482 THE CAVEKN OF ATAEUIPE. 



"We climbed witu difficulty, and not without some dange?, 

 a steep rock of granite, entirely bare. It would have been 

 almost impossible to fix the foot on its smooth and sloping 

 surface, if large crystals of feldspar, resisting decomposition, 

 did not stand out from the rock, and furnish points of 

 support. Scarcely had we attained the summit of the moun- 

 tain when we beheld with astonishment the singular aspect 

 of the surrounding country. The foamy bed of the waters 

 is filled with an archipelago of islands covered with palm- 

 trees. "Westward, on the left bank of the Orinoco, the 

 wide-stretching savannahs of the Meta and the Casanare 

 resembled a sea of verdure. The setting sun seemed like a 

 globe of fire suspended over the plain, and the solitary Peak 

 of Uniana, which appeared more lofty from being wrapped in 

 vapours which softened its outline, all contributed to aug- 

 ment the majesty of the scene. Immediately below us lay 

 a deep valley, enclosed on every side. Birds of prey an'd 

 goatsuckers winged their lonely flight in this inaccessible 

 circus. We found a pleasure in following with the eye 

 their fleeting shadows, as they glided slowly over the flanks 

 of the rock. 



A narrow ridge led us to a neighbouring mountain, the 

 rounded summit of which supported immense blocks of 

 granite. These masses are more than forty or fifty feet in 

 diameter; and their form is so perfectly spherical, that, 

 as they appear to touch the soil only by a small number of 

 points, it might be supposed, at the least shock of an earth- 

 quake, they would roll into the abyss. I do not remember 

 to have seen any where else a similar phenomenon, amid 

 the decompositions of granitic soils. If the balls rested on 

 a rock of a different nature, as in the blocks of Jura, we 

 might suppose that they had been rounded by the action of 

 water, or thrown out by the force of an elastic fluid ; but 

 their position on the summit of a hill alike granitic, makes 

 it more probable that they owe their origin to the progres- 

 sive decomposition of the rock. 



The most remote part of the valley is covered by a thick 

 forest. In this shady and solitary spot, on the declivity of 

 a steep mountain, the cavern of Ataruipe opens to the view. 

 l*t is less a cavern than a jutting rock in which the waters 

 have scooped a vast hollow when, in tu^ Ancient revolutions 



