The Berbice River.
On the Berbice, which falls into the Atlantic about sixty miles eastward of George Town, the falls and rapids—which do not, however, reach to within one hundred and sixty miles of its mouth—are very numerous. While the scenery round them is highly picturesque, they are extremely dangerous. Here is found the cascade of Idurewadde; and higher up, the cataract of Itabru. Above these again are more than forty falls and rapids, called by Schombergh the Christmas Cataracts, and which cost him and his companions immense labour to surmount. On their return, one of the party, rashly standing on the thwarts of the canoe while shooting the falls, upset it and was drowned.
Huge caymans abound in the river, and lie like logs of wood at the foot of the cataracts or rapids, watching stealthily to catch and swallow whatever the fierce current may bring down to them.
Above these falls is a lagoon, on which he discovered the now far-famed Victoria Regia, before that time unknown to the world. At the head of the Masaruni rises Mount Roraima, 7540 feet in height. It is the principal watershed, from which various streams flow in different directions into the three great rivers—Amazon, Orinoco, and Essequibo. Hillhouse and Schombergh describe the side of the mountain as composed of cliffs, fifteen hundred feet in height, of compact sandstone, as perpendicular as if erected with the plumb-line, and overhung in part with low shrubs. Though distant, they appear as if in dangerous proximity. Around are detached masses, apparently torn from those gigantic walls of nature; and every moment it seems as if one of them would block up the path, or cut off all retreat. In places the channel of the stream is so narrow that the canoe can hardly pass, in others it widens out into a shallow claret-coloured lake. At length a capacious basin is entered, black as ink, surrounded by a bold and extensive shore as white as chalk. The roar of the water is heard, but no current perceived; though there is a foam-like yeast on the surface, which remains all day without visible alteration. At length, in the distance, a broken white line is seen struggling through a cluster of granite rocks at the base of two quartz cliffs of a mixed character. This is the fall of Macrebah.
The Arecuna Indians.
In those mountain regions dwell the Arecunas, a fine sturdy race—with clear copper-tinted skins—unencumbered by clothing, though wearing feathers and other ornaments; long sticks through the cartilage of their nostrils, and still longer, richly adorned with tufts of black feathers, through their ears. Both sexes are much tattooed; some of the women having dark blue lines across the upper lip, and extending in wavy curves over each cheek, looking like enormous curled moustaches. Others have a broad line round the mouth, which gives it the appearance of being far larger than it is in reality. The men wear the heads of humming-birds and of a bird of a beautiful blue colour in their ears; and round their waist, girdles of monkey’s hair.
Schombergh, who visited them, says they made a great feast in his honour, when there was a grand display of gorgeous plumes, and head-dresses,—the whole winged tribe having apparently been put in requisition to furnish forth the most brilliant of their feathers. They had also necklaces of the teeth of monkeys and peccaries, and porcupines’ quills; to which were attached long cotton fringes—which hung down their backs, and to which toucan and other skins were suspended securely. Feasting and dancing, kept up by the natives thus dressed, lasted the whole night; and the constantly-repeated burden of their song was—“Roraima of the red rock, wrapped in clouds, the ever-fertile source of streams.”
The Corentyn River.
Eastward of the Berbice, and greatly inferior in size to the Essequibo, is the Corentyn, which has its source near the equator, and forms the boundary of the British colony. A few Indians of various tribes dwell on its banks near the mouth, but above their last settlement desolation reigns supreme.
On the rocks near its banks may be seen a few rude carvings, the handiwork of a race long passed away. Day after day the voyager on its waters passes amid the wildest and most romantic scenery,—amid numerous islands, rocks, and rapids; but no human beings are seen—not a light canoe on its waters, not an habitation on its banks. At length, after a nine days’ voyage, enormous rocks appear heaped together, opposing progress; vast chasms yawn beneath his feet when he lands, and at certain places the streams sink into the earth as if by magic, to reappear where least expected. A thundering noise is heard, and a mist hovers in the air, in which thousands of birds disport themselves,—marking the position of the great cataracts of the Corentyn. The scene, however, is too vast to be beheld in its full grandeur from any single point of view. No waterfall in the territory surpasses them in grandeur.