MANAOS AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 277 
no easy matter to overcome it. However, of late the de- 
sire to see themselves in a picture is gradually gaining the 
ascendant, the example of a few courageous ones having 
emboldened the more timid, and models are much more 
easily obtained now than they were at first. 
Yesterday our quiet life was interrupted by an excursion 
to the great cascade, where we went with a party of friends 
to breakfast and dine. We were called with the dawn, 
and were on the road at six o'clock, the servants following 
laden with baskets of provisions. The dewy walk through 
the woods in the early morning was very pleasant, and we 
arrived at the little house above the cascade before the 
heat of the day began. This house stands on a hill in a 
cleared ground entirely surrounded by forest ; just below 
it the river comes rushing through the wood, and falls 
some ten feet over a thin platform of rock. By its forma- 
tion, this cascade is a Niagara in miniature ; that is, the 
lower layer of rock being softer than the upper, the water 
has worn it away until there now remains only a thin 
slab of harder rock across the river. Deprived of its sup- 
port, this slab must break down eventually, as Table-rock 
has done, when the cascade will, of course, retreat by so 
much and begin the same process a little higher up. It 
has, no doubt, thus worn its way upward already from a 
distant point. The lower deposit is clay, the upper consists 
of the constantly recurring reddish sandstone, in other 
words, drift worked over by water. Below the fall, the 
water goes tearing along through a narrow passage, over 
boulders, fallen trees, and decaying logs, which break 
it into rapids. At a little distance from the cascade 
there is a deep, broad basin in the wood, with a sand 
bottom, so overshadowed by great trees that it looks dark 
