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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There, With
A Fire Of Brushwood, They Melt In Pots Of Clay The Fat Of The Young
Birds Just Killed.
This fat is 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.
The race of the guacharos would have been long ago extinct, had not
several circumstances contributed to its preservation. The natives,
restrained by their superstitious ideas, seldom have courage to
penetrate far into the grotto. It appears also, that birds of the
same species dwell in neighbouring caverns, which are too narrow to
be accessible to man. Perhaps the great cavern is repeopled by
colonies which forsake the small grottoes; for the missionaries
assured us that hitherto no sensible diminution of the birds has
been observed. Young guacharos have been sent to the port of
Cumana, and have 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.
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