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Cornugaya Directory 10
Page 09
The horseshoe-shaped waterfall was about 300 m. across and some 30 ft.
high. When the river is full it must be beautiful, for the east side,
which was then absolutely dry, is covered entirely by water, which must
form a wonderful series of cascades. When the river is in flood, the
waterfall, extending from north-west to south-east, has a total width of
1,000 m. There were some picturesque bits of rugged foliated rock over
that great staircase, and huge cracks through which the water gurgled and
foamed--those fissures formed not by the erosion of water but by volcanic
action, perhaps by an earthquake. The large fall to the north-west, over
which the water flows in every season, had on one side of it a steep
incline, down which we took the canoe until we came to a drop about 15
ft. high.
We went down all the time on troubled waters, with rocky banks and
innumerable obstacles all the way. We went through another terrible and
most intricate rapid--the Labyrinth--and passed through a channel only 40
m. wide between high rocky banks. Then, after that, for 9,500 m. we had
fair and smooth navigation, with a range of flat-topped hills 300 ft.
high, extending from W.S.W. to E.N.E., in front of us to the north-west.
Here there was a regular maze of channels, all more or less bad. We did
not follow the principal one, which was strewn with rocks, but a smaller
one, at the end of which, unfortunately, we found a barrier of rocks
which we could not surmount. We had all the trouble of dragging the canoe
back up the rapid until we could turn her round into another channel.
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