172 TlMEHRl. 
the rather dismal suggestions of this word are often, as 
certainly in this case, undeserved — lies on a terrace mid- 
way up the mountain. Its surface is very uneven, and it 
is consequently much wetter in some parts than in others, 
its flatter parts and its hollows so saturated with wet that 
the foot of one who walks there sinks often up to the 
ankle, its higher parts islands, rarely of any great size, of 
dry ground scattered through the swamp. Often, too, 
from these dry islands considerable groups of rocks crop 
out and sometimes rise to a considerable height. In the 
wetter parts, the grass, which of course forms the main 
vegetation, is every where high, rank and coarse ; on the 
islands of drier ground the grass is finer and even turf- 
like ; from the a6tual rocks grass is absent. Each of 
these two aspects of the swamp, wet ground and dry 
rocky island, presents a distinct vegetation, of which 
almost the only common feature is distinction from the 
vegetation outside this El Dorado. 
Mingling and vying in height with the rank grass* of 
the wet parts, their flowers mingling with the blossoms 
of the grasses, are plants of wonderful beauty. The ever 
lovely, violet-flowered Utricular ia Humboldtii. Schom- 
burgk [No. 43], is there, growing, not as on the Kaieteur 
savannah as an epiphyte, but with independent roots in 
the ground ; but of this I shall have more to say pre- 
sently. The Abolboda is there too, in a form slightly 
larger and much less compact than is natural to it when 
growing on drier ground. The flag-leaved, yellow- 
* The grasses chiefly noticed at this place were Paspalum stel- 
latum, Flugge ; Panicum nervosum, Lam. ; Arundinella brasiliensis, 
Raddi . 
