CHAPTER VIII.

THE WATER TRAIL FROM GEORGETOWN TO AREMU.

We allowed ourselves only forty-eight hours in Georgetown to unpack our specimens and prepare for our second expedition into the “bush.” This time we were to leave the coast and strike straight inland, passing up the Essequibo River to Bartica, thence via the Mazaruni and Cuyuni to the Aremu and the Little Aremu rivers. Near the head-waters of this last stream was the gold mine which marked our journey’s end, deep within the wilderness.

On the morning of March 23d, we left Georgetown on one of Sproston’s steamers en route for Bartica. A pair of Gray-breasted Martins[122] accompanied us, and we found that they were nesting in an angle between two beams of the main deck covering. Young birds were in the nest, so the Martins must have accompanied the steamer on many of the alternate day trips between Georgetown and Bartica. Not only this but the river boat exchanges routes every two weeks with her sister steamer which is plying on the outside northwest route to Morawhanna, the fortnightly change from fresh to salt water doing away with all need for keel cleaning. So these birds had started their nest while the boat was making her sea trips. During much of the time we were on the boats the birds kept flying out to each side over the water in pursuit of insects for their brood. They sometimes went far ahead or out of sight a half mile to shore.

After entering the wide estuary mouth of the Essequibo we passed Leguan and Hog islands, each over ten miles in length, while above these a succession of smaller islands appeared. The river is about three miles in width, fringed with mangroves, and we saw no life on shore save occasional Cocoi Herons[31] feeding on the flats.

[Illustration: FIG. 101. GRAY-BREASTED MARTINS NESTING ON THE STEAMER.]

The Essequibo is the largest river in the colony and rises in the extreme south, somewhere in the Acarai Mountains near the equator, some six hundred miles inland. Like all the great rivers of this region it is navigable by steamers for only a short distance, rapids and cataracts barring the way about fifty miles above the mouth. The first great tributary is the Mazaruni, entering from the southwest and touching with its uttermost head-waters the very base of that mysterious lofty plateau, Roraima, on the borders of Brazil.

We landed at the very apex of the point of land between the Essequibo and Mazaruni rivers,—the village of Bartica or Bartica Grove. It is a most dilapidated place, half in ruins, a single street of miserable houses filled with blacks and coolies.

We were invited to spend the night at the house of an Englishman, Mr. Withers, enjoying again the unfailing hospitality of the wilderness. In a launch we proceeded three miles up the Mazaruni, and climbing a steep hill, denuded of its forest, we turned and revelled in the magnificent view. A small, heavily-wooded island in the foreground broke the surface of the shining waters, and beyond, the two mighty rivers rolled ceaselessly, joining their floods with hardly a ripple. Directly across, on the opposite shore of the Mazaruni, the picturesque white buildings of the penal colony could be seen, looking more like the hotels and cottages of some watering place than like prisons. If one must be imprisoned for life there are few places one would prefer to this!

An American company had obtained a concession of some seven thousand acres for the purpose of raising sisel hemp, and Mr. Withers was in charge of this important undertaking. His home, on the crest of the hill, overlooked the surrounding rolling country, six hundred acres of which had already been cleared during the preceding nine months and planted in the valuable fibre plant. Here again we found a most ingenious system of catch crops, peanuts, castor beans and corn, surrounding but not interfering with the slower growing sisel. Their success was yet to be proven.

A careful study of the effect on animal and plant life of this clearing away of the forest would yield much of interest. Many sloths with young were caught when the trees were being felled, and Goldbirds, Woodhewers, Parrots and other forest birds had now retired some distance from the clearing. The antlers of two deer shot here were simple spikes. Insects of all kinds had greatly increased, and caterpillars of strange shapes and colors were legion in number and doing their best to undo the labor of the agriculturists. Insect-eating birds of certain types had increased enormously, and Gray-breasted Martins,[122] Barn[121] and Variegated[119] Swallows filled the air, while Kiskadee Tyrants of three species,[101], [103], [104] other Flycatchers, House Wrens,[124] Seedeaters, Hummingbirds and Honey Creepers were abundant, swooping over the open fields, snatching insects from the air, or leaves, or ground, according to the method of hunting of each species. The Honey Creepers[136a] were continually getting into trouble here as elsewhere in the darkened upper roof space of the house, and many had to be caught and liberated daily.

[Illustration: FIG. 102. COOLIES AND THEIR WIVES FISHING IN THE ESSEQUIBO.]

