Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,Auri sacra fames?Virgil:Æneid, iii. 56.
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,Auri sacra fames?Virgil:Æneid, iii. 56.
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
Auri sacra fames?
Virgil:Æneid, iii. 56.
Tumatumari is a formidable cataract with rocky islands amidst its swirling rush of waters. The name is said to mean “as hot as pepper.” All river traffic, whether upstream or downstream, is stopped by this obstacle, and a portage between the lower and the upper landing must be made over about half a mile of good cart-road. On the right bank stands a nice wooden bungalow, belonging to Sprostons, built on a bluff overlooking the river. There are also several other houses, including a land office, a police-station and a post office, in this little outpost; and many “bucks,” as the aborigines are called in local parlance, live in the neighbourhood. From a point just above the cataract Sprostons run a launch service for another ten miles upstream past Garraway’s Landing to a place known as Potaro Landing,and there all public service ends. Potaro Landing is the northern terminus of a cart-road, about twenty-three miles long, running between the Potaro and Konawaruk Rivers and serving the Minnehaha Gold Mining Company’s settlement. It runs as a sort of Nile through a desert of dense forest.
Great is the energy of the white man! In lands where all Nature cries to him, “Be still; do not exert yourself; keep a dry skin!” and where she relentlessly obliterates with importunate veils of quick-springing jungle all traces of his efforts, if ever he suspends them, he nevertheless pursues his way, dragging his machinery, and defying the mosquito! But in British Guiana he is hopelessly handicapped by want of labour. What can he do, if he cannot command the hands effectually to conquer the wilderness, to roll back the jungle, to plant and tend and reap?
The road up from the river-side at Potaro Landing is wide, but excessively bad. It begins by climbing up a hill of loose sand, in which the heated wayfarer toils along ankle-deep, save where a very rough corduroy of timber changes the form of his penance. Even the fortunate occupant of a dogcart is little better off, for thejarring to one’s spine as the wheels jolt from log to log is almost more than body and bones can endure. After the first seven miles the road-surface changes and becomes ironstone gravel, good enough to permit motor traffic, provided one does not set too much store by the springs of the car. From the road there are interesting glimpses of the black cliffs of Eagle Mountain and another range of grim precipices, frowning like prison walls on either hand. The valley, thus shut in, is intensely hot. The soil is fertile, and limes especially thrive, though all cultivation is precarious, when established on an oasis, amid the jungle, and thus woefully exposed to the depredations of birds and cushie ants. These ants frequently clear a patch of cultivation in a single night of every blade of greenstuff.
When, in 1917, we visited the hospitable manager of the Minnehaha Company at his house, situated near the tenth milestone of the road, there was a big dredge at work washing gold in Mahdia creek at “Nine Miles,” and another was in process of being shifted from “Fifteen Miles” to a point lower down the Minnehaha creek, near the twentieth mile-post. The Company also maintains a comfortable and picturesque bungalowat “Eighteen Miles.” Near the fifteenth mile you cross the divide between the Potaro and Konawaruk Rivers, and the road then runs along the banks of the Minnehaha creek. This once was a picturesque stream, but the washing for gold has discoloured it and altered its course. A track branches off from “Fifteen Miles” and runs up into the Eagle Mountain, where quartz-mining operations had just been begun when war broke out and work was unavoidably suspended.
The administrative headquarters of the district are at the eleventh mile, where the Government maintains a court-house, a police-station, and a dispensary. Several shops are dotted at intervals along the road, and more than one church. Nor must I omit to mention the “Potaro Library,” an imposing-looking shed consisting of side-posts, a roof, and a floor, and proclaiming its title in large letters, but (apart from the total absence of all books) a somewhat strange building to enjoy the title of “library.” I understand it is frequently used for dancing. The shopkeepers of the Potaro Road and, I believe, in all the Colony’s gold districts are Chinese. I shut my eyes and imagined the difference that would be wrought in that desolate scene if a million or soof their almond-eyed brethren could be transported hither. How would the wilderness blossom as a rose, air and light enter, where reigns mosquito-breeding jungle, and the fertile land smile with all that maketh glad the heart of man! Now, if you bump over the excruciating corduroy and the large stones embedded in the road, and especially if light is fading and darkness gathering, the melancholy of the long, dreary, winding way, with its scattered settlements and struggling clearings, penetrates your very bones and gives you a sensation of physical disquiet.
I have, nevertheless, very pleasant recollections of the Potaro District and of the cheery hospitality of the Company’s manager and his three or four white assistants, chiefly New Zealanders. Their pluck, good spirits, and eagerness in their work made a vivid impression on my mind, as did the interesting process of gold-washing, which we observed on Mahdia creek. The dredge-buckets bring up quantities of yellow mud from the bed of the stream, and this mud is washed by water along a sort of wide gutter with gratings across the bottom. The gold-bearing matter, being heavier than the rest, gravitates down through the gratings on to coconut mattingsprinkled with quicksilver. This process is called “washing up.” When it has continued for a considerable time, the coconut mattings are carefully washed and beaten, and all that comes out, including the quicksilver, which has charged itself with the gold particles, is again washed through a box by a jet of water. The box has three layers of plush in it, and the water is strained through these layers. The residue is very fine black dust, from which the gold-bearing quicksilver is carefully separated and carried off to be smelted. This process is called “streaming down.”
