s of a high, flat plateau, which
had escaped while the rest of the country had subsided, loomed alone in
the distance.

One of the central hills was crowned by great black volcanic boulders of
the same rock which was visible at the southern edge of this great basin,
bounded by vertical cliffs--all of the same composition.

Directly south-west the evenness of the sky-line was again interrupted by
two mountains--flat-topped, one not unlike the gabled roof of a house,
the other like a cylindrical tower on the top of a high conical hill. We
again rose to an elevation of 1,950 ft., still travelling on the summit
of the plateau bordering the deep depression. We were compelled to
describe a curve in our route, and had reached a height of 2,000 ft. We
perceived to the north-east and east a long, uninterrupted--almost
flat--sky-line. We had described a sweeping curve right round the
irregular edge of the undulating plateau. We could now look back upon the
southern aspect of the vertical black and brown rocky cliff, on the
summit of which we had been travelling. The rocky cliffs were
particularly precipitous and picturesque in the western portion.
Interminable campos were still before us.

I occasionally picked up interesting plants and flowers for my botanical
collection. Innumerable in this region were the plants with medicinal
properties. The _sentori_ (_centaurea_) for instance--plentiful there,
with its sweetly pretty mauve flower--when boiled in water gave a bitter
decoction good for fever.

We came upon a patch of _landir_ or _landirana_ trees, with luxuriant
dark green foliage. They grew near the water, and were by far the tallest
and handsomest, cleanest-looking trees I had so far seen in Matto Grosso.
They attained a great height, with extraordinarily dense foliage,
especially at the summit, but also lower down at the sides. Then _burity_
palms were fairly abundant wherever one met _landir_ trees in groups or
tufts. We were now travelling at an elevation of 2,050 ft., then soon
after at 2,100 ft. above the sea level. There was merely stunted
vegetation growing upon the red earth and sand.

On descending from that high point we came upon extraordinary scenery.
To our right (north) was another concave depression with a further
subsidence in its central part. Due west and north-west, from the spot
where we first observed the scene, appeared four curious hemispherical
domes forming a quadrangle with three less importan