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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That Which Confers Most Celebrity On The Valley Of Caripe, Besides
The Extraordinary Coolness Of Its Climate, Is The Great
Cueva, or
Cavern of the Guacharo.* (* The province of Guacharucu, which
Delgado visited in 1534, in the expedition of Hieronimo
De Ortal,
appears to have been situated south or south-east of Macarapana.
Has its name any connexion with those of the cavern and the bird?
or is this last of Spanish origin? (Laet Nova Orbis page 676).
Guacharo means in Castilian "one who cries and laments;" now the
bird of the cavern of Caripe, and the guacharaca (Phasianus
parraka) are very noisy birds.) In a country where the people love
the marvellous, a cavern which 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. The cavern, which the natives call "a
mine of fat" is not in the valley of Caripe itself, but three short
leagues distant from the convent, in the direction of
west-south-west. It opens into a lateral valley, which terminates
at the Sierra del Guacharo.
We set out for the Sierra on the 18th of September, accompanied by
the alcaldes, or Indian magistrates, and the greater part of the
monks of the convent. A narrow path led us at first towards the
south, across a fine plain, covered with beautiful turf. We then
turned westward, along the margin of a small river which issues
from the mouth of the cavern.
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