Beneath us, to the westward, I observed a broad and thinly wooded valley;
and W. by S., distant apparently about twenty miles, an isolated mountain,
whose sides seemed almost perpendicular, broke the otherwise even line of
the horizon; but the country in every other direction looked as if it was
darkly wooded. Anticipating that I should find a stream in the valley, I
did not for a moment hesitate in striking down into it. Disappointed,
however, in this expectation, I continued onwards to the mountain, which I
reached just before the sun set. Indeed, he was barely visible when I
gained its summit; but my eyes, from exposure to his glare, became so
weak, my face was so blistered, and my lips cracked in so many places,
that I was unable to look towards the west, and was actually obliged to
sit down behind a rock until he had set.

Perhaps no time is so favourable for a view along the horizon as the
sunset hour; and here, at an elevation of from five to six hundred feet
above the plain, the visible line of it could not have been less than from
thirty-five to forty-five miles. The hill upon which I stood was broken
into two points; the one was a bold rocky elevation; the other had its
rear face also perpendicular, but gradually declined to the north, and at
a distance of from four to five miles was lost in an extensive and open
plain in that direction. In the S.E. quarter, two wooded hills were
visible, which before had appeared to be nothing more than swells in the
general level of the country. A small hill, similar to the above, bore
N.E. by compass; and again, to the west, a more considerable mountain than
that I had ascended, and evidently much higher, reflected the last beams
of the sun as he sunk behind them. I looked, however, in vain for water.
I could not trace either the windings of a stream, or the course of a
mountain torrent; and, as we had passed a swamp about a mile from the
hill, we descended to it for the night, during which we were grievously
tormented by the mosquitoes.

RESULTS OF THE EXCURSION.

I had no inducement to proceed further into the interior. I had been
sufficiently disappointed in the termination of this excursion, and the
track before me was still less inviting. Nothing but a dense forest, and a
level country, existed between me and the distant hill. I had learnt, by
experience, that it was impossible to form any opinion of the probable
features of so singular a region as that in which I