182 THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS [chap, vi 



plunge. There is a sheer drop of forty or fifty yards, 

 with a breadth two or three times as great; and the 

 volume of water is large. On the left or hither bank a 

 cliif extends for several hundred yards below the falls. 

 Green vines have flung themselves down over its face, 

 and they are met by other vines thrusting upward from 

 the mass of vegetation at its foot, glistening in the 

 perpetual mist from the cataract, and clothing even the 

 rock surfaces in vivid green. The river, after throwing 

 itself over the rock wall, rushes off in long curves at the 

 bottom of a thickly wooded ravine, the white water 

 churning among the black boulders. There is a perpetual 

 rainbow at the foot of the falls. The masses of green 

 water that are hurling themselves over the brink dissolve 

 into shifting, foaming columns of snowy lace. 



On the edge of the cliff below the falls Colonel 

 Rondon had placed benches, giving a curious touch of 

 rather conventional tourist- civilization to this cataract 

 far out in the lonely wilderness. It is well worth visiting 

 for its beauty. It is also of extreme interest because of 

 the promise it holds for the future. Lieutenant Lyra 

 informed me that they had calculated that this fall would 

 furnish thirty-six thousand horse-power. Eight miles off 

 we were to see another fall of much greater height and 

 power. There are many rivers in this region which 

 would furnish almost unlimited motive force to populous 

 manufacturing communities. The country round about is 

 healthy. It is an upland region of good climate ; we 

 were visiting it in the rainy season, the season when the 

 nights are far less cool than in the dry season, and yet 

 we found it delightful. There is much fertile soil in the 

 neighbourhood of the streams, and the teeming lowlands 

 of the Amazon and the Paraguay could readily — and 

 with immense advantage to both sides — be made 



