He wrote much more. I became enthusiastic on the moment and was determined to go if possible. I had little trouble in arranging this and wrote him that I would come.
On the tenth of May I sailed from New York on the steamship Saga to Barbados, where Lewis met me. He was delighted and quite as enthusiastic as I. He had been in Georgetown, British Guiana, for a while on other business and had learned about the diamond fields away up the famous, and treacherous, Mazaruni River.
From Barbados we sailed away to South America on the steamer Parima. I was surprised to find Georgetown such a large city, 60,000 inhabitants, and, as the buildings were all one and two stories, one can imagine how it spread out.
“Can we start to-morrow?” I asked, after we had reached our hotel. Lewis laughed.
“Hardly,” he said. “This isn’t like a trip back home where you can toss some clothes and clean collars in a bag, buy your ticket, catch your train and be off.”
I had not given much thought to exactly how we were to travel. But I soon learned that to journey up a great river for hundreds of miles with a score of natives, taking all the food for a six months’ stay, was a matter that could not be arranged in a moment.
The starting out place for the trip was twenty miles from Georgetown at a town upriver called Bartica. But as Bartica has only twenty inhabitants we bought everything in Georgetown. There we busied ourselves with the preparations. It seemed as though there were a million details to look after, and I got an idea of what an explorer is up against, as we had to outfit ourselves about the same as an exploring party would.
“We must get lead guns, beads, mirrors and other trinkets,” said Lewis.