THE POTARO DISTRICT
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
Auri sacra fames?
VIRGIL: _Æneid_, iii. 56.
Tumatumari is a formidable cataract with rocky islands amidst its
swirling rush of waters. The name is said to mean “as hot as pepper.”
All river traffic, whether upstream or downstream, is stopped by this
obstacle, and a portage between the lower and the upper landing must
be made over about half a mile of good cart-road. On the right bank
stands a nice wooden bungalow, belonging to Sprostons, built on a bluff
overlooking the river. There are also several other houses, including a
land office, a police-station and a post office, in this little outpost;
and many “bucks,” as the aborigines are called in local parlance, live
in the neighbourhood. From a point just above the cataract Sprostons
run a launch service for another ten miles upstream past Garraway’s
Landing to a place known as Potaro Landing, and there all public service
ends. Potaro Landing is the northern terminus of a cart-road, about
twenty-three miles long, running between the Potaro and Konawaruk Rivers
and serving the Minnehaha Gold Mining Company’s settlement. It runs as a
sort of Nile through a desert of dense forest.
Great is the energy of the white man! In lands where all Nature cries to
him, “Be still; do not exert yourself; keep a dry skin!” and where she
relentlessly obliterates with importunate veils of quick-springing jungle
all traces of his efforts, if ever he suspends them, he nevertheless
pursues his way, dragging his machinery, and defying the mosquito! But
in British Guiana he is hopelessly handicapped by want of labour. What
can he do, if he cannot command the hands effectually to conquer the
wilderness, to roll back the jungle, to plant and tend and reap?
The road up from the river-side at Potaro Landing is wide, but
excessively bad. It begins by climbing up a hill of loose sand, in which
the heated wayfarer toils along ankle-deep, save where a very rough
corduroy of timber changes the form of his penance. Even the fortunate
occupant of a dogcart is little better off, for the jarring to one’s
spine as the wheels jolt from log to log is almost more than body and
bones can endure. After the first seven miles the road-surface changes
and becomes ironstone gravel, good enough to permit motor traffic,
provided one does not set too much store by the springs of the car. From
the road there are interesting glimpses of the black cliffs of Eagle
Mountain and another range of grim precipices, frowning like prison
walls on either hand. The valley, thus shut in, is intensely hot. The
soil is fertile, and limes especially thrive, though all cultivation
is precarious, when established on an oasis, amid the jungle, and thus
woefully exposed to the depredations of birds and cushie ants. These ants
frequently clear a patch of cultivation in a single night of every blade
of greenstuff.
When, in 1917, we visited the hospitable manager of the Minnehaha Company
at his house, situated near the tenth milestone of the road, there was
a big dredge at work washing gold in Mahdia creek at “Nine Miles,” and
another was in process of being shifted from “Fifteen Miles” to a point
lower down the Minnehaha creek, near the twentieth mile-post. The Company
also maintains a comfortable and picturesque bungalow at “Eighteen
Miles.” Near the fifteenth mile you cross the divide between the Potaro
and Konawaruk Rivers, and the road then runs along the banks of the
Minnehaha creek. This once was a picturesque stream, but the washing
for gold has discoloured it and altered its course. A track branches
off from “Fifteen Miles” and runs up into the Eagle Mountain, where
quartz-mining operations had just been begun when war broke out and work
was unavoidably suspended.
The administrative headquarters of the district are at the eleventh
mile, where the Government maintains a court-house, a police-station,
and a dispensary. Several shops are dotted at intervals along the
road, and more than one church. Nor must I omit to mention the “Potaro
Library,” an imposing-looking shed consisting of side-posts, a roof,
and a floor, and proclaiming its title in large letters, but (apart
from the total absence of all books) a somewhat strange building to
enjoy the title of “library.” I understand it is frequently used for
dancing. The shopkeepers of the Potaro Road and, I believe, in all the
Colony’s gold districts are Chinese. I shut my eyes and imagined the
difference that would be wrought in that desolate scene if a million or
so of their almond-eyed brethren could be transported hither. How would
the wilderness blossom as a rose, air and light enter, where reigns
mosquito-breeding jungle, and the fertile land smile with all that maketh
glad the heart of man! Now, if you bump over the excruciating corduroy
and the large stones embedded in the road, and especially if light is
fading and darkness gathering, the melancholy of the long, dreary,
winding way, with its scattered settlements and struggling clearings,
penetrates your very bones and gives you a sensation of physical disquiet.
