50 



TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. [September, 



said to exist. Large silk-cotton-trees appear at intervals, 

 raising their semi-globular heads above the rest of the forest, 

 and the castanha, or Brazil-nut, grows on the river-banks, 

 ' where we saw many of the trees covered with fruit. 



We passed the Ilha das Pacas, which is completely covered 

 with wood, and very abrupt and rocky. The rocks in the 

 river were now thicker than ever, and we frequently scraped 

 against them; but as the bottoms of the montarins are 

 hollowed out of the trunks of trees and left very thick, they do 

 not readily receive any injury. At three p.m. we reached 

 Aroyas, a mile below the Falls. Here the bank of the river 

 slopes up to a height of about three hundred feet, and is thickly 

 wooded. There was a house near the river, with numerous 

 orange-trees, and on the top of the hill were mandiocca and 

 coffee plantations. We dined here ; and when we had 

 finished, the mistress handed round a basin of water and a 

 clean napkin to wash our hands, — a refinement we had hardly 

 expected in a room without walls, and at such a distance from 

 civilisation. 



After dinner we went on to see the Falls. The river was still 

 about a mile wide, and more wild and rocky than before. 

 Near the Falls are vast masses of volcanic rock; one in 

 particular, which we passed close under in the montaria is 

 of a cubical form, thirty feet on the side and twenty feet high. 

 There are also small islands composed entirely of scoria-like 

 rocks, heaped up and containing caves and hollows of a most 

 picturesque appearance, affording evident proofs of violent 

 volcanic action at some former period. On both sides of the 

 river, and as far as the sight extends, is an undulating country, 

 from four to five hundred feet high, covered with forest, the 

 commencement of the elevated plains of central Brazil. 



On arriving at the Falls we found the central channel about 

 a quarter of a mile wide, bounded by rocks, with a deep and 

 very powerful stream rushing down in an unbroken sweep of 

 dark green waters, and producing eddies and whirlpools below 

 more dangerous to canoes than the Fall itself. When the 

 river is full they are much more perilous, the force of the 

 current being almost irresistible, and much skill is required to 

 avoid the eddies and sunken rocks. The great cubical block 

 I have mentioned is then just under water, and has caused the 

 loss of many canoes. The strata were much twisted and 



