236 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



Maite was quite disappointed in the morning that 

 nothing had occurred during the night. He had vaguely 

 prophesied that some dread calamity would be sure to 

 happen to one, if not to the whole, of us, for having dared 

 to violate the sanctity of the mountain of spirits, and 

 now he had to admit he was at fault. This he did 

 with a bad grace when the others laughed at his fears, 

 and from the way he kept muttering to himself and 

 shaking his head I felt that he was not at all satisfied 

 that we had escaped the danger which he seemed to 

 believe threatened us. 



The morning was so foggy that we could not see very 

 far in any direction, and the cliffs were completely hidden 

 by the veil of mist which enshrouded us. This did not 

 prevent us, however, from making a start. The incline 

 was in places so steep that we had frequently to crawl on 

 our hands and knees, helping ourselves up by holding on 

 to the twigs and ferns forming the undergrowth of the 

 forest. A peculiar feature of the vegetation was a small 

 but very graceful palm not met with lower down. In 

 fact, most of the shrubs and small plants I observed were 

 different to those seen on the previous day. Where our 

 camp had been pitched there were a few masses of rock, 

 but as we now saw such masses everywhere, I inferred 

 that we could not be far from the wall of rock off which 

 they had been precipitated. We came almost suddenly 

 upon the cliffs. For some time we remained at one spot, 

 gazing up at the stupendous wall that barred our way. 

 The fog had cleared up, so that we had a good view for 

 some distance on each side, but what we saw was not 

 encouraging. As far as the eye could reach the im- 

 passable barrier extended in awe-inspiring grandeur. 

 ' Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.' 



