THE ORINOCO. 93 



eyots and sharp-pointed reefs, connected by the shelving rocks of the foaming 

 rapids. The Maipures falls, nearly four miles long, are too impetuous to be 

 navigated throughout their whole course, so that they have to be turned at 

 several points by portages. 



These falls are separated by two small cascades from the Atures cataracts, 

 which are also named from an Indian tribe. Here are the Cerro Pintado 

 ("Painted Hill"), covered with Indian hieroglyphics, and the Cerro de los 

 Muerfos (" Hill of the Dead "), with its cave full of skeletons, besides other rocky 

 heights also containing sepulchral caverns. For a distance of six miles the 

 stream winds through a succession of gorges between reefs, patches of verdure 

 and piled-up granite boulders, nearly all of spherical shape like huge cannon- 

 balls poised high above others of smaller size. Elsewhere the waters disappear 

 in underground fissures, or else are precipitated in a single sheet down over- 

 hanging ledges, where the visitor may pass between rocky and aqueous walls, as 

 at Niagara. The Atures rapids are scarcely less dangerous than those of 

 Maipures, so that here also the navigation is interrupted by portages, although the 

 total incline is not more than about 40 feet at Maipures, and less than 30 feet at 

 the Atures falls. Several of the granite boulders scattered along the banks of the 

 middle Orinoco, notably the " Tiger's Stone," near the little Marimara falls, have 

 become famous for the musical notes that they emit, especially at sunrise, like 

 the statue of Memnon. The phenomenon, which occurs at other places as well as 

 in Egypt and on the Orinoco, is due to the cold night air expanding with the 

 heat, and causing the particles of mica to vibrate as it escapes through the fissures 

 of the rock.* 



Below Atures follow other slisrht obstructions, as far as the confluence of the 

 Meta, which, like the Guaviare, descends from the Colombian Andes, but greatly 

 exceeds it in importance. Joining the mainstream below the rapids and flowing 

 nearly in the same direction as the lower Orinoco, the Meta presents the shortest 

 route between the Cundinamarca plateau and the Atlantic seaboard, that is to say, 

 between the Andes and Europe. Hence it is already regarded as the future 

 highway between Paris and Bogota. Formed by the united waters of numerous 

 streams rising on the slopes, or even on the plateau of the eastern Cordilleras, it 

 takes the name of Meta at the confluence of the Upia and Humadea, when it has 

 reached an elevation of less than 500 feet above sea-level. Farther down it winds 

 in a north-easterly course across the llanos, whence it receives several tributaries, 

 especially from the north, the largest being the Casanare, which gives its name to 

 a vast stretch of level country. 



At some points the Meta broadens out to over 2,000 yards, with a depth suffi- 

 cient for the largest vessels, except where obstructed by shoals and mudbanks. 

 Between the Upia confluence and the island of Oroque, situated at about one- 

 third of ils course, it is usually navigable only for flat-bottomed barges drawing 

 about 20 inches. But below this point it is easily accessible to steamers drawing 

 7 or 8 feet during the winter rains and throughout the year for the last third of 

 * Myers, Life and Nature under the Tropics. 



