202 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



grandeur. The fall is over a shelving ledge of rock which 

 goes in a nearly straight line across the river's course. 

 But at the left there is a salient in the cliff-line, and here 

 accordingly a great cataract of foaming water comes 

 down almost as a separate body, in advance of the line 

 of the main fall. I doubt whether, excepting, of course, 

 Niagara, there is a waterfall in North America which 

 outranks this if both volume and beauty are considered. 

 Above the fall the river flows through a wide valley with 

 gently sloping sides. Below, it slips along, a torrent of 

 whity-green water, at the bottom of a deep gorge; and 

 the sides of the gorge are clothed with a towering growth 

 of tropical forest. 



Next morning the cacique of these Indians, in his 

 major's uniform, came to breakfast, and bore himself 

 with entire propriety. It was raining heavily — it rained 

 most of the time — and a few minutes previously I had 

 noticed the cacique's two wives, with three or four other 

 young women, going out to the mandioc fields. It was 

 a picturesque group. The women were all mothers, and 

 each carried a nursing child. They wore loin-cloths or 

 short skirts. Each carried on her back a wickerwork 

 basket supported by a head-strap which went around her 

 forehead. Each carried a belt slung diagonally across 

 her body, over her right shoulder ; in this the child was 

 carried, against and perhaps astride of her left hip. They 

 were comely women, who did not look jaded or cowed; 

 and they laughed cheerfully and nodded to us as they 

 passed through the rain, on their way to the fields. But 

 the contrast between them and the chief in his soldier's 

 uniform seated at breakfast was rather too striking; and 