From the manager’s bungalow at the tenth mile a very pleasant alternative route back to Tumatumari, avoiding the launch trip, is to ride over the seventeen miles of Tiger creek trail. This trail was opened as a bridle track for the accommodation of the “pork-knockers,” who washed Tiger creek for gold, at one time very profitably, though the “placers” are now worked out. A branch line, also made up as a bridle track, goes off from this trail to St. Mary’s, on the Konawaruk River, where the British Guiana Gold Mining Company have dredges at work. The ride is delightful, if one be mounted on a sure-footed mule. The forest trees are veritable giants, and their deepshadow prevents the suffocating undergrowth from springing up. The line, when we rode over it, was clean, and all bridges were in good repair. It is absolutely cool even at midday in the exquisite shade, and we enjoyed charming little views, where the path wound pleasantly up and down small hills. At times it runs beside the deep pools of beautiful Tiger creek and its picturesque slides of amber water and creamy foam. Being mounted, we had the pleasure, rare to travellers in the bush, of looking about us instead of being obliged to watch our feet carefully all the time, or pay the penalty by a stumble. Thus I caught sight of an ant-bear, and we observed that remarkable animal, with its enormous tail and long snout, ambling along on the hill-side below us for quite fifty yards. It appears that ant-bears are bold creatures and fear nothing, as everything else takes care to give them a wide berth. Though they only eat ants, they have a way of rising on their hind legs, gripping an adversary with their inturned front claws, and then tearing him open with their hinder ones. Big ant-bears have been known to do this to men.
When the time comes to improve communications in this part of the Colony, the PotaroRiver will doubtless be bridged at Garraway’s Landing, where it is only 300 feet wide. Then a line will be cut to join the Potaro-Konawaruk Road at “Two Miles”; and from this second mile-post another road will branch off to rejoin the river and climb to Kaietuk and the highland country beyond, up the wonderful Potaro Gorge.
To-day a trail leads away into the forest westwards from “Two Miles,” where a rough sign-board proudly points the way “To Kaieteur.”[1]Gladly does the wayfarer step into the restful shade after the glare of white sand on the cart-road, and grateful indeed is the cool springiness of the leaf-strewn forest floor. After five miles along this trail, where from time to time the roar of unseen cataracts breaks the silence, the path emerges on Potaro bank once more, at a place known as Kangaruma. Here, on a low hill immediately above the river, is a small clearing with a wooden rest-house, belonging to Sprostons, a couple of Indian troolie-sheds, and some provision-fields.
It is on account of the long series of rapids below Kangaruma that the portage of seven miles from Potaro Landing has to be made, and theriver’s big loop to the north is also thus circumvented.
When travelling up the Potaro Gorge we have always sent our stores on ahead of us to Kangaruma, and arranged for our Indian carriers, ordroghers, to await us there. Then from this spot one fairly “pulls out on the Long Trail, the trail that is always new.”
He lured her away so far,Past so many a wood and valley and hill,That now, would you know where they are?In a bark on a silver stream,As fair as you see in a dream.A. O’Shaughnessy:Zuleika.
He lured her away so far,Past so many a wood and valley and hill,That now, would you know where they are?In a bark on a silver stream,As fair as you see in a dream.A. O’Shaughnessy:Zuleika.
He lured her away so far,
Past so many a wood and valley and hill,
That now, would you know where they are?
In a bark on a silver stream,
As fair as you see in a dream.
A. O’Shaughnessy:Zuleika.
Once the stores are all safely packed in the tent-boat, the paddlers established on their thwarts, and after the last wild rush up the bank to secure some precious, almost forgotten article, such as kettle or saucepan, how delightful it is to feel that at length one is off into the very heart of the wilderness! The soothing splash of the paddles is inexpressibly welcome after the din of launch travel, and we surrender ourselves to the enjoyment of the big restful silence and unchanging peace of the dreamy forest-wrapped river, and to delightful anticipation of wonders to come.
On the journey to Roraima, we left Kangaruma in the afternoon of 22nd December, 1915. Our party consisted, besides Mr. Menzies andourselves, of Haywood, our black cook, a most excellent and capable fellow, and of fourteen aborigines. Scanning the expressionless bronze figures of these Indians as they paddled steadily upstream, I speculated on what manner of men they might be, these dwellers amid trees and waters, whose home lies in the very bosom of Nature, and who look to her alone to supply all their needs. Nine of them came from the Demerara River, and the remaining five were Makusis from the highlands whither we were bound. Two of these five—Johnny and Thomas by name—were headmen of Puwa, a village near the Ireng River and close to the Brazilian frontier. The Makusis were good fellows and did yeomen service; but the natives of the Demerara River, as we discovered to our cost, were an idle and worthless set. They had already suffered the contaminating effects of civilization, and great were the delays and annoyance we had to endure from them, until we were able to exchange them for the willing and athletic Makusis of the highlands.
Above Kangaruma stretch some seventeen miles of smooth water to Amatuk, where once more the roar and rush of a cataract break onthe river’s repose. Amatuk is a delightfully pretty place. The Potaro here is joined by the Amuk creek, and then rushes in two cataracts round a rocky tree-crowned island, swirling out, all foam-beflecked, into a bay below. In the centre of the right-hand cataract, down which the great bulk of the water flows, there is a sheer drop of some thirty feet, and a fountain of white foam leaps upward. On a low knoll, looking over the bay and immediately above the left-hand cataract, stands another wooden rest-house. This knoll has been cleared of the dense bush, which dominates all else, and delicious English bracken grows freely on its sandy slopes.
We arrived by starlight; and, whilst the baggage was being carried up to the rest-house and supper made ready, I lay in my hammock watching an exquisite moon rising from out the million tree-tops of the forest, with a foreground of dimly shining river. The music of falling water filled the air, and the stars gleamed like great lamps hung athwart the night. Wherever we may in future travel, a hammock shall always accompany me. It enables one to be made as comfortable as possible in two minutes, though for sleeping at nights we must confess to beingluxurious enough to require camp-beds. To our delight, we each of us needed a warm blanket that night; and, when you have scarcely used the lightest blanket for two years, it is a real luxury to enjoy a good heavy one again. Rain fell all night long, and at dawn heavy mist-wreaths lay about the hills.
