THE AUGUST FALLS 
roaring in their endeavour to force their way through that 
positive inferno. 
As the water came down in great volumes over those 
two crescents it met once more in the centre in a mighty 
clash, being flung up at a tremendous height in the air. 
I do not know that I have ever seen such a fearsome 
sight, or that I have ever seen water rush with such 
force anywhere before. It seemed a pity that there was 
no one to harness that waterfall and use the enormous 
power it could generate. 
On the left side of the river also the waterfall made an 
amphitheatre of rock somewhat smaller than the right fall. 
Down below, at the foot of this, it formed huge masses 
of white foam, above which profuse spray rose up like a 
heavy mist. Just beyond was disclosed a diabolical whirl¬ 
pool, far beyond words to describe, which extended — as 
white as snow with the amount of foam it carried, twisting 
and retwisting in a thousand circles on the surface — for 
over 500 metres from the lower step of the waterfall. 
I measured the height of the fall with a string. The 
exact height of the upper terrace was 6 metres 90 centi¬ 
metres ; the height of the lower terrace, 7 metres 73 centi¬ 
metres, or a total height of 14 metres 63 centimetres. 
I also took the differential height with the several 
aneroids I possessed, and the elevation with the boiling- 
point thermometers above the fall and below with a result 
of forty-eight feet for the actual height of the fall. 
One fact was certain, and that was that the canoe 
could not possibly go down by water. There was only one 
way to get out of that difficulty; that was by taking the 
canoe overland until we could find a navigable spot in the 
river down below. To make things worse, there was a 
hill range on the right bank of the river, on which we were. 
I must find a way to make the canoe go over that hill 
range, that was all. 
The canoe, I might remind the reader, was 42 feet 
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