XI 
SAN CARLOS 
359 
runs over this part it is not clad, as is most of the 
rest of the rock, with the same blackish Conferva 
which invests all the exposed granite in this region. 
At the top it is clad with forest and two bare 
rocks stand out like paps ; these are seen to be the 
apices of the two parts into which the mountain 
is deeply cleft when it is viewed from a little 
farther up the river. Going higher up still the 
left-hand peak resolves itself into two, and the 
whole mountain then presents the form of a trun- 
cated pyramid with a three-toothed apex. 
At the base the view of the immense over- 
hanging mass is very imposing. There is one 
very grand scene when, looking down into a 
ravine, the infant river is seen emerging from 
beneath a mass of rocks, of which the upper- 
most, spanning across all the rest, is an immense 
parallelopipedon perhaps equalling the Royal Ex- 
change in magnitude ; and the frowning mountain 
rises at the back of a thin strip of forest and shuts 
in the picture. 
We skirted along the base of the mountain until 
we reached the opposite side where the rock sinks 
down to the plain by more gradual undulations. 
The forest has here straggled up the sloping rock 
to nearly one-third the whole height of the moun- 
tain, and the rock presents a singular aspect from 
being clad with roots of trees which are closely applied 
to its surface and extend in almost parallel lines to 
apparently interminable lengths. Their direction 
is that of descending floods which must come down 
from the upper part of the mountain with every heavy 
rain, and whose tendency is to wash them away ; 
this effect being prevented by the roots presenting 
