54 



destruction, which they display at every step, 

 can scarcely figure to themselves from a simple 

 narration the state of the bed of the river. It is 

 traversed, in an extent of more than five miles, 

 by innumerable dikes of rock, that form so 

 many natural dams, so many barriers resem- 

 bling those of the Dnieper, which the ancients* 

 designated by the name of phragmoi. The 

 space between the rocky dikes of the Oroonoko 

 is filled with islands of different dimensions; 

 some hilly, divided into several paps, and two or 

 three hundred toises in length, others small, 

 low, and like simple shoals. These islands di- 

 vide the river into a number of torrents, that 

 boil up as they break against the rocks ; they 

 are all furnished with jaguas and cucuritoes with 

 plumy leaves ; and seem a mass of palm-trees 

 rising amid the foamy surface of the waters. 

 The Indians, to whom the boats are entrusted, 

 to be passed empty across the raudales, distin- 

 guish every shelf, and every rock, by a particular 

 name. On entering from the south you find first 

 the Leap of the Toucan, Salto del Piapoco ; and 

 between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni 



* Constant. Porphyrug. ck Administrando Imperio, ch. 52. 

 It has been found possible, to render the rapids of the Dnie- 

 per navigable from the village of Staroi-Kaidak, as far as the 

 mouth of the Ossiborowka. See Julius Klaproth, in the 

 Magazin Encyclopedique, 1817, September, p. 139. 



