[Illustration: The _Hilo de Oro_ at the end of the voyage.]
While waiting for a boat of ample size to take us up the river to San Fernando de Atabapo, we had time to explore the surrounding country and to visit the rapids, three in number, which obstruct the river. The woods are wonderful beyond description; most of the trees are gnarled and low, as if grown under the guiding hand of a skilful Japanese gardener, and have the appearance of being hundreds of years old. Stunted spiny palms rear their crowns here and there, and an occasional tangle of red-flowered creepers forms an umbrella-like mass on the tip of some slender, dead stub. The ground is sprinkled with rocks of fantastic shapes, and some are of enormous size, rising in needle-like, fluted columns, or as the crumbling tiers of massive walls amid the curiously distorted vegetation. Along the river are other masses of rock, but of an entirely different formation; we saw caves and grottos, and ledges honeycombed with hundreds of pot-holes exposed by the low water.
Beyond the woods are large areas of cacti, pineapples, and low, thorny bushes, springing from crevices in the granite ledges. Bird life is abundant and varied. Quail and red-breasted meadow-larks occupy the open country, as well as a species of the much-sought tinamou; but a bird that proved to be the most interesting was a small, obscure individual called nunlet or swallow-wing. All day long the little creature, about the size of a king-bird, black above and gray below, with a saffron band across the throat, sits on the top of some dead tree, seemingly asleep; but let a fly or an insect of almost any kind pass along and the bird immediately becomes charged with activity and darts into the air in hot pursuit, catches its victim, and returns to its perch with graceful flits of the wings. It remains on the same twigs for hours, and usually returns day after day. If a stick is thrown at it the little creature flies away and comes back again and again. But stupid as the bird appears to be, it is nevertheless a skilful architect. I have seen them dig perfectly round holes deep into a bank of sand so loose that the whole mass would crumble at my touch; while one bird digs with much scratching and working of wings, the mate sits on a branch near by and gives a twitter of alarm upon the approach of danger. Some members of the family build a huge pile of twigs on the entrance to their burrow to hide it. At the end of the tunnel, a foot or two back, the snow-white eggs are laid upon a thin layer of straw and feathers.