ave seen a few small ones in
hothouses, there opens an arch as big as the west front of Winchester
Cathedral, and runs straight in like a cathedral nave for more than 1400
feet. Out of it runs a stream; and along the banks of that stream, as
far as the sunlight strikes in, grow wild bananas, and palms, and lords
and ladies (as you call them), which are not, like ours, one foot, but
many feet high. Beyond that the cave goes on, with subterranean streams,
cascades, and halls, no man yet knows how far. A friend of mine last
year went in farther, I believe, than any one yet has gone; but, instead
of taking Indian torches made of bark and resin, or even torches made of
Spanish wax, such as a brave bishop of those parts used once when he went
in farther than any one before him, he took with him some of that
beautiful magnesium light which you have seen often here at home. And in
one place, when he lighted up the magnesium, he found himself in a hall
full 300 feet high--higher far, that is, than the dome of St. Paul's--and
a very solemn thought it was to him, he said, that he had seen what no
other human being ever had seen; and that no ray of light had ever struck
on that stupendous roof in all the ages since the making of the world.
But if he found out something which he did not expect, he was
disappointed in something which he did expect. For the Indians warned
him of a hole in the floor which (they told him) was an unfathomable
abyss. And lo and behold, when he turned the magnesium light upon it,
the said abyss was just about eight feet deep. But it is no wonder that
the poor Indians with their little smoky torches should make such
mistakes; no wonder, too, that they should be afraid to enter far into
those gloomy vaults; that they should believe that the souls of their
ancestors live in that dark cave; and that they should say that when they
die they will go to the Guacharos, as they call the birds that fly with
doleful screams out of the cave to feed at night, and in again at
daylight, to roost and sleep.

Now, it is these very Guacharo birds which are to me the most wonderful
part of the story. The Indians kill and eat them for their fat, although
they believe they have to do with evil spirits. But scientific men who
have studied these birds will tell you that they are more wonderful than
if all the Indians' fancies about them were true. They are great birds,
more than three feet across the wings, somewhat like