236 IN THE GUIANA FOREST. 



sizes and shapes. Where unbroken the surface 

 is absolutely bare, but as the cracks and pools 

 are numerous, this barrenness is relieved by a 

 fair sprinkling of vegetation. Naturally the plants 

 of this region have to provide, like those of the 

 mourie, for the long dry season, and they do so 

 in a similar way. Here and there are clumps of 

 bushes, sedges in the pools, orchids, and every- 

 where the widespread Paepalanthus, which is such 

 a stumbling-block in walking over these places as 

 it is always in the way. 



This sandstone region culminates in that curious 

 group of mountains of which Roraima is the most 

 conspicuous. Below the great precipice, which 

 towers aloft to the height of fifteen hundred feet, is 

 a slope where vegetation is as rampant as in the 

 forest, although of a different character. Being 

 about five thousand feet above the sea-level, the 

 flora of this slope naturally differs somewhat from 

 that of the plain, but the great difference comes 

 from the excessive amount of moisture. Rarely 

 indeed does a day pass without rain, often accom- 

 panied by strong gales. With a very slight 

 coating of soil on the barren sandstone, it there- 

 fore follows that tall trees are entirely absent, and 

 even those lower ones which manage to insinuate 

 their roots into crevices of the rock and between 



