Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima

by Mrs. Cecil Clementi

D. G. Rossetti: The Blessèd Damozel.

Saturday, 15th January, 1916, was the day on which at last we climbed to the summit of Mount Roraima. We were most fortunate in having a cool, grey morning; and after sundry delays, at which Indians are adepts, we started off from Kamaiwâwong at 7.38 a.m. Our party consisted of Schoolmaster and twelve other Arekunas, some to act as baggage-carriers and some to cut open a trail where the ascent was through forest. Mr. Menzies and Haywood also accompanied us, but none of our Makusi droghers. We had asked Joseph and Daniel whether they would like to come; but they said “No,” possibly under pressure, for I don’t think the Arekunas particularly wished the secret of their mountain to be disclosed to Makusis. However, Joseph and Daniel subsequently changed their mind, hurried after us, and overtook us just as we were reaching the cliff-top.

Roraima stood in clear-cut outline before us, untouched by clouds. There was heavy dew on the grass, and it was delightful walking up the savannah slopes. The hill-track led us off to the right over ground which was in places very stony but for the most part good going, if steep. Schoolmaster pointed to the top of the mountain, and said, “To-morrow”; but we firmly answered, “No, to-day,” whereupon all the Arekunas smiled and shook their heads, and Schoolmaster shut his eyes, beat his breast, and gasped, to show how exhausted we should soon be. I retorted by running past him, laughing my contempt, and pointing up to the sky, while I told him, “Paranakiri [i.e., overseas] mountain so!” He opened his mouth, pointed down his throat, and said, “Brandina!” which I fear throws a lurid light on the proceedings of former travellers. It was really quite an amusing dumb-crambo argument; but our steady pace soon convinced him that we meant business. The path wound unremittingly uphill over long grass, with big boulders, doubtless once part of Roraima’s mighty cliffs, lying on all sides, much as they do on Dartmoor tors, whilst the depressions are boggy and filled with marsh-plants. The ever-widening semicircle of panorama behind us was very beautiful and interesting.

From Kamaiwâwong to the forest fringe was a hard three hours’ walk, with no halt save an occasional pause for breath. At 10.24 a.m. we reached the highest point of the savannah hills, 6,510 feet above sea-level. Then we dropped down some fifty feet to the edge of the forest, and made our first halt, from 10.35 a.m. to 12.17 p.m., in thick jungle by the side of a delightful gurgling brook, which dashes down icy cold from Roraima’s bleak heights. The ascent to this point can hardly be less than five miles by the trail in all its windings. Schoolmaster introduced the spot to us as “English pappa banaboo”; and we believe he meant to indicate it as the site of Sir Everard im Thurn’s camp, when he was searching for a path to the top of Roraima. As far as is known, Sir Everard was the first human being to find a way up the precipice and to set foot on Roraima’s summit. He did so on the 18th December, 1884, after spending about a month in camp at the edge of the forest-belt, whilst his Indians cut a trail to the toe of the ledge, whereby alone the cliff-face can be surmounted; and our midday halt must have been near the place where he persevered with such patience. We had a thorough rest and made a good meal. Our limes having given out, we took a bottle of lime-juice with us; and I made Schoolmaster drink a spoonful of it, lest the appearance of a bottle should make him believe that his “brandina” prophecy was being fulfilled. Close by, there were growing some delicious-looking blackberries; but, just as we were about to eat some, the Arekunas cried “No, no!” and made so much fuss that we desisted.

Restarting, we addressed ourselves to the ascent through the forest-belt; and this, to my mind, is really the only disagreeable part of the whole climb. The ground here is a pell-mell of huge boulders, pieces of disintegrated mountain that have broken away from the overhanging cliffs above during long ages past; for Roraima and Kukenaam are but the “fragments of an earlier world.” Over these rocks grows a dense mass of small trees, and magnificent tree-ferns root upon the débris of earlier decaying jungle, which is covered with a carpet of slimy green moss and has a horrid corpse-like smell. The whole place is dank and cold, and the thick matting of moss makes it impossible to know whether one is stepping on a secure foothold, or on a rotten tree-branch, or on nothing but a layer of moss and twigs concealing a chasm between two great rocks. It was a thoroughly nasty scramble, and feet and hands had to be used almost equally. Our rate of progress was necessarily slow, with many short pauses, while the trail was being cut open ahead of us, and it was 2.15 p.m. before we reached the base of the cliff at the point where the diagonal ascent by the jungle-covered rock-ledge begins. During these two hours I must confess that I was very unhappy, and I reflected much on the superior wisdom of all the other women in the world who had refrained from placing themselves in this predicament. I expected to sprain knee or ankle at every step, and the struggle was dreadfully exhausting—in places more like tree-climbing than mountaineering. Schoolmaster with two Arekunas kept ahead of us to chop open a track.

At the base of the ledge we were 7,680 feet above sea-level; and here it was that Mr. J. J. Quelch camped in 1894, when he and his party climbed Roraima. It is awe-inspiring to stand at the very toe of that mighty precipice, with its blue and red stains, and, looking vertically up, to see the overhang of great masses of rock, ready, it would seem, one day to topple over and grind to pieces the ledge and all that is on it. But until the day of that impending catastrophe the climb up the ledge will present no great difficulty, although there are some bad places in it. I put my ear against the cliff, and could hear the drip of water percolating inside.

During the forest climb we had no view at all, but the vegetation on the ledge, being stunted and less dense, permits not infrequent glimpses of the glorious landscape below, spread out like a great green sea. Lovely flowers abounded at our feet, and the cool air was like a tonic after the damp oppression in the forest. We reached the first obstacle in the ledge at 3.45 p.m., when it became necessary to use a rope to assist the droghers in hoisting their loads up an almost vertical rock-face some twenty feet high. An active man, unloaded, can, however, scramble up without such assistance. A troublesome point about the ledge is that it has three V-shaped dips, and its general nature can best be shown diagrammatically thus:

These three dips are very steep, and we had fairly to slide down them, clinging on to every root, bush, or stone we could catch hold of, while getting up again on the other side was, of course, an even more severe struggle.

At the third dip we met the only other considerable obstacle presented by the ledge. We reached this point at 4.20 p.m., and found a diminutive waterfall trickling down the face of the precipice and falling in a shower of icy-cold spray upon the ledge, which the action of the water has swept clean of all bush and scrub. A sharp V-shaped depression has here been cut in the ledge, which ascends under the waterfall in rock steps, covered with moss and very slippery. Care is necessary, but in dry weather, such as prevailed at the time of our ascent, there is little or no danger. After heavy rain, however, it might be impossible to pass beneath the waterfall, although I doubt whether, except in the case of continuous rainfall lasting many days, a traveller would be held up long by this obstacle, as water appears to drain away very rapidly from the reservoirs on the rocky summit of Mount Roraima. For example, from our camp at Weiwötö, after a rain-storm had passed over Roraima, we counted no less than six waterfalls on its south-eastern face; but next day, after some hours of fine weather, none of these could be seen with the naked eye. They may possibly have continued as small trickles, but were quite inconspicuous, as, indeed, was the waterfall under which we now passed, for it could not be seen from Kamaiwâwong.