ITINERARY. XI 



they always are over the comic elements in the misfortunes of others, 

 or even over lack of skill or sign of deficiency in any respect. 



The man was certain that the jumby of one of the men who had been 

 drowned in the falls had done him the injury ; and no doubt in his 

 thoughts and fears about the drowned men he may have had some sort 

 of half-dream and waking vision under the discomfort of the drawn 

 swollen face. It was quite impossible to convince him that it was a 

 chill from the sharp cold and saturated draught from the falls, over 

 the one side of the face exposed in the hammock. We dressed the 

 swelling with laudanum and vaseline, put flannel over it and bandaged 

 it for him; but later he appeared with a mass of leaves — which 

 probably were beneficial — over it, and an assortment of wraps that 

 made him a most ludicrous object. He had always called himself 

 McOonnell's " Old warrior " : he certainly now looked it. It was a 

 long time before the face was all right again. 



As illustrating the danger of running or navigating these larger 

 falls, and the necessity of having captains thoroughly familiar with 

 the river in all stages of high and low water, an incident on the return 

 journey may here be mentioned. It was at the Tupaco Falls, which 

 apparently is the same place where McTurk and Boddam-Whetham 

 met with disaster on their return from Koraima in 1878, their boat 

 being swamped and one man drowned, having gone into a channel in 

 ignorance of the fact that the fall below could not be run at that time 

 safely. In approaching these falls Jacob had waited for the second 

 boat, which always followed us, that he might tell Ritchie, who did not 

 know the river, to keep very close behind so as to follow in exactly the 

 same part of the channel, which was very narrow and dangerous, and 

 to swing his boat round from the main channel, just where the first 

 boat would disappear behind a set of large rocks on the left. 



The approach was through a long and wide rock-studded piece of 

 water, curving gradually, and passing from mere rapids, through which 

 we glided swiftly, to a strong and rough cataract of very, broken water, 

 along which we raced for a time ; and then with a call to the bowman 

 from Jacob, and a heavy turn of the huge paddle, which is always tied 

 with rope to the boat where the captain stands up holding the long 

 handle, we were away from what seemed the main current, sharp 

 round some high rocks on the left, and rushing down a long cataract 

 to the left bank below, where at the time a set of wooden crosses 

 marked the graves of some who had been drowned there. The straight 

 current led, by another turn lower down, to a channel that was safe in 

 very high water, but was dangerous in the dry season ; and Jacob said 

 that, if Eitchie had not been warned, so rapid was the pace, the boat 

 might have been dashed on the opposite side in attempting to take the 

 unexpected turn of the first boat. This was evidently the point where 

 McTurk and Boddam-Whetham had come to grief. 



The mere journey up the rivers does not qualify even a trained captain 

 to run down the falls unless he knows the channels for the seasons, so 

 different may be the state of the water ; and frequently the channels 

 taken in going up and down may be even on difierent sides. A good 

 captain can always judge by looking over a set of falls, and this is 

 often done ordinarily in very dangerous places, even when they are 



