We now descended into a charming valley, and, after forty minutes’ march, halted for our midday meal beside the Muruïna, a pretty little tributary of the Kotinga. Once more we recognized the jasper formation, and we established ourselves on a tree-shaded ledge above a deep, clear pool. This place is a recognized Arekuna camping-ground. The creek is forded just above a waterfall, where its two branches meet. Within the fork is a copse, and at the season of our visit there ran along the side of the stream a dry rock-ledge which would form a roomy and level tent-floor. I remember that, whilst we waited for Haywood’s preparations, we regaled ourselves on the last of the delicious pineapples, carried with us from Kamaiwâwong. It tasted most especially nice after our three hours’ walk.
Another ascent and descent brought us, twenty minutes after restarting, to the Tunâpun creek. We crossed it, and thirty-eight minutes later we had climbed to the top of the hill-ridge (3,670 feet above sea-level), overlooking the full width of the Kotinga valley right across to “Landmark Peak.” This was the same hill-ridge that we had climbed, much farther to the west, on the 12th January; but the fierce midday sun had sucked up all colour from the landscape, and it no longer looked the fairyland which it had seemed on that early morning. Now came an abrupt descent, very warm work and lasting just an hour, to the point where the Töpa creek is forded close by a solitary banaboo. Suddenly our procession halted. The magic word waikin was passed along, and we all squatted down on the ground, while Schoolmaster and Joseph stalked two big deer not far away. Schoolmaster crept to within point-blank range of one animal and fired. Alas! his stock of powder and shot was practically exhausted, so he had given his old fowling-piece a most insufficient charge; and the deer, though hit, bounded away uphill with its companion. Behold Joseph and Schoolmaster racing after them up the steep slope like a pair of dogs! They rejoined us later very crestfallen; and Schoolmaster gesticulated to me as graphic an account of the whole business as ever disappointed sportsman poured into the ear of sympathizing lady.
For the rest of the day’s march the trail lay over spacious undulating pasture-lands, crossing three small streams, fringed by eta-palms; and, after two and a quarter hours’ march from the Töpa crossing, we reached and forded the Kotinga at the same point as on our outward journey, thus completing one loop of the figure 8. We then made our way over rocks up a little ravine on the left bank and camped in bush upon a small level terrace at the edge of a brook. It was a nasty, stuffy place, full of ants; but we cared little for that, as we were practically free from the kabouru. My husband unfortunately caught his foot in some bush rope lying on the rocks and fell heavily, breaking the little finger of his left hand, which caused him great pain. The Kotinga valley, it seems, was destined to be disagreeable to us.
Mount Weitipu from the left bank of the Kotinga River.
When, next morning, we emerged from our ravine on to the brow of a bluff above the Kotinga, we were delighted to see a most interesting and novel aspect of Roraima, which was really rather astonishing, for there had been no hint of such a view either the evening before or on our outward journey. The morning was gloriously clear, and on the left, behind Weitipu, the south-eastern face of Roraima projected clear and red, and beyond that again Kukenaam’s southern end; whilst on the right of Weitipu we saw plainly, not only the other end of Roraima’s south-eastern wall, but also a small and foreshortened portion of the eastern escarpment. This view enabled us in a small degree to grasp the enormous area of Roraima. It is impossible to do so when opposite one great wall only; for Roraima is an immense, irregular quadrilateral, of which the south-eastern side, ten miles in length, is the longest, and the area of the summit, flanked all round by precipices, cannot be less than fifty square miles.
