CHAPTER VII
THE HIGHLAND SAVANNAHS OF BRITISH GUIANA
The shining tablelands,
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.
Tennyson: Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.
By contrast with the forest, the Baramaku savannah seemed fairyland. It looks like an English park: smiling slopes of grass with here and there a clump of bracken or a cluster of trees; undulating knolls and dells, and a delicious little brook at its far end. Its area is between three and four square miles, and it is situated about 2,700 feet above sea-level. We walked right across it and pitched camp near the brook. A tarpaulin shelter was quickly made, and we changed luxuriously into dry clothes, after which Haywood produced excellent tea almost at once. In spite of all the drenchings of the last week, my husband and I were in better health and spirits than at our departure from Georgetown. The cool of the forest had been invigorating, and the sole evil result of the ceaseless damp was rheumatism in my shoulder, which disappeared after two days of the savannah sunshine and dry air.
But the setting of Baramaku-toy is far from English, for all around this little Eden looms the dark tropical forest, while to the north cliff-faced, forest-crowned Kowatipu glowered at us from among his rain-clouds some ten miles away. He rises a thousand feet or more above the sea of forest, a rectangular plateau edged by precipices, true to the Roraima leit-motif. He is the magnet for all the rain of the neighbourhood, and is generally wrapped in forbidding cloud. But as we gazed at him for a few minutes from Baramaku-toy, he stood out clear and grand, until once more he wreathed his head in mist, while rain fell about his feet. We watched, rejoicing in our escape, when, as it were, he shook his fist at us by sending an ugly black cloud straight for us. I ran to the shelter of the tarpaulin, having no mind to get my nice dry clothes soaked again. But it was only an impotent threat. He could not touch us in Baramaku’s charmed keeping, and the cloud drifted off on to the forest-clad hills near by, whilst the thrushes sang on undisturbedly and we basked in the sunshine, lying in the lush grass with no bête rouge to annoy us and fanned by cool breezes. The air had a delicious mountain nip in it, the thermometer at 5 p.m. being only 69° F. The night was quite cold, and I was glad of three blankets. Here we slept without mosquito nets, untroubled by insects. No one at present inhabits this savannah, but there are the remains of a deserted banaboo; and the spot, when made less difficult of access, would be a charming little country property. It has pasturage suitable for horses and cattle, with plenty of room available for pleasure-grounds and park-land, as well as for a kitchen-garden and poultry-farm. Within a short time a family established here would make itself almost independent of supplies from the coast.
After our usual breakfast of porridge and coffee, we set off next morning, having first been taken by Mr. Menzies to look at a little meadow sprinkled underneath its grass with water-worn pebbles. He said that he had once prospected this place for diamonds, and thought it showed good promise, but could not go on with the work for lack of dynamite. He had found some ancient beads in the ground, of a kind not now used by the aborigines, and concluded that the place had been an Indian settlement in bygone days.
Crossing the brook which bounds the Baramaku savannah, our trail plunged again into forest, and ran uphill and down-dale over a number of small rills that drain northwards into the Kowa River, until, after a hot, dull walk of about five and a half miles, we reached the Quaibaru savannah. Ten minutes before emerging from the forest we came upon a stream with provision-fields on its banks, where cassava, yams, bananas, and plantains grew plentifully; and here our droghers washed themselves, brushed their hair, and titivated generally, preparatory to a state entry into Quaibaru village, whilst one of their number sounded a cow-horn to announce our approach. We could see that we were expected by the fact that the path had been carefully and recently cleaned for us.