Mount Sakwai on Potaro River near Tukeit.Watersmeet of Potaro and Amuk Rivers at Amatuk, showing Mount Kenaima on right and Mount Kukui in centre above river-mist.To face page 62
Mount Sakwai on Potaro River near Tukeit.
Watersmeet of Potaro and Amuk Rivers at Amatuk, showing Mount Kenaima on right and Mount Kukui in centre above river-mist.
To face page 62
Amatuk is the gateway to the beautiful Kaietuk Gorge. Looking upstream from the bay below the fall, we saw towering on one side the peak of Kenaima Mountain, and on the other side the vertical cliff-face of Mount Kukui. Just above Amatuk the Potaro emerges from between these mountains, and is at once joined from the right by the Amuk creek, which also flows in a narrow gorge, so blocked by huge boulders and so difficult of access that it has never yet been explored. Streams, which are almost better spoken of as cascades, spring down the faces of the cliffs, gleaming like white threads against the red sandstone. Another hint is thus given of the Roraimaleit-motifwhich rules the land. We had, indeed, throughout our wanderings the impression of a mighty symphony. The wondrous Kaietuk Fall was the first movement whose introduction began with Amatuk. Thereafter werealized that several days of river and forest journey were but the transition passages to a movement of shining tablelands, whose jasper-bedded rivers repeat everywhere the sameleit-motif, though with a myriad tiny variations, for all the streams of the highland savannahs tumble in cascades down vertical faces into a succession of pools, while long-sought-for and much-dreamt-of Roraima, with his cliffs over a thousand feet in height rising out of primeval forest, standing on his pedestal of rolling savannah uplands, with waterfalls leaping from his mysterious flat-topped summit, forms a magnificent résumé and finale of the whole.
Next morning, whilst the stores and baggage were being portaged from the bay below Amatuk to another boat moored above the falls, we had leisure to study the beauty of the cataract. The river was low, so we made our way to the edge of the water over rocks generally covered by the rushing stream as it changes from the normal dark—almost black—flow of its peaceful progress to the amber swirl and creamy spray of coming excitement. These diabase rocks are all flat-topped and deeply fissured, and they contain here and there curious “jigs,” made by pebblesswept round and round in some tiny whirlpool, till, as the long ages pass, they dig for themselves deep circular holes. These “jigs” are eagerly explored by the diamond prospectors, as sometimes they contain precious stones. I baled out one such deep, dark hole with the help of a Makusi, and obtained a plateful of extremely pretty pebbles, all tiny and agleam with many different colours, rose-red, turquoise-blue, pieces of malachite-green, and many a shining speck of quartz to raise my hopes. I felt that to be the actual winner of a real diamond, however small, would be a delightful experience; but my pebbles, although pronounced by the authority of Mr. Menzies and Haywood to be “good diamond indication,” did not, in spite of their intrinsic beauty, harbour any stray speck of real value. Nevertheless, I feel that diamonds will always have an added charm for me when I think of them as gifts from that lovely land of unknown streams and as the ornaments of Nature herself.
We spent a delightful three hours paddling upstream to the next portage at Waratuk, surrounded by the wonderful scenery of the gorge. Rain fell in little misty veils of shower; and exquisite forest fragrance, wafted to us from thebanks, was strong enough to overpower even the smell of salt beef and pork which emanated from our provisions. Potaro here flows between flat-topped cliffs towering on both sides about a thousand feet above their own reflections, mirrored in the black water. The hidden bases of the hills are clothed in forest, while their sides are grim precipices, revealing overhangs of castellated rock and toppling crags with great fissures and clefts, wild and wondrous to behold.
At about noon we reached Waratuk, where another portage is necessary. This is a much smaller cataract than Amatuk. In fact, at high river, boats going downstream can run it, whereas no one would dream of running Amatuk, in the centre of which is a vertical drop. On the right bank at Waratuk stands a little shelter with corrugated iron roof, supported by wallaba posts. Under its cover we lunched, or rather took “breakfast,” as the midday meal is invariably called in this Colony; and at 2 p.m., when all our stores had been portaged, we set off again in another smaller craft known as the “parson’s boat,” used by the Church of England for the missionaries who at one time travelled up the Potaro to mission-stations, now abandoned.
From Waratuk to Tukeit was two hours’ paddling. The shining lazy river, lying half asleep between its sentinel hills, seemed already to have forgotten the wild leap over Kaietuk. But from our boat we caught several glimpses of the Kaietuk cliff, which bars the end of the gorge, and we could just see that corner of the fall itself which is nearest the left bank.
The river is studded by rocky islets, and the stunted trees growing thereon are often literally laden with long bags of woven sticks which are the mocking-birds’ nests. At high river I once counted seventeen on one small tree, which appeared to rise straight out of the water, its rock pedestal being entirely submerged.
Above Tukeit the river is a series of racing cataracts, curiously broken by deep, still pools, where the main current would appear to flow beneath the surface. It is, of course, an entirely unnavigable piece of water, and to pursue the valley on foot to the base of the mighty Kaietuk precipice is an enterprise of extreme difficulty, not to say danger. Masses of giant boulders make progress all but impossible; and, save at very low river, the attempt could not be made. The Potaro has therefore to be abandoned untilsome miles above Kaietuk, and no full view of the waterfall from below is obtainable along the present line of ascent.