From the Kotinga ford to the pass at “Landmark Peak” Schoolmaster’s trail coincided with Joseph’s, but from “Landmark Peak” to the Rera valley we traversed a new line of country. This time we swung off to the right, and we hoped to be led along the ridge of the mountain amphitheatre which encircles the Warukma and Karakanang plateau. But an Indian trail is nothing if not surprising. For the first half-hour we did indeed continue on the high tableland at the same altitude as the pass (3,150 feet above sea-level), crossing two streams; but then we wheeled sharply to the right, and, passing between two low knolls, left the tableland by a narrow path skirting round the contours of a hill and affording a view over a sea of jagged peaks tumbled together without apparent rhyme or reason. It was a most astonishingly tangled-looking country, with valleys running at angles to each other and hills flung about pell-mell in the midst of them, as though the powers engaged in making this place had got tired of their work and flung it all down anyhow and left it. The colouring, too, was curious, vivid red, black, and green; for many fires had evidently seared the countryside, the most recent leaving black patches, which contrasted oddly with the bright green of new grass springing up where the land had peace, and with the red soil on the hillsides, whence heavy rain had washed away the black ash, but where as yet forgiving Nature had not reasserted herself. For half an hour our path clung to the hill-side, but it then gave that up as a bad job and dropped abruptly into one of the narrow valleys beneath. The prospect was certainly not an inviting one. We consoled ourselves, however, with the reflection that the divergence to the right must have put us in a direct line for Mount Mataruka. A short but heavy shower of rain now drenched us to the skin; but it was welcome, as relieving an unwonted sultriness of the atmosphere. Round the base of the hill we curved, climbed over a knoll in the valley, and so, after three-quarters of an hour’s march, we came to the left bank of a creek called the Walamwötö, presumably a tributary of the Kotinga. Here we pitched camp in a small winding valley (2,450 feet above sea-level) by the side of a charming pool. As we were establishing ourselves under our tarpaulin, a storm of wind and rain almost blew it away from its moorings, and six Makusis had to hold it up on the weather side until the fierceness of the gusts abated. We caused the ridge-pole to be lowered considerably so as to afford less target for the wind, and I was somewhat anxious about the night. But after dark the weather became beautifully still and clear, a full moon making diamonds everywhere of the lingering rain-drops. This was the only rain-storm of any moment which we encountered from the day we left the Kowatipu forest until the day of our return to it. During the whole of the rest of our savannah journey we enjoyed superb weather, sunny, breezy, cool, and rainless, save for occasional Scotch mist upon the hill-tops.
We rose very early next day (20th January), and broke our fast by lamplight. But the sun soon rose clear and very hot, and I realized that the strenuous exertions of the five preceding days without a rest were beginning to tell on me. So the start did not find me very fresh. An hour’s march in narrow winding ravines, followed by a short climb over a long black-bouldered slope, brought us to James’s banaboo (2,720 feet above sea-level), perched upon a hill-top. The inhabitants came out in a string to greet us, and the second man in the line, as he shook my hand (the ceremony none of them will forego), ejaculated questioningly “Mamma?” and all his companions echoed the cry. It must be seldom, if ever, that a white woman is seen by these people. The view from this lonely banaboo was certainly enchanting; but, alas! no tableland such as we had hoped to see lay unrolled before us, only a fresh tangle of hills and valleys; and, though the country looked most interesting, it also looked very arduous. Moreover, there ensued an argument between Joseph and Schoolmaster as to the right road onwards, and we wondered whether they really knew the way, or were merely proceeding by trial and error. The long ridge of tableland, over the crest of which we had hoped to travel when we turned aside from Joseph’s line at “Landmark Peak,” looked most provoking away to the left. At length our guides reconciled their difference, whatever it may have been, and led us three hundred feet downwards over a broad hill-shoulder across a small stream. Then, after a long, gradual ascent over another broad hill-shoulder, we came to the top of a commanding hill, 2,960 feet above sea-level. Here indeed we were comforted, for we saw again Mount Mataruka, and realized that we were making for it by a much more direct line than if we had returned through Enamung. Besides, a nice undulating ridge lay before us, and the view was grand. We could see a magnificent expanse of country on all sides. Far, far behind lay Weitipu, with Roraima and Kukenaam at his back, bidding us a last good-bye. We saw them no more after this. I wonder if we ever shall again! On the right we had an excellent view of our former line of journey, the plateau of the Karakanang and the grassy peaks of Enamung, as well as of a big waterfall shining white in the distance, whither our outward journey had unfortunately not led us. Our guides said that it was a fall on the Wairann; and at close quarters it must be a fine sight, for even at a distance of about seven miles it was a striking feature in the landscape. At this point we were one hour and six minutes’ march from James’s banaboo.