" (Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2, nb. 3,
cap. 3.) I find nothing to confirm or to confute the account of
this stupendous cataract in later travellers, not very numerous
in these wild regions. The alleged height of the falls, twice
that of the great cataract of the Tequendama in the Bogota, as
measured by Humboldt, usually esteemed the highest in America, is
not so great as that of some of the cascades thrown over the
precipices in Switzerland. Yet the estimates of the Spaniards,
who, in the gloomy state of their feelings, were doubtless keenly
alive to impressions of the sublime and the terrible, cannot
safely be relied on.]
For some distance above and below the falls, the bed of the river
contracted so that its width did not exceed twenty feet. Sorely
pressed by hunger, the adventurers determined, at all hazards, to
cross to the opposite side, in hopes of finding a country that
might afford them sustenance. A frail bridge was constructed by
throwing the huge trunks of trees across the chasm, where the
cliffs, as if split asunder by some convulsion of nature,
descended sheer down a perpendicular depth of several hundred
feet. Over this airy causeway the men and horses succeeded in
effecting their passage with the loss of a single Spaniard, who,
made giddy by heedlessly looking down, lost his footing and fell
into the boiling surges below.
Yet they gained little by the exchange. The country wore the
same unpromising aspect, and the river-banks were studded with
gigantic trees, or fringed with impenetrable thickets.
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