They proceeded now for eleven days together very willingly, but then found the channel of the river divided itself, and one went away to the left, and the other to the right. They could not judge which was the best to take; but not questioning but that they would meet again soon, they took the southernmost channel, as being most direct in their latitude; and thus they coursed for three or four days more, when they were obliged to put into the mouth of a little river that fell into the other, and made a good harbour for their little fleet. Here, I say, they were obliged to put in for want of provisions, for they had eaten up all their guinacoes, and their two tame bulls too, the last of which they soon repented, as will be shown presently. After they had been a-hunting, and shot a couple of deer and a cow, with a kind of hare, as large as an English fox, they set forward again very merry, and the more, because they had another little piece of a gold coast, where, for two days, they had very good luck again; but judge how they were surprised, and in what a consternation they were, when, coming farther down the same river, they heard a terrible noise in the river, as of a mighty cataract, or waterfall, which increased as they came forward, till it grew so loud that they could not hear themselves speak, much less hear one another. As they approached, it was the more frightful; so at length, lest they should be hurried into it before they were aware, they went all on shore, doing all by signs and dumb postures, for it was impossible to hear any sound but that of the cataract. Though the noise was so great, it was near six miles to the place from whence it came, which, when they perceived, some of them went back to bring on the boats, and so brought them as near the place as they durst, and ran them on shore into a little hollow part of the bank, just large enough to hold them. When they had thus secured the boats, they went to view the waterfall; but how were they astonished, when they found that there were no less than five waterfalls, at the distance of about two miles from each other, some more, some less, and that the water fell from a prodigious height; so that it was impossible for any boat to launch down the cataract without being dashed in pieces. The men now saw there was no remedy but that they must lose the benefit of their five canoes, which had been so comfortable to them, and by which they had come above four hundred miles in a little time, with safety and pleasure. These cataracts made the river perfectly useless to them for above twenty miles, and it was impossible to drag their canoes that length over land; so, in short, they unloaded them, and, for their own satisfaction, they turned one, the biggest of them, adrift, and let it go to the first cataract, placing themselves so beyond that they might see it come down, which they did, and had the vexation of seeing it dashed all to pieces on the rocks below.