150 THE GEEAT CATARACTS OF THE OKINOCO. 



pures, of which tlie inhabitants said, and the fact is worthy 

 of observation, that ' they did not understand what it said, 

 because it spoke the language of the Atures.' " * 



At noon we arrived at the Raudal de Garcita, which 

 M'e passed by towing. To the southeast, in the distance, 

 we beheld the truncated peak of Calitamini, nearly four 

 thousand feet high, towering far above the surrounding 

 hills. Its peculiar outline and lofty height attract from 

 afar the attention of the traveller on the Upper Orinoco. 

 The vegetation along the river displayed that luxuriance, 

 beauty of form, and freshness of color, peculiar to the rich 

 and humid regions of the tropics. The white trunks of 

 Yagrumas, or Cecropias {^Cecropia peltatci)^ the home of 

 the sloth, with their large palmate leaves, were abundantly 

 intermingled with statelier trees, which towered up to a 

 height we had seen nowhere surpassed, while vines hung 

 in beautiful festoons from the borders of the forest. Palm- 

 trees were especially a striking feature in this tropical 

 landscape ; the fan-leaved Mauritia, the lofty Cucurito, 

 and spiny-trunked Macanella, rose in marked conspicuoiis- 

 ncss amid the endless variety of arboreal forms. The 

 Jagua, the most majestic of palms, whose stately trunk 

 attains a height of seventy to eighty feet, especially in- 

 vites the attention of the traveller. Its immense plume- 

 like leaves, twenty-five to thirty feet in length, and nearly 

 vertical, with their extremities gently curving, form a 

 coronal of verdure of exceeding grandeur. Of the many 

 and varied forms of vegetation we beheld under the tropics, 

 none impressed us more with its beauty and gracefulness 

 than the Jagua-palm. The Jagua of the Orinoco must 

 not be confounded with the jd«/«?« de Yagua of other 

 parts of Venezuela, the vernacular name of which is the 

 Corozo Colorado, from which the inhabitants obtain their 

 supply of palm-oil, in the same manner as the African 



* " Humboldt's Travels," vol. ii., p. 484. 



