276 
Climbing Down Vine-rope Ladders. 
whipping was ever increasing, and the loud droning of the two hoary 
old men which was intended to propitiate the Evil Spirit, coupled 
with the high state of excitement of forty Indians on an area of 
hardly sixty square feet, and close to that precipice at least 
400 ft. deep — together constituted a spectacle that even made my 
brother feel anxious, with the result that he left the rock and waited 
for his companions on the maiin track, where they arrived at last, 
exhausted, and threw themselves down near their loads which they ha«! 
left behind. 
646. In the afternoon, the way was suddenly blocked by a deep 
terrace-like canyon. Just as we had to climb the steep walls of the 
Humirida, so had the party to clamber down these sandstone terraces 
to which a rough kind of ladder had been attached. It was only by 
this means that communication between the Indians on this and the otber 
side of the chasm was rendered possible: to climb these individual 
terraces without ladders would have proved just as impossible as to 
reach the plateau of Roraima without wings. Not knowing how long 
it was since the ladders had been last used, the most daring of the 
Indians undertook to convince himself of their safety and for this pur- 
p<ise fastened up with vinerope everv rung that hp did not think 
strong enouffh. After some hours when the last one had safely caiiied 
comparatively level ground, the first to arrive had already pitched 
camp. 
647. On the morning of 2.'^rd December they reached an Arokuna 
oo+flpnient. About three miles pnst of the village there stretched from 
N.W. to S.E. a mountain-bluff which the Indians called Arwarimatta ; 
it har>pened to be a ffavourite breeding- ground of tb>e 'Riipicola (lurai)^fn. 
The lovely note of the Flageolet bird, as the Colonists call it. was also 
heard tbem every morn ins'. 
648. Christmas Day, they struck the junction of the Carapu with 
the Wenamu: the former flows into the Wenamu in a direction con- 
trary to its current. Once on the opposite bank of the Carapu which 
they reached with the aid of a frail canoe, they had to cut a.' path with 
cutlass and axe. Towards evening they reached a settlement si/r- 
rounded with palisades, but where they found but one woman and her 
child, hunger having driven the remaining residents to other settle- 
ments. Mt. Kinaurike raised its head twenty miles off in S. by E. 
649. The morriing of 26th December brought the party to the 
opposite side of the 250 ft. wide Wenamu. In the N.E. lay the sand- 
stone wall of Poinka-watu (i.e., Pekarisnout) . Rapids now succeeded 
cataracts, and cataracts rapids, so that the whole surface of the river 
formed a rousing mass of wave. In a north-by-westerly direction they 
crossed the 1,500 ft. high mountain chain that reached to tlie river 
bank, and next morning arrived at Immapara waterfall. Here they 
tarried a few days to complete the wood skins required for their river- 
journey. Owing to the almost uninterrupted rain-showers the Wenamu 
was nearly flooded. During the period from 4 o'clock afternoon of the 
2Sth, until morning of the 29th, the rain-fall amounted to 4.28 inches. 
They travelled fast along the sandstone cliffs, and along Mt. Pakarampo 
