At the foot of the tall Guàcharo mountain, and only 400 steps from the cave, we still could not make out its entrance. The torrent flows from a ravine, cut by the waters, under a ledge of rocks that blocks out the sky. The path follows the winding rivulet. At the last bend you suddenly come across the enormous grotto opening. This is an imposing scene, even for those used to the picturesque higher Alps. I had seen the caves of the Derbyshire peaks where, lying flat on a boat, we went down an underground stream under an arch 2 feet high. I had visited the beautiful grotto of Treshemienshiz in the Carpathian mountains, and the Hartz and Franconia caves, which are vast cemeteries with bones of tigers and hyenas, and bears as large as horses. Nature in every zone follows immutable laws in the distribution of rocks, mountains and dramatic changes in the planet's crust. Such uniformity led me to expect that the Caripe caves would not differ from what I had previously seen in my travels. The reality far exceeded my expectations.

These scattered features of the countryside, this trait of solitude and grandeur, characterizes the course of the Orinoco, one of the greatest New World rivers. Everywhere water, like land, displays its unique characteristics. The Orinoco bed has no similarities with the Meta, Guaviare, Río Negro or Amazon beds. These differences do not depend solely on the width or speed of the current; they derive from a combination of relations easier to grasp on the spot than to define precisely. In the same way, the shape of the waves, the color of the water, the kind of sky and clouds, all help a navigator guess whether he is in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean or in the equinoctial part of the Pacific.

Wherever the Temi forms bays the jungle is flooded for more than half a square league. To avoid the bends and shorten our journey the Indians leave the river bed and go south along paths or sendas, that is, canals, some 4 or 5 feet wide. The depth of the water rarely exceeds half a fathom. These sendas are formed in the flooded jungle like paths in dry land. Whenever they could the Indians crossed from one mission to another along the same path in their pirogues. But as the passage is narrow the thick vegetation sometimes leads to surprises. An Indian stands in the bow with his machete, incessantly cutting branches blocking the canal. In the thickest part of the jungle we heard an odd noise. As the Indian cut at some branches a school of toninas - freshwater dolphins - surrounded our boat. The animals had hidden under branches of a ceiba and escaped through the flooded jungle, squirting up water and compressed air, living up to their name of 'blowers'. What a strange sight, inland, 300 to 400 leagues from the Orinoco and Amazon mouths!

The location of the town of Santa Cruz is similar to La °, the busiest port in the province of Caracas. The heat is excessive in both places, but Santa Cruz is sadder. On a deserted sandy beach, houses of a dazzling white with flat roofs and windows without panes lie close to a rocky cliff stripped of vegetation. A fine stone quay and public walk planted with poplars are the only attraction in that monotonous picture. From Santa Cruz the peak seems far less picturesque than it does from the port of Orotava. There a smiling and richly cultivated plain contrasts with the wild appearance of the volcano. From the groves of palm and banana trees on the shore to the region of strawberry trees, laurels and pine the volcanic rock is covered with luxuriant vegetation. It is easy to see why the inhabitants of the beautiful climates of Greece and Italy thought they had discovered one of the Fortunate Isles on the western part of Tenerife. The eastern Santa Cruz side is everywhere marked with sterility.

We crossed some violent rapids before reaching the Mandavaca mission. The village, also called Quirabuena, has only sixty inhabitants. Most of these Christian settlements are in such a deplorable condition that over a stretch of 50 leagues we counted barely 200 people. The river banks were more populated before the arrival of the missionaries. The Indians retreated into the jungle towards the east as the plains on the west are uninhabited. They live for part of the year off the large ants I have already described. In Mandavaca we met a good missionary who had spent 'over twenty years of mosquitoes in the Casiquiare jungles' and whose legs were so spotted by mosquito bites that you could hardly see he was a white. He spoke of his isolation, and the sad necessity that forced him to witness how the most atrocious crimes went unpunished. In Vasiva a few years before an Indian chief had eaten one of his wives after taking her from her conuco and fattening her up with plenty of food. If the Guiana Indians eat human flesh it is not because of privations, or during rituals, but out of vengeance after a victory or, as the missionaries say, 'out of their perverted greed'. Victory over an enemy horde is celebrated with a feast where parts of prisoners' corpses are eaten. During the night an enemy family is attacked, or an enemy found by chance in the jungle is killed by a poisoned arrow. The corpse is cut up and brought home like a trophy. Civilization has led man to sense the unity of the human race, the bonds that link him to customs and languages which he does not know. Wild Indians hate all those who do not belong to their tribe or family. Indians who are at war with a neighboring tribe hunt them as we would animals in the wood. When they see unknown jungle Indians arrive at their mission they say: 'They must be related to us as we understand what they say. They recognize only their own family: a tribe is but a reunion of relations. They recognize family and kin ties, but not those of humanity in general. No feelings of compassion prevent them from killing women or children of an enemy tribe. These latter are their favorite food after a skirmish or ambush.

The Indians enter the caves once a year near midsummer with poles to destroy most of the nests. Several thousand birds are killed; the older ones hover over their heads to defend their young, screaming horribly. The young, called los pollos del guàcharo, fall to the ground and are cut open on the spot. Their peritoneum is loaded with fat; a layer of fat reaches from the abdomen to the anus, forming a kind of wad between the bird's legs. During this period, called the cosecha de la manteca (oil harvest) in Caripe, the Indians build palm-leaf huts near the entrance and in the cave vestibule itself. We could see their remains. With a brushwood fire they melt the fat of the young birds just killed and pour it into clay pots. This fat is known as butter or guàcharo oil; it is semi-liquid, clear and odorless, and so pure that it lasts for a year without going rancid. In the Caripe convent kitchen they only use fat from this cave, and the food never had a disagreeable taste or smell thanks to this fat.