300 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



All next day was spent by Lyra in superintending our 

 three best watermen as they took the canoes down the 

 west side of the rapids, to the foot, at the spot to which 

 the camp had meantime been shifted. In the forest some 

 of the huge sipas, or rope vines, which were as big as 

 cables, bore clusters of fragrant flowers. The men found 

 several honey-trees, and fruits of various kinds, and small 

 cocoanuts; they chopped down an ample number of 

 palms, for the palm-cabbage ; and, most important of all, 

 they gathered a quantity of big Brazil-nuts, which when 

 roasted tasted like the best of chestnuts and are nutri- 

 tious ; and they caught a number of big piranhas, which 

 were good eating. So we all had a feast, and everybody 

 had enough to eat and was happy. 



By these rapids, at the fall, Cherrie found some 

 strange carvings on a bare mass of rock. They were 

 evidently made by men a long time ago. As far as is 

 known, the Indians thereabouts make no such figures now. 

 They were in two groups, one on the surface of the rock 

 facing the land, the other on that facing the water. The 

 latter were nearly obliterated. The former were in good 

 preservation, the figures sharply cut into the rock. They 

 consisted, upon the upper flat part of the rock, of four 

 multiple circles with a dot in the middle (|^) . very accu- 

 rately made and about a foot and a half in diameter ; and 

 below them, on the side of the rock, four multiple m's 

 or inverted w's (fjl^). What these curious symbols rep- 

 resented, or who made them, we could not, of course, 

 form the slightest idea. It may be that in a very remote 

 past some Indian tribes of comparatively advanced cul- 

 ture had penetrated to this lovely river, just as we had 