Small snakes and toads are also said to have increased, due doubtless to the increase of insect food, but the abundance of agoutis or acouris was unfortunately only too evidently due to the supply of succulent vegetables.

This evening the regular afternoon wind continued until late, and it was too cool to walk about without a coat. The wind sounded anything but tropical, howling around the eaves of the house like a northern blizzard. The moon rose about nine o’clock—a great flat-sided ball of orange, lighting up the pale bare fields but throwing all the jungle into blackest shadow. Soon the light became stronger and the two southern crosses paled from view, the false one higher up, kite like, and the _vera cruz_, low and resting on its side.

“Sproston’s” is a company which controls many of the steamer and launch lines of the colony, and gives remarkably good as well as reasonable service. When the day comes that the tourist learns of the beauties of this country, the transportation lines will become of immense value. Now they depend principally on the many American concessions and other interests for freight, and upon pork-knockers and bovianders for passengers.

At nine o’clock on the following morning, travelling again on one of Sproston’s launches, we left Mr. Withers and proceeded up the Mazaruni, in about an hour reaching the point of its confluence with the Cuyuni. This was as beautiful as the junction of the Essequibo and the Mazaruni which we had left. Turning up the Cuyuni we went on and on through a region of indescribable beauty. The noble river spreads out in a wide smooth expanse,—a tropical Hudson with palisades of trees. It is very shallow and when the water is low there is little but tide at this point. Hence mangroves are dominant, becoming, however, smaller and less numerous as we proceeded. At eleven o’clock we reached the beautiful falls at Lower Camaria Landing and went ashore to find a delicious breakfast prepared for us by the genial and hospitable Mr. French and served by his aged man-servant, who was christened _Swan_, but who was familiarly known throughout the colony as “French’s _Boy_.”

[Illustration: FIG. 103. FALLS AT LOWER CAMARIA.]

At Camaria a series of all but impassable rapids and falls occurs, and a portage of three and a half miles is necessary. A well-made sandy wagon trail points the way, rising gradually and then slowly descending again. At the top of the rise the sand is of the finest and whitest quality. Butterflies were extremely abundant along this wood road, a dozen splendid blue Morphos being sometimes in sight at once.

One interesting species of butterfly (_Castina licus_) was very common, flying along ahead of us with short spurts and alighting on bare twigs, just within the shadow of the jungle. They were dark brownish above, tinted with dull orange and green and with four broad streaks of white across the wings. They were perfectly protected in the positions of rest which they chose on small bare twigs, the brown merging invisibly with the dark recesses of the undergrowth beyond, while the white markings exactly simulated a white orchid blossom, sprouting, as so many of them do, from a leafless stem. As the mule cart passed laden with our luggage, we seized the Graflex camera and secured the accompanying photograph. In spite of their protective colors and mode of resting, the wings of almost all had been nipped by birds, and we saw one fall a victim to a Flycatcher. The characteristic birds of this trail were Swallow-tailed Kites[58] and Yellow-bellied Trogons,[76] the former soaring overhead every few minutes and the latter dashing from cluster to cluster of berries.

In the middle of the afternoon our walk brought us to Upper Camaria, where we were again on the bank of the Cuyuni. Here, tied to a gigantic Mora tree, a second launch awaited us, and from here to our second night’s stopping place at Matope we stopped only once, at Tiger Island, to take a few “pork-knockers” on board. Although there were only three small, hut-like houses here, there was the invariable colony of Yellow-backed Cassiques.[151]

The tide was blocked by the succession of falls and rapids, and so at Upper Camaria the whole character of the vegetation was changed. Mangroves had vanished and in their place were mucka-mucka and other aquatic growths, backed by the solid walls of trees and vines.

[Illustration: FIG. 104. A BUTTERFLY MIMICKING AN ORCHID.]

Snakebirds[48] were perched in solitary state at frequent intervals along the banks,—silent, sinister looking, craning their necks out at us and either dropping quietly into the water and sinking from view or flapping heavily upward. Ordinarily their flight is very pelican-like; six or eight flaps, then a short scale, but when they once reach a high altitude, they soar most gracefully with set wings, first in a wide, slow circle, then with a sudden straight rush, then a circle and so on, all apparently without a single wing beat. When thus high in air they have a most peculiar arrow-shaped appearance; thin sharp beak, slender neck and body, and broad, fan-shaped tail.

[Illustration: FIG. 105. FRESH-WATER FLYING FISH.]

