210 
RORAIMA AND KUKENAM AHE AT LaST VISIBLE. 
stars in the heavenly blue lighted up a scene the detailed description of 
which even the most vivid imatjination would attempt in vain. Sparkling 
in the magic sheen of the moonlight, the masses of water, now swollen 
into torrents, shot down from the flat-topped summit with a terrible 
thundering din. Roraima blustered as if hnndreds of steam-engines were 
on the go: Kukenam roared as if the sea, after bursting its former limits, 
was wallowing over the firmament and burying everything beneath. The 
moon and stars cast their pale silvery light in 'quiet calm npon the un- 
shackled bodies of water l)reakiug away in white foam and, like bursting 
billows, flinging their spray over the brushwood, npon the dark colossus 
in our proximity, and upon the deep black ravine that separates it from 
Kukenam, but which they conbl not illumine. The Kamaiba, barely wide 
in the afternoon, now rushed down as a 20 to 30 ft. broad torrent, but 
the degree of delight that arrested our whole attention was yet to lie 
increased still further when one of the most beautiful lunar rainbows 
that I had ever witnessed suddenly made its appearance. 
4G8. Chattering with cold, T woke up between 4 and 5 o'clock on the 
morning of 20th November. The thermometer was 52° F. Sleep was not 
to be thought of on account of the "shivers," and we thanked God that 
we were able, at break of day, to warm our stiffened limbs, which the 
fire was unable to do, by exercisting them . The uproar of last night thai; 
had so aroused our emotions, as well as the waterfalls, had resumed their 
normal — what we had heard and seen appeared to have l)een a dream. 
According to the traditions of the Indians, the plateaus on the siimmit 
are covered with immense lakes abounding in all kinds of fish, especiallv 
dolphins, with huge white eagles like everlasting sentries continnally 
circling around. Davbreak nnfolded a new charm to our astonished 
gaze. Roraima and Kukenam, like the other higher peaks, were com- 
pletely free of cloud and glistened in the stillness of the warming sun- 
shine, but deep l>elow us a thick white mist hid the whole of the sur- 
ronndings like a thick coverinc: of snow wliicli Avas gilded and coloured 
with tlie most remarkable chnnaes of licht conseqnent on the extreme 
refraction of the sun already risen. We had sonth on the heights, north 
in the depths. The contrast between the luxuriant vecretation around 
and above us. between the misrhtv sandstone mas.sif with its glittering 
wntorfalls and sombrp red wnlls wns snrpn'sintr. Alexander von Hnm- 
boldt savs that in the Alps one searrhes in vnin for a 1,600 foot hich 
perpendicular rock: the well-known Stanltbach in the Swiss Alps rushes 
over a 000 ft. high rocky wall and the still more celebrated Cascade de 
rravaruie, the highest waterfall yet known, is also bnt 1.266 feet. The 
Kamaiba. however, rolled 1..^00 ft. down the sontliern side in front of 
us. Now and again a bush-like veo-etation had firmlv attached, itself to 
the precipitous walls, and from where we were, looked like blurred 
masses of green which contrasted stronglv with the reddish rock. The 
surface-top of Roraima mnst be somewhat raised at the centre because 
a few bushy spots could be recognised there. 'After the Kamaiba had 
taken its awful plunge of 1,500 feet and had disappeared in the fresh 
green of the brushwood surrounding the base, it suddenly emerged again 
on a spot devoid of all vegetation, and then rushed headlong again over 
