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!