Sprostons have made a little clearing at Tukeit, and have put up a wooden rest-house on the left bank of the river, about a hundred yards from the water. The forest closes in densely all round, so that the place has no view, and besides being very stuffy, it is full of big biting cow-flies. It is not a pleasant spot to spend a night in; but nevertheless, when encumbered by baggage, one cannot with the existing means of transport get up from Amatuk on to the Kaietuk plateau in one day. On the opposite side of the river, however, there is an excellent camping-ground on a beach of shining silver sand, and a rocky dell at the forest edge, watered by the clear, cold Tukeit stream dropping from the cliff-tops a thousand feet above, offers delightful refuge in the heat of the day. So, if time were no object, a camp on Tukeit sands for fishing would be an agreeable interlude in a “bush” journey. The very deep, still pools of the river near by are a favourite haunt ofhaimara, which are excellent eating. These fish sometimes grow very large, and Indians wading in the pools are on occasionsavagely bitten by them. The aborigines usually obtain fish by shooting them with bow and arrow. This they do with much skill and dexterity.
But who would delay at Tukeit when Kaietuk calls? We must be up and on!
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.W. Wordsworth:Ode.
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.W. Wordsworth:Ode.
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.
W. Wordsworth:Ode.
There were showers at dawn, but these had passed over when we started from Tukeit in the early morning to climb up on to the Kaietuk plateau. The existing forest trail, after leaving Tukeit, traverses some low foot-hills, and then rises sharply to cross the Washibaru creek. Next follows another steep ascent to the Korumê creek, which is bridged bytacoubasat a point whose Indian name has been translated as the “Devil’s Mother’s Pillars.” Here the country is very broken, and the whole channel of the Korumê has been strewn with large boulders that completely hide the water from sight. It would seem probable that in time past cliffs stood on both sides of this gorge, and that they crumbled inwards, so blocking the exit of the Korumê, which, nevertheless, has burrowed a way underneath the rocks and hurries down in a very abruptcataract to the Potaro. From the Devil’s Mother’s Pillars there is an exceedingly steep climb, with a gradient resembling in places a ladder rather than a road, until the edge of the Kaietuk plateau is reached at a tree on which the word “Amen” has been cut. Gossip has it that on one occasion a respected colonist was hoisted up to this point, two Indians pulling him with a rope in front and two more pushing him behind. He lay down under this tree almost at his last gasp; and, while he recovered breath, his companion cut the word “Amen” in the trunk. It certainly is a villainous climb, especially in rainy weather, when the moss-covered stepping-stones are wet and slippery, and it does not improve with acquaintance. From Amen Point the forest trail runs along a ridge more or less level for another couple of miles or so to the Kaietuk savannah, with the precipitous gorge of the Potaro on one side and the deep-cut valley of the Korumê on the other. The Indians say that this path originated in a track by which otters descended from the Upper to the Lower Potaro; and, whether this be so or not, the line is certainly quite unsuitable for human traffic even on foot.
The whole trail runs always in forest, never affording any view of the Kaietuk Falls or of anything save the vista of tree-trunks immediately ahead. Big boulders lie scattered pell-mell round about in the jungle, some as large as houses, and many curious orchidaceous plants thrive in the drenchingly moist atmosphere. The so-called “Kaieteur lily,” whose green leaves are striped with brown and black lines and whose heart, when in flower, is a scarlet feather, grows gaily on boulder and tree-stem. Then suddenly, when we had been about two hours on the march from Tukeit, the forest ended and the trail debouched on a savannah of flat rock, covered with a thin layer of sand, in which grass and many charming wild-flowers grow freely. No sooner do you reach the savannah than you also come upon the last of Sprostons’ rest-houses. It stands out in the open, at a considerable distance from any water, save what is caught upon its corrugated iron roof and conveyed to a vat. Behind it and on both sides all view is cut off by the forest, which is only a few feet away. In front there is a small open savannah, and beyond range upon range of blue, forest-clad hills. But there is still no sign or sound whatever of the mightywaterfall, and those who do not know could never guess that anything extraordinary was near by.
We rested for a few minutes in the bungalow, enjoying the view and the delicious change of climate which comes from ascending some 1,500 feet. Then we walked on a hundred yards or so across the savannah. The first sign of danger ahead is a deep fissure in the ground, which must be crossed carefully. A few steps more, and with appalling suddenness a terrific chasm yawns at one’s feet. From the rest-house nothing can be seen of precipice or chasm, and the forests which clothe the cliff-tops upon the opposite side of the river gorge appear to meet the edge of the savannah. Indeed, this abrupt rift in a landscape which does not otherwise suggest anything stupendous startled me afresh each time. It takes hours to realize the scene. We stood on the overhanging lip of a precipice: thin air below us for many hundred feet. Still, however, the waterfall was almost a mile away across the gulf; and nothing could be seen of it, for the whole gorge was filled with mist and thick, white, fleecy cloud. “Mother of Mists” should Kaietuk be named, as Roraima is called “Father of Streams.” In point of fact, however, the wordKaietuk(Dr. Bovallius writes itKaijituik) means “Old Man’s Rock,” and the falls are so named by the Indians, because of a folk-tale to the effect that an aged Indian, becoming a nuisance to his relatives, as his feet were infested with chigoes, which they had to pick out for him, was put in a woodskin and sent to drift to his death over this abyss. Strange that Kaietuk’s majestic beauty should have inspired no better legend than this! The wordtukortuikmeans “rock,” and is also found in Pakatuk, Amatuk, Waratuk, andTukeit, all of which are well-known cataracts on the Potaro River. The usual spelling “Kaieteur” is a mere mistake.
