he lay of the
land is such that the various landscapes in which the waterfall is a
feature are more striking. A few hundred yards above the falls the
river turns at an angle and widens. The broad, rapid shallows are
crested with whitecaps. Beyond this wide expanse of flecked and
hurrying water rise the mist columns of the cataract; and as these
columns are swayed and broken by the wind the forest appears through
and between them. From below the view is one of singular grandeur. The
fall is over a shelving ledge of rock which goes in a nearly straight
line across the river's course. But at the left there is a salient in
the cliff-line, and here accordingly a great cataract of foaming water
comes down almost as a separate body, in advance of the line of the
main fall. I doubt whether, excepting, of course, Niagara, there is a
waterfall in North America which outranks this if both volume and
beauty are considered. Above the fall the river flows through a wide
valley with gently sloping sides. Below, it slips along, a torrent of
white-green water, at the bottom of a deep gorge; and the sides of the
gorge are clothed with a towering growth of tropical forest.

Next morning the cacique of these Indians, in his major's uniform,
came to breakfast, and bore himself with entire propriety. It was
raining heavily--it rained most of the time--and a few minutes
previously I had noticed the cacique's two wives, with three or four
other young women, going out to the mandioc fields. It was a
picturesque group. The women were all mothers, and each carried a
nursing child. They wore loin-cloths or short skirts. Each carried on
her back a wickerwork basket supported by a head-strap which went
around her forehead. Each carried a belt slung diagonally across her
body, over her right shoulder; in this the child was carried, against
and perhaps astride of her left hip. They were comely women, who did
not look jaded or cowed; and they laughed cheerfully and nodded to us
as they passed through the rain, on their way to the fields. But the
contrast between them and the chief in his soldier's uniform seated at
breakfast was rather too striking; and incidentally it etched in bold
lines the folly of those who idealize the life of even exceptionally
good and pleasant-natured savages.

Although it was the rainy season, the trip up to this point had not
been difficult, and from May to October, when the climate is dry and
at its best, there would be p