I have, nevertheless, very pleasant recollections of the Potaro District
and of the cheery hospitality of the Company’s manager and his three or
four white assistants, chiefly New Zealanders. Their pluck, good spirits,
and eagerness in their work made a vivid impression on my mind, as did
the interesting process of gold-washing, which we observed on Mahdia
creek. The dredge-buckets bring up quantities of yellow mud from the
bed of the stream, and this mud is washed by water along a sort of wide
gutter with gratings across the bottom. The gold-bearing matter, being
heavier than the rest, gravitates down through the gratings on to coconut
matting sprinkled with quicksilver. This process is called “washing
up.” When it has continued for a considerable time, the coconut mattings
are carefully washed and beaten, and all that comes out, including the
quicksilver, which has charged itself with the gold particles, is again
washed through a box by a jet of water. The box has three layers of
plush in it, and the water is strained through these layers. The residue
is very fine black dust, from which the gold-bearing quicksilver is
carefully separated and carried off to be smelted. This process is called
“streaming down.”
From the manager’s bungalow at the tenth mile a very pleasant alternative
route back to Tumatumari, avoiding the launch trip, is to ride over the
seventeen miles of Tiger creek trail. This trail was opened as a bridle
track for the accommodation of the “pork-knockers,” who washed Tiger
creek for gold, at one time very profitably, though the “placers” are
now worked out. A branch line, also made up as a bridle track, goes off
from this trail to St. Mary’s, on the Konawaruk River, where the British
Guiana Gold Mining Company have dredges at work. The ride is delightful,
if one be mounted on a sure-footed mule. The forest trees are veritable
giants, and their deep shadow prevents the suffocating undergrowth
from springing up. The line, when we rode over it, was clean, and all
bridges were in good repair. It is absolutely cool even at midday in
the exquisite shade, and we enjoyed charming little views, where the
path wound pleasantly up and down small hills. At times it runs beside
the deep pools of beautiful Tiger creek and its picturesque slides of
amber water and creamy foam. Being mounted, we had the pleasure, rare to
travellers in the bush, of looking about us instead of being obliged to
watch our feet carefully all the time, or pay the penalty by a stumble.
Thus I caught sight of an ant-bear, and we observed that remarkable
animal, with its enormous tail and long snout, ambling along on the
hill-side below us for quite fifty yards. It appears that ant-bears are
bold creatures and fear nothing, as everything else takes care to give
them a wide berth. Though they only eat ants, they have a way of rising
on their hind legs, gripping an adversary with their inturned front
claws, and then tearing him open with their hinder ones. Big ant-bears
have been known to do this to men.
When the time comes to improve communications in this part of the Colony,
the Potaro River will doubtless be bridged at Garraway’s Landing,
where it is only 300 feet wide. Then a line will be cut to join the
Potaro-Konawaruk Road at “Two Miles”; and from this second mile-post
another road will branch off to rejoin the river and climb to Kaietuk and
the highland country beyond, up the wonderful Potaro Gorge.
To-day a trail leads away into the forest westwards from “Two Miles,”
where a rough sign-board proudly points the way “To Kaieteur.”[1] Gladly
does the wayfarer step into the restful shade after the glare of white
sand on the cart-road, and grateful indeed is the cool springiness of the
leaf-strewn forest floor. After five miles along this trail, where from
time to time the roar of unseen cataracts breaks the silence, the path
emerges on Potaro bank once more, at a place known as Kangaruma. Here, on
a low hill immediately above the river, is a small clearing with a wooden
rest-house, belonging to Sprostons, a couple of Indian troolie-sheds, and
some provision-fields.
It is on account of the long series of rapids below Kangaruma that the
portage of seven miles from Potaro Landing has to be made, and the
river’s big loop to the north is also thus circumvented.
When travelling up the Potaro Gorge we have always sent our stores on
ahead of us to Kangaruma, and arranged for our Indian carriers, or
_droghers_, to await us there. Then from this spot one fairly “pulls out
on the Long Trail, the trail that is always new.”
THE POTARO GORGE