2 66 TlMEHRI. 
leap downwards, and then hurries some of it to the 
north, to the Orinoco, some to the west, to the Essequibo, 
and some to the south, to the Amazon. 
It will not be difficult to understand, then, that the 
streams which ever drop — sometimes, it may be, but 
trickle — down the face of Roraima, are normally but 
small in volume, but that at very frequent intervals the 
shortest rainfall — tropical rain-pour, though, it must be 
remembered — swells them to great and potent size. 
My farewell to Roraima was made with curiously 
mixed feelings, for not often in any lifetime does one 
come to such a place, under such circumstances, and 
consequently acquire for it in so brief a stay so much 
affection. The closing day of my stay there was last 
Christmas Day, which we spent at Teroota, the Arecoona 
village at the foot, and from which is the most astound- 
ingly magnificent view of the twin mountains of Roraima 
and Kookenaam. In the morning, the day before having 
been dry, the streams were but barely discernible as they 
descended the cliff ; but during the day rain fell, the 
streams increased in volume, doubling — though that had 
seemed impossible — the magnificent beauty of the 
scene, and adding to its grandeur the splendid music 
of their roar. In such a scene, on such a day, all other 
impressions were effaced in that of grand and terrific 
splendour. Then, when night fell and hid this, the 
Indians around us, under the influence of a most re- 
markable ecclesiastical mania which had just then spread 
in a wonderful way into those distant parts, raised — as 
they kept Christmas with much drinking, without inter- 
mission from sunset to the next dawn — an absolutely 
incessant shout of " Hallelujah ! Hallelujah !" Such an 
