G 
ATARAIPU. 
recognised the blue outline of the Canuku chain, the remarkable Saeraeri mountains -with their conical peaks, the dome-shaped Vivi, and 
the Dororu rising- out of the vast savannahs, the scene of my former wanderings in 1836. Then the eye again reverted to that monument of 
unnumbered ages. What changes may have occurred since the word which called it into existence was pronounced ? Had the earthy 
substance, which probably once surrounded it, been washed away by tempests and torrents, and left nothing but the column impervious to the 
tooth of time ? Had it risen out of the bowels of the earth ; the child of that earth’s convulsion ? Whatever intermediate cause may have 
brought it forth, it is a wonderful monument of Him who is Almighty ! 
As I gazed around on this romantic and picturesque scene, and on this striking pillar now lighted up by the rich glow of a tropical 
sunset, my thoughts naturally reverted to the companions and incidents of my preceding journey, and I could not but look forward with hope, 
not unmixed with anxiety, towards the distant south, the object of my present expedition. 
The Saeraeri mountains, which form such a striking feature in the landscape when seen from Hutu-cubana, rise, an isolated group, on 
the western bank of the river Rupununi, in the approximate latitude of 2° 50' north, and longitude 59° 23' west. They .are conical and rugged, 
but well wooded at the base. They are probably the Sierra Uassari^' of ancient maps; the Indian tribes, however, living in their neighbourhood 
call them Saeraeri from a species of bird. At their eastern extremity is a pyramidical mountain, the top consisting of granite. Its shape 
is so peculiar that it cannot fail to attract attention ; it is quite isolated, and called by the Wapisianas Ochlopan, or Dochlopan. 
The height of the north-eastern peak of Saeraeri, according to some trigonometrical operations which I made in the savannahs in 
the vicinity of the Wapisiana village of Kuiaraton, is two thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the savannah, and two thousand eight 
hundred feet above the sea ; and that strange mountain, Dochlopan, is one thousand and seventy feet above the savannahs. They appear 
much higher, but this may arise from their standing entirely isolated. Their formation is peculiar, and they are easily recognised at a 
great distance by their three peaks. At their western foot flows the small river Saraou-auri (Saruru, Sarauri in maps), between which 
and the Rupununi there is a path, or portage, by which the Indians keep up a communication between the Rupununi and Takutu, 
dragging their corials from the former, a short distance over land, to the Saraou-auri. This portage was traversed as early as 1739 by 
Nicholas Hortsman f. The stream has received its name from a species of Palm (Astrocaryum Jauari) which the Wapisianas call Saraou- 
auri, and is a tributary of the river Takutu, which flows into the Rio Branco. 
The wood-cut represents the Saeraeri mountains, seen from the savannahs to the north-east, at a distance of about sixteen miles. The 
small river Akatauri, fringed by trees, meanders in the foreground towards the Rupununi ; further to the south are the distant Ursato 
mountains, so lately the tragical scene of Indian sufferings and Brazilian tyranny. 
M. de Humboldt’s Pers. Narrat., voj. vi, p. 518. t M. de Humboldt’s Pers. Narrat., vol. v, p. 480. 
URSATO AND SAERAERI MOUNTAINS. 
