234 
RAPIDS OF THE ATTIRES. 
island of Ranuinana is ricli in plants. "We there again 
found those shelves of hare rock, those tufts of melastomas, 
those thickets of small shrubs, the blended scenery of which 
had charmed us in the plains of Carichana. The mountain 9 
of the Great Cataracts bounded the horizon towards the 
south-east. In proportion as we advanced, the shores ot 
the Orinoco exhibited a more imposing and picturesque 
aspect. 
Chapter XX. 
The Mouth of the Rio Anaveni.— Peak of Uniana.— Mission of Atures- 
—Cataract, or Raudal of Mapara.— Islets of Surupamana an 
Uirapuri. 
The river of the Orinoco, in running from south to north, 
is crossed by a chain of granitic mountains. Twice con fin 01 
in its course, it turbulently breaks on the rocks, that foi'h 1 
steps and transverse dykes. Nothing can be grander tin ' 11 
the aspect of this spot” Neither the fall of the Tequendaiii a > 
near Santa l‘e de Bogota, nor the magnificent scenes of to 
Cordilleras, could weaken the impression produced up 01 * 
my mind by the first view of the rapids of Atures and o 
Maypures. When the spectator is so stationed that to 
eye can at once take in the long succession of cataracts, to 
immense sheet of foam and valours illumined by the W 
of the setting sun, the whole river seems as it were s uS " 
pended over its bed. 
Scenes so astonishing must for ages have fixed the att e 
tion of the inhabitants of the New World. When Diego ^ 
Todaz, Alfonzo de Herrera, and the intrepid Raleigh, aJ j 
chored at the mouth of the Orinoco, they were inform*’ 
by the Indians of the Great Cataracts, which they then 
selves had never visited, and which they even confouodo 
with cascades farther to the east. Whatever obstacles to 
force of vegetation under the torrid zone may throw in * ’ 
way of intercourse among nations, all that relates to * 
course of great rivers acquires a celebrity which extends 
vast distances. The Orinoco, the Amazon, and the y ^ 
guay, traverse, like inland arms of seas, in different uir 
tions, a land covered with forests, and inhabited by trio J 
