The First Ascent of Roraima. 13 
soil was overlaid by a thick layer of hard yellow clay, so 
sun-dried and so cracked as to resemble a very irregular 
tesselated pavement. Ground of this kind is called by 
the Indians " eppeling." On this special eppeling, in 
one place rather higher than the surrounding ground 
were scattered a considerable number of low straggling 
rhododendron-like shrubs (probably a Clusia or nearly 
allied to the genus) with most exquisite flowers deceptively 
like those of an English dog-rose. Here, in default of 
a better place, we determined to spend the night. 
Three or four old hammock-poles lying on the ground 
showed that we should not be the first occupants of the 
spot. These poles served for my companion's hammock 
and mine. The men cut branches of the rose- 
flowered shrub, and with these made themselves roman- 
tic, but scarcely comfortable, beds on the ground. 
The next morning, after following the table-land for 
yet a little further, we began to descend along an extra- 
ordinarily broad and almost perfectly smooth jasper 
rock, the sloping bed of a stream which was then almost 
dry. Wherever a little peatlike soil had accumulated 
on this rock grew sphagnum-like mosses, embedded in 
which, among other characteristic plants hitherto only 
met with on the Kaieteur savannah, were numerous, but 
singly standing, plants of the curiously formed and 
coloured Brocchina reducta, its two or three pale yellow 
leaves, overlaid with a grayish bloom, looking like a 
loose roll of two or three sheets of paper stuck on end 
into the ground. 
After this, ascent and descent, both generally very 
steep, followed each other in rapid succession ; and 
many streams, mostly jasper-bedded, were crossed, their 
