SATITE CURIOSITIES. 
313 
Bio Negro, to go up by tbe Cassiquiare tc the Orinoco, and 
to repass the two raudales. 
When the traveller has passed the Great Cataracts, he 
feels as if he were in a new world, and had overstepped 
the barriers which nature seems to have raised between the 
civilized countries of the coast and the savage and unknown 
interior. Towards the east, in the bluish distance, we saw 
for the last time the high chain of the Cunavami mountains. 
Its long, horizontal ridge reminded us of the Mesa of the 
Brigantine, near Cumana ; but it terminates by a truncated 
summit. The Peak of Calitamini (the name given to this 
summit) glows at sunset as with a reddish fire. This 
appearance is every day the same. No one ever approached 
this mountain, the height of which does not exceed six 
hundred toises. I believe this splendour, commonly reddish 
but sometimes silvery, to be a reflection produced by large 
plates of talc, or by gneiss passing into mica-slate. The 
whole of this country contains granitic rocks, on which 
here and there, in little plains, an argillaceous grit-stone 
immediately reposes, containing fragments of quartz and of 
hrown iron-ore. 
In going to the embarcadero, we caught on the trunk of 
a hevea* a new species of tree-frog, remarkable for its 
beautiful colours ; it had a yellow belly, the back and head 
°f a fine velvety purple, and a very narrow stripe of white 
from the point of the nose to the hinder extremities. This 
frog was two inches long, and allied to the Bana tiuctoria, 
the blood of which, it is asserted, introduced into the skin 
°f a parrot, in places where the feathers have been plucked 
°ut, occasions the growth of frizzled feathers of a yellow 
? r red colour. The Indians showed us on the way, what 
18 no doubt very curious in that country, traces of cart- 
wheels in the rock. They spoke, as of an unknown animal, 
°f those heasts with large horns, which, at the time of the 
ex pedition to the boundaries, drew the boats through the 
v alley of Keri, from the Bio Toparo to the Bio Cameji, to 
av °id the cataracts, and save the trouble of unloading the 
merchandize. I believe these poor inhabitants of Maypures 
Would now be as much astonished at the sight of an ox 
°f the Spanish breed, as the Bomans were at the sight of 
* One of those trees whose mtlk yields enoutchouc 