While the launch was puffing slowly along we saw one of the most unexpected sights of the trip—a fresh-water flying fish _Carnegiella strigatus_. It did not leave the surface entirely but skimmed steadily along in a straight line with the tip of the deep keel of the abdomen just cutting the surface. It was small, not more than two inches long, and of the greatest interest to us at that time, as we did not then know that such a thing as a fresh-water flying fish existed. To see a silvery little form break from the mirror-like surface of the river and go skimming off through the air left us amazed.

These fish were silvery in color, marked with irregular black markings, with long, wing like pectoral fins and a remarkably deep keel, like the keel of a racing yacht.

As we went on, the walls of foliage became higher and more dense, stretching up, far up above our heads, until the topmost branches were from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five feet above the water. Majestic vistas opened out ahead of us, and now and then great solid banks of flowers hung like huge tapestries upon the foliage walls. One white flower with a plume-like tuft of long slender stamens, filled whole bends of the river with its sweet perfume and formed aërial banks of bloom fifty feet square. We saw here for the first time the Green River Ibises[26] looking dull black in the sunlight. They were of the same size as Scarlet Ibises but with a shorter tail, and flapped more slowly in flight.

[Illustration: FIG. 106. SALT-WATER FLYING FISH.]

Just before dusk we reached the house of the government agent of this district, Mr. Nicholson, and were made welcome at his little home in the heart of the wilderness. The house is on a steep bluff of red clay, changing to yellow near the water and commanding a fine view up and down the river. Below, the river is smooth and shining, while a quarter of a mile above the house a mass of tumbling white water blocks further progress and marks the second portage.

In the yard near the house one passes through a cluster of young fruit trees and here two small colonies of Yellow backed Cassiques[151] had located, clustering their pendent nests almost within arm’s reach about two big nests of stinging ants. At dusk several hundred Smooth-billed Anis[80] dropped into a clump of bamboo and with much racket and squabbling settled for the night.

[Illustration: FIG. 107. CUYUNI RIVER.]

This region is wholly undisturbed, the few “pork-knockers” and Indians who pass keeping entirely to the river. Mr. Nicholson told us that Capybaras (_Hydrochoerus capybara_) came every night and raided the vegetable garden, and we had good evidence of this. Pushing through the bush a short distance downstream at dusk, we saw a small herd of these creatures appear and distribute themselves over the banks. Some waded along the shallows, or swam out and dived, to come up with a mouthful of algæ. Others climbed the clay slope and disappeared into the jungle. They seemed like reincarnations of some of the great unwieldy prehistoric beasts—restorations of those bones by which alone we know of their existence in past ages. It was too dark to photograph these giant rodents, but by the kindness of Dr. Bingham we are able to show several splendid photographs of Capybaras, taken in their haunts.

[Illustration: FIG. 108. A HERD OF EIGHT CAPYBARAS, SIX ADULT AND TWO YOUNG. Notice the Snout of a Crocodile in the Water on the Left. (Photo by Bingham.)]

The Indian hunter at Matope finds abundance of game within a mile of the house; two kinds of deer, tapir, peccary, and of course Curassows and Guans. Trumpeters[25] are often heard from the house but are considered too tough for food.

We talked, chiefly by signs, with the Arowak Indian hunter who had just come in with a Bush-hog or Peccary (_Dicotyles tajacu_). As soon as the animal is killed, the gland on the lower back is cut out, a piece of skin being removed about four by eight inches. If this is not done immediately, the flesh will become musky and unfit to eat. The hunter was familiar with the rare White-lipped Peccary (_Dicotyles labiatus_), which he described as larger than the common kind and going in small families of two to five individuals. This was a dangerous animal, and more than once he had been treed by them, whereas the Common Peccary was timid and harmless except when wounded or cornered.

Mr. Nicholson had recently seen a full-grown Great Anteater (_Myrmecophaga jubata_) swimming the river, and curiously enough we later witnessed a similar performance where the banks were about a third of a mile apart. The creature was making fair headway, although drifting rapidly, and was completely immersed save for the elongated snout and head, and the upper part of the bushy tail, which waggled frantically with the efforts the anteater was making.

Mr. Nicholson promised to obtain some living Trumpeters for us and later kept his word by sending one to New York a few months after we left. There are gold diggings near here which were worked by the Dutch in 1625. In the earlier days of the English occupancy, gold smuggling was an every-day occurrence at Bartica, and Mr. Nicholson had to take extraordinary precautions to guard against it. He would scrape a line under the keel of a boat from stem to stern, by this means often discovering hidden bags of gold. Many a coopful of innocent looking fowls, brought down by the “pork-knockers,” were slain by the government inspectors and found to have their crops and gizzards filled with the precious yellow grain. Cartridges were a favorite means of smuggling, the powder being removed and replaced with gold. There is no longer any attempt at smuggling now as it does not pay.

