bluish cloud in the horizon. There is not the least opening on either side.
Hills, valleys and low-lands are all linked together by a chain of forest.
Ascend the highest mountain, climb the loftiest tree, as far as the eye can
extend, whichever way it directs itself, all is luxuriant and unbroken
forest.

In about nine or ten hours from this you get to an Indian habitation of
three huts, on the point of an island. It is said that a Dutch post once
stood here. But there is not the smallest vestige of it remaining and,
except that the trees appear younger than those on the other islands, which
shows that the place has been cleared some time or other, there is no mark
left by which you can conjecture that ever this was a post.

The many islands which you meet with in the way enliven and change the
scene, by the avenues which they make, which look like the mouths of other
rivers, and break that long-extended sameness which is seen in the
Demerara.

Proceeding onwards you get to the falls and rapids. In the rainy season
they are very tedious to pass, and often stop your course. In the dry
season, by stepping from rock to rock, the Indians soon manage to get a
canoe over them. But when the river is swollen, as it was in May 1812, it
is then a difficult task, and often a dangerous one, too. At that time many
of the islands were over-flowed, the rocks covered and the lower branches
of the trees in the water. Sometimes the Indians were obliged to take
everything out of the canoe, cut a passage through the branches which hung
over into the river, and then drag up the canoe by main force.

At one place the falls form an oblique line quite across the river
impassable to the ascending canoe, and you are forced to have it dragged