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“...741
feet the water falls as a perpendicular column
into a basin below, from which it continues its
downward course over a sloping cataract in front,
81 feet in height, and through the interstices of
great blocks of rock, to the river below. Mr. (now
Sir) E. im Thurn, who was formerly Government
Agent of the North-West District, thus describes
the fall, which he first visited in November, 1878:
—“ It was at Amatu, that is, on first entering the
Kaieteur ravine, that we reached the most beauti-
ful scenery of that beautiful river. If the whole
valley of the Potaro is fairyland, then the Kaieteur
ravine is the penetralia of fairyland. Here, owing
to the moisture-collecting nature of the sandstone...”
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“...in the Paca-
raima range on the western boundary of the
A. colony, in December 1889. Though few visitors
11 ' care to face the exertion which an expedition to
this mountain necessarily involves, the following
description of his visit has a fascinating interest
“The first impression was one of inability
mentally to grasp such surroundings; the next,
that one was entering on some strange country of
nightmares, for which an appropriate and wildly-
fantastic landscape had been formed, some dread-
ful and stormy day, when, in their mid-career, the
broken and chaotic clouds had been stiffened in
a single instant into stone. For all around were
rocks and pinnacles of rocks of seemingly im-
possibly fantastic forms standing in apparently
impossibly fantastic ways—-nay, placed one on
or next to the other in positions seeming to defy
every law of gravity—rocks in groups, rocks stand-
ing singly, rocks in terraces, rocks as columns,
rocks as walls and rocks as pyramids, rocks ridi-
culous at every...”
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“...JAMAICA 117
pleased God to order otherwise, and I am thank-
ful for it As for those cowardly captains who
deserted you, hang them up; for, by God, they
deserve it.”
The Jamaica Institute, in East Street, has a Jamaica
library especially rich in Jamaica and West Indian
literature, from which subscribing members (3s.
per quarter) can borrow books ; a reading-room;
and a museum of unique interest, containing as it
does zoological, geological, and botanical speci-
mens ; an art gallery with a collection of portraits
of Jamaica worthiesthe bell of the old church of
Port Royal, engulfed in the earthquake of 1692 ;
the original “Shark Papers,” referred to in “Tom
Cringle’s Log,” and other objects of interest.
Among so many, few possess greater attraction
than the famous “Shark Papers,” of which an
illustration is given on another page. The story
of them, as narrated by Mr. Frank Cundall, the
cultured Secretary of the Institute, is briefly as
follows: The brig Nancy, of 125 tons, owned by
Germans...”
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