77 
the Cordilleras of the Andes. Independent of 
the height and mass of the column of water, the 
figure of the landscape, and the aspect of the 
rocks ; it is the luxuriant form of the trees and 
herbaceous plants, their distribution into groups, 
or into scattered thickets, the contrast of those 
craggy precipices and the freshness of vegeta- 
tion, which stamp a peculiar character on these 
great scenes of nature. . The fall of Niagara, 
placed beneath a northern sky, in the region of 
pines and oaks, would be still more beautitul, 
were its drapery composed of heliconias, palms, 
and arborescent ferns. The cataract of Tequen- 
dama forms an assemblage of every thing that is 
sublimely picturesque in beautiful scenery. 
This fall is riot however, as it is commonly be- 
lieved to be in the country, and repeated by 
naturalists in Europe, the loftiest cataract on the 
Globe: the river does not rush, as Bouguer 
relates, into a gulf of five or six hundred metres 
of perpendicular depth ; but there scarcely exists 
a cataract, which from so lofty a height preci- 
pitates so voluminous a mass of waters. The 
Rio de Bogota, after replenishing the marshes 
between the village of Facatativa and Fontibon, 
is still forty-four metres broad at Canoas, a little 
above the fall ; which is half the breadth of the 
Seine at Paris, between the Louvre and the 
Palace of the Arts. The river narrows consi- 
derably neat its fall, where the crevice, which 