[Illustration: FIG. 109. GREAT ANTEATER. (Photo by Sanborn.)]

Vampires (_Desmodus rufus_) are so abundant at Matope that every evening one of the servants collects the chair cushions on the veranda and packs them under an upturned chair. Otherwise, the dogs, bitten while sleeping on these cushions, would ruin them with their blood. We swung our hammocks on the veranda and kept one light burning, and although the bats squeaked shrilly throughout the night, none of us were bitten.

Early next morning we packed up and set out, and in a few minutes a launch landed us at the foot of the falls. This portage was only about a hundred yards in length, bringing us to Perseverance Landing. Here were several tent-boats, most of them filled with “pork-knockers.” We stored our luggage in the one reserved for us and climbed into a tent ballyhoo with ten paddlers in addition to the bowman and steersman—all big, powerful, piratical looking blacks, except the steersman, who was an Indian. Now came the most exciting part of our trip, passing up the series of rapids which filled the whole bed of the river. It took us until noon to pass them. A smooth expanse of water would indicate depth sufficient to float a steamer. Then a bar of granite would appear, rising on shore into huge boulders and forming a series of foaming, tumbling waves across the river. In such a place there were numerous small islands and the width increased greatly, while the water everywhere was shallow, with channels ramifying here and there.

As we approached one of these rapids the bowman stood up and the men braced themselves for the tremendous exertion. Starting with a slow, steady stroke, this became quicker and quicker as the white water was reached, then the bowman, using his long paddle lever-like against the thwart, held the ballyhoo steady, while the men drove her through the swirling water. The current became stronger and stronger, the canoe seemed to slow down, be stationary, even to slide back a foot or two. Then the great black backs, glistening with perspiration, would twist and bend in a final effort and the boat would shoot forward into the quiet eddy at the foot of the rapid, with the water swirling past on each side.

[Illustration: FIG. 110. A TACUBA ON THE CUYUNI.]

[Illustration: FIG. 111. RAPIDS ON THE CUYUNI.]

[Illustration: FIG. 112. RUSHING THE BOAT INTO THE RAPIDS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 113. WARPING THE BOAT THROUGH THE LOWER WHIRLPOOLS.]

Now, at a word from the steersman, the blacks tumbled overboard, hastily getting out heavy rope cables, which one or two of the most powerful took in their teeth or tied around their waists and carried to some projecting rock as far ahead as possible. After they had fought their way up to the rock they tied the rope securely and now all hands took hold, some of the rope, others of the boat, and pushed and pulled her up through the boiling torrent.

In one or two cases it was possible to zigzag up through the less formidable shallows. After a particularly difficult piece of paddling we would rest in some backwater for a few minutes and have time to look about us. Every snag held its complement of vampires which took to wing only when we were very close. Solitary Sandpipers[21] and Parauques[70] were abundant, the latter apparently nesting on the numerous little sand-bars, and swooping near the boat or swinging up to a bare branch where they perched lengthwise and watched us with half-shut eyes.

The rocky islets were covered with the low Water Guava (_Psidium fluviatile_), and the rocks which are usually covered with shallow water or those within reach of the falls were studded with thousands of little starry flowers. In other places masses of delicate pink blossoms raised their heads above the shining mat of green submerged leaves which fairly carpeted the pools. The beds of pink, green and white amid the pools reminded us strongly of the many-colored sponges, hydroids and anemones in a tidal pool of the Bay of Fundy or a reef off a Florida Key. These aquatic flowers, far out from shore, gave forth a sweet perfume attracting flies, bees and even butterflies, which flitted through the mist, just clearing the foaming water.

[Illustration: FIG. 114. A REST MIDWAY UP THE RAPIDS.]

Now and then small reddish-brown crocodiles were seen sunning themselves on the sand-bars. One, not more than three feet in length, paid no attention to the revolver shots which threw up the water close to him. The little flying fish became more numerous as we went on, skimming here and there in the smooth pools. Twice we saw one dash at an insect, once a large bee and the second time a butterfly, but they were less successful in their insect hunting than the Swallows—both the Banded[118] and the Variegated[119]—which swooped across our bow. Whenever we went close to a bank we saw multitudes of a new flower, with its graceful rebarbed stamens, looking like the falling lines of sparks from a rocket.

