196 Notes oil Jungle and Other Wild Life. 



" It was then beautiful and terrible, but now it is 

 sometliins;- which it is useless to try and describe. Then a 

 narrow river, not a third of its present width, fell over the cliff 

 in a column of white water, and was broug:ht into startling- 

 prominence by the darkness of the great cave behind, and this 

 column of water, before it reached the small black pool below, 

 had narrowed to a point. Now an indescribable, almost incon- 

 ceivable vast curtain of waiter — I can find no other phrase — (some 

 400 feet in width) rolled over the top of the cliff, retaining its 

 full width until it crashed into the boiling water of the pool, 

 which filled the whole space below^ and at the surface of this 

 pool itself only the outer cave was visible, for the greater part 

 was beaten and hurled up in a great high mass of surf and 

 spray." 



There are several projecting rocks from which mile upon 

 mile of the river's course at the bottom of the canon can be 

 seen from above. Unlike the cliffs of the Yosemite and Niagara, 

 the deep water-worn cleft of the Potaro is completely and perma- 

 nently verdure-clad with vines, mosses, trees, shrubs, bromeliads 

 etc., from the water's edge to the plateau above. The constant 

 fight for life in the tropical forest, with its everlasting spring- 

 time, leaves few areas free of plant growth, and this marvel 

 adds greatly to beauty and charm of '.ropical panoramas. The 

 abrupt walls of the Kaietour gorge also bear thousands of 

 nany-coloured flowers, while up, down and across the abyss 

 fly macaws, Amazon parrots, cassiques (tropical orioles), eagles, 

 hawks and numerous other birds. I saw many swallows 



skimming the surface of the foaming waters, but, although they 

 are reported as flying past the wall of falling water into the 

 dark cavern behind it, none of our party witnessed that 

 phenomenon. 



The bed of the river below the great fall is dotted here 

 and there by a number of round and oval islets that recall the 

 wick'^H Rishop Hanno's island on the Rhine except that the 

 castellatCLi super-structures of the Potaro resolve themselves, 

 by the aid of a glass, into the usual trees and vines. 



To be eontinued. 

 ^ 