The mists of the waterfall are drawn up and dispersed in the sunshine, but directly the sun goes they fill up the gorge and hide everything. Indeed, it was not till the afternoon on the day of our arrival that the weather cleared and Kaietuk stood revealed in all its grandeur. I fear it is almost impossible to give in words any idea of this wonder, but I will make an attempt. Lazy, dreamy Potaro suddenly leaps down fully eight hundred feet vertically into a great black caldron below, and then flows through a vast amphitheatre of precipices, towering to an equal heighton either bank, their bases clothed in forest. The black bush-water, as it reaches the lip of the fall and the sun strikes it, turns first amber and then to a creamy spray, and falls in festoons of foam, which seem living and change incessantly. The river was low on this occasion, so that comparatively little water was going over, and it looked as though the whole mass turned to spray before reaching the black depths beneath; but sometimes a puff of wind blew the opalescent foam-curtain aside for a second, and one caught a glimpse of the amber column descending. The contrast between the grim, black and red, weather-stained cliffs and the flying, gleaming, living, falling water is marvellously beautiful. Little wisps of mist float ceaselessly forth from out the black cavern behind the fall. A glorious rainbow hovers about it, whilst flights of swallows cross and recross before it, bathing themselves in the spray in a manner that would enchant a Japanese artist. Pairs of macaws sail majestically past the background of white foam, the crimson of their under-wings and the brilliant blue of their bodies gleaming like jewels when the sun catches them. The fickle come-and-go of shape and sheen in the restless cataract makesits strange beauties alive with caprice and mystery; for the eye can follow during several seconds the lace-like, ever-varying tracery of each water-wreath as it drops from the lip of Kaietuk to meet the foam tossed up from the black whirlpool underneath.
We spent all the afternoon studying the fall from various points of view. At the cliff-edge near Sprostons’ bungalow one can see, but not photograph, its entire length; and there is a good view of the tumbling reaches of the river below, which alternate with large, still pools. You can also look fully a mile upstream above the fall, where Potaro flows in a straight reach through a vast, densely forested plateau, stretching away to distant blue hills, also forest-clad, save on their vertical cliff-sides—hills that beckon the traveller onwards, prophesying further wonders. For from the Kaietuk savannah a view can be obtained of Mount Kowatipu, round the spur of which we were to travel on our further journey to Roraima, and of the lofty range of mountains, called by the Indians Kamana and Morakabang, at the head of the Kopinang River. There is also an extensive panorama of the plateau and the mountains on the right bank of the Potaro.
Sir Walter Egerton, who visited Kaietuk in 1913, had a path cut for him from Sprostons’ rest-house in a downriver direction, near the edge of the precipice, through an awesome forest among black fissures, huge rocks, and forbidding caverns, for a distance of about a quarter of a mile, to a bare jut of cliff, which overhangs the gorge at a point about one mile as the crow flies from the brink of Kaietuk. From this spot it is possible to photograph the abyss in its entire height, but not from any point nearer. The vertical fall is sixfold that of Niagara, and the whole scene is on so enormous a scale that it is difficult to realize how huge is every detail of it all, and one sorely needs something to give the sense of proportion with the ordinary workaday world. There is also a trail from the rest-house to the brink of the fall, where one obtains a wonderful view down the gorge to Mount Kenaima at the Amatuk Gateway and to the dim plains beyond, a distant sea of forest. But from the water’s edge it is, of course, impossible to see much of the chasm into which the river falls, unless you lie prone on the overhanging rock and look straight down into the caldron below. Round about the head of the fall on the left bank of the Potaro is a curiousopen plain of hard, smooth rock. It is almost flat, with a gentle incline toward the river-side, and is strewn with small, round, white pebbles. Save the wealth of wild-flowers, only scrub wreathed with golden “Kaietuk vine” and big orchidaceous plants, some of them ten or twelve feet high, grow there; but it is a curiously fascinating place, and forms a weird and fantastic approach to the fall itself. Surely it would be a good thing if British Guiana made the whole of this unique savannah in the immediate vicinity of Kaietuk, abounding, as it does, in interesting plants and flowers, into a colonial park, after the model of the national parks in the United States; and, if so, when made readily accessible, it should be a source of health and delight to many generations of our colonists, whose work compels them to reside, as a rule, on the hot coastal plains.
Potaro Gorge from Kaietuk.To face page 78.
Potaro Gorge from Kaietuk.
To face page 78.
We reached Kaietuk on Christmas Eve; and, as all our baggage and stores had to be carried up on the back of our Indian droghers from Tukeit to a point above the waterfall, where Potaro is again navigable, our headquarters during all Christmas Day, as well as for the larger part of Boxing Day, were at Sprostons’ rest-house. I shall never forget that Christmas Day at Kaietuk.The lights were so wonderful on the gorge, and a lovely rainbow hovered over the fall. Each time that I turned away from Kaietuk and looked down the valley I said to myself: “It is more lovely than the last time I looked this way;” and, whenever I turned back to that living, moving water, I felt, “This reallyismore wonderful than a second ago.” One of the most striking things about Kaietuk is its silence, due, I suppose, to the foot of the fall being so far below. Occasionally, when the wind eddied upward, a great sullen growl came up, and the Makusis standing beside me at the brink of the cliff stepped back with a grunt of superstitious alarm.
