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nests and eggs of other birds, which they are continually plundering. The red-billed toucan is one of the largest species, having the body black and the throat very white.

On the morning of the 12th our travellers set off at four o'clock, and experienced the usual difficulty in passing the rapids, which lay between them and the mouth of the Meta. For six hundred toises* the river was full of granitic rocks; sometimes they passed through channels not five feet broad, and sometimes their cance was jammed between two blocks of granite. "We sought," says Humboldt, "to avoid those passages into which the waters rushed with a terrible noise. There is no real danger when you are steered by a good Indian pilot. When the current is too difficult to resist, the rowers leap into the water and fasten a rope to the point of a rock to warp the boat along; this manœuvre is very slow; and we sometimes availed ourselves of it to climb the rocks, among which we were entangled. They are of all dimensions, rounded, very black, glossy like lead, and destitute of vegetation. It is an extraordinary sight to see the waters of one of the largest rivers in the globe in some sort disappear. We perceived, even far from the shore, those immense blocks of granite rising from the ground, and leaning one against another. The intervening channels in the rapids are more than twenty-five fathoms deep; and are the more difficult to be observed, as the rocks are often narrow towards their bases, and form vaults suspended over the surface of the rivers. We perceived no crocodiles in the Raudal de Cariven; these animals seem to shun the noise of cataracts."

*The toise is rather more than a fathom, which is six English feet. + The name of this part of the river, Raudal signifying a cataract.

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STONE OF PATIENCE.

At nine o'clock they arrived opposite the mouth of the Meta, which, next to the Guaviare, is the largest tributary of the Orinoco, and is remarkable for the volume of its waters, their depth being sometimes eighty-four feet. The confluence of the two rivers presented an impressive scene. "Lonely rocks rise on the eastern bank. Blocks of granite, piled upon one another, appeared from afar like castles in ruins. Vast sandy shores, keep the skirting of the forest at a distance from the river; but we discover in the horizon solitary palm-trees, backed by the sky and crowning the tops of the mountains."

Two hours were passed on a large rock in the middle of the river, the Stone of Patience, as it is called; because the canoes in going up were sometimes detained there two days, before they could be extricated from the whirlpool formed by it. Humboldt fixed his instruments on it and took altitudes of the sun. At night they slept on a sloping shelf of rock at the rapids of Tabaje: its crevices sheltered a swarm of bats. The cries of a jaguar very near them were heard for a long time; and were answered by the prolonged howlings of their dog. Humboldt waited the appearance of the stars in vain; "the sky was of a tremendous blackness; and the hoarse sound of the cascades of the Orinoco contrasted with the noise of the thunder that was rolling at a distance towards the forest."

During the 13th and 14th they continued the ascent of the river, and though they were proceeding further to the south, and by so doing arrived nearer to the equator, they found the heat diminish. The annoyance from the moschetoes increased nevertheless; at the mission of San Borja, which they visited on the 13th, they suffered most severely, being unable to speak or uncover the face without having the mouth and nose filled

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with those insects. The extreme irritation of the skin made them fancy that the air was scorching; and they were prevented from bathing by the fear of the little Caribe fish before mentioned. The scenery of the Orinoco, as they advanced, assumed a more imposing and picturesque aspect. The crocodiles which they met with were all of an extraordinary size, being from twenty-two to twenty-four feet in length.

Their sufferings from the insects made them hurry off, however willing they were to stay. There were fewer insects in the strata of air just on the river, than near the edge of the forests. They at length arrived and spent a night at the little island of Panumana.

CHAPTER XV.

The Cataracts of the Orinoco-Marvellous narratives of the country above the cataracts-Panumana-Maladies-Regions round Atures and Maypures-Natural rafts of the Orinoco-Natural dikes-Increased intensity of nocturnal sounds-Atures-Propensities of animals-Hairy man of the woods-Plague of insects-Table-lands of the Andes free from the plague of moschetoes, &c.

"THE river of the Orinoco, in running from south to north, is crossed by a chain of granitic mountains. Twice impeded in its course, it turbulently breaks on the rocks, which form steps and transverse dikes. Nothing can be grander than the aspect of this spot. Neither the fall of the Tequendama" (ñear Santa Fe de Bogota), "nor the magnificent scenes of the Cordilleras, could weaken the impression produced upon my mind by the first view of the rapids of Atures and of Maypures. When you are so stationed that the eye can at once take in the long succession of cataracts, the im