236 MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 
intercept the crevices may contribute to modify their 
expression.* 
On the 12th they set off at four in the morning. 
The Indians rowed twelve hours and a half with- 
out intermission, during which time they took no 
other nourishment than cassava and plantains. The 
bed of the river, to the length of 1280 yards, was 
full of granite rocks, the channels between which 
were often very narrow, insomuch, that the canoe 
was sometimes jammed in between two blocks. 
When the current was too strong the sailors leapt 
out, and warped the boat along. The rocks were of 
all dimensions, rounded, very dark, glossy like lead, 
and destitute of vegetation. No crocodiles were 
seen in these rapids. The left bank of the Orinoco, 
from Cabruto to the mouth of the Rio Serianico, a 
distance of nearly two degrees of latitude, is entirely 
_ * Many examples of mysterious sounds produced under similar 
circumstances are on record. In the autumn of 1626, a recent tra- 
veller crossing the Pyrenees, when in a wild pass with the Mala- 
detta mountain opposite, heard “a dull, low, moaning, Aolian sound, 
which alone broke upon the deathly silence, evidently proceeding 
from the body of this mighty mass.” The air was perfectly calm, 
and clear to an extraordinary degree; no waterfall could be seen 
even with the aid of a telescope, and no cause could be assigned for 
the phenomenon, unless the sun’s rays, “at that moment impingin 
in all their glory on every point and peak of the snowy heights,” 
had some share “in vibrating these mountain-chords.”V. J. 
Mag. xxx. 34l. The granite statue of Memnon is well known to 
have emitted sounds when the morning beams darted upon it; and 
MM. Jomard, Jollois, and Devilliers, heard a noise resembling that 
of the breaking of a string, which proceeded at sunrise from a 
monument of granite situated near the centre of the spot on which 
stands the Hints of Carnac. Singular sounds have been heard 
from the interior of a mountain near Tor, in Arabia Petreea. They 
are familiar to the natives, who ascribe them to a convent of monks 
miraculously preserved under ground, and were heard by M. Seet- 
zen and Mr Gray, the only European travellers who have visited 
the place. For an account of these curious phenomena, the reader 
may be referred to Dr Brewster’s Letters on Natural Magic, form- 
ing No. XX XIII. of the Family Library. 
