ADVENTURE WITH A BOAR. 387 



buttresses of a Silk-cotton tree, and putting the dogs 

 fairly at defiance. He has here set his back against the 

 wall, and he fights in desperation and dies in his hold. 



" I will relate a little adventure of my own with 

 forest Hogs in Spanish Haiti. I was in the way, 

 with tlie friend I have mentioned in some of my 

 former notes, to visit a curious chambered rock in 

 the savanna of Copey, near Puerta-plata. It was 

 situated at the foot of a still more curious mountain, 

 that gave out strange musical sounds ; the warbling 

 wind, struggling through the fissures and crannies, 

 had conferred upon it a voice of enchantment. The 

 Hatero's wealth in these parts consists in his wood- 

 land swine. A peon had been provided for us, to 

 conduct us to these mountain wonders ; and though 

 we had to clear our way, as we advanced, through 

 occasional underwood, the forest, which was of mao-- 

 nificent growth, was generally exceedingly open. 

 The chambered rock was an immense mass, of 300 

 feet high, of detached stratified limestone, with its 

 strata standing vertical. The obstructed waters of a 

 small stream, over which it had been rolled, had 

 cleared a way through its fissures, and formed 

 curious galleries, whose roof, walls, and floors, were 

 fretted with stalactitic incrustations. It was a grotto 

 of crystal work, at once beautiful and strange. 



" To ascend to the entrance it became necessary to 

 pass along a narrow cliff-raised pathway, from which 

 successive steps led to a labyrinth of galleries. The 

 peon before, drawing his legs hastily up on a ledge 

 above us, sounded out, ' Look out for the Boar ! ' 

 In an instant up rose from a niche three forest Ho^-s, 



