Читать книгу Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima онлайн

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Vainly does each, as he glides,

Fable and dream

Of the lands which the River of Time

Had left ere he woke on its breast,

Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed.

Only the tract where he sails

He wots of; only the thoughts,

Raised by the objects he passes, are his.

Matthew Arnold: The Future.

The problem of improving the Colony’s lines of communication into the interior may be said to be the problem of circumventing the Essequebo River. For instance, it is the Essequebo and its tributary the Rupununi which ought to form a natural highway across British Guiana to Brazil. But the cattle-track, just opened to Georgetown from the Colony’s lowland savannahs near the Brazilian border, studiously avoids the Essequebo, which it touches only at Kurupukari, there crossing the river and leaving it for good. Again, the Essequebo and its tributary the Cuyuni should form the main avenue of approach from British Guiana to Ciudad Bolivar on the Orinoco, in the heart of Venezuela. But it is very likely that, when the time comes for linking this Colony to Venezuela by road or railway, the line will but touch the Essequebo to bridge its estuary, and then make across country to the Tumeremo savannahs. Similarly, the problem of reaching Kaietuk and the highland savannahs of British Guiana has now become the problem of avoiding the Essequebo.