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 feet above 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 where he 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 huge tacoubas, 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 examined by 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!