CHAPTER V
KAIETUK, MOTHER OF MISTS
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 by tacoubas at 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 abrupt cataract 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 mighty waterfall, 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 word Kaietuk (Dr. Bovallius writes it Kaijituik) 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 word tuk or tuik means “rock,” and is also found in Pakatuk, Amatuk, Waratuk, and Tukeit, 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 height on 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 makes its 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.