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.

What a contrast between the Cueva of Caripe and those caverns of the north crowned with oaks and gloomy larch-trees!

'The Indians enter into the Cueva del Guacharo once a year, near midsummer, armed with poles, by means of which they destroy the greater part of the nests.

One is dated 24th October, 1562, and was addressed to the Bishop of Arezzo, about the presentation to a certain abbey which had become vacant upon the death of Cardinal della Cueva.

Not many days after his arrival in the Lagune, Pierre denounced to the Inquisitors of State a conspiracy projected, as he said, by the Duke d'Ossuna, and favoured by Don Alfonso della Cueva, Marquis de Bedemar, at that time resident ambassador from Spain.

La Cueva de Los Guanches.

La Cueva de Los Guanches.

LA CUEVA DE LOS GUANCHES.