222 A NETWORK OF RIVERS. 



restrained in some degree by a consciousness of comparative 

 weakness, dwell with pleasure on the stories of bloody bar- 

 barity which garnish their traditions. The son of the chief, 

 who felt the power of Sebituane'o arms, was found residing 

 amidst the ruins of his father's town, with a contemptible ham- 

 let growing up about him, and about his hut were to be seen 

 fifty human skulls hanging from the sharp points of stakes. 

 And he gloried in the possession of these skulls as memorials 

 of his father. Surely there can be no more aifecting appeal to 

 the Christian hearts of our favored land, than the picture of a 

 son in mature years, delighting to gaze on the skulls of the 

 victims of his father's fierceness ! 



Before, however, suffering ourselves led away by the incidents 

 of the journey, it will be profitable and measurably entertaining 

 to take at least a glance back and around on the country which 

 holds the splendid falls, like a central glory, the climax of its 

 wildness and beauty. 



There is,, or seems to be, a thorough network of rivers, whose 

 courses are so tortuous and whose intersections of each other are 

 so singular that one is considerably puzzled in the effort to keep 

 distinctly in mind and avoid the confusion of confounding them 

 one with another. There is a prevalent characteristic of these 

 channels, too, which suggests the thought of some violent up- 

 heaval in a period more or less remote as the explanation of 

 their existence. But the absence of any tradition, however in- 

 distinct, which hints of an earthquake is almost conclusive 

 evidence against the reference of the problem to an event so 

 violent, particularly as there are many traditions which hint of 

 momentous incidents in periods manifestly more remote than 

 the existence of the falls or rivers even. " There was found a 

 tradition which resembled the story of Solomon and the harlots." 

 They have also their version of the tower of Babel, whose 

 builders abandoned their work owing: to the inconvenience of 

 broken heads by the falling of their scaffolding, and vague things 

 about the builders of the tower having come out of a cave with 

 all the animals which hints of the account of Noah. It is hardly 

 reasonable that an earthquake of such extent and violence as 

 might have produced the wonderful fissures all over the broad 

 expanse threaded by these singular rivers would be entirely un- 



