198 Information respecting Scientific Travellers. 



We passed, on the afternoon of the 13th of July, some hillocks, 

 and, soon after, the first rapid, formed by dikes of granite ; and 

 reached a settlement of Waikas, called Cadui, which we were told 

 was the last inhabited place below the great fall. We were here 

 struck with an air of plenty : the cassava grounds were extensive ; 

 yams, sweet potatoes, plantains, and bananas were abundant ; also 

 the i)aripi palm, and papayas, of which the fruit resembled a large 

 melon, some of them measuring twenty-eight inches in circumfe- 

 rence. Sugar-cane, cashew, and cotton-trees grew around the huts. 

 A number of wild fowls was observed ; moridies, powies, parrots of 

 all plumage ; several sun-birds, all tame, and associating amicably 

 with one another. 



I succeeded in procuring a set of circum-meridian altitudes, ac- 

 cording to which the settlement was in 7° 19' N. latitude. We 

 heard quite distinctly during night the roaring of the great fall 

 Dowocaima, which is about two miles distant, and bears S. 58° W. 



Having engaged three more Indians to accompany us from Cadui 

 to the Cuyuni, we started next morning at an early hour ; and after 

 passing some rapids, approached the great fall. We had to unload 

 near the island Wayaruima, and carry the canoes and luggage two 

 miles overland. 



These cataracts surpass in grandeur the great falls of the river 

 Demerara, to which in their structure they bear some resemblance. 

 The whole fall on the Barama amounts to about 120 feet in a di- 

 stance of two miles ; but, from the sinuosities of the channel, there 

 is no one point which affords a coup-d'ceil. 



The grandest scene is offered by the three upper faUs, where the 

 river, narrowing into about eighty feet, rushes turbulently down the 

 precipice in three jets, and forms, in the distance of about 100 yards, 

 a fall of thirty-five to forty feet perpendicular. This part is called 

 Dowocaima, and as we saw it at the height of the rainy season, 

 M'hen the river is full to overflowing, the scene is sublime indeed. 

 The banks were bordered by a primitive forest, and foliage of every 

 hue, among which the bright red of the young mora-leaves formed 

 a striking object. Lianes, reaching from boughs sixty feet high 

 down to the water's edge ; a thousand creepers, so closely envelop- 

 ing whole rows of trees as to give them a fanciful resemblance to old 

 massy columns crowned with ivy ; white festoons and clusters of 

 purple and yellow salver-shaped flowers trailing from tree to tree ; 

 all combined to form a vivid picture of tropical vegetation. The up- 

 roar of the masses of water which rush over the ledges of rock, and 

 envelope in foam the surrounding scenery, added to the characteristic 

 features of the landscape. 



The ledges of rock are composed of gneiss, their stratification 

 being S. 33° W. ; they form an impediment to all further naviga- 

 tion, and are such as, if a denser population should render the step 

 necessary, could only be overcome by canals or railroads. In the 

 absence of these, our Indians took their light bark canoes on their 

 heads, and carried them to that part of the river where there were 

 no serious obstacles to its further navigation. 



