496 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
inwards forming an extensive bay into which the 
Tarumk enters. It is fairly wide at first, but as it 
receives numerous small streams from either side it 
soon becomes narrower, yet its sources are said to 
be a long way off in the forest. At about an hour 
from its mouth a rather large igarape enters on the 
east side and is celebrated for having the loftiest 
waterfall known on the Rio Negro. My object 
was to visit this ; and I accordingly established 
myself at the only Indian sitio within this branch, 
tenanted by an old man named Nicolas (a Manaos 
Indian born at Barcellos), his wife, two sons — stout 
lads — two grown-up daughters, and a little boy, a 
grandson. Here I and my companion found a little 
room about eight feet square, whose walls were of 
woven Carua leaves and roof of Bussil. Fortunately 
it contained a small table and a stage of Jara stems, 
both of which were very useful for depositing my 
boxes and plants. 
The next morning, accompanied by Charlie and 
the old Nicolas, I started to visit the fall. We 
ascended the winding igarape for nearly an hour. 
It was much obstructed by the gapo vegetation, and 
at last became so grown over that we had to leave 
our boat and make our way through the forest. A 
little more than an hour brought us to the fall, 
which we approached from above, but we scrambled 
down the rocks to the bottom, where we could 
obtain a perfect view of the fall. I have seen few 
finer things in South America, and it reminded me 
a little of the Irish " Turk cascade." This branch 
of the Taruma traverses a narrow valley, contracted 
to a ravine below the fall, which rushes over a con- 
cave cliff in an unbroken cascade of from 30 to 40 
