ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
the journey if Alcides were allowed to steer again. 
Alcides, on the other hand, whose only aim in life was to 
fight everybody and everything, invited all the other men 
to a duel with their rifles. I told them they could have 
the duel after we had finished the journey and not before. 
We must take the ropes, climb up to the top of the bank, 
and, first of all, we must tow the canoe back to a place 
of safety. 
After a great deal of shouting, angry words and oaths, 
absolutely deafened by the thundering roar of the water¬ 
fall, they took out the ropes and eventually towed the 
canoe back. As soon as that was done I went with my 
camera to gaze at the beautiful sight and photograph it 
from different points — a job which was not easy, as the 
waterfall was so encased between vertical rocky walls 
(foliated in horizontal strata, which varied in thickness 
from a quarter of an inch to one foot) that it was 
impossible to get far enough back to obtain a full .view 
of it. 
That fall, called the August Fall, was indeed a grand 
sight. As I have already said, it was divided into two 
separate falls, between which was an island with a great 
spur of rock forming a wall between the two cascades. 
The water flowed over that wall in graceful steps. The 
fall on the right side of which I stood was in two immense 
horseshoe-shaped terraces. The continuation of those 
terraces on each side of the great flow of water formed 
tiers of red and black volcanic rock lying in horizontal 
strata so regular as to be not unlike a gigantic Etruscan 
amphitheatre. The upper tier of the fall on the right 
formed an arc not less than 300 metres in periphery. The 
lower crescent formed an arc 400 metres in length. 
Upon this lower terrace the rebounding waters were 
thrown up with great force into the air, the spray forming 
numerous rainbows in the sun, only to drop down once 
more in most contorted, diabolical curves, boiling and 
172 
