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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We Discharged Our Guns 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 M. Bonpland
succeeded in killing a couple of guacharos, which, dazzled by the
light of the torches, seemed to pursue us.
This circumstance
afforded me the means of making a drawing of this bird, which had
previously been unknown to naturalists. We climbed, not without
difficulty, the small hill whence the subterranean rivulet
descends. We saw that the grotto was perceptibly contracted,
retaining only forty feet in height, and that it continued
stretching to north-east, without deviating from its primitive
direction, which is parallel to that of the great valley of Caripe.
In this part of the cavern, the rivulet deposits a blackish mould,
very like the matter which, in the grotto of Muggendorf, in
Franconia, is called "the earth of sacrifice."* (* Opfer-erde of
the cavern of Hohle Berg (or Hole Mountain, - a mountain pierced
entirely through.)) We could not discover whether this fine and
spongy mould falls through the cracks which communicate with the
surface of the ground above, or is washed down by the rain-water
penetrating into the cavern. It was a mixture of silex, alumina,
and vegetable detritus. We walked in thick mud to a spot where we
beheld with astonishment the progress of subterranean vegetation.
The seeds which the birds carry into the grotto to feed their
young, spring up wherever they fix in the mould which covers the
calcareous incrustations. Blanched stalks, with some half-formed
leaves, had risen to the height of two feet. It was impossible to
ascertain the species of these plants, their form, colour, and
aspect having been changed by the absence of light. These traces of
organization amidst darkness forcibly excited the curiosity of the
natives, who examined them with silent meditation inspired by a
place they seemed to dread. They evidently regarded these
subterranean plants, pale and deformed, as phantoms banished from
the face of the earth. To me the scene recalled one of the happiest
periods of my early youth, a long abode in the mines of Freyberg,
where I made experiments on the effects of blanching (etiolement),
which are very different, according as the air is pure or
overcharged with hydrogen or azote.
The missionaries, with all their authority, could not prevail on
the Indians to penetrate farther into the cavern. As the roof
became lower the cries of the guacharos were more and more shrill.
We were obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and
trace back our steps. The appearance of the cavern was however very
uniform. We found 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, but the cavern extended still
farther. The remembrance of this fact was preserved in the convent
of Caripe, without the exact period being noted.
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