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Show 182 CATARACTS OF TilE ORINOCO. rents sound three times louder by night than by day. In all European waterfalls the same phenomenon is remarked. What can be its cause in a wilderness where there is nothing to interrupt therepose of nature? Perhaps the currents of heated ascending air by causing irregular density in the clastic medium impede the propagation of sound during the day, by the disturbance they may occasion in the waves of sound; whereas during the nocturnal cooling of the earth's surface the upward currents cease. The Indians called our attention to ancient tracks of wheels. They speak with admiration of the horned animals (oxen), which in the times of the Jesuit missions used to draw the canoes on wheeled supports, along the left bank of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo. The lading was not then removed from the boats, nor were the latter worn and injured as they now are by being constantly stranded upon the rocks and dragged over their rough surface. The topographical plan of the district sketched by me shows the facilities which the nature of the ground offers for the opening of a ' canal from the Cameji to the Toparo, which would form a navigable side-arm to the river, the dangerous portion of which would be thus avoided. I proposed its execution to the Governor-General of Venezuela. The Randal of Atures closely resembles that of Maypures; like it, it is a cluster of islands between which the river forces its way for ten or twelve thousand yards; a forest of .palms rising from the midst of the foaming waters. The most celebrated Steppes of this Randal are situated between the Islands of Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana and Uirapuri. When M. Bonpland and I returned from the banks of the Rio Negro, we ventured to pass the latter or lower half of the Randal of Atures with the loaded canoe, often leaving it for the rocky dikes which connect one island with another. Sometimes the waters rush over these dykes, and sometimes they fall with a hollow thundering sound into cavities, and flowing for a time through subterranean channels, leave large pieces of the bed of the river dry. Here the golden Pipra rupicola makes its nest; it is one of the most beautiful |
