About and Above the Great Falls. 105 



some wretched little obje6ls that would tempt not even 

 a healthy appetite, but which, when boiled up with a 

 largely preponderating quantity of the inevitable peppers, 

 gave, just as the best fish alio would only give, a highly 

 nutritious but exasperatingly hot mixture, that the 

 trained throat alone could regularly brave without flinch- 

 ing. As to vegetables there were none to be had, not 

 even a yam, a sweet cassava, a potato nor a plantain— 

 not even a sight of one anywhere ! 



The Great Falls of the Demerara river are very 

 beautiful, but as they have often been described, there is 

 no necessity for more than a passing notice of them 

 here. As seen from below, the view closely resembles 

 the Marchughi Falls in the Puruni river, a painting of 

 which is to be seen among the views of the colony in 

 the local Museum, but the surrounding lands of the 

 Demerara are higher. A central rocky but tree-covered 

 island separates two much inclined catara6ts of foaming 

 water, while on the western side there are other large 

 channels, around smaller islands, the courses of which are 

 hardly to be seen except by walking along the bank or 

 from close up to the basin. The banks on each side rise 

 sharply into forest covered hills, which form a 

 pi6luresque framing for the foaming catarafts and rocky 

 islands. At the upper part, and for some 200 yards, the 

 water rushes along in one rocky channel, leaping down 

 by a series of small falls, and it is owing to the great 

 force of the water in some of these upper channels, where 

 the bed is narrowed between huge rocks, that it is im- 

 possible to haul up boats by water. 



The barrier rock consists entirely of greenstone, the 

 jun6lion with the granitic rock through which it has been 



O 