The wonder of it all makes coming away very hard, for one becomes fascinated by the ever-changing glory and can never look enough. When, in October, 1917, my husband and I were three weeks in camp on this plateau, it did not seem one day too long; and we studied Kaietuk in all its moods—in misty dawn, magnificent day, and ghostly moonlight. We pitched camp about fifty yards from the edge of the abyss, a few feet above the river-side. It was a heavenly spot. Our tarpaulins were slung in a little strip of forest for protection from the weather; but a bigrock, jutting out into the river and overarched by trees, made us the most perfect “parlour” in the world. As I lay in a hammock, listening to the delicious swish-swish of the hurrying river, I could see miles and miles of blue hills and shining stream below me, right away down the gorge to Amatuk. What happy, lazy hours that hammock afforded me, too blissful even for reading, when one seemed not wholly awake, yet not at all asleep, and altogether aware of the loveliness around one! The fall, of course, could not be seen from the camp, but the air came to us chilled by its moving waters, cool and invigorating even at midday. Curiously enough, the mists, which float ceaselessly forth from behind Kaietuk and often fill the gorge and roll in clouds over the savannah, seemed somehow to be abruptly cut off by the precipice, and never came our way. Altogether it was the most perfect of many delightful camps.
But the day’s occupation was by no means limited to hammock musings, for our object, during those three weeks, was to find a practicable alignment for a motor-road from the Kaietuk plateau down to Amatuk. A very interesting and attractive job it was, though it involvedus in many an hour’s hard climbing and scrambling, only to reward us at first with disappointment.
The work of trail-cutting in the vicinity of Kaietuk is like groping in the dark. One can see little or nothing beyond the few yards just ahead; for the forest shuts out all view, save when one reaches an abrupt cliff-edge or a little patch of rocky savannah. In country such as this every step has to be cut toilfully up and down hillsides, and no rapid reconnaissance survey is possible. Oh for a hydroplane, with which to get a bird’s-eye view of plateau, ravine, and river!
The Indians we found to be of no use to us as guides to the country, and they did not at all relish the job on which we were engaged. They have a superstitious fear of Kaietuk and all its surroundings. They consider that the whole place spooks, and they constantly murmur about “kenaima” whilst at work. This is their word for ghosts and spirits, and they have given to the mountain standing above Amatuk, at the entrance to the Potaro gorge, the name of Mount Kenaima. From its summit the smoke as of fires is said constantly to ascend, though no man walks thereon. Between Kangaruma and Chenapowu,some fifty miles of river, there is not a single human habitation, and the surrounding country appears unknown to the aborigines. Our men dared not even look at the Kaietuk Fall when by themselves, and, if obliged to approach it, hurried past with averted eyes. They would not leave camp unless two might go together, and they plainly were reluctant to cut lines through the rock-strewn forests round about, painting their faces with red streaks to ward off malign influences. Would that evil could indeed be averted by so simple an expedient! The truth may be that the numerous caverns of this region are haunted by jaguars and possibly by other wild beasts, and that Indians have been killed from time to time when passing through the gorge.
Still, after many failures we at last succeeded in finding a line. My husband’s first idea was to circumvent entirely the ravines of the Washibaru and Korumê creeks, which form the chief obstacles in the ascent to Kaietuk. So he cut a path from the edge of Kaietuk Fall in a direction at right angles to the Potaro across the Kaietuk plateau, descending into the Korumê valley. He then continued up this valley until he reached a saddle, where, at a height of about 1,150 feetabove Tukeit, is the source of the Korumê. After that he crossed over on to another plateau above the left bank of the Korumê, and so made his way to the head-waters of the Washibaru creek. But, although the two ravines had thus been circumvented, no reasonable gradient could be found downhill, beyond Washibaru Head, either to Tukeit or to Waratuk. At last we decided to explore the Korumê defile itself, in spite of its forbidding aspect at Devil’s Mother’s Pillars, and shortly after dawn one day we walked to Korumê Head, taking four Makusis with us.
The Indians had so persistently declared this valley to be “no walky” that we scarcely dared to hope that it would be possible to get along it for any distance; and my husband, anticipating some very troublesome scrambling, desired me to return to camp and leave him with the four men to make the attempt. But the men hung back so much that I was obliged to follow to drive them after him. My husband led the way, plunging ahead through a thick jungle of scrub and bush-rope. Then, when he reached the farthest point from which he could see me through the forest veil, he signalled to me, and I gave the word to the men to cut a straight line to wherehe stood. This process we repeated again and again hour after hour. The going was amazingly good—too good to last, and we expected every minute to be stopped by a waterfall or by a jumble of rock and cliff. It was very exciting and very delightful. The gradient was 28 per cent. over the first 4,854 feet, there being no rock obstruction whatsoever. Then for another 4,438 feet of gentle descent the ground surface, though by no means bad, was less easy, and the line had to be graded round the hill-side instead of running on the valley floor. Eventually we were held up by a welter of hugetacoubas, and turned back, our men being tired and sulky. But on later days my husband completed the trail, though from the point where we had stopped on the first day things were not so easy. Obstacles were incessant for the remaining 2,400 feet to Devil’s Mother’s Pillars, where it will be necessary to make a hair-pin bend in the road alignment, and the country between the Korumê and the Washibaru creeks is also rough and difficult. Nevertheless, when we broke up camp at Kaietuk to return to Georgetown, we had a complete track to Tukeit, and since then the line has been surveyed, continued to Amatuk, and examinedby an engineer, who reported on the 31st October, 1918, that the cost of a motor-road from Amatuk to Washibaru would be about $92,000, and from Washibaru up the Korumê valley to Kaietuk plateau about $37,300. It only remains now to trace the alignment of a road from Garraway’s Landing to Amatuk in order to complete the scheme of a highway from Bartika past Kaburi and across the Potaro-Konawaruk Road to Kaietuk. What a difference it will make to life in British Guiana when it is possible to reach that wonderland in a day’s drive by motor-car from Bartika!
I will make a palace, fit for you and meOf green days in forests.R. L. Stevenson:Romance.
I will make a palace, fit for you and meOf green days in forests.R. L. Stevenson:Romance.
I will make a palace, fit for you and me
Of green days in forests.
