oil harvest,* (* La
cosecha de la manteca.) the Indians build huts with palm-leaves,
near the entrance, and even in the porch of the cavern. 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
(manteca, or aceite) of the guacharo. It is half liquid,
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 race of the guacharos would have been long ago extinct, had not
several circumstances contributed to its preservation. The natives,
restrained by their superstitious ideas, seldom have courage to
penetrate far into the grotto. It appears also, that birds of the
same species dwell in neighbouring caverns, which are too narrow to
be accessible to man. Perhaps the great cavern is repeopled by
colonies which forsake the small grottoes; for the missionaries
assured us that hitherto no sensible diminution of the birds has
been observed. Young guacharos 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 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 the singular name of guacharo seed (semilla
del guacharo), 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 generally prevalent.
As we continued to advance into the cavern, we followed 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. Where the torrent
winds among very high masses of stalactites, we were often obliged
to descend into its bed, which is only two feet deep. We learned
with surprise, that this subterranean rivulet is the origin of the
river Caripe, 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 Cano do Terezen. We
found on the banks of the subterranean rivulet a great quantity of
palm-tree wood, the remains of trunks, on which the Indians climb
to reach the nests hanging from the roofs of the cavern. The rings,
formed by the vestiges of the old footstalks of the leaves, furnish
as it were the steps 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 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 inclination of sixty degrees, and where
the torrent forms a small subterranean cascade.* (* We find the
phenomenon of a subterranean cascade, but on a much larger scale,
in England, at Yordas Cave, near Kingsdale in Yorkshire.) 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 (zis), nor by the
moon (nuna)." 'To go and join the guacharos,' is with them a phrase
signifying to rejoin their fathers, 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 region of the earth a resemblance may
be traced in the early fictions of nations, those especially which
relate to two principles governing the world, the abode of souls
after death, the happiness of the virtuous and the punishment of
the guilty. The most different and most barbarous languages present
a certain number of images, which are the same, because they have
their source in the nature of our intelligence and our sensations.
Darkness is everywhere connected with the idea of death. The Grotto
of Caripe is the Tartarus of the Greeks; and the guacharos, which
hover over the rivulet, uttering plaintive cries, remind us of the
Stygian birds.
At the point where the river forms the subterranean cascade, a hill
covered with vegetation, which is opposite to the opening of the
grotto, presents a very picturesque aspect. It is seen at the
extremity of a straight passage, 240 toises in length. The
stalactites descending from the roof, and resembling columns
suspended in the air, are relieved 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.
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