“... The beholder enjoys a most striking and wonderful prospect. A foaming surface, several miles in length, intersected with iron-black masses of rock projecting like battlemented ruins from the waters, is seen at one view. Every islet and every rock is adorned with luxuriant forest trees. A perpetual mist hovers over the watery mirror, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through the crowd of vapoury spray. When the rays of the glowing evening sun are refracted in the humid atmosphere, an exquisite optical illusion is produced. Coloured bows appear, vanish, and reappear, while the ethereal picture dances, like an _ignis fatuus_, with every motion of the sportive breeze. “... A canal might be opened between the Cameji and the Toparo ... which would become a navigable arm of the Orinoco, and supersede the old and dangerous bed of the river. “The Raudal of Atures is exactly similar to that of Maipures, like which, it consists of a cluster of islands between which the river forces itself a passage extending from 18,000 to 24,000 feet. “... rocks, like dykes, connected one island with another. At one time the water shoots over these dykes, at another it falls into their cavities with a deafening hollow sound. In some places considerable portions of the bed of the river are perfectly dry, in consequence of the stream having opened for itself a subterranean passage. In this solitude the golden-coloured rock manakin builds its nest.” The contract recently entered into with General R. D. Chalbaud, the President of the Compañía Anónima de Navegacion Fluvial y Costanera de Venezuela, stipulates for a railway worked by steam or electricity to provide a land connection between a service of upper Orinoco steamers above the Maipures Rapids and the lower Orinoco steamers already plying below those of Atures; the time may not be far distant, therefore, when these beautiful falls will also add to the sum of the world’s happiness by assisting in opening up a vast extent of territory rich in agricultural and mineral products, which hitherto they themselves have been largely instrumental in closing. From the right bank of the Orinoco in the region of the rapids along the Sipapo and Cataniapo tributaries to the hills forming the watershed between that river and the Ventuari, and beyond these, is the unknown territory of the Piaroa Indians, whose sacred mountain of Sipapo is visible from the Orinoco banks. The name Piaroa appears to be a general term including those branches of families of the Maipures, Atures, &c., which were formerly considered to be separate tribes. Tavera-Acosta describes them as a timid people, devoted to agriculture, and they are said to be very light in colour. They frequently come down to the town of Atures to exchange their curare, cotton, cassava, plantains, and game for general merchandise and tools; and their curare is held in high esteem for its purity and high quality by the other tribes.