Читать книгу Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima онлайн

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I have never been beyond Kartabo on the Mazaruni, but I remember a delightful expedition up the Cuyuni to Matope. We started from the Penal Settlement in the delicious freshness of the early morning, and were carried by the big prison launch to the foot of the Camaria rapids, where there is a road-portage of three miles. “Jack” and “Jill,” two panting Ford lorries, conveyed us with many bumps and jerks over the uneven, hilly road. A prison gang was out “improving” the road-surface by shovelling loose sand into the ruts. Their work looked very nice, and certainly had not exhausted or overheated the dusky road-menders; but poor “Jack” and “Jill” found sand-filled ruts more than they could bear and constantly stuck fast, whilst their boiling radiators protested noisily with spurts of angry steam, and “all man” found assisting them out again distinctly more strenuous than road-mending. Next I have memories of a long, lazy afternoon, when, embarked once more, we puffed and panted slowly upstream from Camaria, or else drifted in lazy silence on the bosom of the big sleepy river, whilst our out-board motor refused to function. The delightful blue hills on each bank of the Cuyuni seemed shouldering each other aside to catch a glimpse of the unaccustomed life; and the exquisite peace made me wish “ever to seem falling asleep in a half-dream,” until the diabolical spitting and puffing reasserted itself and restored me to reality again.