Crossing the divide by motor-trolley is quite an agreeable experience, especially in the cool of the evening, and the line is seen to better advantage. The scenery, however, is disappointing. On the Essequebo side of the water-parting, Sprostons have considerable timber-cutting grants, to which they run branch lines. But near the main line all big trees have long ago been cut down, and some years ago a terrible forest fire swept down the divide, leaving behind it a desolation of stark and charred tree-trunks, unlovely to look at. The soil is a white sand, dazzling in the equatorial sunlight.
Just above Wismar the Demerara Bauxite Company has begun mining operations, and it is very interesting to visit the Company’s settlements at Fair’s Rust and Akyma. Fair’s Rust is a mile above Wismar and can be reached by ocean-going steamers, but the principal bauxite mines, or rather quarries, are twelve miles farther up, where the low hills consist of almost solid pink-coloured ore, once the overburden has been removed. The Company pays great attention to the health of its employés: good houses are built; bush is cleared away, and drainage and sanitation carefully contrived.
The Demerara River: View from Three Friends’ Mine across to Akyma.
A very pleasant way of accomplishing the journey to Wismar is to travel as a guest of the Company in one of its comfortable motor-boats, starting from Georgetown at about tea-time and following the silvery pathway of the river, aglow in the setting sun; to anchor in the starlight and sleep in the grateful coolness and velvet silence of the river night; to get under way again in the dawn, and to reach the settlement at Akyma before the full heat of the day. Especially is this delightful when such a journey is but the first stage on towards all the glories of mountain and river which lie awaiting those who venture to explore the wonders of an unknown land.