222 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



several times referred, has received its name from a white 

 spot which is conspicuous from a great distance, and in 

 which the Indians have thought they recognised a remark- 

 able similarity to the disk of the full moon. I was not 

 myself able to climb the steep precipice, but the white mark 

 in question is probably a large knot of quartz formed by a 

 cluster of veins in the greyish-black granite- 

 Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the 

 island of Uivitari, which has a basaltic appearance, the 

 Indians shew with mysterious admiration a similar disk 

 which they venerate as the image of the Sun, Camosi. 

 Perhaps the geographical position of the two rocks may 

 have contributed to these denominations, as the Keri (or 

 Moon Rock) is turned to the West, and the Camosi to the 

 East. Some etymologists have thought they recognised in 

 the American word Camosi a similarity to Camosh, the name 

 of the Sun in one of the Phoenician dialects, and to Apollo 

 Chomeus, or Beelphegor and Ammon. 



Unlike the grander falls of Niagara (which are 140 

 French or 150 English feet high) the " Cataracts of May- 

 pures" are not formed by the single precipitous descent of 

 a vast mass of waters, nor are they " narrows" or passes 

 through which the river rushes with accelerated velocity, as 

 in the Pongo of Manseriche in the Eiver of the Amazons. 

 The Cataracts of Maypures consist of a countless number 

 of little cascades succeeding each other like steps. The 

 " Raudal" (the name given by the Spaniards to this species 

 of cataract) is formed by numerous islands and rocks which 

 so restrict the bed of the river, that out of a breadth of 8000 



