ITINERARY. Ivii 



titanic conflagration had swept all over it, 'leaving only bare and 

 blackened rocks. It is only in detail that one can appreciate the 

 features of its vegetation, which is most abundant in sheltered nooks 

 and crannies, and corners, by the pools and behind protecting rocks, 

 and forming a rough carpet of mixed growths of all sorts scattered 

 about the valleys, in open exposure to the sunlight. 



During the long course of ages, the play of wind and rain has 

 worked the rock into an astonishing variety of shapes — looking at 

 times like roughly carved figures of men and animals and familiar 

 objects — rising often into lofty pinnacles, like great towers and 

 minarets, over elevated ridges, irregularly terraced and rugged, with 

 narrow winding gullies and wide open valleys which drain away the 

 excessive rains through numerous shallow pools and streams. The 

 highest ridges rise to 8740 feet, and the deepest gullies are some 

 400 feet below them ; and in all one is struck everywhere by the 

 irregularities of the weathered rock. In places the sandstone may be 

 hard, but mostly it is soft and friable, easily breaking away, especially 

 on the weathered and disintegrated projections, so that falls may be 

 frequent, and constant care is required in laboriously clambering about 

 them while collecting. It was tantalising at times to note some 

 apparently new specimen in positions where a broken neck would have 

 been the almost certain reward of the attempt to reach it. As it was, 

 bruises were frequent enough where the rotten rock had given way 

 unexpectedly; and one was chary of climbs up or down really steep 

 places, preferring long and tedious ways round by safer passages, where 

 such were to be found, to reach specimens that were at first but a very 

 few yards off. Collecting therefore was often a very slow process, but 

 quite unavoidably so — apart from oncoming mists and clouds that 

 obliterated everything for the time being. One always wondered, 

 when on some high lidge, whether they might be permanent. 



Occasionally one comes on some comparatively deep pools on the 

 lower parts of the ridges, where there may be small channels of 

 running water or cascades from the heights. They are, however, never 

 large, being generally about some five feet in depth and a little longer 

 a.t times ; and they had always large numbers of dragon-fly larvae in 

 them. Those in the gullies were usually much larger, but very 

 shallow, of about one or two feet in depth, with numerous rocks and 

 much sand. In some of them, but frequently exposed, as if the pools 

 had dried up leaving a fine greenish scum, were a profusion of quartz 

 or quartzite crystals, often in masses, the individual crystal often being 

 about four inches long and an inch through, and quite clear. They 

 were the cause of much speculation, some of the people bringing them 

 in under -the impression they were diamonds — no doubt with dreams 

 of the rush that would take place to the distant Roraima, as to other 

 places where gold or other diamonds had been discovered. " All is not 

 gold that glitters " is as applicable to quartz crystals as to pyrites. It 

 is not very long ago that a prospector had loaded his boat with blocks 

 of a peculiarly clear and bright rock-crystal from the Kuribrong river, 

 under the belief that he had hit upon a whole original formation of 

 diamonds. The Elizabethan warrior is by no means singular. 



During nine days' continuous exploration it was possible to range 



