THE POTARO GORGE
CHAPTER IV
THE POTARO GORGE
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 and ourselves, 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 on the 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 being luxurious 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.
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 Roraima leit-motif which 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 we realized 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 same leit-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 pebbles swept 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 the banks, 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 until some 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 of haimara, which are excellent eating. These fish sometimes grow very large, and Indians wading in the pools are on occasion savagely 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!