ROCKS AND TORRENTS. 119 



fined in its course, it turbulently broke on the rocks. 

 Nothing could be grander than the aspect. of this spot. 

 It was traversed, in an extent of more than five miles, 

 by innumerable dikes of rock, forming so many natural 

 dams. The space between these dikes was filled with 

 islands of different dimensions ; some hilly, divided into 

 several peaks, and twelve or fifteen hundred feet in 

 length, others small, low, and like mere shoals. These 

 islands divided the river into a number of torrents, which 

 boiled up as they broke against the rocks. The jaguas 

 and cucuritos with plumy leaves, with which all the 

 islands were covered, seemed like groves of palm-trees 

 rising from the foamy surface of the waters. Blocks of 

 granite were heaped together, as in the moraines which 

 the glaciers of Switzerland drive before them. The 

 river was ingulfed in caverns ; and in one of these 

 caverns the travellers heard the water roll at once over 

 their heads and beneath their feet. The Orinoco seemed 

 divided into a multitude of arms or torrents, each of 

 which sought to force a passage through the rocks. They 

 were struck with the little water to be seen in the bed 

 of the river, the frequency of subterraneous falls, and the 

 tumult of the waters breaking on the rocks in foam. 



From Caracas the travellers proceeded to Atures. The 

 missionary at Atures related to them a striking instance 

 of the familiarity of a jaguar. Some months before their 

 arrival, a jaguar, which was thought to be young, though 

 of a large size, had wounded a child in playing with him. 

 The facts of this case, which were verified to them on the 

 spot, are not without interest in the history of the man- 

 ners of animals. Two Indian children, a boy and a girl, 

 about eight and nine years of age, were seated on the 



