s 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.

'Young Guacharos have been sent to the port or Cumana, and 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
prevalent. . . .

'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 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 governing the world,
the abode of souls after death, the happiness of the virtuous, and
the punishment of the guilty. The most different and barbarous
languages present a certain number of images which are the same,
because they have their source in the nature of our intellect 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. . . .

'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 Guacharos became more shrill. We were
obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and trace back