17C 
SIN GUL All MOUNTAIN. 
by tbe Guaricoto Indians on the left bank of the Orinoco, 
and then we advanced straight toward the south. The river 
is so broad that the mountains of Encaramada appear to rite 
from the water, as if seen above the horizon of the sea. They 
form a continued chain from east to west;. These mountains 
are composed of enormous blocks of granite, cleft and piled 
one upon another. Their division into blocks is the effect 
of decomposition. What contributes above all to embellish 
tbe scene at Encaramada is the luxuriance of vegetation 
that covers the sides of the rocks, leaving bare only their 
rounded summits. They look like ancient ruins rising in 
the midst of a forest. ’ The mountain immediately at the 
back of the Mission, the Tepwpano * of the Tamanac Indians, 
is terminated bv three enormous granitic cylinders, two ot 
which are inclined, while the third, though worn at its base, 
and more than eighty feet high, has preserved a vertical 
position. This rock, which calls to mind the form of the 
Sclmarclier in the Hart/, mountains, or that of the Organs 
of Actopan in Mexico, t composed formerly a part of the 
rounded summit of the mountain. In every climate, un- 
stratified granite separates by decomposition into blocks of 
prismatic, cylindric, or columnar figures. 
Opposite the shore of the Guaricotos, we drew near 
another heap of rocks, which is very low, and three or four 
toises long. It rises in the midst of the plain, and has less 
resemblance 'to a tumulus than to those masses of granitic 
stone, which in North Holland and Germany bear the name 
of hunenbette, beds (or tombs) of heroes. The shore, at tin 3 
part of the Orinoco, is no longer of pure and quartzose sand; 
but is composed of clay and spangles of mica, deposited n 1 
very thin strata, and generally at an inclination of forty or 
fifty degrees. It looks like decomposed mica-slate. Th ' 3 
change in the geological configuration of the shore extend 3 
* Tepu-pano, ‘place of stones,’ in which we recognize tepu ‘stone, 
rock,’ as in tepu-iri ‘mountain.’ We here perceive that Lesgian Oigour' 
Tartar root Up ‘stone’ (found in America among the Americans, •'* 
teptl; among the Caribs, in tebou ; among the Tamanacs, in tepuiril' 
a striking analogy between the languages of Caucasus and Upper As 111 
and those of the banks of the Orinoco. 
+ In Captain Tuckey’s Voyage on the river Congo, we find repr®* 
sented a granitic rock, Taddi Ensazi, which bears a striking resemble 
to the mountain of Encaramada, 