R. L. Stevenson:Romance.
In the long, straight reach of the Potaro, immediately above Kaietuk, there are several rapids; and the dangerous proximity of the Kaietuk abyss itself makes this stretch of the river an undesirable starting-point for an upstream journey. Mr. Menzies told us a harrowing tale of a bushman who years ago, wishing to cross from the right to the left bank of the Potaro in this reach, made a raft to ferry himself and his kit over the river. When out in midstream, he found to his horror that his punt-pole would not touch bottom, and the raft began to drift in the direction of the waterfall. The man did not hesitate long, but, abandoning all his belongings, threw himself into the river and, being a strong swimmer, successfully reached the bank. So, inorder to avoid all such dangers, the landing-stage for the Upper Potaro has been placed a couple of miles above Kaietuk, at a point about thirty-five minutes’ walk from Sprostons’ rest-house. For the most part, the trail to this landing-place traverses the rocky Kaietuk savannah, the only patch of ground clear of forest on our whole journey from the coast to the highlands; but for the last fifteen minutes it goes through forest and involves a troublesome scramble over tangled tree-roots, resembling piles of giant “spillikens.” The path emerges on the left bank of the Potaro at a point where there is a small inlet, and where all view of Kaietuk and its surroundings has already been lost. Here were two boats, one being a second “parson’s boat,” and the other belonging to Mr. Menzies. Mr. Menzies’ boat is thirty feet in length, built of silver-balli wood, very handy and buoyant. It came up from Georgetown in sections, and was screwed together by Mr. Menzies with the help of two men in this little cove, where it is safely moored even in flood-time. The “parson’s boat,” on the other hand, came up whole, and was many days in transit from Tukeit. What a job hoisting it to Amen Point must have been!
We put six Indians into the “parson’s boat”; the remaining eight, with Mr. Menzies, Haywood, ourselves, and all our baggage, embarked in the other. A tarpaulin shelter was stretched amidships over a frame of bent boughs, to which a hammock was slung for me. Mr. Menzies steered, and had four paddlers with him in the stern, while Haywood was bowman with four more; and so we started off upstream on the afternoon of the 26th December, 1915.
The Potaro above Kaietuk is as calm and peaceful as below Tukeit. Its reflections are so wonderful that it is hard to distinguish the waterline, where the foliage of the banks ends and its mirrored reflection begins, while the deep blue of the tropical sky shines yet brighter up from the river’s heart than from overhead. Primeval forest is unbroken on both banks, save occasionally where patches of secondary jungle and “congo-pump” suggest that in bygone days there were Indian settlements on the banks, now abandoned, probably forkenaimareasons. Whenever a chief dies in an Indian village, the people are apt to attribute any subsequent run of bad luck to hiskenaima, or spirit, and they migrate from the place. Indeed, a village isnearly always deserted for a short time after the death of any important villager. There are also whole districts besides the Kaietuk country into which Indians will not go for fear ofkenaima.
We did not get far that day, as the men, who had been droghing our stores from Tukeit to the landing on the Upper Potaro, complained of fatigue. So we made an early camp on the river-bank at a place where the forest was “clean,” as the bushmen express it—that is, without choking undergrowth. Very soon we were most comfortably established. A tarpaulin stretched over a framework makes a nice roof; and we also had tarpaulins hung on the two sides for the sake of privacy, and another spread as a floor to keep our feet dry. It is not the custom in this country to use tents, so we had not brought ours. But this was a mistake, for a tent can be rigged up as easily as a tarpaulin, and it would have ensured greater comfort and privacy. Moreover, on the open savannahs a tent is needed as a protection against wind and rain. Haywood built himself a camp-fire, placing a stick horizontally on two forked uprights and slinging pots on it above the flames, just as the bushman does in Canada and probably all the world over. Our fire and thoseof the Indians lit up the damp forest glade and made it look quite friendly, but an hour after dusk torrents of rain fell, which speedily extinguished the warm glow.
Next morning we paddled steadily upstream, halting only for an hour and a half at noon, when we lunched. It was a very restful day. No rain fell, but the sky was overcast until 3 p.m. Then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the river with its perfect reflections most prettily. We passed the mouths of several creeks emptying into the Potaro, the largest being the Amamuri, the Seebu, and the Ichirak, and from our boat we could at times see the mountains in which are the sources of the Ichirak and the Arnik creeks. Above the mouth of the Ichirak the Potaro becomes very winding, and there is a place where two reaches are parallel, flowing in opposite directions, so that Indians travelling in woodskins make a portage over the neck of the bend. We noticed frequent maipuri tracks on both banks as well as on spits of sand, where the animals come down to water; and occasionally the river-edge turns to eta-swamp, where muscovy duck are said to abide. We also saw several divers, some beautiful white cranes, and a pairof otters, so much interested in us that they kept bobbing up close to the boat, trying to get a better view. The trees on the Upper Potaro are magnificent, and the forest looks friendly; whereas the dense, suffocating, tropical jungles of the lowlands give a horrible impression of hostile, evil Nature.
This night we camped at the mouth of the Arnik on a small island round which the creek flows into the Potaro. The ground is slightly rising and makes a picturesque and comfortable camping-place, with a view straight down the main river. As usual, rain poured down all night long, making us thankful that our tarpaulins were waterproof.
