Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/180

 ISO TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [November,

the boys in hopes the game would pass near me. After a little time we heard a rushing and fearful gnashing of teeth, which made me stand anxiously expecting the animals to appear; but the sound went further off, and died away at length in the distance.

The party now appeared, and said that there was a large herd of fine pigs, but that they had got away. They, however, directed the boys to go on with me to the Serra, and they would go again after the herd. We went on accordingly over very rough, uneven ground, now climbing up steep ascents over rotting trunks of fallen trees, now descending into gullies, till at length we reached a curious rock — a huge table twenty or thirty feet in diameter, supported on two points only, and forming an excellent cave ; round the outer edge we could stand upright under it, but towards the centre the roof was so low that one could only lie down. The top of this singular rock was nearly fiat, and completely covered with forest-trees, and it at first seemed as if their weight must overbalance it from its two small supports ; but the roots of the trees, not finding nourishment enough from the little earth on the top of the rock, ran along it to the edge, and there dropped down vertically and penetrated among the broken fragments below, thus forming a series of columns of various sizes supporting the table all round its outer edge. Here, the boys said, was to be our abode during our stay, though I did not perceive any water near it. Through the trees we could see the moun- tain a quarter or half a mile from us, — a bare, perpendicular mass of granite, rising abruptly from the forest to a height of several hundred feet.

We had hung up our redes and waited about half an hour, when three Indians of our party made their appearance, staggering under the weight of a fine hog they had killed, and had slung on a strong pole. I then found the boys had mistaken our station, which was some distance further on, at the very foot of the Serra, and close to a running stream of water, where was a large roomy cave formed by an immense overhanging rock. Over our heads was growing a forest, and the roots again hung down over the edge, forming a sort of screen to our cave, and the stronger ones serving for posts to hang our redes. Our luggage was soon unpacked, our redes hung, a fire lighted, and the pig taken down to the brook,