We lunched to-day on a splendid outcropping of rock on the left bank, after chasing into the cracks some big and remarkably colored tarantulas, with light red bodies and dark legs.

One of the most delightful surprises on this trip was the boat songs of the blacks. How we wished afterwards that we had written down the words and music at the time. One melody remains clear in our memory:

[Music]

[Illustration: FIG. 115. THE FINAL STRUGGLE UP TO SMOOTH WATER.]

The words of the songs were delightful. One never-ending refrain imparted the original and thrilling information that

“A long time ago is a veree long time.”

Another song was the Stevedore’s Shantée. Then all would break out in a wild harmony.

“Dat citee hotel is de place wha I dwell, Fare thee well—fare thee well—my citee hotel, My citee hotel—my citee hotel.”

The one of which we never tired was all about “Salina—mya dear,” and we made the men sing it over and over until they were breathless.

Like all negroes they were full of spirits and childish humor. Their paddling was splendid but terribly wasteful of strength, as at the end of each stroke they gave a strong upward jerk, sending a shower of drops into the air. Our luggage ballyhoo was sometimes abreast of us across the river and when the sunlight was reflected from the eight circles of water thrown into the air at each stroke, the sight was a beautiful one.

When we returned several weeks later, the shooting of these rapids was as exciting as had been the ascent. There was no slow difficult paddling or dragging up of the ballyhoo, but a swift shooting downward, giving fleeting views of tall walls of verdure, innumerable islets, great smooth-faced rocks around which our canoe slid, perilously close, her keel sometimes scraping the algæ on the bottom. We shot here and there from side to side of the river, back and forth, guided by the stolid-faced Indian in the bow. Now and then we would turn completely around in order to keep to a deep channel which bent on itself at an acute angle. Then a moment’s breathing in slack water before the men gave way again, either to hold back with all their might or to put every ounce of strength into their work to keep the boat steady in her course, as we ran parallel to a double line of seething, trembling waves, to enter which would have been instant destruction.

We would pass by a half dozen smooth-looking false channels, to enter the single safe one, perhaps far across under the lee of the opposite shore. A pilot not acquainted with every foot of the way would have overturned us instantly. The Indian would head our bow into the roughest part of the water apparently in sheer foolhardiness, but always the waves broke under us and tossed us like a chip over the jagged rocks. A cross current in the maelstrom would tear our bow out of its course, and at a cry from the steersman, all ten backs would bend as one and fairly lift the boat back into her course. As before, Macaws shrieked overhead, Cocoi Herons[31] stood watching us like statues and the little living fish rose from our bow and ploughed their furrows to right and left. But all passed as a swiftly-moving kaleidoscope, as instantaneous side-lights upon the great white tumbling mass of water which ever boiled and surged about us.

At noon of the day of our ascent we entered the Big Aremu River, a side tributary of the Cuyuni not more than a hundred feet wide, and an hour later we grounded at Aremu Landing. Here we said good-by to Sproston’s launch and paddlers, and from here on were transported by Mr. Wilshire’s own men and boats. We slung our hammocks that night in an open-work, thatched and wattled house, the company’s storehouse, after a delicious swim in the cool water.

No insects came about the vampire-discouraging lantern at night and no evening choruses of birds were heard except a family of Red-billed Toucans.[81] The iridescent rough-backed green beetles, known to jewelry makers as Brazilian Beetles (_Mesomphalia discors_), were abundant on a vine near the house.

As on our former expedition on the rivers of the northwest we found that as the streams became smaller, their interest increased. The Cuyuni is awe-inspiring and grand beyond words, but the banks of the Aremu, closing in little by little as we ascended, brought us into more intimate contact with the creatures of jungle and forest.

We started up the stream in an open ballyhoo of smaller size, at first with paddles, but changing to poles when the water became shallower. Snags, or tacubas as is the more euphonious native name, became abundant and sometimes stretched far out over our heads. Flying fish skimmed in all directions and vampires (_Desmodus rufus_) in scores flew from the dead branches projecting from the water. They choose a small-sized one, say two inches in diameter, and alight, one below the other, with heads raised, watching us. Like little animated sun-dials they revolve on their perches as the sun passes over, keeping the wood between them and the bright light. Many of the snags had bits of dead leaves and other débris clinging to them, brought down and lodged by the last freshet, and it was not until we almost put our hand on them and the bats flew, that we could tell whether we were looking at a cluster of vampires or dead leaves. There were hundreds throughout the course of the river, so it is a wide-spread diurnal roosting habit of these fierce little creatures. The blacks in this part of the country call the vampires “Dr. Blairs,” after a certain colonial doctor of the olden times whose favorite method of treatment was blood-letting.

