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.