32 TlMEHRI. 
Having passed the bramble tract, to ascend just at the 
feet of the cliff and to look up offered a wonderful ex- 
perience. The wall runs for the greater part of its 
two thousand feet height straight up, but at the actual 
top it overhangs. Water, falling continuously, even in 
the dry season in which we were there, from every part 
of the upper edge, reaches the ground not at the base of 
the cliff, but some four or five feet, or even sometimes 
further, from that base. 
After due examination, it appeared that there would 
be especially three points of possible difficulty to be met 
in making an ascent by the ledge. In the first place 
that part of the forest slope which we should have to pass 
before reaching the foot of the ledge had, as we then 
thought, never been penetrated by man and was of 
quite unusual density, chiefly on account of the great 
quantities of rampant bamboo which matted to- 
gether the trees of which it was composed ; and while, 
at first, we had only our four Pomeroon Indians, it really 
seemed almost out of the question to cut our way through 
this. Fortunately for us many Arekoonas came up the 
mountain to us, before many days, and, building a house 
for themselves, placed their services at our disposal ; 
whereby we were enabled to have the path cut up as far 
as the foot of the ledge while we spent the time in other 
work. But a second difficulty, evident from below, was 
presented in the fact that the lower part of the 
ledge seemed much broken, and indeed appeared 
to be not so much a continuous shelf but rather a shelf 
which had at some time been broken up into large 
masses of rock, which, towering over the forest, looked 
formidable enough from below. SlEDEL, till the time 
