177 



with his own eyes." These absurd fables are 

 spread as far as the Llanos, where you are not 

 always permitted to doubt the existence of the 

 Raya Indians. In every zone intolerance ac- 

 companies credulity ; and it might be said, that 

 the fictions of ancient geographers had passed 

 from one hemisphere to the other, did we not 

 know, that the most fantastic productions of 

 the imagination, like the works of nature, fur- 

 nish every where a certain analogy of aspect and 

 of form. 



We landed at the mouth of the Rio Vichada 

 or Visata, to examine the plants of that coun- 

 try. The scenery is very singular. The forest 

 is thin, and an innumerable quantity of small 

 rocks rise from the plain. These form massy 

 prisms, ruined pillars, and solitary towers, fif- 

 teen or twenty feet high. Some are shaded by 

 the trees of the forest, others have their sum- 

 mits crowned with palms. These rocks are of 

 granite passing into gneiss. If this were not 

 the region of primitive formations, the traveller 

 might think himself transported amid the rocks 

 of Adersbach in Bohemia, or of Streitberg and 

 of Fantaisie in Franconia, where the sandstones 

 and secondary limestones do not affect stranger 

 forms. At the confluence of the Vichada the 

 rocks of granite, and what is still more remark- 

 able the soil itself, are covered with moss and 

 lichens. These latter resemble the cladonia 



VOL, V. N 



