breadth, we slid down with a rapidity for which we were not at all prepared, and which, though unattended by accident, astonished and alarmed those who witnessed it from the plains where we had left them."

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The Rivers.

THE AMAZON.

THE river Amazon forms, with the long mountainchain of the Andes, the chief geographical feature of the Colombian continent. This moving fresh-water sea, which has its source at a short distance from the Pacific, and unites with the waters of the Atlantic by an estuary measuring seventeen miles from promontory to promontory, serves as a line of demarcation between the two halves of South America, and, like a visible equator, separates the northern from the southern hemisphere for a distance of nearly 300 miles. Every thing is colossal in that central artery of America, which contributes to the ocean the immense quantity of rain and snow received in a basin seven thousand millions of square yards in size, comprising the llanos of Colombia, the unknown solitudes of the Great Forest, or MattoGrosso, and the summits of the Andes from the 20th degree of south latitude to the 3d degree of north latitude. This river, to which distinct names have been given in the three different territories which it waters, -as if it really were three distinct rivers placed end to end, this royal river, with its affluents, its furos or false rivers, and its lateral branches, offers to steam no less than 28,600 navigable miles. It is so deep, that there are no soundings at 50, 80, and even 120 yards. Frigates can sail up a distance of 1000 leagues, and

SIZE OF THE AMAZON.

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it is so broad that in certain parts it is impossible to distinguish the banks; while at the localities where the Madeira, the Rio Negro, and other affluents fall into the Amazon, the distant horizon is so clear that one might almost fancy oneself in the midst of the ocean. The mighty river receives, by the dozen, tributary rivers which have not their equals in Europe. Some, unexplored, belong to the dominion of romance. Like the sea, the Amazon is inhabited by dolphins; like it, also, it has its tempests; and at the high tides the three successive waves of its pororoca reach three yards in height. [The pororoca is the name given to that wonderful under-current which, coming suddenly, lifts up the river and all that floats upon its bosom, casting boats upon the shore, and inundating the immediate neighbourhood of the banks. The Ganges and the Euphrates are influenced by this current. The natives of Bengal

call their pororoca the bore.]

So broad is the Amazon for a large portion of its course, that each bank marks the limits of distinct animals; and very many birds are compelled by its breadth to confine their flight to the side on which they were hatched. The Mississippi is undoubtedly a powerful river; but this so-called Father of the Rivers should be united with eight or ten others before it could presume to measure itself against the Amazon.

The Amazon is not only the largest watercourse upon the face of the earth, it is also that which waters the richest and most fertile countries. The interminable forest