Swallows in the early morning filled the air above the river with a cloud of rapidly moving forms. Orchids in full bloom were abundant, long shoots of Golden Showers, the sweet _Epidendrum odoratum_ and many others unknown to us, all drenched with dew and filling the river canyon with fragrance. Three species of Kingfishers[67][68][69] and big Yellow-bellied Trogons[76] appeared now and then. The trees were taller than any we had yet seen, many of the moras and cumacas being much over a hundred feet from base to top.

[Illustration: FIG. 116. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS AT FULL SPEED.]

At noon we stopped for breakfast in a primeval forest with rather thin underbrush. Many small scarab beetles (_Canthon semiopacus_) were resting in the hollows of leaves with their branched antennæ raised, waiting apparently for some hint of an odor which should summon them to their mission of life—the depositing of their eggs in decaying flesh. Spinning through the aisles made by the giant columns of tree-trunks, were curious translucent pin-wheels, and not until we captured one in the butterfly net did we realize we were looking at the same attenuated forest dragon-flies (_Mecistogaster_ sp.) which had deceived us so completely five years ago in Mexico.[G] The movement of the long, narrow wings, with the spot of white at the tips was, to the eye, a circular revolving whirl, with the needle-sized body trailing behind. The white spots revolved rapidly, while the rest of the wings became a mere gray haze. These weird creatures, apparently so ethereal and fragile, were hunting for spiders, and their method was regular and methodical. From under leaves or from the heart of widespread webs, good-sized spiders were snatched. A momentary juggling with the strong legs, a single nip and the spider minus its abdomen dropped to the mould, while the dragon-fly alighted and sucked the juices of its victim. If we drew near one of these spiders on its web, it instantly darted away, sliding down a silken cable to the ground or dashing into some crevice, but the approach of the hovering dragon-fly, although rather deliberate, was unheeded, the spider remaining quiet until snatched from its place.

On a tiny jungle creek we alarmed several large, blunt-nosed brown lizards, with low dorsal crests, which ran up into the branches to escape us. In this respect they differed from the big iguanas which always dropped with a resounding splash into the water at our approach.

Near some wild plum trees whose fruit was ripe, we found tracks of deer, agoutis and some of the smaller cats. The fruit was yellow and oblong in shape with a large stone, and tasted the way a tonca bean smells—bitter and yet sweet—a strange concentrated essence of the tropics which excited one, in that it differed so completely from the taste of any other fruit.

Morphos became more abundant from this point on. Some were wholly iridescent blue above—a blinding, flashing mirror of azure; others were crossed by a broad band of black, while in a third species the blue was reduced to a narrow bar down the centre of the wing. Great yellow swallow-tailed butterflies and exquisite smaller ones flew about us. The crocodiles of the Aremu were all small, none over three feet, and were all black in color.

[Illustration: FIG. 117. A WILDERNESS PASSION FLOWER—SIMITÚ.]

As we went on we were impressed with the amount of work which had been necessary to open up this river for the passage of ballyhoos laden with mine machinery. Six months ago it had been impassable, except for small Indian canoes, and these had often to be dragged ashore and around obstructions. Now the little channel had been opened, and although for the most part completely overhung with interlacing vines and branches, yet our ballyhoo wound in and out around the tacubas with but little hindrance. The cost of opening it had been more than $15,000. Huge tree-trunks had to be sawn through, but even then, the wood of many species having greater specific gravity than water, the trunks would sink to the bottom like stones, offering a greater obstruction than before. Dynamite was then used to clear them from the bed of the stream.

In the early afternoon, a beautiful dull-red passion flower on a climbing vine became common, and we found that its fruit was edible and called by the natives Simitú. Although apparently so much at home here, this plant, known as the Water Lemon (_Passiflora laurifolia_), is really an escape from cultivation.

The river twisted and turned in every direction and the banks were four to eight feet in height with sloping bars of sand on the inside bends. Palms were rather scarce, their place, in appearance at least, being taken by the tall, slender Congo pump trees with deeply serrated rosettes of leaves. Tree-ferns appeared in ever increasing numbers and stretched their graceful fronds from the banks far out over our heads.

