22S 
EAUDAL DE CARIVEN. 
rarefied air through the fissures of a sonorous stone might 
have suggested to the Egyptian priests the invention of the 
juggleries of the Memnonium. 
We left the rock at four in the morning. The mission- 
ary had told us that we should have great difficulty in 
passing the rapids and the mouth of the Meta. The Indians 
rowed twelve hours and a half without intermission, and 
during all that time, they took no other nourishment than 
cassava and plantains. When we consider the difficulty of 
overcoming the force of the current, and of passing the 
cataracts ; when we reflect on the constant employment of 
the muscular powers during a navigation of two months ; 
we are equally surprised at the constitutional vigour and 
the abstinence of the Indians of the Orinoco and the 
Amazon. Amylaceous and saccharine substances, some- 
times fish and the fat of turtles’ eggs, supply the place of 
food drawn from the first two classes of the animal king- 
dom, those of quadrupeds and birds. 
We found the bed of the river, to the length of sis hun- 
dred toises, Ml of granite rocks. Here is what is called the 
Baidal de Carmen. We passed through channels that were 
not five feet broad. Our canoe was sometimes jammed 
between two blocks of granite. We sought to avoid those 
passages, into which the waters rushed with a fearful noise ; 
but there is really little danger, in a canoe steered by a good 
Indian pilot. When the current is too violent to be resisted 
the rowers leap into the water, and fasten a rope to the 
point of a rock, to warp the boat along. This manoeuvre is 
very tedious ; and we sometimes availed ourselves of it, to 
climb the rocks among which we were entangled. They are 
of all dimensions, rounded, very black, glossy like lead, and 
destitute of vegetation. It is an extraordinary phenomenon 
to see the waters of one of the largest rivers on the globe n 1 
some sort disappear. We perceived, even far from the shore, 
those immense blocks of granite, rising from the ground, 
and leaning one against another. The intervening channels 
in the rapids are more than twenty-five fathoms deep ; and 
are the more difficult to be observed, as the rocks are often 
narrow toward their bases, and form vaults suspended over 
the surface of the river. We perceived no crocodiles in tr> e 
raudal ; these animals seem to shun the noise of cataracts 
