292 
TRAVELS IN 
We afcended a collection of eminences, covered 
■with dark groves, which is one point of the crefcent 
that partly encircles the fink or bafon, open only on 
the fide next the favanna, where it is joined to the 
great channel or general conductor of the waters. 
From this point over to the oppofite point of the 
crefcent (which is a fimilar high rocky promontory) 
is about one hundred yards, forming a vaft femi- 
circular cove or bafon, the hills encircling it rifing 
very fteep fifty or fixty feet, high, rocky, perpen- 
dicular and bare of earth next the waters of the ba- 
fon. Thefe hills, from the top of the perpendicular, 
fluted, excavated walls of rock, flant off moderately 
up to their fummits, and are covered with a very 
fertile, loofe, black earth, which nourifhes and fup- 
ports a dark grove of very large trees, varieties of 
ihrubs and herbaceous plants. Thefe high foreft 
trees furrounding the bafon, by their great height 
and fpread, fo effectually made the waters, that 
coming fuddenly from the open plains, we feem at 
once fhut up in darknefs, and the waters appear 
black, yet are clear. When we afcend the top of 
the hills, we perceive the ground to be uneven, by 
round fwelling points and correfponding hollows, 
overfpread with gloomy made, occafioned by the tall 
and fpreading trees, fuch as live oak, morus rubra, 
zanthoxylon, fapindus, liquidambar, tilia, laurus 
borbonia, quercus dentata, juglans cinerea, and 
others, together with orange trees of remarkable 
magnitude and very fruitful. But that which is moft 
fmgular and to me unaccountable, is the infundibu- 
Hform cavities, even on the top of thefe high hills, 
fome twenty, thirty, and forty yards acrofs, at their 
fuperficial rims exactly circular, as if (truck with a 
compafs, Hoping gradually inwards to a point at bou 
torn. 
