The Karakanang is a most fascinating river, flowing crystal clear in a succession of little vertical falls, or else sliding over long, smooth slabs of jasper into limpid green pools. This is the regular formation of river-beds in the upper Kotinga watershed. The colouring of that country is exquisite: greeny-grey grass, red soil, and blue-green crystal-clear water, flowing over coral-red jasper bottoms. When we had crossed the Karakanang, the tableland widened into a fine grassy savannah, surrounded by a stately amphitheatre of hills, and we marched over easily-undulating ground for an hour and a half, crossing in that time no less than six small streams, that flowed through gulleys in the plateau to join the Karakanang. The course of these tiny cañons could be traced afar off by the eta-palms growing in them. At last we came to a rift in the tableland, where, beyond another small stream, there was a strip of forest, through which, for the first time since leaving Karto tableland, we found that no trail had been cleared for us—a plain hint that we were now passing from the land of the Makusis into that of the Arekunas. Moreover, the stream, where we reached it, ran in a deep pool, too deep to ford; so, while Joseph and some of the men were felling a couple of small trees for us to cross by, and clearing a path through the wood, we sat down under a big tree, drank cold tea, which Haywood had handy, and ate chocolate. Joseph’s arrangements being complete, we crossed the pool on his makeshift bridge, and a few minutes’ walk brought us to the other side of the bush. Thence our trail gradually sloped down over a grassy savannah to meet the Warukma River, where it races down over a jasper bed, glittering under the sun, from the heart of the mountain amphitheatre that swept round in a majestic circle to our left.
We forded the Warukma and camped on the ledges of its left bank. These torrents, when swollen by heavy rain, must be a splendid sight, but they would then be very difficult to cross. A delicious current of icy-cold water was flowing in the bed of the Warukma; but wide stretches of jasper floor were uncovered and dry, and on one of these Joseph and his men improvised for us a most ingenious tent. They placed one end of a ridge-pole in the fork of a tree on the bank; the other end they supported on cross-wise poles, whose bases they propped up with big stones. They then stuck short uprights, on which to tie the tarpaulin, in cracks of the ledge and buttressed them up with stones. It was very picturesque. The ledge made us a beautiful, clean, level floor, and this was, in fact, the nicest camp of our journey. We bathed in a natural “porphyry font,” a few yards upstream from our tent. The water was stone-cold and clear, and the pool very deep. Little fish, about the size of a trout which would be thrown back as too small, and of a bright green colour, with black “eyes” on them, came swimming up curiously to examine us. We had a still, cloudless night; the moon was very bright, but not large enough to dim the radiance of the stars.
We woke to find the weather deliciously cool and grey; and, after our porridge and coffee, we started “under the opening eyelids of the morn” to climb steadily until we reached the ridge of the mountain amphitheatre. It was an hour’s ascent. At the top we found a fine, grassy, high-level plateau, well watered, but almost treeless, which it took us just half an hour to cross. The freshness of the grey morning gave wings to our feet. We crossed a brook and a water-hole on this plateau, for the country is wonderfully irrigated, and every tableland seems provided with springs of clear water. At the far end of the plateau, before descending, we had a superb view back to Mounts Mataruka and Bulak-köyepin. Given favourable weather conditions, Roraima, Kukenaam, Wei-assipu, Weitipu, and Muköripö can all be seen from the trail itself at this point, which is 3,150 feet above sea-level; but on our outward journey they were densely veiled in cloud. If you climb a peak rising above the plateau a little to the east, Mount Chakbang also comes into sight. It is a splendid observation-post for a surveyor, and for that reason my husband labelled it “Landmark Peak.”
Our path now descended very gradually in the valley of a stream, which rises on “Landmark Peak” and soon becomes a fine jasper-bedded watercourse, the trail betaking itself to the river-bed, where the smooth slabs made excellent going. This stream is called Aimaratökpai. It was very nearly dry—a fortunate thing for us; but I should love to see these rivers rushing down in spate over their smooth stone floors. The bed of this particular stream had weathered to a slate-blue colour, but there was a good deal of pink, disintegrated jasper sand lying on it. The effect of the blue floor, with its pink streaks of sand and the grey hills above it, was very lovely and curious.
Too soon the line suddenly decided to leave this friendly river-bed, and we had to scramble up a steep bluff about sixty feet in height. An Indian trail always makes a great point of doing the unexpected. We then traversed a very switchback of a path, winding over hill-spurs, until we gained the top of a steep slant into the valley of the Waraïna, a confluent of the Kotinga. The view from this spot, before we descended, was beautiful, and our whole company sat down to admire it. Indians love to look out over a big stretch of country, and it is amusing to watch a crowd of them pointing out to each other all the salient features and tracing with finger-tips the directions of different trails over distant hills. Their language seems onomatopœic, and at times one can gather the gist of their conversation without understanding one word. It sounds very much as though they spoke in tones, like the Chinese, but, much more quietly. They are a curiously quiet people, the result, I suppose, of living amid that big, silent Nature. We never heard them sing on the line of march, or even when paddling, and they seldom raise their voices. In camp, with thirty of them close by, they never disturbed us. If we happened to wake in the night, only the flicker of the fires, which they keep going throughout the dark hours, reminded us that they were near us; and even in their villages they make little noise. A mere dozen blacks or Chinese would give one a very different tale to tell.
A steep scramble downhill brought us to the side of a brook, which we followed for a short distance, and which flows into the Waraïna. We left the brook just before the watersmeet, and crossing in the fork a little belt of land, where some fine cassava was growing, we forded the Waraïna. Then a short walk took us to our breakfast camp on the Opamapö, another confluent of the Waraïna. This is one of the prettiest spots in the country; for here the Opamapö makes a vertical leap of some sixty feet over a red jasper cliff into a clear, deep, jasper-ledged, tree-girt pool. The crowning note of colour came from a purple-blossomed tree projecting over the cliff-side. We sat on the tree-shaded ledges above the fall, drawing water for our meal from a limpid, green pool, and the stream beyond wound away fringed with eta-palm. Steep, green hill-shoulders formed the far horizon.
Waratuk Rapids.
Opamapö Waterfall.