IfATlYE CURIOSITIES. 313 



Rio Negro, to go up by the Cassiquiare tc the Orinoco, and 

 to repass the two raudales. 



When the traveller has passed the Great Cataracts, he 

 feels as if he were in a new world, and had overstepped 

 the barriers which nature seems to have raised between the 

 civilized countries of the coast and the savage and unknown 

 interior. Towards the east, in the bluish distance, we saw 

 for the last time the high chain of the Cunavami mountains. 

 Its long, horizontal ridge reminded us of the Mesa of the 

 Brigantine, near Cumana ; but it terminates by a truncated 

 summit. The Peak of Calitamini (the name given to this 

 summit) glows at sunset as with a reddish fire. This 

 appearance is every day the same. No one ever approached 

 this mountain, the height of which does not exceed six 

 hundred toises. I believe this splendour, commonly reddish 

 but sometimes silvery, to be a reflection produced by large 

 plates of talc, or by gneiss passing into mica-slate. The 

 whole of this country contains granitic rocks, on which 

 here and there, in little plains, an argillaceous grit-stone 

 immediately reposes, containing fragments of quartz and of 

 brown iron -ore. 



In going to the embarcadero, we caught on the trunk of 

 a hevea* a new species of tree-frog, remarkable for its 

 beautiful colours ; it had a yellow belly, the back and head 

 of a fine velvety purple, aud a very narrow stripe of white 

 1'rom the point of the nose to the hinder extremities. This 

 frog was two inches long, and allied to the Eana tiuctoria, 

 the blood of which, it is asserted, introduced into the skin 

 of a parrot, in places where the feathers have been plucked 

 out, occasions the growth of frizzled feathers of a yellow 

 or red colour. The Indians showed us on the way, what 

 is no doubt very curious in that country, traces of cart- 

 wheels in the rock. They spoke, as of an unknown animal, 

 of those beasts with large horns, which, at the time of the 

 expedition to the boundaries, drew the boats through the 

 valley of Keri, from the Rio Toparo to the Rio Cameji, to 

 avoid the cataracts, and save the trouble of unloading the 

 mer:handize. I believe these poor inhabitants of Maypuivs 

 would now be as much astonished at the sight of an ox 

 of the Spanish breed, as the Romans were at the sight of 

 * Oie of those trees whose milk yields caoutchouc. 



