On the foTARo. 337 



hammock to get soaked and seek shelter with the rest 

 under the leaky tent. The consequence was that the 

 remainder of the trip being performed for the most part 

 through rain, I slept in a wet hammock until it was 

 eventually dried by the heat of my body. 



On the third night out we ran into camp very late at 

 a place infested with winged termites on their " mar- 

 riage flight," the air being so clouded with them, that 

 we could hardly open our mouths to speak, but kept 

 moving up and down, brushing them away, as far as 

 possible, with branches, to prevent their getting into our 

 eyes and noses. Besides these annoying pests the ground 

 was alive with swarms of hunting ants, which chasing in 

 their march numbers of cockroaches, crickets and other 

 inserts, made us take to our hammocks rather hurriedly, 

 and there remain until morning, never daring to place 

 our feet on the ground. 



From this point nothing further occurred worth record- 

 ing (except continual rain) until we arrived at the 

 Ahara catara6ls, where through the bad management of 

 the crew our boat narrowly escaped being swamped. 



On a large rock on the light hand side of the inner 

 "haul over" at this fall, there are to be seen three deep 

 boat-shaped grooves, evidently the work of human hands. 

 Some few feet away from these marks, a small portion 

 of the rock has been worn smooth, indicating that it was 

 once resorted to by the Indians for polishing their stone 

 implements. 



Early on the eighth morning we came in sight of 

 Tumatumari, the first of a series of beautiful catara6ls 

 which culminate in the Kaiteur. 



The Potaro is without exception the most pi6luresque 

 UU2 



