es, and the great inundations will rob the river of its power. We
shall have several more rapids to pass, but I do not think they will be
worse than these. Then we shall get to the falls. There are several small
ones, round which we shall have to carry our boats, and there is a great
one where the whole river leaps down a hundred feet in a mass. On still
nights you can hear it, I am told, nigh a hundred miles away. It is the
greatest fall in South America, though a traveller I once met told me that
in North America there was a fall that was higher, but that there was
nothing like the same quantity poured over it as over this at flood-time.
Once beyond that there remain no more falls or rapids, and a ship can sail
up there from the Amazon. Good-sized craft do come up sometimes, for there
is a mission-station there, and the fathers carry on a trade with the
Indians, who come from the lower districts to purchase goods."

"I shall be very glad when the water gets clear enough for us to take to
fishing again," Stephen said. "We have caught no fish of late, and have
got but a few birds, and I am getting very tired of these cakes."

Another three weeks and Stephen stood at the foot of the fall of the river
Madeira. The flood of water that poured down in one unbroken sheet was
enormous. The noise was like that of continual thunder, and Stephen, as he
stood watching the swollen waters at his feet and feeling the very ground
shake beneath them, felt spell-bound at the grandeur of the scene. The
mission-house was inhabited by only two or three old monks, and from them
they learned that there had been a bad outbreak of fever there, several
had died, and the rest were so weakened that it had been determined that
the monks, with the exception of these men, who had passed through many
fevers and were thoroughly acclimatized, should go down by boat to Barra,
and remain there until the season of the floods terminated and the sun had
dried the inundated country.

Stephen was glad of a rest, for since entering the rapids the work had
been hard and continuous. The Indians would have undertaken all the
portage round the various falls and bad rapids, but he insisted on doing
his share of the work, and had day after day toiled with heavy weights
over a rough country. It was all over now, and the prospect of a week
spent at the mission before proceeding on their voyage was very pleasant.

"You must be careful," one of the monks said, "not to