Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima

by Mrs. Cecil Clementi

I will make a palace, fit for you and me

Of green days in forests.

R. L. Stevenson: Romance.

In the long, straight reach of the Potaro, immediately above Kaietuk, there are several rapids; and the dangerous proximity of the Kaietuk abyss itself makes this stretch of the river an undesirable starting-point for an upstream journey. Mr. Menzies told us a harrowing tale of a bushman who years ago, wishing to cross from the right to the left bank of the Potaro in this reach, made a raft to ferry himself and his kit over the river. When out in midstream, he found to his horror that his punt-pole would not touch bottom, and the raft began to drift in the direction of the waterfall. The man did not hesitate long, but, abandoning all his belongings, threw himself into the river and, being a strong swimmer, successfully reached the bank. So, in order to avoid all such dangers, the landing-stage for the Upper Potaro has been placed a couple of miles above Kaietuk, at a point about thirty-five minutes’ walk from Sprostons’ rest-house. For the most part, the trail to this landing-place traverses the rocky Kaietuk savannah, the only patch of ground clear of forest on our whole journey from the coast to the highlands; but for the last fifteen minutes it goes through forest and involves a troublesome scramble over tangled tree-roots, resembling piles of giant “spillikens.” The path emerges on the left bank of the Potaro at a point where there is a small inlet, and where all view of Kaietuk and its surroundings has already been lost. Here were two boats, one being a second “parson’s boat,” and the other belonging to Mr. Menzies. Mr. Menzies’ boat is thirty feet in length, built of silver-balli wood, very handy and buoyant. It came up from Georgetown in sections, and was screwed together by Mr. Menzies with the help of two men in this little cove, where it is safely moored even in flood-time. The “parson’s boat,” on the other hand, came up whole, and was many days in transit from Tukeit. What a job hoisting it to Amen Point must have been!

We put six Indians into the “parson’s boat”; the remaining eight, with Mr. Menzies, Haywood, ourselves, and all our baggage, embarked in the other. A tarpaulin shelter was stretched amidships over a frame of bent boughs, to which a hammock was slung for me. Mr. Menzies steered, and had four paddlers with him in the stern, while Haywood was bowman with four more; and so we started off upstream on the afternoon of the 26th December, 1915.

The Potaro above Kaietuk is as calm and peaceful as below Tukeit. Its reflections are so wonderful that it is hard to distinguish the waterline, where the foliage of the banks ends and its mirrored reflection begins, while the deep blue of the tropical sky shines yet brighter up from the river’s heart than from overhead. Primeval forest is unbroken on both banks, save occasionally where patches of secondary jungle and “congo-pump” suggest that in bygone days there were Indian settlements on the banks, now abandoned, probably for kenaima reasons. Whenever a chief dies in an Indian village, the people are apt to attribute any subsequent run of bad luck to his kenaima, or spirit, and they migrate from the place. Indeed, a village is nearly always deserted for a short time after the death of any important villager. There are also whole districts besides the Kaietuk country into which Indians will not go for fear of kenaima.

We did not get far that day, as the men, who had been droghing our stores from Tukeit to the landing on the Upper Potaro, complained of fatigue. So we made an early camp on the river-bank at a place where the forest was “clean,” as the bushmen express it—that is, without choking undergrowth. Very soon we were most comfortably established. A tarpaulin stretched over a framework makes a nice roof; and we also had tarpaulins hung on the two sides for the sake of privacy, and another spread as a floor to keep our feet dry. It is not the custom in this country to use tents, so we had not brought ours. But this was a mistake, for a tent can be rigged up as easily as a tarpaulin, and it would have ensured greater comfort and privacy. Moreover, on the open savannahs a tent is needed as a protection against wind and rain. Haywood built himself a camp-fire, placing a stick horizontally on two forked uprights and slinging pots on it above the flames, just as the bushman does in Canada and probably all the world over. Our fire and those of the Indians lit up the damp forest glade and made it look quite friendly, but an hour after dusk torrents of rain fell, which speedily extinguished the warm glow.

Next morning we paddled steadily upstream, halting only for an hour and a half at noon, when we lunched. It was a very restful day. No rain fell, but the sky was overcast until 3 p.m. Then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the river with its perfect reflections most prettily. We passed the mouths of several creeks emptying into the Potaro, the largest being the Amamuri, the Seebu, and the Ichirak, and from our boat we could at times see the mountains in which are the sources of the Ichirak and the Arnik creeks. Above the mouth of the Ichirak the Potaro becomes very winding, and there is a place where two reaches are parallel, flowing in opposite directions, so that Indians travelling in woodskins make a portage over the neck of the bend. We noticed frequent maipuri tracks on both banks as well as on spits of sand, where the animals come down to water; and occasionally the river-edge turns to eta-swamp, where muscovy duck are said to abide. We also saw several divers, some beautiful white cranes, and a pair of otters, so much interested in us that they kept bobbing up close to the boat, trying to get a better view. The trees on the Upper Potaro are magnificent, and the forest looks friendly; whereas the dense, suffocating, tropical jungles of the lowlands give a horrible impression of hostile, evil Nature.

This night we camped at the mouth of the Arnik on a small island round which the creek flows into the Potaro. The ground is slightly rising and makes a picturesque and comfortable camping-place, with a view straight down the main river. As usual, rain poured down all night long, making us thankful that our tarpaulins were waterproof.