nd which cost him
and his companions immense labour to surmount. On their return, one of
the party, rashly standing on the thwarts of the canoe while shooting
the falls, upset it and was drowned.

Huge caymans abound in the river, and lie like logs of wood at the foot
of the cataracts or rapids, watching stealthily to catch and swallow
whatever the fierce current may bring down to them.

Above these falls is a lagoon, on which he discovered the now far-famed
Victoria Regia, before that time unknown to the world. At the head of
the Masaruni rises Mount Roraima, 7540 feet in height. It is the
principal watershed, from which various streams flow in different
directions into the three great rivers--Amazon, Orinoco, and Essequibo.
Hillhouse and Schombergh describe the side of the mountain as composed
of cliffs, fifteen hundred feet in height, of compact sandstone, as
perpendicular as if erected with the plumb-line, and overhung in part
with low shrubs. Though distant, they appear as if in dangerous
proximity. Around are detached masses, apparently torn from those
gigantic walls of nature; and every moment it seems as if one of them
would block up the path, or cut off all retreat. In places the channel
of the stream is so narrow that the canoe can hardly pass, in others it
widens out into a shallow claret-coloured lake. At length a capacious
basin is entered, black as ink, surrounded by a bold and extensive shore
as white as chalk. The roar of the water is heard, but no current
perceived; though there is a foam-like yeast on the surface, which
remains all day without visible alteration. At length, in the distance,
a broken white line is seen struggling through a cluster of granite
rocks at the base of two quartz cliffs of a mixed character. This is
the fall of Macrebah.

THE ARECUNA INDIANS.

In those mountain regions dwell the Arecunas, a fine sturdy race--with
clear copper-tinted skins--unencumbered by clothing, though wearing
feathers and other ornaments; long sticks through the cartilage of their
nostrils, and still longer, richly adorned with tufts of black feathers,
through their ears. Both sexes are much tattooed; some of the women
having dark blue lines across the upper lip, and extending in wavy
curves over each cheek, looking like enormous curled moustaches. Others
have a broad line round the mouth, which gives it the appearance of
being far larger than it is in reality. The men wear the heads of
h