vegetables, and where he is introducing them to stock-raising; and the
entire work of guarding and patrolling the line is theirs.

After six hours' march we came to the crossing of the Rio Sacre at the
beautiful waterfall appropriately called the Salto Bello. This is the
end of the automobile road. Here there is a small Parecis village. The
men of the village work the ferry by which everything is taken across
the deep and rapid river. The ferry-boat is made of planking placed on
three dugout canoes, and runs on a trolley. Before crossing we enjoyed
a good swim in the swift, clear, cool water. 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