cruel and voracious reptile. They cut long sticks and examined closely the
side of the creek for half a mile above and below the place where it was to
be crossed; and as soon as the boldest had swum over he did the same on the
other side, and then all followed.

After passing the night on the opposite bank, which is well wooded, it is a
brisk walk of nine hours before you reach four Indian huts, on a rising
ground, a few hundred paces from a little brook whose banks are covered
over with coucourite- and aeta-trees.

This is the place you ought to have come to two days ago, had the water
permitted you. In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you are
above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the remainder of the way is dry,
the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious plain put on
somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical rains, it is not
improbable but that this is the place which hath given rise to the supposed
existence of the famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado; but this is mere
conjecture.

A few deer are feeding on the coarse, rough grass of this far-extending
plain; they keep at a distance from you, and are continually on the look-
out.

The spur-winged plover and a species of the curlew, black with a white bar
across the wings, nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on the sea-
coast, frequently rise before you. Here too the muscovy duck is numerous,
and large flocks of two other kinds wheel round you as you pass on, but
keep out of gunshot. The milk-white egrets and jabirus are distinguished at
a great distance, and in the aeta- and coucourite-trees you may observe
flocks of scarlet and blue aras feeding on the seeds.