The Indian village, where
we camped, is placed on a jutting tongue of land round which the river
sweeps just before it leaps from the over-hanging precipice. The falls
themselves are very lovely. Just above them is a wooded island, but
the river joins again before it races forward for the final plunge.
There is a sheer drop of forty or fifty yards, with a breadth two or
three times as great; and the volume of water is large. On the left or
hither bank a cliff extends for several hundred yards below the falls.
Green vines have flung themselves down over its face, and they are met
by other vines thrusting upward from the mass of vegetation at its
foot, glistening in the perpetual mist from the cataract, and clothing
even the rock surfaces in vivid green. The river, after throwing
itself over the rock wall, rushes off in long curves at the bottom of
a thickly wooded ravine, the white water churning among the black
boulders. There is a perpetual rainbow at the foot of the falls. The
masses of green water that are hurling themselves over the brink
dissolve into shifting, foaming columns of snowy lace.

On the edge of the cliff below the falls Colonel Rondon had placed
benches, giving a curious touch of rather conventional tourist-
civilization to this cataract far out in the lonely wilderness. It is
well worth visiting for its beauty. It is also of extreme interest
because of the promise it holds for the future. Lieutenant Lyra
informed me that they had calculated that this fall would furnish
thirty-six thousand horse-power. Eight miles off we were to see
another fall of much greater height and power. There are many rivers
in this region which would furnish almost unlimited motive force to
populous manufacturing communities. The country round about is
healthy. It is an upland region of good climate; we were visiting it
in the rainy season, the season when the nights are far less cool than
in the dry season, and yet we found it delightful. There is much
fertile soil in the neighborhood of the streams, and the teeming
lowlands of the Amazon and the Paraguay could readily--and with
immense advantage to both sides--be made tributary to an industrial
civilization seated on these highlands. A telegraph-line has been
built to and across them. A rail-road should follow. Such a line could
be easily built, for there are no serious natural obstacles. In
advance of its construction a trolley-line could be run from Cuyaba to
the falls,