Next morning, after paddling an hour and a half, we reached the watersmeet of the Potaro and the Chenapowu creek. This is the limit of navigation, for the Chenapowu is blocked bytacoubasand cataracts, and the Potaro itself, a short distance above Chenapowu, is impeded by serious rapids. The river being low had been favourable for our upstream journey, and we covered the thirty miles from Kaietuk to Chenapowu in ten and a half hours’ actual paddling. River travel is, of course, always governed by thestate of the river; and Mr. Menzies told us that once in time of abnormally high flood he made the whole journey downstream from Chenapowu to Kangaruma, a distance of fifty miles, between sunrise and sunset. We, on our way back, there being then about three feet more water in the river than on our way up, paddled from Chenapowu to Kaietuk in six and a half hours; but we were far indeed from approaching Mr. Menzies’ record. At Chenapowu several trails from the highlands converge, and it was here that an old Swedish gentleman, Dr. Carl Bovallius, some years ago made a settlement which he called Holmia. He cleared a hundred acres of land and built himself a house, admirably situated on a knoll overlooking the watersmeet of the Potaro and Chenapowu, furnished his home with every comfort, and began a trade in balata with the Indians of the neighbourhood. Mr. Menzies did the transport work for him, and by his direction explored the forest trails to find a short-cut to the highland savannahs. It was thus that he found “Menzies’ Line,” which balata-laden Indians could travel in two days, and which is certainly a capital path from the Potaro to the highlands. We ourselves travelled over it. Itslength was estimated by Dr. Bovallius’ foreman to be thirty-two miles; but, as the track is now interrupted by fallen trees, it must be somewhat longer, for détours have to be made to avoid all the bigger obstacles.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Bovallius did not come here as a younger man. He was over seventy years of age when he began his enterprise; and, though he lived to be seventy-eight, yet time was lacking for him to establish his work on firm foundations. When he died, the Indians carried off everything that could possibly be removed, and his entire clearing is now covered by secondary growth and the horrible “congo-pump,” which, bearing a ghastly resemblance to rubber, grows habitually wherever a clearing in the primeval forest has once been, and mocks at abandoned human endeavour. We could, however, still see traces of the roads and bridges which Dr. Bovallius had made, and a small corrugated-iron powder-store remains in good repair. Of the house at Holmia nothing is left save the four main posts and a few panes of glass scattered on the ground.
We approached Chenapowu in some anxiety, for at this point we were to leave the waterwaysand begin our long march overland; and it was here that Mr. Menzies had instructed the Makusis of the highlands to meet us as baggage-carriers. He fully believed that the Makusis understood and meant to execute his instructions, until, just before we got there, Johnny of Puwa observed casually that his people “Chenapowu side no come.” Unfortunately, on arrival, we found that Johnny had spoken but too truly, for at Chenapowu we found no one but John Williams, a tall Patamona, attired only in loin-cloth, knife, and belt, who, with his wife and children, was the sole inhabitant of Holmia. He came down to our boat and insisted on shaking hands with us, saying very firmly and politely, “How do you do?” but he equally firmly said, “Me no carry load.” In these depressing circumstances the only thing to be done was to camp for the time being on the site of Dr. Bovallius’ house. We never discovered why the Makusis had failed us; for, when we eventually reached the highlands, they were all eagerly awaiting us and most anxious to be of use; but it did not seem to have occurred to them that their services would be needed in the forest. Of course, explanations with a people whose best interpreters understandonly a bare dozen words of the English language and can speak but half as many are apt to miscarry. Anyway, the Makusis were not there, and we were faced by a forest trek of thirty odd miles, with carriers insufficient to make the attempt. It was a difficult and unpleasant position.
As soon as the boats had been unloaded, and camp made at Holmia, we sent off two Indians, Robert and Hubbard by name, to Arnik village, which in Dr. Bovallius’ time was some two and a half hours’ walk from Holmia, and whence he supplied himself with ground provisions. We instructed these men to make great haste, and to induce as many as possible of the men of Arnik to return with them at once, bringing cassava for the forest journey, and we hoped to make an early start next day. Our stores were packed in the powder-house, and we sat down to await the arrival of the Arnik people with what patience we could muster, by the help of Sir George Trevelyan’sLife and Letters of Lord Macaulay. Our camp, shut in by congo-pump and dense secondary growth, was most unattractive. There were no mosquitoes—indeed, we never saw mosquitoes after Rockstone during our whole journey.But other horrible insects, such as cow-flies, sand-flies, and ticks, made life a burden. The day dragged wearily by and night fell with the usual heavy rain, but without any sign of the Arnik people or of our messengers. Early next morning Mr. and Mrs. John Williams called with their two children. Mrs. Williams wore a bead apron and had tattoo marks on her face and body. They asked for sugar; but John had been so little helpful that we did not feel in the mood to be very generous with that precious commodity, and consequently only gave a teaspoonful to each child, whereupon the family, apparently offended, disappeared into the forest and we saw them no more. All day we waited for the men of Arnik to arrive, but no one appeared; and when, as daylight died, heavy rain again began to fall, and we had finally to give up all hope of starting next morning, we felt thoroughly depressed and miserable. Before going to bed it was decided that at dawn Mr. Menzies should make a start, with all our Indians and as many loads as they could carry; take them to Akrabanna creek, where the trail to Arnik branches off from “Menzies’ Line”; should there deposit the loads at the junction of the trails, send the Indians backto us to be ready for further service, and himself go on to Arnik to ascertain the position. The inroad being made on our food-supplies, without our getting any nearer to the savannah plenty, was beginning to cause us great anxiety.
Next morning Mr. Menzies set off early, as arranged, with all the Indians, leaving Haywood as our only camp attendant. Haywood’s optimism and cheerfulness were unfailing, but even Macaulay failed to cheerusas the long hours crawled by. Heavy rain fell at intervals, and, imprisoned by sodden forest on all sides, the position was certainly not enlivening. During some hours we hoped that Mr. Menzies might return, having met the men of Arnik in the way; but we were disappointed, and