224 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. \November, 
hill, of very inconsiderable height, and of a gradual 
slope. Besides the great caverns and ridges shown 
above, the surfaces of each precipice are serrated in a 
most extraordinary manner, forming deep sloping gut- 
ters, cut out of the smooth face of the rock, or some- 
times vertical channels, with angular edges, such as 
might be supposed to be formed were the granite in a 
plastic state forced up against hard angular masses. 
On reaching the cave I immediately skinned my prize 
before it was dark, and we then got our supper. No 
more “ gallos” were brought in that day. The fires 
were made up, the pork put to smoke over them, and 
around me were thirteen naked Indians, talking in un- 
known tongues. Two only could speak a little Portu- 
guese, and with them I conversed, answering their va- 
rious questions about where iron came from, and how 
calico was made, and if paper grew in my country, and 
if we had much mandiocca and plantains ; and they were 
greatly astonished to hear that all were white men there, 
and could not imagine how white men could work, or f 
how there could be a country without forest. They | 
would ask strange questions about where the wind came 
from, and the rain, and how the sun and moon got back 
to their places again after disappearing from us; and 
when I had tried to satisfy them on these points, they 
would tell me forest tales of jaguars and pumas, and of ^ 
the fierce wild hogs, and of the dreaded curupuri, the i 
demon of the woods, and of the wild man with a long 
tail, found far in the centre of the forest. They told me « 
also a curious tale about the tapir, which however others i 
have assured me is not true. 4 