During midday, silence filled these river glades, both birds and insects resting quietly in the heat, and the only sound was the regular scraping of the poles against the sides of the ballyhoo. The heat was not oppressive except in the glaring sunshine on the water, but such exposure was rare in these deeply forested recesses. We had had no rain thus far and the temperature of the mornings and evenings was delightfully cool. At night we could scarcely keep warm rolled in a hammock in a thick blanket. Unpleasant insects were entirely absent, and yet we were travelling in the heart of a tropical wilderness, which most of us have pictured as a sizzling, steaming hot-house, teeming with venomous reptiles and stinging bugs of all descriptions.

[Illustration: FIG. 118. OUR CAMP ON THE AREMU RIVER.]

About three o’clock, the Goldbirds[115] began calling and some other species with a single loud whistle. A Cormorant rose with heavy wing-beats ahead of us, and when we flushed it the second time we shot it. It was the little Guiana Cormorant[47] only twenty-eight inches in length, with eyes of dull green. A deer broke away from the bank at the sound of the shot and dashed off.

That night we made camp in the jungle. A skeleton shelter roof of poles was thrown up, over which was stretched a tarpaulin, coming to within six or seven feet of the ground all around. Then a double row of stout stakes was driven into the leaf mould along each side and the hammocks slung from them. They were springy, and one swung not only sideways but with a slight end for end motion that made every movement easy.

While we were making camp we were hailed by a passing ballyhoo, the occupant of which proved to be Mr. Fowler, the head of the Colony Department of Lands and Mines, who had been at the mine on a tour of inspection and was now on his way back to Georgetown. Hospitable Mrs. Wilshire at once invited him to come over from his camping place farther downstream and dine with us. A dinner party in the “bush!” We all shared the feeling of festivity. The men hastily constructed a table of the trunks of young saplings, while the rest of the party hung lighted lanterns from the overhanging branches. Directly in front of the camp was a tall, straight Copa tree draped with long hanging bush ropes dangling from the lowest branches, seventy or eighty feet up the trunk. The base sent out thin, far-reaching buttresses, the intervals between which formed natural seats and closets for our guns and bags. Mr. Fowler’s Indian hunter brought in several Curassows which we added to the Cormorant for dinner. Mr. Fowler had seen a Bush-master (_Lachesis mutus_) a few hundred yards upstream, the first poisonous snake of which we had heard on this trip. We had a merry dinner, Mr. Fowler telling us many an interesting story of his early days in the colony.

[Illustration: FIG. 119. POLING UNDER TACUBAS ON THE LITTLE AREMU.]

The jungle around our camp was alive with sound all night—frogs chiefly; the wing-beating fellows, the heavily loaded freight engines, the bleating calves and a new kind which raised its loud and continuous voice in choking roars. One’s imagination pictured death struggles between man-like monkeys and other creatures, the qualities of human and bestial voices were so blended in this utterance. Vampires flew about back and forth under our shelter but none bit us. So strange and wonderful was this night in the “bush” that for many hours sleep was impossible.

Early next morning a light rain fell for an hour and through it we photographed our night’s camp. As the sun shone dimly through the mist a chorus arose—Woodhewers, Parrots, Macaws and in the distance the ever thrilling moan of the red “baboons.”

The last black pushed off with his pole about eight o’clock and we settled ourselves for our last day of river travel. The stream became narrower and more diversified, in places being not more than twenty-five feet from bank to bank, then spreading out to twice that width with strange keel-like sharp rocks projecting from its surface. We elbowed our way through a perfect maze of dovetailed tacubas and slanting tree-trunks, which we went around or rubbed along or scraped over. Sometimes we all had to crouch flat down to the level of the gunwale to pass under a low trunk, or again even to climb out on to the log and down into the ballyhoo on the other side. Now and then a pole would be wrenched from a negro’s hand as the current or impetus of the boat twisted it to one side, or the man himself would be flicked overboard amid roars of laughter from his mates, who, when he climbed dripping on board again, would inquire the cause for the sudden desertion of his post.

[Illustration: FIG. 120. TREE-FERNS ON THE LITTLE AREMU.]

These tacubas, which are really fallen trees, are the most apparent danger in the jungle, although the chances of accident from them are very slight. Along the bank were many slanting trees, bound sooner or later to give way. On our return journey down the Aremu we passed, or rather scraped under, a huge trunk which completely spanned the creek. It must have fallen about two days before and we had to push through a perfect tangle of orchids and lianas.

Tree-ferns twelve feet high draped the banks; spiders of weird shapes dropped upon us, buoyed up by their long silken cables; brush-tipped aërial roots dangling at the ends of plummet lines fifty feet long were drawn from stem to stern of the boat and across the pages of our journals as we wrote.

