We continued our descent, and l'Encuerado, who had taken the lead, suddenly turned back to us with his head covered with an immense vegetable helmet. I at once recognized it to be the flower of a plant I had met with in the neighboring mountains. Nothing could be more splendid than this blossom, which, before it is full-blown, looks like a duck sitting on the water. In a single morning the enormous corolla opens out and changes into a form resembling a helmet surmounted by a crest; the interior of it, lined with yellow velvet, almost dazzles the eyes. The seed of this creeper, the Indian name of which I forget, is flat, and of a heart-like shape, having depicted on one of its faces a Maltese cross. [Illustration: The Cataract.] Even Sumichrast for a moment forgot his injuries while examining this wonderful flower, and Lucien, finding a second, very soon covered his head with it; but the poisonous and penetrating odor exhaled from the corolla made him feel sick, so he soon relinquished this novel head-dress. A few more steps brought us to the bottom of the ravine, and Sumichrast and l'Encuerado set to work to bathe their stings in the cool water; while I and Lucien sat down together on a rock, washed on one side by the stream, and leisurely contemplated the beautiful scene before us. In front of us was situated an immense mountain, cleft open as if by the hand of some giant, the sides of which were clad with a carpet of verdure of a thousand different shades. At the bottom, as if for the purpose of stopping up the immense fissure, there was an enormous accumulation of gray and dark-tinted rocks, between which appeared, every here and there, the foliage of some tree, enamelled with flowers. From the midst of the mountain, as if from some invisible cavern, sprung out a large sheet of transparent water, which, although calm and almost motionless in appearance, descended in one fall to a rock which projected in the cataract, like the prow of a ship. As if rendered furious by the shock, and seeming to revel in the uproar, the water, converted into foam, bounded over the obstacle, and fell in two columns, separated by the black point of crag; then, springing with impetuous speed, from step to step, down a gigantic staircase, it entered a receptacle hollowed out like a shell, which received the foaming water, from whence it flowed gently into a basin edged with verdure. The torrent, quieted for a time, resumed its course, and striking against impediments, rolled on from fall to fall, and from valley to valley, until it reached the plains, more than three thousand feet beneath. This cascade recalled to my memory one I had seen about a year before, when exploring the environs of Tuxtla, in the _Terre-Chaude_--viz., the Fall of Ingenio--one which would be reckoned among the most celebrated in the world, if access to it was not rendered almost impossible by the wilderness.