The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of immense rocks. The huts
are not all in one place, but dispersed wherever they have found a place
level enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill you see at
intervals an acre or two of wood, then an open space with a few huts on it;
then wood again, and then an open space, and so on, till the intervening of
the western hills, higher and steeper still, and crowded with trees of the
loveliest shades, closes the enchanting scene.

At the base of this hill stretches an immense plain which appears to the
eye, on this elevated spot, as level as a bowling-green. The mountains on
the other side are piled one upon the other in romantic forms, and
gradually retire, till they are undiscernible from the clouds in which they
are involved. To the south-southwest this far-extending plain is lost in
the horizon. The trees on it, which look like islands on the ocean, add
greatly to the beauty of the landscape, while the rivulet's course is
marked out by the aeta-trees which follow its meanders.

Not being able to pursue the direct course from hence to the next Indian
habitation, on account of the floods of water which fall at this time of
the year, you take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot.

At last a large and deep creek stops your progress: it is wide and rapid,
and its banks very steep. There is neither curial nor canoe nor purple-
heart tree in the neighbourhood to make a wood-skin to carry you over, so
that you are obliged to swim across; and by the time you have formed a kind
of raft composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass to ferry over your
baggage, the day will be too far spent to think of proceeding. You must be
very cautious before you venture to swim across this creek, for the
alligators are numerous and near twenty feet long. On the present occasion
the Indians took uncommon precautions lest they should be devoured by this