228 BATJDAL DE CARIYEff. 





rarefied air through the fissures of a sonorous stone might 

 have suggested to the Egyptian priests the invention of the 

 juggleries of the Memnonium. 



We left the rock at four in the morning. The mission- 

 ary had told us that we should have great difficulty in 

 passing the rapids and the mouth of the Meta. The Indians 

 rowed twelve hours and a half without intermission, and 

 during all that time, they took no other nourishment than 

 cassava and plantains. When we consider the difficulty of 

 overcoming the force of the current, and of passing the 

 cataracts ; when we reflect on the constant employment of 

 the muscular powers during a navigation of two months ; 

 we are equally surprised at the constitutional vigour and 

 the abstinence of the Indians of the Orinoco and the 

 Amazon. Amylaceous and saccharine substances, some- 

 times fish and the fat of turtles' eggs, supply the place of 

 food drawn from the first two classes of the animal king- 

 dom, those of quadrupeds and birds. 



We found the bed of the river, to the length of six hun- 

 dred toises, full of granite rocks. Here is what is called the 

 Maudal de Cariven. We passed through channels that were 

 not five feet broad. Our canoe was sometimes jammed 

 between two blocks of granite. We sought to avoid these 



Passages, into which the waters rushed with a fearful noise ; 

 ut there is really little danger, in a canoe steered by a good 

 Indian pilot. When the current is too violent to be resisted 

 the rowers leap into the water, and fasten a rope to the 

 point of a rock, to warp the boat along. This manoeuvre is 

 very tedious ; and we sometimes availed ourselves of it, to 

 climb the rocks among which we were entangled. They are 

 of all dimensions, rounded, very black, glossy like lead, and 

 destitute of vegetation. It is an extraordinary phenomenon 

 to see the waters of one of the largest rivers on the globe in 

 some sort disappear. We perceived, even far from the shore 

 those immense blocks of granite, rising from the ground 

 and leaning one against another. The intervening channels 

 in the rapids are more than twenty-five fathoms deep ; anc 

 are the more difficult to be observed, as the rocks are oftei . 

 narrow toward their bases, and form vaults suspended ove 

 tl 3 surface of the river. We perceived no crocodiles in ths 

 raudal; these animals seem to shun the noise of cataracts. 



