THE RAPIDS OF THE MADEIRA AND THE MAMORE.
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breadth and thickness of 5 feet. The figures, three quarters to one and a quarter inches high, were incised only one-sixth of an inch deep. Our curiosity being awakened by this discovery, we found afterwards the even more remarkable inscription near the great fall of Eibeieao, which I copied exactly, as well as one of the Caldeirao and one of Lages farther up. And here a reflection I had before made at the dangerous passage of the Caldeirao Falls again proved true, viz., that there is no following implicitly either the counsels of other travellers, or even one's self-acquired experience in former expeditions, as to the best water-way for the boats, which is so easily changed by the slightest variation of level. At all events, it is necessary that the canoes should stop upon approaching a rapid, and a clear view of the channels and of the cliffs to be avoided should be obtained from the shore as near as possible to the obstruction itself. This often is difficult enough; and in the last deciding moment, especially in the descent, the fate of both boat and crew depends chiefly on the quick eye and the strong arm of her pilot.
The Caldeirao do Inferno has, as I mentioned before, the worst reputation among the falls of the Madeira; indeed, more than one richly laden canoe has been dashed to pieces against its black rocks, and many lives have been lost there. The chance solution of a geographical problem found its tragic conclusion, at this ill-famed fall, in the death of the discoverer. Eight or ten years ago, a Peruvian of the name of Maldonado embarked on the Madre do Dios to escape the persecutions of his political adversaries, and by this river had reached the Beni and the Madeira, thus dispelling all doubt as to the course of the Madre de Dios, which for a long time had been taken to be one of the tributaries of the Purus.
Maldonado took his hazardous flight on one of those singular little crafts called Balsas, composed of bundles of a sort of reed, as they are used on Lake Titicaca. As it was in the most wretched condition when he entered the Madeira, he obtained by barter from the Caripuna Indians whom he found there one of their light canoes, in which he continued his descent. Having passed without accident totally unknown regions, inhabited only by savages and wild beasts, he had reached the comparatively safer regions of the Madeira, when his fragile vessel was hurled against the rocks of the Caldeirao do Inferno, and the hardy navigator was submerged in the roaring cataract.