Half an hour after starting we discovered a Three-toed Sloth (_Choloepus_) high up in a tree almost over the water. Mr. Howell shot the creature and we found it to be of large size, with long reddish-brown hair. The face, expressionless as it always is in these animals, had small eyes of a warm hazel color. Later we had it cooked and found it quite palatable.

In many of these tropical growths the new or first leaf-shoots are pale or brilliant red, this holding good in the case of the giant moras, several trees with locust-like foliage, and even the flat, leaf-vines, _Monstera_ or shingle plants, crawling up the trunks. One small tree with entire leaves and covered with sweet-scented tassel-shaped flowers, had at least half its foliage of a pale yellow-green. This is the spring of this region in so far as such a region of never ending warmth and moisture may be said to have a spring. On every hand flowers were in abundance. All were unknown to us, but most were of large size and varied odor and color. All the tales of the rarity of flowers in the tropics had not fitted in with our experiences.

[Illustration: FIG. 121. A SLOTH IN ACTION.]

In the course of three bends of the river, during some fifteen minutes’ observation, we observed the following in masses of sufficient size to catch the eye far off and add a decided color tone to the spot where they grew: purple pea-blooms in wisteria-like bunches; falling-star white flowers; pink two-petalled ground flowers in dense clumps; spider lilies, the large kind; red passion flowers; white tubular blooms; five-parted purple star-shaped flowers; wild cotton, in enormous masses of bloom, resembling clematis and as fragrant; long thin racemes of very fragrant, dull greenish white flowers; brush-like purple blooms, white at the base, growing sessile on the trunks, with an edible fruit, which the blacks call “Waika.”

This list is exclusive of all the many inconspicuous flowers and all orchids, which were seldom out of sight. Its value lies only in giving the faintest of hints of the wonderful beauty of these jungle water trails.

[Illustration: FIG. 122. A SLOTH ASLEEP.]

On these upper reaches of the stream the two water birds most in evidence were Tiger Bitterns[40] and Great Rufous Kingfishers.[67] One could write pages trying to describe a single vista of this beautiful region and yet give only a hint of its charm. In one place a mighty loop of a lofty bush rope or monkey ladder with ornate woody frills decorating the edges, hangs swaying high in air across the stream. Several other giant vines have caught hold and have wormed their way in serpentine folds along the first great swing. In the spaces between these huge living cables, seeds and parasitic plants have taken root and grown, filling up the network with their aërial bulbs and in turn furnishing rootholds for an innumerable variety of flowers, ferns, orchids, mosses and lichens. The mosses are long and fan-shaped like some species of coral, and the lichens are red, pink, gray and white. The whole forms, high over our heads, an enormous hanging garden which no human ingenuity could duplicate.

Two hours after starting we reached the place called Two Mouths and turned into the Little Aremu. In no place is this stream more than twenty-five feet wide, with low, sloping sandy or clay banks facing steep ones, first on the right, then on the left side, according to the bend of the stream and the force of the current. As we went along a splendid male Crested Curassow[4] flew up and was shot, to be added to our menu. Before we came in sight it was clucking softly.

A splash around a bend, and sharp claw and toe marks showed where a capybara (_Hydrochoerus capybara_) had just entered the water, and from here on we found such tracks common on every sandy bank.

We were amused at our steersman’s occasional orders to the crew. In places where the current was swift and poling was very difficult he would shout in a most woful and despairing voice “O Lord!”, giving us quite a start. We eventually found that he was intending this ejaculation for “Pole-hard!”

[Illustration: FIG. 123. WHERE ONLY OTTERS AND FISH CAN PASS.]

Black-shelled mollusks were common on submerged logs, and on the banks above the water line were scores of curious spiders and insects, while dragon-flies of a half dozen or more species darted swiftly about. Throughout the morning we were never out of hearing of the hammering of Woodpeckers, or the cooing of Doves or the laughing, descending scales of Woodhewers. The Chinese music of the cicadas came to our ears, a sound which recalled vividly the forests of Venezuela.

The water was now at a medium level, but after heavy rains when it is high, all the great tacubas six feet above our heads are submerged and much of the land along the river banks becomes a swamp.

Farther upstream when the water became very shallow and the stream narrowed to twelve or fifteen feet, some of us left the ballyhoo in order to make the work of the blacks easier, and took to the trail. After a fifteen minutes’ walk we saw the glimmer of sunshine through the trees and knew that we had reached the gold mine of the Little Aremu.