He saw, he says, one of these monsters rise in this very Boca, at a sailor who had fallen overboard, cover him with one of his broad wings, and sweep him down into the depths.

And, on the whole, if Guacharos are precious, so is life.

So, like Gyges of old, we 'elected to survive,' and rowed away with wistful eyes, determining to get Guacharos--a determination which was never carried out--from one of the limestone caverns of the northern mountains.
And now it may be asked, and reasonably enough, what Guacharos {111b} are; and why five English gentlemen and a canny Scots coastguardman should think it worth while to imperil their lives to obtain them.
I cannot answer better than by giving Humboldt's account of the Cave of Caripe, on the Spanish main hard by, where he discovered them, or rather described them to civilised Europe, for the first time:-- 'The Cueva del Guacharo is pierced in the vertical profile of a rock.

The entrance is towards the south, and forms a vault eighty feet broad and seventy-two feet high.

This elevation is but a fifth less than the colonnade of the Louvre.