56 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



way, enliven and change the scene, by the avenues 

 which they make, which look like the mouths of 

 other rivers, and break that long-extended same- 

 ness which is seen in the Demerara. 



Proceeding onwards, you get to the falls and 

 rapids. In the rainy season they are very tedious 

 to pass, and often stop your course. In the dry 

 season, by stepping from rock to rock, the Indians 

 soon manage to get a canoe over them. But when 

 the river is swollen, as it was in May, 1812, it is 

 then a difficult task, and often a dangerous one 

 too. At that time many of the islands were over- 

 flowed, the rocks covered, and the lower branches 

 of the trees in the water. Sometimes the Indians 

 were obliged to take everything out of the canoe, 

 cut a passage through the branches, which hung 

 over into the river, and then drag up the canoe by 

 main force. 



At one place, the falls form an oblique line quite 

 across the river, impassable to the ascending 

 canoe, and you are forced to have it dragged four 

 or five hundred yards by land. 



It will take you five days, from the Indian habi- 

 tation, on the point of the island, to where these 

 falls and rapids terminate. 



There are no huts in the way. You must bring 

 your own cassava-bread along with you, hunt in 

 the forest for your meat, and make the night's 

 shelter for yourself. 



Here is a noble range of hills, all covered with 

 the finest trees, rising majestically one above the 

 other, on the western bank, and presenting as rich 

 a scene as ever the eye would wish to look on. 



