We continued for another forty minutes along the crest of the hill-ridge, enjoying intensely the glorious scenery, and finally reaching a point (2,810 feet above sea-level) whence, beyond a cleft in the hills, cut athwart our line of march by the Karakanang River, we could see the long, straight line of the Paiwa valley, down which lay our forward path. Fifty minutes’ sharp descent, largely through forest, then brought us to a ford of jasper slabs over the Karakanang (1,960 feet above sea-level). Here we made our midday meal, and thereafter we ascended the valley of a brook, which falls into the Karakanang at the ford; and, climbing over some hillocks shut in between high hill-ranges on both sides, we came, after an hour and a half, to the Paiwa River (2,210 feet above sea-level), down which our trail then ran for three and a half hours’ actual march. It was most fascinating scenery. The turquoise-blue Paiwa in its rose-pink bed (for the blood-red jasper weathers on the surface to pink) flowed clear as crystal through opal-green pools and in rippling white cascades, whilst shade trees, dotted here and there, relieved the glare of the brilliant light. Beneath one such tree, seated on pink sand close to the edge of the stream, we enjoyed our usual tea halt. The sides of the valley are seamed with confluent brooks, many of which had water even at this height of the dry season. In wet weather the smiling stream must be a very torrent.
At first the Paiwa had all the appearance of making for the Ireng; but at a point a little more than halfway in that part of its course which we followed it turned abruptly off to the south and swept past Mount Pakara to join the Kotinga. Towards sunset we crossed to its left bank, where was a broad level stretch of sand, evidently a favourite Indian camping-ground, but rather a disappointing one to me, as there was a rift in the jasper formation just here, and the stream merely gurgled over quite ordinary stones, while the sand was a commonplace white. Moreover, the steep hill-side across the stream had been hideously burnt, and there were evidences of recent Indian encampment and of fish-poisoning in the river. Indians are an admirable people in many ways, but they scarcely deserve their goodly heritage, since all that they do for their beautiful country is to poison the fish in its exquisite streams and to disfigure the fair hills by continual grass-burning.
Next day we ate our porridge and drank our coffee before dawn, as the moon sank behind the trees. Then, after following the river for a short distance, we climbed up through a copse to where a banaboo was perched on a bluff, the Paiwa below making a right-angled turn, so that those who live here have an excellent vantage-ground whence they can watch all wayfarers whether up or down stream. At the banaboo we found Schoolmaster and his Arekunas, who had evidently spent the night there, leaving the Makusis with us; and after a short colloquy Joseph led us down into the Paiwa valley once more. The Arekunas remained behind, and made for Mataruka by that line of their own which Joseph had graphically described as “Mountain-top, mountain-top, mountain-top,” on the day of our trek to Enamung.
The Paiwa, which had grown to a considerable size, now reverted again to a jasper bed, fringed this time with eta-palms, and looking prettier than ever. We walked along its bank most of the way; but at times the valley would close in to a gorge and the river run in cataracts, while we would have to climb over rocky bluffs. At last we crossed the blue waters of this pleasant river for the last time, and finally quitted the Paiwa watershed. Our trail now wound away to the left, choosing most cleverly a low divide, and then equally cleverly winding in and out on the level round the spur of our old friend Kumâraying, until we found ourselves in the Rera plain once more. It would have been a pretty path but for the desolation and destruction wrought by fire. Some men ahead of us actually started two fresh fires, which were fiercely burning as we passed.
At the special request of our people we went to Joseph’s banaboo for our midday meal. His wife provided us with abundance of delicious fresh eggs, and I confess, without any desire to teach my grandmother, that at times the best way of eating eggs is to suck them. A few minutes’ walk brought us back to the trail by which we had travelled on our outward journey, so completing the second loop in the figure 8. We now followed our former line of march the rest of the way back to Mataruka village, where we were warmly received by Albert and the inhabitants. The Arekunas we passed at a brook a few minutes from the village, busily engaged in washing and painting their faces afresh. They then made a state entry behind us, beating a tom-tom.
The rest of our travels needs no description, for the line of our homeward march was identical with that of our outward journey. The distance between Mataruka and Kamaiwâwong by Joseph’s trail was a march of thirty-two hours forty-seven minutes; and the return journey between the same villages by Schoolmaster’s trail was a march of thirty-two hours fifty-one minutes, of which eleven hours twenty-eight minutes were occupied in retraversing those parts of the route where the two trails were identical—namely, the Kukenaam valley, the ascent from the Kotinga ford to “Landmark Peak,” and the line from Rera to Mataruka. There is, therefore, little to choose between the two routes. Both mean five stages of rather more than six hours’ march a day. Schoolmaster’s line was slightly more direct, but Joseph’s was appreciably less arduous.
We reached Georgetown, after forty-six days’ absence, on the 3rd February, 1916, resting on the way back for one day at Mataruka, one day on the Karto tableland, and one day at Kaietuk. There was a new and lovely note of colour on the Potaro; for the river was lit up by a beautiful pink blossom (Syphonia globifera) all along the banks, very much like peach-blossom in appearance and in its manner of growing on a leafless tree. Also there was much more water going over Kaietuk than when we passed upstream; and magnificent was the amber swirl that descended, to change into gleaming spray flashing like diamonds, as it fell into the black depths. Grey-green cascades dashed down the crags on all sides, flashing out of the mists that lay heavy on the summits, to mingle with the blossom-strewn river—a country for Undine indeed!
So our brief journey in the mountains ended, alas! below sea-level; nor did we “find wings waiting there,” for the aeronautical service of the British Guiana Government is as yet only an aspiration.
