Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/131

 ever, having come on purpose to see them, I was determined to persevere, and soon reached the place. They were much larger than the others, and extended higher up the rock; the figures, too, were all different, consisting principally of large concentric circles, called by the natives the sun and moon, and several others more complicated and three or four feet high. Among them were two dates of years about 1770, in very neat well-formed figures, which I have no doubt were the work of some travellers who wished to show that they knew how the others were executed, and to record the date of their visit. Near some of the higher figures were two or three impressions of hands in the same colour, showing the palm and all the fingers very distinctly, as if the person executing the upper figures had stood on another's shoulders and supported himself with one hand (smeared with the red colour) while he drew with the other. I also took copies of the figures at this place, which, being large and exposed, are visible from a considerable distance round, and are more generally known than the others, which are in a secluded and out-of-the-way situation, and were probably not visited by any European traveller before myself.

We walked some distance further, to get some water, before returning towards the cave. 'There we found that our guides had arrived, and they soon led us up a steep path to its mouth, which is so well concealed by trees and bushes that our failing to discover it was not to be wondered at. The entrance is a rude archway, fifteen or twenty feet high; but what is most curious is a thin piece of rock which runs completely across the opening, about five feet from the ground, like an irregular flat board. This stone has not fallen into its present position, but is a portion of the solid rock harder than the rest, so that it has resisted the force which cleared away the material above and below it. Inside there is a large irregularly arched chamber, with a smooth sandy floor, and at the end there are openings into other chambers; but as we had not brought candles we could not explore them. 'There was nothing about the cave at all remarkable, except the flat transverse rock at its mouth. The vegetation around it was by no means luxuriant or beautiful, nor were there any flowers worth noticing. In fact, many of our caves in the limestone districts of England are in every way more picturesque and interesting.

I had heard of a plant growing in the pools in the marsh,