410 



degrees, in the Cerros de Guanaya. The plants 

 that live in society have seldom marked limits, 

 and it happens, that, before we reach a palmar 

 or a pinal*, we find solitary palm-trees and 

 pines. They are somewhat like colonists, that 

 have advanced in the midst of a country peopled 

 with different vegetable productions. 



Four miles distant from the rapids of Cunani- 

 vacari rocks of the strangest form rise in the 

 plains. First appears a narrow wall eighty feet 

 high, and perpendicular ; and at the southern 

 extremity of this wall are two turrets, the 

 courses . of which are of granite, and nearly hori- 

 zontal. The arrangement of the rocks of Gua- 

 nari is so symmetrical, that they might be taken 

 for the ruins of an ancient edifice. Are they 

 the remains of islets in the midst of an inland 

 sea, that covered the flat ground between Sierra 

 Parime and Mount Parecis-f- ? or have these 

 walls of rock, these turrets of granite, been 



* Two words of the Castilian tongue, which, according to 

 a Latin form, denote forests of palm-trees {pahv.etum) and of 

 pines (pinetum). 



+ Sierra de la Parime, or of the Upper Oroonoko j Sierra 

 (or Campos) dos Parecis, making part of the mountains of 

 Matto Grosso, and forming the northern back of the Sierra 

 de Chiquitos. 1 here name the two chains of mountains 

 running from east to west, that border the plains or basins 

 of the Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon, between 

 3° 30' of north, and 14° of south latitude. 



